A Sky for Us Alone

by Kristin Russell

  “What about fishing?” I asked.

  “Yeah!” he said.

  “I don’t think you’ve ever been, have you?” Tennessee asked.

  Mama set down her coffee and turned it in clockwise circles. “Reminds me of when Nate first took you.”

  “I know,” I answered, but didn’t look at her because it could set both of us crying. “I just need to get some things from the shed out back,” I told Tennessee.

  “We’ll clean up and meet you outside,” she said. “And thanks, Harlowe, right, Omie?”

  Omie leaned toward me and, tilting his head to the side, simply smiled as big as his cheeks allowed.

  Chapter 25

  THE PADLOCK ON THE shed stuck a little when I first turned the dials, and I worried I’d gotten them wrong, but after I banged it with the base of my hand, it opened. I stepped over my saw and toolboxes, farther back into all the things Nate said he wanted to clean out but never got a chance to.

  “Anything I can do to help?” I heard Tennessee say from behind me.

  “Thanks,” I yelled back, “but I wouldn’t know where to point you. It’s a mess in here,” I said. “Might take a minute, but I’ll find what we need. Just keep Omie busy.”

  “Yell if you change your mind.”

  The sight of Nathaniel’s old things, his baseball bat and glove, Lego sets he’d put together when he was a kid, shoeboxes with his handwriting on them—hit me somewhere between my stomach and chest. I moved the bag with our old tent and then worked my way toward the back, restacking things and keeping my eye out for the tips of the fishing poles. Finally, I spotted them behind a stack of boxes. I lifted one of the boxes and was surprised at how light it was. There was no label, but I heard papers inside, so I balanced it on my knee to look closer. Enough light came through the door for me to see the box was new, all the cardboard edges still crisp and clean. Sweat dripped from my hair into my eyes while I peeled back a corner of the clear tape. Inside was a pile of shipping labels and postage stamps. I set the box to the side and picked up the one just like it that had been underneath. The same things were inside, plus a few Sharpies. Nate liked to trade old car magazines, but there were at least a hundred shipping labels, and from what I’d already seen, hundreds of dollars’ worth of stamps too. He’d never been that serious about it.

  “You okay in there?” Tennessee yelled.

  “Yeah, just one minute!” I answered, and moved the boxes out of the way so I could get to the poles and tackle box. It was hard to find my way back over the piles I’d made, and getting even harder to breathe.

  “Grab these?” I yelled to Tennessee when I couldn’t get the poles and myself out fast enough.

  “I got ’em!” she said, and pulled them through. “Hang on, I just have to move this bag right here—”

  When I finally got out of the shed, I wiped my forehead and gulped in air. “All right,” I said. “Let’s get Omie down to the water.” I locked the door again and told myself that I’d deal with the boxes and all the questions they brought up for me later. There was no sense in letting it take over the rest of the day for everyone.

  “I’m guessing Omie will use this small rod?” Tennessee held both of them in her hands.

  “Yep. That one was mine when I was his age.”

  “It’s hard looking at their things after they’re gone, isn’t it?”

  “It feels strange. I’m sure I’ll shake it off by the time we get to the pond.”

  “You don’t have to, you know. It’s not always so easy to do.”

  “Did you ever find anything of your mom’s that made you wonder if you really knew her? Things that surprised or confused you?”

  She thought for a few seconds. “I found some things from old boyfriends of hers—love letters and ticket stubs. That was a little weird, knowing she kept them and probably wondered what her life would have been like if she’d ended up with one of them instead of our dad. Why? You find something that’s bothering you?”

  “Just some things that make me think Nate had a lot more going on than I knew. I’d already guessed that some because of Tommy, but I still don’t have the full picture yet. It’s making me crazy.”

  Omie skipped ahead of us and wove a pattern of dust and flying rocks behind him.

  “I think Mama Draughn’s right about never being able to completely know a person,” Tennessee said, and then jogged ahead toward Omie before I could tell her that I didn’t agree with either of them. They stopped to look at something on the side of the road, and I hurried to catch them.

  “What is that stuff?” Tennessee pointed to the neon yellow sludge running down the mountain into the ditch.

  “Yellow boy. You didn’t have it in Chatham? After they blast the mines or dig, they rinse them, and this is the stuff that drains off. Don’t let Omie get in it. It’s like battery acid. Can burn the skin right off if it sits too long.”

  “God, that’s terrifying. Where does it go?”

  “You mean after it goes there?” I pointed to the ditch. “Into the ground.”

  “So it’s in everything around here, then. All the plants. Water, even.”

  “Yeah, that’s right.” I realized I sounded pretty ignorant by not being more upset, but it was one of the things most of us learned to live with because it was all we had ever known. The yellow boy had always been there for as long as I could remember, and we always knew better than to play in it.

  Tennessee fell quiet. She looked at the brown empty spaces between the sludge and the trees in a circle several yards away. The ones closest to the stuff were small and shriveled. The farther away they got, the bigger they grew, but when I looked close, I realized they all looked a little puny, and I wouldn’t choose any of them to build something I wanted to last.

  I steered our path to Mohosh, and saw that Tennessee and Omie shared my relief once we were in the cooler shade of the pines. The three of us stood on the same rock where Tennessee and I had sat together the day she found the geode.

  There was a loud splash in the middle of the pond and Omie bounced up and down on his toes, screaming, “Fish! Fish!”

  As fast as I could, I baited the lines, then handed him the small rod. Tennessee anchored behind him to keep him from flying straight off the rock and into the pond. I tucked away the rest of the tackle, then the three of us stood in a row, lines bobbing and poles pointed straight over the water. I tried avoiding it, but couldn’t help noticing the poles took my eye to Amos’s mountain on the other side.

  After we’d been there close to an hour, casting and reeling and coming up with nothing more than pond scum, I looked over at Omie, and caught him in the middle of a yawn. He swayed back and forth, his excitement worn down to a calm curiosity.

  “Think we should call it a day?” I whispered to Tennessee.

  But before she could answer, my line pulled tight. I reeled just a little to make sure it was a fish, and not more scum or a turtle. There was too much fight for it to be anything else, so I reeled harder to sink the hook even deeper. “Got one!” I yelled.

  Omie dropped his pole and Tennessee caught it right before it fell into the water. He grabbed the leg of my jeans and tugged so hard that they nearly came straight off me.

  “Walk around this way,” I said, and Omie ran in front of me. I put his little fingers around the reel, and placed my hand over his. “Hold tight,” I said, and we turned the reel together, his toothpick arms straining against the line. I was just as excited as he was, remembering my first catch ever with Nate, and how I felt like there was nothing I couldn’t do once we got that fish out of the water.

  “You ready to bring him in?” I asked.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” he said, with the last one sounding more like a question, probably because he just realized we’d have to get it unhooked somehow. I remembered worrying about that part, too, when I was his age.

  “Come on, Omie, you can do it!” Tennessee cheered.

  Omie went quiet with concentration. He stare
d hard at the line and gripped the reel so tight, his little knuckles poked into my palm. The fish fought both of us, with more strength than I expected. I worried that I would crush Omie’s fingers while I turned the reel. He held tight and proved that even through the pain, he would never let go of that fish. Finally, we got the thing above water, all eight-something pounds I guessed, swishing and writhing, ugly whiskers sticking out in every direction. Omie was so excited when he saw it above the water that he finally let go and waved his hands back and forth over his head. The reel nearly slid from my grip, but I caught it and the fish just in time. Omie clamped his hands over the front of his pants, looking like he might pee himself, and it made me laugh so hard I thought I might do the same.

  Once I had the thing in hand, I held it firm against the rock. It was an old fish, judging by its size and color, and I wondered how it’d survived so long in that water. Still, it fought and thumped its tail, nowhere close to giving up.

  “You ever tasted catfish, Omie?”

  Omie stopped bouncing and his smile went slack. He grabbed Tennessee and pulled her near, whispered something into her ear. I worked to get the hook out of the fish’s cheek while it opened and closed its mouth around my fingers.

  Tennessee crouched beside me and leaned in close. “He wants you to throw it back,” she whispered.

  “What?” It was the biggest fish I’d ever seen anyone catch at Mohosh, and I’d already imagined mounting it if we decided not to eat it.

  “Shhh,” she said. “Don’t make a big thing about it.”

  “All right,” I said, once I got ahold of my own excitement. “Omie, come over here.”

  He walked and stopped a couple of feet away from me, folding his hands together behind his back.

  “Closer,” I said.

  Tennessee’s knee touched mine when she crouched next to me, and she motioned for Omie to come stand beside her.

  “Put your hands right there, away from the fins. It’s okay, I got him,” I said.

  Omie stuck out a finger and touched the fish once on the top of its head before he jumped back and laughed nervously, tucking his fingers under his chin.

  “You sure? Last chance,” I said, gripping the fish over the water.

  The gills opened and closed, but the fish had stopped fighting. We didn’t have long.

  “Let him go!” Omie shouted.

  “We caught him together, so you have to help me with this part, too, okay?”

  Omie ran over, wrapped his hands around mine, and we lifted the fish together.

  “One, two, three!” I counted, and we sent the fish flying into the air. I was a little worried that once it landed, we’d see it float to the top and flip over dead, but the thing swam away just fine, and Omie looked so happy.

  “What do you say we take a quick dip? Might help us all cool off a little,” I said.

  “I don’t have my suit,” Tennessee said, “but I guess there’s not much difference between a bikini and a bra and panties.”

  “I’m fine with it as long as you are,” I said, probably a little too soon.

  She gave me a courtesy laugh. “I bet you are.”

  We left the poles, tackle box, and most of our clothes in a pile, then found the deepest spot for jumping. Once we were all in, Tennessee glued her eyes onto Omie and kept them there, her eyelashes wet and dark against her freckles, and her hair floating out in soft yellow strands behind her. I thought of the mermaid in the fairy tale she’d told about her mom.

  “Look, there’s a crocodile.” Omie pointed to the clouds above us while he floated on his back beside Tennessee.

  “It sure looks like one,” Tennessee said. “Glad there aren’t any crocodiles down here, though.”

  There are plenty, just not the kind on four legs. “That one next to it looks like a tiger,” I said.

  “Yeah, it’s got long teefs!”

  “Oh. And that one.” Tennessee pointed. “That’s a baby elephant.”

  “We got the whole safari up there,” I said, and they both laughed.

  Omie closed his eyes and rested in the water. Tennessee swished him slow, back and forth, just two fingers underneath him. His hair whisked around his face and he looked so calm. He trusted her with every bone in his body. It was like the time me and Red and Jacob played “light as a feather, stiff as a board” at Josilyn’s birthday party, except we were so drunk that we dropped her on the candle underneath. The water ran between Omie’s fingers and toes, around his arms and legs. My eyelids grew heavy watching him and the rhythm of Tennessee’s hands moving him back and forth. She must have sensed that sleep was coming to take us, because before I’d realized it, she was guiding us back to shore.

  The sun’s shadow on the rocks said it was around three in the afternoon. The heat wasn’t so awful in the shade, and there was the slightest breeze—a new sign that summer was near over. I lay on my side and watched Tennessee comb her fingers through Omie’s wet hair, his head resting against her shoulder. It didn’t take long for all of us to give in to the afternoon sleepiness and close our eyes. By the time we woke, the sun had disappeared behind Amos’s mountain, the animal clouds had all scattered off to another place, and the whole sky glowed orange. I didn’t want to move from our drowsy spot, but I followed Tennessee’s lead and helped her gather our things. Omie’s stomach growled and he looked down at it like it surprised him.

  “Wish we’d kept that fish for dinner?” I asked.

  “Nah.” He smiled.

  “Me neither,” Tennessee said. “You made the right choice.”

  Chapter 26

  WHEN WE GOT HOME, Mama’s bedroom door was shut and everything behind it was quiet.

  “Is it okay if I pull some dinner together for us?” Tennessee asked.

  “Of course. Ask me if there’s anything you can’t find, or I can help with.”

  “Just get Omie something to drink and I’ll take care of the rest,” she said.

  I poured all three of us some Kool-Aid, then sat down with Omie at the table and gave him a piece of bread from the bag with the smiling bunny on it. Tennessee found the corn Mama Draughn had brought and cut the kernels into the skillet. She sliced up and added the last piece of ham, and a can of pinto beans. I started to imagine the three of us spending every night like this, but then told myself to stop, it was crazy thinking. I remembered how when Clarice first told Jacob she was pregnant, he said they’d marry someday. That talk stopped after the baby. And now, according to her, he’d disappeared too.

  “Take the plates to the table for me?” Tennessee asked after she filled each one with food.

  Somehow she’d made the three things taste like they were always supposed to go together, even though it seemed a strange combination to begin with.

  “It would probably be even better with a little hot sauce,” she said.

  “I think it’s perfect, and look, Omie does too.”

  “Not exactly a tough crowd.” She smiled. Both of their faces were pink from the sun and the water, and I felt the color coming up in mine, too.

  As soon as Omie finished eating everything on his plate, his head drooped to the table, but he still held the spoon in his hand.

  “Nope,” Tennessee said. She jabbed his arm with her finger. “Bath first.”

  “But we went swimmin’ today.” He yawned.

  “Yeah, in stinky catfish water. Go to the bathroom right now, and we’ll make it a fast one. We need to at least rinse you off.”

  After they left the table, I listened to the running water, and their singing in the bathroom. Everything felt so much better with them there. I didn’t worry about Mama as much, or any of the other things that pushed my thoughts deep underwater where I couldn’t breathe.

  Omie slid across the floor in his pj’s, and I heard the shower running in the bathroom for Tennessee. “Can we go fishing again tomorrow?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “We’ll have to ask your sister. If we can’t then, I promise we’ll go again real soon
.”

  “I like Gary,” he said.

  It took me a second. “Is Gary the fish?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “He’s a good fella.” He sounded like an old man, shooting the shit on the porch with Mr. Draughn and his buddies. I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing.

  “I’d say you’re right about Gary,” I said.

  “You’re next,” Tennessee said, standing behind me, wet strands of her hair falling across my arm.

  “Oh really?” I argued, but only so I could hear her boss me around more.

  “If you want me to get anywhere close to you, then yes, really.”

  I turned around to face her directly. “You know what I want.”

  She pursed her lips and squinted her eyes at me. “Go on, then.”

  I held the look for another couple of seconds then walked down the hall. What she’d said about the yellow boy in the ditch earlier had me thinking. There wasn’t any way to really wash ourselves clean of that stuff. She was right, it was in everything, including all of the water that came out of our faucets. In the shower, I scrubbed my body with soap, rinsed my mouth and spit it out again. I guessed that sometime between when Mama Draughn still used to harvest crops with her family and now, the water ruined the soil and that’s why seeds couldn’t push up. I didn’t like thinking about it, because it didn’t seem there was anything we could do to change it now, like too many other things.

  “That’s much better,” Tennessee said when I met them by the couch. She patted a spot beside her on the fold-out mattress. Omie’s eyelids blinked slow while he watched Elmer Fudd chase Bugs on TV.

  “Come see me again after he falls asleep?” I whispered, and stood up to go to my room, hoping that would get her there faster.

  She looked at me from the corner of her eye, but it wasn’t the same cute smirk she’d given me earlier—it was more of a “watch it” look.

  “I took a shower and everything,” I said, trying to get the grin back. It didn’t work, and she looked at the cartoon instead of me. “Well, you know where to find me. I’ve canceled all my meetings,” I said.