by Greg Howard
“Huh?” Also lame, but I’m hearing words that don’t make any sense together coming out of Danny’s mouth.
He holds something out to me and I take it. When I look down at it, my eyes start itching again. Maybe there’re some tears and some soul left in me after all. It’s the picture of Mama riding on the back of the open Mustang convertible in the Christmas parade when she was a contestant in the Mrs. Upton pageant. I stare at it, at her, waving to me on the sidewalk with her big smile and queenly wave.
“I know you always liked that one,” Danny says, peering over my shoulder.
I turn and give him a look of shock, disbelief, and gratitude all at once.
Gratitude is just like when you’re really, really super thankful for something.
Like, I have a feeling Danny is going to hold this gratitude I’m feeling over my head for the rest of my life.
“I know you found them,” he says. “The photo albums. I wasn’t trying to keep them from you. I just . . . I don’t know. You had her all the time. I just wanted her to myself for a little while.”
I stare at his face like I don’t recognize it anymore. I know my gratitude is supposed to make me say something like, Wow, Danny. Thank you SO much. You’re like the best big brother in the whole world.
But the thought of saying that makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little. So instead I say, “How did you know I found them?”
He rolls his eyes at me. “You didn’t put them back the way I had them. And I know you have her ring. I found it in your drawer the other day. I knew you were hiding something in there and I was mad that you went snooping around in my room.”
It takes me a couple of seconds to understand what he’s saying, but it finally settles down in my brain. “It was you,” I say. And not the Whispers, I don’t say.
He nods toward the house like I should follow him. “Don’t worry, I didn’t tell Daddy about the ring.”
I follow him, staring at the picture of Mama and not my feet, so I stumble a couple of times. Danny walks a couple steps in front of me like he has our whole lives.
“You can look at them anytime you want, you know,” he says. “Just knock first and no more snooping when I’m not home.”
I stare up at the back of his head and for once in my life I don’t know what to say to him. Gratitude is a powerful drug. I feel like I’m high on the devil’s weed, whatever that feels like.
Maybe Danny’s not the worst brother in the history of brothers after all.
26
PUTTIN’ ON AIRS
A few days later I sit on Frank’s Fritos-smelling couch for what I hope will be the last time ever. Frank sits across from me, tapping away on his iPad. I look over at the triangle-shaped nameplate on his still messy and still unprofessional-looking desk.
Frank Harvey, PhD
Turns out Frank wasn’t puttin’ on airs by using three names. The third name wasn’t even a name, although Grandma might say that letting everyone know you’re a doctor with a sign on your door and on your desk is kind of puttin’ on airs.
I glance above Frank’s head at the large framed certificates hanging on the wall behind him. They’re from the University of South Carolina and have CHILD PSYCHOLOGY written on them in big, swirly letters. One is proof that Frank is an actual real doctor. The other is proof that Frank has another degree in being a bachelor. No surprise there.
“Very interesting,” Frank finally says, holding up the slip of paper Dylan gave me before he left.
The note has the words Blue Ghost Fireflies written on it in redneck superhero handwriting.
“Seems your friend Dylan was correct.”
My friend Dylan. I really like the sound of that.
Frank turns the iPad around so I can see what he found. An article on blue ghost fireflies fills the screen. There’s a picture with the article that shows several of the creatures up close, glowing with their beautiful fairy-blue light.
“I didn’t know there were different kinds of fireflies.” Frank turns the iPad back to face him. “They glow a soft blue light instead of flashing a yellow-green one like normal lightning bugs. Fascinating.”
I look at him and cock my head. “They’re not not normal. They’re just different.”
“Of course.” Frank puts down the iPad and rests his hands in a ball on top of his big belly. “So let’s go through it one last time, Riley.”
I manage to stop myself from rolling my eyes at him, but I imagine doing it, which is almost as good.
“Mama was sick,” I say. “She died of cancer, just like Tucker did.”
Frank nods, encouraging me to continue.
I sigh a little, but not overly disrespectful-like. “We had her wake at our house. They laid her out in the living room. Moved the nice sofa out and put the casket where it usually goes. The two men waiting outside by the big white car were from Graham Funeral Home.”
“And where were you during the visitation, Riley?”
I fidget with my shoelaces and shift in my seat. My voice comes out shaky. “Outside playing with Gary and Carl.”
Frank cocks his head at me. “Something about that makes you uncomfortable, Riley. What is it?”
I don’t like Frank right now. But the sooner I get this over with, the less I’ll have to see of him.
“I should have been inside with Mama, not outside playing. But there were so many people in the house. And a lot of them were talking loud and laughing and eating all that food like it was some kind of party or something. I just had to get the heck out of there. Daddy, Danny, Grandma, and Grandpa were about the only ones who even acted sad that Mama was gone. Plus Sister Grimes was there.”
“And Sister Grimes made you uncomfortable.”
“She accused me of killing Mama.”
Frank lets out a big sigh and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His usual Mr. Potato Head snap-on smile is different now. It looks almost . . . real.
“Mrs. Grimes said a thoughtless, horrible thing, and I’m sorry you overheard it, Riley. But she didn’t cause your mama to get cancer and neither did you. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Okay?”
I nod. I guess Frank’s not all bad. But he should stick to talking to psycho kids and never go into law enforcement.
“So you went back inside the house,” he says.
I nod again. “I wanted to see Mama one last time.”
“And what did she look like to you, Riley?”
I think about this a minute. “She sort of looked like herself, but sort of not. She looked peaceful. I wanted to touch her to make sure she was really gone and not just sleeping.”
“So what did you do?”
I stare at Frank a minute before answering, still feeling guilty about what I did.
“I pushed the sheet back from her hand and touched it.” I know what Frank’s going to ask next, so I go ahead and tell him. “Her skin was really cold. It didn’t feel like real skin. Kind of hard and waxy. I didn’t like the way it felt. But then I saw her wedding ring.”
I pause to see if Frank will let me just skip ahead, but nope, he wants the whole enchilada.
“Mama used to let me play with her wedding ring. She’d let me put it on sometimes, just for fun. I thought it would be nice to have something of hers and I didn’t think she would mind. The preacher said at the funeral that Mama wasn’t in that body anymore, anyway. And nobody would ever know.”
“So you remember taking the ring?”
I nod. “Most everyone was in the den. A few people were in the living room but they weren’t paying me no mind. They were talking to Daddy and Danny. So I slipped the ring off her finger, put it in my pocket, and pulled the sheet back up over her hand. Nobody even saw me.”
Frank nods and smiles at me like I just won a spelling bee or something. I probably could win a spelli
ng bee. I know a lot of words, thanks to Mama.
“That’s good, Riley,” he says. “Very good. Then what happened?”
“I went back outside to hang out with Gary and Carl. A little later, the men from the funeral home rolled Mama’s casket out the front door and put it into the big white limousine—”
Frank stops me with a raised unibrow.
“—hearse.”
A hearse is a big white limousine taxi for dead people. Sometimes they can be black too.
As in, I’ll bet hearse drivers never get tipped by their passengers.
Frank grins at me. I don’t know if he’s more proud of me for remembering everything the right way now or because he thinks he cured me.
“And finally, Riley,” Frank says, “how about the Whispers?”
“What about them?” I say.
Frank leans back in his chair. “Can we agree that you have quite the imagination? And that’s not a bad thing, mind you. But do you still think you heard them speaking to you?”
“It’s just a story my mama told me,” I say, shaking my head. Yeah, I thought the blue ghost fireflies were the Whispers, but I’ll never believe I didn’t hear them. Or someone. Maybe it was Mama calling to me. Maybe she wanted me to find her grave and remember everything so I could get better and so Daddy and Danny could heal too. All I know is I heard something. But Frank never has to know that. Nobody does.
“Sort of like the story you told yourself,” Frank says. “One in which your mother was still alive and could possibly return home. It’s called childhood traumatic grief. You and your mother were extremely close. You feel her loss very deeply.”
I think about what he said. “Is that why I started wetting the bed, too?”
Frank nods. “That would make sense, yes.”
“Am I cured now?” I ask, even though I haven’t felt sick at all.
Franks smiles and shakes his head. “There was never anything to cure, Riley. You just had to find your way back to accepting reality instead of creating an alternate narrative. Do you understand what that means?”
I nod. And I do understand now. My head and my heart have been working overtime to protect me the last few months.
“Good.” Frank glances up at the clock on the wall. “That’s our time for today.”
I can’t get up off that Fritos-smelling couch fast enough. I’m halfway to the door when Frank calls out to me. I stop and look over my shoulder at him.
“We’ll just meet one or two more times,” he says. “Just to check in. But I think you’re going to be just fine.”
Instead of rolling my eyes like I want to, I just smile at him and get the heck out of there.
Daddy’s the only person waiting in the lobby and he stands when I come out. He looks plumb worn-out. I’m afraid that’s my fault. I guess he was real worried when Dylan told him I was out there in the woods by myself. He doesn’t look mad, though. He’s actually smiling at me a little. I walk over to him and he squats down in front of me just like Dylan Mathews, King of the Redneck Superheroes, did at Mama’s grave.
He raises his eyebrows. “How did it go?”
“I told Frank everything,” I say. “The real everything.”
I didn’t plan on crying, but it sneaks up on me and a couple of tears escape out of my eyeballs, maybe because I’m scared to death to do what I’m about to do. I slip my hand down into my front right pocket and pull out the Ziploc bag with Mama’s wedding ring. Daddy stares at it with a blank look, his smile fading.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” I say. “I took it the day of the wake. I just wanted—”
He covers my hand and the bag with his and stops me with a serious look. I don’t know if he’s mad, or sad, or about to turn me in to the real police.
“I knew you took it,” he says.
It takes a couple of seconds for my brain to catch up with my ears, and when it does, I just about fall over like I’ve been slain in the spirit.
Traces of his smile return. “I saw you take it.”
I stare at him, not knowing how to respond. He knew I had the ring this whole time. “And you’re not mad?”
His eyes soften. “I was at first. Very mad. But that was just my grief reacting. I realized pretty quick that your mama would want you to have it. And you’ve done such a good job keeping it safe, do you think you could keep doing that for me?”
I feel like the weight of the entire world has been lifted off my shoulders. I smile back at him and stuff the Ziploc bag back into my pocket so Daddy knows it will be safe.
“I’m sorry I made you all so sad by being a crazy person.”
Daddy coughs out a laugh and hangs his head. “Don’t call yourself crazy, son.”
“What would you call it, then?”
When he looks up at me again, his eyes are soaking wet with tears. “Unique. Special. Exceptional.”
He pulls me to him and hugs me so tight I can barely breathe. “I was so scared when I thought I’d lost you, too.”
I slip my arms around him and rest my head on his shoulder, burying my face in his neck just like I did to Tucker at Mama’s grave. Daddy smells better than Tucker.
We just stay there in Dr. Frank’s poorly decorated lobby holding each other for like I don’t know how long. Finally Daddy pulls back and looks at me.
“You know those words are all synonyms for each other,” I say.
Daddy looks confused.
“Unique. Special. Exceptional. They all kind of mean the same thing.”
“Oh yeah, right,” he says with a big smile. A real live smile, like from old Daddy. “Do they make a word-of-the-day desk calendar for synonyms?”
We both giggle a little bit and he pokes me in the side.
“Maybe you can help me with my vocabulary,” he says. He looks at me a minute without saying anything. Then he says, “I can’t lose you like that again.”
I don’t want him to cry any more, so I give him my best snarky smile. “Can’t never could and If never would.”
That makes him laugh and he stands up, running his fingers through his dark wavy hair.
“I’m so sorry for not being more patient with you, son,” he says, putting his hand on the top of my head, just like I used to do to Tucker. “I wasn’t there for you and Danny like you needed.” He pulls me in for a second bear hug, leans down, and whispers in my ear, “And you never have to hide anything from me. You’re perfect just the way you are.”
For a split second I panic and feel like all that pee I’ve been saving up the last few nights of dry sheets is about to shoot right out of me like one of those busted fire hydrants on CID: Chicago. Mama must have told him about Kenny from Kentucky. Of course she did. They told each other everything. Daddy knows about my other condition. And it doesn’t matter. He still loves me.
Daddy guides me over to the door with a hand on my shoulders. “So what do you think for dinner? Fish sticks and Tater Tots, or your grandma’s fried chicken?”
I look up at him and roll my eyes, but not in a disrespectful way. He knows the answer. Grandma’s fried chicken is no joke. Everybody in Buckingham County knows that.
Daddy smiles. “Okay, fish sticks it is.”
“Daddy,” I whine.
He laughs. “I’m just joshin’ you, Button.”
I grin so hard my face feels like it’s about to crack open. It’s the first time Daddy has ever called me Button.
27
GOOD NIGHT, MY LOVE
I stand in the backyard that evening at twilight, staring out at the Pentecostal corn choir. The sun is setting, the honeysuckle breeze is rolling in, and the choir members shuffle their lanky, leafy selves around, waiting for my cue. Nature’s symphony is tuning up all around us, getting ready for the big show.
Gazing out at the tree line of the woods in the distance, I can’t he
lp but smile. I don’t expect to hear the Whispers anymore, but I’ll always listen for whispers in the wind. If that’s where Mama is, or if she’s upstairs with Jesus and Tucker in heaven, I know she’s watching me right now and smiling down on me. And Daddy, Danny, Grandma, Grandpa, even me—we’ll all be okay. Mama spent her whole life taking care of people, no reason to think she’ll stop now.
It’s time for this evening’s performance to begin. I’m the featured soloist, so I turn around and face the back of our house. The empty porch swing rocks back and forth in the breeze like it did the last time I sat there with Mama on a night just like this. Now I can remember it like it was yesterday.
* * *
“I want to talk to you about that day in the shed,” Mama says.
I freeze. I stop breathing for a second, too. I didn’t think Mama would ever want to talk about that day. I know I don’t.
I look up at her nervously. “Can you forgive me?”
Her face sags and instant tears cloud her graying eyes.
“Sweetie,” she says, shaking her head. “There’s nothing to forgive. I was just surprised is all.”
I breathe a little easier and break away from her gaze. “And you still love me?”
She sighs and relaxes her shoulders. “Button, do you know what unconditional means?”
I kind of do, but I like to hear her definitions, so I shake my head like I don’t.
Mama squints her eyes into the setting sun. Her hair is gone but she doesn’t try to hide her bald head. She calls it a badge of honor. I think she looks like a beauty queen with or without hair.
“It means there are no rules or boundaries, or expectations, no matter what.” She looks back at me, smiling. “Make sense?”
I nod. “Use it in a sentence, Mama.”
“That’s an easy one.” She slips her arm around me and pulls me close to her. “My love for you is unconditional, Button.”
“No matter what?” I ask.
“No matter what.” She smiles and nods once. Like a period. End of story.
That makes me warm from the inside out. Then she starts humming the song—the lullaby she used to sing to me every night after telling me the story of the Whispers.
