We Walked the Sky

by Lisa Fiedler

  End of story? Callie didn’t think so, not while she still had some tantrum left to throw. “You’re so selfish!”

  “Maybe so, but I’m also your mother, and you need my permission, which I am not prepared to give.”

  “Then I’ll get permission from Marcello.”

  “No, you won’t.” Quinn said this with such utter conviction that Callie actually gasped out loud.

  “You spoke to him!”

  “I did. He called me when he got your letter.”

  Traitor! “You told him not to let me come live with him in Italy!”

  “I told him I didn’t think it was a good idea and he agreed. I told him I’d break the news to you myself, but he offered to be the bad cop and write you back, since there was no point in having you hate me, when you could hate him from five thousand miles away.”

  “I have an idea. How about I hate both of you?”

  “That’s certainly your choice.”

  “The only one I’m allowed to make, apparently. You never even asked me if I wanted to come here. You just decided for me.”

  “Well, if you refer to the Official Parenting Handbook, you’ll see right there in the job description that that was absolutely and undeniably my right.”

  “What about my rights? The circus was my life, and you didn’t care. The circus was—”

  “In trouble, Callie, that’s what the circus was.”

  This brought Callie up short. “What are you talking about? VanDrexel’s is in trouble?”

  “Not VanDrexel’s specifically.” Quinn sighed. “Not yet anyway. But times change, opinions change, and over the last few years, I’ve had to watch a lot of people walk away from the only life they’d ever known. I heard an awful lot of ‘See you down the road’s.” She took two mugs from the cabinet, then dug around in the canister for tea bags. “It’s a very different perspective, Callie, watching the circus from ground level, as opposed to up there on that wire.”

  Quinn poured the hot water, took the cups to the living area, and sat down on the sofa. “Come and have a cup of tea.”

  “I don’t want any tea. I want to go back to the circus. And if it can’t be VanDrexel’s then I’ll find another one!”

  “Callie—”

  “Jenna’s going to help me find a job. And if you and Marcello won’t give me permission, I’ll run away.”

  “Callie—”

  “I’ll run away and join the circus,” she exploded, hearing the threat in her voice. “People have been known to do that, you know. It’s called following a dream. You came here to follow yours, but you dragged me away from mine! And now your dream no longer exists and you still won’t let me do what I love.”

  “Callie! Please . . . will you just shut up and drink the tea?”

  Glowering, Callie dropped onto the couch and took a sip.

  “Do you know why Jenna got so upset back there at the coffee shop?”

  “I dunno, because she’s psycho?”

  Quinn shot her daughter a look over the rim of her mug. “Try again.”

  “Because she was worried about her mother. Although I’m not sure why, since she’s basically hijacked mine, and you two have been ganging up on me ever since.”

  “If you call two people trying to help you see what’s best for you when you can’t see it for yourself ‘ganging up,’ then okay, I suppose that’s what we were doing. And you’re right—Jenna was upset about Ellen, but she was also upset about the incident at the Sanctuary, and she was devastated to hear that she was about to lose her job. Her head was spinning and her heart was breaking. She felt lost.”

  “Gee, Mom, I’m tempted to go with a cuttingly sarcastic, ‘Been there, done that,’ except I’m way too wrapped up in my own little world to even know if the cool kids are using that comeback anymore. But on the outside chance that it’s still a thing, here goes . . . Fucking been there, fucking done that!”

  “All the more reason for a little empathy to kick in when you saw that it was happening to your friend—the girl who’s been so determined to help you and make you feel welcome here. But no, you just climbed up on your wire and went into your walk, and suddenly it became all about you and your circus.”

  Callie felt as if she’d been unjustly slapped. “Jenna knows how I feel about what I do. She knows what the tightrope means to me.”

  “As do I. But you know what part of that you’ve never explained to me?”

  Callie waited.

  “Why.”

  “Why what?”

  “Why you took it all so deeply to heart.”

  “Said the woman who spent two nights sleeping in Cleopatra’s cage when she was in labor.”

  “That was different. That was about making a connection, filling a need. I took my job to heart but you took it much, much further. You put so much pressure on yourself to be the best that you couldn’t embrace anything else. So . . . I’m asking you. Why?”

  Callie was about to say she didn’t know, but that would have been a lie. She turned away.

  “If you don’t want to say it out loud for my benefit, maybe you need to say it for your own.”

  Callie pressed her lips together. She shifted on the sofa cushions. The last thing she wanted to do was give her mother the satisfaction of an explanation.

  But the words came out anyway.

  “When I first started working with Gram, I didn’t take it seriously at all,” she began reluctantly. “I was always good—Gram said I was a natural. But during those first few lessons, I was always—I dunno, goofing around, getting distracted, wanting to learn those silly hand-clapping games the Bertières were always playing.”

  “Try not to beat yourself up about it, Cal,” said Quinn, biting back a grin. “You were six.”

  “But one day, Gram was acting . . . different. Like, she was sad or something. Really sad.”

  “Let me guess. September 23?”

  “Maybe.” Callie thought about it. “Yes, actually, it was. I remember because we had just started the new school year. I wasn’t focused, so I kept making mistakes and laughing about it, and finally Gram got so frustrated she turned around and walked out of the tent. It freaked me out.”

  “I’m sure it did,” said Quinn stroking Callie’s hand. “That wasn’t like Gram.”

  “It wasn’t. So I ran after her, grabbed the back of her leotard, and she sort of, like, spun around—like a move on the tightrope. She looked at me really serious, like maybe she was about to start crying or something, and she said, ‘Calliope, do you know why this circus is called VanDrexel’s?’ I remember shaking my head, and then she said . . .” Callie swallowed hard because she could still hear Gram’s voice as plainly as she had heard it that day. “She said, ‘We’re called VanDrexel’s, my darling, because the very last thing your grandfather did before he left this circus forever was to fight for that name. His name. Which became my name. And now it’s yours, and you must remember that every single time you step onto that wire you’re taking our name, that thing of enchantment, out there into the spotlight with you. That is your true center of gravity. But if you can’t handle the responsibility, the privilege of that legacy, well, then I think perhaps we should reconsider whether or not you’re meant to walk the wire.’”

  “Wow,” breathed Quinn.

  “I know,” Callie agreed. “So even though my act was a solo act, it was never just me out there. It was me and Grandpa James, and the name he fought so hard to keep. If I fell, he fell. So I decided I wouldn’t fall. Ever. Let the Bertières play all the games they wanted; they could, because they were Bertières. But I was a VanDrexel. And I had to live up to my name.”

  “And you did,” Quinn assured her. “In every possible way, Callie. You did.”

  They sat quietly, letting the words settle softly into the atmosphere like dust kicked up by prancing hor
ses.

  When Quinn spoke again, her voice was wistful. “She never told me about my father fighting for the VanDrexel name. She never told me a lot of things. But why didn’t you?”

  “Because you were always so busy with the animals.”

  “Well, the animals needed me. You didn’t.” Another long stretch of quiet. Then: “Callie, you know I never expect or even want you to stop loving the circus. Like Gram used to say, it’s in our blood. It was in my father’s and your father’s, and every time I hear a tiger chuff or an elephant trumpet, I feel it thrumming away in mine. God, I missed them when they came to live here. And let me tell you, Cal, when you’re watching your mother die, but you just can’t make yourself get past missing a goddamn elephant, well, that’s pretty much the definition of a guilt trip.”

  It was Callie’s turn to stroke her mother’s hand. She’d never stopped to wonder how it felt for Quinn when she lost the animals she’d loved her whole life. Or maybe she’d just been too selfish to care. But she cared now. And more than that, it was something Quinn and Callie had in common.

  “The circus is who we are, Callie. But here’s what you were too young to understand that day Gram said what she said, and what you never had a chance to learn later because you were too busy trying not to fall. You can’t just love a legacy. You can’t let one thing—one talent, one person, one particular way of life—stop you from loving other things too. The world has more than three rings, Callie.”

  “I don’t do that . . .” Callie reached for her tea, then put it down, knowing even the smallest sip wouldn’t get past the knot that was suddenly forming in her throat. “I don’t not love other things. I loved Gram!” She hadn’t meant to shout it; she hadn’t expected the gasp that followed it. “I still love her, and I miss her so much.”

  “I know, baby.” Quinn used the side of her thumb to wipe the tear that came rolling down Callie’s cheek. “She loved you too.”

  “And I love Uncle Gideon, and Marcello—I mean, I guess I don’t really know them all that well, but I love them. And just because I could never remember which Bertière was which—”

  Quinn chuckled. “I’ve got news for you, Cal . . . Nobody could.”

  When Callie laughed, it cracked into a sob, and everything that followed came out in rush. “I even kind of loved them too, because . . . I don’t know . . . because we shared a circus. And I know I never told you this before, but sometimes I would go watch them rehearse on the trapeze, because it reminded me of Marcello, and I’d always be so happy when they’d make their catches, I was happy for them because no matter how crazy the stunt, they always had somebody to catch them . . . but all I had was a net, and I guess that was fine, the net is good, but it’s not a sister, right? It’s not a friend.

  “And Jenna . . .” Callie gave a loud sniffle. “Jenna . . . oh God, she’s so pushy, Mom, and she knows everything and she’s such a profoundly borderline pain in my ass! But in some stupid way, I feel like even though she’s not a Bertière, she would catch me, right? Don’t you think Jenna would catch me?”

  “I think she would. I think she has.”

  “I know, right?” Callie dragged her hand down her face because the next words still felt spiky. But she needed to say them . . . wanted to say them, so she did, and they came out in a rush with the tears clinging to them, and slightly bruised by the spite and the anger that had kept her from saying them for so long. “And I do love you, Mom. I do. And I’m sorry I’ve been impossible. I’m really sorry . . .”

  She wasn’t sure when she’d come to be leaning against her mother’s chest, or when Quinn’s arms had gone around her.

  “I love you too, my darling girl.”

  “I just don’t know if I’m ever going to be all that good at walking on the ground.”

  Quinn stroked Callie’s hair and placed a kiss to the crown of her head. “Well, here’s a little secret, kiddo—that’s pretty much how everyone down here feels most of the time. But we keep walking anyway. We just keep moving forward. And if we’re lucky, we find some people who don’t mind stumbling around with us, and somehow that makes it a little easier to stay on our feet.” Another kiss, another smile; Quinn’s eyes were soft, lit with that VanDrexel spark. “Well now . . . I think we’ve taken a perfectly good metaphor and worked it way beyond its pay grade, haven’t we?”

  Callie pressed her face into her mother’s neck and nodded hard, laughing, crying . . . wiping away the tears, then letting them start fresh again.

  Tomorrow she would find a way to explain this all to Jenna.

  Then again, being Jenna, she probably already understood. So maybe all Callie would have to do was say she was sorry.

  And possibly shoot a text to the Bertières to ask about Beatrice and Liang.

  Or was it Bianca? Never mind, she’d figure it out.

  When Callie finally felt ready to unwrap herself from her mother’s arms, she went to her room, and flicked her fingers over and under the ruffle of scraps tacked to the board. When she found the one she was looking for, she took it as a kind of confirmation, a whisper from the past that as long as there were mothers, there would be daughters who occasionally needed to cry—hard—on their shoulders.

  They call them sob stories for a reason.

  As always, Gram was right.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Texas, 1965

  AS HASTY PREDICTED BETWEEN crying jags, an excess of bourbon and shellfish at Valerie’s party has caused Gus’s gout to flare up. His right foot is now ghastly to behold, swollen and purple and, if his wincing is any indication, quite painful.

  Needless to say, he won’t be driving his daughter to meet her cousin in El Paso this afternoon, so the task falls to Shaw, who is one of very few human beings Gus will allow behind the wheel of his old truck. Shaw will make the nine-hour drive, spend the night in El Paso, and be back late in the day tomorrow, in plenty of time for the takedown.

  “Have a care with that clutch,” the mechanic tells the sharpshooter. Then he wraps his arms around his little girl and whispers a litany of blessings in her ear, while Hasty strokes Valerie’s long red curls. Finally Gus lets her go, though it’s clear he’d have preferred to hold her that way forever.

  We all wave as Valerie and the roustabout head out in Gus’s truck, billows of dust rising and swirling in their wake.

  As Gus hobbles away, his shoulders stooped with sadness, I stop him.

  “She’ll be all right, Gus. She’s a good girl.”

  He nods, his face twisted by his manly attempt to ward off tears. Then he pulls me into a hug that is all strong arms and broad shoulders, and filled with the warmth of a man who has loved and raised a child. I know this is what remains of the hug he hadn’t finished giving to Valerie, but I’ll take it anyway.

  Just before showtime, Myrtle surprises me with a leotard she’s made using pieces cut from four of Sharon’s favorite costumes—pink satin, blue chiffon, lilac tulle, and silver spangles, which she has somehow managed to blend together beautifully. It is a coat of many colors, and the fit is flawless. She’s cut and sewn it on the bias to provide more stretch, and I am immediately imagining a whole repertoire of highly acrobatic stunts and movements.

  James jokingly christens Myrtle’s masterpiece Frankenstein, but he can’t take his eyes off me when I put it on.

  That night, my routine delights our second Austin audience as much as, perhaps even more than, it entertained the first. Afterward, as James and I walk the midway under a sky alive with Texas stars, several fans stop us for our autographs; some even ask to have their photos taken with us.

  He walks me to my room, where we giddily push the two cots together, and proceed to utilize every single inch of them. James tells me a hundred times that he loves me, and it is better than a thousand spotlights and a lifetime of applause.

  It is an entirely perfect and wonderful night.

&
nbsp; And then it isn’t.

  Sometime around three o’clock I roll over and find emptiness. I sit up fast, with a sinking feeling that pulls my heart into my belly.

  There is a noise, a mournful noise, like wind howling in a storm: wind that is afraid of the storm it’s a part of. I listen and it comes again but this time I know what to call it:

  A roar.

  It is eerily soft, a roar that begins as a roar, but ends as a whimper.

  Baraboo.

  I leap from the bed and run in my baby dolls for the menagerie, my bare heels skidding to a halt at the lion’s cage. Standing beside it is Gideon, shirtless, with blue jeans pulled over his pajama bottoms. Cornelius has thrown on a burgundy-colored robe.

  James is in boxer shorts and nothing else, unless you count the golden fur coat he’s huddling beside. He’s spooning himself against Boo—his arms are wrapped around the cat’s big body, and his face is hidden in that regal mane.

  The lion’s breath is coming as fast and as sharp and as shallow as if he’s just run miles to triumph in the hunt—and perhaps in his failing mind, in his swiftly receding hold on whatever constitutes reality for a lion, he has. Suddenly, I just want to imagine him imagining himself strutting against the hot wind across the grassy expanse of some African savanna under a sky dripping moonlight.

  “What can we do?” I ask, hoping I’ve whispered but knowing I’ve screamed.

  At the sound of my hysteria, Boo opens his eyes. The depth of the hurt I see there makes me want to gather him into my embrace like Gus gathered me into his and take away his pain. I reach into the cage to stroke James’s back with one hand, and Baraboo’s paw with the other and as I do, my anguish wanes to something quieter: simply grief.

  “James,” Cornelius begins, but his voice trips over the tears in his throat. “Son. It’s time we let our noble friend find his peace.”

  James shakes his head. “It’s not time yet,” he whispers, but I can hear the defeat in his voice.

  “Where’s Shaw?” I ask.