“C’mon baby …”
Mommy gathered Laura up in her arms. Laura saw Mommy was crying and could feel her shaking all over. Laura got scared.
Really, really scared.
“Mommy, what’s happening? Where is everybody? What happened to Nicki?”
Laura had to shout over the vacuum noise, which was getting even louder.
“I don’t know, honey. We just gotta go home. Right now!”
Her mom started running, clutching Laura tightly against her. Laura tried to look up at where the noise was coming from, but felt her mother’s hand pressing on her head.
“Ow! You’re hurting me, Mommy!”
They raced over the drawbridge, heading for the parking lot.
“Don’t look, honey …”
“Mommy! What is it?”
“Just close your eyes, sweetie—please!”
Laura did as told. Until she heard the people screaming.
She looked and saw they were close to their SUV. Other families and children ran for their cars, yelling and crying hysterically. Most kept looking up in the sky.
As they reached the SUV, Laura felt her mom fumbling through her purse but getting all tangled up. She lowered Laura to the ground.
“Don’t move, sweetie …”
As her mom dug around for the car keys, a man ran by, screaming.
“No no no no no no no!”
He kept yelling it over and over, pointing to the sky as he reached his car, which he frantically tried to unlock.
Laura looked up—and saw it.
It looked like a blimp, only a hundred times as big.
There were arms like an octopus that seemed a mile long. One reached down and sucked up the man and his car in the blink of an eye.
Just like a giant vacuum cleaner.
Laura screamed and backed away.
Tires screeched behind her as Laura whirled around to see a station wagon with a family of four hurtling directly toward her, out of control.
“Lauraaaaaa!”
Her mother’s primal scream rose above the vacuum-cleaner sound.
She shoved Laura away from the oncoming car.
Laura tumbled to the ground, hitting her head hard. She began to lose consciousness.
But not before seeing the station wagon smash head-on into Mommy.
“Laura, sweetheart. Are you awake?”
Mommy’s voice accompanied the knock at the door.
Laura stayed in bed motionless. She refused to answer.
Even though she wanted to—more than anything else in the whole wide world.
But then, her birthday would start. And they would be heading to Funland again.
Funland.
She never wanted to go there again.
She wanted to stay here in bed. Forever.
Forever with Mommy.
Calling her from the other side of the door.
“Laura, sweetheart. Are you awake?”
Yes I am, Mommy.
I’m just going to stay inside.
Inside here with you.
32
“By the time I got there she had completely stopped talking,” Sayers recounted. “She was rocking back and forth, refusing to leave Naomi’s side; no matter how much Aurora tried to persuade her …”
“It breaks my heart, every time I think of it,” said Aurora. “Which is pretty much every single day.”
The two of them stood on the drawbridge with Joad. The physician looked as helpless as Joad had ever seen him. No wonder, thought Joad. Doc’s worst fears had been realized. Joad had worried that a return to the place Laura’s mother had died would prove cathartic for the girl, but never imagined it playing out in such a heart-wrenching fashion. Listening to Sayers and Aurora fill in the gaps ripped away at Joad’s soul.
Sayers had tried to chase the hysterical girl, but Laura wanted nothing to do with him, screeching, “Get away from me!” Aurora, who expressed how horrible she felt for her unwitting part in the matter, had approached Laura but been rebuffed as well. “You should have told me,” she said, over and over, in a mantra of steady tears. In the end, Fixer watched over her from close range, never letting Laura get too far away but giving her much needed space.
Meanwhile, Joad stood with Sayers and Aurora, watching Laura from afar as she worked through her agony. She had raced across the bridge onto Candy Island, which lay in the shadows of the windmill’s twirling blades. She kept moving back and forth amongst wood-carved gumdrops, candy canes, and giant sticks of licorice that lined a couple of mini-golf holes. Laura would get down on her knees and paw at the ground beneath one colorful confection, let out a woeful-sounding moan, then rise up and start over with the next.
Aurora sighed. “She’s looking for it, Doc.”
Sayers nodded slightly and raised a finger to his eyes. They had begun to well up and he wiped them clear of the tears. But, Joad imagined, none of the pain.
“Looking for what?” asked Joad, even though he knew the answer.
He wanted Sayers to say it. Now that all was finally coming out, he thought speaking it aloud might let the man embark on the road back toward his stepdaughter’s heart.
“Where I buried her mother,” Sayers uttered in a whisper.
Joad had been right. Revealing that truth had opened up the floodgates for both Sayers and Aurora. It put them in a place to speak openly at long last and unburden themselves from the extraordinary weight they’d had been carrying since The Seventh Day. The hellacious story tumbled from them. A morning that had begun with the sweetness of a mother’s kiss and birthday gift, and ended with her sacrifice for the daughter she loved more than anything on Earth.
Aurora took up the tale of the birthday party, a joyous celebration that turned into a nightmare. She remembered standing on the drawbridge, rooted in shock and horror as the Strangers descended from the sky, the ship’s Retrievers extending like enormous snakes to scoop up everything in sight.
It had been the screeching wheels of a station wagon and a little girl’s scream that snapped Aurora out of it. She looked down at the parking lot to see the just-turned-six-year-old throw herself onto her mother, who was lying prostrate on the baking asphalt. By the time Aurora reached them, the Strangers’ ship had disappeared into the clouds—leaving nothing but a few wrecked cars, a Funland that would never open again, and Aurora trying to separate a screaming child from a mother whose lifeblood had begun to spill all around them.
The thing that stuck with Aurora most from that day, the attack by an alien race notwithstanding, was the bond between mother and daughter. Laura refused to leave her mother’s side, and though Aurora knew the moment she knelt by Naomi that there wasn’t a chance she’d survive, she marveled at the woman’s determination to hang on for Laura’s sake. Every other breath Naomi took brought up blood, but that didn’t stop her from trying to calm her little girl, calling Laura’s name over and over, assuring her everything would be fine. Even as she had to know it would never be again.
Aurora realized that any conventional attempt to get help for the woman was pointless. The remaining vehicles had been stripped of working parts by the Retrievers. Her cell phone was powerless, and when she raced into the castle, the landline was dead (and would remain so in the years to come).
Her next thought had been to try to move Naomi inside; at least let her be comfortable in the little time she had left. Aurora presumed that she could set out on foot, and maybe catch a ride from a passing motorist (motorists no longer existed, but she had no way of knowing this). Or walk to the closest hospital, which was probably a four-hour trek on foot. But the moment she placed her hands under Naomi’s body to pick her up, the woman howled—and Aurora realized how much excruciating pain she was in, and how much she must have been keeping it buried to avoid scaring her little girl.
Laura, her dress covered in blood, continued to clutch her mother’s hand, crying over and over, “Please open your eyes, Mommy.” Naomi would do so for a few scant secon
ds, long enough to force a smile and say her daughter’s name. Then, she would shut them with a heavy sigh and her body would shudder—an indication that her condition was deteriorating rapidly.
“That was the way I found them,” Sayers told Joad.
He had arrived at Funland shortly after dusk. Sayers quickly identified himself as Naomi’s husband and Laura’s stepfather. As he knelt to check on his wife, Aurora told him what happened. Her tale of the purple light and spaceship were like missing pieces to an impossible jigsaw puzzle for him: they fit perfectly and filled in what must have happened when he passed out at Coors Field.
Sayers wouldn’t have needed his medical degree to see that his wife, his beautiful Oh-my-God-what-would-he-do-without-her wife, was dying. The fact that she’d held on this long was a miracle.
He had reached for Laura but she shied away, still clinging to her mother’s floral dress, the one she’d asked Naomi to wear to her birthday party because she looked so pretty in it. The dress with bright red flowers that weren’t on it in the store; flowers with crimson petals that grew larger with each of Naomi’s breaths.
It was then that Sayers and Aurora noticed Laura had fallen into a virtual catatonic state.
Joad glanced over at Candy Island and the twelve-year-old Laura moving from one carved candy piece to the next. He shifted his gaze to the parking lot and tried to imagine what had transpired there years before. He had heard more than his fair share of Remaining stories over the years, but he couldn’t remember one more tragic and heart-wrenching. Joad told this to Aurora and Doc.
“And it only got worse,” said Sayers.
One never would have known the dress had ever been yellow.
Soaked in crimson with her mother’s blood, but Laura wouldn’t let go of Naomi’s hand. Sayers had to almost forcibly remove it to check on his wife’s vitals.
Even though he knew it was pointless.
The woman who owned the place—Aurora—was kind enough to hold Laura while he leaned over Naomi. He gently called his wife’s name, fully expecting her to be unresponsive—so he was surprised when her eyelids fluttered open.
Naomi offered up the saddest smile Sayers had ever seen.
“You came anyway.”
Sayers forced a smile of his own, even as blood bubbled from her lips.
“Finally found the invitation.”
He pressed gently on her abdomen. Her intake of breath, to stifle a scream he knew Naomi didn’t want Laura hearing, was more than Sayers could take.
“Hurts everywhere, huh?”
She closed her eyes and nodded.
Suddenly, Naomi’s body began to convulse. Laura moaned but Aurora kept a grip on her.
“Oh my God …” Aurora cried. “Is this… ?”
Sayers placed a hand on his wife’s quaking shoulders, while motioning toward his stepdaughter. “Take her away from here.”
Laura, hearing this, began squirming, trying to get away from Aurora. Sayers was grateful to see the woman pull Laura even closer.
“Take her right now. Please,” begged Sayers.
Aurora rose while fighting to keep hold of the girl. As she dragged Laura away, nary a word escaped the girl’s lips. There was no reason; her wailing said it all.
Sayers did everything he could to ignore his stepdaughter’s screams and keep his attention on his wife. He called Naomi’s name again but this time there was nothing—no trace of a smile, no indication of recognition, not even the flicker of an eye.
Just quaking convulsions that increased exponentially by the second, becoming so violent that they threatened to toss Sayers aside.
They also made him come to the hardest decision.
He glanced toward the sky and mumbled to a being he was becoming convinced could not possibly exist.
“God forgive me.”
He reached down and covered Naomi’s mouth and nose with one hand, while holding her body at bay with the other.
Naomi instinctively struggled, but Sayers pushed down harder, determined to ease the love of his life’s pain as quickly as possible. He never wavered, ignoring the scream of agony in the distance he knew belonged to his stepdaughter. He held his hand even tighter over his wife’s beautiful face.
Finally, the pressure began to do its job and the convulsions became less pronounced. It was difficult for Sayers to tell because all he could hear was someone sobbing. He realized it was him.
He was still crying uncontrollably when Naomi let loose her last tortured breath.
Slowly, he lifted his hand away from her face and tried to convince himself that she looked at peace.
That was destroyed the moment he turned around—and saw Laura standing five feet behind him.
Aurora rushed up behind her, clutching her arm. It was dripping blood.
Scarlet dribbled from Laura’s lips as she stared dead-eyed at Sayers.
He felt like a monster.
In the retelling of the story, Joad could see that all the fight had gone out of the physician. The man’s face was awash in sadness, and Joad thought, an unfulfilled desire for a return to innocence for his stepdaughter.
Aurora was rubbing her arm, again tracing her fingers over the whitish scar that Joad had noticed by the fire the previous evening. She caught his gaze and then let her eyes drift to Candy Island.
“She bit me,” Aurora said. “You couldn’t blame the poor girl. After everything she went through that day, and I imagine ever since. I’ve nothing to complain about.”
“You were unbelievably kind to us,” said Sayers. “Back then. And now.”
“But unable to do the only two things you asked,” replied Aurora. “Keep her away from you and Naomi that day, and not let her know the truth when you returned. You have every right to be upset with me right now.”
“I’m sorry. I should have told you about Laura’s Gift.”
He offered his hand by way of apology, but she embraced him instead. Joad stood by as they clung to each other, taking solace in the pain and sad history they seemed to reluctantly share.
Sayers quickly filled in the rest.
He told Joad how Laura refused to say a word when they buried Naomi on Candy Island. In the days that followed, the girl remained silent, but oddly enough, refused to leave Sayers’s side.
“Probably from shock,” said Joad. “And because you were the only family she had left.”
“I was just happy she’d even look at me.”
They had stayed at Funland with Aurora for a few days—waiting for someone, anyone, to come by—but never saw a soul. By the time Sayers decided to head home, a week had passed. Laura still hadn’t spoken.
And didn’t for over an entire year.
“And the amazing thing? When she finally did, she had no recollection whatsoever about what happened to her mother.”
“Until today,” Aurora pointed out, her voice tinged with sadness.
Sayers shook his head. “Again, not your fault. I should have told her the truth long ago.”
“Maybe you were subconsciously waiting for a push,” said Joad. “The right time and this place.”
“For all the good it did me,” bemoaned Sayers. “Especially since she’ll stop talking to me all over again.”
Aurora took hold of his arm. “Not when she realizes everything you did was out of love and good intention.”
“Yeah, right,” scoffed Sayers. “And exactly how is that supposed to happen?”
Joad took a careful step onto Candy Island.
Laura turned, gave him a glance, then resumed her search. Joad was relieved that she didn’t scream for him to go away. He signaled Fixer to head back to the castle and slowly approached the girl. He stopped twenty feet away and just watched.
Her pace had slowed. Either Laura was tuckering out or the search was taking its emotional toll on her. Joad imagined a bit of both.
“Try the ladybug.”
Laura straightened up. “Huh?”
“The gumdrop over there.” Jo
ad pointed at a carved collection of gumdrops that resembled a ladybug—wings, antennae, and little spots on its back. “Aurora’s father made it for her when she was a little younger than you. She told me he was always called her his ‘little ladybug.’”
As Laura turned toward it, Joad stepped a bit closer. He was happy to see she didn’t object. “She also said if you look carefully, the dots on its back form a letter. Can you see it?”
Laura hovered over the gumdrop ladybug and cocked her head. “Yes. It looks like …” Laura broke off, tears appearing in her eyes.
“An N?”
“For Naomi.” Laura mouthed her mother’s name with reverence.
“Aurora rearranged the gumdrops. That way if you ever came looking, she could show you exactly where to go.”
Laura stood motionless over the ladybug. Joad could tell that the poor girl had no idea what to do now that she’d finally located her mother. He indicated the green felt fairway circling the gumdrop patch. “Maybe we oughta sit down.”
Laura nodded and settled down, never taking her eyes off the gumdrop patch. Joad sat beside her and noticed Laura’s lip begin to quiver.
“Laura …”
“Hmmm …”
The lip quivered some more.
“It’s okay to cry. Really.”
Laura shook her head. “I don’t want to. I’m a big girl now.”
“Your mother knows that.”
Laura looked up at him. “You believe that?”
“Very much so.”
“How come?”
“Can’t explain it. I just do.”
“The same way you know Becky is waiting back home for you?”
“Exactly.”
“How could my mom know anything?” Laura waved at the N-shaped gumdrops. “She’s dead—lying underneath those.”
“That’s just a final resting place.”
“It’s where they put the coffin.”
“And where one rests until they’re ready to move on.”
“Moving on? Where?”
“Some place they can watch over those they love.”
“You’re making this all up so I’ll feel better.”
“Can you prove it’s not true?”
“Of course not.”
The Seventh Day Page 26
