Paper Stones

by Laurie Ray Hill

  It made me nervous. But Dave said, “Let them. It makes them happy. Gives them something to shoot for.”

  I kept track of everybody’s contributions, separate, in a ledger book. Seen it like a savings account for each one.

  In the fall, when the air was fresh and the woods was shining into the lake, making red and orange and yellow fires in the water, I got Sally to sew me a new dress.

  She cut my hair and put stuff in it.

  I said, “He’s not marrying me for my looks. I don’t know what he’s doing it for, but it sure ain’t that.”

  Sally had a hairpin in her mouth, but she said, “Watch your negative self-talk.”

  She helped me on with the dress. Then she put her arm around my shoulders and took me to the full-length mirror.

  “Oh!” I says.

  “You look real nice, Rose.”

  “Will it keep if I breathe?”

  She said I could do hand springs.

  It was the first minute that it ever occurred to me I might be sort of pretty in the right light.

  I says, “Must be a trick mirror.”

  Shift in self-image. There’d be a stepping stone in that. I’ll have a path of them a hundred miles long before I’m through.

  Jenny, she was twirling around the house in a fluffy yellow dress. She told Sally she wanted to look “as much as possible like a magic princess.”

  “She wants a pointy hat, Rose,” Sally had told me, back in the summer. “I guess that wouldn’t be right for the wedding?”

  Dave, of course, he says, “No harm in a princess hat.” Then he told his joke about what the priests wear. He says, “How come they call him Father and dress him like Mother?”

  When we got to church, Dave’s dad was just pulling up in the old T-Bird with Sally. “Look at you! You look just beau-dee-ful!” He hollered that across the church lawn.

  “You don’t have to sound so surprised.”

  Sally must have been after Al with the bleach and the iron. She even had his hair trimmed.

  Walking across the grass, through the bright, crunching leaves, to the church, I thought of my mother, who’d been dead ten years at that time. I wondered what had been in her mind on her wedding day. Did she ever have the feeling that Dad was a good idea?

  I thought of my father. I thought, God help him. All twisted up.

  I thought of Dave’s mother. Wondered if she’d be okay with giving her boy to me, if she had lived to see this day. I thanked her in my heart. You must’ve been a good mother. I thought how glad she’d be that Al was going to have a little grandchild now to swing on a tire.

  I took Al’s arm, the dad I wished I’d had.

  We all climbed them sparkling pink stone stairs together. Jenny went skipping ahead, holding Marg’s hand, waving her magic wand. I think she liked the sound her new patent leather shoes was making, smart little pats on the stones.

  My one foot and then the other stepping from stone to stone as we climbed them steps, like I was in that old poster at the shelter. Felt like I had crossed the river. And here I was, all in a bright, happy shimmer, climbing up on to the sunny shore.

  The music swelled up. Our friends and family stood with a sound like a gust of wind.

  If you were ever at a cottage, you can picture the way water will throw a lot of wiggling reflections up all over the walls and ceilings, eh? In that church, the water reflections play through stained glass windows. Jell-O jiggling bunch of jewels—emeralds, sapphires, rubies, gold—glimmering all over.

  “It was made by my fairy princess rainbow spell,” Jenny told us after.

  Down at the front, with his cousin for best man, there was Dave. My lucky ticket, ready to get cashed in.

  Dave was cleaned up real nice. And the way he watched me walking down to him! You’d have thought he was the lucky one. He was standing, as it happened, in a rippling patch of strong gold lake-light. Glowing like the blessing that he is.

  That was a sweet walk, I can tell yous, down that aisle! Love on both sides of me. Tammy’s eyes streaming. Her and young Meghan dressed up in hats. Matthew staring around like he’s in Aladdin’s cave. Jan’s little Alexander, shined up adorable in a wee little bowtie, standing on the church pew, waving to Jenny.

  Do yous want to find a man? Look for one that hasn’t got his brains too handicapped by his father or mother. That’s my advice.

  Men tend to be like parking spaces, eh? Have yous heard that joke? Jan told it to me. Why are men like parking spaces? The good ones are taken and the rest are all handicapped.

  Yeah, well Dave, my husband, he’s the exception. Mind you, sorry girls, he’s taken.

  Sally, she got up and read out of the Bible where it says that love “endures all things, forgives all things, hopes all things.” She reads where the saint there, that wrote it a long time ago, says that even if he had’ve knew everything and talked with the tongues of angels, if he had no love, he would not be worth a fart.

  Everybody from Group bawled.

  Jenny was worried. Marg bent down and whispered to her. She says, “It’s all right, honey. Us and Auntie Rose are real happy, is all.”

  “But you’re crying!”

  “We’re happier than happy.”

  “Dave’s going to cry too!”

  Marg was whispering to Jenny, telling her, “Dave’s just real happy too.”

  We could barely croak out our promises. But, by God, we promised.

  And it was just the very next spring after that, we built the hotel.

  37.

  BUT WAIT TILL I TELL YOUS. Tom made his mind up. Come over one night in November. Sat down with a cup of coffee at the kitchen table. Told me and Dave he’d looked into it. Seemed to him a lodge up here would be a good idea. He was ready to back it. He figured he could round up enough investors. His construction company would build it. We were to run it.

  I sat there stunned. Looking at the steam curling up off my coffee. The hotel was really going to happen? Really? In this world here where we live and breathe? Not in no fantasy world?

  By the very next week, Dave and Tom and Al were starting to talk location, numbers, timeframe, backers. It was starting to really happen. I couldn’t believe it.

  I kept saying to Dave, “I can’t believe it!”

  “You’re funny. Long as something’s insane and hopeless, you believe it’s going to come true. Soon as it’s sensible and it is coming true, you don’t believe it.”

  Josie, she just sat and smiled. I was in a fog all through them first three weeks, trying to get my head around what was going on. We were going to build the hotel! Really and truly, on this here planet. With what we had all saved and what Tom was willing to put in, and what some other people were lined up to invest, they figured there was enough to get it going. Planned to turn the sod by spring.

  Dave, he took Elmer’s old woodstove out of the house and put in a new one that fall. Wasn’t so sure the old one was safe. That’s what he said. But he didn’t fool nobody. He took her out because she was a kind where you couldn’t see the fire. And Jenny wanted to watch the fire.

  I says, “You’re spoiling her rotten.”

  I didn’t mean nothing. But Dave says, “I don’t know how come people use that word spoil.” He says, “Brent’s old man there, he spoiled his son. Spoiled his whole life for him. And your father, what he done to your sister and you. You don’t spoil a kid with treating her kind.”

  So anyways, we got this new woodstove. Josie and Jenny are in the front room one night after dinner, looking into the fire. It’s around about the end of November. Dave’s at the arena playing hockey. Snow’s swirling into the black lake outside. Wind roaring through the woods. Jenny’s telling Josie what shapes she can see in the burning logs.

  “A beautiful, big new castle,” she says, “in place of a little old house that bu
rned down.”

  Josie, she’s listening, nodding the way she does, like she knows exactly what that’s all about.

  It give me the creeps. I put down my knitting. Went and drew the drapes shut.

  We were supposed to get the hydro hook-up before now. But, by this time, we weren’t so sure we wanted it. Liked Elmer’s oil lamps. Jenny said that ordinary lighting would ruin our dream house. Me and Dave felt something like that too. It had been like camping there that first summer and fall.

  Mind you, it could be a bit spooky at night, when the hallway was dark and even the front room was full of shadows, late in the fall there. Especially when Josie and Jenny would get that look on them, gazing into the fire.

  Jenny’s concentrating on a log that’s well burned and glowing bright orange. She says, “There’s a doorway.”

  And Josie says to Jenny, she says, “The man with the lucky ticket is at the door.”

  I wasn’t paying much attention. Counting my knitting row. Wasn’t like I never heard that one before. But we did hear her say it, right at that moment. I’ll swear to that. So will Jenny.

  And then there really was somebody at the door.

  Jenny jumped up.

  “It’s the man with the lucky ticket!” she says.

  I went cold. Give Josie a sharp look. She just smiled at me, nodding. Wind gusted around the house. That weird dog, he didn’t bark, the way he normally does when somebody comes to the door. Just raised his nose up off the floor and looked at Josie, like they both knew something.

  Jenny, she’s tugging on my hand. She wants to go see.

  I struck a match and lit a candle. I’ll admit I felt weird.

  I says to Josie, “What’s going on here?”

  Josie didn’t say nothing. Turned to us and sat there smiling, with the firelight glowing gold, on one side of her face.

  I pulled myself together, went and opened the door, holding up the candle to see who it was. Jenny behind me, peeking around. The flame jumped in the wind, and I cupped my hand to keep it from blowing out.

  It’s Dave’s dad, with a funny look on his face and the snow falling on his ball hat.

  I says, “Something wrong?”

  He stood there, looking at us. The strangest look. He’s breathing heavy.

  Jenny says to him, she says, “Do you have a lucky ticket?”

  Now Al, he stared at her, strange, for a second or two, his eyes getting wider and wider. He’s breathing funny. I set the candle on the counter and reached for Al. Pulled him in out of the storm.

  “What’s the matter? Something wrong? Shut the door, Jenny.”

  Jenny pushed the door shut against the wind. Candlelight quit flapping and burned steady.

  “Are you the man at the door with a lucky ticket?” Jenny asks him again.

  Al give out at the knees and pitched forwards. I had hold of him. Eased him onto the floor. I was on my knees fanning Al with a tea towel. Sent Jenny running for a damp wash cloth. When Al come to, he looks at Jenny, squatting there wiping his forehead with the cloth.

  I’m saying, “Are you all right? What’s the matter? I’m going to call the ambulance.”

  But Al, he waves me off. “No. No. I’m all right,” he says. He’s looking at Jenny, and he says, “How did you ever know?”

  Jenny tells him, “Aunt Josie said.”

  “Oh,” he says, “I see.”

  The two of them looked satisfied now, like they had her all explained. Al rested his head back on my arm.

  Dave come in, pretty near fell over us. Wondered what in the world. Picked up his dad and lay him on the couch by the fire. I went and pumped fresh water. We got his coat and boots off of him, propped him up comfortable, tucked him in a red blanket.

  Josie, she’s just there rocking in her chair, smiling. Dog’s tail is thumping on the floor.

  When all the flap was died down, and the colour come back into Al’s face, he told us he just won two point four million dollars. “So that will help with that lodge yous wanted,” he says. “Jenny knocked the wind out of me there, asking about the lucky ticket,” he says, “when that was right what I’d came here to tell yous.”

  Now me and Dave are the ones that need fanning.

  You never know what’ll go through you at a time like that.

  I remember the first words out of my mouth. I said, “But we don’t need it now! We’re building the hotel ourself anyhow.”

  Yous won’t believe me, but the truth is I felt like crying. Like little Alexander there if you take something out of his hands that he can do by himself and you do it for him. He’ll cry.

  “Own self can do it!” he says.

  Al says, “I know, Rose,” he says. “Yous were going to do it anyways. It’s not like you couldn’t have did without this money. Now, if yous want, you can keep it in the family a bit more, is all. This’ll just give yous a nice boost, and yous won’t need to get so many outside backers. What this is is it’s just the road rising up to meet yous and the wind at your back.”

  Al looked into the fire. “I’ve saw luck work this way before,” he says. “Seems to come when people don’t specially need it. After they’ve made their own luck.”

  Al’s himself again. Sitting up. Him and Jenny and Josie, they’re all just smiling peaceful.

  “Yup, that seems to be how luck works. How was the game?” he says to Dave.

  Dave’s standing there, stunned.

  “We won,” he says. I don’t think he knows if he’s talking about the hockey or the lottery.

  “Now then, Miss, you give me quite a turn,” Al says to Jenny. “So, Aunt Josie told you I had that lucky ticket, did she?”

  Jenny’s got her pigtails jumping as she nods. “Aunt Josie can see things that are in future time,” she explains. “She has first and second sight.”

  Josie was wrapped up in a blanket, rocking, peaceful, looking at us all. Them sky-coloured eyes that can see through the wall of time shining in the firelight.

  Dave says, “Dad! Are you sure?”

  The phone rung.

  “That’ll be my mother,” Al says. That’s what he’s taken to calling Sally. Sure enough, it was Sally, just home from work, checking up on him.

  Her T-Bird was soon bumping up our lane. Marg’s old getaway car wasn’t far behind. They were all jammed into our little place, celebrating on low fat crackers and soya cheese from Tammy. Sitting in a circle, faces lit up, talking about how we were going to build a fancier hotel now. Better have a fireplace in the lobby, seeing as we’re millionaires.

  Just like old times! Us all in a huddle, happy, talking crazy. I’m leaning in, shivering, saying that we ought to build it out of pinkish, sparkling stone. The kids had went limp, leaning against the adults, watching our faces.

  Dave was right. I’m funny this way. I believed less in the hotel that winter night, when it was a sure thing, than I ever done in the waiting room at Group, when it was a crazy idea. Seemed like we were all just carried away with Josie’s picture, dreaming in the firelight while the snow swirled into the lake.

  38.

  I’M ASHAMED TO TELL YOUS the very next thing that happened. Better not leave it out, though. I’m forcing myself. I hope yous appreciate me coming out with it like this. Facing it’s how we haul our poor asses out from under, get ourselves up there, stepping on the stones, instead of laying under the rockslide.

  A lot of us is left with sex problems after childhood sex abuse, and it don’t just disappear because you want it to. I got thinking of another man. Jack, he was one of the carpenters. Stopped by our place one day to get some lumber Dave had stored in the shed.

  Cold, sunny Saturday in January. I was out shovelling the path to the driveway. Jack, he walked out of the shed with a plank on his shoulder, and me and him, we took a look at each other. I blink. It’s awful bright out,
but I’m not wrong. Jack’s got his eyes on me. That way. Shoots through me like hot brandy.

  Jack starts finding reasons he needs to stop by our place. Can’t live without a set of hinges he thinks he seen once in the back of Elmer’s driveshed. Would I mind holding the flashlight for him while he dicks around, taking his time, chatting me up, and pretending to look for them? I’m standing there like a moron holding the frigging flashlight as if he couldn’t set it on a shelf.

  I’d look out the window for Jack’s black truck, waiting for that hit of hot adrenaline. I’m saying to myself, There’s no harm in this. Just peps up my day. We’re not doing nothing. Knew better, of course. But that’s what I was spineless enough to be telling myself.

  When it got worse, I told myself I was a piece of garbage, that Dave and Jenny would be better off without me. I’d never be no different. Didn’t matter what happened. I was never going to be able to get over craving this old buzz. I’m thinking, yes, I am different. I’m higher up the stairs now. I can do better. Yes, I can. No, I can’t. Damned if I can’t beat this. Damned if I can.

  This gone on for a month. Hadn’t really done nothing wrong. But I was driving by the building site for a glimpse of Jack. Listening for the sound of his truck in our lane. Laying awake beside Dave.

  Married to my Dave. Mothering Jenny. Money sitting in the bank. All our dreams coming true. And that’s what I was doing.

  Of course, I steered clear of Josie for as long as I could. Felt lousy about that too.

  Finally stopped in on her one day. She’s sitting looking at a picture she’s holding in her hands.

  I says, “Hi, Jos, I’m going into town. Did you need anything?”

  She looks at me.

  I says, “Did you want anything in town?”

  She holds out the picture for me to see. It’s her picture of yellow tulips. I told her I’d bring her some flowers from the store. Brighten up her room.

  “We can use a look at flowers in February, can’t we?” I says, and I’m halfways to town before it hits me.

  The yellow tulips!