Some Kind of Happiness

by Claire Legrand

  What will happen to us all?

  Maybe the divorce will be a good thing. If the Harts are arrested for keeping so many secrets, Dad will be locked up with the rest of them, and Mom and I can live alone and get stressed and eat cold pizza together.

  Grandpa looks old and exhausted without all those words inside him. “So that’s the truth,” he tells us. “I’m sorry, and . . . I don’t know what else to say.”

  “You hid what happened.” I have to say this out loud. Somehow I have to claw through it. “All of you did. You lied about it, for years—”

  Grandma turns. “It isn’t that simple, Finley—”

  “No! I’m talking now. Me.” My ears turn hot and my skin tingles in waves. “You kept it secret. You paid Mr. Bailey to keep him quiet. You used your money and made sure no one would know. You scared my dad when he wanted to tell the truth. You scared him away, made him angry. That’s why you fought. You’re why I’m only just now visiting. Because you were scared. You were selfish, and you were cowards.”

  Grandma and Grandpa stare at me like I have told them the sky is falling, which I suppose it is, to them. Their perfect, cloudless, blue sky for miles.

  “Aunt Bridget, Dee, Stick. Mr. Bailey,” I continued. “They didn’t mean for that fire to go wrong, but it did, and you couldn’t tell anyone because you couldn’t let anyone know they’d messed up.”

  Grandma holds her face stiff.

  I am shouting now, clutching the chair in front of me. “All you care about is keeping everything beautiful and peaceful and perfect. But not everything is perfect. Not everything is happy and normal and nice. Not every house is Hart House. Do you get that? All of this is because of you. Without you, there wouldn’t have been any secrets. I wouldn’t have run away. Dex and Ruth wouldn’t have come after me. It’s your fault this happened. It’s your fault.”

  I cannot talk very well anymore. I feel like I could fly out of my skin. My throat hurts so much, I could throw up.

  “It was an accident,” Grandma whispers. “It was just an accident.”

  “Hiding it wasn’t an accident.”

  Grandma’s eyes meet mine. They look empty, fuzzy, like she has just woken up. She sits in one of the polished chairs and looks too small in it, like a kid in a grown-up’s chair.

  Everyone is quiet, like they are waiting for whatever this thing is between me and Grandma to snap.

  I sway on my feet; Avery helps me find a chair. She sits down and pulls me onto her lap. Her fingers are stained with paint—hot pink and bright orange and forest green. She feels strong, like the kind of person you would want on your side.

  She feels safe.

  But I cannot relax yet.

  What now? What will happen to all of us?

  Aunt Dee is still crying; Stick is trying to help her. Mr. Bailey sits with his head in his hands.

  Jack. Jack. Where is Jack?

  Jack is passing out cookies—fresh ones, which makes me think Grandma was nervously baking until we all got home safely.

  (Of course.)

  I meet Jack’s eyes. Are we okay?

  He crooks his finger, like a hook.

  Pirate.

  We are okay, he and I.

  The rest of us—that is a less certain thing.

  • • •

  After that, I do not say much.

  What is left to say?

  I watch everyone mill around the kitchen. Hot chocolate for the kids, coffee for the grown-ups. Kennedy sniffles in Uncle Nelson’s lap; he holds her like she is five instead of twelve. Gretchen cleans cups in the kitchen, wearing Grandma’s washing gloves and scrubbing like a maniac.

  I lean against Avery’s shoulder and fall asleep and wake up again. Someone brings me saltines, strokes my hair, brings a phone to my ear.

  It’s Mom.

  Dad is getting their things together; they will arrive in Billington in the morning.

  “Are you okay, sweetie? Finley, my baby Finley.”

  “Mom, I’m not a baby.”

  “I know, but you always will be to me.”

  “Mom. I’m sorry I ran away.”

  “I know you are. It’s okay. We’re going to be okay.”

  Are we going to be okay? I want to say yes, but as I say good-bye to my mother and hang up the phone, I’m not sure.

  The world is not a sure place anymore. Maybe it has never been. Maybe it has always been a mess—some kind of twisted, cosmic mess we can’t possibly understand.

  This room is full of snobs, secret-keepers, liars, and cowards. We hide our mistakes; we drink too much; we get scared and do things we are not proud of.

  We feel sad even when it makes no sense to feel sad.

  I hear people talking and lift myself up.

  “Geoffrey.” Grandpa sits beside Mr. Bailey. “I’m sorry about all of this.”

  “Don’t be.” Mr. Bailey’s voice is rough. “It was about time, wasn’t it?”

  Grandpa pauses. It looks like something inside him is fighting to get out. “I always wanted to . . . I don’t know. Come out and confess. Tell the truth. But I didn’t know how. I found my grandkids playing with your boys, a few weeks ago.”

  Mr. Bailey’s eyes flick to me and back to Grandpa. “Jack told me.”

  “It scared me.”

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  Grandpa sighs and tugs his shirt straight. He holds out his hand, and Mr. Bailey grabs on.

  “I guess this is the start of something,” Grandpa says.

  “Warren,” says Mr. Bailey, sounding shaky, “I’m scared out of my mind.”

  “Me too.”

  Mr. Bailey gives him a sad smile. “I kind of like it. Feels nice.”

  Grandpa passes him a fresh cup of coffee. “Feels like a beginning.”

  I feel like telling them that this isn’t starting tonight.

  It started with us—with me, Gretchen, Kennedy, Dex, Ruth, Avery, Jack, Cole, and Bennett.

  It started in the Everwood. We found the truth in those trees.

  But I think they know that.

  • • •

  I fall asleep on the sofa in the sunroom. Rain trickles down the windows, pinging on the green glass roof like tiny birds’ feet.

  When I wake up, it takes me a moment to realize who is sitting at the kitchen table: Mr. Bailey. Aunt Dee and Stick. Grandma.

  My chest tightens, but I keep my eyes cracked open. What now? What will Grandma say?

  Aunt Dee whispers, “And then what? What will happen to us?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” says Grandma, her voice pure Hart. She sounds ready to clean attics and organize cities. “Finley was right. We’ve been selfish. All of us.”

  Stick holds Grandma’s hand tight. Everyone is quiet.

  Mr. Bailey says, “She’s a brave girl, Mrs. Hart.”

  Grandma says, “You’re right, Geoffrey. My Finley is a queen.”

  Her Finley. Hers.

  On this couch I am weightless. I want to live inside this moment forever. Through the glass ceiling I see the clouds clearing away to reveal an ocean of stars.

  Everyone at the kitchen table keeps talking, quietly, slowly. They are small, scared creatures trying to find their way.

  I wonder if I will ever find mine.

  44

  THE NEXT TIME I WAKE up, all the lights are off except one. Grandma is sitting alone at the kitchen table holding a coffee mug.

  Sometimes I think whatever is wrong with me is wrong with Mom or Dad, too. Maybe it is a thing I will never be able to shake, because it comes straight from my bad cells.

  Sometimes I think I must have done something terrible, or will do something terrible, to deserve such a fate. My sadness might be a punishment.

  I wonder if Grandma thinks things like, How many more cups of coffee will I have in this life? How long will the rest of my life be?

  I wonder if she ever asks herself, Is this cancer punishment for something I have done?

  (For hiding an accident? For keeping s
ecrets?)

  Grandma catches me watching her. “Oh! You’re awake.”

  She comes toward me, pauses, looks around the room, goes to the kitchen, gets another coffee mug, starts making me hot chocolate.

  I move to the table, sit, and wait. I feel like I should say something, but I do not know what that would be.

  Grandma sits back down. I sip my hot chocolate and watch her face, but she does not meet my eyes.

  Every tick of the clock above the sunroom doors is a crash in this silence.

  “Not everything is perfect,” Grandma says softly. “Not everything is happy.”

  It takes me a moment to realize that she is repeating what I screamed at her a few hours ago.

  “Is that what you’ve been trying to tell me, Finley? All summer?”

  Grandma clasps her hands tightly together and looks at me, waiting.

  Everything around me—the whole world, my whole life—narrows down to this moment:

  Grandma, in her peach-colored blouse, her pearls, her makeup not even smudged, even after everything that happened.

  The clock, crashing away.

  The soft light of the kitchen, the sky getting brighter outside, the hot chocolate steaming in front of me.

  If I am a puzzle, this is the moment in which I find the first corner piece.

  There is still a lot of work to do; I still have a thousand pieces of myself to fit into place. But everyone knows you’re supposed to find the corners first. They are the beginning.

  My family has found theirs, and I have just found mine.

  All it took was someone else asking a question, making me search for an answer I think I already knew.

  Maybe we should not be talking about this. After everything I have learned in the past couple of days, don’t more important things need discussing?

  What will happen to us, if Grandma decides to tell the world the truth?

  “Finley?” Grandma folds her soft, warm hand around mine. “Are you all right?”

  “Really? Like, honestly?”

  “Yes.”

  Then again, I have heard people say—Mom, when she’s stressed about work; Rhonda, when she’s trying to sound mature—that it is important to take life one day at a time, one moment at a time, one item on the great big list of life to-dos at a time.

  This can be my moment—right now, between me and Grandma. One moment out of a billion ones yet to come.

  It is okay for me to have that.

  I take a deep breath.

  (How many people have I told about this? Ever?)

  (No one. Not a single living soul.)

  (Only my notebook. The Everwood, of course, already knew. We are connected, me and those trees.)

  Everything about this summer comes back to me like I am seeing it for the first time.

  “I don’t think I’m okay.” I stare at the table. “I’m not very happy.”

  A single knot inside me untangles.

  Grandma waits, her hand on mine.

  “I’m sad, a lot,” I say. “And I get afraid a lot. Really afraid. Like, panicky for no reason. And I don’t know why.”

  I tell her it scares me.

  I tell her it makes me angry.

  I tell her I feel guilty about it. I know I should be happy. I want to carve this thing out of me with a knife.

  Grandma smiles—not her magazine smile. More like Mom when she is tired and comes in after a long day to tuck me in.

  (Mom says she refuses to give up that parental right, even when I am grown up.)

  “I know the feeling, wanting to carve something out of you,” says Grandma.

  Oh. Of course she does. “I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t be. I’m going to be okay.”

  “That’s what the doctor says?”

  “That’s what I say.”

  Even I know that cancer is not so simple. You cannot smile it better. You cannot tell it you are a Hart and watch it obey.

  “You should tell them you’re sick,” I say.

  “Who?”

  “Everyone.”

  Grandma’s lips thin. “Finley—”

  “They would want to know.”

  “And they will, eventually. For now this house will remain what it is. For as long as I can keep it that way, I will.”

  There is no arguing with her. I am used to the expression on her face. I see it on my own, all the time, when I look in the mirror and tell myself, You will stop feeling sad. You will push it down. You will be okay. You will be happy, now. Right now.

  Maybe Grandma and I are more alike than I have ever thought possible.

  Grandma sighs, looks at her hands. “Finley, I did everything wrong, didn’t I? All of this: the dresses, Dr. Bristow. Your notebook. I kept thinking I was making you happy, making you better, but I think, deep down, I knew I wasn’t. I was doing those things for me, and I’m sorry.” She laughs, a puff of soft, sad air. “I was doing all of this for me. For the family. And it was all wrong.”

  My eyes fill up. I am so tired of that feeling, but I cannot stop it. “Mom and Dad are getting a divorce, and I don’t know what will happen now.”

  Grandma’s face goes soft. “Oh, Finley. None of us do, about any of it. But we have to keep going anyway. Giving up is not an option in this house. And if you have to keep going, you might as well smile while you’re doing it. Don’t you think that’s right?”

  “Yeah. I guess so.”

  “You guess so?”

  My smile is small, but it still counts. “I know so.”

  “Quite right. So, why don’t you finish your drink? Then, since you’re up, you can help me make breakfast.”

  “Pancakes?”

  Grandma gets up, snaps a dishtowel, and folds it. “Naturally.”

  This is one of the reasons why you keep going, I think.

  Even after everything else has gone wrong, pancakes still smell the same.

  WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A HART

  • Giving up is not an option.

  • And if you have to keep going, you might as well smile while you’re doing it.

  That says everything you need to know, really.

  45

  SOMETIMES BEFORE YOU CAN GIVE someone help, the person has to ask you for it, because they have gotten really good at hiding what hurts them.

  I know, because I am good at that.

  I know, because I am learning that it is okay to ask for help. Otherwise, how will you ever find it?

  • • •

  Jack and I lie on our backs in the Tower.

  Across the river, back in the Wasteland, a crew is working to rebuild the Bone House.

  Except we do not want to call it the Bone House anymore. It is too macabre.

  (Seven-letter word for “representing death.”)

  I have added this to my list of favorite words. Not to be morbid, but because it will help me remember.

  (Also, we have asked the crew to keep Cole’s mural of all of us, and they agreed.)

  (We will live forever in that house, no matter what happens.)

  My cousins and I cracked open our box of dues, because the summer is almost over, and we do not need material items to know we are bound together forever—through blood, of course, but through the Everwood, too.

  I close my eyes and let the wind rush over me. I hear birds singing, and Grandma’s wind chimes.

  Beside me Jack belches.

  I want to laugh, but it catches on something in my throat and disappears.

  Mom and Dad are here now. Even though they had to take some time off work to do it, they brought their things and are staying for a while, to help with everything. Mom could not resist the chance to recreate the Bone House. She has been in constant conversation with the building crew about the curve of the staircase, the dimensions of the kitchen.

  No. Not the Bone House. What will we call it?

  We have to figure it out soon. When all this is done, my parents and I will leave. Then one of them will leave again, and I wi
ll live . . . where? I will be split between two homes, two parents.

  If that pizza boy ever starts delivering pizzas again, he may not know where to find me.

  I will be far from my Everwood.

  I press my palms flat against the Tower floor.

  Sometimes over the past few days so much has been going on that I have forgotten how I really feel.

  But when I have a moment to sit back and think, I slip back into that cold, blue water again, and I can hardly move at all.

  (Yes. Still. After everything that’s happened.)

  (Still my sadness remains.)

  (It comes and goes in waves, like a never-ending ocean.)

  Jack puts his feet up on the painted wall. “I have a plan.”

  “For what?”

  “For keeping you here in Billington.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “No, seriously, hear me out.”

  I sigh. “Okay. Shoot.”

  “So, your grandparents’ castle probably has a dungeon somewhere—”

  “Jack. Come on.”

  “No, this is great. Listen. We find the key, lock your parents inside. We don’t let them out until they agree to our terms: (a) They let you stay in Billington; (b) they get over themselves and cancel the divorce.”

  “There are so many problems with that plan.”

  “What are you talking about? It’s flawless.”

  “What if there is no dungeon? What will we tell my dad’s boss and my mom’s clients? What if we get arrested for, you know, imprisoning my parents?”

  “Okay, so the plan needs some work.”

  “A little bit, yeah.”

  Avery’s painting music floats down from the garage.

  “Hey,” Jack says, after a while. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For getting mad that night. When you saw my mom and dad.”

  “You’ve said sorry about ten million times.”

  “Yeah, but I never told you why I got mad.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Seriously, Finley.” Jack turns onto his side to look at me. “I want to tell you.”

  When I look back at him, I realize too late that I do not know how to handle this situation. Jack is so close that his breath moves tiny strands of my hair.

  “Okay,” I say. “What?”

  “Why’d I get mad?”