As I sat at the kitchen table now, a month later, eating Lucky Charms and looking at Nell’s mail, I still felt it: the shame of having wronged a person who hardly ever had anything good happen to her.
Ethan came into the kitchen and ambled over to the kitchen table, noticing the propped-up envelope.
“Penna… Penna… Penna-Loap. Penna-loap,” he sounded out, looking at the envelope. “Who would name their kid ‘Penna-loap’?”
“That’s ‘Penelope,’ you dufus,” I said, giving my brother a look of hearty irritation. “That’s Nell’s real name.”
“That’s ‘Penelope’? Looks like Penna-loap to me.”
I suddenly had an idea. “Mom wants you to take this over to Nell’s later.”
“Liar. I heard her tell you that you had to take something over to Nell’s.”
I pushed my chair back and stomped over to the sink with my bowl. “Well, why can’t you do it?”
“She asked you. Besides, I don’t like Nell.”
“You think I do?”
Ethan grabbed the Lucky Charms box and walked back to the living room with it. “I’m not doing it.”
“C’mon. I’ll give you fifty cents,” I called after him.
“I wouldn’t do it for fifty dollars.”
“You would so, you little twerp.”
“I would not.”
“Would so.”
“Would not.”
I fumed for a moment longer and then took the stairs, two at a time, up to my room. I stepped out of my pajama bottoms and pulled on a pair of swimming trunks and a T-shirt. I hoped Matt remembered we were going to the swimming hole later this afternoon. At least that had been our plan when I had left for South Dakota the previous week. I would call Matt after lunch—after taking that stupid envelope to Nell. Until then, I’d go into the tree house with my notebook. I had a story idea about a brave young man with a dolt for a brother who had to live next door to an evil witch.
I had written a page-and-a-half, had read some of the comic books I kept in the tree house, and then was starting to write again when I heard the sound of a car in Nell’s driveway. I peered out of a well-placed knothole. The car was silvery blue with a speckling of rust around every wheel rim. It made all kinds of noises when whoever was driving tried to shut it off. The engine finally died, and the driver’s door opened. A skinny man, bald on top but with lots of hair on the sides, stepped out. Even with his limited view, I thought I knew him. Behind the man another car door opened, and a girl with honey-blonde hair climbed out. She turned and then leaned back inside. I couldn’t see what she was doing. Then she stepped back and helped a little boy get out. The two children stretched and yawned like they had been asleep, though I figured it was after eleven by now. I moved to one of the window openings in the tree house and cautiously looked out. The car had California plates. The girl looked up then, and our eyes met. I scooted back.
I knew who these people were. I remembered their faces. At least the man and the little girl’s faces. The baby was now a four-year-old boy.
Darrel. Norah. Kieran.
But where was Belinda?
I listened as I heard the door of the trunk open and close.
“I want my pillow,” the little boy said.
“Let’s just leave it in the car right now, bud,” Darrel said. “C’mon. Lets see if Grandma is awake.”
I heard Darrel and the kids walk up to the porch, heard Darrel try the knob, heard it stop in his hands. He began to knock. “Ma! Ma!” he called.
“MA!” Darrel repeated louder when there was no answer.
Finally, Luke heard the door open.
“Good Lord!” Nell’s voice.
I had never heard Nell say anything about God that made it seem like she thought He was good. It was usually the other way around. But she said it today. Good Lord.
“Hey, Ma!” Darrel said. “Hope you don’t mind us stoppin’ through.”
Nell let out a long sigh. “It wouldn’t stop you from comin’ though, would it—if you thought I minded.”
“Grandma’s just foolin’!” Darrel said happily.
I heard the door open wide on squeaky hinges. Then it shut.
I had to take that stupid envelope over, and now Nell had company. That weird Darrel. And those kids.
I scooted across the branch to the window and climbed back into my bedroom. I walked out and down the hall to my parents’ room to call Matt.
But Matt wasn’t home.
“He’s gone to his cousin’s house for the day,” his mother said.
“Oh. Okay.”
I hung up. Well, that’s just wonderful. None of my other friends lived in town. That meant the only person to go with me to the swimming hole this afternoon was Ethan. I wasn’t allowed to go there alone, and who could say if anyone else would be there today? And it didn’t matter that I could swim circles around my brother. My parents wouldn’t let me go to the swimming hole alone. Ever.
I trudged down the stairs. Ethan was still watching TV, but he had a jigsaw puzzle out and was sorting the pieces.
“So you want to come to Goose Pond with me?” I said, his voice flat.
Ethan whipped his head around. “Why?”
I gave him a look of exasperation. “Because it’s hot and we’ve got nothing better to do.”
“Yeah, but you called me a twerp,” Ethan said, furrowing his brow and wondering perhaps if I might be planning to drown him.
“So?”
Ethan threw a puzzle piece into the box and stood up. “Okay.”
“Let’s take some sandwiches,” I said, and Ethan followed me into the kitchen.
A few minutes later we carefully placed peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches into my school bag, empty now since it was summer. A bag of Cheetos went into the bag next along with two cans of Orange Crush.
“Go get some towels and I’ll put air in the bike tires,” I said, heading out the front door to the garage at the back. The mile-long dirt road to the swimming hole was best traveled with firm tires. I had nearly finished when I heard Nell’s back door open and shut. Then I heard voices.
“Bel and me are havin’ a rough time right now,” Darrel said in a quiet voice. “She’s living with one of her girlfriends. But she’ll come back.”
“You been sleepin’ around on her?” Nell asked, and I felt my face grow warm.
“Thanks a lot, Ma!”
“Well, have you?”
There was a moment of silence. I didn’t make a sound as I listened.
“Hey, it’s not like she hasn’t been sleepin’ around on me!”
“Did you learn nothing from the hell I went through with your father?” Nell snorted.
“She left me, Ma. It ain’t the way it was with you and Dad. She left me!”
Seconds of silence.
“She left those kids, too? You telling me she left her kids?” Nell’s voice again.
“She… I… I wouldn’t let her take them. I took them to a friend’s house. She didn’t know where they were. She’s doing drugs again, Ma. I don’t want the kids getting mixed up with all that.”
More seconds of silence.
“Does she know you’re here? Does she know the kids are here?” Nell said.
“I’m not stayin’ long, Ma. I’ll go back and we’ll work it out. I know we will. She’ll realize she can’t do drugs and have the kids, and then she’ll come back and she’ll be clean again.”
“So why did you come?” Nell said after a pause.
“Because, Ma,” Darrel said, “Norah and Kieran are your grandkids. Don’t you want to see them?”
“Darrel, did it ever occur to you I might want more than just a visit from you every three or four years? That a phone call that doesn’t include a plea for money would be nice? That a note to tell me where you’re living would sure be helpful? I sent those kids Christmas presents two years in a row and they came back undeliverable both times because you didn’t have an address and didn’t even bother
to tell me.”
“Ma, I called you to tell you I lost my job. I told you we were living with friends.”
“Yeah, you told me a year later!”
“Well, we had some rough times. I can’t help that.”
There was a long pause. I waited.
“I am through with getting hurt by people, Darrel,” Nell finally said. “Through with it. It is a heck of a lot easier for me not to see those grandkids than to see them. Because who knows when or if I will ever see them again!”
“Ma, what are you saying?” Darrel exclaimed. “Of course you’ll see them again! They’re my kids. You’re my mother. What is with you?
“What is with me? What is with me?” Nell’s voice sounded hard. “Nothing and no one is with me, Darrel. I am alone. I have learned to live this way because I’ve had to. My parents are dead, my sister ignores me, your daddy abandoned me, your brother lies dead and buried in the cemetery, and you’re two thousand miles away in California and in and out of jail. There is nothing with me.”
“Well, we’re here with you now,” Darrel said softly.
Nell said nothing. I heard her open the screen door and go back inside the kitchen. Darrel followed. I stood up and put the tire pump away. Listening to Nell and Darrel’s conversation made me feel angry and ashamed. I didn’t think I wanted to play any more tricks on Nell Janvik.
But I did have to get that envelope to her. Maybe Darrel would answer the door and I could just give it to him. I just wanted it to be over with.
Ethan came out of the house with the backpack. Two towels were sticking out of it.
“I’ll be right back,” I said and I stepped back into the house, into the kitchen and grabbed the envelope. I came back out and Ethan looked at me. Something like compassion fell across Ethan’s face.
“I’ll come with you,” he said, and we crossed the lawn to Nell’s house.
I stepped onto the porch and couldn’t help but notice the empty hook where wind chimes had once hung. I looked away and rang the doorbell.
Seconds later, Norah came to the door. Even through the screen, I could see she hadn’t changed much in four years. She was taller, of course, and any traces of baby fat were gone. Her blonde hair had darkened some, but her eyes were still two circles of liquid pewter.
“This… this came to our house by mistake,” I said, holding out the envelope. “It belongs to… to your grandmother.”
Norah cocked her head, and it seemed to me she was surprised I knew who she was. Then a smile broke across her face.
“I remember you,” she said slowly. “I played at your house the last time we came.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Well, here’s the letter.”
“Who’s there, Norah?” Nell’s voice rang out from somewhere in the house.
“It’s, um… I can’t remember your names,” she said, looking at Ethan now too.
“Luke. I’m Luke. This is Ethan.” My brother had a rather silly look on his face. But then it occurred to me that Ethan had only been four the last time Norah was here. He didn’t remember her.
“It’s the kids next door,” Norah yelled over her shoulder. “They got some mail of yours by accident.”
“Here,” I said again, extending his hand.
Norah opened the door and took the envelope. I saw her eyes travel to the backpack Ethan was holding and the towels sticking out of it.
“You guys going swimming somewhere?”
“We’re going to the swimming hole,” Ethan happily volunteered.
“Oh? Where is it?”
“You gotta go past the water tower and then there’s this dirt road that goes to it,” he continued. I wanted him to shut up.
“Can I come with you?” she said.
I opened my mouth to say something—I didn’t know what—but Ethan said, “Sure!” and Norah let the screen door fall closed and turned to head back into the house. I shot Ethan a look, but he was pushing the towels farther into the bag and wasn’t looking at me.
“Can I go swimming with the kids next door?” I heard Norah ask.
“Where at?” Darrel’s voice. “The pool? The swimming hole?”
“They said the swimming hole. Can I go?”
“Well, yeah, I guess. Take Kieran, though. And keep your eye on him. Grandma and I need to talk.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. A girl and a toddler. I hoped to heaven none of my other friends were there to see me arrive with a girl and a little kid. This whole day was turning out to be a disaster.
I turned to Ethan. “Why did you say yes?” I said through my teeth.
But my brother just gave me a blank look that said, Why wouldn’t I say yes?
A few minutes later Norah appeared at the door wearing a turquoise-blue swimsuit and carrying two, faded pink bath towels and a paper sack. Behind her was Kieran, a little boy with a head full of dark, curly hair. I wondered if the kid had ever had a haircut—ever. He looked like a little girl.
I said nothing as I turned and walked back to my house, wondering if my mother would get after me for riding my bike and making Norah and Kieran run along behind me. I was aware of Ethan, Norah, and Kieran following me.
“Do you have an extra bike?” Norah said. “I can ride with Kieran sitting in front of me. I do it all the time at home.”
I looked at her. And then I looked in the garage. Well, there was my mother’s bike. My father’s bike. And my own. I couldn’t believe I was doing this.
“Take mine. I’ll ride my dad’s.” I motioned to my three-speed Schwinn, only a month old, and then headed into the garage to get my dad’s bike.
“Okay,” Norah said, taking the handlebars and sitting down on the banana seat of the best birthday present I had ever gotten so far. She reached down for her little brother. “Here we go, Kieran,” she said, scooping him up and placing him on the tip of the long seat. “Put your legs right here,” she said, pointing to the horizontal bar that made my bike a boy’s bike and not a girl’s. She shoved the bath towels into the paper bag and started fiddling with how to carry it and steady her little brother.
“Here, I’ll take it,” I said, surprising himself with his spontaneous act of courtesy. She handed the paper bag to me wordlessly, and I tucked it under my arm.
We pedaled away. I kept as much distance between us as I dared. I knew if my mother saw how Norah and Kieran were riding, she would throw a fit. I wished for a second that she were driving home just then so she could see them. She wouldn’t allow it. But then she would probably insist on driving us all out to Goose Pond.
Only sissies had their mothers drive them out to Goose Pond.
I took the shortest route to the street that led to the water tower.
Eight
Halcyon’s swimming hole, also known as Goosen’s to the over-fifty crowd but simply as Goose Pond to the younger generations, was the only swimming hole in the county with a maintained beach of playground-sand and side-by-side porta-potties. The swimming hole memorialized Halcyon pioneer and dairy farmer Hans Goosen, who willed the pond to the county’s parks and recreation department when he died in 1950. The gift was partly because the farmland around the pond was untillable, and partly because scores of teenagers were already sneaking out to the pond on hot, humid evenings to splash away the summer heat, and had been for decades.
Shaped roughly like the state of Texas, the swimming hole was the size of two city blocks. It was home to several varieties of pan fish, a population of snapping turtles, and the occasional legendary lake monster; a tale spun every now and then to keep youngsters from visiting the swimming hole unattended.
It was surrounded on all sides but one with prairie grasses and gently rolling knolls. On the farthest edge, however, there was an outcropping of stone, perfect for jumping off of and for creating panic for mothers who liked to worry. The mile-long gravel road to the pond began at the back legs of the Halcyon water tower at the south end of Eleventh Street and across from Halcyon High School.
I left the smooth asphalt and hit the uneven surface of the gravel road, adjusting my speed and tightening my hold on the handlebars of my dad s bike. I glanced back to make sure that little kid didn’t go flying off the banana seat when Norah switched over to the gravel, and though the handlebars went every which way as she negotiated the transfer, she maintained control. Ethan was right behind her.
As I neared the pond I could see two cars parked on the pea-gravel parking lot next to the Warning! No Lifeguard on Duty! sign. Two large, pale-skinned women were lounging on the beach, talking and watching their children play in the water. Though the kids—there were five of them—were squealing and yelling and being otherwise annoying, I was actually glad those women were there with their noisy brats because it meant I could swim out as far as I wanted—though I had a hard time imagining either one of the hefty women coming to my rescue. Sometimes my mother’s rules made no sense to me.
I parked my bike against a wooden parking-lot rail, and Norah and Ethan pedaled in behind me and did the same. It was hot, and I was sticky from riding and the rising humidity.
“It’s so small!” Norah exclaimed as she lowered Kieran to the ground.
I looked across the blue surface of Goose Pond, thinking to myself that you could probably fit a dozen Olympic-size swimming pools in it. It was better than nothing. Wasn’t it?
“Yeah, I guess,” I said.
“Where I live you can’t see the other side of the water,” she said. “We live a block away from the ocean.”
I had never seen the ocean. I had been to the shore of Lake Superior once with my grandparents, but I knew that was not the same.
I had nothing to say to Norah’s comment, so I just stepped over the guardrail and walked across a grassy patch to the sand. I slipped off my sandals and pulled my T-shirt over my head. Ethan dropped the backpack on the sand and did the same.
“Are there jellyfish?” Kieran asked, looking across the strange water that had no tide.
“Nope. No jellyfish,” Norah said, helping him take his T-shirt off.
I started to head to the water’s edge but turned back around. “Can you swim?” I said to Norah.
In All Deep Places Page 8
