Everything Else in the Universe

by Tracy Holczer

  “Ordinarily I don’t. But when Giovanni says go, I go.”

  “I don’t need his help,” Dad growled. “I don’t need any help, for God’s sake. I’m a doctor. I know exactly what to do for myself.”

  A large chunk of tuna fish plopped out of his sandwich onto the plate, and Dad tossed the bread on top with frustration.

  “It’s time to water your garden,” Dad said without looking at Lucy. He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin that left little napkin bits in the dark stubble of his chin and upper lip.

  Lucy was entirely confused. Wasn’t this guy from the army? What did Uncle G have to do with any of this? She would have to ask him for specifics.

  Reluctantly, she tucked her sandwich into a napkin and walked through the backyard toward the creek. She turned around just before she reached the gate. “Are you sure—”

  But the sliding door into the house shut firmly on her words. They had both gone inside.

  Lucy reminded herself, nothing worth doing is ever easy.

  * * *

  —

  When Lucy first saw the boy digging in her garden, she didn’t recognize him as the boy from the gardenia bush. He was just a boy digging in her garden, like an ill-mannered barbarian. Lucy stopped halfway to the creek, unsure what to do next. Scream? Run? Throw something?

  Stand there like a frozen ham?

  The boy turned and startled. “You can’t sneak up on a person like that!”

  That did it. Lucia Mercedes Evangeline Rossi unfroze herself and stomped down the rest of the way to face the boy where she noticed dirt clods and dug-up plants on the shaded slope beside them. She felt a cork pop inside of her somewhere that had been holding everything in.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Her voice carried. Possibly to the moon.

  “Well, this here is what you call digging,” he said rather calmly. His words had a slight twang. Southern maybe.

  “This is my garden! You’re trespassing!”

  “Were you especially attached to the weeds?” he said.

  She took a deep breath. “WHO ARE YOU TO DECIDE THE FATE OF A WEED?”

  “That sounds like a philosophical question.”

  Lucy ignored him and took stock. He hadn’t actually torn up any of her plants, but he had dug some holes nearer to the creek.

  “You can’t just go digging around in other people’s gardens! What’s the matter with you?”

  “Well, first of all, I didn’t realize what you had there was a garden.”

  Lucy didn’t have the greenest of thumbs, it was true. And maybe there were more rocks in her garden than most. And perhaps she let the weeds grow, too, because they had just as much right to be there as the other plants.

  “And second, I didn’t realize the creek was part of your yard. I thought it was part of Alum Rock Park.”

  Technically, this was also true. Penitencia Creek was part of the seven-hundred-and-twenty-acre wilderness of hills and valleys that spread out behind their yards. But Lucy didn’t see how that made any difference.

  “I’m sure the park rangers wouldn’t be all that happy with you digging around in their park, either.” Lucy lifted her chin. Crossed her arms.

  “But if this is your garden, isn’t that what you’ve been doing?”

  Lucy was temporarily rendered mute for the second time in fifteen minutes and almost boiled over from the frustration of it. She understood failure, in all different sorts of ways, but never with words.

  “And third, your uncle said it was okay.”

  They eyeballed each other. Then, whatever air had puffed the boy up suddenly went blowing out. He stooped over and sighed. “Look, I’m just making room for some wildflowers. I wanted to give the dragonflies a better habitat. This was the first place I came to that had a lull in the rushing water.”

  He took a bushy plant sitting beside him and stuffed it inside the hole, which wasn’t deep enough yet. “See? I’m transplanting black-eyed Susans, swamp milkweed and some lilies. Dragonflies like that. I read it in the World Book.”

  Of course he read the World Book. He wasn’t the more sophisticated Encyclopaedia Britannica sort of boy. However, since planting a dragonfly garden was just about the most unexpected activity Lucy could have imagined him to be doing, she couldn’t help but let go of her own puffed-up air. She knew good and well she wasn’t mad at this random boy anyway. He just happened to be there.

  “Dragonflies?” Lucy said.

  He nodded and went back to digging the hole. “My name’s Milo, by the way. Cornwallace. It’s English.”

  “Lucy,” she said. She had no intention of giving him all her names.

  The boy was tall with suntanned arms and legs. He wore cutoff shorts, a billowy red T-shirt, black Converse, and a pair of large gold-rimmed eyeglasses that were too big for his face. Lucy suddenly realized he was the boy she’d seen in the gardenia bush when Dad came home.

  “Hey! You were the one who was spying on us the other day!”

  “I wasn’t spying.”

  And just as she was trying to figure out what to say next, Milo’s rusted shovel clunked against something metal down in the hole. They both peered in, and Lucy saw U.S. initials stamped on a rounded piece of dirt-smudged metal.

  “I think that’s a flight helmet,” Milo said.

  “What’s a helmet doing buried in the woods?” Lucy said.

  Milo carefully dug the helmet out of the ground, and as he turned it in his hands, brushing off the dirt, he uncovered a round symbol—a ram and a lightning bolt—painted on the back above the words “U.S. ARMY.”

  “It’s an insignia,” Milo said. He handed it to Lucy. “Some men wear an insignia from their unit or battalion. I’ve only seen patches, though.”

  “Did you learn that in the World Book, too?” Lucy said.

  “Nope. I come from a military family. I know things.”

  He waggled his eyebrows at her.

  The afternoon was turning slightly Alice in Wonderland. If a person-sized rabbit came running through the woods at that moment, would Lucy feel surprised? Or any feeling at all other than annoyance at the interruption of what was supposed to be a few minutes of peaceful gardening? What would happen next?

  “Here, take a look,” Milo said.

  Lucy inspected the helmet. As she turned it in her hands, she felt a bulge in the lining, right where the forehead would be. “I think there’s something inside.”

  When she peeled the lining back, three black-and-white photos fell out. Even more unexpectedly, a Purple Heart plunked into the dirt. Lucy picked up the pictures. Milo picked up the Purple Heart.

  The top photo was of a man in uniform with a little girl on his knee, about five years old. The second was the same man with the same girl and a boy who didn’t look much older. The third was of a woman with windswept hair sitting on a sandy beach.

  “We need to put it all back,” Lucy said. It was a violation to have dug it up, even if the idea of reburying those pictures made her feel queasy. Why would someone have buried pictures of their family? The Purple Heart she could understand, sort of. It represented an injury. Or death.

  “Why?” Milo said.

  Lucy didn’t know how to explain. “Because I say so. And it’s my garden.”

  Milo clenched his jaw, but did what she asked. He placed everything back in the lining of the helmet as best he could, and then covered the whole shebang with dirt, shoveling with gusto. When the helmet was buried once again, they both just stood there, staring at the newly turned earth. The birds called to each other. The creek burbled. Finally, Milo reached for a large wishing stone and placed it on top, like a tombstone.

  “Lucy! Come help unpack the groceries!” Mom called from their patio up the slope, shattering the moment of quiet.

  “I’ve got to get back to Grams’,” Milo
said. As he collected his things, he went on, “Sorry about all this. I didn’t mean any harm.”

  Satisfied with his apology, Lucy nodded and walked back toward her house. Near the top of the slope, she called to Milo, “Why were you hiding in that bush, anyway?”

  Milo had already tossed the shovel over his shoulder, and just before he disappeared into the trees, he said, “I just wanted to see someone come home.”

  6

  losing the moon

  Lucy wasn’t sure what Milo Cornwallace might have meant by wanting to “see someone come home.” She wondered if he meant it in a general way, the way you might want to see anyone come home from being gone so long from their family. Maybe he was just as overwhelmed by the television news as she was. It was on everywhere—in people’s homes or behind the cash register at the 7-Eleven—showing the bloody mess of things over there. Even worse was the daily body count for American soldiers, South Vietnamese and Vietcong the news programs kept on the bottom of the television screen, ticking up every day.

  Tick, tick, tick.

  Or did Milo mean it in a more personal way? Did he know someone in Vietnam?

  When Lucy had first found out her dad was going, the war had been a faraway event happening on televisions she mostly didn’t want to watch, and in conversations between adults she mostly didn’t want to listen to. None of her friends had older brothers or uncles, none of her own cousins were of the drafting age, and so, like a fire in another building, it was a horrible and sad thing that never really touched her life.

  But now it had happened to her family. Lucy wondered if it had happened to Milo’s, too. And because Lucy’s mind was the way it was—always on high alert—she couldn’t let it go. Not Milo, and not the pictures she now knew were buried deep in her garden, which left her feeling slightly queasy. The unknown, to Lucy, was like a fanged creature that hid in her closet or under the bed with all the other monsters.

  Which was spectacularly annoying. Because Lucy needed to focus on Dad while he considered their options for the future. And while it was true that Dad hadn’t asked her opinion, necessarily, hadn’t even talked to her about what he might do next, Lucy knew it was important to be available, to be right there should he need her.

  She had accompanied Dad to the library on a couple of research trips and introduced him to Ms. Lula, who worked at the Berryessa branch of the San Jose Public Library during the summer months. At Lucy’s request, Ms. Lula had collected stacks of reference materials for Dad to ponder while giving Lucy the newest National Geographic magazine, and a scattering of books on subjects she thought Lucy might be interested in. Rocks and minerals, fictional accounts of survival stories, The Hobbit.

  To add to her reference book pile, as though the prosthetist had known Lucy’s secret heart, Brady Fitzpatrick had left a fifty-two page manual behind that covered the history of prosthetics as well as modern-day uses and instructions. Appendage Prosthetics, it was called. Over the last couple of days, she’d memorized it, one of the most important sentences being:

  A brief period of time between surgery and fitting the prosthesis is imperative if a functional stump, and thus use of a prosthetic device, is to be obtained.

  Lucy had already known this, of course, having researched as much as she could. But it went on:

  The surgeon and others on his hospital staff will do everything they can to ensure the best results, but ideal results require the wholehearted cooperation of the patient.

  And Dad wasn’t cooperating. At least not about the arm. He’d tried. Lucy had spied on him through a crack in the bedroom door. But there were so many buckles and belts that it was hard for him to manage on his own, and so the one time she’d watched, he ended up throwing it across the room into the corner with a bang.

  So even though Dad had told her he needed space to figure things out on his own, Lucy knew she needed to encourage Dad to follow Fitz’s guidelines in this particular instance. She would help him with the buckles and straps if he needed it. This wasn’t the same as following him around and putting toothpaste on his toothbrush. This was important. He would be impressed that she had read the entire manual and had an educated opinion on the subject. At least that she could count on.

  * * *

  —

  Lucy found her opportunity for this discussion in the middle of the night.

  She woke to the sound of the sliding glass door skipping along its lumpy track. She had no idea what time it was. The fingernail moon was framed perfectly in her window, so she figured sometime after one in the morning. After putting on her quilted robe, she tiptoed down the hallway into the empty living room—wondering where her father might have gone—thinking about carnivals, of all things. How she’d made the mistake of going on the Giant Swing three summers ago when a small carnival had set up just outside of Chicago. Dad had taken her as a special treat, so even though she found herself terrified of most every ride, she hadn’t let on.

  But the Giant Swing had been the worst. Lucy honest to goodness felt as though the extreme up and down of that swing was going to kill her. Humans weren’t meant to experience such things. It was unnatural. And so she’d gripped her dad’s hand and prepared for a myocardial infarction.

  When it was over, Dad reassured her she was perfectly healthy and that her heart could, and in fact would, withstand a lifetime of Giant Swings. But Lucy swore she would never attend another carnival and, therefore, would never again experience carnival feelings for the rest of her livelong days.

  Then her dad went to Vietnam and it was like spending a year at a carnival on the Giant Swing. She’d thought it would be over when he came home.

  It wasn’t.

  Lucy looked outside. It was dim, the moon just a sliver of light in the sky, but she could see shadows. One in particular sitting underneath the large oak tree in the corner of the yard.

  Dad. Still.

  The crickets hushed when Lucy opened the screen door. But her dad didn’t move.

  Lucy’s heart was pounding entirely too fast as she walked across the grass. The shadowy lump under the oak tree was, of course, her father. She leaned down and touched Dad’s shoulder just to make sure he was okay.

  He startled and sat up. “What are you doing?”

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  After a moment in which Lucy feared he’d shoo her back inside, Dad patted the spot next to him on one of Uncle G’s old beach blankets. She lay beside him and willed herself to look up at the partial constellations she could see through the leaves of the oak. Something she had refused to do since Dad had left. His leaving would forever be connected to the stars.

  His arm was warm against hers. She was relieved his stump was on the other side, and felt sick about her relief.

  “All the men on base would gather in the mess to hear me read your letters. Did I tell you that?”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Maybe I didn’t want it to go to your head.” Lucy could hear the smile in his voice.

  “Did you get all thirty-seven of them?” she asked.

  “Each and every one.”

  “I took a few turns delivering meatballs for Papo Angelo so I could contribute to the postage.”

  “How did young Joey feel about that, you taking over his job?”

  “He didn’t mind. He’s a good kid. He even gave me three dollars from his birthday money to help out and wouldn’t let me pay him back.”

  Dad chuckled, a sound Lucy wished she could capture in a bottle and set on her windowsill with her stones. After a little while, Dad said, “Did I ever tell you about the summer I turned thirteen?”

  “Was that the summer you worked in Great-Uncle Lando’s orchards?”

  “That was the summer I decided to be an orchardist, just like the men in my family going back to the old country. Pears and apples.”

  Lucy hadn’t known her d
ad wanted to grow trees like Great-Uncle Lando and Big Papo before him. She’d only been told how hard Dad had worked to save up for school, and from such an early age. Saving even the pennies he’d find in the street.

  “Big Papo used to say that sometimes, when he couldn’t sleep, he’d lie in the very middle of his fields, so much like Italy. He told me that when things get tough, you have to remind yourself of what you’ve already built.”

  Big Papo and Nona had come over from Calabria in 1917, their tiny village so poor, they’d lived in a one-room house with dirt floors. They had a cousin who had settled in Connecticut, but Big Papo dreamed of the land he’d heard about on the other side of the country, the Santa Clara Valley with its orchards and land so much like home. He would build a life there, and his children wouldn’t be hungry.

  “I remember the night he said that. It was warm, just like tonight, and he was sipping anisette out of a flask. He gave me a taste, and I thought I’d set my lungs on fire.”

  Lucy lay there quiet, thinking of the piece of her dad that had come from Big Papo. Like a star in a constellation. How she had a piece of Big Papo, too, through Dad, even though he’d died before she was born.

  Dad went on. “Big Papo couldn’t read, so he insisted his children be educated. By the time my generation came along, it wasn’t enough to just be educated. We were expected to do more. What he said was, Chi ha più giudizio, più ne n’adoperi. Basically, From those who are given more, more is expected. More is expected of us, Lucy. And so we will keep moving forward. I will find a different job, and we will put this behind us.”

  Lucy was overcome with relief. This was the first real conversation they’d had since Dad came home eleven days ago. He sounded more like himself. It made her feel brave, like she could talk to him the way she always had.

  “Why won’t you wear your arm?”

  Dad stiffened beside her.

  “Have you read the research?” Lucy went on.

  “Of course I have.”