Some Things That Stay

by Sarah Willis

  Brenda’s going on a mile an hour about how my dad asked her to walk up the hill with them, but would I still pay her a buck since she did keep Robert away, when my father gets close. He looks at me, tilts his head, and raises his bushy white eyebrows. He’s wondering where I got the clothes, but he’s wary of me. He doesn’t want to start something right now: he’s had his quiet time on the hill and wants to hold on to it. I guess I do understand him a little, even though I don’t want to.

  Megan and Robert go inside and right away you can hear them. “What’s all this stuff? Where’d this come from? Comics! A whole box of comics! Look at all these puzzles!” Brenda looks at me and I nod. She goes in. “Oh my God!” she shouts.

  “What’s going on?” my father asks.

  “I’ve decided to live,” I say. I don’t mention it was old dried thick paint that saved my life. I don’t want him to think paint saved me. What might he make of that? “The stuff in there is all part of the plan. It’s the colors, you know. The reds and blues and greens. The indigo, emerald, and ultramarine.”

  I can see his recognition of the phrase by the way he freezes for a minute. “Tamara,” he says. I guess he doesn’t know what else to say, because he stops there.

  “Maybe,” I say.

  From inside we can hear Robert, Megan, and Brenda exclaiming over all the stuff. “I … don’t know about this,” my father says. He must have figured out where the stuff came from. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t believe in miracles. Not after visiting my mother.

  “It’s okay,” I say.

  “We’ll have to put it all back tomorrow,” he says.

  “Over my dead body,” I say, and laugh. It’s tension, I know, but it’s still a laugh.

  My father shakes his head. “I better go look,” he says, and goes in.

  “Nice talking to you,” I say, but he doesn’t hear me. I’m a little giddy. It’s been a long day. It sure seems like nothing happens here, or everything.

  When Brenda comes back outside to ask me where all the stuff came from, I drag her into the barn. We sit on hay bales while I tell her about my father trying to make us move again. She gets properly disgusted, and we get carried away making up names for him. We start with jerk and build up to asshole, using up every swear word Brenda knows, then make up stupid names, like Jell-O Head and Lizard Tongue. My favorite is Cosmic Cretin. Then we go back to the swear words. When Brenda calls him a Toad Fucker, we know we have gone too far and go back into the house to work on a puzzle with my brother.

  I tell myself if there are no missing pieces it means we will live here forever.

  That evening, no one mentions moving. We eat Mrs. Burns’ blueberry jelly with spoons, since there’s no bread, and the last can of miniature hot dogs, which, frankly, I’m getting quite sick of. I bring in some tomatoes from the garden, but only my father eats those. Afterwards, Rusty and Brenda come over and we all read comics in the living room. No one mentions that they’re not supposed to be in our house. I guess one hundred and forty-two comics—my brother counted them—is worth the risk. And I guess Brenda and Rusty’s parents aren’t all that different from mine; rules last only as long as the energy to enforce them.

  My father sits and reads comics with us. Maybe this is his way of saying he’s sorry we have to move.

  The next morning my father doesn’t go out to paint. Instead, he admits it’s time to go to the grocery store. I tell him I’m staying here, but Robert and Megan want to go. “Please,” he says to me, but I shake my head. “All right, fine,” he says. I think he’s saving his energy for the big fight he knows is still coming, when he tries to drag me farther than the local grocery store.

  About ten minutes after they leave, the Burns drive up. It’s Sunday. With all the commotion, we have forgotten that. And the Murphys didn’t ask us to go to church with them. I don’t know why. It also occurs to me the grocery store will be closed. My father doesn’t realize this, since he hardly ever goes grocery shopping. He’s going to be very confused when he gets there.

  As the Burns get out of the car, I realize I’m wearing Timothy’s clothes. It feels right to me, but I don’t know how the Burns will take it.

  “Well, hello there,” Mr. Burns says, tugging on his ear. I wonder if his ears are so big because he always tugs on them. I tell myself never to do that. My ears are big enough.

  “Hi,” I say, standing back a bit, thinking maybe they won’t see what I’m wearing if I don’t get too close.

  “No one here again?” he says, looking around.

  “Nope.”

  “How was your mother, Tamara?” Mrs. Burns says. “Any better?”

  “No, not really. She’s not responding to the medication,” I say. Mrs. Burns looks at Mr. Burns. Maybe it’s more than they want to know. I know it’s more than I wanted to know. I would have liked to think the way she looked was just a temporary setback, just a bad day, except they said yesterday was one of her better days. That I definitely don’t want to think about.

  “You know,” Mr. Burns says, “I think I better look at that fence again.” He nods to us. I bet if he were wearing a hat, he’d tip it.

  “Might as well look at the garden while I’m here,” Mrs. Burns says. “You want to come?” she asks me. Gardening must be another way of talking, like kicking Brenda under the table.

  “Okay.”

  We stop by a row of tomatoes which have swelled in the last week, sucking up all the rain. Mrs. Burns bends down to get a better look. She turns toward me to say something, but instead takes in a breath of air and says, “Oh my.” She is looking right at me. She straightens up. I look at the ground, unable to meet her stare. But she doesn’t say anything, so I have to look back. She looks like she might cry.

  “You are so very much like Timothy,” she says slowly, as if she is letting out the words one at a time so nothing else can escape. For a minute I think we are both waiting to see if she will cry, but she doesn’t. She just sighs, like my mother does, and goes on. “Sometimes he was so afraid, but he just wouldn’t let us know. I think he was mad at himself for being sick. He blamed himself. He just wanted to be normal, so we wouldn’t be so sad.” She closes her eyes, as if she just can’t look at me anymore, and I feel awful. I want to tell her I’m nothing like Timothy, that Timothy was a good kid. I want to say I’m sorry, but I’m afraid to speak. For just this moment, with her eyes closed, she looks so peaceful.

  When she opens her eyes, she looks over at the house, and when she talks, it’s as if she’s talking to the house. “There’re a lot of things you might get some use out of up there. It would make me feel much better if you children put them to some use. You’ll know what not to get into, won’t you?”

  I nod.

  “Good. There’s so many puzzles. Please do the puzzles. There’s one of zebras. That was so difficult. But what a picture it made. I left it on the table for days and we ate in the kitchen. We did that a lot. That dining room table’s seen more puzzles than food. Mr. Burns pretended he didn’t care for puzzles, but he’d sneak in a few pieces when we weren’t around. You’ll bring those down, won’t you?”

  “If you want me to,” I say, not telling her they are piled on the dining room table right now.

  “Yes, I do.” The way she says this, slowly and firmly, I think she knows I already have. She reaches out a hand to me. She has bumpy knuckles and some of her fingers are bent. I take it gently, afraid of hurting her, but she squeezes my hand tight so I squeeze back.

  “He’s still here,” I say. “I hear him sometimes. Sometimes I talk to him. I got his clothes out because I think he wanted me to. I think he saw I was unhappy and wanted to give me something. And I think he wanted to be remembered differently, not boxed up. I’m sorry I didn’t ask. I guess, sometimes I just do these things …”

  She stops me by raising a hand. “Those last weeks … I saw him everywhere, always just leaving a room.”

  “Do you think he’ll stay here forever?” I ask.

&nb
sp; “No. God will call him up soon. He’s been very kind to let him stay around, but it’s time, I think. It’s time. I guess that’s what the Lord is telling me, through you.”

  “But you’ll never stop missing him?”

  “No, never.”

  “I miss my mom,” I say.

  “I know.”

  Missing my mother floods me. It makes my knees weak and my head pound and my eyes burn. My arms ache. My stomach tightens. My ears ring. I must look funny because Mrs. Burns pulls me to her. Her stomach is soft. I put my head against her shoulder. I don’t cry this time, but it’s not because I don’t let myself. I just like being hugged. It’s good enough.

  By the time Mr. Burns comes back we have picked a basket of tomatoes and Mrs. Burns is just explaining to me what we have to do to can them.

  “My family is moving again,” I say. “My dad won’t want to pack glass jars of tomatoes.”

  “Leaving?” Mr. Burns says, very surprised. I guess I should have let my father tell him.

  “They’re moving my mother to Utica. He wants to be near her.” And then I get an idea. How I can stay. I could be their child. They could adopt me. “Could I stay with you?” I say, knowing it sounds stupid, but the words come right out of my chest, passing right out the mouth that should have stopped them, waiting until I could think of the right way to say it.

  They look at each other. They do that a lot, right at the same time. “Ahhh,” says Mr. Burns. “Ummm …” Mr. Burns looks so uncomfortable I want to kick myself.

  “That’s a sweet thing to say,” Mrs. Burns says. I hear the but in her voice before she even says it. “But you can’t. Your father needs you, and Robert and Megan need you. And even though you’re having trouble believing it, you need them.” Then she turns to Mr. Burns. “Why don’t you go get in the car? I’ll be right there.” He nods, like this is a very good idea.

  “The fence was fine,” he says as a way of saying good-bye.

  When he’s over by the car, Mrs. Burns starts talking again. “Remember I told you Mr. Burns and I argued sometimes? I said it was never meanly, but I glossed over that some. There were times we argued about, well, you don’t need to know that, but Timothy heard. I guess you know this house is too small to hide such things. He was young, maybe ten, when we fought the most, and he didn’t have any brothers or sisters to run to. He’d just stay in his room and, well, I don’t want to think about what he’d do. But the thing is, I was so mad at Mr. Burns it didn’t matter much to me what Timothy thought, I was too busy thinking what I thought. And, well, kids hear stuff like that, and they survive. I did. Then one day, Timothy ran away. He left a note and said he couldn’t stand it anymore and not to look for him. He took off down the road, then decided to cut across the Jenners’ place. He got lost in those woods for two days and a night and I thought he was gone. I thought somebody picked him up hitchhiking and he was in Tennessee or Chicago, and my imagination went crazy. I cried so hard I thought I’d die, and I want you to know, if Timothy hadn’t been found, I would have never stopped crying. I would have hated myself and Mr. Burns for the rest of my life. There is nothing worse than a child choosing to leave you. Nothing. And I know this for a fact. So I want you to never tell your dad you asked us this, because he hurts enough already. And I’m going to tell you one more thing. I’m so flattered by what you said that I’m going to go home and cry like I haven’t for a while. Now you go play with Brenda or something, until your family gets home.”

  She stops talking, like she’s going to walk off so I can think about it and not argue back, but then just as she turns away, she turns back to me. She doesn’t say anything though. She reaches out and closes her hand over the flannel of the shirt I’m wearing, and rubs it between her fingers for a while. “You would have liked him,” she says. Then she goes. The car backs down the drive, and they’re gone.

  The Murphys come home. Helen smiles and waves to me. It’s such a warm, friendly smile, I smile back before I realize I’m still a little mad at her. Brenda starts to run across the road, but her mother calls her in.

  “I’ll come over after lunch,” Brenda shouts. Rusty’s the last one to go in. He looks at me and points in the direction of his fort. I shrug. He looks hopeful anyway. I decide to go work on the puzzle, but before I get inside, I hear my name called. It’s Helen. I stand by the side porch and let her come to me. Her long hair is in a thick braid, but loose curls frame her face like a halo. She’s smiling still, like her face was born smiling and will go on smiling forever. It’s really catching. She motions for me to sit down on the step. She sits next to me and we both sit there for a whole minute, just smiling like idiots before we both start to talk at the same time.

  “I’m sorry you tried so hard to save me, Helen,” I say. “It was nice of you.”

  “I have something important to tell you, Tamara,” Helen says. Then she laughs, both because we talked at the same time and because she’s just so full of happiness. She makes me go first.

  “I just want to … Well, you tried to … Well, thanks for teaching me about God, even though I’m more confused now than I was before. I guess what I like is you gave me the chance to be confused about what I think, not what my mom thinks. You were right. It was something I should know about. So I want you to know I’m not an atheist anymore.”

  Her eyes light up. “Really?”

  I feel bad she’s so excited, that she didn’t catch my but, so I go on real quick. “No. I’m agnostic.” I’ve heard this word before. My mother had mentioned it, I’m sure, but she must have breezed right by it. Now it feels like a word I discovered all on my own.

  Helen thinks about this for a minute. “Well, I guess that’s a step in the right direction. As long as you’ll keep an open mind, I’ll feel like I’ve accomplished something. I’m very happy for you. Now for my news.” She takes my hand. This is a lot of people taking my hand in one day, but I’m not complaining.

  “First, I have to apologize. I’m sorry I overreacted. I was scared. But it was for the best, and I should have known all along God had His hands in even this, that it was a message, the message I was waiting for. Life is short and I can’t waste a moment of it. I asked our minister today how I can become a missionary. I want to go to Africa, someplace they really need me. Anywhere they need me. He was so pleased. He said he knew all along I’d make this choice. God had told him so. He’s contacting people right now. He said to put things in order here at home, and be prepared to go anytime in the next month. I have to go someplace for training in medical care, and all sorts of things. I’m so excited I feel like I’m floating. God’s hand is lifting me up. Oh, Tamara, I wish you believed. I hope and pray you find God. I want to know I’ll see you in heaven. I want you to know that no matter how far away you are, you and your family will be in my prayers.”

  Helen is flushed with more than the heat of the sun. She shines. I’m almost jealous of her at this moment. The other part of me is thinking about Rusty.

  Rusty said he wanted to go to Africa too. People here want to go far away, and I just want to stay.

  “Well, thanks, Helen,” I say.

  “Now, one more thing. I should have asked earlier. How is your mother?” I think I’m just going to say not so good, but instead I say, “My mother is going to die.”

  “Don’t say that,” Helen says. She pulls back and lets go of my hand.

  “Why not? It’s true,” I say.

  “It sounds cold. Heartless. There must be hope. They have medicine, don’t they, that cures tuberculosis?” There is a slight sound of panic in her voice when she says this. Tests can be wrong.

  “It’s in her bones,” I say. “She weighs like ninety pounds. There’s not much left to cure.”

  Helen covers her mouth with her hand and stares at me. Then she leans over and kisses me on the forehead. “I will pray for her. God be with you, Tamara.”

  She won’t give up. It’s kind of a nice feeling.

  My father comes home right
after Helen leaves. He’s carrying a box with carrots, lettuce, corn, green peppers, onions, and about a dozen zucchini. “The store was closed,” he says. “But I found a roadside stand.” Great, I think. Not only are we atheists, with one agnostic, now we’re going to be vegetarians. What’s next? Nudists? I sure am going to be popular next year.

  Sixteen

  The next day my father, Robert, and Megan go back into town. I stay here. I have my curse again and I just want to lie around and listen to music. I sing along, but not too loudly. I know it’s stupid, but I think Timothy’s listening.

  Along with some real food, my father brings me home a present. It’s really for all of us, he explains, but he’s putting it in my charge; we are always assigned the things we own, that way someone is responsible for packing them up. It’s a camera, a Brownie camera. He even bought three rolls of film. This is something I have wanted for a long time. I say thank you so many times he finally says, “Why don’t you go take some pictures?” and shows me how to load the film. I tell Robert and Megan to come outside with me and we go across the road. I make everyone pose for me. Brenda on the swing. Rusty by the maple. Helen holding her Bible to her breast—her idea. Robert and Megan on the side porch with Kip, who won’t face the camera, no matter what we try. Helen takes a picture of me and Brenda, then me and Rusty, then me and Megan and Robert, and we all make faces even though Helen says to smile nicely. I take a picture of Helen, Brenda, and Rusty out in front of their house, then I make Mr. Murphy come out and I pose him by the rusted cars. He smiles because Brenda’s jumping around behind me yelling, “Smile, Dad!” It’s a goofy smile, all teeth; I can’t help thinking it’s a great picture. I’m finished with the first roll in a half hour, but my dad says to save the rest of the film for another day. I’m already thinking of the next pictures I want to take. I better get a picture of Edith before they kill her. And the bull. If Mrs. Murphy comes home when it’s light out, I might ask her too.