“Jim,” I called out, trying to coax him back so we could talk this through and maybe jog his memory to give him a solid clue.
Five minutes passed before I heard “I know where it is” from the doorway. “Will you come with me to get it?”
With my heart pounding, I got up and followed him to the basement door. He opened it and we started to descend, his sneakers slamming the steps, the wooden slats groaning with our weight. He walked toward the open metal shelves lining the back wall. They were packed with boxes, some marked “Christmas” on the side, and others “Supplies/Nursery.” There were about ten that said “JIM” in block letters six inches tall, and “Do Not Throw Out.” All in Mom’s handwriting. One of the shelves was lined entirely with Jim’s books from when he was a kid. He started pulling them off the shelf, one after the other, until he came to one that was face out and stopped. The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary. “Mom and I read this together about a thousand times,” he said, and picked it up.
There it was, behind the book.
A brown paper lunch bag, with JIM’S SURVIVAL KIT written in big capital letters on the front. An old Lewis High School blue sneaker lace was tied in a bow through the hole punched in the fold. Jim stared at it in awe, like he didn’t believe it was really there. “She did make me one.”
“Are you going to open it?” I asked, my voice quiet.
Jim shook his head. “Not yet. I’m going to wait.”
Gently, I touched his arm. “You should wait as long as you need to. I waited for months before I opened mine. An entire summer.”
“I’m just not ready,” he said.
My brother burst into tears, heaving sobs, the kind I hadn’t seen from him since Mom died. My hand automatically retracted from his arm and I took a step back. A few months ago I would have remained anchored to this spot, unable to comfort him—I’d learned from experience that hugging someone only encouraged the person to cry even harder and I always wanted the tears to stop. But I was beginning to understand that there would always be sadness when it came to our mother. A layer of sorrow was now knit through us so certain moments, memories, even new experiences, would tap it, and this was one of those moments. So instead of leaving Jim alone until the tears dried up and disappeared, I mustered the courage to reach out and wrap my arms around him, and when I did, he bent down and cried even harder into my shoulder.
I was willing to be his shoulder as long as he needed me to be.
This was how we survived, I was learning.
During the days that remained before my father was to come home from the hospital, the kitchen table, the counters, the coffee table in the living room, were strewn with every conceivable color of crayon along with things like scissors that cut in zigzags and tiny pots of water-soluble paints and discarded scraps of construction paper. My friends came and went, toting special items to add to their Survival Kits and finding open spaces to make something new.
It made me happy to have the house so full of life again.
I thought about how, if Jim had changed after Mom died and I had become a different girl, I had to allow for the possibility that Dad would be different, too. Maybe he needed help to move forward just like we did.
Together, Jim and I worked on our own Survival Kit for Dad. Inside the bag we included a photo of a pizza we’d cut from a magazine—Sunday nights in our house used to be pizza nights, a tradition we lost with Mom. We added a miniature leather baseball on a key chain to remind Dad how he loved spending summer nights outside watching minor league games. We made a small collage of photographs of our family and slid it inside a homemade frame—we wanted Dad to remember that he still had us. Then, to hint that we shouldn’t let another summer go by without a visit to the ocean, Jim filled a tiny clear bag with some beach sand.
Last, of course, we put in a kite.
Jim’s hand rested on top of the wheel of Grandma’s car as he drove. Signs for Lewis County Hospital appeared. “It’s going to be okay, Rose. You can do this,” he said.
Each word made me wince. “I hope so,” I said, nervous about seeing our father for the first time in almost a month.
“Dad looks great and I think his attitude is changing. This accident really jarred him in a way that you and I never could have.” He turned into the parking lot and began to drive up and down the rows looking for a space.
“Stop doing that to yourselves,” Grandma Madison said from the backseat. “Your father’s relationship to drinking was never your responsibility to fix.”
“But you’ve tried, too, Grandma.” I turned around to look at her. Her long thin arms were crossed, her gray hair pulled back into a severe knot on top of her head. “Jim and I are both grateful for your help. With everything.”
“Well, unlike you, James is my responsibility. I am his mother. It’s my job to make sure he gets his head back on straight.”
“Grandma, this next part is up to Dad,” I said, nervous to contradict her.
Her dark eyes softened. “Oh, Rose, Jim, it’s difficult to stop trying with someone you love. You always hope that this next time might work, might change everything for the better. After all, take a good look at what you two brought for your father today and then tell me you’ve given up on him.”
The Survival Kit, its brown paper bag with big green capital letters printed on one side, was sitting in my lap and I thought of all the hope we had attached to this project, through the items that we chose to include. “Yes, but how Dad interprets what’s inside is up to him. All we can do is offer it and hope he takes it from there.”
I hovered in the doorway to Dad’s hospital room, and the moment I saw him my anger at his stupidity, his recklessness, evaporated. He was sitting on the bed going through the contents of his duffel bag, his legs dangling off the side, one of them in a thick pasty cast from the knee down, his left arm in a sling. “Rose,” he said when he noticed me standing there. “Honey.” His eyes were pleading. “I’m so happy to see you.”
“Hi, Dad,” I said, my voice small.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” he said. “I’ve missed you so much. I can’t bear to lose you. Ever. I know I have a long way to go before I can win back your trust, but let me try. Please forgive me.” Tears rolled down my father’s face. “I want a second chance to do this better.”
I turned away, covering my face with my hands. Seeing my father cry was so painful, but I wanted to be fair, too, even if it hurt to watch.
“Rose?”
I nodded to let him know I was still listening.
He reached out his good arm, palm open, facing upward. “Can you come here and give your dad a hug?”
At first I didn’t move. But then I rushed toward him, climbing up onto the foot of the bed and sitting on my knees, so I was close enough to squeeze him tight. “I love you, Dad,” I whispered.
“I love you, too. So much.” He looked at me, really looked me in the eyes, and said, “I know you miss Mom.” Dad had hardly mentioned Mom out loud since Christmas. “And nothing, no one could ever replace your mother”—I opened my mouth to say something, but Dad’s hand went up, stopping me—“but I am your dad, I will never stop being your dad, and I am here for you,” he said again.
I bit my lip hard, my eyes glassy with tears that I tried to blink away.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I promise.”
“You don’t know that,” I blurted.
A pained expression crossed his face. “No, you’re right. I don’t. None of us knows what’s around the corner. But I’m going to do the very best I can from here on out and for as long as you want me to.”
“I always want you to be here,” I said.
His arm drew me closer. “Come on, kid. You know sometimes you don’t want your old dad around.”
“Yes, I do. Always,” I whispered.
A smile worked its way onto his face. “I can remember more than a few times when you scolded me for embarrassing you in front of your friends.�
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I was opening my mouth to protest when I heard Jim’s voice from the hallway. “Is it safe to come in?”
“Yes,” I called out, and Jim entered with Grandma Madison close behind.
“Hi, Dad,” he said.
Grandma nodded. “James.”
“I’m about ready,” Dad said, reaching for his things when Jim stopped him. “Wait,” he said, and looked at me, nodding. It was time.
“So, Dad,” I began, remembering what I had rehearsed, willing myself to get this out. “Every August, when Mom was still alive, we used to sit around the kitchen table as a family and help her make Survival Kits—”
Dad’s face lit up, like he suddenly remembered something. “You found them!” he said with excitement, looking from Jim to me and back to Jim again. “You found the Survival Kits your mother left for you.”
“You knew about them?” My voice was high.
“Your mother told me right after she decided to make them and I thought it was a wonderful idea. She showed me where she planned to leave them. I was supposed to tell you on the one-year anniversary.”
“I’ve had mine since the funeral,” I said.
Dad nodded. “Oh. That long.” His head bobbed up and down.
“I just found mine last week. With Rose’s help,” Jim said.
“I’m so glad. She loved you both so much.”
My throat was almost too tight to speak, but then I remembered my speech. “Well, Jim and I decided that maybe dads need a Survival Kit, too.” My voice cracked. “So we made you one. Kind of a homecoming present.”
Jim revealed the bag from behind his back, presenting it to Dad.
“Parent slash Dad Survival Kit,” my father read aloud, wiping at the corners of his eyes. He laughed softly. “This is wonderful. Thank you.”
“It’s to help you figure out life, you know, now that Mom is gone,” Jim said.
Dad held it in front of him, staring at it, and he was smiling.
“You don’t have to open it now,” I said quickly. “Whenever you are ready.”
“Okay,” Dad said. “I really appreciate this. What an incredible gift to receive from my children.”
“We love you,” I said, leaning over to kiss Dad on the cheek.
“Yeah, we love you, Dad,” Jim said.
“All right-y,” Grandma Madison said loudly, getting up from the chair in the corner—I’d almost forgotten she was there. “Let’s get out of here. Hospitals are so unpleasant.”
I laughed. “What would we do without Grandma? We’d probably cry all day.”
“You probably would,” she tsked, grabbing her purse. “Come on.”
Together, Jim, Grandma, Dad, and I headed home. As a family. While we were walking away from the hospital, I remembered the words in the note Mom left in my Survival Kit about using my imagination. Finally, after all this time, I felt its wheels begin to turn again, slowly at first, as if they were rusty, then with more confidence, as if someone had flipped on a switch. In the light of this awareness, I began to have faith that my mother was still with me, embedded and woven into this part of me I’d tried so hard to bury, the part that was most like her: my imagination. Even though she wasn’t here anymore, not literally, I could suddenly feel her everywhere, see her presence in everything, in the memories she created and left for us, in the hope she had for our survival as a family, and that she’d packed into a series of brown paper lunch bags with big capital letters on the side.
APRIL & MAY
Wishing on Stars
35
EVERYBODY
The first days of April passed, one into the other, and I devised a list of things I needed to accomplish, all of them related to the Survival Kit and my mother. I was no longer going in any particular order or interpreting my tasks so literally and narrowly. They took on a life of their own, a life that I was giving them now.
On my To Do list, among other things, was the following:
Get over my fear of entering the football stadium
Make music a part of my life again for real
Take care of the peonies—they are due to bloom soon
Ask Will for my crystal heart back
This last task required me to speak to Will, of course, and I had plenty of opportunity—he was outside in the gardens each morning and afternoon. Each time I saw him I felt butterflies and my heart hammered like mad, but I wasn’t sure I could forgive him for abandoning me when I’d needed him most, for dropping me like it meant nothing, like it was the easiest thing in the world to let me go. When I left the house and headed down the walk to wait for Krupa and Kecia to pick me up for school, he pretended I wasn’t there.
He avoided me and I allowed him to.
For now.
“Rose, say you’ll change your mind,” Tamika said one day at lunch.
“About what?” I asked. Kecia, Tamika, Mary, Krupa, and I sat at one end of a cafeteria table with a number of other cheerleaders at the other.
“Cheerleading,” Mary said, nudging me.
“We don’t have the strength to go on without you, and I mean that literally.” Before I could get the word no out of my mouth, Tamika spoke again. “But what if I asked you to do it for Kecia?”
Kecia was deep in conversation with Krupa, but when she heard her name she turned to us. “Who needs to do what for me?”
Tamika and Mary smiled at each other like they had a secret. “We have a little surprise,” Mary said.
Tamika set her giant purse on the table and dug through it. “The squad officially voted you captain last night.”
Kecia gasped. “Really?”
“That’s so perfect,” I said, and meant it. “Congratulations.”
“Come on,” Mary said to Kecia. “You saw that coming.”
“I didn’t. Really,” she protested. “I swear. But I’m honored. I accept.”
From the depths of her purse, Tamika removed a familiar-looking brown lunch bag, neatly folded at the top, and placed it on the table. “Good. Because Mary and I worked hard on this. It’s your very own Lewis Cheerleading Captain’s Survival Kit.”
I laughed as Kecia jumped up from her chair and ran around the table to hug Tamika and Mary.
“Congratulations, Kecia,” Krupa said.
“What’s inside?” Kecia asked.
“Look for yourself,” Mary said. “That’s why we made it.”
Kecia pulled out a photograph of the team and studied it. She leaned toward me. “See, Rose,” she said, holding it out to me. “You are essential to my survival.”
I stared at the picture and saw myself standing high at the top of a pyramid. I felt a pang, remembering the commitment I’d made to go back to the football stadium. “We’ll see,” I said.
Kecia placed a hand on my arm. “Whenever you’re ready.”
That afternoon I made my decision. When I reached out to unlatch the gate, a wave of anxiety rushed through me and I hesitated—but then I opened the door and went inside the football stadium for the first time since last year. The sun was out and the cheerleaders were warming up on the track and I could almost feel what it was like to stretch out on cooler days, when the sun heated the surface so that it felt like a hot blanket against the back of my legs.
“Hey, Rose,” Kecia called when she noticed me in the front row of the stands. She ran over and stopped in front of my spot just below the riser.
“It’s a nice day for practice,” I said, approaching the railing.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you again about rejoining the squad, but I was wondering something.”
“Oh, no. What?” I could sense a dare coming.
“Do you think you can still do a fifty-yard dash?”
During my two years on the squad, I used to travel fifty yards down the length of track in front of the stands by doing backflips. It started at practice one day when a senior cheerleader asked me how far I could flip. I told her I had no idea, but to find out I turned around, stood at the
line for the fifty-yard dash, and backflipped my way to the finish. By the end, my teammates were whooping in appreciation. When I started doing it at games the crowd really got into it, and soon it became this thing. The fans would quiet down when they saw me walk to the starting place. Then they counted every last flip. Usually it took about thirty or so to make it the full fifty yards, and the crowd would get louder and louder as I neared the finish. I loved doing it and feeling my body flying down the track.
“Maybe another day,” I told her. “Besides, I have on tight jeans and boots—not good backflip wear.”
“I’ve got some clothes you can borrow,” she said. The rest of the squad had gathered to listen and was waiting to see what I’d do.
“I told you, I’m not—” I said, but Kecia interrupted.
“It’s not a commitment to come back. Just do it for fun.”
Mary walked over to us and held up a tank top and shorts. “Take it,” she said. “Come on.”
“Okay. Fine,” I agreed, and grabbed the stuff out of Mary’s hand, heading to the locker room to change and stretch. When I came out again I walked straight to the line. Before I could lose my nerve, I turned around, bounced up on my toes a bit, concentrating. I stretched both arms straight in front of me, ready to swing them over my head for the first flip, my eyes on my fingers—and then, I did it. I flung my body up and back, arching so that my hands landed just right, my legs whipping around so I could immediately throw myself into another one, and then another, and the next. The moment my feet hit the track the squad began to count, just like they used to, as I continued to flip, my momentum growing as I neared the finish, and until I landed the very last one—number twenty-nine. My face was red, my breath coming in pants, but I began to laugh. I’d forgotten how I could make my body long and limber and flexible, and how much fun this was.
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