Sway

by Amber McRee Turner

  For a few seconds, I saw my dad’s smile bust through his sadness. I, too, couldn’t help but be somewhat stunned by the exhibit before us. A monument. Of my dad and me. It was such a wonder of smoothness and color and detail, it made me feel prouder than anything concrete ever could. In fact, I would have been glad to stand there forever, marveling at the thing.

  “Hey,” Dad said, with a nudge to my side. “You got a pen I can borrow?” He had to say it twice to distract me from my stare.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ve got a Sharpie in The Roast.”

  “Run get it, if you would.”

  I almost didn’t want to leave, for fear of coming back and discovering I’d imagined the whole scene, but I was too curious to know what Dad was going to do with the marker.

  When I returned, Dad took the Sharpie and stepped up to the statue, giving it a good look up and down before uncapping the marker and adding a little something to the poster-board inscription. Right next to the M, he squeezed in the letters ake. After the B, he wrote elieve. Then he backed himself all the way to the spot next to me, keeping his gaze on the mini-monument the whole time. I just stood there with my mouth hanging open. What he’d just done had most certainly made me forget to breathe.

  “But, Dad…” I said. “What in the world? You mean you were Make Believe all along?”

  Dad nodded, slow and smug. “All along.”

  “Make Believe McClean?”

  “Make Believe McClean,” he said.

  “And those people knew it?”

  “Probably.”

  Dad’s peaceful smile lingered for a few seconds more, and then we made our way back to The Roast, thoughtful and silent. Both of us were totally awestruck by what we’d seen, and I was totally dumbstruck by what I’d read. Make Believe McClean, I said again and again in my head until it turned almost musical.

  “Now, let’s get out of here before we have to see ourselves melt,” Dad said, as he opened the door of The Roast and gave me a boost. But as bright and joyous as that part of our day had been, as soon as the monument and the park were out of sight, I could feel a gloomy grayness settle back down all around the RV once again. The farther we got from Nimble Creek, the more I wished we’d had the Belfusses’ Polaroid camera, so we could have kept a miniversion of the park scene with us the rest of the way home. That statue would have surely made a picture worth displaying on Dad’s visor shade.

  I ambled back to my room, wondering if Dad was missing Sway half as much as I was. In fact, while Dad navigated us out of Mississippi, I couldn’t much think of anything at all except for soap slivers. Worthless as they might have seemed last night, I found myself longing for them in an unmistakably noodle-worthy way.

  It doubled the mustiness in my little room when I pulled the curtain shut. Mr. and Mrs. Pizza’s freshening powers had been drowned right out of them, but I figured the smell of some Sharpies could overcome all of that. I pulled the black one from my pocket and gathered the rest of his friends. Then I tore the wet corners of the Eiffel Tower poster right off the thumbtacks to expose the whole canvas of blank tree before me. I thought about how Dad would probably want to paint the wall white again if he ever sold the RV, but that thought totally brought some of the grayness down around me too. So instead of doing more thinking, I began to noodle like crazy right there on the wall, hoping that maybe even under future layers of white paint, there would remain a permanent memory of the things that happened on this trip.

  At first I drew just a small oval sitting on a branch here and there. And then one per branch, and then two. And then even more, using every color I had. Before I knew it, I’d drawn at least a hundred soap slivers resting on the branches of that great big tree. And then I felt the need to decorate them. Not with swirlies. Not with paisleys. Not with hearts or sparks. But with letters. Among them were AJ for Aunt Jo, UC for Uncle Clay, S for Syd, C for Connie, another C for Celeste, A for Ambrette, POW for Ambrette’s husband, and even a TBN for Toodi Bleu Nordenhauer.

  I labeled a sliver for just about every person I could think of, getting so caught up in my noodling that I hardly noticed when an all-too-familiar buzzing came from below. Opening up the beauty box fast as I could, I found the phone vibrating its way across an otherwise empty compartment. The little screen showed me the same 239 number again, sending a squirt of fear from my head to my toes. Or maybe it was a squirt of courage, because this time I capped my marker and answered. If she was worthy of a sliver, then she was certainly worth talking to.

  “Hello?”

  “Cass?”

  Oh good, it’s Mom. Oh no, it’s Mom. Oh wow, it’s Mom.

  “Mom?”

  “How are you, baby?”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “I tried to call you back the other day, but no one answered,” she said.

  “I know. I was just kind of busy.”

  “So where in the world are you?” she asked. “What have you been up to?”

  There was such a pile of telling to do. I decided to start with the most immediate bits. “Mississippi, and noodling.”

  “Noodling an in-between?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Is it an in-between?”

  Mom left my question just hanging there in space.

  “Hey, I just got your postcard,” she said. “That fancy little soap smelled real nice. I’ve already used it up.”

  Little did Mom know what an honor she’d had to wash with Make Believe McClean’s next-to-last living soap sliver.

  “So what did that little M T on there stand for?” she said.

  “Nothing. It’s a secret.”

  And that’s when I swept all my scattering courage into a pile right in the middle of me. I took a deep breath. “Mom, I know all about what happened to you last year. I know about the man you couldn’t save. And I know you had to stop being a rescuer.”

  “Oh, Cass…”

  I could feel my throat tightening. “The thing is, I just don’t know why you had to stop being my mom.”

  Then Mom wasted half a refill minute trying to put together a sentence. I could tell she was headed in the direction of an apology, but not in the direction of Alabama.

  “Please don’t say that, baby. You must know, I never, ever meant for things to get this way,” she said. “It’s just that, sometimes when you mess up one thing and then another—well, you wake up one day and messing up just comes easy to you.”

  Mom’s voice got quieter and quieter, like our time might just poof away into noiselessness.

  “But you used to know how to clean up messes,” I said. “Right, Mom?”

  “Used to is right, Cass.”

  That’s when my own supply of words ran so low, I had to use some of Dad’s.

  “You shouldn’t let what you didn’t do ruin what you did,” I said.

  “Baby, I’m afraid I’ve ruined a lot of things,” she said. “But no matter what happens, Cass, you need to remember something, okay? You need to know that you’re already more of a hero than I’ll ever be.”

  Then Mom must have run out of words too. In her silence, I wondered how in the world somebody could make you so happy and so sad at the same time. And then I thought about what it really meant to be a hero. How maybe it’s not just about pulling people from rooftops or flipped-over cars. Or even about having certificates. Maybe even sometimes it’s about being the one who snags a ten-year-old’s favorite pajamas because you’re there to tuck her in every night with your calloused hands.

  “Cass.” Mom finally spoke. “I guess I better—”

  “But wait,” I said. “Mom?”

  “What, baby?”

  “When you used it…the soap, I mean…did you feel a zingle?”

  “A what?”

  “Never mind.”

  “So what’s this magic you called me about the other day?” she asked.

  I picked up one last piece of courage and dusted it off.

  “You know, Dad just might have some mercy left ove
r,” I said.

  “What do you mean by that, hon?” said Mom.

  “We’re supposed to be home tonight. Maybe you could call and ask him about the magic.”

  Mom paused so long, I felt nervous the refill minutes would expire right out from under us.

  “And if you—when you call—be sure and ask him about his statue too,” I said.

  “Okay, baby. Not tonight, but maybe sometime,” she said, in a way that told me it would indeed be some time before she realized she’d left two heroes behind.

  “Bye, Mom. I love you.”

  “I love you too, Cass.”

  With that, I dropped the phone to my side and backed myself up, standing as far from my noodling as I could. As I took in every inch of the soapy wonder that had been my week, something suddenly occurred to me: What if the things you always thought were just the in-between junk were actually the good things themselves? Maybe there wasn’t such a thing as an in-between at all. No in-between days, no in-between places, no in-between people. Maybe, just maybe, there was some Sway to be found in all of it.

  And then I did the best thing I knew to do with the strange concoction of sadness and hope brewing inside me. I prayed. I prayed for the people whose initials were on those slivers. Not just for those people, but for the cave people before them and the robot people after them. For real orphans. For all the people who have lost shoes in the road. For kids whose parents play war. For Toodi Bleu Skies and Toodi Bleu Nordenhauer, for M. B. McClean and Douglas Nordenhauer. And all the people who need to find the magic in Make Believe. That, I figured, just about covered the whole world.

  Just then, right about the same moment as my Amen, I felt Sway slosh over the edge of me, sending a tickle of an idea across my whole self.

  After a quick peek to make sure Dad was focused on the road and the road alone, I snuck the manicure kit from the rolltop desk drawer, grabbed my Toodi Bleu sliver from the pantry cabinet, and set them both on a smoothed-out work spot on my bed. The soap kept sticking to my damp cushion, so I had to find something dry to put under it. Turns out, an airbrushed tank top that’s been kept safe and dry inside a plastic beauty box makes a great cushion for the delicate job of restoring a soap sliver.

  I slid the nail file from the manicure kit and hovered it in the air for a moment, too scared to lower it, like one false poke would waste the last sliver to be found in all the soap mines in the world. But then I just held my breath and went for it, shaky at first, but then more steady-handed with each stroke. As I worked, I noticed that the minuscule soap scrapings that fell to the side looked like pink crumblets, reminding me of an eraser that’s done some forgiving.

  Once a lot of scraping and a little carving was complete, I crept out to swipe the encyclopedia volume marked QRS. I felt sure Dad would hear me bumping around, but he just plodded on, taking his eyes off the road only to glance at the map. Then I opened the book across my bed next to where the soap rested. Its pages were wavy and stuck together. So much so that I had to lick my pointer finger to help me flip through, leaving a flowery soapy taste on my tongue. By the time I’d lip-smacked the taste away, I’d found the listing I was after. I figured the book was ruined anyway, so I tore the whole page right out of there.

  I lifted the finished soap carefully with two fingers and placed it right in the middle of the torn-out page. Then I folded the paper around it again and again, concentrating so hard on wrapping the sliver securely without crushing it, I didn’t even notice that The Roast had come to a stop. Nor did I notice Dad standing right behind me with my curtain pulled open. I almost jumped out of my skin when he spoke.

  “Cass, I thought you’d maybe want a bite to—Wow, what have you been up to?”

  “It’s a surprise,” I said, hiding the bundle behind my back. Then I realized he wasn’t even looking at me or the torn book at all. He was staring at my wall.

  “Um, it’s my noodling,” I explained. “I’ve sort of been working on it the whole trip. See, it’s a big, reaching tree. A Castanea dentata tree. And it’s all full of soap slivers.”

  “I see that,” Dad said, standing for a minute in silence. I didn’t know whether he was just taking it all in, or brewing up a big mad.

  “I know it’s permanent and all, and I know people aren’t supposed to write on walls, but I thought it might be okay.”

  “I wouldn’t call it okay,” said Dad, sending a blast of yeeks right through me.

  “Oh, it’s better than okay,” he said.

  “Really?” I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.

  “Definitely. It’s far more beautiful than that old Eiffel Tower, and it’s just what this grungy RV has been missing,” he said. “Maybe you could expand it and fill the whole wall with it someday. Or who knows? Maybe even the whole Roast.”

  “You mean we’re not going to sell it?”

  “No way,” he said. “Not in a million years would I part with a Cassterpiece like this.”

  Cassterpiece. Hearing Dad say that word was like the noise a rainbow would make if a rainbow made noise.

  “But first,” he said, “let’s see how much pig meat twelve bucks will buy us.”

  Moments later, inside the Top Hat BBQ in Blount Springs, Alabama, Dad and I found ourselves sitting in a C-shaped booth that had a deer head looking out over it. I held tight to my little page-wrapped bundle until the food came. Then, while Dad raved on about my noodling between gnawing ribs, I stood crinkle fries on end in my slaw and waited for the right moment. When he ripped open a moist towelette and gave his hands a thorough wipe-down, I saw my opportunity.

  “Um, speaking of hand-washing,” I said, sliding the bundle to his side of the table.

  Dad had all sorts of confusion across his face.

  “Be careful when you unwrap it,” I said. “Delicate stuff inside there.”

  He flip-flip-flipped the package until the tiny soap plopped out onto the table.

  “The thing is,” I said, “I finally decided which sliver I want to use.”

  Dad took a close look at the soap.

  “See there…it’s an M B M,” I showed him. “For my partner in Sway-making.”

  Dad looked as stunned as if the deer head had spoken my words.

  “But not just that,” I said. “Look at the other side.”

  He rolled the soap over with one hand.

  “Is that a D N?” he said.

  “For Douglas Nordenhauer,” I said. “The cheese.”

  Dad fixed his eyes on that soap like the whole rest of the room blurred out around it.

  “But wait, there’s something else you need to see, too,” I told him, smoothing out the damp-edged encyclopedia page and pinning it down with the salt and pepper. The section highlighted in yellow Sharpie read:

  Soap is formed by mixing common oils with a strong alkaline solution. The most common form of bar soap is made by combining a measure of distilled water, olive oil, and lye.

  “What’s all this about?” said Dad.

  “Well, since I dumped out all the soaps,” I explained, “I just figured someday we might want to use those ingredients to make our own. I mean, in case a couple of nuts need a fresh batch of slivers, you know, for fun or something.”

  Dad smiled so crinkly, he got little twinkles in his eyes.

  “And, Dad, there’s just one last thing,” I said, tucking the sliver gently into my shorts pocket.

  “What’s that?” he said.

  “What I mainly wanted to say—” I stood another fry in my slaw. “What I mainly want to say is that I’m real sorry for making you worry.”

  “Oh come on, Cass, you know better than that,” Dad said. “You don’t have a lick of wrength in you.”

  “But I ran away, just like Mom did.”

  “True.” He nodded. “But you also came back.”

  “I didn’t even realize what I was running away from,” I said.

  “It takes some people longer than others to figure that out,” he sai
d. “All is forgiven, Cass.”

  Dad rose to his feet and dusted the salt from his legs.

  “All?” I said. “Even Mom?”

  “One step at a time, okay?” he said, reaching to offer me a hand as I slid out of the booth. Then it was on to the pay area, which was just beyond a long counter full of every kind of candy a person could want. Between the bubble gum and the peppermint sticks sat a no-neckedgallon milk jug that was half full of money, with a note taped to the side. The note simply said: For the Weston County tornado victims. Dad plinked our change into the jug and looked out the window at our exhausted RV, which was smoking more than a little from the tailpipe.

  “The Roast is done,” he said with a grin. “Let’s go home.”

  “Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!” Dad shouted, nearly taking out our mailbox as he bumped us into the driveway. I couldn’t decide if it felt like we’d been gone for ages, for a few days, or for maybe just long enough. All I knew was that seeing the familiar sites of Olyn, Alabama, through the eyes of a returning hero felt better than I had even hoped it would.

  We pulled to a stop in the middle of the driveway, between our house and Syd’s. It had been a few hours since lunch, and I suddenly found myself craving a potpie.

  “So what do you think?” Dad said. “Should I wear the top hat and glasses for everybody?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said, popping open the glove box and handing him the It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it ball cap. “How about just this for now?”

  I heard Syd’s screen door slam shut, so I pinched the little Castanea dentata seed burr out of the cup holder and scrambled to the back to grab my can it! box. Then, seed in hand and can in pocket, I slid down from my side of The Roast at the same time Dad slid down from his.

  “Lady and gentlemen of the Nordenhauer persuasion!” Dad called out as he made his way onto the little porch next door. I was about to circle around the rear of the RV to join him, when I was suddenly stopped in my tracks by a figure lunging at me from a hiding place underneath the bumper. Syd. Soon as I caught my breath and swallowed my heart back down, I realized how very much I had missed my cousin.