Dream With Little Angels

by Michael Hiebert

  “Yup,” I said.

  “What’s going on?” Uncle Henry asked her.

  “It’s a long story,” my mother said.

  “Yeah, that’s the part I’ve heard so far,” he replied.

  “Trust me,” my mother said, “it’s really enough. The rest ain’t so interestin’. What is interestin’ though, is that the initial forensic reports on Mary Ann Dailey came back this morning.”

  “Oh, is that what took you so long?” Uncle Henry asked.

  “Yeah, we had to make a pit stop at the station,” my mother said.

  Just then Dewey came out of the washroom with a look of utter relief and contentment smattered across his face.

  “Better?” my mother asked.

  Dewey nodded.

  “Your mama’s been callin’ for you ever since Leah left to pick you boys up,” Uncle Henry told him. “She’s called three times so far. I think you better be gettin’ home.”

  Dewey’s eyes widened. “Did she sound mad?”

  Uncle Henry shrugged. “I don’t rightly know, but three calls in an hour and a half would generally indicate to me she isn’t exactly happy.”

  Dewey looked at me. “I think I’m in for it.”

  “Then get goin’,” my mother said. “Your bike’s just outside in the driveway.”

  In his marathon run to the washroom, Dewey hadn’t even bothered taking his shoes off or nothing. “Okay,” he said. “Bye, Abe. Bye, Miss Teal. Bye, Uncle Henry.”

  We all said bye as he ran out the door, slamming it shut behind him.

  “I think he’s in for it,” I said to my mom after a few seconds.

  “Oh, he’ll be fine. I bet his mom’s not even sure she knows exactly what to be mad ’bout. Most likely, she’s really only mad cuz I was, and that makes her think that bein’ mad’s the right thing to do.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Shaking her head, my mother said, “To be honest, Abe, I don’t, either. But you know? At least Dewey was honest. I have to give him that. And he was willin’ to back it up and admit it when I called him on it.”

  “Mom,” I said, “you called him stupid.”

  She let out a deep breath. “Yeah,” she said, “I probably shouldn’ta done that. Dewey is Dewey. He’s got a good heart. He’ll get along fine in life. Everybody’s different, and sometimes even I forget that. Different doesn’t matter. This is the thing you need to learn about what color people are and where they come from, Abe. What matters is how good your heart is. There’s never, ever nothin’ wrong with being too honest, so please forget what I said to him earlier. I’ll make a point of tellin’ Dewey the same thing next time I see him.”

  I didn’t reply, but something about what she just said struck a chord somewhere inside of me.

  Then the smell hit. I hadn’t noticed it until now, but Uncle Henry had the coffee on and I was willing to bet the smell of crackling bacon would soon be following. “You makin’ eggs?” I asked him.

  Uncle Henry smiled. “Figured if I waited long enough, you’d show up hungry.”

  “Where’s Caroline?” my mother asked.

  “Where do you think?” Uncle Henry asked back. “It’s not even ten. She’s still sound asleep.” We followed him into the kitchen, where he started pulling out pans and took the eggs and bacon from the refrigerator. My mother opened the bread box and pulled out a loaf of white bread, setting it beside the toaster.

  I turned one of the kitchen chairs around so it faced toward them instead of the table. Our kitchen chairs were white with small yellow daisies, much too light for the dark brown table they surrounded, my mother always said. For as long as I could remember, she wanted to replace that table. She had an ongoing dream to replace nearly all the furniture in our house one day. I took a seat. “Mom, can I talk to you about Mr. Robert Lee Garner?” I asked.

  She sighed. “What?”

  “Well, I have some questions,” I said.

  “Actually, I’d like to hear how some of this morning went, too,” Uncle Henry said as the first strips of bacon hit the pan with a loud pop. Almost instantly the two smells, coffee and bacon, intertwined and, along with the bright morning light beaming in through the small window over the sink, it suddenly felt exactly the way a Saturday was supposed to.

  “Oh, Hank, don’t you start,” my mother said.

  “Leah, there ain’t no big secrets no more,” Uncle Henry said. “Least none that I can tell. You’ve started lettin’ other people into this whole mess, and that’s a good thing. Surely even you must’ve noticed the changes in yourself. I know me and the little soldier here sure have.”

  That caught me by surprise, but as soon as he said it, I realized Uncle Henry was right. My mother had been gettin’ less anxious lately, even though by all indications, the case was worse off than ever. I hadn’t noticed though, so I doubted if maybe my mother had, either.

  “You don’t feel like part of the burden’s been lifted from your back?” he asked her.

  Placing both palms on the countertop, she looked down and thought a minute. “I don’t know what I feel, Hank. I think maybe I’m just exhausted. Maybe I’m starting to wear out. Maybe I’m starting to just not care anymore.”

  Uncle Henry came over and turned her around. “No, honey, that ain’t it at all. You’re just too close to it all to see it. You’re going through a transition and I really can’t wait to see what comes out the other end. I think it’s gonna be a thing of beauty. Anyway, tell me about the forensics report.”

  “No big surprises. Lots of evidence backing up what we already know. Everything still points to Bob Garner. We just need to sort out the details of exactly how he did it, and hope we do it fast enough to save Tiffany Michelle Yates, if she’s still in need of savin’.” She cast me a look, as though she wished she hadn’t said that last part, and part of me wished she hadn’t, either. It was funny how Mary Ann Dailey and Tiffany Michelle were different in my head. I think it was because me and Dewey were the last people to see Tiffany Michelle, and I couldn’t stop picturing how pretty she looked in that dress with that ribbon in her hair and how happy she was to have that big pink ice cream cone. Like I said before, I had been thinking a lot about how maybe we could have saved her, or maybe it could have been us instead of her. Mary Ann Dailey wasn’t like that at all. When Officer Jackson showed me her lying in the dirt beneath that tree, that had been the first time I had seen her in near on two years.

  Uncle Henry frowned. “I still don’t believe he did it.”

  “Well, believe it, Hank. Evidence doesn’t lie.”

  “You can say that, Leah,” he said, looking her square in the face, “but it still won’t change my mind. I know the man. He knew your pa. He didn’t do it.”

  Tears came to my mother’s eyes. “Hank, stop it! What do you want from me? It’s not even me saying he did. It’s these experts they got from Mobile. They got computers and all sorts of tests they run. They know he’s guilty.”

  “And I know he’s not. And I don’t even need a computer or tests. Anyway, my bacon’s about to burn.”

  “Mom?” I asked.

  “What?” she asked back, distractedly.

  “Can I ask you a few things about Mr. Garner?”

  She heaved a big sigh. “Okay, Abe. Let me just grab a cup of coffee and we’ll go sit in the living room, all right?” I watched her pour a mug and then she did something she never had before. She turned to me and asked, “Would you like one, too?”

  I hesitated, unsure of what she meant. “Coffee?”

  “Yeah. I think you’re old enough for the odd cup.”

  Even Uncle Henry paused at the stove where he was putting the fried strips of bacon on a piece of white bread to sop up the extra grease and looked back to see my reaction.

  “Okay,” I said after a bit of thought.

  She poured me my own mug and put in two spoons of sugar and a splash of cream. After she handed it to me, I carefully followed her to the living room, trying n
ot to spill while also attempting to carry the mug by only its handle, because the edge of the cup was too hot to touch.

  We both sat on the sofa and set our mugs on the coffee table in front of us. Uncle Henry’s blankets were neatly folded with his pillow on top at one end. I sat at the other. The drapes were now pulled open and the day shone brightly through the window, filling the room with light. I could hear Uncle Henry starting a new pan of bacon in the kitchen. The eggs would soon be following.

  “Do you know why I brought you to the station with me today?” she asked.

  I had just figured it was because we were already out and it was convenient, but obviously there was another reason so I said, “I guess not.”

  “Because I decided a while back that I can’t shield you from the world anymore, Abe. I know you’re only eleven, but Mary Ann Dailey was only fourteen and look what happened to her. Maybe if she had been better prepared for the way the world really was, things might not have turned out the way they did. That’s why I finally agreed to let you come to Bob Garner’s ranch and see her body when you asked to. Not because you were a witness, although that does help a bit, but mainly because you seemed to want to come so badly, and I couldn’t figure out why. Do you know why?”

  I thought about this a long while, watching the steam rise from my red mug still on the table in front of me. My mother sat beside me sipping from hers. “I actually don’t know,” I said finally. “But something inside me really did want to come. I felt almost like I had to come. It still doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  From the kitchen, pots clanged as the bacon sizzled.

  “If I had to guess,” my mother said, “I’d say your subconscious knows you’re growin’ up and is tryin’ its best to do so with whatever tools it has available. Now, you’re in a special situation on account of having a police officer for a mother. I’m sure, despite all my efforts to be careful about not doing it, you’ve heard many things throughout your childhood most children don’t even have a clue about until they’re in their midteens. You probably didn’t always understand it all, but it got stored away inside your head, and as you got older, the pieces slowly came together one way or another. I think because of that, you have a much different view of the world than most kids your age. I’m not sure that’s a good thing or not. In fact, it’s most likely not, but it would be stupid of me to just pretend it wasn’t true, because avoiding issues is nearly always a bad thing to do. At least by my experience.”

  “You mean like the way you don’t like talkin’ ’bout Grandma and Grandpa?” I asked. “Or my father?”

  My mother winced at this. I saw her hand reach for the Virgin Mother dangling from the silver chain around her neck the way she always did when she thought about Grandma and Grandpa, only this time she caught herself and set her hand back in her lap. Her other hand put her mug back on the table. “See?” she replied. “You’ve just turned my own argument against me in a way I cannot possibly defend. That is not something an average eleven-year-old boy would ever think of doin’, or even have the ability to. Take Dewey, for example.”

  “I don’t think Dewey’s average,” I said.

  “Oh, you’d be surprised,” she said. “But Dewey don’t think like you. And I’m willing to bet there are parts of what you saw that day out at Holly Berry Ranch regarding Mary Ann Dailey that you purposely didn’t tell him. Am I correct?”

  Slowly, I nodded. “Parts,” I said.

  “How come?”

  “Because there was stuff he just didn’t need to know about. Why tell him things that are just gonna scare him?”

  “But they didn’t scare you so much, did they?” she asked. “I mean, they probably upset you—and I would be worried if they didn’t—but you’ve slowly learned, simply by virtue of living under the same roof as me and really having no other full-time role model, that the world isn’t always a nice place. You don’t expect it to be. Dewey still does. If it rained gumdrops tomorrow, Dewey’d be outside with his mouth open, tryin’ to catch every one he possibly could. Whereas you—”

  “Whereas I’d be wonderin’ why there was gumdrops fallin’ from the sky, and since there were, it would seem mighty suspicious, and my first thought would be that they might possibly be poisonous.”

  Both my mother’s eyebrows went up. “Wow. You’re even further along on this than I thought,” she said. “I hope to God I haven’t messed you up, Abe. Aren’t you going to try your coffee?”

  I had forgotten about it completely. Now I gently lifted it to my mouth, smelling that delicious aroma before taking my first sip. It tasted exactly like it smelled, although as a taste, it wasn’t quite as fulfilling as an aroma, but still it wasn’t bad. And I felt very grown up drinking it. I set my mug back down on the table and said, “It’s good. I think I like coffee.”

  “You just don’t drink too much of it, okay? How ’bout we keep it special for Saturdays for now?”

  “Okay,” I agreed. “What did you mean about messing me up?”

  My mother shuffled uncomfortably on her cushion. “You’ve grown up so fast. In some ways, I think you’re older than your sister. You’re far more cynical, that’s for sure. I just . . . sometimes I think I robbed you out of experiencing all the fairytale parts of life. You seem to have a better handle on the horrible parts.”

  I had no idea what cynical meant, but didn’t bother asking. “I don’t think life is horrible. I mean, some parts are. I think it’s just confusin’ at times. Like tryin’ to figure out what sort of comments are racist and what ones aren’t.”

  “I’ve noticed you seem to be gettin’ better at that,” she said. “I suppose my biggest worry is that you could fall one of two ways. Growing up the way you have could make you more wary and keep you safer, or it could make you . . .” She trailed off.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “No, what?”

  “Well, sometimes when you grow up differently than other people, you can have strange thoughts that cause you to behave in ways you don’t understand or even mean. Like, say you started stealin’ from Mr. Harrison’s five and dime.”

  “I ain’t never stole a thing in my life!” I said, finding that a mite insulting.

  She patted my leg. “I know, honey, I’m just using that as an example. Anyway, I think we’ve gone off on a trail we shouldn’t have. I was more talking to myself with that last part. Anyway, you had some questions about Mr. Garner?”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but just as I was about to, Uncle Henry called from the kitchen. “Breakfast is pretty near done, guys!”

  My mother smiled. “Is it okay if we talk more later? I’m starving.”

  “Sure,” I said. After everything she’d just told me, I was actually relieved. I needed to do some thinking before I said what I was going to say.

  My mother stood, finishing her coffee. “Actually, how about you stay in here a few more minutes,” she said. “Finish up your coffee while I go help Hank finish up breakfast. We’ll call you when it’s ready. Shouldn’t be long.”

  “Okay,” I said. I only said it because I could tell she wanted to talk with Uncle Henry alone.

  “You think that was a smart conversation to have?” he asked her. His voice was flat and I couldn’t tell what his opinion on the matter was.

  “I don’t know,” my mother answered. “But it’s one I felt needed havin’. You think it was a mistake, right?”

  There was a pause before he answered. “They’re your children. You raise them as you see fit. Some of it I think was good. Some of it started gettin’ into dangerous territory. But I’m sure you know what you’re doin’.”

  “Thank you. Now I’m gonna go tell my boy his breakfast is ready while you go down the hall and brave the danger of wakin’ his sister up and draggin’ her lazy ass out to this table.”

  “This is revenge for me questioning your little conversation with Abe, isn’t it?”

  “No,” my mother said, “this is
actually my survival skills training kicking in. The best altercation is one you avoid altogether.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Breakfast turned out as delicious as it always did on Saturday mornings. Even Carry didn’t seem to be in the moldy, rotted-up mood she had been stuck in going on four months now. I figured my mother had completely forgotten about my request to ask some questions about Mr. Garner, but I turned out to be wrong. She surprised me as we were just finishing cleaning up from the meal by saying, “Hank? Any chance you could take Carry into town? I think she could use a new set of clothes for school, and I know there’s some things Abe wants to discuss with me.”

  Uncle Henry and Carry seemed equally surprised. A wide smile spread across my sister’s lips. “What about my groundin’?”

  “I told you already,” my mother said. “Groundin’ means you do what I say. Christ, if I had to put up with you at home twenty-four hours a day that would be more like grounding myself.”

  Carry frowned. “I ain’t got no money.”

  Fishing twenty dollars from her purse, my mother handed it to Carry, then looked at Hank. “Do you mind? If you have any other plans at all, I completely understand.”

  Uncle Hank put on his cap. “I would love nothing better than to take my little sugarplum out shopping.”

  “Thank you,” my mother said. “Now, that money’s for clothes, and clothes only. And, Hank? Make sure they’re practical. The sort of thing that might attract fourteen-year-old boys, not nineteen-year-old ones, you got me?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said, saluting her.

  My mother and I finished washing and drying dishes while Uncle Henry and Carry got ready before heading outside to where Uncle Henry’s supposedly stolen car sat parked in front of our house.

  “There, all done,” my mother said, folding her dishtowel and hanging it over the handle of the stove. “You ready for another coffee?”

  “Sure,” I said slowly, wondering if this was some sort of test. “Am I gonna stop growing, though?”