“Souvenirs,” I said.
“Ah yes.” He laughed. “Like Deerland.” He tugged down on his cap rim, hoisted up his overalls like they’d slid down from his hips. “I could take a couple souvenirs. I like a homemade thing. Plus I got this money just burning a hole right through my pocket. You know how it is.” He headed toward the front yard, climbed the steps up to our cabin porch. “Can’t break the bank, but I’m happy to help out.” He pulled a crumpled dollar from his pocket. “So your grandpa’s off in . . . ?”
I let the question float away unanswered. I wasn’t going to say where Old Finn was. I just stood there quiet while Thor dawdled through our things. He wasn’t in a hurry to get home. “Pot holders are nice,” he said. “You think that yarn will hold up to the heat?”
“I use them myself,” I said. “But what about a crochet cross you can slip into a book?”
“Not too much for reading, but the stitching sure is fine.” Thor picked up Nightingale’s sewing. “Someone here is handy.” He smiled. “That you, Kathleen?”
“No,” I said. “Night— I mean Elise does crafts. Mostly I just bake.”
“Ah yes, that chocolate cake. You ought to sell some slices at the Junk and Stuff. Cake and lemonade. Flea market days we could use a few refreshments.”
“I will,” I said. I hoped we’d last out here that long. “See a thing you like?” I said. Thor moved so slow shopping souvenirs, I was sure Nash would drive in any minute, with his form, and start in about Old Finn again. Where he was. How soon he’d be home. Finally, Thor settled on my God’s eye, a bookmark, and one of Baby’s painted rocks. He handed me the dollar, said to keep the change.
“Thanks.” I blushed. Thor’s dollar almost felt as wrong as Miss Addie’s JFKs. He’d already been too nice and all I’d given him was lies.
“Say,” Thor said before he walked down the last step. “You know that long-hair and his daughter who came here from Chicago?”
I knew right away he was talking about Nash. Nash and Sage. Long-hair was the Goodwell name for hippie. Nash’s hair wasn’t all that long, but Goodwell men kept their hair cut short.
“I think,” I said. There wasn’t any sense lying about that; Nash already said he’d mentioned us to Thor.
“Well, he sure has curiosity,” Thor said. “He’s got a lot of questions for a stranger. I’m not used to folks with so much interest in our lives.”
I could feel the blood burning in my cheeks.
“He certainly seems taken with this business you kids run. Just so you know, he was asking around town. Nosing some with Nellie.”
“He was?” I tried to look surprised.
“And I know your grandpa wants his privacy. So I thought he ought to know there’s a stranger sniffing where he shouldn’t.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll tell him.”
“Where’d you say he was?” Thor glanced back toward the barn like Old Finn might be hiding on the land.
I shoved Thor’s dollar into my pocket, pressed it up against Miss Addie’s silver coins. If we could make it to Duluth, Old Finn would have the answers. He’d tell me how to keep the family safe. How to steer clear of the county. Stay out of a shelter. What to do about the people Dr. Madden was sending to our house. I’d leave out the part about the magazine and how dumb I was to tell so much to Nash. And that mean woman and her husband; I could never tell Old Finn I’d let strangers on his land.
Thor made a little snort like he was thinking. “You know,” he said. “I let that long-hair and his daughter park out at my place, spend the night in that old hippie wreck he’s driving. Space is free, figured it was best to keep a stranger close, especially one that might be up to no good. And I got a feeling that long-hair is up to something here. If I were you, I wouldn’t make him welcome—friendly as he seems—not with your grandpa gone. You follow me, Kathleen?”
“I do,” I said.
“Not even for the money. You got enough today.” He nodded toward my pocket, rubbed his wrinkled hand over his big nose. “That dollar ought to do it?”
“It does,” I said. Thor’s dollar would get us to Duluth.
“Okay,” Thor said. “Keep that Closed sign on the tree. Take a break from strangers until your grandpa’s here to help.”
“I will,” I said.
“And maybe you can ask him to swing by my place to see me,” Thor said, pausing at the door of his old truck. He gave another glance up at our cabin, the curtains all pulled closed. “Today wouldn’t be too soon. I’d like to have a word.”
37
CLOSED
Thor’s old truck was long gone from our driveway before I had the nerve to give our secret knock. Row, row, row your boat. Nightingale barely let me in, and when she did, Baby was tucked behind her, scared.
“Someone came while you were at Miss Addie’s,” Nightingale said. “Knocking on our door.”
Baby held up his bow and arrow. “I was ready, Pride.”
“It was Thor,” I said. “He came to buy a piece of cake. Find out about our business.” I didn’t tell them that he asked about Old Finn or warned me about Nash. Thor’s warning would make Nightingale worry more. “And he bought some souvenirs. Now we have another dollar on top of what Miss Addie had to give.”
“So you took her JFKs?” Nightingale said sadly.
“Had to,” I said, even though Miss Addie’s money made me feel ashamed. “To get us to Old Finn.” I pulled the money from my pocket, let Nightingale take it; I was tired of every hard job in the family, every bad thing no one else would do. “Miss Addie didn’t mind,” I lied. I checked the latch to make certain it was locked.
“Did you tell her we were buying tickets to Duluth?” Nightingale asked.
“No!” I said. “Miss Addie can’t know that. She’d never let us take the Greyhound to Duluth.”
“But she needs to know we’re gone,” Nightingale argued. “She’ll be worried if she’s left alone all day. Especially morning until night. And she’ll be sleeping when we leave.” Our bus left at 7:20 and we wouldn’t get back to Goodwell until after eight o’clock at night.
“Okay,” I said. “You can leave a note outside her trailer, tape it to her door so she’ll see it when she lets out Lady Jane. Just tell her that we’re—” I stopped. I didn’t know where we’d go morning until night.
“At Paul Bunyan!” Baby said. “Remember when we did that with Old Finn? Paul Bunyan Land. And the statue talked. And I got my picture taken with the giant blue ox, Babe? And we left early in the morning, stayed gone for the whole day.”
“We can’t go to Paul Bunyan Land any more than we can go off to Duluth,” Nightingale said.
“Wait!” I smiled at Baby. I was grateful this new lie belonged to him. “We could go with Nash and Sage to help with their reporting. We could say that Nash and Sage took us in their bus.”
Nightingale wrinkled up her nose. “Nash already said he couldn’t write about Paul Bunyan; it’s why he was interested in us.”
“Miss Addie doesn’t know that,” I said. “So just say that in your note. Your cursive is the best so you should write it.” I wasn’t even sure how Bunyan would be spelled.
“I can’t lie to Miss Addie,” Nightingale objected.
“Then find your own true way,” I said, discouraged. “Just leave out the part about Duluth.”
• • •
That whole, long day I tried to keep things happy, because all of us felt sad from the trouble of the morning—that horrible woman, Miss Addie’s JFKs, Nash’s finding out our name was really Star. We passed the time playing Lincoln Logs with Baby, making fancy get-well cards for Old Finn, learning at the table while Nightingale taught Alaska out of Old Finn’s instructor copy of Your World. Eskimos and igloos, ice caps and caribou. After she’d read to us the last page of our lesson, I h
ad to look up five words in the dictionary, while Baby only had to draw a picture of a bear. I wished I hadn’t promised she could teach.
Every time we heard the grind of tires against gravel, we stopped what we were doing, snuck to Old Finn’s closet, and squashed inside like three sardines. Most cars spied our Closed sign, backed up, and drove away, but twice Nash came and pounded on the door. Called our names. Walked the grounds. Sat out on the porch jabbering with Sage while Woody Guthrie barked wild at the door.
“Why can’t I see Sage?” Baby whispered.
I touched his lips, gave him a soft hush. “Not now,” I said. He didn’t understand reporters or how Nash could turn us all into an onion or the sick shame that I’d feel seeing my worst lies in print. And I knew Nash wasn’t only waiting on his form; he wanted to be certain the three of us weren’t living here at Eden all alone. He’d said so to Miss Addie. Nash could call the county like anybody else, bring in the police, but I didn’t have the heart to threaten Baby with the shelter—not when that mean mother still sat heavy on his mind.
After the second time Nash left, I snuck out to the kitchen, filled Woody Guthrie’s dish, then made a stack of sugar sandwiches for supper. Even though I’d heard his engine fade away, I had a horrible feeling he’d be back any minute, knocking on our door, asking for Old Finn.
I sliced the last small apple in the crisper, rinsed two soft stalks of celery, set it all into a basket for a picnic on the floor.
“We have to eat in Old Finn’s closet?” Baby grumbled. “It stinks like Old Finn’s shoes.”
“It does!” I laughed. Shoes and dust and clothes left too long on hangers. “We can have our picnic on the floor beside his bed.”
The three of us sat cross-legged on the rag rug, eating our sandwiches and Kool-Aid in a circle, the way I had in kindergarten the one year Mama sent me off to school. We shoved bread into our mouths, split the strips of apple. The soggy celery sat there on the plate.
“I want to play with Sage,” Baby whimpered. “And I don’t want her to go without good-bye.”
Nightingale looked at me. Maybe Baby was thinking about Mama, how she disappeared one day without good-bye.
“She won’t,” I lied, so Baby wouldn’t be sad. We were never going to talk to Sage again. Nash either. “But right now, let’s make our morning plans.” Baby loved a plan. “The bus leaves at seven twenty, so we’ll need to leave here early, so early we might not see the sun. We can use Old Finn’s red flashlight for the road.”
“I get to hold it,” Baby said.
“Okay,” I said. I didn’t care who held it. “And we have to walk the whole way. Leave the horses here.”
“We’re walking into Goodwell?” Nightingale moaned. “It’s three miles just to Thor’s. Another mile on the highway into town.”
“We can’t leave the horses at the Junk and Stuff tomorrow,” I said. I wasn’t riding onto Thor’s land to tell more lies, and I couldn’t explain our horses left from dawn until dark. Besides, if we were lucky, he’d be asleep tomorrow morning when we passed. Or better yet, the day would be too dark to see us on the road. “We’ll drag Baby in a wagon, walk the whole way in.”
“Four miles?” Nightingale repeated. “We can’t pull Baby that far.”
“I will,” I said. “And he can walk some, too.”
“The whole way!” Baby said. “I don’t need the wagon.” Baby didn’t know the meaning of four miles.
“I’ll have it just in case,” I said. “Best to be prepared.”
38
NO ONE BUT OLD FINN
Before nightfall finally came—before Nightingale ran down to say good night to Miss Addie and left our morning note taped to her trailer, before the three of us took baths to look our best for our visit to St. Mary’s, before we’d settled in for the last of Justine’s letters—Nash and Sage had been back to our cabin three more times. They’d pounded on both doors, rapped against the windows, sat there on our porch, hoping we’d come home.
Now, even with the three of us tucked into Old Finn’s bed, and Woody Guthrie standing guard, I still had the sinking feeling Nash wasn’t gone for good. Thor either. Or that vicious, frumpy woman with her stinky cigarettes. I didn’t say the same to Nightingale and Baby, but somewhere in my heart I knew my time of keeping safe the Stars was almost done. Our only hope was waiting in Duluth. If Old Finn couldn’t come home this week or tell me what to do to save the family, we’d end up in the backseat of a sheriff’s car headed for a shelter or foster families just like Baby feared, the three of us somebody else’s children, orphans taken in by strangers who didn’t care about Old Finn, just the way no one cared that we lost Mama. We’d be an onion with all our layers gone.
“Before we even read,” Nightingale said, “I want to say our prayers.”
“All twenty-five again?” Baby said.
In all these days, I hadn’t even said ten good prayers for Old Finn.
“We can say them quiet inside ourselves,” Nightingale said. “Just be certain to keep count.”
I rolled over to my side, curved my back to Baby, pulled the covers to my chin, and closed my eyes.
Dear God, I said inside my mind. I didn’t bother with the counting. I just hope you’re really listening. I waited for a minute, but all I heard was Baby’s breath. Maybe I didn’t do too good of a job. Just thinking that made tears well in my eyes. I know I lied. I guess I lied a lot. But I’m not a liar really. Or I wasn’t. I hugged my knees up to my stomach. I didn’t want to be in charge of Nightingale and Baby anymore. I don’t know how to pray, I said. Or else my prayers can’t make a good thing happen.
I’d never get to twenty-five if I couldn’t finish with the first.
Please make Old Finn be well. So tomorrow when I see him, he can tell us what to do. Maybe come home with us on the bus. Old Finn would have the money for an extra ticket home. Money for our dinner if we asked.
“I don’t want to pray to twenty-five.” Baby yawned.
“Me either,” I said into my pillow. Trying to pray made my heart hurt worse. “Let’s just read the letters before we go to sleep.”
“You read,” Nightingale said. “I’m going to say my prayers.”
• • •
Nightingale let me read aloud while she was praying, so maybe she was listening instead of talking straight to God. The first letters after Mama’s death were mostly Justine saying she was sorry—Justine sorry about us and Mama gone and Old Finn raising three children on his own. The long days, the exhaustion. I could tell by Justine’s letters he’d told her about our chore chart in the kitchen, Nightingale’s gowns, how he’d cleared the frozen pond so we could skate and let us choose our Christmas tree. Justine even knew about the miles of paper chain we’d strung for decorations, the ornaments we’d baked from gingerbread, and how it was a thing we’d done with Mama every Christmas. They must cherish that tradition, Justine wrote.
Later she said she liked to picture Old Finn as a teacher with his pack of brand-new crayons, tablet of lined paper, the giant chalkboard he’d nailed to the wall. Justine’s letters were more about us living with Old Finn than how much she loved France.
“He told all this to Justine?” I said. “All the days that we were living?”
“Hmmm?” Nightingale sighed like she was praying.
“Haven’t you been listening?” I knew Baby was asleep, but I didn’t think Nightingale would want to miss Justine.
“Some,” she murmured, which really meant she was. Maybe even Nightingale couldn’t say twenty-five prayers.
• • •
It wasn’t until the letter that started out just Mick, instead of Justine’s normal Dear Mick, that the two of us found out what happened to their love. Why Justine went away. Why we’d never met her all this time.
March 24, 1973
Mick,
I understand how much time the children take, and it’s true, I’ve never had the practice. And you’re right; I’ve enjoyed my life alone. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t change. Or learn to be with children late in life.
But apparently you’ve made that choice for me.
What hurts me most is that you can’t see a place for me in this picture. I had hoped we’d still have our life together when I returned from France, that the two of us would share the burden of the children, the joys as well, at least for that first summer. I had hoped to live at Eden and offer all the help I could. Of course I can’t give up my teaching job just yet, but weekends I could visit from Duluth. I see now that arrangement isn’t what you want.
Maybe what you claim is true, maybe the four of you have to form a brand-new family, a thing that can’t involve me or anybody else. I know how hard you’ve worked to earn their trust and to create a tiny haven there at Eden, a place far from the world where the children will feel safe. Perhaps another person would be too much of a disruption, but I don’t believe I would have done them harm. I know I’m not a mother, but I could have been a friend to all the children. Nightingale and Pride will need a woman they can call on; in a year or two you’ll see that for yourself. I’m glad that Pride has found a home beside you in your woodshop, that the two of you have made your peace over carpentry and wood. And I have no doubt she’s as determined as you say—full of will and independence—with a bright mind of her own.
But Pride may not stay a tomboy through her teens, she may want more than your woodshop, and Nightingale might find there’s more to life than books. I was a girl; you’ll have your hands full, Mick.
• • •
“A tomboy?” I said to Nightingale. “Old Finn said I was a tomboy?” He’d never ever said that word to me. And Justine was right—I didn’t really want to be a tomboy anymore.
Keeping Safe the Stars (9781101591215) Page 13
