Keeping Safe the Stars (9781101591215)

by O'Connor, Sheila

  “Oh yeah,” Nash said. “Those cookies. I put those in my story. And Nightingale’s crafts. And Baby’s painted rocks. The animal tattoos. Pride’s God’s eyes. All of it was in there.”

  I thought about our pictures, how I’d imagined people seeing us standing next to Scout. Or petting Woody Guthrie. Baby with his arm around Sage’s little shoulder. Our family almost famous somewhere in Chicago. Wishing to be famous made me feel ashamed.

  “We’ll be in a magazine!” Baby shined Justine his toothless grin. “And everyone will read about the Stars!”

  “I don’t know.” Nash shook his head. He looked at me. “It’d be a different story from the first one that I started. I could write it, but I understand from Thor their grandpa is a very private man. I’d still need his consent to use the pictures.”

  “Yes.” Justine stared at the candle. “A very private man. A man who only wants to be alone. He’d never want to see that story written.”

  “Never,” Nightingale agreed. “And he wouldn’t give his permission. Old Finn doesn’t trust the world.”

  “No.” Justine sighed like she was sad. She scratched a scab of dried wax from the bottle, broke it into crumbs across her plate. “He certainly does not.”

  “So there you have it.” Nash drank down his final sip of wine. “If someone writes this story, it’s not going to be me.” He reached over and pulled Sage to his lap.

  “Oh no!” Baby moaned. “You mean it isn’t going to happen after all?” He slapped his hand against his head. No wonder he was always getting hurt. “We won’t be in a magazine?”

  “Not on my beat,” Nash said. “But someday you just might.”

  • • •

  Justine really did serve bread and chocolate for dessert. Hot crusty bread she warmed up in her oven, and a heavy bar of bitter chocolate she broke into little pieces and set out on a plate. She poured the grown-ups tiny china cups of thick black coffee and served the kids pink lemonade in the exact same fancy cups.

  Sage and Baby chased in the backyard, but Nightingale and I were too worn out to move. We swayed together on a little canvas bench swing, a glider, Justine called it, listening to Nash’s story of how he tracked us to Duluth.

  “Well, after all that knocking,” he said, “I finally went to Thor and told him the whole tale. Came clean about being a reporter. And we put our heads together, we both had a hunch there was trouble at the house. So he went back there with me early in the morning.” Thor’s eyes were closed, little snores were sneaking from his lips. He must have been as worn out as us. He wasn’t as ancient as Miss Addie, but I knew he was too old to chase three kids to Duluth. “When we couldn’t get an answer at the cabin, we walked down to Miss Addie’s, and Nightingale’s note was right there on the door.”

  “You wrote that on your note?” I said to Nightingale. “You wrote Miss Addie we went off to Duluth? On the Greyhound bus alone?”

  “I did.” Nightingale pulled her bare feet up on the swing, wrapped her hands around her little toes, let her braids brush over her arms. Nightingale never budged in her beliefs; I should have known she wouldn’t lie to Miss Addie. “I told the truth, Pride. It’s what Old Finn would want.”

  53

  LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE

  Of course you told the truth.” Justine stood and cleared a round of dishes from the table. “You kids are just like Mick. He couldn’t tell a lie to save his soul.”

  Nash glanced at me, but I just looked away.

  Nightingale told the truth and now everyone seemed happy. Justine fed us warm bread and French spaghetti in her fancy flowered house, with her fancy fragile dishes, and Nash wasn’t going to print our story after all. Or tell Justine my lies. So maybe truth was better, maybe I should have told it all from the beginning that first day at St. John’s when Bernice asked where Mama was. Or when Thor wondered why we had to walk for groceries. But if I had, we’d be locked up at some shelter, scared and trapped and brokenhearted the way we were when Mama died, far away from family, forced to follow all the rules, line up every morning for a lice check, and Old Finn would be alone here in Duluth, without a soul to see that he got well. At least Justine could do that now.

  “We ought to get back to the cabin,” I said. I dragged my feet along the grass to slow the glider to a stop. Even after telling all this truth, Justine still hadn’t offered us her help or said she’d give us money or keep us from the shelter or step in as our grown-up when she knew Old Finn was gone. Our bus was leaving at six thirty, Miss Addie and Woody Guthrie would be waiting, and I felt best at Eden on our own. The three of us in charge. Self-reliant. Independent. Justine’s fancy French food had given me some strength. Old Finn was right; we couldn’t count on someone else to save us. In the end, folks had to save themselves.

  Thor lifted up his tired head and looked at Nash. “I don’t know,” Thor said.

  Justine stepped back on the porch and leaned against the doorway. She wrapped a crocheted shawl over her shoulders; it looked like a thing Miss Addie could’ve made. “Go back to the cabin?” she said. “All alone? Tonight?”

  “Old Finn would never want us in a shelter,” I said as grown-up as I could. “Even more than he wouldn’t want us in that magazine. Never. Ever.” I made those last two words sound serious and finished, like there was nothing further to discuss. End of argument, the way Mama used to say. “He’d want us out at Eden until he came home well.”

  “But—” Justine began.

  “Our bus leaves at six thirty,” I said. “And I still got the tickets in my pocket.” We’d worked hard to get those tickets, spent Miss Addie’s JFK. I didn’t want to waste them by going back in Thor’s old truck. And Baby’s wagon was outside the Lucky Strike.

  “Not that bus,” Thor said.

  “Oh no,” Justine agreed. “You can’t go on that bus.”

  “Folks,” Nash said politely. He stood up from the table like he was about to make a speech. “I’m not just a reporter who came upon these three amazing kids and thought I’d found a story, I’m also Sage’s father. And as a father, I know a couple things for sure. These kids can’t be left at Eden all alone. I can’t drive away from Minnesota without knowing someone has stepped in to make this situation right. The proper people should be notified. Regardless of what their grandpa wants. Come September, these kids should be in school. And living in a home with proper supervision. Miss Addie can’t do that.”

  “School?” I looked at Nightingale. Nightingale couldn’t go to school in her bare feet and her gowns; she’d be dressed like everybody else, and I’d be sitting in a dull desk every day.

  “Notified? You mean call in the county?” Nightingale glared at Nash.

  “I don’t know about the county,” Nash said like he was sorry. “But as resourceful as you are, you can’t live at that cabin all alone.”

  “You can’t,” Thor said. He cleared his throat, put his fist against his mouth like he was fighting back a cough. “I’m going to keep you children at my place.”

  “The Junk and Stuff?” I said. I was glad Baby was too busy playing to hear this horrible talk. School and proper people and us living in the run-down Junk & Stuff, right there on the highway with all that traffic rushing by.

  “But I can’t teach them school,” Thor said shyly. “Didn’t go beyond eighth grade myself. I’m no genius like their grandpa. But come September, I’ll take them with me on the school bus. Drop them off at Goodwell school with everybody else. When their grandpa’s back in the saddle, he can do the studies like he wants.”

  “Well, that’s generous,” Nash said. It probably was, but somehow it didn’t sound generous to me. It sounded like pure torture. “But even so, I think someone should be called. I don’t know if a man alone can take someone else’s children.”

  “Yes,” Justine said. “That was Mick’s great worry. A man alone. He
didn’t think the courts would ever let him have them. He isn’t going to want to lose them now.”

  “We’re fine there with Miss Addie,” I insisted. “Nightingale does our studies. She’s smart just like Old Finn. We’ll call Thor if we run into trouble. The only thing we need . . .” I knew Old Finn wouldn’t want me asking anyone for money, for help of any kind, but still we had to have it. “The only thing we really need is food. Not a lot. And maybe someone to help us make sense of the bills. And that license and insurance. Or else we’ll stop the pony rides and just sell the souvenirs. And if the teacher from the county comes or those folks from social-something or the sheriff, Thor can be our grown-up so we’re not living there alone. And Justine can help Old Finn heal at St. Mary’s. And we’ll come back on the bus the minute that we can.”

  “Well, there you have it.” Thor laughed like he thought my plan was funny. It wasn’t funny; all of it would work. “You got the stubborn Irish. These kids might as well be Michael Finnegan himself.”

  Justine laughed, too. “I was thinking the same thing. No wonder Mick didn’t send you off to school. He’s got another generation of freethinkers—three fellow nonconformists—on his hands.”

  “Nonconformists?” I asked Nightingale.

  “Like Thoreau,” she said. “Or Old Finn off in Eden. People who won’t follow. People who don’t live like everybody else.”

  “Don’t or won’t,” Justine added.

  “You kids read Thoreau?” Nash said, amazed.

  “Not me,” I said. “But Nightingale reads it with Old Finn. So she can teach us school, and we’ll stay alone at Eden with Miss Addie, just the way that Old Finn said he wanted when he left us for St. John’s.”

  54

  LOVED

  I don’t think we can be sure he wants that now,” Justine said straight to me. “I know he wanted to keep you out of school, raise you by himself.” She said that last part sadly like she was just remembering how Old Finn said she couldn’t be in our lives. “But all of his ambitions can’t quite happen now. Other people have to enter your small world. Perhaps we ought to talk to Mick.”

  “But I know what he wants,” I said. “He wants us independent.” I wasn’t sure Old Finn could print out a word that big or say it when he couldn’t spit out Justine.

  “Of course,” Justine said. “But there’s lots of ways of being independent.”

  I reached into my pocket, felt our tickets; I was ready to take off for that bus.

  “How’s this?” Justine suggested. She sat down at the table, swept a trace of bread crumbs to the floor, and then rubbed her thumbs together like she had some notion on her mind. “Tomorrow Mick and I will have a conversation. Best as we can, and he can tell me what he thinks. What he believes would be the best. In the meantime, everybody stays here for the night. Nash and Sage, you’re welcome if you’d like. I can’t very well take Sage away from Baxter. I mean Baby.” Justine smiled.

  “I don’t know,” Thor said. I couldn’t picture Thor in his faded overalls and seed cap spending the night in Justine’s fancy house. He’d have to cover her clean pillow with that red bandana full of sweat.

  “But what about Miss Addie?” Nightingale said.

  “She has to have her pills,” I said. “And Woody Guthrie needs his breakfast.” Last night, I’d hosed the trough full of fresh water, but still the horses couldn’t be left alone for long.

  “You may phone Miss Addie,” Justine said. “Remind her of her pills. Let her know you’re safe and sound here in Duluth. I’m sure she has some scraps she can feed to Woody Guthrie. Or a can of Lady Jane’s food. If my memory serves me right, that dog would eat a tree if he were hungry. He’ll make it through one night. And when you’re finished speaking, I’d like to speak to her as well.”

  “Well . . .” Nash laughed. “I admit I could use a shower. And Sage is a good week past a bath.” Clean clothes, too, I thought, but I didn’t say it. “And we’d both love a bed. Plus tonight Nixon’s due to announce his resignation. After five long, horrible years of Nixon, I don’t want to miss that on TV. If we left now, we’d still be in the van.”

  “Nixon’s resignation!” Justine threw her arms up in the air. “I’d almost forgotten! I hope your grandpa gets to see it; he’s wanted Nixon gone from the beginning.”

  “Maybe we could all go in.” Another visit to St. Mary’s would give me one more chance to see Old Finn before we left. To tell him that I loved him. “Maybe they’d let us watch it with him at St. Mary’s. Henri said we could come back after supper.”

  “And there’s a TV in the lounge,” Nightingale said.

  “Yes!” Justine clapped her hands. “That’s absolutely brilliant! We’ll watch it at St. Mary’s. You kids,” she said with a smile. “You’re really something else.”

  • • •

  After I got done giving medicine directions to Miss Addie and making sure she’d feed Woody Guthrie her bologna, Justine phoned St. Mary’s, got permission to watch the resignation with Old Finn. When seven thirty came, Baby, Nightingale, and I climbed into Justine’s Beetle, while Thor and Nash and Sage rode in Thor’s old truck. Justine promised Old Finn’s nurse we wouldn’t stay beyond eight thirty, because the president was speaking at exactly eight o’clock.

  It wasn’t any easier to see Old Finn slumped sideways in his chair, but this time I was certain I saw a glint of joy in his green eyes. Maybe it was Nixon’s resignation or Justine snuggled close beside him or Nightingale holding on to his hand or Baby’s arms wrapped around his neck or Thor’s hand on his shoulder, but Old Finn definitely looked happy we were here. All of us together. Even Nash and Sage, who sat off to the side.

  I turned up the TV, sat down on the floor at Old Finn’s feet, laid my head against his leg the way I sometimes did at home when he was reading Treasure Island and Woody Guthrie’s head was in my lap. Only here his cotton patient pants smelled like chlorine bleach—I’d be glad when Old Finn smelled like wood again.

  “Is that Nixon?” Baby blurted just as the show got started.

  Old Finn gave a nod, reached up, and patted Baby’s hand.

  “Good evening,” Nixon started. I stared at the TV. He didn’t look like a liar or a criminal or someone who ought to be in prison, like Old Finn had insisted. He looked just like a man. “This is the thirty-seventh time I’ve spoken to you from this office . . . ,” he said. Thirty-seven times and I’d only heard him once? Then he talked about decisions and the nation and public life, but the first I understood was when he said, “I have always tried to do what was best for the nation,” because it made me think about the lies I’d told to try to help my family. I’d say the same: I tried to do the best.

  While we all sat there watching, other people wandered into the lounge. Workers from the hospital in uniforms and late visitors who’d just left patients’ rooms. People gathered, but no one said a word. Everyone just listened. Bernice was right, this moment was historic, if that meant everything came to a sudden stop.

  “I have never been a quitter,” Nixon said, and part of me felt sorry that he had to give up now, even if he was a liar and a cheat. Maybe because I didn’t want to quit myself. Not tonight or ever. And it seemed sad to have so many people hate you, to say bad things about you, and then to have to face them on TV. But maybe being on TV was easier than sitting in a room with the people you had lied to, knowing all the secrets and mistakes you kept hidden in your heart. Maybe it was easier than facing Thor and Nash. Or fearing what Justine would think if she knew I’d read her letters. Or how Old Finn would feel if he found out I took them from his drawer. Or let those strangers come to Eden. Or nearly ruined our family privacy in some travel magazine.

  I couldn’t follow most of Nixon’s resignation, and I’m sure Baby barely understood a word he said. Maybe Nightingale cared about Congress, China and the Middle East, and Roosevelt, who said so
mething about dust and sweat and blood, but I sure didn’t. I only cared that I was right there with my family, that Old Finn’s infection was optimistic, which meant they were hoping for the good, and that tomorrow he’d tell Justine to send us home to Eden. He’d write it on his clipboard, or slowly get the words out of his mouth. E-d-, he’d write, and that would be enough.

  I was so busy thinking of our future, I didn’t know Nixon’s speech was done until a couple people started clapping, and one or two gave a little cheer. But some folks stood there silent like they weren’t glad to have him gone. Finally, a young nun in the corner stepped forward, put her palms together in a prayer just the way that Baby had at supper, closed her eyes, and whispered, “May God forgive us all. Not only Richard Nixon.”

  And Old Finn moaned, “Amen.”

  Then I felt Old Finn’s hand rest against my head, the way he sometimes did when he was reading or how he had that first time he came to see us at the shelter. The time he put his hands down on my head and said I might as well be Mama. Mama at my age. I remembered how he promised us he’d take us back to Eden, raise us as his own, keep us as a family the way that we belonged.

  I reached up and laid my hand down over his. It was just as thick from hard work as it was before the fever. I didn’t turn out to be half as good as Mama or as truthful as Old Finn, but I wasn’t quite as bad as Richard Nixon either.

  “I love you, Old Finn,” I said and gave his hand a squeeze.

  “You,” he said, and I knew what he was saying. With just one word, Old Finn was trying to tell me I was loved.

  55

  THE ONE TO WATCH

  YOU NOW

  When I woke up the next morning, Justine was already at St. Mary’s, Sage and Baby were outside running wild, Nash sat on the front porch with the paper, and Thor was in the kitchen, drinking coffee. Nightingale was curled up on the couch with some big book about Van Gogh.