Toughing It

by Nancy Springer

  The brats looked nice. Mom had found the girls dresses somewhere, and Tyler had on a sport coat and bow tie. His collie-blond hair shagged over the collar. His jaw stuck out. He looked like one tough little dude.

  “They’ve been asking where you are, too,” Mom said. “Are you coming back?” No tears or anything, yet something about the way she said it touched my heart.

  I looked at her. She didn’t look like such a bad deal of a mom. Instead of answering her question I asked her, “Why did you tell me Pen is my father?”

  “Huh?” She blinked at me. “I said that?”

  “Yes, you did. How come?”

  “Hell, how would I know, honey? I was drunk. I don’t remember.”

  Probably she didn’t remember what she said about Dillon being dead, either. Probably at the time she just couldn’t face it. I knew the feeling.

  I knew I had to forgive her.

  I told her, “Well, the funny thing is, Pen is my father now.”

  “No, he isn’t.”

  “Yes, he is. He’s my pa.”

  Then she started to understand, and she smiled, and the smile lifted up her face and took away some of the lines.

  Tyler stood in front of me, scowling. “You’re in my seat,” he said.

  “Oh. Well, c’mere.” I reached out for him. I don’t know what made me do it, but I pulled him over and sat him on my lap. He stiffened a minute—being six, he was a little bit old for lap sitting. But it was a rough day, so I guess he figured he could make an exception. He relaxed some and leaned against me, very still.

  He was my half brother. So was Dillon, probably—not my full brother, only a half brother, judging from what I knew now. But it didn’t have to matter. Pen wasn’t really my pa at all, and it didn’t matter.

  Monica was no relation to anybody, but there were little Eve and Julie both sitting in her lap, snuggled against her.

  “Are you coming home with us?” Tyler asked, low, not looking at me.

  I looked at Mom. She looked back at me and said to Tyler, not quite steadily, “We have to think what’s best for Shawn. You know him and your pa don’t always get along.”

  I said to both of them, “I can visit you.”

  “You damn well better. Soon,” Mom said. “You’ve got a stack of sympathy cards this high.” She showed me with her hands. “Everybody’s driving me crazy, asking about you.”

  “I’ll come Saturday,” I promised her. I joggled Tyler to make him look at me. “Hey,” I told him, “you want me to, I’ll take you fishing.”

  9

  I got through the funeral somehow, between holding Monica’s hand and feeling Tyler sitting there warm against my chest. Those two helped more than God, no matter what the preacher said. I didn’t listen to the preacher much, because he was trying to talk about Dillon and he didn’t even know him. He didn’t know anything about Dillon or about me, so I tuned him out. Mostly I sat there and tried to think whether I believed in life after death and all that. Like, would I meet up with Dillon again? I kind of wanted to believe it, but the way people talked about heaven, it sounded like a stupid fairy tale, not like any place Dillon would want to hang around. Play a harp in drag, for God’s sake? Screw that. Dillon would want to be someplace with motorcycles and danger and fun, not a country-club heaven where they wouldn’t want to let in long-hair kids like him and me anyway.

  But maybe people didn’t know. I mean, they try to tell you about heaven and hell, but how can anybody really know? Maybe there could be a different kind of meet-again for Dillon and me.

  I wanted to believe in something. Not God, exactly, not if God took Dillon away from me. But something.

  The drive to the cemetery wasn’t too bad. Pen drove Monica and the kids. Mom wanted me to come with her in the undertaker’s car, and I did.

  I got through the graveside service okay. The hardest part was when it was actually time to leave. The preacher said Amen, go in peace, but nobody went. All of us under the tent just sat there, and nobody said a word, and nobody could seem to turn away and go. The silence echoed, it was so quiet. Every little sound, people breathing, it echoed back from the grave like from a place so far away I can’t describe it. Like from outer space. Like from a black hole. If the world ends I think it might do it that quietly, I think it might echo that way.

  Mom started to cry.

  I put my arm around her, and she leaned against me for a minute. But then she sat up straight and muttered, “C’mon,” and stood up and led us all out of there. She was tough, and she was right. It was time. It was over.

  Out in the sunshine, I held on tight to Monica’s hand, breathed deep, and looked around. The world was still there after all, and people—in a funny, choked-up way it helped, having people there. Pen was standing right by my side. Neighbors stood around, river people. Even the cops were there. Even Detective Mohatt.

  And somebody I wouldn’t have expected, way off at the edge of the crowd, trying not to be noticed.

  I let go of Monica’s hand and hurried over to him. I guess I had been kind of in a daze, or I would have seen him before. Or maybe he had been hiding from me. When he saw me coming he got shy and started to turn away, but I called to him, “Mr. Quigg!”

  I guess hardly anybody ever called him that. He got goggle-eyed and stood where he was while I walked up to him. He was in a weird polyester outfit with wide pants—probably that suit was older than I was. I wondered what he’d gone through to get it. And he had washed, too. And hiked down from his mountain. It’d taken a lot for him to be there.

  “Listen, I’m really sorry,” I told him.

  “D-D-Dillon,” he said.

  I wasn’t sure what he meant. He was sorry about Dillon? I was sorry about Dillon? I was Dillon? I said, “I’m Shawn. What I mean is, I was a real jerk, okay? Threatening you and accusing you and everything. I was stupid, okay? I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  Quiggie stretched one of his scrawny hands out toward me and said, “I s-s-saw them. I sh-sh-should have done s-s-something.”

  He had that guilty look on his face again, like he’d got when I asked him if he had anything to do with Dillon getting killed. This time, instead of pointing a gun at him, I figured maybe I better just listen.

  I said, “You saw something?”

  “I s-s-saw them p-p-p-put it up. I sh-sh-should have t-t-t-told them not to. I sh-should have m-m-m-made them take it down.”

  “You saw people putting up the shotgun?”

  He nodded.

  “Who?”

  Too loud. He shrank back from me and sputtered and couldn’t talk. I had to control myself.

  I said more softly, “They were loaded for bear, right?”

  Nod.

  I could tell why he hadn’t done anything about it. He was scared. Goddamn him, he could have saved my brother—

  No, he couldn’t. He was Quiggie. A misfit squatting on state land. A poor old lonesome loony, one oar out of the water, shingles loose on his roof, not hitting the head pin, several fries short of a Happy Meal. No way I could really expect him to do anything. It was amazing enough that he had come to Dillon’s funeral.

  I told him, “It’s not your fault.” He wasn’t the one who had wired the shotgun up to the tree.

  “The sons of bitches want to take over.” Now that Quiggie was more mad than scared, he could talk okay. “They don’t want nobody on that mountain but them. I hide, I hide from them all the time.”

  “Who? Who are they?”

  “B-b-b-bad people.”

  Dammit, I knew that. “I mean, like, do you know their names?”

  Quiggie shook his head.

  “Are they still there? Do you know where they live?”

  He nodded.

  Thinking about it, I felt my chest go tight and my heart start pounding. Quiggie had a rifle. He was such a wimp, I knew I could boss him, he would do whatever I said. He could lead me to them. We could go up on the mountain and blow these guys away.

  The
n I blew my breath out and let it go. I had been through this before, and it was no damn good. Hating was no use. Killing was no use. Dillon was still lying in the ground.

  I told Quiggie, “C’mon.” I looked around for Detective Mohatt. “We have to tell the cops.”

  “N-n-no police!” Quiggie got his wild-eyed scared look and started to back away. “They-they-they’ll run me off.”

  “Mr. Quigg, please.” That stopped him. Being a Mister seemed to do something for him. “You feel bad because Dillon died—listen, this is one way to make up for it. Help nail the bastards that did it.”

  “They-they-they’ll kill me.”

  Pen walked up. He must have been watching for a while and listening in, because he said, “I won’t let them hurt you, Al.”

  He meant it, too. That’s the kind of guy he is.

  And it worked. Because Penrose G. Leppo had promised to protect him, Albert Quigg went and stuttered at Detective Mohatt and told him all about it.

  “Three of them?” Mohatt asked.

  “Yu-yu-yup.”

  Mohatt had his notebook out. “And you can describe them?”

  Quiggie gave pretty good descriptions. “I s-s-s-seen them lots of times.” He stood up taller and looked kind of proud. “I wa-wa-watch them. I’m g-g-g-good in the woods.”

  “You think you know where they are right now? Can you lead me to them? Me and some officers.”

  “S-s-sure I can.” The look on Quiggie’s face, he could have been a Green Beret. Pen stood beside me, watching and smiling.

  “Then let’s go.” They started off. But then Mohatt turned and looked back at me. “Shawn,” he said, “we’ll get them, even if it’s only for dealing. But with Mr. Quigg’s testimony, I’m hoping to stick them with murder. And conspiracy.”

  I nodded.

  “What about you? Will you testify?”

  I gave him a look. “Hell, yes. I want them to rot in jail.”

  “So do I, son.” It sounded like he and I actually agreed about something. “So do I.”

  Pen drove me back to the trailer because Mom needed me. Monica had to get home, so we dropped her off at her place. All the way there she sat between Pen and me, and even though I was holding her hand, I couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. When I got out of the car to let her out, it was even worse. I felt terrified. She looked terrified.

  Then she took my head in her hands and kissed me.

  Just a little soft kiss on my splinted-up nose, of all places, where I couldn’t even feel it. Except I did feel it, like an earthquake. Clear to my bones. Maybe it was because I hadn’t eaten, but I got so dizzy I could barely breathe.

  “See ya, Tuff,” she whispered, and she kind of ran. I must have blipped out for a minute. Next thing I noticed, I was back in the car, it was heading down the road, and Pen was keeping his eyes on the road but he was grinning like an idiot.

  “Oh, shut up,” I told him.

  “I didn’t say a word!”

  “You know what I mean.”

  He had his face mostly under control by the time we got to the trailer. Then I didn’t see him awhile because he stayed outside. No room inside. Even less than usual, because the place was stuffed full of neighbors and food. People kept bringing food. Mom wedged me into a kitchen corner somehow and told me to get busy and eat, and I did. Ham on potato rolls, macaroni salad, sweet pickles, Jell-O, Nilla wafers. After a while I even got hungry. And the food even tasted good. That was the first time it made sense to me, that people would get together and eat after a funeral.

  Mom’s old man was there. He mumbled something to me about being sorry, and then he stayed away.

  Later people started leaving, and Mom started drinking. Pen and I got out of there while she was still sober enough to hug me and send stuff home with me.

  In the car I lay back and closed my eyes.

  “How do you feel?” Pen asked.

  I just felt really tired. “Sliced kind of thin.” Like the chipped ham.

  “Did you eat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Enough?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’s your gut?”

  “Okay.” It only hurt a little.

  Back at his place I changed into old clothes and hung up my suit. I looked at the stuff Mom had given me. Sympathy cards. Dillon’s shirts and Harley jacket and chrome chain-link belt and black jeans. Dillon’s clothes were a little big for me, but I’d grow into them.

  I sat there.

  The phone rang and Pen answered. It was Detective Mohatt, and I could hear him across the room. “We got them.”

  “Where were they? Up in the rocks?”

  “Packing their bags. Getting ready to clear out.”

  “They give you trouble?”

  “Some. No injuries.”

  “Are they talking?”

  “Talking my ear off. Each trying to say the other ones did it. Give them enough rope, they’ll hang themselves. Tell Shawn I said be tough. We got them.”

  After Pen hung up, he looked at me, and I just nodded at him. He understood and didn’t try to say anything. He knew it wasn’t like an answer.

  That was a long evening. I didn’t feel like watching TV. I wanted to call Monica, but I felt like I ought to hold off. Penn tried to play me a game of rummy, but I couldn’t concentrate. I didn’t know whether I ought to go to school in the morning or not. Nothing felt right.

  I went to bed on the sofa when it was time, but I didn’t sleep. I lay there for hours, bone tired, but I couldn’t seem to get settled or feel finished with the day. The day I buried my brother.

  Dillon was dead.

  Dillon, or that thing that used to be Dillon—it was out there lying in the ground.

  The hollow feeling in my chest lifted me up off the couch, finally. I pulled on my jeans and shirt and shoes. Could hear Pen snoring—I liked the way he snored, quiet and smooth, like a new V-12. I didn’t wake him, but I left him a note on the table: I’ll be back soon. Do Not Worry. Tuff.

  I took the car keys and drove myself up to the Gardens at four in the morning.

  The moon was nearly full and smack overhead in the dome of the sky, like a ceiling fixture. It wasn’t hard to walk across the lawns and find Dillon’s grave.

  I guess I was kind of dazed from being up so late. At first, in the moonlight, I thought I saw a fluffy quilt over Dillon. Then I saw what it was: they had heaped all the funeral flowers on top of the mound. And there was a bench sitting beside it for people like me. After a while they would take the bench away, and then I was supposed to forget about my brother except maybe once a year on Memorial Day.

  I would never forget him.

  I sat on the goddamn bench. Cried a little. Not too bad. Being out in the night with Dillon helped me feel better. There were trees, and the moon shining down with a big hazy halo around it, and wind in my hair. Always wind on those hills by the river. I could see the water shining down below, a mile wide. It wasn’t a bad place for Dillon to be, lying under all them stars.

  Dillon, about ten years old, when I’m about eight, and we have walked all the way to Quarryville to see some dumb magician at the fire hall, but they won’t let us in because we don’t have an adult with us—that’s what they say. The real reason is because we’re dirty and ragged and the wrong sort. I want so bad to see that stupid magician. I’ve always kind of believed in magic, like if I knew the secret I could pull a father or something out of a hat, I could be somebody else.

  Anyway, they shut the doors in our faces, and I’m mad and sad enough to cry. I don’t cry, of course, because I am Tuff. I don’t say anything, but Dillon knows how I feel.

  “C’mon,” he says, and he leads me down to the riverbank. We just sit there. It is dusk. All along the banks, the fireflies are drifting up from the grass like lighted bubbles, and out in the channel the fish are jumping. A big gray heron flies over like something prehistoric. The peace seeps into me.

  Dillon says, “Tuff, don’t feel bad
. We got things they don’t.”

  “Sure,” I say, not believing him.

  Yet years later there I sat, remembering what we had. What I still had.

  I whispered, “Dillon, this is dumb. I know you can’t hear me or anything. But I kind of believe in you. I kind of believe in you and me.”

  I kind of believed in the river. I could go down and sit by all that water, and in a weird way Dillon would be there for me. In me. Life was hard, it cut like a knife, yet some things it could not cut away. I could go off someplace, but the river would stay.

  I said, “Dillon, there’s this girl I really like, Monica. And there’s my new pa, who is really something.”

  The river would stay. The river would go on flowing.

  Little by little the water started to shine a clear peach color as daybreak came. Across the river the sky got silky bright. I sat watching the sun come up. The light touched the hilltops first. It found me.

  I never heard a car door or footsteps, but all of a sudden my father was there, sitting down beside me.

  “Pen,” I said, not really surprised that he knew where I was or that he found a way to get there.

  He put an arm around me, and I rested my head against him, but I didn’t close my eyes. I looked at the sunrise, the sky, the shining water of the river. Peace seeped into me.

  “C’mon,” Pen whispered after a while. He got up, lifting me with him. “Let’s get you home.”

  I nodded and turned to go. “Bye, Dillon,” I said to the grave.

  About the Author

  Nancy Springer has passed the fifty-book milestone with novels for adults, young adults, and children, in genres including mythic fantasy, contemporary fiction, magic realism, horror, and mystery—although she did not realize she wrote mystery until she won the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America two years in succession. Born in Montclair, New Jersey, Springer moved with her family to Gettysburg, of Civil War fame, when she was thirteen. She spent the next forty-six years in Pennsylvania, raising two children (Jonathan and Nora), writing, horseback riding, fishing, and bird-watching. In 2007 she surprised her friends and herself by moving with her second husband to an isolated area of the Florida Panhandle where the bird-watching is spectacular, and where, when fishing, she occasionally catches an alligator.