“It means you’re going after something that’s really sweet, but I’m worried that you’re only gonna get stung bad. And I don’t want you to—”
“Oh, Nattie, you and your dumb nature stuff,” snapped Circa. “Why don’t you save it for the Science Academy?”
Nattie went silent.
“Don’t be such a shmoo,” said Circa.
Nattie climbed off the desk. “Bye,” she said sadly, but Circa didn’t even look up from the photo until she heard the front studio door squeak open.
“Wait! Nat! What about the streak in your hair?” Circa called out, but Nattie was already gone.
“Fine. Whatever,” muttered Circa. “I’ve got all the proof I need anyway.”
She launched Dad’s Photoshop and opened the original Linholt Reunion photo. Her head wild with longing, she wondered if she could edit just one small detail that would change what happened to Dad somehow. To restore not just his legacy, but to actually restore him. She remembered what the preacher had said at Dad’s memorial service, that “the comings and goings of souls are best left up to God.” But wasn’t God the one who had approved this miracle in the first place?
What can I change? Circa wondered as she frantically darted her eyes from one side of the Linholt photo to the other. Then suddenly, she had an idea. The tree, she thought. The tree that Dad crashed into. Maybe it’s in this picture. Circa considered the possibilities. If she were to remove all the trees from the photo, would that mean Dad’s Jeep would have had nothing to hit? Would that bring him back?
Without hesitation, Circa began carefully removing tree after tree from the grove. It was detailed, painstaking work, but she was fueled by adrenaline and by Dad’s song, which she turned up as loud as she could stand it on Dad’s headphones. “One of these days, I’ll come back,” the man sang, boosting Circa’s determination. Every few minutes, a shred of doubt formed inside, but Circa would simply shake it off and concentrate on erasing another tree.
It was only when her eyes got bleary from removing leaves and bark, one zoomed-in pixel at a time, that she had to stop and rest for a moment. As she did, Circa took a fresh look at the photo of Dad and Mom and baby her that was stuck to the monitor. For the first time ever, she focused in on her tiny hands in the picture, how her missing pinkie was totally hidden behind Mom’s arm. She remembered Miles asking her who that lumpy baby was and thought again about how Mom and Dad had kept her a secret until the day she was born. Then, for a moment, it began to soak in…what it must feel like for someone to tell you that you’re less than real.
Difficult as it was, Circa knew she had to ward off the cold shiver of possibilities she’d never considered before and stay focused on more pressing life-and-death matters. She powered on Dad’s printer and clicked FILE: PRINT on the treeless reunion picture, trembling with anticipation as she wondered how exactly it would happen. Would Dad sneak up on her just like she used to do to him? Could she spin around in the chair and exclaim, “Well, lookee who’s here?” Would that moment become their new favorite time of day?
When the printer responded with a paper jam error, Circa opened the cover to tug a crumpled piece of photo paper free and, in doing so, sent another paper flying off the desk onto the floor. She bent down to pick up the paper and recognized it immediately as the folded-up Shopt photo of the soldiers and their surprise baby friend. The first shot ever captured of Great-Uncle Mileage the baby spy. Opening up the picture filled Circa with even more guilt about the way she’d treated Miles. But then all at once, she was struck by a far more troubling realization. She yanked her earbuds out and stared at the picture in horror.
The baby. That poor baby that Circa herself had so poorly Shopt into this picture.
If Miles was indeed the Linholt Reunion baby, then this soldier pic could very well mean there was another real Shopt person. That this baby could very well be an old man wandering lost out there somewhere. And not just old and lost, but missing a right arm that she never even bothered to give him. Circa couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought it all through better than this. She shuddered to think about what terrible things might have happened to Miles if he had never found Studio Monroe. And what a twice-as-terrible ordeal a scared, old, one-armed man with no history would have to endure.
Circa felt herself go weak all over. What have I done? she whispered to the little soldier.
Lois had always looked to her books for enlightenment before, but that day found herself suddenly tempted by the wisdom of the giant, floating, pig-faced sunflower.
Circa quickly refolded the picture and stuffed it into the Shopt folder, but the thought of the abandoned soldier baby haunted her every move, making her tremble as she attempted once more to print the treeless reunion picture. Just when she was about to click PRINT, Mom walked into the studio.
“I saw the glow of the computer from under the door,” Mom said.
Circa could tell by the tone of Mom’s voice that her pill was wearing off. Mom pulled up a stool and sat beside Circa at the desk, the first time she’d been this close to Dad’s computer in weeks. Still, Circa looked straight ahead, fearing she’d come unglued if she looked her mother in the face.
“Miles still sleeping?” Mom asked.
“Um. I guess,” said Circa. Her heart was a spinning compass. Hope. Misery. Wonder. Regret.
“What you working on there?” said Mom. “Is that the reunion picture?”
Circa tried hard to compose herself. “Just some Shopt stuff,” she said, rehovering the pointer over the PRINT button.
“Hey.” Mom gently brushed Circa’s ragged ponytail away from her face. “Are you shaking?”
Circa let go of the mouse and sat on her hands, just like she’d seen Miles do that day on the porch. “Sort of,” she said, staring at the treeless photo on the screen.
“Circ, what’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I’ve just been sitting in here thinking, and I got kind of sad is all.”
“About Dad, or Miles?” asked Mom.
“Both,” said Circa. “Plus somebody else maybe.”
Mom scooted closer. “Tell me,” she said.
Circa felt like a dam about to burst. “Mom,” she said. “You won’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try it anyway,” said Mom.
“Well…” said Circa. “You know the Shopt, right?”
“Of course,” Mom said.
Circa rubbed her feet together nervously. “Well, I believe it could be real,” she said. “I believe that some of the Shopt things that Dad and me did might have come true. Like the purple star glasses. And the nest with the bird that pooped on Nattie. And pink Mrs. Linholt. And well, um…Miles.”
“Miles?”
“Yes, Miles,” said Circa. “Think about it, Mom. He came from that reunion. He’s a teenager. He doesn’t remember anything before the time Dad printed that Shopt picture for me. He has those marks all over him. And Mom, he’s got that crinkle.”
Mom just shook her head.
“Mom, don’t do that. I know you’ve seen that crinkle.”
“Yes, but—”
“What I’m trying to say is, and this is the part you’re really not going to believe,” said Circa, “I think the baby that Dad Shopt into the Linholt Reunion picture is Miles.”
Mom crossed her arms over her middle and sat fixed in silence.
“I’m not saying I understand it,” said Circa. “Or that it makes any sense. But I’ve been thinking about this for days, and I just didn’t want to tell anybody before I knew it was true. But the facts are almost too weird for it not to be true, you know? And then Nattie went and said it tonight too. And then, well, I got to thinking about all that and how if a Shopt thing was powerful enough to make a whole person show up, then why couldn’t a Shopt thing bring another person back?”
Circa felt herself wel
ling up.
“So I tried it, Mom. I tried the best thing I could think of. I took all the trees right out of the reunion picture, so it would be like there never was anything there for Dad’s Jeep to hit. I thought it could maybe bring Dad back. That he might just show up like Miles did.”
Mom closed her eyes. In thought maybe, or in a prayer for strength. “Oh, my baby…” she said.
“But wait, that’s not it,” interrupted Circa, her voice growing more frenzied. “Because then I was trying to print the no-tree picture, and I found that first photo I tried to edit with the poor soldier baby in it and now I’m afraid there’s a whole ’nother Shopt person who’s lost because of me, and can we please try to find and help him somehow?”
“Sweet girl, you’re not making sense,” Mom said tenderly.
“Here he is,” said Circa, indignant, holding the soldier picture too close to her mom’s face. “We need to find him, Mom. We need to rescue him. Dad would want us to.”
Mom took the photo, folded it back up, and set it on the desk. Then she closed her eyes like she was summoning a response. “Circa, baby, listen to me,” she said. “You have been under more stress in the last few weeks than most people have their whole lives. You’ve lost your father, put up with a half-functioning mother, and had to rescue a stranger. And that kind of stress on a body can make things seem like something they’re not.”
But Circa was unmoved by Mom’s doubts. She looked again at the gathering of Linholts on the screen. From the oldest to the youngest, they all seemed to be mocking her.
“Mom, let me just print out this picture,” she said. “And we’ll see what happens.”
“Circa, do you really believe what you are saying?”
“Maybe Dad’ll come right back,” Circa said as she reached for the mouse. “Maybe he’ll walk right in here and he’ll be singing.”
“Circa—”
“And maybe he’ll help us go find Great-Uncle Mileage.”
“Circa!” Mom raised her voice. Then she leaned across the desk and held down the power button on Dad’s computer until there was no more. No more photo, no more computer noise, no more power. She swiveled Circa’s chair around and looked her daughter square in the eye. “Answer me, baby. Do you really believe these things you are saying?”
Dizzied by a swirl of grief and anger and hopelessness, Circa broke down into a fierce flood of tears. “Yes,” she sobbed. “I really do. I really do believe that Miles is Shopt and maybe even so am I and that Great-Uncle Mileage is alive and that you just killed the one thing that would bring Dad back home.”
Circa strained to reach the computer button. “Turn it back on, Mom,” she cried. “Turn it back on. I have to do it again.”
Mom leaned in fast and gathered Circa into a big, tight hug. Circa could feel her begin to cry as well.
“Why did he have to die?” Circa cried into Mom’s shoulder. “He wasn’t done yet.”
“I know, baby, I know.” Mom straightened up and wiped her face on her sleeve. Then she took hold of Circa’s hand.
“There’s something important I need to tell you,” she said.
Circa looked intently at her mom’s face. She held on to one last hope that this was going to be the big reveal of the Monroe Shopt magic secret.
“Before you came along,” Mom began, glancing over at the family photo, “your dad and I wanted a child so very badly, but we’d faced years of trouble and heartache with trying to have one. We kept the news about you quiet until you made your appearance, because we wanted to make absolutely sure of things before we allowed any fanfare.” Mom took both of Circa’s hands in hers. “You were the answer to our prayers, Circa.
“But even then,” Mom said. “We always wanted to have another child.”
“You did?” said Circa.
“We did,” Mom said. “But we had the same troubles as before.”
“Oh. I’m sorry,” Circa said, feeling Mom’s hands squeeze tighter.
“Me too,” Mom said. “I feel like that’s maybe why I’ve struggled with my depression over the years.” Mom dabbed at Circa’s cheeks with her cuff. “But then you know what?” she said. “One day, at a moment when you and I were both sinking fast, a strange boy showed up on our porch. And that boy, in his short time here, did something beautiful for us. He gave us something to focus on other than our grief. And no matter where he goes home to, I’ll always be grateful to that boy for being another answer to a prayer.”
Mom grabbed both of Circa’s hands into hers. “And I do believe with all my heart that your dad had a hand in that,” she said.
Circa felt her tears retreating for the moment. Could this mean Mom had become a believer in the Shopt powers?
“But not in the way you think.” Mom continued. “Let me tell you more about Miles.” She drew in a deep breath. “Circa, I’m just going to shoot straight,” she said. “Miles is not Shopt. Miles is a ward of the state of Tennessee. His real name is Corey James.”
Circa felt like she’d been punched in the gut, and hard.
“What do you mean?” she said. “How do you know that?”
“Those calls that kept ringing and ringing earlier,” said Mom. “They were all from that Mrs. Linholt. When I finally answered, she told me they’d heard from the authorities in Tennessee. Miles’s fingerprints had matched some on record.
“He has no living family,” Mom said. “He’s been living in a boys’ home that’s under investigation for numerous counts of abuse. The state matched up his fingerprint records, and Mrs. Linholt got the call at the close of day.”
“But I don’t get it,” said Circa. “He was where Dad died.”
“That’s because he had run away from the boys’ home into north Georgia,” said Mom. “He wandered up to the reunion, probably for some food or something.”
Circa combed over everything Miles in her head. The “post-traumatic stress disorder.” The running in his sleep. The terrible hypnotism.
“Oh no,” said Circa. “All those scars…”
Mom nodded slowly. Circa felt an empty space inside where her hope of big magic had once lived. She felt the tears come again, only they were extra bitter ones this time. Tears that you get when you’ve lost a dad not once, but now twice. And maybe even lost a brother at the same time.
“What’s going to happen to Miles now?” she cried. “Will he have to go back there?”
“I don’t know,” said Mom. “Mrs. Linholt said that she plans to come take him into custody of the state tomorrow. I imagine they’ll want to put him in some kind of psychiatric hospital in Tennessee. She said they can’t put him in the foster care system while he’s still got the memory problem. She said it’s too much of a risk.”
Circa got the all-too-familiar feeling of important things crumbling around her.
“You mean they’ll just make him live with some strangers?”
“We were strangers to him once,” said Mom.
“Yeah, but not really,” said Circa.
Mom nodded in agreement.
“Mom,” Circa sputtered. “I really can’t explain it, but for some reason I really don’t want Miles to leave us. Like he belongs here or something.”
Mom smiled sadly. “I feel the same way, Circ,” she said. “I’ve felt that way ever since his first night here.”
Circa had to replay what Mom had just said. “Then why were you going to send him to Maple Grove?” she puzzled.
“Maple Grove?”
“You called up there and talked to Lily about Miles.”
“Only to see how we could help him,” Mom said. “Since the hypnosis didn’t work. I wanted to see what Lily recommended, since you said how well she cares for those people up there.”
“Oh,” said Circa, stunned and relieved at how wrong she had been about her own mom. “Does Miles know any of this yet?�
�� she said. “About who he really is?”
“No, I wanted you to know first,” said Mom. “You’ve been around him more, and I thought you could help me figure out the softest way to deliver the news.”
“Can I be the one to tell him?” said Circa.
Mom hesitated. “Are you sure you want to do that, Circa? That’s a heavy thing to have to tell someone.”
Circa nodded. It had to be her. “I’ll do it now,” she said.
“Okay then,” said Mom. “But before you go, let’s talk about this Shopt business for a minute.”
“I know, it’s not real,” Circa said, her mouth fighting hard against the words, her brain clinging to one tattered scrap of belief. “Mom,” she said, “are we going to the scene of the—” Circa stopped herself. Of course they weren’t. Now Mom had an excuse not to go.
“Of the ordeal?” said Mom.
“Can we?” said Circa, with little hope of a yes, of the remote chance of finding any of the other beautiful things Dad had Shopt into that reunion picture. “In case it really will help Miles remember…I mean you know, the good stuff he might have in there.”
Mom hesitated. “Mrs. Linholt is coming in the morning,” she said. “There’s just no time to do that, Circ.”
“But what if no one ever takes him there, and what if that was the one thing that would give him his memory back?” said Circa.
Mom didn’t answer. Instead, she just put her hand on Circa’s shoulder. “Come on,” she said. “Why don’t you go have a talk with Miles. I’ll wait down here if you need me.”
“Okay,” said Circa, wishing hard that you could yank a person across a fear that the person couldn’t push herself through.
Circa passed through the kitchen and made her way upstairs to say so many things that needed to be said to Miles. First and foremost, of course, being an apology from the bottom of her aching heart. With every step closer to his room, she felt worse about the way she’d treated him, after all he’d been through already.
“Miles.” She began speaking before she even crossed the threshold of the guest room. “I’m so—”
Circa Now Page 18
