All We Know of Heaven (16 page)

The cake that Jeannie baked read
DARLING MAUREEN
,
WEL
COME BACK HOME AND BACK TO YOUR LIFE
.

Everybody clapped as she cut the first slice, and Bill vid eotaped her taking her first delighted bite.

But Maureen started to cry after the cake was cut and couldn’t seem to stop, so finally Coach carried her inside. The kids drifted away in small groups.

“Do you think she’s thinking about Bridget?” Britney asked Molly.

“Maybe,” Molly answered. She had her own ideas but wasn’t about to toss them into the gossip hole. She believed Maureen was overcome knowing that she was so much less than what she had been before—a tiny, pale thing, like a baby bird fallen from its nest. She wore new jeans, but a size 4 hung limp on her. Her arms were as thin as chop sticks, her wrists bigger than her biceps. “I think she’s just

emotional.” And then there was the future. Sure, she was way past other brain-injured kids, but what did that mean in the real world? Would she ever be able to live on her own? Danny had said she was still confused sometimes, that she didn’t recognize ordinary things, like stop signs. It would be more than a year, he’d told Molly, before Maury could even try to drive.

But Danny had his own notions, too, about Maureen’s sudden tears.

Seeing everyone—over half the class—must have re minded Maureen how much she had missed and would miss. They would be juniors next fall, thinking about col lege. She would spend the summer swimming in a therapy pool to build up her muscles and coordination, making tapes of herself speaking and playing them back, keeping a notebook of questions she asked over and over so she didn’t drive people nuts. She didn’t have a child’s mind in a woman’s body. She had a young woman’s mind in a young woman’s body. But all of it was barricaded.

He went back to the O’Malleys’ alone on Sunday morn ing with a plan.

Maureen was sitting up in bed goofing around with the new laptop that someone from somewhere had sent to her. Danny sat down beside her and helped her program a Face Place page, picking out a pink-rose background, help ing her tap out a profile that told people she was Maureen O’Malley, age sixteen if you counted from birth or three months if you counted from her coming out of the coma.

He took pictures of her posing in the big leather chair and uploaded them to the site.

When Maury typed, he saw for the first time how clumsy her fingers really were, how she had to stare at a letter be fore making the decision to use it.

Mrs. O. had been planning to go to Mass; but Mary, who was going to stay with Maureen, called to say the baby was sick.

Danny offered to stay with Maureen. What he wanted to say was private anyhow.

Once Mrs. O. was on her way, Danny put the laptop to sleep and took Maureen’s hand.

“I don’t want you to take this wrong,” he said. “But I don’t think you should miss the prom. I know we’re sopho mores, but everybody goes. Do you want to go with me?”

Maureen threw her arms around his neck like a child at Christmas.

“I would love this!” she said.

“I don’t mean a date. I don’t want to upset you,” he said. “Of course. We’re friends,” Maureen said. “But a dress

and everything!”

“It’s prom,” he said. “I don’t want you to think that I’m doing this because I feel sorry for you, though, Maury. I don’t feel sorry for you. I like you.”

“We’re friends,” she repeated. Her hand had dropped to his chest. He was uncomfortably aware of her body under the light pair of shorts and strappy top she had on. She was so tiny, but her weight was coming back up. She looked al

most like a normal girl. But one of her eyes was tearing and red.

“What happened to you?” he asked, pointing to her eye.

“I tried to put on lashes. . . .” she said, and stopped. “Mascara. I almost poked out my eye.” They both began to laugh, and then they were kissing. He didn’t know which one of them started it. He was longing for Bridget so much, or else Maureen; he lay down beside her on the bed and pulled her on top of him. His mouth trembled when he gently touched her small breasts.

“We need to stop,” he said. But Maureen took his hand and began moving it in small circles, lower and lower on her belly.

“No,” she said. “I’m not . . . a baby. I’m not retarded.” “We’re friends.”

“Yes,” she said. “But I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Danny answered, remembering that whatever she thought would drop from her brain to her mouth like a gum ball down the slot.

“You can love me,” she said. “I mean, this way.” “I can’t, Maury.”

“Why, am I ugly?” “You’re beautiful.”

“Because I walk in that? Stupid? Crash? Stupid head? I’m not stupid, Danny. I’m not the same, but not stupid.”

“Don’t be nuts,” Danny said. “It’s not that! I just don’t think it’s right for us!”

“Because of Bridge?” “Because of everything!” “You almost thought before!”

“That was a long time ago, Maureen, and we both agreed it wasn’t right.”

“Then someone else will!” she told him angrily. “I almost died. I came back to life. I don’t want to wait forever.”

“You’re only sixteen. That is hardly forever,” Danny said, kissing her again, running his hands along her warm back. Then he said, “I’m confused, Maury.”

“You were with Bridget.”

“We were together for three years first.” “So?”

“So, you have to know it’s right. I know I want to be with you, but not like that. At least not yet.”

“I know I do. I know that my whole life could go by.” “You just trust me because I’m Danny Carmody, good ol’

Danny. And you have that confused with a bigger feeling. If I did this, it would be like taking advantage of a kid. . . .”

She slapped him across the face. “Don’t! I’m not a kid!”

“I take it this means you don’t want to go to the prom,” Danny said, standing up.

“Yes, I do,” Maureen said. “I am just so . . . um, haunted.

No.”

“I’ll wait.” “Hungry for life.”

“I know. I am, too. I feel like a part of me was buried.” “Bridget is dead,” she pleaded with him. “We’re . . .

alive.”

“I know. I have to think. You do, too.”

“Will you be ashamed of me?” she asked. “At the prom?”

“That’s stupid, too.”

“I have the body of a little kid. I know it.”

But not themind or the heart
, he thought. “You have weeks to eat nothing but chocolate and ice cream.”

“Danny, I’m sorry I slapped you. I’m sorry I . . . what would you call it?”

“Tried to rape me?” he asked lightly. “Yes. I will not rape you again.”

“You sound like English is your second language. Do you mind my saying that?”

“It is not my first language.” “What’s your first?”

“Martian,” she said, and all of the tension drifted out of the air.

“You are my friend, Maureen. It’s not like I’m not at tracted to you.”

“Thank you, Rag . . . Danny!”

“You were going to call me the dog’s name!” “Look.” She pointed to her head. “Swedish cheese.” “Swiss cheese, you mean.”

“Shut up,” Maureen said. “I can punch you.”

When Jeannie got back from Mass and they told her

about the prom, she was worried. What if all that stimulus was too much for Maureen? What if she started to cry? Got hysterical? Had a seizure? She didn’t have . . . bathroom accidents anymore, but she could say something.

“Mrs. O., people at dances don’t stand around and have long conversations. The girls just squeal and go to the bathroom, and the guys just wait for it to all be over,” Danny told her. “I’ll look out for her. It’s got to be terrible not to be a normal kid.”

“She’s getting better. Since being home, her speech is a lot better. A LOT. But she’s never going to be the same,” Jeannie said. They were deliberately making tons of noise with the bags and the cabinet doors to make sure Maureen didn’t hear them.

“Then they’re immature idiots if they don’t get it. She is who she is now.”

Jeannie patted Danny’s arm. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll go try to find something she can wear, in a size two.”

“Don’t make it a baby dress, Mrs. O. Let her look like the other girls.”

In the end, Leland came, sobbing, apologizing for being so rude to Henry, and asked to help do Maureen’s hair.

Everyone knew Leland had a gift for this, so it was great that she had the big regret at the right time. Molly, Taylor, and Britney B. came, too.

Leland tied a satin band around Maureen’s head, gelled her short hair around it, letting the ends of the band trail,

and then sprinkled everything with a fine dust of hair glit ter to match the strapless silver dress. The dress had a wide band and pleats that fell straight, disguising Maureen’s little-boy hips. The hem dipped below Maury’s knee on one side and rose way too far above on the other side— according to Bill. Britney swept dark gray eye shadow with silver highlights on Maureen’s brows. She applied eyeliner and colored mascara. Heels were out of the question, so Maury wore black ballet slippers.

By seven o’clock, Maureen looked like any other girl. The others departed, like a swarm of butterflies.

Molly and Taylor were the last to leave. The only one of the four who was a junior, Taylor had made prom court— Bridget would have been the sophomore representative. Taylor was the first cheerleader to be on court since Eddy went to Bigelow. She needed to take extra care with her prep, even though she was absolutely sure no one would let her be queen. Her dress was cream, floor length with berry-colored off-the-shoulder ruffles. She would wear a berry-tinted ribbon with a cameo around her neck and shoes to match. Very
Gone With the Wind
.

Everyone else was wearing strapless sheaths. Taylor didn’t want to look like anyone else.

“I have to go, but we’ll see you there!” Taylor told Maureen.

“I’ll never forget you guys did this,” Maureen said slowly. “We’re just happy you’ll be with us again,” Molly said with an air kiss, as she jumped into her car. She didn’t put

on her seat belt, and Maureen felt her stomach fold and tighten. But she dragged that out of her mind.

Taylor stopped for a moment.

“I have to tell you something, Maury,” she said. “When I do the Liberty or when I tumble, I feel like you’re with me, every time.”

Maureen threw her head back. “After all that, if my makeup drips . . . runs . . . I’m sunk. I don’t want to cry.” She and Taylor hugged each other hard.

Holding Danny’sarm, shesmiledwidelyforthehundred pictures her parents insisted on taking. Then she revealed her surprise, an aluminum cane. Tommy had brought it; and Maureen had practiced, marching across the room when everyone else was in bed.

“You need to bring the walker just in case,” Jeannie said, hovering.

“Mom, I’ve practiced for a week,” Maureen said. “If I get tired. I can sit down. The theme is Paris in Springtime. They have little tables. Britney said. Don’t you think that anyone would give his chair to a crip?”

“Stop that,” Jeannie said. She looked at Maureen thoughtfully. Then she went upstairs and came down with her mother’s cane, which had a rubber tip but was made of dark wood with a silver lion’s head at the end of the long handle. “You might as well do it in style.”

Maureen tried out the old cane to see if the length was right. Grandma Forbes had been small, like Maureen, so it fit her like a hand in a glove.

Finally, they were in the car.

Danny had planned to take Maury to dinner. But she confided that she had enough stamina for the dance but not for two huge new events in one night.

“I don’t have a memory of going to a restaurant,” she confessed.

So they drove through Culver’s. Danny got a double But ter Burger and Maureen fried shrimp with onion rings.

“Oh,” she cried a moment after biting into the first on ion ring. “Bad breath! I just love onion rings!”

“I’ve got two full packs of strawberry bubblegum.” “Never thought I would be happy for that!”

“And baby wipes in the glove box if you get your hands dirty! I use them all the time, because my hands look like feet after I plow with my dad.”

“I picked the right date,” Maureen said. “As I recall, I picked you,” Danny told her. “Fair enough.”

“Let’s go someplace quiet to eat,” Danny suggested. He wanted to calm himself before they walked in. His parents were not in favor of it. His mother had gone so far as to call it “sick,” and for the first time in his life, Danny told her to shut up. His father, in a towering rant, would have grounded him on the spot if it were not for the fact that this would disappoint Coach—Danny noticed that his father didn’t mind disappointing Maureen. He was more interested in Danny’s berth on varsity at 163 pounds than in Maureen’s feelings, or Danny’s for that matter.

“Do you want to drive to the creek?” he asked Maureen, whohaddelicatelycoveredherselfwithnapkinsincaseone of her hands shook when she tried to eat her fried shrimp. “I want to go to the cemetery,” she said. “I have never been. I would like Bug to see me.” She said suddenly, “On ions!” and then apologized. “That happens sometimes. If I think really hard about something, I say it without know

ing. I want to go see Bridget.”

Tears burned at the back of Danny’s eyes. But he drove to the cemetery—there was plenty of light to see by—and spread a blanket on the grass near Bridget’s grave so they could sit down to eat.

“It’s not exactly a white tablecloth and candles, but it’s clean,” he said.

“I’m fine,” Maureen said. “I love it outside.”

Now I’ve done it all,
Danny thought.
I’m having my din ner on prom night at my dead girlfriend’s grave with her best friend.
But Maureen didn’t seem depressed or even over emotional.

“Bridgie Bug,” she said softly, touching the pink granite. “Look, I’m all new. I’ll never be you. But I’m going for both of us.”

They ate in silence, enjoying the warm but not yet op pressive evening air. In a few weeks only idiots would sit outside at the mosquito witching hour.

“Are you nervous?” Danny asked.

“Not so much,” Maureen said. “Remember, I was dead.

Not much scares you after.”