Found Things (8 page)

Chapter 12

Meadow Lark stared and shook
her head at that log. “I can't believe it—an angel, right here at our river.”

“Stop being so dramatic, Meadow Lark. It's just a log, can't you see?” I say, and blinked away any doubt. It wasn't an angel. Angels had white robes and white wings. They sang and flew around and brought messages and untangled people from their troubles. This wasn't an angel—this was a log.

“Even with one good eye I can see it,” she say, tossing her hair behind her shoulders. “It has wings. And it has a head.”

Rain began to fall, tapping the trees above and around us. I blinked again. “No, that's just a giant burl with moss growing on it.”

“Then how do you explain those?” she asked, pointing to the bits of paper stuck to the log.

“The current carried them,” I say, watching the way the water curled into the little cove and then swirled in front of the log, teasing it. “Just like it carries everything.”

Meadow Lark put her finger on her chin and sat, sticking her slow leg out in front of her. “I think the current was taking them to where they needed to go—and this was the place.”

I felt disappointed that the wishes we floated down the river ended up on a log, which wasn't special or magical—it was just a log that caught trash. And I was disappointed in Meadow Lark for putting the idea in my head that our wishes could come true, and betrayed by the river for not taking the wishes far away.

“I think we should take them off and let them go again,” I say.

“No! They're here for a reason. I don't know what, but they need to stay here.”

“Meadow Lark,” I say, stepping closer to her, “there's such a thing as looking too hard for things that aren't there.”

“You're so sure about that,” she say, as she studied the log. “Well, just in case, we need to hide this angel so no one else finds it. No telling what they'd do to it.”

“You mean, like Daniel Bunch?” I say. “He isn't smart enough to find this. Daniel only finds rusty nails and gum wrappers, because they're all he expects to find.”

“You're right . . . he has no imagination,” she say. “If he saw this, he'd think it was just a log.”

I sat down beside her. “Are you trying to make a point?”

The rain had let up, and the leaves appeared translucent. A sparrow called and slid over the smooth surface of the water, and the smell of pine needles filled the air.

I stared at that log so long that everything around it disappeared, and gradually something like a face began to emerge on that burl. I looked away from the face and shook my head.

“No, I don't believe in any of that. Hoping for things to happen—for people to get sick or get better, or to go away or come back—is a waste of time and it just makes you sad when those things don't happen.”

I glanced at the log again, and blinked away what began to look like a nose.

“It's good to have something to hope for,” Meadow Lark say. “Life would be so dull and boring and sad if you didn't.”

“But what if it never happens?”

“Well,” she say, touching the log, “you keep hoping. As long as it doesn't happen, you always have something to hope for.”

“Mama hopes. I think that's how she can stand it that Theron's gone.” I twisted off a piece of vine and tossed it on the water. “What do you hope for?” I asked, watching the vine drift away.

Meadow Lark leaned back on her hands and looked up at the sky for a long time. Finally she say, “A really nice bed, something good to eat every night, the same teacher for a whole school year . . . a best friend, and Mr. Tricks.”

The sparrow had stopped calling, and a shadow moved above us. Raindrops tapped on the leaves and blurred the water.

I stared at the log and tried not to see a face in it. “Well, it's still just a log.”

“People make fun of my eye,” she say, “but I can see better than some of them can.”

The wind stirred the trees above us, and a whisper passed by me. Just when I thought I knew Meadow Lark, she become a mystery again. Maybe, I thought, if she had that kind of sight, she could help me understand something about that house, so I took a breath and say, “Sometimes I see a house that I've never been to before, but it's so familiar to me.”

Instead of laughing at me or looking surprised, Meadow Lark leaned forward. “Is this house in a dream?” she asked.

“Not really. It always happens when I'm awake.”

“Do you know everything about the house? Are people in the house?”

“No, it makes more of itself the farther I go into it. I can't explain, except it only exists a few feet around me at a time. And there's never anyone in the house—I always feel like I'm the only one there.”

“Wow,” she say. “What do you think it's all about?”

“I don't know. But I feel . . . like there's something in there for me. I just have to wait and find it.”

“It's like the house wants to show you something.
Ooh
,” she say, and rubbed her arms. “I've got goose bumps. Next time, try to stay longer and see what happens.”

I shivered and rubbed my goose bumps too. “I'll try. I just wish I knew what it all means.”

“I wish I could do that—go to a house like that.”

“I wish I could stop.”

“We have so many wishes but no more paper.”

“We don't need paper, Meadow Lark—we have
a log
.”

“An angel,” she say, and stretched her arms above her head. It made her shirt ride up again, and in the gap above her shorts I saw the scars again. Sympathy pains chafed the back of my calves. “Why do you have those?” I asked.

Meadow Lark yanked her shirt all the way over her belly, and I knew her scars embarrassed her. “When I was born, my insides were upside down. It's called
situs inversus
—but that's what it means. I've had a lot of operations.”

As she talked, I noticed that she ran a finger lightly over her shirt. Meadow Lark didn't need to see the scars to know where they were. She probably spent a lot of time tracing them when she was alone, and by now she knew every one of them, the same way I knew each thing I'd found in the river and every item in Theron's room.

“They had to put everything where it belonged.”

“Is that why you were in the hospital so many times?”

She nodded, making the pine needles under her head crackle. “They say I'll always have the scars, even though they'll fade after a while.”

Then Meadow Lark scooped a handful of pine needles. “I really wish Mr. Tricks would come back.”

“Me too,” I say. “I don't want to lose another thing. But we need to do more than wish for him.”

“Then we have to keep looking until we find him.” Meadow Lark sighed and tossed her handful of pine needles into the air. They landed in her hair and settled back on the ground.

“Also,” I say, “we have to look for him because . . . if we don't, he won't know we missed him. He won't know we wanted him.”

Meadow Lark looked solemn, like the day she walked into art class with the carnations for Ms. Zucchero. “We could start by asking your mom if she knows where he is.”

“Why ask my mama?”

Then, real slowly, Meadow Lark say, “Well, didn't you say she . . . doesn't like birds?”

“No, she doesn't.” Then I understood what she meant, and I didn't like it. “You think Mama let Mr. Tricks out?”

Meadow Lark turned to me with her one big, open eye and nodded. “It makes sense, doesn't it?”

“No, it doesn't, and I can't believe you would say that. I can't believe you would think that. Mr. Tricks, he got himself out.”

“Well, you asked, River, and that's what I was thinking.”

“Well, you were thinking wrong!” I cried. I sprang up and ran out of the woods, leaving Meadow Lark behind. I stumbled through the underbrush, then ran across the beach and up the path to the library.

“Keep your stupid log!” I shouted behind me. But all the time I was running away from Meadow Lark and what she say about Mama, my pulse thumped my ears to the rhythm of the words in my head:
Mama let him out. Mama let him out.

I knew Meadow Lark was following me, but even though she couldn't keep up with me—or
because
she couldn't—I just ran faster and harder, until I could no longer hear her voice calling me to wait.

Chapter 13

The screen door shuddered close
behind me, and the aroma of Mama's pot roast and potatoes filled my nose. It almost made me forget what had just happened between Meadow Lark and me, because those smells meant Daddy was home.

“Forgive and be free” was one of those things Mama often told me, so as those dinner smells poked the sides of my throat, I made up my mind to consider forgiving Meadow Lark. Though I might be able to forgive her, I couldn't forget, because that chant still flowed in my veins—
Mama let him out
—and because it was Meadow Lark who had put it there.

“Daddy?” I called as I followed the yummy smells. I found him in the kitchen, slicing pot roast with a long knife and wearing his chef's apron that say
MINNESOTA: L'ÉTOILE DU NORD
.

I ran and put my arms around him, and he hugged me back the best he could with a knife in his hand.

“I missed you,” he say.

“River Rose Byrne,” Mama called from the dining room, “you recovered awfully fast.”

“Oh,” I say, and glanced at Daddy. “I think it was a six-hour thing.”

Mama come into the kitchen and put her hands on her hips, and looked at me long and hard. Then her face softened. “I'm glad you're feeling better,” she say, “but I can smell where you've been. And what have we told you over and over about going there?”

“Well, it can't smell as good as what you're making for supper.”

“I didn't say you smelled
good
,” Mama say back, but her voice had an almost smile to it. “Go upstairs and wash it off. You and your friend.”

“Meadow Lark—”
Isn't my friend
, I wanted to say. “She'll be here soon.”

Mama pulled down one of her good serving bowls with the gold rim from the cupboard over the stove. “You mean to say you left her there, with that slow leg of hers?”

“No . . . yes,” I say, as guilt took hold of me. I did leave her there, when she couldn't run very fast. “I'll go get her if she doesn't come back soon.”

We waited twenty minutes for Meadow Lark, and Mama put the food in the oven to keep warm. Just as I was about to go back to get her, Meadow Lark opened the screen door. She smiled at me and say, “Everyone's home now? Good. I'm starving,” and went upstairs.

When I got up to our room, she was rubbing the river off her with a facecloth.

“What took you so long?” I asked.

“I went down to that old broken-down bridge—”

“You have to stay off that bridge. It's the one that—”

“I know, the one that got flooded a long time ago. Your family has so many rules. ‘Don't go there.' ‘Stay out of that bedroom.' ‘Sit out here after supper.' You've had your whole life to learn them all, but I've had only a few days.”

“If Mama finds out what you did . . .”

“You're the only one that told me to stay away from that bridge, so I went on it. And see? It didn't collapse. I didn't fall in.”

Meadow Lark seemed to have forgotten that I abandoned her at the river, because she wasn't acting mad at me. When someone isn't mad at you the way you expect them to be, being mad at them isn't much fun.

“You don't really think Mama let Mr. Tricks out, right?” I asked.

She folded up the facecloth. “I don't know why I said that,” she say softly.

If that was an apology for what she say about Mama, it was good enough for me. I didn't want to stay mad at Meadow Lark.

Then, as if the subject were closed, she say, “I got something from my dad today.”

Meadow Lark opened her bureau drawer and pulled out a sheet of paper and waved it at me. “He sent me a letter.” It was on the same crinkly paper as his first letter, so I guessed it was also typewritten.

“Oh, that's nice,” I say, and reached for it.

But she slid it back into the drawer. “I'll let you read it later,” she say, and sniffed toward the hall. “
Mmm
. Your mom's such a good cook.”

“It's because Daddy's home. And we better go down now.”

“Wait,” Meadow Lark say. “She might want these.” She reached under her bed and pulled out the Tupperware she brought with her and carried it down to the kitchen.

Inside were two dozen yeast rolls, the kind made with soft white flour and butter. And even after being in there for nearly a week under her bed, they looked as fresh as if they'd just come out of the oven.

Mama brought out her special bread basket, which she lined with a white cloth napkin. Then Meadow Lark placed the rolls in it. “My dad told me to bring them,” she explained.

Mama smiled. “How nice of him.”

“And he sent her a letter,” I say.

“To our post office box,” Meadow Lark added quickly, and put the last roll in the basket. “We're still getting settled.”

“Well, then,” Mama say, “since you're getting to know your way around, remember to stay away from that river.”

We both nodded and she picked up the basket, then sniffed the air. “You two smell like Ivory now,” she say, and went to the dining room.

Meadow Lark and I glanced at each other, and I could tell by her expression that she was thinking about the river and that log stuck in the mud and the next time we'd be able to go see it—just like I was.

The dining table looked like a holiday, gleaming with the real silverware and Mama's good crystal and her plates with the gold trim, all set on her white tablecloth. Mama's good platter piled with pot roast cut into chunks sat in the center, surrounded by the dishes of green beans and whipped potatoes, her silver gravy boat, and the basket of Meadow Lark's rolls. And Mama was wearing red lipstick. She had lit two tall candles, and their flames stretched and flickered, and the room held its breath as if waiting for some wonderful, shiny thing to happen.

Everything looked so good and cheerful, the way every day should be. But it wasn't perfect, because the chair next to Meadow Lark was still empty. No matter how pretty Mama set the table, or how good the food smelled, that beautiful scene wasn't complete without Theron sitting in that chair.

I looked down at my lap, because I didn't want anyone to see me looking sad. My heart hurt for Mama, that she had put so much trouble into making that table so beautiful, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't make it perfect. If the meal had been shabby, maybe seeing that empty seat wouldn't have felt so sharp.

Daddy didn't seem to notice, and he lifted his glass of wine to Mama. She passed Meadow Lark the potatoes piled high in a gold-rim bowl. They were so smooth that when Meadow Lark plunked out a spoonful, they flattened on her plate.

“Whereabouts in Arizona are you from?” Daddy asked as he forked a chunk of roast onto his plate.

“Near Phoenix, out in the desert,” Meadow Lark say. I'd already told them where she was from, so I knew Daddy was being polite by asking her directly.

Meadow Lark poured gravy on her potatoes. She didn't know enough to make a well in them first, and the gravy pooled around them, touching the green beans.

Then she put the gravy boat back on the table so gently that it didn't make a noise on the tablecloth, the same way she opened Theron's door so quietly that you knew she'd opened many doors that way before.

“There aren't any rivers in Arizona,” I say.

“Oh, yes, there are,” Daddy say.

Mama passed me the platter of pot roast. “Help yourself, River.”

Meadow Lark sat chewing and looking at her plate, and I tried again. “Daddy, you've been to Phoenix. You go there all the time for work.”

Daddy smiled at me and swallowed. “I don't go that far west very often,” he say, and at that I decided to stop talking, so he wouldn't contradict me anymore. Meadow Lark, not me and not the pot roast, appeared to be the center of attention.

Mama held the bread basket out to Meadow Lark and unfolded the white napkin like a rose. “Have one of your rolls, dear,” she say. “How nice of your father to make them.”

“Oh, he didn't make them,” Meadow Lark say. She chose one and put it on her plate. “We got them at the Bread Box.”

Mama took one out of the basket. “Hmm,” she say, examining it. “Well, it was thoughtful of him anyway.”

Then Mama put the roll on her plate in a way I knew meant she wouldn't be picking it up again, not trusting where it come from.

I took one too. It was all part of forgiving Meadow Lark.

“Did you ever go to the trolley museum in Phoenix?” Daddy asked, lifting a fork of green beans. By then I'd stopped listening to Daddy talk about Arizona and the mountains and the museums in Phoenix. Something more interesting was going on right in front of me. Mama was staring at Meadow Lark, studying her, as if she were waiting for Meadow Lark to do something astounding, like catch fire.

“Butter?” Mama asked, holding out the butter plate to Meadow Lark.

Meadow Lark put a pale little square on her plate. She picked up the roll from the gold-rim plate glimmering with candlelight.

When Meadow Lark picked up the roll, Mama say, “I—you—” but her breathing sounded short and quick, like she was inhaling snow crystals, and she didn't finish what she started to say.

Meadow Lark touched the roll with the fingers of her other hand. Outside, the blanket of cloud pulled away from a soft, coral sky. Soon it would be time to sit out with Daddy and listen and wait.

“They used to have mules pull the trolleys,” he was saying. “It took three hours to make all the stops down through the city.”

Meadow Lark tore off a piece of roll, and Mama put her hand to her mouth.

“What, Mama?” I asked.

Daddy stopped talking about Arizona and mules and looked at Mama. “Dear?” he say.

“I'm . . . ,” Mama's eyes grew wide and glittery in the candlelight, and her lips made a red O.

“What is it, Caroline?” Daddy asked, but Mama just kept looking at Meadow Lark like she was seeing her again after a very long time.

Then she stood up. “Excuse me,” she say, and left the dining room, touching Meadow Lark's shoulder on the way out.

The three of us sat there looking at one another for the longest time, as if we expected Mama to come back in with dessert. Finally, I asked, “What was she talking about, Daddy?”

“I think she's just tired,” he say, and then he excused himself and went upstairs.

Meadow Lark and I looked at each other. She ate until her plate was clean, and when she helped herself to more beans, I went up to Mama's room.

She lay flat on their bed like a plunk of whipped potatoes, her dark hair spilling off the pillow, and her lipstick a red smudge on her mouth.

“Mama?” I asked. She touched my arm and say very gently, “I'm fine, honey. Just let me alone a while.”

“I told her she needed to see the doctor,” Daddy say, but Mama shook her head.

“I'm just fine, Ingram,” she say, and looked at the doorway. “Where's your friend? Where's Meadow Lark?”

“She's still eating,” I say.

Mama smiled. “She's a nice girl. You two do the dishes. I'll be down in a while.”

Then she and Daddy shared another one of those looks that didn't need words, and Daddy kissed her forehead. “Let's go, River,” he say to me, and ushered me out to the hall and closed the door softly.

“What's wrong with her?” I asked.

“I don't know. Did Meadow Lark say something that upset her?”

I went over in my mind what happened just before Mama left the table. Mama served the food, and Meadow Lark started eating one of her rolls, and then suddenly Mama acted funny.

“I don't think so,” I say, but something about those moments just before Mama left the table—like the hushed moments in church—felt like held breath. Maybe Mama saw something she'd been looking for. I just didn't know what.

“Maybe Mama will explain it to us,” I say to Daddy.

Mama was on my mind all during the time Meadow Lark and I washed the dishes and when we sat out with Daddy in silence. Silence is different from quiet, because quiet is peaceful, and all during the dusk time my mind churned with questions.

What happened to Mama?

Did she see something?

What?

Question after question come to me, each one leading to the next, until finally I asked,
What does Meadow Lark have to do with it?