Journey (4 page)

I am dreaming. I always know when I am dreaming because I can fly. I fly over the farm, over the blueberry barren, over the barn and house. I fly over Grandfather in the field, and when I call down to him he raises his camera and takes a picture of me with my wings all warm. Then I fly down a road. The road turns into a map, and the map is large with all the roads marked, and I follow all the towns one by
one by one. When I try to call down again, my voice has changed to a bird’s voice. And no one looks up.

I woke, sweating, with early light coming in the window. I sat up, looking over to the chair in the corner, and then I remembered that Cooper had left, long ago. Long ago, after we had worked, and Cooper had sat back suddenly and told me that it was impossible. That was the word he used,
impossible.
That I couldn’t patch all the pictures together because there were so many; more than I had thought.
Look
, he had said to me,
some of these pictures are very old; here is part of your grandmother’s face when she was very little. Like the picture in the swing. Remember?

My grandma’s face.
She had even torn up my grandma.

And I told Cooper his cowboy hat looked stupid.

And he left.

And I knew Mama was never coming back. I got up and looked out the window. Cooper’s bike leaned against the house, and I half
expected to see him there, too, but I knew he had walked home alone through the fields in the dark.

Behind me the lamp was still on, its pale yellow light spilling out over the pictures. I bent down and picked up the pieces, trying not to look at the faces of the people as I filled the box and put it in my closet. Bloom appeared to rub her face against my arm. With a small sound, she jumped into the box and lay there, looking up at me through tired eyes.

“The box is yours, Bloom,” I said. “You found it, after all.”

And I climbed out the window, very quietly so as not to wake anyone, and began to pedal Cooper’s bicycle down the road to his house. I didn’t get very far when I began to cry.

* * *

Cooper’s house was white clapboard with a cement sidewalk, his mother’s narrow lines of alternating white petunias and red salvia on either side. I thought of Grandma’s growing garden of flowers and vegetables, getting larger as
the days passed. Cooper’s mother didn’t like to garden.

“If God had wanted us to garden, he would have had plots all dug up, waiting for us. And he wouldn’t have created weeds, either,” she once said.

I wheeled the bicycle up the walk. I was not surprised to see Cooper sitting on the front porch in a white metal chair. I was not surprised, either, that he still wore his cowboy hat.

“Thanks for bringing my bike,” he said.

“I’m sorry. What I said about your hat,” I told him.

Cooper nodded. I sat down next to him.

We looked out over the neat yard.

“You been crying?” asked Cooper, not looking at me.

“Yes.”

After a moment Cooper shrugged his shoulders like Grandfather.

“Well, then,” he said, “let’s go in. Mrs. MacDougal is making breakfast.”

Cooper called his mother Mrs. MacDougal. So did Mr. MacDougal. I expected that one day
soon Emmett would ask for his bottle please, Mrs. MacDougal.

In the kitchen Cooper’s mother was making pancakes. Emmett sat in his high chair, smears of banana and applesauce across his face and up his arms to his elbows. His hair was stuck to his scalp with pancake syrup. Food lined the creases of his neck like putty.

“He’s learning to feed himself,” explained Mrs. MacDougal, putting a plate in front of me. “You’ll have some breakfast, Journey?”

Emmett grinned at me, banana oozing around his two front teeth.

“Just a little, please,” I said, and Cooper laughed.

“Mr. MacDougal!” called Cooper’s mother.

“I’ve eaten, Mrs. MacDougal!” answered Cooper’s father from upstairs. But soon he exploded into the room in his work clothes and kissed Emmett, then Cooper, then Mrs. MacDougal, then me. I was startled, trying to remember the last time someone had kissed me. The kiss was warm on my forehead, and I bent my head down to finish my pancake.

Cooper’s house was filled with MacDougals—pictures on the refrigerator and above the doorway. After we ate I followed Cooper into the dining room, where his great-grandparents hung over the sideboard. In the living room were pictures of Cooper as a baby, plump as a plum; Mr. and Mrs. MacDougal before they were married; and newer pictures of Emmett, all cleaned up and looking wise. I walked from room to room with Cooper, watching his life on the walls.

“Grandfather says pictures show us the truth sometimes,” I said.

Mrs. MacDougal stood in the doorway, watching us.

“Sometimes, maybe. But do you see that picture of me, there on the piano?”

I picked up the picture, framed in silver. Mrs. MacDougal was young, her mother and father standing formally behind her, her brothers flanking her protectively.

“Don’t we look the perfect family?” I smiled at her and nodded.

“Well, my brother Fergus, there on the left, was pinching the devil out of me when that
picture was taken. He did that all my life. He still does.”

I peered at the picture closely, searching for a look that told me this. But there were only smiles.

“Sometimes,” said Mrs. MacDougal, “the truth is somewhere behind the pictures. Not in them.”

In the kitchen, still in his high chair, Emmett began to fuss.

“Ah, well,” said Mrs. MacDougal, “I‘ better go hose him down.” She turned. “It’s early, Journey. Do Marcus and Lottie know where you are?”

“I’m going to ride him home on my bike, Mrs. MacDougal,” said Cooper.

* * *

We ride up the dirt road, me sitting on the seat, my legs out, Cooper pedaling in front of me. I hold on to his waist, and we pass fields and meadows and cows; we pass Weezer, the Moodys’ old dog, who makes a show of chasing us.

“Weezer, Weezer,” chants Cooper, and Weezer stops, stunned by the sound of his name, just before he runs into the mailbox.

We pass the Fullers’ horse farm, and the foals race along the fence, sending up little dust clouds when they stop. Cooper pedals up the long driveway to my house and right up over the grass to my bedroom window. And when I open the screen and climb in, Cooper behind me, everyone is there: Grandma, Grandfather, and Cat, staring into my closet.

Bloom has had her kittens.

In the box of pictures, now ruined, were Bloom and her kittens: four tiny bodies, all wet and dark.

“I’ve only been gone an hour,” I whispered.

Grandma smiled.

“That’s all it takes, sometimes.”

“Sorry about the pictures, Journey,” said Grandfather.

I sighed.

“It’s all right. It was impossible. But it was that baby’s hand …” My voice trailed off.

We watched the kittens fumbling to nurse and listened to their soft mewings.

Bloom stared up at Grandma.

“Yes,” Grandma said as if answering a question the rest of us hadn’t heard, “you are a wonderful mother!”

Cat reached down and rubbed Bloom’s chin.

“Who taught her?” I asked suddenly.

“Taught her what?” said Cooper. “How to have kittens?”

“No,” I said. “How to be a mother.”

There was a silence. Grandfather lifted his shoulders.

“Mothers know,” he said, looking at Grandma.

Cat said what I was thinking.

“Not all of them.”

No one spoke, but as if Bloom had understood our words, she began to clean her babies, showing us how to be a mother.

“Grandpa,” I said, “I want to take a picture. With the timer.”

My grandmother and Cat groaned at the same time.

“Oh, no,” complained Cat. “Don’t tell me, two of them!”

Grandfather grinned at me.

“Of course he wants to take a family picture. Out in the hall, Journey.”

In the hallway Grandfather’s camera and his tripod leaned against the wall.

“I’ll take the picture. I’m not family,” Cooper called to me.

I stood in the doorway and looked at Cooper through the viewfinder. His cowboy hat still sat on top of his head.

“Cooper,” I said, “you’re part of the family. But I want to take this picture.”

When I moved the camera, I saw Grandfather smiling at me from across the room.

“Now,” I said. “Everyone …”

There was laughter,

“What?” I asked

“You sound like you-know-who,” said Cat, bending her head toward Grandfather.

“Who?” asked Grandfather.

“The photographer twins,” said Cooper wryly.

“Now,” I said. “Everybody …” I shot a look at Cat.

Grandma sat, Cat next to her, leaning back against her shoulder. Cooper knelt behind them, Grandfather on the other side, watching me closely.

“Ready?” I said.

* * *

Time slows somehow as I look through the camera. I watch Bloom look at her babies; I watch Grandma kiss the top of Cat’s head and Cat turn to smile up at her; I see Cooper with his dumb hat, and my grandfather, smiling at me because he knows I am looking at him.

Smile
, I say to them, but I don’t need to say it
because they are all smiling. Real smiles, with their eyes, too.
Ten, nine, eight
, I say, and Cooper’s hat tilts and Cat snorts with laughter.
Seven, six.
I run to get into the picture, and Grandfather reaches out a hand toward me. I tumble into his arms, across his lap, and he holds me there, looking a little surprised, as if I’m a newborn baby. I stare at the button on his shirt. Then I stare up at his face.
Quick
, he whispers to me, and I turn and look into the camera just as the shutter clicks and Cooper’s hat falls down.

* * *

The kitchen was dark and cool and quiet. Cooper had stayed for dinner: chicken and mashed potatoes and peas.

“It’s good to eat with people who don’t have food on their faces,” said Cooper seriously. He paused. “But I love Emmett.”

“You do,” agreed Grandma.

Grandfather, his chin leaning on his hand, looked at Cooper.

“You’re a good brother,” he said.

Under the table I felt a sudden brush against my legs. Bloom looked up at me; then she walked to the screen door.

“Where’s she going?” I asked, alarmed.

Cat got up from the dinner table.

“She’s going out, Journey. Don’t fret.” She opened the door, and Bloom went out to sit on the porch. Cat turned to look at me. “She’ll come back,” she said softly.

Cooper got up, too.

“Thank you,” he said. “I like to get home for Emmett’s bath.”

He went out to the porch and stood for a moment next to Bloom. Then he put on his hat.

“‘Bye, Cooper,” said Cat.

We went out, all of us, and waved to Cooper.

“Maybe someday,” said Cat thoughtfully, “I
will
marry him.”

Grandma, smiling, tapped Cat on her shoulder. The two of them went to their garden.

Grandfather stood next to me, fiddling with his camera. I looked up at him, trying hard to remember something new, something at the edge of my mind. He put the camera around his neck.

“Think I’ll take a small walk to the henhouse.”

I smiled and watched him walk down the steps. Inside, the phone rang, and he turned.

“I’ll get it,” I called to him.

* * *

“Hello.”

I look out the screen door.

“Journey, is that you?” says my mother.

There is crackling on the line, and I stand very still, watching my grandfather walk away from the house.

“Journey?” Her voice is stronger now. “So, how have you been?”

I take a breath.

“A cat has come,” I say. “And the cat is a very good mother.” My voice rises. “And she is staying here with me. Forever.”

Grandfather found me in the barn. Light slanted through the windows, and dust motes floated in the air between us. He sat next to me on the bench in front of the wall of pictures. There were dozens now that spread across the back wall, some I’d never seen.

“That’s a new one,” I said, pointing to a close-up of a fierce-looking chicken.

“That chicken pecked me on the wrist,” said Grandfather. He held out his hand to show me the small red puncture wound. “Taking pictures is dangerous business.”

I nodded, looking at the picture I had taken, all soft and blurred. My grandfather holding Emmett on his knees.

There was silence.

“She asked me how I was,” I said after a
moment. I looked up at Grandfather. “And she never said she was sorry for leaving.”

Grandfather sighed.

“No. Liddie doesn’t want to feel guilty.”

“Well, she is guilty,” I said so softly that Grandfather bent his head down next to me to hear. “And then she said, They were only pictures, Journey.’”

Grandfather reached over and put his arm around me. I leaned against him.

“A picture stops a little piece of time, good or bad, and saves it,” he said. “Your mama never thought there was anything worth looking back on after your papa left. She thought all good things were ahead of her, waiting to happen … just around the corner. Your mama doesn’t really understand about the pictures.”

“But we understand, don’t we,” I said.

Grandfather’s arm tightened around me.

“We do.”

I sighed.

“I sure would like things to look back on.”

It was quiet in the barn. Somewhere in the garden Grandma was playing the flute, the beginnings of a song I didn’t know.

“Grandma’s getting better,” I said.

“Yes,” said Grandfather. “And it’s a good thing, too,” he added, making me smile.

“Mama wants me to visit her,” I said.

Grandfather got up and went to the wall of pictures and bent down as if he were examining them.

“I told her I couldn’t. I told her I have a cat and kittens to take care of.”

Grandfather straightened.

“I told her someday, maybe; if she sent me words instead of money, I might visit. Maybe.”

Grandfather said nothing.

“Grandfather?”

“What, Journey?” His voice was soft.

“I told her that nothing is perfect. Sometimes things are good enough.”

I got up and stood next to him and looked at the family picture of all of us, our necks all white in the sun as we looked up at the airplane overhead.

“I like that picture,” I said.

“So do I. You said it would be a good picture. Remember?”

I looked at the picture of us all framed in the barn doorway, with a blur of chicken flying past.

“Is that the chicken that pecked you?” I asked.

Grandfather began to laugh.

“Might be!”

He threw back his head, and I stared at him, surprised at that sound. It had been a long time since I’d heard him laugh, and suddenly I thought of Mr. MacDougal’s kiss on my forehead, how strange it had felt.

I watched Grandfather. And then, before he stopped laughing—because I wanted to remember what it was like—I stood on tiptoe and kissed him.