Saving Cicadas (23 page)

I wonder what went wrong with Priscilla. Perhaps I doted on her too much when she was younger. Gave her too much freedom. I was afraid to do anything for fear she wouldn't love me anymore. I had a son out there, somewhere. The knowledge was unbearable at times, and I felt undeserving of whatever love I received from Priscilla. I was terrified she might make the same mistakes I'd made someday. And when she was becoming of age and I saw a young woman there, I grew determined to protect her from the world. Perhaps I overcompensated a bit. Overwhelmed her with rules just a little.

Children can sense when a parent suffers. I gladly would have kept silent all my suffering except that when we moved to Yuma, my son Fritz came to find us, and my deepest secret came spilling out.

How many nights I lay in bed, dreaming of a day when we might be reunited. I prayed every night that Fritz was with a family who loved him. At the same time, I envied those people. They, whoever they were, got to hold him, touch him, look at him in the eyes. They got to know him. I imagined he didn't even remember me anymore. I was torn between hoping he'd forget and hoping there was still a remembrance of me, somewhere inside.

I have no real excuse for giving Fritz away. In my time of grief, after hearing William had died in Vietnam, I was hardly a woman. I was unfit to be his mother. In my eyes, Fritz had lost both parents at the same time. I felt nothing. I looked at my own child and could not summon any emotion. In my grief, I feared I may never feel a thing again and I knew I was no sort of mother for a child to have.

I made sure he was placed with a family before making it final. Fritz was only eighteen months old when I said good-bye to him. I can remember he was wearing the nicest blue sailor smock. I'd made it for him when he was born with the hopes of him growing into it. I'd hoped his father might come home from war and find his new son wearing that outfit, and we'd be a family.

But that didn't happen.

Fritz was asleep in a basket when I handed him to the social worker. We said everything in a hushed voice so as not to wake him up.

The feelings inside me were so dead and gone I never imagined them resurrected, but the very next morning with the light of day coming in the bedroom window, I sat up, waiting for my child to coo from the crib. Suddenly, the most enormous pain I'd ever encountered ripped through my body. I felt the pain of losing my husband fully and completely. And I felt the horrible shattering that no mother should ever feel, that of regret and sadness and fear, to the point I considered jumping from the rooftop just to end my misery. I knew in that instant, sitting in my nightclothes, I'd made the most terrible mistake of my life, giving Fritz away.

But times were different then. There was no undoing it.

Timing. My timing, or God's timing, whoever's timing it was, was hideous. If only I'd been able to feel the pain of losing William twenty-four hours earlier, I might have spared myself a lifetime of regret, and a lifetime away from my precious son Fritz. Of course, then I never would have met Grayson neither.

These are the things some mothers must ponder and bear for years and years. And bear it I do. Still to this day.

Chapter Thirty-seven
THE DEAD WALL

{Janie}

The day we put Poppy's picture up on “the dead wall” was the single worst one of my eight-and-a-half years. Rainey and I had spent the last couple days moping around the house, trying to accept the fact that Poppy was dead and gone. We were mostly quiet, keeping to ourselves, not yet at the reminiscing stage that some grievers make it to. But we did get together long enough to discuss the fact that Poppy's picture was not up on the stairwell.

At suppertime, Rainey asked Mama, “Where Poppy picture? Got put up on the wall.” She pointed, and Mama observed her with reverence.

“You know, you are absolutely right. My daddy's picture should be up on that wall and it's not. Is that what you mean, honey?”

Rainey nodded and stuffed her mouth full with dumplings. “Tell you what, after I do the dishes, why don't we go up in the attic and see if there's a big one we can frame and stick up there. Would you like that?”

We both said we would, and Grandma Mona agreed it was a fine idea, so after supper, Rainey and I waited patiently on the stairs for Mama to finish cleaning up. It was a solemn occasion. And quick.

We climbed up to the attic, felt the heat, and didn't hardly look around at all because right there by the door, propped up, was a large, already-framed photo of Poppy. Funny how we hadn't seen that before. He was young and dressed in his bow tie, just like always. Behind him was a cornfield. Grandma Mona said how handsome he was, and Rainey and I teared up at seeing him, and when Mama hung him right next to his daddy, Adolph Macy, we sat there for the rest of the night, staring at the wall, sad as all get-out, missing our grandfather. Knowing that nothing would ever be as good without him around. 'Course, we should have appreciated those moments of calm and quiet. We didn't know things could get even worse than they already were.

Mama had been awful sweet ever since signing those papers at the church. She seemed happy in her new house. She spent much of her time cleaning and making lists of things she needed to fix and things she needed to buy for the house. She bought a newspaper and began circling jobs she could apply for. Some of them were waitressing jobs, but some of them weren't—things like
secretary
and
receptionist
. Those were big jobs, and I was proud of her for thinking of trying something different.

She even circled the names of some schools and day care centers. One was at the Covenant Church. I imagined our lives there in Forest Pines, Mama working a new big job, Rainey at the grocery store, me in a new school, and the baby at the church with Fritz. Yes, it all seemed it might work out nicely in the end.

Then one day the doorbell rang.

Rainey and I were up in our room, reading books, and Mama was in the kitchen, cutting up some squash she'd pulled from the garden. We knew it wasn't Fritz, because he never rang the doorbell, just knocked on the door whenever he came over. We thought it might could be Mrs. Arielle coming to call about Bobby Sue cosmetics, or maybe the old lady in the yellow house across the street needing to borrow some sugar, like people do sometimes on TV shows.

But when we came to the top of the stairs and looked down at Mama opening the door, we could see by the way she stood there frozen—the person on the other side was somebody she sure as rain wasn't expecting to see.

“Harlan?” we heard Mama say. “Fritz?”

“Hey, Priscilla. You were right. He sure is a hard man to find.”

“Daddy?” I looked over at Grandma Mona. We were all huddled at the top of the steps. I started to dart down to the door.

“Janie!” Grandma Mona said in a hush. “Not now. Come back up here.”

I stopped but didn't turn around. My eyes were glued to that front door. I couldn't see my daddy, but I knew he was just on the other side, and the thought of it made me faint, like I might roll right down the stairs and bump into Mama's feet. I turned and looked at Grandma Mona, and she reached for my hand. Numbly, I gave it to her and she walked Rainey and me up the stairs and into Mama's room. She quietly shut the door and stood in front of it.

“Daddy's here, Daddy's here!” I whispered to Rainey, jumping around like I might wet my pants.

“That's enough,” said Grandma Mona.

“She said ‘Harlan.' That's Daddy's name!”

“I know it, child, I know.”

“But she's been looking for him . . . all over everywhere. And she loves him. And now he's back. We're gonna be a family again. With the house and the daddy and everything! Just like the real gingerbread house.”

“Gingerbread,” said Rainey, trying to smile, but scared at the same time.

Rainey looked at me, and I could tell we were thinking the same thing. We ran to the window with the big tree behind it and opened it up. We stuck our heads out and breathed the cool breeze and tried desperately to see what was going on, but we couldn't see for the porch being there. I loved that porch, but at that moment, I would've given anything if we just didn't have one.

“Girls, that's your mother's private affair down there. It's not good to listen in like this.”

But there was no stopping us. In fact, I could tell Grandma Mona was getting closer to that window, too, eavesdropping like we were.

“. . . you shouldn't be here . . .”

“. . . shouldn't have ran off like that . . .”

“. . . can't come in the house, she might see you . . .”

“Priscilla, isn't there something you wanted to say to Harlan?” I heard Uncle Fritz's voice cut clear through like a bell.

“No. Wait.” It was my daddy's voice now, low and firm. Hearing it made my body fill up with warm goodness, like blood pumping for the very first time. It spread all over in my cheeks, my arms, my feet. Then it chilled when I heard him say, “There's something I've got to say to you, Priscilla. Something I should have said a long time ago.”

Chapter Thirty-eight
RIGHT UNDER THEIR NOSES

{Mona}

It was 1980. We'd just moved to Yuma, Arizona. Grayson was excited about being out in the desert with a whole new ecosystem to learn and fuss over. Me? I missed the trees from back home. I missed the oaks and pines and birds and bugs and everything there was to surround you with greenness and home. I even missed the humidity of South Carolina. But Grayson was happy, and that's what I wanted.

Priscilla was now the prettiest girl in Yuma. She had been the prettiest in Forest Pines, but she'd left all of her friends back there, every single one. They said they'd call and write, and there had been a letter or two, but the letters had already stopped. Priscilla was fifteen years old, in a new place where people didn't know her. It must have been a confusing time for a young girl, but I thought kids were resilient.

Then to top it all off, Fritz, the long-lost brother she never knew about, came and found me. I can only imagine what that must have done to her. I know how it affected me and, temporarily, my marriage to Grayson.

Now, it's not like Priscilla turned bad or was getting into drugs or anything like that. Not like she came home with tattoos or ears pierced, even. But when Priscilla came home with all that long beautiful blonde hair chopped off, I sucked in my breath and feared the worst. She had changed before my very eyes. She was a different child all of a sudden. She began hanging out with this Johnson boy and his friends. I forbade her from leaving the house at times, but she'd sneak off. It seemed the more I told her she couldn't do something, the more she'd try to do the opposite.

Turned out it wasn't the Johnson boy I should have been worried about at all. It was the strange young man who lived across the street from us. He was right under our noses the whole time, and his name was Harlan Bradfield.

Chapter Thirty-nine
THE BIG QUESTION

{Janie}

Rainey and I were leaning so far out that bedroom window, Grandma Mona had to reel us back in lest we fall. The sky was dark and cloudless above, full of stars. For once in my life, I was glad it was dark because it made it easier to sharpen my senses and listen in on what my daddy was saying on the porch. It's not like it came in all loud and clear because his voice dropped down an octave, and I could only catch a word here or there.

“. . . back in Yuma . . . loved you the first time . . . shouldn't have taken me so . . . don't need an answer now . . . marry me?”

A hush lay over the whole town in the instant my father asked my mother to marry him. Rainey and I looked at each other. We stopped breathing just to hear what her answer would be. In those moments of waiting, I was filled with pure hope, hope for a better life, hope for a whole family, hope for the love my mama and Rainey and I so deserved.

And then, without any screaming or crying or calling out, “Yes, Harlan, yes!” I heard the door shut quietly below us. I watched the backs of Uncle Fritz and my daddy as they emerged from the porch, went down the walkway, and got back in Fritz's car to leave.