Some Kind of Happiness (27 page)

Once again I have ruined everything.

“Don't let Grandma see it.” Gretchen hands the photo back to me. “It's a good picture.”

“Gretchen?” I call out.

She stops at the door. “Yeah?”

“I love you. I'm sorry I freaked you out.”

Gretchen hurries back and hugs me. When I am ready to let go, she doesn't.

“Why do you think he wrote it?” she whispers. “Why did he leave?”

Her breath smells like Grandma's homemade icing, and my eyes fill up. My Gretchen.

“I don't know yet,” I admit. “But maybe the Everwood will tell me.”

“My mom might tell us. We could ask her over and over until she gives in. I'm really good at being annoying. I know her weaknesses.”

“No. Not yet. I need time to think. Okay? Promise me you won't ask your mom, or talk to her about any of this. Okay? Please, Gretchen.”

(If I ask too many questions, I am afraid of what Grandma and Grandpa might do to me.)

(Will they make me leave too?)

“Okay, okay.”

“Gretchen?” Stick knocks on my door. “Now. I mean it.”

Gretchen squeezes me tight and kisses my cheek. When she is gone, I look for a specific list in my notebook.

WHY MY DAD LEFT THE FAMILY

• 
Because he was called away on an adventure that required him to sacrifice all personal ties.

■ 
But then he got married, so that can't be it.

♦ 
Unless . . . am I part of some secret international plot? (Unlikely.)

• 
Because they wanted him to take over Grandpa's business with Uncle Reed, but he didn't want to. (But why would that be a secret?)

• 
Because he was different. (Like me.)

• Because of Grandma.

HE QUEEN FOLLOWED THE HOWLS
through the Everwood.

Above her the crow's dark wings slashed through the fog, leaving trails of light behind.

The light vanished quickly.

“Hurry,” hissed the snake, winding through the brittle grass.

“Hurry,” urged the fox, nipping at the queen's ankles.

“You go too quickly!” gasped the queen. “I cannot breathe in this darkness!”

But the crow, the snake, and the fox did not slow. There was no time left for pity.

They cut through a clearing and took a trail alongside the river—and here the queen stopped.

She felt the weight of malevolent eyes upon her.

She realized that the howls had stopped.

All around her was a thick quiet, heavy with danger.

“Crow?” she whispered. “Fox? Snake?”

They did not answer her.

But someone else did.

I
HAVE DECIDED THAT PEOPLE
do not come to your rescue, like they do in the movies. If they did, I would not feel this way right now.

(Even though I have Jack, Gretchen, the Everwood?)

(Yes, even so.)

Perhaps I have to rescue myself.

Which is difficult to do, when you are as tired as I am.

When you wake up to a bedroom full of morning sunshine and feel like crying for no particular reason.

When you are weighed down by something you do not understand.

(Breathe, Finley.)

(Don't let them see.)

•  •  •

Unfortunately, I cannot remain in bed today.

Grandma, Stick, and Aunt Dee are taking me, Kennedy, and Gretchen to a farmers' market Grandma organized for the WIC clinic. We are to wear bright name tags and man the information table and talk to people about healthy eating.

I protest, claiming I have come down with the flu, but Grandma does not believe me.

She marches into my bedroom at eight o'clock on Saturday morning, throws open my curtains, and flings my quilt off me.

I barely manage to slip my notebook under my pillow before the sunlight hits me.

I am sure I look terrible; I slept for perhaps a total of one hour. Not that it matters. I wrote three Everwood stories, and creative expression is salubrious.

(Ten-letter word: “healthy, beneficial, invigorating.”)

“Rise and shine, Finley! We need to be downtown by ten.”

Grandma searches through my collection of new dresses until she finds one that satisfies her: a long sundress with a white top and a yellow skirt. She lays it out on my bed.

“Get dressed, sweet girl. We have to pick up your aunts, and I won't be late.”

“Grandma,” I croak, “I really don't feel well.”

“Nothing a little work and conversation can't fix!” Grandma finds a pair of suitable shoes. “Here, these will do. Come, get up. You'll love the market. Lots of fresh air, fresh food, nice people, and sunshine. Tell me that doesn't sound just marvelous.”

She pauses at the door, smiling.

When I look more closely, I realize her hand is gripping the door, hard. She is leaning on the door frame.

Her makeup is flawless, but I see a strip of sweat along her hairline.

I peel her smile away and see . . .

What must it feel like to have a poisonous disease growing inside you, eating you up bit by bit?

Surely it feels a lot worse than feeling sad.

Sadness is for people who lose their families in a house fire.

Sadness is for people who have cancer.

“Okay.” My head is swimming and aching; moving is like trying to run through water.

“I hope you're feeling better than you were yesterday. No allergies from the dust, I hope?”

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A HART

• If you have a fight in the attic in front of everyone, if you freak out your aunts, if you make your cousins cry, you don't talk about it the next day.
Obviously.

• Acting so childish is not attractive.

• We are grown-ups here. We are normal.

I imagine carving a smile onto my face from the inside out. I will not say anything about that letter from my father. In this clean, white bedroom it does not exist.

Perhaps it is my imagination, but Grandma seems to stand up straighter once she sees me smile. She comes over and hugs me, kisses my hair, tells me that we will have a lovely day together and that everything will be fine.

So I know I am doing the right thing.

•  •  •

The farmers' market is in the square downtown. Rows of covered tables hold boxes of fruits and vegetables, local cheeses, fresh flowers.

Grandma and I sit at a table near the front of the market, wearing our name tags and pointing people where they need to go. Gretchen, Kennedy, Stick, and Aunt Dee drift through the crowd, handing out flyers about WIC services.

I could stand up and call out their names, and they would all turn to me—but I nevertheless feel very far away from them, like we are separated by hundreds of miles.

“Candace, good to see you! Great turnout, don't you think?” It is Roxann Bates, who was at the 10K race earlier this summer. She bustles by, carrying bushels of basil.

That race seems like it happened in another life. I was a different Finley then. I knew nothing about fires or sick grandmothers or boys named Jack.

“Absolutely!” Grandma calls out. “Those mailers did the trick! Couldn't have done it without you.”

Roxann Bates salutes Grandma. “You're the mastermind! I'm just good at stuffing envelopes. Ha!”

Roxann Bates hurries off, waving at someone else and calling out, “Wait! Mark, don't put the tomatoes
there
!”

When Roxann is gone, Grandma touches my arm. Her face is pale, sweaty, splotchy. Her eyelids flutter. “Will you excuse me, Finley? I need to use the ladies' room.”

“Are you okay?”

“Nothing to worry about. If you need help while I'm gone, get Stick, all right?”

“But, Grandma—”

“Finley, please. Everything is fine.” Then Grandma squeezes my hand and leaves.

I sit very still and count to thirty, which is all I can handle. I find Aunt Dee and wave her over.

Her face is flushed with the sun. Her eyes sparkle. This is what a healthy person looks like.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I tell her. “Can you watch the table?”

Aunt Dee adjusts the visor I am wearing—one of Grandma's, as white as her fake, fake hair. “Where's your grandmother?”

“Talking to anyone she can find.”

Aunt Dee laughs. “Of course. Sure, go on. The library's letting us use their restrooms.”

I weave through a forest of people. The sun is too bright, reflecting off everyone's shoes and bags and sunglasses. Flashes of light blind me. There are tons of kids here, little ones. They're laughing and screaming and talking and crying, and my heart is a drumroll, and I need to find Grandma
now
.

It is quiet and cool inside the library. Pam the librarian waves at me from her desk. I wave back and go the other direction.

(Grandma, please be okay.)

In the women's restroom someone is getting sick in the farthest stall. I hurry inside another one and sit on the
toilet and pull my feet up so I become invisible.

It's Grandma, in the farthest stall. Grandma, getting sick.

It goes on for way too long, and I make myself listen instead of covering my ears, because if she has to feel that, then someone else should have to hear it. It is too lonely otherwise.

I want to open the door and hug her until she stops, but I cannot move. I sit there, invisible, and wait until she is finished. I listen to her breathing get back to normal. I watch through the crack in my door as she rinses her mouth and washes her hands and pats her face with a paper towel.

Then she fixes her hair and practices smiling in the mirror.

“All right, then,” she says to herself, and tugs her shirt straight, and leaves.

I count to ten and sneak out after her, following her bright white hair back through the market until we return to the table where Aunt Dee waits with Kennedy.

“Mom, you okay?” Aunt Dee lets Grandma have her chair back. “You look a little out of sorts.”

“Why, thank you, Deirdre,” Grandma says lightly. “I'll try not to take offense at that. I'm perfectly fine, only a little overheated. Would you get me some water, Kennedy, darling?”

Kennedy leaves, and Aunt Dee gets pulled away by a mother with two kids who wants to apply for WIC services.

I slip back into my seat.

“Where did you run off to?” Grandma asks.

I take a deep breath. “Bathroom.”

Grandma goes very still. Then she says, “Ah.”

I feel like we are playing the Quiet Game. When you're tired of playing and want to shout out all the words you've been keeping inside you, but you absolutely cannot lose.

So instead you sit, and bite down on everything screaming inside you, and wait.

ELLO, LITTLE QUEEN.”

They were shaped like humans, but with no eyes and no noses—only gaping mouths. Their bodies were made of shadow. Their horns curved like scythes.