Some Kind of Happiness (36 page)

Maybe we should not be talking about this. After everything I have learned in the past couple of days, don't more important things need discussing?

What will happen to us, if Grandma decides to tell the world the truth?

“Finley?” Grandma folds her soft, warm hand around mine. “Are you all right?”

“Really? Like, honestly?”

“Yes.”

Then again, I have heard people say—Mom, when she's stressed about work; Rhonda, when she's trying to sound mature—that it is important to take life one day at a time, one moment at a time, one item on the great big list of life to-dos at a time.

This can be my moment—right now, between me and Grandma. One moment out of a billion ones yet to come.

It is okay for me to have that.

I take a deep breath.

(How many people have I told about this? Ever?)

(No one. Not a single living soul.)

(Only my notebook. The Everwood, of course, already knew. We are connected, me and those trees.)

Everything about this summer comes back to me like I am seeing it for the first time.

“I don't think I'm okay.” I stare at the table. “I'm not very happy.”

A single knot inside me untangles.

Grandma waits, her hand on mine.

“I'm sad, a lot,” I say. “And I get afraid a lot.
Really
afraid. Like, panicky for no reason. And I don't know why.”

I tell her it scares me.

I tell her it makes me angry.

I tell her I feel guilty about it. I know I should be happy. I want to carve this thing out of me with a knife.

Grandma smiles—not her magazine smile. More like Mom when she is tired and comes in after a long day to tuck me in.

(Mom says she refuses to give up that parental right, even when I am grown up.)

“I know the feeling, wanting to carve something out of you,” says Grandma.

Oh. Of course she does. “I'm sorry—”

“Don't be. I'm going to be okay.”

“That's what the doctor says?”

“That's what
I
say.”

Even I know that cancer is not so simple. You cannot smile it better. You cannot tell it you are a Hart and watch it obey.

“You should tell them you're sick,” I say.

“Who?”

“Everyone.”

Grandma's lips thin. “Finley—”

“They would want to know.”

“And they will, eventually. For now this house will remain
what it is. For as long as I can keep it that way, I will.”

There is no arguing with her. I am used to the expression on her face. I see it on my own, all the time, when I look in the mirror and tell myself,
You will stop feeling sad. You will push it down. You will be okay. You will be happy, now. Right now.

Maybe Grandma and I are more alike than I have ever thought possible.

Grandma sighs, looks at her hands. “Finley, I did everything wrong, didn't I? All of this: the dresses, Dr. Bristow. Your notebook. I kept thinking I was making you happy, making you better, but I think, deep down, I knew I wasn't. I was doing those things for me, and I'm sorry.” She laughs, a puff of soft, sad air. “I was doing all of this for me. For the family. And it was all wrong.”

My eyes fill up. I am so tired of that feeling, but I cannot stop it. “Mom and Dad are getting a divorce, and I don't know what will happen now.”

Grandma's face goes soft. “Oh, Finley. None of us do, about any of it. But we have to keep going anyway. Giving up is not an option in this house. And if you have to keep going, you might as well smile while you're doing it. Don't you think that's right?”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“You
guess
so?”

My smile is small, but it still counts. “I
know
so.”

“Quite right. So, why don't you finish your drink? Then, since you're up, you can help me make breakfast.”

“Pancakes?”

Grandma gets up, snaps a dishtowel, and folds it. “Naturally.”

This is one of the reasons why you keep going, I think.

Even after everything else has gone wrong, pancakes still smell the same.

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A HART

• Giving up is not an option.

• And if you have to keep going, you might as well smile while you're doing it.

That says everything you need to know, really.

S
OMETIMES BEFORE YOU CAN GIVE
someone help, the person has to ask you for it, because they have gotten really good at hiding what hurts them.

I know, because I am good at that.

I know, because I am learning that it is okay to ask for help. Otherwise, how will you ever find it?

•  •  •

Jack and I lie on our backs in the Tower.

Across the river, back in the Wasteland, a crew is working to rebuild the Bone House.

Except we do not want to call it the Bone House anymore. It is too macabre.

(Seven-letter word for “representing death.”)

I have added this to my list of favorite words. Not to be morbid, but because it will help me remember.

(Also, we have asked the crew to keep Cole's mural of all of us, and they agreed.)

(We will live forever in that house, no matter what happens.)

My cousins and I cracked open our box of dues, because the summer is almost over, and we do not need material items
to know we are bound together forever—through blood, of course, but through the Everwood, too.

I close my eyes and let the wind rush over me. I hear birds singing, and Grandma's wind chimes.

Beside me Jack belches.

I want to laugh, but it catches on something in my throat and disappears.

Mom and Dad are here now. Even though they had to take some time off work to do it, they brought their things and are staying for a while, to help with everything. Mom could not resist the chance to recreate the Bone House. She has been in constant conversation with the building crew about the curve of the staircase, the dimensions of the kitchen.

No. Not the Bone House. What will we call it?

We have to figure it out soon. When all this is done, my parents and I will leave. Then one of them will leave again, and I will live . . . where? I will be split between two homes, two parents.

If that pizza boy ever starts delivering pizzas again, he may not know where to find me.

I will be far from my Everwood.

I press my palms flat against the Tower floor.

Sometimes over the past few days so much has been going on that I have forgotten how I really feel.

But when I have a moment to sit back and think, I slip back into that cold, blue water again, and I can hardly move at all.

(Yes. Still. After everything that's happened.)

(Still my sadness remains.)

(It comes and goes in waves, like a never-ending ocean.)

Jack puts his feet up on the painted wall. “I have a plan.”

“For what?”

“For keeping you here in Billington.”

“Good luck with that.”

“No, seriously, hear me out.”

I sigh. “Okay. Shoot.”

“So, your grandparents' castle probably has a dungeon somewhere—”

“
Jack.
Come on.”

“No, this is great. Listen. We find the key, lock your parents inside. We don't let them out until they agree to our terms: (a) They let you stay in Billington; (b) they get over themselves and cancel the divorce.”

“There are so many problems with that plan.”

“What are you talking about? It's flawless.”

“What if there
is
no dungeon? What will we tell my dad's boss and my mom's clients? What if we get arrested for, you know, imprisoning my parents?”

“Okay, so the plan needs some work.”

“A little bit, yeah.”

Avery's painting music floats down from the garage.

“Hey,” Jack says, after a while. “I'm sorry.”

“For what?”

“For getting mad that night. When you saw my mom and dad.”

“You've said sorry about ten million times.”

“Yeah, but I never told you
why
I got mad.”

“It's okay.”

“Seriously, Finley.” Jack turns onto his side to look at me. “I want to tell you.”

When I look back at him, I realize too late that I do not know how to handle this situation. Jack is so close that his breath moves tiny strands of my hair.

“Okay,” I say. “What?”

“Why'd I get mad?”

“Jack. Yes. Why'd you get mad?”

“Because, well . . . I have this crush on you.”

It kind of seems like a joke, with him staring at me, so serious. People who say things like that while looking so serious are bound to be poking fun at you. Right?

Jack and me. Me and Jack. We are in the Tower, and it seems like it's right where we are supposed to be.

“Stop making fun of me,” I say.

“I'm one hundred percent serious. It's just . . . I didn't want you to see them. Whenever Mom comes by, she's in such a bad mood, and Dad . . . he's great, but when he gets like that, when he drinks, he's . . .”

“Scary?”

“Yeah.”

“He was nice, though, after.”

“He is. I love him, you know? I just don't always like him. He's got problems.”

I do laugh then. What else can I do? “He's not the only one.”

Jack cracks a grin. “Hey, you know what?”

“What?”

“You're blushing.”

I sit up and shake my hair over my cheeks. “I am not.”

“It's okay.” Jack grins. “You can have a crush on me, too.”

This is getting out of hand. “How can you just
say
things like that?”

He shrugs. “That's the way I am.”

“Well, you want to know the way
I
am?”

Jack sits up. “Definitely.”

I have only said these words out loud twice—to Grandma, to Mom and Dad.

And now to Jack.

“I have these things I call blue days,” I say. “When I get sad for no reason.”

Jack nods and waits. He hasn't run away screaming
yet
.

“And I don't mean normal sad. At all. I mean sad for
no reason
. Heavy sad. I wake up feeling happy and then anything can happen, or
nothing
can happen, and all of a sudden I'm sad, and I can't stop being sad, even though I want to. Sometimes I freak out so bad I can't breathe. Sometimes I pretend to be sick to stay home from school because it feels impossible to get out of bed. That's how I came up with the
Everwood. I started writing about it to make myself feel better.”

I stop, feeling dizzy. Each time I talk about this, each time I let out the words, I feel . . . lighter. Clear like the Everwood sky.

“So?” I say. “Do you still have a crush on me?”

“Yep,” says Jack.

“Why? How can you?”

“Too long to explain. But I do have a question.”

I sigh. He is exasperating. He needs to comb his hair. “What?”

“Were you happy in the Everwood? With all of us?”

“Yes.” I answer that without thinking.

“But you were still sad, too?”

This I answer more slowly, because it makes me angry to admit it. “Yes.”

“Well, okay. So that has to mean something. Right?”

“Like what?”

“Like maybe you have to really try and fix it now. The stuff that's been bothering you. The blue days. Because if you're sad even when you're happy, even when you're doing stuff you like doing, maybe you can't just ignore it forever.”

His words remind me of what Mom said, the other night, snuggled up in my bed here at Hart House: “You can't hide in the Everwood anymore, sweetie.”

Dad sat beside the bed, in a chair.

(Before, he would have been in there with us.)

(But that was before.)

“We can help you, Fin,” Dad said. “There are lots of ways to help you with this. But we've all got to try, together. Okay?”

And now I am sitting beside Jack, and he shrugs. “Maybe you've got to ask someone to help you figure it out. I don't know.”

“I guess so,” I say.

Jack smiles. “No big deal.”

“No big deal.”

“I'll help, if you want. You can write me letters and tell me everything.”

“What about the dungeon plan?”

Jack holds my hand. “Is this okay?”

(If this day had a color, it would be as gold as the sun.)

“Yeah. It's okay.”

(It is so okay that it surpasses all possible definitions of the word.)

“So, the dungeon plan.”

“In progress.” Jack sticks his other arm out into the sun and closes his eyes. “But don't worry. We'll figure it out.”

He is right.

This is a work in progress.

I will figure it out.

•  •  •