Unclaimed Treasures (7 page)

“Someone should rub your back,” said Willa, startling herself with the suggestion. She felt her face flush with embarrassment.

But Matthew was not shocked.

“Someone should, you are so very right, Willa,” he said.

“Someone will soon,” said Willa, feeling bold and warm and in love.

And as it turned out, Willa was right.

“A girl!” Horace Morris was amazed when Willa and Nicholas told him about the baby. He stretched his legs out over the curbstone. “That's something, isn't it? I mean, knowing.” He peered at Willa, who smiled at him.

“We got girls at our house,” said Porky, sucking his Popsicle.

“All over the place,” agreed Old Pepper. “You could have one if you wanted. No one would notice.”

“Have you got sisters?” asked Nicholas.

Old Pepper nodded. “Enough. Seven of them. I was nearly lost and drowning in stockings and underwear and curling irons, too, when I was young.” He squinted his eyes and peered at the roof across the street. “Parrots are better,” he said, watching Bella-Marie strut across the roof of the house. “She lives in her clothes. We'd all be better off if we did the same.”

Willa thought about the long white dress, about living in it, being forever tall and stately and beautiful. Fit for a painter's brush.
Fit for the painter
. And suddenly the thought of the painting being completed struck her with such a force that she felt chilled. Just as, every so often, the thought of her own death would make her stop, breathless, until she could will the thought away. No more mornings in the studio. Just Matthew and Willa. In the sun-filled room.

Nicholas leaned over and touched her shoulder.

“Willa? What's wrong?”

Willa looked up at him, sitting beside her on the curbstone. Looking up? It came to her just as suddenly as the thoughts of death and the finished painting. She was looking
up
at him.

“You are,” said Willa wearily, “taller than I am. For the first time, ever. When,” she whispered sadly, leaning toward Nicholas, “did that happen?”

Nicholas, seeing her face, didn't speak. He let her lean on him. And they all watched Bella-Marie, touched by the sunlight, move back and forth across the roof, dressed in her own eternal clothing.

It was Old Pepper at last, Old Pepper and Nicholas talking in their wise ways about change and dying—in the most matter-of-fact manner—that made Willa decide to do something extraordinary. It had never seemed so important as when she listened to them talk.

“I will die before Bella-Marie,” mused Old Pepper, sitting out near the garden, wheelbarrow close by, Bella bumping around the yard. “Certainly I will.”

“No,” said Willa loudly. Bella-Marie looked up.

“Ah, Willa,” said Old Pepper gently, “it's all right, child. It is, after all, my life. I don't mind.”

I don't mind
. Such a mild answer, she thought, when faced with the prospect of dying.

“Bella's a parrot, they're long-lived,” he said.

And he and Nicholas talked softly, their heads close together, deciding Bella's fate while Willa agonized over Old Pepper's dying, and Bella's and her mother's and father's, and the Unclaimed Treasures' and Horace's and Nicholas's and Matthew's—and at long last the worst death—
hers
.

“I myself,” stated Nicholas, his voice clear, “wish to be buried standing up. I hate to lie down.”

Willa's eyes widened, and in spite of herself, she burst into laughter. Remembering that when they shared a room it was always Nicholas who went to bed sitting up. It was she who welcomed nighttime, closing her eyes with secret thoughts when the lights went out. It was the thump of Nicholas in the upper bunk, falling over at last from his upright vigil, that signaled it was time. Willa would smile, turn over, the covers close about her neck, to sleep for the night.

“Upright,” said Nicholas, “or perhaps leaning against a tree so as not to fall over.” He looked at Willa. “Or with oversize shoes, long at the front and back to keep me upright.”

“Like Daffy Duck,” said Horace Morris softly. “And with dried apples nearby, and books . . .”

“Maybe a painting or two,” said Nicholas, “like the Egyptians—pictures of things loved to send you off. . . .”

Willa listened, their words bringing death closer. A death every few minutes, a birth every few minutes—something she had heard once on the radio. The baby was coming—a birth. Would a death follow? It was time. Time to do something extraordinary.

The Unclaimed Treasures were near the garden arguing about tempo. Her mother was in the garden
again
. Would she
root
there? Her father was keeping close watch over Ted and Wanda. The light in the upstairs studio was on. Matthew painted on and on. Old Pepper and Nicholas talked of death and parrots.

What was ordinary? What was not?

Thoughts of things extraordinary filled Willa. They washed over her at night, waking her in the moonlight. They touched her as she stood with Matthew in the attic room, watching him watch her. After a while, she would turn her head, ever so slowly, to look at the beautiful creature in the mirror. She was always startled to see the girl in the long white dress, even though she willed herself not to be startled. Watching the two thirds of a trio practice faithfully each day in the garden kept the thoughts alive; and seeing Old Pepper nod to himself under the tree, as if agreeing with his own thoughts of death, nearly overwhelmed her. Her own mother, too, was a constant reminder of things extraordinary. Or were they things ordinary?

Willa began asking.

“Ah, extraordinary, let's see,” murmured Aunt Lulu, leaning forward, her flute under her arm. “Playing all the sharps and flats,” she finally answered with a sideways glance at Aunt Crystal.

Aunt Crystal disagreed, shaking her head vigorously.

“A glossy ibis,” she pronounced.

“A glossy what?” asked Willa, staring.

“Good writing,” said her father, leaning back in his chair, pipe smoke circling him. “A good paragraph. A good sentence!” he nearly shouted in growing frustration, making Willa jump. She saw the manuscript of Ted and Wanda on his desk.

“Happy children,” said her mother, pausing by the back door, her basket full of carrots. “Happy lives. Why?”

“Peace,” said Old Pepper, lounging in his wheelbarrow.

“Peace,” agreed Bella-Marie.

At last Willa began a list at a neighborhood picnic. There were long tables with red-checked tablecloths that rippled in the breeze. And baskets of breads and fruit. Willa's parents and Matthew sat in the shade of the apple tree, their voices soft. The Unclaimed Treasures tuned by the garden. Old Pepper sat on a picnic bench, peeling an orange in one long and perfect spiral, Bella pulling the end gently with her beak. All shapes and sizes of Atwaters spread out about them.

Willa's list was a two-columned list.

Under
Ordinary
Willa listed eating. At once there was more disagreement.

“Eating is extraordinary,” said Horace, his mouth full of apple.

“No,” said Nicholas. “Eating is everyday. Like sleeping. Going to the bathroom.”

“Going to the bathroom can be extraordinary,” said Horace, thoughtfully.

“Eating is ordinary,” said Willa firmly. And the list went on.

“Chores can be extraordinarily important,” said Willa's father. Willa smiled. Her father loved washing the clothes. She would find him, often, leaning over the washing machine as it agitated. “Do you know,” he once announced in great awe, “that some washing machines are up-and-downers, and some are back-and-forthers?”

“Washing clothes is ordinary,” said Willa's mother with feeling.

“Extraordinary,” said Willa in a loud voice, “is as follows.” Her father smiled.

“One, Flying. Two, Becoming king. Three, Finding your true love. Four—”

“Wait a minute,” called out Old Pepper, struggling to sit up straight. Willa sighed.

“Flying is not at all extraordinary for Bella-Marie. Right, Bella?”

“Bella,” said Bella.

Willa glared at Old Pepper.

“And,” he went on, holding up a warning finger, “someone falls in love every single
day
.” He emphasized the last word. “Every single
minute
.”

“Popsicles” came the faint suggestion of Porky Atwater under the picnic table.

“Elephantents?” called Jojo.

Willa tossed her list on the ground, furious.

“How will I ever know?” she grumped, stomping off to the nearby garden to eat tomatoes. The only thing they'd all agreed on was that the ants at the picnic were extraordinary. Willa sat between two rows of tall tomato plants, thinking. The sun was warm, the dirt dry under her.

“Maybe”—Old Pepper's wrinkled face popped up over the second row—“the answer is that ordinary and extraordinary are the same thing. Morning light? The smell of grass? Who you are and what you think and how you live?”

Bella-Marie stared up at Willa. Willa leaned back and closed her eyes.

“And something,” said Old Pepper, “will let you know which is which for you when the time comes.”

Willa's eyes flew open.

“What? What something?”

“I wish I could remember,” said Old Pepper, yawning. “I am presently tired and plan to go to sleep.”

And that is what he did, falling over peacefully between the rows of tomatoes in the warmth of the garden.

It was unbearably hot and still in the attic room, even though it was early.

“Three or four more mornings at the most, Willa,” Matthew murmured, standing back to peer at his work. “Nearly done.”

Only three more mornings
. Willa hadn't even seen the painting yet. How could it be nearly done? She had come to depend, count on these mornings. Her time in the attic room shaped her days. Her life. Like eating. Like sleeping. Like going to the bathroom. Willa studied Matthew. He was, she decided, both sad and excited at the same time. Willa smiled, aware that she, too, felt Matthew's own mixture of sadness and excitement.

“What makes you smile?” he asked, brush poised in his hand.

Willa shook her head slightly.

“I was thinking about ordinary things,” she said, turning to look out the window at the garden and the wide slope of yard and the tree full of apples.

Willa felt herself smiling again.

“What is extraordinary for you?” she asked in the silence. “A finished painting?”

“Yes, that,” said Matthew brightly, leaning back to look at her. “But more, too.” He sighed. “Too much more to even begin talking about here,” he added softly. And the sad look came back, around the eyes and the mouth.

I wish I could remember, Old Pepper had said. But you'll know
. I know I know something, Willa told the beautiful girl in the mirror. But I don't know what it is I know. Presently, that is, she added, echoing Old Pepper.

Her thoughts caused Willa to raise her chin a bit. Defiantly. Fiercely. Matthew looked up and stared at her for a long time. Willa never noticed.

Silence filled the room. A fly crawled up the back of Matthew's easel. Though she didn't know it yet, Willa was on the edge of knowing. And soon she would know, mostly because of two strangers not yet met. Two people, unrelated, who would never come to know one another, never even hear the whisper of each other's name. As is the way of life sometimes. As is the way of things ordinary and things extraordinary.

 

“What is this?” asked the man, bending over an attic box. “Pieces of paper only. A bunch of them.” He looked at the woman who was sitting, peering over her huge stomach at her toes pointed in front of her
.

“A torn-up list,” she answered without looking up. “A very important torn-up list.”

“Why is it torn up if it is important,” asked the man, “or shouldn't I ask?”

“It is important because it
is
torn up,” said the woman patiently
.

The man laughed
.

“Shades and memories of Old Pepper.” He began to read: “One, Flying. Two, Becoming king
—”

“Three, Finding your true love.” The woman said the words as he did
.

“And what about this?” he asked. He held up a small torn edge of a paper. On it the woman could see four letters printed
. ILLA.

The woman smiled
.

“That,” she said, shifting in her chair, “has to do with something very extraordinary I did once upon a summer when there was a tree full of blooms that would become apples, and a pair of twins, a boy and a girl . . .”

The End

It was vacuuming time again in the study with the sun and the plants and the smell of her father's pipe. Willa was bent over the desk, reading:

Willa frowned. There was something here. A hint of something familiar. And it did not have to do with vacuuming, or the painting nearly finished, or the baby due in ten minutes or a week.
What is it I know that I know?
A sudden movement parted the curtains, and Willa saw Bella-Marie perched on the windowsill.

“Bella.” Willa leaned over the desk. “What brings you here?”