Up From the Blue (35 page)
“And she’s healthy?”
“She’s small.” I try to swallow the lump in my throat. “She had some trouble breathing and needed oxygen.”
“But she’s okay now?”
“I think so. I’ve been afraid to ask.” My father doesn’t seem the slightest bit bothered by his eavesdropping. I turn my shoulders a little toward the wall and ask, “When will you be back?”
“I just booked a flight,” he said. “I’ll be there soon, and then we’ll find out when we can take her home.”
“But nothing’s ready. The house is in boxes. We don’t even have a crib.”
“Can you imagine having her sleep that far away from us, anyway?”
I can’t. I can’t even stand to have this phone between us when I could take my other arm and curl it around her. I’m captivated with her eyelids, her little lopsided mouth, the way her nostrils flare with each breath.
“Are you ready to talk about names?” he asks, but my father is driving me crazy the way he just stands there, hovering over the bed, as if he’s waiting his turn.
“You know what—can you call me back?” I ask. “I’d rather talk when it’s a little more private.”
My father helps me hang up the phone, moves it close by so I can reach it on my own. “I’m going to have to go home for a while,” he says. “I have a cat to feed, and I need to take a shower and get some work done.”
“It’s okay,” I say, because the word “thanks” won’t come out.
He kisses me on the cheek, something he’s never done, and says, “Isaac Newton was born early, too,” the word “too” coming out of his mouth like a choke.
I can’t speak.
“I’ll call you,” he says, and walks to the door.
When he turns back for one last look, without even thinking, I salute him.
A part of me will always be eight years old, living that last year we had Momma with us. And my story of that year always ends with our walk because that’s when there was hope. That’s when we could still choose any ending.
The power of suicide, the thing that makes it particularly poisonous, is that it lets one person have the last say without giving others a chance to respond. My mother left us with her fear that she’d pass down the parts about herself she hated. And I know, in many ways, I look like the very mess she worried she’d create with my knotted hair, quick temper, and easy tears. Some nights I’m startled awake with the ways we are similar—how, on certain days, I, too, could sit and stare at nothing, could fill my pockets with something heavy and sink underwater. But what I desperately want to tell my mother, if she’d given me a chance to respond, is this: It wasn’t perfect, but I never needed perfect.
The baby cries and I pull her close. Then, because no one else is in the room, I open my gown and hold her against my breast. It’s a clumsy movement—not at all like women who nurse easily and discreetly in
parks and museums—as I flash the room and forget to support her head. Sensing the nipple against her cheek, she quickly turns her head, mouth open wide, and takes it, just the tip at first. The pain is so sharp, my eyes water. We try again, this little one mad now—mad the milk is trapped on the other side of her tightly clamped lips, and mad I’m tugging that nipple away. This time when she opens wide, I shove a mouthful of breast in, wince in pain, but soon forget the hurt. I’m too caught up in her little face, one side mashed against me, and eyes that are gray-green—not like anyone else’s I know.
Wherever my mother is, I hope I can offer her this mercy, that she might know she didn’t destroy me. That she might see me here, falling in love.
My husband calls again and I tell him about the baby’s toes and the teeny little diaper and crusty piece of umbilical cord still attached to her navel. Simon relishes every detail, and then tells me he’s just gone from store to store in search of a book of baby names written in English, which he’s now holding in his hands and will stay on the phone with me until we’ve found her a name.
“Look up my mother’s name,” I say, brushing the baby’s hair back from her forehead. “Tell me what it means.”
I hear the pages flip, and Simon quietly saying M names: “Marion. May. Maggie.” He pauses. “Mara. Bitter sorrow.”
“Bitter sorrow? Are you serious?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“But that’s awful. We can’t name her that.”
“Then we’ll start at the beginning,” he says.
He reads out names, beginning with A, pausing to know our baby’s cry and to hear the funny squeak she makes whenever she swallows. He reads until his voice is hoarse, and when he gets to the end of the R’s, her
name, the one that so clearly belongs to her, is right there: Ruby. Small and lovely. Shining after so much has broken.
I feel the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I close my eyes, holding Ruby close, tears spilling into the corners of my mouth, and I see my mother, in sleeves like angel wings—twirling. Lifting.
Absolute gratitude to my agent, Dan Conaway, for his wicked genius and, more important, for his friendship, which was what allowed me to finish this book; to my editor, Brittany Hamblin, for giving me such creative freedom and for the suggestion that made the story pop; to Stephen Barr for being a consistently positive force; to Carrie Kania for being my kind of badass; to Emin Mancheril for the perfect cover; and to the smart and supportive team from Harper Collins—Paula Cooper, Jennifer Hart, Alberto Rojas, Vanessa Schneider, Brenda Segel, Stephanie Selah, Juliette Shapland, Carolyn Bodkin, and Amy Vreeland—for making things happen.
My deepest thanks to those who read and edited early drafts, encouraged and pushed me, made me a better writer, made me a better friend, kept me in this game, opened doors, hugged all of my important packages before mailing them, shared Thai food during an ice storm, helped me finish off bottles of scotch, drew pictures that cheered me, lent my character bells for her shoes, came up with the beautiful title, restored my spirits over a glorious weekend in
Canada, gave me much needed pep talks, and believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself: Zett Aguado, Bob Arter, Terry Bain, Lauren Baratz-Logsted, Bruce Bauman, Laura Benedict, Ritchie Blackmore, Melvin Brooks, Terri Brown-Davidson, Kim Chinquee, Tish Cohen, Elizabeth Crane, Keith Cronin, Jim Daniels, Juliet DeWal, Karen Dionne, Frank DiPalermo, Kevin Dolgin, Xujun Eberlein, Richard Edghill, Pia Ehrhardt, Janet Fitch, Patry Francis, Neil Gaiman, Sands Hall, Tom Jackson, Tommy Kane, Jessica Keener, Roy Kesey, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Dylan Landis, John Leary, Brad Listi, Kathy and Kenny Machin, Brian McEntee, Ellen Meister, Darlin’ Neal, Lance Reynald, Jordan Rosenfeld, Gail Siegel, Robin Slick, James Spring, Tracy Tekverk, Jim Tomlinson, Amy Wallen, John Warner, Kimberly Wetherell, and Tom Williams.
Thank you to some very important communities in my life: the candid Zoetrope Virtual Workshop, where I learned to edit fearlessly; the nourishing community of writers at Squaw Valley, where I realized I could dream bigger; Nile Rodgers’s inspiring We Are Family Foundation, where I volunteer; and my beloved LitPark, where I’m constantly renewed.
Finally, thank you to my mom, who read the first terrible poem I ever wrote and told me I had talent; and to my brilliant, artistic, funny, big-hearted boys, for being so understanding of this long process. Now we celebrate!
SUSAN HENDERSON
is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the founder of the literary blog LitPark: Where Writers Come to Play (www.litpark.com). She is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets award and a grant from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation. Her work has appeared in
Zoetrope
, the
Pittsburgh Quarterly
,
North Atlantic Review
,
Opium
,
Other Voices
,
Amazon Shorts
,
The Future Dictionary of America
(McSweeney’s, 2004),
The Best American Nonrequired Reading
(Houghton Mifflin, 2007), and
Not Quite What I Was Planning
(Harper Paperbacks, 2008). Henderson lives in New York and
Up from the Blue
is her first novel.
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PRAISE FOR
Up from the Blue
BY SUSAN HENDERSON
“Susan Henderson’s
Up from the Blue
deftly portrays a family with contradictions we can all relate to—it’s beautiful and maddening, hopeful and condemning, simple, yet like a knot that takes a lifetime to untangle. This is a book that you will love completely, even as it hurts you. It is a heartbreaking, rewarding story that still haunts me.”
—Jamie Ford, author of
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
“A haunting tale of the terrible ways in which we fail each other; of the whys, the what-ifs, and the what nows. This is not a book you’ll soon forget.”
—Sara Gruen, author of
Water for Elephants
“A rare literary page-turner full of shocking discoveries and twists. Susan Henderson has created a remarkable narrator—as memorable for her feistiness as for her tenderness.
Up From the Blue
is going to be one of this year’s major debuts.”
—Josh Kilmer-Purcell, author of
The Bucolic Plague
and
I Am Not Myself These Days
“Up From the Blue
is a heart-wrenching, tender story with a mystery that kept my pulse racing. What a joy to discover Tillie Harris, the most memorable, charming, and plucky narrator in fiction since Scout Finch.”
—Jessica Anya Blau, author of
The Summer of Naked Swim Parties
“Susan Henderson masterfully weaves a story where family can both indelibly wound, and yet also redeem. Heartbreaking, compelling—ultimately beautiful.”
—Samantha Dunn, author of
Faith in Carlos Gomez
“Haunting and unsettling,
Up From the Blue’s
real alchemy is the way it uncovers the stories that alternately save us and keep us from our real truths. Incandescently written, this is a stunning debut with heart.”
—Caroline Leavitt, author of
Girls in Trouble
and
Pictures of You
“Susan Henderson’s debut novel
Up From the Blue
is elegant and engrossing … Tillie Harris is both tender and tough, charming and filled with wonder by the difficulties she must overcome. Henderson is a talent to watch.”
—Danielle Trussoni, author of
Angelology
“A remarkable debut, not just for the uncanny accuracy and charm of eight-year-old Tillie’s narrative voice, but for the way the characters reveal unexpected angles of themselves that somehow make them realer than real.
Up from the Blue
lingers in the mind. Susan Henderson shows herself to be a writer of great skill and subtlety.”
—Mark Childress, author of
Crazy in Alabama
“Up from the Blue
is a beautiful, haunting, spirited debut, charged with secrets and deep longing. A moving portrait of that deep lasting love between mother and daughter.”
—Julianna Baggott, author of
Girl Talk
and
Which Brings Me to You
“In
Up from the Blue
, Susan Henderson delivers a compelling, deeply felt tale about the complexities of family life. You’ll fall in love with young Tillie Harris, whose attempts to navigate her parents’ unruly world are portrayed with genuine warmth and tenderness.”
—Michelle Richmond, author of
The Year of Fog
“Through her gorgeous, perceptive debut, Susan Henderson reveals the truth—a family’s effort to hide its secrets and shame will break a child’s heart.
Up from the Blue
is an unflinching, emotionally honest novel, one of the most insightful stories I’ve ever read.”
—Ronlyn Domingue, author of
The Mercy of Thin Air
UP FROM THE BLUE.
Copyright © 2010 by Susan Henderson.
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