“Mom, no way. I can’t take that.”
“He’d want you to have it, Lucas.”
I take the chain and straighten it out, looking at the medal my dad wore every day of my life. St. Michael the Archangel, patron saint of warriors, circumscribed in a shining silver circle, sword upraised, wings spread, foot planted firmly on Lucifer’s neck. St. Michael, Defend Us in Battle is inscribed around the edge. Wordlessly, I slip it over my head.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She moves away and I close the door hard. I still can’t look at her. When she taps on the window, I wait a beat before I roll it down.
“I can’t believe you’re making me do this, Mom.”
She pulls my father’s sleeves down over her hands, crossing her arms in front of her, like she’s hugging herself. Even though I’m so angry I could chew nails, sadness for her washes over me like a tidal wave. My dad isn’t here to wrap his arms around her or dance with her in the kitchen or rest his chin on top of her head and make her laugh with his stupid jokes. When he died, he took part of her with him.
“Sweetheart, I’m doing it because I’m afraid for you. Please don’t leave like this. Please don’t let anger be the last thing you feel for me when you drive away. I love you so much, and if you think this is easy for me, you’re wrong. Maybe when you stop being so angry, you’ll realize that I’m doing this out of love. It isn’t punishment.”
I roll my eyes. “Could have fooled me.”
She lays her hand on my arm. I jerk it away.
“You aren’t even going to hug me?”
“Nope.”
“Did you tell Anna goodbye?”
“She wouldn’t talk to me.”
She sighs. “Lucas, her heart is broken. This is uncharted territory for all of us. I wish I had the map that would get us through, but I don’t. I’m flying blind here.”
I roll up the window while she’s still talking, shift into reverse, and back slowly down the driveway. I look up at Anna’s bedroom window and see her standing there with Mr. Feathers, her ratty stuffed owl. I stop, roll down the window, stick my head out, and yell, “Bye, Anna Banana! I love you, and I love all your freckles!” She yells something back and disappears.
I shift into park and get out of the car.
Anna tears out of the house, crying, Mr. Feathers clutched tight in one hand. She leaps into my arms, wrapping her legs round my waist, pressing her wet face into my neck.
“Lucas, don’t go. Please don’t go. I’ll miss you too much.”
“I have to, Anna Banana. I keep getting myself in trouble, and I need to go away so I can stop and be a good person again. I’ll call you every day, and I’ll write you letters, and I’ll take funny pictures of Beau the Most Excellent Dog. Okay?”
She sobs harder, her little shoulders heaving against my chest.
“I didn’t mean it when I said you were a bad brother. I was just mad. I love you, Lucas. I don’t want you to go.”
“I know, Banana Face. I love you, too. I’ll see you at Christmas, okay?”
“You promise? You promise you won’t leave forever? Like Daddy?”
“Oh, baby sister.” My voice catches in my throat. “No, you little Froot Loop. I’m not leaving forever, and yes, I promise. I’ll be back before you know it. And I will get you an awesome Christmas present. Maybe I’ll ask Granny to sew some clothes for Mr. Feathers.”
She pulls away, puts one hand on my face, and holds up Mr. Feathers with the other hand. “Lucas, you dummy,” she says. “Look at him. He’s an owl. He doesn’t wear clothes.”
I fake a laugh, and she gives me a tiny smile. “Fair point, Anna Banana. I’ll come up with something else. Something amazing. How about a unicorn?” She rolls her eyes, but I get a real Anna grin this time.
I set her down gently, bending to kiss her cheek. She winds her arms around my neck and whispers, “Every day. Call me every day. I love you, Lucas Pukas.”
She turns and runs into the house, holding Mr. Feathers by one tattered wing. My mother stands in the driveway, shivering.
“Bye, Mom,” I whisper. I don’t think she can hear me, but as I pull away, she calls, “Goodbye, my sweetheart. Text me when you get there.”
On the way out of town, I pull into the Dairy Queen parking lot and text Sparrow one last time before I leave. I know it’s useless, but I do it anyway. Delaney and I tried to visit her again the day before Thanksgiving, but she wouldn’t see us.
I send the disco boy first. Even though my life is a raging dumpster fire, traditions must be upheld.
Hey, Birdy Bird. Just wanted to tell you bye.
Nothing.
I’m leaving for Ruby Grove, the rectal end of NC.
Nothing.
I never stop thinking about you. I hope someday you won’t hate me. Wish we were in the studio right now, doing fish dives. Miss you.
Nothing.
Okay. Bye for real.
I wait for a beat.
Nothing.
Delaney’s next.
I’m outta here. Going where the banjos play all the livelong day.
Noooooo! Don’t go!
No choice. It’s this or sitting in a dark room where some musty old fart picks lint off his pants and makes me talk about my FEELINGS. My mom’s right, but don’t tell her I said so. Nothing good will happen if I stay.
You stay close and text me every day, K? Miss your face already. Love you.
Love you back. Let me know if anything changes. You know. With her.
Will do, sweetie. Take care of you. <3
And that’s it. There’s nobody else I want to tell goodbye. I point the car toward the interstate and turn on the radio. Lady Gaga, “A Million Reasons.”
Awesome.
27
Granny Deirdre
I pull into Ruby Grove an hour before sunset, flying off the I-40 exit ramp and turning right to drive through town. At the stoplight, a faded blue sign with paint peeling off the wooden letters reads, Welcome to Ruby Grove, Crown Jewel of the Blue Ridge. My dad used to joke about that sign every single time we drove past it. He said they should have made a sign that said, Run! There’s Nothing for You Here! Even in its heyday, which was, like, a hundred years ago, Ruby Grove has never been more than a wide spot in the road.
I drive through town, which is like a sad and faded version of Hollins Creek. Main Street is only five blocks long, and everything feels old and decrepit. There are three dark and dusty stores that sell tchotchkes to the tourists, who still trickle through to see the fall foliage. Bears with clocks in their stomachs. Enormous purple geodes that probably come from China and have been on the shelves since I was a kid. Dish towels with stupid sayings like I Love You More than Biscuits and Gravy.
There’s a tiny, dark gallery called Appalachian Mist, filled with enormous framed photos of fuzzy mountain sunsets, jewelry made out of rocks, and baskets of books about local ghosts. My dad loved those. Every year, he’d buy one, then build a fire in Granny’s backyard and read them out loud in this voice that was supposed to be scary, but made him sound like an old guy with bowel issues.
My all-time favorite is Uncle Deacon’s Taxidermy and Clock Shoppe. I told Sparrow about it when we were in middle school, and she didn’t believe me. But even I couldn’t make this place up. First of all, it’s been closed my entire life, and no one could ever tell me who Uncle Deacon was or what he looked like. I like to picture a big dude with a potbelly and a cheek full of chewing tobacco, watery blue eyes and red suspenders. My dad fully supported this vision. Inside the shop, a long glass counter lines the walls, the entire surface piled two feet high with broken clocks and their innards, rusty tools, and gadgets that look like they came out of a steampunk novel. Best of all, there’s a stuffed raccoon in the window, standing on its hind legs, mouth open in an eternal snarl, red glass eyes staring at the ceiling. When I was a kid, I could not get enough of that thing. I named him Spike.
My gra
ndmother lives alone at the top of a mountain, eight miles up Highway 18, a long, winding road with switchbacks and hairpin turns that make you puke if you’re not the one driving. Whenever we spent Christmas or Thanksgiving here, my dad always had to pull over so Anna and I could york. He joked that it was his favorite part of the journey, a cherished family tradition.
As I pass one of the places we always stopped, near the entrance to a gravel road lined with rusting, dented mailboxes, I remember how he always packed thick white washcloths in the ice chest, along with the cans of Mountain Dew and Barq’s root beer he loved. When we were done barfing, he’d hand one of the cloths to me and one to Anna, both of us still kneeling in the dirt by the side of the road, emptied out and dizzy. They smelled like mint and Irish Spring soap. They smelled like him.
Today I creep around the switchbacks, pulling as far away as possible from the yawning ravines on my right. I’ve never driven this road by myself, and while it helps with the carsick portion of the program, it’s a real sphincter check otherwise. There are no guardrails, just a faded white stripe between me and the abyss.
I turn down my grandmother’s driveway just in time to watch the sun slip behind the hills. Her rambling old house looks out over Pisgah National Forest, and mountain ridges undulate like ocean waves for miles and miles into the distance. When the sun goes down, the mountains turn into bluish-gray shadows, and sometimes the valleys are filled with clouds. At night there are no lights anywhere, except for the moon and the stars, no sign that there’s anyone else out there in the wide world. My dad told me once that when he was in Kuwait, the thing he missed most was this silent sky. I thought he was nuts; the quiet used to creep me out crazy-hard, especially during my zombie apocalypse years. But I get it now.
I step out of the car and crack my back, roll my shoulders. Everything smells cold and fresh. It’s dead quiet, not a sound, no frogs, no crickets, no owls calling softly to each other. Even the trees are still. Just beyond the gravel driveway, where the ground falls away in a wicked steep slope covered with scrubby pine trees and rhododendron, I curl my toes over the edge and wonder how much air I’d grab before I hit the ground. The clouds glow pink and gold, turning the trees to fire.
“Lucas? Is that you?”
My grandmother is holding open the screen door, backlit by the warm light coming from the lamps in the foyer. She’s leaning on a cane, her left ankle bandaged almost halfway up her leg. She looks down and smiles as Beau, her golden retriever, tears down the front steps, tongue hanging out, tail wagging furiously, little whimpers of joy coming from his throat when I fall to my knees and hug his neck.
“Beau, you good old dog!” I whisper into his fur, scratching the sweet spot between his velvety ears, letting him slobber all over my face. “How you doing, boy? How’s everything in Puppy Town? You keeping Granny out of trouble? Bet she’s giving you fits, am I right, dog?”
“Beau! You come back here and stop mauling my grandson! Beau!”
My grandmother, in her sensible shoes, green tartan skirt, and the gold locket Grandpa Finn gave her when my dad was born, raises her thumb and index finger to her mouth and whistles like a boss. Instantly Beau returns to the front porch, arranging himself primly beside her, like he has no idea what just came over him.
I can’t do this.
I imagine getting back in the car and peeling out of here, gravel spraying in my wake. I wouldn’t say goodbye. I wouldn’t even look back. I could drive anywhere, end up in some town in, like, Iowa, where it’s flat and boring and corn grows everywhere. I could wait tables in a greasy diner and live in a crappy apartment and read books. I’d keep to myself. I wouldn’t talk to anyone about anything, and nobody would care. I could start over.
I grab my backpack and suitcase from the back seat, leaving the dance bag. I can’t look at it right now. It reminds me of everything I’ve lost.
I slam the door and trudge up the driveway, breathing in the cold, crisp air, wondering how I’m going to play the role of good grandson. I’ve already screwed up brother, son, friend, dancer. This is all I’ve got left, and I don’t think I can do it.
“Come in, child,” Granny calls, “before you catch your death. I’ve made some supper.” She looks smaller since the funeral, diminished. Her hair looks a couple of shades whiter, and there are dark circles under her cornflower-blue eyes, like she hasn’t slept in a while. She’s wearing a wide belt around her skirt, but I can see the fabric underneath, all bunched up at the waist. She doesn’t want me to see how much weight she’s lost.
She’s tough, my granny Deirdre, definitely not a Hallmark Channel grandmother. She and Grandpa Finn came to America from Northern Ireland in the sixties to escape the Troubles. She was pregnant with my dad and told her family she refused to raise her child to the sound of gunfire and explosions. Two years after they left, her youngest brother, Diarmuid, was killed in a bombing in Belfast. His name meant “without enemy.” She never talks about him.
I walk up the three steps to where she’s standing and wrap my arms around her.
“Oh, darling boy. I’m so happy to see you.”
Even though she’s been in this country for nearly fifty years, she hasn’t lost her Irish accent. All my friends love listening to her. That soft brogue fools people into thinking that she’s all mushy and sweet on the inside, like a jelly doughnut.
I have to bend nearly in half to hug her, and she pats my shoulders awkwardly, the cane banging against the backs of my legs. I kiss her cheek, breathing in her old-lady face powder and the violet-scented lotion she’s worn ever since I can remember. I guess she still looks pretty good for a seventy-two-year-old lady.
“Hi, Granny. Mom sent some groceries.”
“That was lovely of her. Go ahead and bring them in so they won’t spoil in that filthy car of yours.”
“My car isn’t filthy, Granny.”
“Don’t lie to me the first five minutes you’re here, Lucas Henry. I have eyes. That thing is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. I can practically smell it from here.”
I snicker and walk back to the car, Beau trotting happily behind me. When I grab the box of groceries and the bags of Thanksgiving leftovers, Beau sits down and looks expectantly at the passenger door, wagging his tail. He smiles at me, pink tongue hanging out. I know what he wants.
“You think I should bring in the dance bag, Beau-Butt?”
He wags his tail harder, but sits up all straight and dignified, like he’s trying to boss me around with his doggy mind.
“Okay, okay. If you say so. I’m trusting you here, buddy.”
I grab the bag and sling it over my shoulder, juggling the box and the leftovers. My grandmother has wheeled my suitcase into the foyer, and Beau noses open the screen door like the gentleman he is.
I shrug off the dance bag, settling it and my backpack in the small alcove beside the stairs. I’m hoping I can find some time to rehearse while I’m here. Maybe while I’m away and out of sight, people will forgive me. Maybe Levkova will relent and let me dance Siegfried.
To boost my chances of such a miracle, I make a small sacrifice. While Granny’s puttering around, rearranging the throw pillows on the sofa, I dig all the way to the bottom of my bag and toss Beau a dirty sock. He goes nuts over anything that stinks. He takes it in his mouth and crawls under the coffee table, tail thumping against the floor.
“Okay if I leave my stuff here for now?”
“Of course it is, sweetheart.” Granny’s voice goes all soft. “I’ve given you the big guest room, if that’s all right. Unless you’d like to be in your father’s old room?”
No possible way can I stay in my dad’s room, with all the high-school and Citadel football trophies lining the shelves, the heavy yearbooks arranged chronologically in the walnut bookcases my grandpa Finn made by hand, the framed picture of my father in dress blues, standing beside my mom at the Marine Ball. And my favorite, the photo of him wearing combat gear and grinning with his buddies, their eyes
hidden behind dark sunglasses.
“No, thanks, Granny. The guest room is fine.”
She pats me on the arm. “You can hang your jacket in the hall closet, and please, for the love of all the saints in Heaven, take off that hat. You look like a goatherd.”
I do as she says, opening the cedar-lined closet where Grandpa Finn used to keep his stash of gray fedoras and the scarves Granny crocheted for him every fall. His favorite hat is still there.
She waits until I’ve hung my coat neatly beside her ancient down parka, then says, “Come bring those groceries into the kitchen, and let me feed you, you great, hulking beast. There’s some space in the icebox, and you can just set the rest on the counter.”
The house looks the same as it always has, red-and-blue braided rugs under the sofas and dining room table, the enormous Belleek vase filled with bittersweet perfectly centered on the baby grand piano Granny used to play before her arthritis got bad.
“So, Granny, how did you sprain your ankle?” I ask, trailing behind her as she makes her way into the kitchen. I watch how she steadies herself against the door frame, how she seems so small and frail. She opens a cupboard and reaches for plates and bowls. I nudge her gently out of the way.
“Granny, stop. I’m here to help, remember?”
“Sure, you are, Lucas, but you’re like a bull in a china shop. Get down the nice plates, if you can manage not to shatter them all to pieces. We’ll have a little celebration, just the two of us.”
“So, your ankle? How’d you manage to mess yourself up? I heard Louisa Fairfax ratted you out. Was she here when it happened?”
I set down the ivory china with the shamrock clusters around the edges and place two dinner plates carefully on the huge round oak table, centering them on the pale yellow placemats. Every time my dad set the table with these dishes, he’d sing all the verses of “I’ll Tell Me Ma” and waltz Granny around the kitchen until they were both breathless and red faced, laughing their brains out.
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