All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook

by Leslie Connor

  “The western meadowlark,” I say.

  “Or the state flower.”

  “Goldenrod.”

  “State insect.” Mom is nodding and smiling.

  “Honeybee.” We both laugh. “Or . . .” I cup my hand around my mouth to be secretive. “. . . how the teeny-tiny town of Surprise really got its name.”

  “Shh. Don’t tell Big Ed!” Mom laughs.

  “Anyway, I’m glad Miss Maya didn’t change my assignment. I have an idea.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  I’m slow to get the words out. “Well, what if . . . I just told our story?”

  Mom is listening, her eyebrows arched. I’m trying to decide if she is nodding just the littlest bit.

  “If they know the truth, won’t they have to stop inventing stuff? Like Brian Morris. I don’t even think he means to lie,” I say.

  “No? Hmm. What do you think he means to do?”

  “I don’t know. He probably means to ask,” I say.

  “Right,” Mom says. “And I bet you feel like all the Brian Morrises of Butler are letting their imaginations work overtime.”

  “It’s not just the Brian Morrises. It’s me too.” Mom looks up at me as if she knows what’s coming next. “I know that we’re here because you made a mistake a long time ago. I know you had a car accident and someone died. I know you got manslaughter.” I stop to take a big swallow. We don’t talk about this often. “I know some of that story. I want to know more—my brain wants to know more.” Mom is jiggling one foot while she listens. “But if you still don’t want to tell it, well, there are other things. It’s like Big Ed says, ‘How you got here is not the only thing you are about.’”

  “But it is what the assignment is about.” Mom’s mouth tracks out to one side. She doesn’t like this.

  “The assignment is about coming here.” I admit it. “But you have an important job at Blue River. You counsel other residents. You could tell that story if you won’t tell the rest.”

  Mom’s jiggling foot is going wild now. “So how would this work?”

  “I want to do interviews. And not just you, Mom. Other kids are telling about their families. I have a Blue River family. I want to tell their stories too—if they’ll agree to it.”

  She looks at me, eyes blinking. I wait for her to breathe. I wait for her to answer.

  Then I hear Big Ed say, “You want a Blue River story, Perry? I’ll tell you mine.”

  chapter twenty-seven

  JESSICA

  Jessica felt something like whiplash in her neck when Thomas VanLeer appeared so suddenly. Big Ed had just offered to tell Perry how he came to live at Blue River and boom! VanLeer was there.

  “Time to go. Time to get on with the day,” he said. He rubbed his hands together.

  “But this is the day,” Perry said. His jaw was slack with bewilderment. He got to his feet anyway, and Jessica knew then that she’d raised him to be way too compliant. Slowly, she pushed herself out of her chair.

  She found herself staring at VanLeer. She noted the clean-shaven jaw and short, level sideburns. His face was pleasant enough—even handsome, to some, she supposed. But what the hell was making him tick—this man who was wreaking havoc on their lives, and who had just dusted her visit with her son off his hands like it was the nuisance of the day?

  Big Ed coughed. “My story will wait for next Saturday,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.” Then Ed looked at VanLeer and added, “You’ll need to plan to stay longer next week. Perry’s got an assignment.”

  He may have said more. Jessica missed that because she took the last few minutes of the visit to make a mad dash to her room on Block C. She wanted to fetch one easy item from Perry’s list.

  As she stood in the common watching him go, she noted that he held her travel alarm clock to his chest like some precious ornament. It was sweet, and a little heartbreaking. The travel clock was finally going somewhere. She felt an ironic smile cross her own lips.

  Perry hesitated at the first set of doors. She knew the posture; he had suddenly remembered something. He halted against Thomas VanLeer’s hand, which was in his back. The man is a collie—an incessant herder, Jessica thought.

  “Mom! I didn’t see Warden Daugherty today,” Perry said. “Where is she?”

  Thomas VanLeer looked right at Jessica. Both of them knew the answer to that question. But even if she wanted to explain that mess to Perry here and now—and she did not—VanLeer would probably cut her off. So she didn’t answer. She counted on Perry to know that he’d hit on something akin to a Blue River point of privacy, and instead, she kept her eyes on the man.

  “Hey, he doesn’t like that.” She spoke plainly to VanLeer—couldn’t keep her index finger from poking into the air between them. He looked back at her, clueless. “Your hand,” she explained, “pushing on my son’s back like that. It’s rude.”

  Perry looked at her and broke into a grin. He wasn’t one to laugh out loud much. But she saw him gulp back a drop of amusement that perfectly matched the bright and knowing smile. She filled with warmth.

  “Mom, tell the warden that I miss her, okay?” he called. With VanLeer up his heels again, Perry’s sneaker-feet squeaked forward on the linoleum.

  “I will. I promise,” Jessica said, and she blew him a kiss as he stepped out the second set of doors.

  Well, there went Saturday . . . and they’d left each other almost laughing.

  Friends circled up beside her and behind her as the doors closed. She worried for her boy. Here she was with all their people. But where did that leave Perry, now that VanLeer had him? He couldn’t get to his own mother at will. Neither could he see his Blue River “other-mothers” as they sometimes called Gina and Callie DiCoco. Maya Rubin was no longer escorting him to and from school, though at least he saw her in class. But Perry had had no time with Jaime Rojas or Halsey Barrows; there had been precious little with Big Ed. None with Warden Daugherty.

  Eventually, she’d have to tell him about the warden’s suspension, and the investigation. Word had come to Blue River that VanLeer was painting Warden Daugherty as a correctional system loose cannon, mostly because she’d let Perry stay all these years. There was no doubt she’d been creative when it came to fostering him. VanLeer wanted her dealt with. He wanted her out of Blue River.

  But even worse for Jessica and her boy, as Butler County’s district attorney, VanLeer had officially challenged her application for parole. He claimed she had been granted “unusual and questionable freedoms” for an inmate with a conviction as serious as hers. Jaime Rojas had sorted through the legal longhand with her.

  “He’s trying to suggest that you haven’t truly served your sentence because you had the privilege of raising Perry on the inside.” That’s what Jaime had said. “Murky point,” he’d added. “Bad news is, this guy VanLeer seems determined; he believes raising a kid at Blue River was a crime. He wants somebody to pay. Meanwhile, he’s tying up your application, the skunk.”

  Jessica had a headache by late afternoon, her mind full of sharp-edged shards and returning worries. She begged Gina to keep Sashonna and her mosquito-like annoyances the heck away from her—just until dinnertime.

  She focused her aching mind on Perry. She was proud of him for using Big Ed’s mottos. “Way to cope, kiddo.” She said it out loud. But she worried about that timeline. He wanted to put his sincere blue eyes on a prize: her release. She didn’t know what to say to him about that. Not anymore.

  Then there was the assignment. That whopper on his list. Maya Rubin probably had no idea how that one was coming down on Jessica. “I am so not ready to tell him . . . ,” she muttered to herself. She gave her own temples a massage. She didn’t blame him for asking—again. It was a thing that came up a few times a year, usually signaled with Perry confirming, “It was manslaughter, right? For both you and Big Ed, huh, Mom?” She knew he would not accept her offhanded “yup” forever.

  Well, maybe the school project would be Perry�
��s way of keeping close with his Blue River family. Big Ed had already offered to tell his story. He had guts. His story wasn’t an easy one. Of course, neither was hers. She could never tell Perry all of it. But maybe it was time he knew something more. But how much?

  “Hey! Hey! You’re on mess tonight. Don’t forget,” Sashonna taunted as she stopped to show off her made-up face inside Jessica’s door on Block C. “Eggy-Mon is gonna be looking for you.”

  “Yeah, yeah . . .” Gina followed closely, moving Sashonna along. With large soulful eyes, she blinked in empathy for all that Jessica was shouldering late on that Saturday afternoon.

  chapter twenty-eight

  RIGHT AFTER BLUE RIVER

  I sit in the VanLeer closet on top of the camp mat that I made up tight before the sun came up this morning. I cup Mom’s travel clock in my hands, feel it tick. I open it up and stand it on top of the warden’s suitcase. I hope Mom won’t miss it. The clock fits next to the reading lamp Mrs. Samuels brought in here. The lamp has a flexible neck. It’s a good reading light, but right now I am bending it so it shines on my timeline on the closet wall. I look at Saturday—today—and it feels over with. But I promised myself not to cross off any day until I come to bed at night, and we haven’t even had supper yet.

  I sweep the lamp light along the timeline, and it seems long. The last few days are folded into the corner where the closet walls meet. They look lost.

  I’ve heard Big Ed say that a timeline stretches to its longest when you fail to count your wins. So I count mine. I got to see Mom today. My next thought is: the visit was too stinking short. That’s not a win, so I try to shove it aside. But I cannot help knowing this: counting your wins doesn’t mean that you don’t know what your losses are. You do.

  Still, I got to see Mom. I saw that she is okay. She saw that I am okay too. Win. Win.

  I start a new list. I had a lot of things on my mind on the way home from Blue River today. Like the new intake, Mr. Wendell. I saw him standing by the front window, watching arrivals. I don’t know if anyone came for him. I wanted to ask Mom or Big Ed how he’s doing. But it slipped my mind.

  Mr. Wendell would never know it, but I feel linked to him. We are new intakes in different places. I wonder if he’s using the mottos. I wonder if he has made a timeline. I add it to my list; I’ll ask about Mr. Wendell next week. But more than anything else, I want to start my Coming to Butler County interviews.

  Zoey taps on my door, and we go down the hall together to set the table for supper. Mrs. Samuels is mixing ground meat for burgers, and for some reason I am dying to get my hands into that.

  “Can I do that?” I ask.

  “I bet you can, and yes, you may,” she says. “Clean hands first, though.”

  Thomas VanLeer shows up with a paintbrush just as I am finishing at the sink. I get out of his way.

  “Well, aren’t we all bustling around here tonight,” he says. He pushes out a laugh. He tells us he is done painting the exterior trim around the garage. “Phew! That’s what a Saturday is for, ticking things off the old chore list . . .”

  He begins to talk to Mrs. Samuels then. “I’ll light that grill as soon as I’m done cleaning up here.”

  She says, “I’m way ahead of you!” For some reason, that makes them laugh. Then all the VanLeers are talking about Zoey’s dance lesson and a trip they took to the farmers’ market in David City earlier today.

  I pat the meat into burgers and line them up on a platter. It’s a little bit like being on the mess team at Blue River. That’s a rotating schedule. I remember that tonight is Mom’s night. She will be working with Eggy-Mon. I should be in the Blue River kitchen with her, listening to food poetry right about now . . .

  Instead I am watching Mrs. Samuels. She is weeping due to onions. She presses the back of her wrist to her nose and says, “Uh-oh! These are strong!”

  Mr. VanLeer takes a tissue to her. He stops in front of her, touches the tissue to her cheeks, just below one eye and then the other. She sniffs. They laugh. He asks her, “Better?” He kisses her forehead.

  I have seen him put his arms around her too. She does the same, or she leans in when they are standing close and then their shoulders touch for as long as they want. They do it like it’s nothing more than another way of talking. Love looks different inside a house.

  I follow Mrs. Samuels out to the patio. I carry the uncooked burgers, and she shovels them onto the grill with her spatula. There are two lawn chairs. She sits, so I sit too. The evening is gray and blowy but not cold. She tilts her face into the breeze.

  “Maybe one of our big old Nebraska storms is coming through,” I say.

  “As long as it’s not hail,” she says. There’s a little patch of quiet then she asks, “Good visit with your mom?”

  Short. That’s what I think but not what I say. “I was really glad to see her.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “She gave me her clock. I put it next to the lamp.”

  “Oh, nice . . . on the suitcase.” She says this with the kind of nod that lets me know she is picturing everything in place inside the closet. “Gosh. Have you been missing a clock all this time? You can ask for things. I’m good at finding stuff.” She grins at me. Then she says, “Something tells me you have the clock you really want.”

  I nod. “I just like that one because . . .” Why do I like it? It’s an ordinary clock. I could tell her that it’s because the clock has been around a long time. Or that I used to call it my pet turtle when I was little because of the way it folds into its own shell.

  “Well, it’s familiar to you,” Mrs. Samuels says. “You’ve got precious little in that room that feels that way. There’s no denying.”

  We listen to the burgers sizzle and pop. I toe the patio. Mrs. Samuels swings her foot. The wind rushes through the trees and turns the leaves inside out. It seems okay with her if we just sit like this. When it’s time to turn the burgers, she offers me the spatula and says, “Want to do the honors?”

  And I do. Zoey comes outside, and the three of us sit in the breeze while the burgers finish. I think all of us are wondering if hailstones will fall.

  At the VanLeer table, I pick up my burger and give it a good look. I have never eaten one quite like this—with the onion. What would Eggy-Mon say?

  “A patty grilled nice, with a thick onion slice?” Or maybe he’d be creative. “A patty flipped twice with a fat crying slice?” I’m thinking that I stink at poetry, but I like trying anyway. I like doing this Blue River thing.

  “Perry? Is that a grin I see?” VanLeer is looking at me.

  Zoey flaps a hand at him as if she wants him to leave me alone. I think about mentioning the food poetry to the VanLeers. Then I think not. Not while Mr. VanLeer is here. He could say something that would take the good part out of it. I’m seeking to understand him.

  I guess any new intake would say it: Some things, I get pretty quickly. Others are more work.

  chapter twenty-nine

  PICTIONARY THIS

  While I am seeking to understand and helping to put dishes in the dishwasher, I learn that Saturday night is game night at the VanLeer house. Zoey says, “Pfft. We talk about it more than we do it. Playing with three people is dull.”

  I say, “Well, maybe with me as a fourth . . .”

  “Yeah . . .” Zoey points back and forth between us and announces, “Yeah! Okay, Perry and I are a team.”

  “Okay, okay.” Mr. VanLeer nods.

  Mrs. Samuels says, “Uh-oh. We’re going to get trounced.”

  Zoey gets out a game called Pictionary. She’s on a mission, pulling out cards and pens and papers. “Have you played before, Perry? I’m psyched. We’re going to wipe the floor with them.”

  I haven’t played the game from a box. But when Zoey explains it I know that it is the same game we play on the dry-erase board in the common. I tell her, “No worries. We’ve got this.”

  We gather at a little square table in the VanLeer family room. Adu
lts sit on the couch. Zoey and I are on big floor pillows. It’s not long before we’re laughing our heads off.

  I smile as I draw a bloopy round head with two eyes and a tiny O mouth.

  Zoey wiggles when she guesses. “Head. Face. Kiss?”

  I draw just a few dots coming from the mouth and she shouts. “Spit! Spit! It’s spit! Oh, sorry, I think I just spit a little.”

  “Aw, beautiful,” says her mom. Zoey falls over laughing. I pull her back up by one arm. She’s like a rag doll.

  “Okay, okay. Our point. Tom, you’re up. Mom receives.”

  “You kids are going to be tough to beat,” Mr. VanLeer says. He takes up the pen and reads his word.

  They try hard. But Mrs. Samuels thinks Mr. VanLeer’s parachute is a mushroom or a flower. Or a tennis racket. They lose, but they lose laughing.

  The best round is when Zoey draws nothing more than three spikes on a curve. “Dinosaur,” I say.

  “Right!” Zoey cheers. “Yes!”

  “What? That’s incredible!” Mr. VanLeer stares at the sketch. He looks at Zoey and me. He breaks into a very real grin. “How did you get dinosaur from that?”

  “I just knew,” I say.

  “But there’s nothing there!” he says, and they all burst out laughing, especially Zoey. Her face is pink and bright.

  When we get to the final point, we are way ahead. Mrs. Samuels draws while Mr. VanLeer guesses. “Stroller!” he shouts. His fist pumps the air. “No? Carriage?”

  Mrs. Samuels groans. She puts up another shape, another line.

  “What is it? A . . . wagon? No, wait!” Mr. VanLeer puzzles. “Is it baby bubby? I mean, buggy!” He’s a different kind of Mr. VanLeer—on his feet, arms in the air. He thinks he has it. “Bubby! Buggy! Buggy!”

  “Time!” calls Zoey. She can hardly speak. “Bubby! Tom, you said bubby!” Then falling over sideways again, she adds, “Twice.”

  Mrs. Samuels sags. “It was a lawnmower. Look at the wheels and the motor, Tom. Look!”