Some Kind of Happiness

by Claire Legrand

  “That’s okay. She can call me whenever. Tell her it’s okay.”

  It’s not okay.

  I don’t care about the Bailey boys and whatever it is their stupid dad did.

  I don’t care about the Everwood, or the shoe and the knife tucked under my bed.

  I throw my notebook against my pillows. I consider asking Dad not to hang up, but that would mean I’d have to keep talking to him.

  “Okay, sweetie.” Dad blows me a kiss through the phone. I can almost feel it hit my cheek. “I love you. I love you so much. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Go talk to your grandma. Ask her about her favorite Ray Charles song. She’ll talk your ear off. We used to listen to him all the time when we were kids.”

  When they were kids.

  And then what happened?

  “Okay.” I feel like my voice is not my own. I have too many questions and I can’t figure out how to ask any of them.

  After Dad hangs up, I climb into bed and try to read one of my old Everwood stories, one I wrote before coming to Hart House. But it seems all wrong, now that I’ve seen the real Everwood. It seems like I didn’t know what I was doing, like I was just a silly kid playing make-believe.

  Before long these thoughts are so loud they start to feel true:

  I am just a silly kid playing make-believe.

  I don’t know what I am doing.

  I am all wrong.

  • • •

  When Grandma comes up to say it’s time for bed, I pretend I am already asleep.

  I am too close to blurting out my secret to her:

  How I didn’t get up to brush my teeth or wash my face, not because I am lazy but because I couldn’t. It was physically impossible. My body was too heavy to move.

  How I am sinking into cold, blue water, a blue nothing like the warm music filling the house downstairs.

  How I am finding it difficult to breathe. How my skin is crawling with something like fear.

  I cannot say these things to anyone, especially not to Grandma.

  So I lie there with my eyes closed while Grandma turns off the light.

  It is easier this way.

  8

  ON THE MORNING OF MY second Friday at Hart House, everyone returns for the weekend. Grandma immediately puts us to work cleaning.

  “How else will you learn to respect what you have?” Grandma points out when Dex and Ruth start whining.

  Gretchen shoots me a look around Grandma’s back. See?

  “Or we can let everything sit and rot and turn into some overgrown pigsty,” Grandma adds.

  She doesn’t say anything about the Bailey house directly, but I’m sure that’s what she means. I glance out the kitchen window, through the woods, and find the Baileys’ vine-swamped porch.

  Grandma catches me looking. Our eyes lock.

  “What do we have to do this time?” Ruth moans, draping herself theatrically over the back of a chair.

  “Ruth, you and Kennedy have the downstairs bathrooms. Gretchen and Dex will take the upstairs bathrooms. Avery’s dusting. And Finley?”

  I swallow hard. “Yes?”

  “You’ll help me in the kitchen.”

  As I reluctantly follow Grandma down the hall, Gretchen grabs my arm and whispers, “I told everyone we’d meet tonight. Outside, in the pit, after the adults have gone to sleep.”

  “Even Avery?” Please not Avery.

  “Are you kidding? She’d tell on us, and she wouldn’t want to come anyway. Be there, okay? No chickening out.”

  “Chicken out? I was the one who got you to cross the river in the first place, you know.”

  “I’m just saying, the Everwood is a whole other world after dark.” Gretchen grins and waggles her fingers at me.

  “Finley?” Grandma calls out. Her heels click on the kitchen floor. “Quickly, we have a lot to do.”

  “Be. There.” Gretchen pokes my shoulder twice and hurries off to find Dex.

  In the kitchen Grandma is taking plates, pots, and pans out of the cabinets. Stick just got back from one of her runs and is making a protein shake.

  When she sees me, she attacks me with a hug. She does not look much like her daughter; Stick is long and golden, like Avery. Gretchen must have gotten her frizzy dark hair from her father. Dad told me Gretchen’s father died when Gretchen was very young. Stick kept his name and never remarried.

  (If anyone around here should feel sad, and heavy, and unable to get up and brush her teeth before bed, it should be Gretchen, or Stick.)

  (Not me.)

  (So get it together, Finley.)

  “Here, Finley.” Grandma hands me an old cloth. “Start wiping down those bottom cabinets, please. I’d like to get this done quickly so I can be at the clinic by one o’clock.”

  “Clinic?”

  Grandma waves a hand. “Just something I do when I have the time.”

  “Your grandma’s being modest.” Stick loops her arm through Grandma’s. “She volunteers at the clinic, works the front desk. Whenever they need her, she drops everything and goes. And she organizes this back-to-school program at the Y, where they stuff backpacks full of school supplies for kids who need them. You know, so their parents don’t have to worry about spending money on notebooks and pens and such. Your grandma, Fin.” Stick beams at me. “She’s the best, in case you didn’t know.”

  Stick plants a sweaty kiss on Grandma’s cheek, and Grandma’s nose wrinkles. I try not to laugh.

  “It keeps me from getting bored around here in this old house, is all,” Grandma says crisply. “Now get to cleaning, you two.”

  Stick flips on the radio. “Gretchen has been talking about you nonstop all week, Finley,” she tells me while she sweeps. She stops to gulp down some of her shake. “She couldn’t wait to come back—and for once it had nothing to do with Grandma’s cooking.”

  I wait for Grandma to laugh, but she’s elbow deep in a soapy sink, scrubbing hard at a pan that looks perfectly clean to me.

  “I’m just so excited you two have hit it off,” Stick continues. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Gretchen so excited about playing outside. Trees? And mud? Come on. Usually it’s nothing but video games and texting her friends. I should never have gotten her a phone so young. But all her friends had them, so if I didn’t get her one, she’d be constantly whining about it. Here.” Stick holds out her shake. “Wanna try?”

  Stick looks so hopeful that I take a sip. It tastes like a combination of gritty cake and liquid metal. I fight not to make a face.

  Stick bursts out laughing. “Not for you, huh, babycakes?” She kisses my forehead and ruffles my hair. “Don’t worry, I still like you.”

  I smile up at Stick. Her short hair pokes up behind her headband. “You do?”

  “Of course! You’re my coolest niece by far.”

  “Even cooler than Avery?”

  Stick winks at me. “Don’t tell her I said that.”

  “You were playing outside?” Grandma has stopped scrubbing to look at me.

  It takes me a minute to remember what we were talking about—the Everwood. Playing outside with Gretchen.

  I wait for Stick to say something, but suddenly she seems to be very interested in sweeping.

  “Um. Yeah?”

  “Yes,” Grandma says.

  “I mean . . . yes. It’s no big deal. We were just messing around.”

  “Doing what, exactly? And where?”

  Stick stops sweeping. “Mom, come on. They’re just having fun.”

  “Amelia, I asked Finley, not you.”

  “We talked. Hung out in the pit.” My mind ping-pongs around, searching for a reason why Grandma would be acting this way. Playing outside seems like a normal thing to do, but I get the sense that isn’t true at Hart House.

  Then it hits me:

  Maybe Grandma knows about what Gretchen and I found: the child’s shoe, the twisted bicycle. The knife.

  Maybe she knows a
bout something that happened in the Everwood.

  “I don’t want you girls playing around back there,” Grandma says.

  “Not even in the pit?”

  Her lips purse. “If you must. But not beyond that, Finley. It isn’t safe.”

  My shoulders tense. She dares to forbid me to enter my Everwood? “What do you mean? It’s fine out there. It’s just woods.”

  “I know you aren’t used to how things work around here, Finley, but in this house, when I give you instructions, I expect them to be obeyed. Is that clear?”

  Her words are quiet, clear, polished. They slice right through me. I could cry; I could scream. It isn’t fair, being here. It isn’t fair, having to pretend to fit in and understand these rules that make no sense.

  Avery comes down the back stairs into the kitchen, one earbud in, her arms full of sketch pads. She wears what I have come to know as her painter’s uniform—a ratty oversized T-shirt and orange shorts splattered with color.

  “Grandpa told me to tell you he’s leaving,” she says to Grandma.

  “Thank you, Avery. Finley, I asked you a question: Is that clear?”

  Stick is staring out a window, holding her shake tightly in one hand, her back to us.

  Avery watches, paused by the door to the garage.

  Grandma’s smile is polite, but her eyes are sharp.

  I know you aren’t used to how things work around here, Finley.

  Grandma knows the truth: I am not one of them.

  “Yes, Grandma,” I say quietly. “I understand.”

  Grandma’s face relaxes. “Good. I’m glad we’re clear. I’ll be back shortly. I need to ask your grandfather something before he leaves.” Then she tugs off her soapy gloves, brushes a paper-dry kiss on my cheek, and leaves us. Her earrings glitter in the sunlight.

  Without another word Avery slips into the garage.

  Stick resumes sweeping. “Your grandfather and his drives,” she says cheerfully, rolling her eyes. “Ever since he retired and Uncle Reed took over the company, it’s become his quiet time. He’s always liked long drives. It’s his way of meditating, but don’t ever tell him I said that. He’d disown me if he knew. He thinks meditation is a bunch of new age hokum.”

  I stare at the refrigerator, at the pictures of my cousins stuck on with magnets. All my cousins, all the aunts.

  Not me. And not Dad.

  He’d disown me if he knew.

  I swallow hard. “You mean like how they disowned my dad?”

  The kitchen goes still. Stick crouches in front of me, taking my hands. Her smile is gone; she looks older without it. I can see the tiny lines around her eyes.

  “Finley . . . Finley, listen to me, sweetie. I’m sorry I said that. It was thoughtless of me. I never wanted Lewis to stay away. None of us wanted that.”

  I look Stick in the eye, and I try to imagine myself as beautiful and untouchable as my grandmother.

  “Grandma did,” I say, and return to my work. Stick doesn’t correct me.

  I polish the cabinets until every inch of them shines.

  9

  THAT NIGHT, AFTER THE ADULTS have gone to sleep, we all sneak out of the house and down into the pit.

  The trees shiver around us, silver with moonlight; the air is soft and warm on my skin. We sit in a circle, and I dig my fingers into the dirt. Four pairs of eyes lock on to me: Kennedy, her hair in a messy bun on top of her head. Dex and Ruth, wide-eyed, sitting on either side of her. Gretchen.

  Hello, I think to the Everwood. I am here.

  I think, Protect us, hide us, because if Grandma wakes up and finds us, I’m not sure what she will do.

  And then I think to the trees, I hope you will like my cousins—because I’m not sure if they will. Or if I will like having my cousins here, in my trees, by my river.

  It’s silly to think of this place as mine, after only a week. I haven’t had the time to properly explore yet, since that first day with Gretchen. But they say people can fall in love in a day, or even in a moment.

  I wonder if Mom and Dad fell in love in a day, or if it took much longer, and if it makes a difference. If the way you fall in love determines how long you will stay in love, or if you will stay in love at all.

  I clear my throat. “What we’re here to discuss tonight is the Everwood, and the artifacts Gretchen and I found, and the pirates.”

  “And their secret house,” Gretchen adds.

  Kennedy looks skeptical. “What pirates?”

  “The Bailey boys. It’s part of the game.”

  I bite my tongue at Gretchen’s continued use of the word game, too nervous to reprimand her. Kennedy is twelve. She must be hiding how ridiculous she finds this situation. She can’t honestly care.

  Gretchen nudges me. “A-hem.”

  “A long time ago,” I say, not looking at Kennedy, “I started writing about the Everwood. It’s not another world. It’s in our world, but you can only find it if it wants you to find it.”

  With Gretchen’s help I tell them about the Bailey boys, and how they chased us away from the old house back in the woods. Then I take out the shoe and knife from my backpack.

  Everyone stares at the knife.

  Kennedy frowns at me. “You didn’t, like, touch the blade or anything, did you? You were careful? If you cut yourself, you’ll need a tetanus shot. Grandma told me that once.”

  “Of course we didn’t touch it,” says Gretchen. “What kind of knight do you think I am?”

  “I’m sorry, a what?”

  Gretchen throws her arm around me. “I’m a knight, and Finley is the poor orphan child. Everyone needs a part to play.”

  “But it’s not a game,” I say, avoiding Kennedy’s eyes, “or a play.”

  I wish we were back inside.

  Kennedy is quiet. Then she says, “Okay, cool. What are our choices?”

  I look up. Really? Kennedy smiles at me. If she thinks this is childish, if she is playing along for the sake of the twins, I can’t tell.

  I smile back at her.

  “I want to be a witch!” Ruth cackles, her fingers curled.

  Kennedy covers Ruth’s mouth. “You weirdo. Stop screaming. Grandma’ll flip if she finds us out here.”

  “You can’t be a witch,” I explain, “because witches in the Everwood are villainous. Do you want to be a villain?”

  Ruth appears to be thinking hard about that.

  “Well, you can’t be,” I say quickly. “We already have the pirates to deal with. Don’t you want to be a hero, like Gretchen?”

  Gretchen jumps to her feet and flexes her skinny biceps.

  Ruth and Dex start laughing—but then the sounds of a slamming door and a crash come from the direction of the Bailey house.

  Everyone falls silent.

  “We should go inside,” Kennedy says, standing up. “We’re so not supposed to be out here. I shouldn’t have let this happen.”

  “Oh, don’t go all Grandma on us,” Gretchen hisses. “It’s no big deal.”

  “Come on,” I whisper. “We have to see what’s going on.”

  Kennedy frowns but says nothing. We crawl up the far side of the pit and peek out over the top. From here we can see the Bailey house clearly—and the boy sitting on the opposite ledge of the high riverbank.

  He is swinging his legs through the air. Picking at the ground. Throwing rocks into the water.

  I think it is the medium-sized boy. The one who laughed at me while he chased us. He doesn’t look so wild and dangerous now.

  “Something’s going on over there,” Gretchen whispers. “I just know it. What was that crash?”

  Kennedy says, “It sounded like glass breaking. Maybe we should wake up Grandma.”

  “And get grounded until the end of time? No thanks.”

  “Why is he outside by himself?” Dex asks, squishing lumps of dirt with his thumb.

  “I don’t know,” I say, “but something is going on over there. My dad said something happened when he was a kid. Or h
e kind of hinted at it, anyway. He said the Baileys aren’t good people. That their dad did bad things. But we can’t talk about it with Grandma and Grandpa. Okay?”

  “What kind of bad things?” Kennedy asks.

  “I don’t know. But I want to find out what.”

  “Why do you care about whatever the Baileys did?” Kennedy crosses her arms. “You don’t even know them. None of us do. I mean, we’ve seen them at school, but we don’t actually talk to them. So . . . what is it? What’s the big deal?”

  I don’t know how to explain it to her in a way that would make sense—that there is a story in these woods, waiting for me to write it.

  That when I write about the Everwood, I don’t have to think about anything else. Not Mom. Not Dad.

  Not me, spending the summer away from them.

  Gretchen pipes up. “Look, the important thing is that there’s this really old, beat-up house back in the woods, and we found all this creepy stuff around it. And you can’t find an old, beat-up house in the woods surrounded by creepy stuff and not go investigate. I mean, come on, Kennedy.” Gretchen drops to her knees and tugs on Kennedy’s tank top. “You’re killin’ me, Smalls! You’re killin’ me with your goody-goody ways! I’m beggin’ ya, don’t ruin my fun!”

  Kennedy is trying not to smile. “Get off me—you’re stretching out my shirt.”

  I clear my throat. “As a poor orphan child, with nothing to my name, I beseech you to join me and the Lady Gretchen, knight of the Everwood, in our quest: to explore the Everwood and discover its secrets.”

  “Especially the beat-up old house,” Gretchen adds.

  “Right. Especially the house.”

  Kennedy sighs. “Which is probably condemned.”

  “Kennedy,” Gretchen whines, “don’t be a butt.”

  “Kennedy’s a butt,” Ruth sings. “Kennedy’s a butt.”

  “Great,” Kennedy mutters.

  “We won’t do anything too dangerous,” I say. “I promise, Kennedy.”

  Kennedy sighs. “Otherwise everyone’ll hate me, I guess?”

  “Yep,” Gretchen says. “Forever and ever. Amen.”

  “Ugh.” Kennedy crosses her arms over her chest and stares up at the trees.

  Gretchen pats her shoulder. “It sucks being the goody-goody, doesn’t it?”