Some Kind of Happiness

by Claire Legrand

  Jack nudges me. “Tell him a story.”

  “What?”

  “One of the Everwood stories.” Then Jack says, louder, “Finley’s a good writer. She has a whole notebook full of stories at her house.”

  “Really?” Mr. Bailey actually sounds interested. “What are they about?”

  I stare at the ground. “They’re not very good.”

  “Shut up,” Jack says. “They’re amazing.”

  I glare at him.

  (Jack thinks my stories are amazing!)

  “This is embarrassing,” I mumble.

  “No it isn’t. Come on, do your thing.”

  Jack thinks it is so easy to just do things: to steal your neighbors’ property so they will chase you. To hug your friend because you missed her.

  Mr. Bailey takes another drink. “You don’t have to, if you’re scared.”

  “Finley’s not scared of anything,” Jack says. “She’s the queen.”

  “Is that right?” Mr. Bailey laughs a little. “Of course she is. All those Hart girls are queens, didn’t you know?”

  Something about Mr. Bailey’s words stings, like I have stepped into those pale green prickers hiding beneath the grass in the Wasteland.

  Those Hart girls are my aunts, my cousins, my grandmother. We share blood. What does Mr. Bailey know about anything?

  “Fine,” I say sharply. “I have a story about how the Everwood was first made, when the world was very young and full of magic. Would you like to hear that?”

  Mr. Bailey throws his empty bottle into the weeds. “Sure thing. Can’t sleep tonight anyway. Maybe this’ll help.”

  “He means that in a good way,” Jack explains, lying back in the dirt. “Reading relaxes him. I’ve been reading Tom Sawyer to him sometimes. You like that, right?”

  “I like it when you do their voices.” Mr. Bailey reaches down to Jack, and Jack grabs his hand and squeezes. “You’re good at making me laugh.”

  Jack smiles up at him.

  I take a deep breath, and begin.

  30

  APPARENTLY DR. BRISTOW DOES NOT want to sit in silence this week.

  She talks to me for about five minutes straight once my second appointment begins—about her husband (the principal at the local middle school), her dog (a mutt of questionable origins with a fondness for shoes), and her taste in movies (a lot of science fiction).

  Then she leans back in her chair and sips her coffee. “Am I terribly boring?”

  I am shocked into speech. “No.”

  “Aha! You can talk! I was starting to get worried.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, no, no—don’t apologize. There’s nothing to be sorry for. I just thought, with me rambling on and on, you must have found me very boring and decided to keep quiet so maybe I would eventually stop talking.”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s—”

  I stop before I can say anything I will regret.

  How can I explain to her the truth?

  That I am sitting here not talking because I am afraid she will dig deep inside my thoughts and discover all my secrets—and maybe even more than that. Maybe things I don’t want to know.

  Definitely things I don’t want Grandma to know.

  (I am not broken.)

  I glance up at Dr. Bristow. She smiles and gives me a little nod.

  “It’s nothing. Really.”

  “Finley, I’m going to be frank with you. I like honesty, and I think sometimes adults decide not to be honest with children because they think doing so will protect them, but I don’t agree with that philosophy.”

  Every adult in my life seems to be keeping some kind of secret right now. The idea that there could be one who isn’t is astonishing. “Really?”

  “Really. Is that okay with you?”

  “Yeah. But . . .”

  “You don’t have to be honest with me back. I understand you don’t know me very well yet. It’s okay. I probably wouldn’t trust me either.”

  I relax, and I realize I have been digging my fingers into the couch.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay. So, as part of me being honest, I have to ask you something. Do you know why your parents and your grandparents decided to make you these appointments with me?”

  Because I am not what they want me to be.

  Because I am a bad influence.

  Because they do not understand me. I am quiet, and obsessive, and I like spending time alone.

  (If only they knew there was even more to it than that.)

  I am not certain my grandparents could understand the concept of blue days, of fear that comes over you in waves and wakes you up in the middle of the night, of heaviness that seems to grow from somewhere deep inside the universe.

  I think if I sat my grandparents down and tried to explain these things to them, they would say something like:

  You’re feeling a little out of sorts because of this nasty business with your parents.

  You’re going through a phase. Everyone goes through phases.

  You’re not making any sense, Finley.

  To maintain a sense of calm, I think of sitting in the cool dark with Jack and Mr. Bailey, telling stories about the Everwood.

  And I tell Dr. Bristow, “No,” and shrug. “I don’t know why.”

  “Your grandparents told me you’re staying with them this summer because your parents are having some trouble. They’re worried about you. They say you’ve gotten your cousins playing some dangerous games in the woods—”

  “They’re not dangerous,” I blurt out. “The . . . games. They’re not dangerous. We’re just playing.”

  “What do you play?”

  I imagine explaining the Everwood to Dr. Bristow and almost laugh. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “That’s probably true. It’d be like when my husband tries to explain football to me. I know that’s a terrible cliché, but it’s true—he starts talking safeties and offsides and all the different kinds of penalties, and my eyes just kind of glaze over.”

  Her effort to cheer me up is admirable, but it doesn’t help. I am clamped tight again, like I was during my first appointment.

  Dr. Bristow wouldn’t understand.

  My grandparents think she would—maybe they even think they would—but they are wrong.

  The Everwood and the Bone House and the train tracks and the fire and the three lonely gravestones—these are things for me and my cousins and the Baileys. No one else.

  It is not my place to tell the group’s secrets to this stranger, no matter how kind she may appear to be.

  So even though it makes me intensely uncomfortable, I stare at the floor and refuse to acknowledge Dr. Bristow for the rest of my appointment.

  After a few minutes she stops trying to talk to me, refills her coffee, and starts working on her computer, humming under her breath.

  For at least one more session I am saved.

  31

  AVERY HAS BEEN DESIGNATED MY official psychologist chauffeur.

  I am not happy she knows about this situation, but I will not complain, because that is something stains do. Spots and messes and non-Harts.

  The queen held her head high.

  “How’d it go today?” Avery asks as I slide into the passenger seat of her tiny car.

  A faded bumper sticker on the back of the car says THE CLOSER YOU GET, THE SLOWER I’LL DRIVE.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “It was fine.”

  Avery pops her gum, pulls down her enormous sunglasses from the top of her head, and drives out of the clinic’s parking lot.

  At first Avery and I ride in silence, and I am happy to stay that way. We have not said much to each other since that night in the bathroom, except for when I ask her to help me sneak down to the Post Office, or at least check it for me.

  But then Avery starts flipping through radio stations. “So what kind of music do you like?”

  Beeth-oven, I want to say. “I don’t know . . . Kiss FM, I guess?�
��

  Avery makes a horrible face. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Uh . . . no?”

  “Finley, please. You can lose brain cells listening to that stuff.” Avery presses a button on her stereo. “How about this?”

  A song begins—a man singing by himself, and a piano. The man has an English accent.

  “What is this?” I ask.

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “No.”

  “Finley.” We come to a stoplight, and Avery tilts her head back against the headrest.

  “Avery? Are you okay?”

  “Listen to the song. It’s the freaking Beatles, Finley. They were only, you know, revolutionary. It’s inexcusable that you don’t know this song.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t be. Just listen.”

  Avery rolls down the windows and turns up the volume.

  What started out as a man and a piano grows to a couple of men, a tambourine, some drums. Although I do not usually listen too closely to song lyrics, I make an effort to listen to these, because I get the feeling Avery expects me to.

  I like these lyrics. They are a little sad, about a lonely boy who does not think he is worth much. A boy with sadness. A boy who is afraid.

  Avery begins to sing along. We turn off the main road onto a farm road, and the sunlight hits us square in the face. I squint, and Avery looks like she is made of gold.

  The song escalates in volume, and the singer begins to scream. So does Avery, banging on the steering wheel.

  “Come on, Finley, this part’s easy,” shouts Avery over the song and the wind. “It’s the same thing over and over.”

  But I cannot possibly do such a thing. If I tried, I would not look cool and wild, like Avery does, slapping her steering wheel like she is the best drummer in the world.

  When the song is over, Avery turns down the volume. “I’m kind of obsessed with that song right now. What do you think?”

  “It’s . . . long.”

  “Pffft. It’s exactly as long as it needs to be. Do you feel wiser now? You should. It’s the start of your education on actual good music. I’m going to start playing you new stuff every week.”

  “Okay.”

  Avery continues singing the song to herself, and I listen closely, because I want her to turn the song back on but am too nervous to ask her. So I focus on the thin sound of her voice and try tapping out the song’s drumbeat on the side of the seat, where she cannot see.

  When we turn onto Redbrook Road, Avery pulls the car over and parks beneath a tree.

  For a minute she stares out the window in silence, her skin marked with clusters of sunlight. A grasshopper snaps past the window.

  Before I can ask her what’s going on, she says, “Look, I know you know about Grandma.”

  “I . . .” I close my mouth, open it, close it again. “Okay. Yeah.”

  “I assume they told you not to tell anyone?”

  “Grandpa said not to. Grandma hasn’t said anything to me about it. At all.”

  Avery snorts. “Yeah, not surprising.”

  “But, um, I actually don’t know much. I saw Grandpa giving her a shot. I saw her wig. But they didn’t tell me anything. I don’t really know what any of that means.”

  Avery pushes her sunglasses on top of her head and looks at me. “She has advanced multiple myeloma. It’s this really bad cancer. She’s on a short break from chemo and radiation treatments, but she’s about to start back up with chemo. She hides it really well: ‘Oh, I’m busy with this and that,’ and ‘Your grandfather and I are visiting friends in the city this weekend’—you know, that kind of thing. The injection you saw Grandpa giving her is this medicine the doctor thinks will help prevent more of the bad cells from forming.”

  Avery takes a shaky-sounding breath. “I’ve known about this for weeks. They had to tell me because Grandpa is losing it. Seeing her like this, he gets so upset, only you could never tell, of course. Anyway, he needs someone around to help him take care of Grandma when she’s feeling sick. But they won’t let me tell anyone. Or, I guess I could tell everyone, but they told me that if I kept their secret, they’d pay for my tuition to the Rigby Institute next year.”

  This is a lot of information to process.

  Grandpa is losing it? Like he did when he found us with the Baileys, except the exact opposite. Shaking, maybe, but not with anger.

  Imagining him upset about Grandma, and what that might look like, makes me feel very small.

  Would he cry?

  I have never heard Avery say so many words. She grips the steering wheel like we are on the run from the police.

  “The bad cells?” I say.

  “Cancer cells. The ones that grow tumors.”

  “Oh. What’s the Rigby Institute?”

  Avery glares at the dashboard. “It’s this prestigious art school on the East Coast. It’s basically my dream school, but Mom and Dad can’t afford to send me there. They act like they could, but they can’t. Mom goes to the city twice a week to shop for clothes she shouldn’t buy. Did you know that? I love her, but she’s an idiot sometimes. They think I don’t hear them talking when I’m at home. Don’t they get that my bedroom is right above theirs?”

  “Adults don’t ever think we’re listening.”

  “If I ever have kids, I will never delude myself into thinking they’re as stupid as my parents think I am.”

  “I don’t think they think you’re stupid. They probably don’t want to admit they can’t afford that school. Maybe they’re embarrassed.”

  Avery looks at me long and hard. “Well, maybe. Anyway, so I’m keeping Grandma and Grandpa’s secret so I can go to my dream school. Is that terrible of me? I think it’s pretty terrible. But you don’t see me telling anyone, do you? So I guess I’ve made up my mind.”

  Avery’s eyes are bright. She bites her lip and slams her sunglasses back down.

  “Whatever.” She starts the car back up. “I should be sorry they told you. It’s cruel that they told you. You’re eleven years old. You don’t need to be keeping secrets like this. You should be keeping stupid, pointless secrets, like who your crush is and that you stuffed your bra when you went to the movies the other night. You know? But whatever. God forbid we talk about things like real people, you know? ‘Oh, sweetie. Oh, Avery. You can’t tell anyone. It’ll upset your aunts, your mother. They’ll be devastated.’ Like, no freaking kidding? I couldn’t have guessed that.”

  Avery shoves a strand of hair behind her ear. “And you know what’s even more terrible? I’m glad they told you, because now I have someone I can talk to about it.”

  Avery punches the gas, and the car squeals back into the road.

  This does not help my spinning head. I clutch the seat.

  “Avery?”

  “What?” she snaps.

  “Why would I stuff my bra?”

  Her mouth twitches. “I’m kind of glad you don’t know the answer to that yet.”

  When we pull into the driveway, we do not get out immediately. I feel like stepping out of the car will ruin the little world we’ve created in here, Avery and me.

  Avery fiddles with her car keys. “I’m sorry I went off like that. I shouldn’t have—”

  “It’s okay,” I say quickly. “I liked it. I thought . . .”

  “What?”

  “I thought you didn’t like me that much.”

  “I’ve been kind of a jerk to you, haven’t I?”

  “No, just . . .”

  “Distant?”

  “Yeah.”

  Avery nods, looks in the mirror, yanks her hair into a ponytail. “I’m jealous of you, Finley.”

  I stare at her. “Why?”

  “Because you got away. You didn’t have to grow up here, with everyone breathing down your neck, everyone expecting . . .”

  I hold my breath until I can’t anymore. “Expecting what?”

  “Expecting you to fit in, and be the perfect Hart. ‘Oh, your gran
dparents.’ ‘Oh, your adorable little cousins.’ ‘Oh, the Hart family, aren’t you lucky to be one of them?’ ” Avery moves the armrest up and down. “It’s exhausting.”

  I feel a desperate urge for my notebook. I want to write down this conversation and read it over and over until I know everything Avery has said by heart.

  “Avery?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you know why I never visited before this summer? Do you know why everyone’s mad at my dad?”

  “No. I really don’t. Sorry.”

  I want to ask her about the fire. I decide I will someday. But not today. Avery thinks I am cool, like she can trust me with her secrets.

  That is not a feeling I am willing to lose.

  “No one will tell me. Grandma says Dad is an upsetting topic.” I pause. “She says she misses him. Grandpa does too.”

  Avery lets out a long breath. “Well, good luck with that. If a Hart doesn’t want you to know something, chances are you’ll never find out.”

  “Hi, you two!” calls Aunt Dee, standing by the garage and waving a spoon. “Hurry up! Grandma’s icing cookies!”

  “Of course,” Avery says grimly. She gets out of the car, slams the door shut, and goes to hug her mother.

  If you looked at her smiling face, you would never guess she was about to cry a few minutes ago.

  FTER SEVERAL DAYS IN HER lonely prison tower, the queen awoke to familiar, eerie howls. Fear slithered through her bones.

  She looked out her tiny window. The fog had worsened. The world was dark.

  Through the fog the queen heard the howls continuing their fearsome song, but worse than that were the sounds of death.

  Muffled though they were, they were unmistakable: trees crashing to the ground, animals crying out in pain.

  The air smelled like the underside of things—things that should not see the sunlight and yet had somehow been unearthed.

  “Because of me,” said the queen, her heart full of shame.

  She ripped a piece of cloth from her hem and tied it around her face, shielding her nose and mouth. She donned her ruined cloak and climbed out her window, down the slick castle wall.