Longing for Normal

by Darcy Pattison

  BREAD PROJECT: WEEK 7

  ELIOT

  Signs. What does one innocent sign tell about a person, about a family? For example a “For Sale” sign, like the one in front of the white house where I live, the house that had belonged to Griff and before him, to Griff’s aunt. What would a “For Sale” sign there mean? What did it say about the family in the house?

  It said Change was coming.

  But a sign couldn’t say if that Change would be good or bad. Or, maybe Change could be both good and bad. Change might be good for the kids, but bad for the adults.

  Or vice versa.

  Here’s the math: 1 For Sale sign + 2 persons trying to make a family = Change.

  I didn’t know how to stop the math of Change. Change was coming. Ready or not.

  That Saturday morning, it started with a phone call from Miss Clay saying that she wanted to show the house twice that afternoon: that is, if Marj and I could be out of the house from 1-3 pm, then she could show it at that time.

  I put down my orange juice glass, letting the morning sun try to reach through the juice to the table. I shoved back my half-full bowl of cereal. “Today? We’re not finished with painting.”

  In truth, the breakfast room was still yellow, but everything else was white. My room had smelled of oil paint last night, so I’d left the windows open a crack, and by now, the house was finally starting to smell just fresh and new instead of like oil paint.

  “Yes we are. I’ll light some scented candles for a couple hours, and that will help the smell. We are ready to show the house.” Marj scooped up the breakfast dishes and carried them to the kitchen. I followed.

  “Who is looking at our house today?”

  “The first person is the gentleman who wanted to know the size of the attic. The second is a young couple getting married at Christmas who want a home to come back to after their honeymoon.”

  I dumped my cereal and juice into the disposal. Flipped the switch and let the loud disposal bury Marj’s chatter. Slammed my dishes into the dishwasher. Wishing, wishing, wishing I could stop this. “Where will we go for two hours?’

  Marj leaned over the counter and something—a stillness in her—made me look up.

  “I want,” she said, “to visit Griff’s grave. The stone is in, and I want to be sure it was done right. I was going to just go out there alone. But—maybe—well, maybe you want to come, too?”

  A gravestone and a For Sale sign. Both signs of Change.

  

  That July week—the one when Griff died—had been book-ended with birds.

  On Monday, Griff and Marj and I ate an early breakfast. Carried our plates to the glass table on the deck, enjoying the relatively cool morning air that would soon heat to a humid summer afternoon in the mid-south. Below the deck, poking around in the grass, were mourning doves. Coo-coo-cooing. Crooning to each other of the eggs in the nest. Singing of the family that would soon hatch. Or so it seemed to me.

  Everything that morning was tinged with family and love and joy.

  By 9 am, Griff and I were dressed. Sports coats—mine was new from the wedding—dress shirts and ties. Marj wore a dress and heels, her long hair in a ponytail. Sunday best clothes for this special day.

  Griff pulled the Toyota Camry out of the garage, and I opened the door for Marj with a bow. She flashed me a smile and waved a manila envelope. “It’s a big day for me, too,” she said.

  At the courthouse, we took things slowly. Stopped to smell long-stemmed yellow roses in the rose garden. Stopped to tilt back our heads to study the golden honeycomb pattern of the stained glass dome. Stopped outside the courtroom and asked a bystander to take our picture under the Judge’s name. Sat quietly, waiting for the judge to call our case. Held hands as the judge signed the adoption order, making our family official, making Griff my Dad, and making me his son. Smiled at anyone and everyone. Stopped to file the adoption papers for Marj to become my Mom.

  Outside, on the other side of the courthouse, hummingbirds darted to feeders, sipped and flitted to the next feeder. I watched, transfixed by the bird’s green and ruby red iridescent feathers and graceful flying. I felt like my heart was fluttering about, too. Like it might burst with joy at any moment. We celebrated with triple scoop cones at the ice cream store across the street, then went back to the car.

  Griff stopped beside the driver’s side and closed his left eye. “Marj, maybe you should drive. The cold of that ice cream has given me a headache.”

  Marj took the keys, while Griff went around the car. He stumbled, but caught himself and said, “Just the curb,” and climbed in.

  I frowned, but Griff seemed okay, and he did have headaches a lot.

  I slouched back, still in a happy daze, thinking of how I would sign my name at school the next year, Eliot Winston. At home, I’d find some paper and practice.

  Traffic was light, a weekday and just mid-morning. I watched the skyscrapers and bridges pass-by and was startled when Marj said sharply, “Griff!”

  I leaned forward. Griff’s head had slumped; his chin rested on his chest.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  Marj was breathing fast. “He just passed out.”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked again, “What’s wrong?”

  That day, that beautiful, happy day. It took on a brilliant look, as if a crystal-clear magnifying glass had suddenly appeared. Griff’s face was pale. A drop of chocolate ice cream stained the white collar of his dress shirt. The diamond of Marj’s wedding ring flashed in the sunshine. Then the day turned dark. Like someone had closed a curtain on an act in a play.

  Marj gripped the steering wheel tightly. “Something’s not right. We’re going to the ER.”

  For some reason, I always remembered that. She said, “ER” and not “Emergency Room.”

  Lights and bustle, nurses and antiseptic smells—the ER and the whole hospital confused me. For three long, weary days and nights, we waited, Marj and I. Waited for Griff to wake up. But the brain tumor took him late on Wednesday night.

  And on Friday, we were at the cemetery. Someone lowered a black casket into a dirt hole. Unable to watch any longer, I focused on a tall, almost leafless tree that hovered over the small chapel, a chapel with a dome of golden honeycomb stained glass. That morning, we had prayed in that chapel for Griff’s soul.

  I stared at the tree that hovered over the dome. A movement caught my attention, the head of a small cat. I blinked. Cats didn’t climb that far up a tree.

  Then the minister finished praying, and the crowd—so many people that they filled the entire cemetery–everyone started singing a hymn. So many people, all singing a hymn for Griff and he couldn’t even hear it.

  I blinked again. Marj had had a husband for three weeks. I had only had a father for three days.

  The cat in the treetop rose, like it was climbing even higher. Tufts, feather tufts came out of its ears. The cat spread wide wings, almost as wide as I could reach. Eyes riveted now, I realized it was a Great Horned owl. The crowd started singing a final hymn, “Amazing Grace.” And the owl launched into the air and flew straight at me, swerving at the last second to swoop straight over Griff’s grave, hooting softly, “Hoo-hoo hooooo hoo-hoo,” saying good-night and good-bye to the kindest man who had ever lived, an honorary fly-over acknowledging that with the passing of Griffith Winston, the universe had changed forever.

  

  Now, the first day of November—All Saints Day, Alli had told me it was called—the cemetery looked about the same as in July, except the leaves were in full autumn colors. Orange, yellow, and rusty brown leaves carpeted most of the graves, marking the passing of yet another season. Three full months without Griff, it seemed impossible that time passed so fast.

  Marj, in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, knelt beside the stone and read.

  “Griffith Winston

  Beloved Father and Husband”

  “It looks good, doesn’t it?” she asked.

  I s
hrugged. “Sure.” It was gray granite, just like every other stone in the cemetery. Why did everyone choose gray? Griff wouldn’t have liked the sad color.

  “I’m going to change the flowers,” Marj said. From the vase near the stone, she pulled out the brown – the dead – flowers. “Throw these in that trash can.” She handed them to me and motioned toward a trashcan near the chapel. Then she unwrapped the mums and daisies she had brought.

  I took the brown flowers in my fingertips and held them far away from my body. Didn’t seem right. Dead flowers in this place where dead people slept. We should have brought fake flowers.

  I walked toward the chapel and the owl’s tree. I threw away the flowers, then kicked the leaves under the tree. I couldn’t see the owl’s nest; it was too high up. But I found pellets, crumbled and dry. I kicked one and tiny bones flew apart. Probably rodents the owl had eaten. We were studying biology in science class. Maybe I should take one back to Miss Garrett. Just the sort of thing she’d like.

  Across the cemetery, Marj’s cell phone rang. I stood and watched her talking. Was it Miss Clay? Did someone want to buy our house? Marj nodded a few times, then put up her phone and knelt to finish arranging the flowers.

  I wanted to race to Marj and ask what Miss Clay had said. But I decided that bad news could keep. Instead, I went to the car and found a plastic bag from some store and gathered pellets. I stopped now and then to crane my neck upward, looking for the owl. But I didn’t see it.

  When I had eight or ten good pellets, I looked for Marj. She was leaning backwards on the hood of the car, just watching me.

  I walked over and said, “I found owl pellets. Miss Garrett, the science teacher, will like them.”

  Marj flushed. “Oh. I almost forgot the owl, how it flew over that day.” She held the bag up to eye height and shook it gently. “This is owl poop? And Miss Garrett is your science teacher?”

  I nodded yes to both questions. Marj hadn’t paid much attention this year to my teachers’ names.

  “Well. It’s Miss Garrett that we need to talk about,” she said.

  Confused, I said, “What?”

  “She’s engaged.”

  “Everyone knows that.” From the first day of school, that’s all she had talked about. I hadn’t minded because many days it meant no homework.

  “Well,” Marj said, “she’s engaged and that means she’s getting married.”

  “Yes.” I still wasn’t getting it.

  “And she and Shane Baxter, her fiancé, have made an offer on the house.”

  I froze. Couldn’t say anything. Couldn’t frown. Couldn’t smile. Couldn’t even blink.

  Marj took the plastic bag from my hand and set it on the car’s hood. “Don’t get excited about it, yet. The first buyer decided on a different house, so he’s out of it. And Miss Garrett and Mr. Baxter made a contingent offer. That means he’s got to sell his house first, and then we can decide if we want to sign the papers to sell our house. Nothing is decided yet because it might take months for Baxter’s house to sell. Meanwhile, we can still take offers from others.”

  She told me not to get excited, but her voice was excited. She was glad we had this offer on our house. Sell the house. Send the kid off to foster care. And she’d have her life back again.

  Suddenly, I sneezed. Which made my eyes water. I sneezed again, bending almost double, turning away and mumbling, “Excuse me.”

  My head hurt, too. I rubbed my forehead, then my temples, and stared at the fall leaves covering the graves. Dead leaves covering dead hopes.

  “Are you okay?’ Marj asked.

  I straightened, stiffened my back and turned. “Fine. I’m ready to go—” I couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t say go home, could I? “ – ready to go back to the house.”

  “You don’t look good. Maybe you’re allergic to something out here. You didn’t see any poison ivy did you?” She handed me the bag of owl pellets, then got into the car and drove.

  But the house, the possibility that it might sell, had her too excited. She kept coming back to details that needed to be finished before it sold. “But surely it will sell,” she said, “even if the trim work in the sun room still needs a second coat.”

  I let her talk, leaning my hot forehead against the cool window.

  She was saying: “Miss Clay will come by later with some papers for me to sign. She said Miss Garrett loved the fresh white paint, and Mr. Baxter loved the upstairs room because he’s a part-time taxidermist. He stays busy mounting deer heads and things like that, and he’ll set them up in that room. It’s perfect for them. I’m so glad we got everything in such good order because they are offering full price.”

  I couldn’t believe it. My room, my bedroom. Turned into a workroom for a taxidermist, a room with lots of stuffed dead things. Somehow, it seemed inevitable.

  ALLI

  How many ways can you spell S-T-U-P-I-D? And still get it wrong?

  Why, why, why, why, why had I asked for an allowance? All it did was get Mr. Porter riled up. He was supposed to do grocery shopping this morning because we were out of cereal and orange juice and bread. But he was already out on a golf date when I came downstairs. I licked my peanut butter jar clean and then there was nothing.

  Hunger gnawed at my stomach and I’d get nothing at home. Miss Porter was out working, as usual. And as soon as Mr. Porter left for golf, I left, too. Eliot had better come through for me.

  But no one was home. No one.

  Pumpkins and pots of fall flowers—yellow, bronze and burgundy – sat on the front porch. Why had Mrs. Winston dolled up the place? She had done nothing earlier that fall and nothing for Halloween. Why now?

  I sat on the front porch and leaned, wrapping one arm around the column and one around my tight stomach. And waited.

  Finally, thirty minutes later, Mrs. Winston and Eliot arrived home. I walked around to the garage to talk to Eliot. His jaw was tight, his brows furrowed—Eliot was mad about something. He glanced at me and stormed toward the back yard.

  I didn’t care. I grabbed his arm and made him stop.

  “What?” Now he was mad at me.

  Looking back to Mrs. Winston, who was watching us, I whispered. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “What do you want?”

  My stomach answered with a loud rumble.

  Eliot did a tight shake of his head. “Not now.”

  “Eliot, I’m hungry.”

  He looked away, toward the back yard.

  “Mr. Porter left me with nothing to eat. I’ve had nothing at all today.” Well, he didn’t have to know about the spoonful of peanut butter; that was barely anything. “You promised.”

  Eliot’s shoulders sagged, and he said. “Okay. Come on in.”

  ELIOT

  By now, I’m an expert in boxed mac and cheese meals. I could cook one in my sleep. I can even cook one when I’m so sad and mad that I want to just curl up and bury my head under the covers. Because no matter how I felt, I couldn’t leave Alli to starve to death.

  Marj must have known I was upset, but with Alli there, she ignored it. While I cooked the mac and cheese, Marj set the table. I searched the cupboards for something to add to the meal and ended up with animal crackers, and, of course pretzels. Water to drink.

  While Alli bit the heads off various animals, Marj chattered and crunched on pretzels. Alli started lining up her headless animals, and Marj tried to bite off just part of the pretzel to form the ABCs. In the midst of all this, Marj talked. Told all about Miss Clay, Miss Garrett and Shane Baxter. The offer on the house.

  Allie’s eyes got bigger and bigger. She glanced my way, bit off an elephant’s head, laid down the elephant body, glanced at me again.

  Somehow, my stomach didn’t hurt as much, just knowing she understood.

  Meanwhile, I opened a can of peaches, pulled out some miniature carrots and ranch dressing.

  Finally, I served the mac and cheese. Thing is, in the whole kitchen, nothing smelled like food
. We had a full meal that didn’t smell at all.

  Marj ate half the peaches, a small spoonful of mac and cheese and one carrot. Then she went to her office, carrying the pretzel bag with her.

  As soon as she was out of sight, Alli leaned forward. She spoke low, making sure her voice didn’t carry to Marj’s study. “You’re mad about the offer on the house.”

  “Duh.”

  “Did you tell her you don’t want her to sell it?”

  “She knows that.”

  At Alli’s silence, I repeated, “She knows. She has to know.”

  “Did you tell her?”

  “No.”

  “So, you’re just giving up?”

  I closed my eyes, ignoring Alli. I was just sitting there, trying hard not to think of anything, but of course, that meant I was thinking of everything. Like Marj about to sell the house. About the Bread Project doing so badly at the Halloween party.

  Suddenly, I heard a thump and opened my eyes.

  Alli had hopped down from the stool, and now, she grabbed the back of my chair and tipped me out!

  I sprawled on the floor and stared at her, outraged. “Why—”

  But she cut me off, standing over me and glaring. “Get up! Let’s go to your room.” She whirled, marched across the living room and stomped up the stairs.

  While I scrambled to my feet, I called after her, “What’s wrong with you?”

  Marj suddenly appeared in the doorway of her office. “Everything okay?”

  I froze.

  Then, my jaw tightened. She knew what was wrong. I wasn’t going to say it. “Yes, ma’am. We’re okay.”

  “Is Alli okay?”

  “Yes, we were just playing around.”

  “Well, don’t get too rough.” And she went back to her office.

  I took the stairs two at a time. Alli was sitting cross-legged in a patch of sunshine.