“Where did you get these?”
“Is that . . . Dad?” Johnny said.
Lucy hesitated. “We found them buried in a flight helmet in the hills just outside San Jose. Near Alum Rock Park.”
Milo held out the helmet with the Dirty Thirty symbol painted on the back, and Johnny took it. Then they all stood there, momentarily flustered, silent as the stars above.
“Heavens, look at us just standing here like a bunch of bumpkins. Come in!” the woman finally said. She opened the door wide enough for them to go inside.
“I’m Meg, and this is Johnny. Amanda!” Meg called, and a long-legged, almost-Gia-aged person came trotting down the stairs. She even had Gia’s long, dark hair.
“Yeah?” She smiled at Lucy. She had the same crinkle in her nose as her mom.
“Let’s all sit down for a minute and take a deep breath,” Meg said.
Amanda looked confused, but followed her mom into the living room. Once they were all situated on the long velvet sofa and mismatched chairs, and introductions made, Meg took the three photographs and handed one each to Amanda and Johnny, keeping one for herself.
“It’s Dad!” Amanda said.
“That was our last day together before he left for the war the first time,” Meg said with a hint of a smile.
Milo took the Purple Heart from his pocket. “We found this, too.”
Johnny leaned forward and took it from Milo. He looked at his mother. “I didn’t know Dad was injured.”
“He wouldn’t talk about it. Even with me. Where did you find these things?”
“There’s a house up in the hills that’s a meeting hall sort of place for vets. They come together and tell stories. Sometimes they stay overnight if they don’t have anyplace else to go. We found the name John Ruth in the record books. He came through in January of 1965, and he left this address,” Lucy said.
“Sounds like somewhere John would have gone. He was always off helping this vet or helping that one. Lord knows they weren’t getting help from anyone else.”
“So he came back?” Lucy said.
“For a little while,” Meg said. She looked off toward the fireplace mantel where there was a folded American flag in a triangular box. “He came back the first time. But not the second.”
Lucy and Milo both stared at the flag and without thinking, Lucy reached for Milo’s hand. Lucy was heartbroken for this family, for herself. For Gia and Josh. For the whole wide world, it seemed. She hadn’t realized how much she was counting on the idea that she would find whoever the Purple Heart belonged to. That she’d see a family who made it through the war whole.
“He didn’t know how to be home. He couldn’t sit still. He’d leave sometimes for days at a time. Finally, he told me he had to go back,” Meg said. “That somehow, he hadn’t done enough the first time.”
“I’m so sorry,” Lucy finally said. “I hope this hasn’t made things worse.”
“Heavens no, child. You haven’t made things worse at all,” Meg said. She looked young to Lucy, especially when she smiled. “We’re happy to have whatever pieces of him we can get.”
The helmet was a little dirty, but Milo had cleaned it mostly, so Johnny slipped it on, snapped the strap under his chin. Then he put both his hands on either side of the helmet, as though hugging it tight to his head. Maybe he was listening for something, the way you can listen to the inside of a seashell.
Lucy realized the Purple Heart wasn’t just for the wounds of a soldier, but the family’s too. A testament to their own resilience and bravery in surviving a different kind of wound.
“Mom, this is the first time I’ve seen myself this little,” Amanda said. “Too bad we lost all the pictures.”
Johnny looked at his folded hands. “They’re in the spare room. In the closet up on the shelf behind a box marked sweaters.”
“When did you find them?” Meg said, unsurprised.
“A few years ago. I was looking for a blanket to take to the beach.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Meg said.
Johnny just shrugged.
“What?” Amanda said, looking back and forth between her brother and her mom. “Mom, why did you hide them? And why didn’t you tell me, Johnny?”
“We all have our own way of handling things, I guess. Some of us better than others,” Meg said.
“Well, don’t just sit there, Johnny. Go get them!” Amanda said. She took the Purple Heart from her mom and inspected it from top to bottom.
“I suppose it’s time,” Meg said. She looked at the flag in the wooden box over the fireplace. “Right, John? You found a way home, after all.”
Lucy stood up, a bit wobbly on her feet, suddenly feeling like an intruder. “We should go.”
Milo was still staring at the American flag folded in its triangular box.
“Can I at least give you something for your trouble? You must have been searching for a long time.”
“No, ma’am.” Milo stood up. “‘You can’t put a price on a good deed.’ That’s what my dad always says.”
Meg stood up and gave them each a giant squeezy hug. Then Johnny came down the stairs with a fairly large box. Lucy hoped it was crammed tight with pictures. Amanda bounced up and down on the sofa, arms outstretched, ready to receive them.
After a few more thank-yous and Meg’s insistence they at least take a small flag she kept with her pencils by the phone, Lucy hurried down the stairs and toward their bus stop without waiting for Milo. He tried to catch up.
“What’s the matter?” Milo said.
“I don’t know!” Lucy said. “I’m just so tired.”
Lucy finally slowed down and they walked side by side over to Geary for the 38 bus to Union Square, where they’d pick up the 45 back to North Beach.
“I wanted him to be there, I guess,” Lucy said. “I wanted to ask him questions. About the war. About how to keep your family together.”
“But your family is together,” Milo said.
How could Lucy explain that, somehow, they were together and not together at the very same time? That it didn’t really matter if a body was next to you, if the heart was ten thousand miles away.
* * *
—
By the time they got back at four o’clock sharp, the fog had burned off. Great-Aunt Lilliana, Papo Angelo, Lucy and Milo went up to the rooftop deck for a few minutes to take it all in and say good-bye.
Great-Aunt Lilliana’s rooftop was filled from front to back with flowers and bushes and different places to sit. She even had two small crape myrtles blooming their bright fuchsia hearts out. They all stood there quietly, watching the gulls dip and rise on the breeze, flying against the wind.
“I’ve booked the cruise,” Papo said, hands shoved in his pockets. “We’re leaving in October and hoping for clear skies and the aurora borealis. I’ve even purchased a backpack for Nonnina’s urn.”
“Why couldn’t you have waited?” Lucy said, turning to look at Papo.
“For what, my Lucia?”
“You could have waited until we were all there to ring the bell for your last dollar. Why would you have done it when no one was around except Gia?”
Papo took a deep breath of salty air. His nose was pink. “Oh, Lucia. I have had that dollar for years.”
“I knew it!” Lucy said. “So why then?”
Papo turned his hands out of his pockets and lifted them to the sky. “It suddenly came over me. Now is the time! And before I could stop and think, I just rang the bell like a ding-a-ling! I knew if I didn’t do it just then, I might never do it at all.”
Great-Aunt Lilliana turned to Milo and said, “Is it time for you, too?” Which surprised them all, including Milo. “Are you ready to show us what you’re hiding?”
Milo didn’t hesitate. He just took out the most magnificently carve
d dragonfly Lucy had ever seen. It was palm-sized and intricate and made of wood stained a dark red. Deep in his pocket all this time.
“It’s a golden-winged skimmer,” Lucy said, remembering his drawing.
Then, as though struck by lightning, or some other paralyzing force of nature, Milo slid into a heap. Lucy rushed to his side thinking he’d been hurt, or was having a seizure, or she didn’t know what.
“What’s the matter?”
Tears came down Milo’s cheeks. “My dad’s not coming home.”
She wrapped her arms around his bony shoulders. “Oh, my gosh, why not? What happened?”
“He died,” Milo said. “Three months ago.”
“Three months...”
Lucy looked up at Great-Aunt Lilliana and Papo Angelo to see if they might understand what was happening. They both looked mournful, knowing. But of course they knew. Everyone probably knew except Lucy. Because she’d been so preoccupied with her own troubles. Papo leaned down and put a hand on Milo’s shoulder.
Great-Aunt Lilliana left them huddled there and went downstairs. She came back with a handkerchief, a glass of water and a baby aspirin. She also carried another herb of some kind. By the time Great-Aunt Lilliana tied the pouch around Milo’s neck and put her hand over the pouch and his heart, Milo was still.
“I wanted to tell you a hundred times. But I just couldn’t say it out loud,” Milo said. He looked at Lucy. “We got his Purple Heart in the mail. In the mail! They didn’t even deliver it in person. And I was so mad. About all of it. And so I took it out to the Cape Fear River . . . to the place I’d drawn the dragonflies with Dad. I took it out there and I . . . I just threw it . . .”
Milo couldn’t finish. He cried instead, and Lucy held him tight. She was sick for his loss, sad because he hadn’t trusted her sooner.
And astonished because this journey hadn’t just been hers.
It had been Milo’s, too, of course.
They were a team.
26
pieces of forever
On the way home, Lucy didn’t let go of Milo’s hand. Papo played an eight-track tape of the Beethoven Lucy loved so much. She hoped it was soothing for Milo, too.
They each looked out their windows, in opposite directions, as the setting sun tinted everything orange. Lucy wondered if she should have asked Milo more questions about his family over the weeks they’d been getting to know each other. She’d felt something was off, deep in her Rossi bones, but had been so caught up in her own troubles that she hadn’t pushed him, asked for more. Hadn’t really made herself a comfortable place to land for Milo, like the swamp milkweed he’d planted for the dragonflies.
But what if Milo’s attempt at homeostasis had been to hold everything in?
Lucy thought about what she’d figured out for herself. That you had to ask for what you needed. No one was a mind reader. Not even Great-Aunt Lilliana.
At first, Lucy had wondered why her family hadn’t told her about Milo. Uncle G, Great-Aunt Lilliana, Papo Angelo. Her memories clicked together like puzzle pieces and she realized they had all clearly known. But then she remembered what Uncle G had told her when she’d asked about Milo earlier. He’d said it was Milo’s story to tell, and Milo’s alone.
Lucy then thought about what she and Milo had done together this summer, how different it may have been had they told her. Would she have treated him differently? Would their friendship have been shadowed by grief? She would never know for sure. But she was glad for the way things turned out. Serendipity, she was certain, had been with her this summer. Would be with her always now that she understood what it meant.
* * *
—
Lucy knew something was wrong the moment she stepped inside the front door. The empty house, the absence of heartbeats or breathing, was something Lucy could feel deep in her Rossi bones. Papo Angelo and Milo were right behind.
“Mom? Dad?”
It was still daylight, just past six o’clock, and Milo hadn’t wanted to go home just yet. He figured Mrs. Bartolo would take one look at him and know he’d finally told Lucy the truth, something she’d been trying to get him to do for a while now, he’d said. Then she’d cry, and Milo just wanted a little more time before all that happened.
Milo stepped toward the phone to call Mrs. Bartolo and let her know they were back. “Hey, Lucy, there’s a note here.” He handed it to her.
Dear Papo and Lucy,
Uncle G had to take Dad to the hospital. We’re at Stanford. Come when you get home.
Love,
Mom
Lucy’s worries and fears, every single terrified thought she’d ever had while Dad was gone, came flapping back all at once, like the heavy beat of bird wings against the inside of her head. She shoved her hands into her pockets to count her stones, but they didn’t do anything to help calm those thrashing, thumping thoughts.
She rushed into her parents’ bedroom to fetch the stone she’d given Dad earlier, mad at herself for having left it behind. And for giving one to Milo. What if her stones only worked if they were together? What if she’d broken whatever sort of safety spell had knitted itself around them?
Now she really sounded like Fattucchiera. Next she’d be searching for tomatoes and a willing belly button to put them on. She had to take deep breaths. She had to be reasonable.
The stone wasn’t on Dad’s nightstand.
“Lucia,” Papo said from the doorway, “get a sweater. It might be cool in the hospital.”
Right. A sweater. She rushed into her room and grabbed the nearest one hanging toward the far right side of her closet. A red cable knit she’d outgrown last year, but she didn’t want to waste any more time searching for something that fit. On her way out, she picked up the photo of her and Dad sitting on her nightstand, alone now that the Johnny and Amanda pictures were back where they belonged.
“I called Grams,” Milo said when she came out of her room. “I’d like to go with you.”
Lucy couldn’t find the right combination of words to reply, so she just took his hand again.
Papo Angelo shooed them out of the house, where they climbed back into the overnight van, alongside all the coolers of meat, which would surely go bad, and zoomed off into the early-evening dusk.
* * *
—
When Dad was sending the stones in his letters, Lucy had looked up the cycle of rocks in her Encyclopaedia Britannica. Igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic. Igneous rocks, like Half Dome in Yosemite, would crumble into bits over thousands and thousands of years and then those bits would break some more, pounded by wind and rain and furious storms until they were nothing but tiny particles, buried, but not gone. Because deep inside the earth, the forces of pressure and friction went to work on those tiny bits and eventually turned them into metamorphic rock and then more heat and pressure turned them igneous, which would push through all that earth and rise again, strong and true. Over and over, the cycle would continue until the end of time. Lucy liked the idea that she carried little pieces of forever in her pocket.
As they walked into the front vestibule, a teenager with a pink candy striper dress and square nurse’s hat to match directed them where to go. It was almost the end of visiting hours.
Lucy took a moment to imagine the life she would have had if Dad had come home whole. She would have walked through these echoing hallways to visit her father while he was tending patients, maybe, bringing him dinner like she and Mom had so many times before.
And then she let it go. She let it all go. Whatever they had been, whatever they had hoped to be, was truly gone.
Gone with Dad’s arm.
But that didn’t mean they were doomed.
It didn’t mean anything other than they had to start over.
And starting over was hard.
Uncle G sat in the Pine-Sol-scented waiting room, sti
ll reading Catch-22. The small sitting area had windows on three sides. He stood up as they walked in, and Lucy flung herself into his arms quite unexpectedly. “Is he going to die?”
“What? No! No, of course not. There’s an infection that settled into his stump. They may have to go in and take a little more of the bone. But he’s okay. He’ll be okay.”
Lucy would only believe that when she saw him with her own two eyes. “Can I see him?”
“One at a time,” Uncle G said.
Without a word, Papo and Milo sat down in the scratchy-looking beige chairs. They were both pale. Papo settled his arm around Milo’s shoulder.
Nurses bustled around in their white dresses and matching stockings, on the phone, going in and out of rooms, their shoes squeaky against the shiny linoleum floor.
Uncle G knocked on the large wooden door and opened it without waiting for an answer. Dad sat in the hospital bed, propped up, with an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. He was pale and clammy, like he’d been the night of the draft lottery, which seemed like ages ago. His eyes were closed.
Mom sat in a chair beside the bed, her hand wrapped around Dad’s. She brushed away a tear and motioned for Lucy to come in. “He’s okay,” she said.
Lucy leaned against Mom’s legs, half sitting in her lap, and stared at her dad.
“I’m going to get some coffee,” Mom said. “You stay. Keep your dad company.”
Dad opened his eyes and seemed to focus on the pinpricked ceiling tiles. Then he turned his head and looked at Lucy. He moved his hand toward her. The piece of rose quartz rested in his palm. She took his hand, the stone nestled between them.
Mom and Uncle G left quietly.
Lucy didn’t know what was happening inside her. It felt like fireworks and bird wings flapping and an earthquake of emotions, all of them tumbling so she couldn’t focus on any one in particular. So, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath and sifted through them all until she found the one lurking thing she’d been most afraid of for all those days and nights Dad had been gone. The thing that was still true now, if he didn’t take better care of his arm.
Everything Else in the Universe Page 18