The Firefly Dance

by Sarah Addison Allen

  After Hill wolfed down the rest of her Zero bar, Petey told him that Rock had died.

  “How can a little baby be died when it hasn’t even lived any yet?”

  “I dunno.”

  “My little ole brother didn’t get no chance to do nothing I get to do.”

  Petey couldn’t think of a thing to say, so she said what Daddy said, “He’s gone to Jesus.”

  “What’s Jesus want with my little brother, Petey?”

  She shrugged, because she didn’t know.

  “I thought I’d have a little brother to play with.”

  “Me, too,” Petey said.

  “Don’t seem right and I can’t figure on it.”

  Petey couldn’t either.

  When Petey didn’t think she could stand sitting there doing nothing one more second, Daddy finally came to get them. He brought Petey and Hill back home. Momma had to stay in the hospital. The house was quiet and sad. Daddy took the cradle and brought it downstairs. Petey watched out the window as he went around back towards the caterwompee storage shed where all the yard stuff was. When he came back in, he then packed up the baby’s things in a box and brought the box out there. Daddy’s shoulders were rounded in and his face took on age.

  Later, when Petey had to go to the bathroom, she was even more afraid to look into the mirror, in the case the little baby brother was behind her, sad that it was dead while she was still alive. It would call out to her, begging her to come with him so he wouldn’t be by himself. Petey had to stop thinking about it, hard hard hard. She put her mind on running creeks and cool breezes and the way the mists made blankets over the valley.

  That night, Hill didn’t want the sheet kept down and kept sniffling and snuffling tears until she said it was okay if he caught the sheet on the hook to keep it open between them. She secretly didn’t mind, since she didn’t want to feel alone, either.

  Early the next morning before the sun hardly was up, Petey woke and saw that Hill had climbed into her bed sometime in the night. He hadn’t done that since he was four and had a bad dream. She didn’t say even half a word, didn’t push him out and say, “Gross, Hill.” She let him stay, and until the sun rose all the way, she lay there thinking about Momma holding little Rock.

  When Momma came home everything felt strange like on a science fiction show. Little Rock had to be buried and Momma jumped out of her slow-motion trance to pull a conniption fit until Daddy said of course there was no question they’d go home to bury Rock. She didn’t listen to Daddy saying “of course.” She kept saying she’d not have her baby buried in a strange place. She said his spirit should come to rest in Haywood or Watauga counties; she’d accept either. And on she went with Daddy trying to calm her down. He said he’d arrange for everything, the funeral, talking to his new boss about being gone a few days, and for Momma not to worry, they’d bury Rock in Haywood County.

  Petey couldn’t figure if it made it worse to go again and know they had no home there or if it was worse never to see the mountains at all. When they drove back, Petey felt as if she held her breath until the station wagon curved round a bend and there her mountains rose up before her. Her throat found a big lump, and her stomach felt pushed in. Her heart thumped fast. She couldn’t take away her eyes.

  While there, they stayed at Uncle Zack’s in Asheville. He lived by himself and didn’t seem upset about it. He liked to tease Petey about boys and other silly things, but not in a mean way. When she was little, he’d swung her round and round until the whole world turned one big blur.

  Angela wouldn’t be going to the funeral since she was at a summer camp, so she’d not see her best-ever friend. Petey’s grandma came to Haywood County and cried so much over Rock and her poor daughter who lost her baby that Daddy was afraid she’d have a heart attack and go to join Grandpa. Daddy’s parents had long since passed on, but Daddy’s other brothers and sister came from where they lived in Georgia, West Virginia, and Tennessee, and stood close by Daddy and Momma. Momma didn’t have any brothers or sisters of her own.

  The night before the burying, Petey slept on a pallet on one end of Uncle Zack’s screened-in porch, with Hill at the other end. Uncle Zack’s house was almost as small as Grandma’s little ole shack. In Uncle Zack’s bathroom, there was a long wide mirror and Petey had a hard time not seeing herself. She covered it with a towel when she had to go in there.

  The next day, when the preacher said the service was over and Rock was to be lowered down, Momma fell on her knees and then pressed her face to the ground. It took Daddy and Uncle Zack to pull her up and away. Petey wanted to vomit all her breakfast. Hill stood so close to Petey, he kept knocking her sideways. He whimpered and grabbed her hand. She let him, that once. When they were back to Uncle Zack’s where people were squeezed inside and spilled to outside, Daddy had to call Dr. Timothy from Asheville to give Momma something to help her calm down.

  When it was time to drive back to Fort Worth, Petey ran behind her uncle’s house, scooped up a handful of dirt and pebbles, and put them into a bag to carry home with her. The dirt and pebbles held the sparkles she’d always pretended were special magic dust.

  She then again had to watch the mountains fade away, fade away, fade far far off and away.

  Chapter 5

  When Momma ate, she picked at her food, looked at it, touched her tongue to it and made a face as if she was trying to figure things out. She didn’t want to bake; she didn’t want to eat; she didn’t want her long bubble baths even though her favorite thing after baking up a cloud of flour storm was soaking in a tub.

  Daddy said, “Honey bunch, you got to eat better. Please?”

  “I don’t feel it’s right to eat, Quinn; pretend like everything’s normal. I’m alive to eat and sleep and feel the air on my face. My Rock is under the ground where it’s dark and cold. I can’t stand it.” She pressed her hands to her eyes.

  Daddy stood and went to her, rubbed her neck, kissed her cheek, took away her hands from her face. “You know that isn’t Rock. It’s not him. He’s not there. Our baby is with Jesus, sitting on his lap.”

  “How do you know he’s with Jesus? How do we know where we go when we die?”

  Hill began whimpering and Petey reached over and patted his arm, even though she was scared of where she’d go when she died, too.

  “This is sad talk, bad talk, grieving talk is all this is.” Daddy stroked her hair, said to Petey and Hill, “We go to heaven when we die, kids. We see Jesus. What they put in the ground is only a shell. Rock’s an angel now and he’s helping Jesus. Jesus needs him.”

  “I need him more’n Jesus does! No momma ever should have to put her young-un in the earth.” Momma turned up her face to the ceiling. “You hear me, Jesus? You got no right. No right taking my tiny little boy.” She turned to Daddy, took a breath that sounded as if it was hot and ragged going down her throat, then told him, “And he looked up at me, before he couldn’t get his breath again. He looked up at me and wanted me to help him and I couldn’t. I tried to help him and I couldn’t. The doctors and nurses just shook their heads. I should’ve gone to the hospital right away that night. I should’ve.”

  “No, honey, that’s not real thinking. You got to quit this. The doc said there was nothing nobody could do. Not them and not you. And little Rock didn’t suffer. He felt our love before he left. I know he did.” Daddy hugged on her, whispered in her ear, stroked her hair. Momma shook her head, shook her head. Daddy stilled it with his palms.

  Petey wished she had some magical words to say to her momma. She missed Momma’s smile, and the way she tried to get Petey to help her bake and Petey would say, “I just want to eat it!” She missed how Momma high-stepped it into the kitchen and tied on her apron and that meant the house was going to fill up with sweet. Missed Momma’s hands covered in dough and flour, streaks of white on her cheek. Missed the way Momma’s pi
es and cakes and cookies cooled on the table and how she let Petey lick the cake icing when she baked her world’s most famous chocolate cake.

  Daddy picked up Momma’s fork and pushed potatoes onto it. He said, “Here, take just a bite, come on now.”

  Momma turned her head.

  Daddy said, “Oh my beautiful one. I wish you’d eat.”

  Petey took up the plates to carry to the kitchen sink, said, “Hill, you go on outside now and play a while,” just as Momma would say, if she were saying anything. Hill didn’t act a stupid idiot about it, and instead ran out the door, slamming the screen. She heard howls, long low pitiful ones.

  She washed all the dishes without being asked. While she was wiping off the table, Daddy led Momma to the bathroom, and as Petey finished cleaning up, she heard the water splashing and Daddy telling Momma everything would be all right. All right. All right. All right.

  As the days passed and Momma still didn’t act all right, Daddy’s face dragged down even more, and Hill took to running even wilder in the woods, climbing trees and hiding behind bushes, growling at Daddy and Petey when they tried to get him to come inside. Daddy threatened to whup him, something he or Momma had never done before. Making Hill behave had always been Momma’s job and Daddy wasn’t so good at it. When Daddy said he’d get him a switch and meant business, Hill would finally stomp out from the woods. Petey knew Daddy wouldn’t ever use that switch, but it still made her legs itch to think about it. Hill figured it out, too, because next chance he had, he’d bared his teeth and howled off to his hiding places.

  Sometimes on a whim and whimsy, Daddy laughed at him, shaking his head and telling Momma, “Our son, the wild beast. He’s a mess.”

  Momma would smile, a tiny bit, and that smile was as if her lips were frozen and hard to move.

  Petey woke with her face stuck with sweat to her pillow and felt scared-weird from her too-long nap and from her dream. Her brain felt as if it was wrapped in toilet paper, at least two wrappings, and her mouth was dry, her tongue dry, her eyes gritty from Texas dirt flying in the windows.

  She sat up, then swung her legs over the side of the bed, pushed her feet into her flip flops, rose, and left her room to find Momma. She found her at the kitchen table looking through her photo album, tear tracks down her cheeks. Momma wiped her face when Petey slipped up to stand by her.

  “I hadda bad dream.” She’d dreamed she was stung by scorpions over and over, until she had so many scorpion bites, she was full of poison, enough to kill a million kids. She was trying not to cry, in her dream, so Momma wouldn’t worry. Then Momma sidled out and saw her there, puffed up like an egg casserole, and instead of helping her, she said, “Now what will I do with you? Getting bit up like that? Now I’ll have two dead children! What am I to do with two dead children? Jesus will have two of my kids. Isn’t that a fine kettle of stinking fish?” Then Petey woke up.

  Momma turned a page in the album.

  “I got bit by lots of scorpions and was about to die.” Soon as Petey said the word “die,” she clamped her lips shut and felt horrid, stupid, selfish.

  Momma reached over, stroked Petey’s back from shoulders to waist, and turned another page. Petey leaned back into Momma’s hand and looked down to a picture of Momma when Momma was young. Her hair was long over her shoulders, and she stood strong-legged, laughing into the camera. She used to tell the story of how she worked at a bakery and her boss said she was the best baker of all he’d ever seen. He said her bread rose up just so, her cherry pies weren’t too tart or too sweet, her cookies never burnt at the edges or bottom, her sweet rolls at the center heart of the roll moist and that good-kind-of-chewy. Momma said one day she wanted to have her own bakery. What happened instead was Daddy bopped in to buy a cake for his girlfriend, and when he saw Momma behind the counter with her sweet-sugar-scented palomino hair and her hazel eyes, and how her hands kneaded the dough and her cheeks flushed with flour, he said he forgot all about his girlfriend and only had eyes for Momma.

  Daddy had a dark mustache then and he worked as a filling station man. Petey didn’t want to think that her and Hill being born and Rock dying before he had a chance to do any living made her parents lose their shine. She imagined what her parents would be doing if their kids hadn’t come along. Petey pictured Daddy and Momma going to Egypt or Africa, or to New York or New Orleans, drinking fancy drinks with cherries in them. But they’d always come home to the mountains, no matter where they roamed. They wouldn’t need as much money, because it would be just them two. Momma would work in her bakery and Daddy would be a filling station man. Daddy’s shoulders would be wide and thrown back, and Momma wouldn’t walk in slow motion, picking at her cuticles until they bled.

  Momma then turned a page to baby Petey, and said, “Look at that girl.”

  “That’s me, Momma.”

  Momma nodded, then rose from the table and made her a sweet tea with lots of ice. She sat down and sipped it, staring out of the kitchen window. Momma was living off of sweet tea, it seemed to Petey.

  When she didn’t say anything else, Petey eased out of the kitchen door and went outside. The air was close and hot and the crickets and cicadas screamed loud, then softer, loud, then softer. Oh how she wanted home. Everything was weird to her in Fort Worth.

  She thought how Texans were proud to be Texans and how North Carolinians were proud to be North Carolinians. Petey wondered could the two mix up and be proud somewhere that wasn’t home? Petey didn’t think it could happen. The two places were too different. There were no mountains in Fort Worth and instead Petey could see for miles and miles and miles without hardly a break, unless it was houses or squatty trees. Petey read in the encyclopedia how the mountains of North Carolina had more kinds of trees than all the trees in the north part of Europe. Daddy had said Texas wouldn’t have seasons like home, either. He said in Texas it was more like summer and then winter, with fall and spring only being suggestions.

  When Daddy came home from his work, he was so tired he plopped right on the couch and told her, “Little bit, I sure could use a glass of tea.” He liked his tea with the ice only halfway up the glass instead of all the way like Momma.

  When she handed him his tea, he took a long swallow, his adam’s apple bobbing up and down up and down. He then smiled at her and said what he always said, “Ahhhh, that hits the spot.” That time he added, “Feels like I’m back on the mountain and a cool breeze just flew down from the ridgetop.”

  Petey went to the kitchen and made herself some tea so she’d feel that way. She sat beside her daddy, leaning into him, waiting for the cool breeze feeling to come down over her. It didn’t work. All she felt was a cold ghost of sad pass by. She pretended different when Daddy asked her if she felt how he did. She said, “Uh huh.” She figured sometimes a lie was worth telling if it made someone she loved feel better.

  Daddy ruffled Petey’s head, stood from the couch, and left to go to Momma.

  Petey stared out of the living room window, making up things, thinking about things, remembering things, then pretended she had magic powers to make her and Hill and Momma and Daddy fly up and away back home to North Carolina. When they were there, they’d chase out the family who moved into their house. She hated that family so much it felt as if the hate was a hard ball heavy in her belly, one that didn’t fill her up and only made her hungrier. Petey could eat a million pies and two million cookies and five million slices of cake.

  There was a movement and Petey saw a piece of a shadow before she saw what made the shadow. A lady came walking down the driveway with her suitcase, and disappeared where Petey couldn’t see her. Petey ran to the kitchen door, stood still and listened as she heard the door of the downstairs place open and then close. Petey heard rustling around, then everything was quiet, except for Hill’s howling out in the woods. She put her ear on the floor and listened to see if she could hear what her n
eighbor was up to. There was a scraping sound, and then quiet again.

  Petey hurried outside and stood on the iron steps. Night was coming on and Petey wondered if the bats would be back. She didn’t hate them, but she didn’t like them, either. She was afraid they’d fly into her hair, or bite her neck, even though Hill said that was stupid idiot talk. Just then, her brother flew out of the woods, yipping and carrying on like a stone-fool. She laughed, though. He was so comical with his face dirtied and his hair stuck on end from sweating. When he ran up the steps she put her finger to her lips.

  “What is it, Petey? Why’re you shushing me?”

  She said, real quiet, “The lady down there is back.”

  “She is? Where? Did you talk to her? What’s she look like?”

  “Shhhh! Be quiet. I’m trying to listen. See what she’s up to.”

  He listened for about two seconds, then was bored. “Who cares what some lady’s doing?” Hill ran into the house. Petey went down the steps and strolled around. Maybe if she acted mysterious, the lady would be curious and come out and tell her who she was and why she had a Buddha in her kitchen. She didn’t come out and as dark fell on top of Petey, it was time for baths and teethbrushing.

  In her cotton gown, body and teeth clean, Petey did what she never did unless her Grandma made her and her Grandma always made her; she closed her eyes and prayed and prayed and prayed. And if God wouldn’t hear her, she’d ask Grandpa to help. Sometimes he came to her in her dreams and said he was watching over his family. He’d been the best Grandpa ever until his heart gave out. He smoked a pipe and always smelled like spice, and grew tobacco, and said his own daddy had owned a still that made the finest moonshine ever. The moonshine was so clear, he said, it didn’t seem like there was anything in the jar at all until the jar was opened and the person took a drink, and then it burned fire all the way down and caused people to lose their mind if they drank too much.