Rusty Summer

by Mary McKinley

  The Bomb, our lil’ husky, is glad to see me, as always. She makes this high-pitched song instead of barking, and waggles her tail and tries to climb on my lap when I sit down in the kitchen. I help her up and hold her as I tell her she is the pwet-tiest woggie in a wurld, and a weally good singer, and she actually is able to briefly balance on my lap and snuffle-kiss me before sliding off.

  We wait for the church ladies.

  I pick up the Sunday newspaper sitting on another chair and scan it. My mom still has a paper newspaper delivered because she says paper “feels” better and creates jobs. She’s also into paper books and snail-mail letters. She still writes actual letters to people. Like my great-uncle who is eighty-five, and to my grandma in Alaska (who isn’t even her mom).

  She always hit it off with her mother-in-law, she told me once. She said she thought my grandma was funny. I think Mom misses my grandma more than she ever missed my dad, which is sad—and yet another wonderful by-product of divorce, right?

  Not.

  I don’t know my dad’s mom too well now. I remember I totally thought she was great when I was little. I visited up there once. She lives in Alaska, where my dad returned to when my parents split up. She used to fly down here every year before the divorce, but we don’t see her anymore. I never really called her on the phone much because the reception is lame, but I used to make her little cards when I was a kid. She’s not online, and neither is my dad, so I always picture them icily battling the elements up by Russia and the Arctic Circle, which is geographically correct, just probably not so Scott of the Antarctic. In my mind’s eye I see them, trudging, fur-clad, through frozen blowing powder, with a dogsled and frosted white eyebrows, trying to find their tarpaper shack before the whale blubber lamp gives out and they have to eat all the sled dogs.

  It’s ridiculous. I’ve been up there and seen it for myself, but it doesn’t help. I still think of Alaska like that.

  I hear voices and thumping upstairs, and then voices again. I hear my mom giggle. She sounds nervous. Leo sounds like she’s being persuasive about something—and then down they come.

  My jaw is dropped open. My eyes are boinging out of my head like in cartoons.

  Omg, my mom’s a freaking babe!

  “Mama!” I whisper. It’s all I can manage. She looks incredible.

  Leonie looks great too. She has this turquoise sundress on that’s too big now, but makes her eyes like neon. Her hair is molten gold at dawn. She’s got a silky white hoody over the sundress because it’s too cold. Wooly white tights and strappy heels. Pearls. Super cute.

  But my mom . . .

  My mom is wearing makeup. She is working the glam! She has on dangly earrings!

  She smiles at me and ducks her shoulders up bashfully, like “whadaya think?”

  I nod emphatically. I almost well up.

  For years I’ve been telling my mom if she’d fix up she’d be sooooo pretty, but she’s always just made a scornful face and said, “Oh, fiddle-dee-dee!” (seriously, she talks like that) and that was the end of it. She says, “Looks aren’t important.” This, as we all know, is blithe fantasy and a complete reality fail but if it’s your mom, what can you say?

  But now she’s wearing this dress I’ve never seen before. It’s a tranquil brown-and-green print, princess seamed with vertical black side sections so it’s super slenderizing, and she has this little black shrug on over it. And low-heeled pumps! My mom is in black tights and heels!

  “No, no, Bommy, stay back,” Leo says to our doggy, pushing her away from them gently with her foot. “Oh, yeah, one last thing . . .”

  Leo runs upstairs and comes back down with an old battered hatbox. She gets out a little black velvet cap, sort of the same shape and size as the ones Jewish guys wear, only with this little vintage net veil and a black velvet rose. It’s got a comb sewn in it and she settles it in my mom’s up-swept hair.

  I can’t help grinning in delight. It’s perfect.

  “Are you wearing one, Lee?” I ask. I hope she’s got another hat I haven’t seen. But no.

  “Nope. Same as always.” She gets it from her overcoat in the hall closet, from last week.

  You always hear how when people convert to something they are really committed. You know, how if you stop smoking, you got to preach the evils of cigs?

  Well, that’s how Leo gets up for church—like full tilt.

  She wears this long white mantilla that my mom has had for years. A mantilla is a veil like Spanish women wear, white (or black) lace, in an approximate triangle shape that you wear with the short point on your head and the long points over your shoulders. I wore it for my First Communion. It’s pretty old. It’s beaded with crystal sparkles and real pearls and it was blessed by JP2 (Pope John Paul II).

  It makes Leo look like the BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary). As drawn by Leonardo.

  It’s supposed to be mine, but I said it was fine when Mom asked if it was okay if Leonie wore it to Mass sometimes, since I don’t. I said she could have it, but my mom said, “Let’s just say borrow, in case you change your mind.” Whatever.

  It looks amazing with Leo’s hair, and she and Mom both look very pretty and happy as they get ready to leave. My mom even walks differently. Usually she kind of scurries, like she has to get someplace and help someone, but this Sunday she walks very carefully, like she has a book on her head and is proud of her good balance. And she’s so happy Leo wants to go with.

  This time I really do take a picture with my phone.

  “Why don’t you come too, Rylee?” My mom asks—good ol’ “never say die.”

  “No, thank you, sweetheart,” I tell her politely. Pointedly. I help her with her coat.

  “Do, Rye, it’d be fun!” Leo weighs in, as if she didn’t know my feelings about church.

  I sigh. “No, Leo, it wouldn’t.” I eyeball her like, “shut up.”

  “Oh, Rylee, why are you so stubborn?” sighs my mom. This from old Ironsides herself! Where does she think I got it? Then we both sigh, in stereo.

  “Mama, we’ve been over this. Why are you even asking me again? Wait—are you about to go hear a woman priest say Mass?”

  My mom rolls her eyes like, “here we go.” Leo looks at her like, “Are we?” I continue. “If not, then no thanks, and tell your homeboy Francis that I’m very disappointed in him,” I tell her with grim satisfaction. That I disappointed her was the most devastating thing my mom could tell me when I was little.

  “Oh, Rylee—”

  “Because I was really starting to like him!” I scowl. I feel my temperature starting to rise as I climb atop my soapbox. “I’m serious! Tell him good job for yelling at the rich, but he has totally re-alienated me with that same inane bullshit about women! I don’t know how you can go.”

  “Rylee! Would you just relax? Why do you care so much? What those old coots say isn’t the point and you know it!” my mom blurts out. “Why take it personally? They’re always getting something wrong! And no matter what, it’s still a place to go and be quiet and do good!”

  “So is anywhere else.” I fold my arms in front of me.

  “Rylee, did you ever think that maybe Pope Francis is treating it like an SAT test? Maybe he has to solve all the other problems and then come back to women priests.” Nodding, my mom eyeballs me earnestly.

  I snort-laugh angrily.

  “That doesn’t make any sense! Why should that be the hardest question? Women weren’t excluded originally, and the Church knows it. They’re being willfully blind. It’s just infighting and tribal politics and a bunch of Iron Age horseshit. Women are neither broken nor irrelevant, and I’m done self-hating. Or endorsing their misogyny!”

  My poor ma. My words and tone make her sigh sadly. But her reply is withering.

  “Well, Miss High-’n’-Mighty, for someone who knows everything, your language sure has taken a turn for the worse since you stopped coming to Mass!” she snipes, snippily.

  I turn away my eyes and turn to stone, going
to the safety of the settled. I know there are many things that I don’t know, but one thing I do know: No more pour moi.

  I frown and shiver as I walk with them onto the porch. I hug my arms around me.

  “I better go,” I say as I feel the heaviness of heaven descend. I sigh.

  Mama’s face falls. I’m such an ax murderer. She was so happy a second ago. I try to think up something to say to lighten us up, but apparently I’m not only losing my religion, but my sense of humor as well.

  Guilt blows.

  “I’ll go with you on your birthday, okay? I promise.” Her birthday is next month. She nods quickly, with a brave smile, and I beat it back into the house.

  Jeez.

  I feel blue as I watch them walk to the car. I wonder if I will always feel this way, this agro-exasperation, pissed off at my mom and God, in equal proportions. Though sometimes I envy her attitude. Must be nice. I wish I had any kind of certainty about anything.

  But I believe belief is binary. You either can or you can’t.

  And I remember I have a different path, which I’ve only just begun—I’m a big ol’ caravan!

  And I feel better.

  I calm down because I realize again it’s scary, but okay; I would rather face the fear and own the uncertainty; I would rather pine for the childish, comforting promise of cosmic justice and eternity spent in glowing approval reflected in my mom’s eyes—I would rather try to make every moment here noteworthy and kind, more like the heaven they long for—than to sit zoning out, way past listening to what I can’t agree with, silently cursing the obvious and the oblivious, and then crying when it is too late, and my little time is over. Crying my eyes out for what could have been—what I could have taken responsibility for and changed . . .

  I wave to Mom and Leonie as they drive away to church. Then I take The Bomb for a walk.

  When we get back I take Bommy’s leash off and go inside. I wander over to the table to leave Mom and Leo a note since they aren’t back yet and I see a bunch of notepaper cluttering the side table where the landline phone used to be. My mom recycles paper ’cuz she’s a good citizen of the planet. I pick up a piece of paper that looks blank to write on and I see some squiggly digits and a scrawl; my mom tried to write “grama’s new #,” but the pen wouldn’t work.

  Grandma’s new number.

  And all of a sudden I get this tingling feeling. I start to get goose bumps. I feel something’s up.

  It’s time to find out . . . time to journey.

  Time to go find my grandma. I need a shaman—a wise woman.

  I need to ask, “What is going on? Why won’t anyone answer me?” and gauge her reaction with my own eyes. To speak with her, face-to-face, when I ask for the truth. She’s my dad’s mom. She’ll know what’s up with him.

  Almost like a whisper it comes to me: This is the window of opportunity.

  Quickly, I do some mental calculations . . . I have just enough time—if I start now....

  I will ask my grandma. GramMer will know.

  Time to discover what the hell is up with my dad.

  Conveniently, all this week is finals.

  Not that that even matters. I could graduate right this minute. I have ten zillion more credits than I need, I’m just at Baboon High for Beau, and he’s just there to show the way for future students.

  He says we have to, as role models. Then we laugh like hyenas. We don’t feel like role models.

  When I get home I go upstairs.

  I decide first I’ll call my grandma and give her fair warning. Since the stuff with my uncle Riley a few years ago, I figure they’ve been through plenty and really don’t need any big old surprises just materializing. If I just knew for sure Dad’s okay, it would totally help. Sometimes I think maybe he’s getting like Uncle Riley. Maybe that’s why my dad is nowhere to be found.

  Sometimes my brain just randomly worries. I try not to let it convince me into being upset.

  I dial my grandma’s new number. It rings about seven hundred times and goes to voice mail. I scream my greetings into my phone in approved cell phone bellow and hang up. I try the other number, the old one. The same landline that I’ve left millions of messages on, just yipping away into the ether . . .

  After fourteen zillion rings, just when I’m going to hang up, I hear a clack/clunk and then a huge pause for another thousand hours, before someone finally says, “Hallo?”

  It’s my grandma’s voice. I feel my heart beat faster. I can’t believe I’ve finally got her!

  “GramMer?” I say joyfully into the phone. “Can you hear me?”

  “Hallo?”

  “GramMer?”

  “Hallo?”

  “GramMer! It’s Rylee!”

  “It’s raining?”

  “RYLEE!”

  “Here, just a minute, let me adjust this here volume. . . .” She is obviously buying time because she doesn’t know who is calling.

  I give up and use the name she remembers me by. Which she knows from my letters that I don’t like to go by anymore.

  “It’s RYLEE MARIE, GRAM-MER! RYLEE MARIE!”

  My horrible former name. My horrible former double-first cracker name.

  There is a pause at the other end, then:

  “Oh! Rylee! Hi, sweetheart! Good gawd almighty, I didn’t recognize your voice, you sound so grown up! What’s up? How’s things?!”

  “Hey, GramMer! Good! I’m trying to get ahold of my dad to tell him I’m graduating. Has he gotten my letter? Or my announcement? I sent my graduation picture too.”

  “Uh, well—I am sure he has! I haven’t seen it, yet, but I figured you’d sent him one.”

  “How can it not be there? I sent it like a year ago! Not really—but over a month ago, for sure!”

  “Um, yep! That is a long time! I bet you’re wondering what’s up, what with no answer. That’s not okay, huh? I don’t really know what to say, Rylee. You need to talk to your dad.”

  I don’t remember my GramMer sounding so jumpy. I’m starting to feel exasperated.

  “GramMer! I try! I’ve tried a bunch of times and he hasn’t answered me! He is totally ignoring me. I don’t know what else to do, I’ve called and written!”

  “Well, darlin’, I will sure tell him—again—that he needs to get ahold of you all. That’s just scandalous! Dammit! Your high school graduation is a real important occasion. I’ll tell him that he needs to give you a call as soon as he gets here, how’s that, Rylee?”

  “Whatever, Gramcracker. He won’t.”

  She chuckles at our secret pet name. I’m not supposed to call her that.

  “I’ll yell real loud . . . I sure miss you. And your brother. You sound all grown up. Feels like ages since I’ve seen you, Rylee.”

  “It has been. You should come down, GramMer.”

  “Seattle seems a million miles away. How’s your mom and Paul?”

  “Fine. Come down and see for yourself.”

  “Yup . . . going to have to do that one of these fine days.” GramMer answers evasively.

  Gee, GramMer, vague much? I can hear avoidance in her voice as she starts to leave me.

  “Listen, darlin’, I sure will tell your dad to call you. You say hi to your mom for me, okay? How’s she like being back at work? She sent me a card telling all about her refresher course for nursing.”

  “Good. She loves being at the hospital. She says it feels like she never left.”

  “That’s because she is the best nurse ever! I’m so glad. You give her a smooch from me. You have the sweetest mom in the world!”

  “Yep-don’t-I-know-it!” I say automatically.

  I also know when I’m being stonewalled. GramMer can’t get off the phone fast enough.

  “Okay, sugar, well, I gots-to-get . . . so lots of love to everyone! Okay, then! Bye now! Buh-bye!”

  She bails before I even get done saying bye. I hang up.

  And sigh heavily. Okay for you, GramMer.

  Little does she know it,
but by increasing the mystery GramMer has hardened my determination.

  It starts to rain. I get up and close a window. I’m alone in the house. I haven’t seen Beau all day.

  I’m messing around on Facebook when I hear him get home. It sounds like he slams the door. He staggers up the stairs like a weary traveler.

  “Hey,” I holler.

  He comes in my room and flops on the bed. Deep sigh.

  Just like me.

  “What?” I ask. I’m still on Facebook.

  “Ughhh . . . I think I just had an argument with Kurtis.”

  I stop and turn to look at him. I carefully keep my face impassive.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “He said we should glitter bomb that demonstration and I said I didn’t agree—then he said that I didn’t really care about civil rights. Then I said I did and he got pissed. Then I got pissed, then he got mad, then I got madder . . . then I stomped off. Now I’m here.”

  “Oh . . . um . . . well.”

  “Yeah.” He sounds dispirited.

  “So how did you leave it?”

  “I said I’d call him. I dunno. Too much stuff. They want me to give a speech for school, but I don’t know . . . I think I might need a vacation from activism and civil unrest.”

  “Okay.” I keep my voice very neutral.

  Of course my mind is working overtime. This is excellent timing on his part.

  “You should come with me.”

  “What? Where?” He looks at me quizzically.

  I realize I haven’t told him what I’ve decided.

  “I’m going to Kodiak. I’m going to find out what’s up with my dad.”

  Beau just stares at me and I see his eyes get bigger, and he gets about twenty-four thousand expressions on his face in rapid succession. I can see him thinking he can and he can’t, and he wants to and he doesn’t, and he’s wigged . . . and intrigued. Then his face clears and he nods.

  But all he says is: “Okay.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah! When?”

  “Now. During finals.”

  “Is that enough time before graduation?”