Firefly Island

by Lisa Wingate

  “Oh-h-ho-oh, man,” Trudy was half groaning and half laughing now. “That’s how my friend Melinda got pregnant the fourth time. Antibiotics and birth control pills don’t go together. Didn’t anybody ever tell you that?”

  Somewhere deep in my brain, a tiny little alarm bell sounded. I thought back to that day at the dentist. “No, Trudy, I remember the nurse asking me if I was on birth control pills. I’m sure they gave me something that wouldn’t be a problem.”

  “But you just said you switched—after the hives.”

  “Well, I’m sure they gave me something else that wouldn’t be a problem. The dentist isn’t an idiot, you know.” The answer sounded more combative than I meant it to. I wanted Trudy to stop the inquisition, already. Unwillingly, I began counting up weeks, trying to remember if, in all the chaos since the wedding …

  “Listen, just pick up a home pregnancy test and make sure, all right? And don’t do any painting or bug spraying or crawling around in closets until you know.”

  “Trudy, everything’s fine. I know it’s fine.” My stomach clenched around the words, forcing a nervous little laugh.

  “No, you don’t. I can tell by the way you’re saying it. Don’t take any more birth control pills, either.”

  “Trudy, enough already! I’d better sign off. Nick’s waking up.”

  “I mean it. Either you take care of this, or I’ll tell Mom.” She hung up the phone before I could argue, leaving me with that frightening ultimatum. In our family, I’ll tell Mom was the death knell of every argument. Nothing, but nothing, was worse than that.

  Trudy’s threat hovered as Nick wandered in for breakfast. The more I tried to put it out of my mind, the more it nagged, like a fly that lingers because you keep swishing blindly at it rather than going after a fly swatter.

  “We gonna go pick beans today!” Nick chirped, after scarfing his cereal. “We gonna go pick gween beans wif the lady.”

  I groaned. Of all the things he could have remembered about yesterday, he had to remember the thing about bean picking with the summer enrichment kids. Keren had mentioned it again when she’d shown up with Chrissy’s posse of neighbors.

  “Mrs. Zimmer,” I corrected, trying to decide how to let Nick down easily.

  “Wif Mrs. Zimmer!” he cheered, sliding from his booster chair and very carefully carrying his empty cereal bowl to the kitchen. Pulling his stool over to the counter, he climbed up to reach the sink, turned on the water, and informed me, “I washin’ my bowl. You gotta go get dwessed.” His eyes twinkled as he glanced back at me. “You can’t go in yous jammies!”

  How could I possibly tell him I’d changed my mind about visiting the summer enrichment kids?

  I couldn’t, of course. I wanted to be a promise keeper in his life, not a welcher.

  “You’re right.” I gave him a big hug, and his little arms squeezed hard, warming me to the very depths of my soul. But even that joy came wrapped in a tissue paper layer of uncertainty. Why isn’t this enough? I didn’t even know who the question was for—my soul, my heart, God? Why, every time I thought I’d settled into this new life, did a whisper in the back of my mind tell me not to let my guard down? Was it this place, or was it just me? Was I afraid for our safety, or was I afraid of becoming just a wife and a mom? Was I worried that I would lose everything, or worried about losing my image of myself?

  I pondered it as I dressed and then drove to town with Nick playing happily on my iPod in the backseat. What I wanted, I supposed, were concrete answers. I wanted someone to open a window into the future and say, Look, there you are a year from now. And see, you’re just fine.

  When we reached town, I parked my car in the shade of an alley behind Main Street. Nick jitterbugged with excitement as we walked around the building to where the kids were sitting in a circle on the sidewalk. The shade of an awning fell over them, shielding them from a summer sun that was intense, even at nine o’clock in the morning.

  Keren smiled at us as we strolled up the sidewalk to the group. “Everyone, we have a guest with us today. This is Mrs. Everson and Nick. Can y’all say hi?”

  The kids swiveled, and Nick hung back a little, clinging to my hand, momentarily overwhelmed. Tucking his chin and letting his blond curls fall over his eyes, he stopped walking. A bullet train of thoughts raced through my mind. Maybe we shouldn’t have come. Why is he being so shy? This isn’t like him. Nick was used to going to day care. What if his social skills were flagging already? What if playing by himself all the time, with only a dog to talk to, was ruining him …

  I waved and smiled at the kids on Nick’s behalf. “Hi, everybody!”

  The sea of faces checked us out, wheels turning behind pairs of sparkly little eyes. Without even realizing it, I’d started cataloging the group, taking note of clothing that was dirty or tattered, hair that looked like it hadn’t been combed or fixed or washed in a while, smiles with teeth that were decayed or covered with hideous silver crowns, skin mottled with bug bites, a child in what looked like pajama pants and a T-shirt that was dirty and didn’t match. Her dark hair hung in a lopsided ponytail. She was scratching her head. I thought of lice. I looked at Nick’s beautiful blond hair.

  The little girl smiled a silver-crowned smile.

  I thought of Nick’s beautiful baby teeth. His perfect smile.

  On the other side of the group, three little boys were sitting together, wearing name-brand clothes. Hair trimmed and combed. Faces washed. Legs not covered with scratched-and-healed bug bites.

  I found myself steering Nick that way, stepping off the curb to circumvent the group as Keren tried to refocus their attention.

  A little dark-haired girl in a wrinkled, washed-to-death sundress smiled at Nick and patted the sidewalk, her blue eyes curving upward in recognition. Her sandals were too small and her hair hung in uneven pigtails that looked like they’d been in for a couple days. I tried to decide whether I’d seen her before. She seemed to know Nick.

  “Birdie, look up here at me, please,” Keren admonished, and the little girl turned around again.

  Birdie, the granddaughter of Len, the mentally slow man we’d seen in the convenience store our first morning in Moses Lake. I only remembered the name because it was so unusual, and because I wondered what sort of child would belong to such an unkempt man. I felt sorry for her without even knowing her.

  Nick pulled away from me, his fingers slipping through mine, sweaty and sticky, so small. I wanted to hold on, to keep him close, to keep him away. He was gone in an instant, tucking himself into the space beside the little girl. She patted him gently on the back, smiling. If he noticed the bedraggled ponytails or ragged sundress, it didn’t show. He smiled back. To him, every person he crossed paths with was a potential friend. I wished I could be as open as he was.

  He didn’t even look back when the kids hopped to their feet and lined up to follow Keren through the iron gates into a wide courtyard between the antique mall and the little bookstore. I walked through the gate behind the kids, already forgotten. Where a few minutes ago I’d been worrying about Nick’s social skills, now his fluid friend-making hurt my feelings. He’d already left me for another girl. One closer to his own size.

  Tears prickled, and I blinked hard. On some level, I knew I was having more of a reaction than made sense. Of course little kids liked other little kids. Getting all weepy about it was completely irrational. This morning’s conversation with Trudy came to mind, though I’d been trying to block it out. Could all of this be some sort of hormonal insanity?

  It was way too much to think about, and anyway, I was sure everything was okay … I was … pretty sure … wasn’t I? Of course. Of course I was. My stomach had been solid as a rock—no sign of anything like morning sickness. In my family, morning sickness was legendary, so common that anytime one of my sisters mentioned stomach upset, my mother practically started knitting booties.

  Once inside the garden, the kids took their plastic baskets and began carefully measuring and
picking green beans, just as Keren had shown them. A bean-based disagreement erupted not far from me, and since Keren and her teenage helpers were otherwise occupied, I felt compelled to referee. Before I knew it, I’d been drawn completely into the wonder of watching kids harvest something they’d grown from seed. Keren’s gardening program wasn’t just a teaching tool, it was a tiny miracle.

  In the sunlight and shadows of what could have just as easily been a forgotten space, I discovered something about those kids I’d earlier been judging based on their clothes, their hair, their grooming. They were beautiful—as beautiful as Nick, as much fun to spend time with, as filled with curiosity and a desire to see the wonder in everything around them. Unlike Nick, so many of them were desperate for attention, hungry for hugs, anxious to hold hands, thrilled to have an adult to spend time with. It was, I realized, impossible not to feel good in the presence of these kids, not to feel good about them, not to want good for them.

  A little boy named Sergio and I were soon fast friends. Sergio wasn’t one of the kids in the name-brand clothes and expensive shoes. He wore jeans that were an inch too short, suede cowboy boots scuffed clean through on the toes, and a Vacation Bible School T-shirt he must have inherited from someone else, because according to the date, it was three years older than he was. He wanted me to come to his house and meet his grandma, who I gathered was raising him.

  “Her’s comin’ pretty soon sometime,” he said, after he’d asked whose mom I was, and I’d pointed out Nick. “My mama. The police gotted her. Sissy goed to her daddy house. She comin’ for my birt-day, maybe tomorrow.”

  A lump rose in my throat. I pretended to be busy looking for beans on the climbers up high. I could feel the questions in those brown eyes as they watched me. I didn’t have any answers. I didn’t know what to say. “When is your birthday, Sergio?” I asked to shift the subject a bit. I picked a bean up high and dropped it into Sergio’s little red basket. He smiled at it, and then at me.

  “I dunno.”

  “Are you five?” I was guessing. Sergio seemed a bit older than Nick.

  Sergio set down the basket and held up six fingers.

  “Oh …” All I could think was that someone who’s still counting on stubby little fingers shouldn’t know about jail, sisters who have to go live with their fathers, and birthdays that come and go with promises unfulfilled. “That’s really big.” But in reality, he was so small. So very, very small.

  “You come to my house!” he offered again, his sweet little mouth lifting into a smile. “You come … and you boy.” He pointed at Nick, who was busy washing beans with Birdie, the two of them squatted down by the water pail, carefully scrubbing off the dirt. Birdie showed Nick how to open the pod. Clearly Nick had never seen the inside of a bean before.

  Keren passed by and leaned over to explain the contents to them, then took Nick to a table by the wall, where bean plants were growing in Dixie cups all lined up in a row, names written on in magic marker.

  “Sergio, did you grow a bean plant in one of those cups over there?” I asked, and Sergio couldn’t wait to show me what he’d created all by himself.

  With a little help from God.

  Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.

  —Seneca

  (Left by a busload of ministry students taking rice and beans to Mexico)

  Chapter 14

  Throughout the morning in the garden, Sergio held fast to my hand, looking expectantly up at me. After a while, I had inherited another little fan. Sierra, a sandy-haired fourth-grader who was one of the older kids in the group. She let me know that she was writing a book, and I would now be in it. I told her I’d just discovered the joy of keeping a blog, so the two of us had something in common.

  Somewhere in the conversation, I also concluded that, like Sergio, Sierra came from a family with issues. She had always lived in the country, but right now she was staying in town with someone she called “the foster lady.” I gathered that this was not the first time Sierra had experienced a foster stay. She wanted to make sure I knew that none of that was her mother’s fault. “Them stupid deputies come and got us,” she informed me flatly. “My mama tried to get us away. We got in the car and drove off down to the river bottom, but they found us anyhow. Jerks.” But she didn’t say jerks. She used an off-color anatomy term that shouldn’t be in any kid’s vocabulary.

  “I really don’t like that word,” I choked out, mimicking my sister Carol, who could discipline her brood without ever raising her voice. “It’s not a good word, especially for a smart girl to use. Smart girls don’t need to say things like that.”

  “’Kay.” Sierra shrugged as if she’d heard it all before. “You gonna go to the church with us after this and have green beans? The lady gives us sheets to color, and we see how to cook the food.” She stood on her toes, motioning for me to lean over so she could whisper in my ear. “They tell the little kids it’s all stuff from the garden, but it ain’t. There’s too many of us for it all to come outta here.” Sierra rolled a surreptitious glance at Sergio, then smiled a private smile, as in, These kids are so dumb, but I’ve got it all figured out.

  I pretended to be surprised. “You’re a smart cookie.”

  Sierra quirked a brow at me. “You talk funny. Where you from?”

  “Washington, DC. We moved here a little over a month and a half ago.”

  Sergio grabbed my hand and tugged me sideways, trying to search under yet another bean plant that had already been plucked clean. “That your boy?” Sierra asked, giving Sergio a doubtful look. Sergio was dark eyed and dark skinned, probably Native American or Hispanic.

  “No, that one over there.” I pointed to Nick, who was on the other side of the courtyard, happily planting his very own seeds in a cup with the Binding Through Books sisters, who’d apparently shown up to volunteer for the day. Nick had been carefully avoiding me all morning, afraid that I might say something objectionable, like, It’s time to go home.

  Sierra smacked her lips apart, then motioned to Sergio again. “Oh … I thought maybe you took in kids, or somethin’. But that one over there looks like you.”

  “Nick is my stepson.” I wasn’t sure when I’d stop feeling the need to explain that to people I’d just met. Mentions of family resemblance between Nick and me always brought an unwanted awkward feeling.

  “Huh.” Sierra shrugged. “I had a stepdad one time, but he was a jerk. My mama had to get her a restrainin’ order to keep him off us, but then we moved in with Lenny. Lenny keeps lotsa guns and stuff. But Lenny got us in trouble with the CPS, so there you go.” Flipping a hand in the air, she laughed a little.

  I felt sick. I looked at Sierra, with her bright hazel eyes and long spindly legs that seemed to be already pressing into adulthood, and my throat burned. I thought about the things I knew at nine years old, about the world I lived in, about the words I understood. What good are plants in a Dixie cup to her? I thought. What good is anything going to do?

  Keren called for the kids to line up, and I was glad.

  “Come up to the church with us.” Keren tapped my arm as she passed by. Watching her lead the crew through the gate and up the sidewalk, her voice a happy sing-song as she called out gardening vocabulary words, I couldn’t help wondering how she could do this every day. Didn’t these kids’ stories, their words, their faces, their needs overwhelm her?

  We arrived at Lakeshore Community Church sweaty, sticky, and tired. The cool air inside the meeting hall beside the old chapel felt like heaven. I held my hair off my neck and stood under a vent as the kids jostled for seats at folding tables. My Binding Through Books friends, Alice, Paula, and Cindy, and several grandmotherly-looking church volunteers helped the kids settle in. Then an elderly woman everyone called Mama B stood in the church kitchen behind the pass-through counter and began introducing the art of snapping beans.

  Keren wandered back and forth behind the children, keeping them quiet and directing them as they
began snapping their little bean piles. I wondered again at her thoughts. One thing I had learned in DC was that passions—good and bad—came from somewhere. Where did the passions of this enigmatic young woman come from? What brought her here every day to work with kids who had such an uphill battle ahead of them? She couldn’t have been more than a year or two out of college. The slight uptilt in her voice when she finished sentences made her seem more like one of the teenage helpers than a teacher in charge of a class.

  She stopped beside me after lunch was finished and the kids were busy coloring the recipe sheet. A wink and a smile made me feel like we were old friends. “Well, I think the day was a success for Nick,” she observed.

  “He had such a good time. Thanks for letting him come. We both enjoyed it, actually. Now I’ll know what to do with the beans I bought at Walmart yesterday. I’ve never actually seen a green bean in the wild before.”

  Keren chuckled. “Well, one thing girls do learn in my family is how to cook. I can’t remember one single day growing up that wasn’t full of pots, pans, and dirty plates.” Bracing her hands on her back, she stretched, for the first time seeming fatigued by all the morning’s activities. “I used to dream about things like corn dogs and frozen pizza.”

  “Now, that I can do. You need to know how to cook frozen pizza or whip up a box of macaroni and cheese, I’m your girl. I did do all right on the peach pies, though, thanks to you. They’re a little lopsided, but they look pretty good. There are more peaches on the tree, if you can use some.”

  She nodded, pausing as one of the kids brought a coloring project for her to see. After admiring the work and making a few suggestions, she grabbed chairs for the two of us, and we sat down by the wall. “I might have to take you up on that. James gets pretty burned out on eating the leftovers his mama sends home from lunch. He works for his folks in the dairy barns, so his mama takes care of the midday meal. There’s usually something in the fridge when I get home at night. James has lost ten pounds in the two years since we got married, though.” She paused again to admire student artwork. “I think my mother-in-law is afraid I’m trying to starve her boy to death, but really, James wants to drop some weight. It’ll all be easier once we’ve got our own place.” With a self-conscious glance at me, she added, “Not that James’s parents aren’t great and everything. They’ve been so good to us.”