Firefly Island

by Lisa Wingate

  “That’s all right, I get it.” I nudged her with my elbow, which wasn’t the sort of thing I normally would do. It was easy to be comfortable with Keren. “When things were looking a little iffy with the job here, my mother said we could move into her rumpus room. But as you can see, we’re still in Texas.”

  Keren’s wide smile dotted her cheeks with dimples. We chatted until it was time to take the kids outside to play in the park behind the church. After that, they would be loaded onto the bus, which would take them back to the school. From there, some would go home with parents, some would walk to a couple of foster homes nearby, and some would be ferried home on a summer school bus route.

  Keren and I sat on a picnic table in the shade while the kids enjoyed the last few minutes of their day. Al pulled into the parking lot and honked, then came down the hill wagging a small paper bag in my direction. “There you are. Feedstore got your fox urine in.”

  “Well, there’s a sentence you don’t hear every day.” I laughed. I’d been blogging about the squirrels in the attic for a while now. Al had suggested the fox-based brew as a guaranteed deterrent. Despite the inherent gross-out factor, I was willing to try almost anything. The happy sound of squirrels partying in the attic at all hours gets old eventually.

  Keren cast a quizzical look as Al took the bottle from the sack and tried to hand it to me. “Here’s your Foxy Moxy.”

  I pulled my hands away. “I’m not touching that stuff. Seriously. Yuck. I’ll make Daniel do it.”

  “Don’t be such a girl.” Al set the sack by my feet.

  “I have my limits. They go right up to fox urine, and then stop.”

  Al scoffed, and the fox urine languished in the shade while the three of us watched the kids play. I couldn’t wait to blog about Foxy Moxy and see what Josh, Kaylyn, and my sisters had to say about it. None of them would believe this one. Just a few months ago, I was working on The Hill, contributing in my small way to legislation that would affect millions of people, and now … fox urine. I’d have to take a photo of the bottle before Daniel opened it. I’d be happy to go my whole life and not know what the contents actually smelled like.

  For the first time that day, Nick sought me out. His face gleamed with anticipation as he ran across the playground. He arrived at the picnic table out of breath, and presented me with a dandelion.

  “It’s a wing!” Nick pointed to the stem, which had been woven into a circle to form a ring. “Miss Alice and me maked it.” He pointed to Alice Steele, who’d been stationed by the lakeshore along with Paula and Cindy to keep kids away from the water. “It’s for my mommy!”

  An unexpected burst of emotions pushed tears into my eyes. “It’s beautiful. Thanks, Nick.” Holding the tiny, fragile token in the palm of my hand, I touched the flower petals and felt everything else fall away. It didn’t matter that there were squirrels in the attic, or that I’d lost Nick for almost three hours the day before, or that Daniel and I were still in a fight. For an instant, there was only Nick and me and that ring—a wild, growing thing that had sprouted in glorious color all on its own, developing unseen and almost unnoticed as the world passed by. Like the love I felt for Nick. For this boy. This son of mine.

  “Put it on you finger. It’s for my mommy,” Nick said again, as if he wanted to make sure I knew.

  Slipping the ring into place, I leaned over and kissed the top of his head. “I love it. I love it so much, Nick. More than anything,” I whispered the words into the sweaty scents of dirt and green things, leftover shampoo and childhood. I love you more than anything was on the tip of my tongue, but before I could get it out, Nick was already gone, off to join the other kids again. Watching him skitter away, I felt the process of loving and parting and holding on and letting go that would be our future together, his and mine. In that moment, I understood so much about my mother that I never had before. I knew why she’d had such a hard time releasing me into the world. Allowing the last little bird to fly the nest. No wonder I had to travel to the other side of the globe to finally break free.

  I felt the hot-cold moisture of a tear on my cheek, saw it fall past the dandelion ring and land on my knee.

  “Geez, if it’s that big a deal to you, I’ll climb up in your attic and put the Foxy Moxy out myself. Don’t cry about it,” Al joked. Both she and Keren laughed, and I sniffle-laughed along.

  “Wow, I wasn’t ready for that,” I admitted, swallowing hard and wiping my eyes. “That’s the first time he’s called me mommy, just on his own like that.”

  “Smart kid,” Al assessed flatly.

  Keren laid a hand on my back and rubbed gently, and suddenly I felt as if there were no better place in the world to be than here. The conversation between us stilled, but the silence felt comfortable, relaxed. We sat side by side on the picnic table, enjoying the view and the kids’ antics. My little friend, Sierra, had elected herself director of a freeze tag game. Confidently standing on one of the cement picnic benches, she barked out instructions, while Cindy, Alice, and Paula lined up the kids.

  “She’ll be president of the United States one of these days,” Keren commented, then drew in a long breath and let it out slowly, her shoulders rising and then falling. “If she can just get past where she comes from.”

  “Well, this summer program is a start.” Al’s gaze scanned the group. “The more you can get these kids out of Chinquapin Peaks and show them a bigger world, the better. If they don’t ever see a normal life, they’ll never know how to make one. But it’s got to be long-term and consistent—that’s what the school board needs to understand. Spending a bunch of money to bring in some pro athlete to speak or some actor in to talk to them is great, but there has to be regular follow-up. The research conclusively proves that fact every time. It might look to the school board like we’re just growing beans here, but the truth is that we’re growing kids.”

  I glanced sideways at Al. The research conclusively proves … Those words didn’t sound like Al at all. And was it my imagination, or had the Texas twang vanished for a few sentences? I had the impression, as had happened a few times before, that Al was not at all what she seemed to be, that something lay hidden beneath the façade of rusty pickup trucks and well-worn cowgirl clothes.

  Her gaze cast my way, and I pretended to be watching the kids.

  “We need to get this program funded for the full school year and into next year.” Al’s words came with a long, slow Texas drawl this time. “If you had a greenhouse, you could grow all through the winter.”

  Keren’s shoulders sagged a little more. “There’s no money for a greenhouse. The school just can’t afford anything more, especially with all the state budget cuts. They’re talking about not having the horticulture class in middle school at all next year, which would pretty much mean the supper garden program is finished. I’ll either be teaching an elementary homeroom all day, or they’ll just combine classes and I won’t have a job at all.”

  “Well, we’ll see about that.” Al removed her cowboy hat, then dropped it on the table before using the crook of her elbow to swipe sweaty strands of intermingled brown and gray. “I’ll have a few things to say to that school board before they start laying off good young teachers.”

  “James wants me to quit, anyway.” Keren’s expression was unusually glum, a wrinkle worrying her brow. “Really, everybody does—his family, my family. Everyone wants to know when we’re going to start having babies. As soon as we got to our second anniversary, it’s like we crossed some invisible line.” She looked down at her hands, locking them together. “If the horticulture program gets cut, maybe it’s God’s way of saying it’s time.”

  Self-consciously, I rubbed my stomach, thought of my conversation with Trudy, felt myself tumble into Keren’s push-pull of career and family. For just an instant, I wanted to tell the two of them what Trudy had said, admit to the dilemma that had been cycling in the corner of my mind all day—similar to Keren’s, but opposite. If, heaven forbid, I had to announce
an accidental pregnancy so soon after an impromptu marriage and a cross-country move, my family would be calling the men in white coats. I had no idea what Daniel would say or how his parents would feel about it. And, on top of that, there was the mystery of Jack West and the question of whether we were really safe on the ranch at all.

  It might just be God’s way of saying it’s time… . An accidental pregnancy for Daniel and me at this point couldn’t be anyone’s idea of a good plan.

  “Or else your family needs to mind their own business,” Al said to Keren, and I took that as confirmation. Trudy just needed to mind her own business. There wasn’t any way I was pregnant.

  “Maybe,” Keren admitted. “I mean, I get where they’re coming from. It’s not like our family is old order conservative or anything. They were fine with me going to college when I got the scholarship, but I guess they just thought that after college I’d settle down and do the normal thing.”

  “You’re young, Keren,” I pointed out. “You’ve got years to think about having kids.”

  Keren nodded, squinting contemplatively at Chinquapin Peaks, far in the distance across the lake. “Do you ever just … have the feeling that God’s using you right where you are?”

  Al answered with a shrug that had a sense of harrumph to it.

  I felt compelled to come up with an answer, but contemplating the mind of God was hardly my specialty. I looked down at my finger, thought about the dandelion ring. That first day in the rotunda, had God envisioned the dandelion ring … started a seed growing, far away on a lakeshore in Texas, so that the flower would be there when Nick was ready for it? Had He made sure that Alice would be here to aid Nick’s tiny fingers in weaving the ring? Had He envisioned everything about this moment?

  Did He plan things so intricately? Adjust the timing of seeds, and summer enrichment classes, and sisters visiting over books?

  A school bus rumbled into the parking lot, and Keren jerked upright. “Oh my word! Line up, kids, the bus is here!” Cupping her hands around her mouth, she called the kids a second time.

  “I’m Birdie’s ride home today,” Al said, as we stood up. “Sheila was going to keep her over at the Waterbird until Len could come get her, but Sheila’s got a cold today, and she thought it’d be better if Birdie just went on home. No sense in her getting sick.”

  Al moved to the loosely forming kid line and extricated Birdie, who came out towing Nick by one hand. Before the rest of them could leave, I got a hug from Sergio and a high-five from Sierra. On her way up the hill, Sierra walked backward and pointed at me. “I’m gonna put you in my story!”

  “I can’t wait to read it,” I called back.

  The kids boarded the bus. Mama B, the Binding Through Books sisters, and the church ladies waved good-bye from the back steps, and the park grew strangely quiet as the helpers dispersed to their cars. Birdie and Nick crouched down together, watching an inchworm move across the cement footing of a picnic table.

  “You ever been up in Chinquapin Peaks?” Al leaned over to pick up a candy wrapper that had dropped from one of the kids’ backpacks.

  “I really haven’t been anywhere but the hardware store, the house, the Waterbird, and the Walmart in Gnadenfeld,” I admitted.

  Al nodded toward the parking lot. “Come ride along with us. You’ll see some things.” It was more of a command than a request. Al wheeled an arm as she walked up the hill. “C’mon, Birdie, let’s load up.” She didn’t check to see if I was following; she just assumed I was.

  Grabbing Nick’s backpack and my bag of Foxy Moxy, I started after her. I knew enough about Al to know that if she wanted me to go to Chinquapin Peaks with her, there was a reason.

  You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.

  —Rabindranath Tagore

  (Left by Danny and Elaine, racing sailboats in the rain)

  Chapter 15

  I had a feeling that Nick would be asleep before we made it out of town, and he was. Birdie soon joined him, and Al and I drove along in silence awhile. We traveled several miles along the road that paralleled the river, then we turned off, then turned again and again, weaving our way past hills, trees, and small ranches.

  As we drove, the pavement dissolved into gravel and the homes became few. Gravel melted into narrower gravel, smooth surfaces becoming pockmarked trails that wound lazily up steep slopes and into rocky valleys where clearwater creeks cascaded over beds of loose limestone. In the backseat, the sleeping kids bobbed back and forth as the truck bounced over chuckholes and rattled across miniature canyons left behind by rushing water.

  “Is this the normal way of getting up here?” I asked after we’d driven thirty minutes or so. I knew it must be. People did live up here. While the foothills had been dotted with ranches where cattle and goats dozed in the shade, up here the signs of human habitation were more hardscrabble—aging trailer homes with old tires holding tarps over the roofs, rusting school buses converted into dwellings, ancient camp trailers that were obviously being used as permanent residences, tiny homes with peeling paint, leaning front porches, and the carcasses of old cars half buried in the weeds. In small lots scratched from cedar and scrub brush, skinny horses, goats, and cows searched in vain for edibles. Dangerous-looking dogs chased the truck or barked from behind ragtag yard fences made from shipping pallets and road signs.

  “This is the way.” Al’s answer was flat, matter of fact. “The meth boilers and the pot farmers don’t live up here for nothing. It’s remote. They like it that way.” We topped a hill, and she pointed out the window, where the view stretched for miles. In the distance, Moses Lake shimmered cool and peaceful, like a spill of glitter at the edge of fabric tumbling forth in shades of green and gray.

  “There’s some beautiful country up here, too.” Al’s voice seemed far away for a moment. “And plenty of good people, just doing the best they can with what they’ve got. Like Birdie’s grandpa. He’s a veteran, a good guy, suffered head trauma in Vietnam, so he’s limited somewhat, but he’s working hard to raise that little girl. Birdie’s mother dropped her on Len’s doorstep about a year ago, and now the mom is in prison on a meth conviction, among other things. She won’t be coming back anytime soon. If it weren’t for Len, Birdie would be in foster care. There are a lot of kids up here with stories like that.”

  “Wow,” I sighed, still taking in the view. It seemed so serene, yet the kids I’d met today and the things I’d learned made it clear that for all the beauty here, an ugly reality hid also.

  “One of the worst things is the access in this area, really. Like with Len’s place—it’s so far back in the hills, the school bus can’t even get there when the roads are bad and the low-water crossings flood. On top of the other strikes against them, kids in Chinquapin Peaks miss a lot of school, partly because they can’t get there. The school has been begging the county commission to spend money on the roads up here for years. The people in charge always make excuses to commit funds on the other side of the lake where there’s already money, if you know what I mean. Blaine Underhill from the Ranch House Bank just got elected to the county commission, though, and he’s making some headway against the old guard.” Pausing, she pointed a finger at me. “I should introduce you to his wife, Heather, come to think of it. She’s a city girl, like you. You two would enjoy each other. You know that big white house on the edge of town, the one with the Harmony Shores sign at the gate?”

  I nodded. I had noticed the place. It was beautiful, a stately icon of the bygone era of southern belles and two-story porches with tall white pillars.

  “They’ve refitted that into a bed-and-breakfast. Good people. Heather commutes to Dallas some for her architecture business. I’ll find out her work schedule and get you two together.”

  “Thanks.” Sometimes I wondered if I would have survived this long here, had Al not taken me under her wing. Other times, I couldn’t imagine why she wanted to bother. I had to seem like such a nuisance, always needing som
ething, and with no skills to contribute to the relationship, unless Al ever happened to need someone who had experience writing congressional legislation. Not very likely. Still, I had the underlying feeling that Al was interested in me for a reason, but I couldn’t imagine what it might be.

  “Not a problem.” Al turned off the road into what looked like a wagon track winding off into a field. Tall grass scraped the undercarriage of the truck as we passed, and branches squealed across the windows like fingernails on a blackboard. “Anybody who has to put up with that sorry so-and-so you work for deserves a little extra help.”

  As usual, I didn’t answer. The animosity between Al and Jack West was legendary around town. They were not good neighbors. Al only came to my house when I knew Daniel and Jack would be gone for the day, which was just about every day, so Al and I had plenty of time to work.

  Birdie’s house, when it came into view, seemed pretty typical of what I’d seen so far in Chinquapin Peaks, although it was in better shape. The small, square home listed slightly to one side, but the roof was new, the porch posts were parallel, and the place had a fresh coat of paint. Ruffled curtains hung inside the paint-spattered windows, giving the place a homey touch.