Finding Esme

by Suzanne Crowley

  I peeked around the door to see June Rain’s reaction, thinking about the photograph of her in that strange prairie dress, her hair long and curly, those funny points of light around her head. Bee’d said June Rain had buried everything deep, so deep you’d need a polecat to pull it all out. She’d turned her head suddenly, looking out the kitchen window. I could just see the gentle profile of her face, her mouth slightly open, a slow blink.

  “He was fifty-five or so, True-itt said,” Sweetmaw continued. “Maybe older. Hard to tell under all that hippie hair. Not sure where he’s actually from. He went under many aliases, it appears. Might’ve been a traveling man, a hobo, True-itt thinks, who stumbled on Luther’s business by accident. True-itt’s trying to find his kin.

  “Poor Pearl Mae,” Sweetmaw continued. “I remember when Granger was knee-high to a grasshopper. Cute as a bug, for an Aberdeen. That Finch’s gonna turn out okay, hopefully. One can’t help who your kin is; you’re stuck with them. Has Bee harvested the honey yet? How much money did that bring in?”

  “Yes, she and Esme did,” said June Rain, turning back to Sweetmaw, her face devoid of anything might have been there a moment before. “But she didn’t sell it all yet. It would take us another week, driving all around the county.”

  “What’s she doing making Esme help with the bees? As I recall, that child had a deathly fear of them since she was a little one.”

  “Bee says it comes natural to Esme,” said June Rain.

  Ha. Natural.

  “You all seem to think everything comes natural to that poor little thing. She’s only a child. Seems tough, but she’s not. That little heart of hers is as tender as they come.”

  “She’s twelve,” said June Rain, “almost thirteen. I’d seen more by her age than anyone can imagine.”

  My ears perked up. I’d never ever heard June Rain talk about her childhood, not once. Did I imagine a light edge in her voice? Surely Sweetmaw, the queen of all gossips, would nose out more. But to my surprise, she let it go and went back to talking about Bee’s bail money.

  I wondered how much the gold coin in the bee box up on Solace Hill was worth. Would it be enough to bail Bee out? Surely a solid gold coin had to be enough.

  I walked into the kitchen. “I can get the money,” I said.

  Sweetmaw’s mouth dropped open and her eyes narrowed. June Rain turned her face away, and that stung as though one of Bee’s bees had landed on my heart.

  I raced out of the house, screen door slamming, and ran up Solace Hill, to the tractor, to Louella Goodbones. Fireflies flew around me, blinking and blinking, as though trying to tell me something. No. No. Leave it there! And then they slowly flew down the hill in formation before suddenly disappearing. My toes started to tingle, almost like a burn and I ran back down the hill, where Sweetmaw and Old Jack met me.

  “Violet Galloway just called. Said she was posting the bail. Said something about you finding a popsicle.”

  The next morning June Rain stayed home with Bo while I rode with Sweetmaw in the Buick to get Bee out of jail. Old Jack rode in the backseat, with his head out the window.

  “Why didn’t you ask June Rain what she saw when she was twelve?” I said as we drove past the Aberdeens’. Sweetmaw drove as slow as a turtle, the opposite of Bee in her wagon.

  “I don’t bother to ask a question for answers I’m not going to get in a million years, Esme,” she said. “Maybe you should ask her. Maybe she’ll tell you. But for right now, she doesn’t want anyone to find out, and perhaps that’s just how it should stay. You gotta know when to leave something alone. That was always Bee’s problem, not leaving things be.”

  A car full of teenagers zoomed past, honking as it sped in front of us. I sunk down low in my seat.

  “I’ve been finding things,” I whispered to myself.

  Sweetmaw looked over at me quickly with worried eyes. “Oh, no,” she said, stepping on the gas. Then she shook her head, as though changing her mind, and pulled the car off the road.

  It was quiet except for the sound of Old Jack panting. “Our grandmother May could foresee the future,” Sweetmaw said. “And our mother the weather. And then one day, Bee. But Bee was different. More powerful, a force of nature.” She paused and I stared at the cornfield next to us, watching the breeze lift the hat off an old scarecrow.

  “Did anything ever happen to Bee before her gift came to her?” I asked her.

  “Whatever do you mean?’

  “Like lightning, or a storm?”

  Sweetmaw looked at me strangely like I’d asked the stupidest question on earth. “Why yes, honey,” she said. “Bee was a baby, just a little thing. I was playing on the front porch when a tornado come barreling toward the house; I barely made it in under a table. The house was directly hit, most of the roof torn off. I found Mama in a doorway, her head hit mighty hard, and Bee sleeping peacefully in her bassinet. Bee had slept through it all untouched.

  “Then when I was ten, Bee about eight, I’d been playing with Mama’s china teapot out in the back pasture, having a mud tea party. I’d broken it, buried it right there down deep. I was the naughty one, back then, if you can believe it. Bee was the prized child, the smart one, the beautiful one. And we didn’t get along.

  “Mama fussed up quite a storm when she discovered her teapot was missing. Then Bee, who was already sewing those quilts, got a funny look on her face like she’d bitten down on a bug. She marched out to the pasture, dug it straight up, marched back in, and handed the pieces to Mama. I got a whuppin’. And that’s how it started, right out of nowhere. Secretly, I used to hate her for it, all the things she found. Some things better left buried.” Sweetmaw paused. “But maybe it did start with that tornado. I never thought of that. Fittin’, for Bee is like a tornado.” Old Jack leaned his head between us as though he were listening in, too.

  “All the attention she got, admiration, little gifts,” Sweetmaw continued. “She was even written up in the paper with a photo.” She chuckled. “Had found Old Man Finney’s World War One medals buried in his backyard.” She wiggled her hand in the air in a lah-di-dah gesture.

  “Then I realized that what Bee had was a burden and maybe I was the lucky one. And it was quite the revelation. Sweetmaw Hennessey was the lucky one. Can you imagine that? Even if she was a little bit prettier,” and here she looked over at me, her eyes twinkling. “And smarter. Even if she got a good husband and I never had one. She was going to have a harder time in life, always stirred up. I think I knew that deep down even when we were kids.”

  I could always count on Sweetmaw to tell the truth. Old Jack licked me up the side of the face. He was licking away a tear that I didn’t know had fallen.

  “Did anything happen when Harlan was a baby?” I asked.

  Sweetmaw frowned. “Do you mean if Bee dropped that rascal on his head or something?” She snorted. “If you’re asking if he was born that way, always leaving you, honey, I don’t think so. But Bee and I didn’t talk for many years, so I don’t know.”

  I looked out the window a moment. “At least he’s never hurt anyone, though,” I whispered.

  “That’s not good enough, honey,” Sweetmaw said. “Being harmless. Doesn’t make him a decent human being. I’m gonna tear off a strip of him next time he comes home.”

  If he does, I thought.

  “Bee says it’s a gift from God,” I said a little while later. “The gift of finding things.”

  “It may be, Esme.” She reached over, pulling my chin toward her. “Or it just might be about growing up and noticing what’s around you, honey, what you can fix and what you can’t. What people are about, what they want, what they wish for, their hopes and their dreams. Pretend it’s a present, wrapped, that you can put away till you’re grown up and ready.”

  But it had already been opened, whatever it was. My feet started to vibrate then, and I knew with certainty that something was buried next to us in the cornfield, a cowbell of some sort with a heart engraved on it that had meant
all the world to someone at some time. Sweetmaw started up the pink Buick again, and we drove on down the road, that vibrating, lawn mower feeling moving up my legs as the tears rolled down my face.

  We pulled up to the jail and Sweetmaw left Old Jack and me in the car while she went in for Bee. I slid down in my seat hoping no one could see me, but it was boiling hot already and I had to roll down the window. I stretched out, suddenly feeling tired. Old Jack lay down on the backseat and started to snore.

  I don’t know how much later it was, but I realized the sun was no longer shining on me. I opened an eye and saw someone standing by my window. I bolted up.

  It was Finch’s mama. She had her church coat on, one side of her hairdo teased up a little higher than the other. She must’ve just come out of the jailhouse and had wanted to look presentable for Sheriff Finney.

  “Have they found Granger yet?” I asked her, not wanting to know, not really. I couldn’t meet her eyes.

  She shook her head and bit her lip just like Finch does.

  She looked around. Bee had told me that Pearl Mae was pretty once and had been voted “Most Likely to Go to College” in her class at Hollis High and had won state for twirling, but somehow she’d ended up with Spoon. He was handsome, Bee explained, and that’s sometimes enough to bring a pretty girl down.

  Finally Pearl Mae found her words. “Does Bee have any sense of where Granger is?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so, Mrs. Aberdeen,” I said. “I’m sorry,” I said a moment later, afraid to look at her, afraid she might know it all, how I maybe could’ve kept her son from getting into the big trouble he was in now. She looked like she was going to say something, but she didn’t, and I wondered how it was even possible that she was once a beautiful girl who could throw a twirling baton into the air and catch it. Then she left and I leaned back into the seat, wishing I could disappear, too.

  “I heard about Bee,” said a soft voice. Mady Whitshaw was standing next to the car.

  “Is that so?” I asked. “Well, what else do you have to say to me?”

  “Just that I’m sorry. For everything. Not just school. I’m sorry.”

  I couldn’t look at her.

  Finally she added, “My mama hurts all the time, Esme. All the time. That’s all I wanted to say.”

  Sweetmaw drove us back to Peach Hollow Farm while Bee fumed. I think I could almost see steam coming out of her ears. I sat in the backseat with Old Jack’s head in my lap, hoping she’d forget about me.

  “Where’d you get the money?” she said to no one in particular. Old Jack smelled something out the window and scrambled off of me. Bee caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “You didn’t find anything up on that hill, did you, Esme?”

  I didn’t answer and looked away.

  “You should’ve just let me stay in there. The sheriff knew he had no basis for keeping me. Would’ve let me out eventually.” She eyed me again, looking at me funny.

  “Mmm-hmmm,” said Sweetmaw. “True-itt said he’s tired of you taking the law into your own hands, Bee. I don’t think he’ll let this one go. There’s a dead man lying in the morgue over in Paradise and no one knows who he is.”

  I stared out the window. Wilson Henry. Wilson Hen-ry.

  “True-itt, huh?” Bee said, one eyebrow raised. “Aren’t you too old for romance?”

  Sweetmaw ignored her. “True-itt says he hasn’t forgotten the time you found that gun off Highway Ten, the one that had been used in a holdup in Dallas. If you’d turned it in sooner, they might have caught those no-good thieves.”

  Bee shook her head. “I needed it to get rid of the squirrels,” she snapped. “They were eating my peaches.”

  “Some things don’t ever change,” said Sweetmaw.

  “Nope, sure they don’t,” said Bee.

  I knew there was a lot more to their words, lots of broken pieces that might never be mended.

  That night Bo came into my room with his baby blanket, somehow resurrected from somewhere. We’d had a reheated dinner of baked beans and cornbread. June Rain had gone to her room with Jewell after we’d finished and had shut the door. Bo was sucking his thumb, something he hadn’t done since Bee’d put honey mixed with Tabasco on it when he was three.

  “The dead man’s not Daddy?” he whispered.

  I moved over and patted the spot next to me. “No,” I said. “Don’t worry. It’s not Harlan.”

  Our daddy was still out there, still alive, wandering, probably bootless, but still wandering like he always had. When I was younger, I’d asked Bee why if she could find anything in the world, she couldn’t find Harlan. I knew now that perhaps you can’t find the things that are the most precious to you.

  “Can that dinosaur come live with us?” Bo said as he climbed under the chenille with me.

  “No.” I sighed. “She’s too big, Bo, way too big.”

  He snuggled under my arm, then looked up at me, his eyes full of worry. “Where do fireflies go to die?” he said. “Is there a heaven for them?”

  “Of course, Bo,” I answered. “Of course.”

  I’d wondered the same thing since Bee had said they were disappearing. Where did they go? To be with the ghosts of this world? I pulled Bo closer, snuggling till he finally fell asleep. I kissed his forehead, smelling the little boyness of him. I thought of Louella Goodbones on Solace Hill coming up from the earth. And I thought of bootless Harlan out there and how little he knew of us.

  Chapter 14

  There are things we know for sure and things we don’t. It’s the unknown, the unexpected, the tornado that turns on you in a moment that are the most troubling. And there’s nothing you can do about it but wait. A week had gone by and there was still no sign of Granger, Luther, or Johnny. Finch told me his daddy had spent days driving all over the county looking for Granger but came home hollow eyed. Spoon’d thrown all of Granger’s new clothes on the trash heap.

  Sheriff Finney told Sweetmaw that the dead man had been killed by a blast from a shotgun at close range. He’d searched the Stump house for a shotgun but didn’t find one. And that dead man was still over in the Paradise morgue because no kin came forward and the sheriff still wasn’t sure who he really was.

  I’d been waiting, wondering if Bee was going to turn over the photo of June Rain, like she’d eventually turned over the squirrel-shooting gun. Turn over that wallet, too, she’d taken from his pants. But I had a feeling she wouldn’t. Not this time. Especially not that mystery photo. It was from the sweet far in-between, and there was no telling what it let loose upon us.

  Jewell still squealed, and now Old Jack howled like a wolf when she did. So Bee finally said enough is enough and a piglet needs fresh air and she made a little enclosure for Jewell in the shade of the peach orchard. Now Jewell ran around happily with a little bell on a velvet choker in case she got out. June Rain was allowed to bring her inside for an hour a day, and Bo had started taking her on walks.

  June Rain changed when Jewell was moved outside, and I think she’d now given up on hoping that Harlan was coming home. I’d heard her footsteps in the night, pausing by my door, then going downstairs, and a moment later the gentle slap of the screen door. I knew where she went and didn’t feel bad that I’d showed her the cabin. We all need something to hang on to.

  Finch and I worked every night up on Solace Hill, uncovering more and more of Louella Goodbones. He asked me every night if I was ready to show her to the world, and every night I’d say no. Louella Goodbones was going to stay here. Strangely, I’d felt less and less of Paps the more we dug away at her, and I hated that I didn’t know where he was anymore. Maybe he was on his way to heaven, following the fireflies.

  One morning when I woke up, cocooned under my chenille blanket, I had a feeling that something wasn’t right over at Miss Lilah’s. Finch and I had not been to see her in a while. Maybe that’s all it was.

  But I couldn’t let it be. A little bit later, when I walked up her steps, Miss Opal met me at the door. “
She’s had a minor stroke in the night, Esme. Said she saw a ghost.” Shivers went up my back as she continued. “Doc Delaney wanted to take her to the hospital in Paradise, but she refused. Says it’s her time to go.”

  I turned to leave, saying I was sorry.

  “No, no. Please come see her,” Miss Opal said. “She’s been asking for you all morning. Says she has something to tell you. She keeps insisting the Lord is calling her home. Says she wants to be buried in her best dress, with her pearls, too. Says if she’s going to meet her maker, she better be dressed right.” She led me to a back bedroom.

  I followed her, afraid of what I might see. But it was just Miss Lilah.

  “It’s my time, Esme,” she said when she saw me, her voice raspy, her face twisted-up funny. “You know it was your Grandpa Homer I saw law night.” Shivers went up my spine, all the way up till my ears tingled.

  “Now why would he be coming to see you?” I asked, and she laughed.

  “Got the Hennessey sass, I see. I didn’t think you had it in you. Thought you had more of the McCauley quiet, like Homer.” Her eyes shut.

  “Miss Lilah,” I said. Her eyes fluttered open.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “Where were we? Homer. He appeared at my bedside in the middle of the night, said he was on his way to heaven and would I like to catch a ride. Standing there sure as daylight in his church suit. Said he’d be back for me in just a bit; he had some unfinished business.”

  Jealousy shot through me. All that time I’d been up on the hill. Why hadn’t he talked to me? “But why you, Miss Lilah?”

  “I’m the oldest in all of Hollis; guess my ticket is expired.” She laughed.

  “Did he say anything else?” I asked.

  “Said to tell you to bring her up and let her go.”

  Shivers went down my arms. Was she talking about Louella Goodbones?

  “And to forgive Bee for what she’d done for Harlan. He’d forgiven her and understood it all, now that he was in-between.”