She stays out until it’s time
to tell us good night.
I like to watch her
on the nights she sings.
She hasn’t been singing since
Mama sent us our letters, though.
I miss her singing. I want
to hear her voice again, and I think this
might be why I open the door and
walk down the porch steps and
stand by her side tonight.
The flowers look pretty, I say,
just to let her know I’m here.
She turns her face to me and smiles,
but her eyes stay tight and dark,
like they don’t remember
how to smile the way the rest
of her face does. She moves her hand
under one of the white flowers
we thought for sure wouldn’t make it.
She bends to smell it.
I didn’t think I’d ever see this one
bloom again, she says. Your gran’s got
magic in her hands.
Her voice is sad and happy
at the same time. I touch
the velvety petals of the bloom
closest to me, and she sits back
on her heels.
Your daddy gave it to me,
and I let it die, she says.
Her eyes are like brown
pieces of glass, but she blinks
the shine away. And then,
so soft I can hardly hear,
she says, And here it is again.
Resurrected.
I let her have her quiet for a minute,
but there’s something I need to say,
something that’s been burning up
inside of me since reading Mama’s letter.
I don’t really know how to say it, so
I count a minute and then I blurt out,
I don’t want to go back,
before I lose my nerve.
Aunt Bee doesn’t say anything at all.
She just folds me in her arms
and lets me stay.
After a long breath,
she starts singing.
STORM
Aunt Bee pulls me from class
three hours before the last school bell.
She tells me we’re going to a hospital,
but she doesn’t say why.
We stop to get Charlie on the way.
Aunt Bee parks close to a sidewalk
darkened by trees and tells me
to wait in the car while she goes in.
So I wait, staring out the windows
at a bright blue sky with a few
puffy clouds, nothing to warn
about a storm coming.
It doesn’t look like the kind of day
something would go wrong, but
I know how pretty days can trick us
with their sunshine and
clear skies.
KNOW
There is an old tree,
off to the side of the street,
with branches that twist
all the way up to the sun and
leaves that let light through.
It’s tall and wide and strong,
and for some reason, it makes me
think of Granddad.
Charlie slides into the front seat
beside Aunt Bee. She looks back
at me with all kinds of questions
in her eyes, the same ones trying
to climb out of my mouth.
I don’t know any more
than Charlie does.
All I know is Aunt Bee stops
by her house but doesn’t go in,
just picks all the white flowers
from the plant my daddy
gave her.
All I know is she drives faster
than she’s ever driven before,
flying around other cars and
cursing under her breath when
she gets blocked in, more like Gran
today than she’s ever been.
All I know is she tells me and Charlie
to wait in a too-bright room while
she takes those flowers into a
hallway marked ICU
and disappears for a long time.
I fall asleep
on a cushioned chair
with wooden arms.
DIE
When I wake up, it’s Aunt Bee
who is sleeping in a chair next to me.
Charlie stands by the window.
I slide out of my chair, careful
not to disturb Aunt Bee, and
walk over to Charlie. She’s staring
out at the sidewalk, and it doesn’t
take long to see why.
All over the gray stone
are the flowers Aunt Bee brought.
I don’t know how they got there.
She threw them out, Charlie says.
My heart sounds loud
in my ears. It must be
worse than I thought.
He’s not dead, Charlie says,
and for a minute I think she might be
talking about my daddy, except I
saw the crumpled car and I heard the shots
and I felt the cold that every boy must feel
when their daddy leaves them.
Granddad, Charlie says.
She turns to me, her eyes like
the deep end of an ocean.
He’s just not exactly alive, either.
I don’t know what this means,
not being exactly alive. So, I ask,
Will he die, then?
Charlie turns back toward the window,
toward all those flowers that
look like death, now that I know.
I don’t want to see them pointing
the way inside this place
where people come to die.
HEART
He hasn’t woken up yet, that’s all.
It’s not Charlie who answers
my question. It’s Aunt Bee.
She stands right behind us now.
We’ll know more when he wakes up.
She tells us how he was out pulling weeds,
trying to gather what vegetables he could
before the first freeze came in, and then he
fell over on his back, so numb he
couldn’t even move. Gran was
out with him and saw it happen,
and that’s the only reason he didn’t
show up at the hospital already dead.
He had a heart attack, she says.
And they got his heart working again,
but no one really knows what
happens from here. She sounds bitter,
like she blames him for the heart attack.
I don’t know what comes
over me, but I say, Why did you
throw all those flowers away?
Aunt Bee looks at me
for a long time. And then I guess
she decides to tell the truth.
She says, If he dies,
I won’t be able to tell him
something I’ve waited to
tell him for years.
I almost ask what that something is,
but the way her mouth twists
keeps me quiet instead.
Tears roll down her cheeks,
and me and Charlie don’t know
what else to do. We both
take one of her hands and hold her
for as long as it takes.
I guess this is what you do
when you know what it’s like
to lose a daddy.
PETALS
Later, when Aunt Bee has
fallen asleep in her chair again
and Charlie is down in the dining hall
getting supper, I walk out the
sliding doors and collect all
>
the white petals that
haven’t blown away.
Granddad might still
want them, after all.
A present from his two kids,
one dead and one
still alive.
FLOWERS
On the fifth day,
Granddad wakes up.
It happens fast.
Gran comes running
out the same door
Aunt Bee ran in five days ago.
She looks smaller and older
and too tired for words.
She waves Aunt Bee toward her,
and Aunt Bee pats Charlie’s knee
and tells us she’ll be right back,
and then she disappears and
we’re waiting again, not knowing
what’s happened.
Then she’s back, and
me and Charlie are walking
through the doors we haven’t
been allowed through in all the days
we’ve sat in a waiting area with
three hundred and ninety-six circles
on the carpet, and we stop at a room
with an open door and a heavy smell
like old people mixed with soap and
something I might call death, if
Aunt Bee wasn’t still smiling.
I must be wrong.
She walks behind us into the room,
and the first thing I see is a clear vase
of yellow flowers on a windowsill,
and I wonder how they got here
and who might have sent them.
They’re the same flowers
Mama used to keep on our
kitchen table. That’s the
only reason I wonder.
PLAN
Granddad is sitting up in bed
with four pillows behind his back,
blinking in the light from the window.
Charlie moves to Granddad’s side,
so I do the same. He says something
I can’t understand.
I look at Aunt Bee, wondering if
it’s just me. She’s standing right
behind me, still smiling.
She leans toward me.
He’s a strong one, she says.
He’ll find his words again.
Just let him talk if he wants.
I don’t know how Granddad
could have lost his words,
but nothing he says
sounds like sentences
or conversation at all.
Charlie takes his hand, but I
keep my distance.
He’s still a little confused, Gran says.
She stands up and touches his forehead,
moving her hand all the way across
the crinkled paper of his skin.
It might take a few days.
Granddad leans his head back
on the pillow and closes his eyes.
Aunt Bee says it’s time to go.
She moves to Granddad’s side and
whispers words, but I hear them all.
I’ll be back tomorrow, Daddy.
We have so much to
talk about.
Me and Charlie follow her
out of the room and out the doors
marked ICU and all the way
out the front of the hospital.
And even though it’s our first day
going home after five days of
sleeping in a hospital waiting room,
I don’t think about home
or a hot bath or how good
my own bed will feel tonight.
I only think about how I want
to hear what Aunt Bee
will say to Granddad.
VISITOR
When we get home,
a car I’ve never seen
is parked out front.
It’s a bright orange Ford Pinto.
The only reason I know
is on account of Mama laughing
with my daddy one time when we
passed such an ugly car on the highway.
Aunt Bee stands outside her
car door for a minute, and
I swear her face turns younger
in the golden light.
Charlie looks at me, wondering
the same thing I’m wondering.
I shrug. We follow Aunt Bee
around the corner to the porch.
Mr. Langley is rocking
back and forth in the chair
Aunt Bee usually sits in.
Luke, Aunt Bee says.
I’ve never heard her call him
anything but Mr. Langley.
I stare at her, and I guess
my mouth must be open,
since Charlie elbows me.
I look at Mr. Langley
just long enough to
see him wink.
I came as soon as I heard,
Mr. Langley says. But you
weren’t home. So I kept trying.
We were staying at the hospital,
Aunt Bee says, and her voice
holds a hundred yawns.
I yawn, too.
He woke up, then, Mr. Langley says.
He starts to take her hand,
but Aunt Bee waves us all
through the front door.
We’ll talk inside, she says,
and I know what she means is
away from me and Charlie.
DOORWAY
Mr. Langley is the last one
through the door. Me and Charlie
go straight to our rooms,
but we’ll be back.
We wouldn’t miss their talk
for all the sleep we might get
in our own beds before supper.
So we wait. And when we hear
the pots and pans clanging
in the kitchen, we sneak out
with socks and silent steps.
I barely breathe, peering around
the doorway. Mr. Langley’s hand
is on Aunt Bee’s arm.
He pulls her close
and wraps his arms around her.
I’m so glad he made it, he says.
His voice is ancient and sad,
like it’s been around for
a thousand years, but it’s still
bright at the edges.
Aunt Bee buries her face
in his shoulder and doesn’t
say anything. They stay that way
for a long time, until Aunt Bee
pulls away and turns back to the stove.
She wipes the back of her hand
across her eyes, like she might be
getting rid of tears.
Mr. Langley pushes himself onto
the counter beside the stove,
like my daddy used to do.
He watches Aunt Bee turn on
the burners and break apart spaghetti
and drop it into the water. He lets her
stay in her quiet until she hands him
the sauce jar and he twists it open
in one try.
Then he says, When will you
talk to him?
Aunt Bee stirs the spaghetti pot
and says, As soon as he’ll understand,
and her voice breaks apart
in the middle of it.
It’s then I realize how scared
she is that Granddad will never
get better. That he will never
understand.
Mr. Langley slides off the counter
and puts his arms around Aunt Bee
again. I’m ready to marry you, he says,
real quiet. But me and Charlie
hear it easily, since we’ve listened
to talking softer than those words.
I’ve been ready a long time.
I know, Aunt Bee says.
She looks him stra
ight in the eye.
I am, too. But I have to make it right
with Daddy first.
Of course, Mr. Langley says.
There’s so much to say.
So much for him
to make right, too.
Aunt Bee nods, and she has that
look on her face like she can’t
talk anymore. After a minute, Mr. Langley
kisses her right on the mouth.
Charlie gasps. We have sense enough
to move back into the living room
and then race real quiet back
to her room.
COMPLICATED
I sit on Charlie’s bed.
Charlie stares out her window,
into the backyard where Milo
used to play. The sun
colors her hair orange,
and the blinds turn
her face zebra.
I told you, she says.
They love each other.
I’m still trying to process
what I’ve seen, but I know
enough to know she’s right.
Why can’t they just
marry each other, then? I say.
I reckon because she’s white
and he’s black, Charlie says.
People don’t like that sort of thing.
Charlie turns to me.
But that doesn’t mean
they won’t get married.
She’s smiling.
Golden hands reach through
Charlie’s window, and I can feel
their warmth from the top of my head
all the way to my toes.
MIXING
Aunt Bee says we’re not
going to the hospital today,
since Granddad is tired.
We go to school instead.
So I go see Mr. Langley.
We haven’t painted
the building since
Granddad’s heart attack, and I still
need to finish my field
before we start on the wall
we’re supposed to paint together.
Mr. Langley is standing
at the back of his room,
near the washing-up sink.
He looks up when I come in,
and his face folds into a smile.
Paulie, he says,
like I’m just the person
he wanted to see.
His words warm me
like Mama’s smile always did.
I came to see if
we could paint, I say.
Granddad’s too tired
for a visit today.
Mr. Langley dips the brushes in
one side of the sink and pours
a measuring cup of gray water
down the other.
Help me finish these, he says,
without saying whether we’ll
paint today. So I stand beside him,
handing him measuring cups and
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