by Cathy Lamb
Gloria started swearing at her kids. She raised her hand to hit one of the younger ones, and Rhett caught her arm. She turned red as she swung her other arm through the air and cuffed Rhett as Coraline pushed the whimpering, frightened younger kids to the bedrooms.
Gloria saw all the kids running and she thundered after them, swearing and yelling, her body rolling from side to side. Rhett darted after her, tried to stop her, tried to distract her.
In the corner of the room, I saw a baby. Motionless. I hadn’t seen him before. I didn’t even know there was a baby. He was the loneliest baby I had ever seen. It was like he already knew that crying made things worse.
When Gloria came hobbling back in, dragging the fourth kid by the hair, still swearing, then tried to stuff rotten bread in his mouth for “complaining about being hungry, you ungrateful brat,” I had a premonition: Gloria was going to die.
She was going to die wearing the same pink-flowered muumuu she had on that day. She might die later that day. It was going to be at night. She was driving her car, the car was swerving, as she drank straight out of a bottle. She was going to crash into a tree on a quiet, dark street out in the country. I saw her suffering. I saw her legs trapped. I saw her crying. I saw her bleeding. I saw the blood running down her face. I saw her yelling for help, trying to twist her bulk. I saw night turning into day, and she was still alive, but barely. Then I saw her close her eyes, giving up, her face scrunched in a mask of pain, sober at last, and take her last breath.
I did nothing to interfere in that premonition. A few nights later Gloria crashed her car wearing the pink-flowered muumuu and died.
There was no funeral. Coraline’s dad, Buxton, had his wife cremated the next day. Buxton took a week off from work. He was a brainiac engineer doing something in the Defense Department and had been beaten up repeatedly by his wife.
Two days after her death, he had the kids take all of their mother’s clothes out of her closets and dressers and bag them up for Goodwill. He had the kids go through all their things that didn’t fit anymore, too, toys that no one wanted, furniture of no use, and they donated everything. They went through the house and bagged up all of the odd, useless things their mother collected and tossed the junk in a huge Dumpster he had brought in.
When the neighbors saw what was going on, we all went over to help. We joined members of Buxton’s family he hadn’t seen in years because Gloria wouldn’t allow visitors. The Big Clean Out was “in lieu” of a funeral. There were about thirty people there.
Everyone went through the yard and tossed out old and broken furniture, piles of scrap wood, broken lawn mowers, a tumble-down shed, and other junk that Gloria hoarded. Buxton opened the garage, and they started tossing things out from there, too, including two useless cars that were hauled away and two decrepit trailers on the side of the house. Three giant bins were towed in and out over three days.
By the time we were all done, the house had been mostly cleared.
Buxton ordered pizza for all of us, and the kids’ mouths dropped open. “Really?”
“Really.” Buxton smiled, and you could tell the man hadn’t had a lot of smiles in his life for a long time.
We had a neighborhood pizza party right there.
The improvements continued. The refrigerator and pantry lost the locks that their mother had fastened on them, and the shelves were filled with food. The kids bought clothes that fit. Buxton had the filthy carpets ripped out and replaced with wood floors. The windows were washed. The dishwasher hadn’t worked for a year, so he had a new one installed. The new oven worked well, too. He had the house scraped and painted yellow, at my mother’s suggestion, and a weekly housekeeper was hired.
All the kids, including the baby, started to smile and laugh, and they played outside now, with Buxton and with the other neighborhood kids.
What was wrong with Gloria? She was an alcoholic. She was a hoarder. Was there an underlying mental health or personality disorder there? Probably. But that doesn’t make her easier to live with, and she made everyone around her miserable, scared, starving, and mentally ill themselves. That was what led me to do nothing. I had let Gloria die. I did not warn her. I did not warn her husband.
It has always stuck with me, but I don’t regret it at all.
But that’s the disaster of premonitions: You actually have to think, and analyze, to determine when, and how, you’re going to help someone . . . or not.
Try figuring that one out when you’re a kid. No wonder I’m screwed up.
Chapter 16
“What did Serafina have to give King Koradome in order to get out of the cage and help her brothers get out, too?”
“Serafina would have to give up her colorful mermaid tail to King Koradome, scale by scale.”
“Oh no!”
“Yes. King Koradome wanted to punish Serafina for having something so beautiful. He had always wanted her shiny, luminescent scales, so he cast a spell on her. She had to agree to the spell in order to get her brothers out of the cage.
“Every single time Serafina did something kind for someone else, a scale would fall off, swim through the sea, around the coral reefs and the sunken ships and the mountain ridges, and King Koradome would catch it in his greedy hand. He wanted to collect the scales one by one. He also wanted her family and her friends to watch her losing her special tail, then they would remember who was the most powerful merman of all.”
“He’s mean.”
“Yes, and he knew that Serafina would not be able to stop doing nice things for people, helping them, no matter what it cost her.”
“Was he right? Did Serafina stop helping people so she could keep her tail?”
Chapter 17
Chief Allroy was hiking and fell. He broke both legs. No one could find him at first. We all went out searching for him. Finally, right before the sun hid beneath the horizon, twenty-five-year-old Devonna Shepherd, who everyone says has the sight of an eagle, spotted him. He was way down a ravine, hardly moving. He did, however, raise a hand in hello, then passed back out.
He was helicoptered to Seattle. He was in bad shape but would make a full recovery eventually.
“Such a shame,” my mother said that night at my house, where we were eating chocolate croissants that I’d bought from the bakery that makes all my delicious bookstore cakes.
“We’ll have to bring him—”
“Shhh!” Aunt Camellia said, trying to be discreet as she nodded her head vigorously in my direction.
I rolled my eyes and put my purple rose teacup back down on my butcher block table. Sundance barked at Aunt Camellia as if he were in on the joke. Butch and Cassidy laid on my mother’s and Aunt Iris’s feet. Those dogs shifted their loyalties with my mother and aunts around. It was a tad annoying.
“What?” my mother said. “The pot will help with the pain.”
“Those dang drug companies made those painkillers a whisper away from heroin,” Aunt Iris said, so angry. She ran a hand through her short white hair. “A whisper! A millimeter! A feather! Profits before people. That’s why all those good people got addicted. You want the chief to get addicted to something a hop and a scotch away from heroin? Neither do I. Pot is the practical answer.”
“We can put it in his cookies,” Aunt Camellia said, “and add a blessing.” She spread her palms up and out, as if catching blessings.
“I can’t even believe I’m hearing this,” I said. Mars jumped on my lap. Venus jumped on a stack of books in the family room that were propped against my pink rose wallpaper wall. I knew he was going to knock them over. Yep. They tumbled down, and he hissed. “You’re talking about making the police chief stoned.”
My mother and aunts studied me curiously, then Aunt Iris said, looking straight at me, as if I weren’t even there, “She’s a little too Goody Two-shoes, isn’t she?”
“I think she needs naked yoga,” Aunt Camellia said. “Communing with grace from above will help her soul to relax, the stars a balm against her
almost sanctimonious angst.”
“It was her father,” my mother said. “He always followed all the rules.”
“I’m sitting right here, Mom, Aunts,” I said. “Eating croissants with no pot in them.”
“She does get snippy,” Aunt Iris said.
I rolled my eyes. “What are you doing with the money, anyhow? You don’t need it.”
“We do need it!” my mother exclaimed.
“Why?”
“Antarctica!” the three of them said together. Then they laughed.
“What do you mean, Antarctica?” Sundance put his head in my lap. It didn’t bother Mars. They’re friends.
“We’re going to Antarctica for a visit,” my mother said. “And we’re going to make special Antarctica hats. Warm ones!”
“I can’t wait to see polar bears,” Aunt Camellia said. “If I die and come back as an animal, I want to be a polar bear. Majestic, strong, wise. Also, they have sharp teeth, a warm white coat, and a strong bite.”
A strong bite? Aunt Camellia wanted a strong bite? Did she have cannibalistic tendencies?
“I want to study the weather,” Aunt Iris said. “The temperature during the day versus the night and how it shifts through the seasons. I’m interested in the ocean currents, the animals who live and survive in Antarctica, and what’s underneath the layers of ice in terms of billions of years of history on that continent. I want to know who came first to explore Antarctica. Did they freeze to death and die? Who came next? I want to know about the effects of global warming. They better have presentations and videos to watch so I can learn something onboard.”
. . . and there was the smart one whose mind freely, but sensibly, roams the planet.
“I want to be on a boat and make new friends and drink wine,” my mother said. “We can share our love of flowers and hats with everyone. If it’s a small group, hats for all! We’ll add tiny penguins and polar bears and octopus!”
Hats and flowers and wine, that’s my mom.
“So,” my mother said, turning to her sisters, “back to the pot cookies for the chief. I’ll create a scrumptious recipe, and we’ll see how they taste.”
Hats, flowers, wine, and pot. Unbelievable. “I can’t believe this.” This conversation was making me eat another chocolate croissant. Butch put his nose up to Mars’s nose. Mars meowed. “You three are going to end up in orange jumpsuits.”
“Then we’ll make orange hats!” my mother announced.
“We’ll wear orange panties!” Aunt Camellia said. “We’ll embroider ‘Jail Birdies’ on the butts.”
“We’ll use the time in jail to study history,” Aunt Iris said. “Look back. All the answers you need in life can be found in history.”
They are in their seventies.
They are breaking the law.
They are going to make pot cookies for the chief of police.
Sundance barked. He thought this was funny, I could tell. Butch and Cassidy licked the aunts’ hands.
Those dogs were irritating sometimes.
* * *
I picked up the stack of books that Venus knocked over, then studied my books.
Literary friends, all of them. I even had a library card catalog!
But it was getting a tad out of control.... I probably was a book hoarder.
* * *
“I have the food worked out for the wedding. I talked to Mom and Aunt Camellia and Aunt Iris about it last night,” Jules said. With one hand I held my cell phone and with the other I pet Alpaca Joe and Virginia Alpaca. Alpaca Joe spit. “Don’t do that, Alpaca Joe.” He spit again.
The sky was cloudless, blue as blue can be, the ocean lapping at the edge of our property. Behind me were rows of bearded irises. The huge type. The type that look like they are the queens of all the flowers of the world. Sundance stood right by me, Lizard in his mouth, Butch and Cassidy barking as they ran around the property. Ghost was walking along the goats’ fence. I don’t know why. She likes to do that sometimes.
“What are we eating?” I asked.
“All American food: Barbeque!”
Barbeque. Yum. “I love barbeque.”
“I can’t stand any of those fluffy, silly, fancy meals that people serve at weddings. Everyone’s starving after the ceremony. So we’re having ribs! Corn on the cob. Potatoes with sour cream. French bread. Plus, hamburgers, too. So you can have ribs and burgers.”
“Sounds delicious.” Casual food for a casual, loving ceremony. Everyone would love it.
“And . . . we’re getting kegs,” Jules said. “Everyone likes beer so we’re rollin’ ’em in!”
“And wedding cake.”
She laughed. “Oh, wait until you see the wedding cake! Plus, we’re having pies. You can’t have barbeque without apple pies. I know you love pie, Evie.”
“I can’t believe the date is sneaking up on us like this,” I said.
“I know!” Jules said. Then she burst into tears. “I’m so happy to be marrying Mack. He is so thoughtful in bed. Last night he brought me a pink box and inside was a pink nightie with a motorcycle on the front. He also bought me black garters and black heels. He knows I love garters! He’s a huggy, sexy bear.”
“And he’s smart.” I was hoping we could talk about how Mack was out of bed. How was he out of bed, dear sister?
“Oh, I know! Mack is so smart at sex.”
Nope. We couldn’t.
“He knows when having sex twice in one night is all I can do. Hey! We’re thinking of getting tattoos of handcuffs on each shoulder, to say that we’re handcuffed to each other in marriage. Well”—she giggled—“in bed, too. One time I lost the key. Did I tell you that? I couldn’t find the key to the handcuffs! But he’s so strong. After an hour of searching he broke the bedpost. Then we had to buy a new bed!” She laughed again, then she burst into tears. “I can’t wait to marry Mack and become Mrs. Jules!”
I teared up, too. I can’t help it. Jules cries, I cry.
“You’re making me cry harder, Evie!”
I sniffled. I blinked hard. The tears ran.
“I’m so glad you’re my love-sister!”
“Me too! Me too!” I blew my nose, and we burst into another round of wet silliness.
* * *
I was watching a whale in the distance from our cozy beach at sunset when the car crash premonition came to me again. I grew cold, like a corpse, then sweaty. It was the same as always, mountain to my right, cliff to my left. Narrow road. Twists and turns. Orange poppies. The sun in my eyes.
The red car came from around the curve, straight at me, and at the last minute I turned the wheel to the left so she would hit my passenger side. I didn’t understand why I did that. Why did I turn my truck into her car? She slammed into my side, and the steering wheel was wrenched out of my hands. We seesawed on the cliff for a millisecond, as if to give us a last peek at life, and then we both went over the edge and down the cliff.
My head was filled with noise. Metal on metal. Glass breaking. An engine smashing against rock. The roof of my truck folding in. The truck rolled and rolled before I was hit with a blast of pain and then . . . darkness.
Someone died. That time it was probably me. Maybe. I wasn’t sure.
There was something in the premonition I didn’t understand. Something mysterious. Something I couldn’t grasp. Why did I turn my wheel left, smack in front of an oncoming car? Who was the other person? What was hanging over that premonition, and why the fogginess, the lack of clarity? Why did the premonition change? That never happened with other premonitions.
* * *
“Evie,” Olec Lavender said to me in the science fiction section of my bookstore. “If you please, I need to know what you see in my future.”
“I see you buying a lot of books here.” Olec is about thirty-five. He has some recognizable OCD, but it doesn’t get in the way of his inventing stuff that he patents and sells for a fortune. Only way I knew that he had a boatload of money was because he was on the cov
er of a national newspaper a few years ago. They called him Super Genius. I call him Slightly Nerdy, Somewhat Eccentric Olec. He lives in a tiny, old log cabin with only a fireplace for heat but has tons of land and six dogs.
“I buy two a week, as you know, Evie.” He twitched, then adjusted his glasses. “Monday mornings you and I meet to share information and thoughts on literature, the classics, contemporary nonfiction and fiction, and any new science or history-based books. Reading time is from seven until nine o’clock at night. Nine o’clock until ten o’clock is for online Calculus Club. Then a fruit snack before sleeping.”
“Right. It’s a solid reading schedule.” And there was that tiny OCD. Who was I to judge? I had some of that myself. Plus, general anxiety and a battle with depression and fear.
“And what is in my future, based on your findings?”
“I can’t see into the future.” I moved over to the gardening section, which lines the yellow rose wallpaper wall, and he followed. We have a ton of gardeners on San Orcanita, and tourists love picking up gardening books featuring their lush gardens. My mother and aunts’ garden is featured in several books. When they are included, of course they are wearing their gasp-inducing flowered hats.
“I believe that is incorrect information, Evie, and I am experiencing some befuddlement as to why you are downplaying your phenomenal gift. It is my understanding that you have premonitions.” His face scrunched in some confusion.
“You’re an engineer. You also have a doctorate in physics. Why would you believe that I could see the future?”
“I have a master’s in chemistry and biology, too, but that is neither here nor there. I say that only because I want to present an accurate academic résumé.” He twitched again. “But I have deliberately left room in my mind for the possibility of things unexplained. You are in my brain as a thing unexplained.”
“I am not a thing.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” His forehead puckered above his thick glasses and he appeared worried. “I apologize. I misspoke. We have had a misunderstanding. May I continue, or has my offense brought on an insurmountable barrier and therefore it is impossible for us to continue our conversation?”