One Amazing Elephant

by Linda Oatman High

  “Oh,” Grandma says, her voice soft and sad. “Well, thank you for letting us know. We will indeed miss her terribly. She was with my husband for years, and he just passed. That may be why she’s been acting out, from the grief. She was always very good, up until now. And believe me, I never wanted it to come to this. But finances are tight, plus we can’t have her circus act without my husband. And of course, the incident last night with the police.”

  I sit up, rub my eyes, and try to listen harder. Poor Queenie Grace.

  “Well, she has been stressed, very much so,” says my grandmother’s voice from the kitchen. “And I’m sure she’s quite exhausted today, after last night. It was quite a night.”

  “Queenie Grace isn’t feeling so well,” Grandma says when she hangs up. “That was the sanctuary.”

  My heart falls.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “She’s sick and she’s sad and she won’t eat,” Grandma replies. I feel dizzy, as if I might throw up. If anything happens to Queenie Grace, it’s mostly my fault. I should have known better than to run away with her and Henry Jack. I knew it wasn’t a good plan.

  “I hope they’re being nice to her there,” I say.

  “Oh, they’ll be very nice to her. Pamper her. She’ll have lots of room to run, plus other elephants live there.”

  “Can … can we see her? Visit?”

  “Of course, Lily, honey. She’s been part of our lives for a very long time. In fact, she’s family. The elephant is family, and family stays in one another’s lives, even when bad things happen. Even when they have to live separate lives, in separate places, they’re still family.”

  It’s the middle of the morning, and I assume that Trullia is skipping today at the trapeze school. She looks pretty rough: her hair all messed up and smudged makeup under her eyes. She’s wearing the same clothes from last night, and actually, so am I. Sometimes you’re just too tired to change.

  I’m sitting at the kitchen table, still trying to wake up, painting a picture of Queenie Grace in sorrowful shades of gray. My grandmother is on the sofa, posed beneath the painting I did of Grandpa. Trullia’s twisted up in the recliner, legs curled under her.

  “So a friend just texted me,” my mother says, peering at her phone. “He says that we have an offer from someone who wants to buy Queenie Grace.”

  “She’s in a good place,” Grandma says. “The matter is closed.”

  “But we could use the money,” Trullia continues. Grandma ignores her. I guess she’s had a lot of practice at that through the years.

  Trullia keeps right on talking to herself. “But now that she’s at the sanctuary, who owns her: us or them?”

  Nobody ever owns an elephant, I think. Just like nobody ever really owns a human being.

  Trullia just won’t give it up. She talks and talks, despite the fact that Grandma isn’t answering, all about how they can really use the cash.

  “I don’t care about the money!” Grandma yells. “I care about Queenie Grace! She provided for us for years, and it’s time she has a nice retirement.”

  “But that kind of money could pay for the funeral, Mom,” Trullia says.

  “They’ll get their money when they get it!” Grandma replies. “Let’s just stop talking about it, Trullia. Please. I am so exhausted. I’m tired and I’m sad and I’m filled with regret. I’m already missing Queenie Grace. I feel terrible for letting her go. So glad that Bill doesn’t know what is going on. He’d have a conniption fit.”

  “I never thought I’d say this,” Trullia says, “but it’s actually good that Dad’s not here. This would break his heart into a zillion pieces. And that’s something I’d never want to see.”

  Grandma sighs. She’s sniffling.

  I just keep on painting in shades of gray.

  Queenie Grace Is Sick

  I refuse to move from the trailer. I want to go home. I do not want to go into that place, even though I can smell and hear that other elephants are here.

  I will not eat. I will not drink. The men are frustrated. One of them calls Violet on his phone. I listen to him talk. I hear Violet’s voice. Oh, how I miss my home.

  I did nothing wrong.

  I Never Should Have Come

  It’s nine o’clock Saturday night and a TV news van—Channel 8—is parked next door. The reporter holds a microphone to Fire-Eating Charlie’s mouth.

  “I’m glad it’s gone,” he says. “That elephant could have killed somebody.”

  “No,” I whisper. “Queenie Grace wouldn’t hurt a flea.”

  Mary the Bearded Lady comes outside, and the microphone moves to her.

  “I liked that elephant,” she says. “And I’m sorry that she’s gone. You should interview little Lily over there… .”

  She points at me.

  “She’s related to the elephant,” Mary says. “Queenie Grace has been with Lily’s grandfather for a long time.”

  The reporter, a snazzy slick woman in a business suit and heels, bustles briskly across the yard. A guy hoisting a TV camera follows. The reporter comes up to me, shoves the microphone in my face.

  “What’s your name?” she asks. Her lipstick gleams bright red.

  “Lily,” I say. “Lily Rose Pruitt.”

  “How old are you?” the lady asks.

  “Twelve.” I blink. The lights are blinding me.

  “Do you live here?

  “No, I’m just visiting. I live in West Virginia. I came for my grandpa’s … funeral.”

  “And what do you think of the elephant?”

  “I love her,” I say.

  “Do you wish you could get her back?” asks the lady.

  I just nod. I can’t say much, because I’m swallowing tears. There’s no way I want to cry on TV.

  “Are you glad you came? Do you like it here, in Gibtown?”

  I just shrug.

  In a way, I’m glad I came. I learned to love an elephant, and I made a new best friend who’s really cool. I got to spend some time with my grandma, and I figured out that Trullia will never change. But in a bigger way, I’m all weighted down with guilt.

  I never should have come here. I never should have come. I should have just stayed home where I belong, and none of this ever would have happened.

  Queenie Grace Is Lost

  I try to hear Bill’s voice, to see his face inside my mind, but I can’t. It’s silent, empty.

  I cannot see the stars from where I stand, but I know that the sky is dark.

  Nothing Left

  I head inside to the kitchen table, where my painting of Queenie Grace is lying out to dry. I pick it up and rip, rip, rip until it is gone. There is nothing left, nothing but shreds, and I drop them in the trash.

  Trullia and Grandma are watching TV, loud, obviously trying to block out everything. Shame on them. They should be sorry and chock-full of remorse.

  Thunder rumbles; lightning flashes and snaps. I gaze through the kitchen window. Rain pours. The TV people leave in a flurry of activity, and finally, there’s just the silence of nighttime. A gloomy wet darkness without the shape of Queenie Grace in it.

  I feel as though I could throw up. I open the door to get some fresh air. The rain has slowed down; clusters of stars are out. One group looks like an elephant swinging its trunk.

  I run. I just take a step out to breathe in some new air and then, without a second thought, I launch into running full speed ahead. I run and run, tears gushing down my cheeks, through the empty and quiet trailer park, not caring what anybody thinks or says or does.

  I dart past the abandoned cotton candy stand, past the old carousel, past the still Ferris wheel. I run with the attitude of someone who has just given up, who doesn’t give a hoot about anything anymore. I don’t even care that I’m starting to wheeze.

  With every thud of my sneakers against road, I’m thinking the same thing, over and over and over: Queenie Grace, Queenie Grace, Queenie Grace, Queenie Grace.

  I run and run until I am so ti
red and out of breath that I feel dead. But then I decide that I need to go back to my grandmother’s.

  I double over, panting. My hair is soaked; so are my clothes. I shiver. I turn around and head back.

  Near my grandmother’s trailer, I hear the sounds of crying. Somebody weeps from deep inside.

  I stop for a minute, listen, take some slow and hesitant steps in the direction of the sobs. And then I see that somebody is hunched over in the middle of my grandmother’s yard, in the spot where Queenie Grace sometimes lay. It is Trullia Lee Pruitt, collapsed on her knees in the wet grass, head in her hands, crying like crazy.

  I walk up to her, reach out to touch her shoulder, pull my hand back before it makes contact.

  Trullia looks up at me, tears flooding her face. The dam inside Trullia Lee Pruitt seems to be broken, and the insides spill out in a flood of grief.

  “My dad’s gone,” she weeps. “My dad’s gone and so is Queenie Grace, and Mike is a jerk. Nothing ever goes right for me. I hate my life.”

  I look at my mother’s face, and it droops so sad and old and forlorn in the darkness, like a flower that’s lost its bloom.

  “Mike never cared about me,” she says. “All he cares about is money. Money and the stuff you can buy with it. I’m so glad that I told him to beat it. To get lost and never come back. How could I have been so dumb? I miss my dad. I miss him so much.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I know how it feels to lose somebody. And not just somebody who died. Somebody who’s still alive.”

  She looks up at me.

  “You’re too young to know that,” she says.

  “But I do.”

  She’s shaking like crazy, and she looks up at me with this wounded expression that makes my heart hurt for her, but even more for me. And that’s when I explode into mad.

  “You have no idea how it feels to be me,” I snap, looking her straight in the eyes. Finally speaking my mind, I say steady and strong, “I used to wish you were dead. I actually used to wish you died, because that might be better than knowing that you didn’t want me.”

  Trullia flinches.

  “I was only three! I didn’t even do anything wrong, and you left. Left, just like that! Who does that? What kind of a mother leaves her baby? If not for Dad, I’d go crazy from the wondering and the loneliness of not having my mother. Do you know how it feels to be the only kid at school who doesn’t have a mother?”

  Trullia clenches fistfuls of her hair in each hand, pulling it, the insides of her arms pressed against her ears like she’s having a tantrum. No, I think. You won’t drown me out. You need to hear me.

  “So what was it?” I demand, loud. “Was I too fussy for you? Too much work? Did I drive you crazy with my whining, or my crying, or my asthma?”

  She shakes her head.

  I stamp my foot in the soaked-through and beaten-down grass.

  “Plus that time I was so scared! That time I was riding my bike and you weren’t looking and I fell and wrecked! Remember? Queenie Grace lay down beside me. She almost squished me, crushed me to death! I actually thought I was going to die!”

  “Lily,” Trullia says, “Queenie Grace wasn’t trying to hurt you. She was trying to help you.”

  “YOU WERE THE ONE WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN HELPING ME!” I scream.

  “I know,” Trullia says. “I do know that.”

  “And I never could understand why you did the things you did. Like run away. Like leave me and Dad. Like you didn’t come visit. All that.”

  Trullia struggles to stand. She shakes her head.

  “Let’s go inside,” she says. “There’s no real excuse for what I did, but maybe I can try to explain.”

  One of the Best Nights of Queenie Grace’s Life

  I trail after the men. I follow their lead, and I see other elephants watching. Some peer from the trees; others from a big barn.

  There wafts a smell that I remember. An elephant never forgets, and I remember this scent. It is the smell of my baby! The smell of Little Gray!

  I stop; I sway.

  And then she thunders running, bursting from out of the barn, as fast as an elephant can run. Her feet thud; I feel the earth shake. My body quakes, and I take a shaky step.

  It is my baby! It is Little Gray! She is all grown up, taller than me, and she recognizes that I am her mother. She remembers. Little Gray never forgets, either!

  I trumpet, loud.

  Little Gray, my baby, my baby, my baby! Little Gray, Little Gray, Little Gray!

  Oh, how I’ve missed my beautiful child, my little one now grown so big.

  Little Gray runs to me. She lifts her trunk, I lift mine, and we hug with our two trunks. This is one of the best nights of my life.

  I am filled with light.

  Family Needs to Be Together on Nights Like This

  Trullia and I trudge inside. Grandma sips a cup of hot tea, blowing on it to cool it off. Her small bare feet are propped up in the recliner.

  “Look at the kitchen table, Lily,” Grandma says.

  I do, and there’s my painting of Queenie Grace, taped back together. It’s not a perfect tape job and doesn’t exactly match up just right, but Grandma Violet was able to dig all the pieces from the trash can.

  “You put it back together,” I say. “I can’t believe you found all the pieces.”

  “You can put anything back together, if you want it badly enough, and I want that painting,” Grandma says. “Never throw away your art. Your art is part of you.”

  I just shrug.

  “Come sit with me, Lily,” she says, and pats her lap. “Family needs to be together on these kind of nights.”

  Grandma releases the recliner and I perch on her tiny lap.

  “Is Queenie Grace doing okay?” I ask, and my grandmother circles me with her arms.

  “Nobody answered the phone,” she says. “I tried to find out, but nobody answered. I guess we will have to wait until morning.”

  I sigh. Night is too long, and morning seems like a lifetime away.

  “So,” Trullia says, sinking down into the other chair. “I have some things to say.” She takes out a cigarette, but then remembers and puts it away.

  My grandmother sips her tea, carefully, behind me.

  “So,” Trullia says, “I left, and I never should have done it like that. I should have maybe tried some counseling, or at least taken you with me, but I just up and left. If I could take it back I would, but it’s like a breath: here and gone. No getting it back again. I think that maybe I was depressed and I had lots of problems, and I didn’t even know what the heck I was thinking or feeling. And that’s why I just kind of left you alone with your dad, because I knew he could take care of you. I knew he would take care of you.”

  She blows out a breath like she’s smoking. Grandma jiggles her knees beneath me, as if she’s trying to soothe a fussy baby. Or maybe she’s just nervous.

  “And so I know I was wrong. Your father did nothing wrong. It was just that I was young and dumb and didn’t know what I wanted. I wasn’t ready to be a mother, and I wouldn’t have been a good one, Lily. It was for the best that I left.”

  My grandmother nods.

  “She was a mess when she came to us, honey. Needed medication and needed a place to rest. We never judged her, or blamed her. Nobody really knew what exactly was wrong, or how to fix it. We just tried to help her get better, but we never, ever said that she’d made a good choice. We just loved her, and that’s all we could do. We all do our best with what we have at the time.”

  I nod, look down at my legs.

  “Queenie Grace helped her a lot,” says my grandmother. “It was as if Queenie Grace knew that Trullia had some problems, and she just loved her, too. Accepted her without reservations or judgment. Why, Queenie Grace might have even saved our daughter’s life.”

  “She did,” Trullia says. “And I didn’t always show it, but I loved her, too. I always loved her. I still love her.”

  “So it was just �
�� you?” I ask Trullia. “Just that you weren’t … right?”

  Trullia nods, sad and slow.

  “I wasn’t well,” she says. “I wouldn’t have been able to take good care of you, not at that time.”

  Grandma puts her tea down on the end table.

  “Are you okay now?” I ask Trullia. “Did you get … better?”

  She ekes out a small, tight smile.

  “Lily,” she says, “I am so much better, especially now that you’re here. I know that I seem mean sometimes, that I seem to not care. But it’s probably my illness making me that way, not that I’m trying to make excuses. Really, I do care. I just don’t know how to show it, so sometimes it might seem like I’m being a jerk. And every day—every single minute of every single day—is still a struggle for me.”

  “Trullia,” says Grandma behind me, “I think that you’re making excuses. It was just that you weren’t ready to be a mother, and you would not have been a good one. You were very immature.”

  “You’re right, Mom,” Trullia admits. “And, Lily, I’m sorry. I am so … very sorry.”

  She looks at me, and her eyes’ light is blue and so clear, and I know that she’s being honest and true. I know just what to do.

  And then I make the first move: I stand up and go to Trullia and I draw her into a big strong hug that feels a lot like forgiveness. She hugs me back, shaking. I wrap her in my arms as if I’m the grown-up. It makes me feel strong. This feels like hope and faith, faith that things really will be okay.

  “It’ll be all right,” I say. “Trullia, it’ll be okay. I promise.”

  I still can’t quite bring myself to call her “Mom.” I just can’t. But this, tonight, it’s a start.

  We Will Never Let Go Again

  Oh, how much I’ve missed being a mother. I love nuzzling with Little Gray. The men here laugh; they take pictures; they rave about miracles and magic.

  Finally, the men leave and it is nobody but us: Little Gray and Queenie Grace. I can see the love on her face, and her eyes won’t leave mine. They shine.

  We will never let go again.

  No More Bad News

  The phone rings, jolting all three of us. I’m hoping for no bad news, no more bad news, please, no bad news tonight.