The Secret Hum of a Daisy

by Tracy Holczer

  9

  A Postcard

  from Heaven

  As soon as I got back from school, I made a dash for the shed and started collecting tools. A thin metal nail file from Mama’s makeup kit and her eyebrow tweezers. I also went through Grandpa’s doodads at the back of the shed, but none of the screwdrivers or wood files looked thin enough. I grabbed them anyway in case I had to pry the bird open a tiny bit. Then I dumped a bunch of nuts and bolts out of a jar with the word KERR on it.

  I sat on the flower-garden sofa and used the nail file to carefully poke inside the bird. It took a while, but I finally got a corner of thick paper out. Then I used the tweezers to pull the rest free.

  It was an old postcard folded into a square. I wiped sweaty palms on my jeans and then unfolded it.

  The postcard showed a section of storefronts on Main Street. Threads was the store in the center of the photo. I thought about the woman in the muumuu and cowboy hat from Mama’s funeral, who’d introduced herself as Margery. She’d told me to come talk to her, but I’d forgotten all about it. I turned the postcard over, and written in blue ink was the phrase A Secret Meadow. Something about the idea of a secret meadow seemed familiar, but I had no idea why.

  I unscrewed the lid of the Kerr jar and put the postcard inside. I took the origami out of my pocket and set it beside the postcard, staring at them both through the glass. It might have been my imagination, but I could almost swear they had a kind of glow.

  I put everything away and wrote a letter to Lacey, filling her in about the unfinished bird from Mama’s toolbox and the origami I’d found as a signpost. I told her about the postcard and Margery’s store in town, how Mama must have set a new treasure hunt for me to follow, her way of leading me home, just the way she always did. And home was Mrs. Greene’s house.

  I knew it sounded crazy, but Lacey would believe me. That’s what best friends did.

  • • •

  I decided to wait until after my phone call with Lacey on Saturday to go to Threads. Hopefully, she’d get my letter by then and have good advice. Plus I needed a day when I had enough time to ride my bike into town, figure out the next clue, and get back, all without Grandma knowing.

  In the meantime, my mission to do more Plan B sabotage was stopped in its tracks by Grandma’s insomnia. After a couple nights of sneaking out later and later, I was starting to wonder if Grandma went to sleep at all, or if she was having trouble, like me.

  I’d thought about calling off Plan B now that there was a treasure hunt to follow, but it was satisfying in this deep-down way to try and drive Grandma crazy.

  I decided to set my watch alarm just in case I fell asleep, which was a good thing because I slept for almost an hour. When I woke to the beeping, my hair was sweaty and my throat hurt. There’d been a dog in my Mama dream this time, a big German shepherd, the tip of his leash dangling in the water. When he barked, the white mist of his breath had grown and grown until I couldn’t see Mama out on the rock anymore. Every time I tried to wade into the water after her, the dog blocked my way, baring his teeth.

  I shivered in the sleeping bag, feeling the chill of the river, and wondered if my dreams were bringing me one piece of Mama’s death at a time, so that eventually I’d be able to see the whole thing without wanting to throw up. I turned on my flashlight. It was three o’clock in the morning. Grandma had to be sleeping by now.

  I stoked the embers in the stove and added wood so it would be warmer when I got back. Then I shoved on my boots and walked out into the moonless night, dragging my feet through the mud, the light from Grandma’s porch leading the way. The rest of the downstairs lights were off.

  I didn’t take off my muddy boots as I went inside and tracked the mud from one light to the next, unscrewing bulbs so she might think they were out, and poured her liquid laundry detergent down the sink, replacing it with dishwashing soap. I’d washed laundry with dishwashing soap once and we’d almost drowned in bubbles.

  By the time I was done, the floor was a mess of mud and another mess was about to happen the next time she did laundry, which I figured was enough for one night.

  As I tiptoed through the hall back toward the front room, I heard Grandma’s door open upstairs and then the wood floors creaked on the landing.

  After turning around in a full circle, I decided to hide in Grandpa’s office. I softly closed the door as I heard Grandma coming down the stairs. There was a desk made of burled wood with a small glass lamp on top and a perfect hiding space underneath. I tucked myself in and waited.

  A sliver of light came under the door, and I heard water running in the kitchen, the only bulb I didn’t unscrew because the chair wasn’t high enough to reach the light fixture.

  Great. Knowing Grandma, she probably saw the mud and was about to mop for the next six hours. Then I’d be stuck.

  Just as I was planning my escape out the window, there was a soft knock on the door.

  “Come on out,” she said.

  Surprised, I uncurled myself from under the desk and stood up, brushing at the snarls in my hair. I opened the door and stood with my hand on my hip and my chin held high like it was perfectly normal to be hiding in Grandpa’s office at three o’clock in the morning. “Are you spying on me?”

  She looked down at the mud, which led right to the door. “You left a map.”

  “I forgot to take off my boots.”

  “It happens. I’ll leave the mop and bucket out for you to clean up tomorrow.”

  Drat.

  “Can’t sleep?” Grandma said as she walked into the kitchen.

  I leaned against the doorway as the teakettle started to wail. She poured the steaming water into a mug. A box of Earl Grey sat beside a plastic bear of honey. She looked comfortable in a fluffy blue robe and plaid flannel pajama bottoms, her long gray-blond hair in a braid.

  “Mama drank Earl Grey,” I said without meaning to.

  Grandma nodded and looked toward the mudroom. My muddy tracks were all over the place. “What were you doing out there?”

  “Um. I was missing a sock. I checked in the dryer.”

  “In the middle of the night?”

  “I was bored.”

  She nodded like that was perfectly understandable. “I’ve been thinking about the toolbox,” Grandma said. “Specifically, the bird you found in there.”

  I stood up straight, worried. “You can’t have it back.”

  “Of course not. No. I was thinking you could work on it. Finish it for her.”

  “Are you crazy? It’s Mama’s.”

  “I thought we’d both like to have it. Something she made.”

  “There’s no way I could make it look the way she would have. I’d rather keep it the way it is.”

  There was a long silence as Grandma put the box of tea bags and honey away in the pantry. “Neither one of us was counting on this, Grace. But don’t you think we owe it to your mama, to each other, to try?”

  “You owe Mama things you can’t give me.”

  “I know I do,” she said quietly.

  Which took me by surprise.

  She leaned against the counter and brought the mug to her lips, blowing at the steam, just the way Mama had. Sometimes, when the light was dim and Grandma turned her head just the right way, I’d get a glimpse of Mama and the sting was something awful.

  “Mrs. Greene told me you’re a writer,” Grandma said. “I’d like to read your work sometime. If it’s not too private.”

  “Well, it is,” I said.

  “Okay.” She looked at me evenly.

  I squirmed under her gaze. “I don’t understand why you won’t let me live with Mrs. Greene. It’s not like you want me here.”

  “If I didn’t want you here, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “You’re my only next of kin. That’s what Mrs. Greene said. So you don’t
have a choice.”

  “Everyone has a choice.”

  I was so mixed up. The person I’d made up Grandma to be, someone hard and cruel, just didn’t match this woman who stood across from me. She had summer-blue eyes, like mine and Mama’s, and the wrinkles at the outside of those eyes squinched up, like she’d done a lot of laughing in her life. She was graceful in the way she moved between the plants in her yard, caring for each one and giving them what they needed to be healthy and strong. She liked books and I’d seen some of the titles on her shelves: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Secret Life of Bees, The Bean Trees. They didn’t look like the kinds of books a mean person might read. I’d even snuck in her room when I’d first gotten here, the only place she kept color, and found a knitted afghan done in purples at the bottom of her bed, a quilt made from floral fabrics, and more books on her nightstand. There was an overstuffed, comfy chair made from bright green fabric, the color of grass, and watercolor paintings on her walls. Trees in winter. An old barn that looked like the one out in the pasture. A golden retriever lying at the base of a chair, a man’s boots nearby. I didn’t understand why Grandma had to keep the fanciful part of herself, if there really was one, behind a closed door.

  “So you’re saying you want me here?”

  “Of course I do. You’re my granddaughter.”

  But I didn’t know how to believe her, how to undo the last twelve years.

  Grandma said, “How about you stay in the house tonight. It’s almost morning. We can get an early start on pancakes before school.”

  This wasn’t turning out the way it was supposed to. She was supposed to be mad, mad enough to start thinking about sending me back to Mrs. Greene. Instead she was offering to make pancakes. I didn’t answer. Instead, I turned around and ran back to the shed.

  • • •

  After school on Thursday, there was a letter from Lacey stuck into the shed door. My first letter! I rushed through my duties in the shed, stoking the fire and checking the rain bucket. Then I wrapped in Mama’s quilt on the sofa and tore it open.

  Dear Grace,

  You would not believe what Marsha Trett has done now. She actually asked Denny to the Spring Formal. Can you believe the nerve of her? Was she raised in a barn? Does she not have a decent mother telling her that it’s the boy’s place to ask the girl to the dance?

  I’m sorry to have to tell you that Denny said yes. I thought you should know because I’m never going to talk about him again and now you’ll know why. Plus, anyone who would go anywhere with Marsha Trett isn’t worth a second thought. Right?

  I’m wearing the green sweater you picked out for me. Did I ever tell you that every time I wear it, people tell me it really makes my eyes pop? Then all I can think about are random cartoons where the character’s eyes literally pop out of their skulls. So then I giggle. I’ve always giggled when this happens, but now Marsha has started calling me stuck-up because I can’t take a compliment. As if THAT isn’t the pot calling the kettle a midget, or whatever that saying is.

  I thought of something else for Plan B. I read that if you blow out the pilot light on the water heater (just in case you were wondering why I included a picture of a water heater. It should be in the garage or near the kitchen somewhere) you have to get some special person to come out and turn it on again. Good luck!

  Any idea if your grandma will be getting a computer? E-mailing would be so much easier and I could totally write to you fifty times a day! I miss you so much and can’t wait to talk to you. Ten o’clock on Saturday morning. Not a minute later!!

  Love,

  Lacey

  I tucked the letter into the Kerr jar next to the Threads postcard and origami, itching to write things down in my notebook. I’d learned early that writing worked like that little hole in the teakettle where steam came pouring out. I could pour all my steam onto the page, along with my crazy notions about the world. But every time I looked at that blank page in my notebook, I just couldn’t get myself to write in the After.

  I wrapped tighter into Mama’s quilt, looking through the jar at Lacey’s letter, reminding me of everything I’d lost from Before, and at the Threads postcard that I hoped might be a way to get me back. Mama was out there somewhere, trying to help, and the possibilities of what might happen flew around my head, pecking like birds.

  I tried reading Frost poems so I could relax. Sometimes I could conjure my father with Mr. Frost’s words. It didn’t happen all the time. But once in a great while, when I wasn’t even trying, I could see him there plain as day, moving around doing some dull task like sweeping the floor or hammering a nail. I tried to conjure him since I didn’t know how to do that with Mama yet.

  I chose “Reluctance,” since that was Daddy’s favorite and the poem where Mama found my name.

  Ah, when to the heart of man

  Was it ever less than a treason

  To go with the drift of things,

  To yield with a grace to reason,

  And bow and accept the end

  Of a love or a season?

  But no one came.

  I refused to give up, though, and eventually, I didn’t see Daddy, but I could almost hear Mama’s husky voice speaking the words alongside me, making a harmony. If I worked hard enough at following the clues, maybe I could bring all of her back and God would admit a mistake.

  As long as I didn’t write the After, anything was possible.

  10

  Worldly

  Perspective

  The reality of these last few weeks, of Mama being gone, down deep in the earth at Fox Hill Cemetery, was still there, but there had to be more than the deep dark earth after you died. Not that I’d given it much thought. Mama and I weren’t ones for church, although we had snuck into a few when they’d come across our path. Like when we drove all the way to Tiburon from Turlock on one of our Getaway Days—days where she just had to be somewhere else, so I’d skip school and off we’d go—and found this tiny white-steepled church sitting on a hillside of straw-colored grass. I swore I’d go back and get married in that church one day, and we must have sat there for a good hour, me lying on the pew with my head in Mama’s lap, soaking up the stained glass light.

  I didn’t know how these things worked and it was making me nervous. What if God was looking the other way or something while she sent me signs? Mama was known to be sneaky from time to time, like when she’d crave fresh-baked cookies. If we didn’t have the ingredients, or the money for a store run, she’d let herself into whatever diner she worked in, in the wee hours of the night, and bake. Twirling a spatula and listening to the cook’s radio turned down low, she’d sing along with the music, humming when she didn’t know the words, while I ate chocolate chips and pretended it was our kitchen in a big farmhouse out in the country. With horses.

  I hated to think Mama was being sneaky, that if she got caught up there in heaven by the angel police, or whoever was in charge of such things, it might all end. Because it couldn’t end. Not until I figured out what she was trying to tell me. I couldn’t wait to talk to Lacey tomorrow morning so she could help me sort things out.

  • • •

  On the way to school, Grandma asked me what my favorite subjects were after my first week. She was wearing her gardening uniform again: dirty knee pads and overalls, the same blue bandana holding back her wavy hair.

  “I guess they would be art and English.”

  “Art was one of your mama’s favorite subjects,” Grandma said, and I wondered if she’d ever stop telling me things as though I didn’t know my own mama.

  “You should do the laundry today. Looks like you’ve been wearing the same clothes all week,” I said, thinking about the soap-bubble mess that was waiting for her and trying not to crack up.

  “I already did the laundry.”

  “You did?” I said, confused, since I’d switched the soaps two days ag
o.

  “I did.”

  I couldn’t read Grandma’s face. Was she trying not to laugh?

  “Well,” I said. “How did it go?”

  “It went the way laundry always goes. Everything got clean.”

  I didn’t know what to make of that as I got out of the truck and ran up the front sidewalk to school, my backpack bumping against my side.

  I’d managed to keep my distance from Jo and the other girls for most of this first week, although I saw them huddle from time to time and look in my direction, like they might be hatching a plan. My plan, however, was to walk wide circles around everyone like they had something catching, chicken pox, maybe, or a really bad case of bedbugs. This way I could stay focused on Mama’s treasure-hunt clues.

  Mrs. Snickels wanted our self-portrait sketches finished, so when I got into third period a little early, I took out my portrait right away and went to work. I was coming to love art, as much as I could love anything anymore. The smell of paint and the mess of Mrs. Snickels’s desk were comforting, and I could feel Mama in the quiet way everyone worked. It was almost like being with her. Almost.

  Just as the final bell rang, Jo slammed into the room, blowing away my peaceful thoughts, with Beth and Ginger following close behind. Ginger was all in black today, making me think even more about mimes. Jo dropped her backpack on the floor beside her stool, and Beth and Ginger sat at their own table, murmuring to each other. Beth’s T-shirt read, A TIDY ROOM IS A HAPPY ROOM.

  After much whispering, Beth came over and put a pink-fingernailed hand on Jo’s shoulder. Beth’s hair was neatly French braided, and I wondered if her mother had done it for her. “Listen, Jo, things will definitely be okay in the end, and if it isn’t okay, it isn’t the end.”

  “Whatever, Beth.”

  “Don’t ‘whatever’ me. I’m just trying to be helpful.”

  “Don’t you ever think that maybe I don’t want your help? Maybe I just want to, I don’t know, figure it out myself. In fact, why don’t you make me a label that says LEAVE ME ALONE and I’ll stick it to my forehead.”