“Well, he can think again. We’re not going nowhere.”
One night I heard Gloria crying in the bathroom. She was sniffing and hiccuping. I pushed open the door. It creaked. “Gloria?” I whispered.
She was squirting toothpaste on her brush. A blue blob went in the sink. “Get out, Maisy. Just get out.”
“Don’t worry. It’s going to be okay.” That was what Mrs. Spooner always said.
“Okay? Okay? How did I grow something so dumb?” She brushed at her teeth. I could hear it scritching. She still talked. “How’s it going to be okay? Telly’s gone. I faced it. I have. There’s no way to turn it around. Ever since he left, I done all I could. But I lost, you know that? I lost the fight. Every single ounce of goodness in my life is gone.” She kept brushing hard. The white foamy bubbles turned bright pink and rolled down her chin. “And now there’s no way out.”
I got a hard pain in my middle. I went to my room and climbed in my closet. Dirty clothes were on the floor. I forgot to put them in the basket. Jenny the Head was there, too. She was hiding in the corner. I hugged her. Her hair smelled old like rainwater in the ditch. I curled up and closed my eyes. I thought about Rowan catching Jenny as she swam by. He washed her hair. He sewed her up a body and stuffed it with oatmeal. That was a nice day.
* * *
—
The next afternoon we walked to the library. Gloria told me to stay in a chair and not budge an inch. Then she went upstairs. She walked all around the shelves and she sat at a desk with a pile of heavy books. She opened one up and scritched her head.
Sun was coming in the big windows. The library was always bright and warm. I swung my feet back and forth. Mrs. Spooner was behind her desk. She stamped little cards. When she saw me she stood up and came over.
“I’ve missed having you here,” she said.
I nodded.
“Feeling better?”
I chewed on my fingernail.
“I just noticed your mom. Up in the reference section. Doing some serious research?”
I nodded. I hoped Mrs. Spooner didn’t get too close. Gloria said my chicken pox could pop out any minute.
“She doesn’t seem quite herself, Maisy. I hope everything’s okay?”
I pushed my hand under my leg. I nipped as hard as I could to stop me crying. My chin was shaking bad.
“Don’t worry,” she said, and she sat down next to me. “I’m sure she’ll be fine. Grief is like that, sweetheart. Sometimes it settles for a while, and then a fresh wave can hit you. With no warning at all.”
I was having a fresh wave. It was cold and stung bad.
“He’s still here. You understand that, right?”
My woodpecker heart went right up my throat. Did Mrs. Spooner know Rowan was an angry wolf in the basement? I squished up my eyes to see her good. I looked at the stairs. Gloria was still sitting at the table. She licked her finger and turned some pages. I whispered to Mrs. Spooner, “Do you know where he is?”
“Of course I do.”
I opened my mouth. But no air came in. Everything was going fuzzy. She tapped me on the chest. “Your brother will always be right there. In your heart.”
Then I couldn’t keep it in. My new fresh wave had got too big. I started crying because I was so sad, and I couldn’t tell Mrs. Spooner the truth. I couldn’t tell her that since I found Rowan in the basement I was worried all the time. I worried about Gloria and I worried about Rowan, and I worried a man was coming and I worried that no one was coming at all.
Gloria’s head flew up. She slammed the book closed and stomped down the stairs.
“Oh,” Mrs. Spooner said. “Oh, I didn’t mean to upset you. There’s something I wanted you to have.” She gave me a paper. It had Rowan’s name on it with FINALIST on the bottom. “That was the writing contest your brother won, remember? He won second prize? They sent the certificate. I thought you’d like to have it.”
More crying rushed out, and my whole head was hot and hurting. Gloria was in front of me like a big shadow. “Why’re you making such a fuss, miss?”
“Oh, dear. That was me,” Mrs. Spooner said. She smiled at Gloria. “I was trying to make her feel better, but I did a rotten job of it.”
“Well, you needn’t’ve bothered.”
Mrs. Spooner’s mouth went open and Gloria grabbed my wrist. She yanked me out the door.
“Something off about a woman,” she said when we got to the road, “who wastes so much energy on everyone else’s kids and never put a single thought into having her own.”
All the way home the wind tried to steal Rowan’s paper. But I wouldn’t let it go.
ROWAN
“Telly finally made his decision.” Gloria stood in the doorway of the bathroom. Her yellow hair was sticking up and she had rings of makeup under her eyes. “He’s not coming home.”
There was no bowl in her hand. No spoon. “I can come out then?” I whispered.
“He’s not coming home,” she said again. Her voice was flat, and she didn’t look down at me when she spoke. I could see the powdered underside of her chin. “I wanted you to know. So you understand.”
“What…understand what?”
“So you understand why.”
“Gloria?”
“I told him everything. I did. I told him everything and it didn’t matter.”
“Did you tell him what I said? That I didn’t mean it?”
“I tried so hard. To fight for our family. For you and Maisy. But he has a new life now. A better life. Telly’s happy.”
“How—”
“He’s happy without me, and without Maisy, and without you. He told me he doesn’t care.”
“About us?”
“Everything’s his fault. I want you to understand that too. I never asked for this. He pushed me too far. All I wanted was to be together. Like we were.”
“Gloria. Just—just listen.”
“And now it’s my turn. My turn to make a decision.”
“Can I please come out? I prom—”
“It’s my turn to be happy.”
MAISY
The next morning Gloria’s smile was back. She put on the blue top she wore on the news. She told me to do that, too. Put on my dress. She wore earrings and a necklace. She put some shoes and clothes into a garbage bag and threw them in the shed. Then she filled up a box with some plates and a tall lady made of glass and a bowl covered in orange polka dots. “It’s good to be organized, Bids. Get some things out of the way.”
All afternoon she hummed and smiled and hugged me. “I think those nasty chicken pox skipped right by you,” she said. “That’s certainly good news.”
I nodded.
At night she cooked pork chops and mashed potatoes and corn from a can. She told me to wear my shoes like we were at a fancy restaurant because we were having a special meal. Just the two of us. “That’s what’s left, Bids. You and me. Me and you.” Then she squeezed up her eyes. “Maybe you should put on that sweater I bought you last spring from Stafford’s. The lacy one?”
I did.
The pork chops tasted good.
“I know I’ve been off living in my own head lately,” Gloria said.
She laughed a bubbly laugh. I laughed the same. Her face was so shiny.
“Sometimes life throws a good old curveball at you, don’t it? I had to think on it. Think hard about what to do. The whole messy thing with Telly and—and you know.”
I spooned up my mashed potato and pushed it into the corn. The corn stuck on and I ate it fast. There was a lot left on the counter. She was going to bring it down to Rowan. I knew that for sure. She might even bring him up. Her eyes were dazzly. Something good was going to happen. Something great. I thought of the nurse from school. This time I really did have butterflies in my stomach.
“But as I always say, once you make a decision, the hard part’s over. You just got to stick to it. Follow through. Even if it’s tough.”
I looked at Gloria. She was s
till smiling, but not at me. She was smiling into the air. Like there was a ghost standing behind me. I looked at her plate. She wasn’t eating her food. She just moved it around. It was a mess. I swallowed, and the potato stuck in my neck. The butterflies stopped flying around. They all fell down and they felt heavy and thick and their wings and legs were moving. I put down my fork.
“Gloria? You’re not hungry?”
“I’ve been thinking a lot about that young man. Shar’s cousin. What’s his name?”
I didn’t feel good no more. She told me to kiss him on the mouth. I didn’t want to say his name, but I whispered, “Darrell.”
“How he came and helped us with that fire. I mean, Erma was there too, but she just stood around. Darrell really helped. Such a small kindness, you know, but it sure meant a lot to me. Our little house cleaning.”
I could hear the thump, thump of Chicken’s tail hitting the floor. He was next to Gloria’s shoes.
“That worked really well, didn’t it, Bids? Job done.”
The shed got clean. All the boxes and rope and welcome mat and old wood turned black and then to nothing. The wind blew away the dirty ashes.
“Telly ruined everything. You need to understand. When you look back on this night and wonder. I tried really hard to fix things. Gloria gave it her all.”
I nodded. But she was still smiling at the invisible ghost. Then she got up. She picked up her plate and turned it. The food dumped right on the floor. It splatted all over. Even up on the wall. She never done that before.
“Oh,” I said. “Was that an accident?” She didn’t answer. Chicken rushed over and gulped at it fast.
Gloria took my plate, too, and put them both in the sink. Mine still had stuff on it. But she didn’t get mad about the waste. She poured a giant glass of water and left it on the counter. I waited for her to drink it, but she didn’t.
“Gloria?”
“You know, I haven’t told you enough, Bids. Of course I should’ve trusted you from the start. About the little situation in the basement.”
I shook my head. I didn’t understand.
“It’s time, well, to let sleeping dogs lie.”
I looked at Chicken. He was like a vacuum cleaner, sucking up corn off the floor. He crunched a bone. Sharp parts stuck out of his mouth.
“Chicken’s awake,” I said.
“Chicken’s a good dog, isn’t he?” She turned the stove on. Maybe she was going to make a dessert. “Every single day I think about how Rowan used to be. And what he became. It truly breaks my heart.”
Gloria was talking strange. The woodpecker got up in my neck. It was pecking me harder than it ever did before. Tak-tak-tak. Tak-tak-tak. Tak-tak-tak.
“It’s been the hardest thing to accept. I thought for sure I could fix him. I wanted to keep him close. Turn him back into the old Rowan. So he wasn’t a wolf no more. But I needed Telly’s help to do that. Telly’s help. And I didn’t get it, Bids. I didn’t get no help at all. And Rowan, he’s gone. I can’t even recognize him no more. Just more and more vicious. And it’s not safe trying to keep him. He’s a danger. And a menace. And no one can help him. No one. I should never’ve tried it. Gloria really overestimated herself this time, didn’t she?” She laughed a little, but the bubbles were gone. “And now I’m broken inside, and I just, I just tell myself he never came home at all. He’s sleeping on the bottom of the lake. He’s down there, Bids. Like Telly said. And no matter how much we try to hope and think and imagine, we can’t pull him up. Our Rowan. We’ve got to do that. It’s easier to tell ourselves he died, Bids. He drowned, okay? Or his ghost’ll never find no peace. It’ll be tormented.”
His ghost?
“You need to do that. Accept that he died. Your brother drowned, Bids. I couldn’t save him. I tried so hard.”
My eyes were getting fuzzy. My middle was full of nails. Chicken licked the floor over and over.
“The police did nothing right. From the get-go. I’m going to bring a lawsuit, I am. Take what I’m owed. They need to be held responsible. Maybe I’ll save some other family from the misery I experienced. That’s a noble goal.”
Gloria took the dirty potato pot. She put in some oil. She kept pouring it in. Glug, glug, glug. Then she opened another bottle of it. And then another until the pot was full.
“What are you making, Gloria?” I tried to say it loud. But I don’t think she heard me.
“Telly never should’ve left, Bids. Your dad. He really did belong here. In my house. My house. You can’t imagine how hard I worked to get this place, and all the while Telly learning how to tinker with cars. And he thinks he can take it away.”
She smiled again. But it wasn’t a happy smile this time. Or a sad-smile. I didn’t know what kind of smile it was.
“I can call Telly? I can ask him to come home, Gloria.”
“Oh, Bids. He’s made up his mind. I got to accept that, too. There’s a vicious wolf in our basement, and Rowan is drowned, and Telly’s not coming back. He was never coming back. He just played Gloria for a fool.”
A bad smell started. Smoke came out of the pot. Gloria put on an oven mitt.
“So now you and me are going to start fresh. Just totally fresh, Bids. Maybe we’ll find a little house in a new town. Some place real beautiful. After all we’ve been through, we deserve that. Don’t you think?”
“I don’t want a new town, Gloria.” My head was so confused. What was in the basement? I knew it was Rowan. He called me Turtle. Even if he’s a wolf, he’s still here. “I like Pinchkiss Circle. I like Little Sliding.”
“No, you don’t. You just think you do. You’re too young. You don’t know nothing.”
There was a lot of smoke now. The kitchen had a horrible stink.
“You need to trust me, Bids. Do you trust me? We can’t tell anyone what we were imagining. Our bad ideas about the basement. Believing we could fix something so wrong. They’d think we went crazy. You and me. We’d be pulled apart. When all we were doing was trying to hold things together. Trying to make life back like it was.”
I wanted to cry but I started to cough.
“Do you trust me?” She sounded mad.
“I trust you.”
“Okay,” she said. “Just do what I say, and everything’ll be fine.”
Then orange blasted from the pot.
I leapt up from my seat. Chicken barked and barked.
Gloria stepped back real fast. “Get ready!” she yelled. She grabbed the water glass and threw it into the pot.
Wind ripped in my ears. Fire shot up to the ceiling. Angry orange fingers went everywhere. Tearing and eating.
Hot stung my face. I screamed. The curtain was gone. Then Rowan’s FINALIST paper. I saw Jenny the Head. She was hiding on the windowsill. Her hair turned to fire and her face crumpled down to her eyeballs. I couldn’t reach her.
“Go, go, go!” Gloria grabbed my hand. “Run, Bids, run!”
We ran down the hall and out the happy, happy yellow door. Chicken ran out with us. I was coughing bad. Gloria was coughing, too. I tried to get air. I looked at our house. The sky was gray and then part of it was black from smoke and fire climbing out the windows. Tears slipped out of my eyes. They slid down over my cheeks, and Gloria wiped them away. She still had her oven mitt on.
MAISY
Our house was burning. Fire was eating up the floors and walls. But none of it was real. I couldn’t think. I had to push it down. I had to put it inside the box and stomp on it. Gloria told me to jump up and down on the box. I tied it up tight with a skipping rope. Don’t let it out. Don’t let it out. I couldn’t let it out. Just look at the ashes flying up into the sky. How pretty they are!
“Things’ll be okay, Bids,” Gloria said. She shook me. “We’re doing what needed to be done. You got to trust me.”
The oven mitt dropped off Gloria’s hand. She kicked it far over the grass. Then she held my arm. My teeth chomped together. I couldn’t stop shaking. Chicken was shaking, too. He tugged and
whimpered, but Gloria wouldn’t let him go. I heard glass smashing. Orange climbed out the kitchen window, and it almost got up to the roof. The colors were all over Gloria’s face. Inside Gloria’s eyes.
This was the worst dream. I was so scared I couldn’t even cry. I couldn’t even pinch my leg because what if it hurt? That would make it real. Then the box would fly open. I’d have to. I’d have to see inside.
Then Mrs. Spooner and Darrell were there. I didn’t even see them coming. Darrell ran right around the house and yelled out at Gloria. “Mrs. Janes! Your hose is gone!”
“Stay back!” Gloria yelled. “Water’s all turned off.”
Darrell put his hands up in the air. “The whole thing’s going to burn to the ground!”
“Oh dear god.” Mrs. Spooner was in her bathrobe. “I called. I did. The moment I saw the smoke. I called.”
“Called?” Gloria’s teeth were closed up.
“The fire department.” She put her hands on her face. “Is there anything I can do? Take Maisy to my place?”
Gloria squeezed my hand and it hurt bad. “Maisy’ll stay right here with me,” she said. “Because I’m her mother.”
Mrs. Spooner took her hands off her face. “Oh, dear. I didn’t mean…”
Gloria showed Mrs. Spooner her back. Then Aunt Erma and Shar ran down the driveway. “Gloria! What on earth?”
Gloria started crying. Aunt Erma hugged her and rubbed her arms. Gloria let go of me, but didn’t let go of Chicken. He was pulling harder and growling and barking. “Oh, Erm. Grease fire,” she said. “Caught the curtains. I couldn’t get it out. Nearest hydrant is right at the top of the circle.”
“Jesus. It is, isn’t it?”
“Worst thing in the world, putting water on it. I’m such an idiot! That place is a tinderbox.”
“Now’s not the time to beat yourself up. You’re lucky you and Maisy got out safe.” She frowned. “What you two haven’t been through this year. Too much for anyone.”
Shar pushed in next to me. Her eyes were big. But she wasn’t scared. “That’s so cool,” she whispered in my ear.
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