I always assumed graduation day would be one big party. As it is, most people aren’t speaking to me, and I have to spend an hour convincing my parents it’ll be OK for me to even attend the ceremony.
Eventually, they say I can go, but I have to sit in the audience. I point out that being in the middle of the mob is probably more dangerous than walking across stage, and they finally relent.
Usually, the mayor runs the graduation ceremony, but he’s nowhere to be found. Rumor has it he knew he was about to be voted out and he took off in the night. I keep expecting him to pop back up with some evil scheme—like in horror movies when you think the killer is dead, but they revive to make one last stab at it. That doesn’t happen though. It’s an anticlimactic ending. Maybe most endings are.
With Mayor Fontaine gone, Mr. Wakefield runs the event, which means the whole ceremony is sappy and long winded. He has to stop his address twice because he starts crying.
Fletcher limps across the stage to give the valedictorian speech, and everyone actually pays attention, but probably less because of what he’s saying and more because he still looks kinda undead.
After that, it’s finally time to get our diplomas.
I’m at the end of our graduating class. I watch everyone walk across stage. Norie, serious, hardly smiling, hating the attention. Penelope’s at the other end of the spectrum, beaming and practically skipping across the stage. Juniper’s the only person who manages to make a graduation gown look fashionable. And Merrill attached blinking lights to his cap.
I should be celebrating. Instead, it’s like I’m watching ghosts. My whole past lines up in front of me. I’m on the outside, not a part of it anymore. When I ended wishing, I gave up a big piece of my life. Or maybe this is always how the end of high school feels, and wishing has nothing to do with it.
At the end of the ceremony, everyone cheers, and a few people throw their caps in the air, even though we’d been told we weren’t allowed to do that. Then all of Madison goes to the park.
• • •
Othello Dewitt has come out of hiding. Briefly anyway.
Apparently, he’s been working on some big sculpture that he wants to dedicate to the town. As far as I know, no one’s seen it yet.
There’d been a lot of discussion about where to put it. The first choice was the community center, but Othello insisted it be kept outside, the air and elements giving it life and blah, blah, blah. So a place has been made for it in Madison’s only park, where no one really goes anyway. It’s all dirt and a few pieces of metal playground equipment that kids can’t play on because they get too hot in the summer sun.
According to rumor, the sculpture is a tribute to wishing. Seeing how wishing is dead and all, Sheriff Crawford asked Othello if he still wanted to go through with the reveal. Othello told him that wishing will always be part of this town, whether it’s in the past, present, or future. Maybe he’s right.
At the park, most of the town is milling around, and Othello paces back and forth excitedly in front of the sculpture. It’s covered with a tarp. The wind is especially bad, and three men have to hold the fabric down to keep it from blowing off.
We gather in a big semicircle, then wait.
“Thank you for coming,” Othello says. “I have always felt that art is a gift, and gifts are meant to be shared. I’ve been toiling over this piece for months. For me, it represents the heart and soul of Madison and everything that this town stands for. I can only hope that viewing it touches you as deeply as creating it did for me. I call this piece A Menagerie of Wishes.”
Without further ceremony, the tarp is pulled off.
No one speaks. Because no one quite knows what to make of it. It’s like the sculptures Merrill, Norie, and I saw at Othello’s Hideaway. Bits of scrap metal and random objects are welded or tied or glued together. The form is tall and shapeless. It’s made of hubcaps, an old mirror, a car door covered in buttons, and other odds and ends.
A few people clap. Others look around like they’re hoping someone will step forward and explain the sculpture to them.
Uncle Jasper, already drunk, lurches through the crowd. “What the hell is it supposed to be?” he asks loudly. No one answers.
I glance at my parents. My mom frowns.
“Harmon,” she says to my dad. “Is that my cast-iron skillet in there?”
I cough to cover my surprised laugh. I wonder how many other people will notice their missing stuff twisted into the sculpture. For all I know, it might hold a piece of every family in Madison.
I catch Merrill’s eye across the crowd. He’s grinning.
“I think it’s…lovely,” Mr. Wakefield says. He starts clapping loudly, and other people join in. Othello beams.
Even without wishing, Madison is one strange place.
Merrill stops me as we we’re all leaving and asks if I’m going to the hot springs tonight.
“Yeah, right. Someone would probably throw me off a cliff.”
“I’ll catch up with you later then,” he says. “I want to go one last time.”
Of course he does. It’s graduation night. I’d always expected we’d spend tonight together. I watch him go sadly. Then I head home.
It turns out to be for the best. When we get home, my parents sit me down and tell me we need to talk.
Chapter 37
4 Days Postwish
We leave for Las Vegas early in the morning. It isn’t like when I was a kid. Back then, Ebba and I would fight in the back seat, and my dad would sing along with the radio while my mom planned our activities for the day.
This car ride is silent.
We stop for breakfast in Alamo, which is pointless. None of us eat. We push food around our plates until it’s time to go. Ma keeps dabbing at her eyes with tissues. Dad squeezes her hand.
At the nursing home, the staff is even nicer than usual. They’re full of sympathetic smiles. I wish they’d go away.
Before they let us into Ebba’s room, the doctor sits down with us and tells us what to expect. I want him to keep talking. I want him to talk forever so we can put off what happens next. Even though I’d said from the start that this was the only choice, now that the moment is here, I’m sick to my stomach.
We gather around my sister and cry and tell her how much we love her. It’s terrible, and I wish I could switch places with her. I try to tell myself it’s OK. It’s the right thing to do. Ebba deserves to be at peace.
When they turn off the machines, we move closer to her. I hold one of her hands, and my dad holds the other. My mom strokes her hair. This is the last time we will ever be a family.
Memories race through my mind. Holidays and birthdays and first days of school. All the secrets we kept from our parents. The way we’d fight but never stay mad, because Ebba couldn’t stay mad at anyone. All of that, about to be gone forever.
I reach into my pocket and wrap my hands around the folded-up paper there. The last note I found from Ebba.
Tag. I’m it.
It’s just me now. I have to live for both of us.
I don’t think I can handle it anymore. I feel like I’m going to explode. So I slowly start counting. I get to six hundred and twenty-five. And then my sister is gone.
My mom wraps her arms around me. My dad wraps his arms around both of us. I don’t know how long we stand there like that. Our family is so much smaller without Ebba. So much sadder. But we’re still a family. Nothing can break that.
• • •
We return to a Madison that feels changed. Has the town always been so empty? Have the buildings along Main Street always been wedged so tightly together? Have the surrounding mountain peaks always looked so jagged and hostile?
I feel claustrophobic. I feel empty. I feel destroyed.
My dad guides the minivan into our driveway. Our house seems to have shrunk. The stucco siding has more c
racks. An ocean of weeds has sprouted in the yard. Everything is bleaker than when we left.
Another difference is, when we left, Uncle Jasper wasn’t sitting on the front stoop.
Dad lightly touches Ma’s arm. “I’ll get rid of him.”
She shakes her head. “No. It’s OK.”
We climb out of the van, and Jasper stands and makes his way over to us. He’s not exactly steady, and his eyes aren’t exactly clear, but at least he doesn’t reek of booze.
“Lu,” he says. “Did you… Is she…”
Ma nods.
And then something happens that I can’t remember ever happening before. Uncle Jasper pulls my mom into a hug. She cries into her brother’s shoulder. For the first time, he’s the one taking care of her.
My own tears return. They’re happy tears, in a way. The kind of tears you cry when you see that there is still good left in the world.
But they’re bitter tears too.
No matter how screwed up Ma and Jasper’s relationship is, at least they have each other. I don’t have a sibling to comfort or to comfort me. I’m alone.
“Eldon,” my dad says, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Why don’t we go to the garage?”
Well, maybe not completely alone.
“You started a new project?” I ask.
“Not yet. You can help me decide on one. Or not. We could watch TV or talk. Whatever you want.”
I nod. Dad slings his arm around my shoulder, and we make our way to our safe place together.
“Dad,” I say, once we’re in the sanctuary of the garage, “do you ever wish it was me instead?”
“What?” he replies, incredulous. “Of course I don’t. Do you?”
I nod.
“Eldon, your mother and I love you very much. As much as we love Ebba.”
“I’m such a screwup though,” I say. Now I’m crying again. “I ruin everything.”
Dad leads me to the couch and sits me down, like I’m a kid. He carefully kneels in front of me, wincing a little at the pain, and looks me straight in the eye. “Eldon, we all mess up. No one should measure their worth by how often they screw up. What matters most is how a person deals with the aftermath. How they grow and change.”
“What if I don’t grow?” I ask meekly.
My dad laughs. “Buddy, you already have.”
• • •
I can’t stay home tonight. My house is suffocating me. And my parents keep asking if I’m OK, which I’m not. Neither are they.
I have nowhere to go and nothing to do. I can’t face Merrill. He’ll want to know how it went, how I’m holding up. I’m not ready to talk about it yet.
So I wander aimlessly through Madison. It’s a quiet night. Everyone high-school aged is at the hot springs. Everyone else is hiding from the heat.
I end up at the park, sitting on a bench across from Othello Dewitt’s sculpture. His Menagerie of Wishes. In the moonlight, it looks menacing. An alien machine sent to destroy the town. People up the road in Rachel will probably get a kick out of it. Madison finally has its own roadside attraction.
I gaze at the sculpture and let my mind wander. Mostly, I think of Ebba.
In my mind, my sister had been dead for months. Ever since I realized there was no wish that could save her, really. I thought I’d already grieved. I thought her actual death would be manageable, because she’d already been gone.
I was wrong.
There’s an empty place inside of me that’ll never be filled again. Part of me died with Ebba. The part of me that she loved, the part of me that was a big brother.
When someone dies, it doesn’t just take them. It takes a piece of everyone who ever loved them and everyone they ever loved. I hadn’t understood that before.
“Eldon?”
I look up.
Juniper Clarke is standing a few feet away from me.
“I thought that was you,” she says.
I wipe the tears from my eyes.
“Are you OK?”
I nod. She sits down on the bench next to me.
“What’s going on?” she asks.
To my horror and embarrassment, I burst into tears.
“Sorry,” I say once I calm down, once I’ve managed to tell her about Ebba.
Juniper looks like she might cry too. “Don’t apologize. She’s your sister. It’s OK to cry.”
“The last time I needed you, you weren’t so understanding,” I say. I’m simply stating a fact. All the bitterness I used to feel seems irrelevant now.
Juniper startles. “What are you talking about?”
“After the accident. I was a mess. And you ditched me.”
“Eldon, we’d just broken up. You hadn’t been very nice about the whole situation, if you remember.”
She’s right. I’d been an asshole. Complete with name-calling and talking shit about her to anyone who would listen.
“Of course I wasn’t nice,” I mumble. “You dumped me for another guy.”
Juniper sighs and rolls her eyes. “I’ve told you eight billion times. I didn’t break up with you for Calvin. He and I didn’t start dating until, like, a month later.”
I’d always assumed that was a lie. As soon as he wished to take my position on the football field, she’d been done with me. Juniper had an idea of the kind of guy she wanted to be with, and it wasn’t me.
“Why then?” I challenge.
“We’ve been through this,” she says. “Because you were obnoxious. Because you were so completely full of yourself that it became unbearable to be around you.”
“I’ve changed,” I say.
“Have you?” Juniper asks, raising an eyebrow.
“What? You don’t think so?”
“You wished away wishing for an entire town. So I’d say no, you haven’t changed.”
“I was trying to help people,” I say. “Wishing ruined everyone’s lives.”
Juniper shakes her head, as if I’ll forever be a person who just doesn’t get it. “If people want to ruin their lives, that’s their choice. You could have not wished if you hated wishing so much. You didn’t need to take it away from everyone else. Who do you think you are that you get to decide other people’s futures like that?”
A wave of shame rolls over me.
“You’re no better than Clancy Fontaine,” she goes on. “Acting like you know better than everyone in this town. As if we need you to swoop in and save us.”
“But I talked to people about their wishes,” I offer weakly. “Everyone was miserable.”
“Yeah, who did you talk to? Barnabas Fairley? Fletcher?” Juniper asks. Her eyes are still beautiful, but it’s hard to appreciate them when she’s looking at me with so much disappointment. “You sought out people you knew were unhappy. You had your mind made up about wishing from the start, and this whole journey was your attempt to confirm how terrible wishing is.”
My stomach churns. Is she right? Had I avoided people who were happy with their wishes? I thought I’d moved past all my confusion, but now I’m feeling more mixed up than ever.
We sit in silence, because I don’t know how to respond. When Juniper speaks again, the anger seems to have drained out of her. “I don’t think you’re a bad guy, Eldon. You just need to grow up.”
“I’m trying,” I say.
She smiles. “I believe you.”
Juniper leaves, continuing on to wherever she’d been going. I consider asking if she’s going to hang out with Calvin but stop myself. It’s none of my business.
I stay on the bench for a long time, staring at Othello Dewitt’s sculpture. Maybe if I look long enough, it’ll make sense. Maybe it has the answers I need.
Chapter 38
5 Days Postwish
There’s probably more fanfare for Archie Kildare’s wis
h than there has been for any other wisher.
Half the town is waiting anxiously at the community center for the results. The other half is following Archie up the trail to the wish cave.
“I drove by to see it,” Merrill says when he finds me and Norie in a corner at the community center. “They’re following him up the mountain like he’s the freaking Pied Piper.”
Norie chokes back a laugh. The people nearby shoot us nasty looks.
The town’s making Archie wish for cash. They need something tangible to test if wishing works. I wonder if Archie’s sad to see his dreams of becoming a pro wrestler go out the window—not that he could have wished for that anyway.
“What do you think’s gonna happen?” I whisper.
“There’s no doubt in my mind,” Norie says. “The wish won’t work.”
I hope she’s right. The recent drama in Madison has sucked. It’ll suck much worse if it turns out it’s all been for nothing. On the other hand, if Archie’s wish does work, it’ll give me a chance to redeem myself.
But that’s the thing. Even though what Juniper said last night hit me pretty hard, even though I feel ashamed when I think about how I disappointed Mr. Wakefield or how much I pissed off a ton of people, there’s still part of me that believes I did the right thing.
Maybe I’m an asshole. Maybe I took away people’s choices. But sometimes, people get stuck in bad situations because they don’t know how to stop them or don’t know any other way of life. Like Uncle Jasper, who’ll drink until the day it kills him. Or this whole town, letting themselves get pushed around by a mayor they hate simply because that’s how it’s always been. Yeah, they’re free to get out of the situation. But that doesn’t mean they can.
Sometimes, people don’t know how to help themselves. They need a push. Penelope would understand.
I let my gaze wander around the community center while Merrill and Norie go over plans for the next day. We’ll be leaving at dawn. By evening, we’ll be farther from Madison than I’ve ever been in my life.
“I’m getting some water,” I say. I need to do something. I wander to the drinking fountain and run into the Samson sisters on the way.
As You Wish Page 29