Gray, I wrote because no matter what, I couldn’t start out with Dear.
All the days since we went out on the picnic, I’ve been thinking of the things I want to say, things that were going through my mind while I listened to your story, things I couldn’t say that day because I didn’t even have the words. I was too full of shock and sad and mad and mostly disappointment.
Here’s what I can say, just so you understand.
Twelve years was a long, long time to wait. Time that left me free to dream a lot of things. Good and bad. But none of them were the story that you told me. I never dreamed you were off drinking, or that you lost me in Milwaukee at a park. Or that a stranger found me crying in an alley. Or that, year after year, you picked drinking instead of seeing me. All that truth was hard to hear, even if I asked for it. And it’s still hard after all these days, but I guess the truth is part of growing up. Part of knowing what was or used to be. And at least I don’t have to wonder anymore.
And it’s good you gave up drinking, good you made it up that mountain. Good you made it one whole year so we could finally meet. (I’m not going to count the times I can’t remember.) And I’m glad Mama brought us here to let you have a chance with me. I am. Even if it’s harder than I thought.
So if you’re really done with all the drinking, I think I can still see you while we’re here. A couple times at least. Before summer isn’t summer anymore. And all my days at Sparrow Road are gone. And we go back to Milwaukee. Because who knows what will happen then.
I hope you plan to play at the Arts Extravaganza. Josie has her heart set on your music. And I’d really like to hear you sing one of those sad songs for myself.
See you soon then,
Raine
I picked up my needle and looped in the last stitches. I had my answer to Gray’s See ya? and my Eureka Doll was done.
36
I didn’t see Gray right away; we started with small notes Viktor carried back and forth between us. I told about my piano lessons, how Viktor let Lillian teach me in the old infirmary, and how I learned to play simple songs like “Twinkle, Twinkle” on Viktor’s grand piano, with his scribbled sheets of music scattered on the floor. I wrote about the Arts Extravaganza—the plans I made with Josie. The games we both invented. The food we hoped to serve. I even wrote about the pineapple upside-down cake I’d baked Diego for his birthday.
Mostly the notes that Gray sent me were a bunch of ways of saying he was sorry. Sorry for the years he didn’t come for my birthdays. The twelve good years he wasted. The terrible day he lost me in the park. Plus everything I listed in the letter, and lots more that Gray dreamed up. I didn’t need all of his apologies, but Diego said Gray did. Diego said asking for forgiveness was Gray’s way of getting well.
When I finally did see Gray it was at the Comfort Kitchen. Mama said she’d rather he come back for a picnic or a visit to our cottage, but this time I wanted to meet Gray on my own. Someplace far away from our last bad conversation. A place where we could get a brand-new start.
“Okay, Raine,” Josie said when Gray walked into the restaurant for our lunch. “Two thirty at the five-and-dime.” Josie promised Mama she’d bike with me both ways. “You two enjoy your eats! The Arts Extravaganza calls!” Josie’s hands were full of bright green fliers she was passing out to strangers.
“You’re sure busy with that party,” Gray said as we slid into a booth.
“Lillian and I are picking out her poems. And we’ve got days of baking up ahead.” We still had to bake and freeze fourteen dozen cookies—peanut butter, oatmeal raisin, chocolate chip—and at least ten pans of Mama’s caramel brownies. Diego was in charge of sloppy joes. Even awful Eleanor was reading from her essays. I still wasn’t sure what my art would be. Mama didn’t know what her art would be yet either, but every day I begged her to play that old guitar. I wanted everyone to see the girl she used to be, the singer she still was. “Everyone is helping with the party.”
“Nice folks at that place.” Gray laid his paper napkin on his lap. “They sure do like you, Raine.”
“Not everyone,” I said. “Not Eleanor. Or Viktor.”
“Aw,” Gray said. “I wouldn’t be so sure about Viktor. Some men keep their hearts hid pretty deep.”
“Do you?” I asked.
“Heck no.” Gray gave his little laugh. “I can’t keep my heart hid much at all.”
It was easier to meet Gray in a restaurant with the solid wooden table set between us, and the customers, and the waitress, Dot, stopping by to pour fresh coffee in Gray’s cup. Dot knew Gray by name, knew his order without Gray even asking. Gray said all his suppers were spent here.
“Your Grandpa Mac still plan on coming?” Gray rubbed his hand against his jaw.
“He said he would.” I munched a bite of a sweet potato fry. Sweet potato fries were Gray’s favorite food in Comfort. “I’m sure he’s going to come.” When I’d called Grandpa Mac to ask him, he said wild horses couldn’t keep him away.
I still hadn’t told Grandpa Mac that I’d met Gray, or that I knew about the drinking or the day Gray lost me in the park. That was something I wanted to tell him face-to-face, so he could see I was safe. Safe and sound. Even with Gray’s truth.
Gray rubbed his jaw again. “You know, that day I lost you at the park?” He hung his head like all those apologies he sent hadn’t helped his shame. “Your Grandpa Mac, he punched me in the face. Nearly broke my jaw. For months I couldn’t sing straight. Though I know I did deserve it.”
“Grandpa Mac punched you?” I knew Grandpa Mac had been some kind of boxer in the navy, but I never saw him lift his fist to anyone in anger. Grandpa Mac raised Mama without spankings. Same way they raised me. The O’Rourkes just never hit.
“Oh, he definitely did. I’m only telling you this ’cause I don’t want to spoil your party. Your Grandpa Mac won’t want to see me there. And he sure won’t want to hear me sing. You’ll have a better party with me gone.”
“No,” I said. I stuck my long spoon into my shake. “It’ll be okay.” I wanted all of them at the Arts Extravaganza—Gray and Grandpa Mac and Mama—but most of all I wanted our family troubles to be done.
After lunch was finished, the two of us took a slow walk down the shady streets of Comfort. When we reached the Soap-N-Sudz, Gray pointed to his place, a single rented room above a Laundromat. “Didn’t you make a lot of money playing music?” I asked.
“Just enough to get me into trouble.” Gray’s bangs hung over his black eyes. “But some of it, I’ve saved in your name.” Gray moved the toothpick with his teeth.
“My name?”
“Yep.” Gray put his hands in his back pocket. “At Summit Bank there in Milwaukee. There’s money for your mama too, but she won’t take it. Never would. But in the end, I know money don’t mean much. I know it can’t make up for my mistakes. Or all the time I missed.”
“No,” I said. I didn’t want Gray’s money either. “But it was nice you kept us in your mind; thought of us at least.”
“Oh. I sure did, Raine.” Gray’s shy face lightened up a little. “I thought and thought.”
“Me too,” I said. “But now I’m glad those mysteries are done.”
37
Gray left me outside the Soap-N-Sudz while he went up for Mr. Bones. He said his place was too lowdown for company. It was a stopping-for-a-short-stay kind of place. A bridge between where he was and where he thought he ought to be. Not so far from the trailer in Missouri where he started.
When he stepped outside, Gray had Mr. Bones cradled in his arms. Mr. Bones was half the size of Beauty, with a bony spine that ran like a lumpy path straight down his skinny back. “I don’t let him loose,” Gray said. “Wouldn’t want him to get lost.”
“You sound just like Mama.” I laughed. “It’s the same way she treats me.”
“Sure,” Gray said. “I guess too much love is like that.”
He petted Mr. Bones behind the ears; together they made the perfect
misfit pair. I wished I had a camera so I could save Gray in this minute.
“Uh-oh,” Gray said when Mr. Bones began to wiggle. We stepped inside the shadowed stairwell, shut the metal door, and sat down on the grimy steps so Gray could let him free. “He sure does like you, Raine,” Gray said when Mr. Bones curled up on my lap. It made me sad to think of Gray climbing those dirty stairs alone, eating the same supper at the Comfort Kitchen every night.
“Why’d you come to Comfort in the first place?” I asked. “And how do you know Viktor?” There were still pieces to Gray’s puzzle I hadn’t put together.
“Oh,” Gray said. “I thought we might go without my troubles for one day. Just have the here and now.”
“We have the here and now,” I said. Mr. Bones ran his scratchy tongue along my finger. “But I still want to hear it.”
“It’s long,” Gray said. “We got to meet up with Josie by two thirty. I don’t want your mama to worry if you’re late.”
“Just give me the abbreviated version,” I said. “Paraphrase.”
“Paraphrase?” Gray laughed. “You really are a wonder to me, Raine.”
I sat there on those steps with Mr. Bones purring on my lap and listened to Gray’s story. He said he’d come here for a place called New Connections, a place not too far from Comfort, a place for men like him who never could quit drinking on their own.
“And after I was finished,” Gray said, “Viktor came out to New Connections, offered me a home, a job out at his place. Not really for the money, just steady work to keep me far from trouble. I’m not the only soul he’s rescued, Raine. Viktor’s helped a lot of down-and-outs. Folks hoping for a hand.”
“Did you live at Sparrow Road?”
“I did,” he said. “That old house needs a lot of help. I joined on with his work crew through that winter. Painted. Plastered. Anyway, it’s how Viktor came to know I had a daughter. One I’d lost because of drinking. And somehow, without me knowing, he got your mama on the phone, told her I was sober, and talked her into meeting me for coffee in Milwaukee. It was Viktor who drove me to that meeting, and he sat right there beside me while your mama showed me pictures of you, Raine. All the years I’d missed. It made me know the family I’d let go.” A hint of tears washed over Gray’s black eyes. “Then Viktor offered her the cottage, so she could come this summer and see me for herself; see that my drinking days were really done. And maybe let me have a chance with you after all.”
“That’s how Mama got the job?”
“Yep,” Gray said. “But it wasn’t a job that Viktor offered. Your mama could have stayed at Sparrow Road for free. But your mama won’t take charity. So Viktor said he’d hire her for whatever work she wanted. His housekeeper was moving off to Fargo at the end of June. Still, it took more months of convincing. More trips Viktor made to Milwaukee by himself. Trips without me knowing. I couldn’t believe the day he drove over to my place and told me your mama had said yes. The two of you were coming here that week.” Gray shook his head. “It was an all-out miracle for me.”
“Viktor did all that so we could meet?” Suddenly, he wasn’t just the Iceberg anymore.
“Silent as he seems, Viktor’s life is mostly helping others. Not just me. Or the artists he offers his house to every summer. He’s a man who lives to help. I suppose it’s how he quiets his own troubles.”
“Troubles?”
“Sure.” Gray stretched out his legs. “Like the rest of us, I imagine Viktor’s had his share.”
“Have you ever heard his music?” I put my hands over my ears. “It sounds like children hurt.”
“I have indeed,” Gray said. “I never knew an instrument could make that kind of sound.”
I ran my finger along Mr. Bones’s soft neck. “Do you think Viktor might have been an orphan? Before he was a Berglund?”
“To tell the truth,” Gray said, “that very thought has crossed my mind.”
“It has?” I smiled. Gray James was a dreamer just like me.
38
When I got back to our cottage, I heard the little pluck of strings float out our bedroom window. And then I heard the hum of Mama’s voice, followed by a few high la-la-las. Then some words about a river, and I knew Mama was upstairs in our bedroom playing that guitar. Mama hadn’t touched it since the night Gray gave it to her as a gift.
I waited silent at the door so Mama wouldn’t stop singing. Most of it was just the sound of songs that couldn’t get started—Mama’s fingers plucking at the strings—she’d play a few sweet notes and then she’d stop. It was a sound I’d waited lots of years to hear, not just Mama singing, but Mama playing a guitar. The way she did in all our old-time pictures.
Mama’s fingers on those strings and her beautiful smooth voice reminded me of something I must have known once and then forgotten. A long-lost feeling, maybe my baby days in Amsterdam. Me on Mama’s back, or Mama barefoot singing on the streets.
Upstairs Mama’s voice skipped like a rock across the water. It rang beautiful and clear, pure and green. I knew why Gray had stopped to listen that first day in Amsterdam. And how Mama owned his heart.
I waited until the music finally stopped, until I heard Mama set the guitar back in the case and snap the latches shut.
“Mama,” I called up to our bedroom.
“I’m up here, Raine.” She was sitting on the bed, the guitar case right beside her. “How’d things go this time with Gray?” I saw the old fear in her eyes.
“Good,” I said. “Lots better.” I didn’t want Mama to worry about Gray. Or me. I wanted the little time we had left here to be happy. “I heard you play.”
“You did?” Mama hung her head. “I can’t play anymore.” Once Grandpa Mac said Mama threw away her future living like a hippie.
“You sure can. I heard you play and sing. And it was beautiful. It really, really was.”
“I wish Gray hadn’t given this to me,” Mama said. She shoved the case away. “I’ve forgotten how to play. Some of it comes back, but most of it is gone.” Then she opened up her arms for a huge hug. “But anyway, you’re my music now.”
“You could play that song you were just singing for our party. Let everybody hear it. Grandpa Mac and Gray.”
“No,” Mama said. Then she wrinkled up her forehead. “Grandpa Mac and Gray. There’s a frightening thought. I don’t even know how Grandpa Mac will be with me. I’m sure he’s still mad we even came to Sparrow Road.”
“Mama.” I sat beside her on the bed and dropped my cheek against her shoulder. “When Grandpa Mac gets here for the party, I want things to be okay.”
“Okay?” Mama said. “Okay in what way, Raine?”
“The way they were before we left Milwaukee. All those years before Grandpa Mac got mad about this job. He wasn’t mad at you, Mama, he was worried about Gray.”
“I know.” Mama pushed a curl back from her face. “But he should have trusted me. I wasn’t going to put you in harm’s way. I wasn’t going to take a chance if Gray’s drinking days weren’t done. And you’re my daughter, Raine. In the end, it’s up to me to do what’s best. Not Grandpa Mac. I can’t stay his little girl forever.”
“You’re right.” I smiled at Mama. “Just like I can’t stay yours.”
Mama kissed me on the forehead. “I’m learning that too, Raine.”
“I just want the Arts Extravaganza to be happy. Everybody. My family. And all the people who come to Sparrow Road. Even Nettie Johnson, when she sees this place again.”
“Nettie Johnson?” Mama said.
“The woman Josie and I met for pie that day. The one who was an orphan here.”
“Do you think she’s really coming?” Mama asked.
“I hope,” I said. “I hope everybody comes. And when they do, I want it all to be pure happy. I want Grandpa Mac to see our time here wasn’t a mistake. And for him to give Gray a second chance. Because I did.”
“Whoa!” Mama laughed. “That’s quite a list. I’m afraid you’re getting as hea
dstrong as dear Josie.” She lifted up my chin. “I’ll try to make my peace with Grandpa Mac, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope for Grandpa Mac and Gray. Grandpa Mac’s not one to let go of a grudge.”
“He can do it for the party,” I said.
“Well,” Mama sighed, “we’ll see.”
39
Preparations for the Arts Extravaganza gave a new hum to the house. Mama and I baked so many bars and cookies the freezer was stocked full. Lillian cut linen squares for napkins; Diego scrubbed the floors. Josie spent hours in the barn fixing broken chairs and tables, digging out boxes of old dishes, silverware, crystal trays, things she said we’d need to serve the guests. Even Gray stopped by one day to string Christmas lights through trees.
Busy as we were, it still seemed to be forever before Grandpa Mac would get to Sparrow Road. Mama said his visit would come sooner if I quit counting down the days. But all that I could picture was Grandpa Mac in his big Buick pulling into our long driveway and the shocked look on his face when he saw Sparrow Road. The sprawling artists’ house, the sky-high tower, the miles of rolling hills.
“You here, Josie?” I called into the barn. Lately all the party work kept us both too busy for our nightly sojourn to the attic. I missed sitting there with Josie and dreaming Lyman’s story, all the orphans’ stories, thinking of what was or what could be.
“Buried under treasures,” Josie called.
Even though hay and horses were long gone from the barn, I could still smell the old life in the wood. Mice darted between boxes. Birds nested in the rafters. Of all the buildings at Sparrow Road, I liked the barn the least. It reeked of mold and mildew, and it was filled with things left too long to rot. School desks and lamps and chests, blackboards, broken bikes, baseball bats and mitts, metal cribs, an old wheelchair pushed back in the corner, a black upright piano covered with thick cobwebs. And around it all, boxes stacked on boxes that Josie said were filled with years of life. It was Josie’s favorite treasure-hunting place.
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