“Me too. I wouldn’t have missed this chapter for the world.”
51
Grandpa Mac left me that next morning. Left me standing in the driveway with the sad sense that Sparrow Road was finally winding down. My summer disappearing.
“Well, it’s starting,” Mama sighed when Grandpa Mac was gone. “Diego leaves next week. They need him at his college. His teaching begins before September.”
“I can’t believe it’s going to end,” I said. My heart was already hanging heavy from telling Grandpa Mac good-bye.
“Things do.” Mama took my hand and we headed toward the main house. Mama said she wanted to make Lillian some breakfast; day by day Lillian seemed to shrink a little smaller, seemed to make less sense.
Inside the shadowy front room, Eleanor sat silent on the sofa, two bulging suitcases waiting at the door.
“You’re leaving?” I asked. I wasn’t disappointed, just surprised. I couldn’t wait for her to go.
“Yes.” Eleanor smoothed her perfect skirt. “Despite a summer of distractions, my book is finally done. And after yesterday—all that horrible talk of orphans, children missing parents—well, I have to say, it made me eager to get home.”
“I’m sure your daughters will be happy,” Mama said politely. I didn’t think anyone would be happy to see Eleanor, but then I thought of Lyman’s story—Rich or poor. Good or bad. Horrible as she was, Eleanor’s children probably loved her.
“Yes,” Eleanor said stiffly. “And despite what you might think, it was difficult for me to have a child here while mine were far away. Very difficult.”
“I understand.” Mama hugged me close. The two of us did better when we faced Eleanor together. “I couldn’t spend a summer without Raine.”
“Well, you had your time together,” Eleanor said. She turned to me. “And Raine, that story that you read? The one about the orphan? I saw some early promise in that work. Perhaps, like me, you’ll grow up to be a writer.”
If I grew up to be a writer, I wouldn’t be anything like her. I’d be a writer like sweet Lillian, someone kind to children. Or a writer who could find things in the clouds. Or believed in things that no one else could see.
“Here.” She handed me a dictionary, so heavy I had to hold it with both hands. “It’s an old one I brought with me from Boston. If you really hope to write, you need to work on your vocabulary. Learn to spell correctly. I wouldn’t rely on Lillian for lessons.”
“I know how to spell,” I said. Lillian had taught me lots of things—like poetry and patience. And love. Things that mattered more than spelling.
“I’d recommend a page a day,” Eleanor advised.
“A page a day?” I rolled my eyes. Mama pinched me hard; she still expected manners. “Well, thanks,” I said.
“A decent dictionary,” Eleanor said. “It’s the most important thing a writer needs.”
“Not dreams?” I asked. Diego never would have said to start a story with a dictionary. It took more than a dictionary to dream Lyman to life.
“Dreams?” Eleanor squinted like she couldn’t quite understand me. “I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose a dream couldn’t hurt.”
Maybe it was Eleanor’s departure, or the end of the Arts Extravaganza, but suddenly everything seemed different in the house. Summer wasn’t summer anymore. Evenings, Josie sat with Lillian and sewed. Diego spent more time at our cottage, like he wished the days with Mama wouldn’t end.
Mama finally said yes to a date. A drive-in movie stuck out in a field with gnats and mosquitoes swarming through the windows, and the actor’s voices scratching through a rusted speaker. Josie and I supervised it all from the back end of Viktor’s truck, our dirty feet up against the window, a bucket of buttered popcorn propped between us.
On their second date, they biked to the Comfort Cone alone.
After their third date, Mama came home and climbed into my bed. There was something important she had to tell me. Something that couldn’t wait. I was sure she was going tell me news about Diego, but instead she told me Viktor had asked us both to stay.
“Stay?” I said. “You mean live at Sparrow Road?” I sat up in bed and pulled the sheet up to my chin. I wasn’t cold, but still a shiver prickled down my spine. Was this the next that Grandpa Mac mentioned in the boat? “What about Milwaukee? I promised Grandpa Mac that we’d be back. And school? I’m starting seventh grade.”
“I know,” Mama whispered. “But you could go to school with the other kids in Comfort. And I’d watch over Lillian. Lillian isn’t going to go back to St. Paul. She’s aging, Raine. She’s going to need more help. And I wouldn’t have to be a waitress anymore.”
I didn’t want Mama to stay a waitress, or Lillian to be alone, or to live so far from Gray, but Grandpa Mac was waiting for his family. “No,” I said. “We’re going home. I gave Grandpa Mac my word.”
“But Grandpa Mac would visit,” Mama said. “I need to move on with my life, Raine. I can’t live with Grandpa Mac forever. Just like you’ll grow up and move away from me.”
“I won’t.” I nuzzled my nose into Mama’s neck. It was enough to imagine giving up Milwaukee; I didn’t want to dream about the day I wouldn’t live with Mama anymore. I swallowed hard. All that orphan sadness was a part of me. Like Gray and Lillian, I was a soul who couldn’t bear the getting left or leaving. “Have you made up your mind already?”
“No,” Mama said. “Not without you, Raine.”
52
What would you do if you were me? I wrote to Lyman. Real or not, he always helped me think my troubles through. I wondered if he’d go back with me to Milwaukee, if I’d still be able to imagine him that far from Sparrow Road. If you had a grandpa waiting? Or made a promise you knew you had to keep?
I left my sketchbook on my lap desk, stood up in the tower, and looked over the land. In Milwaukee, I’d only have our bedroom for my dreams. And even then, half of it was Mama’s. And there’d be the constant noise of the TV, or radio and telephones, cars honking on the street. All the perfect silence would be gone. The night song of the insects. The way the wind whistled through the weeds.
I didn’t have a grandpa, Lyman finally said. Or anybody waiting. He leaned on the ledge beside me. But if I did, I guess I’d keep my word.
Even if it meant leaving things you loved?
There’s lots of ways of leaving, Lyman said. Even staying in one place. You can’t get through life without it.
Below us, Viktor stood staring at his turtles, his hands deep in his pockets, his eyes set on the water. People liked your story, I said. Especially the orphans.
Even him? Lyman asked.
I don’t know. Viktor never told me.
No? Lyman said. He wouldn’t.
Lyman? Your friend that moved away? The one who left the marble underneath your pillow? Was it Viktor? Did he live here as an orphan? Did he leave here with the Berglunds? Did they take him to New York?
When I’d shown the lucky penny note to Lillian, she’d only said the writer was a boy with a big heart. No name she could remember. But the way she pressed the penny to her cheek told me that she knew.
Ask him, Lyman said. Ask about the marble. Maybe your answer will be there.
When Sunday morning came, I went down to Diego’s shed to say so long. I knew we’d all be waving from the porch, but there were words I’d been carrying all week, things I had to say to him in private. The door was open. He stood at the center table packing boxes, dressed in the same Hawaiian shirt he wore that morning we first met. Of all the things I’d miss, I thought I’d miss Diego’s bright joy most of all. I’d never met a man who had the gladness of Diego.
“Well! Welcome, Raine,” he said, his smile bright and wide. “You must have read my mind. I’ve got something for you here.” He reached into a box and pulled out a small collage. It was a cut-out photo of me and Gray together at the barbecue, our heads close in conversation, and all around us in bits and pieces of ripped paper the summer sky
shimmered in the sun.
It was a thing I knew I’d save forever. A thing I’d love years and years from now.
“Thanks,” I said. “So much.” I owed so many thank-yous to Diego I didn’t know where to start. “Did you get the answer to your question?” I asked instead. His Eureka Doll was sitting on the table. He hadn’t finished sewing up her head.
“I got it on my end.” He winked. “I’m waiting for your mama’s answer now.”
“I’ll have her start her doll today.” I smiled. I had a good idea what Diego might have asked, but I didn’t want him to tell me. I already had too many what-ifs pressing on my brain.
Diego leaned against the table. “Boy oh boy. I wish I could stay.”
“Me too,” I said. “I mean, I wish the same for you.” Through Diego’s window I saw Josie and Lillian sewing in the sun. “You know, Viktor offered a home to me and Mama. He said that we could stay; Mama could have a job taking care of Lillian.”
“Your mama told me,” Diego said.
“But I’d miss Grandpa Mac.” I slid my hope charm along its chain.
“On the bright side,” Diego said, “you’d have more time with Gray. Time the two of you could use.”
Gray was one of the many thank-yous I still had to tell Diego. I knew it was Diego who helped Mama find the strength to let me go to Gray. And it was Diego who first said Gray was my dad. My dad.
And it was Diego who taught me how to listen to my dreams, to settle into silence, to trust what was or what could be. It was Diego who left the lap desk up in the tower for me. Diego who said we were all on the same team.
“I don’t know what to choose,” I said. “Either way I lose.”
“Or either way you win. But you never know the end at the beginning.” His happy laughter boomed inside the shed. It was a sound I knew I’d miss a long, long time.
53
Those last lazy days of August, Gray and I were free to wander on our own. Gray taught me how to fish for sunnies, and I taught him how to bake a pineapple upside-down cake. Together, we climbed the highest hill from Lyman’s drawing, and when we made it to the top we sat silent and stared at Sparrow Road. “It still looks sad to me,” Gray finally said. “But maybe it’s all the work I’ve got ahead. I’ll be painting the outside of that place until November. November and then some.” He gave me a little grin.
Mama let us drive all over Comfort taking pictures with a camera Gray bought me at the Comfort five-and-dime. One day we had a picnic at Good Shepherd with Mr. Bones tied on a leash. I told Gray stories of days he missed when I was little, and he showed me faded photos of his parents, Maw and Paw, his brother Bug, his sisters Peg and Little Lou. “These folks are all your family,” he said. “You got lots of cousins, too. They’d all like to meet you someday, Raine.”
Maybe by next summer Mama would let me travel to Missouri. By thirteen I’d be old enough to see my family for myself.
It felt like I was living wait and see, like I was torn between two choices. Go back to Milwaukee or stay at Sparrow Road. And it was up to me to say. Then one day Viktor drove us miles into the country to see the Comfort school, plunked down like the drive-in in a field.
“I’ll wait here in the truck,” Viktor said. “The two of you should see it for yourselves.”
Mama and I walked the circle of the building. The grass was dry, the parking lot sat empty. Weeds grew wild in the field. “Well,” Mama joked. “At least you would be safe here, Raine.”
I tried to see myself starting over at a school with the kids I saw in Comfort. Country kids. It was one thing to live at Sparrow Road, to fish with Gray at Sorrow Lake, to help Josie plan the Second Annual Arts Extravaganza, to sit up in the attic and imagine Lyman’s story, to read Lillian her poetry and practice stupid little kid songs on the piano—things other kids would never see. It was another to be the new girl sitting lonely during lunch. The weird kid who lived out with the artists. The girl without a single friend beside her on the bus.
“I can’t stay,” I finally choked. “Lillian and Gray. All of it. I have to say good-bye.”
It was during one of Mama’s nightly phone calls to Diego that Viktor found me on the bench beneath the willow.
“May I have a seat?” He parted the long curtain of thick leaves and sat down on the far end of the bench. In all my time here, Viktor had never asked to sit beside me; most days we still passed without hello.
“About my offer,” Viktor said. “I had intended it to help. But sometimes help can be a kind of harm.” He glanced up at the house. “Sparrow Road,” he said. “When the Berglunds gave it to that charity, they hoped that it would help. But in the end—” He looked down at his hands. “No orphanage is happy. No matter what we hope.”
“No,” I said. “But at least they had a home. And they had Lillian to love them.”
“Yes, Lillian,” Viktor said. “Sometimes shelter is the best that we can offer.” He pressed his fingertips together. Cleared his throat. “I hope there was some happiness this summer for you here.”
“There was,” I said, more happiness than I ever could explain. So much happiness my heart hurt. “And thanks for helping Gray,” I said. “I know you let him live here after New Connections, and drove him to Milwaukee, and talked Mama into giving him a chance with me.”
“I did very little.” Viktor held his hand up as if I’d said enough. “Only what I could.”
“Well, thanks,” I said again.
“That story that you read?” Viktor rubbed his sunken cheek. “Lyman’s? I believe he would have liked it very much.”
“Lyman?” My heart leapt in my chest. “You knew Lyman?”
He stood, then slipped his hand into his pocket. “Yes,” he said. “Once, I knew him very well.” He drew back the leafy curtain. “I think it’s what he would have wanted you to say.” Then he took the first few steps of his nightly solitary stroll. Often, before I fell asleep, I’d see him in the meadow alone beneath the moon.
“Viktor?” I managed to squeak out. I still had one last mystery to solve. “Did you ever know a boy who left a marble under Lyman’s pillow? Who taped a penny on a paper for Lillian?”
He stopped and stared at me. “Yes,” he finally said. “I believe perhaps I did.”
A shiver spread over my skin. “Were you an orphan once?”
“Was I?” He glanced up toward the attic. The lights were off. Bats hung under the eaves. There was nothing there to see, but still he looked. Then something in his face made me think of James Delgado. Nettie Johnson and John Schram. All the orphans at the Arts Extravaganza. Even Lillian and Lyman. It was the lost look of someone who’d been left. I already had the answer in my heart.
“I can hear it in your music.”
“My music?”
“Yes,” I said.
Then he turned back toward the meadow, his body a lanky silhouette against the setting sun. “Good night to you, Raine,” he sighed. “You’re really quite a girl.”
54
I found Lillian and Josie on the front porch eating the last of Mama’s cherry pie. A sea of votive candles flickered in glass jars. The song of shell chimes tinkled in the breeze. “My summer orphan,” Lillian sighed.
“Grab a piece of pie, Raine.” Josie straightened the shawl on Lillian’s shoulders. It was watery blue velvet, the blue of Lillian’s eyes, with beads and fringe and buttons and whatever other doodads Josie had sewn on this summer.
“Smells almost like September,” I said. An August cool had already set in, and I could smell red leaves, and after that, the winter. I thought of Lyman, cold up in that attic, and the way the hills would look coated in pure white.
I sat down on the porch swing next to Lillian and thought of my first day. The lemon drop she gave me, the Old Maid cards she pulled out of her pocket, the way she made my homesick end.
“You got your stuff all packed?” Josie asked. She wasn’t in any hurry to move out of Sparrow Road.
“Most,” I said. I to
ok a bite of Mama’s cherry pie, sugary and sour. So tart it tingled on my tongue. “My writing desk is too big for the train.” Diego said I should leave it as a gift to other writers, for another dreamer who liked to sit up in the tower. Pass it on, he’d said, the way the Berglunds did.
“Good reason for him to visit Milwaukee,” Josie said. “He’ll have to build a new one for you there.”
“I guess.” I tried to smile. A Milwaukee writing desk would never be the same.
“Is her father here?” Lillian put her fork down on her plate. “Is it time for her to leave?”
“He is.” Josie patted at her hand. “But Raine won’t be gone long.”
“I left,” Lillian said, “but not for long.” She blinked at me. “You can come back to me if you’re alone.”
“I’m alone.” Josie clapped her hands together. “And I’d live here forever if I could.” She tugged on my wrist. “I think for old times’ sake we’d better make one more nightly sojourn to that attic. By candlelight tonight. Give those missing kids one last good-bye.”
Sitting silent in the attic, the yellow glow of candles casting shadows on the walls, I was sure I heard the heavy breath of James Delgado’s asthma, John Schram finishing his prayers. And underneath it all, Viktor’s symphony of sorrow. The sad cry of the violin, the moan of his piano.
Josie stretched out on a mattress, her big black boots pressed against the ceiling, the creak of metal springs sagging low beneath her weight.
I walked over to the wall and stared at Lyman’s drawing; I wanted to remember it years and years from now.
I asked about the marble, I said inside myself. He knew the boy who left it underneath your pillow.
So you’ve solved your final mystery? Lyman smiled. I guess you’re ready now to leave?
No, I said. Not ready.
“You memorizing, Raine?” Josie whispered in the darkness. “Gathering all the memories you want to take back to Milwaukee? That lonesome drawing? All the stories up here in the dust?”
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