Keeping Safe the Stars (9781101591215)

by O'Connor, Sheila

  “Just read,” Nightingale said. “It doesn’t matter, Pride.”

  I looked down at the letter, found the place I’d last left off.

  Perhaps the children aren’t really the reason? Perhaps your love has faded while I’ve been here in France? I always feared the distance would be difficult for us. Of course, I hadn’t counted on your daughter’s death or you suddenly a parent or starting up a school at the age of sixty-one. I left you as a hermit; clearly you’re not a hermit anymore.

  I wish you all the best. You, Kathleen, Elise, and little Baxter. (Or Pride and Nightingale and Baby as you call them now.) I’ve enjoyed the details of their days. Your lively tales of what it’s like to have a cabin filled with children. I had so looked forward to knowing them myself, and I’m sad to see that day will never come.

  Life takes us by surprise, doesn’t it, Mick?

  So this will be my last. Come May, I’ll be back in Duluth, same place I’ve always been—but I won’t be a guest at Eden anymore.

  Be well, my friend. You know where I am if things should change.

  I wish you well,

  Justine

  “So Justine’s in Duluth?” Nightingale whispered.

  March 24, 1973. If she went home that May, she’d have been back in Duluth more than a year.

  I pictured us knocking on her door, saying we were Kathleen, Elise, and Baxter. Bridget’s kids she’d said that she would help. And there she’d be with her paintbrush and her pictures, her bread and chocolate, her wide straw hat, her true love for Old Finn. “Maybe we should find her.”

  “Find her, Pride? But how would we do that?”

  39

  HISTORIC

  The moon still lit the sky when we set off for Goodwell. Miss Addie was asleep out in her trailer; Woody Guthrie watched us woeful from the yard. I’d left him extra food and water in the shade—enough to get him through his dinner—still he didn’t want us disappearing down the road.

  All of us had dressed for the night chill: sweatshirts, nylon windbreakers, and jeans. Even Nightingale, except she kept my old tennis shoes in hand. Every pair of shoes gave Nightingale blisters; she swore she wouldn’t wear them until we had to board the bus. It was enough for her to go without her gown.

  It wasn’t long before Baby jumped into the wagon, and my right arm ached from my shoulder to my elbow from dragging all his weight. Pulling Baby over gravel was nothing like the wagon rides I used to give at home and Nightingale wasn’t strong enough to tug much beyond a minute.

  “You’re going to have to walk,” I said to Baby when we reached the True Believer Church. True Believer was always our first-mile marker in the road. “At least until I get the strength back in my arms.”

  Baby barely made it another half a mile before I had to stoop low and let him leap up on my back. When we finally reached the top of our last hill, I set him on the ground and we looked down the long stretch of gravel road out to the highway where the Junk & Stuff sat off in the distance and the early morning semis rolled silent on the road. Over in the east, a strip of sunrise pink was brightening the world.

  “Look!” Baby shouted. Nash’s van was parked in Thor’s dry field. I couldn’t believe Thor had let Nash spend another night parked on his land. Wasn’t he the one who said not to make Nash welcome? “Sage is still in Goodwell after all!”

  “They’re probably still asleep,” I said, which really meant I hoped hard that they were. Except for one old farmer we saw walking toward his barn, and the semi drivers passing in the distance, most people seemed to be in bed. And all the windows were still dark in Thor’s small house.

  I wished there was a secret path to get out to the highway, some way into Goodwell without walking past Thor’s land. But all around, the pine trees grew so thick we’d never find our way out of the forest. Last summer we’d lost Baby in a game of hide-and-seek out in those woods.

  “But what if they’re not here when we come home?” Baby said. “We should stop by now, so I can say good-bye. I want Sage to know I get to take the Greyhound to Duluth.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s too early in the morning. Plus, Duluth is a secret.” No matter how I tried, I couldn’t get Baby to keep a secret quiet. For all his worries of the shelter, he’d never understand that Sage and Nash might land us there.

  “Can I tell her after we get home? Will it be a secret later?”

  “I don’t know.” I crossed my fingers and made a silent wish Sage would be gone.

  Nightingale glanced at me. “But I thought that we were hiding from—”

  “Watch out,” I screamed. Suddenly, a bright-red Mustang roared toward us from behind. I grabbed Baby by the hand and yanked him to the ditch. Nightingale jumped into the weeds. We watched the Mustang zoom halfway down the hill, but then it stopped. Suddenly. And just as suddenly the driver made a sharp U-turn and drove straight back toward us.

  “I wish I had my bow and arrow.” Baby squeezed my fingers. “I should’ve brought a weapon.”

  “Yoo-hoo! Girls!” a woman shouted from the window. She opened up her door. “Girls, it’s me. Bernice!” It was Bernice, with her frosty blond hair poof high up on her head, her nurse’s dress, the little white cap she wore the day we met her at St. John’s.

  “She’s safe,” I said to Baby. “She was Old Finn’s nurse.”

  “She was?” Baby scrunched his face, confused. “But why’s she stopping now?”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered. Bernice crossed the gravel road. Maybe she was stopping to get her ice-cream quarters back.

  “You remember me?” she said, smiling. She looked beautiful this morning with her perfect hair sprayed stiff, her lipstick glitter pink, her eyelids pale blue. It made me wish Mama was Bernice, a woman standing on a highway dressed in white for work. But Mama was too down-to-earth to wear her hair up in a poof. “What are you children doing out so early in the morning? It’s barely six o’clock.”

  “We’re going to buy groceries,” I said. “Cereal and milk.”

  “Groceries?” Bernice asked, amazed. “You mean all the way in Goodwell at the Need-More?”

  I gave a nod; I didn’t want to say too much.

  “You’re walking into town?” She shook her head.

  “It’s not so far,” I said.

  She looked down at Baby. “It’s far for him. And you kids can’t walk on that highway by yourselves.”

  “Most of the way Pride pulled me in the wagon.” Baby grinned. Pride again. I rolled my eyes. I hoped he wouldn’t say Pride to the people at St. Mary’s.

  “We’ll keep to the ditch,” I said. “Walk along the weeds.”

  “Heavens no.” Bernice looked at Nightingale’s feet, my ratty tennis shoes hanging in her hands. “I’ve got room in my backseat. I’ll just stick that wagon in my trunk.”

  “Okay.” Nightingale’s sudden yes surprised me. We both knew we weren’t allowed to go with strangers, but her poor bare feet must have been worn from the walk.

  “That’s great,” I added quickly. Thor would never see us in the backseat of the Mustang. “We’d be happy for the ride.”

  • • •

  It wasn’t until we crossed the road to reach the Mustang that I saw a second person in the front seat of the car. The candy striper Suzy. Suzy, who had said I was a hoot. Suzy, who knew that I was crying in the bathroom of St. John’s.

  “This is my youngest, Suzy,” Bernice said when we were all tucked in the backseat. “I take her with me in the summers. Working as a candy striper keeps her out of trouble.” Bernice snuck a little wink to us through the rearview mirror.

  “Mom,” Suzy moaned. She snapped her gum and kept her face set forward. I was glad she didn’t say a word about the costume or the wheelbarrow or how she’d leaned against the sink and told me not to tell. Glad, too, she didn’t even turn
to look at us, not once.

  “Couldn’t your mother get the groceries?” Bernice asked.

  “Not today,” I said. “Today she was too sick. And Baxter needed cereal and milk.”

  “Was she sick the day I saw you at the hospital?” Bernice said, like she was worried. “I remember you two girls came all alone.”

  “I guess,” I lied. “I think she probably was.” I pressed my hand down hard on Baby’s leg—not a word, not a single word.

  “That’s a shame,” Bernice said. “I hope it isn’t serious.”

  My head throbbed from the sweet perfume and hairspray, women smells we didn’t have in our cabin. I wished so hard that Mama was just sick, that she’d wake up tomorrow morning and take us into town. Slap my leg when I put my dusty shoes up on the dash, give a wink, tease a little bit, all the mother things Bernice did on our drive to town with Suzy.

  “So?” Bernice asked as we passed the Lucky Strike. Even the Texaco was closed this early in the morning. “Is your grandpa getting better? Didn’t the doctors send him to Duluth?”

  “Duluth,” Baby said. “We’re on—”

  I sank my fingers in his skin. “They did,” I interrupted. “They sent him to St. Mary’s.”

  “Yes,” Bernice said. “I was happy to hear that. At least he’ll have the specialists. We can’t help every case here at St. John’s. Sometimes a bigger hospital is best.”

  “Yep,” I said before Baby had a chance to blurt another word. “A bigger hospital is best.” We were almost to the Need-More; another couple blocks and we’d jump out of this car. Head back to the Lucky Strike to catch our bus.

  “Sad day for our country,” Bernice said.

  “Mom,” Suzy groaned and slouched lower in her seat. I couldn’t imagine acting that fed up with Mama. But maybe if she’d lived to see me grown to fourteen. A candy striper, a girl with my own job. “Not that crap about the president again.”

  “Suzy,” Bernice scolded. “Watch your mouth, young lady.”

  Suzy tossed her head and let her ponytail sway.

  “This day will be historic,” Bernice said. “Trust me. It’s a day you’ll all remember fifty years from now. Like the two dark days the Kennedys were shot. Or Martin Luther King. Those days leave a deep dent in your mind.”

  I didn’t know why today was so historic, but I knew I wouldn’t forget the time we took the Greyhound to Duluth all by ourselves, with money we had made, and how we finally got to see Old Finn. And maybe we could meet Justine if we were lucky. All things more important than Nixon and his news.

  40

  SOME DUMB THING

  The Need-More was still dark when Bernice pulled up in front. “It doesn’t open up until eight,” she said. She stretched one arm across the seat, turned halfway in our direction and took a good long look. This time Suzy did it, too. All the staring made me feel like some strange specimen, a creepy insect scientists would study under a magnifying glass.

  “You kids intend to sit here by yourselves?” Bernice glanced down the empty street. “The Donut Hole’s the only business open at this hour.”

  “I love the Donut Hole,” Baby said. “Let’s go buy a bear claw, Pride.”

  “Not now,” I said to Baby. We didn’t have extra money for a bear claw.

  “Bear claws are my favorite.” Bernice gave Baby a sweet smile. “Suzy’s, too.”

  “They were.” Suzy rolled her eyes like Bernice was dumb to say Suzy once liked bear claws.

  “Oh, this one”—Bernice lifted Suzy’s chin—“she detests the morning. And you know when you’re fifteen—everything your mother says is wrong.”

  “Yeah, right,” Suzy huffed.

  It didn’t seem fair that Suzy had Bernice to bicker with this morning; Mama and I would never get to bicker over bear claws. I opened up the car door, eager to move on. “I better get the wagon from the trunk,” I said, once everyone but Suzy was standing on the sidewalk.

  “Oh, right!” Bernice smiled. “But I hate to think you’ll walk those miles home. Where do you live exactly?”

  “Just down the road from True Believer Church,” Baby said. “The one with the white steeple.”

  “On Crest,” I lied. I didn’t want Bernice snooping at our cabin like everybody else.

  “And we might be walking home at dark so I got Old Finn’s flashlight.” Baby stuck his arm into his canvas sack.

  “At dark?” Bernice said.

  “Baby’s just confused,” I said.

  “Crest?” Bernice asked me. “I don’t know that street.”

  “Not Crest,” Baby said.

  “He doesn’t know his address,” I said quickly. I pulled the wagon from the trunk, set it on the sidewalk. “Get in,” I ordered Baby. He sat down in the box, crossed his stubby legs.

  “I know my address,” he said.

  Suzy stuck her head out the open window. “So what happened to the wheelbarrow?” she asked suddenly. I wished she hadn’t kept it in her mind.

  “What?” Bernice asked. “What wheelbarrow, Suzy?”

  “Some dumb thing.” Suzy tossed her ponytail so it made a perfect bounce against her seat. When I got to be a candy striper, I wouldn’t be anything like Suzy, even if I could be as pretty as she was. “I guess it’s just a joke.”

  “Well, it doesn’t strike me funny,” Bernice said. She opened up her purse and handed Baby money. I didn’t see how much, but I knew that it was money she put into his hand. “You go get your bear claws,” she said. “And wait inside the Donut Hole until the Need-More opens up at eight o’clock.”

  • • •

  We didn’t buy the bear claws or go into the Donut Hole; instead we walked over to the Lucky Strike once Bernice’s car was gone, parked Baby’s wagon, and spent the fifty cents she gave him on our tickets to Duluth. With Bernice’s fifty cents, we only had to give up one of Miss Addie’s JFKs. The other one we’d return when we got home.

  “Crest?” Baby asked while we were waiting for the Greyhound. “Isn’t that a toothpaste, Pride?”

  “It is,” I said. “But it sounded like a street.”

  Nightingale sighed and shook her head; all my lies were more than she could stand. “She’ll never know our street,” I said.

  “But everything is lies,” Nightingale complained. “Every single thing. And I don’t want a bad example set for Baby. Lie, lie, lie.”

  “Then think of them as stories,” I said. “A story like those books you like to read. Toby Tyler? Harriet the Spy? Daddy-Long-Legs?”

  “When you write them in a book,” Nightingale lectured, “they aren’t lies, they’re fiction.”

  “Okay.” I tried to toss my hair like Suzy. But I didn’t have a golden ponytail bouncing on my back, I had thick brown hair dull as Scout’s old mane. Barely brushed and only to my shoulders with a secret nest of tangles hidden near my neck. “When all of this is over, I’ll write my stories down. Then they’ll just be fiction. And Old Finn can correct them with his pen.”

  Nightingale gave me a dark glare. “Old Finn will do more than correct them. He’ll be mad you even told them, Pride.”

  41

  ALL I NEED TO KNOW

  We were the only ones to board the bus in Goodwell, but the seats inside were already filled with every kind of folk. Frail women like Miss Addie, army men, tired moms with kids, sleeping hippies stretched across two seats. I sat alone behind Nightingale and Baby, watched out the dirty window while Goodwell disappeared.

  Mile after mile, my heart raced faster from my fears. What if Old Finn was angry that we came? What if Baby blabbed about the pony rides and popcorn? Or Nash? The travel magazine? The terrible, scary mother? Or what if Old Finn asked about the tickets? And I had to say we took Miss Addie’s keepsakes? Spent them on our tickets to see him. What if he’d changed his
mind about our having independence and we had to go to fosters or a shelter until he came home well?

  “Hey.” I reached between the seats and tapped Nightingale’s shoulder. I didn’t want to sit alone with a worry fire burning through my brain. “Is there room for me if I put Baby on my lap?”

  Baby got up on his knees, looked over his seat, flashed me his happy, toothless grin. Already, I’d forgotten to put the Neosporin on his scar. And Dr. Madden said to do it every day. Dr. Madden and his questions made my head hurt worse. Now I’d have to tell Old Finn someone from social-something was coming to our house. Nightingale was right; Old Finn might be really mad. Or disappointed in me the way he was with Mama the years before she died. I didn’t want to lose Old Finn’s great pride. It was all the love I had left in the world.

  “Come into our seat!” Baby sang. His happy eyes glistened with excitement; he didn’t have a single worry on his mind. An expedition to Duluth was the perfect Baby journey; he only saw adventure up ahead. “Did you see the real-live army men?”

  “I did,” I said. I moved up a seat and let Baby have my lap. It was good to have Mama’s too-long, sturdy legs—legs that let me balance Baby the way I did when he was only two.

  Nightingale kept her head against the window, and I could see all my same worries weighing on her face. “Duluth will be so big,” she finally said. “All those streets and buildings. How will we find Old Finn?”

  “We’ll ask,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure myself. “Someone there is sure to point it out. And you can read a map. Old Finn taught it in geography.” Nightingale was the only one to learn to read the map. “Remember the equator? And Ecuador?”

  Nightingale smiled. “You could never keep those straight. But the equator won’t be here, Pride. Or Ecuador.”

  “See,” I said. “You’ll help us find the way.” I dropped my head against her shoulder, but Nightingale’s bones were small and hard. I could never find a soft spot to rest my head on Night.