Keeping Safe the Stars (9781101591215)

by O'Connor, Sheila

  “We’ll be okay,” I said. “We’re self-reliant.”

  “Independent,” Baby said.

  “Self-sufficient,” Nightingale added.

  Maybe once we all were, but I didn’t feel so certain anymore.

  44

  ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD

  We didn’t even get the chance to tell Old Finn we loved him, or give him the get-well cards we made, before Henri came to take him down to Speech.

  “Are you sure that was ten minutes?” I complained. I held tight to Old Finn’s big bear arm. We’d worked so hard to get here, rode all the way from Goodwell—ten minutes with Old Finn just wasn’t fair. It could be weeks before we had the money to come back.

  “You come again,” Henri said. He brushed the oatmeal crumbs off Old Finn’s robe; I should have put a napkin in his lap. Next time I’d know better. “Right now he works on words.”

  “But why can’t he talk now?” Baby asked. “He only has a fever.”

  “The infection got the brain.” Henri set a gentle hand on Old Finn’s skull. “But with work it will come back.” Hearing Henri say that gave me hope; nobody worked harder than Old Finn.

  Old Finn patted Baby’s cheek, then nodded toward the hallway. I had the sudden, heartsick feeling he wanted us to go. He didn’t even try to move his mouth to argue, he just closed his heavy lids as if he was ready for a rest. A long, long rest without us.

  “Then can we come back later?” I said. “Later on today? After he does all the work you want?”

  “Maybe after supper if your grandpa’s not asleep.” Henri yanked up on the brakes, grabbed hold of Old Finn’s chair. “Today he will be busy. Tomorrow might be better. Every day is better.”

  “Wait!” I said. I reached into my knapsack, grabbed our stack of cards. “We made these for you.” I pushed them toward Old Finn. “Nightingale’s is prettiest.” The front of Nightingale’s card was a vase of tissue-paper flowers with green pipe cleaners for stems. Baby’s card was cute—a drawing of spotted Woody Guthrie dressed in Old Finn’s cowboy boots and hat. Mine was black construction paper chalked with stars, but most of them had smeared. Inside I’d written When You Wish Upon a Star Your Dreams Come True—from a song Mama used to sing.

  I tried to close his hand around the cards, but instead they all just fluttered to the floor.

  “Here,” Henri said. “For now, I’ll put them in his pouch. Later on we’ll set them in his room. Give him something happy for his eyes.” He tucked the cards in with Old Finn’s clipboard and fat pencil, the single sheet of paper where he’d squiggled one faint line.

  Nightingale stuck the nub end of her braid into her mouth, gnawed the way she did when she was trying not to cry. Baby scrambled into Old Finn’s lap, roped his arms around his neck. “Careful there,” Henri scolded kindly. He reached down and lifted Baby to the floor. “Michael isn’t ready for that yet,” he said. “But someday soon.” He kneaded Old Finn’s shoulder. “Lots of love here, man. And all this love, it’s good.”

  Tears swelled up in my eyes, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t come back tomorrow. Or the next day. Not unless someone gave us all the money in the world. I pressed my cheek against his chest, hugged hard so Old Finn would know that he was loved. He didn’t smell like dirt or sawdust or Woody Guthrie; he smelled old and sickly like St. Mary’s. I turned away, let Nightingale have the last good-bye. “I brought Walden,” she said, but most of it came out as a hiccup through her tears. “I thought that we could read.”

  “Next time,” Henri told her softly. “Next time you read. There’s lots of time ahead.”

  “Next time for ten minutes?” Nightingale wiped her hand across her cheek. I knew what she was saying—we couldn’t come all the way from Goodwell for ten minutes with Old Finn.

  • • •

  “I wish I’d seen that slip of paper sooner,” Nightingale said. We were outside the busy front doors of St. Mary’s, people streaming in and out, the bright sun glaring on our faces all swollen tearful pink. It was the first thing anyone had said since Old Finn left the lounge.

  “What paper?” I asked Nightingale. After all that sadness her mind was on a paper?

  “The one that Baby showed us on the bus. The one Miss Addie wrote.” She wiped her nose dry with her sleeve, bit her lip to stop the flow of tears. “The one that had Old Finn’s infection. Encephalitis. If I’d seen it, Pride, at least we could have known.”

  “Known what?” I shook my head. “What was there to know before this minute? And we couldn’t even read that word Miss Addie wrote.”

  “I could read it,” Nightingale insisted. I didn’t know why she was mad at me right now; all day I’d been standing on her dark side. No matter what I did she called it wrong. “And you could read it if you tried. You never try to read; you just set out thinking that you already know the answer when you don’t. That’s why books matter, Pride. You have to read for information. Like when you got so sick with scarlet fever, Old Finn looked it right up in his book. And he knew to get you medicine. Maybe Old Finn’s fever was there, too. And all this time we would have known he couldn’t walk or talk. That maybe he was never coming home. Instead of sitting there at Eden thinking that he was.” She didn’t even try to swallow down her sobs.

  “I’m sorry.” I shrugged, but if that’s what some book said, I was glad I hadn’t read it before now. Today was soon enough for me.

  “We need to find the library.” Nightingale looked down the busy street. “Read about this infection Old Finn has. Same as scarlet fever or polio.” This year, Old Finn had taught us both the Dewey decimal system at the library in Goodwell; he made us use the card catalog, do research for reports. I wrote two pages on Appaloosas. Nightingale wrote eight long, boring pages about polio and vaccinations. She even included illustrations of an iron lung and crutches. I didn’t want Old Finn’s infection to be as bad as polio.

  “Nothing in a library can tell us what we need,” I said. It wasn’t my fault Nightingale had never seen the paper; it was Baby who found it on the floor, tucked the thing away.

  “Old Finn would read.” Nightingale crossed her arms over her tiny stomach; she stood there stubborn on the street, her black braids shining near blue in the sun. “Old Finn would want to know.”

  45

  CLOSER TO A GROWN-UP

  It was easier to let Nightingale hunt down the public library than to stand there at St. Mary’s thinking of Old Finn. Old Finn in those strange slippers, Old Finn without his words, Old Finn with that dark cave of open mouth, Old Finn wanting us to leave after ten short, measly minutes.

  When we got inside the library, I took Baby to the picture books the way I did in Goodwell while Nightingale headed off to Reference to read the big encyclopedias alone. She could write up her report on Old Finn’s fever, teach us all a lesson, but it was up to me to figure out how we’d find our help. Help. The kind of help that wouldn’t send us to a shelter or farm us off to fosters. Help for the time ahead we’d be left at Eden all alone. I could tell by Henri’s face Old Finn wasn’t coming home tomorrow or the next day. He wasn’t coming home until he learned to walk and talk. And, worse, I had a horrible fear he wouldn’t.

  I opened Curious George because that’s the book Baby begged for first. He always liked that monkey’s mischief and the way George’s owner tried to keep him out of trouble, same way I tried to keep Baby from leaping off swings. I wished life were as easy as keeping safe a monkey, especially one who always found his own way out of a jam. Usually Curious George made Baby happy, but today he sucked his knuckles, curled up close against my arm without a single laugh.

  “Old Finn didn’t even look down at my card,” Baby finally said. “He didn’t even see how I drew Woody Guthrie in his cowboy boots and hat. He just let them fall down to the floor.”

  “He’s sick,” I said.

 
“We don’t have a grown-up left now, Pride.” Baby nudged his nose into my sleeve. “No one but Miss Addie, and Miss Addie’s just too old.”

  “I know,” I said. I couldn’t lie to Baby; he’d seen Old Finn himself. “But you have me.” Day by day I felt closer to a grown-up than to a girl just turned thirteen.

  I don’t know how long we sat there, but it was longer than the ten quick minutes they gave us with Old Finn. When we finished Curious George, Baby picked out Corduroy, then Make Way for Ducklings, and finally a book about a bunny that had to learn to ask for help to find his way back home. Maybe Nightingale was right; maybe a book could hold the answer after all.

  “Let’s go find Nightingale,” I said. Whatever information Nightingale needed, she must have read by now. I didn’t know why she liked big books with all those pages; Curious George was long enough for me.

  “There she is!” Baby said. Nightingale was standing at a counter, talking to a thin-faced man with heavy black-rimmed glasses and a patch of gray goatee hanging from his chin. A thick, red book was opened up between them. Someday it would be Nightingale working the counter at the library in Goodwell, her long black braids falling on the book.

  “So these must be your siblings?” the thin man said. Nightingale nodded. Sibling was a word the shelter people used. I didn’t like the way it sounded—slippery like lizards or something that could slink. I was happiest with family.

  “We’ve been researching your grandpa’s medical condition,” the librarian continued. “Encephalitis.” Miss Addie’s note was there beside the book. “It can certainly be serious,” he said. “No question. But, his prognosis may be better than you think. Even if there isn’t much he can do now. It says right here . . .” He turned the book to me, but I didn’t bother reading that whole page of little print. Baby was so lucky no one asked him to read much more than cat. “It is possible for patients to experience full recovery. Or nearly full.” He ran his finger underneath the sentences, then stopped. He looked at Nightingale. “If your grandpa’s case is mild, there could be some hope.”

  “That’s good,” I said. I was happy to have hope, even if those words didn’t strike me right. Old Finn’s encephalitis wasn’t mild. If it were mild, he’d be back home by now. “We should leave.” I tugged on Nightingale. If it were up to her, we’d spend all day buried in these books. I reached out and took hold of her hand. I didn’t want to learn another thing about the fever. We needed help. And help was what I had to get us now.

  46

  FIVE THIN DIMES

  We’re starting with Justine,” I said once I’d managed to get Nightingale and Baby a few streets from the library.

  “Justine?” Nightingale repeated like I’d just rattled off Chinese.

  “Justine from the letters?” Baby scrunched his freckled face. “The one that loved Old Finn?”

  I didn’t know why Baby asked that stupid question—there wasn’t any other Justine in our lives. “That’s her,” I said, impatient. “She said that she’d be living in Duluth. After France was finished. So she could be here now.”

  “But why?” Nightingale argued. “Old Finn doesn’t love her anymore. If he did, we would have known her.”

  “But she loved him,” I said. “A lot. So maybe she would help him.”

  “But we don’t know.” Nightingale slapped her shoes together like she had a pair of cymbals in her hands; she’d slipped back to bare feet the minute we walked out of the library. “And this city’s just too big to find a stranger.” Compared to Goodwell, the city did look big with its brick hotels and buses, department stores and restaurants, people rushing here and there. But Nightingale wasn’t the only one who knew how to use a book.

  “We’ll look in the directory,” I said. “See if Justine’s listed. Same way I found St. John’s the first night Old Finn was gone.”

  “Justine who?” Nightingale challenged. “We’d need to know her name.”

  “Ryan. Justine Ryan.” Didn’t Nightingale listen to those letters? Justine’s name was on every envelope she sent. Nightingale wasn’t always smarter; someday she’d see there were things I knew.

  “But even so,” Nightingale argued. “What exactly would we say?”

  “Don’t know.” I shrugged because I didn’t. Hard as it was, I knew it would be something about help. Help for Old Finn first and maybe us. Money for our groceries. A good grown-up to step in if the county came around. Someone kind to help us stay at Eden. Someone who knew for certain Old Finn would never want us in a shelter. Someone who knew how much he loved us, and that someone was Justine. “First,” I said, “we have to track her down.”

  • • •

  The three of us crammed into a grimy phone booth, Baby crouched down in the corner, Nightingale and I stuck arm to shoulder, searching through the phone book until we finally found the Rs. And at the end of Rs the Ryans. Ryan, J. There was Jan and Jill and Joyce, a bunch of Jameses and Johns, but nothing for Justine.

  “Oh no,” I groaned. “What if she’s still living off in France?”

  “Maybe she’s just J.” Nightingale pointed toward the letters. “J for her first name.”

  “There’s so many Js.” I counted down the list. “Six.” I didn’t want to spend six dimes looking for Justine or stand much longer in this stinky, steamy phone booth with globs of old chewed gum stuck against the glass. Smashed cigarette butts scattered at our feet. “We’ll have to call them all.”

  “Six?” Nightingale said. “That’ll take all the money we have left.”

  “I don’t know how else. We can’t go to all these houses. Not before our bus leaves at six thirty. The city’s just too big.”

  I handed Nightingale the final JFK. I wished I could have saved it for Miss Addie, but we needed sixty cents to make the calls. “You go get the change,” I ordered. It already hurt my heart spending one of them on tickets. For once it could be Nightingale doing something hard. “Change it at the drugstore just across the street.”

  I stepped out of the glass box and took a deep breath of the lake. I wished we could all go down to the water, watch the seagulls bicker over scraps, buy three sprinkled ice-cream cones the way Old Finn did for us the time he brought us to buy books. I remembered how we scuttled over jagged rocks along the shoreline, even Baby, and how we rested on a bench when we were finished, the four of us like any ordinary family except our parents were both dead.

  Did Old Finn and Justine ever sit on that same bench? Almost like a family? Did he buy her sprinkled ice cream? Maybe she could tell us that today, tell us who Old Finn was before he took us into Eden. Old Finn in love and healthy would make me happy now.

  When Nightingale came back with five thin dimes, I knew for certain Miss Addie’s final JFK was gone. “Here,” she said, pressing the coins into my palm, but I didn’t want them. “I’ll read the numbers, but you should do the talking.” She pulled another dime out of her pocket, dropped it into the phone.

  I knew Nightingale would never call Justine, not any more than she would have called St. John’s the first night Old Finn was gone. She had her books, but she didn’t have my courage in the world—except maybe in the library, and no one really needed courage there. “But you just got mad when I said I’d do the talking to Old Finn.”

  “That’s because I know him,” Nightingale said. “I know him and I love him. And it can’t just be you talking to Old Finn. But I don’t know Justine. Or why we’re even calling.”

  “We’re calling her for help,” I said, even though that last word barely made it off my tongue.

  “Help?” Baby said. “But the Stars are independent. Old Finn wants us self-re-lay-ent.”

  “Self-reliant,” Nightingale corrected.

  “And we are,” I said, but then I thought of Old Finn in that chair, how long it took for him to moan out that single G. How little we had waiting i
n our pantry. The bag of Woody Guthrie’s kibble that wouldn’t last past next week. “We are,” I promised Baby. “But today we need some help.”

  47

  HOPING ON A STRANGER

  Only four J. Ryans answered and none of them had heard of a Justine. The other two didn’t pick up their phones.

  “Now what?” Nightingale said. We’d spent Miss Addie’s final keepsake, Old Finn could barely speak, and we were in Duluth until six thirty with nothing but our tickets home, two dimes and no place left to go.

  I looked down at the phone book. Two addresses were left. “We could walk out to these houses. Knock or leave a note. If Justine is home, she might just ask us in.”

  “Just show up on her doorstep?” Nightingale said.

  “Why not?” I shrugged. “It’s what Nash did to us. And everybody else that came out to our business. Not everyone hates strangers on their land.”

  “But we don’t know this city,” Nightingale said. “Or any of these streets. Or how to find her house.”

  “Didn’t we find St. Mary’s?” Smart as she was, Nightingale’s brain sometimes got stuck. “We’ll go ask at your library.” I gave Nightingale a grin. “Isn’t that where all the answers are?”

  “They’ll tell us at the library!” Baby jumped up to his feet. “I’ve got my compass in my pocket; I can find Justine. That bearded man can tell us where she lives.”

  • • •

  “Well, yes.” The librarian cleared his throat and nudged his heavy glasses up his nose. Someday Nightingale would say things like, Well, yes. I could picture it already. This man liked to puzzle out a question just the way she did, make an answer harder than it was. “I can certainly help you with these addresses, but they’re in two sections of the city, nowhere near to one another. Is there something specific that you need at either site?”