My first thought was, it had all been a horrible nightmare. I sat up quickly. Noble was just waking up, too. He rubbed his eyes and yawned and then he stretched.
"I'm hungry," he said. ,When I didn't respond, he grimaced. "Why are you just looking at me. Celeste?"
Without replying. I leaped out of bed and went to the window to look down for Daddy's truck. It wasn't where he always parked it.
"What are you looking for?" Noble asked, sliding off the bed and putting his feet into his slippers.
"Daddy," I said.
"Look downstairs. He's probably having his coffee," he said and stretched again.
I started to nod. Why not? Why not force it all to be a nightmare? Yes, I thought. Daddy's downstairs having his coffee. Everything was just a bad dream.
I started for the door when it opened and Mommy stood there looking in at us.
She was dressed in black, her eyes bloodshot, her lips trembling.
"Mommy?" I said, my own lips trembling just as hard, "Did you tell him anything?"
"No," I said.
"Tell me what?" Noble asked,
"Daddy's gone," Mommy said.
"Gone? Where did he go?" Noble asked.
"To the bosom of his family," Mommy replied.
The nightmare I had hoped would replace reality was just beginning.
3
Crossing Over
.
The darkness that fell over our home that night
never lifted for months and months. Even in the morning when the sun came out, the darkness lingered. I felt like it stuck to everything around me. It was in every corner, over every window, like a thin film of dark gray. Mostly it was in our eyes, especially Mommy's and mine.
Many people had come to the church for Daddy's funeral service and even to the cemetery. Mommy didn't really know most of them. They were people with whom Daddy had done business: bankers, attorneys, real estate people. Mr. Calhoun was as attentive as he could be, but his wife looked afraid of Mommy and held him back. They didn't come to the cemetery with us, in fact, but one of Daddy's close friends. Taylor Kotes, a man about Daddy's age, was beside us constantly. I knew from the previous times I had seen him with Daddy or heard Mommy and Daddy talk about him that he was now the owner of the biggest lumberyard in the community and he had lost his wife, who had developed some vicious form of muscular dystrophy and died two years ago. On this dark gray day, both he and Mommy seemed to wear the same mask of sorrow, his own cemetery memories returning.
Mommy had decided against having any sort of gathering at the house afterward. I heard her mumbling how many of these mourners had come out of curiosity. They wanted to see her and especially us, the mysterious twins. I could feel dozens of eves on me in church and especially at the cemetery. Noble was distracted by everything as usual and for a while was more interested in a crow on a nearby tree then the minister's words and the sight of the coffin held on poles above the empty grave. Because Mommy didn't cry. I didn't.
Noble was still having trouble understanding and accepting Daddy's dying. For a long time afterward, he would stop and stare down the long driveway and over the road, expecting to see Daddy's truck approaching. Even after the funeral, he waited with anticipation, sometimes kicking a rock about the driveway for nearly an hour, periodically sitting on the side and scratching pictures in the earth. I watched him from a window. I didn't have to ask him what he was doing.
Mommy didn't permit us to see Daddy in his coffin, so we didn't see him dead. She believed the body had nothing more to do with Daddy. His spirit had left it. Therefore, there was no reason to gaze upon him just to confirm he was gone.
To demonstrate her belief, she filled a paper cup with water and told us the water was the spirit.
"When you die, your spirit leaves your body," she said and poured the. water out. This empty cup is your empty body. It's not you anymore. It is
worthless," she said bitterly and crushed the cup in her hand. "I could burn it: I could bury it I could seal it up in a tomb. It doesn't matter. No one will ever look upon it again."
Noble's eyes grew small and angry. I could see how he thought Mommy was all wrong. She couldn't possibly be right. There was no way Daddy wasn't coming home, not our daddy. He shook his head at her and stamped his foot. "No! Daddy's not a cup! Daddy's not a cup!" he screamed and ran off to hide in his room and sulk, his footsteps pounding the floor and echoing in my heart.
When Mommy had called Noble stubborn, she had no idea how deep that well of stubbornness was. She looked at me and shook her head.
"We've got to make him understand. Celeste, s important," she said.
Why didn't she even wonder if I had
understood? Was it just because I wasn't shouting and crying like Noble? I didn't want to understand and accept Daddy's death any more than he did. Why wasn't she throwing her arms around me and soothing me as much? Why was she sending me after him?
Eventually. I mistook Noble's stubbornness for his being able to reach Daddy's spirit, and I was terribly jealous. He held onto his obstinacy so long I thought, what else could it be? Time wasn't working its magic on him as it was on Mommy and me. There was no concession in him, no willingness to go on without Daddy, even if we performed the smallest and most insignificant of chores about the house.
"Daddy doesn't want us to do this," he would say. Or. "Daddy wants me to help him tonight." He even said. "Daddy was here and he said we should listen to Mommy and never be bad and give her a headache."
"When?" I asked. "Where did you see him? When did you hear him speak? What did he look like? That was he wearing? Did he ask about me?"
Questions about details confused him and sent him running off. Was he hiding something from me? I had to wonder. Did the spirits tell him not to reveal anything? Finally. I asked Mommy.
She looked at me sadly and said. "I wish that were the case. Celeste. but I'm sure everything Noble is telling you comes from his imagination."
"But how do you know. Mommy? Maybe he does speak to Daddy's spirit."
"I would know.'' she said. She said it with such confidence that I had no doubt she would, "It's not time for that vet. Your brother just won't face our loss. He's a very sensitive child. He has my heart," she said. and I felt as if a bee had stung me.
He had her heart?
What did I have of hers?
"Go find him. I don't like him beinc, so sad all the -time, Celeste, Occupy his mind. You must watch over him more," she told me. However, she didn't say it in a way that would make me feel proud and grownup. She said it with anger. It was a criticism like I wasn't doing my job. She made me feel I was born with him simply to watch over him, to keep him from harm and sadness, a tagalong without a life of her own,
"You came out first,' Daddy used to tell me with a smile. "So you're really older. Celeste. You're the older sister."
When I said that in front of Mommy and Noble, Noble started to cry.
"I was first, not you!" he wailed.
"No, you weren't," I insisted. I shook my head, and he wailed harder and louder, and Mommy jumped up and shook my shoulders.
"Stop it!" she told me. "Don't you see you're making him unhappy? You won't have any dessert tonight for this. Meanness in, sweetness out,' she recited.
"I didn't say it to be mean. Mommy," I cried.
"Well, it was, and you did," she insisted.
She pulled Noble to her and told him Daddy was just fooling with me. Daddy didn't mean it. He was first, after all. Who knew better than she did? His sobs relented, and Mommy kissed the tears off his cheeks. I stared at her and she looked at me with those eyes that could frighten me. and I shifted my gaze quickly.
It doesn't matter what she tells him. I thought. I know I was first. Daddy wouldn't lie about it.
Now, lo and behold. Mommy was changing her story. I was more mature. I was truly born first, born to grow faster and wiser, but it didn't give me any pleasure to hear her say this now because she made it seem l
ike an added burden. An obligation that I would never shed had been attached to my being born first. I got so I wished Noble really had come before me.
I went to Noble to comfort him as she wanted me to do. however. In the end I always did what Mommy wanted. I played one of his games with him and got his mind on other things, but I couldn't stand the way he talked about seeing and hearing Daddy all the time.
"You've got to stop saying you're talking to Daddy and you're seeing Daddy, Noble. Its making Mommy very upset and it's not right to lie about such a thing," I told him one day.
"I did see him," he insisted.
"Then you must tell me where and when." I demanded and folded my arms about my chest the way Daddy would when he was angry. "Well?"
He covered his face with his hands. and I knelt down beside him and pulled his hands away. He was stronger than I was then, but he was crying now and too sad to be stronger.
"I don't want Daddy to be dead." he moaned.
"Me neither, but that's what he is," I said firmly. "Or at least his body."
"His cup," Noble muttered angrily under his breath.
"His spirit is out there. Noble, really out there, and you know what Mommy has promised us: Someday all the spirits will talk to us and we'll see them and we'll see and talk to Daddy for real again. Don't you want that?"
Noble had always been reluctant to believe in all this, but now with the possibility of it including Daddy, he had no choice. He nodded.
"When?" he asked me.
"Soon." I said. "Mommy says soon."
Not long after our little talk. Noble started to accept the truth about Daddy's death. Ironically. I was actually sorry to see him do that. Sometimes, when he had stood staring out at the driveway or watching the road, or had turned quickly at the sound of a car or truck engine in the distance, my heart would quicken its beat and I would look, too. It wasn't Noble's skepticism as much as it was hope, a dream, a prayer, but the engine sound would dwindle and die and the road would remain empty. lonely. I'd catch myself and shake my head at myself for being so foolish, so childish.
Even at that early age. I disdained looking like or behaving like a child. Mommy's constant prodding for me to be more responsible, for me to be older and more mature, had taken seed in my little body. Often now I would catch myself in the hallway mirror and see how I was standing with a military stiffness, my lips pursed, my face full of little wisdom. The little girl in me was disappearing, shrinking. She would soon be gone after far too short a childhood. The dolls on the shelves in our room stared hopelessly at me and with little expectation. They seemed to know that I'd pick them up no more for many reasons. I had no idea that one in particular was waiting for me like a patient demon.
Instead of playing with my dolls. I was busy helping Mommy with the dinner or cleaning rooms in the house, moving a vacuum cleaner about that was taller than I was. Instead of dressing my dolls and serving them tea. I was helping Noble with our schoolwork, chasing after him for not picking up after himself. By now I had a voice that was a perfect mimic of Mommy's when I wanted it to be. and I could posture like her and glare like she glared at him when she was upset. Noble even told me to turn my Mommy's eyes away from him because they burned like a flashlight in his head.
But I couldn't help it. Even when she wasn't looking at me. I could feel her behind me, watching to be sure I was being a big girl.
On the other hand. Noble seemed to be regressing. He didn't want to grow up, to be responsible, to hear about chores, and he was always angry at me for reminding him. Mommy confused me about this. Most of the time she wanted me to be the big sister, but whenever Noble whined or complained about me. Mommy wanted me to be more of a companion, a playmate.
He doesn't have anyone else yet, Celeste. You have to get along."
I didn't have the patience for Noble's childish games. but I had to swallow back my reluctance and go along with his pretend. Our house was a castle again. He made me draw a moat around it with a sharp stick. He drew a line, and I drew one about six feet or so apart from his. We went around the whole house, tearing up grass. It took hours and hours, and when I complained about my hands getting sore and I wanted to stop, he had a tantrum. There were actually calluses forming on my palms. I showed him, but he didn't care.
"We have to know where the alligators and the snakes be swimming. Celeste," he insisted, his eyes wide and full of his fantasy.
I saw Mommy watching us from a window in the house. Her face was strange, caught in a mixture of sadness and fear. It had been so long since I had seen a smile on her lips, even after Noble said something silly. I wondered if she would ever smile again or if smiles had died with Daddy. Had she opened his coffin and thrown all her happiness m' side it to be buried with him?
It was not as if we were without all possibilities of being happy again. We didn't have financial problems for her to worry over. Daddy had a biz life insurance policy. I overheard Mommy and her attorney. Mr. Lyman, a short, plump man with cheeks that looked like they were patched with the skin of cherries, talking about it. I stood back in the doorway of the den. I never liked being too close to him. He always smelled like sour apples and his hands were small, with thick cucumber fingers that looked like they didn't have any knuckles. I hated it when he brushed my hair with one of those hands. and Noble would actually bob and weave to avoid any contact.
Mommy said death was a feast for lawyers and accountants. There was so much that had to be done. They descended on our house like mayflies. buzzing around Mommy's ears.
Fortunately, all of it left us well off. Daddy's partner bought up his share of the business, the truck, and the jeep, and Mommy had that money. too. There was money put away in trust for Noble and me. We had no mortgage on the house, and anything that was bought on credit was paid up because of all sorts of death benefits Mommy didn't even know we had.
"You're in fine shape. Sarah," Mr. Lyman assured Mommy. I hated him saying that.
How could we be in fine shape with Daddy dead and gone? Mommy saw me listening and glaring angrily at Mr. Lyman from the doorway. She told me to go see what Noble was up to, and waved me away.
That was he up to? Nothing different. He was out there fighting imaginary battles with imaginary demons. Small trees were enemy soldiers, or tall weeds were monsters. He made a sword out of a slab of wood from a crate in the garage and went charging at the vegetation, slicing everything in sight while he howled his battle cries. If I didn't join him and imitate him, he would cry and complain to Mommy.
One thing she insisted was we remain within the boundaries of our lawn and meadow. We were not yet old enough to wander into the woods, she told us. but Noble was beginning to challenge that prohibition. I would have to remind him continually that he was going out too far, like someone swimming in the ocean and going beyond the reach of the lifeguard.
"Daddy used to take us to the stream and the pond to swim." he complained.
Mommy promised to do it and did one afternoon, but mostly as a lesson in botany. Noble was bored with all that. He swiped at tree branches or shot imaginary arrows at dragons emerging from behind thick oaks.
"Stay close," she told him when he went too far off. Her reprimands wrapped around him like a leash and a collar, snapping him back. How he hated it,
"We don't need Mommy every time we go into the woods." he told me. "It's not dangerous."
He whined and groaned about it so much. Mommy relented and permitted us to go in a short way without her. but Noble was never to go in without me, and if he did. I would be blamed. The burden of my responsibility grew a little heavier every day, it seemed.
I remember I was feeling more and more lonely, too. Noble's games were no longer any challenge or any fun for me and seemed more and more strained and unimaginative. He hated that I didn't contribute to his make-believe, and every time I crossed into our imaginary moat, he would scream and jump, shouting that I had nearly been eaten by an alligator. Of course. I didn't act frightened. It ma
de him so angry and upset that he would cry and complain to Mommy.
"She won't listen! She won't obey the rules!" "It's silly." I said. "Those are silly rules,"
"Oh, just walk over the bridge when you come into the house. Celeste," she told me. "I don't like him being so upset. Not now." she added.
"What bridge? There's no real bridge," I said, shaking my head.
"Pretend there is a bridge just as you always did," she said, pronouncing each word distinctly, her eyes wide. "It was easy to do then. It will be easy to do now. Just do it!"
I felt tears burning in mine and looked away so she wouldn't see. If I cried, she would only get answer and make me feel as if I was letting her down, or more important. Daddy, because Daddy was watching. Daddy saw us. She knew.
Yes. Mommy spoke to Daddy often after the first month of his passing. I'll never forget the first time she told us.
All during that first month after Daddy's death, we had visitors from the town and nearby, people we had never seen or Mommy had seen so infrequently, she had forgotten them. Mr. Kotes was the most frequent visitor. She told us that was because Daddy had been a good friend to him after his wife had died. He didn't have any children. His parents were long dead. All he had was an unmarried sister who was a partner in his family business. Daddy used to say he was a man whose heart had zone to sleep. His face seemed to have forgotten how to smile, Whenever Mommy and Mr. Kotes were together, it seemed to me she was helping him deal with Daddy's death more than he was helping her. It was something she was happy to do and something he wanted her to do.
Just like some other visitors, he always brought something when he came to our house. Most visitors brought cakes and pies, flowers, and even toys for Noble and me. I was given dolls. but Mommy wouldn't let us have any of it. Everything was put away in a special place because they were meant to "make us forget our sadness, and we should not permit anything to do that. Your sadness about the death of someone you loved," Mommy insisted. "will be the avenue over which you will travel to see and hear your ancestral spirits. It's too special and precious an emotion to be treated like coming down with the measles or some other childhood ailment."
Celeste Page 5