A Different Kind of Normal (38 page)

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Authors: Cathy Lamb

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“One more thing I want to tell you, sons,” Nicolai said to his sons, the last afternoon I was there. “I love you.”
“We love you, too, Dad,” they all said, so upset, acutely missing him already.
“All these relatives here, the ones who have passed, they’re here for me, waiting, but I have to tell you one thing, sons. I love you. You’ve been good to me.”
“We love you, too, Dad.” They held each other, and their father, tenderly.
“I love you, boys. Always have, always will. Your mother loved you, too. Don’t forget that we love you. Love your children, the same as we loved you, and I love you.”
Nikolai died the next day.
His relatives took him up.
 
As a hospice nurse, this is what I’ve noticed: At the end, for the vast majority of people, it’s about one thing.
Love.
That’s it. That’s all.
Love.
 
The next afternoon, Brooke and I drank Strawberry Berry Tea for Wild Women in my greenhouse, paper whites sprouting nearby, icicles hanging off the gutters. We talked about visiting Grandma Violet and Grandpa Pete during the summer, Grandma’s healing business for the townspeople complaining about aches in their heads and aches in their butts, the animals we used to have, the crafts we made, the herbs and spices we used with Grandma Violet for spells, for fun, and for meals.
We even talked about Faith and Grace and the stories Grandma Violet told us about their time on the Oregon Trail.
“Remember where we were when she told us that story the first time, Jaden?” Brooke was pouring potting soil into five red pots for more bulbs.
“No, where?” I studied my colorful Chinese lanterns hanging from the rafters. I had always liked them. I liked my climbing frogs, too, and my collection of birdhouses.
“You and I were sitting next to her at the kitchen table. She had just finished healing Mrs. Hillington, who thought she was possessed by the devil because she had warts on her pinkie finger, and after her was Mr. Akoba, who was having a heart attack. He sat for an hour, drinking one of Grandma Violet’s fruit blended drinks, not showing any signs, waiting for her to finish with Mrs. Hillington and her devil possession. Not a word of impatience out of him.
“Mr. Akoba told Grandma Violet later that his mother had taught him never to interrupt women, so he hadn’t, even though he was in grave pain. Thankfully, she called the ambulance and he lived. Came back two days later and said it was Grandma’s magic drink that fixed his engine and the engine was gunning again, all pistols firing, even the horn worked.”
We laughed, then pieced together the Oregon Trail story, which went like this:
Faith, Grace, Russ, and Jack pooled their money and bought a wagon, oxen, and two more horses. They packed hundreds of pounds of flour, sugar, bacon, fat, tea (who could live without tea?), coffee, rice and beans, other food supplies, and whiskey. The women liked it straight-up and in their tea. They brought tools, utensils, clothing, bedding, guns, scissors, ropes, candles, a pot to piss in, and fabrics that the women insisted on.
Most importantly, at least to Faith and Grace, they brought their velvet satchel.
Before they left, Faith and Jack, and Grace and Russ were married in a field on top of a hill with only a preacher and the sun. Simple wedding bands were exchanged, and they had a picnic, the four of them, laughing, delighted, in love, before both couples wandered off to consummate passions that had burst forth the second they’d met over raspberry pie at the town picnic, when the women were desperate to get outta town.
On the trail, they were all soon exhausted and filthy. They traveled for five endless months, through all types of weather. They walked twelve to fifteen miles a day. Food soon became scarce. Though both men were expert shots, clean water was often hard to find. They forded rivers on rickety rafts after helping to stabilize the wagon on top of the raft.
The wagon wheels broke. They guided stubborn oxen and calmed horses when they saw rattlesnakes. Both women became sick. One man in another wagon lost a leg under a wagon wheel. He lived. Barely. Other pioneers died of accidental gunshot wounds, disease, childbirth, one suicide, injury, and sickness, and one pioneer went mad, wandered off, and no one knew where he had gone. The wagon train could not wait around to find him. If they did, they could get stuck in the mountains during winter and everyone would freeze to death.
But there was one fortunate . . .
thing.
Faith’s and Grace’s husbands proved they were true men. They had stuck with the women, protected them, cared for them, and been loyal the whole trip. In return, the cousins had not complained and worked beside their husbands. Faith had pulled Jack out of the river when the raft tilted. Grace had shot a rattlesnake clean out of the ground that was three feet from Russ’s feet. They had both nursed the men when they were hurt and sick.
Their bonds could not be tighter. Their laughs, when they came, more pure.
When they arrived in Oregon City, Oregon, the four were fatigued to the bone and half-starved. They settled in for two weeks to rest and rejuvenate.
They decided to move to Portland, a new town on the Willamette River, filled with fir and pine trees, rain, and gray skies. Faith and Grace were dismayed. It was dirty, unsanitary, undeveloped, and somewhat lawless in this Wild West town, but again, they did not complain. It was surely better than being in jail and a hundred times better than being married to the slave torturers, Dwight and John.
Jack and Russ went into the timber business. They bought land in town and built homes. The first homes were small, functional. The next homes, years later, were fancy, on a park in the middle of the city. In both places the cousins planted thyme, sage, rosemary, parsley, oregano, lavender, Canterbury bells, hollyhocks, lilies, irises, sweet peas, cosmos, red poppies, peonies, and rows of roses, out of respect and love of their witchly ancestors.
Faith and Grace started another store, but there were not that many women to cater to at first, so they catered mostly to men and sold food, supplies, tools, etc. They did not think it smart to name it Faith and Grace’s, as they knew they might well be hunted down by Dwight and John, therefore they named it The Portland Supply Store.
“And they did well,” Brooke said.
“They did. The store was huge. Their kids ran it later.”
“Remember how Grandma Violet told us the lesson in the Oregon Trail story is to keep forging ahead, through the deserts, storms, hardships, near-drownings, illnesses, rattlesnake bites, bad luck, and contaminated water of life? I noted the contaminated water of life part particularly as a kid. I remember I really didn’t want to drink messy, dirty water.”
“And she told us to keep the hope.” I tried to make my voice sound like Grandma Violet’s. “Never give up hope, girls, it’s what we all cling to to survive.” I linked my arm over Brooke’s shoulders and handed her a tissue when she teared all up.
“I miss them,” she said.
“I miss them, too.” I dropped a few tulip bulbs into the pots. “I’ve missed you, too, Brooke.”
She sniffled. I handed her another tissue.
TATE’S AWESOME PIGSKIN BLOG
If we win a couple more games, we’ll be in the state tournament, so the basketball pressure is a risin’.
 
This is what I know:
 
Yellowstone National Park should be duplicated and dropped in all fifty states. That should be a law. Man, it is awesome. Watching Old Faithful is like watching my mom’s temper, Witch Mavis, blow her top except that it’s water shooting out of an angry earth and not Boss Mom.
 
I like Popsicles. I can fit four in my mouth at one time. See the photo below, taken by my buddy Baron, he’s the funniest guy you’ve ever met.
 
I want the space shuttle to park in my backyard, then I can study it. Here is what is weird: There are billions of people in this world who have no toilet, no running water in their homes, and America has space shuttles. Why is that?
 
Here is something else weird: We have universities all over the place, and in so many countries of the world people don’t even get a basic education. Girls can’t even go to school at all. Why is that? Why are some countries so much more advanced than others?
 
It is possible to overspice chili. I think it’s funny when it happens. Last time my friends Milt and Anthony came over, I put extra chili powder in their chili and I thought their faces were gonna fall off. Here’s a photo of them. See how there’s smoke practically coming out of Milt’s elephant ears? Yeah, you have elephant ears, Milt. Didn’t your mother ever tell you?
 
I like orchids. There. I said it. Call me a pansy if you want to, but it’s not going to change my orchid love. Speaking of pansies, they have faces and they are watching you. I’m not kidding. Pansies watch people.
 
I want to meet an alien.
 
I don’t want to meet rabid raccoons.
 
Notice I didn’t write anything about the tournament?
 
Maybe it’s because I’m too nervous.
 
Maybe it’s because I don’t want to think about it.
 
Or maybe it’s because I’m excited about it, but I don’t want it to take over my whole life. You know how some things can do that. They take over your whole life. Maybe it’s something you’re worried about. Something you’re angry, sad, excited, looking forward to, or freakin’ wigged out about, but it’s all you can think about and that ain’t never right. (Ha! Boss Mom, I used the word ain’t. You ain’t gonna like that.) Never. You gotta have a lot of things to think about.
 
That’s why I’m thinking about asking Boss Mom to take me to get a dozen doughnuts and then I’ll eat them in one sitting and put a photo up.
 
Here’s a picture of Boss Mom and me at the doughnut store along with my uncle Caden, the triplets, who are dressed as sharks, except for Heloise, who says she is a shark-gypsy and that’s why she has a scarf with gold coins wrapped around her shark outfit, and my cousin Damini. She took off her leg and put it in the middle of the table when we were eating. See? She put her chocolate doughnut on top of her own leg. She is weird. You are weird, Damini. . . . Keep your leg on!!
Brooke was so frail, I thought she might physically crumble if pushed in the wrong direction. She looked older than her age, her green eyes the recipients of hundreds of memories that scraped the bottom dwellings of human existence.
“I miss Dad,” I said one night at the kitchen table as we chopped potatoes for Pacific Ocean Perfect Clam Chowder, using our Grandma Violet’s mother’s recipe.
“Me too. I can’t get him out of my head, ever. I can hardly live with it.”
There was an odd tone to her stricken voice. “Brooke—”
“I miss him. I ruined his life.” She chopped harder, the knife flying.
“You didn’t ruin it—” But I knew that was only part true.
“His daughter was an addict, Jaden. Chasing drugs, drunk, anxious, argumentative, sneaking out, screaming, lying . . . and then I ruined his life.”
“He loved you, Brooke. He would be so proud of you now, sober, here, with Tate and me and Mom—”
“And that makes it all the worse for me. He was so good and I was so bad.”
She started crying again, and I didn’t press further. I put my arm around her shoulders as her tears fell into the potatoes. That’s all you can do sometimes, I think, put an arm around someone’s shoulders, close your mouth, and let them cry it out.
The clam chowder was delicious that night, though salted with Brooke’s misery.
 
There were sixteen teams in the state play-offs in our league. We would play in the gym of our local university.
The first game we won by twenty-one points. Tate scored twenty-eight points. He was on fire.
Many newspapers and news organizations were there, chronicling the kid with the big head. They called the house, wanted to talk to Tate and me, mostly Tate. They copied parts of his blog, especially where Tate wrote, “Having a big head gives my brain more room to grow,” and “My eyes are crooked, but they do have x-ray vision,” and, “The size of my head makes me seductive. It’s a pheromone scent that attracts women. Yeah, I think it’s a chick magnet.”
TJ Hooks’s team, unfortunately, also won.
The next game, the quarterfinals, we won by eighteen points. Tate scored twenty-four points.
TJ Hooks’s team, again unfortunately, also won.
Needless to say, our town was flipping out.
The tournament was one of those turn-off-the-lights-if-you’rethe-last-to-leave sort of things. Main Street in Tillamina shut down. The week before the game all the stores had signs up. W
E WILL CLOSE EARLY FOR THE STATE BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT DAYS
. G
O
B
OBCATS
!

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