A Life of Bright Ideas (44 page)

Winnalee giggled, then gave me an apologetic look.

Aunt Verdella veered to the right when she reached the fork in the road, and pulled the car over as far as she could without making tire tracks in the grass.

She turned sideways on the seat, and blew out a deep breath before she began. I bit my cheek.

“Boohoo, when people get old, or get hurt and their body breaks so bad that they can’t be fixed with a shot or an operation, they leave them. Kind of like they’re taking off a pair of pants or a shirt or something, and they go off to Heaven to live with God.”

“You mean they go there naked? Like how I went to the hospital?” Boohoo asked.

Winnalee lifted the flower blooms up to cover her face.

“Well, no. They go like, well, spirits. Their spirit goes there.”

Boohoo nodded. “Like a ghost then.” He cocked his head in thought, then nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess that’s right, because Casper the Ghost doesn’t wear clothes.”

“She doesn’t mean like a Halloween or a cartoon ghost,” I said, and Boohoo looked more confused than ever.

“Anyway, after they go off to Heaven, we have to do something with their bodies after they leave them. So we bring them here to the cemetery and we bury them under the ground in a box. Then we put one of those pretty gravestones on top so we can find where we buried them when we come to pay our respects.”

Boohoo looked at Aunt Verdella, his eyes squinted in thought. Then they shot open. “Wait … are you talking about people being
dead
?”

You can’t grow up in the country, much less on a farm, without seeing dead things—birds, deer, raccoons, rabbits, fish. I never gave this much thought until one of Uncle Rudy’s cows gave birth and the calf died two days later. I’d taken a
liking to the calf, a girl like me, with huge eyes and lashes long as my fingers. When Uncle Rudy and I found her dead on the third morning, it wasn’t just an unfortunate accident that happened to some wild animal with fur or feathers: It was something that happened to my friend. I remembered looking up at Uncle Rudy as we were leaving the barn, and asking him if people die like that, too. He told me they did, and reminded me of Grandma Mae. That night I had nightmares, and between then and when Ma died—and even a couple times since when I thought of
me
dying, I got so scared I could hardly breathe. I looked at Boohoo, my whole insides tense, as I waited to see if he was having the same reaction.

Boohoo scratched his head. “You mean, this is where they put
people
when they die?”

“Oh dear. He’s itching,” Aunt Verdella said.

I quickly looked at Boohoo’s tanned arms for signs of a peppery rash.

“We should have made him rinse his head better,” Aunt Verdella said.

Boohoo tapped her arm. “Is it, Aunt Verdella? Is this where they put dead people?”

“Well, yes, Boohoo.”

Confusion twisted his mouth. He looked up at me. “Evy, why do they go through all that bother with dead people? Why don’t they just throw them on the road, like they do the dead animals?”

Maybe it was the stress of the day, the moment, and the relief that came when we realized Boohoo wasn’t going to be traumatized for life. Whatever the reason, we busted out laughing. Well, at least Winnalee and I did. Aunt Verdella only pressed her hand to the side of her face and said, “Oh dear.”

Aunt Verdella put the car in gear, and we crawled reverently down the road toward the center plots.

“Hey, that’s Freeda’s car,” Boohoo said, pointing up ahead.

Freeda was standing before Ma’s grave when we pulled up behind her Ford. There was a softness in her stance. Our moods grew solemn as we got out of the car. Winnalee walked so close to me that our shoulders bumped, and I put my hand on Boohoo’s head when he asked why we had to come here.

With a breeze rustling the leaves in the scattering of trees, I think Freeda sensed us more than heard us. She had a sad smile on her face when she turned. She pulled Aunt Verdella and me to stand on each side of her, then tilted her head to rest against Aunt Verdella’s.

“Hey, that rock there says Peters. Ma Peters.”

“It’s Mae, honey,” Aunt Verdella said. “That’s where your grandma—your dad and Uncle Rudy’s ma—is buried.”

Aunt Verdella led Boohoo by the shoulders, and leaned over him to point. “Honey,” she said, in a church-quiet voice. “You see this pretty white stone here? It says Jewel Peters. And this is the year she was born, and this, the year that she passed away.”

Aunt Verdella fumbled in her purse and took out a black-and-white photograph. She handed it to Boohoo. “This is a picture of her,” she said. “That’s her, standing right there next to your daddy.”

I filled my lungs and squeezed the breath to me. Winnalee reached out and took my hand, and Freeda’s hand came to rest on my back.

“She died when you were just two years old,” Aunt Verdella said. She glanced up at me, anguish tugging the outer corners of her eyes, then looked back down at Boohoo. “She was your mama, Boohoo. The one who brought you into this world.”

Boohoo stared at the stone, and I swallowed hard in an effort to force the lump in my throat to go down.

“We’re real sorry that we never told you about her until now. We should have. We just didn’t want—”

Boohoo looked up. “That’s okay. ’Cause I already know about her. Uncle Rudy told me.”

We all looked at Boohoo. “What?” Aunt Verdella asked. She bent farther over, as if she hadn’t heard right.

“I said, Uncle Rudy already told me about her. Jewel. My mom. He told me a long time ago. Maybe when I was in kindergarten.”

“He told you about your ma?” Aunt Verdella looked up, her mouth hanging open, like it was the most implausible thing in the world. “Rudy never told me he’d told him,” she said. “Why wouldn’t he tell me?”

“Because it was boy talk, probably,” Boohoo said.

“Boy talk?” I asked.

“Yeah. The stuff you don’t say around ladies or girls, because they’re gonna get crabby or they’re gonna start bawling.”

“He asked you not to say anything to us?”

“No. I just didn’t. Because Uncle Rudy said she was
dead
. And you guys get all weird when something’s dead. Even almost dead, like Knucklehead. You make me not look, then you start lookin’ at me all funny, trying not to cry. Evy chews on her mouth, and you start hugging me to your belly until I can’t hardly breathe.”

Aunt Verdella straightened up and put her hands on the slight indent of her waist. She shook her head. “I can’t believe this. I just can’t believe it.”

“What did Uncle Rudy tell you?” I asked.

“He told me what I already knowed. That everything that is born, dies in time. Like the flowers. And cows. And dogs.
And
people. Well, I didn’t know that part about people until he told me, but I woulda figured it out.”

Aunt Verdella still had her hands propped on her hips, and
she was stepping slowly in place. “I can’t believe he already knows,” she said.

“But he didn’t tell me about cemeteries,” Boohoo said, like he was trying to make up for ruining a surprise. “I didn’t know that part. I just thought
all
of my ma went to Heaven.”

“What did he tell you about your ma?” Freeda asked softly.

“He told me that she died even when she didn’t want to, because she had an accident, and that now she lives in Heaven. And he said she was a very nice ma and a good person. And that she kinda looked like Evy, and she liked to clean things and sew. Oh, and that she loved me very much.”

Aunt Verdella felt shaky, so Freeda helped her lower herself to the ground. My legs weren’t feeling so peppy, either, so I sat down beside her. “Lands sake,” she said. “I can’t believe he knew about Jewel this whole time. Can you believe it, Button? And there we were, keeping and fretting over this secret for years.”

Freeda and Winnalee sat down, too, Evalee straddling Winnalee’s leg.

“Do you remember anything about her?” Winnalee asked.

“No,” Boohoo said, as he nestled down between Winnalee and Aunt Verdella. “I don’t remember her. Just Evy and Aunt Verdella ’cause they got to be my mas when my other ma got dead.” He leaned over and pressed his cheek to Aunt Verdella’s bare arm. “We should have brought a picnic lunch,” he said. “And root beer.”

And with that, Boohoo ran off, circling the gravestones with arms spread airplane-style, his towel cape flapping, the forgetfulness of babyhood holding him high above the grief of mother-loss.

An hour later, Winnalee’s van was backed up into the yard, just feet from the porch. The screen door was propped open with the broom, the inside door left open. Winnalee was changing Evalee’s diaper on the couch when I got inside after carrying a box to her van, and Aunt Verdella was standing nearby.

“Did you see Boohoo in his sandbox?” Aunt Verdella asked me. “He’s been there since we got back, and he’s refusing to come over. I told Rudy to stay with him. Is Rudy out there?”

“Yes, they’re both out there,” I told her.

“Poor kid,” Freeda said. She went to the couch and smiled at Evalee, who was making bubbles as she cooed. “You have everything from upstairs now, Winnalee?”

“I think so.”

“I’ll check,” I said, eager to get out of that living room where everyone was trying hard to pretend that their hearts weren’t breaking.

Tommy was coming down the stairs with Evalee’s folded playpen, and we did that side-to-side dance that people do when they come face-to-face and are heading in opposite directions. I moved aside to let him pass, then hurried upstairs.

Winnalee had insisted on cleaning the bedroom before we turned in the previous night, “so it can look just like it did before I came,” she’d said. I stood in the doorway and looked at the dresser top, bare for the first time in almost three months, and the floor that she’d swept. There were streaks over the furniture and on the vanity mirror, and dust bunnies were crowded around the legs of the bed, as if she didn’t have the heart to sweep them away. Not that it mattered. Even if she’d gotten the room hospital-clean, it—as well as our lives—would not go back to what it was before she came back.

I peeked in each dresser drawer to make sure none of Winnalee’s things were there, and looked under the bed. I spotted one of Evalee’s pacifiers, and grabbed it. And as I was getting up, I braced my hand on the nightstand and felt our Book of Bright Ideas under my fingers. My stomach did one of those flutter-flips, and I picked it up. I ran my hand over the embossed words,
Great Expectations
, then rummaged for a pen. I flipped to the remaining page, and under Winnalee’s last entry nine years ago, I wrote:
Winnalee, it can be your turn to keep our book. Bring it when we meet again so we can write our 100th idea. Then we’ll know everything there is about how to live good and not make the same mistakes we, or our parents, already made. Okay? Your best friend, Button
.

They were all outside when I got downstairs. Tommy had Evalee’s playpen propped against the van, trying to redistribute
the heap of bags and boxes before he slipped it in, so that everything wouldn’t come crashing down on the first curve she took. After he closed the door, we stood like statues wearing granite smiles. “Here comes Uncle Rudy to say goodbye,” Aunt Verdella said. Boohoo was still in the sandbox, his head bent over the towers of sand he was making with his plastic pail.

I handed Winnalee our book, opened to what I’d written, and as she read my words the wind at her back blew her hair around to hug me.

Aunt Verdella grabbed Uncle Rudy when he reached us, and she hugged him as though he was leaving. She muttered something against his shirt, and he patted her back.

We all stood there, then, as if in silent agreement that we wouldn’t cry. But when Aunt Verdella touched my arm, that soft rub over my skin was enough to wipe any sort of agreement away. I started crying, which made her cry, too, and the tears spread like a wildfire. We passed out hugs, and Winnalee made promises I hoped she’d keep. And then the inevitable moment came. “Everything in?” Tommy asked. The Malones nodded, so he slammed the van door shut.

Boohoo’s head lifted with the bang, and he sprang to his feet. With his ball of twine cradled in his arm, he came running, his skinny legs pumping. “Aunt Verdella! Aunt Verdella!” he cried. “Don’t let them go! Sit on them, Aunt Verdella! Sit on them!”

“Oh, honey,” she moaned.

A strand of hair was glued to Winnalee’s cheek with tears, and she pulled it loose. “I’m bringing your Cupcake back in a couple of months, Boohoo,” she told him. “Probably before Christmas.”

“But I don’t want you to go
now
!”

Boohoo’s fingers fumbled to find the loose strand of twine,
and he let the sphere thud to the ground when he got ahold of it. He wrapped it around Evalee’s ankles, twirling it frantically up her leg as he sobbed, as if he could tie her to him forever.

Winnalee grabbed at the web he was making. “Boohoo …,” she said softly. He ran the twine behind Winnalee, then raced the string around the back of me. Freeda turned and stopped him when the twine reached her. She didn’t say anything. She just grabbed him and tried holding him. He jerked away and sobbed through gritted teeth.

“Hey, Boohoo,” Uncle Rudy said calmly. “I was thinking about going down to the crick to see if there’s any trout who wanna be our supper. Why don’t you go get our poles out of the shed?”

Boohoo handed out one last scowl to the Malones, to all of us, then stomped away, his arm crooked as he rubbed his sleeve across his eyes.

We just stood there, silent, but for Aunt Verdella, who was watching Boohoo go and sniffling hard. Uncle Rudy jiggled the brim of his cap, staring off, seemingly at nothing. Then he pointed to the red maple sitting on the edge of the front lawn. He put his arm across Aunt Verdella’s shoulder, his hand reaching to mine. “Verdie,” he said, “you remember that ice storm we had a good twenty-four, twenty-five years ago? That maple wasn’t much taller than me when that storm happened. Remember? Left the trees with a good inch-thick coating of ice, and that one bent till it was almost touching the ground. Remember how worried you were when a couple of its branches snapped off under the weight of the ice? But then the sun came out again, the ice melted, and that tree straightened itself right back up. And missing a couple branches or not, it grew. Just look at it now, nearly twenty-five feet tall.” Uncle Rudy dropped his arm and looked across the road, where Boohoo was shoving the shed door open. “Don’t you girls worry about that boy. He’s a strong sapling, that one.”