Dream With Little Angels (12 page)

I could still recall with quite some accuracy the time shortly after my grandpa died when Carry announced that she was taking me outside and showing me how to build a tree fort. I had been feeling pretty bad ever since losing Grandpa. I think she knew it. I was pretty sure everybody knew it, on account of I never left the house much, even on weekends. In fact, I rarely left my room. Death was something I found hard to understand.

“Did Mom tell you to play with me?” I asked her.

“No,” she said, indignantly. “Why would you even
ask
that? Don't I always play with you?”

She had a point. Normally, Carry and I played together like that cat and that mouse from that cartoon. I can't remember what it was called. It made no sense on account of in real life the cat would've just ate the mouse and figured that was it. We played. Game over. But the TV cat and the mouse got along as great as me and Carry did.

Back before Carry discovered boys, that was.

“So, what do you say? You comin' or not?” she asked.

“Comin' where?” I asked back.

“Outside to build a tree fort.”

“We don't have no trees,” I pointed out. Least none capable of sustaining no forts.

“That don't matter none,” she said. “We'll build a non-tree tree fort.”

“What the heck's a non-tree tree fort?”

“A tree fort without a tree, dummy,” she said.

Reluctantly, I put on my shoes and let her drag me outside.

From what I knew about my pa, he had considered himself a bit of a carpenter, and the whole time I'd spent growing up, our garage had been full of wood that had been there ever since he died. It was so full of wood and tools and junk that my mother couldn't even park her car inside of it. Now Carry and I rummaged through the stockpile. Well, she rummaged, I more or less watched, not having the slightest idea what it was she was looking for. But she seemed to know. Every so often she'd pull a piece of wood out and set it aside, saying, “Aha!” or, “Perfect!” or, “Exactly what we'll need!”

“Isn't Mom going to kill us when she gets home from work?” I asked.

“Mom is going to be ecstatic that you're not moping around the house like a ghost,” she said. “Besides, I think she'll be secretly happy to see some of this wood taken away.”

“But where are we taking it to?” I asked.

“The backyard,” she said. “Where else would we build a fort?”

I wasn't so sure my mother would be so happy coming home to a backyard full of wood. I thought she'd rather have it hidden away in the garage.

When Carry was finished extracting all the correct pieces of lumber, her and I lugged them outside, making our way around the house to the backyard. The lawn still felt wet with dew from the morning. I noticed the grass was getting pretty long. Usually, my grandpa had kept it mowed for my mother, but ever since he had gone into the hospital, the responsibility had fallen back to her, and she had more important things in her life to worry about. The state of our yard was a constant reminder that my grandpa was gone from my life forever.

I tried not to think about it too much.

The air had the crisp smell of dandelions and wildflowers in it. We dumped the wood into a pile right between two small cherry trees that just happened to place it almost dead center with my bedroom window. This was back before Carry and me swapped rooms. Our first batch fell with such a large clatter it scared four or five swallows out of the tall oaks lining the backside of our property.

As we brought load after load of wood out of the garage, my arms and legs began to grow more and more weary. “This is exhausting,” I said to Carry. “I don't know if I can build a fort. I can barely even move the pieces of one.”

“We're almost done.”

We finally got all the wood out. Then we realized we had a problem. Well, I noticed it after watching Carry search around the garage aimlessly for near on twenty minutes. “What're you lookin' for?” I asked. She had a hammer in her hand.

“Nails. I can't find any.”

“Why would Pa have a hammer without nails?” I asked. “That would be like having a car without wheels. Makes no sense.”

“I know. Still, I can't find any. This place is a mess, though.” It had been a mess when we walked in this morning. It was even more of a mess now, since we started going through all the stuff. Once again, I considered the possibility of my mother killing us both when she got home from work.

Things were scattered everywhere. There were tools in drawers and boxes, on the floor, and on shelves. There were little boxes of screws, nuts, and bolts, round plastic things, hooks, all kinds of stuff. I had no clue what any of it was.

But none of it was nails.

Finally, using a stepladder, Carry found a cardboard box full of nails on a very high shelf. “Okay, now all we need is the saw and a measuring tape. And there's a handsaw right there on the workbench, and I'm pretty sure I saw a measuring tape underneath that pile of shingles on the floor by your feet.”

We brought the hammer, the nails, the saw, and the measuring tape outside and set them all by our large pile of wood. The pile nearly reached the height of my bedroom window.

“Do you honestly know what you're doing?” I asked Carry.

“Sure I do,” she said. “Pa used to let me in the garage with him while he built stuff all the time.”

I felt a twinge of jealousy then that she had known our pa and even got to do stuff with him, and I never did. It just didn't feel fair. I wanted to ask her some questions about him, but I thought her answers might just make me feel worse.

I pushed the feeling away. There would be better days to ask Carry more questions about him. Today we were building the fort.

“So what do we do first?” I asked, still exhausted from getting ready to start building the fort. So far, we'd been outside nearly two hours, and what we had looked nothing at all like a tree fort to me. To me it resembled some sort of building that had been hit by a small bomb.

Carry brought two chairs from inside along with a small pad of paper and a pencil. She made some quick sketches and calculations. She didn't show me what she was sketching or calculating, and I didn't ask. I just wanted to get going so we could finish up and get back inside.

After double-checking her calculations, she got me to help her place the wood across the chairs so she could measure out a length and draw a line before sawing off a piece.

She did this to two pieces.

Then she handed me one of the cut pieces and said, “Hold up this one right here. I'll hold this piece up and I'll nail them together.”

I did, and she did.

We worked for five more hours like this on that fort, with her doing all the calculating, measuring, cutting, and nailing, and me doing all the holding. I grew more and more tired. Three hours into the ordeal, my mother came home and I felt like rejoicing. I figured she'd yell and scream about us taking the wood out of the garage and we'd be ordered to come inside and probably spend the rest of the day in our rooms—an opportunity for a break that I'd leap at! But instead, my mother took one look at Carry's fort and laughed, telling her to keep going. “I can't wait to see what you come up with in the end.”

I wanted to kill her. I was starving. But I wasn't about to let my sister think I couldn't keep up with her when it came to building forts, so I sweated it out.

The sun was down behind the trees when Carry finally pronounced the fort complete. We stepped back from it and took it all in, the structure lit by the purple and orange glow of the fading light of dusk. The sweet smell of the neighbor's magnolias floated on the air.

“Well, what do you think?” she asked.

“Is it supposed to be leanin'?” I asked.

“It's not leanin' much.”

“Ain't it supposed to have walls?” I asked.

“Think of it as having many doors,” she said.

“Doesn't seem very safe.”

She glared at me. “Do you have anything positive to say?”

I smiled. “We're done?”

She smiled back. “We're done. Let's go eat.”

We raced into the house and my mother fixed us hot dogs and French fries. Nothing ever tasted as good as those hot dogs that night.

I remembered lying in bed later on, trying to fall asleep with my arms aching something fierce. Our construction efforts stood—well,
leaned
—conspicuously right outside my bedroom window. That night had a slight wind in it. I heard the shrubs rustle outside, and every so often I could make out the squeak of wood against wood.

When I woke up in the morning, the first thing I did was look outside. Carry's fort had completely collapsed, folded in on itself like an accordion.

I had smiled then, realizing it hadn't been about the fort at all. It had all been about the process of building it with my sister. And it
had
been fun. And I also realized she'd done it because she knew I needed to get out of the house, and get my mind off of my grandpa. And, for a while, it had worked.

My sister had been there when I needed her.

And now, tonight, I was there for my sister because she needed me. It had all come around full circle the way I was finding so many things in life often did.

From beside me, Dewey piped up, interrupting my thoughts. Dewey was always interrupting something. “By the way,” he said, “when
did
you start cussing?”

“Oh, shut the hell up and get some goddamn sleep,” I said.

And we laughed.

W
e attended service at the Clover Creek First Baptist Church the following Wednesday. My mother told most everyone we went to the house of the Lord twice a week—Wednesday and Sunday—like all the
real
God-fearing people of Alvin, but the truth was, today would actually only be our
second
visit since Mary Ann Dailey disappeared. My mother had just been too busy with the case and, I think, had other things on her mind besides God.

Even still, Carry put up a fuss about having to go.

“Thought I was grounded for the next three months?” she whined when my mother told her to put on her dress shoes.

“Groundin' means doin' whatever and goin' wherever I tell you to,” my mother said, pointing a finger straight at Carry. I saw an intensity flash in my mother's eyes, reminding me of how loud that slap had been the other night. Carry saw it too, I figured, on account of her putting on those shoes right quick without saying another word.

The Clover Creek First Baptist Church squatted amongst a garden of roses, the bushes bursting of pinks and yellows. It occupied a thirty-acre or so nearly square patch of land, nestled between Clover Creek Drive, the curve of Finley Circle, and the very eastern end of Main Street. Most of the churchyard was taken up by the cemetery, which was nicely landscaped with stone paths that led through the crosses and gravestones, sometimes stopping at small wooden benches. All these rest areas had gardens of their own and the nicely mown lawn was broken up by the odd fig and hickory tree. Tall oaks edged the outside of the property, making it feel very contained other than from the front. There were even a couple of silver-leafed maples, the leaves of which were now starting to rust a deep red as autumn wound on.

The church was by no means a tall building, but it did have a tall steeple containing a real bell. That bell had been the original bell from the first church ever built in Alvin over a hundred years ago. Since then, the church had been rebuilt twice, and both times the old bell was kept. Nowadays, it was only rung on certain Saints' days that I could never keep track of.

Reverend Matthew and his wife, Hazel, looked after the church and had done so for as long as I could remember. Reverend Matthew made sure it was painted at least every two years, making its outside wooden paneling the brightest and cleanest color of white I'd ever seen. It was nearly completely white, other than the arched stained glass windows that were set on either side.

I used to go to Sunday school at Clover Creek First Baptist when I was younger, and sometimes we'd even have lock-ins, where we'd spend the night and play games, but my mother let me stop going to Sunday school when I turned ten. Dewey's mother followed suit. All the Sunday school classes were taught in downstairs rooms that I hadn't been anywhere near since my tenth birthday.

I followed Uncle Henry up the steps with the rest of the people filing inside. Overhead, the sun played hide-and-seek with a sky full of white fluffy clouds. Reverend Matthew was at the door shaking everyone's hand, the way he always was. He was a nice man, not very tall and without much hair, but he had a kind face. I believe he must've been nearly sixty, but his face made him almost look like a baby. He spoke very quiet and gentle. “Hi, Abe,” he said, taking my hand lightly. “I'm so glad you made it this afternoon.”

“I'm glad, too,” I said. “Even though my shoes aren't so comfortable.”

This made Reverend Matthew laugh, but it also brought a swat to the back of my head from my mother, who was behind me with Carry. Fact was, the shoes I was wearing weren't comfortable because I only wore them to church and so they never really got properly worn in, especially given our spotty attendance record. But they were polished black and matched the black pants and checkered collared shirt I had on. Sometimes, for particularly formal church functions, my mother made me wear an actual tie and jacket, but thankfully that wasn't today. I doubt the jacket still fit me anyway. Getting the shoes on had been enough of a struggle. I could already feel my feet beginning to blister.

My mother and Carry were both in dresses that had been freshly washed, and were wearing elegant shoes. My mother's shoes were black. Carry's shoes were red. I once again noticed Carry smelled better than usual. She must've been wearing perfume again. I followed Uncle Henry up the row of pews until he found a seat and then I slid in beside him. He was also dressed up—in much the same fashion as me, only with a red pin-striped shirt and navy pants. He was even wearing a hat, which he now took off and put in his lap.

My mother and Carry sat next to me, and I heard my sister still whispering her discontentment under her breath and my mother telling her she not dare make a scene under hers.

“I noticed on the way in that the parishioners have done a nice job on the gardens this fall,” Uncle Henry pointed out. I think he said it more to drown out my mother and Carry than for any other reason. I agreed with him, though.

We were eight pews from the front of the church. The light falling inside felt magical to me, the way it always did. I believe it was a combination of the way the sun fell through the delicate stained glass windows and how everything reflected off the polished wooden floors and pews. It was all made out of pine with a layer of varnish so thick you could actually see your reflection in it if you squinted hard enough.

Once everyone was seated, Reverend Matthew started up to the front. On the wall behind the altar hung a big crucifix of the kind I always found scary, with Jesus really hanging from his wrists and his head hanging limp as though he were in the gravest pain ever. And, I suppose, he must've been. I can't imagine being nailed to a cross like that. According to Reverend Matthew, Jesus suffered all our pain, so right there you know it must've been really bad.

Mrs. Williams started up with the organ and we all stood and sang hymns, the same way we always did at the beginning of church. After the hymns, Reverend Matthew started his preaching and it sure didn't take long for him to get to Mary Ann Dailey. I'd been wondering if he was gonna say something about her. I figured missing girls would be something pretty important to the Lord.

“With recent events,” Reverend Matthew said, stepping out from behind his pulpit, “many of you may be looking to your Bibles and seeing that children are never seen to ‘accept Christ.' Therefore, they cannot get right with God. And this information might lead us to believe it is our job to keep our children safe, which, of course, it is. And yet, He never tells us how to keep our children safe.

“So it would not be unreasonable to ask yourself: Did He just forget an important point? Did it slip His mind somehow and, now, because of this minor exclusion, the souls of many children are all gonna end up suffering eternally in hell? Is that what we think when we look at our Bibles?”

He paused and there was a murmur through the crowd. Reverend Matthew always liked to put a twist on things to make you have to think. I liked it, since it made his sermons at least slightly interesting.

Reverend Matthew chuckled to himself and slowly shook his head. “The answer, of course, is no. A child is completely safe, wrapped and tightly held in the arms of God until they are able to understand for themselves what it means to accept Jesus Christ as their savior. God protects them while nurturing their ability to make their own decision to be saved.

“We must read two Samuel chapter twelve, verses twenty-two and twenty-three, along with Matthew chapter eighteen, verse ten. It is only the adults and older children, those who can understand the concept of sin resulting from the separation of God, who are at the age when acceptance of Christ is possible.

“So we must not worry about Mary Ann Dailey and this other girl. Both are still under God's protection. Wherever Mary Ann and Tiffany are, God is there watching. He is listening. He is leading them toward salvation in His own way. We must stand as one and keep our faith and know that God is providing the candle to light their way home.”

Reverend Matthew went on like this for a considerable time, but I noticed a distinct difference between how he talked about Mary Ann Dailey and Tiffany Michelle Yates. He barely mentioned Tiffany Michelle by name. He certainly spent a lot more time telling God about Mary Ann Dailey and asking for Him to give her a candle and whatever else to help guide her safely home than he did for Tiffany Michelle Yates. This struck me as rather odd, as I had no idea why he would do something like this.

I decided it would be a good question to ask my mother later on, or maybe Uncle Henry would be better, as I had a sneaking suspicion the answer had something to do with Tiffany Michelle being black and I didn't want to get my mother angry by saying something racist. I was still struggling with what, exactly, was racist and what wasn't. To me it seemed that Reverend Matthew must've thought God was racist and cared to hear more about Mary Ann, but then I was most likely wrong. I was finding more and more when it came to racism I nearly always was.

It took me twenty minutes of discreetly glancing around before I found Dewey and his parents. They were on the other side of the church, a half-dozen pews behind us, right near the back. It was odd seeing Dewey's pa. He worked for the railroad and was nearly never around. It was almost as though Dewey was like me, and didn't have no pa. Mine was killed when I was very young, and I didn't remember him at all.

Most folks didn't like to talk about what happened to my pa, or at least if they did, they didn't seem to particularly like doing it in front of me. That especially went for my mother. But from what I'd heard over the years, he used to work at a gas station down the other side of Main Street, right near the end of town. It wasn't there no more—the Brookside Mall was put up in its place a long time ago.

Anyhow, my pa used to work nights and get off in the really early mornings, like before the sun rose. One particular morning he was driving home and came up behind a large truck—one of them ones with all the wheels—a
semi,
I thought they was called. I guess my pa decided the semi was going too slow, so he decided to go around it. Only, he didn't check the road good enough before changing lanes, and there was another car coming from the other direction that hit him head-on.

I heard the other driver lived, but my pa never even managed to make it to a hospital. My mother got a phone call telling her what had happened. Most of this I know from the few discussions I'd had with Carry about it.

She told me she could remember being woken up by my mother just as the sun was starting to come up outside. The sky was still dark, but had just begun to turn that soft shade of pink, and in that light, she could tell my mother had been crying.

“What's wrong?” she'd asked.

She said my mother had smiled at her, but it was one of those transparent smiles that was easy to see right through. “Nothing,” she had said. “You need to get up and get dressed. Uncle Henry's coming to get you.”

“Why?”

“You're going to stay with him a couple days.”

She rubbed her eyes, she told me. It was all so confusing. “What about Abe?”

“He's coming, too.”

She said she remembered Uncle Henry showing up and him and my mother talking in the living room for quite a long time before Carry and me were finally told to get in his car. Then we drove to his house, where we stayed almost an entire week.

I was pretty young, so I didn't remember any of this. It's funny, because in my head there were little details, but I think they all came from Carry's retelling it to me, not from when it actually happened.

That's probably why I don't really miss my pa—because I never really got to know him very well. Sometimes I felt a little guilty about that.

Here's a secret, though: One day I was looking for some wrapping paper for a Christmas present I had for my mother. It was something dumb I had made at school; I can't even remember now what it was. But I looked all over the house for some paper until I finally decided to look in her bedroom closet. I had to bring a chair in from the kitchen so I could see up on the top shelf.

I didn't find any wrapping paper up there, but I did find an old white shoe box. It had been there so long, the top was covered in dust. It didn't look like anyone had opened it for quite a while.

My mother was at work, and I didn't think she'd care if I looked in a shoe box anyway, so I carefully took it down from the shelf, and held it tightly while I jumped down from the chair and sat on it instead. Then, with the box in my lap, I carefully slipped off the top.

The box was full of pictures. Pictures I had never seen before in my life.

Almost every one of them was of my pa. I knew they were of my pa because of the only picture of him my mother kept on display since he died: their wedding picture that sat on a shelf in the living room. I had no idea why she had kept all these ones hidden away in a dusty old box in her closet. There were probably fifty pictures in that box, maybe even more.

There were so many, in fact, that I knew she'd never miss one of them being gone. And so I took one.

I kind of felt bad about it later, on account of I was raised not to steal (least that's what my mother always told me), but I also thought I deserved to have a picture of my pa.

That must have been four or five years ago. I never told her I had it, and she ain't never found it in all that time. I kept it in an envelope in one of the drawers in my bedroom, and sometimes I carried it around in my pocket for good luck. It seemed to work. Every time I had it with me, something lucky happened. Once I even found a five-dollar bill lying on the sidewalk while carrying my pa's picture around.