Poster Boy (19 page)

We didn't do any big funeral thing. Maggie's body — her shell, as I thought of it — we simply cremated and the ashes were returned to us in a silver urn. What we did have instead was a big party. A wake, was what Grammy called it. “A celebration of Maggie's life.”

She and Aunt Judy did the cooking, Dad and I the cleaning. We weren't going to bother Mom, who spent her days painting a mural on Maggie's wall. That's what she wanted to do so we let her. “Her catharsis,” Grammy called it.

Having more or less gotten through the benzene guilt thing, Mom was messed up all over again for not having been with Maggie at the end. For not being able to say good-bye. There was a part of me that believed Maggie wanted it that way, but I didn't know how to say that without it coming out wrong.

Whenever Mom started in on her broken-record guilt routine, Grammy was usually the one who talked her out of it and back into the present moment. While she did this, Aunt Judy would quickly massage Mom's shoulders. But the morning of the party, it was just Mom and I in the kitchen because Dad had driven Aunt Judy to the store for some candles, and Grammy was in the shower.

Mom was talking fast, shaking her head, her eyes looking all scary and distant like that day I mentioned the benzene.

“If only I hadn't gone away. I could have stayed and — ”

“I have pictures,” I blurted, and Mom stopped talking. “Lots of them, from when Maggie first got sick up until the day she died. Maybe… you'd… would you like to see Maggie?”

Mom focused her eyes on me. Nodded her head.

“Yes, Gray, I would.”

“Great. I'll get my laptop. You make some tea, okay?”

“Okay.”

Grammy was just coming out of the bathroom. I told her what had happened.

“Do you think it's all right to show her pictures of Maggie?”

“I think that'll be good, Gray. I'll be right along.”

As I was setting my laptop up on the kitchen table, Dad and Aunt Judy arrived.

“Just in time for the slide show,” I said, glancing sideways at Mom, who was fidgeting with her hands.

I'd made the pictures large enough to fill the screen, and when Maggie's smiling face appeared, Mom gasped, tears springing to her eyes.

My eyes darted to Grammy.

She nodded at me that it was okay.

“There's your beautiful girl, Julia and Ethan,” she said in a soothing voice. “She had a wonderful life because of you two. Not to mention her wonderful brother.”

Aunt Judy moved to do the massage thing, but Dad was already there. Very gently, he placed his hands on Mom's shoulders. Mom's eyes closed for a moment and my stomach clenched, waiting for her reaction. It was the first time I'd seen them touch in a long time.

Without looking at him, she placed her hand over his. My gut instantly relaxed and then I felt ridiculously happy inside.

I clicked up the next picture: Maggie examining a jar of rice. Then another of her wagging a finger as she talked to it. I didn't explain the pictures and nobody asked me to. Still touching Dad's hand, Mom started crying softly. Grammy nodded for me to go on.

There were pictures of Maggie sleeping with her mouth slung open, another of her pigging out on that Blizzard. There were pictures of her with her friends and some of her with Davis, who looked retarded. I'd ordered the pictures chronologically and I noticed now how her skin got more pale, the circles under her eyes darker, her body more shrunken. It was like watching a speeded-up version of her dying. Yet the spirit in her eyes never changed and I hoped everyone could see that, too.

Then came the pictures I'd taken of her on the farm — against the backdrop of the brilliant sunset, of her lifting two eggs from its grassy nest and some of her feeding that deer. There were others by the pond and then one with that bullfrog on her head.

“Is that a frog on her head?” asked Mom, who had stopped crying and was leaning in for a closer look.

“Yeah,” I said.

Then came the pictures of Maggie with trolls around her head. In the first one she wore this big dumb smile and the whole thing looked totally demented.

Suddenly Mom barked out a laugh, startling us. Dad started to laugh, too. By the time I clicked through the rest of the troll head pics, we were all laughing our heads off

But I knew what was next. The dead shots. I didn't want to show them. But I felt I had to.

I waited until the laughter had faded, held my breath and clicked up the first one.

And it was okay.

* * *

Tons of people came to the party. All of Maggie's teachers from kindergarten on, which meant a lot of my old teachers and it was seriously awkward talking to some of them. Maggie's friends came all red-eyed because they'd had a group cry outside first. Neighbors whose names we didn't even know showed up with casseroles, pots of chili, loaves of banana bread. There were all of Dad's friends and people from the university. Mom's friends and various clients, even a woman from the bank. The Daskaloffs showed up, too, Nacie bringing a platter of brownies big enough to feed a small country. When Mr. D. saw me, he came straight over and put his arm around my shoulder.

“You're a good boy,” he told me and gave me a squeeze. I'd lost most of the muscle I'd gained during my time as a farmhand. I thought he was going to pop my shoulder out of place.

Davis was there and, being a big mushball, was the most teary-eyed person at the whole party. Hughie and Parm came by, and even Nat and her gang. They just stayed long enough to say they were sorry about Maggie and to nab some brownies, but it was good to see them.

Hughie confessed he felt all messed up about the last time he saw Maggie.

“Shit, Gray, I mooned her. That was the last thing I ever got to say to her. Here's my ass.”

“Means you're going straight to hell when it's your last party,” said Davis, his mouth full of brownie.

Chrissy asked if I was coming back to school in the fall.

“Yeah, I'm back. Thinking of joining the E-Club.”

They all stopped and looked at me to see, I think, if I was joking. When it was obvious I wasn't, Hughie said, “That's cool.”

I'd been talking to Dad about the environmental studies program at the university, which sounded really cool. But in memory of Maggie, and to keep the balance, I'd be having myself a Blizzard every so often, too.

By now I'd shaken way too many hands and listened to way too many people saying how sorry they were, so Davis and I piled a plate full of watermelon and brownies and escaped downstairs to sit outside by the hot tub.

It was perfect weather, sunny and warm. We had a watermelon-seed spitting contest. Though I was trying damn hard, Davis always shot his the farthest.

Then I flashed on Maggie's G2L thing and stopped trying so hard. I relaxed my mouth, just appreciated that seed in my mouth and how my cheek and lip muscles worked together with my tongue to simply… spit.

“Hey, I beat you,” I said.

Even Davis looked surprised.

“You win,” he said, “and I got to take a piss. I drank way too much punch.” He got up and headed inside. “Don't eat all the brownies.”

I leaned back in my chair, lifted my face to the sun and closed my eyes. I wondered if wherever Maggie was now, there was such a thing as warm and cold.

I felt a shadow block my sun, and I opened my eyes.

“Ciel,” I blurted and sat up real quick. There she was, like magic, just standing beside my chair. I hadn't heard a thing.

“Hi, Gray. Sorry, I didn't mean to disturb…”

I don't know what got into me — some of Maggie's fearlessness, maybe — but hearing that musical voice ripped me out of my chair. I stepped right up to her and looked into her eyes. She stopped talking and I hugged her. Because she was right in front of me, alive and warm, and I didn't want to miss the chance.

She felt so good to hold. And when I felt her hold me back, my eyes closed.

I opened them to see Davis's lips and nose smashed up against the window of the door as he kissed it. I laughed out loud and hugged Ciel harder.

* * *

The next day Mom, Dad and I scattered Maggie's ashes in the creek in the park up behind the D.s' farm. It was my idea. I thought Maggie'd appreciate that her ashes, like her soul, were going on an adventure, a journey.

The large gray flakes floated on the water's surface, and we watched as they swept downhill toward the sea.

Maybe some would end up clinging to the creek shore and becoming part of the soil. Maybe some would nourish a fish or two, others mixing in with the water and becoming part of the cycle of evaporation. Then Maggie would be part of the clouds and the rain, too.

And when that Maggie rain fell in a cold place, she would freeze into so many seriously dope crystals.

Acknowledgments

I'd like to thank the B.C. Arts Council and the Canada Council, without which this book would not have been written. Thanks to Bill Jameson at the American Cancer Society for kindly answering all my questions. Thanks to my magical friend Anne Kerry Ford for giving me
The Hidden Messages in Water
by Dr. Masaru Emoto, and thanks to Dr. Emoto himself for his inspired experiments with water.

As always, thanks to my husband, Bill, for being my initial and very supportive reader, and to my children — Lise, Connor, Vaughn and Lilli — for their ongoing inspiration. A special thanks to Vaughn for his editorial input.

Finally, thanks to Patsy Aldana for seeing the potential of the original manuscript and to my editor, Shelley Tanaka, for being so damn good at what she does. I've learned a great deal and have enjoyed working with you both.

About the Publisher

GROUNDWOOD BOOKS
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