The Art of Arranging Flowers (26 page)

H
OW
much longer are you going to be in there?” Will is standing at the bathroom door.

I have just settled into a nice lavender bubble bath. I sit up. “Maybe an hour,” I answer.

“An hour?” I hear his little-boy sigh. “I have to pee.”

I stand up and pull the shower curtain closed. “I asked you before I started and you said you didn't need the bathroom.” I sit back down. “Okay, you can come in.”

I hear the door open. “Well, that was before I drank all the orange juice.” He turns on the light, immediately changing the mood of the candlelit room.

“You drank another carton of juice?” I am sure I am buying as many groceries as the octomom.

“I thought you wanted me to drink juice instead of sodas.” I hear him lift the seat on the commode.

“Well, yeah, but not a carton of it a day.”

I turn on the hot water so I don't have to listen. When I think there's been enough time for him to complete what he came in to do, I turn it off.

He finishes and zips up his pants.

“Wash your hands,” I say.

And he does.

“Did you flush?”

And he does that too.

“Did you put the seat down?”

I hear it fall.

“Is that a vanilla candle?”

“I believe it is.”

And I hear him pick up the candle and then put it down. “Smells good.” There is a pause and I think he must be on his way out. “Ruby . . .” He isn't.

“Yeah?”

“I'm starting fifth grade next month.”

“Yes,” I reply, not sure why he's telling me news I already know. “We have all the right papers filed and we met your homeroom teacher last Wednesday night. Mr. Evans, I believe, is his name. Seems nice enough.”

I wait for a response. There is none. I fold the washcloth and place it over my eyes. I breathe in the scent of lavender.

“I've never been in fifth grade.”

“Well, as I recall, it's not that much different from fourth grade,” I say, trying to reassure him.

“It's a little different,” he says.

“Okay,” I respond.

“We change classes in the morning and after lunch. I'll have three teachers instead of one.”

“But that can be a good thing because if you don't like one, you don't have to stay with her all day.”

I suddenly remember Mrs. Willie from fifth-grade science. She was very strict and smelled like formaldehyde. I was always glad when the bell rang and I could go to English.

“Suppose I get a locker that I can't reach.”

I hear him drop the top on the commode and sit down. It looks like my luxurious soaking solitude is gone.

“Then you'll tell your homeroom teacher and they'll give you one you can reach.”

He seems to be thinking about that. He's quiet for a few seconds.

“I can pick an instrument and play in the band.”

“Do you want to play in the band?”

“Nah.”

“Okay.”

“I can choose a sport and stay after school and practice.”

“Do you want to play a sport?”

He must be considering the idea; he's quiet.

“Maybe baseball.”

And I realize that I should have asked him that earlier. Maybe he would have played this summer. Don't boys play baseball in the summer? There are so many things to learn.

“Then we'll sign you up for baseball.”

He's quiet again.

“Mama always took me shopping before school started,” he explains. “For school and my birthday.” I remember the date of his birthday and decide that a shopping trip makes a lot of sense. “Well, we can go Sunday, if you want,” I say. “You want to go to Spokane or to Colville?”

“Spokane, I guess,” he replies.

“What kinds of things do you buy?” I have no idea of what a ten-year-old boy needs for school. Does he buy jeans? Sneakers? Should we wait and see what other boys are wearing?

“I need a new backpack and I wanted some of those shoes like Justin wears.”

“Converse,” I tell him. “I had a pair in college. Maybe I'll buy a pair for me too.”

He doesn't respond.

“Or is that too weird? Having a . . .” Suddenly, I don't know the word.

“Mom?” he asks, and I feel strangely warm.

I finish. “Is that weird having a mom wearing the same shoes as you?”

He must be thinking about it and I actually feel a little nervous that he will change the thing he just said, the very simple but important thing.

“Nah, that's okay. Just not the same color,” he adds. “I'm getting black.”

“Then I'll go with white or maybe pink.” I feel my cheeks redden. I am blushing at being called a mom.

I hear the door come open and I'm guessing Clementine has joined us as well. Apparently, there's a party in my bathroom. She sticks her head in through the curtain and I wave. She leaves the side of the tub and I hear her plop down next to the toilet. I'm thinking we definitely have to get a bigger house, one with two bathrooms.

“Oh, you had a phone call right after you came in here,” he says.

He tells me this and I recall thinking I had heard it ring but had forgotten to ask him about it.

“Who was it?” I expect to hear from Nora and Jimmy. They left for Seattle a couple of days ago and I've been wondering how the honeymoon is going.

“Captain Miller,” he answers.

And I realize that I haven't talked to Dan in a few days. The last time I saw him was at the library. He was dropping off some of his books and CDs to donate. He looked gaunt but refused to complain about how he was feeling. I plan to take him some soup and bread this weekend.

“He said he had some more science books for me and a couple of CDs for you and that he'd leave them at the back door of the shop this evening.”

I wonder why he would do that and not just drop them off here at the house.

“Is that all he said?”

“He said it was a clear sky tonight and just after sunset Jupiter would be extra bright. He told me to tell you to make sure we both went out to see it. He said about seven o'clock and he made me repeat what he was saying. I guess it's kind of important. He wants us to go outside and look at the planet Jupiter at seven.”

I glance at my watch. It's ten minutes before seven. “Well, I guess we better get moving.” I stand up. “Can you hand me the towel on the floor?” I ask.

And his little hand reaches in. I take it.

“Thanks for the talk, Will,” I say, not minding at all the short soak and crowded room.

I
DON'T
see it,” he says.

We are standing outside, facing west, the direction I think I had seen the planet before when I saw it for the first time from Dan's deck.

“Well, he said it was sometimes called the wandering planet because it was not always where the stargazers gazed.” I look up and around. I don't see a shining planet, either.

“Maybe it's too early,” Will responds. “It's still pretty light out.”

I think the same thing since it isn't quite dark yet and there are only a few stars out. “But he was pretty specific, right? He said seven o'clock.”

Will nods.

I find this a very odd phone call and wonder why Dan would have asked us both to come outside this evening. I think that maybe I should call him for better instructions.

“Let's get a couple of chairs,” I tell him, deciding not to call. “This might take a while.”

Will goes around to the rear of the house and brings us two camping chairs. I open them and we sit down. Will takes the binoculars and studies the sky.

“You like Captain Miller, don't you?” he asks.

“I do, very much. He's smart and kind and he's very nice to me. You like him too, don't you?”

I think about Will and Dan, seeing them together at Nora and Jimmy's wedding, the way he congratulated us when I announced the adoption.

“Yeah, he's cool. He showed me how to make a telescope.” Will stops and thinks. “Wait, I should get it!” And he runs inside.

In a few minutes he returns, carrying a small black tube that I don't remember seeing in his things. He points it to the sky.

“Look, you can see really good!”

And I take the apparatus, gaze through it, and have to agree. There is a clearer image of the sky.

“When did he help you make this?” I ask, handing him back the scope.

Will shrugs. “About a month after I got here,” he answers. “He came by the house every Sunday.”

And I think about how long Dan had been visiting Will and how he never mentioned it to anyone. He had found out about the boy and his mom's death and made a point of giving him a little attention. And once again, I am surprised by the astronaut's choices.

“He bought a lens from the eye doctor.” And he shows it to me. “And it's just a cardboard tube for the eyepiece. Grandma gave him the one from the paper towels.”

I nod, following along.

“Then this is the diaphragm”—he points to a narrow black card—“and it's made from a thick piece of paper, like poster board.” He shows me the center. “See the hole?”

“I do,” I answer.

“You make a bunch of little cuts around the edge of the disk to make a set of tabs. Then you wet the tabs and place the tube cap on one end of the tube and bend the tabs around the outside.”

“This is way over my head,” I say.

“It's not so hard,” Will explains. “And then you finish by gluing the tabs together and when the glue is dry, you take the cap off and cut in the cap a hole that is smaller in diameter than the outside diameter of the principal tube.”

I shake my head. “He taught you all that?” I ask, bewildered.

Will nods. “Yep, and he told me about the planets and the stars and how they are spheres of plasma held together by gravity.” He gazes through his telescope.

“You going to be an astronaut, too?” I ask.

He shrugs. It is for him, a perfectly logical question.

“I don't know, maybe,” he answers. And he goes back to gazing up at the sky.

“Captain Miller is sick,” I tell Will, not sure why I feel it is necessary to break this news to the boy.

“I know,” he answers. “He has cancer.”

“He told you about that, too?” I ask, although I'm not all that surprised. Dan values truth-telling.

Will nods. “He said it was spreading throughout his body and that he wouldn't get better from it.”

“Like Jenny did?” I add.

“Yeah, like her.”

“What else did he say?”

“Just that he had lived a really full and happy life and that he wasn't afraid of what would happen next.”

I think about Dan, about our long talks, the dinner at his house where he showed me the planet for the first time. “Did he show you Jupiter?”

Will nods.

“Its mass is two point five times that of all the other planets in our solar system combined.”

He's starting to sound like an encyclopedia now.

“Did he tell you about the Great Red Spot?”

“He showed it to me,” he answers, and I see that I don't really have anything on him. “He has a really nice telescope.”

“He does,” I agree.

“He was really glad you adopted me,” Will adds.

I nod.

“He was the one who said that maybe I should wait a little while before going with Jenny and Justin.”

Another surprise. I hadn't really been told the reasons why Will chose not to sign the papers, but I hadn't really expected to hear that the suggestion came from Dan.

“Really?”

Will nods.

“He just told me that sometimes grown-ups need a little longer than kids to know what is in their hearts. And that I should give it some more time.”

“And you knew he was talking about me?”

There is the slightest grin on the boy's face.

“You did?” I ask.

He shrugs.

So Dan had orchestrated this whole thing. He knew I would adopt Will. I shake my head. I will have a few things to say to him when I see him.

And as if on cue, it appears. The sound of a piston twin engine, the Cessna 337, Dan's plane. I hear it long before I see it and I know what it means before he even drops down, dips his wings, a greeting in our direction, and heads west.

“There it is!” Will shouts, and he has found the planet Jupiter, just making its appearance, just starting to shine.

“Yes,” I reply. “There it is.”

And I see now that Dan has finally chosen how he wants to leave the Earth, how he plans to make his transition, how to return to his stardust. He finished all of his tasks, tied up all of the loose ends, and he got in his plane to fly away.

“You know, a lot of people think that planets are stars,” Will says, not realizing what I have seen, not realizing what is taking place before our eyes. “But they aren't,” he adds. “Stars have their own light,” he explains. “Planets don't.”

I watch the plane move farther and farther into the horizon and I picture his smile and wave. And I hold up my hand as well and then place it across my heart.

“Their own light,” I reply. “That would be exactly right,” I say, even though I am sure Will does not understand. “He has his own light.”