The Girl Who Fell from the Sky (5 page)

“Hey!”

Brick ran faster. Finally, two blocks away, he stopped and read the story. He sounded out the big words. He read his new name.

T
HAT AFTERNOON
J
AMIE
saw that the shrine had not survived the night’s storm. The rain had soaked what was left: the teddy bear, the candles, the family portrait in the frame. The coffee can was gone. Jamie who was really James picked up the board and perched it on the cement blocks again. The soggy teddy bear squished like a sponge. He poured the water from the candles’ burning wells and wiped the water from the family portrait, now wet beneath the frame’s glass.

Jamie who was really James but who was now Brick placed the
Peterson Field Guide
on the shrine next to the bird-boy’s family photograph. He didn’t want the field guide any longer. From now on he would simply listen. He would know things even when his eyes were closed. He would know them by sound.

Laronne

After work the next day Laronne visited the courtyard.

Without the flash of the police car lights, or the television crews, the crowd had thinned. An elderly black man set a bouquet of carnations on the shrine and stuffed a bill in the collection can Laronne had made. He paused, also, to pick up the framed photograph Laronne had taken from Nella’s desk at the library and placed in the shrine’s center.

Laronne recognized the man from one of the television reports. He was a neighbor of Nella’s who had helped bring up the groceries one afternoon. “Her place was spic-and-span clean,” he had said.

All day Laronne had heard the same kind of whispers at the library where she worked.

She was real helpful.

I thought she was really smart.

Sometimes I couldn’t understand her accent.

She always seemed so nice.

The collection of whispered comments and impressions didn’t add up to a story that made sense of what happened; they could hardly be considered clues. What people wanted to know was why Nella had turned so dangerous. Why hadn’t the danger been seen?

Laronne saw a light-skinned, curly-haired boy as he approached the shrine. He lifted the collection can gingerly and into it dumped two handfuls of coins. Had he lost his best friend?

Laronne watched as the elderly black man spoke to the newspaper reporter. No doubt he was telling the same story he told the television cameras—now it was well rehearsed. Spic-and-span wasn’t a way to remember a woman, a mother. And why was the man making himself part of a story he knew nothing about?

“Did you know her?” the reporter asked Laronne next. “How did you know her? Was she a good employee?”

“Yes,” Laronne said. “She worked for me at the library. She was the hardest working. Always on time until this week.”

“How did she seem to you when you saw her last?” the reporter finally asked.

Laronne thought of what she’d heard on the television reports the night before.
Quiet. Shy. Kept to herself. Spic-and-span.

How did she seem? Nella seemed proud and hungry and young.

“What else can you tell us about her?” the reporter asked.

L
ARONNE THOUGHT OF
the day she showed Nella a picture of her own son, Greg.

“Robbie’s gonna be a big boy like this,” Nella had said.

“It happens before you know it,” Laronne had replied.

“Now, they’re still my little sunshines.” Nella smiled. “Robbie especially is a little brown kiss.”

Laronne knew the kids only from the framed photograph on Nella’s desk, but she remembered that Nella always spoke about the boy special. She said he didn’t talk much because he stuttered. He pointed. He nodded. Or he had his big sister say for him what he wanted to say. The girl certainly had enough words in her for all of them. Who knew what she’d grow up to be, but it would certainly be whatever she wanted; it would be written as large as the sky.

Nella rubbed the front of Laronne’s picture as she handed it back. “I’m sorry. Did I get it dirty?” she asked.

“No, that’s a scrape above his eye,” Laronne said. “It’s just a scar now, but Lord when he first came home. I think it hurt me more than him.”

“That’s how it is. You want to protect them.”

“Funny how that happens,” Laronne said. “You realize you’d do anything for them. Anything for them to be okay.”

“Yes,” Nella said. “I will.”

L
ARONNE HAD ONLY
one thing to say to the reporter. “That woman loved her babies, and they loved her.”

The reporter wrote down what Laronne said. But Laronne could tell the reporter didn’t think it made for a good story.

Laronne wanted to say something that mattered. “You have to ask the right questions,” she said. “What no one’s asking
is: Where is the man? The boyfriend?” The reporter made a sound to encourage Laronne to keep talking. “What we need to ask is,” Laronne said, “where was
he
that day?”

A black woman who had taken up on Laronne’s left said, “That’s right,” and Laronne was in church again—testifying as she thought of Nella’s boyfriend, the man with the orange hair slicked back who was nowhere to be found.

“What we need to be asking . . .” Laronne was all emotion. “Was that man up on that roof that day?”

“Amen.” The black woman who had suddenly taken up on her left was her chorus.

Doug—that was his name. Funny how Laronne made him a black man in her mind when Nella first mentioned him. She wasn’t sure if it was out of her own bias or a certain wish. From what Nella said, the man—Doug—didn’t seem to have a real job. That could have been the reason she thought the man was black—her bias.

“A woman—no woman—would do that to her own children,” Laronne said.

“Amen.”

The reporter scribbled furiously on her pad.

“You go on, ask people what they saw. A woman doesn’t sacrifice her babies that way. No matter what’s gone wrong. She’s not gonna hurt no kids. But maybe
that man
did.”

And with that Laronne saw the reporter write a giant asterisk and exclamation point.

“Would you spell your name for me again?”

T
HAT NIGHT LARONNE
couldn’t sleep as it stormed outside. Her thoughts of Nella and of the boy and baby, now
dead, and the girl, these things had made a bookmark inside of her.

“David,” she said to her husband as she turned toward him in bed. “The sadness is coming over me again.”

“I know. Come here.”

Laronne moved closer and let herself feel the warmth of his arms around her shoulders and on her back, and the heat of his chest on her face.

“I can’t get rid of the sadness,” Laronne said.

“Well,” David said, “then we’ll just keep it company.”

I
N THE MORNING
Laronne found the story on page B3. The reporter had described the courtyard, the shrine, the collection of people who prayed and whispered. There were more words to describe the after-scene than there were to describe any of the lives that were lost. The reporter used the words
pity, tragedy, shame.
No mention of
bravery, courage, love.

But then there in black and white she read: “Police say they are continuing their investigation to rule out foul play. Witnesses indicate possible suspects . . .” Her eyes fixed on the word “Witnesses.” Someone had seen what happened? What could they tell?

Rachel

It’s the sound I remember. “Ma-ko-me-none,” I say when the counselor at science camp asks what kind of plant that is. “That’s a bearberry plant in Ojibway,” I say. I read it in a book about a Native American princess who had long hair down to the ground. She saved her family by making her hair a rope and pulling them from the water.

“That’s my mom’s tribe,” Anthony Miller says. “For real.”

Then all the kids laugh, including Antoine who is supposed to be Anthony Miller’s best friend. I look at Anthony Miller real hard and try to see history.

“Ooo-wah-oo-wah.” Antoine is the one who does it first. He claps his hand to his mouth the way Indians on TV do. Then he sticks out his lip and makes
Ojibway
a word for the kid on
Fat Albert.
The other kids laugh harder. I don’t know
if it’s better to have people laugh at what you are or just not understand.

Anthony Miller is handsome and has a broad nose and thick lips, and those are the black things in a person. His nose is Pop’s nose. And his brownness is Aunt Loretta’s. He doesn’t have to have an Ojibway part that people can see for me to believe him.

Anthony Miller doesn’t look sad that the other kids are laughing, because he is laughing too. He laughs along with them. And he starts to dance around. Anthony Miller always laughs.

I like Anthony Miller even though he’s the one that bumps my chair. He knows I like him because Tracy told him. I don’t know if that makes her my best friend ever or my enemy. I think he likes me too. He told Tracy that I should meet him before dinner at the big tree that has more than 150 rings.

We are standing under the big tree that has more than 150 rings when Anthony Miller says, “Let me tell you a secret.” He pulls me closer to him than I have ever been to a boy. Then Anthony Miller kisses me on the lips. The kiss runs all the way to my middle. He kisses my hurt ear next, not knowing that it is hurt, and strokes my hair along my back. Anthony Miller makes me a princess. “All of this is a secret,” he says, and I listen. “Because I really have another girl.”

“L
OLO,” THE WOMAN
says and hugs Aunt Loretta real tight while they’re standing at the door.

I thought it was Grandma’s friend Miss Verle coming for a visit to discuss the scripture, like she does just about every
other day. Really Grandma and Miss Verle are just talking about what happened on their stories and the good things they found at the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store in the part of town where Grandma works. You can buy a whole bag of clothes for five dollars there. “White people throw some valuable stuff away,” Miss Verle always says. “Throws it out like it don’t even matter.”

I always know when they start talking about me or white folks because they start to talk real low. Sometimes I think that I can hear better because I have one good ear. No matter how softly they whisper I can hear them. And when Miss Verle says “them titties” make me look “too growed up.” I can hear her and hear Grandma agree. She means grown up, I say inside, but there are special rules for how she says things since she’s from down South. I want to correct her but don’t.

“Helen! It’s so good to see you. Come in. What are you doing here?” Aunt Loretta says and hugs the woman again.

Helen is a tall, light-skinned-ed woman with short but straight hair. She’s wearing a red silk shirt, black pants, and heels. She’s almost as pretty as Aunt Loretta and has the same wide smile.

“In town visiting my family, and I saw Pam downtown yesterday. She mentioned you were back in town so I thought I’d see if your mom could help me find you.”

“Well, I’m here. Living here now.”

Something about the way Aunt Loretta talks sounds different to me. Maybe Aunt Loretta doesn’t feel so sure.

Helen looks at me then and says: “Oh my, you and Nathan did something good here!”

“This is my niece, Rachel. Roger’s daughter. She’s living here with mama and me.”

“Hi, Miss Helen,” I say and shake her hand.

“Hi, Rachel. Aren’t you a sweetie. Firm handshake. That’s good home training. But call me Helen. You make me sound like some old woman with that Miss. And we aren’t that old!” she says looking at Aunt Loretta.

They both laugh.

“Come in. Sit down,” Aunt Loretta says. “And Rachel, go put on some water for tea.”

Everything about Aunt Loretta seems real formal like Helen isn’t her high school friend, but something like a queen.

From the kitchen I can hear Aunt Loretta and her friend talking—as clearly as I can hear Grandma and Miss Verle.

“You know I went to college. Just down to California. That’s as far as my imagination could take me then,” Helen says. “And then, you know, I loved it there. I wanted to see more. So for law school I went to Howard. I’m at a firm in D.C. So is my husband.”

“That’s great,” Aunt Loretta says. “I knew you’d do great.”

“Last I heard you and Nathan had run off and got married. You two were moving somewhere for him to play ball. And you know you hurt my feelings, right? I was supposed to be the maid of honor.”

“Oh, it wasn’t a special thing. We did it simple—at the courthouse.”

“I bet Miss Doris was none too happy about that. She’d been wanting to fit you for a wedding gown since we were in seventh grade!”

“Mama has her own ways,” Aunt Loretta says. “I think she was still glad I had a man and I didn’t run off alone, for some crazy other thing.”

“Bless her heart,” Helen says laughing before her voice gets real soft. “Lolo, what happened with Nathan?”

“He did play ball. I loved the time we lived in New York, the museums, the galleries, the energy. I worked up the nerve to take a couple art classes too. I was working up the nerve to maybe show some pieces—like to a gallery. But then Nathan and I—it didn’t work out.” Aunt Loretta’s voice suddenly sounds shaky and high.

“I’m sorry,” Helen says.

“You know how Nathan was,” Aunt Loretta says. “He kept being Nathan. He couldn’t help but mess around. Aunt Loretta pauses for just a second and says in almost a whisper: “Then he didn’t care what it was he was messing with. He messed around with it all—my friends, his friends’ wives, and then whatever, woman or man.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it all up.”

There is a long silence, and I hope the teakettle won’t suddenly blow, so I turn the heat off before the water boils.

“It’s so good to see you,” Aunt Loretta says. “How long are you in town?”

“A couple more days. But you know my sister’s back living here now. She’s trying to get the Jack and Jill back up and running. That’s all you Miss Rose Festival Princess! It’s time we had some more black folks in this town doing something.”