When Crickets Cry (4 page)

I closed my eyes and could feel her frail, almost translucent, palm on my face, searching to strengthen me-strength despite such weakness.

Obediently I traced and cut a thin pine board, drilled and tapped in the mast-a balsam dowel-folded the letter, threaded the mast through it to form a sail, glued a one-inch candle to the oak board beneath the letter, and doused the board around it in lighter fluid. I lit the candle and shoved it off into the gentle but wide current of the Tallulah. It floated away, fifty yards, then a hundred, where finally the candle burned down, lit the fluid that had puddled around it, and ignited the entire thing. The blaze climbed five or six feet in the air, a thin stream of ash and white smoke climbed higher, and then the small ship turned, tilted sideways, disappeared beneath the bubbles, and sank almost eighty feet, coming to rest on the long-ago buried town of Burton at the bottom of the lake.

I counted the days until the first anniversary, woke before the sun, and flew down to the dock, where I ripped open the envelope, wrapped my face in the letter, and breathed. I devoured every word, every hint of her smell. I imagined the small twitches in the way her mouth would have shaped and formed the words, the tilt of her neck, and the invitation behind her eyes. I could hear her voice, then her whisper, just below the breeze off the lake.

I spent the day looking out over the lake, running my fingers along the lines of the letter, rewriting it a hundred times, knowing her hand had made the same movements. Finally, at dark, I cut another board, secured the mast, doused the bow and stern, and shoved her off. The single light disappeared into the darkness, finally igniting into a floating inferno almost two hundred yards away. Then, without warning, the flame toppled and disappeared like a flaming arrow shot across the wall.

Another year passed, and I counted down the days like a kid to Christmas-or a convict walking death row for the last time. I didn't need to wake because I hadn't slept, but when morning finally came I walked slowly to the dock, dead man walking, and placed my finger inside the flap. Deliberating. Stuck somewhere between no hope and all hell. If I slid my finger one way, I'd know the last words she'd ever written. One last tender moment alone. A moment we never had. All that separated me from her last words was a little dried glue and a lifetime of closure.

I held the letter up to the sun, saw the faint traces of her handwriting hidden behind the envelope, but could make out no words. I slid my finger out from beneath the flap, recreased the fold with my thumb and index finger, and placed the letter in my shirt pocket.

Another year passed, bringing with it another Fourth of July. The outside of the envelope had yellowed and wrinkled, now smelled like my sweat, and the writing had faded, accentuated by a coffee stain below the flap. Four years had passed since I first found the letters, but seldom had five minutes elapsed that I hadn't thought about her, that day, that evening, or how she'd run her fingers through my hair and told me to get some sleep. How I tried to turn back time, to fly around the earth like Superman, to pray like Joshua or Hezekiah and stop the sun.

But there are no do-overs in life.

Near dusk, a male cardinal perched on a limb nearby, tuned up, and reminded me of my task. I swung between the earth and the heavens, suspended by the sun-faded, wind-torn, and tattered fingers of the hammock. Reluctantly I returned the letter to my shirt pocket and unrolled the newspaper. I tapped the dowel into place, threaded the substitute sail over the mast, doused the base of the ship in lighter fluid, and gently placed the candle atop the deck. Above me, and spread across the northern tip of the lake, a shotgun pattern of fireworks filled the night sky, silencing the crickets. Somewhere south along the lake, little kids screamed and waved sparklers in circles that blurred into golden, burning circus rings where imaginary tigers roamed and jumped.

FIVE YEARS HAVE PASSED SINCE I FOUND THE KEY. MY ONLY link now to the outside world is a P.O. box in Atlanta that sends all my mail to another P.O. box in Clayton, but not before it's rerouted through a no-questions-asked mail-it center in Los Angeles. If you send me an overnight package, it'll cross the coun try twice and get to me about two weeks later. For all practical purposes, I don't exist, and no one knows if I come or go. Except Charlie. And what he knows of my secret is safe with him.

In my house, there are no mirrors.

I steadied my small craft, shoved her off, and the silent Tallulah caught her. A gentle breeze wobbled her, she straight ened, turned to starboard, and the flame licked the night, climbing upward. The candle burned down, spilling flame across the decks and lighting the sky like a blue shooting star. She blazed, burned herself out, and then disappeared into the silent deep, sounding the echoes of remembrance throughout a hollow and shattered heart.

en minutes in the waiting room of the Rabun County Hospital emergency room filled in many of the missing pieces. Most folks around Clayton, Georgia, had heard the story of Annie Stephens. Parents were missionaries, killed two years ago in a civil war in Sierra Leone; Annie had a twin sister, but she died a year before her parents-from genetic heart complications. Annie now lives with her aunt Cindy and became a viable transplant candidate months ago after the last surgery did little to improve her condition and her ejection fraction dropped below 15 percent-the final straw. Her doctors in Atlanta gave her six months almost eighteen months ago. And because she has no insurance, she's filled that five-gallon water jug seven times, raising over $17,000 to help cover the cost of her own surgery.

I was right when I said she'd never make it to puberty.

Normally, a small hospital like this would not have a Level 2 trauma center attached to it, but a quick look around told me that Sal Cohen had a lot to do with it. A brass plaque on the wall read Sal Cohen Emergency Medical Wing. Around Clayton, the story is legendary. About forty years ago, Dr. Sal lost a kid because the hospital didn't have enough of the right equipment. Two kids, premature twins, and only one incubator. He got mad about it, and two incubators have grown into the best trauma unit north of Atlanta.

Cindy McReedy pushed open the two swinging doors marked Medical Staff Only and walked into the waiting room. She stood on a chair, subconsciously picked at the sleeves of her plaid cotton shirt, crossed her arms as if she were cold-or not real good at speaking to groups-and waited while the room quieted down. She looked like she was about six months behind in her sleep and was juggling about eight more bowling pins than she could handle. I'd seen that look before; it would not get better before it got worse. She waved her arms above the crowd, and the tractor twins starting telling everybody to "Shhhhh!"

Cindy wiped her eyes and tucked her hair behind her ears. "Annie'll be okay. The arm is a clean break ... um, snapped ... but they put her to sleep, set it, and placed it in a cast. She just woke a few minutes ago and asked for a Popsicle."

Everybody smiled.

Cindy continued, "The arm'll heal, albeit slowly. Doc Cohen's with her now, letting her dig through his coat pocket."

Everybody smiled again. Most every hand in the room had dug through that same pocket.

"As for her heart, we won't know for a few days. Annie's tough, but. . ." She paused. "We ... the doctors ... they just don't know. We'll have to wait and see." She folded her arms again and looked over the crowd. She wiped away a tear and half-laughed. "Annie's real lucky that stranger got to her before I did. If it weren't for him ... well, Annie wouldn't be here."

A few eyes turned to look at me.

Out of the crowd somebody yelled, "Cindy, did you talk with the folks at St. Joe's, and will they finally move her up on the dang list? Ain't she considered critical by now?"

Cindy shook her head. "The problem's not them, but us ... or rather, Annie. After her last surgery and that whole thing"-Cindy waved her hands as though she were brushing bread crumbs off a picnic table-"Annie won't let them activate her name until she's found the right doctor."

A tall guy next to me spoke up and said, "But Cindy, for the love of Betsy! Override the little squirt! It's in her own best interest. She'll thank you when it's over."

Cindy nodded. "I'd like to, Billy, but it's a little more complicated than that."

It always is, I thought to myself.

Cindy lowered her voice. "Annie's only got one more of these in her. I'm not sure she could make it through another recovery. Everything about the next one has got to be absolutely right because. . ." She looked at her feet again, then back at Billy. "It'll probably be the last."

The short, squatty woman standing next to the tall man smacked him with her pocketbook, and he shoved his hands into his pockets.

Cindy continued. "Her cardiologist is on his way up here now from Atlanta. Should be here in an hour or so. We'll know more once he's finished with her. After that, we've still got to find a doctor who's good enough and who'll take the risk and operate. We've still got the same hurdles: we need a heart, and not only have we got to find someone who will take Annie, but that Annie will take. Her chances, according to the books, even with the best of doctors, are in the single digits, and ..." Cindy looked over her shoulder and lowered her voice again. "They're not getting any better."

The room got real quiet. If there had been a consensus of hope, it was gone now.

Cindy looked her age, maybe thirty-five, and I gathered that her matter-of-factness was a product of both personality and life's lessons. Maybe it was how she dealt with it. She'd been through a few battles, and you could hear it in her voice, see it in her face. Sandy-blonde hair to her shoulders, held up in a simple ponytail by a green rubber band fresh off the newspaper.

No makeup. Strong back, long lines. Rigid and stern, but also graceful. Cold but quietly beautiful. Complicated and busy, but also in need. More like an onion than a banana. Her eyes looked like the green that sits just beneath the peel of an avocado, and her lips like the red part of the peach that sits up next to the seed. Her plaid shirt, tattered jeans, ponytail, and crossed arms said she was function over form, but I had a feeling that, like any woman in her position, she hid much of her form because her time was consumed with function. She reminded me of Meryl Streep working the rows of coffee plants in Out of Africa.

Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.

She stepped down off the chair, saying, "Any news, and I'll post it on the store window." She looked at an older gentleman who stood off to one side, listening closely. "That okay with you, Mr. Dillahunt?"

He nodded and said, "You just call Mabel, and she'll print anything you want."

As the crowd thinned, Cindy made her way to the Coke machine and started fumbling for coins. She was all thumbs, spilling pennies around her feet and not getting any closer to finding the correct change.

The voices inside my head were at all-out war with one another. While they fought it out inside me, I dug four quarters from my pocket and held out my palm.

She turned to face me and looked like she was trying to hold off a cold shiver. She pushed a few strands of hair out of her face (they immediately fell back where they'd been), took the quarters, and punched the button for a Diet Coke. The circles beneath her eyes told me she was tired, so I unscrewed the cap on the plastic bottle and handed it to her. She sipped, looked across the top of the Coke bottle at me, and said, "Thank you, again." She looked at the floor, dug the toe of her shoe into a worn spot in the terrazzo, and then looked at me. "Doc Cohen tells me I owe you an apology."

I shook my head. "Doctors aren't always right."

"Sal usually is," she said.

We stood in silence a minute, not knowing what to say.

"Annie's got this real good doctor in Atlanta. I just hung up the phone with him, and he said he's anxious to read the information off that strap-looking thing you placed over her heart. He said not many people are walking around with those things."