(2007) Chasing Fireflies - A Novel of Discovery (28 page)

"Sorry. It's just that ... you've had a little longer to get used to the idea of you not being here."

"Whoever said I was used to it?"

"You know what I mean."

"Chase-I know that I loved you before I ever met you. I know that my heart broke when I drove out of town. I know that I dialed and then hung up the phone a hundred times from California."

"Well ... why?"

She placed her finger on the end of my nose and tilted her head. "'Cause I didn't want you to know what I'd become. Shame hurts, Chase. And it's going to hurt a lot worse if I have to live the days I have left thinking you're looking down your nose at me."

I wrapped my arms around her, pulled her to my chest, and squeezed. "Tommye, I'm not looking down my nose. I'm looking across a broken heart-one that only gets worse the skinnier you get."

"Chase?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

"I'm going to miss you."

She thumbed the tear off my cheek. "I miss you already."

She looked out across the pasture, then out across the horizonshe was lost in a gaze that looked down on the earth from another galaxy. Her tone changed. "Hey." She turned my chin to hers. "If you talked to the doctor, then you know how it ends." Her eyes searched to find mine. "When the time comes ... no 911. No doctors, no hospital." She swallowed. "Let me go home."

UnC found me on the porch long after everyone else had gone to sleep. He walked down along the railing near their bedroom, where Lorna's climbing rose was wrapped around the chimney. He sniffed several, clipped a few, then sat down next to me, packed a pipe, and spent five minutes trying to light it.

I smiled. "When did you take to smoking a pipe?"

He coughed. "'Bout thirty seconds ago."

"You like it?"

"Not sure yet."

We sat there, him smoking and me breathing. He exhaled, his eyes burning. "You talk with Tommye today?"

"You don't miss much, do you?"

"Not when it matters." He puffed again. "Well?"

"Yes sir."

"Get your questions answered?"

I shrugged. "Yes sir."

He hung the pipe between his teeth. "Well?"

"Well, what?"

He raised his eyebrows. "What now?"

"Heck if I know. What's left to know?"

"It's not what you know. It's what she knows."

Unc was setting me up, and I knew it. I also knew I wanted whatever he was about to give me. "What do you mean?"

"My life has been real different than I thought. Ain't turned out how I hoped ... nor dreamt. But I'm not the only man in the world to get screwed by life. Lots are worse off than me. That's life. You take the bad with the good. Rise up through it. Live in the midst of it. It's the bad that lets you know how good the good really is. Don't let the bad leave you thinking like there ain't no good. There is, and lots of it, too."

"You know they sell that same stuff down at the grocery store in those magazines along the checkout counter."

He nodded, then he picked up one of Lorna's roses and set it in my lap. "Here."

I picked it up and smelled it.

He poked me in the shoulder. "See what I mean? Thorns don't stop you from sniffing. Or putting them in a vase on the kitchen table. You work around them." He stuck a finger in the air. "Why? 'Cause the rose is worth it." He looked at me. "Think what you'd miss."

We sat a long time while Unc learned to smoke. After he got the hang of it, he smoked the ashes white, then tapped it out on the heel of his boot. "Sometimes good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment."

"Doesn't seem right."

He nodded slowly. "Yup."

'e loaded up, packed the cooler and the pole, and walked outside where Unc had Lil' Bubba tied up. He helped Tommye up into the saddle and then placed Sketch behind her. The five of us walked out through the back pasture, underneath the canopy of cypress and oaks, and into the dense cover of the Zuta. Thirty minutes later, we walked out of the water and into Ellsworth's Sanctuary. The crepe myrtles were in bloom and sprinkling the ground with small pink blossoms. We walked to the north end, Tommye dismounted, and we sat down on logs to watch Unc teach Sketch how to fish.

Unc slipped the worm onto the hook, threading it from head to tail, and then tossed it into the water where the warmouth were popping bugs on the surface. He held the pole gently, raised his chin, and whispered, "Talk to me, sweet lips. I'll find you in the dark."Just then the bobber disappeared; he set the hook and handed the pole to Sketch, who started reeling furiously. A moment later, he stood on the bank watching his fish flop on the ground as Unc laughed and clapped.

Tommye bumped me with her shoulder. "Aren't you going to join them?"

I shook my head.

"Why not?"

"Only one pole."

She frowned. "Well, that doesn't make any sense."

I smiled, staring back into my own memory. "The point is not the fishing ... the point is the kid."

We spent the morning watching the two of them fill up the stringer. Midmorning, after Sketch had the hang of it, Tommye slipped her arm inside mine and said, "Let's go for a walk."

She steered me around the Sanctuary, walking slowly, saying little. We skirted the edges, then broke through the brush to stare down on two tombstones. We stood for a moment, our eyes tracing the names on the marble. The ground around each had been brushed back, and dead flowers lay between them.

Unc walked up behind us. Whether it was the sunlight or the place, his face had changed. Normally young and vibrant, his age suddenly showed. There were wrinkles on his neck and around his eyes, and a single muscle in his cheek twitched.

We three stood looking down. Tommye hooked her arms inside ours, holding onto us as much as uniting us. Finally she spoke. She turned to Unc and said, "I want you to do something for me."

She looked at the ground next to his son's grave. Mushrooms and small ferns were reaching up out of the ground, and a caterpillar was slowly making its way across the dead leaves. She slipped her hand into his. "I want you to speak at my funeral. And I want you to bury me right here."

Unc gritted his teeth, pulled her to his chest, and nodded.

While dusk had set, it had grown dark inside the swamp. Unc slid his flashlight into his back pocket, lifted Tommye, and then handed Sketch up to her. She wrapped her arms around him, and the two held onto the saddle horn while Unc told Bubba, "Old Man, you're carrying precious cargo. Better take it easy."

Watching that picture, I was reminded that there are still things in this life that are beautiful. Tommye and Sketch were two of them. The beam from Unc's flashlight bounced off the water and lit their smiling faces as they bobbed atop the horse. Then it hit me that the reason the light bounced off the water was because Unc was pointing it behind him. And maybe that was the prettiest picture of all.

tive walked out of the Sanctuary as the last rays of the sun glanced off the earth, making room for the cooler sea breeze that swept itself over the islands, across Brunswick, and down into the Buffalo. When we walked into the house, the phone was ringing. Unc answered it, spoke briefly, and hung up.

"It's Mandy. She's coming by." He looked at Aunt Lorna. "Bringing somebody with her."

Mandy's state-issue white Camry turned down the drive, followed by a blue van. The van hung back at a distance as Mandy parked. She mounted the porch and then looked at Sketch.

"Hey, I heard you had some cake today. I wonder if you could cut me a piece?"

He nodded and disappeared into the kitchen.

After the door slammed shut, Mandy's poker face returned. "You know those little flyers you get in your mail that have a kid's picture on front with an accompanying age-progression photo to the right?" She held one up, passed it around, and then pointed to the van coming down the drive. "This lady is from Tampa. She saw our classified ads in a Miami paper. She lost her son to a kidnapping about six years ago. The picture there is her son. She thinks Buddy might be him."

Tommye, who was white as a ghost and wrapped up in a blanket in the rocker, stood up and looked over Unc's shoulder.

I looked at the age-progression picture, which was the spitting image of Sketch. "How will she know? I mean, how will she know for sure?"

Mandy heard footsteps coming from the kitchen and lowered her voice. "A birthmark. She wouldn't tell me where it is. Just said she'd know him for certain once she got a chance to look at him up close."

Sketch walked out onto the porch carrying a slice of pound cake on top of a paper plate. He carried it with two hands, having stuffed his sketch pad inside his waistband behind his back.

The lady in the blue van parked and got out. Mustering her courage, she walked up the porch steps. She was in her midforties with graying hair and a bit ragged around the edges. She stepped up to Sketch, who turned and took her breath away. She covered her mouth, composed herself, and pushed her hair behind her ears. She tried to speak but could not.

Mandy sat down next to him and said, "Buddy, this kind lady just wants to look at you a moment."

Sketch nodded. The lady put her hands on his shoulders and turned him sideways. She then gently pulled back his right ear and stared at the skin. Sketch stood unmoving, still holding the cake.

The lady released his ear, shook her head at Mandy, and stood up, facing all of us. No one said a word. Unc stepped forward and extended his hand.

"Ma'am, I'm William McFarland. This"-he waved his hand across us-"is my family."

The lady nodded. "Before my son was ... taken, we were working in the yard. He was five then. He was playing in the driveway and fell on a clay pot. It cracked and cut his ear. We had to have it sewn back on. There would be a scar."

Aunt Lorna stepped forward. 'Will you stay for dinner?"

"No. Thank you." The lady turned, looked again at Sketch, and walked to her car.

He watched the van's taillights disappear out the drive, set down the cake, and walked to his room. No one had told him what was going on, but no one had to. He'd been passed over before.

Mandy looked at all of us. "I'm sorry. She . . ." She put her hands on her hips, and I saw her poker face return. "I think I've found a permanent home that will take him. Some folks out of Charlotte. Attorney and his wife. Good people. Might be two or three weeks before we get approval. Judge is on a European vacation." She walked to the railing, her back to us, and looked out over the pasture. "At least in criminal court, the guilty get what they got coming."

On my eighteenth birthday Unc and Aunt Lorna took me outside and said, "You're free to go as you like. You're also free to stay. The state put you here, now you can choose."

They gave me my freedom, but I didn't want it. Taking it would have sealed me officially as a fatherless kid. I would be no one. That's a hard way to live.

Before the driveway dust had time to settle, another set of headlights pulled into the drive. They were that bluish color that comes on real expensive cars. The black Escalade skirted the potholes and parked in front of the steps. Tommye's eyes narrowed, and Unc stepped down off the porch, standing between the driver of the car and us.

I've never seen Uncle Jack without a tie. White shirt, bluish tie, immaculate hair. His pants draped like Italian silk, and his loafers looked like soft calfskin. He walked up to within three feet of Unc. They studied each other. Jack was bigger. Barrel-chested, he stood three inches taller than Unc.

Jack spoke first. "William."

Tommye stepped off the porch and walked up behind Uncle Willee, holding loosely to his shirtsleeve.

Uncle Jack spoke to Tommye. "Heard you came by the house."

"Yeah ... thought I'd stop in. Grab a couple of things."

He paused, thinking. "I guess you heard about the Zuta house?"

"No, do tell."

"Somebody lit a fire in the kitchen, then cut the lines to the propane tanks in the cellar. Burnt it to the ground."

Tommye stepped around Unc, but slipped her arm inside his. "Gee ... that's too bad. All that wine ..."

Uncle Jack looked at me. "You like prison?"

I thought about him in that house, down in that cellar, admiring the legs of his wine ... and his daughter. Then I thought of Tommye running through the Zuta that night-her gown covered in the last remnants of little girlness. Jack had lived his entire smug life having stepped above his secret, the prize of the Brunswick business and church community. He had taught Sunday school and been an elder six times. I listened as the wind cut through the pecan trees carrying Tommye's echo, Some lies run deep.

I stepped in front of Unc and under the shadow of Uncle Jack. He was taller than me by six inches. I placed my face less than a foot from his and said the thing I'd been wanting to say a long time. I guess sitting in that cellar, looking backward, I found the gumption. "Keep a good watch over your shoulder, because those footsteps you hear ... they'll be mine."

I had caught him off guard, I could tell. I scratched my chin. "You ever heard of the Freedom of Information Act? If not, you will shortly."