All We Know of Heaven (12 page)

“I know that.”

Jeannie asked, “Can I see Kitt?”

“She’s, ah, asleep,” said Mike. “Yeah. She is asleep. It’s best for her now. She can’t really handle it . . . the calls from the newspapers and people trying to take pictures of the little girls. Yeah.”

“Who is down there?” a voice shrieked from somewhere

high above them.

“Yeah,” said Mike distractedly. He called, “It’s Bill and Jean, honey. They came to talk to us.”

They heard the quick slap of running feet.

“NOW!” Kitt screamed, leaning over the railing of the vaulted foyer twenty feet above their heads. “Where were they when we found out it was our daughter who died?”

“Kitt,” Jeannie said, beginning to climb the stairs. “It’s probably not the best time,” Mike said.

Jeanniekeptclimbing. Kittranather, swingingherright arm out perpendicular to Jean’s face; but before she could strike, Jean wrapped her arms around the taller woman and together they sank to the carpet, Kitt sobbing and cling ing to Jeannie. “Why couldn’t we keep both of them? Why would God play such a cruel joke on us?”

“Oh, Kitt, I don’t know. I only know you helped keep our girl alive.”

“I can’t go on living,” Kitt whispered, sitting back on the carpet.

“You don’t have to, for a while. Just keep breathing. I didn’t ever want to see another living soul. But I had to. I had to because I had four sons, like you have those two little girls.”

“A part of me hates you,” Kitt said. “Can you believe that?” “Completely,” said Jeannie. “We felt the same way.” “No, you’re a good person. You’re naturally good,” Kitt

replied.

“No one is that good,” Jeannie told her. “We had awful thoughts.”

They sat together on the floor for ninety minutes. Fi nally Kitt nodded off in Jeannie’s arms.

the pipeline
‌

After she finally visited Maureen, Leland showed every one the photo she had taken with her phone. Maureen had tried to put her hands up to block the picture, but her hands were too slow.

“She looks like Frankenstein,” said Elly Mazur. “I don’t mean that in a bad way.”

“And she talks in one word. ‘Hi. Mom.’ And she can’t remember the easiest things, like the word for ‘window,’” Leland said.

“Lee-Lee, shut up!” Molly said. “That’s not fair!” “I am only telling the truth,” Leland said.

“You are only doing your favorite thing, causing trou ble,” said Molly. “We have practice in ten minutes. The

NBC crew is coming to film us.”

“Ohmigod,” said Leland. “I look like dung!”

“Well, if you weren’t so busy running off your mouth!” “I heard Danny went to see her yesterday,” Elly said. “Is

that true?”

“I have no idea,” Molly said. “Yes, it is,” said Leland.

Molly grabbed Leland by the arm and let her fingers dig in.

By the next day, Leland had sold the photo of Maureen to the British magazine. When it finally worked its way over the Internetbackto Minneapolis, herparentsgroundedher for two weeks and made her apologize to the O’Malleys.

Henry was furious. Jeannie was hurt.

Danny Carmody told Lee-Lee she had gone nuts and she was no friend of his anymore.

Danny hated the attention and couldn’t understand why anyone would feel otherwise. Reporters followed him to and from school in cars. People took pictures of him bringing pink roses to lay against the temporary marker on Bridget’s grave. It seemed that whenever he said something, it showed up on a blog or in the newspaper. It got so that Ev was the only other human being outside his family he spoke to.

Ev and Coach.

And then he went to see Maureen, and it was all so fa miliar. Danny felt as though he had crept into a refuge. The hospital was more real to him than school.

The first thing that happened had terrified him.

When he got to her room, Maureen wasn’t there. He stood just inside the door, hoping someone would come along and tell him what was going on. The person turned out to be Maureen, returning to her room in a wheelchair pushed by Mrs. O.

She had changed so much in just over a couple of weeks that he had had to sit down.

There was also the painful knowledge that she wasn’t his Bridget. The last time he had seen her, he had thought she was a different girl. It was too much information to orga nize on the spot.

So Danny simply looked at her.

The bruises on Maureen’s face were fading. She had teeth instead of the caved-in place at her cheek. Her hair was French-braided loosely, and she had on her Mickey Mouse pajamas and her big UM sweatshirt. When she smiled at him, she looked almost like a regular girl.

Danny couldn’t help but think of that spring night last year.

Maureen had probably forgotten it ever happened. But she did know him.

“Danny!” she said clearly, and held out her hands. He got up and hugged her while Mrs. O. watched. “Danny! Bug . . . not here,” Maury said. “Danny, so sad. Danny, it’s so sad. Danny, I gush the try. I gush . . .” She wanted to pummel herself. She thought,
I sound like a retard, and I probably am
.

“The confusion gets worse when she’s upset,” said Mrs.

O. She and the nurse maneuvered Maureen from the chair to the bed. Then Mrs. O sat down in the rocker. Danny sat in the big, overstuffed chair.

No one said anything.

Jeannie took out her knitting bag.

Maureen finally said, “Mom. Go. Banana. Split.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry! Maureen, I’m so sorry! Of course you don’t want your mother sitting here! I’ll go get a bite to eat! I like the ice cream downstairs. She’s not being random.”

“It’s okay,” Danny assured Mrs. O. “You can stay.” “Nuh!” Maureen said, louder. She rapped on the arm of

her chair with her knuckles. “Splits. Bigelow. Go. Go!” She blushed. “Sorry. I thought of cheering. In the brain, out the mouth. That is what Shannon says. Shannon is the physical therapy person.”

How could she say some things so plainly but stumble over the word “no”? Danny was dumbfounded.

“Maury’s right, Danny,” said Mrs. O. “She would have killed me for sitting here watching her talk to her friends before the accident, and I don’t blame her for feeling the same way now!”

Alone, Danny took Maureen’s hand and kissed it. “You know, you’re probably thinking I’m sad that it’s you. How I really feel is sad it’s not Bridge. I’m happy it’s you. I missed you. I couldn’t stand that I would never see you again.”

Maureen nodded and pointed to her chest. Danny took this to mean that she felt the same way.

“I loose,” she said. “Let loose. No. no. I have loose.”

“You lost your best friend. I lost my girlfriend—the girl I really thought I would marry someday,” Danny said, fright ened he would cry.

He did begin to cry.

“Okay, Danny. Okay, Danny,” said Maury. Of course it was okay. They had both loved Bridget so. Anything you said was safe with Maury.

Maureen had felt confused. The strong, square line of his jaw made her stomach tighten below her belly but ton. She remembered Danny had kissed her once. They had done some things. She and this person right hair. No. Here.

But she also knew that Bridget and Danny had done everything. Their first time was at homecoming—a warm October night on top of the hill at the ritzy golf course sub division. . . . What was it called? The Covers? The Corn? Bridget had told Maureen everything: how much it hurt the first time, how good it felt the second time.

“You’re probably going to wait until you’re married,” Bridget had told Maury.

“I’m probably going to wait until I meet someone who wants to do it with me,” Maureen answered.

“Lots of guys would want to,” Bridget argued. “Yeah, sick perverts like Grant Milorry!” “Lots of guys like you,” Bridget insisted.

“They like me, but they don’t like me like a girl. They like me like a sister,” Maureen had told her. “Danny says I’m as good to talk to as a boy.”

“That’s quite a compliment,” Bridget said, heading for the bathroom.

She watched now as Danny talked, and unwanted thoughts kept crowding in on her. This boy had been naked with Bridget. She felt her face get warmer and warmer. If Danny looked up now, he would see a girl who looked like a potato. No, no. A tomato.

“So, all those days I sat here and read and cried and watched TV and farted, it was you all the time,” Danny said. “I guess I’m glad it was you, because you know me. But it’s really weird seeing the same girl I saw for all those weeks and knowing it’s not Bridget.” Maureen nodded. “You look so much like yourself, which means you look so much like her. You look . . . pretty.”

Maureen made a motion as if she were holding some thing in two hands, moving the fingers of her right hand.

“The guitar?” Danny guessed.
Oh hell. She did remem ber that time
. “Would you like me to bring it sometime?” Maury nodded.

“I drink. I drain. I . . .” She pounded her small fist on the railing of the bed. “I dream about Bug.”

“I do, too,” Danny said. “I dream about when we were younger. I dream about all of us at Memorial Pool. I dream of Bridget in her homecoming dress.”

Maureen looked away, startled by her own anger. Had she always been jealous of Bridget and Danny?

“Are you tired, Maury?”

“No!” she answered, sharper than she meant to be. It

was her turn to talk. “Do see Kitt?” she asked. “Yes.”

“Does she know?” “Know?”

“Know Bridget hit . . . cross . . . hit . . . truck?” “No,” Danny said. He was stunned. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Maury said. “Yes. We. Fooling. My fool. My fault.” “No, Maureen. Just an accident,” Danny said, his mind

whirling.

“I want Kitt see.” God! Would she always be an idiot? She sounded like an idiot with her mouth full of oatmeal. The new teeth looked pretty, but they made her talk funny—as if she didn’t talk funny anyhow. But Danny understood. He looked surprised.

“Uh. You want to see Kitt? I’ll tell her; but, Maury, I don’t think she can handle coming to see you now. She’s a bas ket case. May not even go to her own daughter’s memorial on Monday. The cheerleaders have made up a ballet sort of thing to this song. . . .”

“You Got Friend.”

“Yes, it’s the same one that they played . . .” Danny real ized that he had been about to say that it was the same one that they had played at
Maureen’s
funeral.

“I know,” Maureen said clearly. “My dead.”

Her mother had told her all about it. The salute by the cheerleaders. Her beautiful quilt that now kept Bridget warm. The trophy won in her honor.

She was glad she had died young, at least once, while

everyone still liked her.

“Yes,” Danny said. “Taylor sang that at your . . . service. She was named after the guy who wrote it, I guess. I have to speak at this service. . . .”

“Say lub, lush . . . ,” said Maureen. “Try again.”

“Love. Bug,” Maureen said carefully.

“I will,” Danny promised. “I’ll tell them you are think ing of Bridge. I don’t know how to get through it. It’s not real to me that she’s gone.”

“Home,” said Maureen.

“I don’t blame you,” Danny said.

“Home,” she said again. “Rag. You. Kiss me. Oh, God, sorry.”

“You’ll go home soon.”

Abruptly, Maureen reached for a button and flicked on the TV.

“Sorry,” she said. “
Days
is on.”

Danny couldn’t believe it. She was going to ignore him be cause ofa soap opera! The first time he saw her after she liter ally came back from the dead. Maureen was utterly absorbed in the boring antics of Alice and Julie and Lucas and Maggie. Danny thumbed through a
Time
magazine from 2005.

“It’s time for her to rest now,” said Mrs. O’Malley, peek ing in. “They tell us a half hour . . .”

“No!” Maureen almost yelled, snapping off the television and pushing a plastic water jug off onto the floor. Danny jumped out of the way. The floor flooded.

Maureen began to cry.

“She gets so emotional. It’s normal,” Mrs. O. told him. “Come? Coming? Common. Mom!” Panicky, Maureen

thought,
He’s never going to come back. He just dropped by this one time.
And she had turned on the TV! “Don’t go.”

“She wants you to come back, Danny.”

“Tell her . . .” That was crazy. He could tell her himself. “I will next week, Maury. I promise. Do you want me to bring Leland or Molly or Britney? It’s probably easier if we come in a group because of gas.”

“No!” Maury cried again. “Okay, I’ll just come.”

“I think she feels you were closer to Bridget,” Mrs. O. said, as Maury’s eyelids blinked and drooped.

“She can’t remember anything from the first few weeks after the accident. We’re sure of that. But she has impres sions. And she wants to see the picture of her car . . . all that. She wants to know more about the accident, Danny. We haven’t felt entirely okay about telling her everything. She wants to see a picture of Bridget’s grave. It’s like she’s obsessed with it.”

“I guess I kind of get that. It’s her life,” Danny said. And it was Bridget’s death.

The O’Malleys were in the front row at Bridget’s memorial, held in a heated tent on the Flannerys’ wide lawn. Kitt did not want it at church; she said it would have reminded her too much of the first time, when they had buried Bridget

without knowing it. There was hardly any room, and hun dreds of people stood in their coats outside. A huge blow up photo of Bridget’s graduation picture stood on a stand, flanked by banks of pink roses. Between the news trucks and the regular people’s cars, it was a mob scene. Henry Colette finally got disgusted and had his deputies block off the street so he could park his own squad car and get him self and Margo in.

The cheerleaders’ “dance,” which everyone thought would be incredibly stupid, was really sweet and short. It seemed to be about everyone laying down a rose or a leaf or a snowflake.

Mr. Flannery sounded like a robot.

He thanked the hospital for trying to save Bridget’s life and nodded at the line of doctors seated toward the front. He thanked the hospital foundation for forgiving Bridget’s expenses. He thanked his daughters, Eliza and Sarah, for giving him the will to go on. “I never was a church guy,” he said. “Just on holidays. But now, I guess I want to be lieve that when I’m an old man, I’ll see Bridget Katherine again. I guess she’ll be as cute as she ever was, and not hurt; and she’ll come running to me. I guess that’s how I imag ine heaven to be. My wife and I want to thank all of you for so much caring and love you showed us and continue to show us. We are putting together an archive of photos of Bridget, so any of you who have any . . .” He stopped and seemed to forget where he was. “Obviously, we are having a very hard time, my wife particularly. In fact, Kitt is going