Brielle
This is one of those questions. The kind I’m not sure I can answer. “What did Canaan say?”
“Said he doesn’t exactly know why. Said most everyone has some kind of gift.”
“I have a theory. It’s a working theory, okay, so don’t point out all the holes.”
“Spill it, kid.”
“I can’t always hear celestial things. With the exception of the Sabres, I’ve never heard something I haven’t seen. So I think maybe what we hear is connected to what we know. What we’re willing to believe. Canaan’s right. You’ve always believed, Dad. I think you hated that you believed, but you did.”
“Other people believe much better than this old guy, Elle.” He thumps his chest. “Why me?”
“I don’t know if you’re ready for this part, Dad.”
“It’s a theory, right? Shoot. I’m ready.”
“I told you about my dreams, about the strange things I’ve been seeing and how they seem to be actual events from the past. I told you about . . . Virtue taking Mom to the school. Told you that Mom saved Olivia.”
Dad averts his eyes.
“You told me.”
“Okay, well. Before Virtue took Mom, I got to see her there in her hospital bed. I got to watch her hold me. I got to hear her sing. And Dad, her worship was just so . . .”
He looks at me, desperation on his face. “What?”
“Fragrant. And I remembered, Dad. I remembered what she smelled like. What her worship smelled like. It’s probably the only real memory of her I have.”
Dad swipes at his nose, his eyes.
“She asked Virtue something before they left the house.” My eyes fill with tears at the memory. I swore I’d stop all this crying, but there’s no controlling these tears, so I don’t even try. It’s too precious. “Mom told Virtue she wanted us to know the Father like she did. You and me. She asked that we be given ears to hear and eyes to see. Virtue told her that it wasn’t within his power to grant that kind of request, but that she could be certain the Father hears and answers His children.”
Dad stares at me with his mouth partly open, a pepperoni stuck to his beard. I grab the pepperoni and shove it into his mouth. He chews obediently.
I made Dad promise not to poke holes in my theory, but there are several of them, and I wonder if maybe there isn’t a clear reason Dad can hear the Sabres& binow. Any clearer than the idea that God allowed him to.
“I don’t know,” I say, backtracking a bit. “Kaylee heard the Sabres the other day too, so it can’t just be Mom’s prayer. But maybe . . . maybe it played a part. Who knows? It’s just a theory.”
Dad makes all sorts of throaty nervous sounds.
“It’s a good theory,” he says. “I like it. Like the idea that your mom had a hand in it. That she wanted me to hear.” More throaty nervousness. “Makes it easier. Makes it better.”
“I think so too.” I reach out and take his hand. “Can I ask a question now?”
“I don’t have a single theory if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“No. Nothing like that. I just . . . How’s the drinking, Dad? What are you . . . what are we doing there?”
“Oh. That. Well, as you can see, I’ve yet to replace the beer you so gracefully disposed of the other day.”
“Does that mean you plan to?”
“Not if Delia can help it. She’s dragging me down to the
community center tomorrow night. AA. It was a suggestion first made by Olivia, by the way.”
“Ironic much?”
“She didn’t have a thing to do with my drinking, kid.”
I don’t believe him. I think she nudged him along, but I also know she’s damaged. Broken. Worse than most and somehow, some way, she got tangled up with Damien. “You’ve known her for longer than you let on. Since she was a kid. Why did you lie?”
“I didn’t lie, Elle. I didn’t know. Not until the Fourth.” July Fourth. Independence Day. Our picnic at the lake.
“What happened on the Fourth?” I ask.
“Your boy Marco happened. When she saw him she got all . . . squeaky. And familiar. I had to know if she was the same Olivia we’d known as a child. And then I remembered your mom begging me to take pictures. Of her with her friends. With you. She knew her time was short and she wanted to leave us something, I think. So we kept the camera with us.”
Even in her last days Mom was thinking of others, of what Dad and I would need when she was gone.
“Never had the courage to have the pictures developed before now, but the day after the picnic I scrounged up the old camera. Can you believe that roll of film was still in there? I’d forgotten. About Olivia. About her mom. That was a lot of years ago, baby. Too much has happened since then.”
“She grew legs,” I said.
“She certainly did.”
“Eew, all right. I get it. You’ve got a thing for her.”
“Nah. She’s too young for me, kid. Too ambitious. Too attached to my memories of your mother, if I’m honest. Don’t give another thought to Olivia.”
“That’s the thing, Dad.”
“What’s the thing?”
“I need your help.”
He shifts forward, the truck lurching from side to side. “Whatever you need.”
He says it like he means it, and while that’s inspiring, it’s also a bit daunting. I don’t want to ask too much because he still seems emotionally thin, and I can’t send him back to the bottle. I won’t.
“All my dreams seem to be centering around Olivia,” I say.
“Really?”
“Yeah. As a child. In the hospital with Mom. In a burning building.” I don’t divulge everything. I don’t tell him about Henry or Javan. I don’t tell about Olivia’s upbringing. Dad doesn’t need to know it all just yet.
“I know it sounds crazy, but the dreams are recurring, repetitive, and I think I’m supposed to be seeing something in them that will help us figure out how to fight from here. How to help the angels on this end.”
Dad sits up straight, pizza crumbs falling from his chest. “I told you before, kid, I don’t want you to be a hero. I’ve seen that Damien. I know what he can do.”
I take Dad’s hand and lean in. “Then you know there’s no way to keep me safe. You can’t protect me from him. We have to fight.”
He grumbles, something incoherent and angry.
“Somehow what happened all those years ago is connected to what’s going on now. And we need to figure out how. Mom would want us to.”
“That’s cheating,” Dad says.
“I know, but you want to know what happened to her after
Virtue took her from the fire. I want to know. I need to know. And these dreams are going to help us. But I was only three when Mom disappeared, and I need you.”
“To do what?”
“Help me fill in the blanks. I know Mom was being treated at a Portland hospital. Why not here? Why not in Bend?”
“Portland has better doctors, better treatment facilities. No mystery there.”
“Okay.” I figured it was the Prince’s halo
“How’d you know about the waiting room?”
“I dreamed it,” I say, plowing ahead. “Mom was really sick, Olivia was drawing a unicorn, wearing a necklace . . .”
Beneath a fringe of fur, Dad’s bottom lip trembles. I pause. It’s too much, I think. Dad’s not ready for this, but he wipes his chin with a callous hand and clears his throat. “I wish I’d saved the necklace. Your mom loved that thing.”
“This necklace?” I ask, pulling the beaded rope from beneath my collar.
Dad’s mouth gapes and he leans forward, taking the wooden flower in his fingers. “Where’d you get this?”
“Jake found it. At the graveside after . . . everything.” Technically it was in a tree, but he doesn’t need the details right now. “Why’d you bury it?”
He runs a thick finger over the fading paint of the plumeria. “I couldn’t stand to see the thing. In those last days it was always around her neck, tangling in the cords and IVs. But she kept it on because the girl asked her to.”
“Olivia?”
“Still seems strange that they’re one and the same, but yeah.
Liv gave it to her. Told her to wear it for luck or some such nonsense. When your mom disappeared, she left it behind. Some luck, huh?”
I think about the memory Virtue gave me, the waking dream I had while standing in the orchard. I was wearing the necklace when Virtue took Mom. Me. Three-year-old me.
“Why’d they stay in contact?” I ask. “Mom and Olivia?”
“She was always there, at the hospital. Drawing or reading. Her mom worked there.”
“With cancer patients?”
“Only on occasion. I think she was in the maternity ward or something. Pediatrics, maybe? Totally different floor. But that little girl wandered the hospital while her mom worked. Kind of sad, really, but safer than staying home alone, I guess. She and your mom built a friendship. There are letters around here somewhere. Found them when I was looking for the camera.”
“Letters from whom?”
“From Liv to your mom. When your mom moved back home, they became pen pals of a sort. Liv kept writing, even after your mother was gone. I probably should have opened them, should have written back, but I didn’t have it in me. If you think they’ll help, I’m sure I can find them again. I was drunk the first time, though, so I might need to down a couple first. You know, retrace my footsteps.”
“Not a chance.”
“It was a joke, kid.”
“A bad one.”
“Yeah, well.” He sighs. “You want the letters, you got them. What else can I do?”
“You can ease up on Jake,” I say.
“Talk about cheating. That’s worse than wishing for more wishes.”
“I love him.” I’ve said it to Jake, might as well tell Dad.
Dad laughs, really he chokes out this laugh-snort combo thing. “You think I don’t know. I do. I remember what it’s like. But you need to think this through. Really think, too, ’cause this world, this craziness that he’s brought to Stratus, doesn’t hang around every guy. And you’d have your pick, baby. Trust me. Finding another looker wouldn’t be a problem. Especially if you took that scholarship, moved out East. All those college boys. I bet there are entire schools of them who don’t think a thing about angels or demons. Thousands who’d cut off their left leg to be with you.”
My face flushes—I feel it, the anger, the frustration. But I know Dad’s just being Dad. Just being honest. Trying to help.
“Jake didn’t cut off a leg, that’s true. But he healed my ankle. He introduced me to the God who created everything, to the God Mom loved. He healed your shoulder, Dad, and if he and Canaan hadn’t been here the other day, odds are fairly good you’d be dead.”
Dad watches me for a bit, his brows casting his eyes in shadow. He takes a swig of milk, swishes it around his mouth and then swallows. He wipes his hands on his pants and pulls an ancient BlackBerry from his chest pocket. He should get an award for hanging on to that thing for so long.
“Who are you calling?” I ask, trying not to be offended that he’s busted out a phone in the middle of our conversation.
“Not calling,” he says. “It’s vibrating.”
“Who is it?”
“Hush, nosy.”
I
feel like I’ve been hit with a baseball bat, run into an electric fence. Dad’s words couldn’t have caught me more off guard. “What? When?”
“Today,” Dad says. “This afternoon sometime. Out at Crooked Leg Bridge.”
A car accident at Crooked Leg Bridge? That can’t be a coincidence.
“But it was supposed to be you,” I say. “He said it was you.”
“I’m sorry, baby. What?”
“Never . . . never mind.” There’s too much light a$ sow entirelynd not enough air, but Jake squeezes my shoulders and I find center again.
“Elle, you okay?” Dad asks, climbing up next to me. “You need a drink or something?”
I shake my head. “I’m fine. I just . . . Tell me what happened?”
He leans back, the truck creaking under his weight. “She was driving that old minivan of hers, picking up girls for that whatchamacallit you ballerinas always insist on going to this time of year.”
“Dance camp.” I totally forgot that started today. Miss Macy’s Dance Academy is one of the many sponsors. Every year she loads up as many little dancers as she can and carts them off to a ballerina boot camp in the city. “Was anybody hurt?”
“They all were, baby. Miss Macy came out of surgery about an hour ago, Mike said. They removed her spleen, but she’s still unconscious. Hasn’t been conscious since they wheeled her in. Whacked her head pretty bad, I guess. Won’t know how bad it is until she wakes.”
Dad’s trying to be gentle. He is. But every word he says cuts. Deep. I can’t lose Miss Macy. There’s no way.
“What about the girls?” I ask, needing something positive to cling to. I wrack my brain, trying to remember who all had signed up to go. “She was taking Sharon Wilkie and the Sadler twins. And um . . . the new girl from the intermediate class, just moved here with her family. Tall, great feet . . .”
“Regina Glascoe,” Dad says. “Her dad works at the mill.”