Authors: Emmy Laybourne
“They don’t talk about Heaven very much at my church. It’s a UU church—that’s Unitarian Universalist—and the UU’s sort of believe in the ideas from a lot of religions, but don’t talk about Heaven and Hell and sins and all that.
“But
I
believe in Heaven. And that is where I see all the beautiful souls going. People from other religions believe other things. And that’s good. Whatever they believe about what happens after death, that’s what’s happening to them.
“We each make our own Heaven, that’s what I think.”
The little kids were starting to shift around and fidget.
Josie nodded to Sahalia.
Sahalia took out the guitar and strummed a few chords.
“This is one of my favorite songs,” Sahalia said. “It’s by Insect of Zero. I don’t know if you know it, but anyway, here it is.”
I didn’t know the song. I didn’t even know the band.
Sahalia started to sing and her voice was very gravelly and raspy. A satisfying voice. Like you had an itch in your ear and her voice could scratch it.
Here’s what she sang:
Birdies in the sky, go fly away from me.
Kitties on the couch, you cats just leave me be.
I’m in a biting mood, a fighting mood, a car-tire-lighting mood.
I need to sit here quietly.
If you know what is good,
you’ll stay away
And leave me be.
Fishies in the brook, don’t bite my hook today.
Doggies on the street, just go the other way.
I’m in a biting mood, a fighting mood, a car-tire-lighting mood.
I need to sit here quietly.
If you know what is good,
you’ll stay away
And leave me be.
Dear God, just leave me be.
Looking at the words, they seem pretty antisocial. But the melody was beautiful and mournful. Like a funeral song.
I don’t know. It was pretty perfect.
When the song was finished, Josie nodded to me.
“Now Dean has something to read.”
Alex looked at me in surprise. I shrugged and opened my journal.
I will tell you that not only did I
not
feel intimidated by Brayden and Jake, or nervous to expose my feelings, I
wanted
to do it.
And I hoped that Astrid was lurking near. I was pretty sure she was. I wanted her to hear me and know my thoughts. And I hoped that my dumb poem might help her feel better.
Here was my poem:
Night came and fell hard.
Not like God drawing a blanket over our land
But like someone snuffing a candle.
Sudden and total.
Out—just like that.
Now we are waiting.
Waiting in the dark
To see if someone
Will switch on the light.
We can cower,
We can fear,
We can get lost together or
Get lost alone.
But the truth is:
I am the light. You are the light.
We are lit up together.
We are silhouettes of sunlight
cast against the night.
Shining now, let us
Shining, hold the light,
Shining, so that our families
Can find us.
Shining.
I know. A poem. Gay. What can I say?
Josie got up. We hadn’t planned a thing, but darn if she didn’t strike a match and hold it up. She took her candle and lit it. It was as if we had choreographed it—my poem would be about light and then we’d light candles. But we hadn’t.
Josie turned to Ulysses, who was sitting to her left, and held out her candle toward him. He knew what to do; he grabbed his pillar and lit it from Josie’s. Then he turned to Max, sitting next to him, and lit Max’s candle. When it got to Astrid’s empty space, Jake just reached over and lit it.
I was glad he had done that. I wished I had done it.
When the flame went all the way around the circle, Josie reached forward and put her candle on the mirrors she had set in the center of the circle. She nodded for us all to do the same.
Fourteen lights stood there flickering together. The crystals and the mirror reflected the light, making it sparkle out all over the place.
The little kids were mesmerized.
Josie got up. She had a basket and in it were slips of paper and cardboard. They were photographs of people. Not famous people, just regular people. She had cut them out of magazines, off product packaging, out of book covers.
“These are just some pictures of people we don’t know,” Josie said. We each took a slip out of the basket.
“I want you to take one photograph and look at that person and just send them love. See them in a circle of light and wish them peace.”
Ulysses waved his hand at Josie. He whispered something in Spanish, as he held out his photo. This was maybe the third time I’d ever heard him speak. It was serious, whatever it was he was saying, and he started to cry.
He pushed his picture back into Josie’s hands.
“What’s he saying?” I asked Max. But Josie got it. She quickly looked through the photographs and gave Ulysses one of a fat Chinese man eating an apple.
“This one okay?” she asked.
Ulysses nodded.
I saw Josie look at the photo Ulysses had had. It was a photo of a smiling Latina grandmother making cookies. It probably looked too much like Ulysses’s own grandmother.
Ulysses wiped his nose on his sleeve. This sweet, Spanish-speaking kid, alone with a bunch of Anglos. His spirit not crushed. Just doing the best he could. I really loved that kid.
I looked at the scrap of cardboard in my hand.
It was a baby crawling around in nothing but a diaper.
It made my heart hurt to think of the baby. Most likely dead now. A baby.
I started to think this was not a good idea. The whole ceremony. What were we trying to do, anyway?
I started to really protest, in my mind. This was a waste of time. The little kids were just going to get upset, or confused. This was a stupid idea and who did Josie think she was, anyway? It wasn’t her place to lead us into some terrible ordeal where we thought about the dead babies and got all torn to pieces.
Who did she think she was, anyway?
Josie held her stupid photo to her chest and started to sing.
Peace upon you, peace around you,
Go now in peace.
Peace within you, peace surround you,
Go now in peace.
It was a very simple song, and after she had sung it a couple of times, the other kids joined in as best they could.
Sahalia played the chords on her guitar.
I didn’t want to sing the stupid song.
I looked at the baby on my scrap of cardboard.
I felt so bad for that baby.
“Everyone sing,” Josie commanded.
I glared at her.
“Sing, Dean,” she insisted.
I couldn’t do it.
“Sing.”
Alex was on my left and he put his hand on my shoulder.
I felt so glad to have him. So lucky to be with my brother and guilty that I had family, when so many people didn’t.
Everything was too much for me.
So I looked at my piece of cardboard and just focused narrower and narrower until that baby was the only thing I could see.
And I opened my mouth and whisper-sang, “Go now in peace,” to the baby.
I didn’t think about
all
the babies. All the people. All the everyone who was lost now. I just sang about the one curly-haired baby, singing him to peace and to rest.
I could sing the baby up to Heaven. The one baby.
I could sing for him and him alone.
Eventually Josie said, “Amen.”
And I realized I had tears running down my face. They’d soaked the collar of my button-down shirt and were somehow also in my ears, which had never happened to me before.
“That’s it,” Josie said. “Our ceremony is over.”
“Wait,” said Batiste. “Can I say a prayer?”
“Of course,” Josie said.
Batiste stood up and recited.
“Our Father, who art in Heaven, Halloween Thy Name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive the breast passers, and forgive the breast passes against us and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.”
“Amen,” we echoed.
I was quite sure that Halloween was not the name of God, and I didn’t know what on earth a “breast passer” was, though I enjoyed imagining it to a degree, but it was nice Batiste wanted to make a contribution. And he had a beaming look on his face. Pride and happiness. He had given us something. For all his sanctimoniousness, he was growing on me.
Alex leaned against me and I put my arm around him and gave him a half hug.
Caroline and Henry were huddled peacefully together. Ulysses was up on Josie’s lap while Max cuddled into her side. She was smoothing Max’s cowlick. The most persistent cowlick in the world. It just sprung up anew after her every stroke.
Chloe had scooted over to Niko and was sidled up against him.
Niko didn’t seem to mind. Too much.
Brayden was looking at the floor with a studied concentration that made me think he’d been upset, too, and didn’t want us to see. Jake pulled up the bottom of his T-shirt, revealing (of course) his perfect six-pack abs. Then he blew his nose on the bottom of his shirt and laughed with a self-deprecating snort.
I took a long breath and let it out.
“Jeez Louise,” said Chloe. “Let’s eat. I’m starving.”
We laughed.
It was the first easy laugh I had had in the last three days.
CHAPTER TWELVE
ELECTIONS
Lunch: Pizza.
Cook: me.
Excited about it: no.
* * *
“Oh man,” Chloe moaned as she pushed her tray down the counter. “I never thought I’d get tired of eating pizza but you know what? I am.”
“We’re all tired of it,” I snapped. “But I’m doing the best I can and I’m not getting much help.”
“We can help!” Caroline said. “Me and Henry are real good helpers.”
“Yeah,” Henry added. “We help our mommy all the time. We can do the shopping, the chopping,
AND
the mopping!”
He and Caroline giggled at that, what had to be old family joke.
“I’m a great cook, too,” added Chloe. “You should let me help. I can make pasta with butter so good.”
“Okay,” I said. “I tell you what. Every day I’ll pick a helper and that helper will pick out what we’re going to eat, and somehow, we’ll figure out how to cook it together.”
“Yay! Yay!” the little kids cheered, jumping up and down.
Then it was a chorus of “Pick me! Pick me!”
“Okay,” I said, thinking it over. “Today’s helper will be Chloe. And tomorrow will be Ulysses.”
I figured I’d get the most annoying kid over with first. After all I had already cooked two out of the three meals for the day.
We ate our pizza and we waited for Jake and Brayden to show up.
It was election time.
Niko was there, looking over his notes. He looked nervous, but eager.
Jake and Brayden had skipped lunch and were nowhere to be seen.
Josie paced up near the counter.
“All right, hmmm, Jake and Brayden must have forgotten what we’re doing,” she said, stalling. “I know, let’s sing some songs. Who knows ‘She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain’?”
* * *
“She” had driven her six white horses and “She” had eaten chicken and dumplings and “She” was having to sleep with Grandma when, at last, Jake and Brayden showed up.
Apparently they’d been planning a splashy opening for his election speech.
We heard Jake’s voice booming from a distance.
“Thirty-four, twenty-seven, hut, hut,
HIKE
!”
And then Brayden came running toward us, leaping and jumping over the fallen merchandise in his way.
He was wearing a football helmet and an oversize sweatshirt stuffed with towels or something to look like pads. On the front he had written a giant “2” with a magic marker.
Brayden came running toward us and then turned, and
BAM
, a football flew into his hands.
“Touchdown!” he shouted, spiking the ball.
The kids looked half thrilled, half terrified.
Then Jake came jogging into the Pizza Shack. He gave Brayden a high five and Brayden handed him the football.
Jake, too, wore a football helmet and a sweatshirt made to look like a uniform. He took off his helmet and tossed it onto the table. His jersey read QB on the front and #1 on the back.
“Guys, I am the QB,” he said. “That means quarterback! The quarterback is the guy on the team who calls the shots and makes sure everyone plays their best. And I’m gonna be a great QB for this team. Us. That’s why you should elect me the leader!”
The kids started clapping and cheering like crazy.
Niko looked at Josie and then back at his notes.
Jake’s stunt was charming and silly and totally cool, too.
It didn’t look good for Niko.
Josie tried to get a word in, but Jake continued.
“I say there is no reason in the world why we can’t have some fun here! We’ve got, like, every game in the world. We’ve got all the food we can eat. I think this could be like summer training camp—”
He was talking too fast. He seemed wired. High, almost.
And then I wondered, was he actually high?
He was acting really weird.
“I gotta say,” Brayden said, “that Jake is a great leader. You guys are gonna love having him as the boss. I guarantee it.”
Somehow looking at Brayden standing there with a big #2 on his chest made me very, very nervous.
“We all appreciate your enthusiasm, Brayden,” Josie said, finally getting in there. “But really, this is just for the two candidates.”