“Hey, I give Big one month, you?”
“Are you kidding? Two weeks, tops.”
“It’s your turn to be best man.”
“That’s fine,” I say, smiling.
She smiles back at me, humor peeking out of her queenly face. Even though we pretend otherwise, nothing quite raises Walker spirits like the thought of another wedding for Uncle Big.
“Be okay, sweet pea,” she says. “You know where we are . . .”
“I’ll be fine,” I say, feeling the weight of the box on my legs.
As soon as she’s gone, I open the lid. I’m ready All these notes, all these letters, sixteen years’ worth. I think about Gram jotting down a recipe, a thought, a silly or not-so-pretty something she wanted to share with her daughter, or just remember herself, maybe stuffing it in her pocket all day, and then sneaking up to the attic before bed, to put it in this box, this mailbox with no pickup, year after year, not knowing if her daughter would ever read them, not knowing if anyone would—
I gasp, because isn’t that just exactly what I’ve been doing too: writing poems and scattering them to the winds with the same hope as Gram that someone, someday, somewhere might understand who I am, who my sister was, and what happened to us.
I take out the envelopes, count them—fifteen, all with the name
Paige
and the year. I find the first one, written sixteen years ago by Gram to her daughter. Slipping my finger under the seal, I imagine Bailey sitting beside me.
Okay,
I tell her, taking out the letter,
Let’s meet our mother.
Okay to everything. I’m a messessentialist—okay to it all.
chapter 34
THE SHAW RANCH presides over Clover. Its acreage rolls in green and gold majesty from the ridge all the way down to town. I walk through the iron gate and make my way to the stables, where I find Toby inside talking to a beautiful black mare as he takes her saddle off.
“Don’t mean to interrupt,” I say, walking over to him.
He turns around. “Wow, Lennie.”
We’re smiling at each other like idiots. I thought it might be weird to see him, but we both seem to be acting pretty much thrilled. It embarrasses me, so I drop my gaze to the mare between us and stroke her warm moist coat. Heat radiates off her body.
Toby flicks the end of the reins lightly across my hand. “I’ve missed you.”
“Me too, you.” But I realize with some relief that my stomach isn’t fluttering, even with our eyes locked as they now are. Not even a twitter. Is the spell broken? The horse snorts—perfect: Thanks, Black Beauty—
“Want to go for a ride?” he asks. “We could go up on the ridge. I was just up there. There’s a massive herd of elk roaming.”
“Actually, Toby ... I thought maybe we could visit Bailey.”
“Okay,” he says, without thinking, like I asked him to get an ice cream. Strange.
I told myself I would never go back to the cemetery. No one talks about decaying flesh and maggots and skeletons, but how can you not think of those things? I’ve done everything in my power to keep those thoughts out of my mind, and staying away from Bailey’s grave has been crucial to that end. But last night, I was fingering all the things on her dresser like I always do before I go to sleep, and I realized that she wouldn’t want me clinging to the black hair webbed in her hairbrush or the rank laundry I still refuse to wash. She’d think it was totally gross: Lady-Havisham-and-her-wedding-dress gross and dismal. I got an image of her then sitting on the hill at the Clover cemetery with its ancient oaks, firs, and redwoods like a queen holding court, and I knew it was time.
Even though the cemetery is close enough to walk, when Toby’s finished, we jump in his truck. He puts the key in the ignition, but doesn’t turn it. He stares straight through the windshield at the golden meadows, tapping on the wheel with two fingers in a staccato rhythm. I can tell he’s revving up to say something. I rest my head on the passenger window and look out at the fields, imagining his life here, how solitary it must be. A minute or two later, he starts talking in his low lulling bass. “I’ve always hated being an only child. Used to envy you guys. You were just so tight.”
He grips his hands on the wheel, stares straight ahead. “I was so psyched to marry Bails, to have this baby ... I was psyched to be part of your family. It’s going to sound so lame now, but I thought I could help you through this. I wanted to. I know Bailey would’ve wanted me to.” He shakes his head. “Sure screwed it all up. I just ... I don’t know You understood ... It’s like you were the only one who did. I started to feel so close to you, too close. It got all mixed up in my head—”
“But you did help me,” I interrupt. “You were the only one who could even find me. I felt that same closeness even if I didn’t understand it. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
He turns to me. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, Toby.”
He smiles his squintiest, sweetest smile. “Well, I’m pretty sure I can keep my hands off you now. I don’t know about your frisky self though ...” He raises his eyebrows, gives me a look, then laughs an unburdened free laugh. I punch his arm. He goes on, “So, maybe we’ll be able to hang out a little—I don’t think I can keep saying no to Gram’s dinner invitations without her sending out the National Guard.”
“I can’t believe you just made two jokes in one sentence. Amazing.”
“I’m not a total doorknob, you know?”
“Guess not. There must have been some reason my sister wanted to spend the rest of her life with you!” And just like that, it feels right between us, finally.
“Well,” he says, starting the truck. “Shall we cheer ourselves up with a trip to the cemetery?”
“Three jokes, unbelievable.”
However, that was probably Toby’s word allotment for the year, I’m thinking as we drive along now in silence. A silence that is full of jitters. Mine. I’m nervous. I’m not sure what I’m afraid of really. I keep telling myself, it’s just a stone, it’s just a pretty piece of land with gorgeous stately trees overlooking the falls. It’s just a place where my beautiful sister’s body is in a box decaying in a sexy black dress and sandals. Ugh. I can’t help it. Everything I haven’t allowed myself to imagine rushes me: I think about airless empty lungs. Lipstick on her unmoving mouth. The silver bracelet that Toby had given her on her pulseless wrist. Her belly ring. Hair and nails growing in the dark. Her body with no thoughts in it. No time in it. No love in it. Six feet of earth crushing down on her. I think about the phone ringing in the kitchen, the thump of Gram collapsing, then the inhuman sound sirening out of her, through the floor-boards, up to our room.
I look over at Toby. He doesn’t look nervous at all. Something occurs to me.
“Have you been?” I ask.
“Course,” he answers. “Almost every day.”
“Really?”
He looks over at me, the realization dawning on him. “You mean you haven’t been since?”
“No.” I look out the window. I’m a terrible sister. Good sisters visit graves despite gruesome thoughts.
“Gram goes,” he says. “She planted a few rosebushes, a bunch of other flowers too. The grounds people told her she had to get rid of them, but every time they pulled out her plants, she just replanted more. They finally gave up.” I can’t believe everyone’s been going to Bailey’s grave but me. I can’t believe how left out it makes me feel.
“What about Big?” I ask.
“I find roaches from his joints a lot. We hung out there a couple times.” He looks over at me, studies my face for what feels like forever. “It’ll be okay, Len. Easier than you think. I was really scared the first time I went.”
Something occurs to me then. “Toby,” I say, tentatively, mustering my nerve. “You must be pretty used to being an only child . . .” My voice starts to shake. “But I’m really new at it.” I look out the window. “Maybe we . . .” I feel too shy all of a sudden to finish my thought, but he knows what I’m getting at.
“I’ve always wanted a sister,” he says as he swerves into a spot in the tiny parking lot.
“Good,” I say, every inch of me relieved. I lean over and give him the world’s most sexless peck on the cheek. “C’mon,” I say. “Let’s go tell her we’re sorry.”
There once was a girl who found herself dead.
She spent her days peering
over the ledge of heaven,
her chin in her palm.
She was bored as brick,
hadn’t adjusted yet
to the slower pace of heavenly life.
Her sister would look up at her
and wave,
and the dead girl would wave back
but she was too far away
for her sister to see.
The dead girl thought her sister
might be writing her notes,
but it was too long a trip to make
for a few scattered words here and there
so she let them be.
And then, one day, her earthbound sister finally realized
she could hear music up there in heaven,
so after that, everything her sister needed to tell her
she did through her clarinet
and each time she played, the dead girl
jumped up (no matter what else she was doing),
and danced.
(Found on a piece of paper in the stacks, B section, Clover Public Library)
chapter 35
I HAVE A plan. I’m going to write Joe a poem, but first things first.
When I walk into the music room, I see that Rachel’s already there unpacking her instrument. This is it. My hand is so clammy I’m afraid the handle on my case will slip out of it as I cross the room and stand in front of her.
“If it isn’t John Lennon,” she says without looking up. Could she be so awful as to rub Joe’s nickname in my face? Obviously, yes. Well, good, because fury seems to calm my nerves. Race on.
“I’m challenging you for first chair,” I say, and wild applause bursts from a spontaneous standing ovation in my brain. Never have words felt so good coming out of my mouth! Hmm. Even if Rachel doesn’t appear to have heard them. She’s still messing with her reed and ligature like the bell didn’t go off, like the starting gate didn’t just swing open.
I’m about to repeat myself, when she says, “There’s nothing there, Lennie.” She spits my name on the floor like it disgusts her. “He’s so hung up on you. Who knows why?”
Could this moment get any better? No! I try to keep my cool. “This has nothing to do with him,” I say, and nothing could be more true. It has nothing to do with her either, not really, though I don’t say that. It’s about me and my clarinet.
“Yeah, right,” she says. “You’re just doing this because you saw me with him.”
“No.” My voice surprises me again with its certainty. “I want the solos, Rachel.” At that she stops fiddling with her clarinet, rests it on the stand, and looks up at me. “And I’m starting up again with Marguerite.” This I decided on the way to rehearsal. I have her undivided totally freaked-out attention now “I’m going to try for All-State too,” I tell her. This, however, is news to me.
We stare at each other and for the first time I wonder if she’s known all year that I threw the audition. I wonder if that’s why she’s been so horrible. Maybe she thought she could intimidate me into not challenging her. Maybe she thought that was the only way to keep her chair.
She bites her lip. “How about if I split the solos with you. And you can—”
I shake my head. I almost feel sorry for her. Almost.
“Come September,” I say. “May the best clarinetist win.”
NOT JUST MY ass, but every inch of me is in the wind as I fly out of the music room, away from school, and into the woods to go home and write the poem to Joe. Beside me, step for step, breath for breath, is the unbearable fact that I have a future and Bailey doesn’t.
This is when I know it.
My sister will die over and over again for the rest of my life. Grief is forever. It doesn’t go away; it becomes part of you, step for step, breath for breath. I will never stop grieving Bailey because I will never stop loving her. That’s just how it is. Grief and love are conjoined, you don’t get one without the other. All I can do is love her, and love the world, emulate her by living with daring and spirit and joy.
Without thinking, I veer onto the trail to the forest bedroom. All around me, the woods are in an uproar of beauty. Sunlight cascades through the trees, making the fern-covered floor look jeweled and incandescent. Rhododendron bushes sweep past me right and left like women in fabulous dresses. I want to wrap my arms around all of it.
When I get to the forest bedroom, I hop onto the bed and make myself comfortable. I’m going to take my time with this poem, not like all the others I scribbled and scattered. I take the pen out of my pocket, a piece of blank sheet music out of my bag, and start writing.
I tell him everything—everything he means to me, everything I felt with him that I never felt before, everything I hear in his music. I want him to trust me so I bare all. I tell him I belong to him, that my heart is his, and even if he never forgives me it will still be the case.
It’s my story, after all, and this is how I choose to tell it.
When I’m done, I scoot off the bed and as I do, I notice a blue guitar pick lying on the white comforter. I must have been sitting on it all afternoon. I lean over and pick it up, and recognize it right away as Joe’s. He must’ve come here to play—a good sign. I decide to leave the poem here for him instead of sneaking it inside the Fontaine mailbox like I had planned. I fold it, write his name on it, and place it on the bed under a rock to secure it from the wind. I tuck his pick under the rock as well.
Walking home, I realize it’s the first time since Bailey died that I’ve written words for someone to read.
chapter 36
I’M TOO MORTIFIED to sleep. What was I thinking? I keep imagining Joe reading my ridiculous poem to his brothers, and worse to Rachel, all of them laughing at poor lovelorn Lennie, who knows nothing about romance except what she learned from Emily Brontë. I told him:
I belong to him.
I told him:
My heart is his.
I told him:
I hear his soul in his music.
I’m going to jump off of a building. Who says things like this in the twenty-first century? No one! How is it possible that something can seem like such a brilliant idea one day and such a bonehead one the next?