The Book of Bright Ideas Page 28

  My insides stiffened when Ma said this, sure that what she was gonna say next was that looking at Winnalee made her feel sorry for me because I was ugly.

  “You shittin’ me? Why?”

  “Because I could tell that no matter how unstable—tragic even—her life had been, she still felt secure because she felt loved and accepted. And I knew Evelyn didn’t feel the same. I guess in a way that’s why you bothered me too. Because even though it was obvious to me that you had your demons, at least you didn’t feel like you had to apologize or hide who you were and how you felt.”

  “Hell, you probably rubbed me the wrong way for the same reasons,” Freeda said. “You had a grip on all the things I didn’t. Like I needed more reminders of how many things I was failing at! Shit, though, at least your kid knows where home is.”

  Freeda got up. She sighed. “Crissakes, our kids are only nine years old, and already we’ve got regrets. How damn bad is it gonna be by the time they’re grown?”

  Ma and Freeda laughed together then, though their laughter had a lot of sad in it.

  “It’s all guesswork, isn’t it, when you don’t have a decent blueprint to follow?” Freeda said.

  “Tell me about it,” my ma said.

  Freeda went to the door and peered out. “It seems to be letting up some now. Christ, where are they?” I didn’t know if she meant me and Winnalee, or Daddy and Uncle Rudy.

  For a minute I couldn’t hear nothing but the patter of rain outside the shelter door, then Freeda spoke. “Having someone mess with you when you’re little, it screws a person up, Jewel. Bad. It took me a long time to get past that. Hell, I suppose in reality, I ain’t over it yet, because I still do things that I don’t understand, but at least I can stomach looking at myself now. And at least I’m trying my damnedest with Winnalee now.”

  Ma walked to the door too and stood with Freeda. “If it’s any comfort to you, Freeda, I was scared to be a mother too. A few minutes after they wheeled me back to my room, I locked myself in the bathroom and cried. I cried because that poor baby looked like me. I remember praying the whole time I carried her that, boy or girl, God would have enough mercy to let the baby look like Reece. Then there she was, all pale and skinny, just like me. Her ears so thin they folded over when her head rubbed against my arm. My heart broke just to look at her, and I felt guilty for passing my bad genes on to her.”

  “Christ, Jewel, you had no reason to pity her. There was never anything wrong with you, inside or out, and there certainly isn’t anything wrong with Button.”

  “I’m learning that now, Freeda. Thanks to you. I looked at Evelyn in that outfit Verdella made the girls for the Fourth, and I could see, really see, how cute she is.”

  “You hear that?” Freeda said. Her foot lifted off the floor as she leaned out the doorway. “I hear a vehicle, Jewel!”

  “Oh God, let them have found the kids,” Ma said. She hurried to the little table and there came a quick puff, then the light from the candle went out. “Hey! Hey! We’re over here!” Freeda yelled from outside the shelter.

  “Hello?” Ma called, her voice already sounding far away, as I scooted out from under the cot.

  I hurried out the door. The rain and wind had stopped, and the clouds had broken up enough to let the moon shine, but still it was black with the trees so tall and full of branches.

  I scrambled up the bank and reached the field to see two poles of light stretched from our car to the old house, and two poles of light shining on our car, from Uncle Rudy’s truck, which was parked behind it. I could see Uncle Rudy and Tommy standing in the light, Knucklehead dancing in circles around them, and I guessed that the big, dark shape coming toward us was Daddy. Ma and Freeda were running toward the driveway, their arms waving, their bodies only dark, bouncing shapes. “We didn’t find them!” Ma yelled, and Daddy cursed.

  The tall blades of grass flicked raindrops against my legs as I ran toward them, shouting, “I’m here! I’m right here!” I yelled louder than I ever yelled in my whole life.

  The smaller shadow stopped and spun around. “Button?” Freeda’s voice called. “Button? That you?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Reece, it’s Evelyn!” Ma screamed. I squinted as a beam of light hit my face.

  They all started rushing toward me, but Daddy was the first to reach me. “Jesus, Kid. We looked all over for you!” he said. Then, for the first time that I could remember, my daddy scooped me up and hugged me. “You okay?” he asked, and I told him I was.

  “You sure had us worried, Kid,” he said, and this time, “Kid” did sound like a nickname.

  “Oh, Evelyn!” Ma half-screamed, half-cried, when she reached us. “Are you okay? Reece, is she okay?” She hugged me, and not one of those whispery kind of hugs either, but a big, Aunt Verdella kind of hug that almost squeezed the breath out of me.

  “Button, where’s Winnalee?” Freeda asked, just as Uncle Rudy and Tommy reached us. Knucklehead licked my leg that dangled against Daddy’s thigh.

  “I saw her heading in there,” I said, “to the beck.”

  “The beck?” Daddy asked.

  “I know where she means!” Tommy said. “The creek!”

  “How long ago?” Freeda shouted.

  “I don’t know. Right before you and Ma came.”

  Daddy set me down, and Ma pulled me to her. Daddy took a couple steps, then stopped and turned. “No, Freeda, you stay here.” He grabbed her shoulders. “We know this area well, and we’ll find her. We don’t need to be searching for both of you.” Then Daddy hurried off in the direction Tommy and Uncle Rudy and Knucklehead were heading.

  I wrapped my arms around Ma’s skinny waist and cried as she rubbed my back. “Come on, let’s get you to the car,” Ma said. She nudged me to her side, her arm still around me. She wrapped her other arm around Freeda’s waist. “They’ll find her, Freeda,” she said. “They will.”

  “Button,” Freeda asked when we got back in the car, “when you came to the door at Aunt Verdella’s, while my ma was there and we were arguing…was Winnalee with you?”

  “No,” I said, because that was the truth.

  Freeda sighed. “Thank God.”

  “She’d already started running off by then,” I said.

  “Why? What does Winnalee know, Button?”

  My teeth started searching for some skin to bite.

  Ma turned my face to hers. “Evelyn, don’t be scared now. None of this is your fault, and I’m not angry with you. Just tell Freeda what she wants to know, okay?” I nodded, tears warming my eyes. Ma brushed my damp bangs out of the way and kissed my forehead.

  I turned to Freeda. “Winnalee came over while Mrs. Malone was saying that you stole her.” I rubbed my teary cheeks. “And Winnalee got all upset and took off for the tree where we keep our…well, our bag where we put the things we planned to take with us when we went to find the fairies.” I turned to Ma. “But I wasn’t really gonna go, Ma. I just pretended I was.” She patted me and told me to finish telling what happened.

  “Did she say anything?” Freeda asked. I turned to look at Freeda again, who was slouched down in the seat.

  “Just that she was going to find the fairies and that she liked dead people best.” Freeda started crying then, so Ma reached over my head and touched Freeda’s hair, just like she was touching mine.

  I felt scared to say the next part, but I’d already been bad and I didn’t want to be double-bad by not telling the whole truth. I turned back to Ma. “Winnalee wanted to know why Freeda stole her from her live ma, so I told her the part I’d heard. How Freeda was really her ma.”

  Ma pulled me to her and she rubbed her hand down my head, softly. “It’s okay, honey.”

  “I said it because I didn’t want her thinking that she didn’t have a ma this whole time.”

  “It’s okay, Button,” Freeda said, then sighed.

  It seemed like we sat forever, shivering because the night had turned cool and straining to see the flicker o
f flashlight beams through the trees. “They’ll find her. They will,” Ma kept saying, but still we waited, sniffling, and holding our breaths each time we heard Knucklehead bark.

  “They’re coming!” Ma shouted. I scooted up so I could see over the dashboard and, sure enough, there were four beams of light bouncing through the dark.

  “Do they have her? I can’t tell!” Freeda cried. She opened the car door and started running toward them. Ma and I got out too.

  “Winnalee?” Freeda cried out as she ran.

  “We found her!” Tommy called back, and the whole night seemed to sigh with relief. That is, until Winnalee started slapping at Freeda’s hands when she tried to take her from Daddy.

  26

  When we got back to Aunt Verdella’s, she came flying out the back door, her arms outstretched. “Oh my God, you found them!” Aunt Verdella was crying and laughing at the same time as she gathered me in her arms and hugged me. “Oh, Button, Auntie was worried sick about you!” She rushed to Uncle Rudy, who was carrying Winnalee, and in one swoop of her arms, she hugged them both. “Winnalee, oh, honey,” she said, and then, “Oh, you’re all soakin’ wet! Come on, let’s get inside. I got fresh coffee, and these girls must be starving by now.”

  Once inside, Aunt Verdella led me and Winnalee into the bathroom. “I’ll give them a quick bath,” she said, and Ma said, “They’re probably too hungry and tired for that, Verdella. Just dry them off, okay?”

  Aunt Verdella stripped us down and rubbed a wet washcloth over our faces and our arms and legs, and put Band-Aids on our worst scratches. “You can wear Uncle Rudy’s T-shirts for now,” she said, slipping them over our heads. Ma came in the room and helped rub our hair with towels. “My, I was so scared,” Aunt Verdella kept saying.

  I watched Winnalee as Aunt Verdella dried her loops. She was scratched here and there from tree branches and dotted with pink mosquito bites, just like me, but unlike me, she didn’t flinch when Aunt Verdella’s washcloth dabbed at the scrapes, or even when she cleaned her hurt foot and wrapped it in a new bandage. Instead, she watched the door, and I watched her, searching for something that would let me know what was going on inside of her.

  The door was open a little, and I could hear Daddy and Tommy and Uncle Rudy talking, exchanging stories about their search. “This old guy deserves a steak,” Uncle Rudy said twice, talking about Knucklehead, who had found Winnalee at the beck, and Tommy said that he deserved a steak too, since he’s the one who figured out where we’d gone.

  When Aunt Verdella brought us out of the bathroom, everyone stopped talking. Uncle Rudy patted our damp heads and called us his little adventurers, and Daddy made jokes about how he’d thought for a minute that we’d run off to New York to join the ballet. Winnalee didn’t smile at his joke.

  “I’ll fix you all something to eat,” Aunt Verdella said. “I don’t know what that’ll be quick, but I’ll come up with something. In all the excitement today, I didn’t give a thought to supper.”

  “How about some breakfast food, then,” Uncle Rudy said, and Aunt Verdella told him that was a good idea. “And bunny pancakes for my girls!” she said.

  Ma led Winnalee and me into the living room, and Freeda followed, her fingertip in her mouth. Winnalee sat right up tight against me and fumbled for my hand without looking for it, because her eyes were busy glaring at Freeda.

  “I’m thirsty, Ma,” I said, and she hurried to get me a glass of water. She touched Freeda’s arm as she passed her.

  As soon as Ma was out of the room, Freeda came to the couch and squatted down beside it. She put her hand on Winnalee’s knee, but Winnalee pulled it away, pressing her leg closer to mine.

  “Honey?” she said. “I know you must have a million questions, and I know you must be confused and upset, but—”

  “You lied!” Winnalee said, the words coming out in a burst. “You told me she was my ma! You told me she was dead!”

  Freeda shook her head. “No, I never said she was your ma. She did. Not me. But, yes, I did tell you she was dead, and for that I can’t apologize enough. It was wrong of me to tell you that. You should have always known the truth.” I looked across the room at nothing, not knowing where else to look.

  I could feel Winnalee’s legs jumping, her skin cool against mine. “Don’t touch me!” Winnalee screamed when Freeda reached out with both hands and tried to still them. “I don’t even know who you are!” Winnalee bellowed, bringing Ma and Aunt Verdella rushing into the room.

  Ma reached out and took my hand, pulling me off of the couch to stand by her, but Winnalee didn’t let go of my other hand, so she came with me. Freeda reached for her. “I’m your ma, Winnalee. Your mama! You grew in my tummy, not Hannah’s. She raised you those first five years, yes, but that didn’t make her your mother. I was always your mama, even if I wasn’t there in the beginning.”

  “No!” Winnalee said. “You’re not my mama. You’re my sister. My sister, Freeda! Mas don’t go away to the city without their babies!”

  Freeda was crying hard now too, just like Winnalee. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry I told you she was dead, but I wanted you back. You understand? I was afraid you wouldn’t go with me if you thought you had a choice, and I wanted my baby girl with me.”

  Winnalee shook her head. “I don’t know who you are!” Then she looked at me, and Aunt Verdella, and at Ma, and she pointed at us one by one and asked, “Who are you? Who are you? I don’t know who you are, any of you!” Then she pointed at herself, and she screamed out, “Who am I?”

  “Oh dear,” Aunt Verdella muttered.

  I heard doors slamming outside and saw the headlights of Uncle Rudy’s truck jiggle as he backed out of the driveway. Daddy and Uncle Rudy, it seemed, were going to run Tommy home. I bit the inside of my cheek and wished that I were going with them.

  Ma handed me my water glass, then she moved in front of Winnalee. She took her by the shoulders and bent over, putting her face close to Winnalee’s. “Winnalee? Honey, look at me.” Winnalee was crying so hard that her chin was quivering.

  “Winnalee, you had a terrible shock. Come on, honey, let’s sit down. Auntie Jewel will sit right by you, and so will Button, okay?” Ma motioned with her head that I should sit on the other side of Winnalee. “There, see? Now, you just hold on to my hand, and Button’s, and we’ll stay right here beside you, okay? You know Button. She’s your best friend, and you know Auntie Jewel.” Winnalee nodded, and Ma said, “Good. Auntie Verdella is going to get you a nice afghan to put over your legs, so they warm up and stop shaking, okay? Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Ma looked up at Freeda, even though she was still talking to Winnalee. “Now I want you to listen to Freeda. She’s going to talk to you real slow and soft, and she’s gonna tell you all the things you need to know.” Ma took the afghan Aunt Verdella handed to her and shook it over Winnalee’s legs. I grabbed the other end and helped. “She’s going to tell you how you started growing in her belly when she was not more than a girl. And how she ran off because she was scared—just like you ran off to see the fairies because you were scared. And maybe you won’t understand all of what she’s saying, but the part I think you will understand is that she loves you. Isn’t that right, Button?”

  I had tears in my eyes as I nodded.

  We sat for a long time—Aunt Verdella in her favorite chair, her eyes teary, her hands held together as though she was praying, and me and Ma alongside of Winnalee, our hands holding hers—while Freeda talked, and Winnalee looked down at her lap and cried softly. Daddy and Uncle Rudy came back, and each time Freeda took a little pause, I could hear the soft clatter of a pan, or the sizzle of bacon, or the low hum of their voices coming from the kitchen.

  Winnalee didn’t say a word until Freeda got to the part about her going back to Hopested. “Why didn’t you just leave me there, then?”

  “Because,” Freeda said, “I loved you and I wanted you with me. And because I didn’t want Uncle Dewey to hurt you. He hurt
me when I was a little girl, Winnalee. I didn’t want him to hurt you in the same way, so I came back and took you, even though I didn’t have a nice place to bring you to or enough money to get you all the things a little girl should have.”

  Winnalee’s tears had quieted to little, soft gasps.

  “I know it’s hard for you to understand why I did the things I did. It’s even hard for me to understand. But the part I do finally get is that no matter how hard I want to, I can’t go back and undo anything that happened, so I have to just accept it and move on, and just try to do my best now. That’s what I’m trying to do, Winnalee. Just do my best now. And I hope that’ll be enough for both of us.”

  Ma got up from the couch then, so Freeda could take her place. Freeda gathered Winnalee in her arms and pulled her onto her lap and rocked her and rocked her, saying, “We’re gonna be okay, Winnalee. We’re gonna be okay.” Freeda told Winnalee that she loved her, about a hundred times, and she kept kissing Winnalee’s wet face.

  Winnalee looked like she was sleeping for a time, then she opened her eyes, and without taking her head off of Freeda’s shoulder, she said, “What about M—my…my grandma. I wanna see her.”

  Freeda’s teary eyes looked up toward the ceiling. “I know, honey. But not right now. I just can’t see her again right now, Winnalee, but we’ll figure something out.”

  When they were done hugging and crying, both of them looked tired and crumpled. Freeda got up to go to the bathroom, and Ma followed Aunt Verdella into the kitchen to see what the men were burning.

  I sat down by Winnalee and took her hand. We sat quiet as the grown-ups talked in the kitchen. Ma was teasing Uncle Rudy and Daddy about the mess they were making and the bacon that they’d burned, and the men were teasing back. All of their laughs sounded like sighs.

  “She’s gonna move us again, you know,” Winnalee said after a while, talking in almost a whisper, probably because her voice was hoarse.

  I shook my head. “No she won’t. School’s almost ready to start. I heard Freeda and Ma say that next week they’re gonna take us school-shopping in Porter. We’re gonna get in the same room, and keep right on being best friends, and—”