Saving Cicadas Read online

  After several days of it, I heard Mama get on the telephone and whisper to an operator for a medical clinic over in Fervor. I heard her say “six to seven weeks.” Then she went ahead and made an appointment to go to see a doctor in two weeks. I was happy Mama’d finally made a decision to go see a doctor. Maybe having Rainey break her arm was what she needed to realize she had to take care of herself and that baby she was carrying. Maybe being in the hospital made her not so afraid to meet with a doctor.

  Being in that blue gingerbread house with Rainey on a crutch and Poppy and Grandma Mona for conversation, I’d tried to forget about Mama having a baby. If I’m honest, I played a little harder outside when she was around so I wouldn’t have to think about the baby much or how much attention Rainey was getting instead of me. When she wasn’t babying Rainey, Mama kept to herself, cleaning out cabinets, washing the windows. If I didn’t know better, it looked like we might be staying a long while. Who really knew what Mama was thinking? Fritz came by for supper some days and mowed the grass once. I watched him do the whole lawn from start to finish, which took a really long time.

  Mama kept those photo albums in her bedroom and looked at them every night before bed. She’d gone back up in the attic a couple more times, with me following, and we’d brought down more books. I never did see the ghost of Great-Aunt Gertrude and remained a little disappointed about that. Mama brought down some old clothes of Grandma Mona’s too. Rainey could sit up and play in the hats and all, but she couldn’t wear the dresses and could only put on one shoe. She didn’t much care, just held them up to the mirror with one hand and laughed and laughed about how much we looked like Grandma Mona. It was actually fun for a few days after Rainey got more confidence in moving around. We shed our worries together and stuck to ourselves.

  Then one morning I woke up early, before Rainey. I climbed down the stairs hoping to catch some time alone with Mama, but she wasn’t in the kitchen. Instead, she was sipping her coffee on the front porch. I went over and sat on a rocker beside her. The morning smelled different, cleaner, smelled like grass to me. Cars weren’t on the street yet but a few folks were walking their dogs. A breeze floated through the gazebo, casting wild, slow shadows from the trees across my skinny legs.

  “It sort of reminds you of the sunporch at home, don’t it, Mama?” She grinned over at me, took a deep breath, and pressed her hand down on mine. It’d been so long since I’d felt her touch. We sat there not talking, just listening to the sounds of Vinca Lane, the birds calling back and forth, the rush of the wind in the maple leaves.

  “Looks like it might rain today,” she said.

  We watched the white clouds rolling in and growing darker. Sitting on that porch, next to Mama, was the closest I’d felt to happy in a long time. Strange thing was, I knew her head wasn’t really there, not with me. Maybe she was thinking about Rainey all crippled in her bed. Maybe she was thinking back on when she was a little girl, sitting on those very chairs. Or maybe she was months down the road from now, settled, with all her decision making done.

  The only decisions I’d had to make were what clothes to put on. What channels to watch. What books to look at and read. What games to play with Rainey.

  But not Mama. Her decisions were harder.

  “I love you, Mama,” I said, thinking back on the trials of the last couple weeks. “No matter what, I’ll always love you.”

  “You sure are sweet, Miss Janie,” said Poppy, sneaking up on us. “What a good, kind heart you have. Such a good daughter. And a wonderful granddaughter.”

  “And smart,” I added, grinning.

  He chuckled and agreed. “So smart.”

  “Might be a doctor or astronaut when I grow up. Don’t you think, Mama? Think I could go all the way to the moon?”

  “Wouldn’t put it past her,” said Grandma Mona, coming out of the house and trying to be grumpy. For some reason, it wasn’t working right now. She seemed distracted. “Janie, honey, why don’t you go on inside. Play with your sister. She’s up now. Your Poppy needs to have a talk with Priscilla.”

  I looked up at Mama’s face. Her eyes were closed like she was concentrating. More slow breathing. Then her hand let up off mine and she said, “Just go. Please.”

  Poppy was smiling, I could see the silver caps on his molars, but at the same time, his eyes looked sad, moist, and red. “Come here, sugar,” he said to me, bending at the knees and squatting with his small, wrinkled hands held out.

  I moved to him and he held me by the hips. “Janie Doe Macy. Do you know I’d do anything for you? Do you know you make my whole world go around and around? There’s nothing more important to me than you and my family?”

  “Yes sir. I guess so.”

  He held me tighter still. “Don’t you ever forget how important you are to this family. Hear me? To this whole wide world. All right? Promise.”

  “All right, but why—”

  “Janie, just promise me.”

  “I promise. Poppy, what’s going on? I—”

  He pulled me in to him and hugged me tighter than I’d ever been squeezed. I wrapped my arms around the back of his neck and took in all that warmth. Being held like that didn’t happen every day. Or ever. His heat got my head to feeling dizzy, and before I knew it, he pushed me away and cleared his throat. He stood up and turned to Mama. “Mona, take Janie on in now.” He gave Grandma Mona a hard kiss on the lips, something I’d never seen him do, then he winked at her, and when he did, a tear rolled down his brown cheek. Grandma Mona and I walked slowly, hand in hand into the house and out back, where Rainey was nibbling on a piece of toast and chasing butterflies. The white lantana seemed to be swallowing her up.

  “Go on and help her, Janie,” said Grandma Mona. “The net’s right there. I’m sure y’all will catch one yet.”

  “But what’s wrong with Poppy?” I said. “Is he going somewhere?” “Oh goodness. You could say that, sugar. Yes, you could say he’s going somewhere.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  STUCK IN THE MIDDLE

  “I wanna go with him!” I hollered. “Is he going back home!? I wanna go with Poppy!”

  “Shhh, shh . . .” Grandma Mona pulled me to her and held me to her bony chest. It was the first time I could remember her doing that in many years. “It’s okay,” she said.

  “But when’s he coming back?”

  “It’ll be a little while. Don’t you worry.”

  I asked and I pleaded, but I heard that sort of nonsense from Grandma Mona until I thought I might keel over. I knew Poppy was gone for good. There was too much secrecy and weirdness going on. Same as when my daddy left. I ran out onto the front porch and looked around for Poppy, but he was gone. No sign of him.

  “Mama?” Mama was hunched over, holding her belly. She’d been crying and her face was all swollen. “Mama, you okay? Where’d Poppy go? What’d you say?”

  Grandma Mona came and pulled me from behind and said, “Let’s give your mama some space, all right? There’ll be plenty of time for questions and answers and all that sort of thing after a while.”

  I decided then and there I didn’t like being a kid anymore. No one was honest with kids. No one thought they could handle the truth about grown-up things, but I could! I knew I could. When I became a grown-up someday I’d tell my children everything. I swore to it right then. Mama’d said something to Poppy, and now he’d gone away forever because of it. Here they were, two of the people I loved most in the world, and one was gone and the other remained, and I was stuck in the middle not liking it one bit.

  Uncle Fritz called later that morning and said he had some papers for Mama down at the church. Mama said she’d be over after the Bobby Sue party. I’d forgotten all about that. I told her I didn’t feel like going to a party, what with Poppy being gone, but she just hummed and showered and acted like nothing at all was wrong. In fact, I wondered about my Mama’s state of mind then. How could a person be so unaffected—happy-seeming, even—about their own daddy leav
ing that very day?

  Made no sense to me. I grumped up in my room. I was too mad at everybody to be sad. The real grieving for Poppy hadn’t even started yet.

  Rainey talked me into coming to the party at that fancy lady’s house. She said we could wear makeup and look like Mama. She was excited, and well, when Rainey was excited, it made things that bothered you pale in comparison. I put my thoughts of where Poppy could have gone and when he was coming back on hold, just for Rainey’s sake. ’Fact, she didn’t seem too upset about Poppy at all, which wasn’t like her. Rainey didn’t like change. I figured, her being older, they’d told her something they’d withheld from eight-year-old me.

  With Rainey’s arm broken, the grocery store had only been letting her bag up one or two folks, and then only for the most patient customers because it took her so long. She was tired of being home so much and ready to get out and be useful again. Mama was starting to miss the money, and I could tell from the way she was putting on so she was hoping to fit in with the Bobby Sue gals and maybe even start selling cosmetics. I hadn’t seen her excited about the prospects of work in a long, long time, or maybe never.

  Mama walked up to Mrs. Arielle’s house with a confident swagger. She had on high-heel black shoes, a form-fitting black skirt, and a pink and green blouse with flowers on it. She looked real nice and had worked an extra thirty minutes on her hair alone. It was swooped over smooth across her forehead, then pulled back in a ponytail with curls coming from it. It was strange seeing Mama with real curls on her head. She’d worked nearly as hard on Rainey. Rainey grinned and clip-clopped up the walkway to the house, wearing a long peach-colored dress with no sleeves that Mama was able to stretch over the cast on her arm. She was still limping a little on that twisted foot, but it was better now. She had on hard, white flat shoes that made her walk like a penguin, back and forth. I thought it looked funny, but she liked the way she walked. Rainey felt pretty and special in those shoes, I could tell. And me? Rainey’d asked Mama if we could wear a couple of Grandma Mona’s hats. She said yes, so I was wearing a frilly one Grandma Mona gave me with a little net in the front, coming down over my eyebrows. Rainey’s had a white ribbon that tied under her chin. “Spiffy” is what Grandma Mona’d called us before we left the gingerbread house.

  We’d driven over to the Arielle residence in the Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, and everywhere we turned I looked to see if Poppy was walking or sitting or standing or up in a tree, for all I knew. I looked and looked but didn’t find him.

  God, wherever Poppy is, let him be okay, I prayed. Let him come home to us soon.

  The doorbell played music, actual music instead of a ding-dong. I’d never heard of such a thing, but when I heard that music, it didn’t surprise me. Instead, it just fit the house. It made sense that the door would announce the house’s guests with real-live Dixie. The house was grander than the library even, white with long white columns in front. The grass was greener than it was on Vinca Lane. There were pretty ladies sitting in chairs, holding little pink drinks with umbrellas in them. A couple of them had hats like Rainey and me, but I thought ours were nicer.

  “Now don’t touch anything, remember?” said Mama. “And use your best manners. Say ‘please,’ ‘thank you,’ ‘yes, ma’am,’ that sort of thing. Okay?” Mama was smiling and talking to us out the side of her mouth as we waited for the door to open. The ladies around us disregarded us until we’d been properly introduced. We were nothing and nobody standing there at the door until spoken to.

  “Everyone, this is Priscilla Macy I was telling you about,” announced Mrs. Arielle when she opened the door. “We went to elementary school together. Jennifer, you remember Priscilla?”

  “Oh my goodness, look at you!” Jennifer squealed. Then another and another, all hugging and carrying on. The ladies oohed and aahed over Mama, how good she looked. I thought she was prettier than all those ladies, to be honest. Most of them were chunky with round bellies and hips and painted-on cheeks, and I thought they needed to lay off the little tea sandwiches and brownie squares. I looked over at Rainey who was cradling her cast with her good arm. She was starting to look sheepish and shy at all the goings-on. I threw my hand out like Vanna White and said, “And this here is Rainey Dae Macy.” I smiled at her, and she blushed and loved me back.

  “This Janie,” she said, whispering and trying to put her good arm out to show me off like I’d done her. “I like the hat,” she said, admiring me. I was so glad to have a sister.

  Next thing we knew, ladies were coming up left and right, asking how we liked Forest Pines, how Rainey had broken her arm, where we’d gotten our lovely hats.

  I sort of liked the attention. I ate it up for a while. Then Mama was real busy cavorting with the ladies, and we were being so good, she let us go off and look around that fancy house all by ourselves.

  Turned out that was a big mistake.

  Chapter Thirty

  PARTY TIME

  There was an indoor swimming pool in the back of the house, with screened-in walls around it. Rainey and I stood there marveling that folks could have a swimming pool in their very own house. We looked for bugs but there were none. Rainey thought about getting in and wading around but I reminded her of her cast, how she couldn’t get it wet, so she stuck her shoes back on and off we went looking for other such treasures.

  We heard the Bobby Sue ladies talking on our way up the grand white staircase in the foyer. They were humming and chirping in the formal living room that was twice as big as the one we had back on Vinca Lane.

  “You know, you have the smoothest skin. What do you use on it, Priscilla?”

  “Me? Oh, I . . . just some Ivory soap.”

  “Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha—” The room erupted in laughter.

  “Well, now, see this? I just love this new product here. Gets rid of all those little lines around the eyes. Not that you have any! Because you don’t . . .”

  “Maryann, why don’t you just start selling Bobby Sue? You know all the stuff anyway—”

  “Oh, please. I’m not a salesperson.”

  “The dickens you’re not—”

  And so on and so forth. Rainey and I couldn’t wait to get out of earshot. I was thinking to myself, I wonder when little girls grow up to the point that their parties aren’t any fun anymore?

  Upstairs there was a long hallway to the left and to the right. In many ways, the layout was like the blue gingerbread house, traditional, but this one was much more expansive. I was looking to the right when something caught Rainey’s eye and she ran down the hall the other way.

  I found her in a blue room. The walls were blue with white clouds and hot-air balloons painted at the top. There was a white crib with blue sheets on it and more of those balloons adorning the sides. Beside the bed was a white bassinet with baby powder on it and a bag of unopened diapers. Rainey stood there, motionless. Her bottom lip was dropped to bug-catching position, so it was a good thing we were indoors.

  “The baby room,” said Rainey. She turned to me with stars in her eyes. Then she broke out in the biggest grin. With her good arm, she reached into the crib and grabbed a brown teddy bear. She rubbed it against her face and cooed. She handed it to me and picked up the baby powder. She sniffed it and squeezed at the same time so white powder stuck up on her nose and the middle of her forehead. Rainey bent over, sneezing and wiping, then finally stopped, and the smile returned, albeit whiter.

  She ran her thick fingers over every inch of that room and then grabbed the baby blanket and sat down in the rocker chair with a stool that moved along with it. “I gonna sit here with baby Jesus. Rock. Rock.”

  “Rainey, you know this isn’t Mama’s baby room. This is the lady who lives here’s room.”

  Rainey rocked and tilted her head to the side.

  “The baby sleep right there.” She pointed to the crib and cradled the teddy bear. Rock.

  “That lady who lives here, Rainey? Mrs. Arielle with the pink dress on? She must be the one ha
ving a baby. Her baby’s gonna sleep here. Not Mama’s.”

  Finally, it sank in with Rainey that this was not Mama’s baby’s room and that another baby would be here instead. She looked around at the blue walls, the white crib, the teddy bear, the diapers, the dresser with little-boy outfits folded on top. It looked like those pictures she’d seen on the Internet, little perfect baby-boy rooms. Suddenly, she looked covetous. She stuck her hand in the air like I’d done a while ago, Vanna White–style, and said, “Baby Jesus need this.” Then she stood up and started grabbing things left and right. At that point, there was no talking her down.

  “. . . told him there was no way I was going back to work, and I—”

  “. . . now that’s just not right. I’ve never seen anybody get a rash from—”

  Rainey and I zipped up and down those stairs like ninjas. Nobody seemed to notice a couple of girls in fancy hats hauling loot out the door. I wasn’t stealing the stuff, I was just making sure Rainey didn’t hurt herself, what with being one-armed and having a tricky ankle. But you know, that last time we came down, I heard them say, “Priscilla? You’ve won the free makeover!” Everybody started clapping, and then somebody said, “We should really find—what’s her name? Rainbow? She would love to see this.”

  Next thing you know, Mama’s sitting there on a sofa with a lady rubbing a cotton ball over her face, and everybody’s turned around staring at me and Rainey, who happens to be skulking down the stairs with a bag of diapers and two blue onesies. The whole baby room was empty, and if Rainey could have brought down the crib and rocker chair, she’d have done that too.

  The room grew deadly quiet and Rainey stuck her tongue out, thinking of what to say. Finally, she said, “Mama got baby Jesus in the tummy.” And she kept going down the stairs and out the door to our getaway car.