Saving Cicadas Read online

  Rainey nodded and said, “The tree.”

  We followed him outside and around the church by the parking lot. I wasn’t sure how we hadn’t seen it before, but there in front of us was a real-life nativity scene, with Joseph, Mary, and a little baby Jesus in the crib. And here it was the middle of June! The manger was sheltered by a large live oak, and there were shepherds and sheep and animals of all sorts.

  “Wow,” mouthed Rainey. She’d never seen real-life-sized Bible people or animals before. I hadn’t either.

  “At Christmastime, we light this whole thing up and people come from miles around to see it. You know why?”

  “Huh-uh,” said Rainey, still gawking.

  “Because on Christmas Eve, we replace the Mary, Joseph, the baby Jesus, the shepherds, the animal figures—everything—with real-life ones. Real, live sheep . . .”

  “A real, live baby?” I asked.

  “Every year we use a different baby . . . whoever in the church has an infant they’ll let us borrow. We wrap them up tight so they don’t get cold. And you know what?”

  “What?” asked Rainey, fascinated now.

  Fritz bent down on his knees and touched the little Jesus figure. Rainey followed suit and put her whole hand on his face, caressing it. “Sometimes we have a little boy baby who plays Jesus . . . and sometimes we have a little girl. Shhhh. Can you believe that? It’s funny, and nobody can tell the difference. That’s just a little secret between us, all right?” Fritz looked up at Mama, and I did too. There was a sweetness in Mama’s eyes. She cared for Fritz. That much was clear.

  “And look here. See this manger? Your granddaddy, Grayson Macy, helped me build it.”

  “Poppy?” I said.

  “Yes ma’am, he treated me like his own son. He didn’t have to; it’s just the kind of man he was. When I went into ministry, it was just natural that I come here to Forest Pines. Your granddaddy sort of took me under his wing.” He ran his hand up the woodwork and down again. “Building this manger together, we got to know each other even better . . . I know for a fact he would have been happy to see you girls standing here, admiring his handiwork.”

  Rainey sniffled, and I did too.

  “No need to get sad anymore. Your granddaddy’s in a much better place now. And y’all are too. I’m so happy you’re going to be living here in Forest Pines, Priscilla. I’m looking forward to spending some time with you girls. You’re welcome here at the church whenever you like. Anytime.”

  We all waved good-bye and turned to go when Fritz called, “You know, it’s almost time for picking those peaches. How ’bout we make some homemade ice cream. Would y’all like that? Or peach pie?”

  “Ice cream,” said Rainey, licking her lips. “No. Pie.”

  “Either one, I guess,” I said.

  Fritz was finding how easy it was to soothe Rainey, to tell her the things she wanted to hear. But me? I wasn’t quite so easy. I stood there with arms folded across my chest until Mama said, “Oh gracious, I forgot my bag. Wait right here and I’ll be out in a second. Just stay here and look at this nice manger.”

  “I’ll have to open the office again,” Fritz said, rattling his keys, and off they went, muttering about how often they lose things the older they get.

  This was just the opening Rainey’d been looking for, because as soon as they went back inside that church she looked at me, face still stained red from tears, and said, “I take the baby Jesus for Mama. They get new one at Christmas anyways.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  STEALING BABY JESUS

  I did not tell Rainey it was wrong to steal that baby Jesus. It wasn’t a real baby, after all. It was a fake, a pretender. A stand-in. But she knew it was stealing, especially after what had happened at Mrs. Arielle’s house. That was all too fresh in our minds. So I kept on the lookout while she pulled it from the little cradle and hauled it, one-handed, into the Police Interceptor and hid it down in the backseat. It was the least I could do for her. Rainey’d lost her grandfather, too, that day. If holding that baby could take away just an instant of her sadness, I’d do it. She was my sister, after all, and that’s just what sisters do for each other.

  As soon as we entered the house, I saw everything in a new light, and I had mixed feelings about that. The house was ours now—we owned the furniture, the walls, the carpets—but Poppy was no longer there. There was no possibility of him ever coming back because he was dead and gone and . . .

  Unless.

  I looked up at the wall of dead family members along the stairs and thought about Gertrude being a ghost. Not that I’d seen her or anything, but Grandma Mona seemed to think she had at one time. Maybe being a ghost was a real, live thing that could happen to a person. Maybe Poppy, in leaving so quickly, still had some business to tend to. Maybe I was his business. I certainly needed him here. I bent down on the steps right then and there and prayed, Please, God, let Poppy come back. He can stay in the attic if he needs to, because I know how to get up there. And I won’t mind the heat. I just want to see Poppy again. I need him. Please. Amen.

  Mama and Rainey had gone off to the kitchen to have some tea, but I wasn’t thirsty. I knew God had heard my prayer. I knew it like you know something deep in your bones. I flew up those stairs, past Mama’s room, past Rainey’s and my green room and up the spiral staircase. I wound up and up and with each turn got more excited that I was going to see Poppy. Oh, maybe I couldn’t hold him or touch him now that he was a ghost, but I could talk to him. Maybe. Maybe I could look in his eyes some more. Maybe I could at least tell him how much I loved him just one last time.

  I stood frozen at the top of the stairs. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. I grabbed onto the knob and turned slowly. Then I pushed in the door. The heat hit me and I inhaled. I didn’t mind the heat. I didn’t. The door swung open all the way and there, sitting in an old rocking chair by the window on the side of the house, wasn’t Poppy. It was Grandma Mona. She held a quilt in her hands and she was sewing. She stopped when she saw me, and it was then I realized she might not know anything about Poppy dying. Here I was, having to be the one to break the news to her about her very own husband. I firmed my shoulders and held them tight until they melted back down again, and I said, whimpering, “Oh Grandma Mona. Something terrible has happened.”

  And I’ll never forget how tired and strange she looked when she said, “Do tell, child. Do tell.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  THE MATRIARCH

  {Mona}

  “Do tell, child. Do tell,” I said.

  I’d been waiting for her. I knew where they’d gone, to the church, to the cemetery. I didn’t know for sure what she’d see, but I was ready, nonetheless. Janie looked up at me with the saddest brown eyes. Her hair was disheveled and held up on one side with a yellow barrette. She looked even younger than her eight years. “What is it that’s so terrible, Janie? You can tell me.”

  Her eyes darted across the room as if she was wishing for an escape, and then she began crawling up into my lap. It had been years since she’d done this, and I’d missed it so. I set down my sewing and hoisted her up. I held her and hugged her tight. I felt her warmth all through me and I wanted her to feel mine, aside from the immense heat of the attic. I rocked us for a second while she gathered her thoughts.

  “Poppy’s . . . in heaven,” she said and began to cry.

  “Wh-what?” I feigned ignorance. “What do you mean?”

  She looked me in the eyes then, and it was hard to keep her from seeing inside me. It was hard to watch her so torn up. Nearly broke my heart, but it was as it had to be.

  “I saw his grave, Grandma Mona. He’d dead! I saw his tombstone with the name Grayson Macy on it. I cain’t believe they didn’t tell you either!”

  “Who?” I asked, tearing up.

  “Mama and Uncle Fritz! They didn’t tell us Poppy was dying! And I never got to say good-bye!”

  She started getting worked up and thrashing around. Then she slo
wed. Finally, perfect stillness. In that instant, something registered in Janie’s face, smart girl. She looked at me and studied the lines in my cheeks and forehead. I’d always been a fairly good liar, but now my face betrayed me. I was trying to look distraught and surprised, but to no avail. She pushed away from me and slid off my lap. “You knew,” she said, her voice turned cold. “Didn’t you. You knew all along he was sick and you never let on.”

  “Oh, honey, I—” But before she would even let me explain, she ran out of the attic crying, and down the stairs, probably to Rainey, my other sweet, special grandchild. Rainey was the pot at the end of my rainbow. Just being with her made me feel bright and shiny, and . . . Well, after Janie was gone, I sat there rocking, pondering my loved ones and all that was before me. As matriarch of the Macy family, much had been asked of me. Much was at stake. But all in its own time. The key to doing anything right was the timing. I’d learned that the hard way. One false move and everything could fall apart.

  I didn’t so mind Janie being mad at me—she’d certainly been that way before. It was simply the sort of relationship we’d grown into. Over time, meanness had become my necessity. It was easier to grump and fuss and push her away. It made it much harder for her to get close to me.

  To peek into my soul.

  To see the years of secrets hidden there, waiting like cicadas, ready to rise again.

  But only at the proper time.

  Part Three

  The Macy Family Ghost

  Chapter Thirty-six

  THE BURDEN SHE BORE

  {Mona}

  I didn’t like lying to my granddaughter. It didn’t come natural, lying to the ones I loved.

  Back when Grayson and I were living in the Macy house with his mama, Mrs. Madeline Macy, she and I used to take turns making meals, and I remember how she would make this pot roast with so much salt the meat would shrivel and dry up like a little brown—well, you can imagine. One time I tried to lie and tell her it was better than mine—I was trying to smooth her over for something I’d done, something—I can’t remember what now. But she could see it on my face, my lips all puckered up. Maybe she knew it, too, how bad it was. Mrs. Madeline never said a word, but she strongly suggested I do the cooking from then on. I cooked every single meal after that. Every night, every day, I stayed in that kitchen, cooking for Grayson and Mrs. Madeline and later Priscilla, up until the very day we left for Yuma.

  I love each and every one of my children and grandchildren the same. Each is special in his or her own way. My daughter, Priscilla, is a hardworking woman. Even as a little girl she worked hard at her grades, at her chores. She was the kind of child I never had to discipline. I never had to ask her to clean her room, for it was always kept clean. She was quiet for the most part, usually having a book in her hands, her face just inches from it. I picture her that way sometimes, Priscilla lying on her bedroom floor, head hanging over Anneof Green Gables. She was the joy of my life. But when you’ve done something you regret and it involves a child, you spend the rest of your days trying to make it up to whatever child comes your way—trying to erase the guilt you feel from long ago. Yet there’s no making up for it. There’s no erasing it.

  I wonder what went wrong with Priscilla. Perhaps I doted on her too much when she was younger. Gave her too much freedom. I was afraid to do anything for fear she wouldn’t love me anymore. I had a son out there, somewhere. The knowledge was unbearable at times, and I felt undeserving of whatever love I received from Priscilla. I was terrified she might make the same mistakes I’d made someday. And when she was becoming of age and I saw a young woman there, I grew determined to protect her from the world. Perhaps I overcompensated a bit. Overwhelmed her with rules just a little.

  Children can sense when a parent suffers. I gladly would have kept silent all my suffering except that when we moved to Yuma, my son Fritz came to find us, and my deepest secret came spilling out.

  How many nights I lay in bed, dreaming of a day when we might be reunited. I prayed every night that Fritz was with a family who loved him. At the same time, I envied those people. They, whoever they were, got to hold him, touch him, look at him in the eyes. They got to know him. I imagined he didn’t even remember me anymore. I was torn between hoping he’d forget and hoping there was still a remembrance of me, somewhere inside.

  I have no real excuse for giving Fritz away. In my time of grief, after hearing William had died in Vietnam, I was hardly a woman. I was unfit to be his mother. In my eyes, Fritz had lost both parents at the same time. I felt nothing. I looked at my own child and could not summon any emotion. In my grief, I feared I may never feel a thing again and I knew I was no sort of mother for a child to have.

  I made sure he was placed with a family before making it final. Fritz was only eighteen months old when I said good-bye to him. I can remember he was wearing the nicest blue sailor smock. I’d made it for him when he was born with the hopes of him growing into it. I’d hoped his father might come home from war and find his new son wearing that outfit, and we’d be a family.

  But that didn’t happen.

  Fritz was asleep in a basket when I handed him to the social worker. We said everything in a hushed voice so as not to wake him up.

  The feelings inside me were so dead and gone I never imagined them resurrected, but the very next morning with the light of day coming in the bedroom window, I sat up, waiting for my child to coo from the crib. Suddenly, the most enormous pain I’d ever encountered ripped through my body. I felt the pain of losing my husband fully and completely. And I felt the horrible shattering that no mother should ever feel, that of regret and sadness and fear, to the point I considered jumping from the rooftop just to end my misery. I knew in that instant, sitting in my nightclothes, I’d made the most terrible mistake of my life, giving Fritz away.

  But times were different then. There was no undoing it.

  Timing. My timing, or God’s timing, whoever’s timing it was, was hideous. If only I’d been able to feel the pain of losing William twenty-four hours earlier, I might have spared myself a lifetime of regret, and a lifetime away from my precious son Fritz. Of course, then I never would have met Grayson neither.

  These are the things some mothers must ponder and bear for years and years. And bear it I do. Still to this day.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  THE DEAD WALL

  {Janie}

  The day we put Poppy’s picture up on “the dead wall” was the single worst one of my eight-and-a-half years. Rainey and I had spent the last couple days moping around the house, trying to accept the fact that Poppy was dead and gone. We were mostly quiet, keeping to ourselves, not yet at the reminiscing stage that some grievers make it to. But we did get together long enough to discuss the fact that Poppy’s picture was not up on the stairwell.

  At suppertime, Rainey asked Mama, “Where Poppy picture? Got put up on the wall.” She pointed, and Mama observed her with reverence.

  “You know, you are absolutely right. My daddy’s picture should be up on that wall and it’s not. Is that what you mean, honey?”

  Rainey nodded and stuffed her mouth full with dumplings. “Tell you what, after I do the dishes, why don’t we go up in the attic and see if there’s a big one we can frame and stick up there. Would you like that?”

  We both said we would, and Grandma Mona agreed it was a fine idea, so after supper, Rainey and I waited patiently on the stairs for Mama to finish cleaning up. It was a solemn occasion. And quick.

  We climbed up to the attic, felt the heat, and didn’t hardly look around at all because right there by the door, propped up, was a large, already-framed photo of Poppy. Funny how we hadn’t seen that before. He was young and dressed in his bow tie, just like always. Behind him was a cornfield. Grandma Mona said how handsome he was, and Rainey and I teared up at seeing him, and when Mama hung him right next to his daddy, Adolph Macy, we sat there for the rest of the night, staring at the wall, sad as all get-out, missing our grandfa
ther. Knowing that nothing would ever be as good without him around. ’Course, we should have appreciated those moments of calm and quiet. We didn’t know things could get even worse than they already were.

  Mama had been awful sweet ever since signing those papers at the church. She seemed happy in her new house. She spent much of her time cleaning and making lists of things she needed to fix and things she needed to buy for the house. She bought a newspaper and began circling jobs she could apply for. Some of them were waitressing jobs, but some of them weren’t—things like secretary and receptionist. Those were big jobs, and I was proud of her for thinking of trying something different.

  She even circled the names of some schools and day care centers. One was at the Covenant Church. I imagined our lives there in Forest Pines, Mama working a new big job, Rainey at the grocery store, me in a new school, and the baby at the church with Fritz. Yes, it all seemed it might work out nicely in the end.

  Then one day the doorbell rang.

  Rainey and I were up in our room, reading books, and Mama was in the kitchen, cutting up some squash she’d pulled from the garden. We knew it wasn’t Fritz, because he never rang the doorbell, just knocked on the door whenever he came over. We thought it might could be Mrs. Arielle coming to call about Bobby Sue cosmetics, or maybe the old lady in the yellow house across the street needing to borrow some sugar, like people do sometimes on TV shows.

  But when we came to the top of the stairs and looked down at Mama opening the door, we could see by the way she stood there frozen—the person on the other side was somebody she sure as rain wasn’t expecting to see.