Saving Cicadas Read online

  Rainey and Poppy were awake now, but Grandma Mona was still unconscious. It was how I liked her the most. “Let me know when you’re hungry,” my mother said. “I’ll find an Arby’s or something.”

  “I could eat,” I said, sitting up straighter in my seat and blinking to adjust to the noonday light.

  “After lunch, I go work,” said Rainey. “I need put my apron on.”

  “Oh. Right,” said Mama. “Well, guess what? You’re not going in to work today, honey.”

  I bit my lip, hoping Rainey would handle this well.

  “But I got work,” said Rainey. “Got take groceries to the car. Pack ’em up real good.”

  Mama squeezed the wheel and flipped her face all the way around to look at Rainey. We were speeding seventy miles an hour down I-26.

  “Mama!” I screamed. “Look out!”

  “Oh, sweet Mary, hold on!” Poppy was hollering, and Rainey was frozen up.

  I mean it, we almost ran a guy off the road! He was honking and we were swerving. I grabbed the wheel while Mama was screaming, and finally we got it straightened out. I nearly had a heart attack. I was grabbing at my chest, and my mother looked discombobulated like she’d just woken up and happened to be driving a car.

  Mama eased onto an off-ramp and then into the dirt on the side of the road.

  “What in tarnation are you doing?” Grandma Mona shrieked.

  “It’s all right, she got it,” said Poppy in his soothing kind of way. “Everybody just calm it down, now. Nice and calm.”

  We came to a stop, the hazards blinking, and Mama leaned her head on the steering wheel and banged it a couple times. Then she said calmly, “Rainey, I told Mr. Mooneyham we were going on a little trip, honey. He said it’s perfectly fine and to have fun. Fun, he said. Isn’t this fun? You can go back to work when we get home, all right?”

  This change in routine was not sitting well with Rainey. She was trying to process it all and deal with it. I could tell by how she kept tilting her head to the side and mumbling to herself. She was holding her baby doll and fiddling with its fingertips, counting each finger, trying to stay calm. Trying. She couldn’t hold it in any longer and threw her hands up to her ears, letting the doll roll to the floor. “I want go work! I want help people with the grocery. Let’s go home, Mama. Time go home.”

  I watched as my mother’s pretty face stretched back into a painful grimace and she started crying. And not just a little cry, but a deep, rip-your-heart-out kind. For a woman who was mostly quiet except for occasional bouts of self-talking, these outbursts were becoming right regular.

  “Goodness, it’s okay,” said Poppy. “Oh, now. She’ll be fine. Won’t you, Rainey? You’ll be fine, right? We’re going to have fun! The Macy family on the open road!”

  “I got go work.” Rainey pleaded. She was really beginning to fret, with the bottom lip shaking and all.

  Mama cried harder. The sound completely filled the car and bounced off my eardrums, pinging from window to window. We weren’t even in our own state anymore. We were hours away from Rainey’s happy place in the hollow of the backyard tree. I looked up at a flashing sign for cigarettes at a Zippy Mart, and that’s when I had one of my smartest ideas ever. “Mama, go find a grocery store,” I told her. “They’re bound to be in every town, right?”

  Mama must have thought it was a good idea, too, because we drove around, and when we found one, Mama went in and explained our situation. She asked if my sister could bag a few groceries. Maybe take them out to a few cars. There just happened to be another developmentally challenged person who worked at this particular store, but he was sick today. Bad for him. Good for us.

  Chapter Nine

  MOUNTAINS TO MOVE

  {Mona}

  The grocery store manager was more than happy to have some free help. My granddaughter Rainey was smiling and just bagging away. She was doing a very nice job putting the frozen foods together and the produce together. Very smart girl. Better than I could do. But the plastic bags were causing her fits. She was used to paper, so she mumbled about how hard and slippery these “bad bags” were. “Need the paper bags,” she said. “Not these bad bags.” Adorable child.

  Grayson and Janie roamed the grocery aisles, hand in hand, marveling at how much things cost these days. Every now and again, they’d come back to tell us that a gallon of milk was over four dollars. “Might as well put that in the gas tank!” said Grayson. “Can you believe it? Four-dollar milk and four-dollar gas. What’s the world coming to?”

  “I know it, honey, I know it,” I said.

  “Come on, Poppy,” said Janie, grabbing his arm. “Let’s go see how much cakes and cookies cost!” And off they’d go.

  Priscilla and I sat in the little café, sipping water, watching Rainey, waiting. I counted five sips of water before I held my breath and then let it out. “I know what you’re doing, Priscilla,” I told her. She froze up and grabbed her glass with two hands. “I understand you miss the man. I do. But honey, this is no way to act. You can’t just come traipsing through the mountainside looking for a ghost.” A man walked by Priscilla and tipped his cap to her. Priscilla halfway smiled, then crossed her legs and turned her head toward me. “He’s gone, Priscilla,” I whispered. “I know you don’t want to believe it, but honey, it’s true. He’s gone and he’s not coming back. The sooner you can accept this, the better it’ll be for everyone. I just don’t want to see you hurt—”

  Just then, Janie bounded up and eyed me hard. She had fire in her eyes and hands on hips, ready to strike. So I played it up. “And when we get back on the road, please, for heaven’s sake, use some sense around those tractor trailers! You’re gonna get us all killed, and I’ll tell you ‘I told you so’ soon as our feet hit the other side.”

  “Grandma Mona . . .” Janie scolded me with her tone. My goodness, she was so much like her mama when she was a girl. I wanted to grab her up and pinch her cheeks. I wanted to pull her into my arms and hug her tight like I used to. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not yet anyway. I wasn’t actually bitter toward Priscilla anymore, just the contrary. But I played the charade just the same in front of Janie. It killed me, but as keeper of the family secrets, I had to be cruel—tough love, rather. I had to maintain my distance from her and everyone else just a little while longer. Just a little while . . .

  Janie sat down in front of me, next to her mama. She looked over at her, and they both watched Rainey. “She’s doing a good job, isn’t she, Mama?” Janie was so tickled her plan for Rainey had worked. It did my heart good to see. “Thank you, God, for putting grocery stores in every single town,” she said on folded hands.

  “Amen,” said Priscilla. Her eyes were closed as if she was praying too. She didn’t seem to do that much anymore. I was praying she was praying. She needed all the help she could get. Then she opened her eyes and chewed on her bottom lip.

  “What? What is it?” Janie asked.

  “Oh, what I wouldn’t do to just go back in time,” said Priscilla.

  Amen, I thought. But this time I stayed quiet.

  Priscilla took a deep breath and watched Rainey hard at work. Janie studied her mother’s face, like she always did. It was her gauge for how things were going. Janie only saw the best in her mama, as many children do. Not mine, anyway, but many. In between sips of water, Janie caught her mother smiling now and again, and the little girl’s face lit up, grinning from ear to ear. She shuffled in her seat and sat back like she was at a picture show.

  As long as Priscilla was smiling, my sweet little Janie was happy. Watching Janie’s lips curled up, I was tempted to smile too—except that I had a vague feeling for what might be coming next. Yes, it would be a long hard road, but I knew if and when Priscilla finally found what she was after, Janie’s world, as she knew it, would end completely. In many ways, it already had.

  “How much longer are we going to stay here?” I piped up. “It’s cold in this grocery store. Cold, I tell you. I’m freezing.”

&nb
sp; “You can wait outside, then,” said Poppy, rounding the corner from produce. “Can’t you see how happy our granddaughter is?” I gave him a raised eyebrow that told him all he needed to know.

  We couldn’t get Rainey to stop bagging groceries. It made her feel important. “What time is it?” she asked when we said it was time to go.

  “It’s already three thirty, Rainey. We need to get on the road, okay? Come on. You’ve done a terrific job. I’m proud of you.” Priscilla took hold of her arm.

  “Not time yet.” Rainey grabbed a package of toilet paper and stuck her tongue out, trying to fit it into a small plastic bag. Amazingly, she got it in. Priscilla looked at her with tired eyes. Anyone could see she didn’t have the energy for an argument.

  “Do we have to go, Mama? Cain’t we just stay?” asked Janie.

  Priscilla made fists by her sides and took a deep breath. When the color rushed back to her face she said sweetly, “ ’Scuse me, miss, what town are we in?”

  The cashier assessed my daughter and assumed she’d inhaled drugs. She said, “Swannanoa.”

  “Swannanoa. Swannanoa . . . is Black Mountain near here?”

  “Sure is. Next town over.”

  “Okay, honey. Would you like to spend the night here? Tell me . . . Arlene—” Priscilla read off her name tag—“what’s there to do around here?”

  “Flea market’s up the road ’bout a mile and a half,” said Arlene. “ ’Course there’s the mountains for hiking. Couple lakes if you like water and stuff. There’s the airport in Asheville, if you’re flying somewhere.”

  And just like that, Rainey got to work a full shift, and Priscilla bought a map, staking out a Sleep Tight Inn right next to a lake. I figured a dumpy motel room might be just what she needed to zap back to her senses and make her way home. Either that or she’d run out of money or gas, one. I was just betting Priscilla would run out of steam first. If it was possible for a person to age ten years in a day, my daughter had done it. I truly hoped she didn’t find what she came up here to the mountains to find. Why, unearthing Harlan might delay her prodigal homecoming indefinitely. And I knew I could speak to her till I was blue in the face about the girls’ father, but she’d never listen. What was a mother to do?

  Chapter Ten

  CLOSE QUARTERS

  {Janie}

  Sleeping in the same room with two old people who snored was about as fun as a rainstorm on the Fourth of July. The only good thing was, I had my own little sofa, and Rainey crawled into Mama’s bed. Poppy and Grandma Mona took the other one.

  I’d never liked waking up in the middle of the night. Everything looked scary in darkness, the what-ifs and what-if-nevers. Most of the night I worried about my mother. Worried about the new baby. Worried I might not be as good a big sister as I thought I’d be. Wondered how Mama would be able to survive another baby and a second job. Worried she might wake up any minute and start puking like they did on the TV when a baby was on the way. Wondered what an eight-and-a-half-year-old girl could possibly do to help her.

  Mama never woke up puking, thank goodness, but it was like listening to a chorus of jigsaws all night. I lay there with a pillow covering my ears and another dangling off the sofa, and when Poppy would start snoring, I’d bop him on the head with it. Then Grandma Mona would go. Bop, bop, bop. All night long.

  I was so tired, I thought I might cry.

  “Poppy, y’all snore worse than anybody. Ever.”

  “That is not true,” he said, pulling his trousers up over his briefs and working on the belt buckle.

  “Oh, yes it is! Do you know how much I slept? Zero. Ze-ro, Poppy. You too, Grandma Mona.” I held my finger up in an O and looked at her through it to press my point.

  “Well, I didn’t hear anything,” she said, gazing over at Rainey, who was still lying in place trying to touch her tongue to her nose. She couldn’t quite get it, but she tried over and over. Finally, Rainey grinned and said, “What we do today, Mama?”

  “Well, I don’t know, I . . . we can do anything we want, I guess. We’re free as the wind.” Mama leaned over and kissed Rainey on the forehead.

  “I want read the book,” said Rainey. Mama made her way to her hard white suitcase and pulled out a Corduroy the Bear book. She plopped down next to Rainey again, who grabbed her baby doll and kissed it. “This what I gonna do baby Jesus, Mama. I kiss him all the time.”

  “That’s just lovely,” said Grandma Mona. “I’m going to take a shower. A hot one. When I get out, can we please talk about going home, Priscilla? This doesn’t quite feel like a vacation. No one’s relaxing. And shouldn’t you be going to the doctor soon?”

  “Nobody asked you to come along,” I said under my breath, knowing it was extra fresh, but I was so tired.

  “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” said Grandma Mona. “Why don’t you lie back down and take a nap.”

  My mother squeezed her head between her hands and leaned into Rainey’s pillow, saying, “Oh, Rainey, make it stop. Can’t I just close my eyes and go to sleep for a long time? Couldn’t we just take a whole day off and sleep?”

  “That no fun. You sleep at night,” Rainey said.

  “I mean it, Priscilla,” said Grandma Mona. “Seriously consider going home to your own bed today. I don’t think this trip is any good for you . . . in your condition. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

  Mama picked up the book and started reading about a little bear that gets lost in a department store. I’d heard the story ten thousand million times.

  After Grandma Mona was through with the bathroom, Poppy slipped in there. A second later, it was my turn. I hated motel bathrooms. Not that I’d been in too many of them. There was the summer Mama took us to Disney. I guess that was really the only place I’d been. That motel had roaches. Then another time, our air-conditioner broke at home in hundred-degree weather and we had to go stay in a hotel just to survive. Anyway, there I was in the bathroom. I wondered what other person’s rear end had been sitting on the commode. Then I saw a hair that didn’t belong to me. I was hoping it was Poppy’s. Please be Poppy’s.

  I looked over at the puffy little skid-stickers and nasty cracks in the tub, and I didn’t really want to bathe. I freshened up with a washrag and toothbrush instead. When I came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, I smelled something familiar. “Coffee?”

  “Yes, she’s drinking coffee. I suppose she does not care at all about the baby in her womb,” said Grandma Mona, smoothing her white hair back.

  “What a thing to say, Mona. That’s enough.” Poppy grinned at me and said, “There’s my sunshine girl.” The lines in his face were round and happy like somebody had drawn him.

  “Nice and hot,” Mama said, ignoring me and everybody and smelling the Styrofoam cup in her hands.

  “I thought caffeine was bad for—” I cut myself off when I looked into the trash can and saw the green wrapper. “Lookit, it’s decaf,” I said, like, duh, Mama knows what she’s doing.

  “Just drink and be happy,” Poppy said. “That’s my motto. Drink and be happy.”

  “Lovely, that’s what we’ll stick on your tombstone, Grayson.” Grandma Mona stared out a slit in the curtains. It was a wonder to me how those two were ever married.

  Rainey was sitting on the edge of the bed, and she wrapped her arms around my mother. I’m guessing she’d read Corduroy at least ten more times now. “I love you, Mama.”

  “I love you, too, honey. Why don’t you go use the potty, okay?”

  Rainey stretched her arms straight up and out and made grunting noises, then she stepped out of bed and shuffled to the bathroom. I heard her singing, but couldn’t quite place the tune. It was more of a medley of cartoon theme songs, lullabies, and the ABC s all together. I put on fresh clothes and observed my mother sipping her cup of decaf Folgers, feet curled under her, watching the Weather Channel. A guy with stiff hair was saying how a band of showers would be sweeping through the East Coast by lunchtime.

&nb
sp; “Soooo . . .” she said.

  “So what?” asked Grandma Mona. “Can we drive back home today?”

  “Another town, another grocery store.” Mama stared blankly at a commercial for new cars.

  “That’s what I mean,” said Grandma Mona. “You really want to spend your whole vacation sitting in Piggly Wigglys and Bi-Los?”

  “For goodness’ sake, Mona. She might be okay.”

  “Oh, come on, Grayson, you know she won’t. And then what about tonight? Janie won’t be able to sleep again!”

  “Can’t you see she’s not ready yet, Mona? We’ll get Janie some earplugs. Or I’ll wear some of those nose-strip thingies. We’ll make it work.”

  “Or you can sleep out in the hall,” Grandma Mona huffed, folding her arms across her chest. “I’m going to wait outside. It’s cold in here.”

  I sat on the edge of my sofa, watching Mama drink her coffee. I couldn’t help but think she looked mad at the world. I couldn’t really blame her. I bet she was wondering why she ever allowed my grandparents to come along. She should have listened to me. “This coffee sucks,” she said.

  “So don’t drink it,” I said. She didn’t answer me, and I felt I’d pushed my limits with my sassy mouth, so I opened the door to go hide away and was overcome with the most horrible smell.

  “Oh, good gosh! Rainey!”

  “Hi, Janie,” she said from her porcelain perch, smiling. “See what I do?”