Saving Cicadas Read online

  She was trying to balance the roll of toilet paper on her top lip. Super. I leaned out the bathroom door for clean, fresh air and took a deep breath, filling my lungs and cheeks. Then I rushed back in and grabbed a comb before nearly gagging and running to the dresser.

  “Mama, you do not want to go in there. I promise you.”

  So to spite me, or to prove me wrong, or maybe just to tell me she was not going to do anything I told her to, my mother walked directly into the bathroom to take a shower. It was like watching a woman go to the firing squad.

  “Mama, this is fun,” said Rainey. I could hear her loud voice even over the water running. Then I heard the toilet flush. My mother, no doubt, had flushed it because for some reason, even though she was seventeen years old, my sister could not bring herself to flush the commode. Do not ask me why. It was just one of those frustrating things I didn’t question anymore. Let’s just say, sharing a bathroom with her had always been interesting.

  When my mother emerged, freshly showered, I did not say a word. I was all packed and had a smile on my face. Poppy was rubbing his whiskers, pondering whether to shave or not.

  “Well, you sure look better, sweetie,” he said to her. “I think I’ll go wait outside with your mother. Come on out when y’all are ready.” Mama stared at herself in the mirror over the dresser and towel-dried the hair hanging over her left shoulder. She let her other towel fall, and I caught a glimpse of her skinny body. She was too skinny now, causing a couple dimples to run down the back of her legs, and her chest was beginning to droop. It was like seeing a scary image of my future. I pinched my eyes shut and turned toward the window, curtains still drawn.

  Rainey was engulfed in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Tom was chasing Jerry down a dock. When they jumped off into the water, she turned away and said, “Mama, we go home now?”

  Mama struggled with her bra, back toward me, and then turned to face me, holding her shirt up to her chest. Wearing a strange, I-mean-business look—very unusual for her—she said, “Not another word about going home. It’s time we stopped whining and started acting like grown-ups.”

  I raised my eyebrows. Rainey looked shocked. I hadn’t thought she was whining at all, but maybe being pregnant, Mama was hearing things differently. Then Mama realized what she said and who she’d said it to and crumbled. She got on her knees next to Rainey and hugged her. “I’m so sorry. I’m just . . . I’m just confused.

  I really need to stay away right now. I know you don’t understand—”“I ’stand. Okay, Mama? Love you.”

  “Thank you, baby. I love you too.”

  Mama put her shirt on and fluffed her hair, then moved to the mirror again, stretching her skin back at the temples so she looked younger. Changing her tone, she said, “I think I need a face-lift. What do you think?”

  I thought of saying something back, but it wasn’t very nice so I decided to keep my mouth shut. Rainey just watched her cartoon again.

  Mama looked at me in the reflection and nodded, determined. Then she moved to the little table between the beds and turned on the light. She opened the drawer, pulled out a Black Mountain phone book, and flipped through the pages till she found what she wanted. She stared for a minute, set the book back in the drawer, and closed it tight.

  “Everything okay, Mama?” I asked.

  She rubbed the back of her neck and said as she was getting up, “Yes, I guess that’s how it’s got to be.” Mama moved to the mirror again and sighed, looking at her reflection. She smooshed her hair up into a do and let it fall. She puckered her lips and smacked them a couple times. “Just give me just a few minutes, troops, and we’ll get out of here.”

  “Where we goin’?” asked Rainey, peeling herself away from the television. Tom just got bopped on the head with an anvil.

  “Put on your walking shoes, honey. We’re going to a lake.” Then turning away from Rainey so she couldn’t hear but I could, Mama mumbled, “Maybe drown my sorrows and just get it all over with . . .”

  My throat tied up in a little ball, and I pictured myself having to dive in and save my mama neck deep in water. I knew it was just something grown-ups said, drowning their sorrows, but still . . . I hoped and prayed I’d be strong enough if and when it ever looked like Mama might go under.

  Chapter Eleven

  LAKE TOMAHAWK

  The water in Lake Tomahawk was real peaceful, no waves like the ocean, but ducks trailed and swam all here and there—brown ones, white ones, and a little ugly duck with a poofy hairdo, looked like Grandma Mona. Oh, and there were these little round ripples blossoming all over the place.

  “What that, Mama?” Rainey asked, pointing to something lying on the surface. There were hundreds of those somethings everywhere. “Oh, Mama, help!” Rainey walked over some boulders and into the water with her shoes on, scrambling and picking up bugs. She splashed and cradled them in her shirt.

  “Rainey!” Mama hollered. “Don’t go in there. Come on out this minute!”

  “She’s a real good swimmer, Mama,” I said.

  “I can swim, Mama.”

  “I know it, but you don’t know what all’s in there. There could be snakes! I don’t like snakes. Now your shoes are all wet, I declare!” Mama moved next to Rainey and leaned head and arms out over the lake, careful not to get her feet wet. I guessed I wouldn’t worry anymore about Mama drowning in that lake if she didn’t want to get her feet wet even. “Would you look at that?” she said. “My goodness. Cicadas.”

  “They sure are, Priscilla,” said Poppy, coming to us from over a little footbridge. His face was glowing in the reflection of the sun off the water. Behind him, the peaks of the Seven Sisters fanned out like a peacock, blue and grand.

  “Look at ’em all!” I said. “Hundreds!” At my feet I saw cicadas lying on their backs or right-side up, walking slow. A couple flew by me all in a tither, trying to land on anything solid. “But don’t they usually make noise? They’re so quiet. I’ve never seen this many before.”

  “Poor thing,” said Rainey, still working on pulling out the drowning bugs. The ducks looked at her like she’d lost her mind.

  “These are special cicadas, girls,” said Poppy. “They’re magicicadas.”

  “Magic cicadas?” I said.

  “Something like that. They come out by the hundreds, the thousands even, all over the place. But they only do it once every seventeen years.”

  “I seventeen,” said Rainey with pride.

  “That’s right honey,” said Mama. “Did you know these bugs were out like this the very year you were born? I’ll never forget it. I thought it was a sign from God. Or a plague . . . like the locusts.”

  “They’re not locusts and they’re not a plague,” said Poppy.

  “So what are they doing?” I asked.

  “They’re dying,” he said. “They mate and they lay their eggs in the shoots of new green trees. Then they live for about a month or so. And then they die.”

  “But that’s so sad,” I said.

  “Maybe,” said Poppy. “But it’s nature. It’s how God designed them.”

  “But they only live a month. Can you imagine if you only had a month to live?”

  “Actually, honey, at my age, I can imagine it. But cicadas live longer than most other insects. See, when the eggs hatch, they drop off the trees as larvae—sort of like caterpillars if you want to think of it that way. Then the larvae burrow down deep into the ground. They live that way, eating the roots of the trees like the big old maple over there. Then, after seventeen years, they all rise up at the same time, turning into adults with wings and big red eyes and such—like they are now.”

  “How do you know so much about them?” I asked.

  “Back in the day it was my job to know about bugs like these. All kinds of bugs and plants and animals. It was my job to help the crops grow. Farmers would hire me to help them get over droughts and infestations and such.”

  “Poppy?”

  “Hmm?”

  �
�How do they all know when to rise up at the same time?”

  “The magicicadas? I don’t know, sweetie. It’s a mystery. Something only God knows.”

  I thought on this some and watched the hundreds of millions of bugs all over the lake, the ground, and I thought, my goodness, y’all were under our feet all along and nobody even knew it.

  “Poppy!” I said, excited I’d figured something out. “These magic cicadas are just like the baby in Mama’s tummy! ’Cause we cain’t even see it yet, don’t even hardly know it’s there. But it is there, right?”

  “It sure is,” said Poppy.

  “It the pretty one, see?” said Rainey, holding a cicada up to Mama’s eyes.

  “Yes, it sure is,” said Mama. She watched Rainey snuggle the bug on her finger and pet its back. Mama sighed. “That is a pretty one.” There was a gravel walkway all around the lake and a nice gazebo. In the middle of the lake was an island where the ducks liked to go. A white man and woman and a little black boy walked right past us and headed around the trail. I could hear them crunching by on the ground. The grown-ups were holding the boy’s hand and swinging him in the air. He giggled and begged for more. I saw Mama watching that family, and I wondered what she was thinking. Was she thinking, must be nice to have a man help with your child, or was she thinking, that little boy must not really be theirs, must be adopted, like I was thinking?

  Then I looked around at all the bugs and at Rainey and at Mama with the baby in her tummy, and all of a sudden, I started crying. It’s not something I normally did. I plopped down on the ground and cried for all those bugs just a-dying. I cried for how we never knew till this very minute they were even alive. And I cried for the baby growing in Mama who didn’t have a say-so in the matter of whether or not to rise up. I cried and I cried and I waded down in the water to help Rainey scoop out as many of the buggers as we possibly could. Somebody had to save them. Somebody just had to. Might as well be Rainey and me.

  Mama saw us crying and told us to follow her. It was time to go.

  “We gonna take the bugs?” Rainey asked.

  “Oh, honey, we can’t.”

  “Please! Mama, please!”

  “Oh . . . okay, but just one.”

  “Not enough!” Rainey hollered.

  “That’s all we can do.” Mama was real stern, and we saw it in her eyes. Rainey and I each held a bug in our palms and followed Mama’s footsteps, trying hard not to step on any magic cicadas.

  “I’d like to take one last look in the gazebo, Grayson,” said Grandma Mona.

  “You all go on,” said Poppy. “We’ll catch up.”

  “Where we goin’ now?” Rainey whined, not so happy anymore, sloshing in her wet shoes. Mama was holding her free hand.

  “Listen. I need you on your best behavior. Can you do that, please?”

  “Yeah,” said Rainey, looking at her bug.

  “Yeah, I guess,” I said, sniffling.

  “Good. Thank you.” I watched as my mother left us sitting on a park bench. She looked back once, then straightened her shoulders and headed for a white house. There were houses all around this lake, some directly looking over it, some farther up the hill. At this particular house, two chickens and a duck were waddling around the yard. Wild blue flowers reached up and brushed Mama’s shins as she walked up to the back door. She was still within listening distance if we acted up, I reckon.

  “I the ugly buggy, can you help me swim,” Rainey sang, kicking her feet and bopping her head from side to side. “Can you help me drive the car? Can you help me—”

  “Hush, Rainey, not now.” Rainey loved to make up songs about silly stuff. Sometimes we did it in the car together. Drove Mama batty. Right now, I couldn’t sing. I was focused on Mama and what she was doing up at that house.

  Mama held her hand a couple inches away from the door. She knocked and looked behind at us.

  “What’s she doing?” I asked Rainey.

  “Don’t know. Look the buggy.” Rainey was cooing at her cicada and rubbing its back. Mine didn’t look too long for this world because it hardly moved at all. Or maybe it was already gone, I couldn’t tell.

  The door opened up some, and Mama talked with an old woman in curlers. She had a plastic bag on her head and a purple dress. The woman scratched her bag and cackled, “Harlan Bradfield? Don’t care if I never see him again. But you find him, tell him he owes me a new washing machine. Commode don’t work, neither.”

  My daddy? Harlan Bradfield was my daddy’s name! I couldn’t believe it! Mama’d known where he was all along? And he was here? He’d been in that very house? My heart skipped and ached a little. I’d tried long and hard not to care about my daddy, but hearing his name set me back.

  “Oh,” said Mama. “I see. Sorry to bother you.”

  The door closed and Mama put her hands over her face. She stood there frozen for maybe twenty, thirty seconds. Her shoulders bounced up and down again like they always did when she cried. The sight of her hurting hurt me. Somehow it was worse than missing my own daddy. Mama stood up straight again, smoothed her hair across her head and came toward us, smiling all fake-like.

  “Why didn’t you just say you were coming to find Daddy, Mama?” I said quietly, carefully. “Why didn’t you tell me? Where did he go?”

  Chapter Twelve

  WAR OR PEACE

  “All for nothing,” Mama said, her words like dripping ice. “All this way for nothing.”

  “Nothin’ for nothin’,” said Rainey, grinning to beat the band. She was holding her cicada out like a consolation prize.

  “Oh, goodness, you’re just what the doctor ordered,” Mama said. She looked at me and gave a sad little smile like she was sorry it didn’t work out the way she planned, coming up to the mountains to find my father. She was not one for long explanations, but I knew at some point she’d tell me what she knew about Daddy. She would.

  “It’s okay, Mama,” I said. “I’m sorry you didn’t find him.”

  “Come on, now. It’s time to go.” Her eyes went wide. “We’re off to find an airport!”

  Just like that Mama sprung airport on us. First the trip, then my father, now this. Mama was completely out of control and we were just flailing right after her. Grandma Mona had wanted to go home this morning. For the first time in my life I was thinking she might be the voice of reason. That alone made my stomach twist all up.

  We followed the signs to the Asheville Regional Airport, and I could only imagine my father worked there. Or maybe he was flying somewhere and we were off to catch him at the last minute before he got on the plane like they did in the movies. Maybe we’d won a trip or something. Mama bought lotto tickets sometimes and stashed them in her sock drawer. Maybe she’d won and been trying to keep it a surprise. Lately, that’s all she was, surprises. I was too afraid to ask her what this was all about. Rainey was still holding her cicada, but turned out, mine was already dead before we got in the car, so I was just sitting there empty-handed, grieving my bug.

  “Look at that,” said Poppy to Rainey. “Look right there on its wing. What do you see?”

  Rainey pulled the cicada so close to her eyes, they crossed.

  “Do you see a letter of the alphabet? Right there?”

  “A dub-ya,” said Rainey.

  “That’s right. Every time the magicicadas come up from the ground, they grow wings with either a W or a P on them.”

  “Really, Poppy?” I said.

  “Really. And you know what those letters are said to stand for?” “Huh-uh.”

  “War or Peace.” We all stared at the critter, everybody except Mama, who was driving. “Now that might be an old wives’ tale, but you know there’s always a war or peace somewhere in the world, so in a way, the cicadas are right—every time.”

  “Wow. Every time,” I whispered. Rainey was truly marveling now.

  “Well, this is interesting. We’re flying somewhere, Priscilla? With what money? And I thought you hated flying.” Grandma Mona was i
n the front seat because she’d been complaining about being carsick in the back. Poppy was right next to me in the middle of the backseat. He was holding both mine and Rainey’s hands, the one without the bug in it.

  “Mama, I see airplane!” Rainey’s eyes were peering up, her smile wide.

  “Yes, honey, see that? There’s lots of airplanes over there.”

  “We’re really flying somewhere?” I’d never been on an airplane. The thought of being so high in the air, so small, just a speck in the sky, both excited and scared me.

  “I gonna fly!” Rainey squealed.

  “Better than that,” she said. We pulled into a big grassy area, at least two football fields away from a fleet of planes lined up like soldiers. Mama stopped the car in the shade of big tree, took a deep breath, and said, “When I was a little girl, Daddy used to bring me to the airport whenever it was just the two of us. Maybe just a handful of times, but I remember them.”

  “I do, too, sweetie,” said Poppy. “Oh, what a treat. What a great idea.”

  “We’d do this,” said Mama. She turned off the car and got out, then opened Rainey’s door and unbuckled her. “Come on out, Rain.”

  Poppy followed, then me, and we four stood in front of the old Crown Vic, watching as an airplane took to the air. Whoooooooosh . . . Our heads tilted to follow it as it flew right over.

  “What in the world are we doing?” said Grandma Mona, refusing to get out of the car. She sat there, eyes sharp, cheeks shriveled up like an apple doll.

  Climbing on top of the hood of the car like four big kids, my mother, my sister, my grandfather, and I lay flat and watched the clouds move through the big blue sky. I could feel the hardness of the car in my back and sense my mother’s presence beside me. I pictured Poppy lying on the other side of her, the way they used to when she was little, and it made me so happy. Knowing Mama had left home when she was younger than Rainey and how she didn’t see her parents for a very long time—having everybody all together again, in a way, made this trip all worth it. No matter what happened. Even if we never found my daddy again.