Home Free (9 page)

Mrs. Walker laughed and said “Bless you, child. What are you doing?” I didn't know what she meant.

“You're half naked, silly,” said one of Debbie's brothers.

“I want to look like my dad.”

Mrs. Walker laughed again. “You are one to beat the band.”

I didn't know what that meant. Then she gave me a shirt, and when I went home for supper, my mom asked where did I get that shirt and so I told her. But she didn't laugh. My dad did though. He laughed until tears came. And right now, looking at my dad's body, and remembering him laughing, I started to laugh, too.

Then Aunt Ethel grabbed me and told me to hush. “It's not seemly,” she hissed. Then I laughed even harder. “I know,” I told her. “I'm very inappropriate,” and laughed even more. Aunt Ethel hauled me outside.

We stayed at the funeral parlor until late, and we were there all the next day, too. But before we left, I went out to the garden and cut some peonies. My dad had taken care of those bushes for a long time, and I thought they'd look nicer around his casket than the big, showy bouquets did. That's what Anne Shirley did when Matthew died. She gave him the flowers he loved.

On Friday morning my dad's sister and brother came to our house and we all got in this big, black car called a hearse. I made sure I didn't sit beside Uncle Bill. I was wearing a black dress that was itchy and hot and I could smell that my armpits were stinky. This was starting to happen to me a
lot if I got hot, and I didn't like it. So I hated this dress. My Aunt Ethel had taken me shopping to buy me something black for today. She said I might as well get wear out of it for the winter, so she bought me this wool thing. But I'm never going to wear it again.

We drove to our church and lots of people were there waiting for us. They all went inside first and then we got out of the hearse and lined up behind the casket. We followed it up the aisle and someone was singing and we went right up to the front pew. I guess when someone dies you're allowed to sit in someone else's pew because this one sure wasn't ours.

The minister talked about my dad and all the things he did around the church and said we'd all miss him. Then we sang lots of hymns and listened to verses from the Bible.

I kept wondering when God was going to let everybody know that this was all my fault.

Men loaded up the casket again and we drove to the cemetery and we all stood around the hole in the ground that was waiting for us.

Then the minister said some more things, but all I heard was “ashes to ashes and dust to dust,” and then there was this roaring in my ears and I couldn't see anything. It all went black and I was pretty sure God was making me die.

And then I was sitting on a bench under a tree, and Mrs. McMillan was there with her arm around me, using her handkerchief to put water on my forehead.

I had a terrible headache and I knew right away that God had done something to me. But I wasn't dead and at least I could see again.

“Feeling better, Leanna?”

I looked at Mrs. McMillan. She is so pretty. I mean, she's old, but she looks kind all the time. She looks like she almost always smiles. Her eyes are dark blue and they never look cold. I felt the tears start. She hugged me tighter.

“You fainted, Leanna,” she said. And for a moment I perked up because I had never fainted before, and I knew just how Anne Shirley felt because she had never fainted before and had always wanted to and then she did when she fell off the roof.

But then I felt mortified. Had all these people seen me faint? Did they see my underwear?

“We got you over here by the fountain and I told your mom I'd take care of you.”

I watched Mrs. McMillan dip her handkerchief in the fountain and wring it out and then she put it on my forehead. Then I saw my mom talking a little ways away. And I looked at Mrs. McMillan again and I said, “I think my dad died because of me. I have behaved inappropriately.” I told her everything.

When I finished she didn't laugh at me or look angry. She took my hands and smiled.

“Leanna. No one knows why bad things happen. But I am sure that little girls aren't punished for having bad
thoughts or saying bad things about their parents. Why, we'd all be in lots of trouble if that were true.”

I thought about this. I knew it was sort of true because I'd heard lots of kids complain about their moms or dads at school and they were all still alive. Then I remembered.

“But I said I wanted to be an orphan.”

Mrs. McMillan nodded. “Yes, you did, and I think that was wrong. And I think if you are earnest and concentrate, maybe you'll figure things out in a less drastic way.”

I wasn't sure what she meant and I asked.

“Leanna. There must be a way for you to be a writer without wishing your parents dead.”

“Cassandra Jovanovich said I should just write and not worry.”

“That's one solution. But it might be hard for an eleven-year-old girl to just ignore her mother. I think you have to find a way to tell her how much writing means to you.”

She hugged me and kissed the top of my head and wiped my forehead with the wet hanky again. And I suddenly remembered how the minister puts water on babies' foreheads and kisses them when they're baptized. Maybe I had just been baptized by Mrs. McMillan.

She left me sitting on the bench. I closed my eyes and said I was sorry. I didn't want my father to die, and I really didn't want my mother to die, either. I was hoping God
would hear me, so I kept my eyes squeezed tight to find out if I was forgiven. But all I heard was a bird singing in the rosebush behind me. I could smell the roses as the bird stirred the flowers.

Later that night I thought that maybe I had been answered after all. Maybe a bird singing and the perfume from a rose was how God said things nowadays.

The next couple of days were blurry. I didn't sleep lots and everything was all mixed up. People kept coming to visit and bringing food and my mom just sat around talking, and we ate whatever was on the table with whoever came over.

It was a funny time. All these people coming to our house. People I didn't think my mother liked much. And people my mother hardly knew, like Kathy's mom. But Kathy didn't come with her. I wanted to ask where she was, but I didn't, and she didn't say. She smiled at me and said she was sorry, but she didn't say anything about Kathy.

These people were all there, day after day, just bringing casseroles and apple pie and flowers from their gardens. And the women sat with my mother and held her hands
while she cried and talked or sat there saying nothing. The men cut our grass and watered the flowers and checked the car tires and stuff. Even Paula came, and when Paula gave me her fudge I didn't hate her anymore. She looked me right in the eye and said sorry. And I said I was sorry too. I wasn't sure what I was sorry about. I knew Paula would never be a kindred spirit, but it just didn't seem appropriate anymore to try so hard to keep not liking someone. Or maybe it was what my Aunt Ethel said. She said, “When someone dies like that, just out of the blue, it sure knocks you for a loop.” But then my Uncle Bill said, “Yup. I was knocked ass over teakettle!” I started to laugh, but was pretty sure it was inappropriate. If I said “ass over teakettle” I'd get smacked on my beee-hind.

Or maybe not. My mother seemed a lot different. She wasn't paying too much attention to me, for one thing. And she didn't seem to have too much get-up-and-go for another. Probably because she didn't sleep at night. Sometimes I'd wake up and hear her crying and wandering around the house. Sometimes I'd just lie there, but sometimes I'd get out of bed and make her a cup of tea. And we'd sit on the couch and look at a picture of my dad. And I'd fall asleep curled up beside my mother.

But one night I said, “How did you meet Dad?”

My mother frowned and I was pretty sure she was going
to say none of your business. So I took her hand and said, “Please. I want to know.”

And my mother surprised me. She smiled and said, “At a grocery store. I was a cashier and he went through my line one day. He came back the next day and the next day and he always went to my checkout line, even if there were a lot of people ahead of him. One day he came to the store three times.” My mother laughed.

“He loved you!” I exclaimed. “Just like in fairy tales! It was love at first sight!”

My mother sniffed. “You read too many fairy tales,” she said.

I ignored her. “And then what happened?”

“Oh, another cashier knew him and introduced us. He asked me to go to the church picnic with him.”

“And you went and then you got married,” I finished.

My mother laughed again. “Goodness, no! My mother didn't approve of him.”

“But that didn't matter. You went out with him and got married.”

“Not for years and years. He moved away and I didn't see him for a long time. But I never did meet the man my mother thought I should marry. No one was ever quite good enough for her. I never knew why. My cousins called me an old maid.”

“But when did you get married?”

“I found out your father had moved back to town. Your grandmother had passed on and there was no one to stop me. I went to his work one day and asked if it was too late to go on that picnic.”

I stared at my mother. “You did that? You asked a boy out on a date?”

My mother sniffed. “I was thirty-five. I had to be bold as brass.”

I thought about David. Maybe I would be bold and ask him to go bowling with me one Saturday.

I stood up and got the photograph of my parents on their wedding day. My mother wore a pale blue suit and a tiny veil.

“Why didn't you have a white wedding dress?” I asked.

“It was a small wedding, Leanna. We were both past wanting anything too fancy.”

“And then you had me.”

“We almost didn't. We thought we were too old to have children.”

I took this in as best I could. I mean, I almost didn't exist. I almost didn't get to be alive. But this was like thinking about my father being dead. I couldn't get the hang of it.

And then suddenly I wanted to know something. “Did you like your mother?”

“Leanna! What a question!”

“I'm sorry if I'm inappropriate. But did you? She sounds mean.”

My mother thought a bit. “She did the best she could. She wasn't mean. She just had her ideas about things. She didn't like Earl and said so.”

“But did you like her?”

My mother had had enough of my questions and she shooed me off to bed.

The next day, I helped my mother put away a tuna casserole Susan Tupper's mother had made.

“She's a kind woman,” my mother said.

I was shocked. “No she isn't. She yells at me.”

“She just believes that children should be seen and not heard,” my mother replied. Then she put away a peach pie.

“All of our neighbors are kind. I'll be sad to leave them.”

“Why? Where are you going?” I asked.

Then I got really worried because my mother told me to sit down.

“I think we'll have to sell the house, Lee. I can't afford to stay here without your father.”

I sat straight up. “But what about my friends? What about school?”

“We won't move far away. There are some nice apartments
over on Royal York. You wouldn't have to change schools.”

I knew Royal York Road. I even knew some kids from our school who lived there. For a moment it seemed exciting. I'd have to use an elevator. And some of the buildings had swimming pools! But then I remembered we wouldn't have a backyard anymore. I wouldn't have my Sanctuary.

That night, as soon as it was dark, I went to my Sanctuary. I lay down on the ground and looked up at the stars. Nothing shivery tonight. Just an emptiness. Was I homesick? I knew in my deepest soul we were really and truly going to leave this house. I was already feeling sorry and sad. I heard someone coming and in a second Cassandra pushed her way through.

“Oh, Cassandra,” I whispered. “I am in the depths of despair.”

“So am I,” she said, and I saw she'd been crying.

“You know?!” I exclaimed. “My mother told you?”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“My mother says we have to move. We won't be neighbors anymore. Isn't that why you're crying?”

“We weren't going to be neighbors anymore, anyway,” said Cassandra. “Doris and Ray just let me know that I'm only here for the summer. They're packing me off to another
relative before school starts. They knew all along and just didn't bother to tell me.”

“Oh, no! Oh, Cassandra! I'm sorry!”

“Don't be. You know I don't like them. It's just that I'll miss you.”

I slumped down on the ground beside her. “Will you be far away? Where are you going?”

“To Mary and Peter's. Peter's a cousin or something. I've met them. They're nice, I guess.”

“But where do they live?”

“A few miles away. Clarkson. We could still visit.”

“Of course we could! And we can phone and write, too,” I added.

“So, when do you move?” Cassandra asked.

“I don't know. My mom's just thinking that's what we'll have to do. But not far. Maybe an apartment on Royal York.”

“And you don't want to go?”

I told Cassandra that my father was here, out here in the backyard. And when we moved, that meant I wouldn't have my father's trees and his hedge and all his flowers. We'd be leaving my father behind. All of my memories of my dad were in the garden. Maybe I'd even start to forget him.

That's when I finally cried. I cried and cried, and Cassandra hugged me and I didn't think I could ever stop.

“Is this what it was like for you?” I asked. “When your parents died? Did you cry and cry and just feel all empty inside?”