Missing May (7 page)

It was dark when we finally pulled into the yard, the headlights of the car flashing across Ob's old Chevy sitting in the weeds. We'd been quiet all the way home, but not a hard, lonely quiet. Just tired. Full of thoughts.

We were getting ourselves and our stuff out of the car. Ob was talking to Cletus about how comfy the couch was to sleep on (Ob had asked Cletus to spend the night so we wouldn't have to answer any awkward questions from Cletus's parents). And I was thinking of May.

Then something flew over me.

We all let out a little gasp. The wings were so completely silent and we so unprepared. But the moon was bright and the shadow of those wings so real, and before we could find our voices, before I could call out, "Wait!" the owl had flown off into the night.

I remembered her then. I remembered May.

I began to cry. I had not ever really cried for May. I had tried so hard to bear her loss and had swallowed back the tears that had been building up inside me for two seasons. But nothing could keep them back once that owl disappeared from my eyes and I knew as I had never known before that I would never, ever, see May on this earth again.

I cried and cried and could not stop crying. Then Ob lifted me up and carried me through the door Cletus held open and he took me to my room as he had done so many times when I was a little girl. My stomach and my throat burned and ached with the tears as I curled into a ball on my bed and tried to cry the very life out of my body. But for every bit of life I cried away, Ob held me hard against him and he put more life back in me. He did not ever speak. Just held on to me and wiped away the tears with his strong, wide hands until finally my body was emptied of those tears and I was no more burdened.

When finally I felt I could speak, I whispered to him, "It's been so hard missing May."

And Ob said, "She's still here, honey. People don't ever leave us for good."

I laid my head on his shoulder, so grateful he was still here with me, grateful even for Cletus, who I knew was somewhere in the trailer, waiting. I closed my eyes and thought of my poor young mama and May's poor mommy and daddy and my dear May herself. But I didn't dwell on them with pain or with fear. There was tranquillity in me that felt all right, and as I remembered them all, my tears dried up and I fell asleep.

When Ob and me met you, honey, you was such a shy thing. Them big d'

eyes of yours looking like a puppy begging for love.

I knew right off I wanted you. I took Ob out to the back porch after supper and I said, "Ob, we've got to take that child home with us."

Well, Ob had seen how at the supper table you'd been too scared to death to ask for anything--run out of milk in your glass and too scared to ask Connie Francine to fill it up again--Ob knew an unhappy child when he saw one.

So he said, "We're taking her today, May," and we just packed you up and took you. Those folks never cared. Those Ohio kin--they're good people mostly, but they're limited, honey.

I couldn't hardly keep my hand off you those first few days. Remember how I was always touching your hair, combing it all the time and clipping pretty bows to it? I had me a little girl finally, something I'd wanted all my life. I'd come to figure the good Lord wasn't ever going to give me one, for reason of His own. But He was holding me steady all those years, waiting you to be born, waiting for your poor mama to die, waiting for Ob to see you didn't know how to ask for a glass of milk.

I worried about as not having the money to give you what you deserved. I wanted so much to buy you them big plastic houses with those little round headed people sitting inside. And those great big baby dolls that wet their diapers. I wanted to dress you up in pink and yellow every day. Take you over to Charleston to that big glass mad and go in that big department store and buy everything pink and yellow for little girls.

But we just didn't have much, honey. We were both sorry for it. Ob made you those little wooden people to play with. And I picked through everything at the Goodwill to find you some nice clothes. But we knew you should've had more. We were so sorry for it.

Remember you and me out late that one night? What is it we were doing.

... You thought you, heard a cat a-meowing and wanted me to come see with you. Do you remember? And we put on our coats and went out, and the moon was as big around as I'd ever seen it, and we didn't need no lights, it was that bright. And just as we were heading for the shed to see if there was a lost kitty in there somewhere, out of that dark came a big owl just swooping right across our path. Biggest thing I'd ever sea, and not a sound.

And you and me, we couldn't say a word. Just stood there with our hand over our mouth, frozen up like statues, watching those wings flap off into the dark.

I'd not ever sea an owl in all my days, and when I hadn't had you but a few weeks there that one passed through my life. I knew you'd always be doing that for me and for Ob. Bringing us good things like that.

I used to wonder why God gave you to us so late in life. Why we had to be old already before we could have you. I was almost big as a house and full of diabetes. And Ob an old arthritic skeleton of a man. We couldn't do none of the things we could've done for you thirty or forty years back.

But I thought on it and thought on it till I finally figured it out.

And my guess is that the Lord wanted us all to be just full of need. If Ob and me had been young and strong, why, maybe you wouldnt've felt so necessary to us. Maybe youd've thought we could do just fine without you.

So the Lord let us get old so we'd have plenty cause to need you and you'd feel free to need us right back. We wanted a family so bad, all of us. And we just grabbed onto each another and made us one. Simple as that.

I always told Ob he was my moon and sun. And when you came to us, Summer, honey, you were my shining star.

You are the best little girl I ever did know.

CHAPTER TWELVE

When I opened my eyes the next morning, the brightest yellow sunshine was coming through the window. It is nearly spring now. May's daffodils will be blooming.

I smelled hot coffee brewing in the kitchen, and bacon. Somebody was cooking me breakfast.

I came out of my room to find Cletus setting the table and telling Ob all about some article he'd read on people spontaneously combusting. And Ob cracking eggs into a big plastic bowl and telling Cletus he didn't believe a word of it.

I said, "Good morning," and they both grinned at me and said good morning back. Then we all three ate ourselves nearly to oblivion on the best eggs and bacon I ever tasted in my life.

After breakfast Ob said, "I got us all a chore this morning."

And within minutes we were carrying whirligigs out the door.

We used May's tomato stakes and other bits of board we could find and we filled up May's empty garden with Dreams and Thunderstorms and Fire and that bright white Spirit that was May herself. Then Cletus went inside the trailer and came out carrying the Reverend Young's church handout.

We stood there in May's beloved and practical garden, and Cletus searched the handout for some good words to say to bless the whirligigs that now had a place to spin and fly and live.

He read:

" 'What is the true mission of spirit messages? To bring us consolation in the sorrows of life...."'

Ob and I smiled at each other. And then a big wind came and set everything free.

end