Tomorrow River (18 page)

“What? Are you
meetone
?” I ask. “Do you need something to eat?”

Communicating with Woody since she’s gone mute is very much like playing a game of charades. You got to try and piece together what she’s acting out bit by bit and make some sense of it all. She’s begun marching up and down. “Do you want to go for a walk?” Now she’s beating on her chest. “Heartburn? I’m out of Rolaids. I’ll get some more when we go to Slidell’s tomorrow.” My sister throws the lunch box down to the rug and gets down on her belly in front of it. She’s scratching at the latches, so I think I might have been right in the first place. She’s hungry. Starving, by the looks of how hard she’s clawing.

“There’s nothing left in there. I gave it all to E. J. this morning, remember? Here. Let me.” When I pop the lunch box lid, she doesn’t search for a few crumbles of leftover bacon or a bit of cold flapjack. She snatches out the picture she drew at Beezy’s this morning. Waves it frantically in front of my face. It’s the drawing of Mars bleeding all over the place.

I found the dog the same afternoon I found Mama’s watch.

On the kind of spring afternoon that makes you want to crawl into Mother Nature’s lap and give her a kiss of gratitude, I was snuggled out on Mama’s and my reading bench. It’s where she and I would hide out most afternoons, below the shaking aspens. Sometimes, if she and Papa had gotten along that morning, she’d be feeling lighthearted enough to perform a song for me. She was Laurie from
Oklahoma!
belting out “People Will Say We’re in Love” or Maria from
West Side Story
chirping “I Feel Pretty” with a twirl of her skirt, but most of the time we kept our noses in our books. If we came across something that we thought the other would get a kick out of—we’d read aloud. Mama would usually quote the poets. I’d stick to reading her parts of an adventure story, which are my favorites. I go nuts for tales of intrigue set in far-off lands like China or the Dark Continent or California. When I’d come across a particularly exciting passage, I’d say, “Listen to this.” That was the cue for my travel-yearning mother to close her eyes and let the sound of my voice transport her far, far away.

But I wasn’t reading something thrilling like that the afternoon I found the watch. I was flipping through the pages of
The Miracle Worker
trying to get some pointers on how to help my sister start talking, when the sun caught something shiny over near the well. I set my book down, shooed away the leaves that were huddled around the well base, and picked up what had caught my eye. I lost my balance for a second, so I had to grab onto the stony edge. That’s when I got a glimpse of the carcass. Mama was always begging Papa to have Mr. Cole seal the dried-up well for good, but it never seemed to get done.

Oh, well,
I thought, gazing down at the pile of bones that’d got caught up amongst the well’s collapsing walls. Dust to dust and all that. I figured they belonged to a coon or possum, they were about the right size. I was about to head back to the reading bench when I remembered what had caught my eye in the first place. I opened my hand and lo and behold! It was Mama’s watch. The one Sam gave her. Giddy, I wound it tight, slipped its stretchy band onto my wrist, and listened to its still strong
tick . . . tick . . . tick
when I pressed it up to my ear. I ran my fingers over the word
Speranza
engraved on the back.
The Lord has led me to this watch,
I thought.
It’s a sign. But what is He telling me exactly? That time is on my side? To have hope? Yes!

Feeling ever so grateful for this unexpected gift, I dropped to my knees and prayed, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed . . .” That’s when something began niggling at me. I’d only had a quick look into the well, but . . . what was that down there next to the bones? It glittered. Thinking it could be something more of Mama’s, I said, “Hold on a minute, Lord.” I got my tummy up on the well to get a closer look. But it wasn’t one of my mother’s brooches or necklaces shining amongst the crumbling stones. It was a silver bell. The one Woody had taken off a Christmas ornament and attached to Mars’s collar to warn the squirrels that he was on the hunt. The bell was lying at the base of his skull.

That night in bed, I slipped Mama’s watch from the cool side of my pillow, wiggled it in front of my sister’s eyes, and whispered, “Look what I found.” Instead of being excited the way I was, Woody started to cry. I said, “
Shhh
. . . he’ll hear you. Don’t be jealous. You can wear it sometimes, too.”

The reason I still haven’t told my sister about finding Mars the way I should have was because I convinced myself that making her aware of something so tragic might shove her off the edge that she appears to be teetering on. But now I’m realizing that it wasn’t
her
that I’ve been protecting, it was selfish
me
. I didn’t want to watch Woody’s face collapsing into itself one more time. The way she wept in her sleep broke my heart most of all. Watching those tears slip out of her lids when she was supposed to be sweet dreaming—that just about killed me.

I think it was Ralph Waldo Emerson that wrote, “Truth is beautiful; but so are lies,” but I don’t feel so beautiful about lying to my sister anymore. Yet how am I supposed to tell her that her beloved Mars is never coming back? And that as much as I want it to be true, I am not at all sure our mama is either. I see now that hope is just another illusion. Not of your eyes, but of your heart. Hope is for the weak. I must be as strong as the fifth largest constellation—Hercules.

I must tell my sister the truth.

I lift the dog drawing out of her hand, run my finger along the waxy red crayon that’s streaming off Mars’s back, and drag it over to the plaid suitcase that he’s holding in his mouth. She’s drawn pictures of Mars before but the suitcase is something new. She must’ve added it on when I was busy cleaning Papa’s bathroom.

“Yes.” I squeeze my eyes shut so I will not have to look at my sister’s face. “That’s right. Mars is . . . uh . . . he’s gone on a trip . . . but one that he’s never coming back from. He’s dead, Woody. I found his bones in the well and please, please don’t start crying, I’m gonna get you another dog, a lot furrier one I promise.”

Every muscle in my body goes rigid to shield me against her onslaught of sad. I can hear her breathing getting mixed up with my breathing, but that’s all that’s coming out of her. Opening my eyes one at a time, I see her eyes gleaming back at mine, but it’s not sorrow that’s making them shine. It’s . . . it’s pure relief. She’s practically drenched in it.

“Woody? What . . . ?” Was she not as attached to Mars as much I thought? No, she loved that mean dog, I’m sure of it. Maybe she’s just feeling so tired of
hoping
the same way I’ve been that she’s given up or she might . . . oh, sweet Mother of Jesus. There’s only one other reason that I can think of that she’s not fallen to the ground writhing in grief. It’s because she’s
not
surprised at all to learn of the dog’s demise. That’s how she’s acting. But how can that be?

I look back down at the picture. I can almost feel his wiry hair, hear his annoying bark. The night our mother disappeared there was that blood-curdling yelp and then nothing. When the dog didn’t show up the next morning, I figured he’d just run off. And that’s what I thought Woody believed, too. But now I’m thinking that this picture of bloody Mars may not be a creation of her artistic mind, but a true-life depiction. Like a photograph.

I don’t want to know the truth. I have to know the truth.

I ask Woody, “Are you . . . are ya tryin’ to show me in this drawing that . . . ?”

The plaid suitcase Mars is holding in his mouth. It’s Mama’s.

C
hapter Sixteen

W
oody must’ve actually
seen
Mama in the woods on carnival night.

That’s what the drawing about Mars and the suitcase is all about. That’s why it looks so real. My sister was an eyewitness to my mother’s departure.

I’m filled with sadness, but not completely shocked. I thought for a while that she might’ve witnessed something, but I never followed-up on that. Now, I got no choice. Woody’s picture confirms what I’ve been too scared to admit to myself. Mama’s run off.

I can’t be sure, of course, but admitting this truth about her leaving of her own free will instead of fooling myself into believing that she’ll be back any minute or she’s just taken a trip to Italy or she’s got amnesia or even that she’s been nabbed—I really do feel a little freer. The lies have loosened their hold some. The worst one was thinking that Mama was being held forcibly against her will somewhere dark. Woody and I know all about that.

Our mother couldn’t possibly have known how sad, no—
mad—
Papa would get when she took off. They were barely speaking to each other around the time she disappeared.

When they were in a room together it was like watching two icebergs scrape against each other in a polar night. Mama must’ve believed that her husband would be so pleased to have a break from his sassy wife that he’d go back to being warm and cuddly, which would be the best possible thing to happen for her beloved girls.

Her leaving was one thing, but an entirely different beast if she’d taken us with her. Mama is only married to him, but Woody and I have Carmody blood running through our veins. We
belong
to Papa. She knew that His Honor would’ve come after us with the full force of the law. When he found us, he would’ve been disappointed within an inch of our lives.

Woody is still on the edge of the bed, staring down at her drawing of suitcase-toting Mars. I pat her hand and say, “I understand now. You’re trying to tell me in this picture that you saw Mama leavin’ that night from up in the fort, right?” She doesn’t nod yes, but that has to be what happened. “We’ve got to find her. I already searched for her diary. It’s not in the stronghold where it’s supposed to be. There’s got to be something in it that would help us find out where she’s gone off
to
. I bet she’s been writin’ us every single day with directions on where to find her. Papa must be keeping the letters from us. Or maybe Daryle Lawson didn’t bother delivering them.” Our mailman could author a book entitled
I Am Lazy
. “Do you know where her diary is, pea? You do, don’t you?”

Woody rushes over to our dresser and I can’t believe she’s had it this whole time. I feel crushed as I watch her rummaging through the drawers. She never kept secrets from me in the past.

When she finds what she’s looking for, she comes back and sets it on my lap. But it’s
not
Mama’s little blue diary. It’s another one of Woody’s drawing pads. She wants to show me more of her pictures. The pad feels like dead weight. It’s my guilty conscience that’s weighing it down, I know it is.

Since she was born the more delicate of us, I knew that Woody would need the kind of tending that only a mother can provide, so I stepped into Mama’s shoes after she vanished.

Thinking it might help, the way putting on church clothes makes you feel more holy, I put on her cardigan sweaters that still smelled of her Chanel No. 5 and stuck her tortoiseshell combs into the top of my head, strands of her honey hair blending into mine. But to look down and see my legs in her rolled-up pants and to smell her, you know. That was bad.

So I stopped trying to look like her and started
doing
all the rest of things Mama would have done were she here. I sang show tunes to my sister. Tickled her behind the ears. I even tried to look at her drawings and write something complimentary at the bottom of the page like Mama would have. But the pictures weren’t like the ones Woody used to do of butterflies frolicking over a minty meadow or a rainbow with a pot of glittering gold. After Mama disappeared, my sister’s pictures became so gruesome. I told myself that she was just having a “Blue Period,” like Mr. Pablo Picasso had. I even scribbled things like,
“Wow! Look at those snarling teeth. And that ghost dripping blood? Only a genius would think of that”
on the bottom of her drawings. I kept thinking this morbidness was only temporary like everything else that was happening to us. Soon, I told myself, Woody’s pictures will get perky again, but they never did. I finally admitted to myself that my once-sunny sister had been sucked into a world of darkness that I couldn’t afford to follow her into. I couldn’t let myself get so despairing again, which these hellish pictures could do to a person if they stared at them. No. Not if I was going to be the one that took care of us. So when Woody tried to show me her drawings, I began closing my eyes or looking away. Said stuff like, “How about a game of tiddlywinks?” or “Let’s go see what E. J. is up to.”

I see now that was not only cowardly, it was another one of my big mistakes.

She wasn’t being morbid. Well, maybe she was just a little, but just like this picture of Mars, I think Woody has also been trying to tell me something important in her art. Something about the night Mama vanished. Like a drawn-out charade. Yes, I’m sure of it.

“I let you down before,” I tell her, biting back the disgust I’m feeling towards myself. What a coward I’ve been. “I’m ready now. Show me.”

When she notices how bad my hands are shaking, she flips open the cover of the drawing pad for me.

The first picture takes the rest of my breath away. It’s our gorgeous mother with her short hair. It makes me recall the morning she lopped it off.

We were sitting on the back porch steps, the three of us. The hose was running across our feet and Mama was humming “Gonna Wash that Man Right Out of My Hair” while she trimmed Woody’s and my bangs. When she was done snipping, she let out a sigh, and said, like she’d been thinking about it for a long, long time, “I’ve had just about enough of this.” She gathered the thick coil off her neck and took the shears to it. I had no time to beg her not to, her crowning glory was already lying at my feet. She ran her fingers through what was left. Picked up the hose, doused her head, and shook it. “That’s much better. Lighter. Freer.”