Wish You Well (40 page)

“Why sure, son, sure,” said Goode quickly. “Never break up sister and brother.” He added quietly, “But there’s no guarantee of that with an orphanage.” He paused. “So, that’d be all right with you, Oz?”

Oz hesitated and tried to look at Lou, but Goode was too quick and blocked his view. Oz finally said quietly, “I guess so.”

Cotton looked up in the balcony. Lou was on her feet, fingers wrapped around the railing, her anxious gaze fixed on her brother.

Goode went over to the jury and made a show of rubbing his eyes. “That’s a fine boy. No further questions.”

“Cotton?” said Atkins.

Goode sat down and Cotton rose, but then he stopped, his fingers gripping the table’s edge as he stared at the ruin of a boy on the big witness chair; a little boy who, Cotton knew, just wanted to get up and go back to his sister because he was scared to death of orphanages and fat lawyers with big words and embarrassing questions, and huge rooms filled with strangers staring at him.

“No questions,” said Cotton very quietly, and Oz fled back to his sister.

After more witnesses had paraded through court, showing that Louisa was utterly incapable of conscious decision, and Cotton only able to slap at bits and pieces of their testimony, the trial was adjourned for the day and Cotton and the children left the courtroom. Outside, Goode and Miller stopped them.

“You’re putting up a good fight, Mr. Longfellow,” said Goode, “but we all know how this is going to turn out. What say we just put an end to it right now? Save people any further embarrassment.” He looked at Lou and Oz as he said this. He started to pat Oz on the head, but the boy gave the lawyer a fierce look that made Goode pull back his hand before he might have lost it.

“Look, Longfellow,” said Miller, pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket, “I’ve got a check here for half a million dollars. All you got to do is end this nonsense and it’s yours.”

Cotton looked at Oz and Lou and then said, “I tell you what, Miller, I’ll leave it up to the children. Whatever they say, I’ll do.”

Miller squatted down and smiled at Lou and Oz. “This money will go to you now. Buy anything you want. Live in a big house with a fancy car and people paid to look after you. A right nice life. What do you say, children?”

“We already have a home,” said Lou.

“Okay, what about your momma then? People in her condition need a lot of care, and it’s not cheap.” He dangled the check in front of the girl. “This solves
all
your problems, missy.”

Goode squatted down too and looked at Oz. “And it’ll keep those nasty orphanages far, far away. You want to stay with your sister, now don’t you?”

“You keep your old money,” said Oz, “for it’s not something we need or want. And Lou and I will always be together. Orphanage or not!”

Oz took his sister’s hand and they walked off.

Cotton looked at the men as they rose, and Miller angrily stuffed the check back in his pocket. “From out of the mouths of babes,” said Cotton. “We should all be so wise.” And then he walked off too.

Back at the farmhouse, Cotton discussed the case with Lou and Oz. “I’m afraid unless Louisa can walk into that courtroom tomorrow, she’s going to lose her land.” He looked at them both. “But I want you to know that whatever happens, I will be there for all of you. I will take care of all of you. Don’t you worry about that. You will
never
go to an orphanage. And you will never be split up. That I swear.” Lou and Oz hugged Cotton as tightly as they could, and then he left to prepare for the final day in court. Perhaps their final day on this mountain.

Lou made supper for Oz and Eugene, and then went to feed her mother. After that she sat in front of the fire for a long time while she thought things through. Though it was very cold, she led Sue out of the barn and rode the mare up to the knoll behind the house. She said prayers in front of each grave, taking the longest at the smallest: Annie’s. Had she lived, Annie would have been Lou’s great-aunt. Lou wished mightily that she could have known what the tiny baby looked like, and she felt miserable that such a thing was now impossible. The stars were fine tonight, and Lou looked around at the mountains painted white, the glitter of ice on branch nearly magical when multiplied as it was ten thousand times. The land could offer Lou no help now, but there was something she could do all on her own. It should have been done long ago, she knew. Yet a mistake was only a mistake if it remained uncorrected.

She rode Sue back, put the mare down for the night, and went into her mother’s room. She sat on the bed and took Amanda’s hand and didn’t move for a bit. Finally, Lou leaned over and kissed her mother’s cheek, as the tears started to trickle down the girl’s face. “Whatever happens we’ll always be together. I promise. You will always have me and Oz. Always.” She rubbed at her tears. “I miss you so much.” Lou kissed her again. “I love you, Mom.” She fled the room, and so Lou never saw the solitary tear leave her mother’s eye.

Lou was lying on her bed, quietly sobbing, when Oz came in. Lou did not even make an attempt to stop her weeping. Oz crawled on the bed with her and hugged his sister.

“It’ll be okay, Lou, you’ll see.”

Lou sat up, wiped her face, and looked at him. “I guess all we need is a miracle.”

“I could give the wishing well another try,” he said.

Lou shook her head. “What do we have to give up for a wish? We’ve already lost everything.”

They sat for some minutes in silence until Oz saw the stack of letters on Lou’s desk. “Have you read all of them?” Lou nodded. “Did you like them?” he asked.

Lou looked as though she might start bawling again. “They’re wonderful, Oz. Dad wasn’t the only writer in the family.”

“Can you read some more of them to me? Please?”

Lou finally said all right, she would, and Oz settled in and closed his eyes tightly.

“Why are you doing that?” she asked.

“If I close my eyes when you read the letters it’s like Mom is right here talking to me.”

Lou looked at the letters as though she held gold. “Oz, you are a genius!”

“I am? Why? What’d I do?”

“You just found our miracle.”

Dense clouds had settled over the mountains with no apparent intention to move along anytime soon. Under a freezing rain, Lou, Oz, and Jeb raced along. Chilled to the bone, they reached the clearing, with the old well dead ahead. They ran up to it. Oz’s bear and the photo still lay there, soaked and fouled by weather. Oz looked at the photograph and then smiled at his sister. She bent down and took the bear, handing it to Oz.

“Take your bear back,” she said tenderly. “Even if you’re all grown now.”

She put the photo in the bag she carried and then reached inside and pulled out the letters. “Okay, Diamond said we had to give up the most important thing we have in the whole world for the wishing well to work. I can’t think of anything more important than Mom’s letters. So here goes.”

Lou carefully placed the bundle on the edge of the well and set a large rock against it to hold it tight against the wind.

“Now we have to wish.”

“For Mom to come back?”

Lou slowly shook her head. “Oz, we have to wish for Louisa to go down to that courthouse. Like Cotton said, it’s the only way she’ll keep her home.”

Oz looked stricken. “But what about Mom? We might not get another chance to wish.”

Lou hugged him. “I know, but after all she’s done for us, we’ve got to do this for Louisa. She’s our family too. And the mountain means everything to her.”

Oz finally nodded sadly in agreement. “You say it then.”

Lou held Oz’s hand, closed her eyes, and he did too. “We wish that Louisa Mae Cardinal will get up from her bed and show everyone that she’s just fine.”

Together they said, “Amen, Jesus.” And then they ran as fast as they could away from that place, both hoping and praying that there was just one wish left in that pile of old brick and stagnant water.

Late that night Cotton walked along the deserted main street of Dickens, hands stuffed into his pockets, the loneliest man in the world. Cold rain fell steadily, but he was oblivious to it. He sat on a covered bench and eyed the flicker of the street’s gas lamps behind the fall of rain. The nameplate on the lamp post was bold and clear: “Southern Valley Coal and Gas.” An empty coal truck drifted down the street. A backfire resounded from its tailpipe; the small explosion violently broke the silence of the night.

Cotton watched the truck go by and then slumped down. Yet as his gaze once again caught the flicker of the gas lamp, a flicker of an idea seeped into his mind. He sat up, stared after that coal truck, and then back at that gas lamp. That’s when the flicker became a firm idea. And then a rain-soaked Cotton Longfellow stood tall and clapped his hands together, and it sounded like the mighty smack of thunder, for the firm idea had become a miracle of his own.

Minutes later Cotton came into Louisa’s room. He stood by the bed and gripped the unconscious woman’s hand. “I swear to you, Louisa Mae Cardinal, you will not lose your land.”

The courtroom door swung open and Cotton strode in with concentrated purpose. Goode, Miller, and Wheeler were already there. And along with this triumvirate, the entire population of the mountain and town had apparently managed to lever itself into the courtroom. A half-million dollars at stake had stirred feelings in folks that had not been touched in many years. Even one elderly gentleman who had long claimed to be the oldest surviving Rebel soldier of the Civil War had come to experience the final round of this legal battle. He clumped in on an oak timber-toe with a capped stump for a right arm, snowy beard down to his belt, and wearing the glorious butternut colors of the Confederate soldier. Those sitting in the front row respectfully made a space for him.

It was cold and damp outside, though the mountains had grown weary of the rain and had finally broken up the clouds and sent them on their way. In the courtroom, the accumulation of body heat was fierce, the humidity high enough to fog the windows. And yet every spectator’s body was tense against his neighbor, seat or wall.