Some Kind of Happiness (12 page)

The wizard's shadowy eyes, darker than the rest of him, were large and soft. “Only you can stop them. That is what the trees tell me. Did you know trees are very fond of ghosts? I never would have guessed that, but it appears to be so.” The wizard smiled faintly and touched the boughs of a tree. “Hello, my friend. Thank you. You look nice today too.”

“Only I can stop
who
?” asked the orphan girl.

“Beware the ancient guardians,” whispered the wizard. The clouds shifted, and in the sunlight the wizard began to fade.
“They shine as white as snow, but they can be as cruel as winter.”

Then the wizard was gone.

The orphan girl felt a rustling in her pocket, where she kept the wrapped dagger. When she placed her hand on it, she felt a warmth. A softness.

But when she withdrew the dagger and held it in the sunlight, it was only that—a blade, a hilt. Cold and unmoving.

A creeping sensation crawled up her back, nestling in her hair. Someone was watching her.

“Find me,” whispered the wizard, from nowhere and everywhere. “Find us.”

And the orphan girl promised, “I will.”

I
T IS
F
RIDAY, AND
I am feeling calm. My cousins are staying over for the weekend, and we are making paper-bag monster masks in the dining room.

When I lose myself, my insides become a storming sea in which it is very easy to get lost. Even something as simple as breathing feels difficult.

But on days like today, the sea is tame, and I hardly feel heavy at all.

(Why can't every day be like this?)

Grandma brings us a plate of sugar cookies. She has been baking cookies all morning for the clinic volunteers, and we get the last batch. “I'm going to take a nap. The Friends of the Library meeting last night, baking all day today. I'm completely worn out.” She touches Kennedy's golden hair. “Kennedy, are you all right with the twins?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Kennedy chirps. When Grandma kisses her cheek, Kennedy beams.

I concentrate hard on cutting my construction paper into a spiky lion's mane for Dex. I want to ask Grandma to kiss my cheek too, but I haven't seen my cousins ask for kisses; perhaps they must be earned.

A few minutes later Grandpa comes in. He stands behind Ruth and examines her mask.

“What is that?” he asks. “A bear?”

Ruth puts her mask over her head and growls at Grandpa, “No, it's a . . .
monster
!”

“Needs more fangs,” Grandpa suggests.

Ruth takes off the mask and examines it. “Good idea.”

“I'm off for my drive,” Grandpa tells Kennedy. “I'll be back in a little while.”

I nearly jump out of my chair. This could be my chance to ask him about Dad. “Can I come?”

Grandpa raises an eyebrow. “With me? Your boring old grandpa?”

“I'm done with my mask.”

“Monster? Bear?”

I pick it up to show him. “Fox.”

Grandpa nods. “Good choice. Come on, then.”

Grandpa's car smells like leather and air freshener. It's so clean you could eat off the floor mats. I feel fancy sitting beside him in the passenger's seat, the polished dashboard in front of me. When he turns on the car stereo, it plays a familiar song.

“Jimmy Reed!” I cry, pointing at the speakers.

“You like him?”

I look out the window. I need to calm down and act my age. “Yeah, I like him okay.”

“He's one of your grandma's favorites. Your dad's, too.
That was a long time ago, though. I don't know what he listens to now.”

Grandpa starts down the long driveway, lined with giant trees. The music plays into silence. I swallow hard.

“He likes classical music,” I say quietly. “He listens to it while he writes. He says it helps him think.”

“Oh? What kind of classical music?”

“Beethoven. Mozart. Schubert.”

Grandpa smiles. “Do you know Beethoven's Sixth Symphony?”

“The
Pastoral
Symphony,” I answer in a rush. “Eight-letter-word for ‘about the country.' ”

I bite my lip. Why did I say that out loud?

“I like crossword puzzles too,” says Grandpa. “Your dad and I used to work on them together when he was little.”

I can no longer stay calm. “We do that!”

“It's a good thing to do, especially when you get older. Keeps the brain sharp.”

I feel small and huge at the same time, like I could either shrink into a tiny, happy ball or balloon up until I burst into pieces. I sit straight and still in my seat, but my insides are a wild party.

At the end of the driveway Grandpa changes the music to the
Pastoral
Symphony, and my heart jumps.

“Where do you think your dad first realized he liked Beethoven?” Grandpa pats my hand. “I'm glad you're here with me today, Finley.”

I am in the car with Grandpa. We are talking about Beethoven and crossword puzzles. He is smiling at me, he is smiling at me, he is smiling at
me
.

“Why do you go on drives every day?” I ask.

Grandpa pulls onto the road. “It relaxes me. It's nice to get out of the house every now and then, don't you think?”

“Yeah. Where do you go?”

“Anywhere with trees.”

I grip my seat to keep from flying away. “You like trees?”

“I love them. Why do you think I bought Hart House?”

“Because of the Everwood.”

Grandpa laughs. “I forgot you kids call it that. How'd you decide on the name? It's really quite nice.”

“I'm good at naming things,” I say, and soon I am telling him all about my notebook—my lists, my stories, the different Everwood creatures.

(I do not tell him about the stories I have written since arriving here.)

(Those are still in progress, and I get the feeling he would not be happy if he knew I'd been out to the Bone House.)

Grandpa listens to every word. Then he says, “Oh, Finley. You're so like your dad.”

My heart is a pounding drum. “I am?”

“Absolutely. He was always writing stories too, when he was little. Sometimes he'd write plays, and he and the girls would get all dressed up in the most ridiculous clothes: skirts and scarves and raincoats, whatever they could find. They'd
put on these plays in the foyer—you know, where those doors open into the living room?”

I nod, imagining it. Beethoven's violins soar. “Did you and Grandma watch?”

“Every single one. Your grandma made me, even the ones we'd already watched a thousand times. Your aunt Bridget always liked to do things over and over, until they got it just right. And your grandma would sit and watch each performance like it was the first one, every time. She'd clap in all the right places. She was so good about that, Finley. She always has been.”

“Good about what?”

“The family thing. Everyone eats dinner together. Everyone cleans house together. Everyone takes turns telling about their day, and everyone else has to listen. You know? Things like that. Not every family does that, but ours always did. And it was because of her.” Grandpa's face is so soft that looking at it is kind of embarrassing, like I am spying on a secret. When I try to imagine Dad talking about Mom like this, I . . . can't.

I scratch the dry spot on my knee, over and over.

“I wasn't always good at being a dad,” Grandpa says, “but your grandma was always good at being a mom.”

I think about Grandma at the park, the little boy with the crooked collar in her lap. “Was Dad messy when he was little?”

Grandpa bursts out laughing. “Oh, goodness, yes. They all were, except for Bridget, of course. Your dad and Stick would
always come in from outside with muddy shoes and scraped knees. Everything was an adventure.”

We are quiet for a while. Grandpa turns onto a road with woods on one side and fields of crops on the other. I watch the rows of corn flash by. The stalks are still small, but by the end of summer they'll be taller than Dad.

“Grandpa?”

“Hmm?”

“When you and Dad talk on the phone, what do you say?”

Grandpa gently taps his thumbs against the steering wheel. “Well, we talk about you a lot. Your mom. Your grandma. He tells me about his classes, and about his writing. I tell him about my golf scores and about his sisters, your cousins.”

I flex and point my bare feet. Kennedy painted my toenails pink. “Grandpa?”

“Yes?”

“Do you love him?”

“Your dad?”

“Yeah.”

Grandpa sighs. It is a tired, heavy sound. “I do, very much.”

“Then why . . . ?”

“Why are you just now meeting us? Why does your dad stay away?”

I nod. My voice catches in my throat.

“I'm going to tell you something, Finley,” Grandpa says, “and I want you to listen carefully, because it's important.”

“Okay.”

“Your grandma had it hard, growing up. Nothing end-of-the-world terrible, but not much love, and not much money. Her parents were always fighting, always spending money on things they shouldn't. Once your grandma had her own family, she decided that this time things would be different. She was going to do whatever she could to make things good for her kids, make the kind of family she always wished she'd had, and she wasn't going to let anything get in her way.”

I think about that while the symphony's third movement begins. “Did Dad get in the way?”

“She and your dad . . . they had a disagreement. And they could never settle it. They got madder and madder at each other until your dad got tired of being mad, and left. And that was that.”

I try to imagine being so mad at Mom that I would leave her forever, but I cannot do it. “Were you mad at him too?”

“A little,” Grandpa admits. “Mostly I wanted them to figure out a way to make peace, but . . .”

His voice trails off. The symphony dances on happily, which seems really rude of it.

“Grandpa?”

“Yes, Finley?”

“Does . . . does Grandma hate me like she hates Dad?”

Grandpa pulls the car over and looks right at me. “She doesn't hate your dad. She loves him, and she loves you, Finley. She loves you more than she knows how to say.”

My eyes fill up with tears. “Then why won't they say sorry and get over it?”

“Sometimes things are too big for ‘sorry.' ” Grandpa wipes my cheeks with a handkerchief embroidered with his swirly initials:
WH
. “But I don't think they'll always be that way. You being with us this summer is big, Finley. It's tremendous. Maybe it's a step. A baby step. That's what life is, you know: a bunch of baby steps, one after another after another, and sometimes you fall, but you always get back up, and eventually you get where you're going. And, hopefully, you have people beside you to help you up when you need it. That's where family comes in.”

I have many questions left, but they can wait. Right now I will nod and let Grandpa hug me, and I will think about how he loves Dad after all. Grandpa's shirt is white and wrinkle-free; he smells like laundry and this morning's pancakes. The sunlight makes his face look older than usual, but I like it. I imagine each wrinkle is a year, and each year was a good one.

“Shall we keep going?” Grandpa tucks his handkerchief away. “There's a farm stand down this way that sells the best strawberries you've ever tasted.”

“Strawberries are my favorite,” I tell him.

He squeezes my hand. “They're your grandma's, too.”

As we get back onto the road, Grandpa skips the next movement in the symphony, the one where there's a storm, and goes right to the last movement, where the sun comes back out and everything sounds like flying.

I don't mind.