Every Single Second (24 page)

“I’d like to think that. But I’ll never know.”

Words welled up inside Nella, clogged her throat. Silent, she and her father watched the shadows stretch across the grass and scrub the day’s colors away.

“You and Angela did a kind, good thing, kiddo,” Dad said then. “What do we know? Maybe that other Marie appreciates it, wherever she is. I don’t think you can ever call kindness a mistake.”

This was so like something Sister Rosa would say.

“We better go,” Nella said. “Mom is really worried.”

They climbed into Dad’s ATV. As they passed Jeptha A. Stone’s monument, a movement caught Nella’s eye. A disturbance in the air. And then she saw something in the grass. A tiny flopping creature. The yellow-flecked bird swooped over it, crying.

“Dad, look!”

A baby bird, bug-eyed and naked, quivered at the statue’s feet.

“It fell out of the nest!” Nella jumped from the cart. “Oh, Dad!”

“Hang on!” He sped away. Minutes later he was back
with a ladder, which he leaned against Jeptha A. Stone’s broad shoulders. The mama went out of her mind, flapping and whistling and jumping up and down on the nest.

“We won’t hurt him,” Nella promised her.

But the baby looked so fragile, Nella was afraid to touch it. It was the purest, most innocent thing she’d ever seen. Gentle and Decisive, she told herself. Whispering in baby-bird, she slipped her fingers underneath and lifted it. She could feel its heart. Did birds have hearts? A tiny innocent heart in her hands.

Standing up, she carefully passed it to Dad. The mother bird dive-bombed his head as he reached toward the nest. Direct hit!

“Yikes!” he cried. Then, “Home sweet home.”

The two of them hugged and high-fived. Nella thought she saw a tear in his eye, but that couldn’t be. Dad never cried.

Just like Nonni.

As he folded up the ladder, Nella suddenly stood very still.

“Daddy. Did you hear that?”

“What?”

Nella shook her head. She’d lost her mind for sure. She could have sworn she heard a voice, a ghostly rumble of a voice, say
Thank you.

What the Statue of Jeptha A. Stone Said

T
hank you.

NOW NOW NOW

T
hen, just like that, everything inside her gave way.

“Dad! Dad.”

Inside Nella, everything was falling. It was a landslide in there.

“Bella?” Her father looked at her in alarm.

“I love you. I thought I didn’t anymore but I was wrong, I was wrong again. You’re the same, my same dad, and I still love you the same. I don’t know what— I was so angry at you, and we didn’t talk, then it got too hard to talk, then it seemed impossible, but all this time, really, inside me, I still . . .”

“Hush, hush now.” He touched her cheek. His big hand, those work-rough fingers. “It’s okay. It doesn’t matter now. I love you too, Nella. With everything that’s good in me, I’ll always love you.”

THE TRUE TURTLE GIRL

now

C
lem got excited easily, but even for her, this was over the top. The sun was barely up when she called.

“I thought of the thing! The perfect quintessential thing! Are you ready?”

There was a thump and a pause.

“I dropped the phone! I’m spazzing out! So here’s my idea. I borrow Patch’s watch, the one that keeps perfect time even on mountain peaks and ocean bottoms? You and I both have cameras. We count down, and at the exact precise moment, we take each other’s picture. We record exactly who we are at that momentous moment. It’s brilliant, you have to agree. It’s ephemeral and permanent at the same time.”

“I never look good in pictures.”

“Nell!”

“Just kidding! It’s a genius idea. It’s like . . . like we grab that extra second and store it up. We put time in a bottle.”

Or something.

“Exactly!” Clem sounded relieved. “I was scared it would fail your dumbness test.”

“No! Not at all! I can’t wait.” Nella meant it. She didn’t care what they did. She’d do anything Clem wanted, just so long as they stayed friends.

That afternoon, Dad wouldn’t let Nella come with him to visit Nonni. He told her she needed a day off. Mom shooed her out of the house.

“Go have some fun!” she said. “Go on!”

Like Nella was still a little kid. Like fun was waiting around every corner.

Speaking of corners, Sam and some other boys were hanging around on hers. Since Clem came back, Nella couldn’t predict when she’d see him. He flashed a smile, then quickly turned away. No way he was letting anyone else know he liked her. If he even really did.

He does,
said a voice inside her.
You know he does.

It sounded like a new voice. It sounded authoritative, not her usual Voice of Feeble and Futile Questions.

You know,
said this voice. This newly installed GPS.
You know what you know.

Nella went to Nonni’s house to water the fig tree. The fruit was almost ripe, plump and velvety. Her mouth watered.

“Hey! Hey!”

Oh no. Turtle Girl was at the bottom of the steps. No escape.

“The old woman who lives here? Did something happen to her? We haven’t seen her.”

Thank goodness,
she undoubtedly meant.

“She had a stroke,” Nella said. The girl was wearing the scarf Nella snitched. Did she wonder how it found its way to her mailbox? Or did miracles like that happen to her all the time?

“That’s awful!” Turtle Girl said. What an actress! She actually sounded sincere. “Is she going to be okay?”

Nella nodded. Suddenly, this was something else she knew. Nonni would get better.

“She’s a pistol.”

“She’s my great-grandmother. She’s old. Too old to change. She’s awful on the outside, but—”

“You don’t have to tell me.” Turtle
Girl eased the instrument case off her back and onto the ground. She folded both arms on top. “
My
great-granny? You would not believe the stuff she says. Like, once I was sitting on the ground, and she gave me this lecture about how if my girl-parts got cold, I’d get a congestion and never be able to make babies.”

Nella would have been embarrassed, except that the way the girl burst into sudden laughter was so contagious.

“She’s your great-grandmother’s evil twin. They’ve got the same frown.”

The girl made such a ferocious face, Nella laughed again.

“Nonni likes listening to you play. She loves music. Though her taste is awful. Mario Lanza!”

“He was actually an amazing tenor.” The girl slid her arms through the straps on her case and hefted it. “Can you tell her the Gypsy across the street sends get-well wishes?”

“I’m sorry she calls you that.”

The girl shrugged, as much as a person wearing an enormous case could. “I should’ve come over and told her my
real
name. I’m Cara.”

“I’m Nella.”

“Ciao, Nella.”

“Ciao.”

She was nice. Big sister nice. Nella fingered a leaf of the fig tree. Another mistake she’d made. Cara wasn’t the person she thought. Shredding the leaf, she wondered if that
meant she wasn’t the person Cara thought.

“Cara?” She ran to catch up.

Cara smiled, surprised.

“You know that vigil?” Nella asked. “I saw you there.”

“Oh. Oh my God.” Cara’s face squinched up. “Did you see his two boys? They reminded me so much of my little cousins, it broke my heart! How could that guy do it? How can he live with himself?” She stopped walking, and her face changed. “Wait. Do you know him?”

“He’s my friend’s big brother.”

Cara looked horrified. She started walking again, faster now, scarf fluttering.

“His name is Anthony.”

“I know that.”

“But that’s all you know.”

“It’s plenty, thanks.” Cara walked even faster.

Long as Nella’s legs were, it was a struggle to keep up. Obviously Cara regretted being nice to someone who turned out to be friends with a murderer.

“He taught me how to tie my shoes. After their mother left them, every morning he braided his sister’s hair.”

Cara stopped on the edge of the railroad trestle’s muck and slime. She looked Nella in the eye.

“What are you trying to tell me, Nella?”

“Just . . . you don’t know him. Like I didn’t know you before, so I was sure you were one of those snotty college
kids who think they’re better than us. But we have stuff in common. We both like mean old ladies.”

Cara peered through the shadows to the scoop of light on the other side.

“You’ve got stuff in common with Anthony, too,” Nella said. “He likes to make art, the same way you make music. Probably there are other things. So . . . so don’t think you know who he is. That’s all.”

Cara pulled a shaky breath. Some seconds went by. Then some more.

“I don’t know him,” she said. “And I don’t want to.”

A big truck rumbled up the hill, and Nella felt the sidewalk beneath them shudder. The vibrations ran up from the ground through her belly and settled in her chest. Cara was still gazing toward the sunlight, but now she turned.

“But Nella,” Cara said at last. “When your granny gets home, you two can come over and Tyler and I will play for you.”

“Is that the guy with all the hair?”

“Yeah.” She smiled. “He’s pretty good on the keyboard.”

“We’ll come. Even if I have to drag her.”

Nella watched Cara readjust the straps of her case and forge up the hill. When her scarf slipped off, she didn’t notice. Nella ran to give it to her, but Cara said, “You know what? That’d look pretty on you.”

Maybe it wasn’t too late.

“Nonni was really upset today,” said Dad when he got home. “You have any clue why?”

He’d never know unless Nella told him. She could get away with this if she wanted.

“I told her about Anthony.”

“For the love of God! I can’t believe it! How many times did I tell you?”

“Dad. She already knew. She remembered seeing it on TV.”

“She was really worked up, Nella. Talking crazy nonsense! Something about money, and her basement, and . . .”

“You could understand her?”

“Some.”

“That’s kind of amazing, isn’t it? That’s progress, isn’t it?”

“It would be if she made any sense. And when I told her to rest, she almost bit my head off!”

“Wow. Sounds more and more like Old Nonni.”

Dad couldn’t quite hide his smile. Things were different between them now. Not that they’d started having heart-to-heart talks. Not even that Dad talked to her much more than before. But things were different. They were saying things to each other again, with and without words.

LEAP

now

I
n one second:

A bird’s heart beats 10 times.

Light travels 186,000 miles.

Four babies are born and two people die.

Nella and Clem would snap the photos that captured their friendship forever.

They were in Clem’s room, practicing clicking their cameras lightning quick.

“Three two one—
click
!”

Mr. Patchett’s watch swam on Clem’s skinny wrist. It could calculate time to one hundredth of a second.

“Three two one—
click
!”

Nella’s photos clipped off the top of Clem’s head, or her chin, or her left ear.

“I’m not good under pressure,” she lamented.

Clem talked about the many different ways humans had measured time. How long it took a candle to burn down, or water to drip into a bucket, or sand to fill a glass. People piled up stones and studied their shadows. They tracked a certain star as it moved across the sky. They were never satisfied, always trying to find a better way to pin it down.

“Einstein said that the only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once,” she said. “Ready? Three two one—
click
.”

This time Nella’s feet got tangled and she almost dropped the camera.

Clem’s look was dubious. “Maybe we should just take selfies.”

“No! No way!” Nella panicked. She needed to prove to Clem how serious she was about this. They had to do this
together
. “I’ll get it right. I promise!”

Nella had brought her things for a sleepover. Mom was glad she was “having fun,” and Nella hadn’t tried to explain about the Leap Second. They ate an early dinner of Patchett Food—tofu with piles of nearly raw vegetables—and then they left to scout the neighborhood for the perfect
photo location. They had about an hour, but every other minute Clem checked her father’s watch.

The playground. The front steps of the church. An empty table outside Mama Gemma’s. No place satisfied Clem, who kept whipping off her bandanna and tying it back on. Nella had no idea what they were looking for. Clouds were moving in, and though the sun wouldn’t set for a while yet, the sky was gray and lifeless. It could have been any time at all.

“Clem, how did they decide to add the extra second tonight, instead of yesterday or tomorrow?”