Born Under a Lucky Moon (22 page)

Grandma suddenly weighed in. “It's so damn hot down in Florida. I hated it—all those old people clicking their dentures and gumming tapioca pudding.”

I stared at her. To my knowledge, she had never gotten farther south than Indianapolis. Mom and Dad exchanged a look that told me there was a story to be told. Anna stood up and put her purse over her shoulder. Evan got the hint. When they went out the door, Buddy came in.

“Has that dog been out since this afternoon?” I was incredulous. “Didn't you guys wonder where he was?”

“I saw him over at the Keenes' earlier today when I took a walk,” Dad volunteered.

“You didn't call him home?”

“Nah, he seemed like he had important business with their poodle.” He turned to Mom. “What's that poodle's name again?”

“Snickers,” Mom replied.

“Right, Snickers. So I gave him a pat and went on. Buddy knows where he lives.”

Mom helped Grandma to her feet and they went slowly up the stairs. I could hear her gently urging the elderly woman, “That's it, Pearl, just another step. Almost there.”

“What gives with Grandma?” I asked my dad. “You never told me she lived in Florida.”

“It was a long time ago, Jeannie.”

“Was it before Grandpa died?”

For a long minute I only heard the crickets outside.

“Yes. Your grandmother had a . . . a little problem.”

I waited. I didn't want to interrupt a rare discussion of my father's childhood. Dad finally went on. “She ran away from home. I was about thirteen years old. She had spent years taking care of her own mother, who died of cancer. She went over the edge at the funeral and eventually took off with another man. We didn't know where she was for a couple of years.”

A couple of
years
? I tried to imagine Mom running off when I was thirteen and not reappearing until I was fifteen or sixteen. I couldn't picture it. Mom would never leave us. I thought about poor Dad. Uncle Robert was eight years older than him, so he was undoubtedly out of the house by the time this occurred.

“My father and I looked everywhere for her,” Dad mused. “We went to Chicago, we went to Detroit, but we never could find her. Then one day she was just there when I got home from school. She never talked about it to me, but she told my father that she had lived with that man in Naples, Florida, for a few months, and then he had deserted her. She got a job in a nursing home and wound up doing exactly what she was trying to escape: taking care of elderly people and watching them die.”

Dad never spoke about stuff like this. Mom came back downstairs and gently rubbed his balding head. I went over and hugged my father, who had always, always been there for me. I told my parents that I loved them, as I did every night, and I went to bed.

Chapter Nineteen
July 1986

M
om was shaking me. “Jeannie, Jeannie, wake up.”

I opened my eyes and sat straight up in bed. Both Mom and Dad were standing above me. My mother's hazel eyes were full of tears. Dad was holding her and rocking her back and forth.

“What is it?” I whispered. “What happened?”

My mother turned and buried her face in Dad's chest. He wrapped his arms around her and laid his head on top of hers.

“It's Lucy, honey,” Dad said. “Her plane went down this morning. There aren't any survivors.” His voice broke and he sat on the edge of my bed and sobbed and shook until he scared me. He put his face in his hands while Mom clutched herself. For a moment, we were a still life in the gray light, me holding the covers with both hands, Dad hunched over his knees, and Mom staring out the window.

I looked at Lucy's cheerleading photo stuck into the frame of the mirror. This wasn't possible. Bad things always threatened my family but they never really happened. “Now come on, why would you think such a thing?” I spoke in the tones of someone who thinks others are overreacting and I could make it better if I pretend it's not really so bad.

“Her name is on the passenger list.” Mom's voice was a distant shell of itself. “Can you get up? We need you.”

The TV was tuned to the local news. I silently joined my parents and we watched the report. A military plane out of Marquette, Michigan, en route to Grand Rapids, had been struck by lightning. The pilot managed to get off a mayday and then the plane had disappeared from the radar somewhere over Lake Michigan. Twenty-eight servicemen and -women were on board and presumed dead. We watched the news helicopter footage of bits of green metal floating in the giant expanse of slate blue water.

“Are you sure she was on the plane?” My voice wavered.

Dad sat next to me on the couch and held me. “We called the TV station as soon as we heard the news. They gave us the number for the army. They told us she was a passenger.”

“Maybe it's a mistake! The army could've made a mistake!” I was becoming hysterical. Mom sat straight upright with her hands folded in her lap, staring vacantly out into the backyard. Dad held me even tighter.

“Do you want me to call anyone?” I asked through my tears.

Mom didn't respond. Neither did Dad. We just watched the footage of the radar screen with its circular green arm sweeping and a tiny green blip that represented my sister's life. Then the blip was gone. The bottom of the screen read
BREAKING NEWS
.

I asked again, “Do you want me to call anyone?”

Dad didn't have words. He looked at Mom. She shook her head.

They hadn't begun to absorb this yet. They certainly couldn't find the words to tell my brother and sisters or Chuck. The longer they put off telling anyone, the less real it would be. I tried to make them drink coffee but the mugs just sat beside them. Finally, I ran upstairs and got dressed. I took my sister's photo from the frame of the mirror, lay down on the unmade bed, and tried to make myself cry, but I just couldn't. All of this just didn't seem possible.

“Jeannie! Where are you?” I heard Mom's hysterical voice from below.

“I'm here, Mom. I'm right here.” I ran to the top of the stairs and looked down to where she was clutching the banister. She was swaying like she was about to faint and I ran down the stairs two at a time to catch her. Instead, she grabbed on to me and said, “Don't go out of my sight.” With my arms around her, I led her gently back to the living room and turned off the television set.

“The army said they would send someone to see us,” Dad said dully.

We all sat in silence. After a while, I said, “I'm driving to the lake.”

Mom burst into tears and begged me not to leave her. Dad soothed her by wrapping his arms around her again and he nodded at me to go. He knew I needed the solace of the lake. Appropriately, the rain had not let up from last night's storm. I ran to the car and drove down Ruddiman Drive, past the Bear Lake Tavern, past Bay Mills Harbor, and into the state park to Lake Michigan. I pulled over on the side of the road, where the beach grass was whipping in the wind and the lake was kicking up whitecaps fifty feet away. I watched the rain slide down the windshield in long gray teardrops. Somewhere out there in all that vastness of water was Lucy. I closed my eyes. How could my beloved lake have done this to me? To her? Or maybe I should be happy that it had happened here and not in some strange state. Maybe the lake had cushioned her and the other twenty-seven people, opening its welcoming arms to them.

I stared out of the driver's window, willing myself away from Lake Michigan. On the other side of the road was the Sugarbowl. With the exception of the Sleeping Bear Dunes farther north, the Sugarbowl was one of the few gigantic sand dunes left. During winter, a few hardy souls would drag toboggans or inner tubes to the top. The climb, particularly in deep snow, could take more than an hour. Lucy had done it just before she ran off to the army. The white world blurring by her, she had missed a turn and gone over a twenty-foot cliff. When her friends helped her into the house, Lucy was hypothermic and bruised on her arms, legs, and tailbone. Mom insisted on taking her to the hospital for X-rays. The doctor said it was pretty miraculous that she hadn't been hurt more badly, particularly her spine. He'd seen a lot of less fortunate Sugarbowl sledders. That's the way things had always been in our family until now—a lot of near misses but no direct hits.

I pulled back onto the rain-slicked road and knew I had to go to Evan's house. When I arrived, I pounded on the door over and over. It was only 7:30 in the morning and they were still sound asleep. Finally, Evan opened the door. “Jesus Christ, stop making all that noise.” He shuffled back inside, leaving the door open for me.

“Evan?”

He turned back to me. I wasn't wearing a coat and my shirt was soaked through. Water was running down my face and hair. He stood still where he was. He knew. He didn't know which one, but he knew it was one of us. He grabbed his coat and threw it on. He yelled to Anna to meet us at Mom and Dad's and tore out the door with me behind him.

“Evan, let me drive.” I shoved him away from the driver's side. He pounded the roof of the car with a fist and started crying as I poured out the story. When we got home he didn't even wait for me to stop before jumping out and running up the walkway. When I got into the house, Dad was holding Evan just like he had held Mom. Evan's glasses were askew from being pressed against Dad's shoulder and he reached blindly up and took them off. Dad continued to hold him tight.

“Okay, son, okay, okay,” Dad said over and over.

Grandma was sitting at the table, silent for once. Mom was where I had left her.

Evan pulled back from Dad. “Did you call the Coast Guard?”

“No, Evan, the army said they were handling it.”

“Screw that. The local Coast Guard will be in on the rescue for sure.” Evan picked up the phone. He dialed the number from memory. “Stevie? It's Captain Evan Thompson.” He paused and I knew what was being expressed on the other line. Evan listened and hung up the phone without saying good-bye.

He went to Dad and, mindful of Mom, kept his voice low. “They've located nine bodies so far. None of them are Lucy. Stevie Larson is on the rescue crew and he went to high school with her, so he's looking hard.”

“All of those poor children,” Mom moaned. “Their parents. Oh God.”

The day dragged on. Anna came over and made food that no one ate. Every time the telephone rang, Evan would leap up to answer it. The passenger list hadn't been released to the public yet so he knew it would be the Coast Guard calling to give their colleague the latest news.

Around 4 p.m., Buddy started to bark, and I realized he had been silent all day. Sensing the tragedy, he had never even asked to be let out. The rain was still coming down hard. I opened the front door and saw that he was barking because a large black car had pulled up. It must be the army. I looked back over my shoulder at my parents. I wasn't sure they could take the finality of the news that was being brought to our door. Quietly I let myself out and waited on the top step of the porch. The back door of the Lincoln opened and a uniformed figure emerged. The figure turned back to the car and took a large duffel bag from the backseat, then started up our walk. The person's hat was down against the rain. I wondered why the car was pulling away. Were there other parents in our town to be informed?

Then Lucy lifted her head and waved at me. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself,” I said faintly as Lucy came up the steps. She dropped the duffel at my feet and hugged me.

“Can you get this? My back is killing me.” She left me standing on the porch and I heard her call out from inside the front door, “Hi, guys, I'm home and I'm starving. What a trip.”

There was a momentary silence and then a roar of joyous commotion. I sagged down and onto the top step. Buddy licked my hand.

Lucy had missed her connecting flight. She was supposed to go from San Francisco to Dallas, Dallas to Atlanta, Atlanta to Marquette, Marquette to Grand Rapids. She got into Atlanta at about nine o'clock and the flight to Marquette didn't take off until midnight. She lay down on the airport floor, put her head on her duffel, and fell sound asleep. Lucy never could stay awake past ten o'clock.

Another near miss.

She had taken the next flights she could, then grabbed a ride home with the Longs, whom she happened to meet up with at the Grand Rapids airport. Evan was on the phone with the Coast Guard when I walked back into the house. I could hear a whoop of happiness from the other end. He hung up and said, “Stevie Larson and the rest of the crew say welcome home.”

“I'm glad we didn't call Elizabeth and Sammie,” I said. “They would have been on a plane by now.” Mom kept crushing Lucy in hugs. Lucy put up with it for a while and then finally shrugged her off.

“Mom! I'm alive,” she said grouchily.

Dad was sitting across from her looking drained but relieved. He reached out and rubbed her hand. “We are just so happy to see you, Velvet.”

“Why is it that every time I come home there's some big drama going on about me that I don't know anything about?” Lucy demanded.

I pushed her hat down over her eyes. She laughed and took it off. Then we watched a squirrel try out the new bird feeder. He went back and forth onto the perch several times. Off the perch, food available. On the perch, no food available. He continued trying to figure out this new complication for some time.

Grandma got out her deck of cards. “Want me to read you, Lucy?” she asked helpfully.

“No!” Mom and I said in unison.

“Your mother never did like me,” Grandma huffed to me, as though Mom wasn't two feet away.

“You don't like her either,” I volunteered. When Mom shot me a look that said, “Shut up,” I knew everything was back to normal. Evan and Anna finally left. Much later, I woke up and watched the shadows of the trees play against the bedroom wall, where cupcakes and sundaes abounded. I looked over to where, in the darkness, Lucy's picture was back in its place on the mirror. Lucy had let me stay in her room so I wouldn't have to move all of my stuff. I got up and tiptoed down the hall and opened the door to the guest room. “Lucy?”

She rolled over sleepily. “What?”

“I've got sparklers.”

She rolled back over and punched her pillow. “Go away.”

“I've got Roman candles, too.”

She sat up. “The jumbo kind?”

“Of course.”

Lucy threw back the sheet and got out of bed. She grabbed a pair of shorts to go with her T-shirt nightie. Then we made our way out into the stillness of the night. The storm had passed over us by now but it had brought out the inevitable swarm of insects. “Damn mosquitoes,” Lucy whispered, and slapped her legs. We felt our way quietly down the stairs to the beach. When our feet hit sand, we began the ritual. We took the Roman candles and stuck them in the sand, loosely forming a square.

“Ready?” I asked. In response, she scraped a match on a box and handed the little flame to me. Then she lit one for herself. On her nod, we bent to light them. Then we quickly lit the sparklers we each held in our hands. A piercing shriek split the night air as the first fireballs shot up and over Bear Lake. It was our signal to start. Lucy and I danced around and around the flaming candles, which shot off brightly colored comets at regular intervals. Matching arcs of color reflected on the dark water. We waved the sparklers and chanted, “Hail to the Fairy Gods! Hail to the Fairy Gods!” until the last pop came out of the rockets and the sparklers fizzled out. Then we collapsed on the beach, laughing.

“Wow, I'd forgotten all about that,” Lucy said, out of breath.

“I know the Fourth of July was a couple of days ago, but it still seemed appropriate.” Every Fourth of July since I was about five and she was seven, we had performed this ritual. We thought of it as a prayer, to whatever God might be listening, to grant us another good year. As we got older, we thought it was uncool. Somewhere along the line, the ritual died. Until tonight.