Life Sentences (15 page)

"No." Daisy grabbed her
sister's arm.

"Why not?"

"Because."

"Well… we can't stay here forever."

"
Shh
.
Lemme
think." She squeezed her brain, but nothing
came out. She felt blank and empty, like the lake that had never come
back. It was a terrible feeling, not to be able to think of a plan. Just
then Anna stood up and went around the corner before Daisy had a chance
to stop her.

Daisy stayed hidden in the shadows
while Anna unlocked the door and opened it. "Hello?" she heard
her sister say.

The man mumbled something. He
had a soft voice.

Daisy pressed herself flat against
the wall. She didn't know what she was so scared of. Why was she so afraid?
She could hear Anna and the man talking, their voices low and muffled.
The conversation went back and forth while Daisy craned her neck. Then
Anna said good-bye, and the door banged shut.

"What was that all about?"
Daisy asked when her sister came back.

"Nothing," Anna said.

"Nothing? What were you two
blabbing about?"

"I'm not telling."

"You're crazy."

"I am not!" Anna pouted.
'Take it back!"

"Not until you tell me what he
said."

She rolled her eyes. "Okay,
I'll tell you. But only if you promise not to laugh."

"I won't."

"Promise, Daisy?"

"Cross my heart. Now tell
me."

"He wanted to see Louis."

"He did?"

"But I told him Louis wasn't
here."

"Good thinking."

"Then I asked him what he wanted
to see Louis for, and he told me that he was an angel, and he was coming to
take Louis away."

"What?" Daisy frowned.
Her sister was crazy. "Don't be an idiot. Tell me what he really said."

"Go look!" Anna hollered.
"Go see for yourself if you don't believe me!"

Daisy ran to the window, but there
was nobody there. No man, no car pulling away. She squinted up the street.
"It was just a salesman," she said.

"No, he was an
angel
" Anna insisted.

Daisy could almost imagine a pair
of wings tucked underneath the man's rumpled black suit. "There is
no such thing as angels, you big baby. That's totally make-believe."

"Why are you so mean to
me?" Anna cried, looking deeply hurt and crestfallen. She ran away
and hid with Louis inside the vacuum cleaner closet.

The following day, Daisy found
three guinea pig poops mashed into the plastic bristles of her toothbrush.
She studied her toothbrush with growing disgust, then threw it away in
the wastebasket and stepped back from the sink. There were four more Yoda
poops on the tiled floor. She checked the bottoms of her sandals and found
another dropping squished against the heel. She cleaned -up the poops
and washed her hands but didn't tell her mother. She deserved to be punished.
She'd been mean to her sister yesterday.

"Louis died," Lily told
anyone who'd listen, "
feelin
no pain."
Since she was in charge of the morphine, she' made sure of it.

At the funeral, Daisy began to
understand that when somebody you loved died, you reached for the most
minuscule things to be grateful for. And so, at Louis's funeral, Daisy
kept focusing on one thought:
Louis
is feeling no pain. He's in heaven now, sitting on a toadstool in some
forest glade, contemplating the birds and the butterflies. Yeah,
that's right. Louis is in heaven now, and he's feeling no pain. No pain
at all.

The coffin was so small it hurt to
look at it. Louis's face was soft and malleable, like hot wax cooling.
His hands pressed an invisible book to his chest. His lips were closed
forever on the last words he'd ever say: "Don't forget to feed Yoda."
His hair was slicked back off his face, like at Sunday school. He was poised,
Daisy realized, between light and eternal darkness. It took her breath
away, how brave her little brother was. Far braver than she'd ever be.

Although he'd been sick for a long
time, the end came suddenly. Nobody was ready for it, least of all Daisy's
mother. Lily sat stricken and inconsolable while friends and relatives
came and went, dispensing words of comfort, or so they thought. They held
her hand and whispered things that flew right over her head. Daisy knew instinctively
that nothing would ever assuage her mother's grief, that she would be forever
fearful for her two remaining children. There were so many dead
Hubbards
, she kept saying. Her eyes were red. Her face
was drawn.

After the funeral, Daisy and Anna
spent the afternoon in their room, playing checkers.

"So what happens now?" Anna
asked.

Daisy didn't look up from the board;
she was winning. "To what?"

"To Louis."

"He just lies there,"
she said.

"Underground?"

"That's the rumor."

"Do you have to be so mean
about it?"

"Well, what
d'you
think?"

"I think he's up in heaven
now. Don't you?"

Tired of this line of questioning,
Daisy scattered the checkers.

"Hey!"

"Hay is for horses." She
flopped back in bed and lay there thinking about Louis. "He's floating
on a soft pink cloud… eating ice cream… chocolate swirl."

Anna smiled.

"And whenever Yoda falls asleep,
he goes to visit Louis up in heaven, just like a vacation. And all the
dead Japanese beetles are up there, too, so Louis can feed then-poor
little butts to Yoda all over again… and Louis and the beetles and Yoda
are feeling no pain."

"No pain," Anna agreed.
"Ever again."

That spring, when the last of the
winter snows began to melt, all the rivers and streams overflowed their
banks. It was a warm, sunny mid-March afternoon when the girls went running
through the woods behind their house and suddenly found themselves sucked
off the flooded footbridge into the swollen stream.

It all happened so fast. Daisy
went under and felt herself being pushed and pulled at the same time by
the icy current. She grasped for twigs, swallowed water and somehow managed
to keep her head above water. She bobbed downstream, then hooked onto
an old tree trunk that had fallen across the stream and was half submerged
in the rushing water. "Anna?" she shrieked. "Anna!"

Anna came floating toward her,
spinning around and around. "Help me!"

"Take my hand." Daisy reached
for her. "Take it!"

"I can't!" Anna's eyes
grew big as silver dollars.

Daisy's feet slipped over the
rocky bottom. The current was very strong. She held on to the soggy tree and
reached for her sister's hand.

Anna was coming toward her fast.
"Mommy!" she screamed.

Daisy snatched Anna's hand and
held on tight, then braced herself against the rushing current. It was
hard, like trying to fly a thousand-pound kite. She grew hot all over while
her muscles strained to hold on to her sister.

Dog-paddling frantically with her
free arm, Anna gulped for air. "Help," she screamed. "Don't
let go of me!"

"I won't!" But Daisy could
feel their fingers beginning to slip apart. It was so hard, and she was so
tired of fighting me current. So tired of hanging on.

"Daisy?"

"I know. Shut up." She
clasped Anna's hand and thought for a minute. Then she said, "Stop
dog-paddling!"

"What?"

"Quit dog-paddling! Just float!"

"Float?"

"Grab this branch and keep holding
my hand and float! Go on. I got you!"

Anna stopped dog-paddling and reached
for the branch, and they clung to one another in the freezing-cold water while
the current kept trying to push them apart.

Anna blinked at Daisy through her
wet eyelashes. "Now what?" she said.

"Whatever you do, don't let
go." It was easier, much easier, to hold on to her hand now. Daisy tried
to find her footing, but the streambed was treacherous and the current
kept smashing her against the fallen tree. They had to get to shore somehow.
They couldn't stay there much longer or they'd freeze to death, and Daisy
didn't want to visit Louis up in heaven just yet. She wasn't ready for
that.

"Anna?" she said. Her younger
sister had closed her eyes and looked like she was about to fall asleep.
"Anna!" Daisy screamed in her face.

"What?" She sounded churlish.

"Wake up! We have to move."

"No, we don't."

"Yeah, we do. Wake up! Come
on. Pull yourself out of the water!"

"No."

Daisy slapped her face.

"
Ow
!"

"Follow me." Daisy didn't
falter. Struggling for a handhold, she gripped the fallen tree's soggy
branches and hauled herself across the fast-moving current, slowly pulling
herself up the length of the trunk. She pulled and pulled until she thought
her arms might fall off. She pulled until she was standing in just a few feet
of water," then she turned to Anna and said, "Move it!"

"I can't."

"Yes, you can. Pull yourself
up!"

Anna reached for the biggest part
of the branch. Her fingers were bright pink. Very slowly, she pulled herself
out of the swirling water, and now the sisters were up to their knees in
the foamy cresting water. It splashed and danced around their shivering
legs.

"Come on." Daisy grabbed
Anna's hand, and they slogged their way to dry land.

The girls squealed with delighted
laughter. Anna wanted to he down in the grass and get warm in the sun, but
Daisy wouldn't let her. She dragged her sister through the woods.

"Quit pulling me!"

"You'll get hypothermia."

"What's hypothermia?"

"It means you'll freeze to death."
Daisy towed Anna behind her through a sunny splash of freckles.
"Hurry!" she cried.

"My feet are frozen!"

"That's why we're running home."

"I can't feel my hands."

"Shake them. Like this. We have
to get home before hypothermia sets in."

"Hey," Anna said suddenly.
"You rescued me."

"I know, stupid. Move!"

"Daisy, promise me-"

"What?"

"Promise me you'll always rescue
me. Okay? That you'll always rescue me when I get into trouble."

"Don't be silly."

"Promise me!"

"Okay," she said. "I
promise. Now run!"

Five minutes later, they burst
out of the woods and saw their home not fifty yards away. The house seemed
so remote and self-contained it radiated a kind of warmth. It glowed. Daisy
had never wanted to get home so badly before in her life. She could taste
the gingersnap cookies her mother had baked the night before. She could
almost hear her mother's voice.

"Come on!"

They streaked across the front
yard, laughing and cheering gleefully, when a figure emerged from behind
the barn. It was Mr. Barsum in his army jacket and boots, a skunk stripe of
white in his dark hair. "Girls?" he said with great concern.

"Mr. Barsum!" Anna ran
wildly into his arms.

He picked her up and held on tight.
"You okay?"

"I am now!"

He looked at Daisy. "You're
all wet. What happened?"

"We got knocked off the footbridge."

He took Daisy's hand. "You're
stiff as a board."

She let him hold her hand, too exhausted
to resist.

"Come on
inside," he said.

He took them into the house,
which was warm and welcoming.

"Where's Mom?" Daisy asked.

"Out shopping." He stomped
his boots on the worn floorboards. "Do this to get the blood circulating
again," he told them. "My little drowned rats."

Daisy pulled away from him and stood
by the kitchen door, ready to bolt.

"C'mon in," Mr. Barsum
told her.

"What for?"

"Don't be pigheaded, Daisy."

"I'm not pigheaded."

He sat on a kitchen chair and
held Anna in his lap. Very gently, he took off her wet clothes. He removed
her soggy T-shirt and rubbed her bare hands between
bis
.
Every once in a while, he breathed warm air onto her skin.

"When's Mom coming home?"
Daisy asked.

"In a while, crocodile."

It was warm inside the house, while
outside, the snow was slowly evaporating, sending the
meltwater
rushing downhill into ditches and ponds. Daisy dug her hands into her
wet pants pockets and hunched forward, shuddering violently. She didn't
care how wet she was, these clothes weren't coming off. The spring
meltwater
made a cascading sound, like music that
didn't belong here on earth, but up in heaven with Louis, where he was feeling
no pain. No pain at all.