Saving Cicadas (30 page)

“And Rainey?”

“Rainey's fine. She's full of life and then some.”

“And . . . me?”

“Come here, sugar.” Grandma Mona reached in and hugged me tight. We rocked back and forth, back and forth, and I was surprised at how strong she felt. “Janie, you are my angel.”

Into her dress I breathed, terrified, “But am I dead too?”

Grandma Mona pulled away from me and bent down on her knees right there on the sidewalk filled with cracks and flowers bursting through.

“You . . .” She smiled and brushed a tear away. “You, Janie Doe Macy, my sweet child, my sweetest grandbaby—”

“Grandma Mona? Please?”

“Honey,” she said, and she started bawling like I'd never seen her. “You were never even given a chance, child. You were never even born.”

Chapter Fifty-three
THE GHOST OF GREAT - AUNT GERTRUDE

I didn't know what to believe. I surely felt alive, no different than I always had. I broke free from Grandma Mona who was calling after me. I ran faster than I ever had, back up to the house, in the door. “Mama?!” I looked in the sewing and dining rooms. I ran in the kitchen and saw no dishes, only some peaches left sitting on paper towels on the counter. Everything was cleaned up, no sign of ice cream.

“Mama?”

I ran out back and looked in the garden, at the trellis, under the peach tree, on the rockers, but no one was there. I came back inside and called again, louder, “Ma-
ma
!”

I heard a faint “here.” I flew up the stairs and looked in Mama's bedroom and ours and the other two, frantically darting here and there, and then I stopped and got quiet. I heard my own breath. I heard something else too. Voices.

Looking up at the attic stairs, I leapt and took them two at a time, and when I got to the door I stood there, staring.

“Hey, Janie,” said Rainey. She grinned and waved. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the attic with a photo album across her knees. Mama and Fritz were near her, Mama bent over a box and Fritz flipping pages of another album.

“Mama?” I said. She didn't turn around. “Mama, Grandma Mona said something awful!” I ran to her side and grabbed her arm. I looked up in her face, but she was riffling through a big box. “She said you carried me for two months and then . . . Mama, she said you never let me be born!”

Mama pulled out a large photograph of Grandma Mona and said, “My goodness. Take a look at this one.”

She handed it to Fritz, and he said, “Wow. You look so much like her.” He looked back and forth from the picture to Mama. “Yep. This is the one. I'll get a frame for it. We can hang it right by your daddy next week.”

“But Mama!” I shook her arm, but she never stirred. Never acted like she heard me at all. Fritz didn't seem to notice me neither.

“Janie.” I turned around and saw Grandma Mona looking very much like the photograph Fritz was holding, the one that was going up on the dead wall soon. It was true. Grandma Mona was dead.

“Honey, I'm so sorry,” said Grandma Mona. “They can't hear you, baby. They don't know . . . you're here.”

“But I am here!” I screamed. “I'm right here!”

Rainey stuck her good hand over her ear and used her knee to cover the other one. She started rocking back and forth. “It's okay, okay,” she said.

“Mama!!!” I'd never been so angry and confused. I grabbed a small glass frame of Poppy and threw it across the room. It hit the wall right next to the window and shattered.

Fritz and Mama jolted and turned to look.

“Did you see that?” Mama asked Fritz. She looked over at Rainey, who still had her hand and knee over her ears. “Honey?”

Rainey rocked and rocked and started humming a tune to calm herself down.

“Fritz?” He was standing over by the window with the small frame in his hands. The glass was broken.

“If I didn't see it myself, I wouldn't believe it,” said Fritz. “My goodness. Maybe Gertrude really is here. Uh, Gertrude? We don't mean any harm, okay? My goodness, I never thought I'd be saying something like that.”

I watched in horror as the person I loved most in the world paid me no attention at all. In fact, she seemed frightened of me. It was true. My mother didn't know I existed. I was no different to her than the ghost of Gertrude, except that Gertrude had actually been alive once.

Chapter Fifty-four
THE FAMILY TREE

“Try not to upset Rainey,” said Grandma Mona after she'd coaxed me down from the attic and into her bedroom. “She's the only one who can see us. To her, we're normal family, and nothing else.”

My speech had left me. My head was a tornado. Grandma Mona crawled up on the bed and patted a place next to her. I moved close in slow motion, and she hoisted me up, letting me lie in her lap. I felt her legs, her warmth, and tears stung my eyes. Lying there, I realized Mama's lap had never felt warm like this, only there beneath me. I ran my hand over Grandma Mona's knee and held it there, feeling our heat. She said, “There, there now. I know this is difficult for you. I know it is. But you're doing great. I'm so proud of you. And Janie?”

She was waiting for me to look up at her, but I couldn't.

“Janie, honey, I hope you can forgive me . . . for all the things I've said . . . the way I've acted. I know you don't understand, but I'm not a great liar. The only way I could keep the truth from you was to put distance between us. And the only way I knew how to do that was to be mean, just like my mother was to me. It may not have been right, but it's all I could come up with. And heaven knows, for your sake, for everyone's, you couldn't learn who you were until now.”

I looked up at her then. Tears were rolling off her face and onto mine.

“You and I were so close once upon a time. We did everything together. Read, walked, laughed. Do you remember? But darn it, you're just too smart of a girl. I knew you'd figure something out, pull the truth out of me if I let you be close to me. Honey, I hope you can forgive me. It's all been a horrible but necessary act. I love you more than there are stars in the sky. I'd do anything for you, for Rainey, and for your mother.”

Outside in the hallway, we could hear Fritz, Mama, and Rainey coming down the stairs, and Mama telling Rainey to clean up, it was almost time for supper. Next thing I knew, there was a knock at the door, and Rainey came in. Her bottom lip stuck out when she saw me crying.

“Janie sick,” she said, looking from me to Grandma Mona. She came over and petted my head, and I felt pressure from her, but no heat. Again, the tears.

“She's not feeling real well, honey. You go on down and have some supper. You're working at the grocery store in a little while, right?” “Uh-huh. We havin' noodles.”

“Oh, noodles. That sounds very good.”

Rainey bent down and put her face in mine. Her eyes smiled at me. “I go tell Mama you sick.” Then she skittered out and down the steps.

Part of me waited for Mama to come up and check on me, and part of me knew that just wasn't going to happen. I sat up a little and stared at the family tree quilt. I noticed something I hadn't before, as if my eyes had only just opened. “Rainey's got a peach,” I said. “She's a real girl. Her name is there and everything. I don't have a peach. I'm not a real girl.”

“You're real,” said Grandma Mona. “You're only—”

“My own mother thinks I'm just Rainey's invisible friend.” It was the worst thing I'd ever known. I waited for her to say I was wrong, but instead she stayed silent. “Why am I here?” I said finally. My whole world ground to a halt.

Grandma Mona looked at me with her blue eyes so much like Mama's and said, “You're here because she needs you.”

“Rainey?”

“Your mother.”

“She doesn't need me. She didn't even want me born. She doesn't even know I'm here.”

“You are here, Janie, because your mother feels the void of your loss. Because she regrets what she did eight and a half years ago.”

“By kill—”

“By not letting you be born. That's correct.”

“She did abortion on me.”

“She did that. Yes.”

I thought I might be ill, thinking of how I was no different than those dead babies I'd seen in the library. I closed my eyes and pressed my face into the quilt, hoping I could just quit breathing. It felt like so much effort.

“Mama doesn't love me.” My face scrunched up and Grandma Mona grabbed me in her arms. She held me tight.

“She does love you. She just . . . realized it too late. Honey . . . I was there.” She pushed me away and held my shoulders. She bore down into my soul with her eyes. “I was there! I tried to stop her. Oh, Janie, you don't know how hard it was. She was convinced your father would leave her if he found out she was pregnant. It was all she thought she could do at the time . . . for herself, for Rainey, so she could have a father in her life. Honey, I tell you the truth, the moment she did it she knew she'd made the biggest mistake of her life. She realized she loved you, honey, in the instant you were gone. I held you in my arms, and I've loved you as my own from that second on. You have always been loved. I promise you that!”

“You raised me,” I said, the truth of it heavy on my heart.

“I did. With Rainey. To her, you've always been her baby sister. You see, Rainey is special in many ways. Her heart is pure. Her faith is simple. She doesn't get bogged down with what should be and what shouldn't . . . what is possible or not. She can see us and love us because she has no barriers between earthly and spiritual matters. It's as if there is a window between us, and Rainey can see right through it. Most people are blinded, but she is not. It's her gift.”

I ran out of the room and hurried down the stairs. “Wait, Janie!” Grandma Mona ran after me and caught me in the living room. She held her arms tight around me. I was peeking around the corner at Mama serving Rainey noodles. There were only two bowls on the table. Only two. Sadness swept over me. How could I have been so blind all my life? To have seen only what I wanted to see? How could I not know my own mother ignored me? Were there other children out there just like me? Children who had no idea they didn't even exist?

Rainey slurped some spaghetti. She laughed and got red sauce all over her face. Mama sat there, barely picking at her dinner. She looked over toward us, and I hoped she might see me, but she looked away again. It was true. Rainey was the only living person who knew me. I started thinking about Rainey and me. How we'd always played together. How she'd treated me just like any other kid. She'd loved me unconditionally even though
I
was the special one. I remembered how she would tell Mama to kiss me good night. She'd ask for the night-light only because she knew
I
was afraid of the dark. She'd say things about me, and Mama would humor her.
Good night, Janie. What a pretty dress, Janie.
Mama never even saw me. She was playing along with whatever Rainey had said. My whole life had been a lie.

“I've been in Rainey's life since the very beginning too. I died a week after she was born,” Grandma Mona whispered in my ear. “In a car accident. Your mother has mixed feelings about that. She's always been angry at me and missing me at the same time. It's a terrible way to feel.”

“It's how I feel about Mama,” I said. “Angry. And missing her.”

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

“But why was Mama angry at you?” I asked.

“Oh, now . . . that is the toughest part of all of this.” Grandma Mona took me by the hand and led me back up the stairs to her bedroom. I went willingly. Watching Mama just made me hurt.

Grandma Mona and I stood in front of her window. I looked up at her, but she kept her eyes on the sky. “I'm ashamed to say this, especially to you, but you need to understand.” She squeezed my left hand. “Many years ago in Yuma, my mistakes started flooding over me. I thought the most painful thing in the world was to give your baby away, and when Priscilla told us she was pregnant, well, I wanted to spare her that. I told her to have an abortion. I thought I was protecting my child. I told her she was wasting her life. That nobody had to know a thing. Your mother left home to save Rainey's life. To get away from me. And I'm glad she did. As soon as I heard about Rainey being born, I was sorry I'd ever suggested not having her. But by then it was too late. I'd pushed your mother away. I died on the road, Janie—on my way to tell her how sorry I was.”

Chapter Fifty-five
THE SPIRIT - FILLED LIFE

Evening had come and the sky was filling with dim stars. I'd never been so tired in my life, but Grandma Mona was keeping me awake. It was torture being stuck in her bedroom, stuffing her square, jagged words into my round-peg head. My head hurt. My heart hurt worse. We were sitting on the floor, propped up against the four-post bed. It was the longest day I'd ever had.

“So where did Poppy go for real?” I asked.

“Up to heaven,” said Grandma Mona. “I told you that.”

“But if we're—why—”

“Because your mama made peace with her daddy. In the process, she set him free.”

“But why are
you
still here?” I asked.

“Because Priscilla hasn't made her peace with me yet. She hasn't made it with you, either. Honey, let me explain something.” She took my face in her hand and turned me toward her. I pulled free and laid my head on her shoulder, taking in a deep breath.

“You know how I was saying that everyone is a spirit, a soul?” she asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, every soul has a big hole, a void to be filled. Like a puzzle. Do you know what the hole is for?”

“No.” I was eight-and-a-half-years-old, for goodness' sake. Up till then, I'd been pleased to know that magic cicadas rise up after seventeen years. Or that mockingbirds sing other birds' songs. This soul-talk was much too much for me.