Shades of Truth (9 page)

W
hen I rounded the house on my third lap with Higgins, who had whined and begged all through dinner and now refused to do his business, Mom and Dad’s raised voices stopped me a few yards from the front steps.

My whole day had been miserable. Ruth was home sick, so I didn’t get to talk to her or go to her house after school, delaying our dreaded conversation yet again. Meanwhile, Frankie, Tess, and Nicole had teased me all day about my “traitor friend” who let me take the blame for her and now was too ashamed to show her face. Even though I tried not to listen, they stirred up my anger, anger at them, at Ruth, at the whole dumb situation.

I lifted Higgins into my arms and edged toward the door, wishing instead that I could run away.

Mom’s voice shook with frustration. “You should have told them yourself. But you didn’t, so I did.”

“I had everything under control,” Dad answered.

“Did you, Matthew? This time it was a fist. What if next time it’s a gun? These aren’t suit and tie guys from Silicon Valley.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“What if they came to the house?” Mom’s voice was on the edge of breaking. “What if they came in the middle of the night?”

“Cindy, you’ll wear yourself out.”

I winced. I knew, from Dad’s exhausted voice, he hadn’t thought of how his comment would sound to Mom. I leaned against the door, feeling each of Mom’s words as she said, “You act as though I’m a glass vase that might break any minute. I’m fine. I’m tired of being on the fringes of everything.”

Her voice cracked and my insides cracked along with her. I wanted to shout and scream and kick the door. What good had praying done? She was still sick, hunters were still shooting, and everything with Dad had only gotten worse. Higgins whined and I loosened my grip on him, and then opened the door.

I looked first at Dad, who knelt beside the wingback chair. Mom sat, head leaned back, eyes closed. When I set Higgins down, he bounded over to Dad and wagged his whole body.

We were frozen statues of a family, me standing in the doorway, Dad kneeling, Mom sitting.

“Hey,” I said, breaking the awkward silence.

“Sadie …” Dad said. But right then Mom went to stand up and fell sideways. Dad grabbed her arm. “Let me help you,” he said.

“I’m fine!” she said, not too kindly. “I just need to lie down.”

She stood, still a bit unsteady, and Dad said, “I’m helping you.”

“I’m glad you’re back Sadie,” Mom said. “Sorry but I’m a bit tired. I’ll be back after a nap.”

“Sure Mom,” I said, and I bent down to pet Higgins to hide my sudden tear-filled eyes. A well of emotion bubbled within me. Dad helped her up to their bedroom, and I closed the front door and then scratched Higgins’ tummy when he bounded over to me and wriggled onto his back.

Dad came back downstairs, his footsteps heavy.

“What happened, Dad?” My words were hot, angry needles.

Dad sat back on the bottom step and dropped his head into his hands. “I didn’t mean … It’s all …” He looked up at me and sighed. “Mom emailed Meredith Taylor and told her the true story of my black eye. I shouldn’t have lied to Meredith in the first place, but I didn’t want her to know about my fight with the hunters.”

I hadn’t known Dad had lied to Meredith, but it made sense now, how Mom had been more silent each day since Dad got his black eye, more worried. “Is Mom okay?”

Dad nodded and rubbed the bruised edges of his eye. “We’ll all be okay, Sadie.”

My eyes stung. I felt all shriveled up inside and so very tired. Was this how Mom felt all the time? I picked up Higgins. “I’m going to bed.”

Dad stood to let me pass. “Sure, little bug,” he said, but even my old nickname didn’t make me smile.

I cuddled Higgins against my shoulder as I climbed the stairs and closed my bedroom door quietly behind me. When I deposited him on the floor, he immediately started chasing a dust bunny underneath the bed.

“Pips, reason five better be amazing.” I took the scrapbook over to the window seat. I was tempted to climb up to the round porch, but the only way to avoid Mom and Dad was to stay put with the door closed. “I guess we’re in for the night, Higgy.”

Pippa’s hand-drawn cartoons melted the lump that had lodged in my throat, and I found myself laughing, and then crying. Pippa learning how to do a one-handed cartwheel, falling over and over. Me playing tennis, hitting the ball up and over the fence time after time. Pippa during her frog-drawing phase. Me learning to dive. All doomed projects from the start. Still, Pippa was right. I truly believed she’d land a one-handed cartwheel and draw a frog that didn’t look like a pile of goo someday. She believed I’d learn
to keep the tennis ball in the court and soar gracefully off the highest diving board. She’d put a sticky note on this page too.

Higgins bounced into my lap and jumped up to lick my salty cheeks.

“I’m not crazy, Higgy.” I pulled him away from my face. “I promise I’m not.”

He thumped his tail on the cushion. I wiped my face.

I’d told Pippa that nothing was impossible many, many times. The first time we’d been sitting in the car and blowing bubblegum bubbles. Pippa’s just wouldn’t bubble.

After ten tries, she kicked the seat in front of her. “This is impossible!!”

Quoting a teacher, I said, “Nothing is impossible. It just might not be possible yet.”

Our moms choked back laughter in the front seat.

“What?” I hated being laughed at.

“You just sound so …” Mom said.

“Absolutely right,” Pippa’s mom finished for her.

They told the story whenever they got together. Pippa and I rolled our eyes, but when our moms couldn’t hear, we told each other nothing was impossible all the time. And Pippa did learn to blow a bubble — proof that nothing was impossible — even if she tried over four hundred times before she got it. Still, success is success.

I blew my nose, put the scrapbook on the shelf, and turned on my computer.

“S
o what have you been drawing at home?” Vivian handed me a steaming cup of tea.

Back home in California the weather was still hot in the end of September, but today in Michigan, icy wind bit my cheeks every time I stepped outside, and my bike ride up to Vivian’s had been the coldest yet. I was glad for the tea.

“I’m working on shading, like you asked …” I covered my sketchbook protectively, not wanting her to see the many drawings of Dad’s eye.

Vivian gave me her now-familiar sharp look. “What’s wrong, Sadie?”

I didn’t want to talk about Dad or Mom or Ruth or school, and I found myself picking a fight to avoid Vivian’s questions. “I’m tired of black and white. I’m tired of drawing porch swings and trees and clouds.”

Without thinking, I shoved my sketchbook across the table. Vivian opened it and thumbed through. She paused over the pictures of Dad’s face.

Instead of asking how Dad got his black eye, or why I had drawn it a million times, Vivian frowned over my last drawing and then closed the book.

“I see the problem,” she said.

“What?” I asked, feeling defensive.

“Faces are difficult, for a number of reasons. But let’s start with the eyes. Eyes are where a person’s personality shows up most. When I started drawing eyes, I became really frustrated. With eyes it isn’t just about drawing shapes.” Vivian put a small mirror in front of me. “What do you see in your face right now?”

I glared at my angry reflection.

“Look at the creases around your eyes. Expression is seen in the eyelids and eyebrows.”

I made several faces in the mirror. My pupils didn’t change at all, but the skin around my eyes folded and wrinkled to show surprise, concern, happiness, sadness.

“That’s why shading is so important. You can draw all the shapes you want — the details are in the shading.”

I picked up a pencil, suddenly fascinated by my own face. Surprised eyes. Questioning eyes. Suddenly my drawings had life.

Vivian clattered around in the kitchen joking with Peter while I drew. As I listened to them, I started on a set of laughing eyes. The two of them, happy together, reminded
me of Mom complimenting Dad on his crazy scrambled eggs. Why couldn’t we be like that all the time?

After I finished my drawing, Peter presented me with a whipped cream topped mug. “I call this delectable creation Double-Decker Chocolate on a Cloud. I put whipped cream on the bottom, then added melted chocolate, then milk, cinnamon and nutmeg. I topped it off with more whipped cream.”

I took a sip. “Delicious!”

Vivian called from the kitchen. “Sadie, we should probably call your parents. It’s after seven o’ clock. If you want, you can eat here and then we’ll drive you home. We’re on our way to Compline tonight, so it wouldn’t be an extra trip.”

“What’s Compline?” I asked Peter.

Peter sat across from me and examined my drawings. “You would love Compline, Sadie. They turn off all the lights at the Catholic church and light the candles. The choir sings gorgeous Latin chants that make you feel like you’re swimming in music. I don’t go to any other kind of church.”

I thought about swimming in music as I sipped my hot chocolate and went to call Dad. He was clearly distracted by Higgins. Dad had always wanted a puppy too.

“Just don’t teach him any bad habits, Dad.”

“Nope. Absolutely not.”

Vivian handed me plates of macaroni and cheese to set on the kitchen table and passed out bowls of tomato soup.

Peter took his last sip of hot chocolate. “Like Dad always said, dessert should always come first.”

I put my empty mug in the sink and sat at the table. The soup steam warmed my nose. Every time I talked to Peter, I liked him more. Something sad had happened to his dad, but he didn’t avoid the subject, the way I would have. He hadn’t avoided telling me he was a hunter, either, or telling me what he thought about my opinions. Alive. The word floated to the front of my mind as I slurped a spoonful of soup. Maybe I could bring Peter as my example for my word study project. Was he so alive, so open, because he had grown up around Vivian? She was the kind of person who turned everything right side up again.

Vivian smiled across the table at me. “I haven’t told you about my husband, Sadie, and you’ve been too polite to ask. He died two years ago. He’d been working on our roof, and he fell.”

I opened my mouth but didn’t know what to say.

“It’s okay, Sadie.” Peter put down his fork. “There’s nothing to say, really. I used to wonder what would’ve happened if I had been home helping him repair the leak? But then one day, I realized all that wondering was smothering me, and smothering Mom too. So I stopped wondering. I think that’s when I started letting go.”

Vivian motioned to my food. “Eat. Or it will get cold.”

The mac and cheese was stringy with cheese and topped with crunchy breadcrumbs, delicious, but hard to swallow. Even though Peter had said there was nothing to say, silence
didn’t seem right either. A question burst out before I could stop it. “Can I come to Compline with you tonight?”

Vivian looked up from her dinner. “You want to go?”

“I think so. No, yes. I mean, yes, I would like to go.”

Peter cleared the table. “You’ll love it, Sadie.”

I called home again, and Dad gave me permission to go downtown with Vivian and Peter. In the truck, Vivian turned on jazz, and we all sat quietly, listening and thinking. As we climbed up the cathedral steps, a sign requested silence as we entered. Stained glass windows lined the building, their colors intense in the candlelight. It was strange, slipping into a church pew in the dark, not greeting anyone. The air was thick with the smell of wax and incense.

Quietly, mysteriously, a song started from the back of the church. Men’s voices filled the rafters with words I didn’t understand, but which seemed as old, and felt as soothing, as my evening prayer. I leaned back and closed my eyes, letting the harmony wrap around me. I’d thought I’d come to Compline for Vivian, but now, after hearing the music, I wondered if I might come again on my own. When I opened my eyes again, I noticed Vivian sat perfectly straight with her eyes closed, as though the music lifted her up out of her seat. Above us finely detailed paintings filled the ceiling, images of robed people and lions and angels. Their eyes drew my attention. Whoever had painted the church understood how to give eyes the spark of life — people shouting in victory, crying in anguish, dancing with joy.

As the final chord faded, the room grew even more silent,
even more still. No one had shuffled or coughed during the singing, and now everyone in the room held their breath, as if collectively holding on to one last moment of pure joy. The choir broke the silence when they filed out. I followed Vivian, not wanting to talk, not wanting to lose the lingering echo of the music.