Waves of Light (14 page)

N
o barking when I’m on the phone, Higgins.” I was going to use the hands-free earpiece for our phone so I could cut out leaves for Vivian’s art piece while I talked to Frankie. Higgins sat next to me with his tail wagging and his tongue hanging out. “I’m serious,” I said sternly, but he only wagged his tail harder.

I scratched his ears and dialed Frankie’s number.

“Hello!” Georgiana’s voice trilled.

Even over the phone she was overwhelming. I paused mid-cut to form my response. “Um, hi, Georgiana. It’s Sadie.”

“Sadie, darling! Frankie is expecting your call. And I hear you’re coming to stay with us again.” Georgiana’s heels clicked and I imagined her striding up the stairs and down the hall to Frankie’s room.

“Yeah, well, um, maybe,” I said.

“Here she is, darling.”

“Hey, Sadie.”

In the background, Georgiana said, “Say hello, not hey, Francesca. Manners.”

“Tell me you’re coming to see me,” Frankie said as Georgiana’s footsteps faded away.

“Still bad, huh?” I liked watching the leaves pile up, glad that Ruth and Bea and Lindsay were now cutting out leaves too. Maybe, fingers crossed, we might finish enough of them before Vivian had to leave for New York.

“You know, she never gets mad at me. No matter what I do, she always uses that same tone of voice. If she’d just yell once in a while …”

“Vivian is almost finished with the exhibit. Dad went over to help her with the cement pour, and I guess she’s been working round the clock. We’re helping with the leaves.” I waved one for emphasis. “I’m cutting them out right now.”

“I want to help too,” Frankie said.

“Perfect! I’ll send you fabric and wire, express mail, so you can glue them into strands of ivy. We need at least a thousand more.”

“Who else is helping?”

I sighed. “Ruth, Bea, and Lindsay.”

“So,” Frankie said. “You okay?”

“No,” I admitted. “I should be okay. I mean, I worked things out with Ruth, and I understand now why everyone was protecting Annabelle … I should be happy but I’m just not.”

“How’s your mom?” Frankie asked.

“Not good.”

Frankie waited and I continued to cut, wondering what I wanted to say. Finally I said, “I’m afraid I’m going to be like this — crazy — for the rest of my life. Every time I think I’ve worked my life out, it falls apart again.”

I could feel Frankie thinking across the phone line, and then she said, “Do you remember the church we went to on Easter Sunday? And what the pastor said?”

“Yeah, who could forget?”

“I think she’s right, about life being a series of transformations. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. My life keeps going up and down and up again. Sometimes when I draw, I feel hopeful. You told me those tiny moments of hope matter, remember? But there doesn’t seem to be one fix-everything experience.”

I remembered how I’d felt swinging with Frankie. I’d known that life couldn’t stay so good forever, but I’d wanted to hold on to that feeling of being fully happy. Maybe I was trying so hard to hold myself together that I’d kept myself from both the bad and the good. Maybe I couldn’t get back to being happy if I didn’t let myself fall apart a little too.

“Did you know that a caterpillar totally disintegrates inside its cocoon before reshaping itself into a butterfly?” Frankie asked.

I smiled into the phone. “How’d you get so smart?”

“About butterflies?” she asked.

“I thought I was helping
you
with the whole scavenger hunt thing. Turns out you’re the one helping me.”

“I should listen to my own advice,” Frankie said. “It’s a lot easier to help everyone else.”

I laughed. “No kidding.”

“So … are you coming to New York?” Frankie asked.

“Maybe,” I said. “I want to.”

“I want you to, too,” she said.

I finished a leaf and set it down. “I think I need to draw now, Frankie.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be drawing too.”

I hung up the phone and took out my sketchbook, turning to the picture of the locked box. I hesitated.

Do I really have to?

The picture stared at me from the page, fresh and clear: A messy knot hidden away inside a locked box. The key to the box, just waiting to be used.

It’s time
.

One time, Pips and I had gone to a rock-climbing wall and climbed all the way to the top. To get down, you had to lean back and let go, letting the rope hold your weight as you kicked off from the wall. Turning to a blank page and, opening myself up to what was inside that locked box, felt like letting go at the top of that wall. Would the rope hold me?

I started to draw — quickly, so I wouldn’t think too much. First, I drew myself. I was caught in a net, but busily untangling it, trying to free myself. I turned to the next page in the sketchbook, knowing that something bigger was
about to come — willing something bigger to come. Mom’s face came first, and then her body, curled up, motionless in a net just like mine — only her net had trapped her.

I turned the page, hoping for a new image. I couldn’t stop Mom from being tangled up. Nothing I did or said would make any difference. Like the wind, I couldn’t control anything that happened outside of me — I couldn’t even control how I felt about it. I could only control my own choices. I thought about Ruth, about the way she’d looked when I’d watched her dance.

On the next page, Mom appeared again. But this time, she stood facing the ocean, her arms flung wide. I stood beside her in exactly the same stance. We’d stood this way many times before back in California, trying to catch the wind. Since we’d lived so close to the ocean, we’d go to the beach two or three times a month, rain or shine.

Mom would say, “Sades, let’s go catch the wind,” and we’d pile into the car, just Mom and me.

She could still catch the wind, even though she was sick. But even if we lived in California now, she wasn’t likely to lean across the table and look at me with that old sparkle in her eye. In a way, I understood now, having felt darkness press down on me, making me feel like I’d rather lie in bed all day rather than do just about anything. But I also knew that the only way out of the darkness was to give something — even something small. I needed Mom, and maybe she’d forgotten that.

I’d forgotten — or maybe I just hadn’t realized — that
Vivian needed me. Viv and I had promised one another that no matter what, we’d give everything to our art, pouring all of the exhaustion, anger, loneliness, and fear into something outside ourselves. We weren’t pretending to be perfect; but knowing that if nothing else, we were giving one another a gift. And we helped each other simply by keeping our promise.

Yes
. The word rippled through me.
Yes
.

I’d pretended with Mom for a very long time. But maybe it was time for me to tell her how much I needed her.

I set down my sketchbook, took a deep breath, and headed down the hall to Mom’s bedroom.

M
om lay on her side, her hair deep red against the white pillowcase. Her fingers curled around the edge of the comforter, holding it close the way a small child might hold a blanket. Her eyes were closed, the lashes a dark fringe against her pale cheeks. I didn’t know if she was awake, asleep, or someplace in between. Only a sliver of light came through the closed curtains.

I stepped into the darkened room, which smelled of the violets Dad had left on the bedside table.

“Mom?” I whispered.

When she didn’t answer, I went to sit next to her on the bed and took her hand in mine. Her skin was soft, and her hand felt like a baby bird — delicate and so fragile.

“Mom,” I whispered again, and her eyelashes fluttered open.

“Sadie,” she said, her voice thick with sleep.

I tried to picture her standing on the beach with her arms outstretched, not curled up inside the net. Everything inside of me wanted to slip back into Mom-Sadie mode, where I pretended everything was okay, and she did too.

She needs to know she has something to give
.

“Mom, I need your help.” I set her hand back down on the comforter and pulled my legs in close to my chin.

She blinked a few times, breathed deep, and pushed herself up on the pillows, as if entering the room for the first time. “What did you say?”

“I messed up everything with Ruth and Andrew. It’s a long, complicated story. And now I’ve tried to fix things with Ruth at least, but … I still feel …” My voice trailed off. I hated the sound of the word in my head.

“Lonely,” she said.

It had been a long time since Mom could finish any sentence for me.

“Yes. When everything went wrong, I fell apart. And then I felt like I was in this fog, this darkness that I couldn’t get out of. I didn’t mean to act badly, but I couldn’t help it.”

Mom took my hand. “Oh, Sadie.”

I didn’t know how to ask, so I just let the words out. “Is that how you feel?”

Mom looked down at the comforter, twisting it between her fingers. Finally, she said. “It’s not the sickness, it’s the other thing, the stronger thing. Loneliness, sadness — like you said, darkness.”

“When Frankie moved away, I told her I thought the hard parts of life were worth it because in the hard times, you learn that God is with you. But then Vivian’s house flooded, and Annabelle came and you—”

“I let you down,” Mom finished.

“You’re sick,” I said, shaking my head.

“I’m not just sick,” Mom said. “We both know I could be better than I am.”

We sat in silence for a while, while my words burned inside me, aching to be said. If I spoke them, I’d cross the invisible divide we’d had in place for so long. I’d be admitting I couldn’t do this by myself. In some ways, these words were harder to say than “I love you.” They couldn’t be taken back.

“I need you, Mom.”

She didn’t answer right away, and the hollowness began to settle in again. Maybe I’d been wrong. I never should have come to Mom’s room, never should have risked saying —

“I need you too, Sadie,” Mom finally said. “Not the way you try to be — strong and perfect — but like this. I need to be your mom.”

I looked into her clear green eyes and realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d looked at her — really looked. Or the last time I’d let her look at me. But now she looked at me, into me, as though she wasn’t seeing only my face, but my heart too. Layers peeled away inside of me until I felt totally exposed, no more shield. I let Mom see my numbness, my fear.

“I’m afraid I’m never going to be okay,” I said. “That no matter what, I’m going to keep falling apart.”

Mom pulled me close and stroked my hair. “I’ve watched you, Sadie, ever since we moved here. You’re so fiercely committed to finding the truth, to doing what’s right, to being a loyal friend. But no matter how hard you try, you can’t help but fall apart sometimes. That’s when you need people to love you, to help you put yourself back together, to get stronger. You’re the one who taught me that, actually. I’ve forgotten these past few weeks that falling apart isn’t the end.”

I felt like I was in a dream again, lying there in Mom’s arms the way I used to do when I was small. “Remember that time when I walked in and you were praying?”

“Yes.” I heard the smile in Mom’s voice. “I scared you that day.”

“Do you think it’s possible to be friends with God?” I asked.

“Absolutely. I believe God wants to be as close to us as our next breath,” Mom said. “I think most times we hold him at a distance because we’re afraid. But God is bigger than our fear.”

“But what about when he lets us down, like—”

“Like when he doesn’t make me better, no matter how much we all try?” Mom finished.

I closed my eyes against the tears, but they ran down my cheeks anyway. “Yes. Why doesn’t he just heal you? Why did he let you get sick in the first place?”

“I wonder that myself, Sades. All the time. And I don’t
have any good answers. But I do know that God is still here with me. I hear him, even on my darkest days — even when I’m trying not to.”

“What’s the answer then? What are we supposed to do?”

“Honestly? I think life is about finding the right questions to ask, because questions move us forward, they cause us to seek and wonder. Answers are only temporary, and when we think we’ve found them, we often stop in our tracks.”

“So if you believe all this, how come …”

“I forget too, Sades. And I need you and Dad and God to remind me. Some days it’s hard not to give up.”

“Please don’t give up,” I whispered.

She kissed the top of my head, and we sat like that for a while longer. I felt the knots untangling inside of me. I may not have the answers, but I did have questions. And I had Mom. And Dad. And Ruth. Pips and Frankie. And the voice in the dark. I had God.

Mom handed me a tissue. “Now what’s this I hear about you going back to New York?”

I dried my cheeks. “I want to go to Vivian’s art show and visit Frankie, but I mostly want to go so I won’t have to be here to watch the play. And Annabelle.”

“But …?”

“But Annabelle said Andrew wants me to see the show. And I know Ruth wants me to be here too. Not just
wants
me to be here, but my being here will mean something to them. I mean, Frankie wants to see me too. But I feel like,
after everything that’s happened, I owe it to Ruth to watch her in the show.”

Mom stroked my cheek and smiled. “Something tells me you’ll have the answer for this one very soon.”

I hugged her tight. “Thanks, Mom.”

From downstairs Dad called, “Spaghetti, anyone?”

Mom and I walked downstairs, hand in hand.

A
ndrew stepped out of the trees in his king costume, crossed to the bakery door, and watched Annabelle as she sang and danced. A small smile played around his lips, sending a sharp pang through me. He didn’t have to act to look that way, to have that mixture of satisfaction, pride, and happiness when he looked at Annabelle. He might say it was because he was so happy she’d come so far since last year. And maybe that was even true. His scene was short, but he was still having trouble with his lines.

I caught Ruth watching me, and I felt another stab. But now I didn’t know what I felt. Sadness? Guilt? Confusion, mostly. I hoped Mom was right and I’d just know what to do about New York. Or maybe the problem was that I wasn’t being honest with myself. I
did
know what I should do, but I wasn’t sure I
could
.

“When were you planning to memorize this?” Penny interrupted Andrew. “We open the show on Friday. Less than a week from today.”

“I’m sorry,” Andrew said. “I promise I’ll have it down by tomorrow.”

“All right. We’ll come back to this scene tomorrow. For now, let’s move on to the dance.”

This was the moment of truth. I’d promised Penny, on pain of death, that I’d decide about being in the play by the time we practiced this final dance today. She wanted to set everyone’s positions today, so if she added me to the dance, everyone would be thrown off if I didn’t show up for the real thing. I swallowed hard.

“Sadie, are you dancing?” Penny called.

I glanced back at Ruth. I’d promised Vivian I wouldn’t pretend. I wouldn’t try to be perfect, or try to make everyone else happy. The answer grew inside me, rolling over and up as though tossed by the waves, coming closer to the surface all the time. Finally, I opened my mouth and the answer tumbled from my lips.

“Yes.”

Penny raised an eyebrow. “It’s a final answer, you know. No changing your mind?”

“Right,” I said, nodding.

Annabelle let out a shriek of happiness and ran over to hug me. I caught Andrew watching us with a surprised look. When she let go of me, Ruth hugged me too.

“Thank you, Sadie,” Annabelle said. “This means so much to me, I can’t even tell you.”

“I didn’t want you to have to work that music box all on your own,” I said, doing my best to return her smile.

I could still feel Andrew watching us as we lined up for the dance. As the music started, I was surprised that instead of watching Annabelle, he kept watching me. When I looked up and caught his eye, he smiled very slightly and turned away. But not before I noticed that the tips of his ears were bright red.

After the dance and the curtain call, I went back to the set station to make sure there was nothing left to do. Tomorrow’s rehearsal was our last one before the show, and I didn’t want any surprises.

I cleaned the paintbrushes and capped the paint cans. Doug and Penny had promised to help me carry all of the supplies back inside before tomorrow’s rehearsal.

“Sadie?” Andrew said from behind me.

My heart stopped for a fraction of a second before it started beating again, faster than before. I turned to face him.

“Would you help me with my lines tonight?” he asked. “I can’t do it on my own.”

“Can’t Annabelle help you?” I asked before I could stop myself.

“Her family has already moved over to the lake house,” Andrew said. “And she’s busy with her own lines, anyway. And …”

“And what?” I asked.

“And I …”

For one crazy second, I thought he was going to hug me,
the way he used to. But the moment passed and he stepped back, shrugging.

“You what?” I asked.

“I think you’d be a lot of help,” he said with a false ring to his words.

“That isn’t what you were going to say, is it?” I asked.

“No.” His lips curled up into the smile I loved, the smile I didn’t think I’d ever see again. “So, will you?”

I shrugged but couldn’t help smiling. “Sure. I guess so.”

Dad drove me over to the research cabin, and I could hardly sit still.

“Call when you’re ready for me to pick you up,” Dad said as I closed the Jeep door.

“Love you, Dad,” I said, my arms full of green fabric.

I still had to cut out leaves in every spare second. Vivian would leave for New York in a few days, and I still had about three hundred leaves to go.

Andrew and I decided to sit on the porch, so I set up my pile of fabric and started cutting while he turned to his page in the script.

“Memorization isn’t my thing,” he said.

“Let’s go through it slowly,” I said.

He started reciting his first line, and I saw right away what the problem was. “Andrew, you’re so worried about saying the exact words on the page, you’re not thinking about what you’re saying.”

I suggested that before he tried memorizing them as they’re written, he should try paraphrasing his lines until he knew what each one was about.

“Wow, it’s so much easier now.” He grinned at me. “Amazing!”

“So now you can help me cut out leaves,” I said.

“Let’s take a break first.” Andrew helped me up. “How about a game of Sink the Log? Last one there has to cut out the rest of the leaves.”

He took off running.

“No fair!” I called after him, laughing. “You’re such a cheater!”

I sprinted to catch up, but he was so far ahead of me that he reached the creek a full fifteen seconds before I did.

“Didn’t you say the first person who gets here has to cut out the rest of the leaves?” I asked.

“Nice try.” Andrew winked at me. “But maybe I’ll still help you out of the goodness of my heart.”

He tossed a stick into the water, and we gathered up some rocks to throw to try to sink it. Some of my rocks hit the stick, but most of them plunked into the water. Soon, the stick was out of view.

“Rematch.” I looked for another good stick.

Andrew caught my arm. “I wish you’d wear your necklace.”

I stopped and looked up at him. “I didn’t think …”

“I’m sorry for what I said,” Andrew said. “I was worried about Annabelle, and confused about you. You weren’t acting like yourself, and I started to wonder — if I still felt the same way about you.”

“You used to be my best friend,” I said, and then realized I wasn’t exactly telling the truth. “And more. But now …”

“I’m not asking for everything to be exactly like it was right this minute,” Andrew said. “But I hope it will be again — someday.”

My stomach flip-flopped, and I couldn’t look him in the eye without blushing. I pulled my arm away and grabbed the first stick I saw.

“Now for real,” I said. “Rematch!”

We ran around gathering rocks. A rustle in the bushes stopped me.

“Andrew, stop,” I whispered, pointing across the creek.

July and her two cubs stepped out of the underbrush and came down to the water to drink. We sat on the bank watching the two cubs splash in the water until July huffed at them and turned to go. The white cub looked me in the eyes once more, almost exactly the same way she had just a few weeks before.

“Incredible,” Andrew said when the bears had gone.

“I know.” We stayed still, listening to the crickets until the sun slipped behind the trees.