Wish I Might (10 page)

There’s a knock on the door.

Sam. “I brought you some dinner,” he says.

A tuna sandwich with macaroni salad and Cape Cod chips, a tall glass of soda, and a slice of Rosie’s scrumptious chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. For a second I think of JFK. Of the birthday cake that girl Lorna is surprising him with.

“Are you okay?” Sam asks.

“Mom told you?” I say.

“Yes,” Sam says. He sets the tray on my nightstand, smiling as he moves the mountain stack of skinny-punch books to the floor.

“Glad you’ve got a book or two to read,” he says.

I laugh. “You know me and my books, Dad.”

My voice breaks at the word
Dad.
I think of how I
spent the day with my new brother, Will, on a wild goose chase for our birthdad.

“It must have been quite a shock to hear you have a half brother,” Sam says.

I study his face. I can tell Sam doesn’t know I might have a father alive, too. He doesn’t know about Billy Havisham.

I hope Mother’s meeting doesn’t take too long. I can’t bear the waiting.

“It’s funny,” Sam says.

“What?” I say.

“Funny’s not the right word,” Sam says. “Just a strange coincidence. The other night, when your mom and I wanted to have dinner alone with you —”

“You were going to tell me something,” I say, remembering.

Sam nods his head with a sweet-sad smile.

“What, Dad? Tell me.”

“We were going to tell you that we have decided to start the adoption process. After the miscarriage, we thought long and hard about things. At our age, having a baby can be risky. And there are so many children already in the world just waiting for a family, praying every day that a family will adopt them.”

“Oh, Dad, that’s wonderful! Is it a boy? A girl? A baby or an older —”

Sam laughs. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he says. “We haven’t gotten that far yet. Deciding to adopt was a huge decision. We’re still adjusting to that. One step at a time.”

When I finish eating dinner, I put my tray outside the door, feeling like a Bramblebriar guest rather than one of the owners.

Mother may be a while. I might as well have a little book fest while I’m waiting.

I check out my skinny-punch pile on the floor. The cover of
The Little Prince
by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry catches my eye.

It looks like a kid’s book, but shortly after I begin reading, I realize it is one of those ageless, timeless classics … like Shel Silverstein’s
The Giving Tree,
which holds meaning for every reader, no matter how old. I want to write a book like that someday. A skinny book with a punch.

There’s a good thought on page sixty-three that I copy into my book of quotes:

I check the clock, still early. I take my crumpled bag of candy from my nightstand drawer—almost time for a refill. I pop a sticky red fish into my mouth, remembering Jimmy of the Gummy Worms, and choose another book:
The House on Mango Street
by Sandra Cisneros.

It is so beautifully written. It reads like poetry. I jot down lines I like in my journal.

Page 11:
“She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow.”

Page 33:
“You can never have too much sky.”

Page 61:
“You must keep writing. It will keep you free.”

Page 87:
“One day I’ll own my own house, but I won’t forget who I am or where I came from.”

Page 105:
“When you leave you must remember to come back for the others. A circle, understand?”

I love this book. Definitely makes the Willa’s Pix List.

I get up and dress for bed. Looking out my window, I gaze up at the stars.
I wish I may, I wish I might.
I try to hear them like the Little Prince does, but they are silent.

I unwrap the last three pieces of saltwater taffy and choose a new skinny-punch book.
42 Miles
by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer. There’s a girl’s face and a map on the cover.
Where is she going?
I wonder.

The first page tells me that the main character is facing big changes in her life. The second page starts:

My chest tightens. I close the book.

Why do I have to look just like my birthfather? Why can’t I look just like my mother? Maybe then I wouldn’t be such a painful reminder to her.

I finish the book quickly. On the page inside the front cover I write: “I like how JoEllen brings the half of herself she is in her mother’s house and the half of herself she is in her father’s house together to make a whole. Gorgeous writing, vibrant, fresh, and hopeful.”

I get a drink of water. Brush my teeth. Still no Mom. I remember the book Will gave me today, still in my beach bag.

I open
Skellig
and read the first line.
“I found him in the garage on a Sunday afternoon.”
The plot is engaging, the language lyrical, each chapter a quick, tight scene. I keep writing “nice” in the margins.

A knock on my door. My breath catches.

Finally. This is it. “Come on in, Mom.”

Straight out, I tell her. How Will thinks Billy Havisham is still alive. About Will’s folder full of newspaper clippings and clues. About our road trip around the Cape today checking out possible leads.

“Oh, Willa,” Mother says, coming to sit next to me on my bed. “I wish you had talked with me. I could have spared you….” She looks away.

“Spared me what?”

“Billy Havisham is dead,” she says.

“But it’s possible….”

“No.” Mother shakes her head. “It’s not. Your father died in a hot-air balloon crash the day after our wedding.”

“But are you sure?” I say. “His body was never recovered. What if he survived somehow and —”

“No, Willa. He didn’t.”

“How do you know?” I say, my voice rising. “Maybe he struck his head and got amnesia and when rescuers found him he didn’t know his name and —”

“No, honey. That didn’t happen. He’s dead. That’s all.”

“But what if you’re wrong, Mom?” I shout, my voice cracking.

“Willa.” My mother brushes my hair off my forehead. She stares at me. “Look at those eyes. Those beautiful blue eyes. Just like his.”

“I know, I know,” I say angrily. “The one and only good thing.”

“Willa … no,” Mother says. “You have your father’s boundless enthusiasm. And his beautiful way with words. You get those gifts from your father.”

My eyes fill with tears. “But maybe, just maybe, he is still alive.” My whole body is shaking with conflicted feelings, like the point at Poppy Spit where the ocean current meets the mild bay, swirling, swirling.

“Wait here, Willa,” Mother says. “I need to get something.”

Moments later, she returns. She hands me a folder. I open it.

A letter from the US Coast Guard “regretting to inform …” I read through to the end. They searched
and dredged the waters for miles around. They found articles of his clothing, his wallet, and then, horribly, something washed up onshore farther up the coast two days later. A severed limb, Billy’s leg, with clear evidence of shark mutilation.

“Oh, my gosh.” I gasp, feeling sick to my stomach.

“I know, honey,” Mother says, touching my arm.

“But why didn’t you ever tell me this?”

“I’m sorry, Willa,” she says. “Maybe it was wrong not to tell you, but I didn’t want you having nightmares. He was dead and that was all. I know you, sweetheart. I imagined you’d play the awful story out over and over again in your beautiful imagination. I didn’t want that scary, tragic ending in your mind.” Mother makes a squeaking sound. Her lips tremble.

“I know you found the love letters and poems, oh, those poems Billy wrote to me,” Mother says.

“In the Valentine’s box in your closet,” I say.

Mother nods and smiles.

“How did you know I found them?”

Mother laughs. “Mother magic,” she says. “I know you tried on my wedding gown, too. You used to leave candy wrappers, always a telltale sign that my sweet daughter was around.”

“Cherry cordials,” I say. “They used to be my favorite.”

“Oh, I know!” Mother says. “You and those cherry pits.”

We laugh, remembering how a certain incident involving cherry cordials and me and a famous soap opera star’s wedding gown got my mother into a hornet’s nest of trouble and nearly ruined her career as a wedding planner.

I look at my mother. She smiles at me. I think of how much we have been through together. I start to cry. My mother hugs me.

“I love you, Willa,” she whispers in my ear.

“I love you, too, Mom.”

My mother holds me close, rocking us back and forth, and in our silence we fill a book with so many unspoken words.

When I wake Friday morning, I feel good about the talk with Mother last night, but nonetheless my heart is heavy.

There is something important I need to do today and I am dreading it.

To crush someone’s dream … someone’s greatest hope … seems the cruelest task I’ve ever had to face. I don’t know that I can go through with it.

July 7. JFK’s birthday. Too early to call. I leave him a happy birthday text message and promise I’ll call him later. I hope his card gets there today. I hope that girl Lorna gets a bad case of halitosis and can’t make
the surprise party tonight after all and it’s just a couple of guy friends who show up.

Willa,
Reason starts in.

“I know, I know, I know.”

After I finish working the breakfast shift, I pack a lunch and bike out to South Cape Beach. That’s where the sand castle competition will be tomorrow. I’m sure I won’t run into Will here. I need some time to think first.

Sulamina Mum’s nephew, Rob, is coming out of the lifeguard headquarters with a clipboard and a megaphone, beach towel around his neck.

“Willa,” he says, “hey.”

I walk with him down to his station. I tell him what Mother told me about my birthfather last night.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he says. He reaches out to touch my arm, his brown eyes full of sincere compassion. He reminds me so much of Mum, I start to cry. Just then, out of the corner of my eye, I see Tina and Ruby.

“Hey, hey,” Rob says, hugging me, “don’t cry.”

I squint through my tears. Tina and Ruby have stopped dead in their tracks.
Oh, my gosh, how funny.
They think Rob likes me.

“I’m okay,” I say to Rob, flinging back my hair, looking into his eyes with a great big smile. “You made me think of Mum, how much I miss her.”

Rob uses a corner of his beach towel to dry a tear from my face.

I can almost feel the jealous stares.
This is fun.

Rob notices Tina and Ruby. Tina has a notebook and pen in her hands. Ruby has her camera. Two budding bestselling authors aiming to write another chapter featuring a handsome Cape Cod lifeguard.

“Oh, no,” Rob says, turning his back to them. “Here they come again.”

“Again?”

“Yeah, they were here yesterday trying to get me to be in this book they’re making. I said no.”

“Why?” I say. “You sure belong in it.”

“What if I want to run for president someday? That’s all I’d need, for the press to dig up that I was in a ‘cutest Cape lifeguards’ book. Not the sort of thing I want to be known for.”

I laugh. “I wouldn’t worry. They’ll probably never get it published.”

“Oh, no,” Rob says. “They’ll do it. Those girls are
on it.
They’re not playing.” He shakes his head like he’s scared.

I laugh. Then I remember what I need to do today. “I wish I could talk with Mum,” I say. “She always has the best advice.”

“Then do it,” Rob says. “Here, take my phone.” He flips open the cover of his slim silver cell phone, scrolls till he finds the number. “Take it up away from the waves where it’s quiet and give her a call.”

“Oh, my gosh, Rob. Thank you!” I hug him quickly. I’ll be right back.

I run past the wide-eyed stares and gaping mouths of Tina and Ruby. “Careful, Ruby,” I say, “you might swallow a fly.”

I take the phone into one of the shower stalls. Too early in the day for anyone to be showering. I call Mum. She answers.

“Willa, honey! Oh, dear Lord. How are you? Riley! It’s Willa! How are you, little sister? Oh, it’s so good to hear your voice….”

I can almost feel the hug from Mum’s big, pillowy, soft arms.

“Oh, Mum …” I gush it all out, telling her about Will showing up, and him believing our birthfather was still alive, and how I have to break the awful news
to him this morning, and how I just can’t, just can’t crush his dream like that. And what am I going to say to him?

“Willa?” Mum says.

“Yes.”

“ ‘The truth shall set you free.’ John eight, verse thirty-two.”

The truth shall set you free.
I let those simple words sink into my spin-cycle self until I am soothed still.

“That’s the wisest line in the Bible,” Mum says. “Live by it, Willa, and I promise you … you’ll save yourself a whole world of worrying.”

“Thank you, Mum. I love you.”

“Love you, too, baby. Now get to it.”

I run back down to the beach to return Rob’s phone to him. Tina and Ruby are on the case, both in full flirt mode, but Rob’s not giving in.

He smiles a big, warm smile when he sees me. “Hey, Willa,” he calls.

I hold up his phone; he reaches down to get it. “Thanks so much,” I say.

“Anytime,” he says. “Were you able to reach her?”

“Yes,” I say. “And as always her advice was perfect.”

“Good, I’m glad.”

“Maybe you’d like to come to BUC with our family on Sunday? Bramble United Community church on Main Street. That’s where Mum was the minister. The board is still searching for a replacement. That may take forever. There’s nobody like Mum. But my stepfather, Sam, is filling in this summer.”

“I’d like that,” Rob says. “Thank you.”

I tell him what time to meet us, and I’m off. “Watch those flies, Ruby!” I say, unable to resist.

I bike as fast as I can to Popponesset Beach and walk out to the Spit.

Will is tossing a stick into the water. Salty Dog runs to fetch it. Neither sees me yet. I stand there for a moment looking at my brother. Looking at my dog. All my life, I never had either. Then all at once for one short, sweet time, I had both.

When I tell Will the news, he’ll leave Cape Cod and Salty will, too.
Poof.

“I’ve got something to tell you, Will,” I say.

He looks at my face, blue eyes to blue eyes. “And it isn’t good. I can tell,” he says.

I break the news as gently as possible.

Will’s lips clench tight and he sniffs, turning his head away from me.

“No,” he says. “Maybe he survived somehow. Maybe …”

“No, Will. I’m sorry. The coast guard report was final. He was declared dead on—”

Will raises his hand as if to say “Stop.”

I do. I zip my lips. There’s no need for words now.

“I want to be alone,” Will says.

“Sure, I understand,” I say.

I don’t slap my leg. I don’t say, “Come on, boy” to try to get Salty to follow. Will needs our dog right now. He needs him more than ever.