Franny Parker Read online

  “Who is that?” I asked, examining the painted woman, the familiar straight line of her back, the determined jaw.

  But Mama didn’t answer. She abandoned her paints and stared out the window at the little cabin.

  “You can’t drag them over here,” Dad said, but I had a feeling that was exactly what Mama would do if she could.

  I was just as curious. I don’t know if that’s because we are as alike as Grandma Rae says or because of what Lucas had told me in the barn that day. But I took on my own mission and began spying on the cabin.

  Cooling Off

  Girls, girls, girls. Less talk, more books.”

  Pearl and I looked up at the giant shadow looming over us, blocking out the sun.

  “Where is it, Pearl?” Mrs. Jones asked.

  “Right here, Mother.” Pearl slid Nancy Drew number 5 out from under her towel.

  “Well, what good is it doing under there? Hand over that ice cream. You need to focus.” Mrs. Jones whisked the half-eaten cone from Pearl’s sticky hand and headed back toward the pool, where Pearl’s little brothers were trying to drown each other.

  Pearl sank onto her towel.

  “We can share,” I said, passing her my ice cream.

  It was the end of July. There were just a few weeks left in the Aubree Library summer reading contest, and Pearl was not making much progress. Oh, she was enjoying her books. And that seemed like enough to me. But not to Mrs. Jones. As far as she was concerned, that gold trophy gleaming in her living room window would be the only proof of any progress.

  “Let’s take a dip,” I said. It was another scorcher, the Monday of what promised to be another rainless week, and it appeared the whole town was squeezed in the pool. I swirled my feet in the water and lowered myself in with a sigh. The weekend was over, and with it the fair, and I wondered idly if Lucas was working at Harland’s today or still at home with his father. I wanted desperately to see him.

  “Pearl, what page are you on?” Mrs. Jones demanded. That woman had ears like radar. She peered at us in the shallow end, where two of Pearl’s little brothers bobbed up and down. She was just lowering herself into the water with Mable when the oldest Jones boy cannonballed off the pool deck and over her head. Mrs. Jones screamed as a wave of water crashed over us, but we didn’t have time to laugh.

  Suddenly, above Mrs. Jones’s scream, there was another: a long, shrill wail that echoed across the pool, silencing everyone, even the Jones boys themselves. We covered our ears. It was the fire whistle. Two red trucks rounded the corner, their sirens blasting. Behind them an ambulance followed, and behind that another fire truck.

  “What’s going on?” Pearl shouted.

  The pool emptied quickly as people lined up by the fence to watch. The sirens continued, and a black cloud of smoke filled the sky, rolling lazily toward us.

  As usual, there was no room in the red convertible for all of us. Mrs. Jones packed the baby and boys in, crushing one raft and two sand pails as she slammed the trunk shut.

  “Come right home,” she ordered Pearl, squeezing behind the wheel. By then, the black clouds had risen over the treetops, shadowing the parking lot.

  We wrapped our towels around our waists and walked fast, past the ball fields and the school. Past the park where the fair had just been. Above us, the smoke grew thicker in the sky, and the odor of charcoal filled our noses.

  “Where do you think it’s coming from?” I asked.

  A small crowd had gathered on the steps of the library.

  “It’s the orchard,” a woman said. “The whole thing’s gone up!”

  Pearl and I exchanged looks. Blue Jay’s Orchard was on the edge of town, just a couple miles from my house. It was a place we knew well. Any blueberry tart or apple pie in town was made with fruit from Blue Jay’s. Suddenly, all I could think of was home, Mama, and my barn, with its patients closed inside.

  “I’ve gotta go,” I said to Pearl and took off, leaving her on the sidewalk.

  Ruins

  Woe is me,” Grandma Rae whispered the next afternoon.

  We’d come to see for ourselves. The charcoal fields stretched out before us up and down the Cimarron Through-way. Even the dirt was burned. Black sticks rose out of the ground, row after row of smoking tree skeletons.

  “Scary,” Ben whispered, squeezing my hand.

  Up and down the road, families pulled over to look. It was the saddest summer attraction. Only the little red road stand sign remained, a smiley-faced apple on dancing legs. “Welcome to Blue Jay’s Orchard!” he greeted the crowd.

  “Poor, poor Emma,” Grandma said, glancing over at her friend. “I’d better go see her.”

  Not far away was old Emma Johnson herself, the owner of Blue Jay’s Orchard, slumped on the tailgate of a pickup truck. The fire marshal patted her back, and said something we couldn’t hear. It didn’t matter. No words could make a difference now.

  “It’s what we all feared,” Mama said, turning for home. Her eyes watered as she spoke, and she wiped at them quickly.

  “Got smoke in your eyes?” Ben asked, reaching up to pat Mama.

  “Just woe,” she responded.

  The grass was burned right up to the roadside. I kicked at the dirt, digging my toe into its crusted layers. A small pebble rolled free. Smooth and white, no bigger than a robin’s egg, it tumbled across the charred ground untouched by the flames that had roared over it. I picked it up. Some things are like that, I guess. Even as flames lick the surface above, some things get tucked away safely, only to be unearthed just as pure and lovely as before. A little piece of snow-white hope in a scorched field.

  “How bad is it?” Daddy asked us when he got home that evening. We’d plopped ourselves on the porch, exhausted by what we’d just seen, wondering who would be next.

  “It’s all gone,” Mama told him, shaking her head sadly.

  Sidda joined us on the porch. “No cider doughnuts this fall?” she asked.

  “Or fresh apples,” Mama said. We sat on the porch a long time, thinking of the seasons we’d spent at Blue Jay’s. The Halloween parade among the trees, the apple-picking afternoons and sticky cider lips. The Johnsons had lost their farm. And with it we’d lost a part of ourselves. Ben whimpered a little and climbed into Dad’s lap.

  “I need a tissue,” Ben cried. “I’ve got woe in my eyes.”

  Hospital

  After the orchard burned, it became official. There was an emergency town meeting that Tuesday night, and the water restrictions were upgraded to a full ban.

  “Save the water for the fields and livestock,” people said.

  When the president of the garden club had the nerve to water his prize roses, Grandma Rae almost ran him over with her town car.

  The summer fever hit us hard, and it wasn’t in the moony-eyed July way we were used to. The animal hospital was bursting. With everyone out walking their fields and inspecting their pastures, the whole town’s eyes were on the ground. And that made for all kinds of discoveries. Ruby Miller, one of Grandma’s church friends, found a nest of three baby opossums curled in her shed that Wednesday morning, and by lunchtime five-year-old Melody Watson was knocking on our door with a frog in her hand.

  “Bob’s thirsty,” she said.

  Ben took one look at that curly-haired little girl holding a frog named Bob and it was true love. “He needs a bath,” he told her.

  Melody looked offended. “Bob’s not dirty. He’s just thirsty.”

  “That’s how it works,” Ben explained. “He soaks up water with his skin.”

  The way Melody looked at him, he might as well have told her that the frog had landed from the moon. But she followed him to the barn and giggled as Bob got his bath. Afterward, she even donated two nickels to our coffee can.

  “For heaven’s sake,” Grandma Rae said, stepping over the food bottles and trays and buckets that lined our porch. “The critters have taken over.”

  I had to admit she was right. As it was we were runnin
g back and forth to the barn day and night. The stalls were full and noisy, and the old patients were being pushed aside by the new. We were so busy I barely had time to think, but still I looked for Lucas. I wanted to introduce him to the new patients.

  “The time is coming,” Mama told me that night as she tucked me in.

  “I know,” I said, sliding under my sheets. She was talking about the swallows.

  “They’ll be fine,” she said, pressing her lips to my forehead. “You did real good.”

  I dreamed of my swallow babies that night, soaring into the stars above my house and the cabin next door. Circling over burned fields, gliding farther and farther away. But flying home again. Always coming home.

  Potting Shed

  On Thursday morning, the doors to the potting shed were open. Jax saw it first and bounded off the porch in search of Lucas.

  I found Mama staring at the woman in her painting. She set her paints down right away. We stopped at the garden to fill a basket and made our way next door.

  “Lindy, may we come in?” Mama asked, peering into the dark shed.

  Lindy was seated behind her wheel, her apron splattered with fresh wet clay. She smiled when she saw us in the door, but it was different. Her eyes didn’t crinkle at the edges.

  “We’ve missed you this week,” Mama said, setting down a basket of corn and beans. “Thought you might like these.”

  Lindy wiped her hands on a fresh towel. “They’re beautiful, thank you,” she said, bending over the basket. A faint breeze stirred in the doorway, the first breeze any of us had felt in a long time, and we all turned our faces to greet it.

  “A lot has happened,” Mama said.

  “Yes,” said Lindy. I wasn’t sure if she was referring to the orchard fire that week or the arrival of Mr. Dunn. It seemed the torrent of events had stretched the week so thin it languished, unable to move itself forward.

  Our silent questions filled the potting shed, and Lindy didn’t try to swat them away. “Been busy.” She shrugged, pointing to the boxes of pottery on the kiln. “I’ve gotten behind on my work since Carl came.”

  “Is that his name?” Mama’s voice was soft and curious, the way it is when she speaks to a child or a small animal.

  “Yes. I’m sorry you haven’t met him yet. His arrival was, well . . . unexpected.”

  Mama nodded as if she understood, but I didn’t see how she could. I didn’t want her nodding at Lindy that way. I wanted Lindy to go on. There was more to tell, I knew.

  “How are you?” Mama asked. Waiting for an answer, she lowered herself quietly onto a bench by the window. Mama reached over and pulled a daisy from the basket, turning it over in her hands, patiently. Not knowing what to do with myself, I sat next to her.

  Lindy didn’t answer right away. But Mama nodded anyway, turning the flower over and over in her fingers. She hummed a little as Lindy bent over her wheel. They sat like that awhile.

  It was then I heard it. It was a silent language, rising and falling between them. I had seen this before, in the rare quiet moments of the sewing circle, in the way Grandma Rae rested her hand on a sad shoulder at church, in the gentle way a woman in the grocery store meets the eyes of a young mother with a crying baby. The gestures were soft and silent. Yet from them swelled a presence warm and thick in the room, a safe haven for secrets or confessions, fears and truths.

  Lindy’s hands returned to the wet clay, working the round ball more assuredly as the wheel picked up speed.

  “I’ll be fine,” Lindy said finally.

  Will be, not am, I noted. The wheel spun faster, and the ball took shape under her fingers as they danced around it.

  “And Lucas?” Mama asked.

  “Lucas is okay.” As soon as she said it, Lindy shook her head. “Actually, that’s not really true, but I think it’s just teenage stuff. He and his father, well . . .” She stopped then, a strangled hiccup escaping her throat.

  Mama returned the daisy to the vegetable basket, rose and crossed the small shed to Lindy, and laid her hand on Lindy’s arm. The wheel slowed to a stop, the clay went still under her hands, and Lindy looked at Mama.

  “If you need anything,” Mama whispered.

  Lindy nodded, wiping the back of her hand quickly across her face, a trail of red clay in its wet path.

  Mama’s work was done. She motioned for me to come, and I hopped up quickly, seemingly forgotten but not. We left the shed then, crossing our yard, where Mama draped her arm around me. We did not talk. I wasn’t sure what I had just seen or heard, but I felt the weight of what passed between Mama and Lindy heavy in the air around us. Behind us, the potting shed hummed, the little wheel turning once again.

  Night Noises

  Where’s Lucas?” It was Ben who asked, at dinner that night. He stuffed a Brussels sprout in his mouth and looked at us.

  “Who cares?” Sidda said, pushing her fork around her plate. Since the fair and Marilee’s party, Sidda had shown a sudden change of heart toward Lucas Dunn.

  “He’s visiting with his father,” Dad said.

  Mama forced a smile.

  “I seen that man,” Ben said, turning the Brussels sprout over and over in his mouth, as though trying to remember if this was one of the vegetables he liked or not.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “I was in the barn.”

  “No, where’d you see him?”

  “Oh. He was in Lindy’s potting shed tonight. He’s a real clumsy man.”

  Sidda frowned. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because of the noise. I was in the barn when I heard it. There was a big crash and then another one, and then he came outside with a box of Lindy’s pots. All smashed up. Lindy cried, but he wouldn’t let her touch them.”

  Mama looked at Daddy then, her face dark and serious.

  “Well, maybe Mr. Dunn didn’t want Lindy to hurt herself on the broken pots. Maybe he was putting them in a safe place,” Mama said, but I could tell she didn’t believe this.

  “No,” Ben said. “He just threw them in the river.”

  Our river, outside our house. Just fifty steps away from our dinner table. I imagined Lindy’s shattered pots, glimmering on the riverbed under the stars.

  “Did that man see you?” Mama asked.

  “No, I was feeding Speed Bump. She was real hungry. She ate thirteen worms!”

  Dad patted Ben’s hand. “That’s great, honey. You’re taking good care of her.” He put his fork down and looked at us. “I want you kids to stay away from the Dunn house for now. I don’t want you going anywhere near there, understand?”

  I looked at Mama, who was nodding.

  “But why?” I asked, thinking of Lindy in her shed, her worried eyes and her sad laugh.

  “Because it’s not a good time right now. Daddy and I will take care of this. Just promise us, all right?” Mama said. Her eyes locked on mine.

  I couldn’t imagine staying away from them. But the look on Mama’s face filled my tummy with worry, so I promised her I would.

  Catching Lucas

  That night, after dinner, I planted myself on the porch swing with the opossums. I may have promised not to go to Lucas’s house, but I hadn’t promised not to see him at mine. I was tired of waiting. It had only been a few days since the fair, but they were urgent ones, filled with need and worry, drought and fire. And something else. Something dark and troublesome coming from his cabin across the way.

  At night, I no longer drifted to sleep to the sounds of the potting shed humming, but to something else. The cold chink of a beer bottle being set on a porch floor. Bottle after bottle, until I lost count and fell into slumber. Each morning, there was a long row on the railing, glass soldiers lined up that Lindy swept quickly into a garbage bag. For a homecoming, none of the Dunns looked too happy.

  So while Daddy had forbidden me to visit him, I wished Lucas to visit me. It didn’t take long. I was rocking the opossums, wishing hard, when the cabin door opened.

  “Luca
s!” I hissed into the darkness.

  He froze.

  Come here, I motioned.

  He hesitated, looking back at the cabin. Then, as if making up his mind, he hurried over.

  “Where’ve you been?” I asked.

  “Busy,” he said, stepping deftly around the question like it was a gaping hole in my yard. The way Lindy had done earlier.

  “Look,” I said. I unwrapped the opossum pouch just enough so a pink nose stuck out.

  Lucas climbed hesitantly up the porch stairs. “Wow, where’d you find these guys?” he asked, moving closer.

  “Ruby Miller brought them over. She’s a friend of Grandma Rae’s.”

  Lucas sat down beside me on the swing. “They’re neat,” he said quietly.

  “Mama helped me sew them a flannel pouch from one of Dad’s old shirts.”

  Lucas grinned at it. “It’s like a little opossum sleeping bag.”

  “Want to hold them?” I asked. I was hungry for him to stay, to talk to me. I held the pouch out to him like an offering. Relief filled me when he reached for it.

  Lucas took the bag gently and cradled it against him. It was real natural, not like you’d expect from a boy. “They’re warm,” he said.

  I watched him carefully, trying to ignore the questions banging around in my brain like fireflies in a mason jar. He’s back, my heart sang.

  We sat like that awhile, listening to the peepers. When Lucas didn’t say much, I did. I filled the strange emptiness around us, plucking every funny or sad detail I could think of out of the last few days, until the cold worry that was between us was crowded and colored with the life of it all. I told him about the new patients I’d gotten, how Pearl and I had run home from the pool under the smoke that Monday, how the black skeletons of the orchard trees reached eerily up to the sky.

  As I talked, I could feel him relax on the seat next to me, a warmth that spread through the wood and into my own limbs. The tight corners of his mouth unraveled.