Between, Georgia (31 page)

Then we heard a crack like the spine of the world breaking, and I stopped fighting him long enough to look up at the burning store, at the place where Fisher was, and the crack was the roof falling in and smashing her, and then more cracks as the walls crumbled and fell in, folding up the store on top of her, burying her, and at last the brick front of the store tottered inward and fell whole on top of it all, like a lid closing, and Fisher was gone.

“Get off me,” I said to Henry. I was limp beneath him, and he did what I said.

There was a terrible noise inside me, and I couldn’t think over this terrible noise. I looked back toward Bernese and saw she had dropped to her knees, gray-faced, and Trude was beside her weeping, and I could make no sense of it over the noise in my head.

I saw Mama, too, standing with Genny by the Marchants.

Genny was as white as paper, but I knew her first rule. If it happened in front of Mama, Genny never lied. Never. I saw her hands moving. I saw what she was telling Mama, telling her in a language I knew, and I could not stand to see what she was saying, as if her sign might make it so.

Mama was shaking her hands no, and no again, emphatic, absolute, but Genny wouldn’t stop signing it.

And then the sound that was roaring nonstop in my head came out, and everyone could hear it. It was coming out of Mama.

Mama made the sound and it was like a living siren of white noise, an unearthly keening. It wasn’t bearable to have this noise both in me, radiating outward to push against my skin, and also coming from my mama to press against the shell of me. I couldn’t be where this noise was. I turned and ran toward the church.

I heard someone say, “No, I’ll go,” and someone was with me, some blurred shape of a person. I kept running through the night, back behind the church until my car was in front of me and the outside noise was far away from me and may have stopped, but the inside noise was relentless. I put my hands against the car door and leaned on it.

The person behind me spoke, and it was Jonno. He said,

“Baby,” and a stranger in me reared up and said, “Get the fuck away from me. I’ll kill you.” And then some time went by, and time kept going. Time wouldn’t stop and the world did not have Fisher in it. “Get the fuck away from me,” I said again. When I turned back, there was nothing there and no one there to see.

I got in my car and made it start, and I made it be going, moving me away, but the noise was moving with me, vibrating in my chest, in my head, shaking every limb. The air in the car was made of salt and ashes, and I put the car in gear and tore toward the exit, wanting only to get far enough away so that it would be quiet. But I knew it wouldn’t be. The noise was in me, going with me, and the only thing I was driving away from was Mama, who would need me.

I slammed on the brakes, and the car jerked to a halt and shuddered and died. There was a rolling thump from the backseat, the only thing I could hear over the bad sounds in my brain, and then, piping through, clear and high and sweet-pitched as a bell, Fisher’s dour, small voice said, “Ow.”

I sat very still, and then I turned around and got to my knees, peering over the seat. And there she was.

She was cocooned in a blanket she had taken from the rental property over the store, and a pillow was under her. All I could see of her was her round face, blinking up at me from where she had tumbled. Fisher fought the blanket until one perfect pale hand emerged to scrub at her eyes. “You got back?”

“Yeah,” I said, and then I added, “Hi.”

“Hi,” she said. I was afraid to touch her. I was afraid she wouldn’t be her solid self, real and alive. I watched as she fought and twisted her way out of the blanket, kicking free and then boosting herself back up to the backseat.

“Why are you in my car?” I said.

“I didn’t want you to leave town again while I was sleeping.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” I said.

Her lower lip poked out. “Yes, you would, too.”

I shook my head and said, so careful, “Do you think you could come up here for a minute.”

She stood up and leaned toward me, letting her stomach rest on the lip of the front seat, and then she slithered over, slipping down to fall into my waiting arms.

I couldn’t help it. I pulled her into me so close and tight, burying my nose in her hair to breathe her in.

“You’re squashing me,” she said, muffled against my chest.

“I’m keeping you,” I said to her. “You are mine and you should come and live with me. I am keeping you. Would you like that?”

“Yes,” she said, and she relaxed into me, letting herself be squashed for once. Some time went by, and it was all right, time could go again, I would allow it, and I had a hard time not giggling as I gave the world permission to rotate on its axis.

Fisher wormed backwards, away from me, until she was sitting beside me on the seat, perfectly contained in her whole, smooth skin.

“I’m hungry,” she said. “I’m practically starved.”

“We can fix that,” I said. I couldn’t stop looking at her, at how all the pieces of her fitted together exactly to make Fisher.

She was looking down at her legs. She said, shyly, “Nonny? Is that true? About I can come live with you?”

“Yes,” I said, even though I didn’t yet know how to make it happen.

She said, “Because that was my secret wish. My real wish. The one that cost fifteen dollars.”

“It will be true,” I said, and my voice was sure. I might not know how to make it happen, but I knew how to find out. “We have to go see everyone. People are worried. No one knew where you were, and you can’t ever do this again.”

“Am I going to get a spanking?” she said.

“No,” I said. “Not this time.” And then I heard myself adding with absolute sincerity, “I will kill anyone who tries to spank you.”

Fisher nodded matter-of-factly. I left the stalled car right where it was, blocking the exit from the parking lot. Fisher and I got out, and I went around and took her hand. We started walking out of the parking lot, out onto Philbert Street first and then toward the square.

“What’s happening?” said Fisher, staring big-eyed down the street at all the lights and vehicles and smoke.

“Bunch of stuff,” I answered. “Don’t worry, everyone is okay.”

I don’t know who saw us coming. I didn’t register it much at all. I heard the hum of joyful conversation and exclamation building as we came, but all I could see was Mama. She was sitting on the curb between Bernese and Genny. They were lined up in a row like the three monkeys, Bernese and Genny weeping into their hands and Mama between them, her hands folded quietly around the box in her lap, seeing and hearing and speaking no evil for all of them.

Genny looked up, tear-stained and trembling, and she said,

“Oh, Bernese! Oh, Bernese!” Bernese looked up and her face was made of clay, a sagging death mask. Then she saw Fisher beside me as we came walking staunchly hand in hand, and she burst out crying again and turned to Isaac, who was sitting beside her, and she collapsed onto him.

Genny held her hands up, but there were no words in English or in sign for what she had to say. There was no way to tell Mama except to pick up Fisher, to swing her up into my arms and then to put her, all of her, into my mother’s lap. I watched my mother’s arms close around her, watched her feel and understand the shape and smell of what was being given back to her. The box with Josephine in it teetered and then tumbled off her legs into the road, and Mama let it go, hugging Fisher tight against her.

I knelt in front of her in the road and put my arms around both of them. Fisher, smashed in between us, was protesting, but I ignored her as we held her safe and living between us.

Bernese and Genny were hovering, and after a few minutes, Bernese reached in between us and dragged Fisher out to smother her in hugs while Genny patted and dabbed at any piece of Fisher she could reach.

“You people are bothering me,” Fisher wailed.

I picked up the box with Josephine’s head and offered it to Mama, but she pushed it away. I set it down beside us, and then I gave my mother my hands and said the best part of our love story back to her. I gave her the words she had given me so many times when she was telling me how we found each other.

I signed to her,
That baby is my baby. I know it. I don’t know
how to do it, how to keep her. But you do.

My mother’s searching hands reached out and found my face, stroked gently down my cheeks.

Good girl,
she signed.
Good girl, good girl.
And then she nodded her hand. She would tell me how.

CHAPTER 20

IHAD TO wait for an opportunity to put Mama’s plan into action. It had to arise on its own. It was easy to be patient, however, because Fisher was staying with me at Mama’s house for now. Bernese was hip deep in a battle with the insurance companies over her store and the museum and engaged in a separate war with the judicial system.

Teak and Jimmy were already back in Alabama. Teak was in jail for parole violations, but Jimmy was home in Jackson’s Gap; apparently, there was no law against passing out on a sofa while your half brothers try to burn up a town. Grif was in custody, but they hadn’t found Billy. Billy Crabtree always seemed to land on his feet, and this time he had hit the ground running. Bernese was all over the A.D.A. who caught the file, agitating for a coun-trywide manhunt and trying to make sure Grif wasn’t offered bail.

I used her distraction to put
Get Fit, Kid!
through her paper shredder. Fisher, let off the chain, spent three days eating herself sick, voraciously stuffing in junk until I thought she’d swell up like a tick and pop. I let her. I said nothing as she ravaged an entire bag of Doritos and licked all the frosting and sugar off half a box of donuts. I even kept my mouth shut when she threw each naked pastry back into the box, shriveled and slightly damp.

But by the time a week was out, she had settled and started asking for real food. She still agitated for Cap’n Crunch but accepted Kix, negotiated a certain number of bites of broccoli, and asked for candy twice as often as she was allowed to have it. In other words, she was acting and eating like a normal little kid.

On the square, workmen were clearing out the debris from the burned-out shells of Bernese’s and Henry’s stores. I went down there one day during school hours. I kicked around in the rubble from the museum, but if there had been something salvageable, how would I recognize it? I quit digging and dusted off my hands.

There was nothing here I could save, nothing I could learn.

As I walked back toward Philbert, one of the workmen behind me let out a wolf whistle. I was wearing my tightest jeans and a turquoise knit top that always made me feel pretty. I grinned at the sound; I was going to see Henry Crabtree, and I needed the affirmation.

Henry had been staying down at Ona’s. I hadn’t talked to him since the night of the fire. Part of it was that I had Fisher all the time, and Henry was hung up with insurance companies, too.

We’d waved at each other across the square a few times, but we hadn’t had a single conversation. In a town as small as Between, that couldn’t be coincidence.

I picked my way up the cracked driveway to the front door. I banged on the knocker, and after a few minutes, Ona Crabtree opened the door, her eyes widening when she saw my face.

“Nonny!” She seemed frozen.

“Can I come in?” I asked.

“Sure you can. Sure,” said Ona. She backed out of the doorway. Henry was on the sofa, an open book in his hands. His feet were bare, and his jeans weren’t ironed. His hair was down, and he looked much too rumpled and casual for Henry until I considered how recently his iron, his tailored New York clothes, and even the leather hair tie I had once pulled off of him had been converted into great filthy drifts of soot and ash.

Ona closed the door behind me. “Can I get you a cold drink?

Sit down. Sit down.” Her voice was eager and a little too loud for the small room.

She led me to the big chair facing the short end of the coffee table. I perched gingerly on its edge, and she said, “You want a Coke? We got Coke.”

“That’d be great,” I said. She scuttled off into the kitchen.

“How’s it going, Nonny Jane,” Henry said. He sounded noncommittal and hugely guarded, but that may have been my ears.

He may have been sleepy. He rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands and then clasped his hands in front of him, forearms resting on his thighs.

“Good,” I said. “It’s good.”

We fell silent as Ona came back with a can of Coke. She popped the tab theatrically and set it down in front of me on the table.

“You want some cobbler? It’s peach.”

“Not really,” I said. I took a bracing sip of the Coke. It tasted too sweet, and I picked it up and looked at the label.

“That’s that vanilla kind,” Ona said. “I like that vanilla taste in there.” I didn’t answer, and she stood awkwardly in front of me, twisting her hands. The hungry look she always had for me was back, and I stiffened uncomfortably under it.

Henry was watching us, his eyes cool and appraising. As politely as I could, I said, “Ona? Would you mind if I had a minute alone with Henry?”

“Naw, I don’t mind,” she said. She stood looking around as if uncertain where to go, then chose the hallway that led to the back bedrooms. She went through the doorway, but I couldn’t hear her footsteps very well on the carpet. I wasn’t sure if she had gone to her room or if she was crouched right at the corner, listening.

I said, “Henry, tell me what happened last Friday. Tell me everything you know.”

He nodded and then started talking, telling me what had happened at the Crabtree version of a family dinner and then at the square, filling in the parts I hadn’t heard from the police and Bernese. “And that’s when you showed up. And Jonno. So you know the rest,” he ended.

“You shouldn’t have gone in there after those animal dolls,” I said. He started to wave me off, and I added, “But I’m glad you did. You’ll never know what that means to my mother.”