Hope and Other Luxuries (79 page)

That was a relief. I did feel a little better.

Joe and Elena walked through the pet store while I loitered behind, mulish and out of sorts. Near the reptile terrariums, Joe corralled a young man with a name tag to ask him about snakes.

“How about a corn snake?” the young man suggested. “We have some nice young ones.” He picked up a plastic box and stirred the aspen-shaving litter with a pair of tongs, and two little brown snakes shot up out of the shavings and began weaving back and forth like a pair of tiny cobras.

He gasped and almost dropped the box. “I'm not really the snake person,” he confessed.

“
Is
there a snake person?” Joe asked.

The snake person was paged. She turned out to be a tough-looking young woman with short blond hair and a frank, confident manner.

“You might think about a boa,” she suggested.

“Ugh,” I said faintly.

I had known a boa once. He was a nice snake, but he was also a muscle-bound monster. He was like one giant roided-out bicep.

Body builders make me queasy.

Meanwhile, Elena was still studying the plastic box. She said, “Look at this little red guy.”

Behind the two aggressive young brown snakes, a third snake was looping along lazily. He was the most peculiar color: salmon orange, with dark red spots down his back.

He was quite unexpectedly beautiful.

“That's an albino corn snake,” said the snake person, fetching him out with the tongs. She wasn't quite right about that, but never mind.

Elena spread her fingers and watched the little red snake weave his way among them, the tip of his tail curled tightly around her thumb.

It wasn't that I disliked snakes per se. I had always loved the feel of snakes, like fine smooth plastic. I reached out and took the slim red snake on my palm, and with him came a bright, busy crowd of memories.

Funny hognose snakes, playing dead. Big black king snakes, sunning on the gravel drive. Water snakes, swimming at the head of their V-shaped wakes. Garter snakes with yellow racing stripes.

Tiny blind snakes, pink and shiny, like a more perfect earthworm . . . How old was Elena the first time I had showed her a blind snake? Emerald-green grass snakes, elusive and beautiful, the elf of the Texas snake world . . .

Texas has a lot of snakes.

Tor had once dragged home a massive garter snake by the very tip of its tail. That snake had been distraught at the rough treatment. It had flung itself back and forth with impotent fury. I had made Tor let it go, and it had flashed away in an instant. It was astounding how fast that snake had moved without feet.

That's such a strange mode of travel!
I thought yet again, interested in spite of my bad attitude as the little guy navigated carefully from finger to finger.
Imagine: a life without feet!

The little snake wasn't panicking or flailing, he was just looking around. He had a docile nature. “He's a picky eater, though,” the woman warned—to Elena's great delight.

“I'm bonding with him already!” she said.

But my mind wasn't through playing disaster footage yet. It flashed to the image of a listless reptile, immovable in its terrarium, afflicted with some mysterious, expensive ailment . . .

What do we do? What do we
do
?

“What do we know,” I said, “about keeping a
snake
?”

“You could buy our corn snake book,” the woman said.

In the end, we brought the little snake home, along with the corn snake book, aspen chips, red and blue light bulbs, misting bottles, driftwood, a hollow ceramic “rock,” daytime and nighttime lamps, an under-tank heater, frozen mice, interchangeable water dishes that couldn't tip over, and a twenty-gallon terrarium—in all, several hundred dollars' worth of snake and snake paraphernalia because
no
animal—not even an animal I opposed—would know hardship or want in my house.

Once Elena had the corn snake moved into his terrarium, none of us could take our eyes off him. He looked so beautiful, and somehow primitive and ancient at the same time, like a work of aboriginal art.

This is what Elena does so well
, I thought, remembering the poem she had read to me.
She tells me sad stories I don't want to hear, but then I never
want to forget them. She drags me into adventures I don't want to have, but then I don't want them to stop
.

She was so brave! She made me want to be brave, too.

The next morning, Joe had another plane to catch. Well before dawn, I drove down wide-open highway to the airport and pulled to the curb by the terminal doors. It was so early that the airport hadn't really gotten going yet. The two old porters, standing by the curbside baggage check-in counter, looked ready to fall asleep.

“See you in two weeks,” Joe said, giving me a hug. “
Please
write me something I'll want to read.”

He had refused to read Elena's story. I didn't blame him.

I'm going to miss this hug while he's gone
, I thought. Joe is so tall and big compared to me that he can rest his chin on the top of my head. When I'm in his arms, I can't see anything but his shirtfront and his shoulders and his arms as they reach past to wrap around me.

A hug from Joe is a wonderful place to be.

I left the airport, made a detour to a nearby drive-through for a wakeup cup of coffee, and drove home through the empty predawn streets. When Elena and I would drive this stretch of road in a couple of hours, it would be a zoo, but for the time being, it was nice and quiet, just the way I liked it. I sipped my coffee and made a resolution: I
would
write something Joe would want to read. And I'd start right away. That couldn't get too depressing. I'd have only an hour of writer's block to face before taking Elena to treatment.

So, when I got home, I shut the door of the bedroom, and I opened up my laptop. For the first time in weeks, I thought about my mermaid again.

Where is she?
I asked, just as I always had.
Where is she? What is she doing?

And, as the scene coalesced, I began to type.

“Look what I've brought,” Rain said, holding the door open with one foot as she bent to pick up the rattan tray. Mama stirred under the sheet and opened her eyes. A fragile beauty still hung about
Mama's delicate features, but time and worry had taken their toll. Wrinkles pressed close to Mama's mouth now, and her eyes glittered with fever.

“They aren't with you, Rain? They aren't?”

Rain pushed the door shut with her hip.

“No one's there, Mama,” she said. “It's just me.”

No one was ever there.

I grimaced with annoyance. A sick mother, lying in bed. A weak, sick, fear-racked, paranoid mother—wasn't that lovely!

Stupid overactive imagination!

I blew out my breath and took a sip of coffee.
Look again
, I told myself.
What is the
mermaid
like?

And once again, I began to type.

But Rain was never sick. She was strong. And life was beautiful. Real life was more beautiful than any fairy tale could ever be. The fly-specked window and unpainted walls around Rain suddenly seemed unbearably precious. They were landmarks in the flow of this beautiful life. They said,
We are here, and you are here, at this exact moment
.

This is me
, Rain thought.
This is me, in the middle of my life. I am standing in a room in a town in the middle of a territory so young, it's not even a state yet. No matter where I go, I'll carry this town with me—it and everywhere else I've ever been
.

Wait! What town? What territory? Where is this? Oh
, no
! What are we going to
do
?

Did we still have an atlas? Could I find maps of the time period? Would I need to use real names of towns? What if the towns hadn't been founded yet? How would I know I was wrong? What did our library system have? Could I get a list of Western towns and their founding dates?

Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh
, no
!

Then I read the paragraphs again, and my worry subsided.

I thought,
I like this girl!

Rain crossed and recrossed the room, doing the mundane chores her mother was too weak to do. Quietly, I settled down in the corner to watch. Rain put away laundry. She tidied the bare space. She didn't mind the boring work.

But when nighttime came, Rain took her mother's medicine bottle and crept out of the house.

Of course!
I thought.
She's going to find water
.

Rain and her mother were mermaids, after all. No wonder her mother was sick. She must need so much water per day, week, month, or else she would start to get sick. And not just water, I realized, getting excited now. It would have to be
living
water—
flowing
water. Rain must be going out to find a stream or a creek—even a little spring.

And I pictured a tiny spring nearby with a few green ferns gathered around it, maybe back in the pine-covered folds of the land I could see behind the town.

But
that
isn't what my imagination pictured—

Because that isn't where Rain went.

My mermaid girl turned and walked downhill, down the side of the steep Western ridge. It was nothing but desert scrub and dusty earth, dim under the light of the moon. Far below, I could see more desert, spreading out wide and flat. I could see fuzzy cactus down there, catching the moonlight.

But . . . why is she doing this?
I wondered.
There's no water here!

Or was there?

Water was closer now, wandering blind and searching for a way out. Rain felt it, traveling along deep cracks in the sloping ground beside her.

A sapling grew at an angle out of the hillside, its tender, rustling leaves betraying the secret that lay at its roots. Rain knelt down beside its slim trunk and dug into the ground.

“Here,” she sang under her breath. “Here! Come this way!”

The groundwater . . . Rain was calling the groundwater!

Water hurried. It seeped out around the trunk to wet and cool her hands. A tiny trickle welled up and began to thread its way down the hillside.

“More!” Rain urged. And more water came. She could feel it feeling its way to her through the tons and tons of rock.

Of course. Of course! Water came to her call!

The ground beneath Rain's feet shook as she scrambled aside. Another few seconds, and rocks bumped and tumbled out of the way. The sapling bent horizontal, thrashing in the current. Then it shot off and out of sight.

Water sang a wordless song of triumph as it burst out of its grave. Rain sang with it, dancing, and bent to thrust her hands beneath its cold, shining arc.

Water and she never stopped moving. Water and she were always on their way.

Tears were in my eyes now. Tears rolled down my face as I watched this beautiful, joyful young creature dance in the moonlight.

I didn't see it coming
, I thought.
I didn't see it coming! She surprised me!

My timer went off. Reverently, I saved the Word file. It wasn't a white page anymore. It was a home.

She's alive
, I thought as I wiped my wet cheeks.
She's actually alive!

Then I set aside the laptop, and I went to wake up Elena.

“Hey,” I said, shaking her, and my old terrier lifted her head from a fold of blanket and gave me a careful look.

But, “Hey,” Elena mumbled back almost amiably. She didn't have much trouble waking up anymore.

“So, I wrote a chapter of the mermaid book this morning,” I said, sitting down on the bed.

“Mmm?” inquired Elena, face-down in her pillow.

“The mermaid did something I didn't expect.”

“Mmm!” Elena said.

But she didn't know what that meant, how that sentence should be accompanied with trumpets. And that was all right. It was part of my other life. It belonged to my other world.

“Come on now,” I said, reverting to my role in
this
world. “Got to get moving. Time to get up!”

Scruffy little Genny stood up, stretched stiffly, and jumped down. But Elena rolled over with her eyes still closed. She murmured, “I just need to finish this dream first.”

“I'll give you five minutes,” I said. “Get to dreaming.”

So I popped the top off Mr. Snaky's cage, and I misted it and changed his water and admired his vibrant oranges and reds as he traveled footless along my arm. “Who's a pretty snaky?” I crooned to him, running a finger down his silky back. “Who's my big strong boy?”

And Tor strolled in to ask for his breakfast. And Genny trotted in circles, panting, wondering who I was talking to.

And my daughter—my bright, fearless daughter—finished her dream.

E
lena stayed in treatment at Sandalwood from October to March before she felt ready to resume college. She enrolled in summer school and promptly fell in love with learning all over again. Once more, she was bursting with information to share. She even told me jokes in sign language.

The following year, Elena applied to nursing schools and was accepted everywhere she applied.

The month after the painful breakup described in the first chapter of this book, Elena called me to say that she was traveling to Baltimore to visit an old friend.

“He's the only one who's stayed in touch from my state university days,” she said. “He knows you're in Germany and Clint and Valerie are in Nevada, and he says he doesn't want me to be alone over the Thanksgiving holiday.”

I knew the young man already from Elena's stories of university life. Like Elena, he had boundless curiosity, a sharp mind, and oceans of ambition. He was a bright, humorous, gentle person with old-fashioned Texas manners, and he didn't have a mean bone in his body.