Savvy (21 page)

But before Bobbi could say or do anything more, Miss Rosemary grabbed hold of her daughter’s arm and pulled her away from the rest of us. Miss Rosemary’s tears shut off like a faucet and she railed, “You’re in enough trouble already, Roberta. Don’t go asking for more.” Then she looked at us Beaumonts as though we were devil angels sent to lead her children astray.

The shiny gold minivan was parked outside and all Miss Rosemary wanted to do was restore her life to the proper order and get back on the road to Hebron with Bobbi and Will in tow.

Lester and Lill were standing in the open doorway of the bus, peering past the sliding glass doors of the hospital to watch the reunion inside with broad smiles on their faces. Lester stood on the step behind Lill with his hands on her shoulders, and I could tell just by looking at them that they were going to be all right. But I hoped, hoped, hoped I’d get a chance to see them both again someday. It wouldn’t seem right not to.

I’d made it to Salina; I was finally there. Even so, I had a feeling in my chest like my heart was breaking up, like it was turning into nothing more than a big ball of melon that could dissolve into little watery chunks at any moment. It felt disjointed and downside-up to be parting ways so abruptly with all my new friends. All I could do was wave to Bobbi and Will as the preacher’s wife dragged them out of the hospital.

Just before the sliding doors slid shut, Will caught my eye with his own quick wink. I realized I’d be seeing him again at church next Sunday, or I hoped I would—I hoped you couldn’t get kicked out of church for making bad choices, or for knowing you’d probably make those same choices again if you had it all to do over. I hoped that God could understand my reasons for doing what I’d done better than Miss Rosemary had.

Before following his wife out of the hospital, Pastor Meeks shook Momma’s hand. He shook Grandpa’s and Rocket’s too. “You’ll all be in our prayers,” he said, with a stern nod to the rest of us.

“Thank you, Pastor Meeks,” Momma said to the preacher, trying to suppress a wistful smile as the man’s hair filled up with Rocket’s static, standing straight up off his head.

As soon as the older man turned to leave, Officer Bill Meeks stepped toward us. “You kids stay safe and keep out of trouble, all right?” Then Bill shook hands with each of us, even Gypsy, before he left. At the door, he looked over his shoulder at me, and nodded once before following the preacher out of the hospital. I watched Bill through the clear glass doors as he stopped briefly to exchange words with Lester and Lill, then strode over to say his own good-byes to Bobbi and Will as they climbed up into the minivan. I liked Bill Meeks, and I was glad that Will wanted to grow up to be just like
this
daddy.

On the Heartland Bible Supply bus, Lester’s shoulders began to twitch. He was ready to be on his way. Lill blew us a kiss, and Fish and Samson and I all waved back at her.

At last, it was time to go find Poppa.

I
nside the elevator on our way up to the critical care unit on the fourth floor of the Salina Hope Hospital, Momma squeezed us all to her once again, kissing each of us on the top of the head.

“We’ve been so worried,” was all she could manage to say and still keep her voice under control. Hooking one arm through Fish’s and holding my hand in hers while Rocket wrangled both Gypsy and Grandpa Bomba, Momma tucked Samson up under her wing as though by keeping us close enough, we might not disappear again.

Rocket stared my way like he was examining me for new spots or stripes. He looked me over head to toe and back again. “How’d your birthday treat you, Mibs?” he finally asked, just as the elevator doors opened up on the fourth floor. For a moment we all just stood there. We knew Rocket wasn’t asking about my cake or my party or even my runaway journey through the heartland.

Momma looked at me anxiously, as though, having been steeped in all of her other worries, she’d almost forgotten about my savvy. The elevator door began to close again with all of us still standing inside, but I reached out and caught it with my hand.

“It treated me just fine, Rocket,” I answered as though I hadn’t had a single lick of trouble. “I believe that me and the world will survive my savvy, once I get a bit more used to it, that is.”

Glancing at the nurses’ station just across the hall, Momma said, “I want to hear all about everything. I want to know about your savvy, Mibs,” she said quietly. “And about everything that’s happened to you since we last saw you. You have to tell me the whole story, from start to finish—all of you.”

“First Poppa?” whispered Samson, tugging again on Momma’s sleeve.

Momma smiled the saddest smile I’d ever seen. Her smile was perfectly heartbreaking. Unable to speak, she nodded, tears filling up her blue, blue eyes. Stepping off the elevator, Momma led us toward the nurses’ station. The nurses all looked up from their coffee and their charts, smiling at Momma and Grandpa and the rest of us like they were saying sorry, sorry, sorry—sorry that your poppa’s hurt, sorry that he’s broken.

“Are these the rest of your children, Mrs. Beaumont?” asked a nurse wearing bright blue scrubs dotted with little rainbows.

“Yes,” said Momma. She nodded quickly toward Fish and Samson and me. “These three are my delinquents—my wandering adventurers.”

“We were just trying to get down here, Momma,” I said plaintively. “I just had to see Poppa. I
had
to.”

Momma nodded. “I know, Mibs.” Then, turning back to the nurse, she asked, “Can I take my children in to see their poppa now? Because I honestly can’t predict what might happen if they don’t get to see him soon.”

“Yes, Mrs. Beaumont,” said the nurse with a kindly nod. “You can take them in.”

Momma led us across the hall, toward a half-open door, passing a maintenance man on a ladder who was cursing to himself as he replaced a long fluorescent light in the ceiling. Stopping with her fingers wrapped around the door handle, Momma looked each of us in the eye as though she was reeling us in to her, trying to hold us close with her gaze.

“Momma?” said Fish, with just a trace of wind blowing the hair out of his eyes. “Poppa hasn’t woken up yet?”

“Not yet, Fish,” Momma said. “Not yet.” Then, sharing a sorrowful knowing look with Grandpa and taking a deep breath, she continued slowly, choosing each word carefully. “The doctors say—well, they say he may not.” Then she added quickly “But we will keep hoping and praying, because, if nothing else, those are things we can all do.”

I felt as though the earth was going to open up and swallow me, and I wondered if Grandpa was shaking the ground or if it was only my legs quaking beneath me.

Momma looked quickly toward Fish, past experience readying her for his storm. But aside from a smattering of rain against the windows just beyond the nurses’ station, Fish was holding it together. I suppose it could have been the numbing shock of Momma’s words that dampened Fish’s savvy, or even Samson’s hand in his—perhaps it was Fish’s own brand-new scumbling strength, but standing there outside Poppa’s room, not even a breeze tickled the air.

Momma looked then at Rocket.

“I’ll be okay,” he reassured her, “I can go in this time. Please, Momma? It will be worse if you make me stay out.”

Casting her glance from the man on the ladder to stray shards of glass missed by the last sweep-up of the hard tiled floor, Momma didn’t look convinced. But Rocket’s eyes pleaded with her, and she gave in; I knew she wanted our whole family together at last.

Finally, her glance fell on me. “Is there anything I need to know, Mibs, before we go in?”

I shook my head. “Nothing,” I whispered. “There’s nothing.” How I had hoped that this moment would come and I would find the power to wake up Poppa, to rescue him and bring him back home to us in Kansaska-Nebransas. But like the color of my eyes or the size of my feet, my savvy wasn’t something I had any say over. Just like everyone else, I could do nothing, nothing, nothing for Poppa now.

With one last look at her extraordinary family, Momma pushed the door to Poppa’s room all the way open, and we filed in quietly to find Poppa resting, looking nothing at all like Sleeping Beauty.

A
t first, Poppa didn’t even look like Poppa. His bald head was wrapped round and round with bandages. He had wires and tubes and machines to help him do everything, and his face was pale and sagging. Every one of us found another person’s hand to hold as we stepped closer to Poppa’s bed. He had a tube in one arm and a blood pressure cuff wrapped around the other. Wires and sensors were attached to him everywhere and his pointing finger looked like it had a big fat clothespin on it. Poppa’s arms rested outside his blankets; his hands lay palms-up like he was reaching out for help.

I felt as though I’d forgotten how to breathe. The normal, simple act of filling and emptying my lungs became the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. I was afraid to swallow, knowing that it would unleash the flood of tears that burned behind my eyes.

Grandpa Bomba struggled with the lid of the jar in his old hands, his knobby fingers unable to get a good strong grip as he tried to open it. Tenderly, Rocket took the jar from Grandpa and gently tapped the lid against the bedside table once or twice. Then he loosened the lid a half of a turn, and Momma and Poppa’s never-ending love song spilled loudly into the room. Momma took the jar from Rocket, tightening the lid a quarter-turn to lower the volume, and keep the nurses from rushing in to shush us. But her hands trembled as she did it.

I rubbed my knuckles gently against Poppa’s jaw, feeling the scratchy stubble of his unshaven chin; then I dropped my hand to his arm. I ran my shaking hand lightly down Poppa’s arm and stopped with one finger pressed against the inside of his wrist as though checking for a pulse. In that moment; I couldn’t help remembering the homeless man by the Dumpster behind the Emerald Truck Stop Diner and Lounge. That man had been asleep too. Asleep and totally alone. Totally hopeless. He’d had no one to play songs for him, no one to listen, no one to care. But Poppa had all of us, and we would never let him go.

“Mibs,” said Fish, hardly loud enough for me to hear. I looked up at my brother, who tapped his own forearm meaningfully, then nodded at Poppa. “Miss Mermaid, Mibs,” he whispered. “What about Miss Mermaid?” Samson looked at me then too, his dark eyes round.

I could not believe that I’d forgotten. How could I forget about Poppa’s faded navy tattoo? How could I have forgotten Miss Mermaid?

Gently, careful not to bump any important tubes or wires, I turned Poppa’s arm around. There she was, wrapped around her anchor, winking beneath the hair on Poppa’s arm. But to my distress, even Poppa’s tattoo looked belly-up and lifeless, like that long-haired mermaid had dodged a shipwreck to get washed up on dry land.

I listened hard for that mermaid’s voice inside my head. I traced her long green tail with the tip of my finger. Then I closed my eyes tight and tried to hear what Poppa might be thinking, what Poppa might be feeling, what Poppa might be dreaming or wishing or knowing. I listened and listened and listened.

But there was nothing. No voices in my head. No Poppa at all. I heard the rasp of metal against glass as Fish, face scrunched up against his tears, reached out to close the lid all the way on Grandma Dollop’s jar. stopping short the never-ending love song; I wasn’t sure if he closed the jar to help me hear Poppa, or to keep all of our hearts from tearing into pieces. Without that song, so much stillness filled the room that I felt as broken and dark as all of Rocket’s busted lightbulbs.

I realized that Fish and Samson were still looking at me, hardly breathing. They were watching me listen. They wanted to know what I could hear—wanted to know what Miss Mermaid had to say about Poppa and when he was planning on waking up. Momma and Rocket didn’t know yet about me and ink and skin and feelings and thoughts and listening, and maybe it wasn’t the best time to be telling them, since what I was
not
hearing couldn’t be good—couldn’t be good at all. Fish and Samson knew. They knew, and they were looking to me to learn what they could.

I shook my head slowly.

Without even a gust or a breeze, Fish turned his back on me and walked out of the room.

“Fish?” Concerned, Momma followed Fish out into the hall, taking Gypsy with her as she left to make sure that Fish was all right. Rocket tried to comfort Samson, but Samson just stood by Poppa’s bed like a statue.

It was impossible to believe that an entire room filled with special Beaumont know-how could do nothing to help our poppa. All I could do was listen uselessly. But listen I did. I listened until my ears rang with all the soft beeping and shushing and humming and buzzing of the machines that surrounded him. I listened until my head hurt and my eyes stung with all the tears I was too empty to cry.

Rocket watched me and Samson intently keeping his eye on us for Momma while she was in the hallway with Fish and Gypsy. Grandpa Bomba dropped into a chair at the foot of Poppa’s bed, looking forlorn and older than old.

Then I leaned over Poppa’s bed with enormous care and whispered in his ear. “Listen to me now, Poppa. It’s time for you to hear
my
voice inside
your
head. You may think you’ve got no savvy, Poppa, but you’re wrong. You do have a savvy. You do.” I thought back to everything I knew about Poppa. I thought back to the story of how he’d met and courted Momma, never giving up until she finally agreed to married him, even after Aunt Dinah had told him to shove off. I thought back to the World’s Largest Porch Swing and how Poppa always vowed that he’d build us one all our own. I remembered Poppa coming home from work late because he had been determined to pick out the very best special-occasion dress that he could find.

“You do have a savvy, Poppa. You do,” I repeated over and over into his ear. “You never give up, Poppa, not ever. That’s your savvy. You never,
ever
give up.”

I closed my eyes and made a wish, a belated birthday wish in my imagination. I wished that Poppa could hear me. I wished that Poppa would listen. Then I bent down and kissed Poppa’s forehead.