Six Feet Over It (26 page)

MAYBE THE GREATEST FEATURE
of the Death Mobile (I have
got
to stop calling it that) is the heater. It is powerful, and the moment we hit the cold of Northern California, it warms up fast; drowsiness wraps its snuggly arms around my passengers.

“I’ll stay up with you, Leigh,” Elanor yawns. “I swear!” And she’s gone. Dario puts a sweatshirt between her head and the passenger-side window.

Ana is beside me on the bench seat, her long hair down, and it brushes my shoulder. Her left hand on my knee, her right holds tight to Dario’s. I have to stop myself from waking her to remind her not to touch the gearshift.

I cannot think about the desert anymore—the coyote, the border patrol, guns. Her head drops to Dario’s shoulder. He closes his eyes. We ride in silence. I forget to be scared of driving. The heater hums. Ana and Elanor sleep.

I am not sleepy. Tired, but wide awake.

“Dario,” I whisper.

“Mmm.”

“Are you okay? Really?”

“Yes.”

“Is Ana?”

“Ask her yourself.”

“I can’t
ask
her that. I feel dumb. I’m a dumb gringo.”

“Okay, John Wayne, let’s be a little more dramatic. Ask her to make you a burrito.”

“Oh my God,” I sigh, “just tell me.”

He opens his eyes, turns to me.

“She is. She’s okay; we were very lucky. She’s really brave.”

I nod.

“Leigh.”

“What?”

“I didn’t understand the pirate ride.”

“Which part?”

“All of it. It’s not really a ride, is it? It’s so slow.”

“It’s not about speed, dummy; it’s about seeing the stuff. Like you’re in their world; you’re a pirate. You didn’t get that?”

“I don’t know.”

“They make it pretty clear.”

“I guess. I did like being in the boat.”

“Well. Sure.”

Almost midnight. All around us dark farmland, no other headlights. We could be the only people in the world.

Dario closes his eyes. Smiles.

“You and Elanor,” he says. “Not to be messed with.”

I smile.

“I didn’t want to call you, because I knew you would come. But I did. Because I knew you would come.”

I nod.

“Don’t cry,” he says.

“I’m
not
!”

“Okay.”

We’re almost home.

Snow. It is snowing.

A mile from the turnoff to Sierrawood and flakes are zooming around, flying at the windshield. I panic, can’t find the wiper switch. I turn on emergency lights, switch headlights off and on. The window is nearly covered. I step heavily on the brake and pull off to the shoulder. Ana wakes up.

“What is it?”

I mess with buttons, turn knobs.

“Oh,” I whisper casually, “nothing.” I nearly break the turn signal forcing it up farther than it can go.

“Here.” She reaches over the wheel, pulls the headlight switch forward. The blades come to life, sweep the wet snow aside in graceful arcs.

Elanor shifts, keeps sleeping.

“Thank you,” I say.

“Thank
you.
”

Dario snores. Loud.

“Good luck with
that.
”

She nods. Sends her eyes skyward.

I might love her.

“Hey … was the wedding—how was it?”

“Oh, Leigh.” She lays her head on Dario’s shoulder. “I wish you were there. All his friends.”

“I wish we were, too. Lots of pictures?”

“A million,” she whispers. “My mother will send them. But oh, wait …” She finds her bag at her feet, pulls out a Polaroid. “Look how handsome!”

Dario smiling, blurry, in a suit. Red poppy in his lapel, dark curls combed off his face.

“Will you be okay?” I ask. “Without your family?”

“Dario is my family.”

I nod.

“Also,” she whispers, confidential, “my family’s a little …”

“Really?”

She nods. “I love them. But I think … maybe some distance is a good thing.”

Now I
know
I love her.

I signal, ease back onto the off-ramp. The snow swirls, gets drier. Stickier. Ana pushes Dario’s arm.

“Mira.” Look.

He sits up, leans forward, face tilted toward the clouds.
“Leigh!”
he whispers.

“I
know
!”

“So slow down!”

“If I go any slower, we’ll be parked. Don’t worry about it.” Secretly I am sweating and scared, Gramma and the driver’s ed films shouting,
No chains! Black ice! Oil and water mixed makes for deadly roads! Driving at night in a storm is certain death! Ahhhh!

Elanor is awake.

“Leigh!” she says.

“I know!”

We are here. Home.

Dario jumps out, unlocks the frozen Manderleys, and leans back in the open door to say, “Hey. Park a minute?” He directs me airport-tarmac-style to the pond.

You’d think the guy would want to rush his bride off to her new home first, but apparently it is more exciting and romantic to spend some time with cemetery ducks in the freezing middle of the night. God, Wade has ruined him.

Inside the Manderleys, the trees, the lawn, the graves, the office, all white.

“Everyone bundle up,” he says.

We pull on our matching Disneyland sweatshirts, climb from the warm truck, and quietly close the doors.

Silence. The close, cottony silence of snow. The wind moves, and out of complete darkness comes a sudden swing of blue light. Our faces move up in unison to see thinning clouds float coolly past a full, glowing moon. And still the snow falls.

We huddle together beside the pond. Heavy black clouds bring darkness again; then wispy ribbons and the silver-blue moonbeams set the snow glowing. We pull our hoods back to watch the sky glow, then go dark, glow, dark, glow, dark. Unreal blue light, unnatural blackness.

Still more snow. The power lines along the road droop listlessly, bearing the unfamiliar weight. Electricity is probably out all over town. We are silent in the silence. Around us the graves are more still than ever, cozy beneath their thick white blanket, fragile flower blossoms peeking out, marking headstones. The weeping willow bends, limber, dips into the black glass of the pond beneath the soft weight of snow.

Dario has Ana’s bag. He goes to the pond’s edge and crouches there. The water is alive, each snowflake sending a million concentric circles spreading, joining, moving. He stands and steps back.

A little light pierces the black water. It floats, burns fiercely in the dark, sheltered by wings. Bright red wax-paper butterfly wings on a tiny balsa-wood boat. Somehow they kept it safe all the way here, the whole way home. Butterfly boat. It bobs and sails in the falling snow, glides to the center of the pond, fragile wings protecting precious flames.

We breathe the clean, frozen air and we are not cold.

“Sorry I missed your birthday,” Dario says. “How was it?”

Emily’s grave, bright with candlelight just last night, warms me.
“Habrías estado orgulloso,”
I say, and it is true. He would have been proud.

He hugs me, practically collapses my lungs.

Ana and Elanor pile on, all amazed we’re here.
Here.
But also
alive.
We are weepy. We are a mess.

“Ana,” I say, “I love my pony. My Emily.”

Still strange to say her name out loud.

She kisses my cold cheek. “I’ve told Dario enough with the skeletons.” She reaches once more into her Mary Poppins bag of magicalness and presses another familiar twine-bound tissue package into my hand. “I made this for you. We hid it with the rings—don’t ask. …”

“Yeah, okay.”

“With the cocaine,” Dario whispers.

She gives him a look. Squeezes my hand. “Happy late birthday.”

It is a butterfly, shiny silver on a sparkly chain. In the moonlight I barely see but can feel tiny indented dots outlining the edge of each wing. Mourning cloak. She turns me around, pulls my Disneyland hood aside, secures the clasp at the nape of my neck. The butterfly rests cool against my throat. Which swells, of course, now that I’m the World’s Biggest Crier, so instead of actually saying thank you, I hug her and hug her.

The snow falls on us.

On Dario, on Elanor.

On Emily.

Clouds float, cold, ethereal, past the moon. I turn to Emily on Poppy Hill.

Sierrawood is all glittering white hills glowing silver in reflected moonlight. They could be hills in any park, in any forest. Except beneath them sleep the peaceful, quiet graves. They are still here. Emily is here. I do not pretend otherwise. It can never be otherwise.

Ovid knew the truth; there is beauty in this impermanence. In this metamorphosis.

Dario holds Ana to him.

Elanor beside me. My friend.

The butterfly boat burns bright.

It’s kind of too much. But mostly it is perfect.

AT THE WILLOW GATES
of Rivendell, Balin and Elanor wait. It’s early Friday morning one week later. They’re in their pajamas. Kai jumps out so Elanor can sit beside me, and Balin climbs in last to snuggle up to Kai.

“You guys,” Elanor whines. “Ick! Too early!”

“Hey, Leigh.” Balin nods.

“Good day, sir. Got your dice?”

“Always.”

“Excellent.”

“I have your birthday present,” Elanor says. “Sorry so late. Close your eyes.”

Over the rearview mirror she slips a crystal sea star, silver thread strung with blue sea glass. It swings rainbows across our faces.

“Oh jeez,” Balin says. “You guys and the crystals.”

“Dario loves them,” Kai says.

“No, he definitely does not. He’s a dude.”

“He said he does!”

“He’s just being nice.”

But I think Balin is wrong. I think Dario loves the crystals because Ana does. Like the Christmas lights we made sure were lit, so she saw them, bright through the falling snow. So she would feel welcome. So she would stay.

Elanor reaches up, sets my crystal spinning.

“I love it,” I tell her. “Thank you.”

She sits back, smiles.

“Happy car!”

Sea grass waves tall and slender on the bluffs. We stand at the precipice, so close to the jagged cliff edge we taste the salt spray of waves crashing against the rocks below.

The salt air, the warm winter Mendocino sun.

“Ahhhh, the sea.
The Sea!
” Kai yells into the wind.

“Okay now, Meredith,” I sigh.

She laughs.

Balin reaches around my shoulders, a strong one-armed hug. “Not bad,” he says.

“Yeah.” I nod. “It’s pretty good.”

I’m getting used to all the hugging going on lately.

Ship bells ring.

“Oh my gosh,” Elanor breathes. “This is—I cannot believe we’re here. I love the ocean. I love a road trip. I love you having your license. Do you hear me?
Love! It!
” She sits in the warm grass, and I do, too; the wind whips our violet cotton skirts around our knees.

“Okay,” I call out. “Dinner?”

“Cap’n Flint’s,” Kai votes.

“And tomorrow?”

“Glass Beach. Bay View for lunch and ice cream.”

“
Glass
Beach?” Elanor says. “Like
sea
glass?”

“It’s where the mermaids live,” Kai says.

Two nights, all of us in sleeping bags in one room at a bed-and-breakfast, and that might finally do it. Empty the Pre-Need folder. Empty the nautilus toiletry bag. Empty the shoe boxes beneath my bed.

I can start again.

The Mourning Cloak butterfly shines silver at my throat.

Waves fill my ears, my head, my heart. The sea-salty wind pulls the tops of the waves to us.

“Teach me when we get back?” Elanor says.

“To drive?”

“Yeah.”

A gull floats past, tips its wings to glide low over the water.

“You’ll love it,” I promise.

Dario and Ana are home, tending Emily for me until we get back, even though I know the truth, because I believe Ovid.

Those things,
he says,
that nature denied to human sight, she revealed to the eyes of the soul.

She is here, home beside the ocean. She is with me. With us.

We stay until the sun is only a glow at the horizon, tall ships sailing west to the Undying Lands, waves singing the evening in. We lie back in the grass, beneath a pink sky in this impossible beauty, and my heart is warm and fast, full of love for the waves. For the warm sun. For being here, together. For it all.