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 that 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 colour 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.
36
At 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 clothes peg 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 knobbly 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 bin 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 marry 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.
‘… give up,’ said a faint, faint voice inside my head.
I opened my eyes. Samson’s hand rested lightly on Poppa’s shoulder.
‘… don’t… give up.’ The voice came again, a little louder now.
I looked at Samson. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen my little brother cry before – he’d always hidden everything away so well – but he was crying now, making neither a sob nor a sound. The biggest, quietest tears slid down Samson’s face to fall and fall like Fish’s rain on to Poppa’s chest.
Maybe it was Samson, or my words or my wish… or a miracle. Or maybe it was the same for Poppa as it had been for my brother’s dead pet turtle, maybe nature was only doing what nature does and it was simply Poppa’s time to start healing and waking up. We could never really know. Even with a savvy, some things always stay a mystery.
‘… don’t give up.’
Miss Mermaid shivered and swished her tail ever so slightly, as though the effort was almost too great.
‘I don’t… give up.’ The voice in my head grew louder yet.
‘Poppa!’ I s
houted, certain now that it wasn’t just me hoping. The voice came from Poppa and Miss Mermaid. ‘Poppa, that’s right! You don’t give up! Can you hear me, Poppa? It’s me, Mibs!’
Rocket put his hands on my shoulders and tried to quiet me, but I shook him off. Grandpa rose up out of his chair with a stern look.
‘Poppa! Can you hear me? Don’t give up!’ I shouted again.
‘Mibs, stop yelling!’ said Rocket. ‘This is a hospital.’
‘He can hear me, Rocket! I know he can. And I can hear him.’
‘Mibs, Poppa’s not even conscious.’ Rocket raised his own voice now, sounding tired and vexed. But I ignored him and kept yelling into Poppa’s ear.
‘Mibs!’ shouted Rocket, trying again to pull me away from Poppa.
Without warning, all of Poppa’s buzzing, whirring, shushing machines and monitors went berserk. Lights flashed and alarms sounded. Sparks popped from the equipment and the up-and-down rhythm of the line on Poppa’s heart monitor went flat with a single terrifying tone.
Rocket turned completely white. A horrified look contorted his face and he began to back out of the room, bumping into Fish and Momma, who had heard all of the commotion and come running. They were followed in by the nurse in the rainbow scrubs.
‘Everyone needs to clear this room immediately,’ said the nurse.
‘No!’ I shouted. ‘Poppa needs me! I can hear him!’
‘Mibs, please –’ said Momma.
I couldn’t let them make me leave. I had to stay and listen to Poppa. I had to let him know it was time for him to wake up and that I would be there when he did. I lowered my voice and leaned right up to Poppa’s ear again, holding on tight to his bed and ignoring everyone who tried to pull me away.
‘You are my good, sweet poppa and it’s time for you to wake up and come home. It’s time for you to come home and build us that porch swing so that we can sit and think and watch the clouds roll by together. Then I can tell you all about buses and kisses and voices and everything that happened while you were asleep. Don’t give up, Poppa. Don’t give up!’
More nurses flooded the room and an orderly tried unsuccessfully to prise my fingers loose from Poppa’s bed while a doctor pushed his way through the crowd to check Poppa’s heart.
‘Mibs?’
‘Yes! Poppa! I’m here.’ I squeezed Poppa’s hand. He could hear me. Poppa knew I was there.
‘Mibs?’
‘I can hear you, Poppa. It’s Mibs. It’s your little –’
I stopped myself before I could finish saying little girl. I didn’t feel like a little girl any more. I wasn’t one.
‘It’s Mibs, Poppa. I’m here.’
Poppa’s fingers twitched and his eyes fluttered open, making the doctor smile and Momma cry out. Rocket choked on his own tears and Fish whooped and hollered. Feeling Samson’s hand in mine, I knew – sure as sure as sure – that everything – everything – was going to turn out just fine.
37
It took Poppa a long, long time to get strong enough to come home to us in Kansaska-Nebransas. Even then, things never did get quite back to the way they’d been before the accident. When something like that comes along, whether it’s an accident or a savvy or a very first kiss, life takes a turn and you can’t step back. All you can do is keep moving forward and remember what you’ve learned.
The day I turned fourteen was bright and sunny, a day with nothing more special or important about it than me getting older. Spring was rolling round again and Momma was in the kitchen making my cake. It was the cake I’d wanted so badly exactly one year ago, the cake with the pink and yellow frosting and the perfect sugar roses, the cake that didn’t seem quite so very important to me any more, compared to other things.
Poppa and I were sitting outside on the porch, rocking away on our very own porch swing – the one that Rocket, Fish, Samson and I had helped Poppa build the previous autumn, even though us kids had undertaken most of it on account of Poppa’s head still not always working right. But having a porch swing all our own was something that none of us would give up on either, and we were glad to do it.
Our swing wasn’t the World’s Largest like the one up in Hebron, nor was it the World’s Prettiest. It wasn’t even close. But sitting there with Poppa, just thinking and listening as we watched the clouds roll by, I knew our swing was the World’s Best. Ours was a real porch swing with a real porch to go with it, and a whole house full of love to hold it up.
Grandpa Bomba slept in a large wicker chair on the other end of the porch, dreaming of the days when he still had the strength to move mountains, and Fish was sitting on the steps nearby, listening to Gypsy talk to herself as she picked dandelions in the garden with her feet bare and all her clothes on inside out. Fish kept a close eye on our little sister, hollering at her every time she tried to put one of the dandelions in her mouth.
‘Cut it out, Gypsy,’ Fish said as our sister held a yellow flower to her tongue teasingly. ‘If you put one more of those weeds in your mouth, I’m taking you inside.’
‘Tell Fish to give us a little push…’ said a voice inside my head. Miss Mermaid swished her tail as I glanced down at Poppa’s arm. When I looked up at Poppa’s face, he was rubbing his knuckles against his jaw, smiling. He recognized me that day. That was good.
After coming home from Salina Hope Hospital, Poppa couldn’t always remember what day of the week it was or whether or not he liked blueberries in his pancakes. He couldn’t recall if we lived in Nebraska or in Kansas and didn’t understand that we lived in both, or how that had come to be. On the really bad days he couldn’t find the right words for newspaper or coffee or jam or sorry.
But on the good days, the best days – like that spring day on the porch with the smell of baking cakes drifting out to us through the window – Poppa was just Poppa, with no hair on his head to cover up the scars from the accident, but as good and sweet as ever.
‘Hey, Fish,’ I called out. ‘Poppa and I need a push.’
Fish turned his attention away from Gypsy and her dandelions. He screwed up his face for a second and sent a gust of wind that rocked the porch swing hard beneath me and Poppa, almost tipping us right off.
‘Whoa! Not so hard!’ I laughed.
‘Sorry,’ said Fish with a mischievous grin, giving us another push of wind, a little gentler this time.
With a creak and a bang of the screen door, Momma stepped out on to the porch, her apron perfectly clean, and her cheeks pink from working in the kitchen. She looked around at all of us.
‘Where’s –?’
‘Samson’s upstairs,’ I told her. ‘He’s helping Rocket pack.’
‘Knowing Samson, he’s probably packed himself right into one of Rocket’s suitcases,’ muttered Fish. ‘No one will find him until Rocket gets up to Uncle Autry’s.’
Eighteen and free to make his own way, Rocket was catching a bus for Wyoming the very next morning, on his way to spend the summer, or longer, with Momma’s brother and his family in a place even closer to the middle of nowhere than Kansaska-Nebransas. On Uncle Autry’s ranch, it wouldn’t matter how many sparks Rocket unleashed. There was no one around for miles to notice or care.
Momma and Grandpa had tried to convince Rocket that he was doing fine, that he could scumble his sparks as good as anyone could expect of a young man and that with a bit more work and a few more years he’d have no worries at all. But Rocket had never been quite the same after that day at Salina Hope Hospital one year before. He’d lost his swagger and his bluster. Not once since then had Rocket bragged about his savvy or teased me about my own. He had watched Fish take control of his storms with brotherly pride and quiet envy, but Wyoming would give him the wide open spaces to work outside and sleep under the stars, giving him room to feel less burdened by his electric savvy.
‘How are we going to make the car work without you?’ I’d asked Rocket when he’d announced that Uncle Autry had invited him to come and stay.
Rocket had chuckled
and popped a few playful sparks. ‘I s’pose Poppa will have to break down and buy that old tin-can of a clunker a new battery,’ he said.
It was going to be strange not having Rocket around, especially now that Fish could scumble well enough to start high school in Hebron in the fall. Soon I’d be the only one growing moss in pickle jars and painting pictures with Momma and having school at home. My savvy couldn’t harm other people or cause any damage, but Momma and I decided on home-school anyway, just to be sure.
‘A year or two to gain your strength and learn how to scumble your savvy certainly won’t hurt you, Mibs,’ Momma had said. ‘After that you’ll be ready to take on the world.’
Momma didn’t realize that I’d already taken on the world and won. I’d grown used to all the voices inside of my head and knew which ones to pay attention to and which ones to ignore. The same went for all the voices outside of my head, and this newfound strength must have shown like a mark on my skin, for the next time I ran into Ashley Bing and Emma Flint up in Hebron, those girls kept their mouths shut, without even an echo of a ‘Missy-pissy’ thrown my way.
‘Is that boy of yours coming over for the party?’ Miss Mermaid asked, breaking into my thoughts about Rocket’s departure.
‘Yes, Poppa,’ I answered. ‘Will’s coming over after lunch.’
It turned out that neither God nor Miss Rosemary had held my wrong choices against me for too long after all of us kids ran off in that big pink bus. We Beaumonts were back to attending church services with Pastor Meeks and his family, and Will and Bobbi were now regular visitors in Kansaska-Nebransas.
‘And that girl…?’ Miss Mermaid cut into my thoughts again.
‘Bobbi’s coming over too, Poppa,’ I answered with a laugh. ‘She wants to say goodbye to Rocket before he leaves.’