Part 10

"I think you are wrong to want a heart.

It makes most people unhappy.

If you only knew it, you are in luck not to have a heart."

~ The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

I am sitting in the sand at the playground. Baby Jonathan is at home with Mother, sleeping in his crib. I wanted to sit in my room and read books to Creep, but Mother said to go outside and play. I sit in the sand and dig a hole down where the sand is cooler. If I dig deep enough, I’ll run into the black plastic that covers the hard part of the ground. I look at the swings with the tracks under them where kids drag their feet to stop. I look at the teeter-totter and I can’t wait until Baby Jonathan and I can play on it together. Sometimes if I dig long enough, I can find treasures. I once found a gold coin with a picture of a train on it. It says: Token. Mother said it’s not really gold, but I put it in my box anyway. I’ve never ridden on a train. I like to imagine a place where that train is, where I can give the coin and take a ride to Token. I think Token is a place where no one knows who I am, not even Mother. No one knows my name, so I don’t have to pretend to be the girl with that name. I can just be… whoever. I can be quiet and no one will tell me that I’m making them nervous. I can laugh and sing and no one will tell me to be quiet. I think about Token a lot. But I won’t go there until I find another gold coin with the train picture, because I want to be able to take Jonathan. So I am digging in the sand, looking for another gold coin.

I can hear a noise. A loud noise. It’s a roaring kind of noise that sounds like it’s coming from everywhere all at the same time. It gets louder and louder. I know what it is; what it must be. The louder it gets, the more scared I get, until I jump up out of the sand and run towards my house. I cover my ears with my hands. I know if I can get to my mother, I’ll be safe. I run up the stairs and through the door, down the hall. I push open her door without knocking.

She is there, standing in the light that filters through the airy curtains across the window. Her shoulders are bare and white. A towel is wrapped around her head, so I know she’s just gotten out of the shower. On her tall dresser is a golden music box. I’ve never been allowed to touch it, but it stands open now, playing a tinkling music that my ears catch at, even though I’m so scared. I see bottles of perfume standing on a mirror. The light plays through them and makes rainbows across the top of the dresser. There is a top drawer open, with soft lacy things floating in it. I want to touch everything at once, to memorize it and keep it in my mind even though my head is exploding with fear.

Mother jumps at the sound of the door and turns with her arms up over her chest. I realize that I’m crying; that there are tears on my face. I don’t know what I’m saying, but I hear her voice very clearly.

“What are you doing? Get out…”

Her nakedness makes a bubble pop inside of me. I have broken the oldest rule: KNOCK. I pull the door shut behind me when I go back into the hall. My face feels tight with dried tears and I’m breathing very fast. I hear the noise, everywhere outside, as it joins together and passes directly over. I hear a window rattle as the noise begins to get smaller, pulled past and beyond. An airplane. Probably one of those jets that carries hundreds of people to a place very far away. Just an airplane. My heart slows, my breathing steadies. With the passing of the noise, I hear Jonathan crying in his room. The airplane must have woken him up. Maybe he thought it was a tornado too. I go to his door and put my hand on the knob. I push the door open. He sees me and he smiles, but his eyes are all shiny.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him.

I come to the side of the crib and look at him. He puts his arm through the space between two of the bars and smiles again, touching my face. I put my hands on the top rail and pull myself up and over. I sit down in one corner of his crib and he crawls to me and I heave him into my lap. I can feel his heart pounding, the way mine was a minute ago.

“Did you hear the noise too?” I ask him. “Did it scare you?” I pet the top of his curly head which he leans against me. It’s very soft. “You don’t have to worry,” I tell him. “It was just an airplane. It’s gone now.”

He doesn’t make any noise, just his breathing, which is also very soft… and warm. I hold him close, ashamed of my fear. I didn’t even think of Jonathan in those moments. I won’t forget him again.

The door opens wider and Mother comes in. She sees me in the crib and says, “What have I told you about getting into Baby Jon’s bed?” She reaches in and picks up Jonathan out of my arms. I think of her shoulders and the way she covered herself when I was in her room.

“You’ve told me not to do it,” I say and climb out as she carries Jonathan into the kitchen. He smiles at me and waves over her shoulder. I stick my tongue out at him as I follow her.

“So why were you in it?” she asks me. She puts Jonathan into his high chair and clicks the tray into place.

“He was crying,” I tell her. Jonathan bangs his hands on the tray.

“I don’t care if he cries all night, you are not to climb into his bed,” she tells me.

If he cries all night, I’ll climb into his bed and sleep there, I think. But I say, “Sorry, Mom.”

She shakes her head. “And what have I told you about coming into my room?”

I reach out one finger and Jonathan grabs it. I shake my hand and he laughs. “You’ve told me to knock every time.”

“So why did you come in without knocking?” she asks while she opens the fridge to get a jar of applesauce.

“I was scared,” I tell her.

“Of what?” she asks. She still sounds angry.

“Of an airplane,” I say.

“You always need to knock,” she says. She gets a spoon and pops open the jar. Jonathan opens his mouth in anticipation.

“Sorry, Mom,” I tell her.

“If you keep breaking rules I’m going to have to talk to father about it when he gets home,” she says.

Please don’t talk to Father about it, I want to tell her. But I don’t say anything. I just look at Jonathan silently. He has applesauce on his chin.

“Now go outside and play.”

I walk down the porch steps, thinking about airplanes and rules and tornados and what my father will do when he gets home. I go back to the playground and sit on one of the swings. I think about the mysterious and beautiful room that my mother was standing in, with the sunlight and the bottles and the tinkling music box and I think that maybe this is what rooms in heaven look like, with light and music, and that only angels are allowed in there. I don’t know what to feel about not being allowed to go into a room like that. I think maybe it’s because I don’t follow the rules. I don’t fit with those things. All the pretty, perfect things. I should try to follow the rules. I should try really hard and then I could be perfect like Mother wants me to be. This idea makes sense. I think about Token and figure that since you can only get there by train, they don’t have any airplanes that sound like tornados that fly over and scare babies. I think that this is a good thing.

I begin to swing. I push my legs back and forth in that rhythm that will get me going very high, very quickly. I swing for a while, thinking. I see a door open, a few houses down, and he comes out with one of his friends, laughing. I watch him, too high in the swing to jump out. He is carrying his skateboard again, and I know he will come past the playground. He and his friend roll their skateboards in front of them and jump onto them. I always think this should make them fall down, but they don’t. I don’t take my eyes off of them, until they come in front of the playground. I know he will see me. I look up into the sky, which is very bright and hurts my eyes, but I don’t look at him. I hear his voice. He is still laughing.

“Hey!” his voice rises, and I know he’s talking to me. I don’t answer, but lower my eyes and watch him pass as I swing back and forth. The wind blows my hair into my mouth. He stands on his skateboard as it moves down the sidewalk, watching me back.

“See you tomorrow,” he calls.

His friend laughs….

Eleanor turned on one side and opened her eyes. The room was dark and cold. Harvest’s voice came out of the darkness.

“What were you dreaming about?”

She pushed the covers down and pulled her legs out, hanging them over the bed. She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. Her eyes burned, so she rubbed them.

“Nothing,” she lied.

She went to the window and pulled the cord to raise the blinds. The moon was high, shedding silver light across the yard. She was surprised to find her hand shook. Harvest came to stand beside her, also looking at the moon.

“It’s so beautiful,” she breathed.

“Meh,” said Harvest turning away and leaning on the window frame. “It’s just a rock orbiting another rock, held together by the glue of centripetal force.”

“What’s centripetal force?” asked Baz from under the bed.

Pitchtongue’s voice issued from somewhere in the closet. “The act of rubbing two peach pits together in such a way that causes all the Labradors on earth to spontaneously combust,” he answered.

Eleanor switched on the closet light. Pitchtongue was crouched among her longer skirts, trying on shoes. “Aren’t I pretty?” he said, indicating his feet which wore a sparkling pair of red Mary-Janes.

“Where did you get those?” she asked.

“From the shoe bin,” he told her.

“No, you didn’t,” she said. “You got them from a box in the attic.” He shrugged. She held out her hand. “Give them to me.” He held up one foot and then the other as she tugged them off.

“Don’t touch those things,” she said. “Ever.”

Baz cackled from where he stood by the closet door. She took the shoes in hand and went through the hallway, turning to climb the stairs. Harvest followed her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Don’t follow me,” she said.

“Why?” he asked.

“Don’t talk to me.”

“Why?”

“Just leave me alone!” she turned on him and shouted.

“You’re going to wake them,” he said blandly.

“You are making me insane,” she hissed, every word between clenched teeth.

“Huh.” He made the sound as if commenting on an interesting article in an encyclopedia.

She continued up the stairs. Harvest followed her. She went to the attic door and unlocked it, opened it and climbed more stairs. She pulled a string and a bare bulb illuminated a rough unfinished attic room. Stacks of boxes sat under the a-frame ceiling. She looked at the marks on the boxes and pulled out the right one, sliding it toward her. Harvest watched her open the box and put the shoes quickly inside, then push the box back and stack it again with the others. On her knees in the dust, she drew one ttrembling hand across her face. It felt like the world was spinning around her.

“There’s no place like home,” Harvest commented. She could tell he was smiling.