On Little Wings Read online

  Cleo reached out in the shadows to her nightstand and clicked on her small reading lamp, filling the room with the white glare. She picked up the stack of papers she had discarded earlier and handed them to me without a trace of irritation. “I was busy, too. I got half of it done.” In my hand were notes of several different paragraphs and page numbers written in Cleo’s straight, uniform script. Hanshaw’s assignment. “You still have to write out the quotes and explanations, but at least I found them all.” Only a hint of haughtiness leaked into her voice at the end.

  I apologized, silently cursing my temper. When she turned the light back off I stared up into the darkness, watching the charcoal shadows shift through the room. “I honestly don’t know, Cleo,” I whispered. “I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t want to hurt my mom, but I am going to Smithport. It’s strange, but I feel it. My bones vibrate from the inside-out whenever I think about it. Does that make any sense?”

  Cleo doesn’t like the supernatural, or the illogical, so it didn’t surprise me that she waited to respond. In the late night our answers were beginning to lag from fatigue. “I could help you get a ticket,” she offered in her planning voice. It is a business-like tone, unflinching and thoughtful. “If we buy the ticket, it will be harder to say no.”

  I yawned. “I thought you wanted to get me to my aunt, not get me killed!”

  Cleo made a sound between a sigh and a laugh and we laid still, my mind replaying the conversation, Cleo’s mind undoubtedly full of strategy and tactics. Sleep pulled me under first. The last sound I heard was Cleo’s quiet murmurs that meant she was formulating a plan, as the first staccato rain drops hit the window.

  Cleo woke the next day determined to get to work. The hard, fast instructions she threw at me all morning kept buzzing through my ears – you can’t be stubborn with her, Jennifer. She’s kept a grudge for twenty years so she is more stubborn than you are. Try giving her an impossible option before the real option. Tell her to come with you and make up with her sister – it went on relentlessly through breakfast and the walk home. I wanted to grab her head and tip her brain into my skull because everything she said sounded brilliant. I just knew I couldn’t say it like that. Cleo is harmless, but if she ever uses the power of her mind for evil, then God have mercy on all our souls.

  Adding to my nervousness, my father feigned total ignorance of the entire ordeal. From the moment I entered the door he talked solidly about the unseasonably wet weather, the need to re-stain the deck, and his menu plans for dinner. I’d never heard him speak so much in my life. It must have been a great sacrifice for him. Well into his ‘filibuster’ I stepped up to my mother as she peeled carrots at the kitchen sink. I ignored Dad’s frantic look of worry and his sudden interest in the batteries of our smoke detector. I folded my arms around Mother’s waist and pressed my cheek against her back. Unlike some mothers and daughters, we weren’t made to fight. We rarely ever tried and the few times we’d attempted it, it never worked out. We just liked each other too much. When I pulled back I could see her familiar smile playing across her mouth. She resumed her work with swift, fluid strokes. My father inhaled visibly and, looking like a man who just diffused a bomb, sunk into the sofa with a copy of Popular Mechanics and a sheen of sweat shimmering on his forehead.

  Taking his lead, I finished my homework and spent the day quietly. When my Mother ran to the store I snuck onto the computer to look up flights to Smithport. It looked like I would fly into Bangor airport and navigate a car around several lakes and miles of rugged shoreline until I reached the town. I never imagined Maine before, but if I had, I would not have envisioned so many lakes, or such a broken, winding coast. A ticket would cost hundreds of dollars. Not a problem; My personal hoard of birthday, Christmas and paycheck money more than sufficed.

  The funds I possessed. The transportation I could arrange. I could make my way across half of the continent, if I could just find a way through my mother’s stubborn anger. That journey seemed insurmountable, like passing through the fuming flames of Hades. I cannot say why I felt so compelled to go in spite of her pain. I felt the pull of her sorrow, only it wasn’t coming from Claire Newsom in Nebraska. It was a sigh of suffering coming from Claire Dyer of Smithport. I couldn’t comfort her until I found her.

  In less than a week I had a plan. A badly organized, make-it-up-as-you-go-along plan pieced together with bits of Cleo’s advice and snatches of my own intuition. And like all plans, the day came when it had to be tested, for better or worse. The evening of May 24th my father fired up the grill for our dinner and I figured he might as well roast me in it. By the time he laid a platter of meat and grilled vegetables on the table I had never been less able to eat. I stared at the food and willed my parents not to notice me for a few more minutes. No such luck.

  “Are you okay, babe?” my mother asked.

  I felt green with nausea but I jerked a fast nod and started filling my plate with food I knew I would never touch. My mother stared at me for so long that before I knew what I was doing, I plunged into the abyss. “I want to meet Aunt Sarah.”

  My father dropped the serving fork with a musical crash against the metal platter. My mother’s expression didn’t change but for a fractional widening of her eyes. She was frozen. Silence. Except for a dull thumping sound that filled the quiet like a metronome. Only after my parents both looked down at my feet did I realize that it was the toe of my shoe rapping nervously against the leg of the table. I pressed my foot firmly against the floor. Now the quiet was absolute. And unbearable.

  My mother’s head fell down, concealing her face. “I thought we finished this business last week. What do you want me to say, Jennifer?” Her words were so heartbreakingly soft that I almost relented. But I was fighting for three now. For Sarah’s sake and my own, and my mother's, I had to answer.

  “Yes,” I answered, choking on the word. “I want you to say ‘yes, you can go.”

  “Go?” my mother’s head rose in alarm. “What do you mean go? Go where?”

  My thoughts had been so full of Smithport that her confusion startled me and I stammered, “Well, to meet her. I want to go meet her . . . in Smithport.”

  My mother’s voice came out much quieter than I expected but it reverberated with a steely coldness, “Like hell you will.”

  I shivered. Never had she spoken with such icy contempt, let alone to me. My father must have seen some of my inner turmoil reflected in my face because he took a breath and spoke. “Claire… “

  “Don’t.” She held up a firm hand to the room at large, as if she were holding back an army of invisible foes. “Just don’t. Jennifer doesn’t know her. I don’t even know where she lives now. This is over. Completely over. End of discussion.”

  “I know where she lives,” I whispered.

  So many painful expressions passed over my mother’s face in mere seconds. “What do you mean?” her voice dragged with dread.

  Too cowardly to tell her the worst of the truth, I edited. “I found her address on the internet. She still lives in Smithport.”

  Relief flared briefly in Mother’s eyes. “And what makes you think you can just go to Smithport and see her? We don’t know anything about her. You don’t know if she wants to see you. You have no idea what you’re asking me, Jennifer,” her voice turned pleading at the end.

  After my next words, I knew that everything would collapse. Violently. Horribly. I felt like a little girl about to run into a burning building. “I called her last week. We talked.” I closed my eyes and then looked down so I wouldn’t have to see Mother’s eyes gleaming with betrayal. “And she misses you, Mother!” I leaned forward and dared an appealing look at her face. She didn’t look like she recognized me. “She was so happy to hear from me. She’s a teacher and she’s out for the summer and she wants to meet. You could come. We could go together. Maybe you could…” my words slowed and then lingered to a stop when she stood abruptly, refusing to look at me. She narrowly missed hitting the corner o
f the table as she stumbled from the room.

  “Then go,” she whispered bitterly as she left.

  A deadly chill seized my blood and for an appalling moment I wondered if she had disowned me. Then comprehension flickered. It was nothing that dramatic. She had pushed me away resentfully. But lying in my lap like a tortured, abandoned child was her unwilling, wretched permission. I’m certain she didn’t expect me to claim such a sick and damaged thing. I see now that her words were her attempt to make me put down my petition and stay. But it didn’t work. I felt myself lifting her battered, weeping consent and cradling it to myself.

  My father looked from the untouched mountains of food on our plates to my face. He too, looked like he didn’t know me.

  CHAPTER 6

  I bought the ticket.

  After my Mother’s first wave of shock receded she fired every weapon at her disposal: guilt, rage, cunning, love, and finally, fear. The guilt stabbed deepest, but the fear seared like the pain after a burn. It throbbed through my brain with little relief. You have no idea what kind of person she is, she’d say as I ate breakfast. She doesn’t care about family, Jennifer. She wasn’t there for any of us. Driving to school. Buying shoes. What if it is a bad situation? What if you want to come home and you’re stuck there until your return flight? Did you ever stop to think I had a reason for keeping you away from that cursed place? Waiting in line at Walmart. Cleaning the bathroom sink. I was never safe from her unexpected assaults. She dropped her acidic fears into my mind at regular intervals, leaving them to eat through my resolve.

  She waited for me to relent. She waited in vain. When I timidly mentioned that Sarah had invited me to come whenever I wanted, for as long as I wanted, Mother rounded on my father, “You need to go with her. Do not leave them alone! So help me if anything happens to her… You need to know days, times, flights, phone numbers, who she is with, where she goes…” She ticked off the list almost violently on her fingers.

  My father cleared his throat. “I can’t, Claire. The Sunfire job is behind schedule as is, and losing money already. I’ll be working nights and weekends this month. I can’t go anywhere.” His job as a film editor in Omaha often made him fight tough deadlines. “But I think she should still go,” he confirmed. “She’ll be fine.”

  “Just by herself? To a stranger? What is everyone thinking?”

  “Sarah’s a teacher. She’s family,” he answered calmly, ignoring her questions. “I’ll talk to her first. I’ll make sure Jennifer’s okay.”

  “You’ve done enough damage,” she hissed.

  “Mother!” For a moment she glared me down and then seemed to remember who I was. As her expression softened, so did my voice. “Please stop. Dad never wanted to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you. I am asking you to let me know the only relative I have in the world. Maybe I’ll hate her,” I said quickly, holding up a hand when she opened her mouth to interrupt. “But I’ll always wonder until I know. I feel like I’m supposed to do this. I want to do this. I want to go.” I pointed to my father, “But not if it makes you hate us. If it makes you hate us I will stay here and talk to her on the phone and go meet her when I’m out of the house for college.”

  Her stunned face processed the fact that she could not stop the reunion indefinitely. “I’m not ready for this, Jennifer.”

  I stepped up to her cautiously, not sure how long she would let herself be vulnerable, and touched her hair, “I think I’m ready for both of us. I will come home and tell you everything. And nothing anyone could ever say would ever change us.” Warm tears fell out her eyes and dropped past my raised hand onto her shirt. She pushed her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving gray, uneven tracks of mascara under her lashes.

  “I’m mad because she doesn’t deserve to know you. You’re mine,” my mother couldn’t disguise the bitterness in her voice, but her last words came out tenderly.

  “I’m yours,” I agreed with a small smile.

  I put my arms out, watching her study me until she cupped the back of my neck and pulled me gently to her. As she spoke I felt her hot breath against my hair. “Tell your father everything. And buy a one way ticket so you can come home as soon as you want to. And try not to mention it to me because I can’t stand to think about…” She broke off. There were probably too many things she couldn't stand to think about.

  “I can go? And you won’t be mad at me? Or Dad?” I threw in the last part, knowing that he had started all of this for my sake.

  “I’ll try,” she answered honestly.

  “Will you be okay?”

  “When you’re back home, I’ll be okay.”

  “Then let’s get this over with so we don’t have to torture ourselves any longer.” My mother drew back and nodded despite the worry in her eyes. We were on the same team again.

  Careful not to rub it in I called Sarah from Cleo’s house to arrange the details. I would fly out a week after school ended and, though I didn’t admit it to my mother, I planned to stay for two weeks. I’m certain she expected me to be gone a few days, shake hands, make introductions and get home to Nebraska, but every time I spoke to Sarah on the phone the words came easier and my desire to be with her grew.

  On the last day of school, while hundreds of students celebrated around me I focused a sober look at Cleo who frowned in silent agreement. The only thing we really cared about was still a week in the future. Without the hours of school to distract us, it felt like a very long time. We sulked through the next seven days, alternating between giddy excitement and irritability. My mother’s sulking took the form of pure denial. She didn’t mention the trip and didn’t look at my father and me more than courtesy required. Everything she said had the sound of someone who wasn’t paying attention to her own words. Her eyes had the flat look that only constant anxiety can produce.

  On the night before my morning plane departure, I eased her bedroom door open and slipped into her room. The light from her bedside lamp made an uneven, yellow circle of light across her blanket and left half of her face in shadow. She was reading with a look of deep concentration, almost certainly trying to distract herself from the thoughts broiling in her brain.

  “Mama?” I only call her that when I am feeling particularly small and needy.

  “Uh huh?”

  I crawled up beside her and leaned my head against the headboard. “Good book?”

  “It’s fine.” She pulled off her black reading glasses, loosening the dark hair around her face and letting it swing freely.

  “I’m going to miss you tomorrow.” Other than short vacations with Cleo’s family and slumber parties, I had never been away from her. I’d never had anywhere else to go. She stared at the paisley pattern of her blanket and didn’t answer. “I just wondered if you want me to tell her” – I tried not to use Sarah’s name around her – “anything for you?”

  Her chin quivered, but she managed to keep an impassive face. I don’t know how we sense the difference between someone thinking and someone refusing to answer, but I knew she was thinking - hard. She blew a deep breath between her lips and moved her gaze to her hands resting on her book. “No. If I ever need to say anything, I’ll say it.”

  I put my head on her shoulder. “I’ll call … if you want me to.”

  “I do. I’ve just been wondering,” her words came slow, “I’m wondering how much to tell you before you go and this is my last chance and I still don’t know what to say.” I held my breath and waited but she only sighed. At last she continued, faster and louder than before, “She might tell you why she did what she did and it doesn’t seem fair that you will know and I won’t.” Her voice hardened. “The difference is that you might care why and I never did. Sometimes ‘why’ doesn’t really matter.”

  I swallowed timidly, “But maybe if you knew it would help you feel better.”

  She barked out a soft, mirthless laugh. “I don’t think so.” Her eyes traveled up the wall and she slumped back into her pillows. “Just think of how long fiv
e days are, Jennifer. How many things you can feel in five days. How much one person can stand to lose. If you ask her anything for me you can ask her how long she thinks five days are. Unless she has a different definition of five days than I do, I don’t think I have anything else to say.”

  “Five days? What was five days?” I surveyed her face, her eyes closed against the memory, her black lashes resting on the purple shadows under her eyes.

  “It was me burning in hell. I waited five days for her and by the time she got there I didn’t care anymore. It was like all my love for her just incinerated in the flames. I don’t know what good it does to claw through the ashes of something that used to be.” She pushed her fingers together and pressed them between her closed eyes.

  “What happened? Why were you waiting for her?” I whispered, feeling my stomach tremble with anticipation.

  “Because I needed her,” she stated baldly. “I was alone in the world and I needed her. She was all I had left after grandma died. But it’s over now. I’m free of all of it. Or I was.” Her eyes opened and she scrutinized me in confusion. “I still can’t believe you’re going. I keep thinking I will wake up and it will all go away.”

  My face went hot with guilt and I squirmed.

  “Call us. Tomorrow. Let us know you’re okay. Let us know you’re okay every day.”

  “I promise. I love you, Mom.” I kissed her head above her ear, feeling her soft hair in my face. She reached up to my cheek and pulled me close to kiss me back.

  “I love you, Jennifer. I’m sorry …” she opened her arms like she was trying to hold up the universe, “for the whole mess.” I shook my head to show her I needed no apology. I climbed off the bed and reached the doorway when her voice piped up quietly, “I’m not trying to abandon you by not going to the airport tomorrow. I just can’t. There’s something about watching you go.” She shuddered instead of finishing.