The Sky is Everywhere(53)
Author: Jandy Nelson

I decide to tell her. “I’m going to try for first chair again this fall.”

“Oh, sweet pea,” she sings. Literally. “Music to my tin ears.”

I smile, but inside, my stomach is roiling. I’m planning on telling Rachel next practice. It’d be so much easier if I could just pour a bucket of water on her like the Wicked Witch of the West.

“Come sit down.” Gram taps the cushion next to her. I join her, resting my clarinet across my knees. She puts her hand on the box. “Everything in here is yours to read. Open all the envelopes. Read my notes, the letters. Just be prepared, it’s not all pretty, especially the earlier letters.”

I nod. “Thank you.”

“All right.” She removes her hand from the box. “I’m going to take a walk to town, meet Big at The Saloon. I need a stiff drink.” She ruffles my hair, then leaves the box and me to ourselves.

After putting my clarinet away, I sit with the box on my lap, trailing circles around the ring of galloping horses with my fingers. Around and around. I want to open it, and I also don’t want to. It’s probably the closest I’ll ever get to knowing my mother, whoever she is – adventurer or wack job, heroine or villain, probably just a very troubled, complicated woman.

I look out at the gang of oaks across the road, at the Spanish moss hanging over their stooped shoulders like decrepit shawls, the gray, gnarled lot of them like a band of wise old men pondering a verdict—

The door squeaks. I turn to see that Gram has put on a bright pink floral no-clue-what – a coat? A cape? A shower curtain? – over an even brighter purple flowered frock. Her hair is down and wild; it looks like it conducts electricity. She has make-up on, an eggplant-color lipstick, cowboy boots to house her Big Foot feet. She looks beautiful and insane. It’s the first time she’s gone out at night since Bailey died. She waves at me, winks, then heads down the steps. I watch her stroll across the yard. Right as she hits the road, she turns back, holds her hair so the breeze doesn’t blow it back into her eyes.

“Hey, I give Big one month, you?”

“Are you kidding? Two weeks, tops.”

“It’s your turn to be best man.”

“That’s fine,” I say, smiling.

She smiles back at me, humor peeking out of her queenly face. Even though we pretend otherwise, nothing quite raises Walker spirits like the thought of another wedding for Uncle Big.

“Be okay, sweet pea,” she says. “You know where we are…”

“I’ll be fine,” I say, feeling the weight of the box on my legs.

As soon as she’s gone, I open the lid. I’m ready. All these notes, all these letters, sixteen years’ worth. I think about Gram jotting down a recipe, a thought, a silly or not-so-pretty something she wanted to share with her daughter, or just remember herself, maybe stuffing it in her pocket all day, and then sneaking up to the attic before bed, to put it in this box, this mailbox with no pickup, year after year, not knowing if her daughter would ever read them, not knowing if anyone would—

I gasp, because isn’t that just exactly what I’ve been doing too: writing poems and scattering them to the winds with the same hope as Gram that someone, someday, somewhere might understand who I am, who my sister was, and what happened to us.

I take out the envelopes, count them – fifteen, all with the name Paige and the year. I find the first one, written sixteen years ago by Gram to her daughter. Slipping my finger under the seal, I imagine Bailey sitting beside me. Okay, I tell her, taking out the letter, Let’s meet our mother.

Okay to everything. I’m a messessentialist – okay to it all.

The Shaw Ranch presides over Clover. Its acreage rolls in green and gold majesty from the ridge all the way down to town. I walk through the iron gate and make my way to the stables, where I find Toby inside talking to a beautiful black mare as he takes her saddle off.

“Don’t mean to interrupt,” I say, walking over to him.

He turns around. “Wow, Lennie.”

We’re smiling at each other like idiots. I thought it might be weird to see him, but we both seem to be acting pretty much thrilled. It embarrasses me, so I drop my gaze to the mare between us and stroke her warm moist coat. Heat radiates off her body.

Toby flicks the end of the reins lightly across my hand.

“I’ve missed you.”

“Me too, you.” But, I realize with some relief that my stomach isn’t fluttering, even with our eyes locked as they now are. Not even a twitter. Is the spell broken? The horse snorts – perfect: thanks, Black Beauty.

“Want to go for a ride?” he asks. “We could go up on the ridge. I was just up there. There’s a massive herd of elk roaming.”

“Actually, Toby … I thought maybe we could visit Bailey.”

“Okay,” he says, without thinking, like I asked him to get an ice cream. Strange.

I told myself I would never go back to the cemetery. No one talks about decaying flesh and maggots and skeletons, but how can you not think of those things? I’ve done everything in my power to keep those thoughts out of my mind, and staying away from Bailey’s grave has been crucial to that end. But last night, I was fingering all the things on her dresser like I always do before I go to sleep, and I realized that she wouldn’t want me clinging to the black hair webbed in her hairbrush or the rank laundry I still refuse to wash. She’d think it was totally gross: Lady-Havisham-and-her-wedding-dress gross and dismal. I got an image of her then sitting on the hill at the Clover cemetery with its ancient oaks, firs and redwoods like a queen holding court, and I knew it was time.

Even though the cemetery is close enough to walk, when Toby’s finished, we jump in his truck. He puts the key in the ignition, but doesn’t turn it. He stares straight through the windshield at the golden meadows, tapping on the wheel with two fingers in a staccato rhythm. I can tell he’s revving up to say something. I rest my head on the passenger window and look out at the fields, imagining his life here, how solitary it must be. A minute or two later, he starts talking in his low lulling bass. “I’ve always hated being an only child. Used to envy you guys. You were just so tight.”

He grips his hands on the wheel, stares straight ahead. “I was so psyched to marry Bails, to have this baby … I was psyched to be part of your family. It’s going to sound so lame now, but I thought I could help you through this. I wanted to. I know Bailey would’ve wanted me to.” He shakes his head. “Sure screwed it all up. I just … I don’t know. You understood… It’s like you were the only one who did. I started to feel so close to you, too close. It got all mixed up in my head—”