Kitabı oku: «All the Beautiful Girls: An uplifting story of freedom, love and identity»

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Epigraph

Lily Decker

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Ruby Wilde

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Lily Decker

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Lily and Sloane

Santa Fe

Author’s Note

About the Author

Also by Elizabeth J. Church

About the Publisher

1

The line of Aunt Tate’s jaw was fierce and unyielding, like a hammered steel length of railroad track, but her eyes were soft and puffy from furtive crying. “You can keep what you can carry,” she said and handed eight-year-old Lily a cardboard box. Lily stared into the shadows of the empty box as if it held answers to all of the mounting uncertainties that frightened her.

It was June 1957, and Uncle Miles and Aunt Tate were in Lily’s house in Salina, Kansas, picking through things like crows at the town dump. Lily wanted for them to leave everything the same as it was before, not to move her father’s copy of Andersonville from the nightstand or her big sister Dawn’s toothbrush and pink pajamas with the elephants that danced and wore silly hats. Mama’s dresser scarves should not be folded and packed in a box, and her hat with the white netting should not be wrapped in tissue paper and tucked away for Aunt Tate ’s church bazaar. Lily’s whole life was disappearing—all of her history, everything that fixed her feet to the earth and held her safe.

“C’mon, honey,” Aunt Tate said, trying to prod Lily into action. “The longer we stay here, the more it’s going to hurt. Let’s just get this over and done with, all right?” Aunt Tate clumsily patted Lily’s shoulder and picked up a box she’d packed for Uncle Miles to load onto the back of his pickup. “Get a move on, Lily,” Aunt Tate said, this time firmly, and then headed down the hallway.

There was no place Lily wanted to be, to stay, other than home. This home. Her home. But, standing in the middle of her former life, Lily realized she didn’t have a choice. She looked at her bed with the deep purple bedspread, the curtains Mama had made with the purple fringe running along the hem. Her stuffed animals, still sitting in a row on top of her pillow, just as she’d left them in her Before Life. Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy, the gingerbread man with the nap rubbed into nonexistence by her love. The deliciously soft pink bunny rabbit that had appeared in her Easter basket one year. The desk her father made that was just her size with a cabinet door she could open and close. Her red leather jewelry box with the mirror inside the lid and the ballerina that twirled on one toe while a tinkling, silvery bell played “Frère Jacques.”

When Lily had asked Aunt Tate what would happen to the house and everything in it, Aunt Tate said, “That’s for the adults to decide.” Lily knew better than to push her luck, and so she let it be.

Dangling her legs in her apple-red pedal pushers, Lily sat on the edge of her bed and picked up the pink rabbit, tugging gently on his long satin ears. The things she wanted to put in the box wouldn’t fit. Her family couldn’t fit. The only home she ’d ever known could not be wedged within those four cardboard walls. Her swing set, the toy telephones she and Dawn used to call each other. The familiar view out her bedroom window, the way the leaves on the elm tree turned their silvery backs to the breezes just before a rainstorm. Her parents dancing in the living room while Brook Benton sang “Love Made Me Your Fool,” his voice rumbling smooth and low on the hi-fi; her father’s hands threaded into Mama’s thick gold hair; Mama’s full-skirted pastel dresses. The cool, apricot-colored satin lining of Mama’s best coat, and how it smelled of ripe pears and wisteria. No one was going to call Lily Scallywag—not anymore. And Lily couldn’t fold and pack Dawn’s skinny ankles turning cartwheels or her sister’s voice reciting the endless “Paul Revere’s Ride” until Lily wanted to scream. Nothing fit, including Lily. Lily no longer fit anywhere.

WHILE DADDY HAD brylcreemed his wavy hair and worn a suit and tie to work as manager of the rail yards, Uncle Miles was a diesel mechanic who wore overalls and plaid shirts and rolled his own cigarettes and later stuck his rough, callused fingers inside Lily and whispered with his sour breath, “Our secret.”

As for Mama’s older sister, Aunt Tate was too tall with wide shoulders and so maybe secretly a man, and she moved ponderously, as if someone had hit a slow-motion button on her life and put her at permanent half speed. She wore loose-fitting, pastel cotton housedresses that hung limp and lifeless below her knees, and sensible black lace-up shoes with low heels. The only jewelry Aunt Tate allowed herself was a plain gold wedding band, and she kept her lusterless brown hair short and tightly curled. She was formidable, strict and austere in a way that had always made Lily both shy and wary. “It was the Depression,” Mama once said. “It made your Aunt Tate hard. Deprivation made her think that being rigid was the only way to survive. But there’s a soft center there; she has a heart, I swear.” Still, Lily thought that even Mama had been more than a little cautious when faced with her sister’s perennial judgment.

WITHIN TWO WEEKS of the funeral, Aunt Tate had enrolled Lily in the July session of summer school, “To keep you out of my hair.” Lily’s aunt and uncle lived several blocks from Lily’s old house on Sycamore Street, but to Lily’s relief, she would still be able to attend her familiar elementary school. Before class on the first day, the kids gathered around Lily on the playground. “Did you see their guts?” “They said your sister was all tore up! Ground chuck!” Lily’s best friend, Beverly Ann, hung back from the others, seemingly frozen in place, nervously watching Lily’s reaction.

Lily ran into the breezeway, squeezed herself between a cool concrete pillar and the prickly leaves of a sumac bush, and waited until the bell rang. Mid-morning, Mrs. Tobias had the class put away their books and pencils, and then she conducted a ceremony in which Ray Bellamy carried a cage with a bright red bow and presented Lily with a chubby brown hamster bought and paid for with the sympathetic nickels and dimes of her classmates. Shannon Leary followed Ray, carrying a bag of wonderful-smelling cedar chips and a box of hamster food.

“You’ll have to keep his water bottle filled,” Mrs. Tobias said, her cool, composed hand on the back of Lily’s neck. “And take really good care of him.”

“What’s his name?” Lily asked, looking around the room at her classmates.

“That’s for you to decide, honey.” Mrs. Tobias walked to the blackboard. “But we can list possibilities, if you’d like.” She picked up a piece of chalk and began writing as Lily’s classmates shouted out suggestions.

When all was said and done, Lily chose Pickles. Dawn had loved the vinegary saltiness of their mother’s homemade pickles, and she’d sucked on them until her mouth was funny-looking, smoochy and all scrunched up. Dawn made the best faces, and the sisters would laugh until they got the hiccups. Pickles was a happy name. When Lily pressed her index finger between the bars of the cage, the hamster put his whiskery face up close, sniffed. It made Lily smile. Pickles let her stroke his soft fur, and with his little, rough tongue, he licked her finger.

The moment Lily walked through the kitchen door, Aunt Tate spotted the cage and said, “Not in my house. What were they thinking? Rodents? Your Uncle Miles will have something to say about this.” When Lily started for her room, Aunt Tate added, “Leave the cage here. The food and all, too. You won’t be needing it.”

As soon as Uncle Miles got home, he took the hamster cage to the backyard. Lily knelt on her bed and watched from the window as he cornered Pickles and pulled him from the cage. He twisted the hamster’s neck in a swift motion, and the little animal’s body wilted in his beefy hands—the same way the pullets did when he killed them for Aunt Tate ’s soup pot.

Lily was breathing fast, and she wanted to cry. Her stomach hurt. She sat back on her bed and found a tender spot on the inside of her thigh, just above the cuff of her seersucker shorts. She pinched it as hard as she could, watched the skin turn white, then a deep, purply red. She did it two more times, in different places. But Lily didn’t cry. She’d made herself a promise while sitting beneath the green awning in Gypsum Hill Cemetery where strangers—people who hadn’t lost what she’d lost—cried until their noses ran ugly and red and full of snot. Lily decided, then and there, that crying was weak, an unaffordable loss of control. No crying. Not ever again.

When it was nearly time for supper, Aunt Tate appeared at Lily’s bedroom door, wiped her wet hands on the front of her red-and-white-flowered apron, and looked at Lily wordlessly. Finally, she said, “Child, he only did what had to be done,” and Lily knew it was a sad excuse for an apology but likely the best she’d get. Avoiding her aunt’s gaze, Lily pushed out her lower lip and blew so that her dark cherry curls lifted briefly from her forehead. Aunt Tate continued, “Life is hard. You’ve had it easy, up until now. But—” Aunt Tate stopped talking.

Lily looked up at her aunt, who stood frozen in place like King Midas’ daughter in the aftermath of her father’s royal embrace. She watched her aunt frown briefly, as if she were suppressing tears, and then Lily saw real tears traveling down her aunt’s cheeks.

Aunt Tate cleared her throat. “It’s for your own good. Your mother didn’t do you any favors by coddling you all the time, and if you don’t toughen up, the world will eat you alive.” She sighed and perched on the bed beside Lily. Absentmindedly, Aunt Tate played with a length of Lily’s hair. “Look, honey, I know I seem mean to you, but I’m not. Neither is Uncle Miles. That’s not it, at all.” She let go of Lily’s hair and folded her hands in her lap. “You can’t let what’s happened make you a victim. People will want to see you that way; they’ll say, ‘Oh, that poor little girl. She’s so pathetic. Let’s just let her get away with anything and everything.’ But I don’t want for you to live your life trading on being a victim. I will not let that happen. You have to face life, head on.” Aunt Tate stood and squared her shoulders as if preparing to march. She held out a hand to Lily, who took it. Aunt Tate’s tone was softer now. “Come set the table. It can be your job from now on.”

Lily dutifully laid out four places, just as she’d done at home. Four plates. Four water glasses. Knives on the inside, sharp edge toward the plate, napkins folded neatly.

“Moron girl can’t count,” Uncle Miles said when called to the table for macaroni and cheese topped with a crisp bacon crust. “One. Two. Three,” he said slowly, pointing to Aunt Tate, Lily, and then his own broad chest. “Sister, did you check this one out of the dumb farm?” Uncle Miles asked, pretending it was a joke, only Lily knew better.

2

Lily lived for The Dinah Shore Show, starting with the NBC peacock, followed by the brass-heavy orchestra and the singer’s wide-toothed rendition of “See the U.S.A. in Your Chevrolet!” … Lily would hum along, “Dadadadadadadadadadah!” Dinah Shore had a tiny waist just like Mama, and Lily thought the television star seemed really happy.

They watched on the black-and-white set with Aunt Tate’s milk-glass collection balanced precariously on top. Lily imagined the colors: Dinah Shore’s long, elegant gloves must be emerald green, her fine net flounces would be sparkly deep blues and greens. Fuchsia silk scarves, silver and gold sequins, beautiful high heels dyed to match Dinah’s gowns. Slit skirts revealing long legs, whirling skirts that flew up to show dancers’ underpants and elicited the occasional “Shameful!” from Aunt Tate.

But, oh, the best part was the dancing! Maracas and mambos and cha-cha-cha, handsome men lifting Dinah in the air and carrying her around the stage, her smile never faltering. The dancers’ hips swaying, feet moving in rococo patterns. It was a world mercifully far removed from the martyred, blood-red edges of Aunt Tate ’s Bible, her thick support hose, and Uncle Miles’ weight on the edge of Lily’s bed, the way he pulled down the covers, a prelude.

LILY FIRST RAN away when she was nine, the summer after third grade. She climbed up on a chair and pulled her suitcase from its shelf high in her bedroom closet. It was made of cheap, pressed cardboard painted in pastel shades, with a lamb that had a yellow bow perched gaily in the curls of each ear. Lily flipped the latches so that the case opened to its pink-and-white-checked interior, and then she looked around to decide what to pack. She put in Black Beauty and two of her Nancy Drew mysteries, followed by the miniature porcelain elephant her father had won at the state fair. She filled the rest of the space with plain white Carter’s panties and undershirts, a nightie decorated with daisies, a comb, and a cylinder of scented talcum powder that had belonged to her mother.

The last thing Lily included was her mother’s big black palmistry book with the line drawings of hands, the mounts of Jupiter, Mercury, Apollo, and Venus. Mama used to run a ruby-red, manicured nail along the lines of Lily’s palm, pointing out the differences between what she’d been born with and what she would do with whatever the Fates sent her way. Lily had loved her mother’s touch, the way she prodded the pads of Lily’s fingers. “You have psychic hands, too, my Valentine’s Day child,” Mama had said, noting Lily’s long, tapered fingers and holding her own hand up for comparison. “Now, your sister Dawn, she’s a Leo—her hands are square, like your daddy’s. Practical, no nonsense. You’re the one, baby girl. The one like me.”

Lily got as far as the Petersons’ house, two streets away, before Uncle Miles happened by on his way to the drugstore for rolling papers and beef jerky.

“Get in,” he said, pulling over and pushing open the passenger door to his pickup truck. Lily hesitated, holding the hard plastic handle of her suitcase with both hands, already weary with the weight of it. She looked around, hoping someone would see her there, marooned in the shimmering summer heat. “Now,” her uncle commanded. Slowly, Lily climbed in, set the suitcase at her feet, and pulled the door shut behind her. “Don’t try that again.” He squeezed her upper arm until she cried out. “It’d be the death of your Aunt Tate.”

As he pulled away from the curb, Lily curled in on herself, trying not to smell Uncle Miles’ body next to hers. She glanced at his hands on the steering wheel, his thumbs like stubby, rounded clubs. When he said, “Stay put or else” and left her sitting in the truck while he went into the drugstore, she pulled out her mother’s book. Uncle Miles had what palmists called a clubbed hand. Such people, the book said, lacked willpower and were prone to criminal behavior.

She closed the volume when she saw her uncle lumbering back across the parking lot. He sat heavily behind the wheel and turned toward her, smiling so that his canines showed long and sharp. “You’re so sexy,” he said, using his husky, nighttime voice. “You make me lose control.” He scanned the parking lot and then crept his hand across the front seat toward her. Lily scooted so that her back was pressed against the passenger door. Surreptitiously, she tried to find the handle. “You’re not going anywhere,” Uncles Miles said as he started the truck. “You hear me?” He looked straight ahead through the windshield splattered with dead insects. When Lily failed to answer him, he slapped the seat between them, making dust rise. “Hear me? I said ‘NOWHERE.’ ”

“Yes,” Lily said, her voice small.

“Sir!”

“Sir,” she squeaked.

“Or else!”

“Or else,” Lily confirmed.

On the way back to the house, Uncle Miles took a detour. “Got something to show you,” he said as if he were giving her a gift. He drove until they reached a neighborhood of homes with big, welcoming front porches and shadowy green lawns. Uncle Miles slowed the truck, looking at house numbers. Finally, he stopped in front of a pale gray, two-story house with elaborate white trim. He let the engine idle and pointed.

“See that one?”

Lily nodded. It had broad flower beds with lilies, roses, and Mama’s favorite—peonies.

“That’s where he lives. The man who killed your family.”

Lily stared at the contrasting charcoal-gray front door with its inset diamond panes of leaded glass. She saw a lush fern hanging from the porch ceiling and two white wicker chairs angled toward each other, as if they were friends. Everything she saw from the window of Uncle Miles’ truck only deepened her curiosity about the man who’d collided with Lily’s family on that June night when dry lightning raked the horizon.

“You listening? I’m telling you that a murderer lives in that fancy house. These air force pilots think they can come to our town and lord it over the rest of us. You just remember,” Uncle Miles said as he took the truck out of neutral and slowly pulled away from the curb, “when you hear those sonic booms it’s probably that aviator, flying over you. The man who killed your family.”

Lily looked back at the Aviator’s house for as long as she could. She wanted for him to come out of the front door, to see her. She wanted to sit on his front steps and ask him things like Why? and How come? She wanted to beg Save me.

SHE HAD FEW memories of the night that broke her life into Before and After. She remembered that her allergies had been so severe that her nose bled, and so Mama made Lily lie down in the backseat, wrapped in a blanket patterned with stars and moons. As Lily drifted off to sleep, she watched Dawn stand, reach over the front seat, and begin to braid their mother’s hair.

Lily remembered waking up on the side of the road, curled into the arms of a stranger and seeing the Aviator standing near his car—the one with taillights set in wildly exaggerated fins that looked like some beast’s red, wicked eyes. She remembered her family’s motionless car, sparks of insects flashing in the headlight beams. Redwing blackbirds rising from fields of summer wheat, panicked by the commotion. The hiss of whitewall tires as they sighed last breaths; a violent whoosh of steam erupting from the radiator.

The Aviator had knelt beside Lily, holding a handkerchief to the top of his head. A thick shock of black hair hid his eyes. Lines of blood painted the contours of his face and ran into his mouth.

“What have you got there?” he had asked Lily—just as if he ’d met her on the street outside Hutchinson’s Ice Cream Store in downtown Salina.

Lily handed him her bouquet of four crayons, the ones she ’d held on to, tight, when the stranger lifted her from the car’s wreckage. “These ones are my favorites,” she said. Periwinkle, Carnation Pink, Cornflower, and Pine Green.

Mostly, Lily remembered that the Aviator hadn’t felt like a bad man. He felt like a sad one.

THERE WERE INTERMITTENT pools of rainwater relief, times when Lily smiled. Those times came when the parcels arrived in the mail, wrapped in brown paper, tied with twine, and addressed in bold black ink to Miss Lily Decker. The first was Gene Stratton-Porter’s Freckles. It was an old book from 1904, with a battered cover and fine engravings of trees, cattails, birds, and clouds. Before beginning the novel, Lily hoisted herself onto the kitchen counter and sneaked exactly ten saltines from Aunt Tate’s larder. Then, she propped herself up on her bed with the book, eating the saltines as slowly as possible. As she sucked the salt from each cracker, she knew she was just like Freckles—crippled and unlovable. Still, she felt a little less lonely.

The mysterious books smelled of time, somehow held the breath of another reader, someone before Lily. The secrecy surrounding the identity of the book-giver made Lily feel special, somehow deserving. The books also let her travel far from the relentless flatlands of her life with Uncle Miles and Aunt Tate.

Pragmatic Aunt Tate didn’t abide mysteries, but if she wondered about the books’ origins, she never said anything to Lily. Aunt Tate dealt with the tangible world, the only exceptions being Jesus, the disciples, and the New Testament miracles. As for Lily, she thought the books might be from her elementary school librarian, who’d often commented on Lily’s avaricious appetite for books about pioneer girls who were held captive by Indians, or the wildly vengeful myths of the Greeks and Romans. In a way, it didn’t matter who sent the books, as long as whoever it was kept sending them.

IT TOOK SOME convincing, but finally Aunt Tate agreed to let Lily sleep over at Beverly Ann’s. The girls had been friends forever. They traded Cherry Ames books, shared after-school snacks of apple slices loaded with peanut butter, and played Chinese jump rope.

“We ’ve missed you, sweetheart,” Beverly Ann’s mother said, kissing Lily good night and promising that they’d have French toast in the morning.

When Mrs. McPherson pulled the door nearly closed so that only a thin pillar of light shone from the hallway, Lily felt a sudden moment of panic. She audibly sucked in her breath as a fleeting image of Uncle Miles’ probing hands crossed her mind. The image was there, he was there, even though she knew that at least for tonight she wouldn’t have to fear the drop of his weight on the bed like a gunnysack of river rocks.

“What’s wrong?” Beverly Ann asked, her voice sleepy.

Lily thought about telling. She could tell Beverly Ann about what happened in her bedroom, when the only noises in the house were crickets and the hum of the refrigerator. Sometimes the furnace clicking off or on. And Uncle Miles’ breath, his huh-huh-huh that got faster and faster.

But she couldn’t tell. It would make her sick to tell. Sicker to tell than not to tell. Beverly Ann would know how disgusting Lily was, and Lily would lose her best friend. And if she did tell, then what would happen? She had nowhere else to go.

“Nothing,” she said, finally, but Beverly Ann had already fallen asleep. Lily listened to her friend’s deep, regular breathing, the breathing of a girl who could trust, even in the dark. Lily felt her own eyes fluttering closed as she nestled in sheets that smelled of a sun-kissed clothesline.

The next morning, Lily came home from Beverly Ann’s begging for a pogo stick, but Aunt Tate said it was “too dear,” and Lily nearly stomped her feet. Beverly Ann got to have everything! Lily’s friend’s life was a constant reminder of all that Lily had lost, and sometimes—like this time—Lily felt her cheeks flame hot with jealousy and anger.

But a few weeks after the sleepover at Beverly Ann’s, Uncle Miles beckoned a hesitant Lily to join him in the backyard beside his workshop. In his hands, he held a pair of homemade stilts.

“I sanded the handles real good so you won’t get splinters,” he said, turning the stilts so that Lily could admire his workmanship. “And I know these aren’t the same as a pogo stick, but you can learn to do tricks on them. Here,” he said, motioning to Lily to come closer. “I’ll help you get up on them. You’ll learn fast cuz you’re real coordinated.”

He was right; it took Lily no time to learn how to walk steadily, and soon enough she could balance on one stilt and even hop on a single wooden pole while holding the other one in the air. She sang songs and made up dances she could do balanced high on the stilts.

“I still think they’re dangerous,” Aunt Tate said after one of Lily’s stunt shows, performed just before dinner.

“Lord, Tate. Let the girl have some fun,” Uncle Miles had said and then winked at Lily, which made her nervous, not a happy co-conspirator. Lily became convinced that Uncle Miles wanted something in exchange, that he was incapable of a simple kindness. Eventually, that persistent knock of fear led Lily to abandon the stilts next to the woodpile, against the back fence where the squirrels lived.

MAYBE UNCLE MILES loved Aunt Tate. Lily didn’t know. He did love his raspberries—all forty-eight bushes, lined up in rows like soldiers on parade. He inspected them for infestations, dusted them with a white powder that poisoned any bugs bold enough to alight on the sharp leaves. He fertilized. He shooed away sparrows who dared to feast on the ripe fruit. When frost was predicted, he used old pillowcases to shroud the bushes so that they stood like an eerie battalion of child-sized ghosts.

They weren’t pretty plants, not like the boldly bright dahlias that had filled Mama’s flower beds. They were thorny creatures that protected themselves by being nondescript, unwelcoming. But when the fruit came—the faceted gemstone berries with their lush lobes, the juice running down Lily’s chin—it was heavenly. Aunt Tate would ladle the berries over vanilla ice cream, and they’d sit out back, watching the soft evening descend. It was a puzzle Lily couldn’t solve—the fact that something delicious came from her uncle’s devotion.

3

Lily’s fourth-grade school portrait showed a tall, gangly ten-year-old with a long neck and indentations at her temples as if someone had pressed his palms to the sides of her skull and squeezed until the bone succumbed. The generous spread of her cheekbones gave her a clear, open gaze. Her indigo blue eyes were large, her child’s lips surprisingly luscious, and she faced the camera without flinching. If Lily had held a numbered placard in her hands, the school photo almost would have passed for a mug shot.

It had been nearly two years since the accident, and from time to time, she saw the Aviator around town. Lily liked to imagine that he was watching her, a presence like God or Jesus or Zeus or Santa Claus. Someone who knew her secrets but wouldn’t tell. He was a potent mystery—not an enemy, not quite a friend. Just there.

She discovered, finally, that it was the Aviator who was sending her the old books. When How They Carried the Mail arrived, it had the Aviator’s name in it, written elegantly in what Lily’s teacher called copperplate calligraphy. His name was Stirling Sloan, and he had once been a boy living on Magnolia Street in Dormont, Pennsylvania.

Holding the books from the Aviator’s childhood, turning the pages of his memories, Lily sent her mind to the places where his mind had been. She dogged his steps. And although she thought Stirling was a nice name, to Lily he remained always and forever the Aviator.

Mostly, it was curiosity that led her on a warm, late-April day to pedal all the way over to the Aviator’s street, put down her kickstand, and leave her bicycle tilted on the sidewalk that bordered his front lawn. She’d dressed up for him, pulling her hair back on the sides with a pair of pink butterfly barrettes, and she wore her best smocked cotton dress—the yellow one with a big sash she’d tied in back all by herself. Still, she was feeling less bold, now that she was actually at his house. Lily used the rubber toe of her Red Ball Jets tennis shoe to kick at a tuft of crabgrass that grew up through the sidewalk crack like a patch of unruly hair.

If she continued to linger out front, Lily realized, one of his nosy neighbors might come out and ask her questions she didn’t want to answer. Lily took a deep breath, marched up the front steps, and pressed the doorbell.

Nothing happened. She wasn’t sure how long she should wait. Feeling a nervous queasiness begin to slosh about in her stomach, she pushed the buzzer again. Again nothing. She saw the Aviator’s mail stuffed into his mailbox and realized he must still be at work. Maybe he was busy flying one of the jet-propelled B-47 bombers, part of the country’s Strategic Air Command they’d learned about at school.

Slowly, Lily descended the front porch. She hadn’t gotten what she wanted—an audience with the Aviator—and she couldn’t leave. Not yet. Maybe she’d just circle around back. Maybe she could wait there until he came home.

As Lily rounded the house, she could smell something overripe, on the edge of decay. Her tennis shoes slid on rotting apricots that had dropped from the neighbor’s tree. Lily picked up a piece of the fruit, brought it to her nose and grimaced. There were speckles of fruit flies all over the mushy flesh, and she dropped it quickly. She wiped her sticky fingers on some long, wet grass and then dried them on her dress.

Boldly, Lily climbed the Aviator’s back steps and sat on his porch swing. She pushed off with her feet and could hear the groan of the bolts that held it aloft.

He was taking forever to come home, and Lily wished she’d brought along Jane Eyre or A Girl of the Limberlost. She twiddled her thumbs for a while, and then she tried whistling. It came out slender, ineffectual. She wanted to learn to whistle so loudly that hordes of dogs from all over town would come running to her. She wanted to be able to whistle a tune when Dinah Shore came on the television and sang “Shoo-Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy.”

“Lily?”

She hadn’t heard his car. The Aviator pushed open the screen door and came out onto the porch. Lily stood guiltily.

“What are you doing here? Lily, does your aunt know you’re here?”

He’d said her name, twice. He did know her. She was so full of emotion that she was having trouble finding her voice.

“Sit down a minute,” the Aviator said, gently taking her arm and leading her back to the porch swing. “How did you know where to find me?”

“Uncle Miles showed me.”

“That’s your bike out front?”

“Yes.”

“But, Lily—do they know you’re here? They can’t possibly know you’re here.”

Lily shook her head.

“Oh, this is a bad idea,” he said. “You can’t be here. I’m so sorry. You just can’t be here.”

“But I came to ask you,” she said before he could make her leave unsatisfied. “I have to ask you something.” Lily clenched her fists in the way her mother had always said proved just how stubborn you can be, Scallywag. She was determined not to leave without asking him.

The Aviator took a deep breath. He was a handsome man with an omnipresent five-o’clock shadow, a nose so straight it looked as if it had been drawn with a ruler, and bruised-looking blue eyes. He sat with a ramrod-straight back, and he was wearing a military green flight suit that zipped up the front. On one sleeve was an embroidered patch picturing an armored fist that clasped an olive branch and three bright red lightning bolts.

“You may have three questions,” he said at last.

“Like three wishes with a genie?”

“Yes. And then you go home.” She could see he was afraid of her questions, but still he said, “Go ahead. Ask me.”

“My school is having a dance. Fathers bring their daughters.” She opened her hands, wiped her sweaty palms on the skirt of her dress. “I get to dress up and everything. And I wanted for you to take me.”

She’d been so happy when she’d concocted this plan to avoid humiliation. The other girls would be so jealous—even Beverly Ann. Lily would dance with a handsome pilot, handsomer even than the men on The Dinah Shore Show, and the fact that she had no father to take her would be completely overshadowed by the splendor of the Aviator.

The Aviator’s face went from one expression to another in an instant—as if clouds were first blotting out the sun and then letting it shine full force. She saw him pained and surprised and then frustrated. Maybe even angry, which scared her a little.

“I wish I could,” he said at last. “But I can’t.”

“Why not?” Lily stood and faced him.

The Aviator bit his lip, and for a minute Lily thought they both would cry. She felt violent and crazed disappointment thrashing about in her chest.

“Please,” she begged.

The Aviator stood quickly and pulled her into a hug. She pressed her face into the dark solidity of him, felt the zipper of his jumpsuit chafe her cheek.

“They would never let me,” he said, still holding her.

“Because they hate you,” she said, raising her face to look up at him.

“That’s right.”

“But wasn’t it an accident? Like when I spill the milk? Or when I trip and fall?”

He put his hand on the top of her head, as if blessing her. “I wish it were that simple,” he said.

“You didn’t mean to kill them, did you?”

The Aviator released her. “Come sit back down for a minute. Are you thirsty? Do you want a glass of water?”

Lily shook her head. What she wanted was answers.

“Okay. Well …” The Aviator rubbed his jaw with his knuckles. Lily thought she could hear the rasp of his beard’s stubble. “I was driving fast. Too fast. I do that sometimes—go out on the highway and fly along the asphalt, blow off steam. And I didn’t see them—you. There was a dip in the road, and I hit your car. I’d take it all back. I can’t—” His voice broke.

“If you really were a murdering bastard, you’d be in jail. That’s what I think.”

“Bastard?” She saw a fleeting smile cross the Aviator’s face. “Lily.” He shook his head.

She wouldn’t apologize for quoting Uncle Miles. “But you’re not in jail,” she repeated. “So it wasn’t on purpose.”

“I’m not in jail because it was an accident. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not sorry each and every day.”

They sat in silence until the Aviator said, “Lily, I’m so sorry I can’t take you to the dance. I would be honored, really and truly. Nothing would make me happier. But I can’t. It just won’t work, for reasons I can’t explain to your satisfaction.”

“I just wanted. I just wished.”

“I know,” he said, taking her hand in his. “But I will always do what I can. I am your friend, forever. And let me make you a promise, all right?” Lily looked up at him. “I will find a way to make it up to you. For the dance, I mean,” he said and then released her hand. He made an X across his heart with his index finger. “I promise.”

“I love the books you send me,” she said and smiled in a way she hoped would convey how much they meant to her. Then Lily took a deep, resigned breath. “Okay,” she said, grudgingly agreeing to his promise. “But don’t wait too long!”

He smiled and stood. “You’re a pretty good bargainer, you know that? But now you need to get home before it starts to get dark. Promise me you’ll be safe?”

“Umm hmm,” Lily said and instead of using the steps hopped off the side of the porch to show him how agile she was.

“You could come through the house,” he told her, but she’d already started to round the corner. The Aviator followed her out front, and Lily felt him watch her climb on her bicycle and ride away.

Lily pedaled as fast as she could—not to rush back, but just to feel the wind blow her clean. She decided she wouldn’t tell her aunt about the dance. She just wouldn’t go. Lily knew no one would have the nerve to ask why the fatherless girl had chosen not to attend.

And maybe in the Aviator’s promise she had something even better than a stupid old dance with a bunch of stupid old girls and their stupid old clumsy fathers. Lily believed the Aviator would come through for her. It felt glorious once more to believe in someone.

4

Aunt Tate said, “HOW COULD YOU?” and roughly flipped Lily over on her bed where she ’d been reading the Aviator’s latest gift, Beautiful Joe. Aunt Tate held Lily by the arm and struck her with the gut-flecked flyswatter. “That was my mother’s pitcher! My mother’s! You!”—whack—“ungrateful”—whack—“child!” Whack. “After all I’ve done for you!” Whack whack whack!

Lily had no idea what Aunt Tate was talking about. “I didn’t do anything!” Lily protested. “Aunt Tate, I didn’t do anything!”

“Don’t add the sin of lying.” Aunt Tate let go of Lily’s arm and gave Lily’s backside one more good whack. “No supper. Why I took you in is beyond me.” Aunt Tate slammed, opened, slammed the door several times. Bang!

Lily stayed still, as if she were playing freeze tag at school. She sucked in her cheeks and bit down, wondering if she could bite hard enough to tear out the sides of her mouth, chew and swallow the flesh. Her body burned in all the places where the flyswatter had landed. Lily remained there, perfectly still, breathing scant breaths. She fought back tears, ever mindful of her vow to keep control.

Later, when it was nearly dark and Lily was wondering if it might be safe to go pee, Aunt Tate came and stood beside Lily’s bed. “Uncle Miles told me.”

What? Lily panicked. What exactly had Uncle Miles said?

“He knocked the pitcher off of the mantel when he was looking for his matches. He told me you didn’t do it.”

Lily didn’t understand why Aunt Tate automatically believed such awful things about her. What was it about her that led Aunt Tate to assume the worst about Lily? Lily had never been a liar. Why didn’t Aunt Tate believe her?

Aunt Tate crossed her arms and held them against her middle as if she were suddenly cold, or maybe trying to hold something in or even protect herself; as if Lily might stand up and try to punch her in the stomach like they did sometimes on Roy Rogers when there was a fight in a saloon and cowboys smashed each other over the head with wooden chairs.

“I made a mistake,” Aunt Tate confessed. “I jumped to the wrong conclusion.”

Lily thought about the Aviator’s Beautiful Joe and how Joe ’s cruel master cut off his ears and hurt him even though Joe was a kind and loyal dog. A good dog. Then Joe got rescued and lived in a good home where people loved and understood him. Beautiful Joe’s life was the opposite of Lily’s. But why? What was wrong with her? What had she done? What could she do differently so that Aunt Tate wouldn’t call her “The cross I have to bear”?

“Aunt Tate?” Lily dared.

Her aunt tightened her arms about her middle. “What is it?” she said, not unkindly.

“Why can’t you love me?”

“Honey.” Aunt Tate took a step toward Lily but stopped herself. “It’s because I love you that I’m hard on you. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t bother.”

Even though Aunt Tate had half-buried “love” in that brief statement, she had at least admitted it. Still, it didn’t feel like love to Lily. There were no soft, rounded edges to Aunt Tate’s love. It was uneasy, all spiky and fearful, like the sea urchin Tom Bradstone had brought back from his vacation in California.

“I know I’m not very patient with you.” Aunt Tate sighed. “To be honest, Lily, I don’t have much experience with children. Just watching over your mother when she was a young brat.” Aunt Tate nearly smiled. “But now come have a sandwich, and then we ’ll get you ready for bed.” She extended a conciliatory hand.

“Can I have tuna fish?”

“You may have grilled cheese.”

“Oh, with Velveeta.” Lily sighed with pleasure. Her aunt’s hand in hers was neither warm nor cold. It was like dry newspaper, and Lily almost thought she could hear her aunt’s skin crinkle when she squeezed it.

That night, Lily dreamed that she was sitting at the top of the playground slide, looking down the length of it. The polished metal chute went on for miles—down, down, and down to an abrupt end where children dropped off into some kind of a crack in the earth. Someone was behind her, prodding her to release her handhold and let gravity take her. She felt the insistent push of a hand. Tap. Tap. TAP!

Lily awoke to the deepest part of the night. Half asleep, she swatted at something wet that was touching her under her bunched-up nightie.

Uncle Miles clenched her wrist like a slave’s clevis and held it immobile until he finished. After he was gone, Lily fed her pillowcase into her mouth, bit down, and swallowed her cries so that they filled her stomach like sharp gravel.

WHEN SHE CAME home from school the next day, there was an entire box of cherry suckers on the nightstand beside her bed. The kind with the looped rope handles she liked best.

“Go ahead and have one,” Aunt Tate said from the doorway. “But just one, or you’ll spoil your supper.”

Lily stalled, looking uncertainly at her aunt. A part of her was afraid the candy was from Uncle Miles.

“Adults make mistakes, too,” Aunt Tate said. “I made a mistake yesterday, when I blamed you. I’m sorry for that.”

“It’s okay,” Lily said because she could see how badly Aunt Tate needed to hear it.

“And, I’ve made your favorite chicken and dumplings for dinner. Wash up and then come help me with the snap beans. It’s about time I taught you to cook.”

While Lily sat on the kitchen stool and broke the crisp beans into pieces in a big white mixing bowl, Aunt Tate told Lily stories from when Mama and Aunt Tate were girls. She even showed Lily a little sickle-shaped scar on the back of her left hand where Mama had used a willow whip to attack her big sister. “We didn’t always get along,” Aunt Tate said. “But I always loved your mama. I just want for you to remember that she was a real person, with real faults. We always put the dead on a pedestal, but they were real humans, just like us. They made mistakes, just like us.”

Lily had just finished setting the table when Uncle Miles came through the kitchen door carrying a teeny-tiny guitar under his arm. Lily couldn’t help but hope it was a gift for her, a reward for keeping their secret.

“Oh no! You didn’t!” Aunt Tate said, laughing. “Oh, this is just plain funny!”

Lily had never before seen her aunt get the giggles. Aunt Tate used the hem of her apron to wipe the tears from the corners of her eyes. “You don’t have a musical bone in your body, old man. What on earth possessed you?” To Lily, she said, “Don’t forget the bread.”

Lily opened the bread box and stacked six slices of Wonder Bread on a plate. She twirled the plastic bag closed and used Aunt Tate’s wooden clothespin to reseal it. From the corner of her eye, she watched as Uncle Miles set the child-sized guitar on the chair next to the prayer shawl Aunt Tate was knitting. He rolled up his sleeves before washing his hands.

“Got it at Pawn City,” he said, lathering his hands. “Dirt cheap.” He was clearly more than a little pleased with himself.

“It shoulda been free,” Aunt Tate said, carefully ladling the chicken and dumplings into a deep white tureen. “No one in their right mind would buy that. A ukulele, Miles?”

“This is a ukulele?” Lily asked, gingerly plucking a string on the instrument.

“It’s Hawaiian.” Uncle Miles pushed Lily’s hand away. “And it’s not a plaything.”

“You can’t even read music.” Aunt Tate sat down and scooted her chair in. “Here,” she said, handing him the tureen. “And what were you doing at the pawnshop?”

“Stopped in on my way home. Just lookin’.” Uncle Miles gave himself a generous helping of chicken and dumplings.

“Talk about money down the drain.” Aunt Tate shook her head.

Lily found it strange that any part of her could feel sorry for Uncle Miles. And to realize that it was Aunt Tate who held the upper hand, not her uncle.

“You’ll see,” he said. “And you’ll be begging me to serenade you.” Uncle Miles laid aside his knife and fork, floated one hand in the air, and began singing a Patsy Cline song.

His voice was awful, and Lily couldn’t help it—she laughed into her hand and looked across the table at her aunt, who stuck her fingers in her ears, rolled her eyes, and smiled right back at Lily.

AUNT TATE HAD been wrong about Lily being able to leave her sorrow behind in the house that used to be home. Sorrow was not so easily fooled; it stuck to the soles of Lily’s feet and dogged her every step. It was an undercurrent to every breath.

Lily stood on the sidewalk in front of Aunt Tate ’s American Beauty rosebush. Making sure that the coast was clear, she dropped down on all fours and began dragging her right knee along the rough pavement, shredding the skin. It burned, but she kept going, checked the raw skin often, and only stopped when she was certain that the wound was serious enough to merit Aunt Tate’s attention. The blood ran down Lily’s leg, into the top of her knee sock. Straightening her cotton twill dress, Lily picked up her schoolbooks and went inside.

Aunt Tate said, “You need to be more careful,” as she painted Lily’s knee with the bright red Mercurochrome that Dawn had called monkey’s blood. When Aunt Tate softly placed a square of gauze over the skinned knee, when she used the fingernail scissors to cut strips of white adhesive tape and was careful not to hurt Lily as she pressed the tape to Lily’s leg, Lily felt cared for, reassured. As if she mattered.

Lily created other injuries. She “fell” off of a curb and for good measure bravely struck her ankle three times with the heaviest rock she could find. She knocked her forehead against a doorknob. She burst her lower lip and gave herself a black eye on a rung of the playground ladder. Yet, it wasn’t until Aunt Tate taught Lily how to use a razor blade to scrape hard-water stains from windowpanes that Lily realized she could turn the blade on herself, at last finding blissful release.

LILY’S TEACHER ANNOUNCED that there was a special, last-day-of-school assembly. Along with her fourth-grade classmates, Lily sat on the polished gymnasium floor and then looked up to see the Aviator standing at the podium. He wore his navy blue dress uniform with the gold wings and rows of medals and ribbons, and in his hand was his uniform cap.

“I’m here today as the special guest of Lily Decker,” he said. “Lily, please stand and let your schoolmates thank you for making this happen.”

Basking in the glory, Lily stood, thinking her mouth could not stretch widely enough. All the kids who’d pointedly skirted around the girl of contagious calamity now cheered loudly.

The Aviator spoke about flying bombers over Europe during the war, of the new aircraft he was testing high above the plains of Kansas and the entire Midwest, and he cited facts and figures about the speed of the planes, what he saw when he catapulted beyond the clouds. The boys shouted questions about how many enemy cities he’d destroyed, and the girls—who were for the most part absurdly shy—asked questions about whether people on the ground really looked like ants, if the Aviator could see into windows and know what families were having for dinner.

When it was all over, the Aviator asked Lily to come up and stand beside him. She made sure her bobby socks weren’t drooping and smoothed her green-and-blue plaid dress as she walked to the front of the gymnasium. The Aviator held a small corsage with two white roses and some airy greenery.

“This is for my good friend Lily,” he announced as he pinned the corsage to the collar of her dress. Lily’s heart soared—high, into the stratosphere, venturing far beyond any altitude even the Aviator had ever sought.

AUNT TATE SAID Lily could go look at the elephants, but she had to be back in ten minutes. Lily hopped down the bleachers, holding her paper bag of popcorn against her chest so that she wouldn’t spill any. She could hardly wait for the show to begin, because there would be trapeze artists in sparkly costumes and maybe those girls in leotards who twirled on ropes.

Lily made her way past the man selling chameleons tethered on lengths of red thread, and then she stood in the straw in front of the elephants. She decided she liked the one named Bruno best. Lily wanted to run her hand across the terrain of his gray skin, to smooth away his wrinkles and try to make his eyes look less sad. Other kids were holding out fistfuls of peanuts, but Bruno ignored them all. He turned his head and stared morosely at the red-and-white wall of the canvas tent.

“How are you, Miss Lily?”

It was the Aviator, standing at Lily’s elbow. He wore a ball cap and a forest-green T-shirt, and Lily saw half circles of sweat beneath his arms. July’s heat was upon them. Soon enough, there would be days in a row of 100-degree temperatures that left everyone in Salina wet and wilting.

Lily grinned. “Hi,” she managed and then offered the Aviator some of her popcorn. He accepted a few kernels.

“Are you shy today?” he asked. Lily nodded, and he continued. “Well then, how about I ask you questions? All right? Let’s see,” he said, putting his finger to the center of his chin and pretending to be deep in thought. Lily giggled. “Tell me what you like to do. What’s your ten-and-a-half-year-old heart’s favorite pastime?”

Lily was thrilled that he knew enough to add that half year to her age, but she wasn’t used to being asked what she liked. She was used to doing what she was told or suffering the hairbrush—Uncle Miles’ favorite form of punishment, one he reserved for offenses like sassing back or stealing nutty chocolates from the box next to his ugly brown turd of a recliner.

“I like to dance,” Lily said, and then feeling braver, she handed him her bag of popcorn, wiped her hands on her purple shorts, and stepped back from the elephant enclosure. Lily showed the Aviator some of the steps she’d copied from Dinah Shore’s show. She pointed her toes, held her breath, and performed a passable pirouette.

“What’s your favorite kind of dance?” he asked.

“All kinds. Any kind,” she said. “I love the June Taylor Dancers. I’ve seen them on The Ed Sullivan Show.”

“They’re pretty good,” he said, munching on a few more pieces of her popcorn.

“They kick like this.” She turned sideways, kicked as high as she could, kept her balance. “And when they make those patterns, like a kaleidoscope—I love that. They’re magic. Oh,” she added, “and the outfits. Sequins and feathers. Headdresses!” Lily could hear how fast the words were coming out of her mouth.

“So, dancing makes you happy.”

“More than that,” Lily said, looking up at him. “When I dance—when I dance, nothing else matters. Everything else disappears. There is only dancing.” That was it. Dancing took her to another world, a world that Uncle Miles could not reach. A world where her lost family was a faint shadow, not an omnipresent, weeping wound. When Lily danced, she was not a misfit. She belonged.

But she couldn’t bring herself to say all of this to the Aviator. Instead, she simply said, “I feel happy when I dance. Free.”

“All right then,” he said, just as the band began playing an upbeat song. Lily was torn—she had to get back to her aunt, but she wished she could ask him to come sit beside her.

“Here.” He handed her the popcorn. “You can’t miss the show.” He held out his hand, and she took it. “I was very glad to see you, Lily Decker. Now, you go have fun, and later you can tell me what you think of pink and green and blue and yellow trained poodles, all right?”

Lily laughed. There couldn’t possibly be such a thing. The Aviator was funny.

“I’m not kidding,” he said, touching the brim of his ball cap in a mock salute. “They dance, too, but not as well as you! Now, promise me you’ll have a good rest of the summer, all right?”

“I will!” Lily skipped a few steps toward the bleachers and then turned to wave to him one more time. She watched him cross the parking lot, stand beside his tuxedo-black Corvette, and light a cigarette.

A week later, Lily received a card in the mail that said she ’d been given a Tah-Dah! Dance Studio scholarship, along with a stipend to pay for a leotard, tights, and appropriate dance shoes. It was signed “Your Secret Benefactor.” Aunt Tate said, “Someone has money to burn” but otherwise manifested no curiosity. And so after school Lily rode her faded red bicycle to the studio. It gave her two days a week when she was out of the house, free from chores and the lead-weight sensation of knowing Uncle Miles was due to come through the kitchen door, smelling of oil and diesel and sweat.

UNCLE MILES SAID, “Tonight we experiment.”

September’s full moon through the window made everything silvery bright, lit the edges of things, made silhouettes of her desk lamp and her bureau with her ballerina jewelry box. Lily jammed the ends of her fingers into her mouth, bit down to keep quiet. She squeezed her eyes shut, tight. Warm tears eased their way from the corners of her eyes, ran into her hair, and wet her pillowcase.

Uncle Miles put his mouth to the center of her. He was moaning, which made a buzzing bee vibration that journeyed from his throat, his lips, to her core. And then she felt the growing heat of her own flesh in response. She fought against it but couldn’t help it. “Oh!” she cried, a surprised baby-bird voice. “Oh, oh, oh!” He held her pelvis as if it were a bowl.

She thought that she might explode, that she was descending, plummeting, and it was release and good and hot and out of her control and sick and bad a disease and the worst thing ever that Uncle Miles had done but it felt good. It felt good. It felt good. Oh, no—it felt good. How could her body betray her?

“You like it.” His whisper left a hot brand of accusation against the side of her neck.

Once he was gone, she told herself that tonight was the exception to the rule. Tonight, it was okay to cry. With her face pressed into the wet pillow to muffle the sound of her confusion, Lily cried her shame. Her need. She cried a poisonous blend of gratification and disgust, of wonderment that Uncle Miles had given her pleasure, which was more frightening than any of the painful, awful things he’d done in the past. She cried her rupture, her irreparable breakage.