"There's your father's clubhouse, the summer he finished it," Neal's grandfather explained, resting his finger on the edge of the picture. "He used to love to spend the whole day out there reading those Hardy Boy mysteries."
"I didn't know he liked those," Neal said with interest.
"They were actually left over from my childhood," his grandpa chuckled.
"Here he is with your mother," his grandma said. She was paging through a different album, one that included his father's college days. "He brought her home to meet us. He was so proud! He knew we would like her."
"And we did," his grandfather said with satisfaction. "Here's his go-cart. He built it from scratch and entered it in a contest. Took a third place ribbon. There were what, about two hundred entries?" he asked his wife.
"Oh, more than that! There were people who came all the way from St. Louis and Kansas City, as I recall."
"They built the track on a hillside, so those carts had to carry the boys up a steep slope." His grandfather smiled and nodded his head, almost as if he could still see it. "Most of them quit."
"But not your dad's," his grandmother said proudly. "His went right up without a cough. Afterwards, he gave it away, to a children's home in Arkansas. Here's a picture. Every one of those boys put his hand on the cart, as if they were all saying it belonged to them."
"I wish he would've saved it for me," Neal said wistfully.
"He wasn't much older than you when he built it," his grandfather laughed. "He wasn't thinking he might have a son someday." He closed the album and took his handkerchief from his pocket. He blew his nose, then pushed his chair away from the table. "I'm going to go turn on the news, see what's going on in the world," he told his wife.
"And I need to make a grocery list," she said, closing the cover on her album too. "This was so nice," she told Neal. "Thank you for asking to see the pictures. I was afraid to look at them by myself."
"Maybe we can look at them some more tomorrow," Neal suggested. "I'm going to go and see what Rose and Alex are doing, okay?"
"Sure, honey. I'm glad there's a boy next door for you to play with."
Neal started to correct her, then decided it didn't matter.
It was funny, he thought, how nothing had changed, but everything was different.
He went out the back door and headed towards the corn field. He wondered if he could build a go-cart from scratch. Of course, there wasn't really anyplace in New York where a boy could ride a go-cart. Maybe he could build something else. Maybe he could create a new computer game, or build a robot and enter it in the science fair. And then he could give it away to an orphanage, or one of the public schools in an area where the kids looked really unhappy.
He knocked on the front door and Alex opened it almost immediately.
"Pops said you were coming," she said, gesturing for him to come in. "I asked him how he knew, since he wasn't by the window, and he said he recognized the sound of your footsteps."
Neal just smiled. "Where's Rose?" he asked, following Alex into the living room. Mr. and Mrs. Cameron were seated on the ugly couch, rolling skeins of yarn into balls.
"Good thing you're here to take my place," Pops said, holding out his hands. The yarn was wrapped from one hand to the other in a figure eight, and he carefully transferred it to Neal's hands. "Meemaw is going to sew an afghan," he said proudly.
"You don't sew an afghan, you knit it," Alex corrected him with good nature.
"Or crochet it," Neal told her.
"Now, how would you know about a thing like that?" Meemaw asked, as if he'd just quoted a complicated mathematical formula.
"My mom crochets sometimes," he explained. He tried to remember the last time he had seen his mom crochet or do counted cross stitch, or work on her quilt. Mostly she just sat on the couch and stared out the window.
"Sometimes it helps to get away for a while," Meemaw said softly. "When you come back, it's easier to make a new start."
Neal just smiled. "Where's Rose?" he asked again.
"She's gone to see her mother," Meemaw told him. "Felina called this morning, while we were at church. She asked for Rose to come and visit this afternoon."
"Felina is Rose's mom," Alex explained.
Neal knew he looked surprised. He had given up on Rose's mom. He had believed she was going to stay in the hospital forever. Now it looked like she might get well after all, and come back to claim her daughter. No wonder Rose believed in miracles.
"When Rose went to visit last time, her mom acted like she didn't even know who she was," Alex told him. "So Rose didn't know if she woke up this morning and suddenly remembered she had a daughter and asked to see her, or if it was the doctor's idea."
"It wasn't that Felina didn't know who Rose was last time," Meemaw told Neal. "She was taking a lot of medications that made her feel sleepy and confused."
"But now she's better," Alex said.
"Would you call that a miracle?" Neal asked Mrs. Cameron.
She smiled at him. "You're very good at this," she said, nodding her head at his hands. "Is it a natural talent, or have you had practice, doing it for your mom?"
"She doesn't roll her yarn into balls. Can almost anything can be a miracle?" he pressed.
"Everything is a miracle," Meemaw said with a smile.
"Not everything," Neal disagreed, remembering the rubble where the World Trade Center used to stand.
"If the very worst thing that ever happened to anybody turns into something good for everybody, then is the good part the miracle all by itself?" Meemaw asked him.
Neal mulled it over, while Mrs. Cameron kept working and Alex sat watching him from the floor. He thought they were both very wise, since they knew when to keep quiet.
"Anyway," Neal said. "When is Rose coming back?"
"We don't know," Alex replied. "If the visit goes well, she might stay all afternoon."
"When are you leaving?" Neal asked her.
"Soon. My parents are stopping by for me on their way home and their plane was supposed to land at two."
Now that he didn't want to be alone, it looked as if he would have the whole afternoon to try to entertain himself.
"Look," Mrs. Cameron said, sweeping her hand towards a trash bag beside her chair. It was obviously filled with skeins of yarn. "Or Pops might need some help in the garden."
"Fat chance!" Alex snarled. "Sorry, Meemaw, but if his own grandkids aren't allowed in the garden, I don't think Pops is going to let Neal go in!"
"Maybe not," Meemaw said thoughtfully.
Alex seemed satisfied and got up from the floor with a happy expression. "I think I heard a car door," she said. "I'm going to go up and get my stuff."
The moment she disappeared, Pops hurried into the room. "Neal!" he hissed, just as the last few inches of yarn slipped through Neal's fingers. "I need your help outside! A cat has gotten into the garden!"
Neal jumped up and ran, following Pops through the kitchen, through the mud room, down a long flight of stairs to a sort of porch with dingy windows. Then Pops opened the back door and ushered him outside, into a world of brilliant colors.
There were flowers everywhere, of every imaginable size and shape and hue. Yellows and reds and blues and oranges and purples ... and every shade of green that could possibly be imagined. The smell was wonderful, and so strong, Neal wondered why he hadn't been able to smell it next door.
"Follow me," Pops said urgently, starting off down a narrow path, bordered by landscaping timbers and filled with small white rocks.
Neal had to struggle to keep up, and he marveled at the older man's agility. There wasn't much opportunity to look around as he passed through the various areas, and he vowed to walk more slowly on the way back, even if Pops went on ahead without him.
"Here kitty!" Pops called, as they came into a small clearing. "Here kitty, kitty, kitty!"
"Here kitty!" Neal called too. This was the area he had seen through the hole in the fence. There were large bird houses all over the gr
ound, with tiny fences marking off something like yards around them. Neal turned in a slow circle, trying to estimate how many houses there were. Dozens. Dozens and dozens.
"Here kitty, kitty!" Pops called. But he was really just standing there, watching Neal.
"There it is," Neal said. It was a big yellow cat with green eyes and it seemed to be smiling at him. He knew how tricky cats could be - they'd allow you to come within inches before they darted out of reach. "Hi kitty," he crooned softly, holding out his hand, so it could smell his fingers. "What are you doing in Pops's garden?"
"Oh, it's not my garden," Pops said merrily. "It's God's garden. Don't you know, all gardens belong to the Lord? He's the only one who knows how to put the color and smell into the flowers."
Neal knelt down beside the cat and lifted it up in his arms. "And the white things?" he asked, without turning to look at Mr. Cameron.
"They live here, in the little houses," Pops explained. "It's a whole city, you see. They serve the entire state of Missouri and parts of Oklahoma and Arkansas as well."
"What do you mean, they 'serve?'" Neal asked softly. The big yellow cat was heavy in his arms. It lolled against his chest and rubbed its chin against his collar, as if he was adorned with catnip.
"Just like we do," Pops explained without explaining. "I take care of the garden - that's the way I serve. And you served by helping Rose."
"I helped Rose?" Neal said with surprise, turning around to look at him.
Mr. Cameron's eyes were twinkling as he bobbed his head up and down. "She tried to help you and that helped her."
"So I helped her by letting her try to help me," Neal clarified. He thought about it, while he scratched the cat under its chin. He wanted to serve, but he didn't want to serve by letting someone else help him. Still, if it really had helped Rose ...
"And you helped your grandma and granddad," Pops went on, with a tone of respect. "Asking to see pictures of your dad when he was your age. Now they can start to heal."
Neal hadn't mentioned that, but he didn't waste time wondering how Pops knew about it. "What about my mom?" he asked.
"She'll be fine. It's like Meemaw said - sometimes it's just good to go away for a while, so things seem different when you come back. Your mom is very strong. You don't have to worry that she'll fall apart on you."
"Why did ..."
"Felina fall apart?" Pops sighed and ran his fingers over the top of his head in a habit left over from the days when he had hair. "It was my fault," he said guiltily. "I showed her the garden before she was ready. I thought it would help."
Neal looked around him, somewhat fearfully. If something in the garden had made Rose's mother go crazy, he wasn't sure he wanted to see it.
"Don't worry - you're ready," Pops said, and waved his arm, as if introducing someone.
Suddenly the tiny doors of the bird houses began to open and the little white figures began to come out. They mostly stood about in clusters, chatting and gesturing towards Neal.
"What about the cat?" Neal worried.
"Hold onto him," Pops advised.
Some of the white things began to fly, and a few of them hovered near Neal's face, giving him a closer look.
"They're little people!" he said with excitement.
"They're angels," Pops said. "Assigned to duty on Earth. The garden is where they come between assignments, to rest up. Of course, there are millions of gardens like this one all around the world. Well, not millions. But thousands, I guess. Or maybe just hundreds."
"I don't know why, but ... I didn't think angels would be so small," Neal whispered. He was crying, even if he wasn't sad. Tears were streaming across his cheeks, but he couldn't stop smiling.
"They can be any size they want to be," Pops explained. "Or I guess it more depends on what size they need to be. They can be a hundred feet tall or they can look just like you and me."
Neal hesitated, wary of asking the question that was waiting on his tongue. "Are you an angel?" he said, so quietly, he almost didn't hear himself. "You and Meemaw?"
Pops laughed. "Goodness, no," he said. "We're just caretakers! I'm the property caretaker and Meemaw ... it's her job to take care of me. And she does, doesn't she. Those cookies ... yum! They're the best chocolate chip cookies in the entire universe, wouldn't you agree?"
"Yes," said Neal without hesitation. He knelt down, still clutching the cat in his arms.
"You can let him go," Pops said. "He won't hurt them."
"Do they talk?" Neal wondered, releasing the cat, who immediately began to wash its face.
"To each other. When they're our size and they're wearing blue jeans and driving cars, then they talk to us."
"If they're angels, does that mean ... Do you think maybe they might have ... seen my dad?"
Pops frowned, as if he was trying to figure out a sum. "I'm not sure," he finally said. "But I do know that your dad is okay, Neal."
"How do you know?"
"I just know. I can't tell you how I know, because I don't really understand how it works. But that's okay. It's enough just to know."
Neal understood that he could either believe Pops or not. He wanted to believe him, but he wasn't sure it was alright to believe in something just because you wanted it to be true.
"He wasn't running away from you," Pops said quietly. "That image you keep seeing? Where your dad is running toward the buildings? He was running to try and help the people who were trapped inside. That was his job, you see. His way of serving. He chose it, and when the time came, he did what he was meant to do. But I can tell you this, Neal - his feet were heavy. They were as heavy as that rock furniture in your clubhouse. He had to work harder than he ever worked before to run down that sidewalk into the smoke. Because he knew he was leaving you and your mom and his parents behind."
"How could you know about ..." Neal hadn't ever told anybody about the movie that played in his head. He had seen a policeman on the news, in one of the film clips, and thought it was his dad. He had wanted to reach into the TV and stop the man and turn him around and make him run the other way because he knew the buildings were going to collapse any minute.
Suddenly the angels joined hands and lowered their heads. Neal glanced over his shoulder and saw that Pops had bowed his head too, clasping his hands together as if he were going to pray. Then suddenly, the silence began, just as it had in the clubhouse that morning. It was so powerful, Neal could scarcely breathe. Something had come. Something or Someone Wonderful and Good.
He closed his eyes and tried it on, like a new shirt. What would it feel like to know, really know, that his dad was in Heaven and that he was alright? What if all those things people said to him at the memorial service were true?
And then he did know. They were true. His dad was okay. He was okay and Neal would see him again someday. He knew it was true.
"Isn't it amazing?" Pops whispered.
"It is amazing," Neal said. "Is this a miracle?"
"It is a miracle," Pops agreed. "Yes, indeed, that's just what it is – a full-fledged miracle."
(( 16 ))