Time dragged and Nathan thought he’d jump out of his skin from the suspense. “What’s taking so long?”
“It’s only been fifteen minutes, dude. She’ll come through,” Skeet said. “This girl’s outstanding.”
It seemed as if an eternity had passed before Jodie emerged from the trailer and came back across the street. She scooted into the backseat.
“Well?” Nathan demanded. “Don’t make me go postal.”
Jodie grinned and handed him a folded slip of paper. “Charlie Terry’s new cell phone number.”
Nathan snatched it. “You did it, Jodie! Man, you’re terrific!”
“I told you so!” Skeet reached around and hugged her. “How did you do it?”
“I went to the only woman in there. She’s taken over Lisa’s mother’s job, and I said that I was Lisa’s best friend and that she’d left before the yearbooks came out and that I had to make sure she got hers because it is her senior year … blah-blah-blah.” She pulled a book from her bag and grinned. “I cried too. Real tears.”
“Brilliant,” Skeet stated. “Especially since new yearbooks aren’t even out yet.”
“Last year’s edition was a convincing prop. I just waved it around and she never got too close a look at it.”
“Did she say where they’ve moved?” Nathan asked, staring at the cell number and committing it to memory.
“Someplace in Miami,” Jodie said. “You’ll have to get Charlie to tell you where.”
Nathan waited until he was alone to make the call on his cell phone. Charlie answered on the second ring.
“It’s me, Charlie. It’s Nathan Malone. Please don’t hang up.”
After a pause, Charlie’s soft drawl came through. “I knew you were resourceful, son. How did you find us?”
“From where you used to work,” Nathan told him.
Charlie chuckled. “I told Lisa that it was a mistake for her not to tell you we were leaving. I said you’d figure out something.”
“H-how is she?”
“Bad.”
Nathan felt his stomach heave. “I want to see her.”
“She doesn’t want you to see her like this—the way she is now. You know how she gets when she digs in her heels.”
“I know, and I don’t care. Please tell me where you are. I’m coming.”
“We’re in Miami. That’s a good ten-hour drive from Atlanta.”
“So?”
“Your parents might not like it.”
“I’m coming,” Nathan repeated, knowing he had one monster of a fight in front of him.
That evening after the twins were in bed, Nathan packed a duffel bag. He went down to the kitchen, stood in the doorway, watched his mother roll out pastry dough and gathered his courage. At the table, his father sat fiddling with his laptop. Nathan wondered why he hadn’t noticed this about the two of them before—they liked being in the same room with each other, even if they were doing different things. Togetherness. He had wanted that with Lisa.
Nathan stepped into the lighted room. “Mom, Dad … I’ve found Lisa. I just talked to Charlie and he told me where they are in Miami.”
Both his parents turned his way. Karen said, “That’s a relief. How is she doing?”
“Not so good.”
His father shook his head. “That’s too bad. I’m sorry.”
“I want to go and see her.”
“When?” Craig asked.
“As soon as possible. I could leave in the morning.”
“Tomorrow’s a school day.”
“I don’t care.”
“You’ve just come off spring break,” Karen said. “You still have six weeks of school left. You can’t just pick up and leave.”
“I haven’t taken a single sick day this year. My grades are perfect. I can afford to take the time.”
“Well, I can’t,” Karen said. “I can’t just drop everything and go with you. And neither can your father. Have you thought about trying to drive all that way with the girls?”
“I’m not asking you to go.”
It took a second for his statement to sink in, and when it did, his mother declared, “Well, you can’t go by yourself.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, Nathan, let’s not have an argument. You can’t go to Miami alone. You don’t know a soul there and you have no place to stay. It’s unrealistic to expect Lisa’s family to take you in.”
“I wouldn’t even ask them. They’re living in a motel while Lisa’s in this special facility.”
His mother returned to her pastry project. “No, son. You aren’t going.”
He walked over to the counter where she stood, removed the rolling pin, guided his mother to a chair, sat her down and crouched in front of her. Holding both her hands in his, he said, “She’s dying, Mom.”
“I—I understand that, but—”
“Let me ask you something,” he interrupted. “What would you give if you could spend one more day with Molly? Just one?”
Tears welled in Karen’s eyes. “That’s not fair.”
“I have a chance to see Lisa one more time. Please don’t try to take it away from me.”
“Karen.” They both glanced at Nathan’s father, who had spoken. “Let him go.”
Tears spilled onto Karen’s cheeks. “But—”
Craig held up his hand. “I’ll call my old boss, Bernie Steadman. He and his family live near Miami now and I know they’ll let Nathan stay with them. Our son will be all right. And he should have the opportunity to do this.”
Nathan hadn’t expected his dad’s support, but he was grateful.
Karen pulled away, wiped her cheeks. Her shoulders slumped, but Nathan knew she had capitulated. “You’ll call every few hours?”
Nathan rose. “Twice a day. I promise.”
“What if—?”
“I’ll be fine, Mom. Really.”
“How long will you stay?”
“For as long as she’ll let me be with her.”
The Sisters of Mercy, a Respite and Haven for the Terminally Ill, was an amazingly beautiful facility set on several acres in Coral Gables, Florida, a suburb of Miami. Nathan drove slowly along the driveway, which was sheltered by banyan trees, palms, and palmettos and bordered by brilliantly hued flowering hibiscus bushes and bougainvillea vines of hot fuchsia pink. It seemed that he was off in a tropical wilderness instead of near a city. The main building where he was scheduled to meet Charlie looked like a Spanish hacienda crowned with red barrel roof tiles. With its cream-colored stucco walls, decorative wrought iron, large wooden beams overhead and red-clay Spanish tile underfoot, the place looked more like a resort than a hospital. Yet it was a hospital—one that specialized in caring for the dying.
The lobby was peppered with groupings of sofas and comfy chairs. A nun, in a crisp short white dress, a pale blue apron, and a starched white head covering, sat behind a carved desk of darkest wood. A simple wooden cross hung around her neck. “May I help you?”
Before he could answer, he heard his name called from across the lobby. He looked up to see Charlie and Jill, heading toward him. Charlie shook his hand, then showed him to a side porch, where people sat visiting patients around bamboo tables. Ceiling fans moved the perfumed tropical air.
“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Jill said, with a big smile. “Are you settled in?”
“Yes, with a friend of my dad’s over on Key Biscayne.” Now that he was actually here, Nathan felt nervous and anxious. It had been weeks since he’d seen Lisa, and he didn’t know what to expect. “This is a nice place,” he said, glancing around.
Jill beamed a smile. “We want my baby to have the best. We don’t do the Catholic thing, but the sisters here know that. They’re real kind to everybody. There’s a waiting list, but Lisa’s doctor at Emory made the arrangements and we’re real grateful. I just couldn’t stand to think about my little girl stuck in that apartment in Atlanta, or some pathetic nursing home. She always liked Miami, you
know. So this is where we brought her.”
“Does Lisa know I’m here?” Nathan asked.
“She didn’t want you to come at first,” Charlie said.
“If you changed her mind, thank you.”
Charlie chuckled. “I didn’t exactly, but I did tell her I thought it was the nice thing to do.”
Jill said, “It’s not that Lisa doesn’t care about you. It’s just … just that things are so bad for her. She wanted you to remember her the way she was.”
“When can I see her?”
“She’s outside in the courtyard, under that big tree.”
Nathan saw her then through the screen. She sat in a wheelchair, a throw across her lap, shadows and sunlight sprinkling through lacy leaves of a single great tree that spread umbrella-like over the entire stone courtyard. The tree blazed with red blossoms, like a living fire. A flame tree.
He walked to the screen door and Charlie walked with him. “A few things you need to know before you go out there,” Charlie said. “They shaved her head for the Gamma Knife procedure that didn’t work.”
“Hair doesn’t matter to me,” Nathan said.
“And one more thing,” Charlie said. “She’s blind.”
At the sound of his approach, Lisa turned toward him. She only had sounds to guide her now, but she was getting good at distinguishing between approaching nuns and others. “Hello, Malone.”
Nathan halted in front of her chair, a knot in his throat so big that he couldn’t speak right away. She looked small and thin, fragile in the chair, her shorn head covered by a silk scarf. All the frustration and resentment he’d been nursing since she’d left without a word to him evaporated.
“So, do you like my new look?” she asked. “I’ve heard that bald is in.”
He stooped, took her hands. “You’re beautiful.”
“Liar.”
“I love you.”
She stiffened. “Why did you come?”
“To tell you that.”
She sighed, turned her face aside. “I wanted to crawl off and die alone. I thought it was the best thing.”
“Not for me. I want to be with you.”
“Don’t make this any harder, Malone.”
He sat on the cool gray stones at the foot of her chair. “Jodie and Skeet say hello. Mom and Dad say that they miss you. Fuller says both our poems made the cut for the best of Atlanta student works book. The twins are standing up on their own now. We missed the prom.”
“The twins are standing?” Lisa ignored the other announcements.
“They walk around holding on to furniture. They fall a lot, but they keep getting up and doing it again. They’re pretty cute. For girls.”
Lisa smiled, imagining the babies in her mind’s eye. “How are Charlie and my mom doing?”
“They’re sad, but they’re okay.”
“Good. I wish …” She didn’t finish, but reached out. He leaned into her touch, and her fingers followed the contours of his face and then his hair. “Your hair’s longer.”
“No time to get it cut.” His voice almost broke.
“I miss riding my cycle,” she said wistfully. “I loved the sense of freedom it gave me.”
“Remember that party when I climbed on the back and wouldn’t get off?”
“We talked for an hour at that bookstore.”
“I thought you were bored.”
“I thought you just wanted bragging rights—you know, locker-room talk about how you bagged Lisa Lindstrom for a night.”
“If I could have lived in your back pocket, I would have.”
“I’m sorry about that frat party.”
He shrugged, realized she couldn’t see his movement. “I was crazy jealous. I couldn’t stand it. I hated every guy you’d ever been with.”
“That night you stayed with me, after the Valentine’s dance—”
“A highlight of my life.” He smoothed her lap blanket. “You regret it?”
“Not at all.”
His heart skipped a beat. “I loved you more, if that’s possible.” He saw moisture fill her sightless eyes. “Lisa, I’m glad you got to come here … to this place.”
She smiled. “When I first came, I could still see, and when I saw this tree, I knew it was where I wanted to be. Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Beautiful,” he said, without taking his eyes off her.
She took a deep breath and he heard her weariness in it. “I should go back to my room. I don’t want to embarrass myself by falling out of my chair out here. Tell Charlie when you go inside.”
“I’ll send him out.” Nathan wasn’t ready to leave. He never wanted to leave her, yet he got up slowly. She was shutting down and he understood that he must respect her privacy. “Thank you for letting me come.”
“Did I have a choice? You’re a very persistent guy, Malone.” Her smile lingered.
“A favor?”
“What?”
“Say my first name. You never call me by my first name.”
“Nathan.”
From her lips, it sounded like a prayer. He rocked back on his heels, struggling not to cry.
She said, “We had a great ride, didn’t we?”
He bent and kissed her lips quickly before she could pull away. “We had a great ride.”
He cautiously stepped backward, keeping her in his sight as long as possible. A breeze stirred the air and the towering flame tree above her. A shower of tiny red petals fluttered down, twirling and falling to bathe her in a thousand flashes of pure crimson.
She felt them fall, lifted her face toward the sky and caught them on her cheeks, eyelids, soft lips.
Sunlight and shadow flicked over her, reminding Nathan of Spanish lace entwined with tears of brightest red.
She raised her arms, caught drifting petals in her lap and upturned palms; she was Icarus ready to touch the sun.
Nine days later, on a warm Thursday morning when he rolled out of bed to face another day of his waning hours of high school, Nathan picked up his cell phone to stuff it in his backpack. He flipped it open to check on battery life and saw that he had a text message. His heart thudded and his fingers went cold and numb. Still, he punched in the code to access the message. In abbreviated form, it read:
“Lisa took flight 3:09 this morning. Charlie”
Nathan pushed the wheelbarrow across the backyard while balancing the tree it carried. The twins squealed as he passed them. They were contained inside their baby corral, a sturdy plastic fence that encircled most of the surface of the patio. The corral was heaped with toys, but Abby wanted out and let him know it.
“I’m busy, Ab,” he told her, even though she couldn’t understand. Audrey pulled herself up beside her sister and joined the clamor.
“They want you to play with them,” his mother said. “They adore their big brother.” She’d been weeding the flower beds next to the patio. She wiped her hands on a towel tied around her waist, and came toward him. “What kind of tree did you buy?”
Nathan set down the barrow. “A weeping willow.”
“That’s fitting,” she said, with a sympathetic smile. “A good choice, son.” His mother fingered the bright green foliage budding on the branches. “It will need full sun. And lots of space; they grow quite large.”
“It’s a dwarf variety.”
“Smart thinking.”
“So, where should I start digging?”
His mother scanned the yard. “I’ve really packed it in, haven’t I? How about in the middle, maybe ten yards or so from the magnolia.”
“Molly’s magnolia?” He was surprised. That tree was practically sacred.
“Your tree for Lisa should have a place of honor,” Karen said quietly.
He pushed the wheelbarrow to the middle of the yard, then counted off ten long paces from the great magnolia. It was dotted with cream-colored flowers, their heavy perfume filling the air. He took out a shovel and sank it into the hard red Georgia clay. Within minutes sweat was runn
ing off his body and blisters were forming on his palms. Every drop of sweat, every throb of his hands was for Lisa’s sake, and he welcomed the pain.
School was out; graduation a memory. In another month, he’d be leaving for college—and leaving his boyhood behind forever. He’d accepted an academic scholarship to a small college in Kentucky that had offered him full tuition for his freshman year. It had come buoyed by his high SAT scores, good grades, and several letters of recommendation—the best one from Max Fuller. Kentucky was a good choice, he thought. Not too far away, but far enough. He needed a change of scenery.
“I’ll help you dig,” his mother said, coming up beside him.
“That’s okay. You were right—it’s something a person needs to do alone.”
She nodded, looked toward the patio when Audrey let out a wail. Abby had thrown her own sippy cup over the side of the corral and had taken her sister’s in consolation. His mom sighed. “I’d better go referee.”
Nathan watched her cross the lawn and pick up Abby’s cup. He chuckled, imagining how busy his mother was going to be with them over the years. He loved his little sisters, the only sisters he would ever know in the cycle of life. A cycle neither Molly nor Lisa had gotten to fulfill. He had thought a lot about Molly lately. Although he hadn’t known her well, hardly remembered her, in fact, she had left a gaping wound in his family when she’d left. Just as Lisa had left a wound in his heart when she died.
Lisa had been one of a kind—secretive, hardheaded, independent, wild and daring, but also smart, witty, well read, a gifted writer, loyal to her friends, and kind to the underdogs of life. And she would always be his standard of measure for loving someone again.
The hole had grown deep and Nathan tossed down the shovel. He loosened the dirt in the container holding the tree, and with both hands lifted it free of the bucket. He set it in the hole, picked up the shovel and began to fill in around the root-ball. Next he would water it thoroughly so that it could begin its own life cycle in his mother’s gardens.
As he worked, from inside his head, and quite unexpectedly, music began to form, beautiful notes that needed his guitar for purest expression. The music drifted in and out, and he savored it. Then words formed, fragments of a song. What had Fuller said about good writing? It comes from the heart, not the head. And so he hummed while he waited for the new music to make the journey from his mind to his heart and into his soul.