Don’t Let Me Go(73)
Billy filled up his chest with air. It got big and puffed-out. Grace could see how big it got.
“Yes. I’ve decided I forgive you,” Billy said, and then looked surprised, almost as if somebody else had said it. He looked around a minute before saying anything more. “I forgive you for yelling at me when all I did was look out the window at you, and I forgive you for all the terrible mean things you said when you came to my door that day. I really do. I’m not just saying that because I think I’m supposed to. All of a sudden I really do. You know why?” He looked around at different parts of the ceiling, like he was trying to decide which direction to talk in. “Because I only had to deal with you twice, but you had to live with you every minute of every day, which is probably why you didn’t live very long. So now I just feel lucky. And I feel bad for you. So, whatever you did or said to me, the hell with it. I’m seriously ready to let it go by.”
Billy brought his gaze down from the ceiling to Jesse, who smiled at him, and the smile made him get that weird shy look again.
Jesse could make people do things they never did, and be ways they’d never been before, Grace decided. Jesse was magic. Not magic magic, like more than just a real human person. Just better at making things happen than anybody else. At least, anybody else in Grace’s world.
“Oh!” Grace said out loud, and everybody turned and looked at her. “Sorry,” she said. “Nothing. It was nothing. I just all of a sudden figured something out.”
Jesse wasn’t afraid of everybody else. That was what she’d figured out. Grace had finally met somebody who wasn’t afraid of people! That’s what was so different about him. But she didn’t say so out loud.
Meanwhile Jesse held out the little copper bowl on the palm of his hand and gave Billy the carved stick, and showed him how to hit the bowl one quick time on the side like it was a gong. Billy tried it, and this amazing tone filled the room, like a bell ringing out, high and clear, and lasting and lasting and lasting. It made something nice tingle inside Grace’s middle.
Jesse moved on then, to Felipe, and smudged him with the little trails and curls of whitish smoke. Felipe looked serious, as though he had an important job to do.
“Well, I sort of thought I didn’t forgive him,” Felipe said. “Because it’s hard to forgive somebody for hating you for such a bad reason. But maybe he was just scared of me, like Jesse says. Besides, if Billy will do it, I can try to do it.”
Felipe took the carved stick from Billy and hit the bowl, and the tone was much shorter and harder, and it hurt Grace’s ears a little bit this time, but she still liked it.
Then Felipe handed the carved wooden stick to Grace.
Jesse blew on the sage again, and a cloud of smoke billowed out on to Grace and made her sneeze. It reminded her of Peter Lafferty, sneezing in this apartment because he was allergic to the cat. Her cat. It was already weird to think that Mr. Lafferty the Girl Cat had ever been anybody else’s cat besides hers.
“Bless you,” Jesse said.
“Thanks,” Grace replied. “I sort of liked him OK. Not that I don’t think he was mean. He was. But he did some nice stuff for me. So, at least somebody has something nice to say about you, Mr. Lafferty. The person, I mean. At least it’s not like you just died and nobody cares at all. Oh. And by the way. We’re taking good care of the cat.”
Grace waited, expecting Rayleen to take her turn. But Jesse didn’t move away. Just as she was starting to wonder why, Jesse held the bowl high on his palm.
“Oh. Right. Sorry.”
She gave it what she thought was a good hard tap with the stick, but it just made a pretty, but little, sound that faded away soon enough. Just the opposite of me, Grace thought. Quieter than you were expecting.
Jesse moved over then and stood in front of Rayleen, and looked right at her face. But Rayleen just kept looking at the glowing end of the tied-up sage. Jesse smudged her with waves of his hand in the smoke, but maybe for longer than anybody else. It seemed long to Grace.
“OK, that’s good,” Rayleen said, but she didn’t sound like she meant it was good. She sounded like she meant it was enough. “I don’t know a hell of a lot about forgiving people, to be real frank. I’m not set against it, I just haven’t practiced much. I just more or less set things down and get on with it. I pretty much only came here for Grace’s sake. And I can’t stand here like Billy did and say I really mean it. But, like Felipe said, if Billy’s willing to do it, I guess I can do it. Or at least I can try. He sure was an unhappy guy. I sure see Billy’s point about that.”
She took the carved stick from Grace, and struck the bowl with the most enormous sound. It wobbled. It echoed. It hung around and around, and everybody just stood still and marveled at how long it took to fade. At least, Grace knew she marveled. And everybody else stood still, so she figured they marveled, too.
Grace wondered if Mrs. Hinman could hear that last big tone from upstairs, and if it made her sorry she hadn’t come. After all, it sounded so beautiful, and not preposterous at all.
? ? ?
“We have to wait,” Grace said, hitching the straps of her backpack higher on to her shoulders.
“For what?” Rayleen asked, sounding foggy.
Some mornings Rayleen could drink two or even three cups of coffee and still sound like she’d just rolled out of bed. Grace had noticed that. This seemed to be one of those mornings.