Winter Loon(34)

“I have to stop,” she said. “I feel sick.”

She backed out of the light and fumbled toward the opening. Her breathing was startled and damp with sobs. I grabbed for the flashlight, upsetting the board. I crawled away, but my knee wobbled and I felt something snap. I knew instantly I’d busted the planchette. I pushed a scratchy ladies’ coat off the top of my head. Jolene was sitting in the closet doorframe, the denim curtain bunched against her back. I held out the broken paddle. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I smashed it.”

She knelt beside me and took it from my hand delicately, like it was a wounded animal, like she might check it for a mother’s heartbeat. Her smile consoled me, but as she threw the paddle back into the crawl space she lingered a moment, as if she was hoping the call she’d made might get reconnected.

We scooted into daylight, into the tidy room Jolene shared with her little cousin. If our mothers’ ghosts were still lurking in the crawl space, whispering about us, we could not hear them. Jolene drew her knees up to her chest and rested her head on her arms. Our shoulders, arms, hips were touching. I put my fists to my mouth like I was preparing to make a birdcall and blew my last frightened breaths into my palms.

“I don’t know if it was an accident, my mother drowning like that.” My thumbs were on my lips as I spoke and the words muffled in the hollow of my hands. “We thought we heard a loon. She was jumping on the ice, flapping her arms.”

Jolene lifted her head and let it bump against the wall. “Mine was gone three days. I don’t know where she was between then and when they found her. She left me at her boyfriend’s place. No note. Just . . .” She opened her hands like she was setting a bird free. “Mona said she took her weakness with her. Left her strength behind for me.”

I put my head back, too, and closed my eyes. Sleep was there, and I feared I could doze right off. I allowed myself to glance at her. Her eyes were closed and restful, black lashes hovering above the moon-shaped scar on her cheek. I turned back, closed my eyes again, and was surprised to feel the sweep of her hair on my arm, her head soft on my shoulder. Her bent legs collapsed against mine, and she curled toward me, quiet as a cat. I let my hand drift across her knees and pulled her closer, careful not to crush another thing, careful to let her know I wanted her right where she was and that I would not move until she was ready.





CHAPTER 12

I KNEW BULL might find out and not like it at all, but the day after our failed attempt at summoning dead mothers, I called the Fullertons, told them I was sick, then talked Jolene into going down to the river with me. Kathryn was out of my hair, away on some sort of vacation with her family, and the sense of doom that I’d felt the whole time I’d been in Loma—over six months—was lifting. It was mid-August, and suddenly I wished summer could go on forever.

We rode bicycles down Main Street and climbed the hills to the old highway. We took our time, riding side by side, riding without hands for as long as we could. Magpies swooped along the hayfields, raising a stink when we pedaled past. We turned onto a dirt road and got off our bikes to walk them over the cattle guard. I was already sweaty, and I could taste field dust when I sniffled. I second-guessed my decision to bother with a shower.

“C’mon, moo with me,” Jolene said. She laid down her bike and went over to the rail fence, mooing her head off.

I stayed with my bike in the road. “Moo.”

“That’s no moo, Wes! For Pete’s sake!” She mooed again.

“Those cows look concerned,” I said. The three closest to us had stopped eating grass and looked our way.

“They’re cows, not bulls. They won’t charge us or something. Now, let one rip or we’re never gonna get to the river.”

I dropped my bike and stood next to her on the fence rail. The sweet smell of manure and hay filled the air. I breathed it in, threw back my head, and bellowed out a moo. “There,” I said. The cows dropped their heads to the grass again.

“Good,” said Jolene, as she jumped down from the rail and headed back to the bikes. “Tired of waiting for you.” Hands on my head, I watched the back pockets of her jeans ticktock as she walked away from me.



AT THE END OF THE road, we leaned our bikes against a tree and headed down the trail that ran alongside a marsh. Red-winged blackbirds perched on cattails, their reedy calls seasoning the dry air. Other kids had already staked out spots between low shrubs on the rocky shore. Two shirtless boys, cigarettes pursed in their lips, were busy on the opposite bank securing a rope onto the iron bridge supports while girls in bikini tops rubbed oil on their bronzed bellies.

Jolene and I stopped a ways upriver on the edge of what we generously considered a beach. She pulled a striped sheet out of her bag and whipped it like she was driving a team of mules. It fluttered neatly over the ground, and we stayed the edges with larger river rocks before sitting down. The river was running fast and shallow after a hot summer. Dragonflies flitted in stitched circles along the surface. Beneath the bridge, the swift water gelled over a deep pool.

The sleeves of my old T-shirt rode well up my arm, exposing a hard line where summer met my natural pale color. “Let’s see what we can do about fixing your tan there, redneck. Take off your shirt. I’ll put some oil on your back.”

I pulled my shirt over my head in a single motion and rolled over onto my stomach. I examined the pebbles and turned my head to watch Jolene’s hands digging in her bag. She pulled out a bottle of baby oil and straddled my back. I registered the weight of her there on my tailbone and thought of what little was between us. She must have held the bottle high, since the oil dribbled one excruciating drop after the next.