It was old, gray, and flannel—three adjectives that I was pretty sure didn’t describe anything in Loralee’s existing wardrobe, but it zipped all the way up to the neck and wouldn’t unnecessarily expose any body parts. I raced to my room to get it, and when I returned, Gibbes turned his back to give me privacy while he went through her purse.
Loralee’s eyes were glazed with pain; she seemed barely aware of where she was or what was happening. Her limbs seemed boneless, pliable as I moved them to slip her out of her shirt and jeans. I paused, really seeing her for the first time, noticing how large her joints appeared to be, how caved-in her chest was, her collarbones clearly outlined under yellowish skin. Her abdomen was distended, looking grossly out of proportion to the rest of her.
I zipped up the bathrobe and she immediately turned back on her side, drawing her knees up to her chest. I turned to Gibbes, whose hands were filled with various prescription bottles, while more sat on top of the nightstand, along with a bottle of Tums and one of Benadryl, and a bubble packet of a laxative.
Before I could even form a question, Gibbes said, “Go downstairs and find Owen, and keep him occupied until I figure out what’s going on here, all right?”
I nodded, then sped downstairs and out of the house into the night and found Owen right where we’d left him, in the front seat of the SUV, sound asleep. The yard seemed lit with fireflies, their staccato light show pulsing to music I couldn’t hear. I watched Owen sleeping, a soft snore drifting from his slightly opened lips. He looked like a baby, and I felt a soft pang at the thought, realizing that I could have known him as an infant. I slid off his glasses before they fell, then gently shook his shoulder. “Rocky?”
He jerked upright, and I was glad I’d saved his glasses.
“Where’s Mama?” he asked.
I cleaned his glasses off on the bottom of my skirt like I’d seen Loralee do, before sliding them back on his nose. “Dr. Heyward is upstairs with your mother, making her feel better.” I looked out into the new night, mesmerized by the dance of the fireflies. “I thought we could catch fireflies in the back garden while we wait.”
Owen slid from the Navigator and slammed the door shut all in one movement before running toward the house and up the porch steps. “I guess that’s a yes,” I called out, but he’d already run into the house.
I retrieved the jars I’d found in Edith’s closet, the ones Gibbes had said had once belonged to him and Cal, and met Owen on the back porch. The waxing moon was nearly full, eliminating the need to turn on the back lights.
I’d been so busy cleaning out the inside of the house that I hadn’t come out to the garden since the first week I’d moved in. Even in the moonlight I could see the transformation Loralee had created. Paths full of bright white stones—stones that I remembered agreeing to and paying for and seeing delivered—led the way through the garden, which no longer seemed full of tall, untamed weeds. Instead it resembled what a garden should be, a place of fragrance and beauty, where delicate flowers could tilt their heads toward the sky in search of light.
A soft blue light settled on the garden, giving the stone bench and the statue of Saint Michael a phosphorescent glow. Even the stone bunny, now sporting a bow tie and vest, seemed more dignified in the moonlight. The fireflies danced and swayed around us, their flashes like tiny beacons punching holes in the night.
Please let her be all right. The silent prayer surprised me. It had been a long time since I’d thought to ask for intervention, and it was the first time I’d admitted to myself that I was worried about Loralee.
“It’s not really dark, is it?” Owen whispered.
I shook my head. “Kind of makes the dark much less scary, doesn’t it?”
“Uh-huh.” He clutched his jar while tilting his head up toward the sky. “Did you know that it takes one hundred thousand years for the light on one end of the Milky Way to make it to the other side?”
“No, I didn’t know that,” I said quietly, somehow comforted by the thought that light was everywhere, even in the far reaches of the Milky Way, always traveling, always in search of the dark it needed to fill.
“Can we have a contest to see who gets the most fireflies?” Owen asked.
“Sure. Although I will admit to being rusty. I don’t think I’ve done this since I was a little older than you.” I’d been with my mother in our front yard. She hadn’t had her own jar, preferring to point out the brightest lights for me to pursue. She’d sat under the large maple tree, the one where each year on the first day of school she’d taken my picture as I held my newest backpack and lunchbox. I often wondered whether the tree was still there, or if it was another victim of my father’s wish to leave that part of our lives behind us.
“We’ll have to have a prize for the winner, though.” Owen pretended to think for a moment. “If I catch the most, I get to have ice cream before I go to bed.”
“All right. But what if I win?”