The day after Thanksgiving (a printed meal of turkey and mashed potatoes, eaten in front of the woodstove) Lily came down the attic ladder, her arms full of little plastic angels. “I forgot I had these! I got them at the Nickel & Dollar. They were so cheap I got twenty,” she said. “Santa’s coming, and I’m not even ready.”
“It’s still November,” Adri said. Earlier, they’d filled Galapagos’s shed with fresh warm hay and turned on an electric heater. Already Lily had put up an anemic Christmas tree in the library and a manger with the baby Jesus, which she adjusted just so in what she called the place of honor. “And I read somewhere the other day that Santa’s not real,” Adri offered.
“I think the Grinch has been spreading that rumor,” Lily said and ascended the ladder again.
“You’re too old for that,” Adri called up to her, looking at Lily’s feet. “Your bones are brittle, and you could break something if you fell.” Lily ignored her.
Adri was on the parlor couch reading when her cousin finally came downstairs for good, closing up the attic with a creak, her white hair askew and her shirt bunched up on one side under her bra.
“Well, it’s no use,” she said.
“What, perpetuating lies about the red-suited fat man?”
Lily rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t even doing Christmas stuff anymore, smarty. I was just seeing if there were any relics to help us”—she tugged her shirt down and smoothed her hair—“to figure out about the house, about those girls from the letters you found. I guess I don’t have anything for you. Looks like you just get coal again this year.”
“That’s okay. I’ve never really been on the nice list,” Adri said. “And we already know everything there is to know. They died. End of story.”
Lily sighed and sank down onto the couch. She shook her head. “I keep thinking there’s something I wanted to tell you. About the Ragbag Fair. But each time it comes back to me, it slips out of my head before I can get my words together.” She shook her head, frustrated. She gazed around. “Don’t you wish you could gaze into the bones of any place? A house or a field or a tree, and see its secrets?”
“Trees don’t have bones,” Adri said, but Lily went on, ignoring her.
“I could tell every detail of my favorite rain boots when I was four years old. I can see them as if I were wearing them yesterday. But so many other things, I forget. I guess I’m like my grandpa now.” Lily was amused and forlorn at the same time. “Permanently confused.”
Adri knew she should reach for her hand, to give her an encouraging squeeze. She curled her fingers but didn’t move them.
“Well, I know my guardian angels are watching out for me anyway,” Lily said. And then, suddenly brightening, as if this led her to an idea, “Do you want to see where I’m gonna live?” she suddenly asked. “When my brain’s finally . . .” Lily pantomimed an explosion with her hands.
The Holy Redeemer Home for the Aged lay on the edge of God’s View, one town away. It looked more like a small strip mall than a home. It sprawled over two acres, enclosed by a cement wall.
“So us crazy ones don’t wander off,” Lily said as they approached the entrance.
Inside, the place was bustling. A room to the right was full of people playing bingo, in another large living room a woman was playing records. There were more people in Holy Redeemer than Adri had seen altogether since she got to Canaan.
“My fellow earth ruiners,” Lily said with a wink, as they watched people push their bingo chips around. Two women held hands, white haired and hunched over a table, one reading to the other.
The whole place was a contrast: homey yet not home, cozy yet institutional. It was a nice place, but of course, nothing like Lily’s own house.
Lily sighed. “I guess this is my Mars,” she said. “That I’ll be launching off to someday. Someday soon, I guess. Planet of the Old People.” She looked around, resigned, accepting. “You think you fade,” she said. “You look like you fade. But believe me, you don’t.”
Adri was silent. What could she say to that?
On the ride home, she tried to be upbeat, to agree with Lily that it was “such a lovely place,” but she kept sinking into silence. Finally, she forced herself to say what was on her mind.
“Hey, Lily? If you knew about me for so long, why didn’t you ever call me? Or write me? Or tell me you were here? How come you never wanted to know me?”
Lily looked over at her, surprised. “Well, I wrote them about it. I called. For a while after . . . the flood, your parents . . . I thought maybe I could adopt you. But they said I was past the age limit. And that it would be disruptive; you were doing so well in school. And I thought, well, maybe you just didn’t have any use for some old fart in Nowhere, Kansas. Maybe I assumed that you just wouldn’t think much of me.”
Adri stared out the window.
“Was that wrong? Have I hurt you?” Lily asked, her eyes big and uncertain.
Adri swallowed. “No.”
“It always made me happy to know you were there, doing well,” Lily went on. “I always felt like you were partly mine. Like, part of my life.”
Adri nodded. “Thanks, Lily.”
Would it have changed anything if she’d known? Would she have turned out to be better—just better in general at all the things she was bad at with people—if she’d had someone in her life like Lily? Would she have been better at touching someone on the hand to console them? Would she be going to Mars at all?
The city fell away quickly, and they entered the open plains, the vast expanses of land people had left behind over the years of drought and never come back to. Then Lily did something unexpected. She rolled down the window and pressed her face to the frigid air. She breathed deeply.
“Life is sweet, isn’t it?” she said.
CHAPTER 6
The ride to Wichita on December 7 was glitteringly cold and bright. Lily, bored, had wanted to come along. She separated from Adri at the Center’s waiting room, but not before telling her she looked like death.
“Lighten up. They love you,” she said. “He’ll sign the contract. Geez, you worry too much.”
Adri rolled her eyes and then went to the front desk to check in.
Lamont met her at the double doors of the secured-access section and led her back, a large coffee in one hand. His office was spacious but decidedly not edgy for someone with so much power. Photos of his family flickered across one wall and there was a nice view of downtown, but otherwise it was a simple, mostly empty space. He gestured to a chair across from him as he sat down and took a sip of his coffee.
“Don’t be nervous, Adri. This meeting is a good thing for both of us. Okay?”
Adri nodded. He pulled a folder toward him, opened it, and looked over the first page. “Your specialty is life systems. You’ve never had a grade lower than an A. You’re a stellar athlete. You’re staying with your cousin, Lily, nearby. No other family, yes?”
Adri nodded.
Lamont sank back in his chair. “I remember reading your application. I fought for you.”