(flying like flying)
—unmitigated serenity that had come over him by that brief connection with his daughter’s icy flesh. In the end, he decided to keep that part to himself.
“I won’t say a word.” Smiling, Tim crossed his heart with one finger. “I love that kid. And I love you, too, man. You’re my brother.”
David returned Tim’s warm smile. “Stepbrother,” he corrected.
Tim shook his head. “No, man. My brother.”
David nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”
“Listen,” Tim said. “There’s something I want to talk about with you, too, but now’s not the time for it. Let’s do it later tonight, after the ladies have gone to bed. Okay?”
“Okay,” David said.
55
That night, they grilled rabbit on the barbecue, and despite her utter refusal to eat any of it, Ellie seemed comfortable and at ease for the first time in recent memory. Tim regaled them with old folk songs, which he played on a battered acoustic guitar, his throaty singing off-key but jubilant. They lit a bonfire, too, and roasted marshmallows on the ends of long sticks. Tim and David smoked cigars and drank wine—David just couldn’t stomach any more of his brother’s bathtub whiskey—and Gany told a ghost story that she claimed was real and had actually happened to her when she was a young girl growing up in Iowa.
By the end of the night, as the bonfire started to dwindle and the stars appeared to burn holes in the firmament, Ellie got up from where she’d been sitting cross-legged in the grass twirling a marshmallow stick around in the air, and approached David’s lawn chair.
“Hey, hon,” he said, running a hand along her arm.
“I want to do something for Mom. We never did anything.”
He sat up straighter in the chair. Beside him, Tim coughed in his hand and righted his posture, too.
“Like what?” David asked.
“A funeral,” said Ellie.
David smiled and squeezed her hand.
Gany got up from her chaise lounge and ran her fingers through Ellie’s shortened hair. “We can certainly do something,” Gany said.
“Yes, we can,” Tim said, springing up from his chair. “You got it, kiddo. That’s a wonderful idea.”
“It’s very thoughtful,” David said.
“I’ll be right back,” said Gany, and she went off into the field toward the rabbit hutches.
“Is there a song you could sing, Uncle Tim?”
Tim gathered up his acoustic, which he’d leaned against the arm of his lawn chair, and strummed a few chords. “I sure can. What was your mama’s favorite song?”
“ ‘Hot in the City’ by Billy Idol,” said Ellie.
Tim laughed but his face looked sad in the firelight. His eyes appeared to moisten. “Well, heck. Lemme see if I can fumble through it.” He proceeded to strum a few repetitious chords.
Gany returned with a bouquet of wildflowers clutched to her bosom. She handed them to Ellie. “We don’t have any incense to burn, but I thought maybe you could throw them on the fire. They smell nice when they burn.”
Ellie thanked her. Then she took one of David’s hands. He stood and let her lead him over to the dying bonfire. In the background, Tim began singing the opening verse to “Hot in the City,” as best he could remember it.
“Dear Mom,” Ellie said, addressing the fire. “You were the best mom in the world. I think maybe you’re not really gone, because it doesn’t seem real to think of you not here. I know you were just trying to save the world. I think that’s a good thing. I think it was brave. The world is messed up and it needs saving.”
She began to cry, her hand slipping from David’s. She sank down to her knees and David let her be.
“I’m sorry for all the times I was bad. I wish I had do-overs for all of those times. But we had a lot of fun, too, and I’m going to miss all of that. I’m going to miss you. So much, Mommy Spoon.”
She glanced up at David, her face shiny with tears, before turning back to the fire.
“Don’t worry, Mom. Dad’s doing a great job taking care of me. He’s a good dad. Anyway, I just wanted to say good-bye. I miss you. I love you.”
She threw the flowers on the fire. The flames flared, and a banner of black smoke lifted up into the air. Gany had been right: The burning flowers smelled like perfume.
Ellie stood, wiping her nose on her arm. With a hand against his hip, she pushed David toward the bonfire. “You say something now,” she told him.
I can’t, he thought. I’m afraid to open my mouth. I’ll lose it.
“I love you, babe. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m—”
He went down on his knees.
56
“That was a beautiful service,” he said as he tucked Ellie into bed. Ellie pulled the sheet up over her shoulders, and David leaned in and planted a kiss at her temple. “Will you be okay in here by yourself tonight?”
“Yes. Dad?”
“Yeah, hon?”
“Are you okay?”