Thaddeus

“What if God was one of us?”
— Eric Bazilian (1995)

Mrs. Kravitz explains what’s wrong with me: missed milestones. At first I think she says mill stones. Whatever. They’re both heavy.

She means, I guess, because I'm an orphan — because Eddie and Rose never adopted me; are still my foster parents — I'm incomplete. “Not fully formed,” is how she puts it. When I ask if that's why I'm shorter — a lot shorter — than guys my age, Mrs. Kravitz assures me, “in the strongest possible way,” it is not. “Certainly not,” she says, looking down at me. It's my soul that comes up short.

I wonder how Mrs. Kravitz knows so much about me, but then, this is a small town. I've been delivering her groceries for a long time.

But, I’m not worried about my soul. Right now I'm trying to remember if the cheese goes on the little shelf inside the refrigerator door with the butter, or whether ... Ah! There it is. A sign: scratched silver lettering that reads, “Cheese and Luncheon Meat.”

If I close my eyes, I can imagine Mrs. Kravitz in a shiny robe — satin, or maybe even silk, silver with dark purple borders — her arms outstretched, crucifix style, moving in big circles like a preacher. The sun shines through a window lighting her face, which is moist — “feverish,” Rose would say — little droplets of sweat sparkling in her thin, curly hair. I can hear every word she says, crystal-clear. “Just like ringin’ the bell,” Rose in my head says. If Mrs. Kravitz’ isn’t the voice of God, it should be.

But when I open my eyes, she's not anything like that. Her whole body’s pulled into itself, her head sucked down on her shoulders so you wouldn't even know she had a neck. Her hands are clasped into a tight little ball just below her breasts, almost hidden by them. Her skin is dry and faded, like her hair, which is colorless. The only thing that’s moving, besides her mouth — and that’s moving in a monotonous, mechanical, insect kind of way — is her head. It’s like she’s speaking before an audience. The first sentence she addresses left, then her head rotates to the middle for the next, then on to the right for the third — or sixth, or ninth, or ... Well, you get it.

She speaks in triplets. She says “A boy your age should be thinking about the future.” Her head rotates to position two. “You won’t be satisfied being a delivery boy all your life.” I try to tell her I aspire to one day being a short-order cook at Max's Café Bar and Grill, but her head rotates to position three. “Don’t take the easy way out!” She finishes the set. Then, whirr! Her head rotates all the way back to position one. I see my opening and take it.

“I'm finished, Mrs. Kravitz.”
She looks up, astonished. (I wonder if she knew I was here.)
“Oh!” She's dumbfounded. I help her into the here and now.
“I put all the vegetables in the bottom drawer, and the fresh meat and cheese in the one above. Butter in the—“
“Finished? So soon?”
I smile my big-headed smile.

If you don’t know me, “big-headed smile” means nothing to you. The sad truth is, even though I'm short — I'm 17, but most twelve year-olds are taller — I'm big-headed. I don’t mean hydrocephalic, baby-in-a-jar, side-show big-headed, just, you know, what Doc Wilson says: “At the very top percentile, Tad. The very top.” Big enough that I prefer button-ups over T-shirts.

Tad. That's me. Actually, it's Thaddeus, but nobody calls me that. It’s always been Tad, I tell people, because I'm short. But I know I'm called that because of my big head. I look like a tadpole. Eddie, my foster-dad, he calls me that: Tadpole.

When I smile, I’m usually looking up at people. To me, they’re all bellies, boobs and nostrils. But when they look down at me, I'm all head, with a tiny tail-like body. They usually laugh because, well ... God-damn-it! — Sorry, Rose-in-my-head — I look like a tadpole. That's my big-headed smile.

Mrs. Kravitz smiles back. (I wonder if she knows she's batting her eyes?)

Here's the part that’s a little embarrassing. I have to stand here, looking up at her, smiling my big-headed smile, until she can take it all in. Then she sighs a huge cleansing breath that relaxes her for a moment before her body contracts back into itself. Then I stand some more, like a dog waiting for a cookie, while Mrs. Kravitz makes furious movements looking for her purse.

When she finds it, she digs into it as if it were an almost empty peanut butter jar, then fishes out the most crumpled five dollar bill I've ever seen. (I admit however, I’ve never seen anything uncrumpled come out of that purse.)

“Thank you so-o-o much, Tad,” she says, screwing up her face into an expression I can't identify. She pushes the wadded-up bill into my shirt pocket.

Released — the five dollar delivery fee is my tip — I step back and look at her from a distance: She used to be so pretty.

“Gotta go!” I say as I turn and head for the door.
Half way there — Oh! Almost forgot!
“Mrs. Kravitz!” I yell back, but she's already on the phone, doing head rotations only I can see. “I left you a kitten.”
She mutters something then cups her hand over the receiver. “What's that, dear?”
“A kitten.” I repeat. “I left you one.”
She doesn’t understand. “That's nice, dear.” She uncups the receiver, then gives me a final glance. “OK.”
She'll find it later. She'll take good care of it. I'm not worried. They'll be good for each other, she and the kitten. Caring for it will make her happier; make her pretty again.
I let myself out, the door closing softly. Should I have left a puppy instead?

●●●

Here in Herkville — which of course, everyone outside calls Jerkville — we have one of everything. There's the Starlight movie theater at the west end of town, the Thomas Department Store right in the middle, and across the street, the Herkville Market Emporium where I've worked part-time after school since I was old enough to go to school, and full-time since I dropped out of high school two years ago. Rose and Eddie Larson, my foster parents, own it.

Don’t be fooled by the name. It’s really just a market where people buy food and stuff. It's the “stuff’ that Eddie thinks makes it an emporium. Things like cosmetics, magazines and paperbacks, faux jewelry — which Rose says isn’t jewelry at all — .22 and shotgun ammunition, plastic cutlery and paper plates, and ... “sundries.”

Sundries, which I used to think was some kind of ice cream, is just stuff on a smaller scale. Chinese finger puzzles, miniature microscopes, rubber spiders and wooden, jointed snakes, bug houses — actually, they're just clear plastic boxes with a magnifier on one side. You can put anything in them, but bugs do just fine — little American flags; so many things! My favorites are tiny, plastic, wind-up toys. Rose makes sure we always have at least five kinds: like a dinosaur that hops, or a miniature robot with blinking eyes, a wriggling turtle, or maybe crazy little dogs and cats whose feet wiggle back and forth — sometimes their tails, too! — as they scoot across the counter.

When I deliver things — which, along with stocking the shelves is what I do at the Market Emporium — I sometimes put one of these little wind-ups in with the groceries. Rose says it’s stealing, but Eddie thinks it’s good advertising. “Advertising for what?” Rose always asks. “We're the only store in town!” Anyway. It’s what I do; how I am.

Let's say I think the Edison twins — more about them in a moment — need to take a vacation. The next time I deliver something there, I might put a little wind-up car in with the celery. What do you know! Within a week, you’ll see them all bundled up with silk scarves covering their heads, wearing their fancy sunglasses with rhinestone corners, and white gloves, driving out of town in their old convertible with the top down — the one with holes along the front fenders. “Cruisiform ventiports,” Eddie calls them.

●●●

No one ever talks directly to the Edison twins, and they only whisper to each other. Margaret — or is it Mary? — is the spokesman, or spokesperson I guess you have to say, and when she speaks, she only makes observations. Most of the time, this works OK. If, for example, you meet them on the street and say, “Howdy, ladies!” they'll whisper back and forth, then Mary — or maybe it’s Margaret — might say something like, “It's a beautiful day!” They'll walk on by, arm-in-arm, smiling from Mary’s ear to Margaret’s, with no one the wiser. But if it’s anything more complicated, like, if you tell them the town's shutting off the water all morning tomorrow, they might say something like "We water in the afternoon" — which almost sounds right, but only almost. Once someone asked them what it was like to be twins. You’d’ve thought that would stump them, but they answered, “Night follows day!” It didn’t sound right at all, but it was their final word on the subject.

When I make deliveries there, we don’t speak much. Actually, I don’t speak much at all. Eddie says, “Pleasure’s in doin’, not talkin’." I take what Eddie says seriously.

At the Edison’s, I knock and step back — I like to give people some distance when they open the door (the big head, you know) — then I hear some commotion inside. I imagine Margaret and Mary are deciding who answers the door. Eventually, they reach some conclusion and the door slowly opens, but only a crack, just enough to see half of one pair of eyes looking out, with half of another pair above it.

“Market Emporium!” I announce proudly.

The door slowly closes. I hear more shuffling inside, then the door quickly reopens with one twin holding the door knob, while the other is pressed up against the opposite wall. When the door’s all the way open, they grin and make a little bow toward me. I walk in between them saying, “Thank you, ladies!” (I always call them ladies even though they’re probably not much older than I am.) They follow me into the kitchen where they sit across from one another at the breakfast nook while I put their groceries away.

They don’t look at me, but I know they're watching me the whole time. They stare across the table at each other, mimicking expressions like they’re looking into mirrors: lifting their eyebrows, pursing their lips, rolling their eyes up and down, sometimes sideways. I hear them giggle. Of course, they also whisper back and forth, but I can’t understand anything they say. (It sounds likes scratching wood.) When they laugh, they quickly cover their mouths with both hands. Their eyebrows shoot up, and their eyes widen.

“All finished, ladies!” They both look at me, surprised and smiling.

“I left the soap and hair shampoo here on the counter, and the other things” — special ladies’ things Rose put in a separate package — “in here.” I pick up the neatly folded bag and place it on the small counter next to the stove.

Then they do the sweetest thing. In unison, they get up from the table and walk toward me, one on either side. Each rests an arm on my shoulders, then bends down to kiss my temple. One of them — I think it’s Margaret, but it could be Mary — puts a neatly folded five dollar bill in my shirt pocket. Then they straighten themselves, stifling a giggle as I turn to leave. After I close the front door, I hear them lock it.

Some day, maybe after I’m a short-order cook, I’d like to go on a road trip with the Edison twins, maybe to the desert, and spend the night. I’ll lie on a blanket with Mary on one side and Margaret on the other, looking up at the stars until we fall asleep. I won’t care if I ever wake up.

●●●

Then there's 428 Maple. It's at the end of town, around the corner from the Starlight movie theater. Rose says to put things on the porch, knock three times with the big iron knocker, then leave and come right back to the market. “No need to put anything away,” she says. “Just drop it off and get back here.” This is what I always do — or at least did — until about a week ago. Until then, I’d never given 428 Maple a sundry. I mean, after all, who are they? What do they need? How can I give them something if I don’t know anything about them?

But, about a week ago, we got the best wind-up ever: a wedge of cheese. When you wind it up, a little half-mouse pushes its way through a circular door in the cheese, then looks side-to-side before going back down, the door falling closed after it. It keeps doing this until the spring runs down, sometimes with the mouse safely back inside, but usually with the mouse half in, or half out. (You can never tell which just by looking.) If you wind it exactly three whole turns, then seven clicks, the mouse always ends up back inside with the door closed.

The cheese wind-up seemed perfect for 428. But wouldn’t you know it! Habit took over. I put their package on the porch and knocked, but left without leaving the wind-up. I was all the way down the porch steps before I remembered.

What to do? Was it too late? Should I wait until next time? (I remembered a cartoon where a man stands between two open elevator doors, his head spinning, trying to decide which one to take.) So: I just decided. I turned around and ran up the steps two at a time. I got the wind-up out of my pocket and wound it three times. Just as I was counting off seven clicks, I heard the door knob click.

I froze, holding the winder to keep the toy from starting. The door didn’t open. Uncertain, I put the wind-up on the porch, next to their package, then leapt down the stairs and jogged out to the sidewalk. I turned and walked back to the market — fast — like I should have done in the first place.

But you know how it is. You plant something, bury a dead goldfish, or put a tooth under your pillow, you just have to look. So the next day, even though I didn't have anything to deliver there, I went back to 428 Maple to see if the cheese wind-up was gone. I crept up the steps as quietly as I could. When I was eye level with the porch, I saw the little yellow toy, exactly where I’d left it.

Disappointed, I trudged up the last few steps, probably making more noise than I wanted. I walked over to the cheese — the mouse was inside — bent over and picked it up. I put it in my pocket and walked away. When I got to the sidewalk, I thought I heard the door click, and looked back. I didn’t see anything.

Today I remembered the little toy in my pocket. I was waiting for Rose to finish packing some things for Miss Webley, the writer lady who lives in Herkville's only hotel, the Gentle Arms — it used to be the Sleepy Arms — when I felt something in my pocket. It was the cheese wind- up. I wound it a couple times, then sat it on the counter. I wasn't looking at it — Rose was saying something that caught my attention — but when I did, as the mouse was going back into the cheese, I saw something — a little white thing — on the mouse. As luck would have it, the spring wound down with the door closed and the mouse inside. I rewound it and started it again. When the mouse was outside, I grabbed the winder to stop it. There was a tiny bit of folded paper attached to the mouse, not much smaller than a price tag.

It was easy to pull off. I placed the cheese wind-up back on the counter, then unfolded the paper. Printed on one side, in perfect capital letters, were the words "THANK YOU."

Wow! Nothing like that ever happened before. I studied the handwriting. It was so perfect! Each letter was exactly the same height, and then — I looked closer, trying to decide if it had been written with ink from a real pen, or with a ball point or felt tip pen — the lines were all exactly the same width. Had it been printed, like by a computer, or was it possible someone could write so perfectly by hand?

I thought about trying to duplicate it, replacing the thank you note with one that said “YOU'RE WELCOME!" but I could never print anything so perfect. And besides ... well, there's that funny thing people do:

"Thank you."
"No, it's my pleasure. Thank you!"
"Oh, but no. It's too much! Thank you!"
"You’re more than welcome. Please. Thank you," the one nods to the other.
"Completely unnecessary," shaking the other's hand. "Thank you!"
And so it goes until both are completely annoyed and probably never speak again.
I didn’t want that to happen — not a thank you and welcome contest — but I didn’t know what to do. “Don't do nuthin' if you don't know wha'cher doin’," Eddie says. I always take Eddie's advice.

●●●

I live in a trailer, not much bigger than a hotel room, so, unlike a lot of people, I don’t find anything strange about Miss Webley living in a hotel — room 19, as a matter-of-fact. I think she eats out a lot because I rarely deliver any food there, only stuff from the emporium part of the Market Emporium; things you’d expect a writer needs, like paper — she likes spiral bound Steno pads with light green paper and thin lines — pencils, sometimes a box of tea bags. Stuff like that.

Miss Webley’s a nice looking woman: thin, and always well- dressed. You’d think if you spent all day alone in a hotel room you’d get a little sloppy, maybe, not get dressed at all, stop bathing, forget to brush your teeth. Not Miss Webley. She's always neat. She smells of powder and soap. She wears glasses of course — don’t all writers? — and keeps her hair tightly wound on top of her head. Every time I see her, she has a notebook in one hand and a pencil in the other. Sometimes she taps the pencil to her lips and looks off to one side, thinking I suppose, or about to. I don't know if I have ever seen her actually thinking. But when she does, I imagines she writes her thoughts in one of those notebooks.

She’s very polite, but when she answers the door, seems distracted, as though I'm interrupting her. She turns from me and says, ‘Please put everything on the desk.” I do. Still not looking at me, she points to the corner of the desk where there is a single dollar bill, its long side aligned with the long side of the desk. Miss Webley says, in a furtive whisper, “For you.”

The delivery charge is five dollars, but since I never deliver much to her, Miss Webley’s decided there’s a discount for small orders. I don’t mind. It's almost worth four dollars just to be in a room with someone who thinks as much as she, who smells like lilacs dipped in honey, and who — I know I shouldn’t know this — paints her toenails a color like the inside of abalone shells.

“Thanks, Miss Webley,” I say as enthusiastically as I can.

I leave her a little puzzle — the kind where you move numbers around trying to get them in order. It'll help her relax.

When I reach the door, I hear her say to the wall, “You're welcome.” Then, just as I grab the knob, I hear her turn and call, “Thaddeus?”

I turn toward her.
“That's your real name, isn’t it, Tad? Thaddeus?”
I nod.
“The brother of Jesus?” She lays down her pad and pencil, and steps forward, placing a hand on my shoulder. She looks me in the eye. “The patron of hopeless cases and things despaired of?”

I feel the heat of her hand through my shirt. I feel her breath in my face.
“Thaddeus,” she goes on, “It means sweetness and gentleness of character.”
I start to give her my big-headed smile, but look at the floor instead. “I left you a puzzle,” I say, keeping my head down, pointing at the desk. When she turns to look, her hand slides off me. I say “Gotta go!” and open the door. Outside, after I close it, I can hear her breathing on the other side.

●●●

428 Maple is also a small order: a little glass vase, a ruffle-edged candy dish, and, to go with it, a bag of candy. Because it’s February — almost Valentine's Day — the candy’s those little hearts with things written on them. You know, like “KISS ME” or “I'M HOT,” or more complicated things like “LOVE ME.” I like the pink ones, not the green. Rose says that’s silly because they all taste the same — the candy that is, not the words.

I still don’t know what to do about the thank you note, but I have a pocketful of wind-ups just in case.

Near the top of the stairs, I see a single white daisy with a yellow center lying on the porch just almost exactly where I left the cheese wind-up a few days ago. Maybe it fell or blew in from somewhere else, except I don’t see any other daisies nearby. It gives me an idea, though.

I get down on my knees and take out the little vase, placing it on the porch near the door. I put the daisy in it. Like falling dominoes, this gives me another idea. I lay the candy dish just in front of the vase. As I start to tear open the bag of candy, I wonder what Rose might say. I tell Rose-in-my-head, if they don’t want candy in their candy dish, why’d they buy it? If I don't go inside to unpack things, why not unpack them here? It’s what I do. So ... I empty about a fifth of the Valentine hearts into the ruffle-edged dish.

Fishing around in my pocket for a wind-up, I find the perfect one: a fat heart with legs. When you wind it up, it walks along in oversized shoes. “Clod-hoppers,” Rose would call them.

I set the walking heart next to the candy bowl, and close the candy bag, putting it back inside the package, which I fold neatly and place in front of the door. I knock, then start to leave. Almost immediately, I hear the door click. As I turn, the door opens ... just a sliver.

“Market Emporium!” I announce, taking a step backward.

The door opens a little more, but I can’t see inside. Then something moves near the bottom of the opening. It twitches, like a squirrel's tail, like some little animal. I get down on my haunches — you know, like a catcher in a baseball game? — close to the door.

When I first see it, I think it is an animal, with a long triangular head and an even longer neck. It startles me, like seeing a snake, so I jump back. Then I see what it really is: a hand — a beautiful white hand sliding out from behind the door, moving straight for the candy dish.

I have never seen a hand like this. It’s perfect. Not a blemish or mark on it. When it moves — as it does now, picking up a piece of candy — it flows. Nothing mechanical. Nothing under the skin. No veins. No bones. It could be filled with air.

I can’t help but touch it, just with the tip of my finger, expecting a shock — a spark like when you walk across carpet and touch metal. The hand shudders. I pull my finger back. The hand forms into a fist, then turns, opening palm up to show a pink candy heart with “YES” printed on it.

There are no lines in the palm. No wrinkles. The hand blends smoothly into a tapered wrist that widens beneath white lace, studded with pearls and bits of what look like cut glass, then vanishes in the dark behind the door. I hold my hand over the palm offering the pink heart, then grab it, bringing it to my mouth, biting off half. The other half I hold between my lips while I continue studying the hand. Gobbling the little half-heart, I’m free to touch the upheld palm. It remains still — motionless — letting me explore it; do anything I want with it.

I never felt anything so smooth! Like glass on glass. No matter how hard I press into the skin, I feel a space between it and me. I can get close to it — very close — but never really touch this hand. It’s always the tiniest bit out of reach.

The hand turns and picks up another candy heart, then pauses. When I put my hand under it, a green heart falls into my palm: “BE MINE!” I don’t like green ones, so I put it aside. I pick up a yellow one. “KISS ME!” it reads. The hand closes over mine, taking the candy, snaking its way back into the crevice between door and jamb. I hear a little girl giggle.

The hand reappears and picks up another candy. It turns palm up to show a white heart with “YOU LOVELY CHILD” printed on it. The hand closes in a fist over the candy, then opens again. This time it reads “COME TO ME!” The hand turns to drop the little heart into my hand. When I look at it I read “NEED YOU.” The hand withdraws.

I hear movement behind the door, then the sound of small, hard-soled shoes running on hard wood floors, followed by laughter. I touch the door and it swings open slowly into a long hallway. On either side of the hallway are doors. A door on the left is open. Something catches my eye as it passes through that door.

I’m cautious. I haven’t been invited — have I? I step over the candy dish and vase, entering the hallway, moving slowly toward the open door. Halfway there, I hear the front door click softly closed behind me. I’m uncertain, but go on, toward light from the open door.

I feel pulled into the room, entering it too fast. I’m nearly in the middle before I realize how big it is. It's huge! Much bigger than it looks from outside. It’s like a giant cylinder with curved walls, two stories high, with a domed ceiling very high up. The walls are lined with books. A spiral stairway winds up to the second floor. An enormous window to the left splashes light on a little girl dressed in white, standing in the center of the room behind a table with an opened book on it.

She says something that sounds like “Alif Lam Mim” then speaks so fast I can’t understand her. Where the light hits her on one side, she’s featureless, burning white, like the sun. The light bounces around her head, then falls down her unlit side creating a glow around her, separating her from the darkness beyond. She touches the book on the table.

“We will have gardens underneath which rivers flow,” she says, then looks at me and smiles.

She’s beautiful even though I can’t see details. I don’t know why I think she’s beautiful, but no one could keep their eyes off her. No one would tire of looking at her. Everyone would want to be close to her; be with her.

She’s no taller than I, but her age — I can’t tell. She could be younger. She seems to have that baby fat little girls have, but there's something older about her; her eyes, perhaps a little too deeply set, too knowing, or the way she stands, commanding, not like a little girl at all. I look around amazed, and take a step closer to her. She laughs.

“Penny, brown penny.” She looks into my eyes. “I’m lost in the locks of your hair.”
It’s true. I can’t stop looking at her. I can’t speak. I feel heavy, almost unable to move.
Just then, a cloud passes over the sun, darkening the room. On the table before me, I see a science fiction book I once read. I pick it up and show her the first line: “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”

She laughs and claps her hands, folding them together under her chin. Her eyes sparkle.

In the front of the book is a stamp, the image of an angel with its wings spread. In the area across those wings is an outlined rectangle with a name handwritten in it:

“Ava Marie ...” I don’t know how to pronounce the last name, so I just look at her. “Are you Ava Marie?”

She slides a red book toward me. It’s titled, I Am No One You Know.

I have the funny idea to call her Daughter of Paradise, but don’t. Ava Marie is good enough.

The sun reappears, streaming light back into the room, warming us both. She takes my hand and leads me to the nearby wall. What I thought were books are really metal boxes that only look like books — like where they put people's ashes in a mausoleum. She places my hand on one of the boxes.

At first it just sounds like static, or an audience whispering before a performance. Then I realize it’s a crowd of voices, all speaking at once. I can’t understand anything, but now and then, I hear a few words:

“My child is deformed ... My sister has mental illness and is struggling to survive ... My family is in an unbearable financial situation ... I have a breast mass; a congested heart; sclerosis; failed kidneys ... My husband doesn’t love me ... Our children never call. I'm alone. I'm blind. I'm overweight. My dog died. ... I fear death. I have lost myself.”

“No!” I pull my hand away. “I don’t want to hear it! I can’t do anything about it.”
She puts my hand back on the box and holds it there tightly. I can’t remove it.
“It's your job, Tad.” She caresses my cheek, adding, “Judas Thaddeus.” She kisses me. “St. Jude,” she says.
I look at her angrily, and pull my hand away. She lets it go.
Returning to the table, she opens another book and shows it to me. It’s not anything I can read. She moves her hand over the page and I read it:

Your spell binds together 

What the Times have torn apart.

All men become brothers

Where your soft wings lie.

“It's your job,” she starts to say, but I turn away. She grabs my face between her hands, turning me toward her.

“Just listen!” She stares into my eyes. Then, gentler, “It’s enough.”

I look down, and she lets me go. She moves around to the other side of the table and picks up another book. Opening it to the last page, she hands it to me. With her other hand, she points to what's written there. I shake my head No.

She puts the book down, then moves to my side. Then I find myself lying in her lap, my eyes closed. She caresses my forehead. Her hand feels cool. My mind wanders. I sleep.

I'm suddenly awake, standing in front of the table with the opened book. I say the words I see there:

“... yes I said yes I will Yes.”

She smiles. Then ... how do I say it? Not disappears. It isn't sudden. Not fades away, either. It's faster than that. She ... she winks out — like a star. I remember once, being on the shore of a lake during a lightning storm. A bolt struck the water only a few yards away. I could smell it. Feel it. The water bubbled and steamed. Then, at its every crook and corner, the lightning bolt burst into circles of sparks that immediately disappeared. There was no more lightning bolt, only the sense that there had been one.

Ava Marie winks out like a bolt of lightning.

●●●

I’m taking today off. It’s my birthday. After dinner, Rose said we can go to Hank’s Ice Cream Parlor. (It's next to the Market Emporium.) Who knows, maybe the Edison twins will be there.

I didn’t get the short-order cook job. Funny thing: I’m too short; can't reach the back of the griddle. But that’s OK. It’s better the way things are, at the Market Emporium with Rose and Eddie. I wouldn’t have had time for it anyway.

Every day, Ava Marie talks to me. She tells me about people I don’t know — people outside Herkville who are thankful they weren’t killed in 911, or whose tumor turned out to be benign, or people who fear a friend is losing their mind, or that they’ve lost their way. Sometimes it makes me cry. I wish I could give them a wind-up, or maybe, like the Edison twins, a kiss on the temple. Sometimes I laugh because I know they don’t need anything at all. (A lot of them are like that.)

And every day, Ava Marie reads to me, the nicest letters:

I was almost about to get kicked out of high school eventhough so many people believed in me ... Well ... the tears were welling up in my eyes  and I remembered my mom slipping the Saint Jude Novena into my wallet, so I took it out and started praying right in class and when they called me out of class I could have sworn Saint Jude was holding my hand all the way to the principal’s office and it turns out she was very compassionate and she looked over my records and new that I was worth keeping at that school and now i’m in AP classes and I’m volunteering my time doing my best to help others in any way I can ... All thanks to Saint Jude, I’m being the best person I can. and he hasn’t failed me once.

A novena, Ava Marie tells me, is a prayer you read nine times. “Three times three,” she whispers, with a faraway look in her eyes. I think about kissing her. She looks at me — a big grin — then winks out.