CHAPTER 37
Willa
When I woke up this morning, I found out Mama had gone to be with Henry.
I got very angry when Papa told me this. I was already not in a good mood because I’d woken up on the sitting room sofa and nobody was around, and when I tried to get up, I fell. Evie and Papa heard me and came into the room. That was when Papa sat me on the sofa and told me Mama isn’t with us anymore. She is in heaven with the angels. And Henry.
I don’t like it one bit that Mama is with the angels. I know about heaven. I know if you go to heaven you don’t ever come back to earth. Ever.
Mama is supposed to be here. Mothers aren’t supposed to leave their children. Doesn’t she know that?
Papa was sitting next to me. In front of us was an empty candy dish on a table. I grabbed it and threw it as hard as I could and it broke into a thousand pieces. I wanted Papa or Evie to yell at me for doing that because that’s what grown-ups are supposed to do. They were both right there and neither one did. And that scared me a little. I had my eye on the china ballet dancer on the end table next to me and I wasabout to grab it and hurl it, too, when Papa put his hand over mine. He didn’t slap it like I wanted him to; he just covered it.
“Breaking things won’t bring her back,” Papa said.
“What will?” I said.
He pulled me into his arms but didn’t answer me.
Evie sat down on the sofa next to us and put her head in her hands.
“I don’t want her to be in heaven with Henry. I want her here,” I said.
Papa held me tighter and still said nothing.
I heard creaking on the stairs and for just a second I thought Papa and Evie were wrong about everything. I thought Mama was coming down the stairs and she was going to come into the room and say she’d only been fooling.
But it was Maggie with Baby Alex. She had his blanket and a diaper and some toys in her arms, too. And a bottle, half-empty. Maggie’s hair was pulled back tight away from her face, and the mask she wears when she goes outside was tied loose around her neck.
Evie looked up when they came into the room. She didn’t say anything. She just held out her arms and Maggie walked over and put Alex on Evie’s lap. Then Maggie set down all the baby things on the rug by the hearth.
Papa leaned away from me but kept one arm around my shoulders. “We need your help for a little while this morning, Willa. Maggie is going to be with me in the funeral parlor. Can you help Evie look after Baby Alex for a few minutes? Would you do that?”
I looked over at Alex. He has the name I’d wanted him to have. He grinned at me. I turned from him to face Papa again because everything else about this day was starting out wrong, wrong, wrong.
“Why does Maggie get to go in the funeral rooms with you?” I said. “Maggie isn’t supposed to be in there now. Only Uncle Fred.”
“I need her help.”
“Uncle Fred won’t let her go in there.”
Papa looked down at the floor and then up at me again. “Uncle Fred went to heaven last night, too, Willa. And Charlie across the street.”
None of this was making any sense. Why was this happening? I had the flu. I didn’t go to heaven. Why was everybody else?
Maybe I would, though. Maybe later today I would or the next day. Or maybe I’d wake up tomorrow and the whole house would be empty because Papa and Evie and Maggie and Alex would have all left for heaven without me.
“I don’t want to be here alone!”
Papa pulled me into his arms again. “You’re not alone. Evie will be right here. Maggie and I will just be in the other room.”
“Don’t go without me!”
“I’m not going anywhere without you. I just need to take care of Mama and Uncle Fred and Charlie. And Maggie is going to help me. Evie and Baby Alex will be right here with you.”
I knew what he meant then. He was taking Mama into the Elm Bonning Room.
“Is Mama a dead body?” I could barely say those words. But I had to know.
