He carefully scooped her up into his arms and held her softly to his chest. She made a quiet sound in her throat. Then she pulled in a huge, deep breath. For a moment Stewie’s heart soared, thinking she was telling him she could breathe again. But as she let the breath out, he could feel what was happening. He could feel that it was her last one.
It just kept going. As though she had hung on to a certain amount of oxygen at the end of every other breath she had exhaled, all her life, but this time she was letting the last of it go. Her body softened, and her feathers contracted until they were flat against her body.
Then her head drooped and she was gone.
Stewie held her for another minute or two, just absorbing the situation. There were no more breaths from her.
He rose after a time, and slipped into his shoes.
He carried the limp and abandoned body of the bird out to the barn, where he flipped on the light and found a suitable box for her. He was buoyed by what he was able to find. It was fitting. It was good enough. It was a crate made of thin wood, a little bigger than a cigar box and much deeper. It had a flat lid that slid on using a groove system.
He arranged her respectfully inside, slid the lid into place, and fetched a shovel.
Still in his pajamas, he dug a grave for her under the big oak tree. It was a strangely warm night, and the moon lit up his work from behind and above him, as though it were looking over his shoulder.
Other than that moon, there was no one there to see him cry.
In the morning Stacey stuck her head into his room.
It was after eight, according to the clock beside his bed. Stewie never slept that late. But he had only just wakened up as the door opened.
She looked at him, seeming surprised to see him in his bed. He hadn’t slept in his bed for many days. Then her eyes shifted to the newspaper-lined box on the floor. He was able to watch the changes on her face as she registered that it was empty.
“Oh,” she said. “That’s too bad. Are you okay?”
Stewie didn’t want to tackle that question. So he just said, “I’ll go to school today. I don’t want to. But I promised.”
“It’s Saturday.”
“Oh. Is it? Good.”
She walked to the bed, leaned down, and stroked the hair off his forehead. But ultimately she said nothing. Maybe there was nothing to say.
She let herself out of the room and he fell back asleep.
When he woke again, Marilyn was sitting on the edge of his bed.
At first he was positive it was a dream. But he sat up, rubbed his eyes, and looked around, and she was still there.
“You came,” he said.
“It’s nearly eleven o’clock” was all she said in reply. She seemed to be chastising him for sleeping so late.
“I’m surprised you came.”
“Your sister asked me to. She said you were in a bad way because of that hen. She gave me a ride and everything. At first I wasn’t sure—to put it mildly. But she asked so politely and she seemed to feel it was important.”
“It was nice of you,” he said. He noticed his hands were dirty. He had forgotten to wash them after the previous night’s digging. He shot them under the covers and under his pajamaed seat, where they could not embarrass him. “I know we don’t know each other very well.”
He was about to say it was nice of Stacey, too, especially since this was her sleeping time. But she spoke up before he could say more.
“I remind you of your grandmother,” she said. It was a flat statement. It was not a question.
She was wearing slacks and a sweatshirt in a matching cheery yellow. Her short gray hair was carefully combed. Stewie thought he could still see the comb marks.
“Yes,” he said.
“But I’m not your grandmother.”
He felt his heart fall. He knew in that moment why people say their heart fell. Because that really was the way it felt.
“Yes, ma’am. I know it.”
“Good. Because that’s more than I could take on right now. But that’s really not the inspirational message your sister was hoping I would have for you. Is it now?”
“No, ma’am. I wouldn’t say so.”
“Let’s see then. What can I say to make you feel better? I know it hurts when you love someone and they die.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
For a moment, nobody said anything. It felt awkward.
Then he asked, “Did you ever love anybody and then they died?”
“Oh, yes. My husband died eleven years ago next month.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am.”
“It was a little like this situation, in that it was a long time coming, and I had to put my life on hold to be with him. And then when he was gone, that was hard. But at least I got my life back. At least the situation was behind me and I could go on. I guess I’m saying, sad as you are this morning, at least you’re free of that situation and can go on.”
“But she’s dead.”
“Yes,” Marilyn said. “Both of those things are true at the same time. Let me tell you something about life, young man. It’s always like that. People are forever feeling like everything in their life is wrong, but somehow in a minute they’ll turn a corner and everything will be right. But it’s never that way. Life is never all good or all bad. It’s always a trade-off deal. It’s always ‘something is lost, but something else is gained.’”
Stewie sat quietly for a minute, taking that in. Blinking too much. He was still a little sleepy, and the sunlight streaming through his bedroom window hurt his eyes. He wasn’t quite sure he understood what she was trying to tell him, though he got the general drift.
“Where is she now?” the lady asked.
It confused him.
“Who? The hen?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you knew. She died.”
“Yes, I do know that. I’m asking where she is now.”
“Oh, gosh. That’s a hard question, ma’am. I have no idea where people go when they die. I like to think she’s with Gam now, but I’m not the one to say.”
She gave off a laugh that sounded half like a sneeze. “That’s not what I meant. I meant what did you do with her body? Did you bury it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Show me where.”
He got out of bed, doing his best to keep his dirty hands out of view, and slipped into his shoes.
Still in his pajamas, he walked with her out to the big old oak tree.
They stood in its shade for a time, staring down at the mound of freshly dug dirt. Stewie had his hands in his pajama pockets. He felt lucky because he just happened to be wearing the ones with pockets.
It was already a baking-hot, windless day, and the leaves over their heads held perfectly still. A breeze would have been nice, he was thinking. Also he was thinking he would have to come up with a simple marker for the grave.
“Well, it’s a lovely spot to spend eternity,” she said. She sounded distant, and a little distracted, as if only saying the very least she felt it was decent to say.
“I thought so, ma’am.”
“I should probably get your sister to drive me back home now. Get on with my day.”
“It was nice of you to come. Seeing as we don’t know each other all that well and so forth.”
“Right. Well. What can I say? One-time thing. Just so long as you’re clear on the fact that I’m not your grandmother. Because that’s more than I could take on at this point in my life.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m clear.”
And it was true. He was. But behind that simple fact, Stewie had a problem. Because the more firmly she drew lines in the sand and pushed him to the far side of them, the more familiar she felt, and the more she reminded him of Gam.
Chapter Six
Where There’s Smoke
Marilyn
It would make a convenient story, she later decided, to say that the knock on the door had distracted her. Maybe she could even adopt that into her thinking. But the truth of the matter was a different thing. She had already wandered out of the kitchen several minutes earlier, leaving the bacon frying in a cast-iron skillet on a gas burner of the stove.
The little girl was lying on her belly on the rug, watching cartoons, and the volume was too loud. Marilyn had gone out into the living room to turn it down.