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everything about Josie, from the moment I first held her, everything about her told me she was hungry for life.
She was demanding a future worthy of her spirit. That’s what I mean when I say she played for high stakes.
‘You played for low stakes and what you’ve won is small and mean.
While the Mother had been speaking, something had ignited in Rick’s face, something dangerous, till he was looking very much as he’d done during the interaction meeting when he’d challenged the boys wanting to throw me across the room.
A message for you, Mrs Arthur, but one she wasn’t ready for you to hear.
no matter what happens now, never mind how it plays out, she loves you and will always love you. She’s very grateful you’re her mother and she never even once wished for any other.
On this question of being lifted. She wants you to know she wouldn’t wish it any other way. If she had the power to do it again, and this time it was up to her, she says she’d do exactly what you did and you’ll always be the best mother she could have.
she didn’t want me to pass it on until the correct time. So I’m hoping I’ve judged this right, M...
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‘That’s some message,’ she said finally. ‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘Jesus,’ the Mother said, and sighed quietly. ‘That’s some message.’
The Sun’s coming out!’
‘We must go upstairs. We must go up to Josie straight away!’
‘Go away, damn Sun!’ ‘No, no!’ I went quickly to Melania Housekeeper. ‘We must open them, open everything! We must let the Sun do his best!’
The Sun’s nourishment then came into the room so abundantly Rick and I reeled back, almost losing balance. Melania Housekeeper, her hands covering her face, said again: ‘Damn Sun!’ But she made no further attempt to block his nourishment. I’d stepped back from the window, but not before noticing that outside the wind was as powerful as ever, and that not only were the trees still waving, there were many tiny funnels and pyramids – each looking as though drawn in sharp pencil lines – blowing swiftly across the sky.
The Sun was illuminating her, and the entire bed, in a ferocious half-disc of orange,
‘Hey, Josie,’ Rick said suddenly, his voice filled with excitement. ‘You look a complete mess.’ ‘Thanks. You’re looking pretty good yourself.’ Then she said: ‘But you know, I do feel better. Kind of dizzy though.’
‘Okay, let’s assume nothing,’ the Mother said. ‘We have to take this one step at a time.’
The Sun’s special nourishment proved as effective for Josie as it had for Beggar Man, and after the dark sky morning, she grew not only stronger, but from a child into an adult.
she preferred not to talk much about them to me, so they remained largely outside of my knowledge.
Much like parenting
‘Do you remember, Klara,’ he asked, ‘that morning the weather went really strange, and the Sun came right into Josie’s room?’ ‘Of course. I’ll never forget that morning.’
It almost seems like that was when Josie first started to get better. Maybe I’ve got this all wrong. But when I look back, it almost feels that way.’
I always wanted to ask if what happened that morning, all that strange weather, everything else, if it had to do with the other stuff. You know. Me carrying you over the fields, you making some secret deal.
I thought it was all, well, AF superstition. Something just to bring us good luck. But these days, I keep wondering if there was more to it.’
and if I speak about it to anyone, even just to Rick, my fear is that the help Josie received will be taken back.’
perhaps I might mention something related to it that’s been worrying me.’
‘Rick and Josie still show kindness to each other. And yet, they’re now preparing such different futures.’
And what about you, Klara? Are you going to be okay? I mean, once Josie leaves for college.’
I have been thinking again about Rick’s words that morning and I’m sure he is correct. I no longer fear that the Sun will feel cheated or misled, or that he will consider retribution. In fact, it could be that even as I was making my plea to him, he already knew Josie and Rick were bound to go their separate ways, and yet understood that, despite everything, their love would last.
I believe he was already sure of the answer and was simply raising the question for my benefit. I even think, at that moment, he may have been thinking about the Coffee Cup Lady and Raincoat Man – after all, we’d been talking about them the previous moment. Perhaps the Sun was supposing that after many years, and after many changes, Josie and Rick might once again meet as the Coffee Cup Lady and Raincoat Man had done.
‘No one’s saying you have to hide,’ Josie had said, but she didn’t come up with any alternative plan, and so that’s how I came to occupy the Utility Room.
Her gaze went quickly around the various stored items, then settled on the room’s one high small window. ‘Do you ever get to look out of that there?’ she asked.
‘We’ll see about that.’
Before long she’d cleared a space immediately beneath the high small window, then pushed a wooden trunk into the space. She next picked up and carried over a plastic crate with a tight-fitting lid and lowered it carefully on top of the trunk.
‘Give that a go, Klara. Just be careful. The second step’s quite high. Come on, I want you to try it.’
I could see the gray sky stretching over the cut fields all the way to Mr McBain’s barn. ‘You should have told me before,’ Josie said. ‘I know how much you love looking out.’ ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’
Don’t try doing any of this yourself. I’ll do it later, okay?’
possibly my presence brought back difficult memories.
I could hear tension enter the Mother’s voice.
there are people out there who worry about you. People who are scared and resentful.’
People saying how you’ve become too clever.
They accept that your decisions, your recommendations, are sound and dependable, almost always correct. But they don’t like not knowing how you arrive at them. That’s where it comes from, this backlash, this prejudice. So we have to fight back. We have to say to them, okay, you’re worried because you don’t understand how AFs think. Fine, then let’s go take a look under the hood. Let’s reverse-engineer. What you don’t like are sealed black boxes. Okay, let’s open them. Once we see inside, not only do things get a lot less scary, we’ll learn. Learn amazing new things. So this is where you come
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‘Klara deserves better than that.’
‘No, Henry, you don’t. Klara deserves better. She deserves her slow fade.’
Find some other black boxes to prize open. Leave our Klara be. Let her have her slow fade.’
‘I can’t help feeling,’ he said, ‘that you’re still mad at me, Chrissie. That you’ve been mad at me for a long time. And that’s unfair. Back then, it was you who came to me. Remember? And I just did my best to help you. I’m glad it worked out well with Josie in the end. I truly am. But that’s no reason for you to be so mad at me all the time.’
‘Hey, Klara. Why don’t you come down for a while to the bedroom. I mean, if you’re not busy, that is.’
desk chair with castors on its feet, so that if she wished, she could move about while still sitting.
‘Everyone you speak to says they’re not scared of college,’
But if you’re still here when I get back at Christmas, I’ll tell you how many I’ve got through.’
🥺
This was one of few allusions Josie made during this period to my own possible departure.
Then, once the Mother was ready behind the wheel, Josie came back towards me, the caution that had never left her walk making her feet sink noisily into the pebbles with each step. She looked excited and strong, and before she’d reached me, held up her arms as though trying to form the largest Y she could. Then she held me in an embrace that lasted many moments.
