Elenora Holmes stared out a yawning bedroom window, the snotty March winds taunting her face. The unfamiliar image reflected in the glass pane startled her. She had avoided looking at herself since that day almost five months ago, when she left the hospital for the last time. Everyone knew there was nothing left to do but die. She understood that fate three years before upon discovering a lump in her breast. The right one, the one her dead husband, Peter had always favored. He named it Marilyn, teased it, coddled it, and adored it more than any other part of her robust body. She realized the lump was Peter’s invitation to join him. Mostly for her family she endured the surgery and chemotherapy. But, it was also because of hope, that mischievous flirt that had companioned her through life. Then the dream came. She knew Peter was waiting. And he was never a patient man.
Lilly was out in the driveway with that damn boy again. He had one of those cars that young, foolish girls think mattered. And he promised that her rump, larger than Lilly’s liking, was amazing. So that was it. She was in love. Lilly was sixteen and had already been arrested. With him of course, up at a place lost kids go called The Sanctuary. The police, and increasingly, Lilly knew it well. More than once, Elenora heard the sad squall of an ambulance racing that way to salvage yet another of the town’s possessed children. Lilly was only fourteen when they first discovered she was drinking. By fifteen her mother had found marijuana tucked inside the secret pocket of her favorite jeans. Just two months ago, after meeting that boy, she had been rushed to the hospital on some kind of pills and arrested.
Lilly was Elenora’s youngest grandchild. Sometimes it seemed as if the family had run out of love by the time she arrived. That wasn’t true of course, but Elenora knew Lilly felt that way and couldn’t blame her. Her parent’s marriage was already near extinction when she was born, forced together by this unexpected new life. Soon Lilly’s father was gone, off to love another woman’s children while her mother poured her pain into Lilly’s blossoming spirit. By then her mother was tired, busy and bitter. Lilly learned to raise herself. Elenora and Lilly had a sanguine, though long-distance relationship, punctuated by cherished vacation visits. Most of their lives though, had been shared through a telephone line or through the colorful story images Lilly sent to Elenora on paper. Before she could do anything else, Lilly drew pictures.
Elenora’s favorite was kept tucked into the dresser’s mirrored edge. It was her as a happy stick figure, dancing in a garden, embraced by flowers. She wore only a bracelet presented by her own grandmother upon her sixteenth birthday. When Lilly was five she was mesmerized by the glistening gems nestled in sculpted gold. All seven colors of the soul captured in a perfect circle, captured in Lilly’s treasured picture. Elenora wore that bracelet every day of her life. Even in the hospital where there was no beauty, the bracelet remembered a better time.
Elenora was now just a whisper of a woman trapped in a mindful current, sweeping her furiously towards Peter. Nothing she owned mattered anymore, not even the bracelet. All the things that had been her life were becoming ghosts. She heard Barbara negotiating the stairs. It was time for her medicine. Instead, she decided to heed the trenchant wind. Barbara stumbled at the door and swore under her breath, bottles rattling, tumbling to the floor.
Still, she entered with a smile, chirping how it was that time again and supper would be ready soon. Elenora’s eyes never left Lilly. "Not now,” she told Barbara. “But, Mom, Doctor Milsom said you need to take these three times a day.” “No, Barbara, no more.” Elenora insisted in a tone that frightened her daughter.
Elenora recognized the anguished moan Barbara released as she placed the tray on a corner table and collapsed to the bed. Some twenty years before she had faced this same moment with her own mother when it was her turn to die. Barbara was trying hard not to cry. Elenora struggled to rise, planting herself next to her daughter, wrapping a gaunt arm around Barbara’s shoulder.
“I know this is hard sweetheart but...” Barbara burst into sobs. “We all must be strong enough to choose our time, honey. I’ve had a good life with your father and you kids and my wonderful grandchildren. Great friends and many happy moments have graced my days. I’m ready...ready as one can ever be, I guess.”
Barbara shook her head in sorrowed understanding and gently squeezed her mother’s hand. Elenora was relieved her decision was not protested. Barbara was always the most practical of the four children. Maybe that’s the reason her and Lilly fought. They were so different in spirit.
After a long talk, Elenora announced there should be a dinner for the family so she could make her final wishes clear. It would be Saturday, the day following her 71st birthday. Barbara gathered up the medicine bottles and threw them into the garbage pail. “It’ll be a birthday party then, Mom,” she said, catching her mother’s eye, sharing a sagacious glimpse that only mothers and daughters ever know.
Elenora smiled and nodded with approval, then returned her gaze to Lilly who was sliding into the car seat next to that boy. As they drove away, Elenora knew something had to be done about Lilly. She closed the window and pulled a ribbon-bound journal from beneath the pillow and began to pour her final wishes onto paper.
Lilly never returned for supper. The family sat at the dining room table forcing small talk, trying to make believe a stinging haze of concern wasn’t choking the room. Eric, the oldest, was talking about college. At twenty, he had finally acknowledged the limitations life would hold for him without its influence. Besides, his new girlfriend insisted. With the sudden decree delivered by her magical breath, every stupid word his mother ever uttered about education was transformed into truth.
The middle one, Katlin, was seventeen and had already been accepted into Boston College. She was the brains of the family. Ever since she was young, Katlin studied like she knew what life held for her. Childhood, her family, were just the nest she was incubated in. Come September, she would flee towards a future that had been waiting for her in secret since birth. Like the mockingbird that lays its eggs in other birds’ nests to be raised by strangers, Katlin was always sure she belonged to another flock.
By the time supper was finally cleared Lilly stumbled home, drunk or stoned, no one could tell anymore. Barbara once again started yelling, the only response she could muster these days. Elenora realized Barbara was railing at herself more than Lilly, ranting against her impotence to save her daughter, angry at her own loneliness and the ruthless marks of age which were creeping up her body like a poisonous vine. Elenora understood that the ferocious sounds belching from Barbara no longer had anything to do with Lilly. Lilly knew it, too.
Eric helped Elenora up to her room, the place that had been her home for the past five months. The home she figured, that would be her last. She missed the house in the Upper Peninsula with its pretty gardens and celery walls saturated with memories. Peter and her bought that house soon after marrying. They raised four imperfect but kind children; living a fertile, comfortable, and like most, occasionally sloppy life until God grabbed a hold of his heart that Sunday morning. Somehow she always believed she’d die there, too. But her family all lived in the East now, scattered like dandelion seeds from Wiscasset to Charlotte. So this is where it would be.
Elenora lay in bed and wrote in her journal as she did most every day for the past six years, since Peter left. It all started as messages to him, words she felt less foolish putting on paper than tossing into the air. Slowly though, it became a friend, a secret space that sliced through time. Sometimes words she didn’t recognize fell onto the pages, like maybe they belonged to some other questioning spirit, another woman in a distant town spilling life into her own journal. And at that exact moment, in the flickering pause between thought, their words had collided. Or might they be the invisible counsel of a wiser soul, generously sharing truths that would have otherwise swallowed lifetimes to understand?
Elenora’s will was already in place. The house would be sold. Proceeds, the cold carcass of what she owned in life, to be split between her children. Already a couple of the kids had hinted of their favorite chair or table or painting. Even her teen-aged gaggle of grandchildren was curious of the prizes death would grant. Only Lilly never minded. She knew Lilly had already taken what she wanted from Elenora. More than once she discovered some of the small white pills given to her for pain were missing. Barbara and her did their best to hide them from Lilly, but it didn’t matter. The desperate howl of a bruised soul can’t be silenced. Elenora understood the soul must first be healed. A soul she knew would not be saved in the sad blink of time remaining to her.
By Saturday, the troops had arrived. Dolores, Bud and the kids were camped at the Comfort Inn downtown. Michael and his second wife were up in the spare room. The two kids from his first wife, Joan, were given sleeping bags and sent to the porch. Connie, without John as they were still having problems, was staying with her two kids at the Jackson’s next door. The women had been cooking all day.
Elenora rested upstairs, drenched in the lyrical chatter of a family long ago created from love, girded by years of struggle and joy, hope and pain. She laid in bed, eyes closed, smelling the supper that was being prepared, inhaling the warmth of the sun as it cut through the curtains and ran over her face. Elenora took a deep, deliberate breath. There was nothing to do but wallow in the contented constancy of the moment.
“It’s time,” a soft voice promised. When she first opened her eyes, she could have sworn it was Peter. But it was Katlin. The party was beginning. “I’ll be down in a minute, sweetheart,” Elenora assured her. It was still light outside though lanky shadows brushed the walls and that perfect golden sparkle of completion had begun to fill the room. Elenora stood up and looked out the window at Lilly who was sitting alone under a massive tree. “She looks like a fairy,” Elenora whispered to herself. Lilly was small with long brown hair, a sort of chestnut, the color horse owners refer to as sorrel. And even from this distance you could tell her eyes were blue, though Elenora had seen them turn to lavender when she was young and they would fill with tears. But Lilly didn’t cry much anymore. At least not in front of her family. Elenora pulled out her journal and wrote a few more words, then wrapped a colorful, butterfly-laced scarf around her naked head and struggled downstairs.
Yellow balloons with lingering, curled tails dangled from the ceiling. Others were tied to each chair, waving towards the heavens, reminding Elenora of the spring flowers that gleefully sprouted each May in the garden and all along the house in the Upper Peninsula. It was her favorite time of year; all that hope poking defiantly through the sleeping earth. Barbara led Elenora to her place at the head of the table. Lilly had to be called three times before finally joining the family. All through dinner she squirmed until Elenora suddenly removed her bracelet and snapped it onto Lilly’s arm. The table gasped.
“Mom, what are you doing?” Connie asked, alarmed. “You can’t....” “I can do anything I want,” Elenora reminded the rumbling voices. “But it’s been in your family for so long and its quite valuable. Lilly’s so...young.” It wasn’t Lilly’s youth that the family was objecting to, of course.
Elenora took both of Lilly’s hands in hers and forced her eyes to listen. “This Bracelet will guide you, Lilly. The love of my grandmother and hers before lives within it. When I die, I too, will be caught in its stones. It is a place of miracles. Promise me you’ll never sell this or give it away, that you’ll care for it like you cared for me during our time together. It’s a gift for your own granddaughter. You are only its guardian.”
For the first time in years Lilly’s eyes turned lavender. A tiny smile kissed her face. The table exploded in discord and Lilly bolted from the room, out of the house, far from their scorching words. “She can’t be trusted,” Bud reminded Elenora. “She’ll tell you anything. That bracelet’s as good as gone!” “Mom, I know you mean well but this is Lilly we’re talking about,” warned Barbara. “Why don’t I keep it for her until she’s older. Maybe for her 21st birthday, when she’s settled down.”
Elenora pulled herself up. Her legs were trembling. “She needs it now, Barbara. I want no more dispute about this. Now all of you sit so we can finish.” Dissenting glances sliced through the room but the threatening words ended. Elenora continued with her wishes until everything of her past now belonged to those who would inhabit the future. By the time she closed her journal, the room was dark, save for the presence of a magenta sun bouncing off the living room mirror, spilling generously across the hardwood floor.
When Elenora awoke the next morning, Lilly was sitting in the chair next to the window. The breeze seemed tolerant of Lilly. It was still cold but there was softness to it, a kindness only offered to one of its own. Colored markers and pastel crayons were splattered across the carpet, surrounding her. Elenora kept quiet, studying Lilly as she carefully chose each instrument, placed them purposefully to paper. Just as Elenora was about to speak, a car pulled into the driveway. It’s horn barked and Lilly jumped from her seat, evaporating without saying a word. Barbara and Lilly’s quarreling wearily gushed through the house until the front door slammed. The reckless rumble of an engine swallowed Lilly’s voice as it furiously escaped down the street.
Three weeks later, Lilly’s drawing of an angelically-winged Elenora hung over her bed. She could hear gingham curtains slapping playfully against the windowsill. The breeze was now warm and comforting. Elenora knew daffodils would be struggling to be known, stretching their fresh faces towards an encouraging sun. But she could not see them. She sensed Peter standing in the corner, waiting. She wasn’t quite ready to surrender this life of hers. She reminded him to be patient. There was still work to do, life to be lived. Vague voices filled the air, along with the affirming echoes of prayers, tears, and memories. Occasionally she caught Father Hallup’s assuring voice drift over her body, his words wrapping it in what felt like music. Barbara was in her ear, whispering about love.
It was morning. The smell of breakfast still clung to the house. She could not open her eyes but her ears had never been more awake. Still, the voices weren’t only from the living. There was Melvyn Barrows, the old man who ran the corner store when she was young and loved her like a daughter. Aunt Patricia, who died when Elenora was eleven, run down by a drunk driver on her way to a pottery class. And her mother, promising to catch her when she fell from life. But it was Peter’s presence she felt most. It was he who opened the door to flaunt the great love that was waiting for her.
She wanted to sit up and tell them all not to cry. That the pain had passed. So had fear. She had finally entered into the secret. That crease in life where all questions are answered and all doubt dissolves. She wouldn’t call it pleasure, but baptism into a truth so profound that it bestowed a feeling best, though quite feebly, described as bliss. She wanted to laugh when she heard Katlin tell her to go towards the light. It amused her how little they understood. She knew it was Lilly holding her hand. She could hear her hushed prayers, felt the heat of the bracelet warm her shivering heart. Elenora picked a stone. The ruby, she decided, Lilly’s birthstone. That’s where she imagined her love would reside. She prayed to God that He allow her to help Lilly; that death not squash hope.
As her prayer ended and silence filled the room, Elenora began scattering into millions of Elenoras, saturating everything, every moment, every experience that had ever, would ever exist throughout time and space. For a moment, she was lost to this infinity, then suddenly found herself hovering above the bed, attending to their sadness, loving their naive longing for her to stay. She reached down and touched Lilly’s arm. Lilly jumped and stroked the bracelet, fondling the sparkling ruby, weeping with those lavender eyes. But then Peter appeared, took her hand and in a moment that was both fleeting and everlasting, Elenora passed into memory.
Diluted by death, Elenora’s love couldn’t hold Lilly. Like a tangled kite snapping in an unforgiving wind, one blistering Tuesday evening, Lilly ran. Galloping down the highway with that boy, Lilly didn’t understand why she did what she did, felt like she felt, hurt that way. She was young, even Lilly seemed to understand the inherent treachery of that exalted state. By next morning the sting of her mother’s careless words had eased.
On any other day, she would have come down to breakfast and held her mother, both crying with regret. But this time she was miles from home, alone with him and nothing but a sack of clothes, a few dollars and the bracelet. They were both hungry, sick from the vodka they had mixed with grape Hi-C the night before. He asked Lilly how much money she had and grunted disapprovingly when she pulled the small, crinkled wad from her jeans. His eyes fondled the bracelet. “Maybe you should give me that.” She pulled her arms under the table, hiding the bracelet. “No, I promised my grandma.” “We gotta keep going Lilly and we might need it for traveling money. I’ll get you another bracelet some day.” He could sense her resistance.
Lilly stared at the table but said nothing. They ate breakfast and crawled back into his car. Lilly considered going home but he insisted she stay, stroked her long hair and off they went. She rolled down the window. As the sun warmed her arm, the bracelet’s charged stones threw a rainbow of color across her body. The red glow of the ruby struck her heart and for a flash, Lilly thought she caught her grandmother’s eyes bounce off the flickering windshield. Lilly leaned over the front seat and watched as the undulating charcoal ribbon that tethered her to home grew longer.
There was nothing much of the place where they stopped. A gas station, small convenience store and the remnants of some kind of church, roofless, stripped of any religious identity. It did have pews. But, it was mostly the sense of stillness Lilly felt walking through the open door that made her decide it had once been full of prayers. He stayed outside, talking with the pimple-faced attendant; trading gas, a bag of Cheese Doodles, Oreos and root beer for a single cigarette stuffed with marijuana.
The sky above was cut so blue it almost hurt Lilly’s eyes. Proud, voluptuous clouds, lit by the mid-day sun hung like Chinese lanterns, spilling all the golden ebullient light it couldn’t contain down onto Lilly. She sat for a moment in the spot she was sure the altar had once been and talked out loud to her grandmother. An angry clap of thunder brought her startled gaze to the heavens. A menacing cloud now hovered like a giant jellyfish in a deep cerulean sea, long tentacles of rain dangling from its body. More drenching legs sprung from the darkened underbelly until it completely devoured the defiant mountain nearby. Lilly watched as rain swept towards the church like a wave. She bolted for the car, reaching the door just as a cleansing hail of water claimed it. Within minutes the cantankerous creature swam towards the horizon while gleaming sunshine released the sweet smell of a satisfied earth.
It was dusk the next day when the police finally caught up with them. While they handcuffed that boy, Lilly hid in the fields behind an old abandoned farm where she had gone to pee. They all called to her but something told her not to go. “Stay with me,” is what she softly heard in her head or heart or wherever imaginings live. The police car drove away with that boy cursing her name out the car window. Officer Barrows stayed to search for her. Soon there would be others, so she crawled through the tall grass until reaching the road on the other side of the field. She walked for over an hour, hiding each time a car appeared.
Night hit suddenly. She wasn’t prepared for such darkness and stumbled down a small, unmarked road until reaching the end where a yellow house sat on a small patch of unmowed grass surrounded by willow trees. No one seemed to be home, so Lilly snuck into the shack out back and laid on the ground that was covered by a large painted sheet. Across it were slaps of orange and blue and deep burgundy. It had been a long day. She took off the bracelet and held it between her palms and prayed for Elenora.
“What’s your name?” Someone was poking at Lilly’s back. She thought she was dreaming as her eyes opened and new sun replaced darkness. “I said, what’s your name?” Lilly jumped, realizing it was not a dream and crawled into the shadows to see who was behind those words. He couldn’t have been more than ten. “Lilly. My name is Lilly.” “Like the flower?” he asked. “Yea, it’s my mother’s favorite.”
He was thin with sprouted blonde hair. There were dark circles under his eyes. “My name’s Kevin. This is my house. You’re in my dad’s studio. He was an artist. He painted pictures.” Kevin kicked at the ground. “He died a couple of years ago. It was an accident…they think. He was cleaning his gun and well…he died.” Now it’s just my mom and me.” Lilly didn’t know what to say. ”I’m running away from home,” is what fell from her mouth. "Don’t you love your mom?” he asked. Lilly didn’t think of that—of course she did, but what did it matter?
“I could never leave my mom ‘cause I’m all she’s got now,” Kevin whispered. “Doctors are trying to say I’m gonna die too, but I keep telling them I can’t cause she needs me. She doesn’t believe me, though. I hear her crying most every night when she thinks I’m asleep. I got cancer but I keep telling everybody I’m not dying for Ma.” Lilly stood up and brushed her clothes off. “Where’s your mother now?” “She’s at work. She has two jobs ‘cause of the doctor bills. My grandpa is in the house, but he watches television all day.”
“I better go,” Lilly announced, pushing back her hair. “You hungry?” Kevin asked. Her stomach answered. “You wait here and I’ll get ya some food, okay?” Lilly nodded. He was gone a long time and Lilly was getting nervous that he had called his mother, or worse, the police. But Kevin finally showed up with a ham and cheese sandwich and Hershey’s chocolate milk.
“Sorry it took so long but Grandpa was worried about me. I hadda show him I was feeling good enough today to go out by myself. He’s watching that Wheel of Fortune show. Here, eat this.” Lilly took the sandwich and chocolate milk. She was still hungry so he ran in again, this time to grab her peanut butter crackers.
“So why you running away from home?” Lilly wasn’t sure anymore after what that boy was screaming out the window, and how he had tried to take Elenora’s bracelet. “I never fit in, so maybe it was time for me to leave.” Kevin looked at her like he didn’t understand. Sorry about your dad,” Lilly decided to say. “My grandma died a few weeks ago. She gave me this.” Lilly showed him the bracelet. “Wow!” His eyes widened. “Never seen anything so beautiful. Your grandma musta really loved you.” “Yea, my family didn’t want her to give it to me cause they think I’m trouble.” “Are ya?” he asked, resting on the ground.
She rubbed her finger over the ruby. Tears rose from her heart into her eyes. “Maybe I’m just no good. Maybe that’s why they never wanted me.” “Nobody gives nothing that pretty to somebody no good,” he promised. She smiled at that thought. “What kind of stuff did your Dad paint?” Kevin stood up and tried pulling something from behind an old wood stack. Lilly could see he was not well and insisted she help. She let him think he was doing most of the work, but as his hands touched each frame, she pulled out four pictures. He took off the dusty cloth and leaned them against the wall one after another. Lilly stepped back.
“Kevin these are great!” “Yea, me and Mom think so, too. They’re the last ones Dad did before he died. A couple people have offered to pay for them, but we don’t want to give them up. It would be like losing him all over again. Sometimes I feel like his spirit is in these paintings watching over me. Crazy huh?”
Lilly kissed the bracelet. “I’m an artist, too. At least I will be", she said.” “Really? Why don’t you paint something for me, like my dad used to do? I got his paints and stuff over here. We couldn’t get rid of them. Mom comes in here sometimes and talks to him. She likes to wear his favorite shirt. The filthy one he painted in. He didn’t call it his lucky shirt or nothing, but he wore it till it was full of holes. Mom had to sew it up almost ever time she washed it. We used to laugh at him all the time. My Dad was funny.”
“My Grandma wasn’t funny but she listened to me. Rest of my family thinks I gotta be different than what I am. Grandma let me be what I felt like being. Even sometimes when I thought I might go crazy, she told me it was fine to feel that way. It was just part of growing up, and if I’d just talk it out and let it go, it would eventually disappear like my brother’s nasty farts.”
“She sure sounds funny to me.” “I guess she was sometimes. In her own way.” Lilly kept looking at the paintings lined up against the wall. One was a portrait of Kevin before he got sick. “Dad always promised I’d be healthy like that again. He believed in miracles.” “Give me some paints and I’ll paint you something,” said Lilly. “Really! Thanks, Lilly.”
She heard police sirens and got scared. “But you gotta promise not to tell anybody I’m here.” “Promise,” Kevin whispered, crossing his heart. The sirens got closer and Lilly told Kevin he better get out for now so they don’t come looking for him. As Kevin walked across the yard towards his house, a police car pulled into the driveway and Officer Barrows got out. She watched from a crack in the door as Kevin and his grandfather talked to Officer Barrows at the side door. He glanced at the shack and crooked his head in the general direction. Kevin and his grandfather looked too and Lilly pulled her face in, her heart beating hard. “Please Grandma,” she pleaded, clutching the bracelet in her hand. “Don’t let them find me.”
Next thing she knew, the car was pulling away from the house. Soon after, Kevin returned with more chocolate milk. “You sure you don’t wanna go home?” Kevin asked, coming back through the door. “The policeman seemed pretty worried about you, Lilly.” ”You want a painting, don’t you?” ”Yea, I want you to paint me something so I won’t die.” His words surprised Lilly. “I can’t promise you that, Kevin. Nobody can do that.” "You can do it...that’s why God sent you to me.” “You think God sent me to save your life? I’m just a nothing of a girl, Kevin. My mother says I can’t even save myself, so I can’t do nothing for you but paint a dumb picture. You living or dying is up to the doctors, I guess.”
“I almost died twice from infections the cancer medicines gave me, so I know what dying feels like now. And it’s not so bad, really. I know I coulda gone both times if I wanted, doctors or not. Like I said, I gotta stay for my Mom, so I fought to come back and so I did. That’s how I know God sent you to paint me a picture to save my life. That’s why we could never throw out my Dad’s stuff. Because somehow I knew you were coming.”
It was getting warm. The sun had dipped to the other side of the sky. Kevin found a small canvas and pulled out as many paints as he could find. Lilly told him it would be a surprise so he couldn’t look at it while she was painting. “Sure. My dad was like that too. He hated us peeking at his pictures before they were done. I’m tired, anyway.” Kevin leaned up against the other side of the wall and fell asleep.
When he woke, Lilly was standing at the window. Sunset filled her face. “I gotta go home.” Lilly announced, her eyes never leaving the sky. “My grandma would have wanted it.” Kevin reached for the painting. “No Kevin, don’t look at it until I’m gone. Ya know, just in case you don’t like it. I’m gonna call my mom now. You have a phone I can use?” Kevin and Lilly walked to the house together and Lilly called Barbara. Both burst into tears at the sound of their voices. Soon Officer Barrows arrived to escort Lilly to another chance. Kevin and Lilly exchanged numbers and hugs.
“You’re gonna be fine Kevin,” Lilly said, believing it with all her heart. “I know. That’s why you’re here, Lilly. So my Dad’s promise in his picture of me would come true. He used to tell me sometimes just showing up and being you is all it takes to make a miracle.” Lilly filled with a truth she had never known before. “You take care of yourself Kevin. Thanks for the sandwich and crackers. I’ll see you.” “Here Lilly,” Kevin offered, picking at the daffodils growing along the side of the house. “These are for your mom.” She held the flowers and smiled, knowing what they would mean to her mother. Lilly waved before closing the car door. Kevin waved back until she disappeared in a cloud of August dust.
As his grandfather coaxed him towards the house, Kevin walked back to the shack and uncovered Lilly’s painting, He laughed as he held it high to show to his father. It was Elenora’s bracelet, the ruby shining bright within the glow of Kevin’s happy, healthy face.
