Closer To Heaven - Patrick Sean Lee (rosie project .txt) 📗

tired after a while, and so was Jerrick because he yawned and stretched his arms out. I didn’t really want to sleep on the cold floor, especially without a blanket and a pillow, and if I went to sleep on the seat of the pew, I knew I would roll over and fall off. I think the fish made me sleepy.

I had an idea.

“Can we go back to Father’s house and get some blankets and pillows? I’m very tired, Lashawna.”

“We sleep in Father’s bed!” said Jerrick.

“You do?”

“Yes,” Lashawna said. “It’s big enough for all of us, and it’s warm and toasty.”

“I can’t sleep with boys, and at Munster’s house I didn’t sleep with him. My Momma said…”

“Silly. I’ll sleep in the middle, and then tomorrow morning we can get up and have Rice Krispies. Without milk, though, because it’s all sour, and cereal tastes yucky with water,” Lashawna said giggling.

“There’s water here?” I asked.

“Of course! Tons of bottles,” she said. Lashawna jumped up and grabbed my arm. “Let’s go, I’m sleepy too.”

Jerrick had gotten to his feet. He was still smiling, and I didn’t think he ever frowned. I was worried about leaving him, though, because if he couldn’t see, he might bump into everything, or trip on the altar steps, or fall down the back steps—if he could even make it through the sacristy room.

“Wait, Lashawna! We can’t leave Jerrick here. You have to help him.”

“Why? He knows his way.”

“How? He can’t see,” I said. I looked back at Jerrick. He walked around me and Lashawna, just like he would lead the way through the dark sacristy room.

“Lashawna helped me twice,” Jerrick said. “That’s all I needed.”

“If we walk outside I have to be careful for him,” Lashawna whispered. “I say, bump. Crack. Curb. That’s all he needs.”

I liked that, and I liked Lashawna and Jerrick. I wasn’t afraid to sleep with them. I was happy to.

 

We were in bed soon, and I asked Lashawna if we could light a candle so that it wouldn’t be dark in Father’s big bedroom. She said of course, and then she had Jerrick get up and light one because she was stuck in between us and she’d have to climb over her brother or me to go light the candle. I thought of the church after Jerrick lit the little candle beside the bed.

“Wait! We didn’t blow out the candles in church!” I said.

“We never blow out the candles in church,” both of them answered at the same time.

“Why? What if someone sees them and knows we’re here?” I said.

“Everyone knows we’re here,” Jerrick said.

“Yes, and as long as the candles burn, the prayer we said when we lit them will keep going up to God,” Lashawna added.

So that’s why my momma lit candles and knelt down to pray every Sunday after Mass. She never told me that. Still, the thought of “everyone” knowing made me a little scared.

“What if that man who murdered Munster sees them and comes in?” I asked.

“He won’t,” said Jerrick. “I prayed for our safety when I lit the candle beside you. What did you pray for?”

“I didn’t. I didn’t know I was supposed to,” I said.

“Well you can still ask God for something, Amelia. If you had one wish, what would it be tonight?” Jerrick said.

I knew at once what that would be. That Momma and Daddy could come back. But then I thought about Munster. I wished he hadn’t been murdered. And I thought about Jerrick being blind. There were too many things that were important, so many that one little candle couldn’t make them all come true. I didn’t know what to pray for.

As I thought about all of this, I heard Jerrick begin to snore. I looked over at Lashawna. Her eyes were closed. I prayed that Momma and Daddy were happy, and that somehow they could come back. That’s what I prayed for before closing my eyes, and I wasn’t afraid that night. 

THREE

            Jerrick woke me the next morning. I was so warm under the covers and didn’t want to get up, but he said it was time for breakfast. He stood at the side of the bed, looking straight ahead as usual. That made me feel funny because I still wasn’t used to having people talk to me but not look at me.

            “Are you awake?” he asked when I didn’t say anything.

            “Yes,” I answered.

            “Okay. I’ll see you in the kitchen. Lashawna’s there already.”

            Jerrick walked around the bed, and then out of the room. If I hadn’t known better, I would never have thought he couldn’t see.

            The bedroom was very bright. The curtains at the windows were open, and the sun shined so bright through them. The candle Jerrick had lit the last night was still burning, and as I got out of bed I wondered if my prayer to God would be answered? Or if it maybe needed to keep going over and over until the flame burned out, and then God would hear it?

            I pulled on the big pants of Father’s that were still rolled way up, and I tied the belt, but I didn’t put his big jacket on. I’d slept in the white shirt, and it was all wrinkled now, but I didn’t care because I was sure Lashawna wouldn’t mind, and Jerrick for sure because he couldn’t see it.

            The kitchen was a nice room, especially with the sun shining in the windows. The table was in front of one window that looked like a curled up…no…a U, like the letter U, that was cut off. It was poking out of the house. I don’t know what they call that kind of window, but it reminded me of sitting outdoors when we sat there. And the sun was warm. I could see the grass through the window, and the grass was SO tall because no one had cut it in months and months and months. It fell over because it was so tall, and also because the rainwater on it made it so heavy. It was very green, and parts of it sparkled.

            We ate Cornflakes for our breakfast. Jerrick put a little bowl of dried up fruit on the table, too, and some water, but not for my cereal. The dried up fruit was good, and it wasn’t from dead apples or oranges, or any of that. Fruit that had been lying around and never gotten eaten because Father disappeared. It came from a package, and so I knew it was still good to eat. I ate a whole bowl of cornflakes, and three pieces of dried up fruit. Jerrick watched me, but I knew he couldn’t really see me. But he looked at me anyway. Lashawna was at the counter where the sink was. She was wiping her bowl with a towel, and looking inside the pantry.

            “What do you guys want to do today?” I asked that after I finished eating my last piece of fruit.

            Lashawna put her bowl in the cupboard and turned around.

            “I think we should go for a walk. Jerrick and I need sun! We didn’t go outside yesterday at all,” she said.

            I had to think about that, but then I said okay. If a murderer was outside and he was waiting for us, we couldn’t run very fast to get away because I didn’t think Jerrick could run. But I said okay.

            “Where should we go?” I asked Lashawna.

            “Let’s go to your house. I’d like to see where you lived.” Lashawna said that.

            “Yes, that’d be great! I could feel the steps and the door, and if it has a knocker, I could feel…”           

I didn’t like that idea. And so I told them when Jerrick was speaking,“ No! I don’t ever, ever want to go back to my old house because my momma and daddy are still inside and they’re dead and there are germy flies on them I KNOW, and I don’t want to see that. And besides, Munster lives on the way. That’s where I stayed until last night when I came here all wet and cold and very hungry. If we go past his house, which was my new house that didn’t have germy flies and didn’t smell bad, maybe the man who murdered him at the mini-mart will be inside, and he’ll see us, and then we’ll all be dead for sure!” I didn’t want to go to my old house, or Munster’s.

            “But how would the man know where Munster lives?” Jerrick asked me.

            “I don’t know. Maybe he made Munster tell him before he murdered him.”

            “Are you sure the man murdered Munster?” Lashawna asked me.

            “Yes. Munster didn’t come back out, and so if he didn’t come back out, the man got him,” I said.

            “But you said you didn’t hear the gun,” Jerrick said to me.

            “No. I didn’t, but then the man probably hit him on the head, and I couldn’t hear that anyway. And after he hit him, he took his gun, and then I knew he’d come after me. I don’t want to go to my house or Munster’s.”

            So we decided we wouldn’t go to my house or Munster’s. Lashawna wanted to go to the mini-mart to see if Munster was dead there, but I said no, no, no. So instead we would go somewhere else so that Jerrick could be in the sun. I knew Munster was dead at the mini-mart.

            We left Father’s house and walked away from where I used to live, and there was a park with a playground and sand and lots of trees that wasn’t too far away. Lashawna said, “Curb. Big crack” sometimes when we were walking, but she didn’t hold Jerrick’s hand. He just walked by himself. She held my hand, but not because I couldn’t see.

            I asked her on the way where she lived because she never told me, and neither did Jerrick. She said that she and Jerrick lived in San Diego, which is a long, long way from Marysville. I asked how she got here, and she said her and Jerrick had come with their parents to visit her momma’s sister the day everything, when it happened, whatever that was. Her momma’s sister, which is her aunt, were in the house with her momma’s husband and her aunt’s husband, and they were talking. Lashawna and Jerrick were out in their backyard looking at bugs—well, she was— because there was no swing set or toys, and she saw a flash of light, and the sky got dark, but Jerrick couldn’t see it. It was a very bright light, and I remembered that too. They stopped looking at bugs and ran in to tell their momma and daddy what they’d seen and they found everyone just dead, like I found my momma and my daddy. They cried, even though Jerrick couldn’t see them all dead. They ran around like I had, trying to tell the neighbors, but all the neighbors were dead, too, even their pets. They went back to their aunt’s house, which Lashawna said was very close to the park we were walking to, and shook their