A Piece of Heaven Read online

  “Try to keep calm, Haley,” Mrs. Brown said gently.

  “Okay,” I said, trying to pull myself together.

  She went inside and shut her door. The door to my own apartment was still wide open.

  “Don’t let this be real,” I murmured, stepping inside. “Please, let this be a bad dream.”

  It wasn’t a dream, though. My brother had been arrested, and I had to tell my mother about it. And I didn’t want to do it alone. I didn’t want to wait until visiting hours at three o’ clock and go to the hospital with Mrs. Brown, either. But there was someone else I could turn to.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I stood outside Jackson’s house and rang the bell. He opened the door right away. His hair was sticking up as if he’d been napping.

  “Come inside,” he said in a gentle voice. “Tell me what happened.”

  I followed him indoors and took a seat in a chair next to the piano. My stomach was churning.

  “You sounded upset on the phone,” said Jackson. “Has your mother gotten worse?”

  “She—she might be pretty soon,” I stammered. “There’s this problem with my brother. When Ma finds out, I don’t know what she’ll do.”

  “What sort of problem does Otis have?” he asked.

  I swallowed. “He got arrested.”

  Jackson looked shocked. “Why? How?”

  “It’s a long story. But I’m sure he’s innocent. My mother has to get him a lawyer. But if I go to the hospital and tell her, she might really go crazy. She’s so depressed as it is.” I paused to catch a breath. “Ma was just getting better.”

  Jackson tapped his foot. “When are visiting hours?”

  “Not until three o’ clock,” I said with a moan. “I think I should go now, though. Otis needs Ma’s help right away.”

  “Can you telephone your mother’s doctor? He might let you visit earlier.”

  “I don’t know who he is,” I said helplessly. “Jackson, I’ve got to do something quick! The police have my brother.”

  “We’ll go directly to the hospital,” he said, picking his keys up off the front table. “If we can’t see your mother right away, we’ll wait until three.”

  I bit my lip to keep from crying. “Okay. Thanks.”

  He laid a hand on my shoulder. “How about a little breather before we leave? I’ll get you some orange juice.”

  I nodded.

  He rounded the corner to the kitchen and returned with a glass of juice and a couple of tissues. I blew my nose and drank the juice quickly.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “Scared.” I sighed.

  “Did the police come to your apartment?”

  I nodded.

  “That must have been very scary,” he agreed, holding his hand out to me.

  “Can you help my brother?” I begged, grasping his hand.

  “I’m not sure,” said Jackson. “I will do what I can to help you, though,” he promised.

  We took off for the hospital, which was only a short walk from Jackson’s.

  “Sorry to ask you to do this,” I said, bumping along next to him. “You don’t even know my family.”

  “I don’t mind helping out,” Jackson assured me.

  “My neighbor Mrs. Brown might have gone with me later,” I rattled on, “but I didn’t want to wait. Besides, I think Mrs. Brown hates Otis.”

  “I’m glad you called me, Haley,” he said, giving my hand a squeeze. “We’re friends.”

  When we got to the hospital, the receptionist at the front desk smiled at me. I smiled back weakly. “Do you think that I can visit a patient?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “It’s a little early for visiting hours.”

  “It’s an emergency,” I explained. “I need to tell my mother something.”

  “Sorry,” the receptionist said. “I can’t let you go up without special permission.”

  “The nurses have met me before,” I insisted. “They’ll let me come up.”

  “Maybe we should wait until three o’ clock,” Jackson said, stepping in. “I’ll wait with you down here in the lobby.”

  “I can’t wait,” I said, stamping my foot. “Can I talk to somebody in the admitting office?” I begged the receptionist. “My mother works there. She has a friend named Sylvia.”

  “I’ll put you through,” the receptionist agreed. She dialed an extension and handed the phone to me. Luckily, Sylvia picked up.

  “It’s me—Haley,” I blurted out. “I really need to see my mother right away, and they won’t let me.”

  “Is there some kind of an emergency?” Sylvia asked in alarm.

  “Yes. It’s about Otis. Can you ask somebody to let me up? My boss is with me. We’re standing at the reception desk.”

  “Stay right there,” said Sylvia. “I’ll put you on hold and speak to the nursing station.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “Sorry for all the fuss,” I told the receptionist.

  Sylvia got back on. “You can go up, Haley. The nurses gave permission. Let me speak to the receptionist.”

  “Thanks, Sylvia.”

  I handed the phone to the receptionist and we hurried toward the elevators.

  “Somebody has connections around here,” Jackson quipped, striding along next to me. We stepped into the elevator and went up. When the doors slid open on the fourth floor, Ma was standing there. I rushed into her arms. She gave me a hug.

  “The nurses told me that you were on your way up,” she said softly.

  Jackson was standing a little ways behind me.

  “This is Jackson, the man I’ve been working for,” I told Ma.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Ma said. “Thank you for giving Haley a summer job.”

  “She’s a good worker,” said Jackson.

  Ma motioned me toward a circle of chairs to the left of the elevator. “Let’s go over here.” Ma and I sat down and Jackson stood close by.

  “You aren’t crying,” I remarked.

  “I think that my tear ducts have stopped working,” she said matter-of-factly. She stared down at her hand. “I’ve broken a fingernail.” I peered at her hand politely.

  I took a deep breath. “Ma, something bad happened to Otis.” My voice was shaking.

  She nodded slowly. “I know. I got a call.”

  “You know about it?” I exclaimed in surprise. “But you don’t seem upset.”

  “I’m upset,” she admitted in a flat voice. “I’m just trying to keep it together.”

  I looked into her eyes. All the light had gone out of them. Ma wasn’t crying the way she had been, but now she seemed like a robot!

  “So, is Otis coming home?” I asked hopefully.

  “No. I think they’re taking him to some facility for juveniles,” she reported.

  “You’re letting them do that!” I cried.

  “There will probably be a trial.”

  “But he’s innocent!” I protested.

  She sighed. “He confessed,” she said helplessly.

  “Otis isn’t a thief,” I insisted.

  “He didn’t steal the clothes, but he knew they were stolen,” Ma explained in a quiet voice. “He and some other boys were selling them at the incense stand. He was mixed up in the whole racket.”

  “So, that’s that?” I choked. “He’s guilty, so you’re letting them keep him?”

  Ma stared at her fingernail. “This thing is hurting,” she whispered. “There’s not much more I can do for Otis, as long as I’m here,” she said, gazing up at me.

  “Then come home,” I demanded. Jackson stepped in closer.

  A few tears glistened in Ma’s eyes. “The medication was supposed to make me less depressed, but I didn’t count on something like this,” she said, standing up. She reached for me. “I love you. I’ll call you later.”

  “If I can do anything to help,” Jackson offered, “please let me know, Mrs. Moon.”

  “Thanks,” said Ma. “I’m hoping to be discharged before long
. And they’re sending a social worker to talk with me.” She gave me a distracted look. “So long, sweetheart. I’ll let you know when I hear anything.” She stared at her hand again, still crying. “Please excuse me. I’ll die if I don’t take care of this broken fingernail. Maybe one of the nurses can help me.”

  She turned away from us and walked toward her room. My face got hot.

  “Let’s go,” I said, slamming the elevator button. The elevator came, and we went back down. I kept my eyes straight ahead as we left the building. I pounded my fist into my hand. “I can’t believe it,” I muttered. “My brother is in jail, and all Ma could do is talk about her broken fingernail! Ma acted as if she doesn’t care about Otis at all!” I complained, trudging down the street.

  “I’m sure your mother is very upset about your brother,” said Jackson.

  “She didn’t act that way,” I spat out. “How can she talk about a broken fingernail at a time like this?”

  “Sometimes when the big things seem like too much for us, we focus on the little stuff,” Jackson said quietly. “Or maybe your mother was just trying to keep it together, like she said.”

  “Otis is the one who has to keep it together,” I fumed. “He’s rotting away in some jail!” My lip quivered. “If only I knew that Otis was all right!”

  “Your mother will have some more news later on,” Jackson reminded me.

  “If she can stop crying long enough to tell me about it,” I muttered.

  He put his hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go back to my house and have some lunch. You’ll feel better if you eat something. Okay?”

  I bowed my head. “I’m not hungry.”

  “I don’t want you to be alone,” he insisted. “If you like, I can walk you back to Mrs. Brown’s.”

  I shook my head.

  “Is there a close relative we can call?”

  “No one,” I said quietly.

  “Then come with me,” Jackson said, putting a firm hand on my shoulder.

  “What for?” I said with a sigh.

  He gave me a little smile. “How about some weeding?”

  “I don’t feel like it,” I moaned. “Besides, I can’t tell a weed from a flower.”

  “There are no flowers in my yard, remember?” he quipped. “All that scrubby stuff along the fence is pure weeds. I know that you’re upset. But sometimes it helps to keep busy.”

  “I don’t know…”

  Jackson gave me a pat on the back. “I don’t have any students today. While you pull the weeds, I’ll dig out the dead grass. Don’t leave me in the lurch,” he cajoled.

  “I don’t have anything better to do,” I mumbled, picking up my pace.

  “That’s my girl,” said Jackson.

  In spite of the rain that morning, the weeds seemed to be planted in cement. Jackson gave me a trowel to dig them out. I stabbed the earth and pried up the roots of one. Then I grabbed the weed by its throat and twisted as hard as I could and heaved it out. My knees stung and my hands were sore, but I kept on stabbing and prying and yanking and heaving. “Weeds are so stupid,” I murmured angrily.

  Jackson worked in silence, clearing the dead lawn with a hoe.

  “So, what do you think of my mother?” I muttered, digging my hands into the earth to help out the trowel.

  Jackson wiped the sweat from his forehead. “She loves you.”

  “She’s off her rocker,” I said snidely. “I still can’t believe the thing about the broken fingernail.”

  Jackson listened patiently.

  “If it hadn’t been for Ma, Otis might not have gotten into trouble,” I vented.

  “How do you figure that?” Jackson asked, applying pressure to the hoe.

  “If Ma hadn’t been in the hospital, Otis wouldn’t have had the nerve to stay mixed up with a bad person like Reggie.”

  “Has your brother been in trouble before?” he asked.

  “Not like this,” I said. “Ma was beginning to have a hard time controlling him,” I admitted. “But Otis wouldn’t have done it if Ma had been around.”

  “I don’t think you can automatically blame your mother,” said Jackson. “It’s hard to figure out why people do the things they do.”

  “Especially if the people are crazy,” I said, stalking over to the shed to get a big garbage bag.

  “Your mother couldn’t control getting sick,” Jackson said quietly. “Mental illness is like any other illness. People don’t choose it.”

  “I know,” I said, clenching my jaw. “Ma can’t help herself.”

  Furiously, I began to stuff some weeds into the bag. “So, what’s Otis’s excuse? Why did he do the crazy stuff he did? Didn’t he realize that if he sold stolen clothes, he’d be caught eventually? And to think, I was so proud of him getting a job!”

  I tied up the bag of weeds and dragged it to the edge of the yard. Jackson put down the hoe, and we sat under the tree. He offered me some bottled water and I took a swig.

  “How do you feel?” Jackson asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I answered, stretching out on the ground.

  “You told me that you were scared,” Jackson ventured. “You sound angry, also.”

  “I feel a lot of things,” I murmured. “Inside, I’m totally discomboomerated.”

  Jackson lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t you mean discombobulated ?”

  “Discomboomerated,” I insisted, sitting up. “It means upset. It’s in my thesaurus. I’m feeling so many things that my whole body is booming.”

  “Interesting,” Jackson said. “I’m not familiar with that word. But I certainly get what you’re talking about.”

  “You probably think it’s wrong of me to be mad at Ma and Otis,” I challenged. “They’re both having such a bad time. But I can’t help being angry.”

  “I’d be angry, too,” said Jackson. “Just because you’re mad at them doesn’t mean you don’t love them.”

  A lump rose in my throat. I forced it down.

  “Before she went into the hospital, Ma bought a ton of groceries. Otis joked that she thought that the world was coming to an end. Maybe she knew that she was going into a bad depression,” I said. “Maybe the world is ending,” I added.

  “The world is not ending,” Jackson said in a gentle voice. “Lots of good things are in store for you.”

  I looked into his eyes. He sounded so sure.

  He stared out at the yard. “I think our project is shaping up,” he said.

  “There’s no more mess,” I admitted, “and almost no weeds.”

  “I’ve dug up most of the dead grass,” he pointed out. “All I have to do is rake it up.”

  “It’s still not very pretty,” I muttered. “Maybe I can make something nice with the fieldstones.”

  “It’s up to you,” Jackson said. “You have total artistic freedom.”

  “I’m not much of an artist,” I said. “I like to paint in art class, but lots of other people are better than me.”

  “I used to be an actor,” Jackson said with a little smile. “Lots of people were better than I was, too. But I still enjoyed it.”

  “You were an actor?” I asked in surprise.

  He nodded. “My wife and I had a little theater all our own, before Brielle was born.”

  “Is that why you had that box of costumes in the shed?”

  He nodded.

  “What happened to your theater?” I asked curiously.

  “We closed it,” he replied. “We couldn’t make enough money to keep it going.”

  “Still, it was ambitious of you,” I commented.

  Jackson chuckled. “You have a way with words. Did anybody ever tell you that?”

  I shrugged.

  “Maybe you’ll be a writer someday,” he said.

  “What would I write?”

  He chuckled. “How about fairy tales? That’s what you like reading.” He reached over and rubbed my head. “Maybe someday you’ll be a great fairy-tale writer and I’ll pick up a book in the store and s
ee your name, ‘Mahalia Moon.’ ”

  My face flushed. “You think that could happen?”

  He nodded.

  “Okay,” I said, playing along, “I’ll write a sequel to ‘Hansel and Gretel,’ and call it ‘Hansel and Gretel Go to the City.’ Instead of a wicked witch, I’ll create the character of a singing teacher who makes little girls lift heavy stones and pull up weeds all day! I’ll even dedicate it to you,” I joked.

  His eyes sparkled. “Just make sure it has a happy ending.”

  We got back to work. The weeding was tough, but the more weeding I did, the less discomboomerated I felt. While I finished clearing the edge of the yard, Jackson raked up the dead grass in the middle. Soon all that remained were the tree, the pile of stones, and the bare earth. We stood back and looked at what we’d accomplished. Then Jackson went inside and got a broom.

  “Will you do the honors and sweep our dirt yard?”

  “I feel kind of silly,” I said, taking the broom.

  “Sweep the yard,” he prodded. “That’s what my grandmother did.”

  I started at the edge and swept carefully. The earth smoothed out. “It is peaceful-looking,” I murmured, watching the fine lines form in the dirt.

  “It’s perfect,” said Jackson, “just like my childhood.”

  “Your childhood was perfect?” I asked.

  “Far from it,” he replied. “But I have some perfect memories, like my grandmother’s dirt yard.”

  “Of course, you can’t expect the dirt to stay this way,” I pointed out. “The lines will get messed up.”

  “But we can always sweep it again,” he countered cheerfully. “That’s the beauty of a having a swept yard. No matter what kind of mess we make, we can always find the broom and straighten things out.”

  “I hope that your daughter likes it,” I said.

  Jackson put an arm on my shoulder. “I was wondering about your father, Haley…”

  I winced. “What about him?”

  “If I were your dad, I’d want to know about Otis’s trouble,” he remarked in a gentle voice. “I would want to know about your mom being sick, so that I could help out.”

  “But you’re not my dad,” I said. “My dad is different. Besides, he’s A.U.”

  “What’s that mean?” asked Jackson.

  “Address Unknown,” I said, striding toward the tree. “That’s what I write on all my school forms where they ask for the father’s address.”