The days we have left before November 22 are precious now and shrinking in number, but for nine of them, I did not tell anyone about my Santa picture because it was not a clue to the mystery of how to not reopen the plant. We are looking for paperwork, and the Santas are not paperwork. We are looking for activities you used to be able to do in winter, but the Santas were only pretending to fish which you could do anytime. We were looking in the plant for something leaking, cracked, and broken, but that was Mab’s job not mine, and those issues do not apply to Santas.
But it turned out it was more accurate to say the Santa picture was a clue, it was just not a clue to the answer. It was a clue to the question. The Santa picture was a clue to what the mystery actually was.
On the day I showed my sisters the Santa picture, which was yesterday, Mab got home from school even later than when tutoring got out, and I knew she did not go to tutoring. When Mab finally got home the reason she was late was because she got River to take her in the plant, and since she went in the plant she wanted to talk and talk and talk about all the things she saw and one she kissed. Mirabel was listening hard for clues, but it sounded to me like a boring description of the difference between what Mab was expecting (a plant that had been sitting vacant for seventeen years) and what Mab actually saw (a plant that is about to reopen). Since we already knew the plant is about to reopen, the only clue I could find was that Mab is not as smart as she appears.
Mirabel was also interested in hearing about the kissing. I was not.
I sighed, but they ignored me, so I sighed louder and then I sighed louder and then I sighed louder, and then Mab talked again about the kissing which she had already talked about a lot, so I started running around them in circles so they would know that I wanted them to talk about something else. We were in our room where there are three beds. Mirabel was lying on hers. Mab was lying on hers with her legs up the wall in a funny position because her part of the wall is covered in postcards I sent her. So the circles I ran in were small, but I have had a lot of practice running in small circles.
“Jesus, Monday, this is kind of important.” Mab said this as if kissing River Templeton were the key to not reopening the plant.
“This will not work,” I told her.
“What won’t?” Her face made a face that meant whatever I was going to say next was going to be stupid, but she did not know that because I had not said it yet.
“I do not think River will go to his father and say, ‘Father, I have kissed Mab Mitchell, and it was nice, so I do not think you should reopen the plant,’ so his father will say, ‘Okay, River, you have convinced me.’”
“No one’s saying that,” Mab sneered but she did not say what anyone was saying. “At least I’m trying to help. What are you doing?”
“I am looking at scrapbooks to see if there used to be an indoor pool,” I said.
“What does an indoor pool have to do with anything?”
“I do not know,” I said because I did not.
“Did there?” Mab asked.
“Not that I could see,” I said.
“Not much of a clue,” she said.
I was going to say I could not find clues if I did not know what clues I was looking for. I was going to say scrapbooks were more likely places to hold hints about the past than the inside of River’s mouth. I was going to say she should just shut up because I could not think of a better comeback. But instead I said I did find one clue.
They both stopped looking at each other and looked at me instead.
“About the river,” I said, and I thought they would say who cares because nothing in the emails said anything about a river.
But Mab sat up and looked at me. “What about it?”
“There used to be two,” I said. “Twins at least. There might have been triplets. We cannot assume,” and I felt stupid because rivers are not twins or triplets, but I said it anyway because I could not think of another reason why the river was where it was not and also because they are my sisters and I know they love me even when I am stupid.
“Two?” Mab said, and she did not mean me. She meant two rivers.
“It is probably not important,” I admitted.
Mirabel typed. “River is important,” her Voice said, and I thought she meant because Mab kissed him, but then I realized she meant the river is important.
“Why?” I asked because the river has nothing to do with paperwork or winter activities.
Mirabel looked at Mab. Mab said, “Because it runs next to the plant? Because that’s what got poisoned in the first place? Because it smelled and ran contaminated water to our taps and turned green? Because that’s what killed us last time Belsum was up and running?” Her voice made questions at the end, but I did not know what the questions were. “What do you mean there used to be two?”
So I showed them the Santa picture that could not be but could not not be either that revealed how at Christmas 1963 there was a river running right through the middle of downtown.
Mab looked and looked, and Mirabel looked and looked, and Mirabel made a squeak, and Mirabel started to type, and then her Voice said, “What did the fish say when it swam into a wall?”
And I said, “Fish cannot talk.”
And I said, “There are no walls in the ocean.”
And I said, “You might think fish are stupid because their brains are small but fish are not stupid and—”
But Mab interrupted, “Oh.” And then Mab said, “Damn.”
Or, to be more accurate, Mab said, “Dam.”
Mirabel explained that the rivers were not triplets or even twins. Mirabel explained that the river in the Santa photograph was our very same river but in a different place. It took all night for Mirabel to explain because her predictive software did not predict you could move a river just like I did not and because she did not have anything saved already on the subject of river diversion so she had to type every single word. It also took a long time because I did not understand. When she told me you can move a river I was thinking you would have to fill a bucket with water and carry it somewhere else and dump it out and then go back and fill it again and carry it again and dump it again and then do that over and over and over. I said no matter how many times you did that it would not work because more water would keep coming. But Mirabel helped me understand you can turn the river itself which is the difference between big dams and little dams. The big dams you think of when you think of dams generate power which is called hydroelectric, but smaller dams like ours are used to make lakes and divert rivers which means move them, and then the place where the river used to run would be a ravine and fill with vines and plants and brambles so you would not think that a river used to run there but it did.
Which means sometime between when the Santas pretended to fish in 1963 and every single memory we have, someone put in the dam.
Mab got very excited and started asking questions we did not know the answers to. I do not know why she did this since we did not know the answers, but Mirabel kept nodding her head and tapping her screen and her Voice kept saying, “Yes. Yes. Yes.”
Mab said, “When was the dam put in?”
Mab said, “No, wait, why was the dam put in?”
Mab said, “No, no, no! Who put the dam in?”
Mirabel’s Voice did not answer any of these questions. Mirabel’s Voice said, “Yes yes yes yes yes.”
This morning we are very tired because we were up too late last night understanding dams, but it is Saturday so Pastor Jeff is here so we get out of bed anyway. We have many questions we cannot remember the answers to because we were not born yet, but he and Mama probably remember because they were.
By the time we finish getting up and dressed, Pastor Jeff is already eating. Mama has made blueberry danish and chocolate brioche plus lemon muffins for me, but Pastor Jeff is eating one of my muffins, even though he is a man of God. (He does not care what color his food is, and also what if he touched all the muffins when he took one?) But then Mama puts out a separate plate of untouched lemon muffins for just me. This is nice of her.
“When did they build the dam?” I shout which I did not mean to, but I am very excited. Mama stops pouring coffee. Pastor Jeff stops chewing my muffin.
“Good morning to you too, Monday,” says Pastor Jeff.
“When did they build the dam?” I say again.
Pastor Jeff and Mama share a look which means confused but also laughing at me.
“Why are you asking about the dam, love?” Mama says.
“We cannot remember before it was built,” I explain, “because every time we can remember it was already there.”
Mama looks at Mab who sometimes explains me when I am too confused or excited or upset to explain me myself, but Mab is just sitting there looking like she is wondering the answer too, so Mama figures that the question I am asking is the question I am asking. Her face does a funny thing. “It was right before…” But she does not finish.
“Right before what?” I ask even though I should not have to because people should complete their sentences.
“It was right before Belsum came to town,” Pastor Jeff says quietly. “Before they broke ground on the plant even.”
“We thought…” Mama begins, then has to clear her throat. “We thought everything was about to get so great. And instead everything got so terrible.”
“But the park was nice,” Pastor Jeff says.
“Briefly.” Mama snorts.
“Why did they?” I ask.
“Why did they what?” says Mama, as if I have changed the subject which I have not.
“Why did they build the dam?”
“To make Bluebell Lake,” Mama says like this is obvious.
Pastor Jeff does a better job of saying more. “In the summer, kids used to wade in the river to cool off.” I try to picture this. I cannot picture this. “Splashing contests, prying up rocks, catching tadpoles in jars, that kind of thing. But the water moved too fast out in the middle. Parents started to worry about some kid getting swept away. I think there was a petition or something. People lobbied the mayor—this was the mayor before Omar—until finally they dammed the river to build the lake and the park so we’d have somewhere to hang out and swim safely.”
“Did you?” I cannot picture anyone swimming in Bluebell Lake or anywhere in Bourne. It is like Pastor Jeff has admitted he spent his summers swimming in something gross and also dangerous like a vat of drooling wolves.
“Sure we did. It was really nice.”
“Briefly,” Mama says again.
“It was nice to have somewhere to swim instead of just wade,” Pastor Jeff continues. “And the park was pretty all year long.”
“Your dad proposed to me there,” Mama says. Suddenly my sisters and I are alert as birds because we have never heard this story. “It had snowed, and it was late, and we were walking around the lake holding hands, just, you know, to be out in it, throwing snowballs at each other, hugging to keep warm. And it was so pretty, all white and moonlit and quiet. Clean. It was one of those nights you could stay in, perfectly content, forever. You know?”
I do not know. I have never heard her talk like this. She is not looking at me or Mab or Mirabel or Pastor Jeff. She is looking above our heads.
“And then he tripped over a branch or something. It was buried in the snow, and he couldn’t see it. He fell right over, and we laughed so hard, and when I tried to help him up, I slipped too, and then we were just lying in a pile together in the snow, laughing, tears streaming down our faces. I made it upright finally, and I reached out to pull him up, and he took my hand but resisted when I tugged his, and then he said, ‘As long as I’m down here…’ and he was on his knees and I was standing there, and he said, ‘I think you better marry me.’ And I said, ‘Yes, I think I better.’ And then he got up, and he walked me home. And then at my door he said, ‘I am pretty sure I love you more than anyone has ever loved anything ever.’”
She is quiet then. Even I can see there is more to say, but she does not want to say it. She has sucked her lips inside her mouth like she is afraid of what will come out of them next and wants to keep the words in. Her eyes are wet and pink and still not looking at us but no tears fall out. Then she closes them and scrunches them up and then she opens them and makes them wide and then she blinks and shakes her head and shakes her head some more. And then, after a long time, she starts talking again like she is right in the middle of her sentence and did not interrupt it with a very long silence. “And he said, ‘But wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll love you even more.’” Then she swallows a lot and does a little cough and then she says, “And you know, they never shut the park. All these years, the park’s still there. Hardly anyone goes anymore because you wouldn’t go in the lake for anything, and going to the park with that lake just calling to you and you not being able to go in, that’s just cruel. Plus, you know, all those memories. It’s hard. But it used to be a really nice place.”
Pastor Jeff reaches over and squeezes Mama’s hand which squeezes his back.
No one has anything they can think of to say next.
I look at my sisters. Their faces show confused which is just how I feel too because Mama and Pastor Jeff answered the question. But it did not answer the question.