It’d taken me far too long, but I finally finished reading the Peter Pan book while sitting on the steps in the library, the painting of Wendy and her brothers flying over the river just above my head. There was no happy ending to the story. All that happened was Peter kept getting little girls to take care of him, whether they liked it or not.
Even as upside-down as Mama’d been the last year, she never would’ve let somebody take me away like Wendy let Peter do with her little girls.
Shutting the book, I put it on the step beside me, not wanting to touch it, let alone hold it on my lap.
After a bit Mrs. Trask called to me, letting me know it was time to go for the day. I took up the book and carried it down the stairs.
“My dear,” Mrs. Trask said. “You’ve been crying.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered.
“It is a dreadful ending, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“Wendy Darling should have learned to lock the windows,” she said. “Don’t you think so?”
I nodded and smiled.
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered.
I decided to walk home the long way past what’d once been Nehemiah and Ruthie’s house. I hadn’t walked that way since I’d heard what had really happened there. It didn’t scare me anymore. What it did was make me sad.
Walking down Aster Street, I saw a man kneeling in front of the porch, putting in flowers, pushing down the soil around the plants with his hands. Yellow and orange and red flowers grew out of green stems. Marigolds. I knew because Aunt Carrie and I had planted them all around her garden to keep the rabbits away from the lettuce and tomatoes.
I stopped, watching him plant a couple more marigolds in the ground. When he turned his head I saw the scar that cut down the side of his face. I stepped back, ready to run off if need be. Then I realized who it was.
Mr. Fitzpatrick straightened up his back but still kneeled on the ground. He had on an old hat with a brim so weathered and rippled I wondered if it hadn’t been run over by a truck. His stained undershirt was loose on him and the work pants he had on were covered with patches. I could see that even from where I stood.
He gave me a nod, the kind men do instead of waving.
“You Delores’s daddy?” I asked, even though I knew for sure he was.
He nodded again but didn’t smile at hearing his daughter’s name the way I’d thought he would have.
“Will you tell her I said hi?” I asked. “I’m Pearl.”
His eyebrows pushed together and he blinked real fast a couple times. I didn’t think he could’ve been any older than Daddy. Maybe even a year or two younger. Still, he wore the look of a man who’d seen a whole lot of hard times.
“Trial and tribulation got a way of agin’ folks,” Meemaw had told me one time. “But the burden of the Lord Jesus is easy and light, Pearl. You know why? On account of Him takin’ most the load on His own back, darlin’.”
Standing there not ten feet from Mr. Fitzpatrick’s worry-lined face, I wondered if he’d ever had somebody like Meemaw to tell him nice things like that.
“I’ll tell her,” he said before turning back to his planting.
What I wanted to do was stay there, watching him do his work. Then I thought I’d ask him why he was doing it. But Mr. Fitzpatrick didn’t seem the kind to talk all that much, and besides it wasn’t any of my beeswax.
Anyway, I thought I knew well enough.
Seemed to me there must’ve been about a hundred ways to say sorry.