Emma was roused from her oneway conversation with her mother by the arrival of Joy their home health caregiver formerly know as Jill. Caregiver sounded better than babysitter and Joy was better than Moonbeam. Jill, now Joy, had wanted a name that expressed who she was and how she felt inside. Joy was a holistic medicine guru who three hundred years ago might have been burned or drowned as a witch. She got her CNA license so she could be gainfully employed, but her real skills probably came from her knowledge of nature and plants around her. She also studied the arts of Traditional Chinese Medicine along with Ayurveda from India. Emma found Ayurveda interesting. It was one of the world's oldest holistic healing systems developed more than three thousand years ago identifying people into one of three doshas and focusing their treatments accordingly. Ayurveda was based on the belief that health and wellness depend on a delicate balance between the mind, body, and spirit. The bottom line with Joy was that Arty loved her and she was kind to her mother so that was all that mattered.
“Better get ready for the bus beautiful”, Joy quipped as she entered the room. “Your dad told me to let you know he will not be home tonight and probably not most of the week.”
Looks like no one remembered her birthday. Emma’s father always left for work before light and often stayed in the city or traveled during the week so was rarely home. His organized presence was still felt in the way the home ran, but he often escaped it to avoid facing the parts of home that made his pain too raw. Work was his panacea. And the bus, really, she was one of the very few high schoolers who rode the bus and did not even have a cell phone. If she wanted a car or phone she needed to earn them for herself and what was the point. The only places she really wanted to go she could walk, besides the library, and there was no one to call, email, text, tweet, chat or pretty much anything. Her sole, or maybe even soul, buddy Cash was not into extra communications outside of school, but was her go-to-guy and safe place there. Besides Arty, maybe Cash, Mrs. Dudley her English teacher and Lily of Wildwood as Emma called her, would probably be the only three that might miss her.
She briefly hugged her mother good-bye, pressing her warm cheek against the more gaunt, chillier one. Then grabbed her backpack filled with partially done homework and sad snacks which constituted her lunch, ruffled Arty’s closely cropped blondish locks and headed out the door.
It was generous of Joy to call her beautiful, but Emma knew she was not repulsive either. An average appearance with honey-brown hair and hazel eyes were probably what most people saw when they looked her way. She was not as tall as her mother, nor did she have her lush reddish-brunette hair, but they did share the same soft, round eyes and a slender frame tending to fill out in the right places. Somehow all of it had worked much better on her mother. Perhaps she would grow into it, if she had the time.
Emma wondered if people could see beneath her skin what they would think. The world was so caught up in outward appearances no one usually took the time to look any deeper. Wasn’t what was inside a person supposed to be more valuable than how they looked. If she could peel the surface back, would anyone think her beautiful below the dermis line? Not like a zombie or anything, but metaphorically. They would likely see that the most important thing to Emma was her family, that might be attractive.
Unfortunately they would also find that she had not really wanted her mom to have Arty. She preferred having her mom all to herself at seven. The guilt when the doctors found out Arty had problems was suffocating. She logically realized at sixteen that her wishes had nothing to do with his condition, but all the same, she received her wish in a weird way. Arty would never be a part of her mom’s life like she was. He could never connect on more than an immature level. Maybe that was why her mother was taken away from her. She had not been willing to share. Instead she ended up sharing her mother even more with all of Arty’s needs. She loved him like crazy now and was so glad he was here, but her original desires to not have him around still haunted her. She tried to make it up to him everyday. She never felt like it was enough. Emma had even less control over her family’s happiness than her own and was unable to fix anything in their lives either. Her number one priority was not working out so well. She might be just as plain and invisible underneath her skin. Between stinging regret and viewing herself through the mirror of her peers eyes, she daily felt lower than the dust she walked on. Would anyone care if she blew away with the wind?
Clouds covered most of the gray sky with a few rays of light sneaking through. Emma hoped that her day would have at least a few rays of light cutting through the gloom as well. The bus pulled up just as she reached the corner. Emma trudged up the tall steps keeping her eyes on the ground she headed for her usual seat near the back and pressed her forehead to the window’s cool glass. Averting connection kept her from unnecessary trauma and drama. Cash would get on in two more stops and make the last few miles of the ride bearable. The world passed by in a blur as she contemplated the things she had “discussed” with her mother.
Before long Cashias Benedict Burton ambled his lanky body down the aisle and slid in next to her on the cracked plastic bench. Brown hair, brown eyes and skin that looked tan even in the winter gave him a monochromatic look. His first words were a soft, “happy birthday” as he handed her a small amateurishly wrapped gift. She carefully peeled off the tape and pulled off the paper to reveal a carved wooden sandhill crane, her favorite animal if birds could be called animals, if not her favorite creature. His workmanship had improved and she appreciated all the time and effort that went into this work of love or at least like. These three foot tall, long-legged birds romantically mated for life and their grand, graceful wingspan swooped over the hills near her home as she heard their unusual calls throughout the spring and summer and missed them when they flew south for the winter.
The crane replica stood in her palm. “Thank you for remembering Cash ”, she sincerely expressed, “this is the very best thing you could have given me.”
Embarrassed, but pleased, he flushed a subtle shade of red and hunkered down a bit deeper into the bus’s bench. “It is nothing really, I know you like cranes and I needed the practice”.
A younger boy in the seat behind them popped his head over their bench and interrupted, “Is that a crane? We saw some flying over the other day and my dad said they are the ‘prime rib of the sky’ and since they are not a protected bird we are going to hunt them this fall.”
Anger verging on rage surged through Emma’s veins, but all she could get out of her mouth was, “You better not, you neanderthal! And would you please get back in your own seat space, this is a private conversation.”
Cash was mostly amused by the outburst and glad his gift could add some extra excitement to Emma’s day. He felt protective of Emma and her passion for all things living, so her reaction did not catch him off guard. He knew her and he cared about her and her interests. They helped each other through each day and today was a special one for Emma, so it was for him too.
“Do you think you were a little rough on that curious jr. high kid, birthday girl?” asked Cash with humor in his voice when the boy had cowered back on his bench behind them.
Emma still riled replied, “That is just where it starts Cash, planning to harm defenseless animals, then moving on to bullying those weaker than you at school and finally in any venue you find them! We have to stand up for those that cannot for themselves whether human, a warm blooded animal or even the birds.”
Funny coming from a girl who rarely stood up for herself Cash though, but only answered, “Anything you say Emma would be right on on your birthday, but you do have a point, perhaps temper it slightly and I can support your stand. Maybe you should consider joining the debate team and put all your passionate words to use for a productive cause,” Cash quipped. He knew that would be about the last class Emma would want to join.
Their extraordinary bond began back in the third grade. They were both in Mrs. Mitchell’s class, but did not sit near each other or ever even speak. Boys and girls had to be careful about crossing boundaries in pre-pubescent days. Emma’s mom was one of the Room Mothers who brought in special treats and provided activities for the holidays during that school year. Usually she was able to find a sitter for Arty so her time in the classroom was one of the few moments just for Emma, but the arrangements had fallen through at the last minute and Arty was in tow for the Valentine’s Party that year. He was not really disruptive. He just laid in his stroller. But that was the problem, he was old enough he should be doing other things and the other students knew it.
They didn’t really pay any attention to him until he started his manic laughing. Some of the kids went over to check him out to see what was causing the outburst and saw this two-plus year old boy that just looked like a huge happy baby. An obnoxiously outspoken boy hollered, “What is wrong with him?” So of course others had to check out the freak show. Emma’s mom calmly explained the syndrome to the eight and nine years olds in the class which only increased the oddness. Emma wanted to disappear, who knew that wish would soon come true in her educational venue.
The class began making and passing out Valentine’s cards for each of their classmates. Emma’s mail began to fill the carefully made Valentine’s box she had prepared at home for the event. She had used a shoe box covered with white butcher paper and then smothered in various sizes and colors of hearts. The focal point was a sand crane she had traced from a book on birds, cut out and colored with markers that had an envelop in it’s mouth similar to a stork delivering a baby. She was very proud of her efforts.
Most of the cards were pretty generic, hearts with “Happy Valentine’s Day” or “To My Valentine” scrawled across the middle. But nestled amongst the festive postal deliveries were a couple that crushed her young heart making reference to her “retarded” brother. They of course were not signed, but Emma had her guesses. She put her head down on her desk with her arms wrapped around the top of it as a shield. Her face was hot and her eyes were stinging and she didn’t want anyone, especially her mother, to know what she had read. Fortunately her mom was too busy helping others in the class to notice.
But two rows to her left and one seat forward someone had noticed. Cash amidst the mayhem had witnessed the boys laughing while they made the cruel cards and watched Emma open and read them. He was not one to get involved. He liked his solitary world on the second row, but a feeling of compassion had filled his third grade heart sort of like the Grinch when his “heart had grown a few sizes that day” in the classic Christmas story. He was not really made of hero material, but he knew he had to do SOMEthing.
His Valentines to Thor and Ricky were not ones he was proud of. He anonymously wrote that he has seen what they had done and graphically described what he would do if they did not stop making fun of Emma’s brother. He then wrote on Emma’s card that he thought it was cool her little brother was such a rare angel. He did not sign this card either, but the next recess he walked up to Emma and asked if she wanted to play with his handheld electronic game. She figured out pretty quickly who the rescuing remarks on the card shaped like a computer screen, not a heart, that day had come from. They had been the best of friends since.
Thank goodness her mother never knew, before she couldn’t know anymore, how mean some kids had been about Arty and how hard school was for Emma pretty much every day since. Not just from that Valentine’s Day party, but it was the beginning. Maggie would not lay as peacefully in her home-version, hospital bed if she knew how her daughter had suffered and been buffeted. But Emma had discovered Cash that day and there was something pretty wonderful about that. Maybe the universe did balance things out. Could a few positive relationships counteract the oppression of all the heavy things that pressed her down daily? During this next year she would decipher which way the balance on the scales of judgment fell in her life. To live or not to live on that was the weighty question.
They pulled up in front of the old brick school and disembarked the bus to face another day at Eastside Mountain High.
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