Free Home Free by Sharon Jennings Page B

orphan and God heard me.
    I followed Cassandra into the house. Mr. and Mrs. Fergus and Mrs. Petovsky were with my mother. She was crying and I just stood in the doorway looking at her.
    â€œLeanna,” she said and the sound came out all chokey. And I ran to her and hugged her and said I was sorry. She held me so tight it hurt, and I didn’t mind. The hurting from hugging was better than the hurting that was going on inside.
    Then our doctor came up from the basement and looked at us.
    â€œI’m very sorry, Mrs. Mets. I think it was a heart attack. He probably died instantly.”
    Mrs. Petovsky helped my mother sit down.
    Then everyone was talking and crying, but it was all just a loud buzzing in my head.
    I wanted to see my father. I tried to get down the basement stairs, but Mr. Fergus held me back.
    But then some men came and Mr. Fergus took them downstairs and they got my father outside and into a big black car.
    â€œI want to see him,” I said to one of the men.
    â€œNow honey, you just wait. It isn’t decent to see your father now. You’ll see him sure enough later.”
    Then Mrs. Fergus said I could come home with them and eat breakfast over there. And I suddenly realized it was almost morning. My mother said run along because she had lots of phone calls to make.
    Cassandra and I watched something on television, but I couldn’t pay attention. When I realized that I was half an orphan I told Cassandra Jovanovich.
    â€œI’m almost like you,” I said. “I’m almost an orphan. Can someone be a half-orphan?”
    Cassandra pushed back her hair and looked at me.
    â€œListen, Leanna,” she began. But she stopped. “Never mind. I’m just … really … sorry about your dad.”
    In the afternoon my mom said to come home and have a bath – even though it wasn’t Saturday night – before we went to the funeral parlor. And then our minister came and drove us. And when we got there, some of our relatives were waiting and then we got to go into the parlor first, before anybody else.
    I’d never seen a dead person before. My father was lying there in his suit for church and his hands were folded on his chest. They were all clean and usually they never are because he always works in the garden. And his face had make-up on to make him look “natural,” the undertaker said, but itmade him look silly. I grabbed a tissue from the box on the table and tried to wipe it off, but somebody stopped me.
    So then I stood back and tried to figure this all out. Everyone whispered as if my dad was sleeping and everyone went up to look at him and then said the same things over and over to my mother.
    I stood where I could see my father and I just stared and stared. I couldn’t get the hang of it. I couldn’t figure out that this was my father and wasn’t my father at the same time. He was there and he wasn’t there. It didn’t make sense. I tried to think about not being in my body but it was like trying to understand about infinity. Infinity goes on and on forever and ever. But I can’t get the hang of that, either. Whenever I think about infinity, I always come up against an ending somewhere. I can’t imagine forever. That’s how I felt about trying to imagine what it was like to be dead. You can’t imagine nothing.
    And then I remembered something. Once, when I was little, I watched my father in the garden. He was wearing his beige shorts and no top and was dividing up the peonies. So I put on a pair of beige shorts and I took off my top and walked over to Debbie Walker’s house.
    Mrs. Walker laughed and said “Bless you, child. What are you doing?” I didn’t know what she meant.
    â€œYou’re half naked, silly,” said one of Debbie’s brothers.
    â€œI want to look like my dad.”
    Mrs. Walker laughed again. “You are one to beat the band.”
    I didn’t know what