Page 177 of Everything Under the Sun

“You think you can finish the rowboat by yourself if you had to?” Atticus asked.

Jeffrey hacked away at the inside of the tree to shape it.

“I can do it,” he told Atticus. “I could make a good rowboat now. I know how now”—he hacked away a few smaller chunks of wood—“But I like it that you help too. I like it we make my rowboat together.”

Atticus and I shared a knowing look; I nodded to Atticus, and he knew then it was his cue to leave. It was time I tell Jeffrey the news.

Atticus kissed my cheek, and then left us alone.

Jeffrey barely looked up at me he was working so hard.

“Jeffrey,” I said in a motherly voice, “I need to talk to you about something.”

He looked up then, but his hands never stopped swinging the hatchet.

“Okay, Thais,” he said. “I’m listening to you, I’m just really hard working. I want to make the best rowboat. I want to show Atticus and Grandpa that I can make good rowboats.”

I placed my hand on his arm.

The hatchet stopped then, and Jeffrey looked over; he set the tool on the grass.

“Are you tired?” Jeffrey asked, and there was a look of anxiety in his face I did not immediately understand. He reached out and put his hand to my forehead. “Are you tired like my dad, and Grandma June was?” He shook his head rapidly. “Please don’t be tired, Thais. Please, please, please—”

“Oh no, Jeffrey,” I said, realizing. I took his hands and gave them a comforting squeeze. “I’m not tired at all. I promise. I just have to tell you something that might make you sad.”

Jeffrey cocked his head to one side, a confused look lingered in his big, curious eyes.

“What will make me sad?”

I paused, absently licked the dryness from my lips. Then I squeezed his hands a little tighter and smiled at him with gentle eyes.

“Me and Atticus have to go away,” I said, and Jeffrey’s face fell in an instant. “But one day we’re going to come back and visit you, and see how great a rowboat you made.”

“But why are you going away?”

“We have someplace we have to go,” I told him. “It’s a place far away, and there are many good people there, and it’s where we’re going to live.”

“But you live here. In Mr. Graham’s house.” Jeffrey pointed at the cabin. “Why do you have to go far away to live somewhere else?”

I sighed, looked at the grass finally turning green again after the last rain, and it took me a moment before I knew what to say.

“Jeffrey, it’s not safe living out here alone. Maybe you and your grandpa could come with us. We would like that very much.”

Jeffrey nodded contemplatively.

I had no confidence in Esra or Jeffrey agreeing to go with us, but resolved to at least try to convince them soon.

ATTICUS

I watched them from the window while Going to California by Led Zeppelin played from the makeshift stereo in the background. And I thought of Thais with flowers in her hair; I pictured dancing with her in the fields on the way to Shreveport, floating together down the Mississippi on a flat-bottom boat; I pictured her playing a guitar and singing in that sweet voice of hers; I pictured us arriving in Shreveport and being surrounded by thousands of good people who welcomed us and took us in. And I pictured Thais and I having a life together, a real life where we were living and not just surviving.

But when the song faded into its end, so did all of my thoughts, and I was left only with the reality of our life. Not the bright and cheerful illusion we were living now, but the dark and perilous certainty that lay ahead.

~~~

THAIS

As expected, Esra refused to leave his home, and also as expected, Jeffrey refused to leave his grandfather.

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