Absent Friends

Even when Marian's mother died.

Marian had felt very bad. All the kids tried hard to be nice to her. Everyone invited her to their houses to play and the moms gave them extra cookies. Marian knew everyone was trying to make her feel better, but she didn't want to play. She wasn't sure she wanted to feel better. She just wanted to sit scrunched up in the corner of the fence in her own backyard and think about her mom.

Sometimes she did that. Other times she went to the other kids' houses, because her dad was very sad, too, and she could tell he liked it for her to go to play. And sometimes she stayed home and helped Aunt Fiona look after her sisters and her baby brother. Aunt Fiona, who came from someplace far away, was very nice, but she didn't know things like where the Band-Aids were, or that Betty cried if you let her applesauce touch her peas.

One day when Marian was sitting against the fence with her knees pulled up tight she heard scratchy footsteps on the gravel driveway. Tom slipped through the secret passage between the house and the garage.

“Hi,” Tom said.

“Hi.”

She waited for him to say something else but he just sat down next to her. Marian first thought she wanted Tom to go away, but then when he was just quiet and she went back to thinking about her mom she thought maybe she liked it that he was there.

After a while Tom turned his head to look at her. “You know what my mom says? She says your mom went to Heaven.”

Marian nodded. She didn't want to talk because her throat felt sore.

“She says, the way you and your dad and everyone, the way you feel all sad and lonely? She says that's how God felt. Your mom was on earth and God got lonely. He missed her so much he asked her to come to Heaven.”

God was lonely? He missed her mommy? That made Marian very sad, and she started to cry.

“But,” said Tom fast, “but Heaven's beautiful. It's got clouds and flowers and oceans and stuff, pretty music, too, my mom says, and she says your mom likes it. She's just waiting for you to come.”

Marian sniffled. Her mom liked pretty music. “Waiting for me?”

“Uh-huh,” said Tom. “If you're good you go to Heaven when you die. Don't you know that?”

Marian thought maybe she did, but she wasn't positive. “I can go to Heaven?” she asked, just to make sure. “Where Mommy is?”

“Uh-huh.”

Marian wiped her eyes and thought about this, about the clouds and flowers and oceans. “Can Daddy go there, too?”

“Everybody who's good.”

“Betty? And Eileen and Patty? And Davey?”

“Everybody.”

“And Aunt Fiona?”

Tom grinned and poked her in the ribs. “Everybody.”

Marian squirmed; it tickled where Tom poked her. “You?” she asked. “And Jimmy? And Jack? And Sally, and Markie, and Vicky?”

Every time Marian said a name, Tom poked her. She kept saying more names—“Your mom? Your dad? Sister Hilda?”—and then she poked him, too, and then they were saying everyone's name they could think of and poking each other and squirming and giggling.

When they ran out of names they both plopped back against the fence, tired from giggling. Tom was still smiling but something Marian thought of made her sad again.

“How do you know?” she asked.

“Know what?”

“About going to Heaven?” What if Tom was wrong, that was the thing she'd thought of.

“My mom says God promised.”

God promised. God already thought about this and had it all planned, and Tom's mom knew about it; probably the other grown-ups did, too, her dad and everyone.

She thought of something else about Heaven. “Do everyone's dogs and cats go there, too? And the elephant from Spivey's Circus? Are there animals in Heaven?”

“If they're good. You just have to be good, then you can go.”

Marian thought about the elephant sitting on a cloud, and she smiled, but Tom wasn't smiling, he had a serious face, even kind of sad. “What's the matter?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

She leaned against him, and then he smiled.

The sun lit up the lilies her mom had planted along the fence. There was grass growing in with them. Her mom always said grass belonged on the lawn. When it grew where the flowers were, it needed to be pulled out so the flowers could get big. Marian knew how to do that. Maybe later she would, maybe after lunch. She wasn't less sad when she thought about her mom now, or less lonely. But she hadn't known she was scared until now. Now that Tom had told her about Heaven, she thought she might not be scared anymore.

“Are you sure?” she asked Tom, one more time.

Tom nodded and told her he was sure.

That was how it used to be. God had thought about everything, and even the things the grown-ups couldn't make better, God had planned out. Everything was under control even if you didn't understand it. Even if you didn't like it, there was a reason.