Heaven

Marley continues lying on her bed until her mother comes into her room and tells her that dinner is almost ready. Marley watches her mother, thinking about how Pops calls her mother’s face “classic” (45). She thinks that she, too, wants to be classic, rather than beautiful like Shoogy or Butchy. Marley feels a spike of anxiety as her mother stops and turns toward Marley as if she wants to say something, but once again stops herself. Marley relaxes when Momma just smiles and leaves the doorway.

A palpable sense of unease dominates the rest of the evening. Butchy is late getting home, and a tornado warning looms. Marley notes that her parents keep looking at her, unsmiling, which makes her feel awkward and uncomfortable. She offers to look for Butchy, but Pops tells her not to because the storm is close. The sky is a “funny yellow color” (47), so Marley, and her parents retreat to the basement, listening to the radio report that a funnel cloud has touched down near Middlefield, near where the Amish live. Marley cannot help but worry about the Amish, who do not have radios. As Marley waits out the storm with her parents, Momma stares at the radio and worries about Butchy. Marley falls asleep, and when Pops wakes her, it is still storming outside. Her parents come and sit on either side of her. Pops tells Marley that there is something they want to talk to her about.

Later, Bobby tells Marley that the Amish fare well during storms because they trust the signs of nature to tell them when a storm is coming. Marley likes that kind of faith and thinks that she now knows how to watch for signs of danger and catastrophic change.

As the storm rages outside, Momma and Pops reveal life-changing news to Marley: Uncle Jack is her biological father and her biological mother, Christine, is dead. They show her the letter that came in the mail earlier that day. It was written by a man named James Major, who is rebuilding First Mission Church’s record archive after many documents were damaged in the recent fire. Mr. Major seeks a photocopy of the baptismal certificate of Momma and Pops’s niece, Monna Floyd, as the original was damaged in the fire. Because Monna’s mother is dead, and her father, Jack, cannot be found, he is reaching out to them for help.

This news changes everything Marley knew about her life. As the storm abates and she leaves the basement, she looks at everything in the house in a completely new light. A series of memories from Marley’s childhood come flooding back to her, and she feels as if none of them are authentically hers in light of this news. Momma and Pops hold Marley’s hands and try to explain everything to her, expressing their regret that they kept the secret for so long. As Marley looks down at Momma’s hands, she realizes that she was wrong to think that her hands look like Momma’s; they probably look like her biological mother’s hands, buried far away in Alabama.

Two weeks later, Marley still has not cried after learning about her true parentage. She decides that the “shadow ghosts” that Shoogy saw around Pops was a wraith following him “’cause it knew what was coming” (54).

Marley has dinner at Shoogy’s house. Shoogy’s mother kisses Shoogy’s head after the girl spills a jar of spaghetti sauce on the counter. After Mrs. Maple leaves, Marley tells Shoogy that her mom is nice. Shoogy responds that her mom is “real nice. Always has been nice. Always will be nice” (55). Marley reminds Shoogy that this is a good thing, and Shoogy smirks.

There is an alleyway in Heaven that the town reserves for kids to graffiti. The wall is repainted once a month, and Marley joins Bobby and Feather one afternoon as he paints over the wall. Marley asks Bobby if he ever uses spray paint, and he tells her that he was arrested in Brooklyn for spray painting. Marley watches Feather while Bobby paints and recalls the moment when she looked at her hands and realized that they were not Momma’s hands. Marley becomes overwhelmed when she reflects thar “it would never be as simple for us as it is with Bobby and Feather” (57). She begins to cry.

Bobby hugs Marley while she cries, reminding her to “just think about today” (58). This statement evokes his background in the Twelve-Step Program, which encourages him to approach life one day at a time. Marley tries this tactic, but all her memories from that day are of avoiding her family and thinking about her biological father—Uncle Jack.

Bobby tries to make Marley feel better by squeezing her tighter and tighter until she begins to laugh. Feather falls asleep, and Marley tells Bobby that she hates her parents. He responds that it must be challenging to hate people whom she has loved all her life. Marley decides to leave and says goodbye to Bobby. She stops by Ma’s Superette and buys three pairs of purple flip-flops. She drops off a pair at Shoogy’s house, and another at Bobby’s.

When Marley gets home, Momma is digging in the front yard. She stops when she sees Marley, telling her that it is time to talk. Marley stands in front of her but feels she has nothing to say to the woman who raised her. Momma puts her hands on her hips, and Marley feels as if she is watching this familiar motion for the first time. They stand there in silence for a moment before Marley walks into the house. Momma does not stop her.

Inside, Marley finds Butchy in Momma and Pops’s closet, going through a box containing their important papers. When Butchy finds what he is looking for (his birth certificate) he reads it and then puts it back in the box. Butchy sits next to Marley on the bed, explaining that he was “just making sure” (62) that Momma and Pops are really his parents. Marley leaves the room, trying to think about just today.

Marley recalls a recurring dream she used to have in which a witch came through her window, grabbed her, and flew away with Marley on her broom. Each time Marley would wake from this dream, she would find Pops kneeling next to the bed, telling her that the witch was gone. Marley does not miss the dream, but does miss waking up to Pops kneeling next to her, ready to make her feel better.

Bobby, Marley, and Shoogy take Feather to the beach at Lake Erie. They set up their blanket on a busy part of the beach, and Marley basks in her enjoyment of the colors and cacophony of sounds.

In a letter from Uncle Jack, he explains that he and Boy have been on the road for so long that they feel like part of the truck. He writes that he and Boy, after driving for what seems like days, have suddenly come to a beach next to a large lake. There are no signs forbidding dogs, so they go and sit next to the water. The scene reminds Uncle Jack of a time in the past, saying, “We carried the baby in a Moses basket onto the beach” (67). He writes about taking the baby, alongside an unnamed companion, into the water of the Gulf and knowing that the baby would always love the water. In the present, Marley thinks about this letter and thinks that the baby in the letter was her.