Heaven

At Ma’s Superette, Marley puts all of her money into the church relief can at the counter. She continues stuffing dollars into the can until Ma gently pulls her hands away. 

Shoogy’s mother breaks her ankle while playing tennis and refuses to go to the doctor, but when her ankle swells, Mr. Maple takes her to the hospital. Shoogy stays behind and comforts her twin brothers, who are worried about their mother. Marley thinks that this is the first time she has seen Shoogy care for anyone in her family.

Shoogy tells Marley that her mother has always been “perfect” (106) and has avoided admitting to pain or weakness. Shoogy admits that she will never be like her mother. For the first time, Marley realizes that Shoogy wants to fit in with her family but feels like she does not. The twins return, and Shoogy plays in the yard with them as Marley leaves.

Marley heads back to town and runs into Pops, who is coming out of Ma’s with chips and a juice box even though he should be at work. They sit together on a bench, and Pops explains that he took the afternoon off because he had errands to run. Marley tells Pops that she plans to go over to Bobby’s to help with Feather. Bobby is working on painting his home today. Pops tells Marley that she is a good friend. He then looks off into the distance, as if he is “off in the mountains somewhere” (107). She asks him about his errands, but he does not elaborate. Marley leaves, and as she looks back, Pops has the faraway look in his eyes again.

Mr. and Mrs. Maple drive by Marley in their car and stop. They show her Mrs. Maple’s cast and invite her to a cookout at their house the next day. Marley accepts and notes that Mrs. Maple “doesn’t look like a person who just broke her ankle” (109); the woman’s hair is in a neat bun, and she and her husband are wearing pristine tennis outfits. Mrs. Maple is glad that Shoogy has Marley as a friend; she admits that it is difficult for Shoogy to make friends. Marley feels uncomfortable. As the Maples drive away, she thinks about the complexities of family and notes that the Maples do love Shoogy and see her for who she is. Marley wishes that she could dislike the Maples; she wants to be loyal to Shoogy’s complicated feelings about her family and about her history of self-harm. However, Marley realizes the more she learns about families, including her own, the “more fuzzy around the edges” (110) the nature of family becomes. 

Bobby is relieved to see Marley when she arrives. She takes Feather back to the bench outside of Ma’s, and they sit together, people-watching, as Feather falls asleep.

Marley feels “too sad and shaky” (111) to go to the Maple family’s cookout, so she stays home and sits in a tree in her backyard instead. She reasons that if she stays in the tree for long enough, everyone will leave her alone and assume that she has gone to the party. She feels that her family is watching her expectantly for some unknown reason.

Three days after the picnic, Marley feels a little better. She is babysitting Feather, who is not acting like her usual self, so she decides to take Feather to Shoogy’s house. When she arrives, she asks the twins if Shoogy is home, but they only laugh. Marley takes Feather inside and finds Shoogy sitting in the middle of the living room floor, listening to flute music.

Shoogy stretches out, and the scars on her legs bother Marley to the point that she asks Shoogy if she still self-harms. Shoogy does not respond and instead goes to Feather, who has begun eating a stray newspaper. Shoogy turns off the flute music and switches it to rap just as her mother returns home, looking as prim and pristine as always. Marley thinks that Shoogy changed the music on purpose, believing that her mother would not like the rap music. Mrs. Maple tells Marley that she saved her some peach pie from the picnic. She asks Marley if her grandmother is feeling better, and Marley looks at Shoogy, who is laughing at her from across the room. Overwhelmed by the loud music and Shoogy’s lie about Marley’s grandmother, Marley gathers Feather and leaves, giving Shoogy a dirty look.

Outside, Marley reflects on the strangeness of Shoogy’s family dynamics and Shoogy’s tendency to be mean at times. Marley pushes Feather home in her stroller. A truck drives by, playing Feather’s favorite song. Feather begins clapping along and points at the dog leaning out the window of the truck.

Marley and her family pile into their car to go on their usual Sunday adventure, when they go somewhere they have never been. On the drive, Marley thinks about how differently her life would have turned out if her birth mother, Christine, had not died. Marley has been carrying Christine’s letter with her ever since she read it. Last week, her family missed their Sunday drive because she could not find the letter as they were getting ready to leave.

On that day, Marley tore the house apart looking for the letter and collapsed into sobs when she was unable to find it because it was her only memento of Christine (119). Momma knelt down next to Marley and held her while she cried. Marley fell asleep on the floor, and when she woke, her family was looking everywhere in the house for the missing letter.

Now, a letter from Jack arrives, and he describes his explorations along the St. Louis river. He tells her that as he sat by the river, he thought about her and wondered what he would say to her if he were to ever meet her. He wonders if she might look like Christine. Uncle Jack asks Marley if she hates him; he shares that he has been having nightmares and asks Marley if she would ever like to see him in person. He understands how much her life has changed since learning about her birth parents.

Jack tells her that he does not have to be her uncle, and he will never try to be her father because she already has a father who loves her, just as Jack loves her. Marley responds with a single sentence, telling Jack that she lost the love letter from Christine.

Bobby invites Marley to go to work with him so that she can watch Feather. Marley agrees. She reflects on Jack’s absence and wonders why he never wanted to bring her to work with him during the day, like Bobby does with Feather.

When Marley arrives home, Momma is sitting on the porch, crying. Marley runs to her, and Momma hands her Christine’s letter, telling her that she found it under the tree in the backyard. Marley puts the letter back in her pocket and sits next to Momma, who says, “I loved your mom, Marley” (121). Marley moves closer to Momma, and together they watch cars drive by.

In a dream, Marley imagines that everyone she knows has wings except for her. Marley sits on top of a plane, watching with jealousy as everyone flies around her. She feels jealous until her loved ones start explaining the downsides of having wings. Marley wakes up smiling.

Marley sits with Bobby and Feather in his bathroom while Bobby gives Feather a bath. As Feather sings songs, Marley suddenly has a memory of herself sitting in a bathtub with Jack’s dog, Boy, laughing and calling out his name over and over again.

Bobby’s current job is painting a billboard for a farmer who has lived in Heaven for 96 years. The farmer wants to give the town a present because he loves it so much. Bobby drives Feather and Marley out to the farmer’s land, telling Marley that on days like this, he does not even miss the city or his family in Brooklyn. Marley is surprised to hear Bobby talk about his family.

Bobby tells her that he has a few brothers. His parents are divorced. Bobby tells Marley that he had an interesting childhood; his mother was a photographer and his father was a chef, so Bobby was constantly visiting their places of work. Marley tells him that this childhood sounds great, and Bobby asks her, “Isn’t your life good?” (125). She responds that it was until she learned about her family’s secret. Bobby understands.

When they arrive at the field, Feather is asleep. Marley sits with her on a blanket, watching Bobby work. She feels shocked as she looks at Bobby, who “smiles secretly” (126) at her and continues working on his painting of a woman with wings sitting on an airplane.

Uncle Jack writes another letter to Marley, telling her that when she was a baby, he used to go into her bedroom and sing to her. He did this so much that Marley was unable to sleep unless he sang to her. Christine teased Jack, asking him what he would do if one night he were not able to be there for bedtime. He assured her “that she was worrying for nothing. I’d be there forever” (128). He tells Marley that when she writes to him about her friends, he feels better knowing that she has found “a family outside [her] family” (128), and he is reassured to know that he has not left her alone. Even though he knows Pops and Momma love Marley like their own child, he thinks it is time he buys a ticket to Heaven.

Marley reads this latest letter from Uncle Jack in the park with Shoogy. Shoogy asks Marley how she feels about this, and Marley is not sure. Later that day, Pops asks Marley if she minds that Jack is coming to visit. Marley asks who invited him. Pops explains that Jack invited himself, deciding that it was time to see her in person. Pops puts a reassuring arm around Marley, telling her that maybe Jack is right.

Marley recalls getting stuck in a snowdrift in the front yard when she was six years old. While it felt like she was stuck for hours, Momma assures her that it was only a minute before she came outside to rescue Marley. Later, when the young Marley had warmed up, Momma sat with her on the couch and told her that she and Pops would always take care of her. Now, they all laugh about the story, but Marley admits that to this day, she does not walk through the front yard when it snows.

Butchy practices his skateboarding tricks, and Marley watches him, thinking about her love for him. He sits next to her, and Marley asks if Butchy is worried about her. He says that he thinks about everything she has been through. They agree that it “sucks” (132) that they are not blood siblings.

Marley asks Butchy if he knows that Jack is coming to visit her, and Butchy is shocked to hear this. Butchy tells Marley that she cannot leave with Jack. He says, “You’re ours. Not his” (132). Marley reassures him, and Butchy decides to teach Marley how to ride his skateboard. Marley heads down a hill and eventually flies off the skateboard, landing in a yard. The sprinkler system turns on, and she and Butchy lie in the yard together.

On the day of Jack’s arrival, Marley reflects on the nature of destiny. Momma says that the family was “destined” to find Heaven. Marley thinks about everything in her family’s past—Christine’s death, Jack’s inability to cope with the loss, and his decision to leave Marley behind—and reflects that it was all destined to happen.

Bobby, Shoogy, Feather, and Marley eat ice cream in Marley’s backyard, and nobody mentions Jack’s impending visit. Bobby shares his and Shoogy’s plan to go to the beach and get a few buckets of sand for Feather. They hug Marley as they leave.

Marley sits in the living room with her family, waiting for Jack. They try to talk, but the conversation feels awkward. The anxiety is palpable even though they all try to convince each other that nothing is going to change. The conversation limps along until they all begin laughing so hard that no one hears the car door slam in the driveway.

As Marley walks with Jack around town, all of the familiar landmarks in Heaven suddenly seem new as she shows them to Jack for the first time. When they walk by Ma’s Superette, Jack asks if they have a Western Union, and the two share a smile. Marley realizes that thinking about the Western Union no longer hurts her as much as it once did. Marley has learned that her family is still her family and that “only the titles have been renamed” (136). Everyone sits together in the backyard, laughing, and Marley feels that she could never love her family more than she does in this perfect moment.

Jack tells Marley a story about her birth mother. Christine was always afraid of storms, but when Marley was born, she decided to confront this fear. When Marley was eight days old, a storm came through, and Christine took Marley, wrapped in blankets, out to the front porch and sang to her. After Jack tells Marley this story, she dreams about Christine. Marley loves dreaming about Christine because it makes her feel close to the woman who gave birth to her. She wants to tell Christine about her love for the river near her house, the people who raised her, and the man who came back “to tell [her] the stories [she] needed to hear from so long ago” (142). She wishes that she could explain that even though some of the stories hurt, she still wants Christine to know that she loves her life in Heaven.