Susan Patron - The Higher Power of Lucky

Lucky smeared the knot design with the heel of her sneaker. “That whole deal is so stupid ,” she said. “If he was my father , why didn’t he say so?”

“Listen,” said Lincoln. “Here.” He pulled a knot out of his pocket. It was large and complicated looking, made from blue and green silky cords. “It’s called the Ten-Strand Round knot.”

It looked like a piece of jewelry, intricate and beautiful. For some reason, this made tears surge into Lucky’s eyes, which was very embarrassing. “Lincoln,” she said. “People think you’re kind of clueless, but you’re really not.”

“I know I’m…” Lincoln used his stick to write the last word in the dirt road: K-N-O-T.

Then he showed the stick to HMS Beagle and threw it with a graceful long overhand toss and she ran and caught it in her mouth by leaping into the air, and brought it back to him so he could do it again.

Lucky cupped Lincoln’s gift in her hand. The neat round buttonlike knot had no cord ends sticking out that might unwind, and you could never in a million years decipher how Lincoln had made it. You’d never find out how he had taken cords that were pretty useless, just lying around in someone’s drawer, and looped and threaded them over and over in a special way until they ended up becoming a beautiful knot.

Never before had Lucky realized that Lincoln’s knot-tying brain secretions gave him such a special way of seeing. She had thought he tied knots for practical reasons, in case there was ever a boat that needed to be tied to a dock, or a swing to be hung from a tree. Now she knew that Lincoln was really an artist, who could see the heart of a knot.

Lucky wished she were an artist too, and could organize all the complicated strands of her life—the urn she still had, the strange crematory man, Brigitte and Miles, HMS Beagle and Short Sammy, the Captain and the anonymous people and Dot and even Lincoln himself, and weave them into a beautiful neat ten-strand knot.

11. Smokers Anonymous

Lucky had had the day off on Saturday because there was no twelve-step meeting that day. So on Sunday afternoon, she picked up cigarette butts and other trash left over from Friday’s Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. She collected plenty of butts, because the ex-drinkers stood around talking and smoking before their meeting. The ashtrays were big coffee cans and flowerpots filled with sand—and they were always loaded with butts that the ex-smokers didn’t want to see or smell before their meeting.

Lucky went around back to the Dumpster and stored her broom and rake against it. She heard someone moving chairs inside the museum, so she eased herself quietly into her lawn chair to listen.

The best part of the meetings came after they were done reading from a book called Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions . Even though that part was a little bit boring, Lucky listened carefully for information about how to find your Higher Power. Then came the part where people told their most interesting and horrifying stories of how they hit rock bottom.

First it was the Captain’s turn. Before he got the part-time mail-sorting job at the post office, he was an airline pilot who had the calm, in-charge voice of a TV airline pilot, so Lucky recognized it easily. He said how he was addicted so bad to cigarettes that he even smoked in the shower. He smoked from the first moment he opened his eyes in the morning until he fell asleep at night. He smoked while he ate. He even burned a big hole in his bride’s wedding dress the day they got married.

The story was excellent so far. Then the Captain told about how his wife gave him a choice: quit smoking or she would divorce him.

“I told her, how about I switch to low tar, filtered,” said the Captain. “I thought it was a pretty big sacrifice for a Camel smoker. She didn’t agree and she walked out. That was almost rock bottom. I remember thinking, ‘My wife just left me! I can’t quit smoking now !’”

People laughed and clapped.

The Captain went on. “But then I came to a meeting and started working the twelve steps. I found my Higher Power. And here I am.”

Lucky’s enzymes started churning. She leaned forward to listen carefully. Maybe the Captain would explain exactly how he found his Higher Power and also where , which would be extremely helpful. So far, Lucky hadn’t found a trace of her Higher Power, though she tried hard to be alert for the slightest hint of it.

Having a Higher Power could help a person know what to do about the problem of a Guardian who, every time it got too hot, or there was French music or a snake in the dryer, seemed like she might quit and go back home to France.

Someone cleared her throat and shouted, “I’m Mildred. I choose not to smoke.”

Lucky almost tipped over in her chair. It was Mrs. Prender, Miles’s grandma. Lucky had never heard her talk at any of the meetings.

Mrs. Prender went on, “I was in the hospital with quadruple pneumonia. After the doc told me I’d die if I didn’t quit smoking, I snuck out the back and lit a cigarette. I coughed so hard I broke a rib, so I had to quit for a while until they let me go home. Next day I dropped a cigarette on the couch and set it on fire, and then I set my hair on fire. I called the fire department and went outside to wait. Well, it was raining, so I stood there in the road bawling and trying to smoke a sopping-wet cigarette. But that wasn’t rock bottom.”

Mrs. Prender’s story, Lucky decided, was even better than the Captain’s.

“It was my grown daughter. I knew she’d been sneaking cigarettes since she was a girl, but I never done nothing about it. Figured, what could I say, a smoker myself. Couple years ago I get a call from the police in L.A., can I come pick up her little boy. She’s been arrested for selling dope.”

Lucky frowned. The little boy had to be Miles. But Miles’s mother was supposed to be in Florida, nursing her sick friend.

Mrs. Prender went on. “I go on down to L.A. for my grandson. My daughter gets a long jail sentence. So I figure—this is it. I’m not bringing up another kid with myself setting a bad example.” Mrs. Prender blew her nose loudly. “Once I decided to quit, it was like turning off a light switch. I just did it. That was almost two years ago.”

Lucky had the same jolting feeling as when you’re in a big hurry to pee and you pull down your pants fast and back up to the toilet without looking—but some man or boy before you has forgotten to put the seat down. So your bottom, which is expecting the usual nicely shaped plastic toilet seat, instead lands shocked on the thin rim of the toilet bowl, which is quite a lot colder and lower . Your bottom gets a panic of bad surprise. That was the same thump-on-the-heart shock Lucky got finding out that Miles’s mother was in jail.

12. Parsley

After dinner, Lucky stood at the sink washing the dishes. She was still thinking a little bit about Mrs. Prender, but mostly about parsley. Before Brigitte came to Hard Pan, Lucky had never imagined that parsley could be so important. Usually if she even noticed it, it was because of being in a fancy place like Smithy’s Family Restaurant in Sierra City, where a hamburger came on a plate with a frizz of parsley for decoration.