Chapter 11: Puzzle Pieces

The next few weeks faded into a routine that became familiar, if not entirely comfortable. Clinton came back every weekend, as promised, not complaining for an instant. Pony found he couldn't write a word but his editors at Rolling Stone were kind and understanding and told him they'd give him some ink whenever he felt up to it. Steve took over most of the responsibilities at the gas station. They were all getting by.

Darry had mostly stopped getting out of bed a couple of days ago. With no chemo or radiation to stave off the cancer, he was growing noticeably weaker. He refused to let Soda set up the hospital bed and was loathe to have Cinnamon help him with his personal care. She was a nurse, and she was trained and professional, but she was also his little sister. So Cinnamon sat down at the kitchen table one Saturday night and, using her husband as a clothed model, gave Soda and Pony a crash course in how to care for Darry in the coming days. Soda took notes. Pony stared out the window.

Pony spent most of his time at Darry's side. Sometimes they played poker and sometimes they just sat. Sometimes Pony read while Darry slept. He was doing all he could to will his brother back to the land of the living and was stubbornly ignoring the fact that it wasn't working.

"Pony." Cinnamon handed him a cup of coffee. "C'mon, go stretch your legs. Or better yet, pour that poison down the sink and take a nap."

"I'm not tired."

"You're exhausted," Sodapop contradicted him from the doorway. Michelle and Clinton wandered in behind him.

Soda was right. Pony wasn't getting much sleep, and the little he got was broken up by bad dreams and frequent waking. Two nights before, he'd woken up in the living room, and he'd never sleepwalked before.

"You can scoot in here," Darry said, making Pony and Cinnamon both jump.

"I thought you were asleep," Pony said.

"I know. But when I keep my eyes closed, I learn very interesting things. Soda?"

"I'm here."

"Laura likes a boy named Dusty."

Soda rolled his eyes. "Dusty," he scoffed. "What the hell kind of a name is Dusty?"

"Pot? Kettle. Nice to meet you," Michelle mumbled.

Darry looked at Ponyboy. "Stretch out, if'n you want to. You won't bother me."

Pony smiled at him. "No, I'm okay."

Cinnamon stood behind Pony's chair and stroked his hair softly. Watching him keep vigil over his big brother was like a flashback, with the players reversed. "This reminds me a little of when you were sick," she murmured.

Ponyboy didn't have to ask "which time?" He'd had his share of colds and flus and once a burger from the Dingo gave him food poisoning, but the time he was "sick" referred to the few days after the rumble, after Johnny and Dally died, when he fought a fever and delirium. "I s'pose," he said. He looked over at Soda, then at Darry and then at Cinnamon. And for the rest of his life, Pony would wonder what made him say to her, "Tell me what happened."

"What happened when?"

"Then. There's whole chunks I don't remember."

Cinnamon took a deep swallow of coffee. "Why would you want to go through that?"

"Because I'm askin'," Pony said. "Because you never told me, not really."

After a minute, it was Soda who answered. "You remember Dal – you remember what happened in the park?" he said.

"Yeah. Then I woke up and it was like three days later."

"The cops were already there when you fainted, so they called for the ambulance and took us over to Saint Frank's," Soda said. "You had a fever of 104. I remember thinking no one could be that hot and get better. I thought your brain must be fryin' in your head. And you weren't making any sense. You were callin' for us, and we were right there with you. You were calling for Johnny, and for Mom and Dad."

It had been terrifying, Pony moaning, "Soda, Sodapop" and when Soda took his hand, soothing him, Pony pushed him away, trying to shout "Don't touch me! I want my brother! Where's my brother?"

"Why'd they let me go home?" Pony asked.

"I signed you out," Darry said. "I figured if all we could do was let you rest and try to bring your fever down, we could do that here. And I thought you'd like it better in your own bed. That's all. We stayed with you and tried to get your fever down. Tried to make you drink, eat something. I made you mushroom soup and you splashed it all over me, yelling you didn't like baloney. Soda and Cinnamon laid right beside you most of the time. And finally the fever broke, and you woke up." He shifted, grimacing.

"Are you okay?" Pony asked instantly.

"Oh, yeah," Darry said reassuringly. "I was in too many fights, Ponyboy. This ain't nothing."

"I used to hate that," Cinnamon said. "When y'all would fight, come home all banged up. And rumbles were the worst. I'd sit here with bandages all ready and ice in the freezer and wonder how many brothers would come back. Then I'd patch everyone up. No wonder I became a nurse."

Her brothers – not to mention the rest of the gang – would not have considered letting her around any sort of a fight. Some of the girls, like Sylvia or Angela Shepherd, could have held their own and pounded on each other, but Cinnamon, while not exactly afraid of fights, hated them. She thought they were stupid. She had always reminded Pony of Cherry Valance in that way, and he'd thought more than once that if Cherry and Cinnamon had led the Greasers and Socs, there'd be no tension.

Pony drew a deep breath. "Cinny?"

"Hmm?"

"How'd you get to the fountain?"

She looked at him sharply. "What?"

"You weren't there went I went in, but I swear I heard you yelling," Pony said. "When I woke up, I had my head in your lap. How'd you get there?"

Cinnamon paced the room, laughing nervously. "Do we have to talk about this? Why are we talking about this?" She glanced over at Darry. "Especially now."

There was thick, heavy, uncomfortable silence, finally broken by Michelle's quiet logic. "Because it's like a puzzle," she said. "Because it needs to fit together so y'all can put it away. Y'all have a different bit."

"I'm past it," Cinnamon said.

"No, you're in Missouri," Michelle corrected. "And we're in Salt Lake City."

Cinnamon's eyes narrowed. "You hush. What do you know?"

"I know Pony has wanted to ask you that question for longer than I've known him," Michelle said. "And I know it probably took everything he had inside him to get that out of his mouth."

Pony's face went red but he didn't deny it. Cinnamon didn't answer.

"Good Lord," Michelle said. "You four are the stubbornest lot I've ever seen. And I've never seen love like this, either. It's so … it's so there. It's pure. And I suppose you don't analyze it all to death, because what would be the point? What's the need? It just is. It is what is it is, and it's a wonderful thing. But now -- " Michelle looked pointedly at Darry "-- if there's anything you want to say, or anything you'd like to know, it seems like now's the time."

Pony looked at his sister and waited patiently. After a minute, she began to speak.

"I went after you after Darry hit you," she began. "I checked the lot, Johnny's, I even went by Two-Bit's, and then I was just walking. I was close enough to the park to hear the ruckus and I thought I heard Johnny. When I got there, they were dunking you and I lost my head. There were five of them, and one of them was soaking wet, like you'd thrown him into the fountain with you. They were hollering and swearing at you and they didn't see me. I jumped on the guy holding you under and he threw me off. I mean, sure he did. What did I weigh then, 110 pounds?"

She crossed the room, looking out the window. "Hey, that'd be nice, Michelle, huh? Weigh 110 pounds again, like high school?"

"Sure would," Michelle said quietly.

Cinnamon turned and looked at Clint. "Baby, I never told you this story."

"I know," he said calmly. "Go on. Tell your brothers."

She shifted her gaze to Pony. "One of them – not Bob Sheldon, and not that Randy, I never knew his name – picked me up and threw me into the roundabout. He knocked the wind right out of me. And he … he put his hands on me. All over me. Tried to undo my jeans and he ripped my sweater. Darry's sweater, the old gray one that Mom knitted him in high school." She shuddered. "And I was screaming for someone to help. I was hollering for Soda and for Darry, like they could hear me, because I knew they could make it all right. Hell, I was even hoping the cops would show up. I remember thinking I'd rather have you alive in an orphanage than dead in the park."

"'They're drowning my brother,'" Pony said slowly. He'd never stopped to think about it long enough to realize he remembered. "That's what you were yelling. 'They're drowning my brother.' And I couldn't figure out how you got there. I thought I was dreaming."

"One of them was trying to cover my mouth and shut me up, and I was biting him and trying to get away, and the next thing I knew, they were gone. Johnny was pulling you out of the fountain and it wasn't until I went over to help him that I saw the Soc lying there. Johnny handed you to me and kind of slid onto the ground. I sat with you and tried to wake you up and Johnny started crying that he'd killed that boy." Her eyes glistened. "And I didn't care. All I cared was that I was holding you and I could see you breathing."

"We stayed up the rest of the night." Soda picked up the story. "Darry and me. We went back and forth about calling the police or not, and then the cops found the body. Everyone knew what happened, that Soc girl, what was her name?"

"Cherry," Pony said distantly. "Cherry Valance."

"Yeah, Cherry. She told them everything she knew. Randy told the truth, too, so we knew what happened, and that y'all hadn't been killed. But we didn't know where you were. I went to Dally, I figured he'd know, but he denied it. I found my sweatshirt, the one Pony'd been wearing, and he still denied it." Soda shook his head. "Dally could keep his mouth shut good. We asked around and looked everywhere we could think of, and the cops were looking, too, but none of us thought to look on Jay Mountain."

A small smile came to Pony's face. "We got lost. I told a guy I was playing Army and he told me where to go."

Darry was looking at Cinnamon. "Them Socs, they didn't …"

She looked puzzled for a moment, and then said, "No. They scared me, but no." She sighed. "I should have come back. I've thought of this a million times, that if I had come back to get you and Soda, none of it would have happened. But all I could think was that Ponyboy couldn't breathe."

Soda made a small noise that could have been anything from a laugh to half a sob. "Yeah? I should have gone after you. I've thought of that a million times. Darry wanted to, but we thought Pony'd run from him, and I said Pony needed time to simmer down and you'd bring him back with you. So I let you go alone – I'm your big brother, and I let you go alone." He paused. "When the cops called after the fire, all they said was there were some 'life-threatening injuries.' They didn't say what, or who. All the way to the hospital, I kept thinking, 'if I'd gone right off the porch, I might have caught Pony before he got to the corner.'"

"No," Pony said quietly. "I could outrun you then." He looked at Darry and was started to see tears standing in the older man's eyes. "What? Are you in pain? What is it?"

"I should never have hit you," Darry said hoarsely.

"No."

"I'm so sorry."

"I know, Darry."

"I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't mean …" Darry's voice trailed off. He sounded exactly like Pony had that long-ago night, when his response had been shrill and sarcastic. I didn't mean to! I can't think! I forgot!

"Can you forgive me?" Darry whispered.

"Darry." Pony smiled at him lovingly. "I get it. I do. I do now, at least. I'm 35 years old, and I only have one, and Michelle does most of it, and sometimes I still can't get a handle on it. And I'm not worried about bills and Socs and orphanages."

"You ain't never hit your boy," Darry said. He didn't even have to ask. He knew.

"No," Pony said. "But I've been mad enough to. And he's only three. He's not fourteen, running wild in the middle of the night, scaring me to death. Part of it is my fault – I should have come home right after the movie."

"Why do things happen?" Cinnamon asked. She wasn't talking to anyone in particular and no one answered. No one knew. The best anyone could do was think of Darry's acceptance of his fate: It is what it is. It just was what it was. Looking at her husband, her beloved brothers, and Ponyboy's wife, who'd become her sister in every good way, Cinnamon thought that might be enough.