Miles from Ordinary

by Carol Lynch Williams

  That one word came out so lean I could almost hear Momma’s fear in it.

  “Yes, you,” I said, and fixed my eyes onto her face. All the sudden I wasn’t so sure I should leave her. Would Momma be okay alone? She hadn’t done any wandering since those first few weeks after Aunt Linda left. And I always found her. That was more than a year ago. But …

  Momma swallowed a few times. Did swallowing trouble run in the family? She looked off over my head, like maybe somebody waited behind me. But there wasn’t anyone there, I knew. I mean, I didn’t feel anyone back there. Then she nodded, though her lips seemed thin and too pale. “Oh, I’ll be fine. You know that. We always do good. Even with Linda gone.”

  No we don’t.

  “I know,” I said.

  Right at that moment it felt like fire ants ran a path through me. I love my momma like nothing else but I wanted out. I needed to be out. Before Granddaddy started pestering her again. Before he started pestering me.

  Get us out, out, out.

  I bent over my food then, and ate fast not looking at her. My stomach fwomped at the thought of getting on the bus and riding to the library. Of dropping Momma off for a couple of hours. Of us being separate. So nerve-racking! So exciting! I grinned.

  “What’s funny, Lacey?” Momma said. “Not much that’s funny.” Her voice was the color blue, cool and worried.

  “I know, Momma.” The pancake started to get heavy in my mouth. “I wasn’t laughing about anything. Just thinking.”

  “You see that paper? The place where I circled the article in crayon?” With a chewed-off fingernail she pointed at The Gainesville Times.

  “‘Tornado Sweeps Through Oklahoma,’” I read the headline out loud. “‘Kills Sixteen.’”

  “Two whole families were among the dead,” she said. “Whole families.” She raised her hand in the peace sign. There was syrup on her knuckle.

  “Don’t think about that,” I said. I breathed deep the odor of maple, trying to ignore Momma’s words. I could smell the newspaper. Could feel the wool of the carpet beneath my bare feet where I’d slipped the flip-flops off.

  Eat, eat, eat. Don’t think. Please don’t worry.

  “Coulda been here,” Momma said, moving her head, her ponytail swinging. “Coulda been right here in Peace.” She tapped at the table, then leaned at me. Her voice was low. “Coulda been us.” Then her fingers went to work at the necklace she wears. I could hear the pendant making zip, zip, zip sounds on the chain.

  “It wasn’t here, though,” I said, keeping my voice quiet. “It wasn’t here. Don’t think about it.” I wanted to say, “Quit reading the paper. Put it away. Don’t look for doom and gloom.”

  But Momma is doom and gloom. And Granddaddy doesn’t help at all.

  What would Aunt Linda do right now? I tried to remember everything she would say to help Momma hang on to calm.

  “Don’t think about the ugly stuff, Angela.” “Think happy thoughts. Don’t let your mind wander. Focus on something sweet.” “God is good. God is good.”

  Aunt Linda had a saying for every moment. Sayings for me, too.

  Putting me to bed: “Sleep tight, Lacey-girl. Me and the stars are looking out for you.”

  First day of school: “You need anything, Lacey-girl, I’ll drop everything and come right to that school and take care of whatever it is.”

  Early morning on a Saturday before she headed off to work, “The beach is calling our names, Lacey-girl. Wanna go for a run?”

  For me, most everything Aunt Linda said was like a salve. Even as Momma got worse. And for my momma, Aunt Linda’s words sometimes worked. Sometimes they didn’t.

  That just how it was.

  Just how it is.

  And I’d just as well try. Say something. If not, I’d be here another day. And another and another. The thought felt explosive in my head. “You gotta new day before you.” My voice was a whisper.

  Weak! What a weak thing to say!

  Momma pointed at the headline. She worked at the pendant.

  Then she glanced up at me.

  “That’s right,” Momma said at last. “You are so right, Lacey. Yes, you are.” She mashed her hands together then tried to smile. A bit of sadness seemed to drop off her. It rolled right into my heart. I was so selfish. Why was I so selfish? I squinched my eyes shut for a second.

  “You know what I tell Daddy?” Momma said.

  My eyes were still closed. I couldn’t quite look at her. I shook my head no.

  “I tell him that I got me the best baby girl in all of Peace. In all of Florida. In all the land.”

  I opened my eyes.

  Momma stared right at me. “I tell him you are something else. Something else. And when he gets me to try and follow him, I say, ‘Daddy, I got me a girl to look after.’” Momma reached out and ran her hand over my cheek, touching me with her trembling fingertips. “Yes, I do. I got me a child to take care of.”

  I pushed at the guilt that hurried through me.

  Just let me be selfish for this one day. Just for one day.

  And maybe the summer. Just let me have this summer at the library.

  “Momma,” I said. I took her hand. Squeezed her slim fingers. “Everything is going to be okay. We got each other.”

  “Yes we do, Lacey,” Momma said. “You and me.”

  Keep her calm. Keep her calm. Keep me calm, too. This’ll work.

  “It really is going to be okay,” she said. “Isn’t it?”

  “It really is. I promise.”

  She nodded like she believed my words. Then tilted toward me until our foreheads touched. I could smell her milky breath. Slowly, I rubbed her slim arm. Her skin felt so cool.

  And I hoped. I hoped to goodness I had told Momma the truth.

  III

  The reason I even got me a summer-nonpaying-job-at-the-library is because of Aunt Linda. She used to work here—for lots of years. She knew everything there was to know about Dewey Decimal and his system. And even more about children’s books. She ran that part of the library. She loved the Decimal system so much she had herself a little parakeet in a cage that sat up on the informational bookshelf where all the world could see him. His name was Mr. Dewey. When she quit her job and left, she took Mr. Dewey with her. The library hasn’t been the same since. No chirping.

  And no Aunt Linda.

  “A helper at the library?” John had asked when I came in a week before school ended to find out about a job. “Any relative of Linda Mills is welcome here. But I need to interview you.”

  “Okay,” I had said, trying hard not to smile. “Thank you. I mean, that’s fair.”

  Shut up, mouth!

  My heart thumped. Wanting to yelp for joy, but instead holding the happiness in, I waited for John. What kinda luck was this?

  “You a hard worker?” he asked.

  Believe you me, Momma’s taught me that if she’s taught me anything at all. “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “And are you willing to come in when we need you?”

  If she says yes. If Granddaddy says yes.

  “As long as the bus will get me here,” I said. “We don’t have a car.”

  John nodded. “I remember.”

  We haven’t had a working car in a forever. When Aunt Linda left, she took hers. And right before that, Momma had the incident and now she’s not allowed to drive, what with the way she ran us into a ditch one day when she was having a difficult time. Her words. If you ask me, the judge shouldn’t have said “no driver’s license” to her. It’s hard to sob and drive and see all at the same time. And we’ve needed a car, though I have made do on foot and by using public transportation.

  “We can arrange your hours to work with the bus route,” John said. He tapped his fingers together. And just like that I had a volunteer job at one of Aunt Linda’s favorite places: the Peace City Library.

  One of my favorite places, too.

  Now, on the bus, sitting there beside Momma, I squeezed her hand again. N
ot because I needed it, though I was a little nervous. Momma was taking a big step. And I was real proud of her. Proud and hopeful at the same time.

  Outside the sun beat down hot, making the green of passing trees bright. The sky was clear blue except for one bit of wispy cloud. It was cool on the bus. And loud. Every time the bus driver shifted gears or stopped to pick someone up, me and Momma jerked forward and backward in our seat. Momma had plugged her ears over the noise. And she wasn’t looking at anyone, either. Just kept her face down, staring at her shoes or else the gum that was stuck to the floor.

  “You’re gonna do fine,” I said to Momma, putting my mouth right next to her. Saying those words reassured me, too. I would do fine at the library. “You’ve run a cash register before and all the ringing-in stuff is done with a scanner nowadays.”

  “I know, I know,” Momma said. I could feel her hand shaking. She bit at her lip. Peeked side-eyed at me.

  “Remember how it’s done?”

  The day Momma filled out an application at the Winn-Dixie we had watched one cashier after another. Watched how each girl had scanned items, sometimes packing a small order herself. And Momma had been okay with it. Standing there kind of tall. Holding my hand till I thought my fingers might pop off one at a time.

  “Not like the old days,” Momma had said. “In the olden days we did all the work. Punched the numbers in by hand. Figured out the change. Counted it all out to the customer.”

  And I had said, “See, this will be a breeze for you. It’s all automatic.”

  That watching gave her courage to let me fill out the paperwork for her. Gave her the courage to let me turn it in. Then to walk her to the man giving job interviews. I waited outside his office, my fingers crossed.

  The bus brakes squealed as we stopped for someone to get off. “All you have to do,” I said, squeezing her hands in mine, “is run the stuff over the reader thing and it’ll ring in the price. And someone will be there to help you. You’ll have a trainer. And a bagger too, for the first few days. They won’t leave you alone.”

  “Still, it’s scary,” Momma said. Her head wobbled on her neck, like maybe it might fall from its perch, roll up the aisle and then down the steps of the bus. “I only worked a year after your daddy left us. And then with Granddaddy’s money I didn’t have to work at all. Remember that?”

  Yes, I did. We had never been rich. Never. But there had been enough. Until the spending.

  “You remember Linda? She could do any kind of work. Any kind.”

  I looked away from Momma. Of course I remembered my aunt.

  It was right then that I knew why I wanted this job.

  Yes, there might be a friend. A girlfriend I could stay up all night talking to. But what I hoped, really hoped, was that my going down to the library would make Aunt Linda show up. Would make her come home.

  Come back.

  For a moment I saw us jogging along the beach together. The wind blew so hard that sand got in my mouth and I was still crunching on it at dinnertime.

  There was me and her and Momma, before Aunt Linda left and Momma got too sick, having picnics in the park. All of us eating pulled pork sandwiches with a barbecue sauce invented by my momma’s uncle Buddy over in Gainesville. There was the three of us, watching the Fourth of July fireworks out over the river, the night dark—the colors high and bright in the sky. And then just me and Aunt Linda, stacking books up ninety-nine high ’cause that’s the checkout limit even if you are a librarian.

  “Do you remember?” Momma said. “Do you?”

  “Sure,” I said. Something burned inside. “She helped us out.”

  “For a while,” Momma said, her voice hard. “Selfish. She’s just selfish. Leaving the way she did.”

  I bit my lip. Kept my mouth closed tight.

  “She came at my invitation, not long after the accident. She stayed until she couldn’t get another thing from us.”

  Not long after Granddaddy died, Aunt Linda had moved in with us. I was a baby. A tiny thing. Hair black and long and so straight it came all the way down to my eyes. I’ve seen the pictures. Me and Momma and Aunt Linda. Those two smiling and me with that long hair.

  “Linda was always jealous,” Momma told me once, “because your granddaddy and I looked so much the same. All that pretty dark hair. Like you, Lacey. And she looked like our momma who run off. Brown haired, a little chunky. Skin that tanned like that.” A snap of the fingers.

  “But we all have the same eyes,” I had said. And Momma had looked away like I said a cuss word.

  According to Momma, Granddaddy’d left all three of us with a tidy sum. Aunt Linda could afford to work at the library. Could paint like she wanted. Momma painting beside her early on. The two of them laughing. They both did a painting of the other one painting. Those are packed away in the attic now.

  Then there was the change. Momma’s mood shifting.

  I still remember. I still remember sitting near her legs, wanting her to hold me. I was five, maybe six. The room dark. Her searching on the Internet. Looking for the bad things that were happening. Printing them off. Posting them. I still remember. Her too sick to touch me, pushing me away with her foot. Me edging closer under the desk. Momma too tired. Falling to the floor to sleep a few minutes at a time. Then Aunt Linda would come home and pick me up. Snuggle me close. Pet me. Make something for us to eat.

  It wasn’t long till Momma’s part of the money kept her home watching the news and reading the paper, scanning for problems in the world. Keeping lists. Looking. Searching. And as night fell, her pacing, peering out the windows, locking things down tight. Not even a crack in the windows.

  “I spent the money to get prepared,” she’d tell me. “Spent it all to protect us. It’s a mother’s duty to take care of her only child. To make sure she’s watched over.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I always said.

  Now Momma said, “I’m not used to being around so many people.” Her voice was a whisper. She laid her head on my shoulder then and I patted the side of her face. “What if I get something wrong?” The bus hit a bump, bouncing us.

  “You won’t,” I said. “I know it for sure. They’ve got that scanner. And people to pack the food in the bags for you. You know that. You’ve seen how they work. Everything is automatic. And you have the trainer.”

  “Sometimes I don’t do so good,” she said. Her voice was low and it pained me to hear it. To know she knew. How often did she notice she wasn’t like other people?

  “Shhh, shhh,” I said. “They’ll train you. You’re gonna do great. I’m so proud of you.”

  And I was. So proud.

  And relieved. And grateful too, for this chance to get out of the house. Me, me, me.

  The very thought made me ache with guilt. But my want was greater than my feeling guilty. Maybe I’d see something left of Aunt Linda if I looked hard around the Peace City Library. She might be there. Waiting. Maybe she heard from John that I was starting a job there.

  No, that was too much of a hope.

  But. It. Was. My. Hope.

  Maybe I would find a note from her. Written to me. Hidden in the shelves. A place where only I would know to look. A place only she would know where to hide it. I couldn’t quite take in a breath at the thought. Was it possible? What book would Aunt Linda choose to hide a note in? Something by A. E. Cannon? Or Claudia Mills? Maybe Betsy Byars. I knew Aunt Linda loved all those writers.

  I squeezed my eyes shut for a second. There would be no note.

  No note.

  No Aunt Linda.

  But maybe!

  Just Momma. And me.

  “I’m proud of you too, Lacey,” Momma said. “I’m proud of you, too.”

  She kept still, all snuggled up next to me, small like a child. I felt her calm down. Could feel her take deep breaths, things she calls cleansing breaths that she saw someone do on TV to relax.

  For a moment, something close to anger swelled inside. I don’t want to do this. I do not wan
t to do this anymore. But I pushed the thought away.

  This was my job. My real job. Even more important than working at the library. More important than making breakfast. More important than school, even.

  When Aunt Linda left, when Momma got worse, taking care of her became something I did. And I would keep caring for her, too. All I needed was a break. Just a short break.

  I breathed with Momma, looking out the window, watching the dark trees sweep past. The old rickety houses on the outskirts of Peace. Condos. Then the beach—brilliant blue after the tight, closed-in woods.

  This, I thought, is gonna be okay.

  I imagined Momma keeping the job at the Winn-Dixie. I imagined her working her way up the food chain. Ha! Food chain. Maybe Momma would wind up getting the head cashier job.

  And I would be the only volunteer in Peace City’s history to be in charge of the whole children’s library. John would call me aside and say, “Lacey, you have worked your way into a real paying job. Do you think you can work full time? Take your aunt Linda’s place?”

  “I’ve taken her place in lots of things,” I would tell John. “Sure, I can do this.”

  But even with all the dreaming, inside there was a worry. I tried to keep it pushed down good with hope. And by ignoring the nagging feeling.

  As we drove into town, stopping every few minutes to pick up new people, I tried to move my mind away from my mother. I had to think of something else. Something that made me feel better.

  I looked around for someone to work with me in the library. Who looked like a real nice person? I must admit the bus did not carry anyone with potential. Lots of businessmen rode along, even more elderly people, women with their babies. Only a handful of guys near my age. One of them had too many tattoos for my taste. There were a bunch of girls in the very back of the bus, but they laughed way too loud to work in a library. Not one had book-checking-out promise.

  “There’s time,” I said, low.

  “Time,” Momma said, in a singsong voice. “Time. Time, time, time.”

  But really there wasn’t.

  What I wanted, I decided sitting there on that hard blue seat, all I wanted, next to Aunt Linda, was a friend.