How to Build a Heart

by Maria Padian

  “So, I take it things went well?” Mr. Lyle asks Betts.

  She sort of smirks. “Pretty well. Me and my granddaughter here informed them that child protective services would note needed since she’s coming home with me.”

  I can’t help it: I gasp. What the hell?

  “It took a bit of doing,” Betts concedes, “but when Roz insisted I was her grandmother . . . and could tell them all sorts of details about my life, and my dog, Posey, and what the inside of my house looks like . . . Well, who were they to argue?” She glances at Mark, who gives her an up-down high five.

  I was right. Partners in crime.

  “Wait. You lied?” I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this.

  “Pretty much,” Roz says.

  “A whopper,” Mark adds.

  “Dios mío,” I hear Mami murmur.

  “Aubrey, would you go get Sam?” I ask her. “I’d love for him to meet Roz.” Aubrey bounds from her seat and dutifully rushes outside to retrieve her brother. I figure we have sixty seconds.

  “What happened?” I demand.

  “Izzy, I will not go back to foster care,” Roz says. No argument in her voice.

  “And she can’t return to that awful home,” Mr. Lyle chimes in.

  “That is true,” Mami agrees.

  “You were in on this, Mr. Lyle?” I exclaim. I can’t believe these people.

  “Tangentially,” he says. “As an advisor. Of sorts.”

  I throw myself back onto the Scrouch. “Listen, I get that foster care sucks. And Roz needs a better option. But, it’s a law. If she’s not with her mom, social services is going to come after her.”

  Betts snorts. “C’mon, Izzy. You know the only rules I follow are safety rules. And staying with her mother in that dump was not safe. Rita, I could sure use a glass of water.”

  Betts, Mami, and Mr. Lyle go into the kitchen. I hear them rummaging through boxes in search of glasses. Meanwhile, outside, Paco and the boys are making a ruckus while Aubrey pleads with them to come inside.

  “So . . . Roz is going to hide out at Betts’s?” I ask.

  Mark shakes his head. “I wouldn’t call it hiding out. I’d call it finishing high school. Before she takes a little turn in the South.”

  Now I’m really confused.

  “I’m sorry. What?”

  “Hog heaven,” Roz quips.

  He gives her a playful punch. She leans her head against his shoulder.

  Wow. Okay. These two are really a thing.

  I didn’t just miss a chapter. I missed the entire book.

  “This is mind-blowing. Give me a minute,” I tell them. I take a deep breath. Then another. After some serious oxygenation, I begin to sort it all out.

  And it makes sense. Totally. Might not be legal, but in all honesty? Who’s going to object? Not Gloria. And a good dose of Betts, followed by all those hogs, might just be what Roz needs. For now, anyway. Maybe forever. Maybe that afternoon she turned her stalking skills on my so-called evil cousin was the day her luck started to change.

  Aubrey sticks her head in the door. “I can’t make them come in!” she whines.

  “We’ll come out,” Mark tells her. The three of us go to the porch.

  Sam and Jack are playing keep-away from Paco, and he’s going pure mad. Back and forth, back and forth, they toss his doggie ball, and he races frantically between them, his little tail twirling like a whip. A delighted smile spreads across Mark’s face, and he races out to join them.

  “Triangle!” he announces, and the three of them toss the ball. Poor Paco.

  “Thank you, Izzy,” Roz says.

  I slip my arm around her waist. “What? I didn’t do anything.”

  She shakes her head. “These are your people helping me,” she says. “Your cousin. Your friends. Your family. I don’t know what would have happened—”

  “You’ll like North Carolina,” I interrupt her. I can’t handle the undeserved thanks. The nagging guilt that I got off easy and still have my new lavender room all to myself. “Hogs? Maybe not as much.”

  “Betts says the stench can kill you.”

  “Betts’s usually right,” I agree. “But, girlfriend, I can’t believe you’ve been spending time with her! She didn’t say a thing!”

  “She lets us hang out at her place.”

  I don’t ask her to define “us.” A picture is finally taking shape.

  Sam’s phone rings. He calls time-out from the game, holding up his hand as he listens.

  “Hey, my parents are bringing dinner!” he announces after he ends the call.

  “Oh gosh, Sam, they don’t have to do that!” I say. “There’s leftover food from the Dedication.”

  He shrugs. “It’s done. Dad made a bunch of pizzas in the brick oven and is bringing them over. They’ll be here in ten. Tell Betts and Lyle to stay—he made tons.”

  As Roz goes inside to deliver the message, Aubrey joins the boys and makes it a keep-away foursome. I watch from the porch. Miles away, beyond the bird-loud meadow and the acres of rolling horse pasture, the Blue Ridge Mountains form a hazy protective circle around us. Sam has promised that this summer he’ll take me hiking there, and I’m looking forward to meeting them, up close, for the first time. These mountains I now get to call home. These mountains that will greet me every morning from my window. Like old friends.

  I watch my friends and my brother and my cousin play in my yard. My heart is so full. Not in that heavy, weight-of-stones way. In that full-to-bursting, spilling-over, looking-forward way. There is no place I’d rather be, and no one else I want to be.

  Dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres.

  Acknowledgments

  A small wooden sign on the window ledge over my kitchen sink reads: Home is where your story begins. It was a gift from my sister, who displays the same sign over her kitchen sink. Ours was a story-filled house, and around our table, replete with an unlikely assortment of ethnic foods and accents, laughter, and oft-repeated anecdotes that took on the dimensions of folklore over time, I acquired a passion for the power of story to heal and connect and inspire.

  My novels grow from a variety of sources, but How to Build a Heart has its strongest roots in those family stories, in particular those my mother, Jenny Padian, tells. I could not have written this book without her inspiration, her wisdom, and most important, her generosity of spirit. Mom is a great cook and an even better storyteller, and while my rice and beans will never approach the perfection of hers, I hope someday to spin a tale as full of heart as she does.

  I’m also grateful for the support of my critique partners, Charlotte Agell and Gail Donovan. Their wise observations make me a better writer and their friendship keeps me going in this business. Red Umbrella Gals forever!

  Speaking of Red Umbrella Gals: I cannot say enough about the great honorary Umbrella Gal, agent extraordinaire Edite Kroll. Edite has always, always, pointed me in the right direction. Her literary instincts are spot-on, and in every one of my books she’s helped guide me through the weeds of early drafting. She’s also done a spectacular job connecting my work with the right editors, and for that I cannot thank her enough.

  Which leads me to the crew at Algonquin Young Readers. I’ve come to realize that the whole team at AYR plays a part in every book, so let me just say a huge, global thank-you (with a special shout-out to Sarah Alpert, Ashley Mason, Brittani Hilles, Stephanie Mendoza, and Caitlin Rubinstein) for all you do for us writers. At every step along the way I feel supported and know that my work is in great hands. I am lucky to have found a publishing home at AYR, and especially lucky to have the talented and insightful Krestyna Lypen as my editor, working with me through multiple revisions and helping me bring my characters to life.

  Thanks to my invaluable readers, Sara Farizan, Tanuja Desai Hidier, and Ann Kelly, as well
as copy editor Robin Cruise. Special thanks to artist/designer Connie Gabbert, who imagined Izzy the same way I did and created a gorgeous cover for this book. And a wink and shout-out to Henry Laurence, who first told me about the Pie Rule.

  Too many Habitat for Humanity friends, families, and fellow volunteers have inspired and instructed me over time to properly acknowledge here, although I will give a special thanks to Dottie Cattelle, who told me a thing or two that made it into these pages. Dottie embodies the spirit and strength that is Habitat, and I am in awe of the life-changing work they do.

  Finally, an endless thank-you to my husband, Conrad Schneider. Your stories have become mine, have become ours, as the years pass and our roots grow and tangle into a single tree. Your support and love has allowed me to live my dream, and has been the greatest gift.

  Published by Algonquin Young Readers

  an imprint of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

  Post Office Box 2225

  Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

  a division of Workman Publishing

  225 Varick Street

  New York, New York 10014

  © 2020 by Maria Padian.

  All rights reserved.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Published simultaneously in Canada by

  Thomas Allen & Son Limited.

  Design by Carla Weise.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Padian, Maria, author.

  Title: How to build a heart / Maria Padian.

  Description: Chapel Hill, North Carolina : Algonquin, 2020. |

  Summary: Izzy Crawford’s family has been selected for a new home by Habitat for Humanity, near where the very attractive Sam lives, but just when her neighbor and best friend needs her most.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019007625 | eISBN 9781643750040

  Subjects: | CYAC: Home—Fiction. | Single-parent families—Fiction. | Hispanic Americans—Fiction. | High schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Abused women—Fiction. | Habitat for Humanity International, Inc.—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.P1325 How 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019007625