I crossed the street, walked back to the rope swing Dwight had put up and turned myself as much upside down on it as I could. Soula’s scarves hung down from my waist and brushed the bottom of my chin. As the swing moved back and forth it whined and I could see first the night sky, then the darkness of the Over Underpass.
When my head got stuffy from being upside down, I sat plain on the swing and toed the busted pavement until I loosened a chunk. I kicked it away. My nose cleared. A fumy sort of stink was in the air. It might have been exhaust. It might have been something I’d put my hand in back at the pump.
I sniffed. So this is the smell and the feel of Halloween this year, I told myself. No sweets. No trick-or-treating. No candy bars to sort and trade. No fun. No Dwight, no Brynna, no Katie. I looked at the dark trailer. No Mommers.
chapter 18
a phone call from
the mansion
Halloween was on a Friday night. By Saturday afternoon I had begun to watch for Mommers—really watch. The suitcase she’d taken was small.
“She has to come back,” I told Piccolo. My hamster looked up from her belly washing, twitched her whiskers at me and went back to her work. I pressed my nose against the front window and looked up Nott Street thinking I’d see Mommers coming down the hill from the bus stop. The phone rang.
Mommers?
I stumbled over the file boxes to answer it. “Hello?”
“Addie? That you?”
“Dwight! Yes! Hi!” I tucked the phone closer to my ear.
“Did you have a good Halloween?”
“Great,” I lied. “Did you?”
“Pretty good. Missed you though. We got some pictures, honey. The Littles want you to see their costumes.”
“Tell them I can’t wait,” I said.
“Tell ’em yourself.” Dwight was smiling when he said that. I knew without even seeing him.
“Oddie, Oddie!” Katie squealed. “I was a hampister for Holloween! Honnah made me ears. She putted them on a headbond.”
Then I heard Brynna laugh. I was surprised. She seemed to be on her own receiver. “Headband!” she said. “She put the ears on a headband!”
“Who’s Honnah?” I asked.
“She means Hannah.” Brynna giggled.
“Honnah lives all to home at the big, big house.”
“What?”
“She means at the mansion,” Brynna said.
When they gave me back to Dwight, I said, “Did you get another phone?”
“Well sort of. Listen, we moved. Still in Lake George. Better and cheaper. I got a new number for ya. Take this down, okay?” I wrote, then he asked me to repeat it back, which I did.
“Perfect,” he said.
“Dwight?”
“Yeah?”
“Who’s Honnah, or Hannah?”
“Ahh, Hannah. Well …I want you to meet her,” he said, and right away I knew Dwight felt something special for her. “In fact, I’m trying to set something up. I can’t get down there until Thanksgiving, Addie.”
“Thanksgiving? That’s three weeks away,” I groaned, and then felt bad.
“I know, I know. But let me see what I can do here.” Then he asked, “Is your mom home?”
“Uh …not right now. She’ll be back soon though.”
He paused. “Okay. Well, this is what I’m shooting for. You can give her the message. I’m coming to Grandio’s for Thanksgiving. That’s a Thursday.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay. And then, I’d like to bring you back here with me after that.”
“All right!”
“Think you can spend the night? Maybe Friday and Saturday too? I could put you on the bus Sunday morning if you’re cool with that.”
I thought I was going to pee my pants. “Yes!” I squealed into the phone. “I can take the bus alone. I can come!” I said.
“We gotta check everything with Denise, Addie.”
“I know.”
“Okay, kiddo. How is your mom anyway?”
“Great! She’s real busy. She has an office,” I said. I looked at the empty plastic file boxes near my feet and shut my eyes for a second.
“That’s good to hear,” Dwight said.
“Yep. She’s doing great,” I repeated.
“I’ll check back with you about Thanksgiving, then. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
We said good-bye.
I grabbed a paper shopping bag, boxed it open and packed for the trip. I didn’t care that it was still three weeks away. I wanted to be ready.
Saturday turned into Sunday and Mommers still didn’t show. But I was okay. I still had bread in the trailer, and change from the ten if I needed anything else. And now I had something to look forward to.
chapter 19
the new blue car
On Monday morning I ate my toast. I stepped out of the trailer still pulling on my backpack and bumping myself with my flute case as I went.
Beep! Beep!
A car horn scared me back a few steps. I looked and there was Mommers in the driver’s seat. She pulled onto the tar patch out front and stopped hard.
“Surprise!” she screamed from the open window.
I grabbed my heart with one hand and steadied myself.
“Get in! Get in! I’ll drive you to school!”
The car just happened to be my favorite shade of blue.
“Addie! Come on!” Mommers got out. She ran around the car, hugged me and sang out, “‘Baby, you can drive my car …’” from some old song I barely recognized. She swung me left, then right, the weight of my pack nearly dumping me over.
“Watch out for the flute,” I said. I held the instrument case up and away from her. She yanked the car door open and pushed me inside.
“This looks like a kidnapping, ya know.”
Mommers went into a huge laughing fit over that. She slammed my door shut and shimmied along the bumper to the driver’s side. She landed hard on the seat, then lay on the horn a few times for fun. “Don’t ya love it? Hot, hot, hot!” I rolled my window up as fast as I could. She let out a few choice swears and hit the horn again.
I caught sight of Soula at that moment. She was standing out in front of the minimart—probably wondering what all the commotion was about.
Mommers giggled and waved at Soula. “Oooh! Look who’s watching us! Woo-hoo! Bye-bye, big girl!”
I faked backpack problems so I wouldn’t have to look at Soula. I was pretty sure she hadn’t heard what Mommers had said. Mommers beeped the horn again and I frowned at her. She pouted back but not for real. She stepped on the gas and we were off with a screech.
The car smelled great, like new rugs and plastic. Of course, it wasn’t really new but I thought almost any car smelled great. I couldn’t even remember my last car ride—probably with Grandio months ago. The upholstery felt velvety good under my palm now, and the ride was easy over the potholes on Nott Street. We zipped past Hose Company No. 6.
“Are you gonna ask me?” Mommers finally said. She wiggled in her seat.
“Ask what? Where you’ve been?” I raised an eyebrow.
“About the car,” she rattled back at me.
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“Well gee, thanks for the support, Addison,” Mommers said.
I got out of the car at school and she stuck her head out of the window. “You’re as much fun as bird poop on a windshield, ya know.”
I shrugged. Maybe she was right.
chapter 20
all or nothing
“Hey, Little Cookie? Where you been?” Soula tucked one finger up under her wig for a “ scratch.
“Oh, around,” I said. I knew she meant that she hadn’t seen me over the weekend. I’d stayed inside the trailer feeling like it was my job to be there—like I had to hold down the fort until Mommers got back.
“Everything okay over at your place?” Soula poked her chin in the direction of the trailer.
“Yeah,” I said.
I tried to sound natural, even perky. I took the broom out of the corner by the checkout and started sweeping the floor.
“Hey, Cookie …” Soula hesitated.
“What?” I stopped working to look at her.
“Does your mama have some troubles?”
I didn’t answer.
“Maybe something with her moods?” Soula said. “Does she get real happy, then real sad? I mean more so than other people you know?”
I twisted the broom in my hands. I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said.
I knew that if I told anyone Mommers had been gone all those days, it’d be the same as last time: something bad would happen because of it.
“She’s got a new job,” I blurted. “Been working real hard at it, too. She’s kind of an all or nothing person, I guess.”
I left the minimart right after that. I went home thinking, All or nothing, all or nothing. I realized how true that was.
Mommers was always getting ideas. Big ideas. She always dove right in, too, like she was in a hurry, like a person trying to catch up. She didn’t go to college when she finished high school. She was having me instead. She always said she hadn’t gotten to fulfill her Love of Learning.
But Mommers had kept trying. One of her ideas had been about going to school to become a nurse. That was right after Brynna was born. Dwight wanted Mommers to go and he said they’d find a way to pay for it. He changed his hours at work so he could be home with Brynna and me while Mommers went to class. She started night school. She came home with all the textbooks and sat on the bed with them opened so I could look with her. I watched her label all her new notebooks with perfect, straight letters for each subject.
“I love medicine,” she’d told me. She’d snapped the cap back on her pen. “Do you know that the best time of my life was being in the hospital having you? And then again with Brynna? Birth is so exciting, Addie! If I could put that experience in a package and sell it, I’d be rich. Everybody would want it. I’m going to be a great labor and delivery nurse.”
But something happened to the nursing school idea. She stopped going just like that. It was so hard to understand because it had been her all. Then suddenly, it was nothing . Then, after Katie was born, Mommers got a new idea. She decided to become a psychologist and help people with their problems. Again she came home with all the books and her class schedule. Dwight bought her a computer to do her work on. But soon she said she needed to do her studying at the library. She was gone every night. She slept late every morning.
One night, Grandio came to take care of Brynna and Katie and me. Dwight went out and when he came home he brought Mommers with him. She kicked and screamed and cried for hours. She stayed in bed the next day—doing nothing. Dwight took on more jobs. He was working from sunup to sundown—sometimes longer. That’s when I started making toast dinners.
When Mommers finally got up, she discovered the Internet. She started chatting with all sorts of people who had great business ideas. She stayed online through the day and into the night. That became her all . But Dwight didn’t like that. I’d hear them arguing—something about losing money on the Internet. There was a lot of fighting until finally Mommers said she wanted the divorce. Dwight moved out and some time after that Mommers packed a bag and left us alone for those three nights in the middle of winter.
That was the time I blew it—the time I told Dwight that she was gone. That split us all up, pretty much for good.
chapter 21
dwight explaining hannah
It turned out that it was fine with Mommers for me to go to Grandio’s for Thanksgiving supper and on to Lake George with Dwight afterward.
“If you really want to go to Jack’s farm for Turkey Day, okay. But there’s no way I’m going,” she said. She was watching Jeanette for the Judgment and didn’t take her eyes off the show. “Stick it to him, Jeanette!” she cheered. “Jack will be just as glad if I’m not there. I’ll make my own plans. Judgment for the defense! I’m gonna do something with Pete. And if Dwight wants you for a couple of nights, that’s cool with me. Make him pay her back! I have plenty to do. Just get on the right bus back here come Sunday, will ya?” Then she mumbled, “I can just see myself driving up and down the Northway …”
“I’ll get the bus,” I said.
She dropped me and my paper bag suitcase and my flute (had to practice) off at Grandio’s farm on Thanksgiving Day. “Don’t forget to feed Piccolo,” I reminded her. She waved a hand at me and sped away. I watched her blue car rolling and bumping away down Grandio’s rough driveway. The hillside was covered in that long yellow November grass that looks like it’s been combed into low humps. The trees in the orchard were bare except for a few dry old apples still clinging here and there. The sour smell of fallen fruit still hung in the air. I spun around slowly, letting my flute case and my paper bag fly along beside me in my outstretched arms. I remembered climbing in those apple branches with the Littles while Dwight and Grandio worked on the old barn together, while they mowed the fields, while they raked leaves. I remembered Grandio saying that having Dwight around was like having a son again. I remembered family birthday parties, sit down suppers and everyone together under one roof. I remembered us just being normal.
It’s good to be here again—good to be across the bridge, I thought, as I made myself dizzy. For a second, I forgot where I lived, which place was home.
“Addie? Jeepers, girl! Git in here!”
I stopped twirling, but the world did not. “Hi, Grandio,” I called. I staggered forward a few steps, then waited. When everything had stopped spinning, I smiled to see him standing in his apron at the door to the stone farmhouse. He was squinting at me like I was nuts. I ran a few steps so as not to keep him waiting.
The good smells from the kitchen hit me at the door. Grandio had done Thanksgiving like I’d never seen it done before. He had stuffed and roasted a turkey and had made brown gravy. There were whipped potatoes keeping on the stovetop, green beans in the steamer, cranberry orange sauce in little china dishes on the table and baskets of bread on the sideboard.
“How’s everything with you, girl?” he asked. But I already knew that Grandio didn’t listen for answers much.
“Place looks great,” I said. It was true. A fire roared in the fireplace, there was bittersweet on the mantel. The candles waited to be lit. He lifted an apple salad out of the fridge and added it to the spread.
“You’ve thought of everything!” I said. And soon I knew the reason why.
Dwight and the Littles arrived about a minute later. With them they brought three different kinds of pie and another person—a pretty woman in a long skirt and a big sweater. She threw a thick brown braid over her shoulder and waved a mitten covered hand at Grandio and me as she strode toward us.
Hannah.
In a second, Brynna and Katie were all over me, both talking at once and giggling about a turkey song they’d learned. Everything was hugs and greetings and the swish of jackets being run up the stairs to Grandio’s spare bedroom.
“Where’s Mommers?” Brynna asked suddenly. Katie stopped still and looked around the bedroom almost like she wasn’t sure who we were talking about.
“She couldn’t come,” I said, knowing it was more like wouldn’t. I glanced at Hannah and figured that was just as well. “She’s having turkey dinner with Pete. She works with him.”
“Work? Humph,” said Grandio. He wrestled a jacket onto a hanger. “That woman wouldn’t know work if it walked up and punched her in the nose.” I frowned at him but he didn’t see me. “And she goes through men like corn through a hen. And the results are about the same.”
That wasn’t the first time I’d heard him say that.
Dwight put his hand up. “Jack,” he said softly, and that was all.
I didn’t see why Grandio had to put Mommers down—again—especially with this new Hannah person watching. Hannah shifted her stance and looked at Dwight. “Well, gee, the whole house smells so good!”
she said. She rubbed her hands together. She had a smile that came easily and took up most of her face. She looked at Grandio and he seemed to soften as he grinned back at her.
“I better get back to the kitchen. Turkey isn’t gonna baste itself,” Grandio said. He hurried toward the stairs.
“We’ll be right down,” Dwight called after him.
Hannah turned to me. “Addie, I feel like I know you.” She had a voice like butter and brown sugar. “Do you know how often we talk about you at home?”
That was kind of weird. They all had a home that I wasn’t part of. I looked Hannah over. I’d known all of them longer than she had. Those were my baby sisters and Dwight had been my stepfather longer than she’d known him. Something inside me wanted to tell her so. But I kept turning soft. I liked her wide smile. It was real.
Dwight put his hand on the back of my neck and gave me a squeeze. “Can’t wait to get you up to Lake George,” he said. I leaned into him, then felt the warm pop of his lips kissing my head.
“We should warn you, Addie, the place is kinda a mess,” Hannah said. She tilted her head at Dwight and they both laughed.
“Yeah, I should really explain …um …everything.” Dwight shuffled his feet. Hannah cleared her throat.
“I’ll leave you two to catch up,” she said. “See you both downstairs.” She brushed Dwight’s arm with her hand and herded my sisters into the hall. “Let’s let Dwight talk to Addie. Shall we go see your granddad’s fire, girls? Hmm? Let’s go warm our hands.”
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