Waiting for Normal

by Leslie Connor

  “They’re cold and wosy,” Katie said. I could hear her feet as she two stepped her way down the stairs.

  “She means rosy,” Brynna added, her voice fading.

  The upstairs was quiet.

  “So what’s going on?” I asked Dwight.

  He blinked. “Boy, you sound so much older the way you just said that.”

  I shrugged. No matter what else he had to tell me, at least I wouldn’t hear anything about boobs from Dwight.

  “Um, listen. Hannah and I are …well, we’re …uh …”

  “You like her,” I helped.

  “Oh yeah.” He grinned. Then he got serious. “I never expected this. Not now. She was just my boss, ya know?”

  “Boss? At work? Hannah owns that mansion you’re working on?”

  “Yeah. She’s turning it into an inn—a bed-and-breakfast. She has investors but it’s her place. She makes all the decisions. And, man, I’ve never seen anybody work harder.”

  “She sounds awesome,” I whispered, and Dwight nodded.

  “This whole thing has been such a surprise, Addie. It’s been fast.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I just meant to stay focused and do the work. Pay off the debts. But then …Hannah and I started spending time together and she does so much for the Littles. And it all comes so easily somehow …”

  I swallowed. “I’ve found some friends too,” I said. I thought of Soula and Elliot, and Helena and Marissa. “So, I know what you mean. It feels good to care about someone else,” I said.

  “Exactly.” He let a second go by. “And this is serious. We’d like to get married this summer, Addie.”

  “Oh,” I said. A funny little breath went through my lips. “Things must be really good.”

  “Great! Things are great.”

  “And you moved?” I said.

  “Yes.” He shuffled his feet again. “We live with Hannah. We’re making one section of the inn into our home. It’s not finished, but it’s warm, dry and comfortable. It’s better for the Littles this way. It really is. One of us is always there for them.” He paused. “And Hannah loves them both.”

  I nodded. “They are really great, aren’t they? I mean they are easy to love, and Hannah seems so nice. Looks like they like her, too.”

  “I think so,” Dwight said. “I wish it could be all of us, you know that?”

  I couldn’t answer him then. I was thinking of the way Katie always said “…all to home.” I swallowed against a lump in my throat and gave Dwight a little punch in the shoulder. I stopped him on the stairs a minute later and told him, “Thanks for telling me everything.”

  chapter 22

  all about twos and fours

  Late that afternoon Hannah and I sat on a pair of footstools by Grandio’s fading fire, just the two of us. This was not by mistake; I had wanted to get her alone. Flames still wrapped the sides of a slender log or two but most of the fire had settled down to coals.

  “I love the embers,” Hannah said with a Thanksgiving sort of sigh.

  “Me too,” I said. I watched them winking red and orange a few seconds longer. But I needed to get to my business—the business of being nosy with Hannah. This was more than a get-to-know-your-neighbors mission. Hannah was with my little sisters all the time—beneath the same roof. She was with them as much as a mother would be with her children, I thought. Dwight trusted her, so I did too—mostly—but I still wanted to know more about her.

  “Hey, Hannah,” I said, “I was wondering something. What did you do before you got the inn?”

  “Well, there’s a good question,” Hannah said. She sat up a bit. “I like to say that my adult life has been all about twos and fours.” She showed me two fingers, then four fingers, then two again. She pushed her hands forward when she did this almost like she was dancing from her little seat by the fire.

  “Twos and fours?” I closed one eye at her and she laughed.

  “That’s right.” Hannah kept her fingers switching from two to four and back and told me, “When I was eighteen I graduated from high school. Then I waited tables for two years. Then I went to college for four years. After that I planned a cross country trip with two friends. That trip was supposed to last four weeks, but I liked the West so much I got a job and stayed for two years.” She stopped, took a breath and planted her hands on her knees. “Then both my parents got sick. I came back east to be with them. They passed on within four months of each other.”

  “Oh, how sad!” I said. “I mean, I know you can’t help it if that’s part of the story and all. But it’s so …”

  “Sad. You’re right,” said Hannah. “But oddly enough there were good things about it too. We got to be together all those days. I loved taking care of them, really, and dear friends visited every day.” She waited, then leaned forward as if she were about to tell a secret. She brought her hands together under her chin. “Then …two days before I was all set to go back west again, I saw the inn in the real estate pages. Just by chance. Suddenly, I loved the idea of a home—a big home with lots of rooms!” Hannah flung her arms wide open. “I wanted lots of people to be coming and going. I wanted to cook big breakfasts every morning and hang sheets to dry in the mountain air!” Hannah laughed at herself for that last part. “So, I asked for a showing of the inn, and the agent gave me lots of time to wander around inside. It’d been years since anyone had operated it as a business, and oh, room after room, it was a mess. Worse than what you’ll see when you get there, Addie!” Hannah scrunched her nose and laughed. “But I could imagine it all redone.” She closed her eyes for a second. “I was so charmed by the idea of bringing the place back to life that I took a big chance. I used all the money my mom and dad had left me to make the down payment. Of course, now I’ve borrowed a lot, too. So I have a small business that I run from the inn—you’ll see that, too. Everything seems to be falling into place. I still get nervous.” Hannah shook her whole body and laughed. “I’ve never been much of a planner—can you tell? But now …well, Dwight and you three girls have given me …ha!”—she showed me four fingers—“four good reasons to plan.” She stretched her legs out in a satisfied way. “I never expected all of you to come into my life.” Hannah wore a puzzled grin. “Yet here we are. Instant family,” she said.

  I had never had a more thankful Thanksgiving Day. I felt pretty sure that my little sisters had themselves a new hero.

  chapter 23

  bedtime at the inn

  We arrived in Lake George under the bright moonlight of Thanksgiving night. We had traveled a winding mountain road up to the inn. Brynna slumped against me, asleep, on the backseat of the car. Katie was out cold in her car seat on my other side. I craned to see the mansion. My paper bag suitcase crackled between my feet each time I moved.

  “This is the place,” Dwight whispered. He turned back from the front seat to look at me through the darkness. The building was big. I’d expected that. But it was also prettier than I’d imagined, like a real house for lots of people to stay in. I got the sense of lots of little peaks in the roof and there was a long porch and double door entrance at the center. Ladders and scaffolding leaned up against the front, waiting for the workers.

  “You must love it here,” I whispered back. “I can’t wait to see it in daylight.”

  I wanted to carry Katie inside but Hannah got to her first, me being wedged in the middle like I was. She gently lifted the buckle of the car seat over my little sister’s fuzzy head. She bent to pick up Katie, draping the little hands around her neck before she rose. She knows just what to do, I thought. Dwight woke Brynna and hoisted her onto his hip. I carried my bag and the flute.

  We climbed a small side porch and entered a little hall where Dwight’s tool belt hung on a nail. We stepped over Katie’s yellow duck boots and Brynna’s green frog ones. I followed Dwight and Hannah through the unfinished kitchen. There were no cabinets. The cans and boxes of food sat on open shelves. Beyond that was a room with a window that bumped out so you could sit in
it. There was a couch, a chair and a TV set, and my sisters’ toys in a big basket in one corner. I smelled new wood all around me. Wall studs showed through plastic sheeting in some places. Little piles of wood shavings needed sweeping.

  “Told you it was a mess,” Hannah said. She grinned. “We’re kind of camped out right now, but it’ll get better. We’ll show you around tomorrow.”

  I nodded and followed her to the door of a bedroom, where she knelt to ease Katie onto a junior bed. Across the room, Dwight sat Brynna on the bottom of a bunk bed and pulled off her shoes.

  “Top’s for you,” he said, raising his chin at me.

  I nodded again.

  He squinted at me. “Addie, you okay?” Hannah had turned to look at me too. I just stood still. Truth was I didn’t know what was wrong. It was only bedtime—happens every night. But it was strange to watch them doing it without me. I didn’t have a part. Now, Dwight and Hannah both waited for me to speak.

  “The potty,” I finally said. “They need to sit on the potty before bed.”

  Dwight and Hannah exchanged glances. “Uh, okay. Yeah, right.” Dwight got up and took Brynna into the bathroom. Hannah got a night diaper out for Katie.

  “She can do it too,” I said.

  “Yeah, but I was thinking of just letting her sleep since it’s so late,” Hannah whispered. “Such a busy day and all.” She waited. “What do you think?”

  I looked at Katie, limp with sleep and half dressed. I knew she’d only shiver and whine if we put her on the toilet now. “Okay,” I said.

  “Want to finish this?” Hannah offered me the diaper and moved aside.

  “Yes,” I said. I took over and had Katie packaged up in a few seconds.

  “Gee. You’re good!” Hannah whispered.

  “I took care of her by myself for three days straight one winter. And Brynna, too.” I blurted.

  Hannah nodded. “Yes, I’ve heard that story,” she said.

  “I wanna hear the story,” Brynna mumbled as Dwight brought her back to her bed. She said story one more time as her head touched her pillow. Hannah reached and squeezed my arm. She muffled a laugh.

  “They are so funny!” she whispered. That made me smile. And boy, there was something about Hannah—something I liked.

  chapter 24

  breakfasts and boxes

  In the morning I woke like a sloth in the fog. I heard a hammer—no, two—thwacking in the distance. I wondered if I’d missed Dwight at breakfast. Something smelled good.

  I sat up. The Littles stood on tiptoes on Katie’s junior bed—four wide eyes fixed on me. I grinned and blinked.

  “You sleeped good, Oddie?”

  “Yes, Katie. Did you?”

  “Yes, Oddie.”

  “Brynna sleeped good too. Honnah maked cakes.”

  “She means pancakes,” Brynna added.

  “I smell those cakes,” I said. “Did you eat?”

  “No, we waited for you.” They giggled and begged me to come down off my bunk.

  I didn’t get a whole lot of privacy in the bathroom that morning—the door wasn’t quite right on the hinge and the Littles kept popping in—but I didn’t care. On my way back down the hall, I stole a peek into the other bedroom—the one I had not really seen in the darkness the night before. A wide bed was not exactly made, but sort of tossed shut, with a fluffy comforter and pillows here and there. The iron head and foot reminded me of the gates at Onion College, but the metal was painted white instead of shiny black. So that’s where Dwight and Hannah sleep, I thought.

  “Come on for cakes, Oddie.” Katie pulled at my hand and Brynna led us down the hall. Hannah greeted us with a satisfied sort of sigh. “Well, look at the three of you,” she said. “Who wants the first two pancakes?”

  “Give ’em to them,” I said. “I can make my own.”

  “Nope,” Hannah said. She put her hands on her hips. “If you wanna make breakfast, you have to be the first one up. This is my project.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. She broke into that huge smile, laughed and threw her braid off her shoulder. She ladled another scoop of batter onto the griddle. “Dwight will come in for breakfast in a few minutes. Then he’ll work until lunch and break early so we can have some fun while you’re here, Addie.”

  “Fun, fun, fun!” Brynna danced.

  “We gonna do boxes today, Honnah?” Katie asked.

  “Yep, some boxes. Boxes until lunchtime.”

  “What’s boxes?” I said.

  “Ahhh, remember I mentioned my paying job?” Hannah asked.

  “But it’s about boxes?”

  “Yep. It’s in the base-a-ment,” Katie told me.

  Boxes, it turned out, was a place for me to shine, and earn my keep. The basement was long like a bowling alley with a low ceiling. Shelves ran all the way down both sides to the end and they were filled with handmade crafts. A play area had been set up on a round braided rug right in the center of the room and two tricycles were parked at its edge. There was a small TV set, an easel, a toy basket, a portable CD player and a rope swing hanging from a beam.

  “Dwight did a good job, huh?” Hannah nodded at the play space.

  “That’s Dwight,” I said. I looked down the row of shelves at all the crafted goods. “Do you make everything?” I asked.

  “No!” Hannah gasped. “I’m a klutz with a needle and thread and I’d probably be afraid of a jigsaw. I just love art and artists so I try to stick to what I’m good at—I sell their work. I met most of these artists on my way out west, believe it or not.” She spread her arms out and let them fall again. “Welcome to the world of mail order!”

  Everything was organized with numbered three by five cards tacked to the shelf fronts. There was a desk with a computer set up in one corner and another area for boxes, tape and packing materials. Hannah had orders to fill.

  “This is the catalog.” Brynna wagged the stapled pages at me. “But most of the selling happens at the computer.” Brynna seemed so smart to me just then, as she pointed to a table where a computer and printer hummed.

  “Right. Off the Internet,” Hannah explained. She was already going through a stack of papers from the printer tray. “I keep filling orders right up until December fifteenth and then I’m done until New Year’s.” She took a breath. “Then I handle returns, get my spring crafts in and we go again.” She crossed her eyes at me.

  The setup made me think of Mommers. Even the file boxes were the exact same ones that she had all over the floor back at the trailer. But Hannah’s were full.

  “Can we start, Honnah?” Katie was jumping up and down. “Wanna show Oddie!” She had a shipping box open on the floor in front of her. A layer of shredded paper was already in the bottom of it.

  “Okay. Let’s show Addie how we do it.” Hannah read an order and called out, “Large box.” Katie scuttled forward with her box.

  “Got it!” she shouted.

  “Item zero four six,” Hannah called. “Quantity, two.”

  “That’s the muslin snowman ornament,” Brynna said. That blew me away. All those crafts and she knew which one it was! She trotted along the shelves, stopped right in front of the snowmen, pulled two off the shelf and brought them to Katie’s box.

  “Check,” said Hannah. “Item zero six seven. Quantity, six.”

  “The red bird cedar pillow,” Brynna said. “Size small.”

  That’s when I realized she had it—Brynna had the Love of Learning! Mommers would be so glad! I had something good to tell her when I got back.

  “Check!” Hannah called. She watched everything go into the box from the corner of her eye.

  I became a “runner” like Brynna and we started filling boxes more quickly. I liked hearing Hannah say, “Check! Check!” She gave one copy of each finished order form to Katie and Katie spiked it on a nail—Dwight’s touch, they told me—for Hannah to file later. The second copy went into the packed box. The top half of it was the address label.

  “They’r
e so good and so cute. They’ll run out of steam after about an hour,” Hannah said, leaning toward my ear. “Then they play.”

  I nodded. “Just as well. We learned about child labor laws when we studied immigration at school last year. I’m glad I was born now, not then.”

  “Hard life, wasn’t it?” Hannah said with a nod.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m really proud of them, of all the immigrants. They really had to build their lives from nothing but they did it. They’re heroes.”

  “Heroes….” Hannah took a moment to think. “You’re right,” she said. “They are heroes. Ya know …I have some folk music to share with you—some songs about coming to America. Remind me if I forget,” she added, putting her finger in the air. She was already checking the next order.

  When the Littles grew bored of doing boxes, they hopped on the tricycles, and Hannah and I kept filling orders on our own. I liked the work. I’d take my order on a clipboard, grab an empty box and go down the row filling it up. As I found each item, I’d slide a three by five card under that line on my order form and draw a highlight stripe through it. That kept me straight, and I didn’t have to explain to Hannah that I didn’t have the Love of Learning. I wasn’t fast like Hannah and I didn’t know all the numbers like Brynna, but I had a long row of filled boxes at the end of the morning anyway.

  I think I would have just stayed there if it had been up to me. I liked the way Dwight and Hannah did things.

  “Grrrrrr!” It’d be Dwight—covered in sawdust—on the basement stairs coming down to give horseback rides, monster hugs and woodpecker kisses.

  “Break!” It’d be Hannah bringing an armload of coats, saying, “Time to go outside!” We did that every afternoon, no matter what the weather was doing. She said it would sound really bad if anyone ever heard that she and Dwight kept the kids in a basement all day. “Besides, I need to get out of there too. Filling the orders isn’t the exciting part. Finding the artists and their crafts is,” she told me.