Longing for Normal

by Darcy Pattison

  She frowned and drew back. “Here.” She shoved the almost empty tube at me, then strode past me to the living room. I followed.

  “Brother,” she said, “Are you going to the grocery store any time soon?”

  He sat in his easy chair watching a police detective show. At her question, he looked up. “Sometime.”

  What was she up to?

  “Well, this child needs some hand lotion.” She pulled me forward and stuck my hands in front of his face and pointed to the cracked joints. Then she pushed away my hands, took the lotion from me and held it in front of his face. “This is the brand to buy.”

  I was amazed. Miss Porter sticking up for me, trying to get her brother to do something.

  Mr. Porter looked at it carefully. Then shoved it away.

  Miss Porter had a hand on her hip. “You know, some people just shouldn’t be foster parents. They don’t pay enough attention to the child.”

  Shocked, I thought about what she said, and she was right. Some people might think they’d be good foster parents, till they tried.

  Mr. Porter turned up the volume on the TV.

  Miss Porter sighed. “Well, I’m going out. Don’t wait up.”

  Embarrassed by Miss Porter’s comments, I moved to the window and watched her leave. It was cold, cold, cold. She put on her earmuffs and wrapped up in her scarf. Her car pulled away, the exhaust puffing in the cool air. I had to decide if I would try to stay here until after Baby, or just give up now and let them move me.

  I sat on a straight back chair beside the window and watched the profile of Mr. Porter. The lamp’s bright light sent deep shadows over half of Mr. Porter’s face, accenting his frown lines. He was deeply unhappy. He kept changing channels, watching a few seconds, then flipping to a new channel.

  It was true that some people were just not supposed to be foster parents.

  But I still had the problem of finding out about Baby, and that would be so much harder if I moved. So, I had to give Mr. Porter something to keep him happy.

  I cleared my throat and said loudly, “I went to the post office to mail a card to Mandy and Ted. Congratulations on the baby.” It was a good lie, related to what I was worried about so he would believe it, but not the whole truth, either. No way would I ever tell Mr. Porter about the PO box.

  Mr. Porter shifted to look at me, then flicked off the TV. “You know, of course, that you’re not supposed to contact them.”

  I shrugged, afraid he’d see it was a lie.

  He let out a huge sigh and seemed to sag, as if his backbone had become jelly. “Okay. Thanks for telling me. You’ll have to talk to Mr. Benton about cutting school tomorrow and take the consequences. But I won’t make the phone call that I thought I had to make. Next time you do something like this, though—” He turned back to the TV and flipped it back on.

  “—you’ll call Miss Brodie-Rock, and I’ll have to move to a new house. Right?” Anger flooded through me. I had guessed right. Well, after I saw Baby, he could do whatever he wanted, and I wouldn’t care.

  BREAD PROJECT, WEEK 10

  ELIOT

  That Friday was the last Bread Assembly. Next week was Thanksgiving.

  The auditorium looked and sounded different. On the left were seated the kids who already had the sourdough starter, the Haves. Quiet and solemn.

  On the right were seated the Have-Nots. Creaky seats. Jokes. Laughter. And a touch of anger at being left out of everything until the last minute, not getting their sourdough starter until just ten days before Thanksgiving.

  I held my plastic jar of sourdough starter carefully in my lap. Some kids set their jars on the ground or stuffed them onto the seat beside them. My fingers crept to the lid, itching to tap, to drum. But today was too special. I didn’t want to start something like that. The chair creaking had been necessary to distract kids from spitballs. Today, the air was already crackling with excitement, even if kids didn’t understand why.

  The kindergartners were still down in front, going back to the sixth grade under the balcony. There was a vacant row in the middle, marking the change from the Haves to the Have-Nots. Teachers directed the Sixth, Fifth, Fourth, and Third Grade-Haves to the stairs on the left of the auditorium and the Third, Second, First and Kindergarten Have-Nots to the stairs on the right.

  At a signal from Mr. Benton, one row from each section stood and marched forward. My heart thumped, just watching. So many hours had gone into this moment.

  The columns met in the center of the stage. The Haves gave the Have-Nots a jar of starter, shook hands and then together, they carefully climbed down the center stairs. At the bottom, each row turned back to seats. From my seat in the back, it all looked like a figure eight circling up and around and back down.

  Then two more rows stood and repeated the process. And so on. Back through the rows until it reached my row, and I stood. The line surged forward, then inched along, until I carefully watched my feet and climbed the steps to the stage. There was a steady drumming of feet marching across the stage, but it was the right sound track for this last Bread Assembly.

  Finally, I handed the jar of sourdough to a curly haired kindergarten girl. All around us was the smell of sourdough starter, that sharp, yeasty smell.

  I whispered, “Take good care of it.”

  She nodded, solemn.

  We marched back to our seats, and finally, everyone in the school had a jar of sourdough starter. When the last kid sat, the adults on stage—Marj, Mr. Benton, Mr. and Mrs. Lopez, Mr. and Mrs. Patel and Mrs. Johnson—broke into smiles and started clapping.

  From two rows in front of me, Alli turned and smiled, too. “We did it,” she mouthed.

  

  I remembered the first time I saw Alli, so scrawny, and I remembered wincing at her voice, so harsh. Now, I hardly noticed. Oh, she was still scrawny and her voice still harsh. Now, though, I thought of her knocking on the Patel’s door and asking for Mrs. Patel’s naan recipe. Or at the Zane’s house, filling up a pita with meatballs. Or playing cards. Or—

  I almost blushed at my thoughts. She wasn’t my girlfriend or anything like that! No way.

  But she had helped change this community, had gotten them out of their rut. And the strangest: people weren’t saying this was Marj’s project, or Alli’s project, or even Griff’s project. Instead, they said, “Our project.”

  We did it. They did it. Everyone had brought back sourdough starter, and together, they hadn’t let anyone set off a chain reaction of failure. They did it.

  I sat up straight. Banged my elbows on the seat, but barely noticed. Instead, I was caught by surprise. I had gotten so involved with the weekly struggle. Make sure the sourdough survived the week. Make sure the parents—Mexicans, Kurds, Italians, blacks, whites, Indians, whatever culture – understood the project. Make sure the jars were ready to bring back. Even with Alli dividing up the tasks there were days when we had to go and pick up or deliver starter. The struggle to make it work. The struggle to work together.

  And now it had worked. We, all of us, were done. Everyone had a jar of sourdough starter.

  I closed my eyes against the tears of release that threatened to fall. Griff would have been proud.

  Of course, we still had problems.

  I opened my eyes as Mrs. Patel took the microphone and explained. “We had planned to hand out a sourdough cookbook today. But the stomach virus that closed the school last week put us behind, and the cookbooks won’t be in until next week. Instead, we are mailing a couple easy recipes to each parent today. Your parents should get the letters tomorrow. Okay?”

  Silence.

  From behind Mrs. Patel, Marj stood and walked to the microphone. “You did it!” Her quiet but intense voice caught the kids’ attention more than a yell would have done. Still without yelling, she said solemnly, “Hurray for bread! Hurray for new playground equipment!” Startled, I realized that Marj was proud. She was proud of the kids, proud of this community that Griff had loved so much, p
roud that we had made it.

  Everyone was silent a moment longer, then the crowd broke out in cheers.

  Beside me, Toby grinned. “Everyone has a jar of sourdough starter. But you haven’t won that bet until everyone bakes bread and brings it to the Thanksgiving party. 500 loaves, you win. 499, you lose.”

  And I closed my eyes again, this time from tears of frustration. Toby was right. The Bread Project was only halfway finished.

  ALLI

  After the Bread Assembly, I ducked into the library and sat at the computer that had Internet access. The librarian would show up any minute, so I typed fast and read Ted’s update on BabyPayne.com:

  No change. We’re packed and ready to go to the hospital. Any minute.

  I’m going to the office at strange times this week, finishing up a big project. It’s the last big project before Baby comes.

  I sighed. No Baby yet. I still had to make it a couple more days.

  ELIOT

  After the Bread Assembly, I thought about it all morning: Marj was proud of what we had done. She had told Mrs. Lopez that she’d never done something like this, could never have made it work. But Marj didn’t have to do it all alone: the community came together, the community made it work. Toby might be right that only 499 loaves would show up at the Thanksgiving dinner next week, but we’d already done a lot.

  It all made me ache somewhere deep inside. Things were getting better, and maybe this space of time, these few months, had given Marj and me a chance to become a family. I felt the craving even deeper than before. Maybe because—in spite of everything—I liked Marj. How she had refused to give up. How she was sad and yet didn’t stop trying and working hard. I wanted us to be a real family. But I had no idea what her decision would be.

  Later that day in science class, we studied microbes.

  “Think about everything happening at school for the last week,” Miss Garrett said. “We had a stomach virus. Microbes. And today, we finished handing out the sourdough starter. Microbes.”

  I knew this class was going to be bad for me. Of course, Miss Garrett was right. Viruses caused the flu, and we needed to study that. And a combination of yeast and bacteria created the sourdough starter: the yeast gave off the carbon dioxide gas to make the bread rise and the bacteria made the pH levels acidic, giving it that sour taste. All good science. But I hadn’t thought of either as microbes.

  That name: microbes. Mike-Robes. Like a scruffy man wearing a bath robe. But it was more sinister than that. It was like the “Robes” part was a soft fluffy thing that could envelope you and smother you. And “Mike” ended with that hard K sound, like it had just stabbed you. Stabbed and wrapped in softness that smothered you. Microbes.

  Miss Garrett handed me a set of glass slides. Then leaned over and whispered. “You okay?”

  She knew about the panic attacks, all the teachers did. I glanced at Marissa and the other girls. Blushed. “Of course!” I snapped.

  Miss Garrett hesitated. But then said, “If you need to, you know, go out of the room or something, just raise your hand.”

  I turned away, really embarrassed now. Put the first slide under our microscope, then motioned for Marissa to look first. ‘Cause I was scared to look. In fact, I was starting to feel bad. My face was hot. My breath was quicker.

  I took a deep breath and tried to force myself to breathe slow and deep. I needed to make sure Mike-Robes didn’t attack.

  Marissa had her dark hair in one long braid; better for softball she had just told one of the other girls. But curls escaped the braid and wisped around her face. I concentrated on the curls.

  Don’t think of Mike-Robes. Look at the curls.

  Marissa had to brush them out of her way three times before she could focus the microscope. I tried to smile, tried to be amused.

  Marissa mumbled, talking to herself almost, hard to hear because of the microscope. Said something about, “There could be millions of these things in a drop of water, and we wouldn’t even know.”

  Millions. Or billions.

  Marissa straightened up and let the next girl look.

  At the front, Miss Garrett had a special microscope that projected onto a white board so she could talk and point out things for us to look for. “Your second slide has a drop of the sourdough starter. You’ll see two different shapes: yeast and bacteria – that’s what makes it work.”

  Millions of yeast. Billions of bacteria.

  I could hear Marj’s triumphant voice: “Hurray for bread! Playground equipment!”

  But her voice was faint. Smothered.

  The world whirled around me. Then, ashamed that I was so weak, I raised my hand.

  Miss Garrett’s face paled. She nodded, not waiting for me to speak.

  Instantly, I was up and racing out the door and toward the nurse’s office.

  But when I got there, I couldn’t step inside. I stopped in the doorway. Miss Clay was swabbing a kid’s arm with gauze. A girl. Small, probably second grade. Scraped elbow. The gauze all bloody. Oh!

  Miss Clay’s voice was sharp. “Eliot! Are you okay?”

  I leaned over and held on to my knees and breathed deep. Deeper. Slower. And somehow—somehow—I didn’t slip into the panic. I still felt shaky, but I was holding it together. Maybe.

  I straightened and nodded. But then the sight of the blood made me dizzy again.

  “Don’t look over here. Sit at the other desk.”

  I obeyed.

  No, really. I obeyed. I was in control, and I could do what someone told me. I could hear Miss Clay, and I could sit at the desk and not look at something that might make me feel worse.

  “I’m okay,” I said.

  “What?” Miss Clay sounded worried. “I’m almost finished here.”

  “I’m okay.” I said with surprise. “I’m really okay.”

  Later, when the kid’s arm was bandaged, and she was sent back to class, Miss Clay laid a hand on my shoulder, and I spun my chair around. And smiled. “I’m okay.”

  She bent and looked at my eyes and held my wrist and took my pulse.

  Then she smiled. “You are okay.”

  And suddenly, I wanted Marj to know. “Can I call my mom and tell her that I’m okay? That I almost panicked, but I didn’t. I’m okay.”

  “I think that’s a fabulous idea.”

  While I sat at her desk and dialed Marj’s number, Miss Clay stepped outside to the hallway.

  “Hello. Marj Winston’s office.” It was Marj’s secretary.

  “Oh, hi, Miss Street. This is Eliot. Can I talk to Marj?” Heart full of joy, I could hardly get out the words.

  “Sorry, she’s just left.”

  “Oh.” The bubble of joy burst. But that was OK. I could just tell her later. Maybe call back later or call her cell phone. “Do you think she’ll be back soon?”

  There was a pause. “Let’s see. She had to stop by the courthouse and talk to a social worker. Then stop by to see a Mr. Donovan.”

  “Oh.” She was going to see a social worker. And Mr. Donovan was the adoption lawyer. And a wave of tiredness swept over me. I just wanted to sleep. “Oh.”

  “Do you want to leave a message for your mom, Eliot?”

  “No. No message.”

  No message. Because there was no mom.

  ALLI

  Friday night, it was strange, but both Miss Porter and Mr. Porter were home, playing Scrabble in the living room. Didn’t invite me to play, though. It was a running feud between them. Over the years, Mr. Porter had won 430 times to Miss Porter’s 417 times.

  I glanced over her shoulder and realized she’d misspelled “asault.” (Assault. A sudden, violent attack. Origin: French. A-s-s-a-u-l-t. The double-s is what made this a hard word.)

  They only let me play Scrabble twice.

  “Alli, you’re a professional speller,” Mr. Porter had said. “It wouldn’t be fair.”

  I didn’t tell him now about Miss Porter’s mistake. And while their attention was on shuffling wooden
letters around, I quietly sat at the computer desk in the living room and pulled up the Baby Payne blog:

  Yes! We’re on the way to the hospital. Baby is coming tonight or early tomorrow morning. Pics as soon as I can.

  Ted, the new father-to-be.

  Oh. I caught my breath.

  Then quickly looked to see if the Porters had noticed. But they were still busy with Scrabble. Ted had posted that message at three that afternoon. Baby could already be here!

  So. Tonight was the night. My heart pounded with excitement, and I was afraid they’d hear even that.

  Finally, I went upstairs and pretended to sleep. It was eleven before the Scrabble game finished, and Miss Porter peeked in my room to make sure I was asleep. It was midnight, before I slipped my feet out the window and sat on the sill of the second floor of the historic home that the Porters called home. Stepped to the tree limb and dropped lower. Lower. To the ground.

  I sat with my back against the tree trunk, knees pulled up, trying to stay warm. For a while, I just sat, not thinking, just watching the moonlight flicker through the leaves. Smiling. But it was cold. I stood and hoisted my backpack and started walking.

  I had everything in my pack that I wanted from the Porter’s house. Left the school uniforms and schoolbooks. Just took my street clothes, my red picture album, my few books and my stash of $78. I knew that I wouldn’t be back, that this would end with Miss Brodie-Rock. But I was going to the hospital to see Baby! My sister.

  ELIOT

  I was in the breakfast room, crunching corn flakes and reading cartoons in the morning newspaper when the phone rang.

  In the kitchen, I heard Marj answer, “‘Lo.”

  A moment later, she sat beside me, holding her hand over the phone. “It’s Mr. Porter. Alli’s run away. Her bed wasn’t slept in. You know where she is?”

  Baby, I thought. Of course, that was it. “No,” I said, my eyes wide, trying to look innocent.

  Marj repeated that to Mr. Porter, then clicked off the portable phone and sat with her hands in her lap, just watching me.