by Sarah Dooley
Praise for
free verse
“Dooley subtly exposes readers to poetic forms that invite engagement, understanding, and expression, while Sasha and her extended family are depicted with a sweetness reminiscent of Cynthia Rylant—a southern soulfulness that is warm even as it reveals the downtrodden struggles of a mining community.”
—Booklist, starred review
“The changes in [Sasha’s] life, the anguish she feels, and her journey forward are expertly portrayed through Dooley’s use of first-person narration, which is sensitive and gentle without being soft or sentimental. The poetry is wonderful and feels authentic to Sasha’s years.”
—School Library Journal, starred review
“In this gripping story, Dooley balances a clear-eyed depiction of families wrestling with addiction, financial stress, and trauma with the astonishing resilience of children and the human capacity for love.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Sarah Dooley mixes poetry and prose to powerful, poignant effect in her novel Free Verse . . . This story brims with hard-won insight into the travails and small joys of life.”
—The Washington Post
“Sasha is a natural with words. They bubble out of her, spilling emotions onto paper that she couldn’t otherwise articulate. And as she experiments with different forms, Sasha discovers poetry’s double blessing: The structure stabilizes her, while the creativity sets her free.”
—The Christian Science Monitor
“The story mounts a quiet defense of the nobility of broken people . . . who hold on when all seems lost and sacrifice much out of love for their children.”
—The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
“Dooley winningly combines engaging plot twists and rich character development with the introspective and thematic power of poetry: not to be missed.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Dooley shows readers the richness of small-town life . . . Tween fans of realistic fiction will find depth in this novel.”
—VOYA
“This novel is a triumph of art over loss, a story that will make you believe in the capacities of poetry.”
—Gary D. Schmidt, author of Newbery Honor–winning The Wednesday Wars
“Free Verse is . . . a startling book, surprising at every turn, and its exploration of poverty, trauma, and loss deserves to be read by as wide an audience as possible.”
—Daniel Handler, Lyn Miller-Lachmann, Neal Shusterman, and Susanna Reich, judges for the 2012 PEN/Phyllis Naylor fellowship
ALSO BY SARAH DOOLEY
Free Verse
Body of Water
Livvie Owen Lived Here
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
Copyright © 2017 by Sarah Dooley.
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
G. P. Putnam’s Sons is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
Ebook ISBN 9780698174023
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
For Heather and Jennifer, whose heads are flat rocks.
I would NOT be writing this dedication even if you weren’t here!
contents
Praise for Free Verse
Also by Sarah Dooley
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
chapter
1
Right before my sister, Zany, steals our dead mother off the mantel, I’m trying to decide which sock to stuff in Haberdashery’s mouth to shut him up. He’s barking every five seconds, yip yip yip, all shrill like a smoke detector with its batteries low. It’s a wonder Mrs. Madison hasn’t come downstairs in her slippery cheetah robe, waving Mr. Madison’s ancient handgun. She keeps the thing in her purse, says a widow as pretty as her needs protection, especially with, what she calls it, her assets. I thought she was talking dirty the first time I heard that, till Mama Shannon explained she meant money.
Before Zany reaches for the mantel, my biggest problem is whether to sacrifice my left sock, which is blue and belongs to Mama Shannon, or my right sock, which is purple and was Mama Lacy’s. I miss both my mamas. I don’t want to give up either of their socks, but how else am I going to shut this dog up before Mrs. Madison wakes to find that my sister’s broken in?
I’ve pretty much decided on Mama Shannon’s sock, both because Mama Shannon is alive to wear other socks and because I’m a little bit mad at her, even though I don’t want to be. When Zany reaches for the mantel, I’m still holding the blue sock in my left hand, all foot-shaped and the bottom covered with Haberdashery hair. But I’m not still thinking about the yipping dog, although he’s in a tizzy now that the midnight intruder has proven to be a thief.
“We’re not supposed to touch that!” My whisper falls in between Haberdashery’s yips, and it’s loud as sandpaper on splintery wood.
Zany eases Mama Lacy’s curvy brass container down off the mantel and clutches it to her chest. I don’t like the word urn. I can see it rising and falling with her uneven breath. Even in the half dark, I can make out the smile across her lips. Grinning and breathing hard and doing something crazy, that’s why Zany gets called Zany instead of Zoey Grace and that’s why she’s not supposed to drink more than half a Mountain Dew per day. But this might be the craziest thing she’s ever done.
“Mama Shannon says only followers do what they’re ‘supposed to,’” she whispers, “and Culvert women are born leaders. Come on.” She starts for the door, and I follow her, even though I know Mrs. Madison is going to freak out if she wakes up and Mama Lacy and I are both gone. I follow her, even though Haberdashery panics when he sees the door swing open, and starts tugging on my remaining sock. I wonder whether Madison women are born followers, because the truth is, all I ever do is follow Zany. She always knows the way.
The night air is a shock to my system. That’s what Mama Lacy would have
called it: “a shock to the system.” Mama Shannon would say it was “colder than a witch’s toe.” Or a witch’s something else if she thought we kids weren’t close enough to hear. Mama Lacy and Mama Shannon couldn’t have been more different in how they talked. They were so different, I thought it was a wonder they ever managed to fall in love.
After living with Mrs. Madison for months, it’s easy for me to understand why Mama Lacy always talked so fancy. There are entire sentences Mrs. Madison says that I don’t understand. Stuff like, “Kindly escort me to the sitting room,” or, “Be a dear and please grant me the pleasure of your company at the breakfast table.” Stuff that would make more sense if she didn’t clutter it up with all that fancy talk.
The brass jar is glinting in the weak light, and I follow it through the darkness. It’s cold enough to steal your breath. It’s still February for one more day, and Zany didn’t exactly give me time to change when she committed Grand Theft Mother. I’m dressed in a slippery bubblegum-pink robe Mrs. Madison bought me over my flannel PJ pants and a yellow Milk Duds T-shirt that belongs to Mama Shannon. I’m still only wearing one sad purple sock.
Zany isn’t dressed much warmer, but hers is on purpose. Low-cut tank top, tight-fitting jeans, clunky boots, and a sweater that looks like it’s made to show off the tank top, not to actually keep a body warm. Still, when Zany sees me shiver, she pulls off the sweater and swings it around me, and it’s cozy from her arms. I hold it close and I feel the oddest thing, since Zany is right here in front of me. I feel homesick for her, the same way I feel for Mama Shannon, who I hardly ever get to see, and for Mama Lacy, who I won’t ever see again. My feet stumble to catch up to my sister. I don’t hold her hand, because I’m twelve, but I wish I could.
At the end of the drive is Mama Shannon’s car, and that’s when I know this isn’t going to be any quick thing. I don’t know how I thought Zany got here. I guess I didn’t think about it. I’m not so good with the details. Mama Lacy was always smoothing my hair and telling me, “You can focus better, Fella. I know you can.” Mama Shannon’s wording was a little less delicate: “If you tripped over a dead body on the floor, you’d say ‘pardon me’ and keep right on walking.” Which might be true—there was that time I said “Excuse me” to the parking meter when I bumped into it with my elbow and I thought it was a person—but I don’t like having it pointed out. It’s not that I don’t try to pay attention. It’s just that there are so many things to pay attention to.
“Where we going?” I ask.
“Remember the ice creams, Fella?” Zany changes the subject as she unlocks the car doors. I think it was pretty responsible of her to remember to lock them. I have no idea what she’s babbling about, all I know is that the seats are freezing when I try to sit, and I don’t want to think about ice cream right now.
“What ice creams?”
“The ice cream bars at Mack and Morello’s.”
I lower my butt to the seat, then hitch it back into the air. Still too cold.
“I remember Mack and Morello’s, but I don’t think I remember ice cream bars.”
Zany pauses with her hand at the ignition and gazes past me for a minute. I wish she’d turn the key so the heat would come on. I’m getting tired of hovering above the seat. “They had two flavors, Heath bar and strawberry shortcake. I liked strawberry shortcake because it was pink, and you liked Heath bar because it wasn’t.” She turns the key at last. I like how Mama Shannon’s car engine sounds. It’s rough and warm. It’s got a different voice than other cars. I hear it and I hear Mama Shannon’s own voice, talking up in front while I’m dozing in the back. I miss her so much.
“No, I don’t remember that.” I don’t mean to sound annoyed, but I do anyway. Zany is sixteen, so she’s got four years more memories than me. But even the memories we share, she remembers better. I remember what the purple door sounded like at Mack and Morello’s, the way the bell jingled extra loud if I came in at a run. I remember an orange floor and something about dropping a hot dog.
“Why are you thinking about Mack and Morello’s?” I ask.
“You know your seat’s never going to get warm if you don’t put your butt on it.”
“Yuh-huh, the heat will warm it up.”
“Yeah, maybe by the time we get there. Nothing in this car works all the way like it’s supposed to.” Zany puts the car in reverse and starts down the driveway. She twists to look over her shoulder and I twist to look at her.
“Get where?” I latch on to the important part of her words.
But she ignores the question. “Put on your seat belt.”
I turn to reach for my seat belt, and I catch a glimpse of something moving in the darkness outside the car. Something fast and familiar and extremely pesky.
“Wait!” I roll down my window and hear yipping.
Zany hits the brakes. “How’d that dumb thing get out?”
“He must have run out when we left. He’s always doing that. Zany, I have to take him back!”
Zany studies the upstairs windows, still and dark. “You can’t do that. He’s too loud. And anyways it’s always when thieves go back that they get caught.” I’m surprised she owns up to being a thief. Then I realize she’s including me.
“We can’t steal him, too,” I protest.
“It’s not stealing. We’ll be back before anyone’s awake.”
My hopes fall. I guess I sort of thought Zany was here to steal me.
The view from the front is different from where I usually ride in the back. I slowly lower my rear end to the cold seat, and I open the door and let Haberdashery in. He yips approval and climbs into the back, where he immediately gets to work making the seat comfortable by pawing at the fabric.
Zany backs down the driveway again, and I feel a little panicky at the thought of doing something as big as running away, and then coming back at dawn and getting caught. What if Mrs. Madison catches me sneaking Mama Lacy’s ashes onto the mantel? Zany is cradling the brass jar in the crook of one elbow while she steers with her free arm. I ought to reach over and take Mama Lacy before she gets dropped, but I can’t make my arms move. I’ve never held my mother’s remains before and I don’t plan to start now.
Zany puts the car in drive and we start down the darkened street. Even though I’m certain we’re either going to go to jail or get in trouble with Mrs. Madison—and I am not sure which is worse—I feel a thick excitement at passing the MADISON DRIVE sign. Mrs. Madison isn’t the only person who lives on Madison Drive, but hers was the first house here and remains the biggest. As far as I understand it, the city had to name the street after my great-grandfather to convince him to sell his lawn for development. I haven’t been off this block in months, unless it was in a school bus or on our tense visits to church. Even though there’s a shiny gold car in her garage, Mrs. Madison doesn’t drive. Twice a year, a man comes to take the car to the mechanic for a checkup. I don’t see the point, since that man is the only person who ever gets behind the wheel, but Mrs. Madison says a lady must take responsibility for her vehicle. She sounds about a thousand years old when she says it, and Mama Shannon always rolls her eyes if she’s there. If she’s not, that’s when Mrs. Madison starts muttering about “that woman” Mama Lacy took up with, who lets her tires run down to the cable before she ever buys new ones.
“That woman” is Mrs. Madison’s name for Mama Shannon. And it’s true. Mama Shannon does let the tires run down to the cable. She also forgets to do things like get oil changes until the sticker on the windshield says she’s late by at least a whole month. And her glove box is full of tickets—for parking, for speeding, for forgetting to put the right stickers on the outside of the car. She and I are a lot alike in that way. It used to drive Mama Lacy crazy how forgetful me and Mama Shannon could be.
Still, I don’t see that it’s Mrs. Madison’s business how Mama Shannon treats her car. So I’m happy to ge
t off Madison Drive, but my stomach is in knots because I also don’t want to get in trouble. I still haven’t gotten in real, huge trouble at the Madison house and I don’t know what will happen. Will I get lectured? Ignored? Sent to bed without supper? Mrs. Madison seems formal enough that she could probably write me a ticket or send me to detention or something. Or maybe she hides what Mama Lacy called “a volatile heart” beneath that slippery cheetah robe and she’ll get mad and yell and scream at me. My stomach feels wilty at the thought.
“Zany, I don’t think we should be doing this.” My excitement tips back over into panic.
Zany rolls her eyes. “You always say that about everything. And you’re too late. We’re already doing it.” She spins the wheel at the corner and juggles her armload of urn, at last pushing it toward me. I try not to take it, but Zany lets go. If I don’t catch it, it’ll fall. It sinks into my palms, heavier than I thought it would be. It’s almost as heavy as one of the weights Mama Shannon uses when she’s stair-stepping.
Zany hits the gas once we get out on the main road. She turns on the radio, cranks the volume, and sings along to a tune that sounds as pink as my robe, all about falling in love. Gross. I clutch my dead mother to my chest, all cold and brass, as we escape through the night.
chapter
2
There’s a picture on the dashboard of a perfect family: two parents and two kids, all girls. It was taken in 1999, the year we moved back to West Virginia from Asheville. You can’t tell by looking, because our eyes are full of smiles, but already it was the beginning of the end of good things for us. Five years have passed since then, and not a single one has been easy.
We loved Asheville. I might be the youngest person in the family and have the poorest memory, but our love for our home, I’ll never forget that. It wasn’t just something we felt. It was something we talked about. Mama Shannon was always going on about how back home in West Virginia, she couldn’t do this and back home she couldn’t do that. But in North Carolina, in Asheville, she could do and be and say whatever she wanted, and nobody would get upset with her for it. She wore cargo shorts from the men’s section and got her hair cut at the barbershop and she talked openly with anyone who asked about her love for Mama Lacy and the city they’d chosen.
