by Sarah Willis
I imagine I am taking Timothy for a ride to a new place, like the spiders that stow away in our boxes. I know Timothy isn’t here anymore, if he ever was, just like I figure God isn’t real, but still, it’s a nice idea. Like flying.
My father yells at Robert to get out of bed and start moving, so I go in his room and pull the bottom sheet off the bed while he’s still in it. Robert tumbles to the floor and looks like he might cry. Probably not just because he fell off his bed. I put the sheet over my head and moan like a ghost. Robert laughs. My father actually thanks me and I pretend to have a heart attack from the surprise, falling on the bed and clutching my heart.
“Okay, that’s enough,” he says. “Let’s move.” He means let’s get going. He doesn’t even realize what else it means. Robert and I get quiet and carry the sheets down.
I make a breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, and Kool-Aid. My father won’t stop for anything once we get on the road. He may not stop at all. He is so anxious to leave, he carries around the car keys in his hand, sure we will be ready any minute. He’s not usually involved in all these last-minute maneuvers and can’t quite understand what’s taking so long. I tell him to sit and eat. “Then, when you’re done,” I say firmly, “take a paper bag and go pick the rest of the ripe tomatoes, while we finish cleaning up.” He looks at me like I’m crazy.
“There’s room for a bag of tomatoes,” I say, sounding so much like my mother he nods and says fine.
“Just hurry,” he says.
After we eat, Robert and Megan do the dishes while I wring out the sheets and take them outside to hang on the line. This is what we agreed to; Mrs. Burns will come and take the sheets down. Which means she will have to go back in the house. Maybe it will be easier than she thinks.
As I lift up the damp sheets and carefully fold them over the clothesline I realize I need to name this house. I try to think back, to remember one thing that sticks out, and suddenly my arms go limp and my lungs take in too much air. Four months, and I remember them all. Kip eating the puzzle piece, all of us running down the hill, teaching Brenda math, watching the bonfire, Rusty’s mouth and Rusty’s freckled arms, the tea party and—
Tears come out of my eyes and I tilt my head up to feel them run down my cheeks, not wiping them off until they hit my chin. I feel sad, but it’s a strange sad, like my mother’s letters describe, a clear sadness I can examine, understand. But at the same time, I see a large attic room. I’ll tape posters to the wall. I’ll make curtains. I’ll buy a blue vase.
I look around. My father’s in the garden picking tomatoes and I can tell he’s taking this job seriously, holding a tomato in his hand and staring at it before pulling it from the vine as if he’s waiting for the tomato to say, “I’m ripe.” He needs my mother.
The wind tugs at the sheets and they make a snapping sound, as if they are mad at me. “I’m sorry,” I say, to the sheets, to my absent mother, to the house and hill beyond. “I have to go.” My father comes over, carrying his bag of tomatoes, and says, “It’s time now.” But I knew that.
As we pull out of the driveway I turn and look back at the pretty little farmhouse with the hydrangea bush and the lace curtains. Always before, when we left, I would say good-bye with a shrug, with my jaw tight, believing the places I left to be as transitory as I, and as fickle. This time, I know that this land will stay here, that it holds a bit of me in all that it is, and that’s okay, because it’s an even trade, a good trade; I take it with me, the shape and slope of the hill, the house, and the people who live here. I imagine myself coming back sometime to say hello. For the first time, I understand that just because we leave people behind doesn’t mean we love them any less, or they us.
My mother’s voice says, “Say good-bye,” so I do.
I decide to name this house The Last House. The next one I’ll call home.
Acknowledgments
My sincerest thanks to:
Dr. Jay E. Graber, for his invaluable expertise in bovine tuberculosis
Charles Oberndorf, Paul Ita, Pat Brubaker, Maureen McHugh, Meg Guncik, Roc and Barb Bonchek, Harriet Slive, and Moira Roth, for all of their thoughtful suggestions
Karen Joy Fowler, for her inspiration, encouragement, and belief
Cindy Roche, for her enthusiasm, hard work, and for finding a wonderful home for my story
John Glusman, for liking this “quiet” story, then helping me make it even better
The Cleveland Heights Public Library, for patiently helping me find the answers to all my strange questions
The East Side Writers Group, for always being there
Matt, for turning down his music
And finally, for everything possible and impossible, my parents
Copyright © 2000 by Sarah Willis
All rights reserved
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
19 Union Square West, New York 10003
Designed by Jonathan D. Lippincott
Title page photograph by Anna Bushell
eISBN 9781466821699
First eBook Edition : May 2012
First edition, 2000
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Willis, Sarah.
Some things that stay / Sarah Willis—1st ed. p. cm.
ISBN 0-374-10580-4 (alk. paper) I. Title
PS3573.I4565557S66 2000
813’.34—dc21
99-28853
