by Teresa Toten
I could barely hear him, the buzzing in my head was so loud.
“He’s right. She used up everything she had. That’s what the fireman said.” Nurse Sanchez nodded. “They couldn’t get to her in time.”
The universe overturned so violently I thought I’d pass out. I was unmoored. Black was white and up was down. My mother had saved my life by sacrificing her own. My mother held on in unendurable pain until she saw that I was safe. I had hated her for almost fourteen years.
Who was the monster now?
I can’t.
I won’t.
I did.
I ran.
I bolted from the chair before either of them could blink.
I ran down the long, long corridor. I passed the elevators—too slow—and ran down seven flights of stairs, tripping through tears and gasping until I got outside to run some more. I ran and I ran and I ran and still could not outrun myself.
I never could.
“Everybody Loves Somebody”
(DEAN MARTIN)
ETHAN CAUGHT UP to me by Wellesley Street, as I was tearing across Queen’s Park.
“Whoa! Whoa, whoa!” He grabbed my arm and yanked me to a full stop. “Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay. Hey!” He looked around the park. “This is fast becoming our spot.”
I saw his lips move and even recognized some words, but they bounced off me. None of it penetrated. By the time Ethan got to me, I was hysterical.
He tried covering me with his arms and it didn’t help; I was keening enough to draw a little crowd.
“It’s okay, Toni, it’s okay. Don’t you see?” He held tight, rocking me, repeating over and over again that it was all right. “You were practically a baby. The important thing is, your mother loved you. She loved you so much.”
Or something like that.
I don’t remember how we got home.
Did I finally shut up?
I remember Grady was as pale as a sheet. Ethan talked to her. A lot.
She insisted I swallow a finger of brandy. I think I did, and then Grady pulled out a pillow and placed it and me on her sofa.
“I’ll be right here. You’re not going anywhere and neither am I.”
Or something like that.
I think the professor dropped in at some point, but I can’t be sure.
I fell asleep while it was still light outside. It was the sleep of the dead, deep and dark and long. I didn’t wake up until noon the next day.
There were no dreams.
When I woke up, Grady was in her customary position in her wingback. Her hair was in rollers. She had a mud mask on and was carefully applying a fresh coat of nail polish to her fingernails. “Well, good morning, sleepyhead. I don’t know what everybody’s talking about. Not only did you not scream your head off, but you didn’t budge all night.”
How did she know?
I raised myself cautiously. No more buzzing. My head was remarkably clear and I was, remarkably, still exhausted. “Grady, I want to—”
“Yeah, yeah, you want to thank me. Consider it done. Ethan told me the whole story.” She whistled. “Hope it wasn’t some kind of secret. Kid, you make my life look like a beige wall.”
I shook my head and started to get up. “I’ve got early shift today…”
“Nah, not today you don’t. Today you recuperate and cry some more and sleep some more. Rachel and Ethan are covering for you. Sit down.”
I sat.
“Tell me all about it from the beginning, right from what Scarlet Sue laid on you onward. I’ve got coffee brewing.” She blew on her nails.
“But I thought that Ethan told you.”
“Yeah, he did and now you have to, all of it. Get it out in one long lump, including how you think you’re a monster.”
I winced. That must have slipped out when I went all hysterical in the park.
“Come on, let’s get at it. I just got to warn you, if you start blubbering I’m not going to run over and hug you. First, because I’m not the hugging type, and second, because I’m going to start in on my feet now.” And with that warning, Grady started weaving long puffy cotton ropes between her toes. “Go!”
And I did.
I talked for the rest of the afternoon. Grady made pots of coffee and brought in scones. At some point she had to wash off the mud mask, which had dried to the consistency of a sidewalk. In between all that, I talked and Grady asked questions and I talked some more. A lot more. She may not have been the hugging type, but in the end she was a crier.
And she didn’t have a single drink. Well, at least not until 5:05 PM, when I got up and made her a scotch, two fingers, no ice.
“Thanks,” she said when I handed it to her. “You’re a good kid.”
I sat by her on the footstool. Grady’s toenails had dried hours ago. “Actually, I don’t much feel like a kid anymore, Grady. I’m going to be seventeen in a few days, and I feel forty.”
“Hey! What the hell’s wrong with forty?”
“Nothing! You know what I mean. It’s just that, I don’t know, it’s like I’ve lived more in almost four months here than I did in almost fourteen years at the orphanage.”
“Yup, ready or not.” Grady nodded gravely. “You’re not a kid anymore, kid.”
I slowly found my footing over the next few days. Everyone was weirdly gentle with me except for Ethan. Ethan teased me in public and kissed me in private. Each and every kiss seemed to heat through my lips and shoot to every single part of my body. His touch made me nervous and excited at the same time. I didn’t know what was going on with me when I was near him.
Away from Ethan, walking the streets of Yorkville or trying to do work on the correspondence course that the professor had lined up for me, I felt alone. And that’s because I was. I wasn’t all weepy about it. Facts were facts. I was alone. I had no family, no people who were my people. There wasn’t maybe someone out there, good or bad, whom I belonged to. The maybe was done. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. I knew where I stood.
But I once had a mother who loved me fiercely.
I had been wrong about her, and I was trying to forgive myself for that.
She loved me and that was no fantasy.
On Monday, Grady had me tearing around the city on errands. I was happy to do them for her; no kin could have been better than she was. So I went to Simpson’s to buy her three pairs of Hanes nylon stockings. Of course, I paid my respects to Mrs. Howland and Miss Zelda and sidestepped as best I could the “success” of the party.
The party. Rachel was right. An image would flash before me out of nowhere. My stomach would instantly contract and I’d cringe, afraid that other people could see what I had just seen. And then it would just leave.
I would try to learn how to live with that too.
After Simpson’s I had to go to a specialty shop in Bloor West, which was at the other end of the city, for these special salamis that Big Bob apparently had a hankering for. And apparently, Grady cared deeply about what Big Bob was hankering for.
I didn’t get in until almost six o’clock. “Grady, I’m back!”
“Did you get the salamis?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Set them on the dining-room table, will you?”
The dining-room table? I had to push open the door with my hip, and as soon as I did, the top of my head blew off.
“SURPRISE!!!!!!!”
The salamis and the nylons tumbled to the floor. The dining room was filled to bursting.
“Happy birthday to you…”
Grady was at the head of the table, with Big Bob at her right. Rachel was crying on his right.
“Happy birthday to you…”
Mr. Goldman was beside her. And the professor and Mr. Kenyatta were across from them. Both of them were seriously off-key.
“Happy birthday dear Toni…”
And singing louder than anyone was Ethan, on Grady’s immediate left.
“Happy birthday to you!”
Everyon
e clapped and hooted. They were all wearing ridiculous party hats, made even more ridiculous by the fact that they were emblazoned with glitter lettering that read Happy New Year 1959.
“Blow out your candles!” they chanted.
“It’s your birthday and we’re going to start with cake!” Grady yelled above the hubbub. “Blow ’em out, kid.” It was the biggest, most beautiful birthday cake I had ever seen. Actually, other than on TV or in the movies, I’d never seen a birthday cake, but this one was for sure more glamorous than any of those.
There were eighteen lit candles in between the pink HAPPY BIRTHDAY TONI lettering. Ethan said that there was always one extra for luck. I blew them out to thunderous applause and then sat down at the other end of the table from Grady. We started with cake and ice cream and then worked our way backward, through beef stroganoff and butter noodles and salad and back to cake again. The adults got a bit over-refreshed. Even Mr. Kenyatta was tipsy. I could tell because he allowed the professor to hold his hand. Everyone’s hats were askew by the time we finished the noodles.
I had a lot to write Betty about.
Mr. Goldman lit into jazz standards with the second round of cake. He belted out “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “The Birth of the Blues” like he had Jumpin' Joe’s spirit deep inside him. Ethan joined in on “Mack the Knife,” and by the time he swung around to Dean Martin’s “Everybody Loves Somebody,” we were all singing. As soon as we hit the last note, Ethan jumped up and kissed me, right then and there. And it was a showstopper. The birthday guests whistled and hooted.
I guess it was official. This had been the best and worst year of my life.
Ethan put his arm around me as I tried to make sense of it all and of the people at this crazy table. Big Bob was flexing his right arm, showing off a brand-new tattoo, and Grady squealed like a schoolgirl. The professor and Mr. Kenyatta were still holding hands even as they ate their cake. Mr. Goldman was drumming on the table and trying to tell us that Scarlet Sue would be out by November. Rachel was wailing anew. Apparently, her latest, greatest new fella had flown the coop. What would Joe think of them when he came?
He’d love them. Like I did.
They were a loud, weird, motley mess of people.
But they were my people.
And that was enough.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I must begin by thanking my family, Ken, Sasha and Nikki Toten, who should by now be demanding payment for services rendered as critical first readers. Then there’s my delightful fellow partners in crime—Kelley Armstrong, Kathy Kacer, Marthe Jocelyn, Vicki Grant, Norah McClintock and, of course, Eric Walters—extraordinary colleagues and writers all. As always, The Goup—Nancy Hartry, Loris Lesynski, Susan Adach and especially Ann Goldring—did a lot of heavy lifting. Immense gratitude to Sarah Harvey, Andrew Wooldridge and the team at Orca for their ingenuity, patience and, dare I say, fortitude. And, finally, to the city as it was, Toronto 1964. Toronto’s history, tragedy and exuberance shaped Toni’s story as well as my own.
TERESA TOTEN is the author of the acclaimed Blondes series, as well as The Game, The Onlyhouse and, with Eric Walters, The Taming. Teresa has been nominated three times for the Governor General’s Literary Award and won it in 2013 for The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B, which also won the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award and the CBC Bookie Award, was the CLA Honour Book for 2013 and was nominated for the 2014 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award. For more information, visit www.teresatoten.com.
For more Secrets:
iTunes.com/ReadtheSecrets
Copyright © 2015 Teresa Toten
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Toten, Teresa, 1955–, author
Shattered glass / Teresa Toten.
(Secrets)
Issued in print, electronic and audio disc formats.
ISBN 978-1-4598-0671-9 (pbk.).—ISBN 978-1-4598-0672-6 (pdf).—
ISBN 978-1-4598-0673-3 (epub).—ISBN 978-1-4598-1096-9 (audio disc)
I. Title. II. Series: Secrets (Victoria, B.C.)
PS8589.O6759S53 2015 jC813'.54C2015-901741-6
C2015-901742-4C2015-901743-2
First published in the United States, 2015
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015935522
Summary: In this YA novel, Toni travels to Toronto to unearth the truth about the mother she believes hurt and then abandoned her.
Orca Book Publishers is dedicated to preserving the environment and has printed this book on Forest Stewardship Council® certified paper.
Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
Cover design by Teresa Bubela
Front cover image by iStockphoto.com; back cover images by Shutterstock.com
Author photo by Matthew Wiley
ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS
www.orcabook.com
Printed and bound in Canada.
18 17 16 15 • 4 3 2 1
