“Nope, that’s Peter,” Tressa said. Then she added, “Well, yes, I tried for the girl. The younger two are at home with Grandma. I have six boys, Patty. No girls.”
“Six?” I could almost see Aunt Patty’s thoughts written on her forehead. Six boys? Running around fast enough to look like twelve? But she recovered herself very well. “These are my nieces, Tressa. Willa Jo, say hello.”
“Hello, Mrs.... er...”
“Call me Tressa,” she said in a friendly way. “I’ve known your aunt Patty since we were girls your age. We don’t have to be formal.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“You look enough like your aunt Patty to be her twin sister, I mean it,” Tressa said. “You’re the girl who took on that Pettibone creature, aren’t you?”
“Oh, my lands,” Aunt Patty said. “You heard about that?”
“I am filled with admiration for Willa Jo,” Tressa said.
Aunt Patty didn’t know what to make of this, and neither did I. “Admir—” Aunt Patty began.
“Like mother, like daughter, I guess,” Tressa went on to say. “You know she’s the daughter of the Mrs. Pettibone Robert had in third grade? Do you remember what a terrible year he had, that he still hadn’t learned how to read? He had to repeat?”
While Tressa talked, Little Sister had taken up counting the cans of evaporated milk on the shelf beside her. She counted with quick movements of her fingers, and a thumb touched quickly to her shirt, as if this would help her remember the number. Then she went on to count the condensed milk.
“Well, the next year,” Tressa was saying, “he had a new teacher, new to the district, that is. She made all the difference. He was reading by the time we moved in November. He went right into the fourth grade, where he should have been all the time.”
“I had no idea,” Aunt Patty said.
“And who is this pretty little thing?” Tressa said, looking at Little Sister like she was a wrapped present. Little Sister was on to counting the boxes of baking soda, thin lips moving silently to record what her flickering fingers told her.
“This is Willa Jo’s little sister, JoAnn,” Aunt Patty said, pulling Little Sister’s hand to her side. “She’s the quiet type.”
Little Sister realized they were talking about her and offered up her most polite smile.
“Cat got your tongue, sweetie?” Tressa said.
“Little Sister,” Aunt Patty said quickly, “why don’t you get us all some donuts too? Do you know where to find them?”
Little Sister shook her head.
“Well, here’s Peter,” Tressa said as he came tearing around the corner again. “Peter, take JoAnn here to find some donuts, will you?”
Peter gave Little Sister a brief sizing up and said, “Come on,” nicely enough. Little Sister went with a tiny smile of , pleasure.
“Well, what was all that about?” Tressa said as they disappeared around the end of the aisle at a brisk walk.
“Donuts,” Aunt Patty said.
“Now don’t you give me that, Patty Hobson,” Tressa said. “We are old friends. Doesn’t that little girl hear?”
“She hears fine,” Aunt Patty said in a definite tone. “I’ll tell you about it some other time.”
“Well, all right then,” Tressa said, giving in. “Are you still on Gilbert Road?”
“No, Hob and I have built a house in a little development off—”
Just then a stack of pickle jars at the end of the aisle crashed to the ground. Both Little Sister and her new friend Peter stood there with a pickle jar apiece and guilty expressions on their faces. The next few minutes were noisy and confused. We rushed to do what we could, but several of the jars had broken and more were rolling every which way. The smell of sweet pickle juice hung ripe in the air.
The manager of the store came around the end of the aisle with thunder on his face. Peter got scared and dropped the jar he was holding. Of course that one broke too. Peter began to cry loudly. In all fairness, he was also holding a box of a dozen donuts, and he didn’t drop those. Little Sister slipped behind me, still holding her pickle jar.
“I don’t know what we wanted pickles for anyway,” Tressa said, looking at Peter in the way that mothers will when there are more things they will have to say later.
Aunt Patty said to the manager, “We are so sorry for the mess.”
Tressa offered to pay for the broken jars, all seven of them.
But with every lady in the store looking on with interest, the manager said, “No, I don’t need you to do that.”
“We are truly sorry,” Tressa said, and offered once more to pay for the pickles.
The manager was really pretty nice about it, considering how red his face was. But in showing Peter and Little Sister, and anyone else who might want to know, that they were forgiven, he made a big deal of speaking to them in a voice that could be heard by everyone. “This was nothing but an accident, isn’t that right?” he said, and held out his hand as if to shake on it. “Could’ve happened to anyone.”
Tressa gave Peter’s elbow a nudge. Peter got the idea and shook hands with the manager. He said he was sorry in a voice that threatened more tears.
But of course Little Sister did not. She hitched up her pickle jar a notch—she wasn’t about to loosen the grip she had on it—and looked at him as earnestly as anyone could want. But he didn’t understand. When it became clear that the manager was waiting for another apology, Aunt Patty had little choice but to say that Little Sister didn’t speak.
“I didn’t realize,” the manager said.
“Well, it’s just for now,” Aunt Patty said nervously. Every eye was on her. “We expect she’ll get her voice back one of these days.”
The manager was looking like Little Sister was just the saddest thing he’d ever seen. Tressa was looking at her too, as if Little Sister was sad and interesting, both. I gathered that whoever told Tressa about Bible school had not told her about Little Sister. I didn’t like Tressa all at once. I didn’t like the way Aunt Patty acted like she was ashamed of Little Sister. I wished she would do like Mom and just behave as if every day some child took it into her head never to speak another word.
But Aunt Patty got all flustered and rushed us out of there, only pausing to tell Tressa to be sure to call. When she didn’t say another word about it all the way home, I knew she didn’t want Little Sister to feel bad. But I also knew she didn’t like it that Little Sister couldn’t say something like Peter did and have the whole thing finish nicely.
That evening, after Little Sister had fallen asleep in the living room, Aunt Patty came out to sit on the step with me. As reluctant as ever to use the front door, she was afraid we might all get into the habit, so she came out through the garage.
There isn’t any path between the garage door and the front step unless she was to walk three-quarters of the way down the driveway and come back by the S-shaped path that almost nobody uses. So Aunt Patty minced across the grass holding on to the cuffs of her shorts as if they were the folds of a skirt. Slugs.
She sat and checked her shoes. She didn’t find any slugs and breathed a sigh of relief. Myself, I breathed a little sigh too. It used to be I had a little peace and quiet on the front step.
“Why do you think it is,” Aunt Patty said after a few minutes of talking about this and that, “that Little Sister doesn’t talk?”
“I’m not real sure,” I said, never taking my eyes off the lights of the nine little houses across the street.
“Have you ever thought about it?”
“Some,” I said.
Aunt Patty sat quiet for a piece, like she might have received an answer that needed some deliberation. Then she said, “Well, why do you think?”
“Aunt Patty, I don’t know.”
“I’ve never seen a child do that business with the fingers before,” she said in a worried way.
“She was counting, that’s all,” I said. “Little Sister was counting things to keep herself occupied.” I
didn’t feel like saying more. I had been thinking about how much Aunt Patty did not want people to know that little Sister would not speak. It made me feel tired to think about it, real tired.
“I have never seen the like,” Aunt Patty said. “I wonder if we shouldn’t try to snap her out of it.”
Mom and I had tried plenty of times, but no matter how much Little Sister might be distracted, she never forgot not to speak. I shrugged.
“Have you tried anything?” Aunt Patty asked me.
“We’ve talked to her. She doesn’t answer.”
“Well, everybody talks to her. We ought to be able to come up with something better than that.”
“Like what?” I said.
“Like things,” Aunt Patty said. “To make her mad, I guess.”
I turned to look at Aunt Patty.
“Like pinching her,” Aunt Patty said, “or like holding her upside down by the ankles—”
“Aunt Patty!”
“Well, you know, till she says something.”
“Like what?” I said, louder than I meant to.
“Well, like, ‘I give up,’ ” Aunt Patty said in a voice suddenly gone high-pitched. “Something like that.”
I looked at Aunt Patty like I was the principal of her whole life and she would have to stay after school forever if she tried such a thing.
“It was an idea,” she said finally.
“It was a terrible idea,” I said. “I don’t think you’re Mom’s sister at all. I think you’re Miss Pettibone’s sister.”
“Willa Jo,” Aunt Patty said to shush me. But I wouldn’t be shushed.
“It is just so like you to think you are the only one to wonder. Don’t you think Mom tried to get Little Sister to talk? Don’t you think I did?”
“I don’t know,” Aunt Patty said. “Your momma and I didn’t get around to talking much about that.”
“No, you were too busy making her cry.”
“I never did.” She looked hurt, but it was too late to pull back now.
“You said all the wrong things,” I told her. “You said every wrong thing. Why couldn’t you do like Milly?”
“I don’t know what Milly said, Willa Jo.”
“She never said anything to make Mom cry.” I was nearly as angry with Aunt Patty as I had been with Miss Pettibone. But it was a confused kind of anger, mixed up with all kinds of other feelings that made my heart ache.
“I never meant to hurt your momma,” Aunt Patty said. “I love her. She is my own sister, like Little Sister is yours.”
Two fat tears ran down Aunt Patty’s cheeks. It’s just terrible to see people cry. Worse when it is my fault. It wasn’t like she would really have held Little Sister up by her ankles. At least, I don’t think she would.
“I didn’t say the right things, though,” Aunt Patty said as if the words hurt her throat. “You’re right about that. I don’t know the right things to say to someone who is in such pain, even if she is my sister.”
“No matter what she’d done, you have to say...” My own words choked me. “You have to say, ‘It wouldn’t have made a bit of difference.’ ”
And I knew right then that it wouldn’t. There were no right words for Aunt Patty to say. Words are not enough.
15
Second Thoughts
It’s about midmorning and the roof is beginning to heat up. The sun is high and the air is kind of sticky. I wish I could get Little Sister to go back in. Her nose and cheeks are getting too pink. She pretends she hasn’t heard me. I know she is feeling the sun, though. My shoulders feel tingly, and my nose burns if I scratch it.
Aunt Patty has gone back inside the house. She’s gone back inside three or four times now, to dress or to do something else that needs doing. She always comes back out. I am enjoying the peace and quiet for as long as it lasts.
You’d think there wouldn’t be much to do on a rooftop. But you’d be wrong. To begin with, there’s the view. Green rolling hills rimmed with red clay earth, big patches of yellow buttercups and purply-pink stuff in bloom, the flash of light wherever a creek cuts across the fields.
Black-and-white cows over there and the tip-top of a red barn behind that hill.
A white church spire rising out of the valley over there where a bell will toll come twelve o’clock.
A short strip of the highway is visible between two hills and there is a never-ending stream of matchbox-sized cars that when I stare long enough begin to look like the same cars coming back again. Like they aren’t really going anywhere, but are glued to a wheel that is going round and round in the distance like a Ferris wheel.
Sometimes we watch and sometimes we play. Little Sister and I devised a game of tic-tac-toe using pieces of broken roof tile somebody left beside the dormer window. The crossed lines are already there in the roof tiles that are laid all over the roof.
Or we count.
I started her on multiplication tables some time ago. I figured the numbers were so big she would get tired of counting on her fingers and speak to me. But Little Sister began to see a game in it.
She worked out new ways to give me an answer to how many of something she could count. A thousand of something is a thumb stuck out like she’s hitchhiking; a hundred is a finger pointing down; and when she flashes her hands, she’s holding up as many fingers as she means tens. She only ever needed the thousand sign once, when she was trying to count the gumballs in a machine. Little Sister always was sassy.
So if the number of roof tiles is 132 on this nearly square section over here, she points one finger down for the hundred, then flashes three fingers for thirty, then holds up two fingers until I’ve said the number she’s shown me: 132. And when we add up all the sections we’ve counted and get 1,611, she flashes me a triumphant look. She’s going to need that thousand sign again.
She jerks her thumb once for a thousand, points six fingers down for six hundred, flashes one finger and then holds one up until I say she’s right. The thing is, Little Sister has the last laugh because she is fast enough that I have to stay on my toes to keep up with her. And she still hasn’t had to say a word.
We counted how many green roofs there are in town, how many gray and brown, how many red, and there are two blue rooftops. You’d be surprised how most people pick the same color for a roof. There are mostly green ones, 102 that I can see.
You’d also be surprised at the amount of foot traffic Aunt Patty’s dead-end street sees. Mostly bird-watchers, you’d think, since so many of them look up. A few of them have been carrying binoculars. Little Sister and I are quite the attraction.
By now, if Aunt Patty gets caught out here looking up, she acts like there’s nothing at all unusual about two people sitting out on the roof all morning. She acts like she’s only checking on whether we want peas or carrots with our dinner. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
Aunt Patty is inside when Liz comes. Liz sees me the moment she comes out from the shadow of the trees that line her driveway. She does not continue to look at me, though, as she comes across the street. There is something about that that bothers me. But when she comes to stand below and looks up at me, she has to squint into the sun.
“My momma would skin me alive if I did something like that,” Liz says.
I don’t know what to say to this. It’s a surprise to hear her taking that scolding tone with me.
“Your aunt Patty is worried sick. She called my momma and asked her what to do.”
“My aunt Patty,” I say, although there is no other, “called your momma?”
“My momma told her to call your momma, but she won’t do it.”
“What else did your momma say?”
Liz puts on the sternest of faces. “That you are bound to come down if it rains hard enough.”
For some reason, this makes me grin. And after a moment Liz grins back.
“I’m off to buy milk,” she says. “I’m not to offer you any encouragement.”
“You didn’t,” I
say.
She shakes her head then and says, almost sadly, “I never thought I would feel sorry for your aunt Patty.”
Little Sister and I watch her until she is out of sight. Somehow Liz has made me feel bad for Aunt Patty She tries, I know she tries. Aunt Patty tries harder than anybody. I don’t know what I hoped to accomplish by climbing out here. I guess Aunt Patty thinks I did this to drive her crazy. Maybe even Liz thinks so. But I didn’t. I can’t say exactly why I stayed, either. It just felt like the place I wanted to be.
One reason I’m out here, like I said, was to see the sun come up. In fact, when I went up to the attic and climbed up on a chair to push that dormer window open, I thought that was the only reason I was coming out here. It was awful quiet, not even the birds were making a sound. It was still real dark but with that hint of blue color that says the sun is coming on soon.
Huddled out here by myself, watching the sky turn from darkest blue to deep purple, I started to remember this dream I had during the night. All I could remember was something about Baby and a curtain rising.
And then Little Sister climbed out behind me. She hadn’t stopped to put on shorts and a shirt like I did. She was still wearing the frilly white cotton nightgown Aunt Patty bought for her. Little Sister looked like an angel as she rose to stand on the rooftop, the breeze pulling the nightgown and her long hair off to one side the way it did. I forgot to try to remember the dream.
Little Sister crouched down and duck-waddled over to me, either because it made her stomach cramp to be up so high or because the breeze was cool, I don’t know which. But she didn’t act like she was cold. She sat down next to me and waited to see what would happen next, because that’s the way Little Sister is. I didn’t say anything, try to explain, nothing. It seemed wrong to disturb the quiet.
The air was cool and silky on my skin, and the sky kept turning more and more purple. Then came just a hint of a pink so hot it might be orange. And then it was. An orange so full of fire it looked like the edge of the world had burst into flame. Little Sister’s hand crept into mine.
I let myself look for as long as I could, although Mom always warned us not to. When I looked away, I could see seven burning suns coming up all around me. But I kept needing to look back. It was like my eyes were hungry for the sight of that brilliant light. Finally, when I couldn’t look straight on, I saw everything by looking off to the side. It was like watching something in a mirror.
Getting Near to Baby Page 8
