by Jane Smiley
“Twenty miles used to be a long way. Amazing how that’s changed, and pretty much entirely in my lifetime.”
Silence.
She looked right at me. I said, “Where are we moving?”
“Over there where your dad’s new job is. There are some nice houses, really. The landscape is awfully flat, though. Too much sunshine, if you ask me. But people like that.”
“Who’s moving into our house?”
“Some retired couple from Minnesota. I guess they’ve been coming here for years, since he was stationed nearby in the war. They heard your mom talking about the garden over at the market, and they came right up to her and said that they’ve been peeking at the garden for such a long time, it’s such a beautiful garden, the wife and the husband both love to garden, they have lilacs and roses and apple trees, but after all, it is Minnesota, and your mom invited them to have a real look, and lo and behold, they made an offer, and it was a good offer, too. And I know—now that Joan Ariel is here, your family is about to burst out of this place, it is tiny, but even so…” And then she sighed.
I got up and gave her a good hug, and also a kiss, because I did not want her to know that the very first thought I had about moving was that I absolutely could not wait, because why would I not want to be closer to Tater and Ned and Abby? So here is another kind of secret—the kind that might hurt somebody’s feelings if you tell it.
It turned out that not only had Dad been looking at cars, he had been looking at houses, because on the following Saturday, he “suggested” that I get ready for my lesson first thing because he wanted to leave early, and then Mom and Joan Ariel got into the car with us and we were out of the driveway before the fog had even begun to lift. Joan Ariel was in the car seat, and I watched her. She likes to look out of the window, even at her age, which I think is interesting. I decided that she was going to be a mountain climber, and then I named some mountains in my mind, but only ones with interesting names: Kilimanjaro, Olympus, Matterhorn. I thought that when we got home, I would sit Joan Ariel on my lap and we would look for them in the atlas. We drove up the hill, through Monterey, out into the valley. The fog became sunshine. We did not turn down the road that leads to Abby’s place, but went on toward our new town. We passed some stores, then turned left and right, and there we were, driving slowly down a wide, flat street. The houses looked new, and there were some empty lots. There were trees, but they were small, like they had just been planted. The ocean was nowhere to be seen. Then, just a little farther on, the neighborhood changed—the houses were older, some with pointed roofs and some that looked Spanish—and then, after what seemed like just a moment, the neighborhood changed again. Joan Ariel had fallen asleep and Mom wasn’t saying anything, just looking here and there as we turned a corner and then turned another corner. I saw that it was going to be hard to choose a house. We drove past a school. It, too, was long and flat, with a tower at one end. Everything in this new town was different. It gave me a weird feeling. But then I remembered that Abby must have gone to this school, and she would know all about it. I looked at my watch and spoke up. I said, “It’s ten o’clock. My lesson is at ten-thirty.” Yes, I sounded like a schoolteacher.
That was the first step, and I am here to tell you that moving out of your house to another one, even if it is the very one you want in the very spot you like best, is a step-by-step process, and about ten times a day you say to yourself, “Why are we doing this? Do I really have to throw out all of these clothes, and do I really have to fold all the other ones very neatly and stick them in a box, and where is that blouse Mom bought me in the spring—did I throw it away? Do I really have to choose between a nice modern flat house and a nice old-fashioned two-story house that cost about the same?” And I admit that this wasn’t actually my choice, but I did have an opinion, and Mom and Dad should have let me vote.
And the other thing was that all of a sudden, Joan Ariel started crawling, and it was like one day she sat up and moved forward a little bit and the next day she was a racehorse, going all over the house, and we had to watch the stairs and the doors. But Joan Ariel wasn’t about to fall down the stairs. She would set herself at the top and stare and stare, and then, all on her own, she figured out how to turn around and go down knees first. Then she figured out how to go back up, and then Grandma said, “Well, she is a runner.”
I said, “What’s that?”
“Oh, my goodness, a baby or a toddler who is just determined to get out of town.”
I must have looked shocked when she said that, because she looked at me and laughed and said, “Of course I’m exaggerating, but some kids, when they figure out how to move, they want to move all the time, and faster and faster.”
“Was I a runner?”
“No, and thank goodness. You were a looker. If you were sitting by a window and suddenly turned your head, I would go over and try to see what you were looking at, and it was always something—a man walking up the street, or a squirrel on the porch, or even a bird. Always something. We didn’t have to chase you. When you went somewhere, you always acted like you knew just where you were going.” And then she followed Joan Ariel into the dining room and stayed with her while she crawled round and round the table.
After all, it was good that they didn’t give me the deciding vote, because another house came on the market all of a sudden and we all liked it, including Grandma, who visited it and said she would stay with us anytime we pleased, and that was the one we moved into. It was right on the corner between a sunny street and a shady street, across from a park for Joan Ariel to run around in, and walking distance (flat walking distance) from all the schools. After our old house, it seemed so big that you could ride a bike inside, but when I said that (and I was serious), Mom just laughed. It was two stories (the second story only had two bedrooms) and had a fenced backyard, with a patio that Joan Ariel could crawl around on and plenty of room for a garden.
Yes, it was step by step, and then it all sped up. We had Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma and Grandpa’s because everything at our place was pretty much packed, and then on the first day of Christmas break, which was a Thursday, the movers came and put everything in their giant truck and moved it all to the new house. In six days, Mom, Grandma, and Grandpa got the house set up (we slept on the floor only the first night, and it was fun), and I did go to Abby’s ranch for a lesson that Saturday and I timed the drive—twelve minutes. When we got there, I said to Dad that I loved our new house, and he said, “Me too. Room to stretch out,” and I saw that I didn’t have to keep my secret anymore. I didn’t know what I wanted for Christmas—I couldn’t think of a single thing.
On Christmas morning, I woke up early, as always. In the new house, the light was already bright, not because the sun comes up earlier (I asked Mom), but because the hills don’t hide it. The window of my room faces west, and there are trees, but if I sit up and look out the window, I can see lots of sky. I waited for a cloud and not a single one showed up. I got up and went downstairs. The Christmas tree was small this year. We’d gotten it the previous afternoon—the last one on the lot—and brought it home. We had decorated it after Joan Ariel fell asleep, so when I got into the living room, I had to smile at the way she was sitting there, completely quiet, just looking and looking at the tree. I guess it seemed big to her. I went over to it and shook my presents—only a few. But what did I want? I still didn’t know, and I didn’t know if the new house had cost so much money that it was our real Christmas present.
About an hour later, Grandma and Grandpa showed up for breakfast, with coffee cake and ambrosia and a plate of frosted sugar cookies. When I unwrapped the boxes, I found a new hard hat for riding and a thick book about a wrinkle in time, which I looked at for about a minute until I saw another book under the tree called All About Horses. And there was a sweater. From Grandma, there is always a sweater, because she loves to knit. Joan Ariel’s sweater was yellow and mine was re
d. I kissed her and thanked her for it not being pink.
It looked like Christmas Day was going to last a long time. Not even noon yet. I was so bored that I went into the kitchen, found a dishcloth, and started helping with the dishes. Mom kept washing and rinsing and didn’t say anything. When we were done, she swept the floor and I held the dustpan. When the kitchen looked sparkly clean, I said, “It’s pretty warm. I think I’ll walk over to the park.”
“You could do that,” said Mom. When I was just about in the doorway to the dining room, she went on, “But we have something else to do first.”
In the living room, Grandma, Grandpa, Dad, and Joan Ariel were already waiting beside the door. Dad had my jacket in his hand. I said, “We have a house. We chose this house. We don’t need to look at any others.”
Dad laughed and the others smiled. But I didn’t say anything more. I just took my jacket and put it on. We went out and got into the car, and it was a pretty tight fit. It took me about three minutes to realize that we were not going to the nearby market (which was closed, but looked enormous and delicious). At that corner, when we turned right, I realized we were going to Abby’s ranch, and everyone in the car, except maybe Joan Ariel, knew why we were going there. I looked around. Dad and Grandpa were talking about Fords and Chevrolets, and Mom and Grandma were talking about pacifiers. I put my hand over my mouth to hide my smile and didn’t say a single word. I really didn’t. I knew that I only had to keep my new secret for eight more minutes.
The gate at Abby’s ranch was wide open. We drove in, and as soon as Dad turned the car off, Abby came running out with Rusty at her heels (Rusty was not barking—she was wagging her tail), and then came Abby’s dad and then her mom. Abby gave me a hug and ran off.
Everyone was now out of our car. Grandma was holding Joan Ariel, who was yawning. Mom came over and said, “You need this, sweetie,” and she pulled a bandanna out of her pocket and tied it gently over my eyes. Then she turned me around like it was a game of hide-and-seek, then I heard some clip-clopping and Abby’s dad singing “Joy to the World.” He got through one verse before Mom pulled off the bandanna, and there was Tater right in front of me, with his ears pricked, so that he looked very handsome, and then he reached his nose forward and sniffed my hand (always polite) and nickered, and that was what told me he was now my horse, my Christmas present, and I wondered when Grandma was going to exclaim, “Where in the world did you get that kind of money!” but I said nothing, and I put my arms around Tater’s neck gently, and I gave him a kiss on the cheek, and then everyone said, “Merry Christmas!” and Joan Ariel started to cry because she was hungry, and probably also because she wanted to get down on the ground and explore the farm, and I was glad she became the center of attention, because really, I just wanted to stand there, holding Tater’s lead rope in my hand and petting his shining neck and thinking about what it feels like that very moment when you get what you have wanted for as long as you can remember.
Jane Smiley is the author of many books for adults, including Some Luck, Horse Heaven, and the Pulitzer Prize–winning A Thousand Acres. She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2001. The first book in the Ellen & Ned trilogy was Riding Lessons. She is also the author of five Horses of Oak Valley Ranch books, The Georges and the Jewels, A Good Horse, True Blue, Pie in the Sky, and Gee Whiz.
Jane Smiley lives in Northern California, where she rides horses every chance she gets.
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