Glancing down at the letter one more time, she noticed an open space after her name. She decided to add one final thought that summed up her life right now.
P.S. By the way, yes, I am happy now. Thanks for asking.
one
“HOW CAN YOU STAND to live like this?” Sierra Jensen’s sister, Tawni, snatched a pair of ragged jeans off the floor from her side of the room and hurled them onto Sierra’s unmade bed. The jeans landed on a mound of clean clothes Sierra had removed from the dryer on Monday. It was now Thursday afternoon, but she never quite found the time to put her clothes away.
“I’m not bothering your stuff!” Sierra said, grabbing the jeans and depositing them on the top of her dirty clothes pile on the floor. “Just because you’re Miss Tide Queen doesn’t mean everyone else has to be like you.”
“You don’t have to be like me, Sierra. Just try to be normal.”
“Normal! Normal? I am normal! You’re the neat freak, Tawni. Never a blond curl out of place, never seen in public without makeup, never a chipped fingernail. Don’t you ever get tired of living the life of a mannequin?”
“You are so rude.”
“Oh, and you’re not?”
“How am I rude?” Tawni challenged.
“You’re throwing my stuff around. I’d call that slightly rude.”
“I wouldn’t have to throw your things around if you would clean them up once in a while. Like this weekend, for example. Do you think you could manage to keep my side of the room the way it is right now and try to clean up your side by Sunday night when I come back?”
Sierra bit her lower lip to keep her angry words inside. Letting them out never seemed to help. And the times she had, she regretted it later. But having to share her room with an older sister who was a clean nut had to be listed somewhere as one of the world’s cruelest tortures. If she could find that list and show it to her parents, they would understand how much Sierra had suffered during her sixteen years of life with the perpetually perfect Tawni Sage Jensen.
“I mean it, Sierra,” Tawni said, zipping closed her luggage. “You’re going to have to give up your sloppy ways one of these days. I vote you start this weekend.” Tawni turned with a swish and marched out of the room.
Sierra plopped onto the floor next to her pile of dirty clothes and took inventory of the surroundings. The two sides of the room couldn’t be more opposite. Tawni’s bed was made without a wrinkle, and her embroidered pillows were positioned on it just so. Her dresser was covered with a lacy white cloth and set like a stage. Front and center was a slender vase with three red tulips picked from the front yard that morning. To the side were two porcelain frames, one containing Tawni’s high school graduation picture and the other her baby picture. Each of her four bottles of perfume lined up in a row with their labels facing the audience. Perfume, or as Tawni called it, “fragrance,” was her thing. She worked at a “fragrance bar” at Nordstrom’s. There she had accumulated a bunch of new friends, and this weekend they were going skiing at Mount Bachelor.
Sierra had plans for this weekend too. Not with friends, though. Since their family had moved to Portland a few months ago, Tawni was the one who’d made all the new friends.
For Sierra, the problem of not having friends wasn’t as pressing at the moment as her prolem of not having money. Hopefully that would be taken care of soon. She had a job interview Saturday afternoon at a flower shop on Hawthorn, about seven blocks from the old Victorian house where they lived. Sierra liked flowers, but she wasn’t sure she would catch on to how to arrange them. She had what she thought of as a different artistic eye than most people. This was evident by the way she dressed. Casual. Simple. Not on “display,” the way Tawni was with her appearance and her room.
That’s how Sierra felt about herself too. Natural. Approachable. Her wild, curly blond hair flowered unhindered to her shoulders. Her blue-gray eyes, the shade of a winter morning sky, lit up her honest face. And the sprinkling of freckles across her nose had yet to be covered with makeup.
Sometime last summer, when Sierra was examining her freckles in the mirror, she had decided her best feature was probably her lips. They were equally proportioned on top and bottom. Round and full. Just right for kissing. But then, she wouldn’t know. The only male that had kissed her smack on the lips lately was her three-year-old nephew, Tyler.
“Sierra?” A tap on the door followed Mom’s voice.
Oh great! Tawni told Mom to bug me about my room.
“Come in,” Sierra said. “I already know what you’re going to say.”
Mom appeared in the doorway. Her normally calm demeanor was replaced with a frenzied look. She had on a straight denim skirt, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and she carried a slip of paper in her hand.
“What’s wrong?” Sierra asked. “Are you okay?”
“Uncle Darren just called. Gayle’s in the hospital. She and the twins were in a car accident. The boys are okay, but Gayle broke both arms. I told Darren I’d try to catch the first flight out. There’s one that leaves at seven tonight.”
Sierra stood up, instinctively feeling she should do something. “Is Aunt Gayle okay?”
Mom nodded. “Yes. She’ll be in the hospital at least until tomorrow. But with both arms fractured, she’ll be in casts for weeks. She obviously can’t take care of Evan and Nathan. They were both asleep in the car seats when the other car hit them at an intersection. Darren says they’re doing fine.”
Sierra knew how close her mom was to her youngest sister, Gayle, and how Mom felt responsible to help Aunt Gayle in her time of need. Mom had gone to Phoenix eighteen months ago when the twins were born. She had taken the role of mother to Gayle when their mom had passed away twenty years ago, and now she had become a substitute grandma for the twins.
“Are you going tonight then? At seven?” Sierra asked.
“I need to talk it over with your dad when he comes home, which—” Mom glanced at her wristwatch—“should be any minute now. With Tawni off on her ski trip and Dad planning to take the boys camping this weekend, that would leave you home with Granna Mae.”
“It’s okay.”
“I know you can handle everything,” Mom said. “It’s just that it can be a bit tricky sometimes when Granna Mae has one of her memory lapses.”
“I can handle it, Mom. She’s almost always clearheaded with me.”
Mom tucked her short, dark-blond hair behind her ear and gave a close-lipped smile. Sierra noticed her mom had nice round lips too.
“Are you worried about Granna Mae being home all alone tomorrow during the day? I could stay home from school, if it would help.”
“No, you don’t need to miss any school. I guess she’ll be okay. After all, she managed for all those years by herself before we moved in.”
“Mom,” Sierra said, folding her arms across her chest. “I’m telling you it will be fine. Give me a chance to prove myself.”
“You don’t need to prove anything,” Mom said.
Just then, Dad’s footsteps pounded up the stairs. A moment later he appeared in Sierra’s room. He was an energetic man whose receding hairline was the only hint that he was well into his fourth decade. “I heard,” he said, giving Mom a quick kiss.
Sierra had wondered if her dad ever noticed that his wife had lips shaped just right for the kiss he had given her. Do men even notice things like that? Especially after nearly twenty-five years of kissing the same lips every day?
“I can take a flight at seven,” Mom explained, showing Dad the slip of paper. “Or there’s one with a stopover in Los Angeles that leaves at 10:20 tonight.”
“Take the seven o’clock. The boys and I will cancel our trip.”
“You don’t have to,” Sierra said. “I’m staying with Granna Mae. We’ll be fine.”
Mom and Dad exchanged hesitant glances.
“What?” Sierra said, stepping over a mound of her clothes and preparing to plead her case. “You guys are looking at me as if
you think I can’t handle this. Less than a month ago I managed to travel to England and back all by myself, remember? I think I can handle being alone with my grandmother for a few days.”
“You’re not the one we’re concerned about,” Dad said.
“Granna Mae has been fine lately,” Sierra said. “Her memory lapse hasn’t been a problem for the last week or so. Didn’t she visit the doctor a few days ago?”
“Yes.” Mom quietly closed Sierra’s bedroom door behind her and spoke softly so only Dad and Sierra could hear. “He ordered some tests, and I took her in for them this morning.”
“And?” Dad asked.
“I suppose the results will come sometime next week. Besides, what can the tests tell us that we don’t already know? Her mind is slipping. Aside from that, she’s in fine health.”
“You guys can trust me,” Sierra said. “She and I will be fine. Really.” And it isn’t as if I have to cancel my social life this weekend or anything, since I don’t have one.
Mom let out a deep sigh. “The boys have been looking forward to the camping trip …”
“Okay. We’ll go,” Dad said in a quick decision. “Sierra, you’re in charge. Honey, I’ll take you to the airport in an hour, and then the boys and I will leave on schedule at four-thirty in the morning. Any problems, Sierra, you call Cody or Wes, okay?”
Sierra didn’t think it was too practical to call either of her older brothers. Cody, his wife, Katrina, and their son, Tyler, lived in Washington, more than an hour away. And Wesley was going to school in Corvallis, almost two hours away. What good would they be in an emergency? She knew she could handle whatever problems arose.
“You’re incredible, Sierra. Did you know that? I never cease to be amazed by you and proud of you.” Mom kissed her on the temple. “Oh, and by the way, if you find some spare time this weekend, you might want to straighten up your room.”
two
“SIERRA,” A DEEP VOICE WHISPERED in her ear. “Honey? The boys and I are leaving now.”
Sierra pried open her sleepy eyelids. “Dad?”
“Don’t wake up all the way. I wanted to let you know we’re leaving now. You have an alarm set, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
He planted a quick kiss on her cheek. “Thanks for holding down the fort. Remember, if you have any problems, call Mom at Aunt Gayle’s, or call Wes or Cody.”
“I’m sure everything will be fine,” Sierra mumbled, snuggling deeper under the covers. “Have a great time. Catch a bunch of fish.”
“We will. ‘Bye, honey.”
Sierra lounged a long time in the buoyant corridor between wake and sleep. Her fleeting dreams consisted of her sweet Granna Mae absentmindedly looking for a feather in the downstairs closet and her six-year-old brother, Gavin, teetering on the edge of a creek as a huge fish on the end of his line tried to pull him into the water. Then all of a sudden the missing feather fluttered onto an open page of Sierra’s biology book. She reached over to pick it up and out of the corner of her eye spotted a figure wearing an Indiana Jones-style hat and a leather backpack.
She immediately opened her eyes. Only the dark shadows of her room greeted her. Paul. Letting out a deep breath, Sierra closed her eyes and tried to go back to sleep. She wanted to fall into a deep sleep, where fragmented dreams have room to dance like crazy and then disappear with the morning light. That’s where Paul belonged. In her dreams.
The next two hours she wrestled with the covers, trying without success to fall back into sleep. At seven she finally rolled out of bed in a bad mood and stumbled into the bathroom for a shower. She wasn’t sure if she should wake Granna Mae or simply leave a note saying she had gone to school and would be back around four.
After deciding on a pair of baggy jeans (which Tawni thought looked ridiculous) and an embroidered peasant blouse (which Tawni thought was pathetic), Sierra took a long look in the full-length mirror at the end of the upstairs hall. She was glad Tawni couldn’t force her fashion advice on Sierra today.
She heard Granna Mae stirring in her room. Sierra gently tapped on the door.
“Come in, Lovey!” This was a good sign. Granna Mae’s nickname for Sierra was “Lovey.” It had also become a clue as to whether Granna Mae was operating in this time zone or not. If she didn’t refer to Sierra as “Lovey,” she might be thinking Sierra was someone else from another era in Granna Mae’s life. This morning Sierra harbored fears that Granna Mae’s mind might slip into its precarious time machine and transport her mind and soul into another time frame.
“Good morning,” Sierra said cheerfully as she stepped into the large bedroom.
Granna Mae was making her bed, pulling up the thick down comforter and covering it with her favorite old handmade blanket. It was a patchwork collection made from squares of fabric she had kept over the years from clothes she had made for her children. The bedroom was cheery and charming, with a window seat in the rounded window alcove and a fireplace that was used often.
“I’m almost ready to leave for school. What are you going to do all day?” Sierra asked.
“Oh, I thought I’d do the usual: Go roller skating this morning and bowl this afternoon. There might be time to take tea with the mayor before you come home.” The mischievous twinkle in Granna Mae’s eye let Sierra know she was spry this morning and her usual self.
“Sounds fun,” Sierra teased back. “Be sure you wear your elbow pads.”
The phone rang, and Sierra reached for it on the night-stand before Granna Mae could make it around to that side of the bed. The large green letters on the digital clock read “7:58.” Sierra needed to leave for school in two minutes.
“Is this Mrs. Jensen?” the male voice on the other end asked.
“This is Sierra Jensen, Sharon’s daughter.”
“I’m trying to reach Mrs. Mae Jensen.”
“Oh, she’s right here.” Sierra covered the mouthpiece with her hand and said, “It’s one of your boyfriends. Probably wants to add bungee jumping to your list of today’s activities.”
Granna Mae took the phone while Sierra finished making the bed. She heard her grandmother say, “Oh, yes. Good morning … Oh … Oh … No … Okay … Yes … Well, no … Okay. Good-bye.” She hung up the phone just as Sierra was scooting out the door.
“So?” Sierra called out over her shoulder. “What are you doing today? Bungee jumping or skydiving?”
“I’m having my gallbladder taken out,” Granna Mae replied.
Sierra laughed at her grandmother’s quick wit. “Well, have fun!” She bounded down the stairs and reached for her backpack off the coat tree by the front door. “Have a great day!”
“Oh, Sierra,” Granna Mae’s high-pitched voice called from the top of the stairs, “could you give me a ride?”
Sierra stopped in her tracks, irritated that she would be late for school now. She often drove her grandmother to the pharmacy or the grocery store, but why couldn’t her grandma’s errand wait till Sierra came home? “I’ll give you a ride wherever you want to go as soon as I get home.”
She was about to close the door behind her when she heard, “But I need to be there before nine.”
“Before nine this morning or nine tonight?”
“Nine this morning,” the twittering voice replied.
Sierra stepped back into the house and tried not to sound irritated. “Where do you need to go?”
“The hospital.”
Now Sierra knew something was off in Granna Mae’s thinking. “Not today, Granna Mae.”
“Yes, today,” she said. “This morning. Dr. Utley said I shouldn’t drink or eat anything and to be there by nine o’clock. I can call a cab.” With that she turned at the top of the stairs and padded back to her room.
“Okay,” Sierra called after her. “I’ll see you around four this afternoon.”
“I won’t be here. I’ll be at St. Mary’s Hospital. You can come directly there to see me.”
How could her grandmother’s mi
nd slip so suddenly? Sierra didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t leave Granna Mae like this. She might actually go call a cab and have herself carted somewhere. Then what would Sierra do if she came home and Granna Mae wasn’t there? With a frustrated huff, Sierra dropped her backpack on the floor and took the stairs two at a time. She found Granna Mae in her room, neatly folding some of her underclothes and tucking them into an overnight suitcase.
“He said nothing to eat or drink, not even water. And now I’m hungry, just because I know that. It’s such a good thing Dr. Utley checked the test results this morning. He’s leaving today at three and won’t be back for a week. I can’t wait that long.” Granna Mae reached for a bottle of lotion and kept chattering as she packed her hospital bag. “So that’s why I don’t mind going on such short notice. I want Dr. Utley to do the operation, of course. He’s the one that took out Paul’s appendix.”
Paul was one of Granna Mae’s sons. He had been killed in Vietnam, and his death had left a heavy mark on Granna Mae. Whenever she started to talk about Paul, she had almost certainly dipped into la-la land.
“Well, I tell you what,” Sierra said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. She reached over to touch her grandmother’s hand and thus coax her to stop packing. “You wait right here at home today. Right here in your room. You’ll be just fine here. You can watch some TV or read a book. And when I come home, we’ll go see Dr. Utley together. How would that be? Would you like that?”
Granna Mae gave Sierra an irritated look and calmly withdrew her hand. “I don’t know why you are speaking to me that way, Sierra Mae Jensen. But let me tell you right now that I am completely serious. That was Dr. Utley on the phone. The test results show that I must have my gallbladder removed right away. If I want him to do the operation, I must go in this morning. Now don’t you worry about a thing. You go on to school. I don’t need a ride. I’ll call a cab.”
Sierra didn’t know what to believe. And she didn’t know what to do.
Sierra Jensen Collection, Vol 1 Page 13