by Antony John
16
Radioactive Momma
Ms. Del Rio is fretting. She says she’s being “focused” and “disciplined,” but she’s acting just like Hortense’s father when he paces back and forth muttering about life at the War Office. Whenever he does it, Hortense sits cross-legged in front of their coal-burning fireplace and says, “Please, Father, stop fretting!” I think that sounds nice. Her daddy doesn’t, though.
The reason Ms. Del Rio is fretting is because she wants us to wrap up our Other Me projects by the end of October, which is just over a week away. I’m worried too. How can I possibly finish all my detective work in one week?
And the detective work is essential. Even Ms. Del Rio thinks so. Okay, so she doesn’t actually use the words “detective work,” but when I go to her desk to show her what I’m working on, she asks me why Other Me would want to go to Australia for Christmas. I explain about Australia being hot and sunny in December, and she says, “I know that, Lola. But do make sure this project is still connected to the real you.”
Which gets me thinking: What if my daddy doesn’t live there anymore? What would Australia mean to me then? My story wouldn’t be about Other Me. It would just be about Other Girl, and that’s not the same at all.
I’m thinking hard as I walk back to my desk, so I don’t see Kiana waving to me. “Everything okay?” she asks.
“I guess. I keep running into dead ends.”
“With the project?” she asks.
“With the research.”
“Ah.” She pushes her own project aside. She’s supposed to be working on it, but she’s way more interested in mine. “Got any new leads?”
“Uh-uh. I looked on my momma’s computer and found this folder from the time she was dating my daddy. But it’s password-protected.”
“You should try p-a-s—”
“Did that,” I say, cutting her off. “It didn’t work.”
“So what was the folder called?”
“Wyndcrest, with a y.”
“What’s a Wyndcrest?”
“It’s that big hotel on the beach,” says Nick without looking up from his work. “Super expensive. My dad takes clients there.”
Kiana and I exchange glances. I can’t believe Nick cracked the code before us. And he wasn’t even trying.
“He’s totally right,” says Kiana excitedly. “I can’t believe I forgot. My mom used to work there.”
“She what?” I exclaim.
“Yeah. Back before I was born.”
Kiana’s eyes get suddenly big. I think she’s thinking what I’m thinking.
“Our moms met when they were working at the same place, right?” I ask.
“Yeah.” Kiana drums her pencil against the desk. Luckily, there’s an eraser on the end, so it’s quiet. “My mom told me she worked in a restaurant, but it could’ve been a restaurant inside a hotel. You should ask your mom if she worked there too.”
I hold up my hands. “No way. Things aren’t good between us right now. This needs to stay secret.”
Kiana puts on her serious face. “All right, then. I’ll see how much intel I can get from my mom.”
“Intel?” I ask.
“Intelligence.”
“How do you get intelligence from your mom?”
Kiana sighs. “Intel is code for ‘information.’ Classified stuff. Secret stuff.”
“Is working in a restaurant really secret?”
She cocks one eyebrow. “Says the girl who’s afraid to ask her momma about it.”
She’s got me there. Plus, we need all the intel we can get.
“Hey, Kiana?” I say. “Thanks for helping with this. You too, Nick.”
Nick gives me a thumbs-up. Kiana leans closer. “We’re going to find him, Lola. I really believe it. And you know something?” She taps her pencil eraser against my page. “When we do, Other You won’t be just a story anymore.”
“Only four hundred and seventy-seven days left,” I tell Donald the bus driver.
“Uh-huh.” But he doesn’t bump my fist.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“I’ve got four hundred and seventy-seven days of this left. What do you think?”
I think he’s not in a good mood.
Tiffany isn’t on the bus again. I almost sit beside Nick, but then Mallory starts making kissing sounds from the back, so I take the seat behind him. When I turn around and glare at her, she walks along the aisle and takes the empty space beside me. I slide closer to the window, but there’s no escape.
“So, Nick,” Mallory says. “You and Lola had a date on Saturday, huh?”
Nick goes bright red. “N-no!”
“But she was at your pool, right?”
“Well, yeah, but we just played tag.”
Mallory laughs. “That’s so lame.”
The bus starts moving. It rattles and rumbles like it’s shivering, which is sort of how I feel right now. I’ve got work to do. Research. I need to find a way into that folder on Momma’s laptop. I need Mrs. Richards to tell Kiana about the time she worked with my momma at the Wyndcrest. We’re getting closer, but there’s only a week to go.
“You know what else is lame?” Mallory says to me. “Your Other Me project. Trying to find your dad. Total waste of time.”
“Is not!” insists Nick. “Lola’s going to find him. You’ll see.”
“That’s not the point.” Mallory picks at her thumbnail like she’s bored. “Lola’s in fifth grade and she hasn’t even met him. You think that’s an accident?”
“For all you know, he might be dead,” I say.
“Which would make this whole thing even more pointless. Anyway, if you really want to find him, why don’t you just ask your mom?”
I don’t know why I’m still talking to Mallory. Except, I don’t want to give in. Mallory can tease me about all sorts of things, but not this.
So I answer, “Momma doesn’t know if the address still works. He hasn’t written to us in years, and we haven’t written to him, so . . .”
Mallory kicks her feet up on the seat in front of us. Her sneakers are only inches from Nick’s head. “Sounds to me like you don’t really need each other. Or even care that much.”
I don’t expect Mallory to understand. Just because she has decided to go through life alone, it doesn’t mean the rest of us want to. I almost tell her so, but Gregoria’s Trattoria is only a block away. I’ve got more important things to do.
As we pass the restaurant, I raise my arm and wave. Nick does too. But the only person in the window is Gregoria herself. She waves one hand slowly through the air.
Where’s Momma? Where’s Frankie?
“Where’s your mom?” Nick asks.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“She’s never not there,” says Mallory, sliding her feet back down.
Everyone on the bus gets suddenly quiet, even the kids who never wave. Seeing Momma and Frankie is like a ritual on the afternoon bus ride.
“Do you, uh . . . want me to come to your house?” Nick asks. “You know, just to check that everything’s okay?”
I shake my head. It’s clearly not okay. And Nick knows it.
As soon as I reach my stop, I jump off the bus and run home. I need answers. Now.
Frankie is sitting on the rocker on the porch. He leaps up when he sees me.
“Your mom’s okay,” he says. “Just resting, is all.”
Why wouldn’t she be okay? Now I’m more scared than ever. “What happened?”
“Come on,” he says, opening the door gently. “Let’s see if she’s awake.”
The house is dark because the curtains are drawn. Ms. Archambault is in the kitchen, mixing lemonade. The long metal spoon clinks against the sides of the glass jug. Everything else is strangely quiet.
“Hey, honey,” Momma says. She’s lying on the sofa, a tired smile tugging at her lips. “How was school?”
School? Who cares about school?
“Why weren’t you in the
window?” I ask, which is a pretty silly question because the answer is that she was right here.
“Sit down,” she says. “It’s not as bad as you think.”
Actually, I wasn’t thinking that anything was bad until about fifteen minutes ago. But I sit down anyway. Ms. Archambault brings me a glass of lemonade.
“You remember my thyroid problem?” Momma asks. She runs her fingers down her neck as if I might have forgotten the large swollen lump that appeared there just before my eighth birthday.
“Yeah.”
“Well, it’s flared up again. The doctors said that might happen, but things had been okay for a while so I thought I was over it. But I wasn’t.”
I raise the glass toward my lips. My hand is shaking. Little beads of water are forming on the outside. I grip it harder. It feels good to control something just by holding on tighter.
“You know I haven’t been sleeping well,” she continues. “I don’t seem to have any energy either. So tomorrow, the doctor will give me some pills—”
“What pills?”
“I’m getting to that. The pills are no big deal. I’ll take them at the clinic, and I’ll probably be home before dinner.” She blinks slowly. “Okay?”
Ms. Archambault is standing beside the fridge pretending not to listen. I take a sip of lemonade. It’s not as good as Nick’s.
“What pills?” I repeat quietly.
“The treatment is called radioactive iodine therapy.”
“Radioactive?”
“It only affects the thyroid gland. The rest of me will be fine.”
“What does it do?”
“It destroys the gland. I know,” she adds quickly, “it sounds bad, but it’ll make me feel better. Anyway, my gland isn’t working like it’s supposed to. I need to do this.”
If this is no big deal, why is Ms. Archambault as still as a statue? And why is Frankie hovering beside the door like a security guard?
“And you’ll really be home before dinner?”
Momma’s eyes flick away from me. “Uh-huh.”
“And I can go with you?”
Silence. Momma won’t look at me anymore. No one else is looking at me either.
“Momma?”
She reaches out to take my hand, but I’m sitting too far away. “The radioactivity isn’t safe for kids, honey.”
“But I’m not the one taking the pills.”
“No, you’re not. But anyone near me will be exposed to it too. That’s how radioactivity works.”
“So . . . I can’t go with you tomorrow?”
“No, you can’t. And . . .” She swallows hard. “And you can’t be in the house with me afterward. It’s too risky. So you’ll be staying with Ms. Archambault.”
“Until the next morning?”
A tear rolls down Momma’s cheek, which gets me crying too. “For a week, honey,” she says.
My breath catches. “A week? Away from you? Away from home?”
“You can see me from Marybeth’s house. You could shout from the porch, if you want!” She laughs through tears at the craziness of it all. “You just can’t be here.”
So this is the secret Ms. Archambault and Momma were talking about yesterday. The thing that Momma has been keeping from me. And I thought they were talking about my daddy. I’d almost hoped it, because then it would mean there’s a chance that I’d be able to reach him. Now, instead of getting an extra parent, I’ll have to stay away from the only one I know.
Am I part of the reason Momma got sicker? Was she stressed out about the bike and my swimsuit? Was it those questions I asked about my daddy? If I’d known, I would’ve kept my mouth shut. I wish I’d kept my mouth shut.
Or do I? Maybe I should’ve asked more. Two really is a fragile number. If my daddy were around to help, Momma wouldn’t be alone for the next seven days.
And neither would I.
17
Doubling Down
I double-check my packing list. I made it back when Momma and I left town because of Hurricane Matthew. We went with Kiana’s family to her grandparents’ house in the Smoky Mountains. The air felt different there, cooler and less humid. Kiana and I woke up early every day so we could watch the sunrise. The mountains looked almost purple. The trees were shrouded in mist. It felt strange to be so happy while the news reported terrible flooding back home.
I was scared as I packed for the hurricane. I’m scared now too. And I don’t think this week will be happy at all.
Frankie stands in my bedroom doorway and drums his fingers against the wooden frame. “I can give you a ride to school, if you like. Your mom can come too.”
I do want a ride, and I want Momma to come with me. But she hasn’t even gotten out of bed yet, and I know now it’s not because she’s lazy.
“That’s okay,” I tell him. “Tiffany will be sad if I don’t read to her on the bus.”
I zip up my duffel bag. Frankie takes it from me. “You’re a strong kid, Lola. You know that?”
“Thanks,” I say. But I don’t feel strong. Hortense is strong. I’m just the kid who leaves an envelope propped against the lamp on her nightstand because she’s too afraid to face a tough conversation.
While he takes the bag over to Ms. Archambault’s house, I step into Momma’s bedroom. “I’ve gotta go,” I say.
She props herself up against the headboard and opens her arms. Pulls me in for a long, deep hug. “I’m going to be fine. You know that, right?”
“I know,” I say, fighting to hold myself together.
“And we’ll talk every day. I’ll be right here.”
“I know.”
“I love you, Lola.”
“I love you too, Momma.”
She lets me go. I make sure to smile as I walk away from her. By the time I get on the bus ten minutes later, I’ve even stopped crying.
Kiana is waiting for me as the bus pulls up at school. “I heard about your mom,” she says.
“What about your mom?” Nick asks me.
“She’s sick,” I say. “But she’ll be okay.”
Kiana blows her hair out of her face. “And what about you, Lola? Are you okay?”
I nod. I don’t think either of my friends is convinced, though. They know me too well.
Kiana pulls something from her bag. It’s Mr. Rabbit. “I thought you might need this,” she explains.
“This is a him,” I say, pretending to cover the bunny’s ears.
“Yeah, well . . . he says he wants to live with you from now on.”
“But Mr. Rabbit is yours.”
“Not anymore.”
Nick holds the door for us as we walk into school. It feels louder and more crowded than usual, but I know it’s not.
I hold the bunny in front of my face so I can inspect him. “So he told you he wanted to be with me, huh?” I ask Kiana.
“That’s right. Keeps me up every night whispering about how he likes you more than me and why won’t I let him go live with you. Now that he’s yours, I’ll be able to sleep again.”
I run my fingers across the fur. “You realize how creepy that sounds, right?”
“Yeah, well, he’s your problem now.”
Only Kiana could get me to laugh on a morning like this.
Twenty minutes later, we set to work on our Other Me projects again. While I’m opening my Thoughts of Pure Literary Genius notebook, Kiana slides a folded piece of paper over to me.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“I did some more research. Found out stuff too. I know you probably don’t want to read it right now, though. Not with your mom being sick.”
It’s my momma being sick that makes me feel like there’s no time to lose. I unfold the paper and study Kiana’s scrawl. It’s like trying to decipher code.
Kiana huffs. She’s a little sensitive about her handwriting. “It says my mom worked with your mom at the Wyndcrest Hotel, back before we were born,” she explains, her voice growing excited. “My mom worked in the restaurant
. Yours worked at the bar. My mom quit just before I was born. Your mom quit a few months later, which makes sense, I guess, because you’re a little younger than me. Since we know your parents worked together, they must’ve met at the hotel.”
That all adds up. But I’m not sure it changes anything. “Did your mom say if she knew my daddy?”
“I can’t ask her about him. She’d get suspicious, and when she’s suspicious . . . well, let’s just say there’s more than one Detective Richards in our house.” She makes her eyes go wide. “She’d call your mom right away. Then your mom would start asking you questions, and you’re not a very good liar. No offense.”
I’m not offended. Not being a good liar doesn’t seem like the worst thing in the world.
“So what do we do next?” I ask.
“We should go to the Wyndcrest,” says Nick, leaning over. “My dad’s got connections there. We could try to get some answers.”
“Your dad would help us?”
“No. But Kat would.”
“Your sister?” Kiana doesn’t look so sure.
“Actually, Kat’s super smart when it comes to dealing with adults,” I say. “She got Nick’s parents to change the house rules. If she can pull that off, she could probably get a few hotel workers to share stories about our parents, right?”
“I guess so,” says Kiana. She turns to Nick. “You sure she’ll want to do it?”
Nick smiles. “As long as I tell her it’s for Lola’s school project, she’ll be in. You can count on it!”
18
Pretty Dresses
Just after three o’clock, I hop off the school bus, run along the worn grass at the edge of the road, and cut into our yard. Momma’s sitting in her rocking chair, waiting for me.
“Lola!” she cries like she hasn’t seen me in weeks. “How was school?”
“Good,” I say.
“What did you do?”
What did I do? I thought about ways to find my daddy. Or stuff about him, anyway. But I don’t think she wants to hear that. “Projects,” I say.
“What kind of projects?”
“Writing assignments.”
“Like the one about your Patronus? You loved that!”
“Yeah, but . . . different.”