Up from the Blue

by Susan Henderson

  “Momma usually tucks me in.”

  “Well, I can certainly tuck you in.”

  I shook my head so violently I could feel the beginning of another headache.

  “Okay. It’s okay. Here, sit down for breakfast.”

  She set a steaming bowl in front of me, something lumpy like tapioca but without the sweet smell. When she went to the sink to wash her hands, I unwrapped both butterscotch candies my dad had given me and put them in my mouth.

  “Do you want something hot to drink?” she asked, picking up her teacup and taking another sip.

  “Muh-uh,” I said, trying to keep the candy in my mouth without clicking them against my teeth.

  “Oh, you tried the porridge. Do you like it? I added dates and walnuts.”

  She peeled a tangerine at the sink, and popped one section after another into her mouth. “Your family will probably arrive at the new house sometime tonight,” she said. “I’m sure we’ll hear from them any day now.”

  She smiled, finishing the last piece of fruit, then ran the peel down the garbage disposal. Between this news and the effect of the candy, my spirits improved so much that I crept up behind and tapped her. Startled, she flicked the switch and the noise of the disposal stopped.

  “Sometimes, don’t you just want to put your arm down there and chop it up?” I asked her, giggling.

  “Tillie! Why would you say such a thing? That’s a horrible thought!”

  For the rest of the morning, I sat on the towel, embarrassed, fuming, and waiting for the phone to ring.

  The next day I woke up feeling sorry for myself. I was out of candy and not looking forward to eating breakfast that was good for me. When I left the bedroom, I found Anne pulling clothes from a hamper, folding them and setting them on the coffee table.

  “Are those my clothes?” I asked.

  “I found them under your covers when I checked on you last night.”

  “They’re my property!”

  “Tillie, Tillie, it’s okay. I just washed them.”

  But I had already grabbed an armful as I ran back to the bedroom. When I brought them to my nose, there was no smell of home or Momma. They just smelled like detergent. Not even our detergent. I squeezed my fists around the ruined clothes and yelled while I threw them.

  When Anne came to my room, I was facedown on the bed with my arms out to the sides, furious that Phil was, at that moment, enjoying a long drive with Momma. I imagined him riding behind her, listening to her sing. When they reached the new house, he would be the first to help Momma decorate with books and colorful pillows and the dolls with button eyes.

  “Tillie, I was trying to help. I didn’t mean to upset you, but you will not behave like this here.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “Are you listening to me?”

  “When can I go home?” I whined into the covers.

  “Just a few more days,” she said. “I talked to your father last night.”

  I turned over to hear better, and also to move her hand off of me.

  “You have a great big house with a beautiful yard and a swimming pool in back. The school’s just down the street so you can walk or ride your bike to it.”

  As she spoke, she touched my hair, combing it with her fingers until I covered my head with my hands.

  THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED were torture. I wasn’t used to such calm—Anne’s soft voice, her quiet tidying, the droning violins. Even when the music swelled—the one part I liked because it snuck up on you, bold and almost spooky—that was when she lowered the volume. Each day, Anne moved from room to room with a cup of tea, as I moved from room to room with my encyclopedia. After a while, one day was so much like the other, it was hard to know whether I was any closer to seeing Momma.

  I missed her—the loud music, the surprise of her moods, the colorful bracelets, even the tears. I missed jumping on the couch and the quick pickup from a package of Ho Hos. I missed all the time on my own when I gave myself dares, like slipping my tongue through the slats of the electric fan or sticking my arm down a hole in the ground, wondering if I’d find the animal that made it.

  When she came to my room to call me for breakfast, I asked, “How much longer? Should I pack yet?”

  Anne’s face looked very serious, and she was slow to answer. “Your father needs more time,” she finally said. “You’ll need to stay another week.”

  “No!” I slapped at her, one hand after another, and she leaned backward so I couldn’t reach.

  “It’s not that long,” she said, grabbing my wrists. “It’s really not that long.”

  “Stop saying that!” I said, wanting to hit again, but even though she’d let go of me, my arms felt too heavy.

  “It’s just the way it has to be,” she said.

  And something in her voice and in my own reaction not to shrug away her hand when she placed it on my back gave me the strongest feeling that things were not right at home.

  “It’s complicated,” said Anne, who’d been talking the whole time, as if, by not giving me space to think or reply, I might forget I was upset. “There are so many unexpected things when you move. You have to get all the utilities turned on. There are broken things that need to be fixed. There’s just an awful lot to coordinate.” When I started to shiver all over, she paused. “Oh, Tillie, I know you’re disappointed.”

  And she was, too. I could see, every day, that she wanted her house back. She wanted the towel off the couch, wanted to watch her regular shows on TV without my impatient groans, wanted to have back whatever her life had been before I’d landed in the middle of it. When I eavesdropped on calls, hoping to hear news from home, I learned of the friends she wanted to see, of the work she promised to catch up on “as soon as she’s gone.”

  She did try to make my stay more bearable—cutting sandwiches into triangles, adding bubbles to my baths, and offering to fix my hair. At night, she tried to pull the covers over my shoulders, but I pulled them back off and turned over. Anne was not what I wanted.

  5

  Things Beginning with the Letter D

  I SAT ON THE TOWEL, bored and uncomfortable, listening to the rain and shifting from one position to another. “Well, there’s a fine young lady,” Anne said when I’d stopped moving.

  Horrified, I noticed in all my squirming I’d settled on a completely prissy and accidental pose—legs crossed, hands folded in my lap. I groaned, flopping onto my stomach.

  “Feet off the couch, please.”

  Two weeks was longer than I’d ever imagined. I moved my feet to the side but stayed facedown until Anne tapped my shoulder. “I know it’s pouring outside,” she said, “but we need to go to the store. I’ve run out of tea, and we could do with some more fresh fruit.”

  When she opened the door, the rain came into the house. “We’ll have to really run,” she said, giggling, as if there were something hilarious or daring about getting wet. She darted out to the car, and with a scowl on my face, I grabbed my book and sauntered after her, letting the rain soak my scalp and run down the sides of my face.

  “Shall I go get you a towel?” she asked after I got in.

  I didn’t answer, just closed the door and leaned against it.

  “You must be freezing,” she said, looking at me in my shorts and crocheted poncho. “Are you sure you don’t want to dress in long pants or borrow a windbreaker?

  My answer was to carefully turn a wet page of my book so it wouldn’t tear.

  She gave a frustrated sigh and stepped on the gas. The storm clouds made the car dark for reading, but I practically knew the best pages by heart. I’d chosen my favorite dogs (the field spaniel and the wirehaired pointing griffon) and learned to be interested in many things beginning with the letter D—Darwin, deadly nightshade, Delhi, digestive system, Dionysus, Dracula, dulcimer, and dysentery.

  The wipers swished mud back and forth on the windshield, and now and then Anne rubbed the fog off the window with her sleeve. By the time we pulled in front of the grocery store, the p
acked dirt that served as a parking lot was like a shallow lake. When I stepped out of the car, my poncho blew straight out to one side.

  “Well, there’s Anne’s little buddy,” the storekeeper said when we walked in together.

  “I told her it’s an awfully chilly day for shorts,” Anne said. “But she’s a stubborn one.”

  “Takes one to know one,” the storekeeper said, laughing. “Come on, dear. You come with me.”

  I walked behind her, trying not to step on her heels.

  “I’m surprised you’re still here,” she said.

  I shrugged.

  She handed me a store apron. “Here. Put this on. You can help me work while Anne shops.”

  I slipped it over my head, and it fell to my ankles.

  “Follow me,” she said. “Just do whatever I do.”

  And I followed her walk exactly, and stopped when she stopped. She smiled, standing near the cash register, and pointed to the bagging area, where I was to stand.

  “On a day like today, it’s going to be a lot of standing around,” she said.

  I laughed and tried to stand professionally as she did, hands on hips, chest out like a bird, listening to the piped-in music and the squeak of Anne’s shopping cart going from aisle to aisle.

  “I see you like to dance,” she said.

  I hadn’t realized I’d been moving to the music, and was about to freeze in place when she smiled and danced a little on her side of the counter. I smiled back, and spun the way the Pips often spun behind Gladys Knight. She knew the same move, and by the time Anne reached the checkout, we had a whole routine.

  “I suppose I owe you for watching her,” Anne said.

  “Not at all. I enjoyed every moment.”

  Anne’s lips tightened. “Well, she’s not like this when I take her home. I try so hard but she’s … not an easy girl.”

  She slapped the groceries down on the checkout table, one after another. Outside, the rain came down harder, washing against the windows.

  When the storekeeper had packed the groceries into two bags, she said, “How ’bout Tillie stays with me while you pull the car up to the front?” And when Anne had left the store, she reached across the counter to smooth my hair, saying, “Thatta girl.”

  My knees and shoulders began to tremble. My mother was the last person to use those words, and they stung me. I walked to the window, unable to see past the rain, and poked my fingers through the holes of my poncho.

  I hadn’t let myself feel it yet, not really, but once I was in the car, thinking of the words again, I imagined it was Momma saying them to me, her bracelets jingling as she reached to caress the top of my head. As we drove slowly through the wet and muddy streets, I curled against the window, knees tucked into my chest, needing her.

  “You’re shivering,” Anne said. “I wish you’d worn long pants and a windbreaker.”

  I kicked the glove compartment hard with my foot, and it popped open, spilling papers and a box of Kleenex. My toe hurt.

  The only sound Anne made was one of her sighs, so confident that I was the one being unreasonable. I could practically hear my father telling me to be nice, to just sit there in my damp poncho and not complain of the itch. As the small yellow house came into view, I tried to prepare myself for the violins and for Anne with her teacup and her prissy laughter, but I couldn’t do it any longer. When Anne got out of the car, I slid over to her side and stuck my leg out her door. I closed my eyes tight while she slammed it shut.

  6

  Knots

  MY SHRIEKING SURPRISED EVEN me. There were sharp pains and throbbing pains, and more nerve endings in my calf than I could have ever guessed. It felt good to scream; it felt good to be able to point to what hurt and call for Momma and to see Anne feel responsible for all of it. I hung in her arms, bawling, while she tried, but failed, to lift me inside.

  “Here, you’ll have to walk,” she said. “Lean on me.”

  I simply crumbled onto the porch. “Is it broken?” I sobbed. I hoped so; I’d always wanted a cast.

  “Stay here,” she said. “I’ll be back with some ice.”

  My leg swelled and turned from pinks to grays before my eyes. After what seemed a very long time, Anne came back with ice wrapped in a t-shirt. For once, she could soothe me.

  “A doctor’s on the way,” she said, sitting close and pressing the ice where the car door had left its mark.

  Each time I started to cry again, she pressed down on the ice while I shouted, “I want to go home!”

  I expected an ambulance with a siren and flashing lights, but when the plain white pickup pulled into the driveway, it was Walter with the handlebar mustache who got out.

  “I hear I might have to amputate, so let me have a look. My saw’s in the truck if I need it.” I yelped when he tried to bend and straighten my leg. “What happened?” he asked Anne over his shoulder.

  “She just put her leg out while I was closing the door.”

  “No wonder her mother went crazy.”

  “Sh,” she said.

  I screamed while he pressed along the bone. “I can’t think over the noise, Tillie,” he said, as if daring me to make another sound while he worked his way to my ankle. “Nope. Not broken.”

  “But should we take her to the hospital?” Anne asked. “What about all the pain she’s having?”

  “She’ll have a bruise,” he said. “That’s all. What we have here are some good hysterics.”

  “Like her mother,” she whispered, but not quietly enough.

  “My prescription,” Walter said. “No coddling. You need me to write this down for you?”

  Anne chuckled and then coughed a little to cover it up.

  I realized at that moment that my leg didn’t hurt nearly enough to keep me there. I stood up slowly and, glad the rain had slowed to a drizzle, trudged through the yard toward a field of weeds and cactus. I was several feet away before I remembered to limp.

  “Careful on that leg, Tillie,” Walter called after me, laughing. “Don’t make me get out my saw.”

  I found a path and continued into the field, the tall weeds itching my legs and mud sticking so thick to the bottom of my sandals it felt heavy to lift my feet. I kept going. I found a hole in the ground and stomped by it.

  “Watch it. Something might crawl out of that hole and bite you.”

  I spun around and there was the doctor, standing not a foot away. “I’d say that leg’s better already,” he said.

  I stomped my foot near the hole again, but suddenly nervous, I took a step back and then another.

  He laughed, pleased that he’d frightened me, and then said, “Have a seat, Tillie.”

  “No. It’s wet.”

  “You’re already soaked. Sit down so we can have a little chat.”

  I sat on one boulder and he sat across from me on another, shaking a cigarette from a pack.

  “Those things are bad for you.”

  “Lots of things are bad for you. Bratty little girls, for instance.” He put the cigarette into his mustache and lit it. “Anne’s too nice to say anything,” he said. “So I’ll say it for her. You’ve been a burden. I’d have sent you packing a long time ago, but Anne took care of you just as she promised your father she would. She’s made a real sacrifice to give you a comfortable place to stay, and you’ve been nothing but ungrateful.”

  He stretched out his leg so it reached the rock I was sitting on and kept the other bent, with his arm resting on his knee.

  “Don’t you have anything to say?” he asked.

  “You didn’t ask me a question.”

  He dragged on his cigarette, then tapped it against his boot so the ash hit the rock. “You know what I like about you, Tillie? There’s still hope for you. You could march back to the house and tell your host you’ve been a selfish and unappreciative guest.” He handed me his cigarette.

  I slid my hands under my legs. “I’m not allowed.”

  “Next time, maybe.” His hand massaged
the toe of his boot and then moved to his ankle, where he tucked his fingertips under the cuff of his jeans. I breathed in the smoke, thinking I might like the taste. “So sometime between now and tomorrow when you’re on that plane home,” he finally said, taking another drag, “I want you to think long and hard about how to be less of a brat.”

  “I’m going home tomorrow?”

  “Is that the only thing you heard?”

  “The only thing that matters.”

  “I’m not sure why I said there was hope for you.”

  “I’m really going home?”

  “You’re a terrible, rotten listener, Tillie.”

  I beamed at him, suddenly wishing I’d taken the cigarette.

  BY MORNING THE MUD had baked into a hard crust. I walked through the tire tracks, my mind already wandering through the new house, only guessing how it might look with our decorations—the dolls and wall hangings—and Momma playing the music we liked, turned up so loud I’d feel it thumping inside of me.

  “You’re up early,” Anne said, coming out on to the porch. “And already dressed, I see. But I worry you’ll be cold on the plane.” She looked at my legs, but mostly at the bruise I knew she wanted me to cover.

  “Momma made this for me,” I said, smoothing my scooter skirt—a pair of shorts but with a bib across the front, where Momma had embroidered a robin.

  “All right, then. But we do have to get you spruced up for your flight. Can you get this through your hair?” she asked, handing me a comb. “I don’t want your father to think I didn’t take good care of you.”

  Momma knew how to comb carefully from the bottom, and since she’d stopped getting out of bed, Dad had taken over—the braids not quite tight enough, the elastic tangling at the ends. I’d never tried to fix my hair myself. I took the comb, and right away, it got caught in the knots.

  “Let me try,” she said, but I never felt the comb touch my head, as if she just stood there staring at my hair, not at all sure where to start. After a while, she simply went inside without saying a word. I was glad to have my last moments there to myself, feeling the sun heat the top of my head and imagining how it would be to run to Momma.