Up from the Blue

by Susan Henderson

  “Hold still,” Anne said.

  She’d come back out of the house with a pair of scissors. Sitting behind me, her legs squeezed round my shoulders, she began to snip. I sat frozen in place as three- and four-inch pieces fell around me. When she was done, she combed through the snarls with no problem, and I felt my face heat up.

  “Much better,” she said.

  I grabbed my stomach and bent over.

  “Tillie. Tillie, what’s wrong?”

  “You did it because you don’t like me,” I said, my face pressed into my knees.

  “What would give you an idea like that?” she asked.

  “The doctor told me.”

  “Walter told you that?”

  I nodded and felt the tears and snot against my legs.

  “Well, it’s just not true,” she said. “Come on. Sit up.”

  I sat up but kept my face turned away from her, embarrassed that I cared what she thought.

  “Your hair looks very pretty,” she said. “Let’s go inside so you can see for yourself.”

  There was a long mirror on the bathroom door, and she stood behind me, tucking my hair behind my ears. “See? Didn’t I tell you?”

  “I look like a boy,” I said.

  “Well, I don’t think you do at all,” she said. “Actually, I was thinking we have the same haircut now. I hope you’re not telling me I look like a boy.”

  I pouted but kept staring into the mirror because it was an impressive pout. I stuck out my chin a little more and said, “I just want to go home.”

  “You’ll be home by this evening. And I hope you’ll tell your father how good the food was. And how much fun you had taking bubble baths.”

  “I’ll show him my bruise.”

  “Here. I have an idea,” Anne said, putting her hand around my shoulder and pulling me away from the mirror. She went to the stereo and turned up the violins. Then, awkwardly, she extended her hands to me while she swayed her hips. “Come join me, Tillie. This is fun. Let’s have one good dance before you go.”

  I stood completely still, so embarrassed for her I had to shut my eyes.

  “Maybe not this trip, I guess,” she said, patting me on the shoulder. “Here, let’s get you packed.”

  “I just want to go home.”

  THE PASSENGERS IN THE airport waiting room smiled and chuckled as I hobbled past, and I waved back at them.

  “Do you want me to get your book out?” Anne asked, finding a seat.

  I shook my head. Swinging my legs, clasping and unclasping my hands, I was too excited about going home. I tried pulling my hair over my shoulder, but it was too short.

  “I can’t wait to see Momma,” I said.

  She frowned ever so slightly. “I know, whatever awaits you, you’ll do just fine,” she said.

  “I’ll tell her all about my leg.”

  “It’s just a bruise, Tillie. Remember we had a doctor check it.”

  A stewardess came to my seat and bent down in front of me. “Is this the young girl who will be flying today?”

  Anne did all the answering while the stewardess pinned flight wings to my shirt.

  “And you’ve never been on an airplane before, is that right?”

  Several times I’d peeked inside the cockpits of fighter jets, but again, Anne answered for me and said this was my first time.

  “I think you’ll do just fine,” the stewardess said.

  “Yes. You’ll do just fine,” Anne agreed. She stood and hugged me into the belt of her dress. And only then, as I gasped for air and tried to pull my face away from her waist, did I understand I’d be flying alone.

  When she stopped hugging me, she noticed the panic in my eyes and told me, “You can do it. You can face whatever’s ahead.”

  Something about this statement worried me, but before I could ask what she meant, the stewardess squeezed my hand in hers, saying, “Just focus on who you’ll be seeing on the other side.”

  My mother was on the other side, with her bright orange hair and watery eyes, and the thought of her waiting for me helped a lot. Soon I was smiling and remembering to drag my bruised leg through the tunnel that would take us to the plane. And behind me, farther and farther away, Anne pleaded, “Stop it. Stop limping. There’s nothing wrong with your leg.”

  7

  National Airport

  I FELT POSITIVELY GIDDY. NO one told me flying on an airplane would be like this. I could press a button at will to bring lovely ladies, all dressed alike, hovering about my seat. They came with drinks and peanuts and playing cards. They came with gum when my ears hurt.

  Mostly I pressed the button to tell them how delicious the food was, how the ginger ale bubbles had tickled my nose. I pressed it to find out where my mother might buy the beautiful outfits they wore. And I pressed it to ask if I was really and truly allowed to keep the miniature suitcase they’d given me that was round and dark blue with a little zipper along the top.

  “Really? Are you sure?” I asked. Because when you unzipped it, there was a needle and colored thread inside, and an emery board, and best of all, a shower cap! What a marvelous way to hide a terrible haircut.

  For the entire fight, I wore that shower cap, and when we landed, the stewardess waited with me until all the other passengers exited the plane before she walked me through the tunnel. “Keep a lookout for your mother,” she told me, holding my hand and carrying my suitcase. I carried the smaller one. And though I was anxious to see Momma, we had to go slowly because of my bruised leg, which I dragged beside me, the brave girl walking, miraculously, without crutches. Out of the tunnel and into a waiting room of faces that turned my way, I looked for her orange hair.

  “Right here,” Dad called.

  As I stood with my hands on my hips, searching the terminal, he thanked the stewardess, who smiled and said, “She’s a lively one.”

  “Yes. We’re working on that.” He nodded thanks to the stewardess, and reached out to take my chin between his thumb and forefinger.

  “Where’s Momma?” I asked.

  “Slow down. The first thing I need to do is check out this leg.”

  “The doctor almost sawed it off.”

  “I’ll bet,” he said. “And it can’t be easy walking on a hurt leg when you have your shoes on the wrong feet.”

  He lifted me up on a low brick wall, beside a couple of indoor trees. “We need to give those shoes a clean while we’re at it. Phil, stay with Tillie while I get some napkins.”

  My brother, who hadn’t said hello yet, scowled at me. “Take that off your head,” he said. “Don’t be so stupid.”

  I reached up and felt the shower cap. “Anne just cut my hair without asking,” I said, pulling it off. “See? She didn’t even try to do a good job.”

  “There are bigger things to complain about,” he said, his voice distant and almost chilly. “There’s a lot you don’t know.”

  “What don’t I know?”

  “Just that things are pretty different in the new house.”

  “What’s so different?”

  Over my shoulder he saw Dad approaching with a handful of napkins. “Dad says it’s not mine to tell,” he said abruptly. “You’ll just have to wait.”

  I knew this cautious language. There was something Dad wanted Phil to keep quiet about, and I feared it had to do with Momma.

  “What?” I asked again. “Tell me.” But I knew to stop talking as Dad came near.

  He sat beside me, put one of my feet across his lap and began rubbing the dirt off my shoes. “What did you get into?” he asked.

  “Mud.”

  “I see that. Next time, go around the mud.” He gripped my ankle and pulled off one sandal.

  “Momma didn’t come?”

  He shook his head, pulling off the other sandal. My leg relaxed in his grip.

  “Dad?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Is something wrong with her?”

  “Tillie, that’s a big question,” he said, buckling o
ne shoe on to the correct foot. “She needs a lot of rest these days.” He took my other foot into his lap and went to work.

  “I know she’s tired, Dad. But why?”

  “It’s not for you to worry about,” he said, buckling the other sandal and patting the top of it to let me know he was all done. “Tennis shoes next time.”

  I nodded, then showed him the bruise. He whistled as he turned my leg left and right to see the length of it, and it was impressive, much larger than the initial hurt. I giggled when he whistled again, wondering how it was I’d forgotten to miss him while I was gone.

  NATIONAL AIRPORT WAS A blur of men and women dashing past in their tailored suits. I held tight to Dad’s hand through the terminal, and then through the enormous parking lot.

  I was grateful to see our station wagon again and to have the backseat to myself, where I could curl up against something that smelled like our family. I didn’t see any of the scenery during the drive to our new home—not the bridges over the Potomac River or the white monuments standing taller than all the other buildings. I didn’t see us race through the beltway with the cars lit up in the dark or the sign as we entered Montgomery County, Maryland. I didn’t see the outside of our suburban house before I saw the inside.

  I woke up the next morning in a sleeping bag in a bare living room, horrified that I’d not stayed awake to see Momma the night before. As I crawled out of the sleeping bag, I realized I’d wet myself and paused, only a moment, with the embarrassment of greeting her in damp and smelly clothes.

  I followed my nose to the kitchen, where Dad stood over the electric fryer, turning slices of french toast. “Where’s Momma?” I asked, touching all the knobs and woodwork in the room, trying to feel ownership of the new house.

  “Just sit now,” Dad said. “Eat.”

  I sat down on a stool at a corner table in the kitchen, and he set breakfast in front of me. Phil sat on the other stool, concentrating hard on cutting his food into bite-sized pieces.

  “Does she know it’s time for breakfast?” I asked, forgetting to use my fork and picking up the bread as if it were a sandwich.

  I expected her to come around the corner at any moment, but realized just then how silly it was of me to think so. She’d be in the bedroom, whichever room that was. I would stand above her until she opened her eyes, and then she would cry—first the joyous tears of our reunion, and then the buildup of tears it would take many more days to cry out, remembering the misery we’d endured by being apart.

  “I think we should eat and then we’ll talk,” Dad said after a long pause.

  “I can eat and talk,” I said.

  “Tillie.” He refilled my glass of juice and picked my napkin off the floor. “Your mother will be away for a while.”

  “Away?” I rose to my feet, knocking my stool to the floor. I had waited so long to see her, and she was away? I took off, in search of her bedroom.

  “Tillie, slow down. You’re not understanding.”

  I ran through the first floor, opening doors and calling, “Momma!” The house felt big and spooky—like we’d moved into an empty museum. “Where is she?”

  I dodged my father’s arm and climbed the stairs, rushing from one room to the next. “Momma!” A part of me—the strong part, fierce with determination—was sure, absolutely sure, that I would find her. One more door, and we’d have the homecoming I’d been imagining for two weeks. Another part of me, the part that knew I had already opened the room with my parents’ bed in it and found no one sleeping there, had become a dead weight I could barely drag to one more room.

  “Momma,” I called. But I could no longer hear my voice.

  And finally I could not move, could not take another step because as I’d searched the house, I’d been listening—not wanting to—to my father. “She’s not here,” he’d said. “Tillie, please stop. She’s not here.”

  I stood in the center of a too-big room and sobbed. Dad tried to hold me but I fought him off and, alone with my whole body shuddering, understood that Momma was not there to hold me and welcome me home. She was gone.

  I stayed where I was for what felt an eternity, sometimes wailing and rocking back and forth calling her name, sometimes standing stiff and staring at the blank wall. When Dad stepped back into the room, I asked in a hoarse and trembling voice, “Where is she? When is she coming home? Why can’t I see her right now?”

  He spoke softly. “You know your mother was not well. Right now, it’ll just be the three of us.” Phil stood behind him with his arms folded, not troubling anyone with questions or tears. Dad put his hand on my back, guiding me to the room that would become mine, a room with only a dresser, a small throw rug, and some boxes in it. He told me how much more I’d like it with new carpeting and wallpaper. I cried louder.

  “I’ll let you get used to your new room,” he said. “If you want to open that box in the corner, go ahead.”

  I stood against the wall, dazed, swaying, not sure if I was hungry or full. I wanted to cry more but wasn’t able to work myself up again. My hands touched the bare walls and the holes where nails had been. I touched the large cardboard boxes, opening the one marked TILLIE. There were my toys—stuffed animals, a clown whose arms and legs were elastic bands threaded through flat circles of fabric, my music box with the dancing ballerina, and a hardened chocolate donut I’d hidden inside of it.

  A little deeper into the box, I found a photo, only one. We were not a family that took many pictures. Only rarely did we remember the camera. It was always for an event: a parade, a birthday, a day at the museum. And even then, when the event was over, someone would discover the camera in a pocket or sitting on the seat of a chair that was pushed, unused, under the table. Momma always liked to be the photographer, to be sure she wasn’t in any photos. I thought she was so beautiful, but she was shy about how she looked in the bright sun or how she looked after her lipstick had worn off. Most times, if you tried to take her picture, she covered her face.

  I was not normally allowed to touch our family pictures—Dad said I got fingerprints all over them and it made the pictures wear away—but this was one that didn’t make the family album. In the photo, I stood in front of an airplane hangar with hair blowing across my face. I remembered my parents arguing about my hair—Dad telling her to wait until I pulled it back, or to wait till the wind died down. Momma didn’t listen and snapped the shot.

  Walking home afterward, Dad said, “You won’t even be able to tell who it is.”

  But Momma laughed, saying, “Oh, yes, you will.”

  When that roll of film was developed and Momma had already studied and then disposed of all the photos she was in, I heard a roar of laughter and ran to see the photo of me with my face completely hidden behind my hair. I stood there with my hands in fists, arms out behind me like I was holding ski poles.

  “Is that how I stand?” I asked Dad.

  “I’m afraid so,” he said, and though he laughed, it was also clear that he was not pleased with this thing about me that the camera had captured.

  I set the photo against the baseboard of my new room, where I’d lined up all of my toys, startled by how few there were. In my mind, I tried to walk through my old room to remember what was missing. Where was my Drowsy Doll? Where were the drawings I kept on the shelf beside my bed? I opened the box marked PHIL and began digging through frantically, but found no doll. And where was my ruby cup?

  When I heard Dad come up the stairs and knock on my door, I started to cry again, though it gave me a headache.

  He gently pushed the door open and asked, “Would you like to see the yard?”

  I shook my head, and he did not return again until dinnertime, when he sat beside me on the floor while I ate a tuna fish sandwich and pickle. Afterward, he walked me to the bathroom, where I stood on a stool to brush my teeth. My face had swollen so much from a day of crying that I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror; there were only red slits where my eyes would normally be and I looked
like I’d been punched in the mouth.

  I felt exhausted, quiet, as Dad walked me back to the room, where Phil had brought our sleeping bags. He unrolled them side by side on the floor, pausing at the odor of mine, then continuing to unroll it.

  “Phil said he’ll sleep in here until the rooms are set up,” Dad said, tossing two pillows into the room.

  I stood before him, hands at my side and asked him again, “Where’s Momma?”

  He sighed, kneeling in front of me and gripping my shoulders. “I answered that already, Tillie. The move really tired her out. She’ll be away for a while.” He tousled my hair and added, “You’re going to be just fine.”

  I shook my head hard, but had such a headache I had to stop. He stayed in the doorway as I crawled into my sleeping bag, which was cold and damp. I thought of the questions I knew he would not answer: Where did she go? When will we visit her? She’s coming back, isn’t she?

  “Tomorrow I’ll show you around outside,” he said as he clicked off the light. “Night, Pest.” He saluted Phil from the doorway and then we heard him head downstairs.

  I lay there, aching in a way that felt as if I might not live through the night. “Phil? Please tell me where she is.”

  “Dad says she’s gone away for a while.”

  “I know what Dad said.”

  “That’s all I know.”

  “Tell me!”

  He sat up in the dark. “Okay. She was a mess. After you left, she was on her hands and knees on our lawn, and we had to get her inside because she was making a spectacle of herself.”

  “Was she okay?”

  “You’ve seen her like that before,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do. So Dad just went and got the U-Haul and we packed everything without her help.”

  He picked at the zipper of his sleeping bag. “I was packing as fast as I could, and Dad was carrying the boxes out to the trucks, but he was mad the whole time. I couldn’t get them packed fast enough for him, so he just started taking handfuls of stuff and throwing it by the curb so the garbage truck would collect it.”