The Orphan Daughter

by Cari Noga

  I stare out the window, wondering, until Aunt Jane pulls into a gas station. Twisting around, I keep my head low as I tug the bag along the seat, toward me. It has a drawstring top that’s twisted and tucked underneath whatever’s inside, something heavy. Aunt Jane’s still busy with the pump. Quickly I work it open. It smells funny, too, a wet, outdoorsy smell. I peer into the opening.

  Grass! A big hunk, sitting in a black tray, like a takeout container. I can’t help but screech as I snatch my hand back and hunker against my door, as far away as I can get.

  “What’s the matter?” Aunt Jane’s face is in the window.

  “You have grass in there!” I point at the back seat.

  Aunt Jane’s gaze follows my finger. I pulled on the bag when I jerked back, and now it’s balancing on the edge of the back seat, almost tipping. She opens the door and rearranges it like it was.

  “It’s called sod.”

  “Sod?” What kind of a word is that? “What’s it for?”

  “Usually, people make lawns out of it.”

  “Why do you have it?”

  “I asked Sarah if we could take it home. The idea is that you touch it—”

  “What!”

  “Just for a few seconds at first. Then longer and longer. By controlling the time and circumstances, it’s supposed to help you learn to control your grass fear.”

  “No way.” I am not touching that thing. At least the name fits. I can hear Deirdre. Sodding rain. Sodding traffic.

  Aunt Jane opens her mouth, but just then the gas pump makes that thunk sound, all filled up. She shuts her mouth and turns to hang the nozzle back up.

  Sodding farms. Sodding aunts. All the way home I keep my earbuds on and my gaze out the window, ignoring that sodding sod in the back seat.

  Chapter 38

  JANE

  East Middle School is brand new. It looks like a jail, all solid cinderblock walls with a strip of glass-block windows. There’s grass around, but sidewalks lead from parking lot to door. As I pull into a spot, I don’t see a playground. Maybe they don’t get recess in middle school. I hope not, after the therapy fiasco. Lucy hasn’t touched the sod, not even the bag, which has been sitting in the mudroom for nearly a week. Probably all dried out by now. I should return the tray part to Sarah.

  She didn’t seem surprised Lucy refused to go in. Said a lot of people were hesitant about therapy. I have to admit I get that. Before we left Alaska, the doctor wanted me to see a therapist. I made excuses. No babysitter for Matt, needing to pack up for Jim’s transfer. I’m fine, don’t worry. But the real reason was that I was afraid. Pain and guilt I understood. Deserved, really. I was supposed to feel bad. What’s worse than a mother losing her own child? So how could I trust a process that was supposed to make me feel better?

  The secretary is writing on a whiteboard, back to the door, but her head swivels as I open it. “Good morning! How can I help you?”

  “I’d like to enroll a new student.”

  “Wonderful!” She finishes her sentence—“Find Local Difference lunch source”—and turns to a filing cabinet. She glances inside a folder and then hands it to me. “We’ll need all the forms filled out completely, plus a copy of the birth certificate and immunization record before the first day of school September 6. And what grade will the new student be entering?” She’s opened another folder and looks at me expectantly.

  “Um, seventh. She’s turning twelve next week,” I say.

  “Very good. We’ll look forward to meeting—” She makes a note inside her folder and then looks up at me, eyebrows raised. I feel like I missed a cue.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Her name?”

  Oh. “Lucy. Lucy Ortiz.”

  “Lucy.” She writes it in the folder, then holds out her hand. “I’m Mrs. Montgomery, the principal.”

  I shake her hand, feeling confused again. “I thought you were—”

  “The secretary. Of course.” She shrugs. “No full-time secretarial help till two weeks before school.”

  A DIY principal. I feel more at ease.

  “And you are Mrs. Or—”

  “Uh, no. McArdle. Jane McArdle. I’m Lucy’s aunt.”

  “I see.” The principal hesitates. “It is district policy that enrollments are accepted only from parents or guardians.”

  “That’s me. Her guardian. She moved here to live with me in June, after her parents died.”

  “Oh dear. I’m so sorry.” She shakes her head, then gestures to a chair. “Do you have time? I’d love to find out a bit more about Lucy. That’s a tough situation.”

  Tough. The same way Sarah described it. As I recount the events since April, that seems pretty accurate. Mrs. Montgomery seems to agree, shaking her head at all the appropriate intervals.

  “What a tragedy. Kids are resilient, though. Getting back to a school routine will be a huge help, I’m sure.”

  I nod.

  “Has she been able to make any new friends? Peers are so critical in these situations.”

  “There’s one boy, Jared Livingston. I believe he’s going to be in seventh grade, too.”

  “I’ll check and see what I can do about arranging for them to share a few classes.” She makes a note. “I think we can give Lucy a very strong fresh start. Anything else you can think of?”

  “There is one more thing.” I hesitate. The grass phobia sounds so ridiculous. Just then her phone rings.

  “I’m sorry, it’s the main district office. I’ve got to take this.”

  While she talks I peruse the folder. A sample schedule reveals that, indeed, there is no recess in middle school. Policy booklets. Forms galore. I start to fill one out but get stumped on the second page, the blank for a backup emergency contact person. Esperanza? She’ll be going back to Mexico soon. Miguel drives the school bus. Rebecca? I’ve only known her three months. Is my pool really so shallow? Closing the folder, my gaze falls on the to-do list on the whiteboard. Besides finding the Local Difference lunch source—interesting—there’s “install security camera software,” “review bus routes,” and “set up media lab.” A countdown figure says Mrs. Montgomery has twenty-five days to get it all done.

  Media lab. That sounds like the class Lucy mentioned when she arrived, New Media. Where they made videos and stuff. I feel a little surge of triumph. So there, William Langley. Little old Traverse City can match the curriculum of her New York school. Plus she’ll have some classes with Jared. A new routine, with some familiarity. A strong fresh start, like Mrs. Montgomery said.

  Then maybe I shouldn’t reveal the grass phobia, after all. It just saddles Lucy with the expectation she can’t get over it. She sees how Lexie’s adjusted. She’s doing the stepping stumps herself, and the farm stand. She won’t go to see Sarah, but with no recess, there’s no imminent need to worry about it at school.

  “We’ll check in next week, then,” Mrs. Montgomery says into the phone, and hangs up. “I apologize, that took longer than I expected.”

  “It’s fine,” I say.

  “So, you were saying there was one more thing?”

  “Yes.” I take a deep breath. “Tell me about this local lunch program source you’re looking for?”

  Chapter 39

  LUCY

  On my birthday I wake up to Lexie pawing my pillow and the sun streaming in my window. The rest of the house is quiet. Just like always.

  I’m twelve years old today. On my other birthdays, Daddy would burst into the room early. “¡Feliz cumpleaños! A birthday should be celebrated all day!” he’d say, handing over flowers or balloons or a doughnut with a candle in it.

  Mom was at work in the morning. But Daddy would have her show on while he made breakfast, and she always wished me a happy birthday on the air.

  “Hoy es un día especial en mi casa,” she would tell the weatherman, Tomas.

  “A special day? ¡Díganos, Gloria!”

  “Hoy es el cumpleaños de mi hija.”

  “Your daughter’
s birthday? ¡Fantástico! ¡Feliz cumpelaños, Lucy! ¿Cuántos años tiene?”

  Siete, ocho, nueve, diez, once. I remember back at least that far. Last year Daddy’s breakfast was chocolate-chip pancakes. Each pancake had eleven chocolate chips.

  I carry Lexie downstairs. No flowers, no balloons, no chocolate-chip pancakes. Even though I knew there wouldn’t be, even though the empty house looks exactly like it always does, it feels worse today, like I could vanish into the vacant kitchen and no one would even notice. If no one counts the years, do they count at all?

  Through the window, Aunt Jane’s hat is moving around the garden, bent over the rows. She stands to stretch. Catching sight of me, she waves, then flashes her garden-gloved hand twice. Ten minutes? That’s new. Usually she stays out there all morning. Before it gets hotter than she likes.

  A pan of blueberry muffins is on the counter. Lexie jumps up to sniff. “Shoo, Lexie.” I take one and pour myself a glass of juice. They’re delicious, so much sweeter than the ones I remember buying at the deli. Almost as sweet as the chocolate-chip pancakes.

  “Morning!” Aunt Jane comes in, smiling, hanging up her hat. Morning is her favorite time. It’s when she’s most relaxed, anyway. Maybe it’s because she hasn’t fallen behind yet.

  “Morning,” I say, like always, like it’s any other day.

  “Happy birthday!”

  She remembered! “Thanks.”

  “Did you see the card?” She points over to the computer. A card with my name is propped on the keyboard. I didn’t notice that before. Opening it, I read, “Happy birthday,” above a cat holding a bunch of balloons. On the inside it reads, “Hope your day is just purr-fect.” Below that, Aunt Jane has written “Log in!” and a little smiley face.

  “Go on, do it.” She seems excited.

  I type the login and password. The little wheely thing spins. Then the Google search page pops up, in seconds instead of minutes. No buzzing or whirring noises from the computer, either. It stays quiet. I look at Aunt Jane.

  “I upgraded to high speed!” she says. “Now you can use your iPad inside, or the computer, and it won’t take forever. You can watch videos—”

  “That’s my birthday present?” I interrupt.

  “What? Well, um, yes.” Her smiles wavers. “I thought you would like it. You spend so much time in the barn. And I’ve vowed that this fall I’m finally going to work on a website for Plain Jane’s. So it’ll be useful for me, too.” She pauses. “Do you like it?”

  “Yeah. I just, uh, wasn’t sure.” Because everyone else already has high-speed Internet because it’s normal, not because of a birthday! Because a birthday present is something special for the birthday person, not something that’s useful for other people!

  “Oh. OK. Well then. Good.” She clears her throat. “I planned a little party for tonight, too. We’re meeting Miguel and the Livingstons at Osorio’s. I’ll make a cake, and we can come back here for dessert. What do you think?”

  Osorio’s has pretty good Mexican food. Esperanza took me there once. But I always got to pick the restaurant for my birthday dinner. I would wear a new birthday outfit. Daddy would tell me I looked beautiful, so grown up, that he couldn’t believe how big I was getting, and make a big deal out of opening the taxi door for me.

  The ding of a text message jars me out of my reverie. It’s Phoebe! I haven’t heard from her since a postcard the first week I got here.

  Happy birthday! Can you Skype?

  I guess I can, now that the Internet actually works.

  “Go ahead,” Aunt Jane says. “I’ll start the cake.”

  I carry Lexie up to my room and put the chair in front of the door so she can’t get out. She meows and looks at me over her shoulder pitifully.

  It’s so good to see Phoebe. She’s sitting on her bed, her hair in two frizzy pigtails, surrounded by about a hundred stuffed animals.

  “Lucy!” She grins and reaches out toward me, as if to touch through the screen. “Happy birthday!”

  “Thanks.” I can remember exactly what it was like to sit in her room, the window that looked out on Ninth Avenue, talking about school, watching videos, playing around with making our own. I miss that so much, it feels inside like it does when Lexie accidentally claws me.

  “I miss you,” she says, like she can read my mind.

  “Me, too.”

  “I wanted to call, or text, but my parents kept saying no. That I had to let you get used to living with your aunt.”

  “It’s hopeless.” I sigh. Lexie is meowing and batting the door. No, Lexie, you’re staying with me on my birthday.

  “What’s it like? It’s country there, right? Is it really that bad?”

  “Guess what she got me for my birthday?”

  Phoebe shrugs. “Books? Gross clothes?”

  I shake my head. “High-speed Internet.”

  She looks confused. “That’s a birthday present?”

  “She thinks it is.”

  “She didn’t just already, you know—”

  “Have it? Nope. And that’s not all.” All the flaws and injustices of Old Mission come pouring out. “We’re, like, twenty miles away from the nearest teeny little town. There’s only two movie theaters. I always have to ask for a ride, and since she’s always working in her garden, I hardly ever get to go.”

  “What about buses? Or trains?” Phoebe’s eyes grow wide.

  “There’s some buses, but they work weird. You have to call them, they don’t run on a schedule.”

  “So then you’re just, like, stuck at home all day?”

  “Pretty much.” Lexie keeps meowing and batting the door. She wants to get out, too. Fine. I open the door, and she darts into the hall.

  “Oh wow, Lucy.” She sinks back into her stuffed animals for a minute, then sits up, excited. “But guess what, my mom says that you can come visit us sometime!”

  “Yeah?” Being back in Phoebe’s room, lying on her bed, watching videos, just hanging out together sounds so good. “When?”

  “Winter break, she said.”

  “That’s not for a long time.”

  “Yeah.” She looks down at her hands. “Are there any other kids around?”

  I start to shake my head, then remember Jared. “Well, one. He comes out here with his family. To work in the garden.”

  “A boy?” She sits up on her bed. Her shirt slides down her shoulder a little bit, showing a thin pink strap. A bra?

  “What’s his name? How old is he?”

  “Jared. He’s going into seventh, too.” When did Phoebe start wearing a bra?

  “He comes to work? Why?”

  “His mom makes him. His whole family. It’s for some kind of deal on the vegetable deliveries Aunt Jane does. I don’t get it, exactly.”

  “What’s he like? Is he cute?”

  Cute? He’s just—Jared. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you have to work, too?”

  I shake my head. “Well, sometimes I help her get the stuff ready. Wash it, divide it up. She delivers it to the customers once a week.”

  “They don’t just go to the grocery store?” She tugs her shirt over the pink strap.

  I feel dumb, talking about this. Who cares? “I don’t know. I told you, I don’t really get it.”

  “Sorry. I just—I want to know what’s going on. I wish you hadn’t moved away. I’ve been so bored all summer.”

  “Yeah.” We stare at each other for a minute.

  “At least school starts in a week,” she says. “I’m going to have Mr. Glass for homeroom this year.”

  “A man teacher. Weird,” I say.

  “Do you know your teacher?”

  I shake my head. “School doesn’t start until September.” Almost three weeks.

  She starts to answer, but then I hear a knock and her mom’s voice. “Phoebe? It’s time to go!”

  “Just a second. I’m talking to Lucy. It’s her birthday.”

  “Lucy! Happy birthday, dear. How are you do
ing?” Mrs. Solomon’s face peers into the camera suddenly, covering up Phoebe’s. She has big boobs. Maybe that’s why Phoebe already needs a bra.

  “Hi, Mrs. Solomon. Thanks. I’m fine.”

  “Mom, move back. I can’t see,” Phoebe says.

  “Oh, I’m so glad you’re adjusting, dear. It’s been so hot in the city this summer. It’s probably much more pleasant there, with the water and the fresh air.” She moves out of view. “A couple more minutes, Phoebe, and then we have to go.”

  “’K, Mom.”

  “Bye-bye, Lucy,” she says, waving a hand back in front of the camera. “Have a wonderful birthday!”

  “Thanks. Bye,” I say as the door closes.

  Phoebe shakes her head. “Sorry.”

  “No, that’s OK. It was kind of nice to see her.” She acted more motherly in thirty seconds than Aunt Jane has, ever. “Where are you going?”

  “School shopping. We got the list.” She waves a piece of paper.

  I can see our school’s name on the top. No, Phoebe’s school. Not mine anymore. My throat squeezes tight, and my stomach elevator starts falling. “Oh.”

  “I wish you could move back, Lucy.”

  I feel like I could cry right there, but Lexie suddenly comes back, climbing into my lap.

  “Is that Lexie? Wow, she’s gotten so big!”

  As I’m scratching behind her ears, my stomach elevator stops. “I know.”

  I see her look to her door and frown. “Mom’s yelling. I better go. Happy birthday, OK?”

  “Thanks. Bye.” How am I supposed to make my own birthday happy, I wonder as Phoebe’s face shrinks to her Skype icon, a picture of her skating at Rockefeller Center that time we went, her pigtails sticking out below a hat with a huge pom-pom. I’m only twelve, but it feels like that picture was a hundred years ago.

  Chapter 40

  JANE

  In the fridge I rummage for the carrots I picked just last night. My specialty, carrot cake. Preheat the oven to 350, and then from memory I pull the ingredients. Butter, white sugar, brown sugar, hardened in the canister since I used it last—what, at Christmas? Sugar doesn’t go bad, though. Eggs. The kitchen computer screen is black, back in sleep mode, the birthday card lying facedown next to it. Lucy was underwhelmed by the Internet gift, that’s for sure.