Glass Girl (A Young Adult Novel)

by Laura Anderson Kurk

  “I need to get back home.” Henry glanced at me apologetically. “Thank you, though. My parents were hoping both of you could come to dinner Saturday night at our place.” The tips of Henry’s ears turned pink.

  I smiled and nodded at Dad.

  Dad understood my look. “That sounds great. We’d love to. Just let us know what to bring.”

  Henry gave Dad another, “Yes, sir,” and then leaned over to give me a friendly hug. “’Night, Meg.”

  “’Night, Henry. Thanks again for everything.”

  He shrugged through the door that seemed so small when Henry’s frame filled it. I watched him until the headlights of his truck made the turn out of our drive and then turned to Dad, who studied me with interest.

  “He seems nice.”

  “Very,” I said, nodding. “How about that grilled cheese?”

  “Grilled cheese for everyone,” Dad said, like an English noblewoman, raising his finger in the air—a classic Wyatt move. For years, he’d turned every situation into Monty Python.

  I took the bread and cheese out and started grilling sandwiches, an activity tattooed on my brain and muscles. One, two slices. Butter and a hot skillet. Unwrap the cheese and press.

  We sat together and picked at our food. This was who we were and who we were not. Once we were sure we’d made enough of an effort, we cleared our plates and said goodnight. It was a relief to close my bedroom door and sit alone in the dark.

  TWENTY

  FROM: Meg Kavanagh

  TO: Mom

  Change your mind. Change your mind. I miss you so much. Please change your mind and come back.

  Meg

  TWENTY-ONE

  Mr. Slaten, famous for lecturing even on the days close to holidays when other teachers showed videos, had caved to peer pressure. Because it was the Friday before Thanksgiving, he showed A Periodic Table Feast, a cartoon spoof of Pilgrims creating the first table of elements.

  I yawned, cracking my jaw and startling Tennyson.

  “It’s like you don’t even care that Squanto introduced them to flerovium,” she whispered.

  “Really? You don’t read fascination here?” I pointed generally to my face.

  Our brains were already on vacation. My mind had exactly two repeating tracks—Henry and my mom. Bouncing between those two extremes made me feel off-balance all the time. I’d sent hundreds of emails to Mom and she’d responded to one, although “responded” may be too generous a word. Really, she’d given me the equivalent of an electronic grunt, with no information about her condition and no guarantee of anything.

  Dad and I floated through the house like a couple of ghosts, but he’d decided last night to cut back on his hours at the hotel so he could always be home for dinner with me. I think we’d tacitly agreed to pretend this was enough.

  A folded piece of paper dropped into my lap. I picked it up and read Tennyson’s curly cursive.

  I see it in your eyes—you’re thinking about him.

  I shook my head and mouthed, “No.” She grabbed the paper off my desk and wrote a new note.

  We’ve all had crushes on Henry. Wish you could’ve seen him in elementary school… sooooo cute. And always with the manners. He hasn’t been the same since the day you got here.

  I wrote, Tell me more, and snuck the paper back to her desk. Slaten laughed loudly at the video and didn’t notice us.

  He’s crazy about you. Watches you when you aren’t looking. You’re beautiful and he wants to m-a-a-a-rry you.

  I wrinkled my nose at her and crossed my eyes. No one had noticed me in Pittsburgh because they were afraid of what Wyatt would think. And, after he died, people at school averted their eyes when I came in the room. I’m sure I missed out on the whole rite of passage that should’ve happened at my age—the insane interest in shopping, hair, and makeup that my friends and their moms seemed so obsessed with, and the ramped up comfort level of physical relationships with guys.

  Not that I didn’t notice boys. The way they moved and stretched. What they did with their hands when they talked. The lazy way they grinned at girls who weren’t me—the half grins that were so full of ambiguity they made my head hurt. I never could get my voice to work around guys; my words came out in the wrong order…verbal dyslexia.

  All my life, I’d wanted to have my mom’s poise and beauty. One time, when Wyatt and I were little, we had to make a quick trip to the grocery store with her. She’d been washing paintbrushes and had taken her wedding ring off, accidentally leaving it at home. We hadn’t been in the store ten minutes before I noticed a nicely dressed man who seemed to be following us around. He stared at her. Finally, in the detergent aisle, he spoke to her. “I’m sorry. I never do this. But, I noticed you when you walked in and I think you’re beautiful. You’re not wearing a ring. Are you single?”

  Wyatt and I both laughed out loud and my mom turned a million shades of red.

  “No,” she’d said, smiling. “Not single. Happily married and raising these two little ones. But thank you, really, for saying that.”

  The video ended and students tripped over each other to get out of the classroom. The rest of the day seemed eternal, but when school finally ended, I walked to the parking lot to head to the bookstore. Henry waited for me at the Jeep. He had his hands in his pockets and he watched me walk toward him.

  “Hi, Meg,” he said simply. “Good day?”

  He pulled me into him and leaned back on the Jeep. “Better now.”

  He laughed. “I got bored in class and drew you a perfect map to my house so you guys won’t have any trouble finding us tomorrow.”

  “GPS works, too,” I said. “Or are you one of the unmapped?”

  He smirked, and then took the spiral notebook I held, pulling a pencil from its rings. Opening it, he paused to read something I’d written.

  Crap. I felt my entire head heat up while I waited to see how bad it was. He tugged a paper from his back pocket and put it in one of the pockets of the spiral. Before he handed back the spiral, he wrote something on the pocket.

  “I’ll see you at six o’clock tomorrow.” He reached for me again. “It’ll take you thirty minutes to get there.”

  I put my arms inside his unbuttoned coat and rested my face on his shoulder.

  “You should go to work now.” He kissed the top of my head.

  When I backed out in the Jeep, I grabbed the spiral and opened it with one hand. Darn my twelve-year-old maturity. I’d doodled Henry and Meg Whitmire about a thousand times on the folder where he’d put the map. I’d also named our future babies, because I’m that stupid.

  Next to the first Henry and Meg, Henry had written, “Promise?”

  Well, that genie’s out of the bottle and there’s no stuffing her back in.

  ***

  When Saturday evening finally arrived, Dad and I drove out to the Whitmires’ house. He seemed quieter than usual, the muscle in his jaw twitching as he watched the road. Halfway there, he started grilling me with questions about Henry. I was prepared, though.

  “How close are you and Henry?”

  “We’re close, obviously. We’re dating.”

  “Oh.” He seemed a little surprised by that answer. “I guess I haven’t paid attention.”

  “It’s okay. He works all the time so we don’t do the whole dinner and movie every week. It’s more like we hang out when we can. But I like him. A lot.”

  “He seems more mature than an eighteen-year-old kid.”

  “I think it’s because he was raised on a ranch.” I touched the folded map I held. I didn’t need it, but I wanted it with me because Henry had made it and he’d put my name in a heart at the top. “He has three older sisters. That had to be tough.”

  “Whew.” My dad chuckled under his breath. “Poor kid. That explains a lot.”

  This wasn’t the most comfortable conversation I’d ever had with my dad. He wiped a hand over his mouth.

  “It’s okay, Dad. You’ll like him.”

&nb
sp; “Is tonight the first time you’ll meet his family?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m nervous.”

  “How much does Henry know?”

  We were nearing the turnoff to the ranch so I pointed to the sign and the road ahead of us. Dad nodded and turned on his blinker.

  “I haven’t told him about Wyatt,” I said. “I haven’t told anyone here. But he knows about Mom.”

  Dad looked away from the road for a minute. He tilted his head and scanned my features before sighing. “All right,” he said, turning back to the road. “I’m not sure why you haven’t mentioned Wyatt to the boy you’re dating, but I’m glad to know that ahead of time.” He leaned forward, squinting into the darkness. “I don’t remember night driving being this dark before.”

  “It’s the country, Dad.”

  Henry’s house appeared in the distance. A small creek curved through the field in front, and there were several barns and smaller cabins in a grouping to the left of the main house. The utility lights on each structure made them glow. Mom would have grabbed her sketchbook and quickly drawn the bones of a painting. Dad slowed the truck and we rolled to a stop. Without looking at me, he reached for my hand, rubbing my knuckles gently. “I love you,” he said.

  How could my mother leave this good man? “I love you, too, Dad.”

  “You look beautiful, by the way. So much like your mom when I first met her.”

  “Thanks.” I’d been so nervous about getting ready for this dinner. I’d straightened my hair, tried out new makeup, and worn my favorite jeans and suede boots. But still I knew, really, I would never be as beautiful as my mom.

  “Okay, then, let’s meet the Whitmires.” He hammered on the gas, causing the truck tires to squeal. I held on and smiled with him.

  The front door opened as we approached and Henry stepped out with his hands shoved in his pockets. He grinned and met us in the driveway, shaking Dad’s hand, then taking mine in his. “Glad you’re here,” he said.

  Mrs. Whitmire, tall and thin like her son, opened the front door and welcomed us.

  “Meg!” She held out her arms to hug me. “Henry has told me so much about you, I feel like we’re old friends.”

  “Thanks for inviting us, Mrs. Whitmire,” I said. “Everything is beautiful here.”

  “Now, you call us Miriam and Clayton, okay?” she said.

  They introduced themselves to my dad, who seemed comfortable here. Clayton shook my hand and said, “Henry told us you’re awful sweet.”

  Their house was a log cabin, with unfinished walls and the highest ceiling I’d ever seen. An enormous iron chandelier hung from the main beam. I touched the knotted wood around the fireplace and scanned pictures for Henry’s face.

  “Clayton designed this house himself,” Miriam said, joining me by the fire. “When he married me, he brought me to the ranch and we lived in a little trailer for years. I would have been just fine in a small house, but he insisted on building a big one. So we filled it with kids.”

  Henry came through then, putting on his coat and whistling for Butch. “We’re taking your dad down to the barn. Wanna come with or stay where it’s warm?”

  “I’ll stay.” I glanced at Miriam who nodded.

  “I have a lot to show her,” she said, taking my hand. “Let me get the lasagna out of the oven and then we’ll take a tour.”

  Standing in the kitchen, watching Miriam move around in her space, made me homesick. She set the hot lasagna dish on the buffet and covered it, then she filled a basket with warm breadsticks and took a huge salad out of the refrigerator. Instant buffet. It was such a mom thing to do. It’s not like my mom had never done these things. She had. We’d been perfect, too.

  Miriam placed serving utensils next to everything and then paused, looking everything over like she was checking them off her mental list. Then she smiled at me. “So many stories in this house, Meg. So many I could share with you.”

  “I’m sure,” I said. “I grew up in the same house my dad grew up in. He had a thousand stories for every room. He said that our stories just made his easier to understand.”

  “I get that. Now that we have our grandson, Whit, I understand things that happened when my children were little in a different way. I’m definitely more forgiving now. And these walls are more alive.”

  She laughed and pressed her palms to her face. “Oh…I was pregnant with Kate when Clayton carried me over the threshold right over there.” She turned and pointed toward the front door. “I raised all four of my babies right here on this old wood floor. Henry took his first steps right about here.” She leaned down and patted the kitchen floor.

  The place she’d patted looked more worn than the rest of the floor.

  “He took a couple of steps and then he started running.” She grinned.

  “I bet he was fast.”

  “The funniest thing is that he rode a horse before he walked,” she said. “Clayton says Henry cut his teeth on a saddle horn, which, I guess, is kind of true.”

  “I’m surprised he ever learned to walk with three sisters carrying him around all the time.”

  “One of these days, I’ll drag out the picture albums.” She pointed at me conspiratorially. “They pretended he was a baby doll until he went to kindergarten. Poor kid didn’t know what hit him when he had to fend for himself.”

  Laughing, I touched a picture of Henry that sat on the kitchen counter. He must have been about five.

  “Come on, love,” Miriam said. “I’ll show you around.”

  She pointed out antiques that had been handed down from Henry’s grandparents and great-grandparents who’d settled this land and things her family had saved for her children. “I grew up in a city, too. I never thought I’d end up a rancher’s wife in Wyoming. Turns out, this is where I belong.”

  “I can see that,” I said.

  She stopped in one of her daughters’ rooms to smooth a bedspread where a dog had been lying. “I’m sure it’s been a big adjustment for you…moving here from Pittsburgh. But I learned that we bring ourselves to a place. We see it through the only eyes we’ve got—the ones that have seen a lot of other places, too. Chapin will be a different place to you than it is to anyone else.”

  “I guess that’s true.” I crossed my arms and waited for her to finish her thought.

  “Here’s what Chapin became for me—constancy. Constancy and love that just stays and stays and stays, even when it would be easier to leave.” She sat on the bed she’d just smoothed. “Does that make any sense?”

  I knew what she meant. Exactly what she meant. She was knocking on my heart—but kindly, like her son. And I felt like talking, if only a little.

  “It makes sense if you’ve only known change—or love that didn’t stay,” I said. “And you’re here where people stay. If they can. If there’s work. If they’re free from some other past. They stay. They figure the details out and stay.”

  So quietly, almost like she held her breath, she said, “Henry told me about your mother.”

  I nodded. “That’s okay. I don’t mind if you know.”

  “He was worried about you and asked for my advice.”

  “What did you tell him?” I tried to smile, but it died before it meant anything. “I didn’t—don’t—understand why it has to be this way for us. This…” I gestured in a vague circle. “This is how it looked for us, too.” I choked on my own words.

  “I know, honey,” she said. “For a girl, watching a mother drive away is…” Her voice faded. “It’s too much, too terrible. I told Henry that, for a while, you’ll feel like there’s no solid ground. But you will learn your strength. In the meantime, your mom and dad will learn things, too.” She watched me process this. “At this house, Meg, we pray they will learn how deeply they love each other. How much they need each other. We’re praying for you, too. Henry is…he’s very dear.” She took great care to speak gently and every word hit exactly where she intended.

  The effort it took not to cry m
ade my nose stop up and I breathed slowly through my mouth. “Thank you,” I said.

  “I want to show you something.” Miriam stood and took my hand, leading me down another hall and into the last room.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I knew it was Henry’s room immediately—the little boy leftovers on the walls and shelves mixed with heavy textbooks and test prep books stacked on the desk gave it away. Miriam tilted her head like she was listening for something and then she said, “They’re still down at the barn.”

  She touched his desk and smiled at a framed picture of me. Henry must have taken it secretly on the day I rode Trouble. I was looking at something over my shoulder and the sky behind me was fading with the last colors of sunset. I studied it until Miriam got my attention.

  “This,” she whispered, tapping a well-worn Bible held open by a flat stone. In the margin, Henry had written, For Meg, next to a verse that said, “Let not your heart be troubled.”

  The front door banged opened, making me jump. We both laughed and she motioned with her chin for me to follow. I touched Henry’s desk again and turned off the light. In the main room, Henry and his dad stood in their socks next to their muddy boots. My dad looked awkward as he reached down to untie his running shoes. He shrugged his shoulders at me and smiled.

  At the table, Henry and his parents asked us questions about Pittsburgh and shared stories about Chapin locals. They laughed warmly and made us feel comfortable and welcome. Wyatt would’ve loved this—the easy way they shared life. Henry reached for my hand under the table and squeezed.

  “After we clean up, I thought I’d take Meg for a ride,” he said. “I’ve got Ben saddled in the barn.”

  “Aw, just let her ride him by herself,” Clayton said, winking at me. “She can handle him.”

  Henry snorted. “Are you kidding? She could barely handle Trouble.”

  I kicked his foot. “I’m right here. I handled Trouble just fine.”

  “Two entirely different horses, Meg.” He reached for my empty plate and stacked it on his, carrying both to the kitchen sink, where he rinsed them.