But the next morning, all I wanted was not to give up on Terabithia. I just couldn’t. I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Shep, and padded down the hall to my study.
And sat down in front of the easel.
And sat.
And sat.
I had to admit that my painting renaissance was not going to happen. I had tried and tried. I didn’t have it in me anymore. Maybe I was too tired. Maybe I was trying to force it, when my painting before had come from passion and not necessity.
Maybe I had come to terms long ago with the fact that my place in the art world involved googly eyes and glitter paper instead of gallery openings and towering canvases.
Maybe I was just a different person than I had been, one who now had stars in her eyes for a real baby instead of for mermaids or little girls with puppies or turtles on lily pads.
There was no use denying it: no fairy godmother was going to materialize with the miracle I needed.
Shep poked his head in the door. “Do? You all right?”
I sighed and turned the canvas to face him.
“Nothing, huh?”
“Nope. I just really want—”
“I know,” Shep murmured. “But not like this. I know how much you love him, and you are going to be an amazing mother someday. But for you to drive yourself crazy trying to scrounge up the money . . . that’s asking too much. Sweetheart”—Shep took both my hands in his—“here’s the thing. The reality is that Coco and Mark have the means to give Terabithia a life that’s not in our power right now. It’s not fair, but I think deep down you know it’s the truth. Have you thought about talking to Coco?”
“No,” I practically yelled. “I mean, no. They’re already back on the list for a referral. It would be way too weird for her. She knows how I feel about Terabithia. It’s not like we’re swapping My Little Ponies.” The words were pouring out of my mouth. I felt hot and cold.
Shep clasped both my hands to steady me. “Think it over, Do.” He paused. “We’ll have kids one day, when we’re ready. We can adopt from Ethiopia if you want.”
“They won’t be Terabithia.”
“That’s true,” he agreed. “They won’t be Terabithia.”
Shep didn’t want to leave me on Saturday morning, but he had to go to the site. Even before the accident, the mall project was running behind schedule. They’d brought in a new crane and were trying to make up for lost time. I hoped they weren’t rushing things.
A little after eleven, as I was getting to the part in Love Actually where Jamie and the whole town of Marseille went to the restaurant where Aurelia worked so he could awkwardly profess his love to her—and she revealed she learned English for him, which was soooo romantic—a knock on my door interrupted my brain-candy film fest.
“Dodie, it’s me.”
“Hey, Kendra, what’s up? It’s good to see you. Come on in.”
Kendra’s face was a funny shade. Kind of purple, actually.
“Have a seat,” I invited her. “Let me get you some . . . um . . . some crackers and jam.”
“I don’t want any goddamn crackers and jam,” Kendra seethed. “I want to know what in the name of ever-living hell is going on with you.”
This was bad. I knew this was really bad. I’d seen Kendra this mad exactly one time ever. Now.
“Um . . . what do you mean?”
“Do you know how long it’s been since you’ve returned my calls?” Kendra asked.
“No.”
“Are you aware that I’ve left you eight messages in the last twenty-four hours?” she demanded.
“No,” I said meekly. “I haven’t been looking at my phone. Yesterday was a really hard day for me. And lately I’ve been busy—”
“Doing what?” she said, glancing at the paused movie, her voice arctic. “What could be so important that you couldn’t hear my news? It certainly can’t be the library occupying all your time . . . I know you closed it early for the holidays, though I don’t know why . . .”
“What news?” I asked, but she shook her head as if to say, Not a chance till you give me a proper answer.
It spilled out. “I have been trying to figure out how to adopt Terabithia.”
“Still? We talked about this months ago. I thought by now you had figured out that it was a completely crazy, impossible desire.”
I was silent. I couldn’t fight this fight anymore—not with Kendra, not with Shep, not with myself.
“I can’t fix the mess you’ve made with Shep or the library. You have to fix this yourself. For your own self-respect. Figure out what you want, and if you’re going to close the library for good, just do it and don’t keep everyone’s hopes up. Eventually, they’ll reopen the Chatsworth Library. Look, I’ve got to go. Benton’s waiting for me.”
As she turned the knob to let herself out, my eyes caught on a huge, clear, shining rock on a platinum band on her ring finger. I grabbed her hand. “Kendra? Is this what you wanted to tell me?”
“Yeah, I was planning on it. But now’s not the time. You’ve got bigger fish to fry.” And with that, one of my best friends, newly engaged to a man I didn’t even know she loved, walked out the door.
“Hey, Coco,” I said, flopping into one of the wing chairs in the sunroom for a long overdue phone conversation. “How was your day?”
“Fine, how was yours?”
I sighed.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing really. Have you and Mark adjusted to being home?” I’d barely brought it up before. The truth was I felt uneasy on the phone with her. Shep had suggested what I’d been thinking but hadn’t been able to admit: that there might be a solution right in front of me. An excruciating one but a solution nonetheless. After a little small talk, my jealousy would rear up, and, hating myself for it, I would find an excuse to get off the phone. This time, I was definitely going to try to listen for as long as she wanted to talk. I had obviously been sucking at that lately; my conversation with Kendra was all the proof I needed.
“It’s been weird,” she said. “It’s the little things that remind me of how long we were away. I watch TV and it’s as though the people on it are speaking a different language. But I love nursing, and being back on the floor has helped a huge amount. And there’s also Mark. He makes everything so much easier. It’s amazing having a partner, isn’t it, Do? I mean, I can tell that Shep is so solid. It must be great having him there for you, knowing you can depend on him. It goes without saying that he knows he can depend on you in return. I mean, you’re nothing if not dependable.”
There was a huge lump in my throat. “Thanks, Co, and . . . um . . . I’m really sorry. I have to jump off now.”
“Did I say something—” she began, but I hung up.
—NINETEEN—
January 2009
Kendra wasn’t returning my calls. Poetic justice, I figured, since I didn’t return Coco’s next two calls.
I went through all my credit card bills and got the balances to zero with the money I’d been saving. There was plenty of money for that. There just wasn’t enough to comfortably support me and a child. That was a different category altogether—always had been, I thought, as anger at my own stupidity flared up again.
I’d continued to spend a ton of time in the library by myself. But enough was enough. I unlocked the door. The library was officially open again. Of course, no one knew that except me. There was no chance Elmira would stop by; she was grounded for the foreseeable future. I would tell a few people at school, and word would get around.
Children would play hide-and-seek among the stacks again. In a quiet corner, three readers would be wedged against the cases, deeply engrossed in a novel, a historical narrative, and a biography. A couple of people would be piling book donations on the circulation desk, their covers gleaming like jewels. I could hardly wait to see that again (and to sniff the books).
Back in the living room, I hit the button on my answering machine.
“Hey, assb
rain. Call Coco. What the eff is up with you? Stop acting like such a loser and call her back. You and I have already talked twice this week. Granted, you sounded like a coked-out zombie, but if my incredibly exciting life of takeout and hot games of grab-ass in the bathrooms of art galleries are enough to keep us entertained, I’m sure our bleeding-heart Samaritan sister would have enough of interest to say to you. So stop this bitchery and get your butt on the phone for real this time. Get on it like I’m about to get on this Viggo Mortensen–looking cowboy installation artist who walked in a sec ago.” There was a pause. “It’s Maddie, by the way.”
Thanks for the clarification, I thought.
After another pause, the message continued. “Yes, right, Maddie, not Madeline. He keeps introducing me like that, but you can use my nickname as long as you don’t mind if I call you Aragorn.”
I heard a deep, sun-weathered laugh.
It was tempting to keep listening. Maddie’s inability to hang up the phone was a gift equal to finding Hemingway’s lost manuscript.
(Aragorn ended up asking for her digits.)
Mom caught me on the phone. She was on the case too. “Do, what’s going on with you and Coco?”
“Nothing. I spoke to her a few days ago,” I said a little too hastily.
“She told me you asked her about herself and hopped off as soon as you heard the answer. She’s hurt, Dodie. She doesn’t know what she did wrong. She feels like you resent her or something.”
“I’ve been really busy. I don’t resent . . .” My voice trailed off. “Mom, I’ve gotta go. I’ll call you later.”
I did resent her.
“Why are you being such a colossal bitch?” Coco demanded when she answered the phone. “It’s been over a week and a half since you jumped off the phone in the middle of our conversation.”
I was silent. Like me, Coco never swore. We left that to Maddie.
“Has it really been that long?” I asked. I knew it had.
“You know it has!”
“Well, I’ve been busy.”
“Doing what? What have you been doing that is so important?”
“Just because I’m not working with genocide orphans in Africa doesn’t mean I’m not doing something important,” I snapped. Why was I being so mean? I couldn’t postpone the inevitable any longer. Let go.
“I never said that! I’m not comparing us. Jesus, Do, I just want to know what’s going on with you. Help me understand. What did I say that made you so angry? Where have you been disappearing to?”
I gritted my teeth. “I’ve been distancing my family, jeopardizing my relationship, neglecting the library, failing at painting, and trying to adopt Terabithia by myself.”
Silence.
“Holy crap,” she finally said. “I had no idea.”
“Yeah, well, how could you? I’ve been like some deranged jam-making, oil-painting Macbethian witch guarding a deep, dark, rose-and-raspberry-flavored, mermaid-covered secret over here.”
“That doesn’t sound very threatening,” Coco observed. We both laughed. I had missed that.
“So what are you going to do?” she asked. “How can I help?” Her voice was so full of hope that I swallowed hard against the pain in my throat and said, “Actually, the real reason I haven’t been calling you is because . . . I think you should adopt Terabithia. If Mackie and Jeff are okay with it.”
There was another long silence from the other end of the line. “What?” Coco said faintly.
“I think you should adopt Terabithia. You and Mark. Maybe you two are supposed to adopt Boo.”
“That’s crazy, Do. You want to adopt him.”
I swallowed hard and let the thoughts I’d been pushing away too long surface. I had to face them, and I had to do it now, before it was too late. Before it became even more difficult—or suddenly impossible—for Mackie and Jeff to take care of Terabithia. Before another nice couple of strangers looking to adopt came along. “I do. I did. But it’s not the right thing for him. Or me. You and Mark are ready. You can provide him with a wonderful home and love, and you have the resources to give him what he needs. I don’t.”
“But Dodie—”
“No. Listen, it’s taken me a long time to admit it to myself. But I can’t do it now. And it’s not as though I can ask Mackie and Jeff to wait.”
“Couldn’t you, though?”
“They already have. It’s been almost a year since Sullivan died, and three months since the previous adoption fell through. Jeff’s not well. The stress is making it worse. And Terabithia is going to turn two soon.”
“But I can’t just . . . we can’t just . . . adopt the child you’ve been breaking your back to try to adopt. I know from losing Sianeh. It’s specific. It’s personal. Even more so in your case because of your relationship with Terabithia. You know him. He knows you.”
I understood why I had to keep talking about this with Coco. Why I had to insist that she consider it. But damn was it painful. Like I was operating on my own organs. “Yes, it is personal. And for a long time, I kept thinking I could rise to the occasion. But this isn’t only about me and what I want. It’s about Shep and what he wants. He’s my fiancé—I have to take that into account. I may have already messed things up beyond repair. The fact is that he’s not ready. And this is also about my friends in Chatsworth. I started this library for them, and I have been neglecting it and the people who need it. And it’s about Terabithia and what’s best for him. If you and Mark adopt him, I’ll get to be a meaningful part of his life. And so will Mackie and Jeff. If someone else adopts him, there’s no guarantee.”
“I don’t know, Do. I have to think about this. And talk to Mark about it. I’m so grateful to you for this incredible, generous thought. But it feels strange.”
That night, lying in bed, Mark and Coco held hands and talked about what I’d told her. They discussed it for hours. Coco was worried. Mark told her that it would be hard for everyone involved but that everything would be all right. “Okay. I believe you,” Coco finally said. “Should we go meet him, Mark? Are you ready?”
Mark brushed hair away from her earlobe, gave it a kiss. “Of course I am,” he replied. “And you are too.”
I desperately needed blush. I rubbed some into my cheeks. Better. Now I was ready to don my imaginary tour director’s cap for the day. I had made granola jam bars in case Terabithia needed distracting with sugar and filled a tote bag with construction paper, stampers shaped like frogs and beavers, and pop-up books. After giving it some thought and talking to Mark, Coco had decided to come meet Terabithia and Mackie and Jeff. And, I suspected, to see how I was holding up under the circumstances.
“Shep and I will be there at noon,” I promised Mackie. She and Jeff were nervous. I’d told her all about my sister, of course, but the idea of Coco—or anyone—possibly becoming Terabithia’s new mother . . .
Mark and Coco arrived at one. “Come in, come in,” Jeff invited them, and I attacked them with a bear hug. Coco smelled like the crème brûlée shower gel she always used. She had blush on too. Her hands were freezing cold. I gave them a squeeze as our eyes met.
They both hugged Shep, who was with me purely for moral support. He planned to make himself as scarce as possible. I knew, though, that because he loved me and had grown fond of Terabithia, he would be observing the proceedings with eager interest too.
“Please, have a seat,” Mackie said to us. Jeff patted her lovingly on the shoulder as he passed into the kitchen to get drinks. Terabithia was having his nap upstairs.
“How was the drive?” Mackie asked when they were settled in, Mark’s arm comfortably resting behind Coco’s shoulders. She leaned into him unconsciously. Mackie registered it too.
“I like a morning drive,” Mark said. “It’s a nice way to get going.”
The corners of Mackie’s mouth twitched upward.
“We saw a field of alpacas!” Coco said. “It’s so cute how their twiggy little legs stick out under that saddle of fur.�
� She smiled directly at Mackie, putting her at ease.
As I listened to them make small talk, I didn’t know what I’d been worried about. It was impossible not to like Mark and Coco. That would be similar to not liking Canadians or something else that pretty much everyone in the world liked. Maybe a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The sophisticated kind—with farmers market Concord grape jelly and organic peanut butter. Or even almond butter, which was better for you and actually even more delicious. Unless you had nut allergies, in which case Mark and Coco would be like some other delicious yet hypoallergenic sandwich.
“Here you go.” In the center of the coffee table, Jeff set down a tray with a cluster of mugs and a pot of tea. Mark served us all some pumpkin rooibos. Wreathed in a cloud of spices from my cup, I felt a calm settle over me. A sense of relief I hadn’t expected to feel. Mackie and Jeff would love Coco and Mark, and Coco and Mark would be generous to all of us with Terabithia’s time. Everything was going to work out fine. Just fine. Probably fine. In time.
A little before three, as Coco and Mark were describing the day the school in northern Sudan was dedicated, Terabithia’s babblings became audible on the monitor. “Gamma Gampa Gamma Gampa get me get me get me,” he was saying.
“That’s my cue.” Mackie excused herself.
Coco’s hands fidgeted with the hem of her dress, and Mark shifted in his seat. I smiled at both of them and, like a good tour director, said, “He’s on his way! You’re going to love him.”
“I know we will, Do,” Coco said. “Because we’ve heard how much you do.” Her smile was tight.
Over the monitor, I heard Mackie murmur, “Dodie’s here to see you. And she brought some very special friends. Including her sister.”
“Dada? Yay! See Dada now!” I could hear the bars squeaking as he pulled on them in his haste to get out of the crib.
“Yes, her sister’s here,” Mackie repeated. I wasn’t sure if Terabithia knew what that meant yet.
The Lending Library Page 21