“Gramps is looking forward to taking you fishing,” he said. “And there are some new exhibits coming to the museums this year. Maybe a trip to the boardwalk in Kemah.” He closed his menu and looked across at me, eyebrows raised as if he’d asked a question. Sure, Gramps will sometimes take me along when he goes fishing with his friends. I bring a book. And museums? People have different ideas about what’s fun.
“I told you,” I said. “I don’t want to go. And you said we would discuss it.”
“Sarah, you know I have to work.”
“And I have to live!”
“Don’t be so dramatic.”
“You have to let me stretch or I will never learn anything. I’m twelve.”
“Barely.”
“What did you do at twelve?” I asked, but I already know a few facts. He got to go to all kinds of Boy Scout camps away from home and ride his bike without a helmet.
“I would worry about you being home alone all day,” he said. “I can’t help it.”
If Dad looked up worrier in my dictionary, he might change his ways.
worrier n.: a person who thinks about unfortunate things that might happen (see also: Tom Nelson)
Well, I could have reminded him about his being drunk and leaving me all alone and never making it to the mall and say, well, did you worry then? But no, I didn’t.
I just said, “I really don’t want to go this summer.”
He paid the check and we left.
When we got home, I walked in first and stayed silent as he called after me. “Sarah. Sarah, come on! It’s because I love you.”
“Whatever, Dad,” I said, trying to control my quivering voice. It was no use. I sounded shaky.
“I’m not saying you aren’t a responsible girl, Sarah,” he started.
“But you are saying that.”
I stomped down the hallway, slammed the door, and waited for him to stand on the other side. It was a long time before he spoke.
“Kiddo, I’ll try to think of something, okay? I’ll try to think of some other options for the summer, okay?”
I said nothing, let him wait.
“And I’ll make it up to you about the mall. We’ll go when Grandma gets here.”
“Yeah, if you don’t get drunk,” I’d said.
I’d thought it would feel good to throw his mistake in his face. It didn’t. It made me feel like a stupid Dart.
Chapter 9
Since it’s the last day of school, I take my time walking home from the bus, circle the block a few times, pretend I live on another street. No more school or school buses or Darts for three whole months. But then, I don’t want to get home fast, either.
If there were someplace to exist between school and home, wouldn’t I like to live there? Yes, I would.
I pass the house with the potted plant displayed on the stump. I feel it staring at me, calling for help. I take a few more steps, and then I can’t take it anymore. I run back, rescue it from the stump, and gently place it on their porch, where it’s supposed to be—doesn’t everybody know that? Did anyone see me? The neighbors will think I’m crazy, but I don’t care.
I walk quickly from the crime scene and turn onto Yale Court. I allow myself the luxury of a treasure hunt and pick up a heart-shaped rock—these are easier to spot than you might imagine. Then a golf ball from Mr. Gustafson’s front yard. I have two at home that I put little faces on with a black marker. One is a happy face, one is sad. I find it useful to put these on my father’s bathroom counter so he’ll know my mood.
This morning I’d put them both on his shaving towel. I might have to create a new golf ball with a half-happy, half-sad face on it because lately I feel divided all the time. Half of me fighting to go north, the other half south. Plant suggested this is a sure sign of crazy and to be on the lookout for new voices.
I walk around the whole cul-de-sac, kicking a rock. I check the mail.
There it is.
Somehow I knew it would be there. Now here’s one thing you need to know about my mother: She sends me cards twice a year, for my birthday and for Christmas. I don’t get anything else from her the rest of the year. This is the way it’s always been.
It gives me a tiny bit of fear. I have to remind myself it’s just a card. But she has touched this piece of paper, and that makes it a rare thing. It’s like we’ve both been to the same place, just at different times. Like I was going into a building and she was coming out.
At first, I pretend I don’t care about her card and read the other mail first. Then, I go say hi to Plant and twist her pot around so she can sun her backside. I check phone messages and send a text to Lisa.
Write me from camp!
Mr. Wistler would be happy that I wrote the text in a complete sentence.
All of this eats up about five minutes.
The envelope stares at me.
It has her loopy handwriting and a Texas Department of Criminal Justice stamp on the outside.
I put my fingers over the ink writing bearing my name.
Sarah Nelson
I let my finger run under the envelope flap and feel a satisfying lift as the paper peels up. I pull out a card and flip it onto its front. I smell the card, hold it up to the light to see if there’s a hidden message written in invisible ink. I’ve read that crazy people sometimes do things like that. But there’s nothing like that. Just a picture of a black Labrador dog staring back at me. His head is tilted as if someone just asked him to do Algebra and he’s thinking, Are you kidding?
I open the card.
Have a Doggone Happy Birthday.
And then, in her handwriting:
Happy Birthday, Sarah. How are you doing? Twelve is such a wonderful age. Please send me pictures of your new self.
Love, Jane Your Mother
Okay, this isn’t nice, but right off, there are two mistakes in this card:
1. She first signed the card Jane.
2. She thinks I have a new self.
I have to wonder if somebody at her hospital reminded her not to sign her name to her own daughter’s birthday card. And what does she know about my new self? She knows nothing about me.
Still, I go into my bathroom to see if a new self stares back. I run my hand through my hair. Push it back behind my ears so maybe it will look put up. Pucker my lips and twist my shoulders to the side, supermodel-style. I don’t know; maybe there is a small change, but it’s just the difference between six and six-o-five—the same plain me, only five minutes older.
Maybe she just wrote the word for no reason and I’m getting all excited over nothing. Analysis is paralysis, Gramps always says when we are all trying to decide on a place to eat and none of us can make up our minds. I’m thinking about this too much. I set the card aside, tell myself she wants a picture of me, nothing more. The worst part of the whole “crazy mother” issue is, there is no one I can talk to about this card.
“What do you think, Simon?” I say to my reflection. “Does twelve look different to you? Do I look different from where you are?”
Right away, I feel lonely for Simon, so I erase my thoughts about him, think about someone new.
My aunt Mariah?
I could call her and ask her what she thinks. She is another person our family doesn’t like to talk about, probably because she is my mother’s half sister. I wish we were closer, but we are not. When I think of her, I picture her quoting the Bible and grabbing both of my hands together when she greets me. My grandmother doesn’t like this much at all. Aunt Mariah is a touchy person, decorated with jewelry and color. If people were colors, my grandmother would be beige and Aunt Mariah a rainbow. Ha!
I close my eyes and picture her hands on my face. Yes, I could talk to her about this card. I will have to write it on my list, ask my dad for her phone number. I don’t know when I talked to her last.
Simon comes to my mind again, and I have to tell him to please go away now.
When we were in Galveston, my aunt and I had a lot
of long walks on the beach. She would put her face close to mine, and I could smell the mint leaf she liked to chew. She’d say the most amazing things, which made you wish you had a pencil and paper attached to your shirt. You’d want to catch all her phrases.
“There are people just waiting to love you, people God has put along the path of life like signposts down a highway. Go This Way. Turn Here and Love This Person. Help: 10 Miles. Most do not stop to read them, Sarah girl.”
One thing I remember for sure is this: She said if I love someone else when I most need to feel loved, well, then love will rain over me until I am soaked.
It is at this moment I realize I am crying.
Tears flow, and I hug the card to my chest. I slide down onto the yellow bathroom floor and lie on my side, and I see one of my barrettes under the cabinet. I feel split in two. I ache to know more about my mother, while at the same time, I wish she’d never send me any cards at all. Feeling two things at once must be one of the first signs of going crazy.
After a few minutes, I hear the sound of our garage door opening. It rattles and screeches like something is killing it.
I get up from the floor and straighten myself out. My cheeks are red and splotchy, so I splash water on my face and then run into my room, close the door, and sit next to Plant. Her birthday is in September, so she will have to wait for something special. I read her my birthday card.
“I wonder if she was signing a bunch of autographs and they put this card in front of her,” I say. “She thought it was just another signature for a fan.”
I’ve read on the Internet about people who want to write to my mother. From what I can tell, there are some men who have a crush on her, some women who want to hurt her, and some people who want to study her. It is strange to think how some people know more about her than I do. It is so unfair.
Chapter 10
I look out the window and see doom on wheels.
The giant beige town car turns into our driveway. It means boredom. It means that Dad didn’t think of any other options for the summer.
“Hello!” Gramps shouts. He is first to catch me as I walk to the kitchen. He squeezes my shoulder. I was hoping I could sneak a quick snack, hide in my room, and open my iPod.
My grandmother hugs me.
“Would you like some lemonade?” she wants to know. “I brought some with me.”
My dad pats my back.
Squeeze. Hug. Pat.
The same thing every time I see them together. At least they can’t see I’ve been crying. Or they don’t notice.
“How was the last day of school?” Gramps asks.
“Did you learn anything new today?” Grandma asks.
My skin is electric with irritation. Can’t I get a minute alone? I don’t want Lisa to go to camp. I wish I didn’t have a stupid Labrador wishing me a doggone happy birthday, asking me about my “new” self. And I can’t stand the idea of going to Houston, where fun goes to die. I am a mix of angry and sad. No investigator could handle all the questions bubbling up, no matter how smart he is.
“Be right back,” I say.
No, I won’t. I’m going to be gone until you make me come out.
Maybe this is another sign of going crazy, but I do my best writing in my closet, which is where I go to write another letter.
Dear Atticus,
Here I am, writing to you again. Don’t ask me why, but I just felt like I needed to. Also, I have this new iPod (you don’t know what that is, but trust me, it’s cool) and three new composition books, and I feel like I should fill them up. I wasn’t sure how to begin this letter. I thought of writing Dear Mr. Finch, out of respect. I know your own kids called you by your first name instead of calling you Dad or Father. I wondered about this the first time I read the book in which you appear. My dad (Tom Nelson) told me it was because you were trying to teach Scout and Jem how to respect elders. I suppose that might have been true in your time, but I know a girl in my class who calls her mother Lori when she won’t answer to Mom. We have discovered that this gets an adult’s attention if they are ignoring you and talking on the phone. This is how she says it. “Excuse me, Loreeee.” I don’t think that’s how your kids mean it when they call you Atticus. You seem to pay attention to them. Plus, it seems that Harper Lee, the author, liked to name the pets in her story with full names. I know because I circled them in my paperback. There’s that mad dog named Tim Johnson and the cat named Rose Aylmer and the sheriff’s dog, Ann Taylor. I never thought to give a pet two names. Maybe in Alabama this is how things are done.
As you know, my English teacher, Mr. Wistler, told our class to write to our favorite character. You are mine. I have others who I considered, like Boo Radley. But for many reasons, people who read this letter might roll their eyes and say, “I knew that girl would write to the oddest character and not someone normal.” So I will keep my questions for Boo to myself. Also, I thought a long time about writing to Scout. That is true. The thing is, I would like to be Scout, because she is tough sometimes but can still be like a girl. Sometimes I think about the things she might do and wonder if I would make the same choices. But I realized that if I wrote to Scout, all my words would add up to this: Atticus, I wish you were my father. You are the only one I could picture reading my letter and not laughing at me. I imagine you sitting on your porch, holding this paper, and reading the whole letter before you even respond. Is that strange? Maybe it is, but I’d be lying if I said I’d never had an imaginary conversation before. I am twelve years old, just so you know.
If you could really talk back to me, I would like to ask, is it hard to be a parent without a wife? For you, it doesn’t seem too hard, maybe because by the time your story is told, your kids are school-age and you have a nice maid, Calpurnia. I love that name. If I ever have a cat, I will name her Calpurnia. Maybe Finch as her last name. Calpurnia Finch.
I would also like to know how it is you turned out so well with good manners. How did you come to be so patient and kind? What I think I like best about you is that you would be the same most every day if you were my father. If you said you were going to bring spaghetti home for dinner, you would. If you said you were going to teach me how to play a card game, you would explain the rules in a soft, even voice. And I’m sure you would think it would be all right for me to stay home during the summertime while you are at work. How did you get to be so reliable? Was it from your own parents? You see, if you get to know me, you will realize that I think about this kind of thing a lot. I wonder, for example, how much of my mother is inside me and how much is my father. So do you think you are more like one than the other? If you say yes, there is hope for me. I will save that story for another letter. As many people like to say, that would be TMI, or too much information.
Sincerely,
Sarah Nelson
Chapter 11
My grandmother knocks on the door to my bedroom. Quick like a shot, I am out of my closet.
“Sarah, where would you like to go for dinner?”
“Be out in a minute.”
Nope. Still not coming out. I’m going to climb out the window and run away. You will have to find dinner on your own.
She says, “Looking forward to talking about summer plans with you. Maybe we’ll go to Chuck E. Cheese!”
“Okay,” I say.
It’s all the enthusiasm I can muster.
Chuck E. Cheese and I don’t get along.
The last time I was there, if you’ll remember, was the year of the sucky birthday party and the little-girl dollhouse and the spilled drink, which was all Jim Beam then. This was before Jim Beam met Dr Pepper.
I said I wasn’t going to talk about it, but here I am with a card from Jane, aka my mother. This birthday is starting to feel like that one.
At least my mother remembered. I have nothing from Dad.
When I turned eight, he gave me two stuffed animals, a charm-locket necklace, a stack of books, a play makeup kit, pink leopard-print slippers, a water bottle
with my initials on it, a yellow diary, and the little-girl dollhouse.
It was pink, of course.
Each room of the dollhouse had a little light on the ceiling, and you could turn each one of them on and off. There were even pictures on the walls of happy faces, which I suppose were meant to be the family members of the dolls.
My mother’s birthday card was on the floor next to me.
“Why do I only get a card?” I asked. “Why don’t I get more from her?”
“I don’t know, Sarah,” he said, his face still glued to the TV.
“Maybe because you move so much, she didn’t get our new address.”
“I gave it to her. She knows.”
“Can we call her right now and ask? Maybe there’s something else.”
“I’ll ask next time, but I don’t think there’s anything else.”
“Do you think her brain will ever get well?”
“I don’t know.”
“I wonder what she was like when she was eight.”
“That was about when her own mother died. She moved to her father’s house in South Texas.”
“So we are alike?”
“Well, yes. Maybe.”
“I want to paint her a picture. What does she like?”
“I don’t know. She’ll like whatever you draw.”
“You just don’t want to tell me.”
“Sarah, I really don’t…”
His thick glass slipped from his fingers and made a loud crash against the tile floor. Glass and ice everywhere. I don’t know if it was dropped or thrown.
I sat back in my birthday-paper nest and tried to be an invisible pink thing.
“Sorry, kiddo. I don’t know how that slipped….” And then he couldn’t finish his sentence.
He was trying not to cry.
A gunfight played out on the TV. In a strange way, it was comforting. The good guys were winning.
“I’m sorry I made you upset.”
Sure Signs of Crazy Page 4