He said, “Is there something you want to tell me?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I think my actions pretty well covered it.”
“Don’t get smart with me, Sarah!”
“Then don’t get drunk on me, Dad!”
It was like some other girl in Garland said those words, not me. I am not that brave. But this other girl who looks like me, well, she had courage. She could speak trouble words, no problem.
After what felt like a hundred years, he walked toward me, held me close. The opposite of what you’d expect in a showdown. I could smell the cologne I gave him last Father’s Day, a brand I’d discovered in one of those magazine inserts offering a strip of scent. When the hug was over, he held me at arm’s length, his eyes to the floor. Then he said good night and walked back into his room and closed the door. I heard him get up this morning, run the shower, raise the cranky garage door, and drive away without a word. I know from experience that Dad’s delayed punishments are his worst punishments, which means I’ll have an entire day to suffer.
All I can do this morning is try to figure out what happened between Charlotte and Christopher. When I sent her a text message this morning, her reply was that she didn’t feel well. I asked her if Christopher was coming over, which I was sure he wasn’t. She only replied love is difficult. Nothing I heard last night sounded like anything having to do with love. But then, what do I know about love and relationships? Answer: nothing.
I was seven when my father divorced my mother.
He told me in his gentle voice he’d try to make her life as soft as possible. The word stuck to the roof of my mouth. A soft life. I suppose it was the right word. Soft.
soft adj.: smooth and agreeable to the touch; not rough or coarse
“I should have done it a long time ago,” he said.
When he took the papers to her at the hospital, I watched them from a distance. I am remembering more now, putting the puzzle pieces about my mother on paper in my notebook. This was my second visit to the hospital. We sat outside. I read a book while he walked over and talked to her.
When I looked up from my book, I thought, There is a nice couple talking. It would have made a nice painting. But then, you could see her folding into herself a bit, her hands sitting in her lap, playing with some piece of paper, folding and refolding it again and again. Her doctor told us she’d taken an origami class, which sounded strange to me because why would you have to take a class to fold a piece of paper? Later, he would show us the paper birds and butterflies she’d made, each of them creased by her own hand. Tens and tens of them on her nightstand, her windowsill, arranged artfully around her dressing table. I stole two of them, hid them between the pages of my book.
While Dad talked, her fingers worked as if they’d memorized the twists and turns, knew exactly how to command the paper so it would yield to a shape. At one point, her face turned toward the sky and you knew that was the moment he said the word divorce, a trouble word if there ever was one.
Dad wore his wedding ring right up until the day the divorce was final. I know because I asked him that day if I could have it. He slid it off right away, put it in my palm, and went into his room to get drunk on Jim Beam. He wasn’t supposed to do this, of course. I heard my grandmother tell him not to, her voice so loud on the phone you could make out every syllable. But he ignored her, and I didn’t see why it was a bad thing to do the day you break up with someone. I just hoped it would be the last breakup I would ever see.
I keep the origami birds and his gold wedding band in my box of important stuff, including the letters and newspaper clippings about my mother’s trial and then his trial, too. I’m not sure why it was important for me to have it, but it seemed wrong to toss it out, which was what he’d said he was going to do with it. I figured you should keep something that once made you happy. His sad feelings wouldn’t last forever, I thought.
But like I said, what do I know about relationships?
Chapter 26
Here is another thing you have to learn on your own: You can make all kinds of plans, but if you are twelve and don’t have a car, you might as well forget about them. You are at the mercy of someone with a driver’s license. Still, this is what I’m doing right now, making plans, even though Plant agrees it’s futile, which is my new favorite word.
futile adj.: incapable of producing any result; ineffective; useless; not successful
Sometimes you meet a new word and think, where have you been all my life? Futile is such a word. Many things I’ve done have been futile. Like today I’m making lists of my options when we move. Practicing writing my name with a fancy R as my middle initial is one way to throw people off the track that I am Jane Nelson’s daughter. Also, I’m considering going by Rose. Rose Nelson seems like the name of an old woman who wears a hat to church, though. I’ve seen them at my grandparents’ church. Maybe there are other options. Ways to disguise myself.
Now that Garland knows my secret, I am also packing my bag to leave. After talking it over with Plant, we agree that a good strategy is to move away to avoid nosy reporters and mean Darts. My plan is to go to Aunt Mariah’s house, which is not exactly running away from Dad. It is running toward another family member. Even Scout and Jem had their aunt Alexandra to help them while Atticus worked. That will be my logical argument when my disappearance is discovered.
Oh, I was just going to visit family, which is not dangerous at all and really makes life easier for you, Dad. You may send my mail here, please.
A bonus to this plan is that it solves Problem 2, which is back in a big way. I figure I will go to seventh grade in Aunt Mariah’s town, where there is no Family History Project to make me miserable.
If not for the computer, I would be lost, but no, I am not. I have the Greyhound bus schedule and her address, which I’ve written in my real diary. When I arrive, she will surely help me. I know I will be in trouble with my father, but I think it’s better to have the information first and be in trouble later. I’ve heard my father say more than once to Grandma, “You know what they say, ‘Better to ask forgiveness later than permission first.’ ” When he says this, she rolls her eyes like he’s said the most irritating words ever.
“Why must you be so stubborn, Tom,” she had asked the last time. “It was a good job and you just left it. Good teaching jobs like that don’t come along every day.”
“It’s my choice.”
“You are in your own little world. Making your life into a box.”
“I’m protecting what I still have.”
“Don’t think I don’t know you still drink far too much.”
Chop. Chop. Chop. More carrots into a pile for her.
“Well, sorry to disappoint you.”
Click. Click. Click. More ice cubes in a glass for him.
You don’t have to be the Queen of Obvious to see he’s not crazy about his mother and her opinions. This would make you wonder why he’s always thought it was a good idea to send me to her house every summer. And also, she drinks her wine, too, so can you really tell someone not to drink if you have one in your own hand?
These are questions I leave in my fake diary just in case he snoops around my room. Did my dad have parents who didn’t answer his questions? If so, what did he do? That is how much I want to solve the mystery of their relationship. But I will do that at a distance now. That is called getting objective evidence, which I will have plenty of time to do when I’m gone.
While I am busy making plans and breakfast, I hear a knock on the door. It’s Finn, informing me Charlotte is taking the day off so I’m stuck with him. My stomach does a flip because I don’t consider being with him stuck at all.
“What’s wrong with her?” I ask. I want to know if he’ll tell me the parts I did not see when I spied on them on their lawn.
“She had a big fight with what’s-his-face. I don’t think we’ll be seeing him again,” he says. “Good riddance.” Of course
, I’ll believe this when I see it. Lisa told me the first breakup never takes. For some reason, you have to go through it twice for it to stick.
“Well, my grandma always said you should have two boxes marked Goodwill and Good Riddance.” I wonder how it’s possible I can sound so uncool. It is because of the bad news. But he smiles anyway. I made him smile.
“Anyway, we do have a job today,” he says. “Wouldn’t want to be a slacker. Mrs. Dupree needs help packing her books. She said we could have any of the books we wanted and she’d donate the rest.”
He hands me a small hardbound book. “I got this one for you already.”
You will not believe it, but it’s To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. A real hardback copy, too.
I open the book with care, run a hand over the title page, and take in the old-book smell, which is practically indescribable. The next page has handwriting. I don’t know why, but seeing the signature kind of takes my breath away, too, makes her seem real, which, of course, she is. I want to touch it the way I touch my mother’s writing, see if I can picture her holding the pen as she wrote it there.
With my love,
Nelle Harper Lee
“Mr. Dupree actually met her once,” Finn says.
I am careful with the book, let the pages fall where they want to go. It opens to a page with a sticky note. This is what I read:
“Our mother died when I was two,” says Scout, “so I never felt her absence.”
“I thought this was poignant,” he says. “I thought it would help.”
“With what?” I ask.
“The Price Is Right.”
“Oh.”
“It was a stupid idea,” he says.
“No, not stupid,” I say. “Thanks.” I put a note in my head to look up poignant in the dictionary.
My mind swirls and I feel suddenly shy. I am not strong like Scout. I feel my mother’s absence all the time. More and more as I get older. Maybe if I had a brother like Jem, a father like Atticus. Maybe then I would be like Scout.
It is strange how I share this secret with Finn. Strange he would give me a gift of words. I try to remember what I know about boys. Last summer I read a magazine article called Six Secrets He Won’t Tell You. I cut them out and used the page as a bookmark until I’d memorized the list.
1. He liked you much earlier than he let on.
2. He likes long walks on the beach.
3. He does like to cuddle.
4. He’d rather not go to your mother’s for dinner.
5. He believes he’s the only one you’ve ever been with (or would prefer to think of it that way).
6. His actions will always reveal more than his words.
I shared the article with Lisa, too. We dissected each secret for clues. She’d said, Well, why would he want to have dinner with my mom in the first place? She had a point.
Now, I look from the book to Finn’s face. I am smart enough to know I shouldn’t say anything but thank you very much. And I do. There is a new way he looks at me when I say it, and I wonder if he sees what I feel.
“Anyway, we all have big secrets,” he says.
“Really? What’s yours?” I ask. “Do you have a tattoo somewhere?”
He leans into the door frame, studies his shoes.
“My dad killed himself when I was eleven.”
Then, time waits for him to speak again. That’s how big the secret is. It has to come out slow. “Apparently, I look just like him, which is a real problem for my mother,” he says. “She still has a big reminder of him, you know, whether she wants it or not. So when he died, I sort of lost both my parents, you know. I was mad at both of them, but that doesn’t help. I think that’s how it might be with your dad.”
I swallow hard. This is the kind of information you want to run and be alone with, dissect it and break it down to be sure you heard it right.
“It sucks” is all I can say.
“I agree with your choice of verb,” he says.
“At least your secret cannot be announced during The Price Is Right.”
“Touché.”
It comes to me there’s a heavy feeling on my chest and lightness in my stomach all at once. I can’t be sure, but I think love is someone who gets you. And I think that someone is standing in front of me.
“Ice cream. We should eat ice cream,” I say.
“Definitely.”
Even though I’ve barely eaten breakfast, I make us two huge bowls of Fudge Ripple, and we sit on our front step, eating and talking about books. Then, we pack up a hundred of Mrs. Dupree’s books, and it takes forever because we have to look at them all. It is the best day of my life.
Dear Atticus,
There is trouble in Garland. I wish it was the kind of trouble a lawyer like you could help with. Do you know how many lawyers have commercials now, shouting from your TV screen about deserving justice and getting the most money right into your pocket? Well, these things do exist. I don’t like those commercials one bit, and I can tell you—you would never be a lawyer like that. I would love to throw one hundred copies of your book at their faces. You would never need to have a commercial. If there was a crime of injustice or something, you would have words to help me solve my problem. You would tell me my actions have little to do with how I feel and most to do with what is right. There is no clear right in this situation. It would be helpful to have Scout or Jem with me now. They would know what life looks like from my height, which is what I need most. Someone to really look at things from where I stand. Why can’t you be my father? Well, enough of that, you would say.
So here is what I can tell you. There was a news story about my mother on TV. Why people must pull out this old dusty story, I have no idea. I don’t think it adds anything to the other stories about other mothers, but someone at the buildings where news is created thinks so. Since I don’t know what my dad is planning to do about this, I am thinking up what to do on my own. It is simple, really. I’m going to go live with my aunt for a while. If it goes well, maybe I’ll stay there forever. It would be good to live with a woman. I know you understand because you let your sister, Alexandra, come help out with Scout and Jem. Actually, I got the idea of staying with my aunt from your book. No offense to you, but sometimes I don’t think Scout knows how good she has it, having a woman help her become a proper lady. I wish I could talk to my dad about this, Atticus, get him to see things my way, which he plain never will.
Sincerely,
Sarah Nelson
P.S. A person said the other day that a porch is not really Southern unless it has ferns on it. Do you think this is so? Should I go to Alabama to see for myself? I hope this is true. I get along very well with plants.
Chapter 27
Dad is spending all his time in the office, door shut and locked. I hear typing and low conversations, but without the courage to pick up the other phone to hear the other voice, I don’t know what is happening. He is making plans, and so am I. We haven’t talked about it, but I feel it coming. Something big. I am afraid to tell Plant we are leaving again, one way or another. She’s getting used to the window in my room. Except for the one night with Jim Beam, Garland has been good to her. Well, she’s heard me despair about the seventh-grade Family Tree Project, so I know she’ll understand.
And another strange occurrence is that I found PBroom listed on our caller ID. This has never happened before, so I can’t decide which box this goes in. Good or bad.
I’ve decided I cannot move to Aunt Mariah’s until after the funeral. If there is one thing I want them to say about me after I’ve gone, it is this: Wasn’t it nice of her to stay until Mr. Dupree was buried? Plus, Mrs. Dupree invited me to help her make apple pies today and it would look suspicious if I refused. I left my dad a note and walked across the cul-de-sac. The hot concrete was already sizzling and made me want to crack an egg and watch it fry.
Inside Mrs. Dupree’s house are a thousand sweet smells: vanilla, coffee, cinnamon, apples, and cloves. Her
son is so lucky. I bet he had delicious food in his lunch every day, a plate of warm cookies always on the table. I know she loves him that much. There are pictures of her family everywhere, the walls so full of frames that I don’t know what color the inside of her house really is. And the frames on the mantel are placed just the way I would do it. Straight ahead so you have to stop and look.
I watch her rolling out the pie dough under her papery fingers with an amazing strength. She is stronger than you would suspect for an old woman. I want to be honest with her, ask her if she’ll teach me, gift me with useful cooking knowledge before it’s too late and the only recipe I can teach someone is Hamburger Helper, which is no recipe at all. If Dad was a fan of the cooking channel instead of Westerns, maybe I’d know more about cooking than playing poker.
Now, I must know how to bake an apple pie. It is an urgent thing. This is something every girl should know in addition to sewing on a button and applying mascara correctly. Before I know it, I’m asking her, “If you had a daughter, what would you tell her?”
Mrs. Dupree smiles. “Oh, let me think,” she says. “Well, I would say that every time you buy a new blouse or some wrinkle cream to make you look good, go and buy a book right away. It’s just as important to keep your mind beautiful, don’t you think?”
There is no one in the world like Mrs. Dupree. No one. A girl could learn a lot from her.
“Speaking of books, your friend Finn tells me you’ve been reading Ms. Lee’s book,” she says, her eyes staying focused on the dough.
“Yes.”
“And what do you think of it?” she asks.
“I like Scout. And I like the town they live in. Maycomb. They walk all over town, too. I wish we walked more.” I don’t tell her how much Atticus means to me.
What I do tell her is how I wish we had a mysterious house on our block like the Radley place. The Stanley house with its overgrown wildlife is the closest we have to something dangerous, but that’s mostly because of all the bees and bugs. If you used your imagination, I tell her, you could come up with something spooky happening behind those bushes. And then there is that stupid house with the plant sitting up on the dead stump. Much to my annoyance, it has returned, full of yellow flowers.
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