Sweeping Up the Heart

by Kevin Henkes

  Of course that’s what Mrs. O’Brien would say. But Amelia wanted to be transformed, like the cake. As she placed each dot she asked a question in her head. It became a chant: What should I wear? How should I act? What should I say? Who should I be?

  Dot. Dot. Dot. Dot. Dot.

  “Sweetie,” said Mrs. O’Brien gently. “If you think any louder, I’ll need earplugs. Don’t worry. Just be yourself.”

  30 • What Was Actually Happening

  In the front hallway, when they were officially introduced, and Hannah Barnes extended her hand and said, “I’ve been waiting to meet you,” Amelia felt a shiver run down her spine. For a moment, as their fingers made contact, Amelia’s fantasy became real once again. The words Epiphany and Mother flitted across her mind and nearly touched her lips. And then, just as quickly, Amelia was back in the present, and what was actually happening was more than enough to put her in a heightened state.

  Although she was certain that Mrs. O’Brien had cooked a delicious meal, Amelia ate but didn’t really taste anything. She was too busy watching Hannah Barnes. Dinner began as one could expect, with stiffness and shyness and uncertainty and politeness setting the mood. Amelia was quiet as a clenched fist. But gradually the mood shifted. Hannah Barnes was easy, bright, warm—a catalyst for conversation. She smiled a lot and looked right at Amelia when she asked a question or listened to the answer. Her eyes were speckled—green and gold—like marbles.

  After the slow start, dinner unfolded so pleasantly that Amelia wondered if it could be true. Mrs. O’Brien was her proficient, ideal self. But her father was more talkative than usual, and funny. A minor miracle of everyday life, taking place in an ordinary dining room.

  “That was wonderful,” said Hannah. “You’re a wonderful cook, Mary.”

  It was jarring to Amelia when anyone called Mrs. O’Brien Mary. Even her father called her Mrs. O’Brien.

  “Thank you,” said Mrs. O’Brien. “But wait until you see dessert.” She glanced at Amelia. “Our cake is something to behold.”

  Amelia and Mrs. O’Brien cleared the table. In the kitchen, the swinging door closed behind them, Mrs. O’Brien whispered, “What do you think? She’s nice, isn’t she?”

  Amelia bit her lip and nodded. “She is. She really is.”

  “I’ll take the plates and a knife,” said Mrs. O’Brien. “You carry the cake.”

  Amelia didn’t want to like Hannah Barnes too much. She needed to protect herself. “What do you think will happen? With her? And Dad?”

  “Well, you know your father,” said Mrs. O’Brien. “I think—” She stopped. “I think this cake is beautiful,” she said in a much louder voice. Cheerful. She held the door open for Amelia.

  Proudly, Amelia walked back into the dining room, carrying what she had to admit was a work of art.

  31 • Nonsense and Sorrow

  Everyone loved the cake.

  Everyone said so.

  Everyone had seconds.

  “It really is beautiful, you two. Look at this,” said Hannah, pointing with her fork to a yellow flower on her piece of cake.

  “That was Amelia’s doing,” said Mrs. O’Brien. “She knew exactly where to place the flowers. She has the touch, a true knack.”

  “She’s an artist,” said her father. “She’s a real artist.” He smiled a little, looking pleased.

  Amelia felt a swooshing in her stomach. It was a good feeling. She’d never heard him say this before. Who cared that he was talking about flowers made of frosting?

  “Your animals are lovely, too,” said Hannah. She tipped her head, indicating the grouping of Amelia’s sculptures on the sideboard. “Your dad says you’ve been working with clay for a long time.”

  “Since she was a baby,” said Mrs. O’Brien.

  “Do you like to draw or paint?” asked Hannah.

  “Drawing is okay,” said Amelia. “Painting, too. But doing ceramics is what I like best.”

  “Well, you’re very good at it,” said Hannah.

  It was almost too much to take in. Too good to be true. This dinner was not a flight of Amelia’s imagination; it was real life.

  Carried away by her happiness, like a twig in a stream, Amelia told them about the possibility of a show at the clay studio.

  “I’d have the whole front window,” said Amelia, her voice brimming with excitement. “Just me.” She told them about making her rabbits—a lot of them. “I already made a bunch. I’ll glaze them all the same way. I’m trying to make them all look identical,” she told them, talking faster. “Louise said that a lot of something is beautiful.” She sat back and took a breath.

  “I disagree,” said her father.

  “What?” said Amelia, confused.

  “I disagree,” he repeated. “Just because there’s a lot of something doesn’t make it beautiful.”

  Everyone was silent for a few long seconds.

  Amelia frowned.

  “A lot of nonsense?” her father said. “A lot of sorrow? That doesn’t sound so beautiful to me.”

  Amelia’s heartbeat quickened. Her happiness was thinning to threads. She didn’t know what to do or say. But she felt a snarl of fury inside her and she thought she might cry. Abruptly, she pushed herself away from the table. “Two things you know a lot about,” said Amelia as she fled. “Nonsense and sorrow.”

  “Amelia, come back,” her father called. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m sorry.”

  She went to her room and closed the door. “Thanks, Dad,” she said to no one. “Thanks for ruining my life.”

  32 • Just Right

  While Amelia lay on her bed crying quietly, she heard voices in the hallway. She heard her father. She heard Mrs. O’Brien. She heard Hannah.

  She sat up and listened. She couldn’t make out what they were saying. Just snatches of voice, no words. Her father’s voice was the first to go away. Then, after a minute, Mrs. O’Brien’s and Hannah’s voices were gone, too.

  Silence. But a presence lingered.

  Then a soft knocking on the door.

  “Come in,” said Amelia, her voice weak and scratchy.

  She expected Mrs. O’Brien and was surprised and embarrassed when Hannah slowly entered her room. She hid her face.

  “May I?” asked Hannah, pointing to the bed.

  Amelia nodded. Her eyes shone with tears.

  Hannah sat beside Amelia. Neither spoke for a long time, then Hannah said, “Are you okay?”

  Amelia nodded again.

  “I had to talk them into letting me come in here. Your father and Mrs. O’Brien were afraid you wouldn’t want me. But I wanted to.” Hannah inched closer to Amelia. “He really loves you, you know,” she said. “And you know this better than I do—he has a hard time showing how he feels and dealing with things head-on.”

  Hannah’s arm touched Amelia’s shoulder. The soft pressure was a surprising comfort.

  “There’s something you should know,” said Hannah. “He was worried, so worried, that you’d be upset if he and I were together. And when he couldn’t tell you—wouldn’t ask you if it was okay with you—I wanted to ask you myself. Because I wanted this to work out. So the other day, on impulse, I walked by the clay studio. Then I did it again. I hoped I’d just run into you by chance in the neighborhood.”

  Hannah moved her fingers as if she were playing a piano on her lap. She smiled and raised her eyebrows. “I never found you,” she said. She stilled her hands and laced her fingers together. “Well, that’s not exactly true. I have to confess something. I think I did see you at that little coffee shop on Regent Street, but I chickened out. I didn’t want to embarrass you. And, I realized I had no idea what to say to you. I was afraid, I guess.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Crazy, huh? Adults are afraid, too.”

  Amelia tried to swallow a gasp. “Oh,” she managed to say. Things were clicking into place in her mind, making sense.

  “I felt like a stalker,” said Hannah. “It was not my
best idea.” Strands of her hair were falling from her loose bun. Coppery tendrils framed her face. She played with one of them, twirling it. “He’d shown me a photo of you once. I kept thinking I saw you. Everywhere I went. But I liked him enough to do it. To look for you, to try to talk to you.” She flicked her hair away from her eyes, tucked a stray piece behind her ear. “I realized it wasn’t the right way to go about it—and I couldn’t do it, talk to you, without your father.”

  Amelia regarded her seriously, listening to every word as if her very life depended on it.

  Hannah turned, looking directly at Amelia. “All of this is to say that tonight was very difficult for him. He wanted everything to be perfect. For you to like me. For me to like you. And I know he didn’t mean what he said about your show. He’s so proud of you.”

  There didn’t seem to be a proper response. Amelia leaned into Hannah, seemed to collapse against her, and as she did, she collapsed inside. She started to cry again and she wouldn’t have been able to say why, exactly. She cried for everything, everyone—her mother, her father, Mrs. O’Brien, Epiphany, Hannah, Casey. Herself.

  Pulling away just a bit, Hannah said, “You know, when you were little, he walked you to sleep every night. He couldn’t put you in your crib if you were still awake—you’d just cry. He told me that he’d give you a postcard. You loved it apparently. It was of Babar, the elephant. So you’d clutch your beloved postcard and he’d hold you over his shoulder and carry you all around the house, bouncing you and swaying. He knew you’d fallen asleep when you dropped the postcard. Then he could put you in your crib.”

  “I wonder where my mom was?”

  “I think she was already sick.”

  “He never told me about this.”

  “That’s just the way he is, I guess.”

  “But he told you.”

  “Only because I found the postcard stuck behind a pile of books and file folders in his office at school. And it didn’t seem like the kind of thing he’d keep around. So, I asked him about it.”

  Side by side, something passed between them. By now, Hannah’s bun was completely undone. She quickly and smoothly raked up her hair and twisted and pulled it back into place.

  “Will you do that for me?” asked Amelia.

  Without saying a word, Hannah reached into her pocket. She held up an elastic band with a small blue bead for Amelia to see. Then she repositioned herself on the bed. Gently, she gathered Amelia’s hair and worked it into a bun. Not too tight, not too loose. Just right.

  33 • Human Frailty

  “Why don’t you show me what you’re working on,” her father said the next morning.

  Amelia looked at him curiously.

  “At the clay studio,” he added.

  They were in the kitchen; breakfast was done. Mrs. O’Brien brushed past Amelia’s father and gave his arm a squeeze. “That’s nice,” she said.

  Amelia could hardly believe this was happening, but then, lately, her life had been full of surprising things. “Yeah, sure,” she said. “Okay.”

  Her father hadn’t said anything directly about last night. He hadn’t talked about Hannah or about how the night had ended. This wasn’t normal fatherly behavior, she guessed, but it wasn’t atypical for him. But he was gentle with her at breakfast. And she understood his asking to go to the clay studio as his way of trying to make it up to her.

  On the walk to the studio, Amelia was in a thoughtful mood. The sun was shining, then cut off by clouds, then shining again. Something about the mild air and the quality of light as it came in shafts through the branches convinced her that spring was finally a possibility.

  “Well, that’s a sure sign of spring,” said her father, suddenly. Someone—obviously a child—had drawn with chalk on the sidewalk in front of them. There were crude tulips with pointy petals and scribbly bumblebees as big as basketballs and the crooked outline of a hopscotch game with some of the numbers written backward.

  Amelia made her way through the squares, hopping on one foot. She felt silly, but only slightly. It was fun and it reminded her of being little.

  “Look,” said Amelia. “No kid did that.” In big, blue loopy cursive writing, the sentence How is human frailty connected to love? covered two whole squares of the sidewalk.

  “Must be a philosopher,” said Amelia’s father.

  “Or an English professor,” said Amelia.

  He laughed deeply and picked up his pace.

  At the clay studio, Amelia turned shy. She liked that Louise left them alone after saying hello and giving a quick Casey update.

  Amelia led her father to the shelf that held the rabbits she’d been working on, as well as some other pieces from weeks past. She explained how some pieces were still drying; some were fired, ready to be glazed; some were glazed, ready to be fired again.

  He examined them closely, moving slowly along the shelf, running his fingers over a few of them. “May I?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Amelia replied.

  He picked up one of the rabbits and rotated it. He tilted his head, rubbed his neck thoughtfully. “Graceful,” he said simply as he replaced the rabbit. “Amelia, these are wonderful.”

  She liked the feeling that swept through her.

  And she liked that her father didn’t ask any questions when Louise handed her an envelope from Casey.

  “He gave this to me when I saw him last night,” said Louise. “He wanted you to have it.”

  “Thanks,” said Amelia. “He’s really okay?”

  “He’s okay. And remember, he’s not too far away—about forty-five minutes. You’ll see him again.”

  There was an awkward silence. Amelia shifted her weight from foot to foot, flexed her toes. She felt clumsy. She turned the envelope in her hand. It said Private. The envelope was too big to put in her pocket, unless she folded it. She held it tightly and close, the word Private against her jacket, hidden.

  “Well, thank you, Louise,” her father said. “And thank you, Amelia, for showing me your beautiful creations. Okay. Let’s go.”

  He wasn’t one for lingering in situations like this.

  As they walked out the door, he said, “I could use some coffee. Let’s stop at the coffee shop. What do you say?”

  “I say yes.”

  “Let’s drink to human frailty,” he said with a little laugh, “and, of course, its connection to love.”

  34 • Postcard

  They sat at the window, exactly where Amelia had sat before with Casey. Sunlight streamed in, drawing attention to the array of crumbs on the tabletop.

  “Too bright for you?” her father asked.

  “No, I like it.”

  He swept the crumbs away with the side of his hand. “There,” he said. “Much better.”

  The sun was warm and it felt good to her. She closed her eyes and lifted her head for a moment and imagined light seeping through her body.

  He had coffee and she had hot chocolate. They shared a molasses cookie the size of a saucer.

  “Not as good as Mrs. O’Brien’s,” he said.

  “Nothing is.”

  He cleared his throat. “Oh, before I forget . . .” He reached for the inside pocket of his sport coat, pulled something out, and passed it to her. “For you,” he said. “I know you know about this.”

  It was the Babar postcard Hannah had told her about. Babar was lying in a bathtub, washing himself with a sponge. The postcard was yellowed and curled. The corners were worn, one was missing.

  Amelia felt swimmy all of a sudden, for just a second. She had a vague memory of seeing the postcard before. She supposed it was a fragment of the movie of her life. A blurry part of her story from long, long ago.

  “You never told me about this,” said Amelia.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry. I guess there’s a lot I haven’t told. Haven’t said. Haven’t asked.”

  Amelia glanced downward. She’d hidden the envelope from Casey under her thigh. She pulled it out and put it on the tabl
e with the postcard. She waited for him to ask about it.

  But he didn’t.

  And she didn’t tell.

  Maybe, she thought, I’m more like him than I admit. There were things she didn’t talk about, too.

  But there was something she wanted to ask. “When will I see Hannah again?”

  His mouth drew down at the corners. “Would you like that?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Good,” he said. “Soon. Soon and often, I hope.”

  “Me, too.”

  “This is a good window for watching people,” he said, changing the subject. Then he seemed to relax. He sipped his coffee, broke off another piece of the cookie, and ate it. In the bright sunshine, his freckled fingers looked pale, his knuckles wrinkled and baggy.

  “Yeah.” It was the perfect opening for her to tell him about Casey and naming people and Epiphany. Epiphany, the ghost mother. But she couldn’t do it. She worried that it would bewilder him, or worse, make him cross.

  But she could imagine telling Hannah about it someday. She could see Hannah finding the fantasy, the whole misunderstanding, interesting, logical, even touching. In her mind she could hear Hannah say: While I was looking for you, you were looking for me. That’s amazing!

  Amelia decided to be bold. “Want to play a game?” she asked.

  “Huh?” He was squinting out the window.

  “A game. Where you come up with stories for people. And give them names.”

  “I’m not very good at games,” he said.

  She drew up her shoulders, puckered her lips. “Oh, okay,” she whispered.

  Neither spoke. Amelia felt as if they were waiting for something. A few people hurried by outside. A striped cat crept down the sidewalk. A bird swooped dangerously close to the window.

  And then Amelia saw her. Lindy Tussler—Feather—was walking past, looking determined, focused on something in the distance.

  “I never liked that kid,” her father said. He stiffened.

  “What?”

  “Lindy. I was glad when she was out of your life. I thought she was a miserable soul.”