“Mom, please,” Odessa pleaded. She wished she’d written that note. Wished she had a slip of paper that said what she needed to say, because it was hard to speak with the car running and the clock ticking.
“Please come inside so that I can shout I object! And Dad can see that to remarry means to do it again to the same person and then we can go back to our old lives and you won’t have to go to work and Oliver will be happy and maybe we can move to a new house together but I still want my own room.”
She held her mother’s hand firmly, but she could feel Mom pulling away. Usually it happened the other way around—it was Odessa who tried to extract herself from a parental grip.
Mom took a deep breath and let it out again. Gathering up her courage, Odessa hoped, to walk inside the church.
“There are three things I want to say to you.” Mom turned around in her seat completely, so that she faced Odessa and the struck-silent Oliver.
“One: I’m happy. I love my job and I love my kids and I’m starting to really like life the way it is. I love your father because he is the father of my children, but I do not want to be married to him anymore. I. Am. Happy.”
She held up two fingers, the way the teachers at school did when they wanted to make sure the class was still paying attention.
“Two: It’s okay for you to go in there and have a good time. I don’t want you to root against them out of some sort of loyalty to me. Everything will be better if everyone is happy. So let them have this day, and try to enjoy it too. Weddings are fun and you’re dressed to kill. And whether you have a good time or not is entirely up to you.”
“And three.” She took her three fingers and reached out to stroke first Oliver’s and then Odessa’s cheek. “I am so proud of both of you. You are growing up so fast and so beautifully.”
Odessa noticed Oliver’s hand in hers. She couldn’t have said who had taken whose hand first. He pulled her toward the car door.
Words.
There would be no pushing or shoving or stomping or shouting I object! Mom had used her words. And they’d made Odessa see things differently, which, after all, is the purpose of words.
Odessa and Oliver got out of the car and stood in front of the church. Mom smiled and waved, gave a quick honk, and drove off.
*
Now, as Odessa unpacked her light yellow dress and hung it in her new closet, she thought about that day four months ago when Dad stood at the altar with Jennifer. He looked so tall and handsome. Her eyelids sparkled and her lips shimmered even more than usual. They held each other’s hands and looked into each other’s eyes and it was as if no one else was even in the church. When the minister asked if anyone had any objections, Odessa knew she couldn’t object to Dad and Jennifer, she’d just have to get used to Dad and Jennifer, and maybe that wouldn’t be so hard.
Later she danced with Dad, and she danced with Jennifer, and even Oliver danced like those hamsters in the commercial he loved, and what she’d thought would be the worst day of her life turned out to be lots of fun, just like Mom said.
Odessa returned home that night after Dad and Jennifer left for their honeymoon, and she went to her attic. She rolled up her rug, closed her eyes tight, and jumped, not because she wanted to undo anything about that day—the day was sort of wonderful—but because she wanted to see what would happen.
Was she really out of opportunities to make a change? To undo something about her day that had gone in a way she didn’t particularly like?
She jumped and she jumped harder, pounding her feet against the floor until her mother finally came upstairs and asked, “What is this racket all about?”
“Nothing, Mom,” Odessa said. “It’s all over now.”
*
Odessa took a look around her new room. There were more boxes to unpack than she remembered packing. She pulled out her certificate from math camp and hung it over her desk. She and Theo weren’t in the same group, but they shot baskets together during free time and sometimes ate lunch together. The math was hard but not too hard, and she’d made friends with a girl who didn’t go to their school, a summer friend, and Theo had started growing his hair shaggy again.
She could hear Oliver in his room next door. He was singing a song from Camp Kattannoo. He’d made friends there. Friends who were not furry and small and smelly. He was doing okay without her and her GMOP or GMOOP. He was looking forward to the third grade.
She’d given him a housewarming gift. A huge pirate Lego set he’d had his eye on for months.
“Wow! This thing costs like a hundred dollars!”
Odessa knew exactly how much it cost.
She heard a knock on her door. She figured it was Oliver, because she’d reminded him all through the move about knocking and privacy and not listening in on her phone calls.
Or maybe it was Sofia, who’d said she wanted to stop by to check out Odessa’s new room, and Odessa had said Come on over because she still loved Sofia. Sometimes Sofia wasn’t the world’s greatest best friend, but other times she was.
She opened the door.
It was Mrs. Grisham.
Even though it had only been a day since she’d seen her, and even though she’d never done it before, Odessa gave her a big hug.
“You left this behind,” Mrs. Grisham said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out the small glass owl. “I found it in your attic.”
“It’s not my attic anymore.”
“No, I suppose it’s not.” She stared into Odessa’s eyes. “But it was for a time.”
Mrs. Grisham stepped inside and took a look around Odessa’s new room. She walked to the center of it and stood. She tapped her foot on the floor.
Like Odessa hadn’t already tried that!
There was nothing at all magical about this new room, and that was perfectly fine by Odessa.
“You’re going to love it here,” Mrs. Grisham said, just as she had that first time she showed Odessa the attic house, although now Odessa knew that her bark wasn’t an order, it was just the voice of someone who has lived a long time and knows certain things.
“I think I will,” Odessa said. “I think I’m going to love it here.”
She took the owl from the old woman’s hand and she put it on her desk.
Her desk. Her room.
Her home.
Forever, for now.
About the Author
DANA REINHARDT lives in San Francisco with her husband and their two daughters. She is the author of A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life, Harmless, How to Build a House, The Things a Brother Knows, and The Summer I Learned to Fly. Visit her at danareinhardt.net.
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