For my Grandma and Grandpa Rawson, who showed me that though the mind may forget, the heart plays on
Acknowledgment
Jane’s poem on page 59 is “Where I’m From” copyright © 2017 by Joan He. Used by permission of the author, who controls all rights.
Text copyright © 2018 by Amanda Rawson Hill
All rights reserved. Copying or digitizing this book for storage, display, or distribution in any other medium is strictly prohibited.
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, contact [email protected].
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Boyds Mills Press
An Imprint of Highlights
815 Church Street
Honesdale, Pennsylvania 18431
boydsmillspress.com
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-1-62979-940-7 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-68437-149-5 (eBook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018934188
First ebook edition
H1.0
Design by Tim Gillner.
The text of this book is set in Berling LT Std Roman.
The titles are set in Blooms Regular.
Part I
Believe
Chapter 1
There’s something about that moment right before the first star appears in the sky. It’s like at an orchestra concert when the conductor raises his hands and everyone is hushed, not even breathing, waiting for that very first note to wash over them.
At my first concert with Dad, the conductor paused on the stand for what seemed like forever. It went on so long I couldn’t help wiggling in my seat.
“Patience,” whispered Dad. “The music’s coming. I promise.”
I lean back against the rough bark of an almond tree, feel the chill of the breeze across my face, and hear something like those words again. Except this time it’s my best friend, Sofia, saying them.
“It’s coming, Kate.” She rubs her thighs to warm them up. “It won’t be long now. I promise.”
Sofia gets a daily email about the night sky and when certain stars will appear. It’s never wrong. Ever. But that doesn’t mean Sofia can’t remember it wrong. I’m about to say so when she shouts, “Look! There it is!” She points at a bright star hovering above the orange line of the horizon.
I look at my watch. “Right on time.”
Sofia laughs and bumps her shoulder against mine. “Told you. Make a wish.”
We both close our eyes, scrunching them as tight as we can.
The scrunching part is very important when making a wish.
I hold my breath, and those words come back to me again.
The music’s coming. I promise.
But the only person who can bring the tinkling, crashing, zipping, soaring sound of music back into my life is Dad. “Please, please, please,” I whisper.
Beside me I hear Sofia mumble, “Por favor.” I open my eyes and see her clasping the cross hanging from her neck.
“It’s not a prayer, you know.”
Sofia opens one eye. “Sshh. You’re breaking my concentration.”
“What kind of wish are you making?”
“A big one. Obviously. Now quiet.” She rubs her thumb along her cross a couple more times, mouthing something I can’t make out before sighing and looking at me. “There.” She drops her necklace.
“Why were you praying?”
“It never hurts to try everything. Not when it’s important.”
The wind blows again, finding the spaces between the buttons on my sweater. I can’t see buds forming on Mr. Harris’s almond trees yet, but they’ll be there soon. It’s the beginning of January, and spring always shows up the first week of February. You can count on it.
“So what did you wish for?” I ask. “To go back in time and have Christmas again?” It’s the last Friday of winter break. There are probably a lot of people wishing for that right now. People who didn’t open all their presents with one eye on the door waiting for someone who never came.
“And be cooped up in the house with Marcos and Miguel for another week?” says Sofia. “No, thank you. My wish is much bigger and more exciting.” She presses her lips together the way she does whenever she has a surprise treat for me in her lunch box.
“Tell me!” I poke her arm. “You have to tell me.”
“I don’t know. Then it might not come true.”
I roll my eyes. “You don’t actually believe that.”
“You’re right.” Sofia laughs. “I’ll tell you. I wished to be a movie star. With a mansion and a closet full of beautiful dresses and somebody I pay to clean my room.”
I glance at the bottom of Sofia’s jeans where her mother sewed in cotton lace to make them long enough for her to keep wearing. “You’re right. That’s a big wish.”
Sofia stands up and begins waltzing around and waving at imaginary people. She speaks with a snooty British accent. “When my movie premieres, you’ll accompany me down the red carpet. It will all be very fancy.”
I wrinkle my nose at the word fancy.
“Don’t be like that!” Sofia says, her British accent faltering.
“What? I just don’t want to wear a fluffy dress or anything stupid like that.”
“It’s not stupid.” Sofia curls her hands into fists the way she does when she’s about to yell at her brothers.
I jump to my feet. “Maybe I can come as your bodyguard.”
Sofia’s hands unclench. “I guess that would be okay.”
“Then I can karate chop anyone who gets too close.”
“Yeah! Hiyah!” Sofia does her best impression of a roundhouse kick, but she is way off.
I relax into ready position with my fist resting against the palm of my other hand. “Nobody touches my best friend. These hands are registered weapons.”
“That’s right.” Sofia calls into the night, “Watch out! She’s a black belt!”
“Well, not yet.”
Sofia goes back to waving at imaginary admirers. I shove my hands into my pockets. “You still won’t wear pink on the red carpet, right?”
“No way!” Sofia holds out her pinkie to me. “Never wear pink and best friends forever.”
I wrap my pinkie around hers, and we shake on it. There’s a rustle from somewhere in the orchard behind us, and we both jump. But it’s just Mr. Harris’s cat. He meows and rubs against my leg.
“Sorry, Fred,” I whisper. “No milk for you. Mr. Harris said it’s making you fat and lazy.” Fred saunters off between the trees.
“Come on,” says Sofia. “Let’s go inside. It’s freezing out here.”
We trudge through Mr. Harris’s almond orchard, ducking beneath branches so they don’t catch in our hair.
“So are you going to tell me what you wished for?” asks Sofia.
At the edge of the last row of trees, the dirt turns to gravel crunching beneath our feet, and we can see my house. “I wished for my dad to come back.”
“How long has it been now?”
“Four months and seventeen days.”
Sofia doesn’t act like it’s weird that I know exactly how long it’s been or tell me that it’s never going to happen. Because that’s not what best friends do. Instead she stops on my front porch, turns around, and loops her arm through mine while we look at the star one last time.
“That’s a big wish,” she whispers. We stay that way for a few moments, with our wishes swirling around us
and floating up into the sky like smoke from a bonfire.
Chapter 2
That night, after we’re both in our pajamas and Sofia is snuggled into her sleeping bag on the floor, she says, “I’m going to try out for the play at the downtown theater next week. Marisa Nunez is doing it, too. She told me at church.”
“Oh yeah. I forgot you guys go to the same church now.”
“I want you to do it with us.”
“I don’t know.” My karate trophies sparkle in the light from the hallway. “What about karate?”
“Rehearsals start at six o’clock. You’re done with karate by then, aren’t you?”
I prop my head up. “What do you have to do for tryouts?”
“Well …” Sofia’s voice trails off and she pauses. The darkness crowds in closer. “It’s a musical. So you have to sing a song.”
I flop back onto my pillow. “Nope. No way.”
“But you used to love to sing.”
I look at my black guitar on its stand in the corner of my room. The darkness hides it, but I know there’s dust around its edges. Dad would be mad about that if he knew. I remember the first lesson he gave me.
“A guitar is an instrument, a tool, and a friend,” Dad said.
“A friend?” I giggled.
“Of course.” He leaned in close, his forehead touching mine. “You treat it right and it will treat you right.”
Mom peeked around the corner of the room. “Mothers are the same way you know.”
“All beautiful women are like that.” Dad stood up, walked over to her, and gave her a long kiss, smiling afterward.
“Ew! Gross!” I yelled.
I wish I could see that again. Not the kissing. Just the smiling.
I shake my head. “No. No singing.”
Sofia’s sleeping bag crinkles as she moves around and grumbles. “Of course not.”
“Are you mad at me?”
“You never do anything I want to do.”
There are some lies said so many times your whole body seems to understand. My fingers curl into fists. “That’s not true.”
Sofia sighs. “Whatever. I’d do karate if …”
If we could afford it. That’s what she was going to say. But Sofia tries to never talk about her family’s money problems, even though that’s exactly the sort of thing best friends are for.
“I know,” I whisper.
I can’t stand this feeling. Like there’s a giant weed growing up between us. I roll over and stare out my window. The star I wished on earlier is still out there, just barely. It hangs right above the edge of the hills. I know it’s not really a star. It’s Venus. Mom likes to point it out every time we drive home from karate. But my heart whispers something Sofia said earlier. It never hurts to try everything. Not when it’s important.
Please, I say in my head. Maybe to Venus. Maybe to God. Maybe to the air. I’m not really sure. Please bring my dad home.
Venus just winks back at me. Sofia’s breathing is soft and long, with the tiniest whistle. That’s how I know she’s asleep. I reach under my bed and pull out the orange shoebox waiting there for me. The lid slides off, all flimsy and soft from being touched too much. Inside the box is a sparkly purple pen, a bunch of notebook paper, and thirty-seven folded notes.
I started writing the notes after Dad left. Before the depression came and Dad stopped looking at me, he’d sit on the edge of my bed every night. We’d play our guitars and sing. He’d ask about my day. Sometimes, we talked so long Mom would have to order Dad out of the room.
But now he’s gone. Sometimes the words and the thoughts and the music I don’t sing anymore swirl all around my brain. And when it feels like I can’t hold them in anymore, that the words might roundhouse kick a hole straight through me, I write them down on a piece of paper, fold it up, and put it in the shoebox. Because one day Dad will come home.
He’ll want to read these letters when he does.
I take the cap off the sparkly purple pen and begin to write.
Dear Dad,
Wynken, and Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe.
I remember singing those words together. Your voice was low. Mine was high. We both sang slow so I could get my fingers set just right for each chord.
I tried singing that song to myself after you left but it sounded all wrong, and I haven’t sung anything since then.
I won’t sing without you. I can’t sing without you.
Love,
Kate
Chapter 3
“Girls, get up. Get up, get up!” Mom’s voice calls us from the door as she switches on the light.
I groan and pull the blanket over my face. “Why? It’s Saturday.”
“There’s been an emergency. We need to go. Now.”
I bolt upright, fingers pushing into the mattress. My mind thinks a million thoughts about Dad and something bad happening. I want him to come home, but in a happy way. Not a sad way. “What is it?” I ask.
Sofia sits up, too. She brushes her dark brown hair away from eyes as big and wide as the day her dad got heatstroke and had to go to the hospital.
Mom marches into my room with both of our shoes and tosses them on the floor by the bed. She’s already dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, but her hair is frizzy and sticking out around her face. “It’s Pat,” she says. “Come on. We’ve got to go.”
“Grammy? What’s wrong with her?” I hop out of bed and over Sofia’s sleeping bag to grab my shoes. Sofia already has her shoes on. She stands up next to me.
“She’s missing,” says Mom. “Her home care helper came to her house today and she’s gone. Car in the garage. Door wide open. They haven’t found her yet.”
My feet grow roots straight into the ground. “She’s gone?”
“She can’t have gotten too far. Not too far,” says Mom, rushing out of the room.
My breath catches in my throat. Grammy is Dad’s mom. We haven’t seen her in almost a year. And the last time we did, there was a big fight. Then Dad’s depression got really bad and … now she’s missing?
Sofia squeezes my right hand. The corners of her mouth turn up in a smile, but her eyes stay sad because she knows. She knows I’m scared. “It’s going to be okay,” she says. She touches her cross necklace. “I’ll say a prayer.”
I swallow the lump of something hard in my throat and nod. I still don’t know what I think of God and praying, but I know Sofia believes it helps. “Thanks.”
We walk to the car, hand in hand.
Sofia and I have been best friends since first grade when Adam Shuler pushed her into a mud puddle and I pushed him back. Standing next to her is like looking out my bedroom window when the sun is setting over the almond orchard and smelling the almost-night air.
On the way to Sofia’s house, Mom’s cell phone rings. She answers it. “Hello … oh, thank goodness … yes … yes … I’m on my way … I understand … thank you … bye.” Mom pulls the car to the side of the road and sits there with her hands on the steering wheel for a second.
“Mom?”
She grabs the back of the passenger seat and turns around. “They found her.”
I lean my head against the back of the seat, the seatbelt pushing against my ear.
“Is she okay?” asks Sofia. “Is she hurt?”
“Well, she’s … confused.”
“Confused?” I ask.
Mom nods. “I think … I don’t think she can live on her own anymore. Her home care helper told me a few months ago that she was seeming more forgetful. But your dad had just left …” Her voice trails off, the silence bringing back more memories than words ever could. “I was too upset to do much about it besides up the frequency of visits from her helper. And now … this is all my fault.”
“It’s not your fault, Mrs. Mitchell,” Sofia pipes up.
“Thanks, sweetie.” Mom looks at me. “Kate, I think she’s really sick.”
My heart is still beating fast as
if I’ve just raced Sofia through the almond orchard. “Sick how?”
“Sick in her brain.”
I pull my knees up to my chest and hug them against the seat belt. “Like Dad?”
Mom unclicks her buckle so she can turn all the way around. “Not exactly. Your dad has depression. But Grammy, I think she has what’s called dementia. It makes old people forget things. I’m …” Mom pauses. “I’m going to invite her to live with us. We can take care of her here.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, and my stomach buzzes like a guitar chord played just a little bit off. When I was little, we visited Grammy all the time. I would have loved her to come live with us. But if she’s forgetting things, what if she’s not the same Grammy? Then again, I don’t want her to be the same Grammy as last time we saw her, when she was so angry and mean. I don’t want that Grammy in our house.
“She’s going to need help, Kate,” Mom continues. “Help with … well, with everything.”
“Everything,” I whisper. The word gets bigger, so full of questions it might pop. It presses against all of us, pushing us apart. It seeps into the spaces between Sofia and me. It crowds out the sound of the birds chirping. The word everything changes things.
Mom turns around and puts the car into drive. Her eyes glance at me in the rearview mirror as she clears her throat. “Thanks for coming to sleep over last night, Sofia. I’m sorry it had to end early.”
“It’s okay,” Sofia says. But she’s looking at me when she says it. “It’s going to be okay.”
I look away because I don’t believe her.
Chapter 4
After we drop off Sofia, it’s a long two-hour drive to Sacramento. Mom keeps getting phone calls. She answers with hmms and yeses and okays. I don’t say anything. Grammy’s everything is still pushing up against me. I wish I could give it a good side kick and shatter it into tiny pieces.
As Mom drives, I find myself humming “Alley Cat,” the jazz song Grammy used to play all the time when I was little. I’d march around the living room banging a pot with a spoon. Every time the song was over, Grammy would laugh and say, “That’s what I want played at my funeral.” I wish Grammy could have just stayed like that.
The Three Rules of Everyday Magic Page 1