In fact, I think I love them all.
The phone rings before I’m able to fall asleep.
“Carley?” Mrs. Murphy asks.
“Yeah.” I take a breath. “Michael Eric. Is he okay?”
“Yes, Carley. He’s going to be fine. It was a febrile seizure caused by a fever. It has no lasting effects. Just a one-time thing. Thank God.”
My muscles relax. Finally. “Oh my God. That’s a relief.”
She exhales. “That doesn’t begin to cover it. How are the boys?”
“They’re fine. They’re sleeping.” I turn and glance toward the boys’ room. Daniel stands there, looking like he’s going to lose it.
I pull the phone away from my ear. “Daniel, everything is okay. Here.” I hold out the phone, and he comes quickly.
“Mom? Is Michael Eric okay?”
Silence.
“Will you tell him I say hi?”
I hear her laugh.
“When are you coming home?” He looks up at me while he listens to her. “Okay. Here she is.” He hands me the phone.
“Hey, Carley! Can’t talk long, but thank you so much for watching Adam. We should be out of here tomorrow about noon. Hey, can you do me a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Since tomorrow is Easter, could you please put the Easter baskets out in front of the family room fireplace before the boys wake up? The stuff is on the top shelf of my closet in two shopping bags.”
“No problem.”
“Just do your best to figure out what is for whom. I’m sure you’ll do a great job.”
“Okay. Sure.”
“Thanks so much, Carley.”
“Okay…” I almost say Mom.
After Daniel goes back to bed, I find the bags. I pull out Matchboxes and figure I’ll split those between Adam and Michael Eric. Next, I pull out Celtics trading cards for Daniel. I also find a Converse key chain. I’m confused by that one. Would Daniel want that? Next is a set of different flavors of lip gloss. Huh?
I lean my head into the bag. There are four baskets. Four. She has a basket for me? I can’t believe that she would do that.
And it’s more like Christmas than Easter as I go through the bag, finding things I know are for me. Not just random stuff either, but things I’ve talked about while “helping” her with dinner or things I’ve said I liked in stores. Mrs. Murphy really listens. But I guess I knew that.
CHAPTER 19
Paige Turner
I have dodged bullets in my life, but when Michael Eric shuffled through the front door on Easter—hugging Mr. Longneck, smiling his crooked smile—and said, “Hi, Carley,” I felt like I’d dodged a meteor.
Michael Eric is supposed to lay low for the day, so we have a Sunday of movies and board games. Michael Eric and Adam have been inseparable all day; Adam has followed him everywhere. We order pizza instead of eating the roast that Mrs. Murphy had planned to make and all go to bed early—even Mrs. Murphy, who is always up late cleaning or ironing. I guess we’re all still tired from thinking about what could have happened.
When I wake up for school the next day, I decide that life is too short to listen to teachers and Toni and Rainer ramble on. Besides, I’d especially like to avoid Toni since I haven’t done any research on her beloved Stephen. I’ve had real life to worry about. She’ll just have to deal.
Sometimes I wonder. On the pathetic scale, where would I land? I know other kids my age would go to the mall if they cut school, but I’m off to the library.
Problem is, I don’t have a library card. But Mrs. Murphy does. I go to her purse, surprised at how loud the zipper is, and pull out her wallet. I linger on the family pictures.
I hear the squeak of the third stair down and quickly grab the library card and replace the wallet. I cough as I zip it back up. Then I take a few quick steps to the fridge. When Mrs. Murphy comes into the kitchen, I’m standing there looking for something to eat. I feel like the word guilty is written on my forehead.
“Big day today?” she asks me.
“Yeah, they’re going to make me head cheerleader today. Because I’m so perky.”
As she laughs at my joke, I feel like I should confess.
“You’d make a great cheerleader if that’s what you wanted to do.”
“Yeah, ‘if I wanted’ being the key words there.” Then I start to laugh.
“What?” she asks.
“I’m thinking about a cheerleading squad yelling, ‘Give me a C, give me an A…’ and spelling my whole name… and then when the perkiest one yells ‘What’s that spell?’ they’d all yell ‘Outcast!’”
She laughs again; I like it that she laughs so easily. “That’s right, Carley. Keep a good attitude.”
I grunt and leave, forcing myself to skip the apology for deceiving the person who’s been the nicest to me ever.
I arrive at the public library before it opens, so I sit with my back against the best tree in Glastonbury, happy that the leaves are starting to come back. Michael Eric and his mother love this tree. Every time we come here, he runs over to hug it. She follows, drawing her fingertips across the bark. It’s like no tree I’ve ever seen before. Its trunk is as wide as the enormous glass doors at the library.
Once inside, I close my eyes and inhale. I love the smell of libraries, and this one is particularly nice. I look around as I walk through, wondering where I could hide if I ever needed to stay all night. I wonder how upset Mrs. Murphy would be if I disappeared. I’d probably get back to find Daniel in a party hat.
I walk up to the info desk and a librarian asks if she can help me. “Can you please tell me where the CDs are?” I ask.
She points behind herself. “Right through that doorway there.”
“Thank you.”
“No school today?”
She’s a nosy one, but I’ve prepared for this question. “Oh. No, ma’am. I’m homeschooled.”
She smiles. “You’re a lucky girl. You must have wonderful parents.”
I smile back, but I want to laugh out loud.
I run my finger along the spines of all the CDs. There it is! The Little Mermaid. I feel silly pulling it out, but I’m so happy. A piece of my mother. A piece that doesn’t make me sad. I turn it over and read the list of songs. There it is: “Kiss the Girl.”
I spend the whole day with my nose in one book or another. I rediscover The Cay, a favorite book when I was young. I read right through lunch, but notice I better get moving if I’m going to be back for when the school bus would normally drop me off.
I head up to the counter with the CD and a small stack of books. She hands back the library card. “Thank you, Ms. Murphy.” She smiles and looks at the screen. “Oh. You have an overdue book here. Navigating the World of Adoption. Shall I renew it for you?”
Talk about stunned.
“Ms. Murphy?” she asks.
“Oh, yeah. Uh, yes, please.”
And although I leave with a backpack full of books, I’ve never felt lighter.
CHAPTER 20
Wilting Chamberlain
The fluttery feeling in my belly grows with every step. I walk back to the house in half the time it took me to get there. A Murphy? Could I really become a Murphy?
“Hey!” Mrs. Murphy says when I walk in the door. “Daniel has spring basketball tryouts. Please get ready to go.”
“You know, I can stay home by myself.” I realize I said home.
“Well, I think we need to all support each other. Big day for Daniel today.”
Even though it’s for the dweeb, the fluttering hasn’t gone away, and I want to trap it there so it lasts and lasts. A family sticks together. I remember when she said that.
I pack enough to ensure that I don’t have to watch basketball. I miss playing it, and I don’t feel like cheering for him—probably the star athlete. Where was I when they handed out these lives?
We finally get there and sit in the bleachers. Three coaches wear warm-up suits. They hold clipboards and tal
k to each other like they’re planning to take over the world.
Daniel looks surprisingly unhappy. Mrs. Murphy has her hands clasped underneath her chin, and her eyes are screwed into a laser look of concentration as she watches Daniel.
“Oh!” She jumps a bit and falls to a whisper. “Daniel is up.”
He dribbles the ball three times, but when he looks up, the ball hits his foot and bounces off.
A kid near us says, “Looks like Murphy’s been practicing,” and his friend laughs.
Daniel shoots for the basket, and the ball misses the rim completely. The second one hits the rim. The third does as well. He takes ten shots and only makes one while the coaches scribble notes. How long does it take to write “Can’t shoot”?
I watch Mrs. Murphy watching Daniel. She squeezes her hands together so hard that the tips of her fingers are white.
Daniel passes the ball okay, but he catches the ball like his hands are wrapped in duct tape. The kid he’s with smirks every time Daniel has to run to get the ball.
Afterward, Daniel trudges over to his mother. His chin touches his chest. “I’m the absolute worst.” I have to admit that I feel a little sorry for him.
“You are not! I think you did fine.” She bends over to look him in the eye. “You need to lighten up on yourself, Daniel. You haven’t had enough experience yet, but you’ll get better.”
“You’re only saying that because you have to. You’re my mother.”
I want to tell him that being his mother doesn’t mean she has to do anything.
CHAPTER 21
Murphy’s Law
I’m sitting on the bed, staring at the cover of the Little Mermaid CD.
Mrs. Murphy appears in the doorway. “Mind if I come in?”
I shrug.
“What do you have there?” she asks.
Oh. “Just a CD I borrowed.”
She nods, but I can tell she is thinking about something else. “You were quiet at dinner, so I wanted to check in with you. Make sure everything is okay.”
I don’t answer.
“Anything on your mind?”
I shrug again. Can’t decide if I want to talk.
“Have you been thinking about your mom?”
I look at her quick. How did she know? I nod a little.
“Well, I’d be surprised if you weren’t. That’s perfectly fine, you know.”
I don’t think it is. I can’t stop thinking about how Daniel said his mother had to say nice things because she is his mom. I keep wondering why my mother couldn’t be like that. Be the “Kiss the Girl” mother all the time. How I’m so mad but I miss her, too.
“Do you want to talk?” she asks.
I shake my head. I feel like I shouldn’t tell her that I miss my own mother.
“Okay, then.” She stands to leave.
“You know,” I blurt out, “we’re only in Connecticut because my grandfather died.”
“How’s that?” she asks, turning back around.
“My mother inherited my grandpa’s condo. She wanted to sell it off, but it was tied up in some bank thing, so we had to move in or let it go to her cousin. So we packed up everything in Vegas and drove to Connecticut.”
“I see,” she says slowly.
I turn to her but can’t look for long. “What bothered me a lot was the funeral.”
“Oh, did you really love your grandpa?”
“I didn’t know him, but I heard he tried to get custody of me when I was little and that’s why my mother left here in the first place.”
“Oh.” She purses her lips together. I know she thinks something she won’t say. “So funerals are just hard, huh?”
“My mother always said he was a jerk, but he didn’t look like a jerk. Of course, he was dead.”
She half smiles.
“She said all these great things about him at the funeral.”
“That must have made you feel good?”
“Naw. She looked up funeral talks on the Net. What are they called?”
“Eulogies?” she asks softly.
“Oh, yeah. She talked about a dog he didn’t have and how he played tennis. He had one of those electric wheelchair things. I don’t think he played tennis.”
“Maybe she didn’t know what to say. Eulogies are pretty rough.”
God, she can find something nice to say about anything. “It’s not right,” I say. When I notice that I sound mad, I try to hide it better. “She shouldn’t have done that.”
She turns to me. “Why does that bother you so much, do you think?”
“Because you should never have to make up stuff about people you are supposed to love.”
She talks like she’s thinking out loud. “Love sure is hard to understand sometimes, Carley. But I do know that people lie for people they love all the time. A lie isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes it’s a way of protecting. As long as you protect the innocent, it’s okay.”
I look at her.
Her voice is soft. “I would think that you would know that better than anyone else.”
Mr. Murphy yells up the stairs. “Julie? Did Carley stay home from school today?”
She looks confused. “No. Why?” she answers.
Uh-oh.
Jack Murphy is angry when he comes into my room.
I stand and am on my guard, holding the CD behind my back. Proof of where I was.
“How was your day at school?” he asks.
“My day was fine.”
Mr. Murphy glances at his wife and steps toward me. “I just picked up a message on the machine that says you weren’t in school today.”
“Well, I said I had a fine day; I didn’t say it was at school.”
He inhales deeply, and I can see that he’s trying to calm himself down. I remind myself not to push it, but the thing is, I know he would never hurt me.
“Where were you?” he asks. Mrs. Murphy stands up, looking all disappointed. Just great.
I don’t want to tell; I feel like a dork that I blew off school to go to the library. Part of me feels I ought to be more interesting. Even my mother would be disgusted.
He asks again. “Carley. Where were you today?”
“I wasn’t anywhere. I didn’t rob a bank. What’s the big deal?”
“I can take a lot of things, but lying isn’t one of them. When you went off to school without saying that you had other plans, that was a lie.”
“So I should have made an announcement?”
He glares at me. Then he glances at my arm. “What are you hiding behind your back?”
“Nothing.”
“Give it to me.”
“No. It’s mine.” I don’t want to have to explain why I have it.
“We don’t allow drugs in this house, Carley. You put my whole family in danger.”
“Drugs? Why would I have drugs?” So this is what he thinks of me? That I am a danger to his family. How can I be a Murphy if he feels this way?
Mrs. Murphy puts her hand on his shoulder. “Jack. Calm down. Carley wouldn’t do that.” She looks at me like she hopes she’s right.
“It isn’t drugs,” I say, looking at Mrs. Murphy.
Mr. Murphy steps up to me. “Well, if it isn’t drugs, let me have it then!” He grabs my arm. I spin and try to wrestle away but he pulls the CD out from behind my back. Then he stands, blinking.
“Pretty dangerous to the family, huh?”
“What is this?” Mr. Murphy asks.
“I was at the library.”
“You skipped school to go to the library?” Mrs. Murphy asks with a slight smile.
“Yeah. Freakish, I know. Better call in the National Guard,” I say, looking at him.
He looks mad but takes a step back. “I’m… I’m sorry. But it doesn’t change the fact that you skipped school and lied about it. You’re grounded for a week.”
“Fine.” I’m amused by this. This is the first time anyone has cared enough to ground me.
He leaves and Mrs. Mu
rphy steps toward me. “Why did you take this out?” she asks.
I don’t tell her it has the song that, when I close my eyes, helps me pretend that I am with my own mother. And that she loves me. A song that helps me feel the warmth on my cheek after my mother kissed me that night and how I can’t remember another time like it.
But then I look at the lines on Mrs. Murphy’s forehead and some of the lyrics to “Part of Your World” play in my head. I realize that the second half of that song is about the Murphys. I wonder which song I’ll choose when I go to sleep tonight.
CHAPTER 22
House of Mirrors
When I step off the bus, Toni storms up to me. “You did a no-show yesterday and left me doing the work. Are you going to claim you were sick?”
I look her in the eye. “Take a breath, Witchy Poo, or you may melt.”
She gets really mad and, although she makes me nervous, I hold eye contact. “Did you get in the gene pool with no lifeguard on duty?” she asks.
She has no idea. I turn to leave.
“You owe it to me to be here,” she says.
I whip around. “I don’t owe you anything!”
“Oh, poor Carley with her perfect little life.”
“What’s your problem? I’ve never done a thing to you, but you go out of your way to treat me like garbage.”
“You don’t have that much importance, believe me. Let’s just meet at your house today and finish.”
I am sick of her calling the shots. “No. Let’s meet at your house.”
She stiffens. “We can’t meet at my house.”
“Why not?”
She switches her backpack from one shoulder to the other. “We just can’t.”
I can see I have her. “We’re meeting at your house or not at all.”
“My mother is having a meeting there. We can’t.”
“What red-blooded American mother is against homework? Parents live for that stuff.”
She pushes her bangs behind her ear. “Maybe yours do.”
The irony makes me want to laugh, but the look on her face makes me feel sorry for her. A better person than I am would let it go, but I’m curious as to how bad it is. I wonder if Toni and I don’t have some common ground after all. “I told you. Your house or nowhere.”
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