Almost Home

by Joan Bauer

  As the water pours over my head I start to cry. I pound my fist against the shower wall, but it’s okay. No one can hear you when you’re crying in the shower.

  x x x

  When I first wake up, I don’t remember where I am. The sun beams through the window. Shush is awake, watching me. He walks over—cold nose, warm heart.

  Now I remember.

  I put out my hand. “You okay?”

  Shush puts his head against my hand and hugs me. It’s quiet in this house, not like the shelter. I lie here in this soft, warm bed. Out the window I see yellow flowers growing around a pole. This was their daughter’s room, I bet. White dresser, pink quilt, silver mirror.

  Mirror, mirror on the wall . . .

  I look away from the mirror; people say I’m pretty, but I haven’t felt pretty for a long time.

  I want to see my mother.

  Shush is sniffing the shag rug. “I’ll be right back, boy.” I open the door, head to the bathroom. He follows, whining a little.

  “What is it?” He looks deep into my eyes—this dog understands everything. You can’t ask for more than that in a pet.

  I wash my face, and this time I look in the mirror and try to see a normal girl with happy eyes and a life that doesn’t need changing, a girl who has a shiny key ring with keys to her own house. That’s my dream.

  “Did you sleep well?” Lexie says it from the other side of the door.

  I guess they all ask this. “Yes.”

  “Good. Are you hungry?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you like pancakes?”

  I grin at Shush, who cocks his head.

  “With chocolate chips?” she adds.

  I open the door a crack. “I didn’t know they came that way.”

  She smiles widely. “Anything else, honey?”

  “Sugar. My name’s Sugar.”

  “Sorry. I call lots of people honey.”

  But about the anything else, yes there is. “I need to see Reba.”

  21

  REBA SITS IN a chair by the window. She doesn’t notice me standing by the door. She’s wearing a robe and slippers and is humming a song I know too well, “Stand by Your Man.” I look at Dana Wood, who brought me here. I don’t know how to tell her this is a dangerous song.

  I go over to where she’s sitting. “Hi.”

  I wish they’d turn the stupid TV off.

  Heather, I know that you killed Alonzo in cold blood. A TV actor says that.

  You tracked him down, didn’t you, Heather, after what he did to your sister.

  She turns slowly to look at me, like she just woke up. “Hi.” She reaches out and touches my hand, then her hand drops back into her lap. Her face looks sad and gray—give-up gray.

  I gulp. “How are you?”

  She looks down and sighs. “Tired.”

  “You can get some rest here.”

  She shakes her head.

  I kneel down next to her and take her hand. “It’s going to be okay.” I look in her eyes and it’s like some alien came, sucked my mother out, and left her core.

  “I don’t know what happened,” Reba whispers.

  I don’t either.

  “I did everything I knew how to do. You tell them.”

  “I will . . .”

  She shakes her head. “You tell them.”

  Her dark brown hair is hanging over her face. I gently lift it back and say, “They don’t know how hard it’s been.”

  She puts her small hands over her face.

  I don’t know how to help you, Reba. I don’t know what to say.

  “Shush slept on a fuzzy rug last night. He’s acting good. And me, I’m okay.” I want to make sure she heard that. “I’m okay, Reba.”

  She nods and looks out the window. I look at Dana Wood, who gives me a smile. I talk about some things that don’t matter, like how it’s sunny outside, I’m sleeping in a pink room . . .

  Reba smiles sad.

  I stay with her a little longer and then the nurse comes in and says we have to go.

  I give Reba a long hug. She tells me, “Stay sweet.”

  She’s been saying that since I was small. I don’t think it’s right to leave, I should be sleeping on the floor in case she needs something. I think she needs a lot right now.

  “I love you, Reba.”

  She puts her hand on my head, then goes back to looking out the window.

  Dana Wood says she’ll check in on her in a few days, and we follow a nurse down the hall.

  I don’t look in any of the rooms, I don’t look at the nurses’ station, I don’t look at the doctor coming toward me, I just look to the door that I came through earlier, and now I realize it isn’t an open door, it’s locked. The nurse opens it with a key and out we walk, free. But I don’t think Reba’s free to leave here.

  I’m not sure how to be with that. I feel scared, the kind of scared that makes you cold.

  When we first lost our house, I told Reba, “I just want things to go back to normal. When is that going to happen?”

  “Soon,” she promised.

  Soon seems awfully far away.

  “Your mom’s on medication that makes her tired,” Dana Wood explains.

  “What’s wrong with her? She’s never been like this.” I’m trying to get a breath. I feel sick to my stomach all of a sudden.

  “The early diagnosis is that she had something called a severe depressive incident. That can happen when people are very stressed and then something tough happens and they can’t bounce back.”

  I sit down. “Like not getting the job she was counting on?”

  “Exactly. It was the last straw, and she shut down.”

  “She made it bigger in her head than it really was.”

  “That happens often, Sugar.”

  “But it’s not normal, right? Normal mothers don’t do this!”

  “What I can tell you is that most people sometime in their lives make something bigger in their heads than it really is.”

  “But they don’t end up in the hospital!” I’m trying to breathe normally, but it’s hard.

  “Sugar, the doctors and nurses here know how to help.”

  That doesn’t tell me anything. “How long does she have to be here?”

  “A week, probably.”

  “Then what?”

  “We’re not sure yet, Sugar.”

  I’m getting tired of this. “I want to talk to somebody’s who’s sure.”

  “I’d feel the same way if I were you, but right now, no one’s sure.”

  I have another question, but I’m not going to ask it.

  Could this shutting-down thing happen to me?

  x x x

  I’m writing poems at night because I can’t sleep.

  How are you doing?

  Everybody wants to know.

  It’s like there’s a special answer they’re looking for.

  Fine—I’m doing fine.

  Or pretty good.

  Or okay, I’m okay, you don’t have to worry about me.

  They should probably worry, though, just a little,

  Because I’m feeling like I could turn to stone right now

  So I would stop feeling.

  The stone girl.

  You can’t get me.

  You can’t hurt me.

  You can’t make me go anywhere I don’t want.

  Girls don’t wake up saying, I’m turning to stone today.

  Normal girls don’t have to do it,

  I’m not supposed to do it,

  But stone is strong

  And it’s hard to break.

  Not like a heart
—that’s easy to break

  And hard to put back together.

  Then I wrote this just before morning came.

  My mother is in a locked place.

  It’s not just a door that locks,

  It’s in her mind and her heart.

  I watched a little of the door shutting

  But I didn’t understand what was happening.

  I hardly do now.

  I hope she will remember all that’s shut up with her.

  Her smile and her sweetness and her grit and her courage.

  She raised me alone mostly, except for King Cole.

  She worked and she cried

  And she didn’t give up until now.

  But I’m not giving up on her

  Because for all those years she didn’t give up on me.

  22

  DEAR MR. B,

  Do you remember when you told us to write about what we know?

  Well, here are two poems I worked hard on. I’m not looking for a grade or anything like that, I just want to know that you have them.

  Yours very truly,

  Sugar Mae Cole

  An hour later, I get this back.

  Dear Sugar,

  Wow. These are so good, and it’s not just because you wrote about what you’ve experienced. You opened your heart; the words came out honestly. I think, at a young age, you’ve learned not to be afraid of the things that hurt you. You’re putting them out there, and that’s power.

  I’m sorry that you’ve had such a tough time, but you seem to be able to pull beauty out of it. All your courage shines through. I feel confident in saying this—no way are you going to stay where you’re at.

  Life is going to turn around for you.

  Because these are so excellent, I’ve created an award, and it is my honor to bestow upon you the first Michael R. Bennett Prize for Being Exceedingly Courageous and Insightful in Middle School. This is close to winning the lottery, except there’s no cash involved.

  I do want to ask you—are you in a safe place right now with people you trust?

  Write me back, Sugar Mae Cole. If you don’t, Claus and I are going to be really irritated.

  Mr. B

  I write him back and tell him I am safe.

  I sit at the computer reading Mr. B’s e-mail again and again, drinking in his words.

  Here’s what I wrote next, but I didn’t send it.

  We celebrate the wrong people sometimes.

  We should wake up and see who the real heroes are and give them the star treatment.

  I nominate Mr. Bennett for star-hood.

  Here’s how his life should go.

  His pickup truck is surrounded by his adoring fans.

  He waves, signs a few report cards, and drives off as the crowd screams.

  Mr. Bennett makes Time magazine’s list of Most Influential People.

  Greatest teacher in America is awarded the Nobel Prize for Everything

  As rubber chickens take the country by storm.

  23

  THE BOY AT the front door has curly dark hair. He is holding clippers and a trash bag. It’s morning.

  “Mac said I’m supposed to clear the front, but I’m not sure what he wants done with the stuff by the tree,” he tells me.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is he here?”

  I don’t know that either. Shush comes to the door wagging his tail. The boy says, “Hey there, puppy.” And Shush jumps up on the door.

  “You’re new,” the boy says to me.

  “Yeah.” I’m not giving more information than that.

  “I work for Mac. I’m Dante.”

  “I’m Sugar and this is my dog Shush.”

  “Sugar and Shush.” He says it like Dante isn’t a weird name, too. Mac pulls up in his truck and waves. Now Shush is going crazy to get outside. I open the door and he jumps all over Dante, who laughs and turns around; Shush turns around, too. Dante starts running, Shush runs after him, then Dante stops and Shush does, too.

  Mac walks up holding some pots of coral-colored flowers.

  Lexie comes to the door. “Good color.”

  Mac puts the plants down and Shush runs over, sniffs them, and pees right on one of the planters.

  “Well,” Mac says, “I guess they’re ours now.”

  He shows Dante what he wants done by the tree and Dante starts to work. I’m a good worker, too. Right now, I could use something to do.

  “How are you with flowers?” Lexie asks me. I tell her about my champion sunflower in fifth grade.

  “If you want to, you can help Dante plant those begonias in a ring around the tree. He’ll show you what to do.”

  I head over and Dante says, “You understand that when you take a plant out of its starter box, it gets nervous.”

  I’d never heard it until this minute, but I don’t want to seem stupid. “I know that,” I tell him.

  “So when you take the plant out, you’ve got to do it real gently. It’s kind of shocked to be in a new place.”

  I know what that’s like.

  He puts the plant near the hole he’s digging. “Now I’ve just got to dig it out a good new place where it can really grow. So I’m putting the mulch down in the hole, and this plant food, see?” He sprinkles something in the hole. “Now I’m putting some water in—just a little.” He puts the plant in and covers it with dirt.

  “Where are you from?” he asks me.

  “Round Lake, Missouri.”

  “Is it really round?”

  I laugh. “Not really.”

  “You have a family?” he asks me.

  “A mom.” I start digging a hole. I don’t want to talk anymore.

  “Where is she?”

  I guess everyone knows this is a foster care place. “She’s sick and has to be in the hospital.”

  He looks up at me. “Which hospital?”

  I look down. “I forget the name.” I watch him dig another hole and put the mulch in. I copy him just so. I’m always looking to see somebody do something well, so I can copy it. King Cole said you can learn a lot about how the world works by watching people do things right.

  I take my plant out of its container, put it in the hole, put fresh dirt over it, and pat it down.

  “You’re pretty good with flowers,” Dante tells me.

  It’s a natural gift I have.

  Shush runs over and sniffs the dirt. “Sit,” I tell him. Shush sits right there.

  “You’re good with dogs, too.” Shush wags his tail.

  “How come you got named Dante?”

  “My mother loves this writer named Dante.” He laughs. “He wrote about hell and stuff.”

  “You got named after somebody who writes about hell?”

  “He was a great man of his time. She wanted me to have a voice in the world.” Dante plants another flower. “How come you got named Sugar?”

  Sweetness is hard to explain. I dig another hole.

  I look at the little plant in my hand. “It’s okay,” I whisper to it, and put it in the hole.

  x x x

  “Can you tell me a little about your mom, Sugar?”

  Dana Wood sits back in an ugly brown chair and waits for me to answer.

  Explaining Reba isn’t the easiest thing.

  “I can tell you that before we lost our house and she got sick, she was pretty happy, except when Mr. Leeland came around. Being homeless just about killed her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  If I could take Dana Wood back to our house on Pleasant Street, and she could see Reba sitting on the front porch in her white wicker chair smiling at the people who went by, she might unde
rstand.

  “She wants the world to be nice,” I say. “She wants it to be gentle.”

  Dana Wood writes that down.

  “She used to write thank-you cards to everyone. People loved getting them.”

  I used to write them, too.

  “I haven’t gotten a thank-you card in a long time, Sugar.”

  I look out Dana Woods’s window to the dirty building across the street. “She wants life to be sweet.” I’m not explaining this too well. “Reba should have been born rich so she could sit out on her veranda and give people iced tea and sweetie pies and talk about things that aren’t upsetting.”

  Dana Wood writes that down. “And when things get upsetting . . . what happens?”

  I shift around.

  I don’t want to say the wrong thing, but I don’t think lying is going to help anybody. “Sometimes she looks the other way.”

  “Can you remember a time when she did that?”

  “When Mr. Leeland would come over drunk and ask to borrow money. She’d always make excuses for him.”

  More writing.

  “But write this down, too. She can be strong. You should have seen her when the sheriff came to take our house.”

  I feel the sense of it hitting me all over again.

  I close my eyes. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.

  x x x

  I’m back in the pink room.

  Tell me about your mother.

  I wish I’d done a better job describing her. Reba’s got all these parts, and you’ve just got to hang out with her to understand how they all fit together. That’s the thing Mr. Leeland didn’t get—he didn’t want her to be her real self. He wanted her to be this helpless Southern lady who fluttered her hands and didn’t think for herself.

  I open my writing folder and take out the craziest thank-you note ever. It’s from the last time Reba and I played the thank-you note game. She’s an ace at this game. She should be, she made it up. The point of the game is to write a thank-you note for an unbelievable situation.

  I could see Reba taking a fresh thank-you card from the box she kept on our kitchen table. She said, “Situation, please,” like she was on a TV game show.