by Cary Fagan
I sat there for quite a while. And then the front door opened and Jackson came out. The cat stretched and padded away, almost as if it knew I didn’t need its company anymore. Jackson was holding the metal box. He sat on the bottom step of the porch.
“These cards are really great.”
“You think so?”
“Definitely. I mean, they gave me a lot to think about. I felt like I got to know the person who made them.”
“Me too,” I said.
“I think it’s pretty special that you wanted to give them to me. But I think you should hold onto them.”
“You want to give them back?”
“I just think they belong to you, Hartley. But I’d like to be able to look at them sometimes, if that’s all right.”
“Sure, it is.”
“And together we could show them to Heather. I bet she would like them.” Jackson held the box out for me to take.
“Okay.”
“Thanks a lot, Hartley. And now I think I’m going to go for a walk.”
“A walk? You’re going to come back, right?”
“Definitely. I just like being on my own sometimes.”
I watched him turn onto the sidewalk and walk down the street, his hands in his pockets. I watched until I couldn’t see him anymore. Then I went upstairs and put the metal box in the desk drawer and came down again. And waited.
I waited an hour.
I waited until I saw Jackson appear at the end of the street, still with his hands in his pockets.
“Hey, Hartley.”
“Hey, Jackson.”
“Want to go inside? I’m hungry.”
Now that he mentioned it, so was I. So the two of us went in and found my parents working side by side in the kitchen. George was sitting at the table looking at one of the L’il Donkey comics that used to be mine.
Heather came in through the back door. “I’m starving,” she said.
“Well, who wants to help?” Mom asked.
“I will,” Jackson said.
“Me too,” Heather said.
“I’ll help too,” I added.
“Not me!” George laughed, leaning back his head.
“Oh, I’ve got a job for you too,” Mom said. “Don’t you worry about that. By the way, Hartley, there was a phone call for you.”
“There was?”
“From Zack Mirani. He wanted to know if you would like to come over after dinner and shoot some hoops.”
“Miss some hoops, you mean,” Heather said.
“Oh, okay. I guess I will, then.”
And so we made dinner, and put it on the table, and sat down together. Just like a regular family.
28
g.o.
The one color she hadn’t yet used for a background was gold. In fact, she had avoided it. Too rich, too flashy, too optimistic.
But not today. She cut it out to match the size of the card and then glue-sticked it down. Then she went over to the typewriter and put in a sheet of paper.
what i’ve realized is
She kept typing, already knowing the words she wanted to say. They had been floating in her mind for a few days now. She typed the last word, pulled the sheet out of the typewriter, and went to the long worktable to cut them out.
And like the words, she already knew what she wanted for the images. This was going to be the most simple card of them all. That seemed appropriate for the last. It felt different this time, though, knowing that there was at least one person in the world who wanted to have it. She glued everything down and then added her initials and the card number.
Her dad called for her as she was coming down the hall. She found him in the kitchen, his wheelchair pulled up to the table, the Saturday paper spread out.
“I just made some herbal tea if you want some,” he said.
“Sure.”
She got herself a cup, poured from the old brown teapot, and sat across from him.
“So what’s up with you?” he asked.
“Just another trip to the copy shop. Have you got an envelope?”
“There’s some in the drawer under the toaster oven.”
“Oh, right.”
“You want to do something fun for dinner tonight? Maybe order pizza and watch a movie together? I’ll even let you choose the movie.”
“Sounds good, Dad.” She got up and found an envelope and, taking a pen from the same drawer, came back to the table and wrote a name on it.
She looked at the name.
She took a breath.
“So Dad,” she said, “there’s something I wanted to tell you about.”
“Sure.” He folded the newspaper and pushed it away, looking up at her.
“It’s about these girls at school.”
“Friends?” her dad asked.
“No, definitely not friends. It’s—well, it’s a pretty big problem.”
She felt tears in her eyes. She hadn’t expected that. Her father reached out and took her hand.
“Tell me,” he said.
29
Orange
For our summer holiday, we went on our usual camping trip. There was some trouble around whether Jackson would come or not. He wanted to stay home alone. After all, he said, he was almost seventeen. And he certainly knew how to take care of himself.
I guess my parents worried that he would leave again, or burn down the house, or not eat or shower or something. But in the end they agreed, on the conditions that Jackson checked in every day by phone and that he let Uncle Bill drop in.
We all missed having Jackson around, especially at night when we sat around the fire and told stories or jokes or sang corny songs. But knowing that he was okay allowed us to have a good time. Even Heather, who met some other kids her age, had a good time.
And when we came home, driving up in the car, tired from being on the road all day, there was Jackson sitting on the porch waiting for us. George was the first out of the car, running straight into Jackson’s arms.
“Pew, do you smell!” Jackson said with a laugh.
Heather ran up to him next, whispering something into his ear, and then called out, “Dibs on the bathroom!” and ran into the house. That left me and my parents to unload the car, but Jackson helped.
I was taking in my last load, a couple of sleeping bags, when Jackson stopped me on the porch.
“Hey, Hartley,” he said. “A letter came for you.”
“A letter?”
“Hand-delivered. By a girl on a skateboard. With orange hair.”
“Orange? I guess she must have changed it.”
“Here, I’ll take that stuff from you.”
Jackson grabbed the sleeping bags and handed me the envelope. Then he went into the house, leaving me on the porch. I sat down on the step. The envelope had my name printed on it. I carefully tore it open and took out the card.
I looked at the card for a while, and then I noticed something else inside the envelope. A note. I took it out and read it.
Hey,
Thought you might want this. I was kind of thinking about you when I made it. I’m pretty sure it’s the last one. Time to move on to something new. Maybe you’ll make your own?
g.o.
I got up and went into the house, climbed the stairs, and closed the door of my room.
I took out the metal box and put all the cards on my desk. I had to do it in two rows.
Then I gathered them up again and put them in the metal box.
In my desk drawer I had a sheet of labels that my dad had given me. I peeled one off and stuck it to the top of the box. I used my best, neatest printing.
The Collected Works of Gretchen Oyster
I picked up the box and put it back in the drawer.
Opening my door,
I realized something. I realized that I felt happy in a way that I hadn’t for a long time.
Heather was coming out of the bathroom with one towel wrapped around her while she dried her hair with another.
“My turn!” I shouted.