“Ose,” Lily said.
Rose didn’t answer.
She felt Lily sit up.
Rose peeked. Lily’s curls made a silhouette as she turned her head, looking first in one dark corner of the room, then the other.
Lily lay down with her face close to Rose’s. “Ose,” she whispered.
“Ose?” Lily sounded so alone—as if the world were huge and dark and dangerous and she was lost.
Rose’s heart melted and she put her arms around her sister and pulled her close. She kissed Lily and rubbed her back. Before long, Lily was breathing evenly.
This was the second night Lily had fallen asleep in Rose’s arms. What if Iris had gone away and left Lily with Rose, the same way she’d gone off and left Rose with Ama years ago? Earlier, when Iris had gotten all prettied up and had swished out, she’d acted like it was the first day of summer vacation. Maybe she wasn’t coming back. Maybe she’d seen that Rose had loved Lily on sight and would take care of her. Rose felt more grown-up than her mother.
If Iris was gone for good, what would they do? They couldn’t count on Aunt Carol and Uncle Thomas. Rose had read a book about children who lived in a museum. There wasn’t a museum here, but there was a mall. They would need money. Rose had sixteen dollars from feeding the neighbors’ dog while they went to Missouri to visit their kids at Easter, and Aunt Carol had paid her twenty-five dollars for folding origami place cards for the sorority Christmas party. And she’d won blue ribbons for her paper art in 4-H. Probably people would be glad to buy it. Great-aunt Harriet Jane had made a lot of money from her art.
She heard Aunt Carol talking to someone. Fearful of a double cross, her heart racing, she slipped out of bed and to the head of the stairs.
But Aunt Carol was only on the phone with Ama. “She’s fine, Tulip. I’m keeping an eye on her.” After a minute, she said, “Maybe it’s good to let her care for the little one. She’ll tire of it and be ready to come home.” Aunt Carol listened. “I know you feel guilty. But none of us are perfect.” She listened again. “Don’t worry, she’s safe here and I’ll keep you posted. Remember this is Rose we’re talking about.” Aunt Carol laughed. “You’ve said yourself she’s done a great job of raising you.”
Tears sprang to Rose’s eyes. She needed to get home to Ama. Ama’s words still broke her heart, but Ama needed her too. But Lily was so small and helpless.
Rose got back into bed, but she couldn’t sleep even though she was worn out. She didn’t understand why Iris didn’t see that she needed to make the apartment neat so they could find things. Why Iris didn’t have real food in the refrigerator. Why she didn’t have furniture so they could be comfortable. Why she didn’t clean up messes so the place didn’t smell. Weren’t those things people naturally understood, the way Myrtle understood what she needed to do to take care of Ama and Rose and the farm? The way cows understood they needed to clean their newborn calves and let them nurse?
She sighed and gazed at the pale rectangle of light from the window. She longed for country darkness, for the sounds of tree frogs and coyotes.
·· eleven ··
WHEN Rose woke, Lily was crossways in the bed with one foot on Rose’s stomach. Lily’s diaper had leaked and the sheet was wet with pee. Maddy would be disgusted.
Rose eased out of bed and went to find Aunt Carol in the kitchen. Iris was there too, slumped over her phone. The way she looked like a wilted flower, still in yesterday’s clothes, reminded Rose of something, but she wasn’t sure what. It was kind of like this had all happened before, but it hadn’t. The main thing was that Iris was here. The weight of worry about how to take care of Lily on her own lifted.
“We can’t hang around,” Iris said without looking up. “I have to sleep before I go to work at three.”
Aunt Carol knew what Rose liked for breakfast and made her a buttered English muffin without asking. She also poured a little coffee into a cup of milk and handed it to Rose. She’d have given anything to wrap her arms around Ama and catch the smell of morning coffee on her breath.
While Rose was eating, Iris left the room and came back leading Lily, who looked cranky. She wore only a diaper and her sandals. Her eyes, when they came to Rose, were dull with sleep.
Rose ran up to Maddy’s room and got her backpack, which she’d used for Lily’s bottle, a few diapers, and a clean dress.
In the kitchen, Aunt Carol handed Rose a grocery bag. “Just a few nibbles,” she said.
Iris was leading Lily to the door.
“Wait,” Rose said, holding up the dress.
Iris looked impatient, but she stopped so Rose could put the dress on Lily.
Rose kissed Lily’s curls as she smoothed the dress over her round belly. When Rose stood up, Lily touched herself and said, “Pitty?”
“Yes!” Rose said, clapping. “Pretty.” Lily had learned a word.
As they left, Aunt Carol called, “I’ll stop by later and see how you’re doing.”
When they were getting into the car, Rose saw there was no car seat in the back. “Where’s the car seat?”
“I sold it,” Iris said. “She’s getting too big for one anyway.”
“No, she isn’t,” Rose said. How could her mother be so dumb? Or so careless?
Rose got into the backseat with Lily. She pulled Lily onto her lap and fastened the seat belt over both of them; then she crossed her arms over her sister. Lily fit perfectly on her lap, like Rose was her special throne.
“Why don’t you take better care of Lily?” Rose asked. She hated to hurt Iris’s feelings, but couldn’t Iris see that Lily was too small not to be in a car seat?
Iris’s eyes did look hurt when she met Rose’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “How do you mean?” she asked.
“Really?” Rose said.
Now Iris’s eyes looked annoyed. “Forget it.” She added, “Plus, how do you know about babies?”
“My dolls,” Rose said. “I took care of my baby dolls. Didn’t you play with dolls?”
“No.”
“But I found yours. The ones in the bookcase that you were looking at Sunday.”
“I didn’t play with those,” Iris said. “I made them. With Grandma Clara.” She sighed. “Those were the best times of my life. I was truly happy when we were making dolls and she’d go on and on, telling me family stories.”
“Yeah?” Rose said. Ama didn’t tell family stories, except for the high points. And even those tended to come out only when Uncle Thomas was around and started telling them.
“Yeah,” Iris said, smiling in the mirror. “I wish you could have heard some of them. She told me about her mother. Belle. The one with the angel in the cemetery. Grandma Clara said she was an awful mother.” She lifted her shoulder in a shrug. “And other things. It was like as she got really old, Grandma Clara’s filter wore out.”
It felt weird to be having a real conversation with her mother. Iris had been an almost-empty box in Rose’s brain. She’d been just a place on the family tree with a name inside it—and one memory with a piece missing.
“How old were you when Grandma Clara had her stroke?”
“Fourteen. I holed up for a week in my closet after it happened. I felt like I’d lost everything.”
“But didn’t you love the farm?” Rose asked. “The animals. All the stuff to do.”
“Nope,” Iris said.
“How could you not love the farm?”
Iris shrugged again. “My father’s child, I guess.”
Rose had never met her grandfather, but she didn’t like him.
Iris said, “Or maybe I’m like Belle. Grandma Clara said her mother hated the farm. I didn’t hate it. It just didn’t mean anything to me. Nada.”
Lily had gone back to sleep. Her head lolled against Rose’s arm, her body slack. It felt strange, like Lily was part of her.
“You kept Lily,” Rose said. “Why didn’t you keep me?”
Iris glanced at her in the mirror. “I was too young. And doing all kinds of dumb stuff.”
Iris struck Rose as still too young.
“Then why did you have me?”
“Blame my best friend, Jodi. She was older and already had a kid. She said after she had her baby, people treated her more grown-up. So I thought maybe having a baby might make me more grown-up. And I kind of wanted somebody to love. Somebody to love me. I was lonesome.” The back of her neck turned pink. She rushed on, “After I found out you were on the way, I dropped out of school and got a job at McDonald’s. Jodi moved out of her parents’ house with her little girl, and we got an apartment. I stopped doing the stupid stuff I’d been doing.”
“Ama didn’t know about me?” Rose didn’t like the idea of existing even in her mother’s womb without Ama knowing about her.
“No. I was afraid Grandma Clara would find out and be disappointed in me. Ma tried to call me a lot. Sometimes Dad did, but he was living with his honey—a student, like Ma back in the day—and I don’t think I meant a thing to him anymore. I meant something to Ma. But looking back, she was wrapped up in her own troubles.”
Ama’s life seemed so calm and peaceful and happy now. It was hard for Rose to believe what Iris said about Ama.
“Do you want to hear this whole long story, really?” Iris asked.
Rose was desperate to hear it. There were parts that felt so not right, but she wanted to know. It was her story.
“Well, Jodi let her boyfriend move in to help with rent, and things were okay. Her little girl started staying mainly with her parents. After a while, I could feel you moving around.”
That was so strange for Rose to hear. She felt her face get hot.
“I started taking mommy-baby classes at the hospital and feeling like maybe something good was going to happen to me, finally. Somehow, magically, I’d have you and be a good mother—much better than my mother, I thought—and we’d love each other and live happily ever after. We would be perfect, like those pictures of mamas and babies you see in magazines. Jodi was in the delivery room with me. When I left the hospital, I went back to the apartment.”
The light changed then, and so did Iris’s voice. “But I felt so sad and so empty. It wasn’t like in the magazines. I couldn’t get out of bed. I couldn’t take care of you.” Her eyes flicked to Rose’s. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Our rosy dream went dark.”
Rose felt an ache for her mother. She wanted to say It’s okay. I was perfectly happy with Ama, but she didn’t.
“I went back to old habits. And one day when I was happy and high I had a wonderful revelation. I should give you to Ma and Grandma Clara! In my fog, I wasn’t remembering that Grandma Clara was in a bad way and so was Ma. I just knew Grandma Clara loved kids and would be thrilled to have you. So I put you in your carrier and took you to Ma like a housewarming present. And I split.”
“And Ama didn’t know anything about me before that?”
“Nope.”
“Holy cow.” Ama’s cruel words Sunday night still hurt a lot, but things were clearer.
“In my defense,” Iris said, “abandoning your kid does run in the family.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Rose knew the whole family tree.
“Ma never told you?”
“No.” Rose wanted to stop talking. She couldn’t bear to know who else had done it.
Plus, they were turning into the parking lot. Glad to end the conversation, Rose woke up Lily and helped her out of the car.
In the apartment, the muffled thud of music next door came through the wall.
Iris suddenly looked as if she might fall asleep standing up. “I’ve got my alarm set for two o’clock.” And she went into her bedroom and shut the door.
Lily looked at Rose. “Bobble,” she said.
Rose took the bottle out of the plastic bag, washed it, and filled it with milk, which they were almost out of. Lily lay down in front of the TV.
Rose peeked inside the bag Aunt Carol had sent. There were oranges and grapes and peanut butter sandwiches. And a folded piece of paper.
The second Rose unfolded it, she knew the note was from Ama. Rose folded it back up. Her heart was still broken. But Ama had said she was sorry. Maybe the note said Lily could come and live with them. With hope high in her throat, Rose unfolded the paper again.
Rose, I wasn’t speaking to you when I said those harsh words. I’m sorry you heard them. Peanutbutter wonders what has happened to you. Myrtle misses you. I miss you. Please come home. Love, Ama
Nothing about Lily, who looked as sad as Rose felt.
“I know!” Rose said, swallowing the lump in her throat and forcing a happy voice. “Let’s play house. Want to?”
Lily seemed puzzled, but she nodded, put her bottle down, and got up.
“Okay.” Rose led Lily to the junky room with the bare mattress on the floor.
First, they sorted through the mishmash of stuff strewn all over the place. Lily helped Rose fold the towels, touching her nose to Rose’s when the corners met. Rose put the bottle of pills, the Kleenex, and the diapers on a shelf in the bathroom. She stored the plastic bucket under the kitchen sink. She left the elephant piñata, broken only a little, in the room.
They piled all the grown-up clothes in front of Iris’s door. Lily carried the items and tossed them into the pile, looking to Rose for approval.
After a while, Lily’s curls began to mat to her neck. Rose was hot too, but the only air conditioner was humming away behind Iris’s closed door.
Rose tried to open the bedroom window. She pushed hard. When nothing happened, she pushed harder. The harder she pushed, the hotter she got.
She dragged a chair into the bedroom and stood on it. She flung her shoulder against the window. With a pop, it came free and she cranked it wide open. Lily lifted her face to the puff of air.
“Does that feel good?” Rose asked.
Lily beamed.
“Back to work,” Rose said, ruffling Lily’s hair.
The stains on the mattress were disgusting, so Rose heaved the mattress over. The other side was cleaner. She dragged the mattress to cover the carpet stain, which looked kind of like a pig.
She leaned the piñata against the wall. “Does it look pretty there?” she asked Lily.
“Pitty.”
They could use the gold-painted basket for Lily’s clothes, if Rose ever found them in the clutter of Iris’s room. While Iris was at work, Rose would look for them. And she’d steal a pillow off Iris’s bed for herself. Meanwhile, she put the little football-shaped pillow on the mattress for Lily. And she brought in her backpack and placed it beside the bed.
Rose stood in the doorway, admiring their work. The room was neat. She and Lily carried in the books and tiny dolls from Aunt Carol and lined them up along the wall with the piñata.
This room was their safe and cozy home. They wouldn’t let in anyone else without permission.
“Shall we read a book?” she asked Lily.
Lily looked puzzled.
“Book,” Rose said, picking one up.
As they sat on the mattress turning pages, Lily looked for the mouse hidden in each illustration. Rose told her over and over, “Mouse!”
When they were done, Rose gave her the book. “Can you find the mouse?”
Lily turned the pages, putting her finger on the mouse. At the end, she closed the book and said, “Book.”
Rose hugged her. “Homeric!”
* * *
That afternoon, when Iris passed their room on the way to the kitchen, she glanced in and stopped, standing in the doorway. Rose kept cutting a butterfly out of the empty cereal box.
Iris came in.
“Please knock,” Rose said.
“The door is open.”
“Because we get hot if it’s closed. This room is our house. You have to say knock, knock.”
Iris shook her head. But she said, “Knock, knock.”
“Come in.” Rose snipped the butterfly free and let it fall into the pile on the floor.
“What the heck are you doing?”
“Decorating.”
Lily, with tape in her hair and tangled around one wrist, was trying to stick a yellow star to the wall.
The stars and moon, butterflies, bees, and flowers weren’t as high on the wall as Rose would have liked, but Lily was having a good time. Rose kept snipping. She cut out a green garden snake. She felt Iris watching.
As Rose snipped out a whole family of garden snakes from a grocery store flyer she’d found in a box, Iris came closer.
“Where did you find the scissors?” she asked, sitting on the floor.
“They were in my backpack,” Rose said, keeping her face bent over her work.
Lily picked a green squiggle from the pile of Rose’s cuttings. “Dis?” she asked.
“Snake,” Rose said, making a wiggle motion with her hand, then tearing off a piece of tape for Lily.
“Nake,” Lily said, going to the wall.
“Maybe we could take turns with the scissors?” Iris said.
“Don’t you have any?”
“No.”
What kind of person had no scissors?
A person like her mother. A person who didn’t think very far ahead.
Rose handed the scissors to Iris. As Iris picked up a scrap of paper and began to cut, Rose noticed how similar their hands were. She asked the question she’d been trying not to think about all day. “Was Ama the person who went off and left a baby?”
“No.” Iris looked shocked. “It was Harriet Jane. Lotus.”
Great-aunt Harriet Jane? The world traveler who spoke Italian? The one who saved the farm?
“Grandma Clara told me all about it when I was your age. That’s what I meant about her filter being broken.”
Surprise Lily Page 11