“I was trying to find out exactly what happened to Iris.”
Rose shut her eyes for a second. “Did you find out?”
“The man who came to the apartment and took her away was a federal marshal.” Ama sounded tired, and she looked sad. “When Iris lived in Kentucky, she stole mail from a neighboring family’s mailbox and applied for credit cards in their name. And then a couple of years ago she used the credit cards to buy things.” Ama’s eyes went to Lily.
“Why are you looking at Lily? Did she buy Lily?” Rose would die if she had to give Lily back.
Ama looked startled. “No! Why would you think that?”
“She doesn’t look like us. Not even a little bit.”
Ama shook her head. “She doesn’t look like the Lovells. But those wide-set dark eyes of hers are just like the Smiths.” Ama brushed Lily’s curls off her forehead. “And see this V shape of her hairline? That’s called a widow’s peak. Just like her grandfather’s.”
Rose didn’t like her grandfather, but she was giddy to know that he had passed on some things to Lily. “Anything else?” she asked.
“It’s hard to tell with a toddler,” Ama said. “But I’m pretty sure Lily is going to have his hands and feet.”
Rose snatched up both of Lily’s hands and kissed them. And then she kissed her feet.
Lily pushed Rose away.
“The timing of Iris’s crime,” Ama said, “makes me wonder if Iris stole to buy things she needed for a new baby.”
Rose could tell from Ama’s eyes that Ama wanted to believe this, so she nodded. But all Lily had in the apartment was a dirty, bare mattress and a few ratty clothes.
Ama went on explaining what she’d found out. “Iris will appear before a federal judge Monday and most likely be charged with a felony. And a trial date will be set. That will probably be in a few months. On Monday, the judge will decide whether Iris can be released on bail or if she needs to stay locked up until the trial.”
With every word, Ama looked sadder, but she scooped bacon and eggs onto their plates.
Rose didn’t understand everything Ama had said, and she didn’t want to make Ama talk about Iris any more than she had to. Iris might be staying in jail for a long time. Or she might not. Rose hated the uncertainty. Until recently, everything in her life had been as predictable as the sunrise.
Ama set a bowl of fresh strawberries on the table. A few of the strawberries still had their leaves and stems, so it was almost like eating them in the strawberry patch. Rose would take Lily to the strawberry patch later. And the pea patch.
Ama ate with them. Lily knelt on the bench and used her fingers, though she watched Rose and Ama use their glistening forks. Rose pulled the green cap off a small strawberry and ate the red part. Lily watched. Then Rose pulled the green cap off another and offered the berry to Lily. Lily put it in her mouth. As she chewed, her eyes came to Rose’s in surprise.
“Yum!” Rose said, eating another one.
“Um!” Lily said. Then she spat it out and looked at the drooly red mess.
“Yuck!” Rose said.
“Uck!” Lily agreed, trying to hand it to Rose.
Rose got a piece of paper towel and took the messy berry and wiped Lily’s fingers.
The food was making Rose feel heavy and tired. And her nose was hurting and her eye was swelling. She could stretch out on the bench and fall sleep. But she had to take care of Lily.
“The court didn’t know Iris had a second child,” Ama said. “But now they do.”
“You told them!” Rose gasped.
“Iris told them. She was worried about the two of you alone in the apartment.”
Rose didn’t understand grown-ups. Iris did bad, stupid stuff and she was a terrible mother. Still, she was worried about them being on their own.
Ama touched Rose’s shoulder. “You look done in. And we need to get ice on that eye. Why don’t I make an ice pack and you lie down on your bed for a while.”
It sounded so good Rose almost closed her eyes thinking about it.
But she forced them wide open. “Okay. But I want Lily to lie down with me.”
* * *
Rose led Lily upstairs. They went slowly because Lily wanted to stop and look between all the posts to make sure Myrtle was still in the foyer. Rose wanted to show Lily the wardrobe where the dolls were, but she was too tired.
“Come on, Lily,” she said, tugging her sister’s hand.
But Lily wanted to look in every room as they went down the hall.
“Let’s go see my room, Lily,” Rose said, trying to sound enthusiastic.
Rose felt as if she’d been gone for a hundred years. Her big bed with its silently singing birds called to her.
When Rose lifted Lily into it, Lily looked startled. Rose fluffed a pillow for Lily, then fluffed one for herself. She kicked off her shoes. They’d have to go to town tomorrow and buy Lily shoes—also clothes that hadn’t been worn by someone else. Rose had forty-one dollars in the trunk from origami and dog sitting.
Rose stretched out. It felt so good to be in her own bed, with her own pillow. She groaned. “Oh, Lily, let’s have a long nap.”
Lily lay on her side, watching Rose. She cradled the bathtub toy.
Rose shut her eyes and pressed the ice pack to her face. Her last thought was about Peanutbutter. She needed to go see her calf.
* * *
When Rose woke up, the comfort of her bed tangled her muscles and tried to pull her under. She almost went back to sleep.
But she opened her eyes. The room was dim with late-day light.
Where was Lily?
Rose sat up and looked around the room. Something smelled funny.
She stared. What had happened to the wall below her shadow boxes? Why were there thick black marks all over the wallpaper? And what was that smell?
She stepped on the lid of her permanent marker. The tip stuck out from under the bed. And her bedspread had black streaks down the sides.
Anger pounded in her ears. How could Lily do such a thing? The wallpaper was ruined. The bedspread was ruined. Now, Rose saw, Lily had messed with all her art supplies.
She heard Ama’s voice.
Across the hall, at the secret listening post, with shaking hands, Rose pulled away the piece of baseboard.
“Rose wore these when she was about your size. She liked the sound they made when she pulled the Velcro strap, so she was always taking them off and I was always putting them back on.” Rose heard a ripping noise. “Let’s see how they fit you.”
“Soos!” Lily crowed.
Feelings Rose didn’t understand churned so hard she thought she might throw up. She felt angry and happy and grateful and jealous. And furious.
She crossed the hall and snatched up the turtle toy Lily had left on the bed and snapped the little turtle off the big turtle’s back. She dropped the pieces on the bed. Then she threw herself down and buried her face in her pillow. She wanted Lily to be in time-out forever, yet she wanted to take care of her sister—teach her how to eat with a spoon and talk and pick strawberries.
When she went downstairs, she told Ama what Lily had done, but Ama already knew. Lily had come down with marker all over herself.
“Toddlers are curious, so they get into stuff. They try everything to see how it works or how it tastes. At least she didn’t put the marker in her mouth. That would have made her sick.” She gave Rose a long look. “Toddlers have to be watched every second. They keep a person busy.”
“But my room is ruined,” Rose said.
“Not your whole room. Your bedspread needs to be updated anyway. And we can do something about the east wall. Paint it?” she suggested.
Rose liked to paint. And Lily looked awfully cute and proud in her shiny new shoes.
* * *
Later in the
day, the three of them walked to the barn to take care of Peanutbutter. Ama carried Lily because, as Ama said, she wanted to get there before morning.
Myrtle swung out in circles to sniff. When she swung back to them, she always paid special attention to Lily. Lily liked that, but every time a cow bawled, she shrank closer to Ama.
At the barn, Ama stayed outside with Lily while Rose went into the shop and made Peanutbutter’s bottle.
In her pen, Peanutbutter danced with excitement.
“I told you Rose would be back,” Ama said.
Peanutbutter bumped the bottle, nearly knocking it out of Rose’s hands, then began to suck.
“I missed you,” Rose said. “You’ve grown.” Rose had been gone only three days, but Peanutbutter really did look bigger. “You’re still adorable.”
“God makes all nature’s babies adorable so we can’t help but love them and care for them,” Ama said.
Rose couldn’t see Ama’s face in the shadows, but the snapshot of Iris with her big stomach and Rose all folded up inside flitted through her mind. When she was born, her mother hadn’t been able to love her and care for her. That was just the way it was. Thank goodness Ama had stepped up.
The dew-filled air was fresh and cool. Ama walked around with Lily talking to her while Rose finished her nightly routine. When she opened the record book, she saw that Ama had made entries while Rose was gone. Ama had led Peanutbutter around the barnyard every evening, keeping her in practice.
“Thank you for taking care of Peanutbutter while I was gone,” Rose said.
“You’re welcome.”
Ama put her arm around Rose’s shoulders as they walked to the house, Ama again carrying Lily. Rose leaned against Ama’s side. Lily’s foot, wearing Rose’s baby shoe, pressed against Rose’s ribs. It kind of hurt, and it felt really good. “Bobble,” Lily said softly without much interest.
She startled when a whippoorwill sang from the fencerow. Rose loved the shy birds you never saw because of their camouflage, and Lily would come to love them too.
* * *
The little shoes weren’t the only things Ama had kept. In a basket Rose had never seen, they found soft black-and-yellow-striped pajamas.
“Do you remember them?” Ama asked.
Rose shook her head. But she put them on Lily, who smelled of toothpaste. “You look like a cute little bumblebee,” she told her sister.
“I know you couldn’t possibly remember this,” Ama said, holding up a rose-colored sacklike thing with long sleeves and tiny mittens at the end and a little hood with a creamy silk lining.
Rose laughed. “No!”
“That was for your first winter,” Ama said. “How about this?” She shook out a ballerina’s sparkly silver-and-white tutu with a black velvet leotard.
“Yes!” Rose said—though she didn’t really remember wearing it, only seeing pictures of herself on Halloween when she was three or four.
Ama held up a little hoodie. “You were wearing this the first time you really noticed the wind. I carried you outside and the wind blew back the hood. You bounced with excitement and made a noise as if you were naming the wind. It sounded like Heeeee. I thought of that as your first word.”
Ama kept unfolding clothes and telling Rose stories about her babyhood, while Lily and Myrtle played.
“Why have you never told me these stories before?” Rose asked. “I didn’t even know you kept these clothes.”
“Since you didn’t ask, I thought maybe you didn’t want to know.”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it,” Rose said. “Because you never did. I like to know. Even the hard parts. Iris told me a lot of stuff.”
A look of uncertainty flickered on Ama’s face.
“She told me you didn’t know I was coming. You didn’t even know I existed.”
“Oh, Rose, I’m so sorry I spoke those terrible words the other night.”
Rose tried not to cry when she said, “They broke my heart. But I understand better now.” Her throat aching with held-back tears, she said, “I know you love me.”
“Can you forgive me?” Ama asked.
Rose nodded. She couldn’t find her voice for her tears.
Ama wiped Rose’s tears with her fingers, though she was crying too. “Don’t cry,” she said.
“Then don’t you cry,” Rose said, wiping Ama’s tears.
Ama rewrapped the clothing that didn’t fit Lily and put it away. When the basket was back in the closet, she sat down by Rose on the bed. “I didn’t know you existed, and I wasn’t expecting you. And it took me a while to adjust. But in no time, I felt you bringing happiness back into my life. My mom’s days were coming to an end, and it was such a comfort to hold the warm bundle of you against my chest. Babies are like holding hope. That’s what you became to me. Hope.”
Rose fell into her arms and Ama folded her close, kissing her hair.
* * *
Later, when Lily was sprawled in the middle of Rose’s bed deeply asleep, Rose got up and turned on her desk lamp. She took the broken turtle out of the drawer where she’d hidden it from Lily and used superglue to reattach the little turtle to the big one. Hopefully, Lily would never find out what Rose had done.
·· eighteen ··
AMA said the lady who visited on Friday just wanted information, but Rose was terrified she planned to take Lily away. She carried a briefcase and looked quickly and carefully at absolutely everything. Rose wanted to keep Lily in her room, but Ama said the lady had to see Lily and make sure she was okay.
Rose felt a huge wave of relief when the woman began by saying both Iris and the court had approved Lily’s staying with Ama for now.
“And me,” Rose said. “I’m her sister, and I take care of her. I’m responsible.”
She slept with Lily. She bathed and dressed her, brushed her teeth, changed her diapers, took her everywhere. Showed her everything.
Rose had shown her sister all the rooms, the wardrobe full of dolls, the mailbox, the porch swing, the rope swing. The big golden hay bales, the garden, the barn, the cows, the fall calves that were almost heifers, the spring calves that were about the size of Peanutbutter. The truck, both tractors, the grain drill, the corn picker, the hay baler, the silage cutter, the riding mower, the garden tiller. The creek, the ponds, lots of birds and butterflies, toads and frogs, fish, rabbits, squirrels, a fox, and the big bull snake that lived in the barn.
Lily had shown Rose things too. A white clover blossom, without its stem. An anthill. A twig caught in the grass. A tiny speckled pebble. A ladybug.
Sometimes Lily went so slowly Rose wanted to snatch her up and carry her, but Ama said they should encourage Lily to be independent. Rose had given Lily one of her old baby dolls, which Lily didn’t like. Ama said perhaps Lily was jealous of it.
The last couple of days, Lily had learned about a million words—calf, clock, pj’s, Ama, please, turtle, muffin, stairs, bed, sister, drink, and more. When the lady with the briefcase asked Lily her name, Lily told her. She also introduced Rose, Ama, and Myrtle. Lily was like a beautiful clear bottomless glass that they could just keep pouring things into.
Ama kept telling Rose not to get attached. She kept reminding Rose that Lily didn’t belong to them. But she could, Rose wanted to say, because Iris didn’t want her. Rose’s hope was that the longer Lily stayed, the more likely Ama was to love her.
“Of course,” the lady with the briefcase explained, “Lily belongs to Iris. But until Iris’s future is known, and as long as she’s incarcerated, are you willing to have temporary custody?”
“Yes,” Rose said.
“For now,” Ama said. “We’ll see what happens on Monday.”
Before she left, the lady gave Ama a card with the jail’s visiting hours. She said they were all three on the approved visitors’ list. Ama put the card in her pock
et without reading it.
* * *
That afternoon, Rose led Lily upstairs and gave her paper and crayons. Ama and Myrtle were busy bringing the spring calves and their mamas up to the barn. Tomorrow the vet would come and vaccinate the calves and castrate the little bulls. Rose took the crayons away when Lily put them in her mouth. She gave Lily books to look at, but Lily wanted Rose to read them to her, or she wanted to read them to Rose.
“Book, Ose!” Lily said, taking Rose’s face in her hands to claim Rose’s attention.
Rose wanted to be at her desk. She had an idea for making a fish mobile to hang in front of the potty chair Ama had installed in the bathroom. Ama had brought it down from the attic, where it had been since Rose was little. Lily didn’t like to sit on it. Rose was going to fold a whole school of fish out of waxed paper and build a mobile that would make sitting on the potty chair more interesting for her sister.
Or she might do some other kind of paper art. Something she hadn’t thought of yet. Something that would just come to her the way ideas did. But it was hard to think or have ideas when Lily kept taking Rose’s face in her hands and saying, “Ose!”
* * *
That night, after she’d read Lily to sleepiness, then rubbed her back to finish the job, Rose went downstairs to brush Ama’s hair. The lamplight and the smell of angelica drifting through the window made Rose want to curl up on Ama’s bed. But she needed to sleep with Lily in case she woke up.
“Before you brush my hair,” Ama said, “let me trim your bangs. They’re falling in your eyes.”
Ama had said that very same thing last Sunday—only a few days ago. But since last Sunday, Rose’s heart had broken and mended, she’d discovered her sister, she’d gotten to know her mother a little.
Rose and Ama stood face to face, Ama in her striped pajamas, Rose in her blue nightie. Ama’s breath brushed Rose as Ama held Rose’s bangs between her fingers.
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