Summer Snow (35 page)

“Thank you, Simon,” Grandma said, hugging him back. “Did you do this? Did you decorate and make that—that
amazing
cake?”

“Yup, but Julia helped. And she let me climb on the counter.”

“Simon!” I yelped.

“Julia!” Grandma cried.

“He was fine,” I stated quickly. I glanced at Janice, afraid that she would be furious with me, but she was busy with the pizza boxes, opening them and laying them out on the counter now that Grandma was home.

“We ordered pizza,” Simon told Grandma, ushering her to her chair. “We didn't want you to think about cooking or cleaning or anything!”

“We thought it would be relaxing,” I added, dropping a kiss on my grandmother's cheek. “Happy birthday.”

She touched my hand as it lay on her shoulder. “Thank you, Julia. This is so sweet. So fun.”

“That's the idea.”

“We have everything for a party. There's cake,” Simon enthused, needlessly pointing out the dessert that graced the center of the table, “and cards and presents.…” He swept his arms over the little pile by Grandma's plate. “And Julia said we could probably play a game later.”

I winked at him. “It's up to Grandma, remember? Whatever she wants to play.”

“Well,” Grandma said slowly, “I think I could take you on in a game of Yahtzee.”

Even Janice laughed at Simon's whoop.

We ate slowly and lingered over root beer floats, and though Janice was quiet, she wasn't unpleasant. The conversation darted around her, taking off in a million different directions as Simon's imagination was sparked. He even got Grandma to tell us stories about when she was a little girl, and her account of helping her mother make homemade laundry detergent and scrubbing their clothes on a washboard on the front porch made everyone's jaw drop.

“But we have washing machines,” Simon remarked, confused.

“We didn't back then,” Grandma told him.

Simon still looked like he was at a loss. “But, Grandma, you're not
that
old.” He pulled his knees underneath him and stretched impulsively across the table, grabbing Grandma's hand where it rested beside her plate. Simon turned her hand over in his fingers, studying the lines with as much concentration as Michael had considered mine. Grandma's fingers looked gnarled in Simon's small, dark hands. They seemed much older when embraced by his straight bones and smooth skin.

“You're right,” Grandma said eventually, giving Simon's hands a loving squeeze. “I'm not that old at all.”

My oversensitive spirit was sobered by the obvious untruth of such a statement, but Simon was already on to something else. “We have a present for you!” he exclaimed. “And a card!”

The card was significant, and I tried to release my anxiety as Simon reached for the pebble green envelope. We had decided that the time was right for his little revelation, for Grandma and Janice to finally discover what we had been secretly working on for months. Like he'd hoped, Simon was indeed able to read at least a bit, and though I could really take no credit for his learning, nearly everything he had managed to pick up had come from our morning sessions. It was true that a number of words he simply had memorized, but still I was proud of him in a way that I couldn't really understand. When I heard him read, when I watched his thoughtful forefinger follow words across a page, I was overcome with a gentle elation that rose up and up until I found myself grinning and wishing big things for Simon that went far beyond stringing together his ABC's.

“Here.” Simon scooted out of his chair and went around the table to hand Grandma the card. The second she touched the envelope he changed his mind, snatching it back quickly and ripping it open. “I can do it for you.”

“Okay.” Grandma giggled.

“Look.” Simon showed her the card. “It's a garden—just like yours. And it says, ‘Happy birthday.'”

Grandma smiled at Simon, but he was looking at the card. She caught my eye, giving me a funny look.

I shook my head, casting off her attention and nodding back at the little boy who stood with his arm just touching hers.

“And on the inside—” Simon opened the card—“it says, ‘I hope your birthday is as lovely as you are. Love, Simon.'”

He had written his name at the bottom, each letter round and neat, painstakingly drawn and perfected as he chewed his tongue. “Look there, Grandma.” He pointed. “I wrote my name. And I read this whole card.”

“You did?” she asked, a grin lighting up her face.

“I did,” Simon said gravely. “Julia taught me how.”

“Surprise.” I waved my hands sheepishly.

“I know how to read!” Simon threw his arms in the air and yelled again, “Happy birthday, Grandma!”

Laughing, Grandma caught him in another hug. “That's a wonderful surprise. What a great birthday present.”

“It's kind of for all of us,” Simon said earnestly.

“Oh, of course,” Grandma responded, equally serious. “I wouldn't want to keep something like that to myself.”

I tore my eyes away from them to see Janice's reaction. Clearly she knew that Simon had learned his letters in preschool, but wasn't she impressed that he was able to thread at least some of them together? that he was able to read? Simon had, in fact, done it for her. He had wanted to amaze his mother, make her proud.

But when my gaze found Janice, the look in her eyes was resigned, as if she was steeling herself to follow through with a decision that had already been made. She sat across from them, watching my grandmother rub a gentle hand across her son's back. Their heads were bowed together over the special card, and Simon's lips moved a mile a minute, explaining enthusiastically. Grandma wasn't looking at the card. She was studying Simon, a mixture of love and pride battling cheerfully across her face. Janice observed them with a tired smile tugging at the downturn of her lips.

Stop!
I wanted to yell.
You don't understand!

It was like watching a train wreck unfold: I could see the engine, barreling down and oblivious, and Janice, on the middle of the tracks, trapped in the glare of the headlights, panic-stricken and pale. But it was all a misunderstanding. A mistake. Janice was supposed to be Simon's mother; he was supposed to be her son. Yet I could tell by the look on her face that she was regretting the decision she had made nearly six years ago.

Watching Simon interact with my grandmother, easily, openly, as if it was the most comfortable and natural thing in the world, I could see that Janice was berating herself for her own self-perceived weakness. In her mind at least, Simon would have been happier in a more stable family. In a family where a woman like my grandmother called him “Son.” Where there was a devoted father, maybe even siblings, a dog. It was why she wanted me to give my baby up for adoption so desperately.

In an instant, I knew that Janice was hating herself for not having the strength to let Simon go when she had the chance. She was trying to figure out how to make it right.

“Simon,” I said suddenly, my voice high and uneven, “why don't you show your mom how you can read?”

The little boy yanked the card away from Grandma and bounded around the table to bring it to Janice.

See?
I longed to say.
He loves you.

Janice opened her arms for him and lifted Simon's slight frame onto her lap. She rested her chin on his shoulder and watched as he opened the card and read it yet again. “Great job,” Janice murmured when he was finished. She kissed the side of his head, breathing in his little boy smell. “You are so smart.”

“I know,” Simon quipped back. Then he slipped off her lap and came to tug on my arm, telling me it was time for cake.

Although everyone seemed happy and light, I rose to get the cake knife with a deep sense of dread pinching my chest. What would Janice do with these feelings, these beliefs that were written across her face as plain as day? I knew she considered herself a failure as a mother. I knew she regretted many of the decisions that she had made regarding Simon and, I suppose, regarding me. But what was she going to do to right her mistakes? I hoped that I didn't know Janice as well as I thought I did.

The cake was perfectly moist and gooey with chocolate fudge, but I barely tasted it. Instead of enjoying it, I continued to watch Janice watch Simon and allowed myself to become ever more morose, feeling guilty because it was my grandmother's birthday party.

After Grandma had opened her presents—the birdhouse from Simon and me and a pretty deep-dish pie plate with frilled edges from Janice—I got up to clear the table. My legs were heavy, and I wished that there were something I could do to erase the disquiet that hung around Janice like an almost tangible mist. I felt like we were finally doing okay; we were finally getting somewhere. And now she was going to talk herself into more feelings of failure, of inadequacy.

I couldn't let her topple everything we had been working so hard to create. I would have a talk with her later, I decided. Sit her down and try to undo some of the lies she had told herself. I would even listen to all she had to say to me about adoption, about letting go. If nothing else, I owed her the chance to get it off her chest, to have the conversation with me that she should have had with herself years ago. Though it made a sob catch in my throat just to think of it, I wondered if, given the chance, Janice would be able to convince me.

But before I had the opportunity to give my plan any more thought, Janice opened her mouth and changed our world. “Simon, honey, come here a sec.” She scooted back from the table and pushed her knees apart, welcoming Simon when he came to stand by her by pulling him in between her legs and closing them tight. “Gotcha!” she said quietly, hugging him fervently for a moment.

“Mom.”
Simon wiggled against her grasp, but Janice did not let go.

“I have a surprise for you, Simon,” she said, refusing to look at either Grandma or me.

I was standing behind Grandma, holding a stack of dirty plates that I quickly put on the countertop. My hands were shaking.

“But it's Grandma's birthday,” Simon said, eyeing his mother warily. His nose was only inches from hers.

“I said a
surprise
, not a present,” Janice clarified. There was a little smile on her face, but I was sure that her eyes were wet in the dimly reflected light of the kitchen.

Simon shrugged. Waited.

Janice took a deep breath and tightened her arms. “Do you know why we came here, Simon?”

“So that we'd have a place to stay,” Simon answered simply.

I was surprised that he could answer the question without any clarification. At first I didn't even know what Janice was asking. It was hard for me to believe that Simon could even remember a time without us or why he and Janice had journeyed to Mason over five months ago. I had a very hard time picturing my life without him.

“You're right. But why did we come to Grandma Nellie and Julia's house?”

All at once I knew what she was going to do, and Grandma must have realized it too because she collapsed a little in front of me. I saw her shoulders wither, and a tiny exhalation deflated her enough to cause me to put my hands along the sides of her arms, holding her together, holding her up.

“They're our friends,” Simon explained.

Janice nodded. “Yes, they are. But you know what? They're more than that too.”

I didn't know what Simon was capable of grasping at the age of five, but his eyes darted to mine and then sought out Grandma's, and there was something sparkling and enchanted in them. Whatever Janice was going to say, he believed that it was a wonderful secret, something sweet and unexpected and delightfully mysterious. It was all a magnificent game.

Still refusing to look at me, Janice said the thing that I had been longing to admit since the day she and Simon showed up on our doorstep. “You know how you've always wanted a little sister, Simon? Well, you don't have a
little
sister, but you do have a
big
sister. Julia is your big sister, sweetheart.”

The punch line was a bit confusing for Simon, and although I could tell he wanted to laugh, to celebrate, he didn't quite get it. His eyebrows furrowed together in uncertainty. “But you're
my
mommy,” he said.

“I'm Julia's mommy too,” Janice replied slowly, as if measuring her words would make them easier to digest.

“But.…” Simon's head turned from his mother to me, trying to connect the dots and apparently failing.

Janice tried again. “A long time ago, I lived here in Mason, and I had a beautiful baby girl. I named her Julia. And then I …” She trailed off, struggling to find the right words to cover all that had happened and then condense them into a format suited for an almost-kindergartner. I didn't envy her in her task. “Then I had to go away for a while and … and find
you
.” Janice cupped Simon's face in her hands. “But now you're home, and I can tell you that Julia is your sister.”

Her words were nowhere near sufficient. They didn't begin to scratch the surface of the truth, of all the things that would need to be revealed to my younger brother. But for now, for this night of birthday cake and surprises, Janice had said enough. It was a beginning, and finally Simon knew that I was his sister.

He was studying me with his great, dark eyes, the color of damp earth under an overturned rock, half-hidden behind his perpetually crooked glasses. I studied him back. And then, as though seeing me for the very first time, Simon's face sparked to life and he waved at me from between his mother's arms. “Hey, Julia! Did you know that you're my sister?”

I nodded mutely, beaming at him in contradiction to the sick feeling crawling around in my stomach, loving him, even as I began to understand what Janice had just done. “
You're
home,” she had said. Not “
We're
home.”