Bingo Brown and the Language of Love (12 page)

Byars and her new husband, Ed, coming up the aisle on their wedding day in June 1950.

Byars and Ed with their daughters Laurie and Betsy in 1955. The family lived for two years in one of these barracks apartments while Ed got a degree at the University of Illinois and Byars started writing.

Byars with her children Nan and Guy, circa 1958.

Byars with Ed and their four children in Marfa, Texas, in July 1968. The whole family gathered to cheer for Ed, who was flying in a ten-day national contest.

Byars at the Newbery Award dinner in 1971, where she won the Newbery Medal for
The Summer of the Swans
.

Byars with Laurie, Betsy, Nan, Guy, and Ed at her daughter Betsy’s wedding on December 17, 1977.

Byars in 1983 in South Carolina with her Yellow Bird, the plane in which she got her pilot’s license.

Byars and her husband in their J-3 Cub, which they flew from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast in March 1987, just like the characters in Byars’s novel
Coast to Coast.

Byars speaking at Waterstone’s Booksellers in Newcastle, England, in the late 1990s.

Byars and Ed in front of their house in Seneca, South Carolina, where they have lived since the mid-1990s.

Turn the page to continue reading from the Bingo Brown Series

B
INGO BROWN HAD BEEN
shopping for a Christmas present for Melissa for four hours, and nothing he had seen was worthy of her. Also, Bingo only had three dollars and thirty-nine cents.

He paused in Belk’s fine jewelry department to admire the watches.

“Can I help you?” the clerk asked.

“I wish you could,” he answered sadly.

He stumbled on through Scarves and Belts, Hosiery, Cosmetics, staring at the bright merchandise with unseeing eyes.

He was beginning to have a hopeless feeling, as if he were doomed to continue walking through stores for the rest of his life. It was sort of like writer’s block, he decided. Writer’s block was a mental thing that happened to all writers sooner or later. Writers got to the point where they could not write, not even a word. Bingo had had writer’s block twice, so he knew what he was talking about.

Now it seemed to him that he had shopper’s block. He could not buy anything, anything! Even if he found the perfect gift—although this did not seem likely—he would not be able to buy it.

He went out into the mall and stood watching little children have their pictures taken with Santa. He briefly considered sending Melissa a photograph of himself on Santa’s knee, as a sort of comic present …

This idea told Bingo how low he had fallen. Shaking his head, he made his way toward Sears.

Only this morning, he remembered, he had been a happy person.

A letter from Melissa had come in the mail and, as usual, he got a warm feeling just holding the envelope. If she had just sent the envelope, Bingo had thought, he would be happy.

Actually, after he opened it, he wished she
had
just sent the envelope. The first sentence chilled his bones.

He had been in his room. He always liked to open Melissa’s letters in private, because sometimes her letters made his heart pound like a hammer.

Also his face reflected emotions the way a pond ripples at the slightest breeze.

He had closed the door, opened the letter, and read.

He felt his usual thrill when he saw “Dear Bingo.” He loved letters that started that way. Dear Bingo. Whoever had thought that up deserved a medal. Dear Bingo.

Then came the worst sentence he had ever read in his entire life.

“I finished your Christmas present today, and I KNOW you’re going to love it.”

Bingo threw open the door and stumbled back into the living room. The letter was clutched over his heart.

“Mom!”

“If you are coming in here to ask about the baby—”

“No, no, I’m not.”

Bingo’s mom was seven and three-thirtieths months pregnant, and she knew whether the baby was a boy or a girl, but she wouldn’t tell Bingo or his dad. She wouldn’t even give them a hint except, “It’s either going to be a boy or a girl.”