Falling into Place (2 page)

Margaret shut her bedroom door, sat down on her bed, and pushed herself back until she was resting against the wall. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest.

It was all right. She didn't need to hug her dad the minute he came home from a trip. That was what she used to do when she was little. Maybe babies needed a hug when their dad had been gone for a week. But not eleven-year-olds.

Anyway, it wasn't as if Dad missed
her
hugs. Why should he? He got so many of them now. Not once, in all the months since Wendy and the girls had come to live with them, had he ever said, “Where's my number-one hugger?” the way he used to. Maybe he'd gotten tired of having only one person around to hug, she thought. Maybe he liked being hugged by three little girls who were so much younger and prettier than she was.

She got up and went over to her dresser and stared hard at her face in the mirror. Horrible brown hair, dark heavy eyebrows over plain brown eyes. Nose too thin, mouth too wide. She frowned, and watched with grim satisfaction as the furrows between her eyes deepened. When she heard a soft knock at the door, she whirled around. The door opened a crack. Claire stuck her head around the edge and looked at Margaret with huge eyes.

“Margaret,” she said breathlessly, “Daddy brought us presents! Come see.”

Claire looked like an angel. Everybody said so. She had a mass of curly blond hair and dark blue eyes, and a neck so delicate it looked as if her head could topple right off.

An angel who clung to Dad every time he came into the room, Margaret thought, watching her. An angel who seemed to appear from nowhere whenever Margaret got her father to herself, and squeeze in between them so insistently it made Mr. Mack laugh.

Margaret felt a sudden urge to wipe the happy, excited look off Claire's face. “He's not really
your
daddy,” she said slowly. “He's mine.”

Claire's mouth fell open and then froze in an astonished “O.” She blinked once as tears rose in her eyes like water up the side of a glass. And then as suddenly as she had arrived, she disappeared, and the door closed with a soft click.

Margaret walked back over to her bed and sat down. She shouldn't have said that. She hadn't really meant to hurt Claire. It was just so hard sometimes, this new life of hers. Dad and Wendy kept talking about how great it was that she was eleven going on twelve. How mature she was, compared to the little girls. But she didn't feel mature. Sometimes, like now, when she could feel a lump rising in her throat, she felt like a baby.

There was another knock at the door. This time it was her dad.

“Hi.” He hesitated with his hand on the doorknob. “Can I come in?”

“I guess.”

Mr. Mack shut the door behind him and came over and sat down on the edge of her bed next to her. He rested his warm hand on her knee. “You disappeared so quickly, I didn't get to say hello.” He smiled a questioning smile. “You're getting too old for hugs, is that it?”

“Kind of.” Margaret looked down at her lap, hiding her face from him with a curtain of hair.

“Did you miss me?” he said.

She shrugged.

“I missed
you.”
He waited. When she didn't reply, he reached out and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “It sounds like it was kind of a tough week,” he said.

“It was okay.”

She could feel her dad looking at her. “Wendy told me about the game you made up for the girls in the basement,” he said at last. “She's afraid she may have overreacted.”

Margaret looked up into his dark brown eyes that were so much like her own. “I
told
Claire the queen was going to be arrested and thrown in the dungeon,” she said fiercely. “Dungeons
have
to be dark. I
said
we had to tie the queen up so she wouldn't escape. I said
I
would be the queen. But Claire always has to be the queen, or she cries.”

“Wendy knows that,” said her dad. “It's just that Claire's afraid of the dark, and Wendy was worried your game was going to make it worse.”

“Claire's afraid of everything,” said Margaret. She looked down into her lap again quickly. The sympathy in his voice wasn't for her, it was for Claire.

“Hey, come on.” His voice was gentle. “This hasn't been an easy summer for any of us, Margaret. It's so hot, everyone's cranky. Wendy says the little girls have been wild all week. After the baby's born, we'll go to the shore for a week. Things will get back to normal.”

Oh, no, they won't, thought Margaret dully. Things were never going to get back to normal. Normal had disappeared the day she ran out to the car after school in the third grade and found a woman she'd never seen before sitting in the front seat next to her dad.
Margaret's
seat, which had been hers for her whole life, practically. All Dad had said was, “Margaret, this is Wendy. Hop in the back, like a good girl.”

After that, everything that was normal in her life had started to fall. Like dominoes when they're set up on one end and spaced the perfect distance apart, so that when the first one is pushed, the rest follow in a constant ripple until the last one is knocked over.

First, Wendy came to dinner with “three surprises”—Claire, Emily, and Sarah.

Then Gran called to say Tad was sick.

Then Wendy and Dad got married.

Then Gran and Tad had to sell the house on Blackberry Lane and move to Carol Woods so nurses could take care of Tad.

Then Dad said Wendy was having a baby.

Then Tad died.

Plinkplinkplinkplinkplinkplink.

Margaret had thought all the dominoes in her life that could be knocked over had been. Until yesterday. Yesterday, when Wendy called to her from upstairs, and Margaret went running up to find her standing in the doorway to Margaret's room with her arms outstretched and a smile on her face, saying, “What do you think? Isn't it beautiful?”

And there was Claire's bed, pushed up against the wall where Margaret's desk had been, and a pink rug on the floor. All night long, she'd had to listen to loud crinkling noises every time Claire turned over. She was sharing her room with a six-year-old bed wetter, and Dad hadn't even talked to her about it first.

“Come on.” The weight of his hand on her head made her look up. For the first time, she saw that his face was drawn and tired, and that the nerve under his right eye that twitched when he was getting a headache was pulsing rhythmically. “Is it really as bad as all that?” he said.

The answer was on the tip of her tongue, but she didn't say it. He didn't really want to know. They had had this discussion a million times. He wanted her to be on his side. He wanted to her to cope. To grow up, and act eleven. Even if the only difference between being ten and being eleven was one tiny second.

When the screen door under her bedroom window slammed, they both started. There was the sound of running footsteps, then wheels spinning furiously on the gravel driveway.

A shrill tricycle bell rang.

“I'm sick of them,” Margaret said. “Everything they wear is pink. Their shoes are pink, their pajamas are pink, even their underwear is pink. I'm sick of it.”

“Pink?” He sat back, amazed. “That's what this is all about? The color pink?” He laughed a kind of giddy, relieved laugh. “Would it make you feel any better if I made them wear brown?”

“It's not funny, Dad.”

He was immediately somber again. “I know it's not. Listen.” He clamped his hand around her knee and held it there, as if steadying a nervous colt. “You know what I think? I think you need a break. How would you like to go to Gran's?”

Gran. The moment Margaret heard the word, a feeling of relief surged up in her so strong that she rose onto her knees without realizing she had moved. “Could I, Dad? Could I really? By myself?”

“She called last week to invite you, but I told her I thought you wanted to be here when the baby was born.”

“Oh, I don't care. . . . I mean, I do care, I do.” She backtracked quickly to wipe away the hurt look on his face. “It's just that I haven't stayed with Gran since Tad died. I miss her so much. You don't need me around here. Wendy's had lots of babies without my help.”

“We weren't exactly expecting you to deliver it,” said her father.

“Oh, I know. I didn't mean it that way.” Margaret clasped her hands together and willed herself to slow down. He
had
to say yes. If he didn't let her go to Gran's, she would die.

“Gran needs me,” she said carefully. “You said you thought she was lonely. She wouldn't be if I was there. She's never lonely with me around. I could help her dig a garden, and we could take long walks, and watch old movies. . . . Oh, please, Dad?”

He looked at her for what felt like a very long time. His expression was serious, as if he was looking for a way to tell her no so she wouldn't be disappointed. And then his face changed, and she knew he had made up his mind.

“Okay.” He smiled. “I'll go call her now.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you!” Margaret cried. She leapt up off her bed and started to twirl deliriously around the room. Gran! Someone to talk to. Someone who would understand. She would tell Gran everything. About the dominoes, about Claire, about Dad . . . Margaret crashed into her dresser and yanked open the top drawer, pulling out socks and underwear like a thief ransacking a house.

Her dad watched her from the doorway with an amused expression on his face. “We'll call you the minute the baby's born,” he said.

“Not if it's after nine o'clock—you know Gran.” Margaret flopped down on her stomach and felt around under her bed for her shoes. “Can I take the train like I did when I was nine?” she said with her cheek pressed against the rug. When her hand settled on the familiar shape of her sneaker, she pulled it out and sat up. “I remember everything,” she recited. “I get off at Chester—it's the eighth stop. My grandparents are Mr. and Mrs. David Mack. Well, it's only Mrs. Mack now. Their telephone number is 555—” She stopped. “Does Gran have the same number?”

“Yep.”

“Good. Then it's 555-9244. See?”

“I'm impressed,” said her dad. “It's been a while.”

“Almost two years,” said Margaret. Her first train trip alone to stay with her grandparents had been their ninth birthday present to her. It was only a short ride, but she could still remember how it felt sitting next to the huge window on the slippery leather seat, gently rocking from side to side as the train raced down the tracks. The backs of houses and stores and factories rushed by, and the air was filled with the faint smell of metal. She'd had a flutter in her stomach every time the train slowed down to pull into a station, wondering if it was her stop. What if she got off too early? Or what if she realized it was the right one only as the train was pulling out?

The minute the train pulled into Chester, she had relaxed. There was no mistaking it. Gran and Tad were standing on the platform with a white sign that said
MISS MACK
in huge red letters, like limousine drivers waiting for someone important. They had promised they would meet her that way every year. Even though Tad was gone, Margaret knew Gran would remember.

She could hardly wait.

She opened her closet door to look for her suitcase. “Don't get your hopes too high,” her dad cautioned. “Gran doesn't seem to be fitting into Carol Woods the way we hoped. I think Tad's dying so soon after they got there was very hard on her. She doesn't seem to have made any friends. The rules and regulations are getting her down a bit, too. She sounded kind of flat the last time I talked to her.” “Gran doesn't care about rules,” said Margaret. “I'm afraid that when you live in a retirement community, you have to.”

“Not Gran.”

“Just don't get her all worked up over them, all right?”

“Don't worry.” Margaret spotted the orange handle of her suitcase under a pile of junk at the bottom of her closet and knelt down. “I'll cheer her up. Gran's always happy when I'm around.”

Her dad didn't say anything for a minute. Then, “What about that hug?”

Margaret paused with her hand on the handle. She knew that she should get up and run across the room and throw her arms around his waist, that she wouldn't get to hug him again until she got back from Gran's. But for the first time in her life, she didn't feel like it. Anyway, he'd have plenty of hugs while she was gone.

And she'd have Gran.

There was a sudden wail from outside, followed by a second, angrier, wail. Margaret yanked at the handle and fell back against her bed as the suitcase shot out onto her lap.

“Emily probably took Sarah's bike,” she said without turning around. “You'd better get out there. Remember what happened the last time?”

“Oh, great, and Wendy's taking a nap.” Her dad was halfway down the stairs by the time Margaret stood up and laid her suitcase on her bed. She heard the back door slam, then his deep voice from outside.

Plink.

It didn't feel good, having another domino fall. But at least this time she'd been the one who'd done the pushing.

“Oh, stop sniveling,” said Margaret. “It's just a little blood and gravel.”

“I'm not sniveling. My nose is running and I have to breathe it back in.” Roy cupped his hand around the bloody patch that was his knee. “I think I can see bone.”

“You should have taken a running jump, like I told you.” Margaret licked at the trail of cherry Popsicle that was running from her wrist to her elbow. She stared down at him from the top of the stone wall.

She still couldn't get over the shock she'd felt yesterday when she saw Roy as the train pulled into the station. There was Gran, standing where Margaret had known she would be. Margaret's heart had started to soar, but then, just as quickly, it had stopped. Gran wasn't alone. A little boy with round tortoiseshell glasses and an expectant look on his face was standing next to her. Her cousin Roy, who wasn't even supposed to
be
there. The way his hand was tucked so comfortably into Gran's as he leaned against her had given Margaret the strangest feeling. As if she was the visitor and he was the one who belonged there.