Waiting for Normal (8 page)
I got out of the car at school and she stuck her head out of the window. “You’re as much fun as bird poop on a windshield, ya know.”
I shrugged. Maybe she was right.
“
H
ey, Little Cookie? Where you been?” Soula tucked one finger up under her wig for a “ scratch.
“Oh, around,” I said. I knew she meant that she hadn’t seen me over the weekend. I’d stayed inside the trailer feeling like it was my job to be there—like I had to hold down the fort until Mommers got back.
“Everything okay over at your place?” Soula poked her chin in the direction of the trailer.
“Yeah,” I said. I tried to sound natural, even perky. I took the broom out of the corner by the checkout and started sweeping the floor.
“Hey, Cookie …” Soula hesitated.
“What?” I stopped working to look at her.
“Does your mama have some troubles?”
I didn’t answer.
“Maybe something with her moods?” Soula said. “Does she get real happy, then real sad? I mean more so than other people you know?”
I twisted the broom in my hands. I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said.
I knew that if I told anyone Mommers had been gone all those days, it’d be the same as last time: something bad would happen because of it.
“She’s got a new job,” I blurted. “Been working real hard at it, too. She’s kind of an all or nothing person, I guess.”
I left the minimart right after that. I went home thinking, All or nothing, all or nothing. I realized how true that was.
Mommers was always getting ideas. Big ideas. She always dove right in, too, like she was in a hurry, like a person trying to catch up. She didn’t go to college when she finished high school. She was having me instead. She always said she hadn’t gotten to fulfill her Love of Learning.
But Mommers had kept trying. One of her ideas had been about going to school to become a nurse. That was right after Brynna was born. Dwight wanted Mommers to go and he said they’d find a way to pay for it. He changed his hours at work so he could be home with Brynna and me while Mommers went to class. She started night school. She came home with all the textbooks and sat on the bed with them opened so I could look with her. I watched her label all her new notebooks with perfect, straight letters for each subject.
“I love medicine,” she’d told me. She’d snapped the cap back on her pen. “Do you know that the best time of my life was being in the hospital having you? And then again with Brynna? Birth is so exciting, Addie! If I could put that experience in a package and sell it, I’d be rich. Everybody would want it. I’m going to be a great labor and delivery nurse.”
But something happened to the nursing school idea. She stopped going just like that. It was so hard to understand because it had been her
all
. Then suddenly, it was
nothing
. Then, after Katie was born, Mommers got a new idea. She decided to become a psychologist and help people with their problems. Again she came home with all the books and her class schedule. Dwight bought her a computer to do her work on. But soon she said she needed to do her studying at the library. She was gone every night. She slept late every morning.
One night, Grandio came to take care of Brynna and Katie and me. Dwight went out and when he came home he brought Mommers with him. She kicked and screamed and cried for hours. She stayed in bed the next day—doing nothing. Dwight took on more jobs. He was working from sunup to sundown—sometimes longer. That’s when I started making toast dinners.
When Mommers finally got up, she discovered the Internet. She started chatting with all sorts of people who had great business ideas. She stayed online through the day and into the night. That became her
all
. But Dwight didn’t like that. I’d hear them arguing—something about losing money on the Internet. There was a lot of fighting until finally Mommers said she wanted the divorce. Dwight moved out and some time after that Mommers packed a bag and left us alone for those three nights in the middle of winter.
That was the time I blew it—the time I told Dwight that she was gone. That split us all up, pretty much for good.
I
t turned out that it was fine with Mommers for me to go to Grandio’s for Thanksgiving supper and on to Lake George with Dwight afterward.
“If you really want to go to Jack’s farm for Turkey Day, okay. But there’s no way I’m going,” she said. She was watching
Jeanette for the
Judgment
and didn’t take her eyes off the show. “
Stick it to him, Jeanette!
” she cheered. “Jack will be just as glad if I’m not there. I’ll make my own plans.
Judgment for the defense!
I’m gonna do something with Pete. And if Dwight wants you for a couple of nights, that’s cool with me.
Make him
pay her back!
I have plenty to do. Just get on the right bus back here come Sunday, will ya?” Then she mumbled, “I can just see myself driving up and down the Northway …”
“I’ll get the bus,” I said.
She dropped me and my paper bag suitcase and my flute (had to practice) off at Grandio’s farm on Thanksgiving Day. “Don’t forget to feed Piccolo,” I reminded her. She waved a hand at me and sped away. I watched her blue car rolling and bumping away down Grandio’s rough driveway. The hillside was covered in that long yellow November grass that looks like it’s been combed into low humps. The trees in the orchard were bare except for a few dry old apples still clinging here and there. The sour smell of fallen fruit still hung in the air. I spun around slowly, letting my flute case and my paper bag fly along beside me in my outstretched arms. I remembered climbing in those apple branches with the Littles while Dwight and Grandio worked on the old barn together, while they mowed the fields, while they raked leaves. I remembered Grandio saying that having Dwight around was like having a son again. I remembered family birthday parties, sit down suppers and everyone together under one roof. I remembered us just being
normal
.
It’s good to be here again—good to be across the bridge, I thought, as I made myself dizzy. For a second, I forgot where I lived, which place was home.
“Addie? Jeepers, girl! Git in here!”
I stopped twirling, but the world did not. “Hi, Grandio,” I called. I staggered forward a few steps, then waited. When everything had stopped spinning, I smiled to see him standing in his apron at the door to the stone farmhouse. He was squinting at me like I was nuts. I ran a few steps so as not to keep him waiting.
The good smells from the kitchen hit me at the door. Grandio had done Thanksgiving like I’d never seen it done before. He had stuffed and roasted a turkey and had made brown gravy. There were whipped potatoes keeping on the stovetop, green beans in the steamer, cranberry orange sauce in little china dishes on the table and baskets of bread on the sideboard.
“How’s everything with you, girl?” he asked. But I already knew that Grandio didn’t listen for answers much.
“Place looks great,” I said. It was true. A fire roared in the fireplace, there was bittersweet on the mantel. The candles waited to be lit. He lifted an apple salad out of the fridge and added it to the spread.
“You’ve thought of everything!” I said. And soon I knew the reason why.
Dwight and the Littles arrived about a minute later. With them they brought three different kinds of pie and another person—a pretty woman in a long skirt and a big sweater. She threw a thick brown braid over her shoulder and waved a mitten covered hand at Grandio and me as she strode toward us.
Hannah
.
In a second, Brynna and Katie were all over me, both talking at once and giggling about a turkey song they’d learned. Everything was hugs and greetings and the swish of jackets being run up the stairs to Grandio’s spare bedroom.
“Where’s Mommers?” Brynna asked suddenly. Katie stopped still and looked around the bedroom almost like she wasn’t sure who we were talking about.
“She couldn’t come,” I said, knowing it was more like
wouldn’t
. I glanced at Hannah and figured that was just as well. “She’s having turkey dinner with Pete. She works with him.”
“Work? Humph,” said Grandio. He wrestled a jacket onto a hanger. “That woman wouldn’t know
work
if it walked up and punched her in the nose.” I frowned at him but he didn’t see me. “And she goes through men like corn through a hen. And the results are about the same.”
That wasn’t the first time I’d heard him say that.
Dwight put his hand up. “Jack,” he said softly, and that was all.
I didn’t see why Grandio had to put Mommers down—again—especially with this new Hannah person watching. Hannah shifted her stance and looked at Dwight. “Well, gee, the whole house smells so good!” she said. She rubbed her hands together. She had a smile that came easily and took up most of her face. She looked at Grandio and he seemed to soften as he grinned back at her.
“I better get back to the kitchen. Turkey isn’t gonna baste itself,” Grandio said. He hurried toward the stairs.
“We’ll be right down,” Dwight called after him.
Hannah turned to me. “Addie, I feel like I know you.” She had a voice like butter and brown sugar. “Do you know how often we talk about you at home?”
That was kind of weird. They all had a home that I wasn’t part of. I looked Hannah over. I’d known all of them longer than she had. Those were
my
baby sisters and Dwight had been my stepfather longer than she’d known him. Something inside me wanted to tell her so. But I kept turning soft. I liked her wide smile. It was real.
Dwight put his hand on the back of my neck and gave me a squeeze. “Can’t wait to get you up to Lake George,” he said. I leaned into him, then felt the warm pop of his lips kissing my head.
“We should warn you, Addie, the place is kinda a mess,” Hannah said. She tilted her head at Dwight and they both laughed.
“Yeah, I should really explain …um …everything.” Dwight shuffled his feet. Hannah cleared her throat.
“I’ll leave you two to catch up,” she said. “See you both downstairs.” She brushed Dwight’s arm with her hand and herded my sisters into the hall. “Let’s let Dwight talk to Addie. Shall we go see your granddad’s fire, girls? Hmm? Let’s go warm our hands.”
“They’re cold and wosy,” Katie said. I could hear her feet as she two stepped her way down the stairs.
“She means
rosy
,” Brynna added, her voice fading.
The upstairs was quiet.
“So what’s going on?” I asked Dwight.
He blinked. “Boy, you sound so much older the way you just said that.”
I shrugged. No matter what else he had to tell me, at least I wouldn’t hear anything about boobs from Dwight.
“Um, listen. Hannah and I are …well, we’re …uh …”
“You like her,” I helped.
“Oh yeah.” He grinned. Then he got serious. “I never expected this. Not now. She was just my boss, ya know?”
“Boss? At work? Hannah owns that mansion you’re working on?”
“Yeah. She’s turning it into an inn—a bed-and-breakfast. She has investors but it’s her place. She makes all the decisions. And, man, I’ve never seen anybody work harder.”
“She sounds awesome,” I whispered, and Dwight nodded.
“This whole thing has been such a surprise, Addie. It’s been fast.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I just meant to stay focused and do the work. Pay off the debts. But then …Hannah and I started spending time together and she does so much for the Littles. And it all comes so easily somehow …”
I swallowed. “I’ve found some friends too,” I said. I thought of Soula and Elliot, and Helena and Marissa. “So, I know what you mean. It feels good to care about someone else,” I said.
“Exactly.” He let a second go by. “And this is serious. We’d like to get married this summer, Addie.”
“Oh,” I said. A funny little breath went through my lips. “Things must be
really
good.”
“Great! Things are great.”
“And you moved?” I said.
“Yes.” He shuffled his feet again. “We live with Hannah. We’re making one section of the inn into our home. It’s not finished, but it’s warm, dry and comfortable. It’s better for the Littles this way. It really is. One of us is always there for them.” He paused. “And Hannah loves them both.”
I nodded. “They are really great, aren’t they? I mean they are easy to love, and Hannah seems so nice. Looks like they like her, too.”
“I think so,” Dwight said. “I wish it could be all of us, you know that?”
I couldn’t answer him then. I was thinking of the way Katie always said “…all to home.” I swallowed against a lump in my throat and gave Dwight a little punch in the shoulder. I stopped him on the stairs a minute later and told him, “Thanks for telling me everything.”
L
ate that afternoon Hannah and I sat on a pair of footstools by Grandio’s fading fire, just the two of us. This was not by mistake; I had wanted to get her alone. Flames still wrapped the sides of a slender log or two but most of the fire had settled down to coals.
“I love the embers,” Hannah said with a Thanksgiving sort of sigh.
“Me too,” I said. I watched them winking red and orange a few seconds longer. But I needed to get to my business—the business of being nosy with Hannah. This was more than a get-to-know-your-neighbors mission. Hannah was with my little sisters all the time—beneath the same roof. She was with them as much as a mother would be with her children, I thought. Dwight trusted her, so I did too—mostly—but I still wanted to know more about her.
“Hey, Hannah,” I said, “I was wondering something. What did you do before you got the inn?”
“Well, there’s a good question,” Hannah said. She sat up a bit. “I like to say that my adult life has been all about twos and fours.” She showed me two fingers, then four fingers, then two again. She pushed her hands forward when she did this almost like she was dancing from her little seat by the fire.
“Twos and fours?” I closed one eye at her and she laughed.
