Forget that. The end was in sight, and the excitement kept Darya from going under.
She tried Suki after she got off the phone with Steph, but the call went to voice mail. Suki was probably at church with her parents and little brothers. The Kyungs went to church a lot. There was a potluck every weekend, it seemed. Lots of orange fluff marshmallow salad, although Suki had confided that it wasn’t technically a salad.
“It’s served on lettuce, which is maybe why they call it a salad,” she’d told Darya, in the hushed voice of someone sharing a very important secret. “But no one eats the lettuce.”
“Ah,” Darya had said. “Sneaky.”
Suki had nodded. “I know, right?”
Darya hung up without leaving a message, although again, she ached to share her own sneaky news.
Ugh, she was driving herself crazy.
No, not crazy. Double ugh!
But she needed to get out of the house. She needed to move!
She went outside, dashed across the yard, and continued through the taller grass beyond, mounting a slight hill and skittering down the opposite bank. It was hot, and sweat pooled at her hairline and on the small of her back. She was breathing hard when she reached the field of wildflowers she loved so much.
She propped her hands on her thighs, bending over until her heart stopped hammering. She lay down among the flowers and reached out to Mama with her mind. She tried to remember every single thing she could about her, but her memories were slippery silver fish: darting here, then there, then whoosh, gone in a flash if Darya got too close.
Did Mama have the same problem, or did Mama remember every last thing about Darya?
That’s what mothers were supposed to do. Good mothers, anyway. Steph’s mom surely did. Suki’s mom too, Darya suspected. Tally’s mom?
Better not go down that road.
Better, perhaps, not to lump mothers into “good” versus “bad,” period. Maybe, to use Natasha’s incredibly annoying word, things were more complicated than that.
Or not.
Darya closed her eyes and let the sun anoint her skin, and it crossed her mind that maybe, at the most basic level of all, mothers and daughters were just . . . people. Darya didn’t know where she was going with this thought, but once upon a time, Mama had been a daughter. She’d also been a student, a friend, a baker. A wife.
People were people. A single label was too small for anyone.
And yet . . . mother. Wasn’t that a bigger label than most? Darya knew that being a mom wasn’t all a woman who had children was supposed to be. She could still try new chocolate soufflé recipes and solve math problems and have a career, whatever. But wasn’t the “being a mother” part supposed to be really, really high on the list of what to focus on?
Like, take Tally’s mom. Darya didn’t mean to think this, she didn’t, but why couldn’t she make herself get better? Darya understood that Tally’s mom had some kind of mental illness, and that wasn’t her fault. But there were doctors, right? And medications? If a doctor told Tally’s mom, “Do this, and you’ll feel better and be able to take care of your daughter,” why wouldn’t she?!
BUT THEN.
On the other hand, why would a mother leave?
Darya had heard the same rumors Tally had, that Mama had gone a little crazy in the days and weeks and months before she disappeared.
So possibly Mama and Tally’s mom both had some sort of mental illness.
Darya blinked in surprise, because she found that it was much easier for her to feel forgiving of Mama—if Mama was mentally ill—than it was to have a soft heart toward Tally’s mother. That wasn’t cool. She vowed to not be so judgy about things she didn’t fully understand.
But when it came to Mama . . .
In the big picture, it didn’t matter, because Mama didn’t have a mental illness. To say someone had gone “a little crazy” was just a figure of speech.
She tried, as she’d tried before, to feel her way into the murkiness that crazy dredged up. And by crazy, Darya meant a teensy version of crazy, as opposed to “diagnosed, for real, with a chemical imbalance or some sort of syndrome.”
Like . . . eccentric crazy! That kind!
For example, what if Mama said that olives were delicious—
Or no, because olives truly were disgusting.
So, orange fluff marshmallow salad. She yawned, but stuck with it. If Mama said orange fluff marshmallow salad was all kinds of delicious, and everyone else in the world said, “No, it’s awful,” that would mess with her after a while. Wouldn’t it?
If someone told Darya that poison was delicious, or dog food, or poop, Darya supposed she might think that person was a little on the crazy side.
A breeze ruffled Darya’s hair, and she curled onto her side and rested her cheek on the pillow of her hands.
You’re safe, the violets whispered.
Shhh, crooned the forget-me-nots. Shhh, shhh.
Long ago, when Darya told Mama about how the flowers talked to her, Mama’d said, “Of course they do, sweet pea.”
Then.
After.
After Mama left, Darya had walked to the mailbox with Aunt Vera one afternoon. Darya said something about how chatty brown-eyed Susans were, and Aunt Vera had stopped in her tracks. Aunt Vera had glared at the brown-eyed Susans, who fell silent. Then Aunt Vera had glared at Darya, and the pressure in her chest told her she’d done something bad. Next came shame, hot and heavy.
Aunt Vera’s lips had folded in on themselves, and Darya’d heard the words she didn’t say.
Flowers didn’t talk.
Little girls certainly didn’t hear them if they did.
But Darya wasn’t so little anymore, and she got to decide, didn’t she? What to believe and what not to believe?
Shhh, the violets said.
The sun is warm.
The air is sweet.
Rest for a spell. All will be well.
We wish for sun and rain and rich, moist soil. We wish these things for her.
—THE VIOLETS
We wish for her to remember.
—THE FORGET-ME-NOTS
We wish for her to know.
—THE BROWN-EYED SUSANS
We wish for her to grow.
—THE GRASS
CHAPTER TEN
(before)
Mama is having a gray day, and there is a sour smell in her room that makes Darya’s nose crinkle. She wonders if she was wrong to knock on the bedroom door, and wrong to push on in when Mama didn’t answer. Maybe she should have kept on working with clay at the kitchen table, with Natasha.
The clay is salt and flour and water all mixed up, and the smell it makes is heavenly. The feel of it on Darya’s hands is heavenly, too. It’s still there even after Darya washed up, because she didn’t wash up all the way.
Darya brings the back of her hand to her nose and breathes in, and she thinks it makes the sour smell go away a little bit. She does it again, for courage, because Darya is the brave sister. It’s her job to cheer Mama up. Natasha won’t, because Natasha is the good sister who does what she is told. Ava’s only three, so no one knows yet what Ava is, except that she likes to squeeze handfuls of applesauce in her chubby fists. She likes the way it squelches out, which Darya understands. It’s that same way with the clay.
And then Darya thinks that Ava is the clay sister! Because she hasn’t been molded yet. She’s still being squelched out!
Darya laughs, and Mama says, “Is that you, Darya?”
She’s in bed with her quilt drawn tight. Her hair is greasy, which Darya doesn’t like. She likes Mama’s soft and shiny hair, not this greasy hair that lies on the pillow flatly.
“I made you an art project,” Darya says. She steps closer. “It’s called ‘Autumn.’ That’s the theme Miss Annie gave us, and Thomas didn’t know what theme meant, so Miss Annie had to tell us. It means what you want your art project to say. Do you want to see my art project, Mama? Should I get it?”
&
nbsp; “Baby, I would love that,” Mama says. Her voice is tired, but it’s a yes and not a no, so Darya knows her idea was a good one. Mama loves art. Maybe Darya’s art project will make Mama come back from herself, and everything will be sunny again.
“I’ll get it. I’ll be right back.” Darya pivots on her heel, then turns around again. “Only, do you want to see the one I did for Miss Annie or the one I did for myself, out of the clay Natasha made for us?”
“Natasha made clay?” Mama smiles. “What a good sister. You’re lucky to have such a good sister. Do you know that, Darya?”
“I’ll get them both,” Darya says. “I’ll be right back.” She leaves with quick steps and pretends she doesn’t hear when Mama calls for her to close the bedroom door, please, it’s letting in too much light.
She thumps downstairs and grabs her art. The preschool one is on a piece of construction paper. It’s crumpled a bit, but Darya doesn’t mind because she doesn’t like it anyway. Or, she did like it at first, but Miss Annie said she didn’t do the theme right, and that changed things.
She puts her bits of clay on top of the drawing and lifts the drawing by the sides, so that it’s a basket and the clay bits are the picnic treats inside. Only they’re not picnic treats. That’s silly. But clay would be good for making picnic treats, if the theme was picnics.
She hesitates, thinking what a nice pea she could make if she sat back down at the table. One canoe-shaped bit for the pod and three rolled-up balls for the peas inside the pod. It would be easy! She wants to touch those three little peas she hasn’t made. She wants to roll them in her palms until they’re just the same size and just the same roundness.
But Mama is waiting, and also Natasha is talking to her. She’s saying, “You’re not supposed to bother Mama. Papa said. She’s napping and we’re to leave her alone.”
“You leave her alone,” Darya says. “I’m going to show her my art.” And I’ll make the peas and the pea pod later, she tells herself. And a carrot, and a sandwich—a sandwich would be fun—and a cookie, with bumps and pinched bits to show that it’s chocolate chip. Then she’d have an autumn theme and a picnic theme. She can do whatever themes she wants, without Miss Annie to say, “You did well, Thomas!” or “Oh, Darya, you’ve put in quite a lot of effort. I can see that. But it’s not exactly autumn you’ve drawn, now is it?”
Back in Mama’s room, the hallway smell and the staircase smell and a little bit of kitchen smell have made the sour smell better.
“This is my preschool one,” Darya says, putting the clay to the side and handing Mama her drawing. It’s on a red piece of paper, and she used crayons to draw lots of little girls, all of them in star shapes, like they’ve been caught in the middle of doing jumping jacks, or cartwheels. Only the girls look more like blobs than stars. Also, the girls’ hair—which was supposed to be in doggy-ears—looks more like messy scribbles.
“They’re falling out of a tree,” Darya tells Mama, “except I didn’t draw the tree right.”
“Is this the tree?” Mama says, touching three long lines on the side of the paper.
“Miss Annie thought it was a zucchini! And the girls are the leaves, and that’s why it’s autumn—because autumn is another name for fall. But Miss Annie said my effort wasn’t good enough.”
Mama studies the drawing. She really studies it, sitting up a bit in her bed and pushing her hair behind her ears. “It’s a picture puzzle,” she says. “You have to put the pieces together to figure it out, but that’s what makes it so wonderful. I love it, Darya.”
Darya is whooshed up by happiness. The puzzle pieces inside of her come together just like the puzzle pieces of what she drew, and everything feels right again.
“Do you think I did the theme right?” she asks Mama, to make sure.
“I know you did,” Mama says. “Can I see what you made from the clay?”
Darya scoops the bits from Mama’s dresser where she dumped them. She spills them onto Mama’s lap.
“This is the girl, and she’s better, isn’t she? Than in the drawing?”
Mama turns the girl around. Darya used a cookie cutter. That’s why it worked.
“These are the leaves, and see these holes?” She made the holes by digging a pencil tip through the clay and going swirl, swirl, swirl. “That’s so I can hang them up, after I make a tree.”
“How will you make the tree?”
“Twigs. And glue.”
“Will the girl be falling from the tree, like in your drawing?”
“Yes, but better. I haven’t figured out how, but yes.”
Mama smiles, and Darya feels her own face burst into a grin.
“You have big plans.”
“Uh-huh. I wanted all that to be in the drawing, but . . .” She pushes her breath out. “Miss Annie couldn’t see it.”
Mama lifts her chin. “Well, I can. Would you like to know what else I see?”
Darya nods.
“I see a little girl with a huge imagination, and I wonder what her story is. I wonder what she’s already done, and I wonder what she’s about to do. I see the whole world unfolding before her.”
Darya holds still, letting those nice things wash over her. She soaks in all the Mama-ness she can.
“Do you have a blank piece of paper?” Mama asks. “And a pencil?”
Darya doesn’t, but she can get them. She returns and gives Mama a piece of notebook paper, a freshly sharpened pencil, and a hardback picture book to bear down on. Mama didn’t ask for that last thing, but she nods approvingly.
The book is The Ice-Cream Cone Coot and Other Rare Birds, which Darya loves, even though it scares her. It’s full of pictures of birds that aren’t real, not like the bluebirds and thrushes that perch in the trees in the backyard. The book pretends they are real, though. Like the Garbage Canary, who has a trashcan for a body, or the Cupadee, which is a teacup on legs. Like the Jackknife Niffy, which is described like this:
I do not trust the Jackknife Niffy. He could swoop down and cut off your nose in a jiffy.
The Jackknife Niffy gives Darya the shudders, but she can’t not look at it when she reads the book. Right now is not book-reading time, however. Darya watches curiously as Mama draws a tilted glass with a heart spilling out of it. She turns the picture toward Darya and says, “Can you see what this is?”
“A bottle with a heart coming out of it,” Darya says.
“Yes, but it means something more than that, too. Try thinking of it in a different way.”
Darya studies it. She tries really hard. “A wine bottle with a heart coming out of it?”
“The expression is ‘Pouring your heart out.’ Have you ever heard that before?”
“No. Maybe?”
“Let’s try another.” Mama draws something new. “Think of it like a puzzle, like the picture you did for Miss Annie. The theme was autumn, and you drew a girl falling out of a tree, because ‘fall’ is another word for ‘autumn.’”
She twists the paper toward Darya. This one is just words, but they’re squished together and one is bigger than the others.
yourLUMPthroat
“Any thoughts?” Mama asks.
“Your lump throat,” Darya says.
Mama smiles, and that makes Darya feel good. Except Mama doesn’t say, “Good girl, well done!” She says, “When you cry, what does it feel like?”
“Sad?”
“Yes, but what does it feel like in your body?”
Darya doesn’t want to get it wrong. “Um . . . tearstained?”
“Hmm,” Mama says, and Darya squeezes her hands into fists. She does feel tearstained when she’s sad. She feels like she might feel tearstained soon, but she fights against it.
Mama points at the word lump. “What’s this word?”
“Lump.”
“Right! What’s it in?”
“What’s it in? What do you mean?”
Mama covers “lump” with her finger. “What does it say now?”
; “Your throat.”
“Right again!” She moves her finger. “So the lump is . . . ?”
Darya stares at the puzzle. She thinks really, really hard, so hard, and then suddenly, the fog in her brain goes away—and she hadn’t even known she’d had fog in her brain. “Lump in your throat! Is that what it means? Did I get it right?”
“You did. Very good!”
“Do another,” Darya says, because she’s beginning to understand. She can’t look at Mama’s puzzles the normal way, or she won’t figure them out. She has to look at them sideways, kind of.
Mama taps the pencil against her chin, then scribbles on the paper. She shows it to Darya, saying, “You are getting so smart that people are going to think you’re this.”
Darya peers at it. First she has to sound out encyclopedia, which is a big word even for a “precocious” reader like herself. Then she tries to figure the puzzle part out. Is it an encyclopedia wearing shoes? No, because that doesn’t make sense. Darya is learning that the puzzles have to make sense for them to work. And she’ll know when the answer makes sense, she thinks, because . . . she’ll just know. Because that’s what making sense means. Because when a puzzle piece fits, it fits.
And then the fog clears, and it happened so much more quickly this time.
“A walking encyclopedia!” she crows.
Mama laughs. “Very, very good, Darya. Not everyone can think outside the box, but you can.” She cocks her head. “That’s a pretty awesome skill, you know. I think you’re going to be just fine.”
Darya smiles, but she doesn’t understand.
“One last one,” Mama says, and she makes the pencil fly over the paper.
Darya scrunches her mouth. “Hmm,” she says, just like Mama said earlier. “Hmm.”
She thinks of different answers, but none has the right rightness to it. Then, all at once, the answer clicks into place. “Catching some Z’s!”
“Well done, Darya-potato,” Mama says. “And now, that’s what you need to let me do.”