Sleepy time?
Bitty
Stupid cat.
“Bad word, Bitty,” said Elinor softly.
I opened my eyes, then closed them again, feeling myself slip into sleep. Elinor was dreaming.
Wasn’t she?
Chapter 4
MAMA SET THE BREAKFAST table for three. She smacked the plates down with some force: one, two, three. They made loud sounds on the tablecloth. There were flowers in a blue vase.
“What’s this about?” I asked her. “Cloth napkins?”
“We’re going to have a talk, the three of us,” she said, her voice sharp. “A serious talk.”
Bitty
About time.
“I’ll put the dogs out so we won’t be distracted,” Mama said.
“There’s thunder,” said Elinor. “The dogs won’t like that. What’s ‘distracted’?”
Mama sighed.
“All right. The dogs can stay.”
“Can Lula stay too?” asked Elinor.
Lula wore a pink smocked dress. She sat on Elinor’s lap like an interested baby.
Mama sighed again.
“Yes, Lula can stay.”
Elinor looked at the dogs sitting around and gave what Mama called a “queen’s wave.” The dogs lay in a row, watching the three of us at the breakfast table.
Mama poured coffee for her and orange juice for us. She buttered toast and put it on our plates.
“Now,” she said, sitting, her light brown hair still messy from sleep. “We all know that Papa has left. For a while.”
“What is ‘for a while’?” asked Elinor.
Mama’s coffee cup rattled in the saucer.
“Elinor. Please don’t interrupt. For a while means for a while.”
Elinor didn’t answer. Grace got up and went to stand next to Elinor’s chair. Elinor put her hand on Grace’s head.
Why shouldn’t Elinor ask that question? What was “for a while”? Why shouldn’t we know that? Unless maybe Mama didn’t know either.
“Now, Papa sometimes does things that aren’t best for all of us,” Mama began.
I’ll say. I said it to myself so I wouldn’t annoy Mama. But Elinor plowed on.
“You mean like leaving us so we could get dogs and Lula?” asked Elinor.
Mama leaned back and closed her eyes.
“Yes,” she said finally. “I know you miss him. . . .” She looked at Elinor, then me. Elinor looked knowingly at me. How did she know I didn’t miss him? She had been sleeping.
“I know you miss him especially,” she said to me.
My throat hurt. Neo lifted his big paw and put it on my knee. It was warm there.
“Well, we’ll just do the best we can while he’s gone,” said Mama. “You know he loves you both.”
Then why, I began in my head.
Elinor finished my thought out loud. “Why did he leave, then?”
Mama took a deep breath.
“He is confused,” she said.
“Maybe he’s just flawed,” said Elinor in her tiny voice, remembering Mama’s words.
“Oh Lord,” said Mama, putting her hands up to cover her face. All her energy was suddenly gone.
Wearily, Bryn got up and pushed her nose under Mama’s arm. Mama put her arm around Bryn’s neck.
It was quiet.
No one spoke.
“Do you want to say anything, Will?” asked Mama as if dreading it.
I shook my head.
There wasn’t anything to say. Not to Mama. I didn’t want to make her cry.
Nothing to say.
Except for Max, coming into the house.
“Wow! Flowers, Mrs. Watson! Cloth napkins! What’s going on?”
Bitty
Will’s not saying anything.
Grace
Not a word.
Neo
It’s because he’s scared.
Bryn
And something even worse.
Bitty
What?
Bryn
He’s protecting them both. His mother, his sister. What could be harder than that?
Neo
As hard as his mother trying to protect them, too.
Everyone is protecting everyone.
Chapter 5
MAX AND I WERE IN THE PARK talking about school.
“I’m going to miss fourth grade,” said Max. “I could stay in fourth grade forever.”
I laughed at the thought of a fifty-year-old Max in fourth grade, sitting on a small chair in front of a small desk, his knees up to his chin.
We watched Bitty and Neo race around. People laughed when they saw them, one-hundred-pound Neo and fifteen-pound Bitty, best friends. Bitty leaped up over Neo’s back, and they both ran into a grove of trees.
“I know,” I said. “New teacher.”
I was quiet, and Max looked sideways at me.
“Have you heard from your father?”
“Nope.”
“Where is he?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Last time he went fishing.”
“Sometimes parents are . . .” Max stopped talking.
“Stupid,” I said.
Max didn’t say anything.
“The dogs make Mama happy,” I said.
I turned to look at Max.
“I think we should get some more dogs!”
Max looked shocked for a moment. It was so easy to fool him.
We both laughed, sitting on the park bench.
But I wasn’t laughing very hard. It was true: The dogs made Mama happy. But she didn’t talk about Papa. I didn’t talk about Papa. No one talked about Papa, except for Elinor, who spoke for all of us.
Maybe more dogs were the answer.
And that night, when I slept, with Bitty on one side and Neo and Lula on the other, I dreamed about a house filled with dachshunds, and poodles, and terriers, and Labradors, and hounds and border collies, and Portuguese water dogs and bulldogs, all the mixes known.
And Mama was happy.
The next morning when I got up there was no table set with flowers and plates and cloth napkins. The dogs had been fed and I could see Bitty, Bryn, and Neo in the fenced-in backyard. Lula was eating up on the washing machine. Her place.
Elinor came out of her bedroom in a princess dress with see-through wings on the back, and her wand. Grace stood by her, so tall next to Elinor she might have been a royal horse.
“Mama’s sick,” she said. “She’s lying down.”
There was a bark at the back door, and I let in the other dogs. Bryn came in first and went to Mama’s bedroom to stand by her bed.
“You okay, Mama?” I asked.
“I’m not feeling well, William. Some bug, maybe. Will you please get Elinor some breakfast?”
“Sure.”
Bryn put her head on Mama’s bed, and Mama reached over to pat her.
“Go lie down, Bryn,” said Mama. “Go lie down, girl.”
I went to find Elinor. Bryn followed me.
“Do you want some breakfast?” I asked Elinor.
“Apples with NO skin,” said Elinor. “And cut-up bananas dipped in cinnamon.”
I smiled and went into the kitchen with Elinor.
Bryn
I wonder . . .
Grace
You wonder what?
Bryn
I just wonder . . .
Lula
She’s going to have a baby, isn’t she?
Neo
She speaks at last!
Bitty
Is that true? Do you think? Do Elinor and William know?
Bryn
No. She’s not talking.
Chapter 6
MAMA FELT BETTER and her friend, Marvelous Murphy, came to visit. I don’t think Marvelous was her real name. Grandfather said it wasn’t and that she had made it up, “crazy woman.” But Mama liked Marvelous. Marvelous was a good friend to Mama. She never spoke bad words about my father and she made Mama laugh. She had no
children, but had seven exotic chickens, some with strange topknots on their heads. Some even laid colored eggs: green, blue, ivory.
Marvelous was a writer “of sorts” (Grandfather’s words) and was wiry with the “personality of a nervous whippet” (Grandfather’s words again). “Put some weight on her,” said Grandfather, “and she might slow down a bit.”
Marvelous plunged into the house, surprising the dogs. She kissed each dog on the mouth, surprising them even more.
“Hi, William. You married yet?
“Here, Elinor. I brought you these tacky necklaces to wear with your magic costume.”
“No,” I said to Marvelous. “I’m not married.”
Marvelous spoke so fast you were always playing catch-up trying to answer her questions.
“Thank you,” said Elinor. “This is my princess costume.”
“But magic, yes?” asked Marvelous.
“This is magic,” said Elinor, picking up her sparkling wand and waving it.
The dogs lined up: Neo, Grace, Bryn, Bitty.
“Well, that is clever!” said Marvelous.
“No,” said Elinor. “It is magic.” Elinor moved closer to Marvelous. “Do you believe in magic?” she asked.
“Well, I believe in the magic of my own writing!” said Marvelous.
Bryn snorted.
Elinor looked at her.
Bryn
That’s rubbish.
Neo
How do you know?
Bryn
I lived with a writer once. Writing is not magic. Only hard work. My writer said that the ones who thought it was magic never wrote anything good.
Bitty
Spent their time waiting for the magic instead of writing.
Chapter 7
AFTER MARVELOUS MURPHY went home, Gran and Grandfather came for lunch.
“I dragged Emma away from the blanket that covers Rhode Island,” said Grandfather.
Gran dropped her knitting bag and went to pet all the dogs.
“Oh, you excellent dogs!” she said. “Are you the most beautiful things in the world?”
“They are,” agreed Elinor.
“I should knit them winter coats,” said Gran. “What color?” She got out her measuring tape and began measuring Grace.
“Oh, Mama, they don’t need slipcovers, for heaven’s sake,” said Mama.
“Not now they don’t, but when bad weather comes they’ll want knitted coats.”
Grace
I, for one, would love a knitted coat. I’m always cold in winter. Blue, please.
“Grace said she’d like a winter coat,” said Elinor.
“Yes, Lambie,” said Gran, “I heard her. Blue.”
Elinor sat down and stared at Gran.
“Gran’s just kidding, Elinor,” I said.
“It’s magic,” said Elinor stubbornly.
Gran gave me an amused look.
“You don’t believe in magic, William?” she asked.
“There’s no such thing,” I said.
“Aha,” said Gran, measuring Bitty from neck to tail. “You aren’t young enough. Not old enough. Maybe not brave enough.”
I stared at Gran.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Magic,” said Elinor fiercely, eyes half-shut, furrowed brow, what Mama called her “Miss Crankypants” look.
It made Gran and me laugh.
And I forgot to find out just what Gran meant—not brave enough.
It was evening. Mama was in the kitchen when the phone rang.
“Get that, please!” she called.
Elinor, who loved the phone, answered.
“Hello. The house of Elinor.”
I smiled. I had taught her to say that.
“Hello, Papa,” said Elinor in her small voice. She did not look happy or sad. She was very still. “You should have called before. You said you would.”
The dogs looked up.
“Yes,” said Elinor.
“Yes.”
Pause.
“Where are you?”
Pause.
“I have a cat, Papa.”
Mama appeared in the kitchen doorway, listening. Her face was pale.
“Her name is Lula. She wears my baby clothes.”
Pause.
“Do you want to talk to William?”
Elinor looked at me, and I shook my head.
Elinor looked up and saw Mama.
“Papa . . . I miss you, Papa,” said Elinor.
Her voice seemed to have gotten even smaller.
Mama wiped her hands on a towel.
“I’ll speak to him, Elinor,” she said, pointing to the kitchen phone.
Elinor hung up the phone.
“Papa’s been sick. That’s why he couldn’t call,” she said. Her eyes filled with tears that spilled over and down her cheeks.
Elinor never cried.
“El,” I said. “El, it’s all right.” But I knew it wasn’t all right.
I put my arms around her, and she leaned into me. Grace came over and nosed her arm. Elinor put her arm around Grace, so the three of us were standing there, locked together.
“Don’t cry,” I said.
Grace
She has to cry. You have to cry too, William.
Grace looked up at me with a sharp look. We could hear Mama speaking in a voice that was sometimes soft and sometimes louder on the kitchen phone. I patted Elinor’s back.
Grace looked at me again with that look. Mama would have called it “earnest.”
Finally she moved away and went to join the other dogs.
Elinor and I stood there for a long time, listening to Mama’s voice from the kitchen. And at the end of Mama’s conversation, after she had hung up the phone with a slam, she had provided Elinor with another “bad wood” for her bad wood list. The word was “idiot,” forever number three after “stupid” and “fat.”
Chapter 8
ELINOR DIDN’T CRY AGAIN after that one time. It wasn’t that I had said anything to make her feel better. It wasn’t that Mama comforted her. Mama hadn’t seen Elinor cry. And Mama was like me. If you don’t talk about it maybe it isn’t there.
Most of all I think Elinor didn’t have any tears left in her.
For Elinor summer was tea parties under the maple tree with her friend Mavis. The dogs were invited. They ate bits of toast and jam, raisins that got stuck in their teeth, and dried apricots that mystified them. Elinor and Mavis knighted Lula. They made a crown with a rubber-band chin strap for her. Lula sat for hours with the crown, looking out the windows of the house. Other times she walked around the house with it dangling around her neck like an oversized necklace. Lula didn’t care.
Max and I played soccer in the park, running morning until evening, when we’d come home and drop. Neo and Bitty would lick the sweat off our faces if Mama didn’t see, and we would shriek with laughter on the floor. Summer without Papa was easier somehow, but there was always that phone; the threat that Papa would call again.
Or was it the fear that he wouldn’t?
One thing I knew: If he wasn’t here he couldn’t leave again.
One day Mama set the breakfast table again: plates, a tablecloth, flowers, and cloth napkins.
“Another talk,” announced Mama. “Sit down and drink your juice. I have some news. This is kind of private news, just for us. Okay?”
Bryn
She’s talking.
Lula
Yes.
Elinor looked at Lula, then Mama.
Mama sat down. She picked up one of the cloth napkins and twisted it in her hands. The animals stopped their restlessness. There was silence in the room. Lula sat on the washing machine, her crown hanging around her neck.
“Well,” said Mama. “Here it is. The news.” She took a deep breath. “I’m going . . .”
She stopped. She looked at Elinor with an expression of fear.
“Actually, it’s good news!” Mama said it with her high fake
cheerful voice. Then she stopped, and that cheerfulness fell from her face. She looked very serious.
“The truth is . . . ,” she began.
Bryn
Go ahead, say it. I’m going to . . .
“. . . I’m going to have a baby. That is, we’re going to have a baby.”
More silence.
The silence grew, so I decided to say something.
“Oh well,” I said.
“Okay,” said Elinor.
Grace
Say something nice, please.
Elinor frowned at Grace.
“That’s nice,” she said, drinking her juice. “Will it be a brother or a sister?”
Mama sighed.
“Haven’t found out yet,” said Mama. She looked at me then. “Do you have any questions?”
“Yes,” I said, surprising Mama. “Does Papa know?”
Mama sighed.
Bryn
I was thinking that very thing.
“No, William. Not yet.”
“Why are you telling us?” I asked. My voice sounded angry.
I could see tears at the corners of Mama’s eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly.
“That’s all right. You’re right, Will.”
I was tired of being the grown-up in the house. But I didn’t tell her that.
“Well,” I said. “That’s all, I guess.”
I got up to leave.
“I love you.” Mama’s voice sounded far away and little.
“I love you, too,” I said.
“Me too,” said Elinor.
We left Mama sitting in the kitchen.
“I don’t want a brother or sister,” whispered Elinor.
I grinned.
“Of course you don’t. You’re the princess! But don’t worry. You can dress him or her, push him or her around in a baby carriage, and be the boss.”
“Yes,” said Elinor, grinning, suddenly happy.
Grace
The alpha. Definitely the alpha.
Elinor reached out to touch my hand, but held it instead.
She held it for a long time.
It was nighttime. Neo and Bitty were in my bed. Lula was nowhere to be seen. She’d come later.
Mama appeared in my bedroom.
“Good night, William,” she said.
“Mama?”
“Yes.”