Jubilee (9 page)

L
eaves drifted outside the window. It was Saturday: Aunt Cora's birthday.

Gideon came up the path with a chocolate cake from a bakery near the ferry stop on the mainland.

“Surprise!” he boomed as he opened the kitchen door.

I knew Aunt Cora really wasn't surprised. We did this every year. But she opened her eyes wide, and covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, my. I can't believe it.”

She opened the box he handed to her. I leaned forward to see. It was a necklace with a motorcycle dangling from the silver chain. She looked at me, smiled, then leaned over to hug Gideon. “I love it. It's the only speed you'll get from me!”

She loved the book a friend had sent too, and she always had tears in her eyes when she opened my present.

This year I'd found a jasmine plant covered with white blossoms on Windy Hill. I'd potted it up in a yellow planter from the shed, and covered the whole thing with Christmas paper turned inside out, and two of my gold hair ribbons.

“Oh, Jubilee,” she said. “You are everything to me.”

That made me think of Gideon wanting to be a family. I had to give him the cartoon I'd made.

I'd done something else. I'd sneaked Aunt Cora's birthday cards out of the mailbox during the week so she could open them all at once. One of them was from my mother. I'd seen that handwriting dozens of times.

Usually she read all of them aloud.

But not this time.

She read my mother's card, then tucked it under her plate and went on to show us the others.

After we ate, I went outside to give Dog a birthday treat, a double dog biscuit, thinking about that card.

It was still there when I came back, and Aunt Cora had gone to check on the altar flowers for tomorrow's Mass. And Gideon had gone to the ferry.

I took everything else off the table—crumpled napkins, glasses, the cake plates—until there was nothing left but Aunt Cora's plate with the envelope tucked underneath.

I couldn't leave them there.

I wiped my sticky hands on a birthday napkin. Why was I sure the card was from my mother? The return address was in the town where the ferry docked on the mainland.

Would Aunt Cora mind if I looked at it?

She never minded anything I did.
I love you, Jubilee. I've never loved anyone as much as you.

I slid the plate out of the way and picked up the card.

That's what it was.

A birthday card from Amber. Amber, my mother.

Her handwriting was big and loopy and the
i
s were dotted with circles:

Dear Cora,

You know I can't stay in one place very long. Now I've come back to Maine, to Smith Street. I have a job in a bookstore. I miss my girl. I wish things had been different. I don't know if you want to tell her that I'm here from California.

If you think it might upset her, then don't. I leave it up to you.

Love,

Amber

I sank onto the chair. I was the girl Amber missed. She was the mother who wished things had been different. That's what I wished.

I put the card back under the plate, even though they looked strange on the bare table. But they were blurry now; my eyes were filled, my throat tight.

I went down the hall to my bedroom and opened the window wide so the sea air could blow over my face.

Then I lay down with Dog until Aunt Cora came home. I heard her begin dinner, the refrigerator door opening and closing, the pots rattling on the stove.

I knew she was putting my mother's card away somewhere. She must have been trying to decide what to do. And knowing Aunt Cora, it would take a long time. Too long.

How could I wait?

T
he next morning, Aunt Cora pointed at two woolly bear caterpillars that were wandering around. They were the color of chocolate candy; that meant a cold winter.

Good. I loved the snow on the island and the dark nights when I could read in my robe and my fuzzy slippers. Did my mother love snow? Did she know about woolly bears?

I wanted to know so many things about her. Suppose…I shook my head.

But Aunt Cora was leaning over the last of the tomatoes. This morning she'd cut them carefully. The kitchen would steam and the windows mist as they simmered.

“A jubilee of tomatoes!” She handed me a perfect red one, warm from the sun. “Just like your Pippi Longstocking hair.”

It was a perfect fall day. I bit into the tomato's soft skin. The sky was a sharp blue, and apples dotted the trees along the road.

I hugged her, then hurried to meet Mason at the wharf, dozens of cartoons in a folder under my arm.

I'd made up my mind. Mason was truly my friend. How could I not show him the pond? I wanted to show him the bale of turtles sunning themselves on that lacy log, or hiding deep under the clear water.

Mason waited down on the road. He wiped his jeans that had two dirt spots, round as the apples on the trees. “Hey, Jude!” he called.

I beckoned, pointing to the road that led up to Windy Hill.

“Wrong way.”

I kept going, looking back over my shoulder.

He shrugged, then caught up to me.

Lemon-colored leaves shimmered on the trees as we climbed, and then Dog gave a little whine.

It was Travis, twirling beside a twisted little pine, using a small blue blanket for wings, or maybe a tent.

Sophie was nowhere in sight.

Travis stopped twirling and waved, then hid himself under the blanket. Mason and I grinned at each other and kept going until I saw the tangled mass of ivy that covered the walls of my cottage.

We walked around to the pond. I felt the excitement in my chest. I couldn't wait to see what he'd say. And then we were there.

He stopped. “Oh, Jude. Wow.”

We smiled at each other and I pointed to the turtles on the bank, four or five of them, one almost on top of another, their heads raised to the sun, their legs splayed.

“We could write…,” Mason began.

I nodded, pulling him down to sit on a pair of rocks that edged the pond. I showed him my cartoons: turtles on a log, piled sky high; turtles snapping at frogs; turtles pulling in their heads as an egret went by. It was all there, everything I knew about them.

He was grinning. “You're the best.”

We heard the blast of the ferry horn. “I'm supposed to be home,” he said. “I have to go.”

I waved. I wanted to stay. There was something I wanted to do. Dog and I waited, watching Mason run down the path.

I made my way to Ivy Cottage, pushing back the stone and ducking inside.

I was drawn to the silver mirror in the bedroom, the place where I could talk. I sank down in front of the mirror. “I want to see my mother.”

What had her card said?
I miss my girl.

“Then why did she leave? What was wrong with me?”

Dog came in and sat next to me. I stared at our reflection in the mirror. “I can't wait. I'm going to go to her.”

I sat back. “Yes,” I said. “Somehow. I'm going to see my mother.”

Would I stay forever, or just a few days? Would she really want me there?

“Tomorrow night. That's when I'll leave.” I took a loud breath, and raised my shoulders the way Mr. Kaufmann did.
Take it easy.

“I can do this.”

I left the bedroom, Dog following. I was a little afraid, but I knew my plan was right.

Dog and I went back along the road slowly, passing Travis halfway down. “I'm a giant!” he yelled, grinning at me. With a front tooth missing he looked more like a small jack-o'-lantern.

I grinned back at him. I made the scariest face I could think of, and curled my fingers into giant's claws.

He loved it.

But Sophie appeared out of nowhere. She must have seen my face, because she shook her head. Without saying a word, she took Travis's hand and led him away, walking around us, almost stepping on my foot.

I opened my mouth, but what could I say? No wonder she thought I was weird.

Never mind. I had a friend. I had a mother.

I
sat with my quilt wrapped around me and Dog lying across my feet, thinking of how it might be. I'd knock on my mother's door and wait until she answered. What would she say? Would she reach out and put her arms around me?

And how was I going to get there?

I closed my eyes. First, I'd need to get off the island without anyone seeing me. I wasn't invisible after all.

I remembered Mason hiding in that boat. Suppose I borrowed one? But I'd have to leave it on the other side. The owners would search and search, and maybe they'd never find it.

The word
stealing
came into my mind.

What about taking the ferry?

I'd hide in one of the ferry closets, leaning against the canvas hoses and extra life jackets, just in case someone I knew was on board.

Smith Street. I remembered that. But what was the number. Suppose there were a dozen houses? Two dozen?

I'd have to find that card again.

The next day was Monday; that night I'd leave. I ate my breakfast and went to school.

I kept glancing at the clock on the classroom wall for the rest of the long day. When the dismissal bell rang, I was the first one out the door. I had to be home before Aunt Cora. I was glad she walked slowly, that she took her time admiring the birds that fluttered from tree to tree, and the plants along the road.

I'd search. She squirreled things away in her sewing box, or in the kitchen drawers. You could find things just anywhere.

I found the sewing box, but the card wasn't under the messy spools of thread; it wasn't in the side pockets with the tiny glass buttons that belonged to one of my long-ago baby dresses.

I spent the next half hour searching the cabinets, the drawers with the knives and forks, the pantry closet.

It wasn't in the kitchen.

I glanced out the window. Aunt Cora wasn't coming up the road.

The card had to be in her bedroom.

How could I go in there? Aunt Cora never came into my room without knocking. She never opened my dresser drawers to put things away without asking.

I shook my hands in front of me, ready to cry. Without that address, I wouldn't find my mother.

The living room clock chimed once: four-thirty. I rushed down the hall and into Aunt Cora's bedroom.

I touched the gold and green quilted bedspread and the top of her shiny dresser. I opened one drawer at a time, looking down at her boxes of earrings, her pajamas and rolled-up socks.

I knew it was wrong, even as I ran my hands underneath her sweaters, then opened the bottom drawer.

Inside were a few scarves, a pair of woolen gloves, papers in uneven piles. It would take forever to look at it all.

Aunt Cora might be walking toward the house right now.

I scrambled through the pile; I found birthday cards I had made for her, and a heart scribbled over with a red crayon for Valentine's Day when I was five.

Did I hear the front door open?

There was the envelope! In the corner it said
416 Smith Street.

I'd find her.

She'd open the door.
I knew you'd come someday,
she'd say.

Aunt Cora called, “I'm home, honey.”

I closed her drawer, smoothed the quilt, then darted into my room and sank down on the bed, out of breath.

I'd done something terrible. If I could talk, I'd have told Aunt Cora.

After a while, Gideon came for dinner, his big voice filling the room. “Monday night, meat loaf and mashed potatoes. What could be better?” He winked at me.

It was our least favorite meal, and Aunt Cora laughed.

I hardly ate, thinking ahead to tonight.

Back in my room, I wrote a note to Aunt Cora:

I love you, but I want to see my mother.

I've always wanted that.

But what would I do without Aunt Cora? What would she do without me?