Perfect Glass (A Young Adult Novel (sequel to Glass Girl)) (11 page)

I didn’t know if Meg would be home or at work, so I hedged a bet and drove to her house. I parked and climbed her porch steps. I felt ten years older than when I’d said goodbye to her months ago. No one answered when I knocked, so I sat, tired and completely unsure about where to go from here. Maybe she’d come home and find me.

“Henry?” a voice called from the stand of trees beside the house.

I stood immediately, knowing both who had called out and how important this first impression would be. Yanking my hat off, I combed my fingers through my hair and used my other hand to tuck my shirt in. Mrs. Kavanagh rounded the corner of the house, smiling and beautiful like her daughter. Not sad, like I’d expected.

While I tried to move the lump in my throat so I could speak to her, she waited patiently. Just like Meg—no rushing the moments that matter.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you.” I held my hand out to shake hers, but she hugged me instead.

“Likewise, Henry Whitmire,” she said.

She tucked a strand of hair that had blown across her face behind her ear, unknowingly slashing paint across her cheekbone. I pointed to my own cheek and stammered something about her having paint on her face. She rubbed her cheek with the heel of her palm and looked at it.

“Ultramarine Violet.” She studied her hand. “Do you know what I discovered? Everything in this world has a hint of violet in it? Just a tinge.”

Reaching my hand out, I took a bit of the paint from her palm and studied it on my finger. “Yes, ma’am, I see that.”

“Reassure me,” she said. “Is everything okay?”

I sighed. “It is now.”

“Meg wasn’t expecting you this soon. And you have shadows under your eyes.”

Her clear eyes scanned my face as I scrambled for the words to explain my early appearance. All my secrets seemed obvious to Mrs. Kavanagh. Maybe this was why she’d achieved big things as an artist. She saw people—saw through the glass we all hide behind.

“You’re tired, aren’t you?” she said.

“That trip seems longer when you’re trying to get home.”

“Homesick?” Mrs. Kavanagh moved toward the front door, motioning for me to follow her inside.

“Very,” I said. “And Megsick.”

She smiled and warmed her hands in front of the fireplace. “You’ve seen a side of life most of us never will. I’m sure being home will be bittersweet for you.”

An image of the little gang of kids at Quiet Waters floated through my mind. “Yes, ma’am. Bittersweet.”

She studied my face for a long moment. “I believe you have the kindest face I’ve ever seen.”

I chewed on my lip, scrambling for a response fit for an artist who studied faces for a living. “Thanks. Don’t look too closely, though.”

“Do you know how hard it is to paint kindness?” She leaned her hip against a desk in the corner of the room, still watching me. “It’s the only part of a person I really want to capture. Everything else seems to get lost in layers of deception or defensiveness. But not kindness. You can’t hide it. And people either are or they aren’t.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” I said.

“What you’re doing in Nicaragua, Henry…it’s kind.”

I shook my head slowly. If she knew why I was standing there, she might change her mind about me. And now I knew where Meg got her disdain for small talk. Talking to Meg and her mother meant diving into the deep end of conversation.

Her face lightened into a smile and she patted my arm. “I’m doing that thing again that drives my husband crazy.” She waved her hand through the air like she wanted to erase the last sixty seconds. “I forget we’ve just met and you don’t know me. You should come for dinner soon. At dinner, I can mine the depths of your brain.”

“I’d like that. The dinner—maybe not so much the brain mining. Only because I’d hate to disappoint you.”

Mrs. Kavanagh laughed and her laugh was so much like Meg’s my stomach clenched.

“She’s closing the bookstore tonight,” she said.

I chuckled, realizing she’d seen the direction of my thoughts. “I figured.”

“Why don’t you run over there and surprise her? You might need smelling salts to revive her when she sees you.”

***

I couldn’t get to Wind River Books fast enough. Nearly tripping down the stairs, I managed to right myself and climb into the rental car. By the time I parked in front of the bookstore, evening had darkened the streets and the lights inside the store gave me a perfect view of Meg.

She didn’t see me because of the reflection on the store windows; she wouldn’t know me in this car anyway. In fact, she probably wouldn’t know me with shaggy hair and the beginnings of a beard. So I sat for a minute, watching her dusting bookshelves, either talking to herself or singing. Her feather duster had become a prop in whatever scene she had going.

She looked heart-stoppingly, breathtakingly beautiful, my Meg.

I grabbed her pathetic little metal souvenir from my bag and walked to the door, opening it carefully so the bell wouldn’t bounce around. Scratchy country music played in the background. Meg hadn’t seen me yet, so I took a minute to appreciate the adorable picture she made pretending to two-step with her duster.

“You looking for a dance partner?” I moved into the room, letting the door and the bell bang behind me.

When she started into a full run, I braced for impact and caught her in the air. She hung on for dear life while I soaked in the moment, enjoying having the breath knocked out of me by Meg.

The first thing I needed, possibly the only thing, was to kiss her and I did, for as long as I could. I let us both breathe for a minute, then I perched her on a counter so I could touch the face I’d missed so much.

I poured every bit of frustration, anger, sadness, and worry into that kiss. Meg understood and received it all, pushing her fingers into my hair and giggling against my lips. I didn’t care that anybody passing by could be watching us through the window or that I could fall right there and sleep for a week.

“I’m afraid this is another dream,” she whispered. “I’m going to wake up and you’ll still be gone.”

“No dream, honey. I’m home now.” Even as I said it, I didn’t feel the relief I wanted to feel. I wanted to be here. I needed to be here. But I’d left things undone. So this perfect moment seemed borrowed, a debt I would need to square up later.

Walking to the door, I flipped the sign to CLOSED and turned the lock. Then I cut the lights and led Meg by the hand up the stairs to a couch on the second floor. I just wanted to hold her until my world stopped spinning.

“Ouch!” She scooted off my lap. “What is that?”

“It’s your souvenir. A mangled piece of metal from a trash dump.” I’d been confident when I bought this thing but now, not so much.

She reached for the fragment and turned it over and over in her hands. “It seems more valuable than it looks.”

“I laid out quite a bit of cash for that thing.”

“Where?”

“It came from a little boy who lives in a trash dump called La Chureca. Thousands of people live there. It covers four and a half miles of shoreline on Lake Managua.” I felt my throat tightening as I tried to describe the hell of that place. “The people who live in the trash sell the metal they find and eat the food that restaurants dump. Half the kids are naked, but they tie scarves around their mouths to cut down on the smells and fumes.”

Meg was silent as she studied her treasure. “Maybe the little boy who sold it to you had money to buy food for his family after you bought this.”

“That was my thinking, anyway.”

“I love it.”

I smiled. “I knew you would.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming home?”

“Because I didn’t know for sure until I knew for sure.”

She wrinkled her nose.

“Anyway, turns out surprising you is fun.” I wound her long hair around my fist and tugged gently, still trying to convince myself I held the real thing, not a mirage created out of my extreme thirst for Meg.

“Have you seen your parents yet?”

“No…but I met your mother.”

She jerked upright. “What do you think?”

I smiled at her shocked look. “I think you look just like her. I think she’s really beautiful and smart and sweet like you. I think you’re her world.” I shrugged and hid a smile. “I think she liked me….”

Meg blew a warm breath out and smiled in a thoughtful sort of way. “I’d made that meeting into some sort of overblown, stressful event in my head. Like I had to plan a formal dinner where I would introduce the two of you and we would all sit around looking at the ceiling and the floor and feeling awkward.”

“She does want to have dinner.”

“And when you looked at her, you didn’t think about straightjackets and shuffling slippers?”

“Of course not.” I touched her cheek. “Have I ever told you I’ve got a thing for you?” I pulled her tighter into my chest.

“Once or twice.”

“I need to drop off a really crappy rental before the place closes. Can you follow me and get me home?”

***

On the way to the rental office, I had a chance to look around town. The fact that I’d come home a different person made Chapin feel like a different place. It would be easy to judge the people I passed on these streets as shallow and small-minded because they had everything they needed. Most had everything they wanted. But that wouldn’t be fair. Life’s hard all over. In different ways.

It was external forces—poverty, government—that messed with the people in Nicaragua. Here, we managed to screw ourselves up all on our own. I guess the difference was here, where we’d been blessed beyond belief, we ought to be held to a different standard.

Once I’d turned in the car and climbed into Meg’s Jeep, my long day caught up with me. I dozed as she drove out to the ranch and she woke me as we got close.

“I think your parents might know more than you think,” she said softly.

My mom and dad stood on the porch watching us approach. My mom smiled and waved, but my dad looked a little somber for my liking. Kate had definitely made a phone call. I’d barely had time to open the car door before Mom was there, hugging me.

“What took you so long?” She patted my face, looking for explanations there. “Your flight landed hours ago. I bet you’re starving.”

“I could eat.” I reached toward my dad, who hugged me hard and said, “Welcome home, son.”

By this time, my dog, Butch, had joined the reunion, doing his best to jump into my arms and complaining loudly about how long I’d been away. Meg and my mom disappeared inside, so I grabbed my bag and started in that direction, whistling for Butch to follow.

“What’s your hurry, Henry?” Dad called.

“Sir?”

“Let the girls go in and we’ll sit a while on the porch. You’ve probably missed the chilled air we have here. And you’ve got some things to clear up with me.”

I tried to shake off my fog of fatigue so I could be fully present with this rock of a man. I set my bag on the porch and zipped my coat up.

My dad perched his hip on the porch railing. I dropped into the swing and waited, knowing, from past experience, Dad couldn’t be rushed when he was working up a life lesson.

“Kate said she was fairly certain you’re home for good.”

“I told her I needed a break and I wanted to help you with planting. I’ll go back soon enough.”

I wasn’t sure how much my parents knew about the situation with Raf. I understood now that Kate spared them the details about her life in San Isidro that would cause worry. I felt like I was dancing on the edge of the roof, trying to explain my presence without falling into a full confession.

“How much of your work did you finish?” He stared right through me.

I sighed. “I finished the roof on the dining hall and got a bit of the fence put up around the property.”

“That probably took you all of a week,” he said. “I’ve seen you raise a barn in a few days. What about the building that needs finishing?”

“The thing is, Dad, building supplies are hard to come by there. It’s next to impossible to find a place that will order what you need and deliver things on time. And forget about finding men to help.”

“That’s no hill for a stepper, Henry.”

I chuckled. “Maybe not. I plan to figure it out from here and, once things are delivered, I’ll head back down and finish up. I’d just get in the way right now.”

He rubbed the back of his neck with his callused hand. “I just wouldn’t want to think you gave up when things got rough. Or you let your heart get in the way of your work.”

I shook my head but stayed quiet.

“I know what you feel for Meg. I recognize that look, because it’s the one I wore for years after I met your mother.” Scrubbing his hand over his face, he hid a smile. “You and Meg will have all the time in the world to be together. Right now, you need to do the clean thing and finish what you started.”

My neck burned with embarrassment and I struggled to maintain composure as my dad dressed me down. “Yes, sir. I’ll finish the building.”

We struck a companionable silence there on the porch until Dad cleared his throat and said, “There’s something else.” Tough as he sounded, I could tell he was showing restraint. “I saw the strangest thing in the Managua paper online today.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Seems when you search for Whitmire in that paper, you come up with an article about my son involving himself in a gang fight and drawing the eyes of the government to a certain children’s home.”

I dropped my head and stared at my boots. “I won’t deny that I caused a problem.”

“I don’t think your sister tells me the whole truth about that place.”

“I’ll tell you, Dad. There’s this kid at Quiet Waters named Rafael. He’s there because he’d been involved in a gang.”

Dad glanced up at me, eyebrows raised.

“They killed his mother after he turned one of the members in for rape.”

“Poor kid.” I could see Dad’s demeanor softening already. “What’s he like?”

“He’s this dodgy punk, acting out in all the expected ways…and some unexpected ways. And way too smart to be in the situation he’s in.”

“I’m following you.” He took a toothpick out of his shirt pocket and put it between his teeth so he could think better. I stood and leaned against the railing next to him.