Perfect Glass (A Young Adult Novel (sequel to Glass Girl)) (3 page)

Deciding to leave her to her memories and try again tomorrow, I turned to leave. I moved too quickly and snapped a branch with my shoulder. I froze, held my breath, and prayed. The door creaked open and she grabbed my arm with a bony hand, turning me around to face her.

“Stop right there.” Her voice, which had been so soft, almost sweet, moments ago, was hard and bitter again. “You’re trespassing.”

“Ms. Russell, it’s me, Meg. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Gather yourself and get right back in your car.” Her voice left no room for argument, although her posture spoke to me, too. As she opened the door wider and stepped out, her slumping shoulders and sunken chest told me she was lost and confused. And defeated.

“Would you look at all these leaves?” I said. “Next time I come, I should rake them up for you.”

“I don’t think there’ll be a next time,” she said.

“Ms. Russell…is there something I can help you with tonight? Can I fix you some dinner?”

She jammed her hands in her pockets and glared.

I nodded toward her studio window. The little boy’s face was clear from this distance. “The painting—is that your son?”

She reached behind her and slammed the door shut, blocking my view from the window with her body. Shooing me with her arms and her feet, she gave me no choice. I turned and hurried to the Jeep.

Neighbors were now watching out of their windows, probably waiting for Jo to start shooting. Just before I reached the Jeep, she stepped close and pushed her palms into my back. She applied just enough force to make me stumble and sprawl across her gravel driveway, cutting my palms and ripping a hole in my jeans.

Wow
. I’ve had some embarrassing moments in my life, but this, getting knocked down by an old woman in full view of her neighbors—who did nothing but close their curtains, by the way—felt like a circus act.

From: Henry Whitmire

To: Meg

Subject: Universal laws and love

There’s no law that says I can’t change my mind. I have. I’ve changed my mind. I want to come home to you.

I’m scared. Not because I’m in danger. I’m scared everyone I care about will finally see that I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m supposed to be fixing a roof and finishing a building, but I haven’t truly started either. I don’t even know how to get the right supplies here. Back home I’d have raised three barns by now and filled them with working equipment.

Remember the kid I told you about
…
Raf? Fifteen, former gang member. If I don’t keep my thumb right on him, he’s trouble. I screwed up today and lost my temper with him. He had it coming, but I’m sworn to protect and serve here, not to inflict brain injuries.

He and I…we’ve reached a bridge and we’ve got to cross it together or he’s going to tie a rope around my neck and push me off.

Kate’s been a little short with everyone lately. I keep reminding myself she’s six months pregnant and responsible for a whole bunch of other people’s kids. It helps me overlook her nagging. John said when she was pregnant with Whit down here, she nearly worked herself to death. He’s trying to keep her from doing that this time, but he’s not having much luck.

Why did you ask me about Jo Russell? She’s meaner than a cow with pasture bloat. She knew my grandmother, so I was around her some when I was little. She’s got quite a past.

Tonight, I’m lying on a bunk made for a much shorter person and listening to the rain beating down on the tin roof. Rain here sounds like a jackhammer and it’s superheated. It washes out all the roads and keeps us from going to town for groceries. Once it settles in, it rains for weeks. It’s a pain in the neck.

But it also reminds me of home. When I close my eyes, I pretend I’m back in my own room and all the work’s been done and you’re there with me.

I love you, Meg. I love your heart.

Yours,

Henry Whitmire

From: Meg Kavanagh

To: Henry

Subject: Mine, Henry Whitmire.

You’ve been there seventy-four days. I’ve missed you for seventy-five because I started a day early. It’s tedious.

Sometimes, when school’s out and I don’t have to work, I drive out to the old cabin on your land. I take Mercy with me and we sit at the window.

You know that big oak in front of the cabin? The one that’s all alone? Well, lately the meadowlarks have been sitting on its branches and their yellow feathers mix around in the red leaves. Here’s what I noticed yesterday. The birds are the tree’s only company. I’ve seen what happens when the birds fly away—the branches reach up after them.

My mom wants me to stretch my branches and help someone else. Jo was first on her list. I think Jo could be what will make me irresistible to the creative writing program. But it’s more than that. She needs someone.

I’m staring at my UW application. It has one glaring hole I need to fill. You know, the one that asks whether or not you recognize that there are other people in the world. It’s how they weed out narcissists.

I jotted down some thoughts about my “time” with Jo. So far, she’s only let me use a broom in her shed. Three hours of shed cleaning need to become 1. Concrete experience, 2. Reflective observation, 3. Abstract conceptualization, and 4. Active experimentation.

Know how many words I’ve written? Three. “Cleaning sheds sucks.”

I have less than one month to “live with impact.”

Here’s what I’m pretending tonight. The moon is low. We’re lying still in the soft grass next to the old cabin, waiting for a shooting star. You’re holding my hand and I can feel your thumb moving on my knuckles; it tickles. You smell like leather and hay and sun and horses.

I want you here, Henry, but what you’re doing right now is so much more important than what you’d be doing here. Don’t lose your focus on those kids because this time with them is special and fleeting. You were made to do this. When I think of you, I see your heart, all soft and tender for people.

Love,

Meg

henry

I
felt a firm nudge in the small of my back. Little feet, about a child’s size ten, pushed slowly into my mattress from the bunk below me. A soft giggle and rustling sheets told me my six-year-old nephew Whit was up to no good. Usually he bunked with me in the boys’ dorm so his parents could have some privacy in their room in the girls’ dorm.

“I know you’re awake because I hear you breaving, Uncle Henry.” Whit’s morning voice was little more than a scratchy whisper.

“Why don’t you run along to breakfast, Whitmire?”

“Mom told me to wake you up first,” he called. He took off like a tiny roadrunner in his little-man boxer briefs, headed for the bathroom. Seemed like he never had to go to the bathroom until he
had
to go. We usually got about thirty-eight seconds of warning before desperation hit and he had no chance of holding it.

My Skype account started ringing and I jumped up to answer before Meg gave up. Staring at the screen, I couldn’t stop smiling. She looked sleepy, her hair tangled and her cheeks creased from her pillow.

She giggled.

“Mornin’, Pittsburgh.” I ran a hand through my hair, making sure it didn’t look stupid. “What are you laughing at?”

“Your hair.”

“Yeah, well, yours, too.” I couldn’t look away as she rearranged her pillow and dug further under her quilt, covering her bare shoulders.

“Henry…your voice. Just talk to me so I can listen for a minute.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Say anything.”

“I love you, beautiful, but you’ve gotta wake up and talk to me. School starts in an hour, right?”

“I’m awake and I have news.”

“Lay it on me.” I leaned back and got comfortable.

She pulled her laptop so close I could only see her mouth. This was how she Skyped secrets.

“Thanet likes a girl,” she whispered.

“Who?” I whispered. Actually, I already knew, but I didn’t want to spoil her fun.

“Abby O’Neill.” She leaned back again and smiled at me.

I couldn’t help grinning right back at her. “Who’s that?”

“The new girl.”

I traced her mouth on the screen with my finger. She knew what I was doing because she puckered her lips. “Good for Thanet,” I said.

“Has Raf lost someone?” she said, doing a conversational one-eighty.

“I don’t think Raf’s got anyone left or he wouldn’t be here.”

She reached up and played with one of her eyebrows like she does when she’s upset. “Don’t you just want to cry when you think about that?”

I sighed. Meg had finally begun to patch the hole Wyatt had left in her life. I needed to be there with her. I leaned close to my screen and stared into the camera. Best I could do for now.

“Yes, Pittsburgh, it makes me want to cry. I’m going to try to help him out while I’m here.”

“I know you are.”

Her cell phone alarm beeped and she rolled to her side to turn it off.

“Go to school and be all excellent,” I said. “
Te amo, querida
.” I kissed two fingers and held them to the camera. She did the same.

“
Te amo mucho, mi corazón
,” she said.

I closed Skype and swallowed hard. After being here a few weeks, I’d learned that I couldn’t tell Meg everything about this place. She knew only what I wanted her to know.

I could tell her Raf was a turkey, but I couldn’t tell her he’d done something so bad he’d been kicked
out
of a gang. I could tell her I was having trouble finding supplies, but I couldn’t tell her that to get supplies I had to go into a city with one of the highest crime rates in the world.

And that was my plan for the day. I had nothing keeping me from trying to drum up materials and workers for the half-finished building that sat across from the dormitories. It was time to finish that building so Kate and John could use it for classrooms and dorm rooms if more kids come to live here. But if I screwed up dealing with permits and budgets, the consequences would be far-reaching and a little paralyzing—we could lose this place and these kids could be without a home.

The pressure had changed me into a nonstarter for the first time in my life.

“Henry-y-y-y,” Whit sang as he ran back down the hall toward our room. “Mom says the boys’ bathroom has your name written all over it. And no one can find Raf.”

Perfect
. “Quit your yammering, Whit. I’m on it. What’s for breakfast, little man?”

“
Gallo pinto
,” he said. “But Mom says you have to clean before you can eat.”

“Figures.” I slung my legs over the side of my bunk and hit the ground.

***

After disinfecting the filth and helping with breakfast, I found my brother-in-law, John, and asked him if he wanted me to look for Raf or go to Managua for supplies. Frankly, they both felt like fool’s errands to me.

“No contest,” John said. “Go to Managua. Raf’s probably hanging out in San Isidro. He’ll be back.” John handed Aidia to me, the little two-year-old fireball who’d been with them since she was left as an infant on the doorstep of the Quiet Waters orphanage. We tried not to play favorites, but we were all uncommonly attached to this little girl.

“I’d put money on Raf being in San Isidro,” I said. “I just wonder when you’re going to lay down the law with him about that.”

John was kneeling down helping Karalyn tie her shoes, but he stopped and looked up at me. “I guess I’ll lay down the law when I think it’s time.” The bite in those words wasn’t lost on me.

I raised my hands up in surrender. “Shutting up now.”

San Isidro, the little town nearest the orphanage, was a temptation for Raf. When he went missing, we usually found him in a group of kids that loitered in parking lots, doing things they shouldn’t. John and Kate insisted Raf needed more freedom than the other kids here, given his background. If they held him too tightly, he’d run for sure.

“Do you think you’ve got your full list of supplies ready to order?” John said, standing to hand out gum to the kids around him with their little hands open.

I cleared my throat and stalled for a minute. “Yeah, I’ve had it ready for a while. I need whatever documentation you’ve got that’ll convince them to extend us credit. I’m assuming we don’t have the cash for this.”

John pointed at me. “Funny,” he said. He handed me his own credit card from his wallet. “Here’s all the credit we have. Make it work.”

Karalyn, my five-year-old shadow, picked up on my mood and started patting my arm, so I looked down at her and winked. She held a rubber band up to me. I pulled her long, thick hair into a ponytail, looping the band around it. It didn’t look too bad when I finished. She smiled showing a mouth full of decayed teeth.

I picked her up and spun her around. “I’ll be gone for a little while,” I said. “
Un ratito.
”

She held my cheeks and kissed me on the forehead. “
Tráeme un regalo
,” she said.

I snorted. “Bring you a gift? I’ll bring you a gift…a mess of turnip greens.”

I set Karalyn on the floor and she scampered away with the other kids. I checked my pockets to make sure I had the supply list, my passport, and the courtesy visa that allowed me to be here for a year, then I opened the door to the courtyard.

The girls were playing volleyball in the heat and the boys had just started a pick-up game of basketball on the dirt court. John stood by overseeing the current P.E. rotation. As I walked by, I caught a glimpse of Whit and his best friend, Equis, weaving between the taller guys, looking for chances to steal the ball. The cloud of dust around each boy looked exactly like Pigpen’s cloud in a Charlie Brown cartoon.

John jogged over and met me by the truck. “Straight there and straight back,
hombre
.” He shook a finger in my face, grinning. “Kate will worry the whole time you’re gone and that means I’ll have to work extra hard at anticipating her pregnancy moods.”