“He’s designing guided missiles,” he explained. “They say his inventions will make our country mightier than we’ve ever been.”
He opened his drawer and took out a notebook filled with newspaper clippings. Again and again, there were articles with my father’s name underlined, and pictures of him with important-looking people, receiving awards. In one picture, I recognized the faces of men who’d flown in from Washington, D.C. to meet with him.
“But why did he draw a donut?”
“Not a donut, Tillie. The Pentagon. It’s a building. He was trying to tell us we have to move.”
“Oh,” I said. “I didn’t know.”
“That’s where he went on his business trip. They told him right away that they wanted him. He spent most of the trip finding our new house.”
“We have a new house?”
Phil nodded, as if these were things I would know if I paid better attention. My brother worked so hard to listen and to do what he was told, but while he
knew
more of what was happening than I did, he was never
a part of
what was happening. He was so quick to understand and cooperate that he faded into the background. You could see this even when we were in public together. The four of us could stand in line at a restaurant, and the waiter would ask, “Table for three?”
At bedtime I lay awake, wondering what our new house looked like and how far it was from here when I heard Momma’s bedroom
door open and her soft footsteps down the hallway. This was the sound I’d been waiting for. Since Dad returned from his trip, she’d been leaving her bedroom each night to tuck us in, though it seemed to take all of her strength to do it.
She went to Phil’s room first, where her good night was brief. “Time for bed,” she said.
Phil, who always did as he was told, immediately turned off the lights and closed his eyes. Sometimes she stood there a little longer in the dark. “Do you need anything?” she asked in a quiet voice. “Can I bring you a glass of water or read to you?” But Phil always gave the answer that made Dad proud: He didn’t need anything.
When it was my turn, I got so excited that I kicked my feet against the mattress. Now, the warm drink had become part of our nightly routine, and I had to wait a little longer. But finally she came to my room, carefully handing me the ruby cup. I took slow sips as she sat beside me, her hair tangled, her pajamas damp with sweat.
“Why do you tuck me in every night if you’re so tired?” I asked.
“So every night you’ll go to sleep remembering that your mother loves you,” she said, opening our book. “I want that to be your last thought of the day.”
When she neared the end of the chapter, I felt so drowsy, the cup slipped out of my hands and crashed to the floor.
“It’s all right,” she said, setting the book aside. “It’s still good.”
I leaned over the edge of the bed, the floor blurring, as she picked up the cup.
“See?” she said, calming me. “Only the handle broke. I think I like it better this way, don’t you?”
She opened my hand and set two rubies in it. I tried to smile, but I needed to lay my head down.
“Thatta girl,” she said, stroking my hair.
I closed my eyes, thinking of rubies and the fantastic five-sided donut. It seemed everything was about to get much better.
W
E DISMANTLED THE HOUSE,
little by little, emptying the bookshelves, cupboards, and closets, trusting all would reappear, unharmed, on the other side. Phil was allowed to wrap breakables, rolling them in newspaper. I was in charge of clothes, sofa pillows, blankets, stuffed animals. We packed when we were finished with our homework and while we waited for dinner. Dad packed whenever he took a break from his work and then again after we went to bed.
Momma was rarely up during the day anymore. Sometimes she’d wander down the hall to use the bathroom or walk through the room and drop something into a box. After, she might sit at the very edge of the cushion on the couch, staring forward, her eyes glazed like she’d cry if she weren’t so tired. Dad no longer tried to involve her, and we didn’t either. She would sit there and eventually get up and return to her room. I no longer pleaded with her to stay because I knew we’d have our tuck-in time. And somehow we put all of our hope into the
move—that things would be better once we were in the new house. The new house was where we’d begin again.
Steadily, the music and decorations disappeared. Dad used the end of the hammer to pull nails out of the wall, though the holes remained. And last of all, the day before we moved, he unstuck our blue front door, using a putty knife to break the seal. He was touching up the paint along the edges when his secretary pulled up.
Phil and I peeked from the open doorway.
“Go on and say hello,” Dad said, pushing us down the walkway to greet her. “You remember Anne.”
I did. Anne kept a candy dish on her desk at the weapons lab, and she wore sweaters and jewelry that matched the holidays. She’d once worn a little Santa pin with a small red light bulb for a nose. If you pulled the string, it lit up, but Dad told me not to pull it.
Anne stood by the curb in her very ironed skirt, her hair just above the collar of her blouse, so groomed she reminded me of a store mannequin. She shook Phil’s hand; then she turned to me.
“You’re getting so big,” she said. “You must be almost seven by now.”
“I’m eight.”
“Oh, don’t wrinkle your nose at me,” she said. “Some day you’ll be glad to look so young for your age.”
She reached for me with both arms and before I knew it, my cheek was pressed against the belt of her skirt. I held my breath and tried to stay calm. Dad told me I had to get used to being hugged, but it made me feel cornered. I kept my eyes open wide and my shoulders hiked up to my ears as her belt dug into my cheek. And when it seemed I might smother to death, I pushed back from her, gulping air and rubbing the side of my face.
Anne laughed a weird, high laugh, and my father chuckled once but at the same time gave me the look that meant,
Be nice
.
“I’ll get those papers for you,” he said, and headed back down the walkway toward the house. When she followed, he told her, “The house is full of boxes. It’s a real mess.”
What he meant was that she should wait outside, but she went right in and began sniffing the air. “Is everything okay in here?”
It was a smell I noticed when I returned from school, but it gradually disappeared the longer I was home, especially when Dad shut Momma’s door.
“I’ll open some windows,” he said, weaving between the cardboard boxes to reach the nearest one. “I’d hoped to be further along. I’m scheduled to pick up the U-Haul tomorrow morning and plan to be on the road before dinner.”
“Can I help with anything?”
“Some neighbors are going to help with the furniture. I don’t anticipate needing anything else.”
“Well, if you do, just ask.”
“Dad, I’m hungry,” I said.
“Tillie, just hold on. I need to find where I put my briefcase.”
“Would you like me to find something for you to eat?” Anne asked me and walked toward the kitchen.
“No, no, please,” Dad said. “Tillie needs to learn to be patient.”
“It’s no trouble,” she said. “Really, I don’t mind.”
She found a loaf of bread on the counter and took out a slice, but after opening several empty cupboards, she found nothing to spread on it. Phil had been standing stiff like a wooden soldier as Dad and Anne scurried around him, but he suddenly turned toward the hallway, his cheeks growing pink.
Momma was out of the bedroom. It was so rare to see her during the day, and as she came around the corner, it was clear she’d dressed in a hurry—lipstick freshly applied but her hair uncombed. Her dress, while pretty, was pulled from the bottom of the hamper. She was barefoot and marching straight for the kitchen.
“Want me to do a load of dishes, Roy?” Anne asked, unaware that Momma had walked up right behind her. “I can—”
“May I help you with something?” my mother asked.
Anne startled at the sound of Momma’s voice, and Dad looked up from the box he’d been searching in and rushed to the kitchen, a slight panic in his eyes.
“Anne is here to pick up some documents,” he said.
“From our kitchen?” Momma asked.
“No, of course not. It’s just that Tillie was hungry.” He turned to Anne. “She’s been under the weather,” he said in an attempt to explain Momma’s appearance.
“I’m so sorry to hear that, Mrs. Harris.”
“I’m certainly well enough to ask you to stay for dinner,” Momma said, and my brother and I exchanged looks of surprise. We knew very well that she didn’t like company, and it had been weeks since she sat at the table with us.
“Really. I couldn’t impose.”
“She just came for some documents,” Dad said. “I’m sure she has other plans. The moment I find my briefcase—”
He tried to catch Momma’s eye as if to relay some secret message, but she turned away from him and toward Anne with an odd sort of smile on her face. “I absolutely insist we have dinner together,” she said. “I just need a little time to get ready. Maybe everyone could go for a walk around the neighborhood to give me a few moments.”
“If we’re going for a walk,” Phil said, “we could bring my pennies to the bank.”
He kept an old Goober’s jelly jar on his desk where he saved the pennies he found, as well as those Dad emptied into it at the end of each day. Whenever the jar was full, we walked to the bank so he could trade them in for silver dollars.
“Well,” Anne said, putting her hand on Phil’s shoulder. “Who could say no to an invitation like this? A trip to the bank and dinner with such fine company? I’m going to have to say yes.”
And suddenly everyone had agreed to something I wasn’t sure any of us thought was a good idea.
I walked on my heels through our yard while we waited for Phil to come out of the house with his jar.
“Won’t you be chilly without a jacket?” Anne called.
I shook my head, and later, during the stroll through base, I kept to the patches of sun so she wouldn’t catch me shivering. Phil’s jar of pennies clanged each time he took a step. He kept perfect beat.
“Come on, Tillie. Keep up,” Dad said.
I zigzagged behind them. Unless I watched my feet, I couldn’t walk a straight line.
We passed the movie house, the bomb-proof buildings you couldn’t enter without ID, the enormous hangars, and runways that reflected so much sun you had to shield your eyes.
I had always felt pleased with how well I knew my way around, and I liked the smiles and laughter I received from strangers when I went by—though I was never sure what was so funny.
We passed the playground where the kids on summer vacation chased each other up the monkey bars, pumped high on
the swings, and pushed the merry-go-round so fast they could barely jump on. I longed for Momma to take me there, and she had said,
Maybe one day.
When we got to the bank, we stayed just inside the entrance as my brother got in line between the velvet ropes, never once touching them, as I would have. I tried to catch his attention so I could remind him to get me a lollipop, but he kept his eye on his favorite teller. Even if all the other tellers were free, he’d wait in line to see the one person on base who still treated him like a kid.
“Should I be concerned about you, Roy?”
I turned my head toward Anne, who put her hand on Dad’s wrist and then promptly removed it.
“There are some problems right now,” he told her. “But things will get better once we move.”
“I’m sorry. It’s not my business,” she said. “Only if you want it to be.”
I heard the sound of pennies being poured from a jar, and knew Phil was now at the window. He stood with his chin against the counter. The teller held up one pointer finger as if he were about to sneeze, and after a dramatic lead up, he did sneeze, and a silver dollar fell out of his nose. He did this again and again until Phil’s shoulders jiggled because this stranger would keep it up until he made my brother laugh.
“That’s awfully thrifty of you to save all those coins,” Anne said when Phil had joined us again with his roll of silver dollars and his nearly empty jar. Then, laughing, she added, “But you might want to rinse them in some hot, soapy water when you get home.”
I pushed between them, trying to see if he was holding anything besides coins. “Did you get me a lollipop?” I asked.
He moved the roll of silver dollars to his other hand and dug in his pocket. “Here. You can have mine.”
It was green, the flavor neither of us liked, but with no other flavors to choose from, it would do. I took it and tore the wrapper off with my teeth.
“You’re a real gentleman,” Anne told him, a compliment I was certain she meant as a scolding for me. I thrust the lollipop into my mouth and danced out the door and along the curb of the sidewalk.
“Be careful, Tillie,” she said. “You’ll choke.”
“No I won’t. Watch.” I hopped on one foot to prove my point, but Dad swatted me on the behind, and we headed for home.
We walked past the perfect rectangle houses, stopped at driveways if cars pulled in, and saluted the men who stepped out of them. Soon, our blue door came into view and I wondered, as I often did when I approached my house, what I’d find inside.
I half expected to smell mushroom chicken cooking, but when we opened the door, there was only the same odor that seemed to bother Anne so much, although this time, rather than scrunching up her nose, she had the most unusual grin on her face, as if she had just won a game of some sort.
Momma had spruced up. Her hair was combed and she’d finished putting on her makeup. She wore a pretty pair of heels and had squirted herself with perfume, though it was clear she hadn’t had time for a bath.
“Welcome back,” she said. Her voice sounded put on, as if she were pretending to be one of the officers’ wives she disliked so much. She tucked her hair behind one ear, and once we were all inside she said, “I’ll go start dinner.”
“Would you like me to help you put something together, Mrs. Harris?” Anne asked.