One night, Hannah said, “Can’t you get your guys to go weather tight on the north side of the building before the fifteenth?”
Dwight shook his head. “I can try, but I don’t see how. The materials were late. Can’t we just shoot for the week after? It’s not gonna make that much difference, Hannah. I’ll put some time in on our own kitchen while we wait.”
“Dwight!” Hannah raised her voice and my scalp tingled. “I really wanted to meet schedule on this. We talked about this before. Winter is
here
! And what about the gift shop?” She put her hand on her hip. “I’m counting on opening it by spring even if we haven’t got a single room to rent yet. I’ve gotta let people know this place exists. If they come for the crafts maybe they’ll come back for the rooms—
when the rooms are done
.” She pushed that last line at him.
“I know. I’m trying.” Dwight folded back some stapled papers he was reading. “The millwork is on time,” he offered. “So, looks good.”
“Okay, okay. But listen, I’m gonna need at least three days
alone in the basement
.” She whispered that part and made a desperate face at him. “This is my busy season!”
“Right. I’ll call the day care. And I’ll help you box orders at night.” He looked her in the eye. “Okay?”
Hannah sighed and turned away.
Dwight walked all the way around to face her. With his hands on his hips, he waited. When she looked up, he asked her, “Are we okay?”
She nodded. “Yeah, we’re okay.”
“You still gonna sign my paycheck this week?”
Hannah lost a laugh. “Yes, you jerk.” Then they were hugging.
I let out my breath. Were they done? Was that a fight?
That same night, after we’d all gone to bed, I got up again to use the bathroom. As I passed their room, I heard them talking in low voices.
“Dwight, she is a
great
kid.” Hannah sounded insistent. She was right. Brynna was a great kid. She was cute and serious and
smart
.
“She’s not mine,” Dwight said. “Feels like mine, but isn’t.” That’s when I realized they were talking about me. I hung close to the draped doorway of their room and hoped my breathing wouldn’t ripple the plastic sheeting. “I told you, I tried to get custody.” My heart pumped. “The judge told me I don’t stand a chance because we’re not blood. Denise would have to sign Addie over to me.”
“So, there’s nobody to fight for her? What about Jack? He’s blood.”
“Jack is …I don’t know …I love the guy but he’s old and he’s crabby. He’s been stepping out of the picture lately. I think he feels helpless.”
And Grandio doesn’t want a kid, I thought.
“Besides, he and Denise are a terrible mix. As far as custody goes, Denise would have to agree and that’ll
never
happen. Unless she screws up again, she keeps Addie.” After a moment he said, “It sounds like Denise is trying hard.”
“She’s done that before, from what you said.”
He sighed. “Yeah, I know. Something always happens.”
“Maybe we need to try harder,” Hannah said.
“God knows, if I could fix it, I would. For now, I send the money and I stay in touch as much as I can. Come on, Hannah. Think my heart doesn’t break every time I think of this? I miss her and so do the girls.”
“Sorry,” Hannah said. “But let’s get her up here as often as we can, huh?”
“Definitely.” Silence. “Hey, Hannah?”
“Yeah?”
“Get your cold feet off me, will ya?”
Hannah giggled, and I ran tiptoe back to my bunk.
He tried to get custody of me!
I must have repeated that in my head a thousand times that night. But I thought of Mommers, too. It would be sad if she were alone. Maybe I just had to be the one to do that for her—be her family. I took forever to fall asleep.
On my last morning there, I was up first. I made scrambled eggs on toast. Hannah came yawning into the kitchen saying, “Hey! You stinker! Ya took away my post!” She sat down and ate her eggs, humming “Umm …” with each bite.
Dwight did the dishes. “When’s the next school break, Addie?” He turned from the sink. “Anything between now and Christmas?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head.
“Oddie,” Katie piped up. “I want you all to home again soon.”
I laughed. “I know,” I said. “I’ll try. But don’t forget the concert on December twelfth. You’re all invited.”
“
A
ddie’s back!” Elliot called to Soula. She came up the soda aisle kicking her lawn chair in “ front of her.
“Fresh off the bus,” I cheered. Truthfully, I was sore at Mommers for not meeting me at the corner. I’d been gone four whole days! Her car was not at the trailer so I’d stopped at the minimart instead. “Miss me much?” I did a little twirl with my flute case and paper bag in hand.
“Sure did, Little Cookie. How was the lake?”
“Never saw it, but I had a great time,” I said. “I learned about mail order.”
“No kidding?” Soula said.
“Ah, retail by snail,” Elliot said. I grinned at his rhyme.
“I’d be interested in a business like that,” Soula said.
“Your plate is full, my girl,” Elliot said.
“What happened here while I was gone?” I asked, looking around.
“Well”—Elliot thought for a second—“we got a delivery of ice scrapers on Friday. The soda machine had to be serviced, and regular went up another three cents per gallon. And …”—he squinted to look out the front window—“I think one of the mannequins at the Heads and Roses sprouted turkey feathers.”
I laughed. “How are you feeling, Soula?”
“Not so, not so,” she said, which I’d figured out meant it wasn’t a bad day but that probably yesterday had been better. “Six down, two to go,” she said. She wagged a finger in the air; the painted nail gleamed pink.
“That’s good,” I said. “You’re almost done.”
While we were talking, Elliot pushed a box across the floor. He straddled it and slit the top with his utility knife. He pulled a bag of birdseed out of the carton. Seed spilled out onto the floor in a perfect hill. I gulped. He swore under his breath and looked at the empty bag in his hand.
He and Soula looked at each other. Then they both said, exactly together, “Never open the birdseed delivery with a knife.” They laughed.
“Why do we always forget that?” Soula asked.
“Because we only get seed once a year,” Elliot reminded her.
“Right, each November,” said Soula. “Ah, what are we gonna do with this?” She toed the floor near the mound of seed.
“Well, we could toss it out back and see who comes,” I said. “Or we could bag it up and sell it for small animals like— Oh gosh! I gotta go check on Piccolo!” I started for the door. “Bye! I’ll see you tomorrow after school!” I hurried outside, ran to the street, looked both ways as fast as I could and crossed. Mommers’ car was still not out front. I set my bag and the flute down on the step and tried the door. Locked. I shook the handle hard with both hands. No luck. I poked around the front step, under the mud mat and in any little crack or cranny I could find, hoping she’d left the key. Nothing.
I thought about heading back to the minimart, where I could just watch for Mommers’ car to pull up. It’d be warmer in there and I’d have something to do. No! I had to try to see Piccolo. I went around to the end of the trailer where my bunk was. I dragged a cinder block up to the window and I stood on it. Cupping my hands against the glass, I looked in. All I could make out was the shape of the cage and the little mound of torn up tissues inside that was Pic’s sleeping nest.
“Piccolo?” I called at the window. Then I tapped. Something in the nest might have moved—a little—but I couldn’t be sure. “Pic!” I called again.
I heard a roar—the train above me. I closed my eyes and gripped the little metal window ledge. Still, the gust nearly sucked me off the cinder block. I listened to the clack-clacking sound running away down the tracks.
“Addie! Hey, Addie!”
I opened my eyes. “Oh! Mommers!” I jumped off the block and ran to meet her. She was twisting up her face at me.
“What in the heck were you doing?” she asked.
“I couldn’t get in,” I said.
“Oh, well, here.” She dug into her purse and handed me the key. “Open up da-dump, da-dump dump!” she sang. “Then come back out and help me.”
I stuck the key in the lock but waited to turn it. “Hey, Mommers?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you remember Piccolo while I was gone?” I made my whole body stiff, trying to wish up good news.
“The rat? Yeah, I remembered. Sheesh!”
“Phew!” I turned the key and went inside.
I tossed my bag and my flute on my bed and hurried to Pic’s cage. The nest wiggled. Then up came Piccolo’s nose. She sniffed, then she opened two squinty black eyes. She was fine!
Mommers had piled a mountain of hamster food into one corner of the cage and had put an empty cottage cheese container filled with water in beside it.
“Hmm.” Mommers came up beside me to peer into the cage. “Little dust ball didn’t finish his Thanksgiving supper,” she mumbled.
I laughed and put my arm around her. “It’s a
she.
And she doesn’t know about Thanksgiving.”
“Guess not!
She
should be on her back with those little drumsticks in the air. You know, in a food coma!” Mommers threw her hands up and laughed. She grinned at me and gave me a squeeze. “So, how was your big adventure?”
“Great,” I said. “But I missed you.”
“How are my babies? Did they ask about me?”
“Sure did. The second we got to Grandio’s,” I said.
“Good. I don’t want my girls to forget about me just ’cause Dwight takes them miles away. How was it up there anyway?”
“Oh! Mommers—” I hesitated. “It was all right,” I said. I added a shrug.
“And Dwight’s all moved in at that Hannah chick’s place? What did I hear? A mansion or something?”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s gonna be an inn. But it’s only partway finished now. I mean, they are working on it. It has good bones,” I finally said.
“Bones,” Mommers scoffed. “Dwight always says that about the hellholes he works on.” She let out a laugh. Then she stared off into space for a few seconds. “Well, good for them, I guess. Come on, now. You were gonna help me with the stuff in my trunk.”
I followed Mommers out to her car and she popped open the trunk. She lifted out a bag of groceries and lowered it into my arms.
“Ugh! What’s in this?” I said. I hefted the bag toward the trailer door.
“Five pounds of potatoes, two pounds of onions, two pounds of carrots and a big bag of frozen peas,” Mommers said. I could tell by her voice that she was struggling with her own big package of something behind me. She practically chased me into the trailer. She dropped her cargo and pushed it across the floor.
“What is it?” I asked, looking at the big plastic garbage bag.
“Turkey carcasses! Two big ones! I’m gonna make a pot of turkey soup.” She began sliding her file boxes and office supplies out of the way. It wasn’t easy; she ended up loading most of the office supplies onto her own bed in the Luxury Suite.
“Where did you get the turkeys?”
“Soup kitchen,” she said. She stopped for a second and let out a loud laugh. “Can you believe that? A soup kitchen that didn’t need all their carcasses for soup! Of course, there must have been twenty turkeys there.”
“When were you at the soup kitchen?”
“For Thanksgiving,” she said. She squinted as she turned on the naked light bulb over the kitchen sink. “God, I hate that thing,” she mumbled. She started to fill our stockpot with water. “See, it didn’t work out—having dinner with Pete, I mean. He had to cover a family commitment. So, I went to work at the soup kitchen. Boy, did they love me! I might do it every year.”
“Oh,” I said. “This is gonna be a lot of soup for two.”
She shook her head. “Well …we could …I don’t know. We’ll freeze it. Whatever. I got these turkeys and I’m gonna use ’em.” She started to work on the two carcasses, pulling them apart and cracking them down so they’d fit in the pot. She flicked the burner on and speared the bag of onions with a knife. She lifted it in the air and let it fall onto the counter. “Now,
you
need to clean out Stinky the Wonder Rat’s cage, my girl. Chop, chop,” she said. She pushed the knife blade through an onion and began slicing it into little pieces.
While Mommers chopped, I let Piccolo out onto my bunk so I could clean her cage. A lot of hamster dirt piled up in four days but it never bothered me. Even Piccolo’s pee smelled all right to me; the damp pine shavings smelled woodsy. I brushed them into a paper bag and rolled it shut. I spread fresh chips into the cage and tore some fresh tissues just to get her started on a new sleeping nest. I always felt a little bad destroying Pic’s cozy bed every time I cleaned the cage, but she seemed to like rebuilding it. I caught her in my hands. We nosed each other for a minute, then I let her wriggle back into her cage.
The trailer began to fill with good cooking smells. Mommers finished chopping onions and moved on to potatoes. While she worked, I practiced my flute. I worked my way through the pieces we’d chosen for the Stage Orchestra performance until I got each one completely right at least once.
“Sounds good, Addie,” Mommers said. She stopped a moment, knife raised, looking at our calendar. She flipped from November to December using the tip of the blade. “That concert is coming up soon, isn’t it?”
“Twelve days.” I put my flute into its case and snapped the lid shut.
“Phew-wee! We gotta get you outfitted.” She slit open a bag of carrots. “Black on bottom, white on top, right?”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “It should be easy. I can stop at the Salvation Army Store on my way home from school one day and see what they have.”
“Right,” said Mommers.
Later, I opened my vocabulary notebook and sat up in my bunk with Webster’s open across my knees. The train went by again and rocked us. There was something homey about it, like the trailer was a big old cradle and we were tucked in for the night.
“Getting hungry?” Mommers asked.
Just those two words added to the goodness.
“Yep,” I said. “Smells great, Mommers.” Then I looked at Piccolo. She was in one corner of her cage. She had already begun to make a new nest.