When I get out of class, Mom is waiting. She’s wearing a white shirt and jeans and flat shoes and she’s standing by herself instead of with the other moms. I remember how, before, Mom used to wear earrings and a skirt and shoes like Miss Weber’s. And she stood in the center of the group of moms.
I wave at her, and she pulls a gingerbread man out of her purse and puts it up to her face so it sounds like it can talk.
“Hello,” it says. “I’m First-Day Fergus. Please don’t eat me!”
“Of course I won’t eat you, Fergus,” I say—then I bite his head off. Mom and I giggle.
Usually after school, I stay and play for a while so Mom can chat to Legs’s mom, but today we leave right away. As we walk, I ask, “Was Daddy scared of music?”
“No,” Mom says slowly. “Why?”
“No reason,” I say, feeling relieved. Then I ask, “Are the worms eating Daddy?”
Mom stops walking. “What?”
“Miranda says if you’re in the ground, worms eat you.”
Mom says something quietly that sounds like cheeses. Then she says, “Daddy’s in Heaven, remember?” She gives me a little sideways cuddle. “I’m sure he’s watching over us.”
I hate it when people say this. I don’t want Daddy watching over me. I want Daddy here. So he can walk me to school tomorrow and do the funny voices of the witches when he reads Witches Wear Britches to me before bed.
“How did he die?” I ask.
Mom looks at me. “We’ve talked about this, Clem. It was … an accident.”
“Was Daddy a … bastard?”
Mom doesn’t say anything for a while. And then, “Did Miranda say that, too?”
“Yes.”
Mom squats down. “People might say things about Daddy, but they don’t really know what they’re talking about. Who knows Daddy the best in the world?”
“We do,” I say.
“That’s right.” She smiles a little. “Anyway, did Miranda even meet Daddy?”
“Once. At my fairy princess party.”
“Just that once?” Mom says. “Well, what would she know?”
“Yeah,” I say, smiling. “What would she know?”
Mom winks. Then she stands and we start walking and I don’t worry anymore, because I know that Daddy wasn’t scared of any music, and Miranda doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
* * *
I play outside for a while before Mom calls me for dinner. By the time I’ve washed my hands and got to the dining room, there’s only one seat left, next to a bald man. I wriggle onto it.
“Hey!”
I look up. He’s frowning.
“That’s Myrna’s seat.”
“Oh.” I slip off the seat quickly. The bald man is very cranky. “Sorry.”
Another lady puts her arm around me. She’s soft and has yellow hair and smells of flowers. “Why don’t you sit here, darlin’, right by me?”
I like this lady. She has a nice smile and a funny voice, slow and long, like the people in the The Princess and the Frog. I sit beside her.
“Now, let me see,” she says. “You must be about … six?”
“I’m seven,” I say. I do not look six.
“Ah, I apologize. I have a great-granddaughter who is six. Or”—she frowns—“maybe she’s seven? With twenty-seven great-grandchildren, it’s hard to remember them all.”
I agree that does sound like a lot to remember.
“I’m Clara,” the lady says. “This is my husband, Laurie.”
“I’m Clementine,” I say, forgetting to change it. Sometimes I like to pretend I have a different name. I don’t know why, it just makes me feel good to pretend.
Mom serves fettuccini with bacon, cherry tomatoes, and spinach. When she comes to our table, I sink in my seat because I’m supposed to eat dinner in the kitchen, but Mom just winks at me. She must be feeling happy today.
“My daddy loved this pasta,” I tell Clara. “It was his favorite. We used to pretend it was Rapunzel’s hair. Daddy would say ‘Rapunzel! Let down your hair.’ And I would hold the fork above his mouth and unwrap the pasta straight into his mouth.”
“It sounds like he was a good daddy,” Clara says.
“He was.”
“How was school?” she asks.
“Okay. I got to see Legs. My best friend. Allegra is her name, but everyone calls her Legs.”
“Well, these are my friends,” Clara says. She points her fork at some of the others at the table. “May and Gwen and Bert.”
Bert is the bald one that kicked me out of his friend’s seat. I notice that no one has sat in it yet.
“I’m not sure your friend is coming,” I tell him. “I can ask my mom to keep something hot for her, if you like.”
The man looks straight ahead as if he didn’t hear me. I know old people can’t hear very well, so I say it again.
“Thank you very much, young lady,” he says, “I heard you the first time.”
“Then why didn’t you say so?” I ask.
Clara says: “I hope you’re going to do some more Irish dancing for us tonight, Clementine. We really enjoyed it, didn’t we, everyone?”
Everyone nods and smiles and says yes, they enjoyed it. Not Bert. He just stares at the spot he saved for his friend. Like he can’t believe she didn’t show up.
“Maybe she’s not feeling well?” I suggest.
Bert keeps looking at the chair. “I don’t think it’s that.”
“Then why didn’t she come to dinner?”
Bert looks at me for a long time without saying anything. Sometimes grown-ups just need a little longer than kids to speak. Their brains are a bit slower, I think. Finally, he says, “She did.”
“She did?” I say, astonished. “I didn’t see her.”
“That doesn’t mean she wasn’t here.”
People are getting up now, ready to go to the front room. I get off my seat and climb onto the empty seat next to Bert. But he just stands up, too.
“Wait!”
Bert stops. He’s frowning, but not like he’s mad. More like he’s tired. “Yes?”
“Is your friend invisible?”
He smiles even though he looks like he doesn’t want to. He looks different when he smiles. He looks nice.
“She’s invisible to most people,” he says. “But I can see her.”
“That is so cool.”
He smiles again. “Yes, it is … cool, I suppose.”
Suddenly, I leap off my seat. “Was I just sitting on her?”
Now he chuckles. He likes me, I can tell. Though, if I was sitting on her, his friend probably doesn’t like me so much. “No. You’re all right.” Bert takes the handles of his walker and rattles it toward the door.
“Wait,” I say again.
He sighs. “Yes?”
“Why can you see her and no one else can?”
Bert thinks about that for a minute. “I can see her because I really, really want to.”
“You mean … if there’s someone that I can’t see … and I really, really want to … I can?”
“You can try.”
“And I’ll be able to talk to them, too?”
He shrugs. “Why not?”
“Even”—I lower my voice—“if he’s dead?”
Bert frowns. I guess that was silly of me. Of course you can’t see or talk to someone who is dead! But Bert bangs his walker toward me and bends until he is around my height. It looks like hard work, the bending. I hope he doesn’t get stuck like that. “If I were dead,” he says, “and a pretty young lady like you wanted to talk to me … I sure as heck’d be coming back for visits.”
I’m so happy that my eyes fill up with tears and I throw my arms around his neck and almost knock him to the ground.