3

Eight years later . . .

The power lines only buzzed like that when it was snowing. I scrunched my pillow into a better shape and smiled. No school today. No school tomorrow. It was winter break—sweet! I checked the clock—and there was Albert standing next to my bed looking all sleepy in his Star Wars jammies. His baby face was dark and serious under a mop of messy black hair. He was staring intently at my alarm clock (with a booger in his nose and his shirt inside out).

“It’s not going to ring, Albie. I’m on winter break.”

Albert just stared at the clock. I didn’t expect him to look at me. Most of the time, eye contact gave Albert the creeps. He claimed that eyes distracted him from his brain movie. I really didn’t get it.

“If you go blow your nose, you can come in the blanket cave.” He liked the blanket cave because he could think about stuff in the warmth and quiet of Pearl—that was his thought, not mine.

Albert pattered to the bathroom and blew his nose. Then he hurried back and climbed in my bed, lying there still as a statue.

I thought about calling Brit to see if she could come over. Maybe she could bring her good sled and we could try making a run on the power-line hill, or we could build a hitchhiking snowman down on Kelly Road; that would be funny.

“Albie, you wanna come with me and Brit and play in the snow?” Albert could go either way when it came to playing outside, but if he committed, I knew I could count on him to be a good sport. He rarely complained—and for sure never out loud.

My question about playing in the snow broke the spell of the blanket cave. Albert shot out of bed and ran off. Goofy little guy. I heard him banging around in Ma’s room. Actually, it was both their rooms. Ma had put a wall of bookcases down the middle, so they each got half; bummer for them that they had to share a room. But it enabled everyone to get a little bit of private space. Poor Meemaw had to sleep in the laundry room! This always cracked me up because it sounded so much worse than it was. True, she had to live with the washer and dryer and the water heater, but there was also a nice day bed and a dresser, and her little TV. And she could slip out to the back porch and smoke her ciggies whenever she wanted. Because of Meemaw, the laundry at our house was always done and folded.

“Jane, you want coffee?”

It was Meemaw in the kitchen talking to Ma.

“What do you think,” Ma joked. They both loved their coffee. I had learned to make it the way Ma liked so I could bring her a cup now and then.

“Mary, you up?” Meemaw called.

“Yeah.”

“You want a pancake?”

“Yeah, in a bit.”

I got out of bed and went to the window. There was a lot of snow out there. When I refocused, I saw myself in the glass: a happy girl with a wide smile, a short nose, and nice brown eyes. My hair was dark like my brother’s, only mine was straight—not curly like his. I ran a hand over my forehead. Eww—my bangs were on the verge of being oily, but I’d be wearing a hat, so no biggie. I blew out some breath and the happy girl vanished in the fog. I touched my finger to the cold glass and drew a happy face. “Walking in a winter wonderland,” I sang quietly.

I was thinking that Brit could probably walk up here in twenty minutes if she couldn’t get a ride. Or maybe Ma would go pick her up if the snowplow had—I suddenly got a flash of a thought. It was like a lightning strike, only the lightning was red. The startling memo stabbed at my nerves and sent a feeling through my body, and the words for the feeling were bad order; jarring, sickening, bad order. For some reason, it made the hairs on my neck tickle—and not in a good way.