I Wish

 

“GRANDMA SISSY LIKED to travel, didn’t she?”  Odette and Mom were in Grandma Sissy’s room, flipping through old scrapbooks. Grandma Sissy was in barely any of the photos—she was behind the camera. The scrapbooks were full of pictures of buildings, labeled “Eiffel Tower,” “New York Skyline,” “Hardwick Hall,” and page after page of houses. Big stately places. Funny little cottages. New houses. Old houses.

And there—unexpectedly, suddenly—there was a picture of their house. The red front door. The tipsy brick footpath. The shutters. The windows. Odette imagined she could see behind the door, behind the windows. The mud bench inside. The pink-ceilinged bedroom. Who knew what color the Waldmans had painted her room?

Mom’s finger traced the roofline. “You miss it?”

Odette nodded. “Do you?”

“Sure I do,” Mom said. She flipped away from the picture of their house, to a page full of thatched-roofed cottages. “Grandma Sissy always said houses were her favorite art form.”

Odette thought about that. Houses as art. “Mine too,” she decided. “I like the ones here on the island.”

“Mm-hmm,” said Mom. “They’re cute, aren’t they?”

“Yeah.”

“You like it here?”

“It’s pretty cool,” Odette said. “I like the bakery. It’s not the same, though, now.”

Now that Grandma Sissy was gone. Odette did miss their house back home. But not nearly as much as she missed Grandma Sissy.

“It’s not fair,” she said, quietly.

“What’s not fair? That we sold the house?”

“Yes,” said Odette. “And that Grandma Sissy died. And about you and Dad. And Rex. The way he is. Everything.”

Mom sat so still for so long that Odette felt sure she was mad. But when she finally spoke, she didn’t sound mad. “It’s not Rex’s fault that he is the way he is,” Mom said.

“It’s not my fault either,” Odette answered.

Mom looked up at last. She looked, long and deep, right into Odette’s eyes. Odette didn’t want to break the gaze, she didn’t want to be the first to look away, but after a minute it just felt too intense to keep staring, so she let her gaze slip to Grandma Sissy’s bedspread.

“It’s not your fault, Odette. Of course it’s not your fault.”

Odette felt the tear tickle her cheek, watched as it splattered on the bedspread and sank in.

Then Mom reached out and put her arm over Odette’s shoulder. Odette held herself stiff and unlovable, but Mom scooted her in closer, and closer, and finally Odette let herself go soft and limp. Mom pulled her onto her lap even though Odette was years too big to fit. Her breath was hot and moist in Odette’s hair, her sweater scratchy against Odette’s teary cheek, but Odette didn’t pull away.

“I’m so sorry, Detters,” Mom said. “I wish I had answers for you. I wish I could bring Grandma Sissy back. I wish I could promise that everything will be okay.”

“I wish people lived forever,” Odette muttered into Mom’s sweater.

Mom nodded. Odette could feel it against the top of her head. “I wish they did too.”

“I wish Rex didn’t have furies,” Odette said.

“I wish life was always fair,” Mom said.

Odette dried her eyes. “Me too.”

Mom kissed Odette’s hair. She pulled away a little so she could look into Odette’s eyes, and dried Odette’s tears with her thumbs. “You know,” Mom said, “Grandma Sissy liked to say that fair didn’t mean even. Fair means everyone getting what they need, not everyone getting the same thing.”

Odette didn’t have anything to say to this, so she just shrugged.

Then Mom said, “What do you need, Detters?”

What did she need? “I don’t know,” she said. “I thought I needed to stay home. I thought I needed a big dog. I thought I needed a phone.”

“Those all would have been nice,” Mom said. “I can understand why you’d want those things.”

“No one asked me about moving,” Odette said. She forced the words around the hard ball in her throat. “No one asked me about the dog, or the phone, or any of it.”

Mom’s face twisted up funny. “Not everything can be a democracy, Detters. Sometimes grownups have to make decisions.”

“Yeah,” said Odette. “I guess. Sometimes. But not always.”

She could tell Mom wanted to argue. Mom hated being wrong. She wasn’t good at being wrong. But instead of arguing, Mom said, “Okay, Detters. I hear you. If we can take a vote, next time we will.”

“Really?”

Mom nodded. “Really. But tell me . . . about Georgie. She’s way better than a Labrador, right?”

“Yeah,” Odette conceded. “I wouldn’t trade her for a dozen Labs.”