Since it’s the last day of school, I take my time walking home from the bus, circle the block a few times, pretend I live on another street. No more school or school buses or Darts for three whole months. But then, I don’t want to get home fast, either.
If there were someplace to exist between school and home, wouldn’t I like to live there? Yes, I would.
I pass the house with the potted plant displayed on the stump. I feel it staring at me, calling for help. I take a few more steps, and then I can’t take it anymore. I run back, rescue it from the stump, and gently place it on their porch, where it’s supposed to be—doesn’t everybody know that? Did anyone see me? The neighbors will think I’m crazy, but I don’t care.
I walk quickly from the crime scene and turn onto Yale Court. I allow myself the luxury of a treasure hunt and pick up a heart-shaped rock—these are easier to spot than you might imagine. Then a golf ball from Mr. Gustafson’s front yard. I have two at home that I put little faces on with a black marker. One is a happy face, one is sad. I find it useful to put these on my father’s bathroom counter so he’ll know my mood.
This morning I’d put them both on his shaving towel. I might have to create a new golf ball with a half-happy, half-sad face on it because lately I feel divided all the time. Half of me fighting to go north, the other half south. Plant suggested this is a sure sign of crazy and to be on the lookout for new voices.
I walk around the whole cul-de-sac, kicking a rock. I check the mail.
There it is.
Somehow I knew it would be there. Now here’s one thing you need to know about my mother: She sends me cards twice a year, for my birthday and for Christmas. I don’t get anything else from her the rest of the year. This is the way it’s always been.
It gives me a tiny bit of fear. I have to remind myself it’s just a card. But she has touched this piece of paper, and that makes it a rare thing. It’s like we’ve both been to the same place, just at different times. Like I was going into a building and she was coming out.
At first, I pretend I don’t care about her card and read the other mail first. Then, I go say hi to Plant and twist her pot around so she can sun her backside. I check phone messages and send a text to Lisa.
Write me from camp!
Mr. Wistler would be happy that I wrote the text in a complete sentence.
All of this eats up about five minutes.
The envelope stares at me.
It has her loopy handwriting and a Texas Department of Criminal Justice stamp on the outside.
I put my fingers over the ink writing bearing my name.
Sarah Nelson
I let my finger run under the envelope flap and feel a satisfying lift as the paper peels up. I pull out a card and flip it onto its front. I smell the card, hold it up to the light to see if there’s a hidden message written in invisible ink. I’ve read that crazy people sometimes do things like that. But there’s nothing like that. Just a picture of a black Labrador dog staring back at me. His head is tilted as if someone just asked him to do Algebra and he’s thinking, Are you kidding?
I open the card.
Have a Doggone Happy Birthday.
Happy Birthday, Sarah. How are you doing? Twelve is such a wonderful age. Please send me pictures of your new self.
Love, Jane Your Mother
Okay, this isn’t nice, but right off, there are two mistakes in this card:
1. She first signed the card Jane.
2. She thinks I have a new self.
I have to wonder if somebody at her hospital reminded her not to sign her name to her own daughter’s birthday card. And what does she know about my new self? She knows nothing about me.
Still, I go into my bathroom to see if a new self stares back. I run my hand through my hair. Push it back behind my ears so maybe it will look put up. Pucker my lips and twist my shoulders to the side, supermodel-style. I don’t know; maybe there is a small change, but it’s just the difference between six and six-o-five—the same plain me, only five minutes older.
Maybe she just wrote the word for no reason and I’m getting all excited over nothing. Analysis is paralysis, Gramps always says when we are all trying to decide on a place to eat and none of us can make up our minds. I’m thinking about this too much. I set the card aside, tell myself she wants a picture of me, nothing more. The worst part of the whole “crazy mother” issue is, there is no one I can talk to about this card.
“What do you think, Simon?” I say to my reflection. “Does twelve look different to you? Do I look different from where you are?”
Right away, I feel lonely for Simon, so I erase my thoughts about him, think about someone new.
My aunt Mariah?
I could call her and ask her what she thinks. She is another person our family doesn’t like to talk about, probably because she is my mother’s half sister. I wish we were closer, but we are not. When I think of her, I picture her quoting the Bible and grabbing both of my hands together when she greets me. My grandmother doesn’t like this much at all. Aunt Mariah is a touchy person, decorated with jewelry and color. If people were colors, my grandmother would be beige and Aunt Mariah a rainbow. Ha!
I close my eyes and picture her hands on my face. Yes, I could talk to her about this card. I will have to write it on my list, ask my dad for her phone number. I don’t know when I talked to her last.
Simon comes to my mind again, and I have to tell him to please go away now.
When we were in Galveston, my aunt and I had a lot of long walks on the beach. She would put her face close to mine, and I could smell the mint leaf she liked to chew. She’d say the most amazing things, which made you wish you had a pencil and paper attached to your shirt. You’d want to catch all her phrases.
“There are people just waiting to love you, people God has put along the path of life like signposts down a highway. Go This Way. Turn Here and Love This Person. Help: 10 Miles. Most do not stop to read them, Sarah girl.”
One thing I remember for sure is this: She said if I love someone else when I most need to feel loved, well, then love will rain over me until I am soaked.
It is at this moment I realize I am crying.
Tears flow, and I hug the card to my chest. I slide down onto the yellow bathroom floor and lie on my side, and I see one of my barrettes under the cabinet. I feel split in two. I ache to know more about my mother, while at the same time, I wish she’d never send me any cards at all. Feeling two things at once must be one of the first signs of going crazy.
After a few minutes, I hear the sound of our garage door opening. It rattles and screeches like something is killing it.
I get up from the floor and straighten myself out. My cheeks are red and splotchy, so I splash water on my face and then run into my room, close the door, and sit next to Plant. Her birthday is in September, so she will have to wait for something special. I read her my birthday card.
“I wonder if she was signing a bunch of autographs and they put this card in front of her,” I say. “She thought it was just another signature for a fan.”
I’ve read on the Internet about people who want to write to my mother. From what I can tell, there are some men who have a crush on her, some women who want to hurt her, and some people who want to study her. It is strange to think how some people know more about her than I do. It is so unfair.