And just like that, summer is over.
“Don’t worry, Mercy. It’s going to be OK.” Trudy is staring straight ahead, watching the road. How can she stand it? Mercy going to school. It is unspeakable. Well, she thinks, at least Jules is still around. Small mercies: the summer has come and gone and her boyfriend had not driven his car off a ramp into the river. Yet. Every time Trudy drives past the ramp, she glares at it, hoping to bring it crashing to the ground with her mind. It is not out of the question. One day, she saw a hunk of earth the size of a tractor-trailer just crumble off one side and go land-sliding across the field in pieces.
She fiddles with the radio to see if she can find a good song. “Joy to the World” is playing. She can live with that. Joy to the fishes and the bullfrogs and all that.
“It’s going to be great!” Mercy shouts over the music. She loves this song. She is bouncing a little in her seat, looking out the window. “When will we get there? This drive is long.”
“Don’t let anybody push you around.” Trudy is feeling a little sick, shaky. It hadn’t hit her until this morning. This dread. She wishes she could keep Mercy at home with her and Claire forever.
“Nobody’s gonna be mean to me, Trudy. We’re all going to be friends.” She turns to address her directly, to make sure she is listening. “They’re all just little kids like me, Trudy.” Mercy looks out the window again and sighs. “I wish Speckles could come to school. Why can’t dogs come to school with you, Trudy?”
Trudy ignores the question, keeps driving. She is thinking about how, when she was in school, there were some kids who had terrified her, who had made every single day a trial. Mostly boys, but some girls, too. Kids who, if you said hello to them, would laugh in your face. But if you walked by without saying hello, they would deride you for being a snob, for being too good. They would trip you as you walked by or shove your shoulder so that you fell sideways. Kids who would love an excuse, any excuse at all, to punch you right in the face.
She hadn’t realized until halfway through high school that she had developed a sort of system, an actual physical posture of avoidance. Rolling her shoulders forward so her chest would not stick out, hands in pockets, tucking her buttocks in. Staring at the ground or to the side when she passed people. Making herself smaller, quieter. Like a sad old beaten-up dog.
It is too much.
How can she let Mercy go, just to be swallowed up by it all? It doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t seem possible that there is no choice. That there is only one way for kids to grow up. But the car is parked now and her feet keep walking across the pavement. One foot in front of the other.
They walk across the parking lot to the kindergarten playground, holding hands. Mercy is hopping on one foot. She looks so happy, like she can barely stay tethered to the ground. The morning air is just a little bit cool, and the white sun flashes through the leaves of the trees around the grassy yard. It is early and there are a few kids — maybe half a dozen — milling around. Mercy lets go of Trudy’s hand and runs across the grass. Trudy watches her as she stops and talks to one kid, then another, then another.
Mercy pirouettes around them, her fine straight hair flying around in the breeze.
She turns and looks back at Trudy for a moment, checking to see if she is still there.
Trudy waves but stays where she is. Breathing. She looks down at her feet on the pavement. Tanned nut-brown in her Jesus sandals, the grass of the yard just past her big toes.
When she looks up again, Mercy is standing face to face with another girl. They hold each other by both hands, their foreheads almost touching. Mercy is smiling with her head cocked to one side. Her knees are bent, sprung tight, like she is about to leap into the air.
Like she is about to launch herself high into the pale blue morning sky.