FOUR

Unless you happen to like to sweat—which I do not unless it comes after a good run—spending July outside in Vermont is a lot nicer than swimming through the humidity that suffocates Atlanta, where I sweltered every year from March until Thanksgiving. But now I found myself drawn to the front porch early each morning by cool breezes and the chatter of a million different birds singing in the field and trees.

Mama rarely got up before ten, so the only other early morning sound came from Deacon’s truck rumbling down the driveway when he and Quince left. The quiet made my insides calm in a way I never remembered feeling. It was a nice break from the constant hubbub of living in a big city. There were a couple of times, when a colorful bird flew by or the sweet scent of the baby-pink flowers growing in the yard floated past my nose, that I thought it was a shame to have to give up this place at the end of the year. It might be nice to get away from Atlanta and come sit on this breezy porch every summer.

About two weeks after we arrived, a mail truck sputtered and chugged up the long driveway and stopped in front of the house. The mail guy got out and carried a white envelope with red and blue stripes to the door. Mama must have been on the lookout for him. It wasn’t ten o’clock yet, but she was up and waiting. She flung the door open, snatched the envelope from his hand, and slammed the door shut without saying a word.

The man looked at his clipboard and grumbled, then raised his hand to knock.

“Wait!” I said. “I’ll sign.”

He turned to look where I was sitting on the porch swing. “Oh, I didn’t see you theyah—can you sign for her?”

He talked funny. I walked across the porch and reached for the pen.

“I’m her daughter—is that okay?”

“Just sign theyah,” he said, pointing to a line at the bottom.

I figured “theyah” meant “there,” so I scribbled my name, then went back to the swing while he squinted and studied my signature.

“We have different last names,” I said.

“Ayuh, I sorted that out. What’s your name?”

Was I supposed to give a stranger my name, even if he was the mailman? He tapped his pen on the clipboard.

“I need to know so I can print it.”

“Oh, right. Maggie Austin.”

“M-a-g-g-i-e Austin,” he said, writing it out as he spoke. “Ah, that makes sense. You must be Johnny Austin’s daugh-tah.”

Johnny Austin’s daughter.

I was Johnny Austin’s daughter. That’s the first time I remembered ever hearing someone say it like that. I pushed the floor with my toe and made the bench swing rock again.

Johnny Austin’s daughter.

“Well, welcome to Vermont, Maggie Austin. I’m Jeffrey. Your dad was one of my favorite people. He didn’t get out much, but we had some good talks heyah on the porch, when I could catch him.”

His mouth twitched into a half smile. I sat still, like a mute, until finally he did a little wave and trotted off down the steps.

The next morning Mama was up early again. I heard her making noise in the kitchen before nine and went in to find her with her nose inside a shiny green bag of coffee.

“One thing I’ll say about Vermont, they do sell some fine coffee,” she said.

She scooped some grounds from the bag and dumped them into a filter, poured water into the back of the coffeemaker, and turned it on. The smell of java filled the kitchen.

“And what are you up to today, sugar?”

Her cheerfulness this early was unsettling. “I want to go to the library. Can you take me?”

She got her mug from the cabinet and examined the inside, like she expected a spider to crawl out. “Library? What do you want to go to a library for?”

“I’m tired of sitting on the porch every day. Besides, I happen to like books, remember?”

“You brought books, remember?”

“I don’t have any about Vermont. If we’re going to be stuck here a whole year, I want to learn about things. Like those trees out there in the woods. Why do they have white bark?”

“Now how would I know that?”

“Exactly. And since we don’t have the internet yet—”

“Internet, internet, internet,” she said. “I want it as much as you do, but can’t you think about something else? What do you think people did before the internet, little missy?”

I stared at her, not believing she’d walked herself right into that trap. “They went to the library, and they read books.”

“Psshhh,” she said, flipping her hand. “I can’t take you today. I have an important errand on my agenda. You’ll have to suffer through another day on that porch.”

“Where are you going?”

She poured coffee into the mug, then placed her palm against my cheek and smiled. “I’m not telling. It’s a surprise. A going-away gift to us from Peter.”

“I don’t feel like surprises.”

“Well, I don’t feel like arguing, and since I’m in charge of us, I win.”

Two hours later, Mama waved playfully as she pulled out of the driveway. I gave her the hairy-eyeball look and pushed the porch swing so hard with my foot I thought the rusty old chain holding it up might break. Wouldn’t that serve her right, coming home to a daughter lying on the front porch, tangled up in a bunch of chains, all because she wouldn’t take her to the library.