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Bursting through the front door, I opened my mouth to call out. The words froze in my throat. Mom sat at the kitchen table, crying. My backpack hit the ground with a thud.
She raised her tear-stained face. “I got laid off today. They told me I was doing a great job, but they had to make some cuts to stay in business.” She choked back a sob. “What are we going to do?”
My feet unstuck from where they were glued to the floor and I ran and threw my arms around her. “You’ll find another job.”
She hugged me so tight my ribs hurt.
“I hope so, honey. You know I’ve been trying. Jobs are scarce right now.” She took a deep breath, released me and grabbed a napkin to wipe her face. “But you don’t need to worry. I’ll get something. We’ll be okay.”
I sighed. Mom always told me to focus on the positive, so she had to set the example. But she didn’t believe it. At least not yet.
“Do you want me to make dinner?”
Mom raised her eyebrow. “And what delicacy are you planning to serve?”
I shrugged. “Well, I make a mean peanut butter graham cracker.”
Mom snorted. “Why don’t you close the front door before we have every stray cat in the neighborhood taking up residence in our living room? And I’ll make us something to eat.”
At least I made her laugh.
A bubble of happiness warred with the fear inside me. It was terrible that Mom had lost her job, but she’d have more time to spend with me until she got a new one.
After dinner, I washed the dishes with no argument. “Do you want to watch a movie?”
Mom looked up from the paper, where she’d circled several want ads. “I can’t. I have to keep looking for jobs.” She patted the laptop on the table next to her. “Once I go through the paper, I have to get this cranked up and see what else I can find.”
“That stinks. You can’t even take a couple hours to relax?”
She shook her head. “I can’t stop until I have another job, hon.”
I slumped on the couch and put my feet on the coffee table. So much for spending more time with her.
“Angela, take your feet off the table. You know better.” Mom pursed her lips. “Have you finished your homework?”
“No.” I huffed, rolled off the couch, and stomped toward the stairs.
I flung the bedroom door open and threw my backpack on the bed.
After pulling my history book out of the bag, I sat at the desk and cracked the pages. Why did history books have to be so boring? Exciting stuff happened, but you’d never know it from our history book. I think they forgot the story part of history.
A bland recital of facts and dates, ‘The Pandora myth first appears in lines 560–612 of Hesiod’s poem ...,’ blah, blah, blah. The tedium caused my eyes to glaze. I couldn’t believe this book made Greek mythology boring. We were reading about Pandora, which should have been exciting. It would have made a great movie. The special effects when she broke open the box would be awesome.
I closed the history book. I wasn’t in the mood, and I had until Wednesday to finish. I grabbed my math book. I scribbled down the answers to the two problems I had left. Math homework complete, I pulled out my English homework.
About halfway through, I closed the book. I couldn’t concentrate on anything. Mom said not to worry about what would happen to us, but I couldn’t help it.
Mom did her best, but since Dad left, money had been tight. She had never said anything, but any time I needed something for school the grooves between her eyebrows deepened in pain. Maybe I should take back some of my new clothes.
Remembering her tears made me shaky inside. I didn’t know what I’d do if Mom crumbled. She always held us together. My heart jolted. Would we have to sell the house and move?
My gaze traveled around the room. The wild psychedelic print on the wall Mom and I picked out together. The stair step bookcase Dad and I sanded and varnished together. My grandmother’s hope-chest at the foot of the bed, where I kept all my treasures.
This had always been my room. I didn’t want to move into a strange house and have to get used to a new room.
Every well-worn and loved object had memories attached. My eyes stopped on the journal. The newest thing I owned, except for my clothes. A twinge of guilt pricked my conscience. It bugged me we hadn’t been able to pay Madame Vadoma for the reading. What if the journal was cursed because I hadn’t paid?
She gave it to me though, and didn’t ask for any money.
I closed my eyes to block the journal out. A vision of Madame Vadoma handing it to me rose in my mind’s eye. Her intense stare as she told me to use it wisely increased. Until all I “saw” was her glare. My eyes flew open.
Journaling hadn’t made me feel better last time, but maybe I needed to give it a chance.
Seeing my name in the angular, foreign-looking script still shocked me. I had forgotten to tell Mallory about the name at the front. I turned the page. My words from yesterday mocked me.
I got what I wanted, but at what price? I didn’t want Mom to lose her job. What had gone wrong?
Madame Vadoma said I had to use it with a pure heart. Maybe what I had written was too selfish. I only thought about what I wanted. Settling in at my desk, I turned the page. Maybe I should try again.
Sometimes getting what you want isn’t the best thing in the world. Mom is home tonight, so I should be happy, right? But when she’s crying because she lost her job, happiness seems kinda far away. If I could go back to yesterday and do it over, I wouldn’t want Mom to stay home with me. I’d want her to have a better job, making more money, but not have to work such long hours. Then we could both be happy.
I picked up the journal. Did I need to add anything else? A gentle rumble rippled through the journal—like holding a purring kitten. But journals don’t purr, so my hands must be shaking. I reread the words on the page.
What the heck? The entry read like I believed what I wrote yesterday made Mom lose her job. Ridiculous. I looked at the journal. Plain lined paper covered in leather. Nothing special.
Madame Vadoma must have bewitched me into thinking the journal had special powers. All the talk about the heart having power and using it wisely. Any connection to what I had written and what happened to Mom was coincidence. Nothing more. Otherwise it meant I had caused an entire company to fail.
I giggled. No twelve-year-old had that kind of power.
What would Mom say if I told her that what I wrote in the journal came true? She’d probably talk about having me see someone because of the divorce again.
I closed the journal and stared at it. Nothing. No glow. No vibrations.
Well ... I wriggled my shoulders. The memory of last night’s vibrations and the darkness creeping out from the pages made me uncomfortable. I shoved the memory down—nothing more than an overactive imagination.
Its pages didn’t call my name, or pull me inside. And the ink didn’t disappear into the page. And except for my name at the front, no one else’s writing was in it. Kinda tame for a magical object. In fact, it looked and acted exactly like a journal.
Which is exactly what it was. And a pretty measly one at that.
Moving it to the side, I went back to my English homework. Maybe writing in it did work, because I felt a little better.
“Angela!”
Mom’s voice penetrated the mists of my dream. Morning already?
“Angela, get up.”
I couldn’t be late for school already. The light through the window barely lit the room. And Mom sounded happy and not angry.
Shoving my feet into my slippers, I dashed to the door.
Mom just missed hitting me as she burst through it. “I got a call from a job I interviewed for months ago, and they want to make me an offer.”
My eyes widened and my jaw dropped. “Really?” The word trailed up into a squeak.
She hugged me. “This is the job I wanted, too. It’s with a good, established company and the benefits are wonderful.” She swung me around. “I can’t tell you how happy I am. I’d given up hope they’d call. And that they called on the day after I lost my other job makes it sweeter.”
The big smile on my face made my cheeks hurt, but I couldn’t stop. “I am so excited for you. When do you start?”
Mom’s eyes danced with happiness. “I’m going in today to do the preliminary paperwork, and they want me to start immediately.”
“Yay!”
“So you need to get ready for school. I’ll drop you off a bit early, if that’s okay.”
“Sure.”
Mom grinned. “I’ll get breakfast ready while you get dressed.”
I rushed through my morning routine and clomped down the stairs, as Mom finished making breakfast. Fried egg and turkey bacon sandwich on toasted English muffin. My favorite.
Mom sat at the table with me to drink her coffee while I ate. I couldn’t remember the last time we had breakfast together.
She took a sip from the steaming cup. “Did you finish your homework last night?”
I nodded and only felt a pinch of guilt. I didn’t finish the history homework. But it wasn’t due until tomorrow, so technically it became tonight’s homework.
I took a bite of my sandwich and savored it; the crunch of the bacon and the squish of the egg both cushioned by the muffin. Mom got the yolk perfect—cooked, but creamy liquid to soak into the muffin crannies. I closed my eyes as I chewed. “Mmmmm.”
Mom laughed. “I’m glad you enjoy your food.”
“It’s the best, because ...”
She joined me.
“... it’s made with love.”
Done with breakfast, I pounded upstairs to grab my books. Still stacked on my desk from last night, I shoved them into my backpack and ran back downstairs.
