I dreamed again—the exhilaration of weightlessness, the rush of speed, the summer wind in my hair. The warmth of Ginger’s arm against mine. Calliope music played far below us, buoyed by the scent of cotton candy. Our heads rattled against the back of the seat as the car jerked and climbed, a giant bicycle chain spinning beneath us. We reached the top, and I turned my head to look at her. She laughed like she hadn’t been able to in years, reaching freely for the sky. I raised my arms too, and in the breathless seconds before we dropped I saw a beautiful city flash like lightning in the distance.
I woke and hovered on the rim of sleep, unwilling to let go. Then I saw the angel bear on my grandmother’s old dresser, the bear the hospice nurse had brought, and remembered that Ginger was with the angels now. I held on as long as I could to the warmth of her arm against mine.
The curtains above my head billowed and whispered in the breeze. Outside, the wind chimes passed their tones back and forth. I heard Dad working in the garage, listening to a tape of Marty Robbins. The house itself seemed to be holding its breath.
That first morning with Andie, I was fully aware that things were different. I had taken the day off from work, because it wasn’t right to leave her at Deja’s mercy on the first day. School would be back in session on Monday, and Dad’s stint as babysitter would be over for another summer. It was too much to ask him to referee.
“Little armadillo, that’s what she is.” That had been Dad’s observation on Andie’s first night with us. “Curls up in a ball,” he said. “A hide like armor.”
I was helping him open the drive-in, and I’d paused from stirring the hot cheese into figure eights. “What did you expect, Dad? We took her away from her grandparents. Now she’s living with strangers.” I rubbed the back of my neck and rolled my head shoulder to shoulder. “Did we do the right thing?”
“Time will tell. Time will tell. She may loosen up.” He made a stirring motion with his hand. “Don’t let it scorch. I’ll get another bag of chips from the back.”
After we closed the snack shack in the middle of the second feature, I went back to the house and peeked into Winnie’s room. Her breath came in rhythmic puffs, and the moonlight painted a swatch of light across her bed. Then I checked on Andie. With her head under that old afghan she’d brought, I could have sworn it was Ginger’s form lying there. Changing the wallpaper and blinds hadn’t really made much difference. The room still belonged to Ginger.
A fine residue of guilt dusted my conscience each morning, sifting into cracks in my defenses. I dragged myself from bed and stood in the shower until hot pins jabbed my scalp red. It was such an indulgence. Toward the end of Ginger’s illness, when no one else could care for her the way I could, I had no time for myself at all, not even for normal things like bathing. More than once I’d jumped out of the tub still covered with soap when I heard one of the family call in panic that Ginger was in cataplexy or seizure. Later that day Deja would ask, “Gross, Mom, what’s in your hair?” and I’d reached up to feel the crunch of dried shampoo. I couldn’t even shave both legs the same day.
After we lost Ginger, I had all the time in the world to take long, luxurious showers, but it just didn’t seem important any more. And I had time to clean the house so the girls could have people over, but by then Deja didn’t want us to meet any of her friends.
Things were slowly—very slowly—beginning to matter again.
On that first morning, I wanted to be up before Andie. I got out of the shower and towel-dried my hair, pulling on shorts and a T-shirt. I slipped my feet into flip-flops and shuffled into the kitchen, twisting my hair into a scrunchie on top of my head. The thermometer outside the kitchen window read eighty-five degrees, and it was only seven o’clock. If I was going to bake, it would have to be in the morning.
I preheated the oven to 350 degrees, peeled overripe bananas, and threw them into the Mixmaster. Flour, brown sugar, white sugar, cinnamon, baking soda—all pulled from a giant file in my brain, just as dog-eared as any recipe card. One egg and oil. I chopped pecans when I found no walnuts in the freezer, and wrote walnuts on the magnetic shopping list on the fridge.
Only after sliding the loaf pans into the oven and setting the timer for fifty minutes did I pour myself a cup of serious coffee and turn on the little kitchen TV. The weather forecast said hot, dry, light winds and a high danger of fire with no end in sight. A high of 104 for the third day in a row. I wondered if Andie was used to the heat. From the look of the weather map, her little hometown was perched well above the heat of the Central Valley.
I wondered what she thought of us and our house. And of the drive-in.
Cyclops cried at the kitchen door, and I let him in to eat. He preened and practically grabbed the bag out of my hand when I filled his dish with crunchies. “Get used to the outside world,” I told him, rubbing his jet-black head. “Things are going to be different around here.”
Who would have guessed that Andie would be allergic to cats? I bet the kid never had a pet in her life. The only thing we could do was to keep him outside. Cyclops had been Ginger’s and had earned his place in the family. He wasn’t going anywhere.
When Andie came into the house the night before, backpack clutched to her chest, I got the feeling she was checking out the servants’ quarters. It wasn’t so much in anything she said, but in her expression and the way she gave the furniture and walls a wide berth. She never even put her clothes in the dresser.
She seemed mature for her age. Almost precocious. From what I gathered, she was the only child of schoolteachers with enough money saved to travel the world during summer breaks. Must be nice, I thought, until I remembered that it was on a vacation to Mexico that they had died.
If her parents had still been alive when we discovered that Ginger and Andie were switched at birth, I would have left her alone. Of course I would have been curious, but my first instinct would have been to protect Ginger. I wouldn’t have given Ginger up, not in a million years. If she’d lived to be a hundred, I would never have admitted the little inconsistencies—the upturn of her nose, the roundness of her earlobes, the way she browned to caramel in the summer while the other girls burned and faded pale again.
I got up and dumped my coffee dregs in the sink, rinsing the cup and running the garbage disposal until it grated dry, remembering the day I called to tell Russell the news that Ginger wasn’t our biological child. He was loading up his precious new boat for a fishing trip with some good old boys, and Starr told me he couldn’t be bothered. She always ran interference between us. She probably thought I would ask for more money or (heaven forbid) for him to take the girls.
The two of them had been magically married since the day our divorce was final. Dad figured she’d been waiting in the wings all along. During that time Russell managed to move back home to Nevada, where he could go back to being a rodeo wannabe and acquire a speedboat, new truck, fifth wheel, and horse trailer. If Starr didn’t keep a rein on his spending, they’d soon be out of money and I’d be out of child support.
When she wouldn’t let me speak to him directly, I told her to make sure he picked up a Reno newspaper. He called me back that morning after he saw the story about the baby-switch. I suppose it was spiteful of me, but he had to cancel his fishing trip when I gave his address to reporters and they camped out in his yard. After the second day as prisoners in their home, as we were, Starr created some sort of diversion and he sneaked out to meet his fishing buddies, leaving the boat behind in the driveway. When the reporters discovered he’d escaped, they asked me where Russell liked to fish. I narrowed it down to three favorite fishing holes and offered to draw maps.
It was small consolation for the fact that, while I was taking care of our dying child, he’d had the nerve to say he couldn’t handle it anymore and left. He even had the nerve to suggest that Ginger wasn’t really his.
“There’s never been any sick kids in my family. Look at her, for cryin’ out loud, Marty. She don’t even look like the others. Makes me wonder.”
I was too incensed and hurt at the time to admit that I’d also wondered why she looked so different from Deja and Winnie. I put it down to recessive genes. My own mother was blonde at birth and turned dark-headed within months, just like Ginger. A niggling little thought had worked its way in at the time of her birth, in the form of an identification bracelet that had first been loose and then so binding that it left a mark on her newborn wrist. It made sense that the nurses had tightened it, and I’d quickly batted any suspicions into the outer reaches.
But the genetic disease—there had to be an explanation for that.
Ginger had been six when I first noticed her bobbing her head in front of the TV instead of moving her eyes to follow the action. As time went on, her speech began to slur, and she grew clumsier than normal. She had trouble keeping up in school. Eventually, the seizures began. Since so little was known about the disease, it went misdiagnosed for several years. As her symptoms progressed and my marriage floundered, I pulled inward, and it wasn’t until she died that I had time to even question our part in it. Russell and I went in separately for tests, and we found that neither one of us was a carrier. The doctor took a hard look and noticed that her blood type on her birth certificate was wrong. Then it took forever to get the birth records opened. DNA tests revealed what I couldn’t even imagine—that I’d raised the wrong child. That I had buried the wrong child.
I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t admit—only to myself—the horrible thought that went through my mind. That I had cared for someone else’s sick child unto death. That I’d been cheated out of a healthy family, and my children cheated from a normal childhood, and I’d borne it alone without a husband, because he bailed when it got too hard. Then the guilt would set in, because I loved Ginger so much. I loved Ginger as part of myself. Part of me rested with her in that shabby little district cemetery on the edge of town.
A movement through the kitchen window caught my attention, and I realized I still had the empty coffee mug in my hand. Tiny yellow finches fought for position on a mesh sack of birdseed suspended from the roof outside, digging in upside down, eating their way around like a barber’s pole, tenacious and undaunted by bigger birds. It was then that I heard ripping noises from the living room. Cyclops was finished with breakfast and was now clawing the couch. I set the coffee mug on the counter, sneaked up behind the cat, and scooped him into my arms.
“Honestly, in all that time outside you couldn’t find somewhere else to sharpen your claws?” He growled low in his throat as I tossed him outside. “Find a nice shady tree,” I said through the screen door.
The kitchen timer went off. I opened the oven to check the bread, releasing the warm scent of pecans and cinnamon, and sank a knife cleanly into the middle of a robust crack. I turned the loaf out onto a clean dish towel.
Winnie padded barefoot down the hall and into the kitchen, curling up in a chair at the table. I sliced two thick pieces of steaming banana nut bread and placed them in front of her with a glass of milk. She pushed back her hair and grinned.
“Sleep sweet, pumpkin?” I asked.
She nodded and picked at a pecan, flicking it off to the side. “If I sleep with you, then Andie can have my room. Deja won’t be so mean to her.” She blew steam away, sank her teeth into the slice, and washed it down with milk. White fuzz glistened above her lip.
I tucked a blonde lock behind her ear. “It’s time you had your own room again. You’re growing up, you know.” And I can’t keep you close forever.
“Is Andie awake?”
“I think she’s still sleeping. We’ll let her rest as long as she needs to. It’s not every day that she gets a new family.” I rested my chin in my hand and studied her. “So,” I said, lowering my voice, “did she like your welcome sign?”
She shrugged. “Guess so.” She nibbled the crusty edge in earnest and wiped her fingers on her pajama front. “She’s been to Disney World. And jail.”
I studied her face. “Jail?”
“She had pictures. In San Francisco. You have to take a boat there.”
“Oh, you mean Alcatraz.”
She nodded and finished off her milk.
“You’ve been there too, you know. You were only a baby, but we spent the day in San Francisco before Ginger got sick.”
“Do we gots a picture? I want to show Andie.”
“Maybe. Somewhere.” It was with the others I’d pulled from our family album—all the ones with Russell in them, except for our wedding picture, which I’d thought was important in case they ever wondered if we’d actually been married. I’d resisted tossing them, for the girls’ sake.
“Have I been to Egypt?”
I stifled a smile. “No. Why, has Andie been there too?”
“Uh-huh. Can I have some more?”
I went to the counter and cut another slice of bread. “Better go easy. Somebody else might want some.” I offered it to her, then pulled back and waited. She took the hint.
“Please, Mommy,” she said, grinning. It was a game we played, called “remember your manners.”
“Are you ready to start back to school next week?”
“Yeah.” Her eyes flew open. “I hope I get Mrs. Orlando. I need a new backpack and a lunch box. Can we go to Target?”
“I think so. Your old ones lasted two years.”
“Andie can go with us. Maybe we can pick out the same one.”
I winced. “It would be okay if she picked out a different one, wouldn’t it?”
She nodded. “’Kay.”
“So, did she say anything last night?” I asked. “You know, about being here?”
Winnie shook her head. “She’s grumpy.” She sprayed food, which I ignored for the moment, sensing her feelings had been hurt. “She’s not like Ginger.”
I motioned for her to sit on my lap. She climbed up without a word and rested her head against my shoulder in the curl of my neck. Her soft hair smelled of pillow and strawberry shampoo.
“She’s not Ginger, honey, and it’s not fair to expect her to be. She’s Andie, and she’s special in her own way. One of these days she’ll seem like a sister to you.”
Her head moved up and down beneath my chin, and her arm slipped around my waist.
“Remember that she lost both of her parents a couple years ago. And in a way, she’s lost her grandparents, because the court said she has to live with us. We have to give her lots and lots of time. You understand?”
In my mind’s eye, I saw her grandparents as we’d left them on the porch of their mobile home, leaning on each other like spent garden vines. This first morning without Andie must be like another death to them.
Winnie nodded and, after a moment, twisted around to pat my cheek. She looked dreamily into my eyes. “You’re pretty, Mommy. I love you.”
“I love you more.”
She tapped her finger on my chest. “I love you more.”
I poked her back. “No, I love you more.” Then I tickled her until I was afraid she’d wet her pants, and I let her slip off my lap. She ran cross-legged down the hall.
Her laughter came straight from heaven—a glimmer of hope that life could be restored.
If there was one good thing that came from Russell’s abandonment, it was that we were pushed in God’s direction at a time when we needed Him most. Something like being shoved onto one of those people movers at the airport, where you can stand still and make slow progress, or walk and make good time. I just stood, letting it pull me along, overloaded with baggage, relieved to be moving at all.
A nurse from the hospital had invited us to visit her little storefront church. The only reason I’d agreed to go was that she had promised to meet me at the door.
Her invitation came just in time. I think we would have unraveled completely if God hadn’t rushed in to tie up our frayed ends. Except for poor Deja. Her raw ends were still exposed and tangled.
Lately my relationship with Him had stalled. I’d been reading a devotional booklet about overcoming loss, but I stopped when I came to a part about God bringing good from bad. It shocked me that anyone could even suggest that any good could come from losing Ginger. That was last winter, and we hadn’t been back to church since.
I folded two slices of nut bread in a napkin and carried them out to the garage, to find Dad trying to resuscitate the lawn mower.
“Here, Pop,” I said, handing him the bread. “Want some eggs to go with it?”
He smiled and wiped his hands on a rag. “No, this’ll do.” He nodded to a corner of the garage. “I’m cleaning up today. Got anything for the women’s shelter?”
I knew what was in the corner—a folded wheelchair covered by a sheet like a little ghost.
“No, Dad. Not yet.”
He kept his focus on the mower. “No hurry.”
“You want a warm-up?” I motioned for his coffee mug.
“No, I’ll float away.”
When I got back to the kitchen, Winnie was on her fourth slice. “Mommy, Andie’s up.”
For a moment I wished I could suspend time and preserve the future I envisioned where we all blended like a beautiful jigsaw puzzle, blending into one another for a perfect fit without any missing pieces. But it was show time. I said, “Let’s see if she’s hungry.”
I glanced at my reflection in the hall mirror as I passed and tightened my scrunchie.
We found Andie curled up on the couch with that ragged afghan, watching Saturday morning cartoons.
“Good morning,” I said. “Would you like a slice of homemade nut bread?”
Homemade. What in the world made me say that?
“No, thanks.” She kept her eyes on Tom and Jerry. Her short blonde hair was an explosion of soft straw around her head.
“We also have Cap’n Crunch, Pop-Tarts, instant oatmeal?”
“I’m not hungry.”
Winnie settled in at the other end of the couch with the remote. “What do you want to watch?” she asked.
“I don’t care.” Andie pulled her oversize T-shirt down over her knees and tucked it beneath her toes, covering every inch of her except her head. She sneezed and sniffled.
My first order of business would be to clean the carpets and furniture to try to get rid of some of the animal dander.
“Mom said we can go to the store today and get new backpacks for school,” Winnie ventured.
“I’m okay,” Andie said. Then she looked over at Winnie. “When does school start?”
“Two days. On Monday.”
Andie hugged her knees to her chest and rested her chin on the top.
“If you want to take a shower,” I said, “get a towel out of the hall closet where I showed you last night. If you can’t find something, just look around or ask Winnie. And help yourself to anything in the fridge.”
When she didn’t respond, I left her to Winnie and went back to clean up the kitchen. I spent more energy than usual cleaning that Saturday. Really, how much stress should a thirteen-year-old induce in a grown woman?
Andie read on her bed all day or drew in her sketchbook, which she slammed shut when I stuck my head in to ask if she had any dirty laundry. She had made the bed and, except for a few photos on her nightstand, left no evidence that she’d even slept there. Her side had the temporary feel of a Motel 6.
Winnie tried to make her own bed without any coercion from me and cleaned off her dresser. She asked me if there were any frames she could have.
Deja brought out her laundry looking sullen, which I recognized as an attempt to discourage all communication. It didn’t work.
“How’s it going, honey?” I asked.
“Great.” She dropped the basket heavily onto the floor and sorted her dirty clothes into piles of black, red, and skulls.
“Are you going anyplace with Summer today?”
She looked up and arched an eyebrow at me. “You think I’m leaving her alone with my stuff?”
It took a moment for me to realize she was talking about Andie. “Oh, come on, Deja. She’s not going to bother your things.”
She shook her head with a knowing smirk. “She could scratch my CDs or break my stereo. Or steal my money. No way.”
I motioned to keep her voice down. “Deja, you’re not being fair.”
“I’m being smart.”
“In more ways than one, young lady.”
She rested the laundry basket on her hip and swaggered down the hall.
Winnie talked Andie into going with us to Target that afternoon. The Toyota was like an oven on wheels since the air conditioning had gone out, and we couldn’t afford to get it fixed. Deja didn’t go, and it was probably for the best.
Andie repeated that she didn’t want a new backpack, and I let it go. We’d get one later if she changed her mind. I did insist that she pick out an insulated sack for her lunch, pointing out that the only time we buy school lunches is on pizza day. Winnie chose a backpack with wheels and a retractable handle—a large piece of carry-on luggage that would never fit under her desk.
Our first meal together tasted like cardboard to me, and we all breathed easier when Deja excused herself from the table. I’d settled on spaghetti, which was one of the few foods that got Andie’s attention when I rattled off the choices. Winnie jabbered on, filling the silence with talk of school and friends she couldn’t wait to see. I wondered if Andie missed her friends, and how she’d face the unknown on Monday, made up of kids who’d known each other since kindergarten and probably weren’t interested in making room for strangers.
After dinner, while I wrapped brownies and Rice Krispie treats to sell at the drive-in, I decided to go to the cemetery before it closed at dusk. I slipped out by myself, picked up a bouquet of carnations from work, and drove out to Ginger’s grave. I got out my trowel and gardening gloves from the trunk of the Toyota and pulled weeds around her grave, leaving the small dandelions because that’s what Ginger would have wanted. I tossed the dead flowers from the vase and replaced them with the carnations. It was kind of a peace offering for the smallest—the tiniest—bit of progress I’d made away from the sorrow. And because we now had Andie, and life was moving on.