7

Wren and the Pile of Peas

Saturday morning. Wren rested her head in her hand. She stared out the car window as her family drove down the highway to Boston.

Her parents had packed the car while Wren was at the rink, and her cheeks were still warm from her intense lesson with Nancy.

Wren had landed ten perfect double lutzes. One. Two. Three. Four . . . She’d done them right in a row, with Nancy clapping her hands after each one and yelling, “Again!”

When Wren reached ten, Nancy placed her hands on Wren’s shoulders and said, “Your body will remember. I’ll see you in one week, and we’ll do ten in a row again.”

Wren wanted to believe Nancy. But she was full of doubt.

She’d spent the past week training harder than ever, ignoring the tender bump on the back of her head from her fall on Occom Pond.

And now she was being forced to leave.

Hannah was sound asleep in her car seat, her favorite stuffed unicorn lying diagonally across her lap. Wren’s parents sat in the front seats, each silent and looking straight ahead.

Wren shifted positions. She usually loved this drive. Boston meant seeing the Nutcracker ballet at a fancy theater with a domed ceiling accented in gold. It meant flights out of Logan Airport to fun vacations. One year it meant going with her mom to watch the Figure Skating World Championships.

Wren could still remember sitting next to her mom on the hard plastic seats way up in the highest level of the stadium. She remembered looking down at the skaters on the ice and the moment that her mom placed her hand on Wren’s cheek and said, “Each skater out there was once a little girl with a big dream, just like you.”

Her mom’s hand was cold from the soda that she’d been holding, but to Wren it had felt like the warmest of touches.

As her dad changed lanes, Wren pressed her feet against her skating bag. The rest of her stuff was in the trunk. But she wanted to keep her skates close.

She didn’t have the Dartmouth College rink. Or Occom Pond. Or Nancy.

But she still had her skates.

“Okay, team,” said Wren’s dad as he pulled into a driveway. “Home sweet temporary home.”

The rental house had a bright red front door and a historical plaque with the numbers “1911.” The bare branches of a huge maple tree spread over the front yard. At the end of the driveway was a two-story garage with a matching red door.

It was cute. Homey.

In a movie it would be where the happy family lived.

Wren hated it.

They’d barely parked the car when a woman wearing a cream sweater appeared in the driveway. She smiled and waved, matching the happy vibe of the house.

“Hello!” she said. “Welcome! You must be the family renting our house.”

Wren’s dad nodded and shook her hand. Wren’s mom did the same.

Hannah pushed against the straps of her car seat, trying to get out. Her stuffed unicorn fell to the ground.

Wren did not lean over to pick it up. She sat frozen in the car, her feet pressing against her skating bag.

Moving made it real. Getting out of the car made it real. Even though the drive had taken over two hours, Wren could smell the ice rink on her skating jacket. The muscles in her legs were still tired from her lesson with Nancy.

Once she stepped into the fresh air and stretched her body, all of that would disappear.

“Come on, girls,” said Wren’s dad as he picked up Hannah’s stuffed unicorn and unbuckled her car seat. “Let’s go inside and get a tour.”

He caught Wren’s eye. There was so much fake energy in his gaze that Wren had to look away. But she unbuckled her seat belt and got out of the car.

Wren didn’t take a deep breath of the cold February air. She didn’t stretch her arms over her head or shake out her legs. But none of that mattered.

The scents and surroundings of her normal life were gone. Instead, there was this long narrow driveway. This cluster of dry bushes. This house that was not her house.

This place was her life for the next week.

She was stuck.

“How old are you?” asked the woman in the cream sweater as she opened the door to the house.

“Twelve,” said Wren.

“Twelve! I have a daughter who’s twelve! We’ll be in the apartment over the garage for the week you’re here. Right at the end of the driveway. Maybe you two could play together sometime?”

Maybe not, thought Wren.

As her family followed the woman into the house and through the first floor, Wren sat on a red kitchen stool. Wren was curious about the house, but she didn’t want to give the woman any babyish playdate ideas. Better to stay out of sight.

Finally, the woman and Wren’s family gathered back in the kitchen. The woman placed a set of keys and an envelope in the middle of the island. “Please call if you need anything,” she said. “My phone number’s written on the sheet and I’m only ten seconds away!”

Her hand lingered on the island. Wren could tell by the way she looked at Hannah that she knew about the surgery. The woman had the same look as Maggie, the waitress from Lou’s. And Mr. Morris, their neighbor. A thin glaze of hope covering up a deep sadness.

Then, finally, she left.

Wren’s dad turned to her mom. “The house is perfect,” he said. “This is all going to work out.”

Wren’s mom waved her hands in front of her face. “I just need a minute,” she said as she turned to face the closed refrigerator.

Wren’s mom needed a minute all the time.

Wren had once read Hannah a picture book that was supposed to help little kids learn about big numbers. One page showed what ten green peas looked like on a plate. Another page showed what five hundred green peas looked like in a shoebox. The last page showed what ten million green peas would look like in a house, pouring out the doors and windows onto the street.

Her mom’s minutes were like those peas.

Add them together and they would fill entire days.

“Take all the time you need,” said her dad, lightly squeezing her mom’s shoulder. “The girls and I will go explore.”

Hannah raised one arm, like she was holding a sword. “Explorers,” she yelled as she charged up the stairs.

The second floor was similar to the first, with creaky hardwood floors and crisp white walls. There were colorful touches, like a patterned hallway rug and a shelf under a window stuffed with books.

Wren had wandered into a bathroom when Hannah yelled, “Wren! Come! I’m in the pretty room.”

Wren followed the sound of Hannah’s voice to a room at the end of the hall. It had two big windows looking over the driveway. Pink pom-poms lined the edges of white curtains. There was a desk with globs of color on its flat surface, as if someone had repeatedly colored off the edge of the page.

But there was no Hannah.

“Hannah? Where are you?”

Hannah loved to play hide-and-seek. So when Wren didn’t see her, she peered behind the curtains and looked under the bed.

“Come out, come out wherever you are!” sang Wren. She tried to keep her voice soft and cheery. She didn’t want to ruin Hannah’s fun, but ever since the seizures began, their mom hated it when Hannah hid. If their mom thought Hannah was hiding in this new house, she’d come sprinting up the stairs in a full-on panic.

Thankfully, Hannah giggled. The sound came from behind the open bedroom door. Hannah was sitting against the wall, her knees tucked into her chest.

“You found me!” she said. “I was hiding with my friends.”

“You’re not supposed to hide alone. You know that.”

Hannah pointed to the door and smiled. “I’m not alone.”

Wren moved the door so there was space for her to sit down. She pulled Hannah onto her lap. The back of the bedroom door was covered with stickers. Hundreds of stickers in all shapes, colors, and sizes. There were ducks wearing rain boots. Hearts in dozens of colors. Even smiling neon skulls.

It looked like someone had shot an entire sticker aisle out of a cannon and they’d all landed sticky side down on the door. Wren was mesmerized.

“Look,” said Hannah, pointing toward the bottom corner of the door. “Unicorns.”

“Cool,” said Wren.

“Do you think they knew I was coming?”

“Maybe.”

“Neigh,” said Hannah as she ran her tiny finger over the unicorn stickers.

Hannah’s hot pink nail polish was almost completely worn off. Wren wished she’d remembered to bring the nail polish bottle from home. But it hadn’t even crossed her mind.

“Neigh,” repeated Hannah. Then she nodded. “Yep, they knew I was coming. The unicorns say hi.”

“Hello, unicorns,” said Wren, playing along. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Hannah leaned against Wren and stuck her thumb in her mouth. Wren wrapped her arms around Hannah’s round belly and rested her chin on the top of Hannah’s head.

Hannah was so warm. Like a light bulb. Not because she had a fever, but because she was always warm. And giggling. And dreaming of unicorns.

Wren thought about what was going to happen to Hannah on Monday. The wires and the stickers stuck to her scalp. The surgery to follow.

A tear dripped down Wren’s cheek. It was the size of a green pea.

There were others right behind it.

Wren pictured the ten million green peas from the book busting through the rental house’s windows and doors. If she started to cry, Wren worried that she wouldn’t be able to stop.

Wren wiped her cheek.

She refused to drown the house.

“Come on,” she said, pushing Hannah up from her lap. “Let’s check out the other rooms.”

Hannah slipped her hand into Wren’s and they turned left out of the bedroom. There was another bedroom of a similar size with green walls and a large collection of gold soccer trophies. Then a bathroom and a third, larger bedroom at the end of the hall with a king-size bed.

Their dad walked out of that bedroom. “What’s the verdict?” he asked.

Wren shrugged. “It’s okay.”

“Did you find a room you like?”

“I like the one with unicorns,” said Hannah.

“Unicorns?” said their dad. “This I have to see.”

Hannah led their dad back to the room with the sticker door. “Wow,” he said, looking at the sticker door. “It sure is pretty. But how about we let Wren have this room. The unicorns can keep her company when you’re sleeping at the hospital.”

Hannah paused, considering this. “Okay,” she said. “Wren likes unicorns, too.”

“Wren loves unicorns,” said their dad. He winked at Wren and threw Hannah over his shoulder, carrying her out of the room.

Wren sat down on the bed, feeling it out.

The room reminded Wren of Nora’s hand-me-down clothes from her two big sisters. “This is new new,” Nora said whenever she got something from a store. “Not old new.”

The room was new to Wren, but it was clearly not new new.

Wren thought about the girl who lived here. The one her age who was now staying over the garage. She must have pressed all those stickers onto the door and made all those marks on the desk.

Wren walked over to the window by the desk and pressed her forehead against the cold glass pane. If she tilted her head to the right, she could see the windows on the second floor of the garage.

Who was she? wondered Wren. And what was she doing right now?