Gladys

It took approximately half a century to go back and retrieve her bike from Jude’s house, then ride Spider to hers. She texted Mama to explain that some unusual circumstances had arisen, but she was on the way.

Her mother was pacing the front yard, phone in hand. Sometimes, the best way to describe a thing is to say what it is not.

As in, Mama was not happy.

“Finally.” She gave Gladys the we’ll-deal-with-this-later look, then turned her attention to Spider. “Look who’s here. All by himself. Wearing my daughter’s bike helmet.” Mama lifted Spider from the bike seat. “It’s past suppertime. Someone looks hungry and thirsty.”

With Gladys’s mother, sprouts always came first. In the kitchen she wiped Spider’s face and hands with a soft, warm cloth. She set him at the table with a glass of milk and a plate of mac and cheese. Dada, she said, had already eaten, then gone to help a neighbor plant a tree in his yard.

“What kind of tree?” Gladys asked, a feeble effort to distract her mother.

“I do not have that information.” Mama handed her a plate, too, and Gladys meekly sank into a chair.

“Brown noodles are gross,” Spider said, shoveling in the whole wheat pasta. “Where’s my BFF?”

“Not here today, buddy,” Mama said.

Mama didn’t believe in discussing sprouts in front of them. Even babies understood when you were talking about them, she said. She waited till Spider had polished off a second plate and they’d all gone into the backyard, where Spider jumped onto a big wheel, to fold her arms and ask what was going on.

“For starters, where’s Jude? Who, by the way, I thought you were angry at?”

“He...he had something he really wanted to do. Something important. He couldn’t do it if he had to bring Spider. So I said I’d watch him for a while.”

Please please don’t ask what Jude had to do.

She watched her mother consider. Considerate, that was Mama.

“And their mom?”

“She’s working at Good Sam.”

It was Mama’s mother who’d been at Good Sam before she died. Her eyes clouded.

“You said Spider was welcome here anytime,” Gladys reminded her. “I didn’t think you’d mind. I’ll take responsibility. I’ll make sure he doesn’t climb the swing set.”

Spider had already abandoned the big wheel for the slide, which he scrambled up backward and leaped off approximately a hundred times. Watching him, Mama’s expression softened. Her look seesawed between sympathy and amusement. Difficult kids were her specialty. They were knots she untied, puzzles she solved. Gladys felt a sudden, dangerous surge of love for her mother. Who, as if she felt it, turned with a small smile.

“That was nice of you, sugar,” she said. “That was a generous, good-friend thing to do.”

Gladys picked up a strip of tree bark fallen in the grass and pretended to examine it. The tree had weird, scaly bark, as if an incompetent wizard had tried to conjure up a reptile but gotten a tree instead.

“I know this hasn’t been the best summer for you, and I’m sorry about that,” Mama went on. “But even so, you’re trying to help others. That makes me proud and happy.”

Gladys prayed her mother couldn’t see the guilt seeping out all around her edges.

“I don’t expect you to tell me everything anymore. Lord knows I kept secrets when I was your age. Not dangerous secrets, of course. But there were lots of things only my diary knew.” Mama rubbed her forehead. “Promise next time you go visit Jude or anyone else, you’ll tell me where you are.”

“Okay.” Gladys nervously broke off little bits of the bark. Mama’s face got an unusual, wistful look.

“You know, speaking of Good Sam—I’ve been thinking lately about how often your grandma and I didn’t get along. She was always after me, nagging me to be more ambitious. I think she wanted me to have a better life than she did. Well, all mothers want that. But her criticism hurt. It made me angry, too. I was ambitious, just not the way Ma wanted.”

Gladys had never heard this story before. She looked up.

“The worst argument we ever had—I mean, World War Three—was when I told her I was going to marry Dada. She said I was making the biggest mistake of my life.”

“How could she say that?” Gladys cried. “Couldn’t she see you and Dada were perfect for each other?”

“I guess not.” Mama pinched the skin above her nose. “He’d never amount to much, Ma said. But I already knew how much he loved me, and that was all that mattered. I guess it came down to different definitions of the word much.” She started to bite her thumbnail, then folded her thumb into her fist. “This will sound terrible, but if she’d been alive when Dada lost his job at the plant, she might’ve blamed him. I can hear her now. See, Suzanna? I told you so.”

“Mama! You never told me this.”

“I know, sugar. Maybe I shouldn’t even tell you now. One thing for sure, your grandma adored you.” Mama gazed across the yard at Spider, who was wandering toward the garage. “I didn’t want to spoil that for either one of you.”

Gladys didn’t know what to say. Her grandmother was Mama’s birth mother! How could they be so different?

“I wish I could’ve made her happier, I really do, but I never figured out how.” Mama sighed, then smiled. “Lucky for you and me, we don’t have that problem.”

Gladys got busy with the tree bark again.

“Sugar, whenever there’s something you need to talk about, I’m here to listen. Don’t ever be afraid to—aack!”

With a burst of superhuman speed, Mama was flying across the yard. She was grabbing a pair of hedge clippers out of Spider’s hands.

“Where did you even find these?” Mama, who almost never yelled, yelled. Spider sprinted for the swing set.

“My mom has some, too.” He shinnied up the pole but Mama plucked him off.

“Clippers are dangerous, Spider. You could hurt yourself. You could hurt someone else.”

“You smack me and I’ll tell Jude!”

“I am not going to smack you. I’m going to keep you safe.” She bent to look him in the eye. “Someday you’ll be big enough to use clippers, but not yet. You understand? Do you understand, Spider?”

He stretched out on the grass and did his corpse imitation.

“You’re tired, aren’t you?” Mama asked.

“No.”

Mama picked him up and he sagged against her. When babies were first born, they understood nothing. They didn’t even understand that they were separate from the rest of the world, so their own arms and legs, waving around, were like random objects that could surprise and scare them. Mama was expert at swaddling babies in soft, fuzzy blankets, tucking their arms and legs close to make them feel whole and safe. Safe and whole. Now her arms made a warm blanket around Spider, who yawned as if she’d swaddled all the chaos straight out of him.

“What’s your name?” she asked him.

“Spider.”

“Your real name.”

“I don’t know,” he said, and then, “Silas.”

“Come on, Silas. Let’s go read a story.”

A breeze came up, parting the leaves of the reptile tree, and when Gladys lifted her eyes she saw the first star, pale and glimmering. When she was younger, spotting the first star meant Make a wish. But then Gladys learned that the stars she saw might have burned up long before. What if she was wishing on something that didn’t even exist anymore? That felt like a trick. Like the universe was working a hoax.

The uniworse, as Sophie would say.

The breeze lifted the leaves and Gladys saw for the first time how they were smooth on top, hairy and bumpy underneath. Even trees kept secrets. Or tried to.

Gladys pushed open the gate and walked out front. Where was Jude? What was taking him so long? What if he’d gotten cold feet and decided he couldn’t handle this rescue after all? What if he’d changed his mind and taken True back to her owner? He could just stick her inside the fence and run. Jude was a pathetic runner, but he could make a getaway.

The first star was growing brighter. What if, instead of a hoax, it was a sign? Too many things and people, once they were gone, they were gone for good. But a star lingered. It shone its light as long as it possibly could, giving you more chances to make a wish.

Where was he?

Gladys closed her eyes and made a wish.