That night after dinner, when Tim had gone upstairs to do some homework, my parents called me into the living room. “We haven’t really had a chance to fill you in on what’s going to happen,” Mom said carefully. “What with everything that’s been going on.”
I sat in the middle of the couch. The two of them each sat in an armchair, facing me, but a little ways away from each other so I had to keep turning my head from one to the other as they tried to explain. The bank hadn’t approved the sale yet, but they expected it would. They were hoping to stay in the house till the end of June; the buyers were sympathetic, they said, so they didn’t think it would be a problem. Then when I finished tenth grade, we’d be moving to New Hampshire. We were going to live at the Hillsdale School in one half of a big house. The other half was a dorm where a bunch of girls lived. I would go to Hillsdale—a really, really, good school! they said about a million times—as a student free of charge.
“Are there guys there too?” I asked.
“Yes,” Dad said, sounding disappointed. “It’s coed.”
“Do they put on plays?”
Mom said that she’d looked into it, and they did, and that the drama program was strong. I could even take drama as an elective class for credit. That sounded not so bad, I let myself think. While she ran the riding program, Dad would look for work, hopefully with the US Forest Service, but also at colleges. “It’s not too far from Boston,” Dad said. “There are lots of possibilities.”
I sat there quietly. Every word spelled out the end of life as I’d always known it. At this point, though, there wouldn’t be much good in screaming about it. My parents hadn’t created this situation on purpose. They’d done their best, and were still doing their best: to make things right, and to take care of me as best they could. So I just sat there, listening to them, these two people who had always loved me no matter what. Who always would love me no matter what. That last part used to feel like a matter of course, and nothing to be grateful for. Needless to say, I now knew the reverse was true.
“And, honey,” Mom said, her voice suddenly sounding fake bright. “Part of the deal we worked out includes the board of one horse. We can take one horse with us. And I’ve decided that’s going to be Pandora.”
I felt my heart give a leap—I got to keep Pandora! Then, just as quickly, it sank like a stone, as I realized that keeping Pandora meant not keeping Sombrero. Tears filled up my eyes. I couldn’t believe Mom would give up Sombrero, and from the look on her face, neither could she. She rubbed her hands across her knees, like now that she’d said it there was no turning back, and she needed to comfort herself.
“Mom,” I started. I didn’t want to say what had come into my head. The thought that she’d agree terrified me. At the same time, I knew that she should agree. After all these years, after everything she’d done for these horses, the one we kept should be her favorite. Not mine.
So I knew what I had to do. Take a deep breath. Gather up every little bit of courage I had, and say it as fast as possible, before I had a chance to change my mind.
“Mom,” I said. “I think the horse we take along with us should be yours. It should be Sombrero. I really think that.”
By the last word my voice had started catching, so “that” almost sounded like a little sob. Mom’s mouth twitched a little at the corner. I could see her resist looking over at Dad, who had shifted a little, recrossing his legs and taking off his glasses.
“I’m proud of you for saying so,” Mom said. “But my decision is final. It’s Pandora we’re taking with us.”
Probably a better person—a more grown-up person—would have argued the point a little longer. But I must admit that relief and sadness washed over me at the very same time. I got off the couch and threw my arms around her. “Thank you, Mom,” I said. “Thank you.”
* * *
Since that first very bad night, Tim had slept in the guest room. Now I went upstairs and knocked on the door. He wasn’t doing homework, just sitting on the bed, staring out the window with his phone in his hands. I plunked down next to him.
“I called Jay,” he said. “His parents are going to homeschool him for the rest of the year. They wanted to press charges against the guys who beat him up, but he talked them out of it.”
“Maybe he could go to Cutty River,” I said.
“His parents are going to try to get him into Ezra Lion.” Ezra Lion was this program they had at the college, where you could go to high school and your first two years of college at the same time. Mostly geniuses and social misfits ended up there.
“You could go to Ezra Lion too,” I said.
“Not without my parents enrolling me,” Tim said. “At least I don’t think I can. And I’m already giving up sports. Am I supposed to give up drama, too?” Ezra Lion didn’t have extracurricular activities.
We sat there a minute, and then his phone buzzed. Tim looked at it. “My mom,” he said. “She keeps calling, but she doesn’t leave any message.”
“Why don’t you pick up?” I suggested gently.
He shrugged, miserable. From downstairs, the doorbell rang. I could hear my dad answer the door, and then he called up to us. “Tim! Someone’s here to see you.”
“Go on down,” Tim whispered. “See who it is.”
I had only seen her once before, in the auditorium after Finian’s Rainbow, when there hadn’t been time to properly introduce us. But as I walked down the stairs it only took a second to recognize the girl standing in our front hall. She had long, thick blond hair, and freckles, and pretty blue eyes just like Tim’s.
“Hey,” I said, sounding real glad to see her.
“Hey,” she said back. “You must be Wren. I’m Kathy Greenlaw. Tim’s sister.”
* * *
By now you might be thinking that Tim’s parents were the most coldhearted people on the planet. That’s sure what I thought. I knew, for example, that my mom had called and told them that we found Tim in our barn with a gun to his head. And still they hadn’t come to collect him and tell him everything would be all right. After three whole days! They let their only son go and face the idiots at school with no support from his family. I couldn’t imagine how anybody could think that kissing another boy was a sin but it was perfectly okay to just abandon your own child in his time of deepest need.
Luckily, Kathy came to give us behind-the-scenes information. “I came home from school as soon as I could,” she said. She, my parents, Tim, and I all sat around the kitchen table. Kathy sat next to Tim; she’d pulled her chair up real close to him.
“Tim,” she said, “I want to bring you home.”
Tim shook his head vehemently.
“There’s not going to be any antigay therapy,” Kathy said. “I promise you right now.”
“I don’t believe that,” Tim argued. “They’re just saying that to get me to come home. Then Pastor Lee’s going to be there ready to haul me away.” He glared at his sister. “Kathy, I don’t want to be prayed over. I don’t want to be changed. I just want to be me.”
Kathy nodded. “I’m on the same page, Tim. Listen. I made an appointment with a different Lutheran minister, for you and me, tomorrow. His church isn’t breaking with the main church. They don’t mind gay pastors. They don’t mind gay people.”
“Is the pastor gay?” Tim said, right away.
“No,” Kathy said. “But he’s really open-minded.” She said that she and Tim could talk to this man together, and maybe he would come up with ideas for talking to his parents. “Mom and Dad are upset,” Kathy said, “but they love you, and they’ve got to see it’s better to switch churches than children.”
Tim nodded, but he didn’t look especially convinced. In the end I think he agreed to go talk to the pastor so he’d have an excuse not to go to school tomorrow. And I sure couldn’t blame him for that.
* * *
Next morning before first bell, Allie was waiting for me by my locker. “Where’s Tim?” she said.
“He’s with his sister.”
“Oh,” she said. “Is his family taking him out of school? I heard Jay’s not coming back.”
“I don’t think they know yet,” I said. It really wasn’t my business to tell her what jerks Tim’s parents were being, so I didn’t get into it any more than that. Allie leaned against the locker next to mine while I dug out my books. I said, “I’m sorry I didn’t call to talk more about Cutty River.”
“I’m not allowed to talk on the phone anyway,” she said, looking a little dejected, like she thought this was the reason I hadn’t called her.
“Sorry,” I said, wondering if we’d ever be able to have a conversation without both of us apologizing a hundred times. “It’s been pretty intense at my house. But I have to know! How’d you get your parents to let you switch schools?”
“It was a lot easier than I thought,” Allie said. “They think I haven’t been myself since I started coming here. And they’re so happy that there won’t be any cheerleading in my future. Jesse’s going back too, because his parents are scared after what happened with Jay. Ginny’s parents won’t let her switch midyear. But I bet yours would let you go next year if you wanted. But you probably don’t want to. I mean, you seem pretty happy here.”
She said that last part gently, no sarcasm or meanness at all. I slammed my locker door shut and took a deep breath. “I’m not going here or to Cutty River,” I said. “I’m going to prep school in New Hampshire.” This sounded so ridiculous, still, that I couldn’t help laughing a little. Allie just stood there, staring at me. When she realized I wasn’t kidding, she put her hand over her mouth. I told her about the farm being sold, and my mom’s new job.
“At least you get to bring Pandora,” she said. We started walking down the hall together.
“Yeah,” I said, trying not to think about everything else, everything I’d have to leave behind.
“You’ll need to buy a lot of warm clothes,” Allie said. I hadn’t thought about that, but she was right. I felt a moment of panic, like where would we get the money, but then I figured that even up north it would take a couple of months to get seriously cold. By then my mother would have gotten a paycheck or two, so maybe we’d have enough money for a few pairs of snow boots.
“I guess we’ll have the whole fall to figure all that out,” I said to Allie. She nodded. By now we were standing outside the door to my first-period class.
“Well,” she said. “I’ll see you at lunch?”
I nodded and waved to her, then stood for a minute and watched her long, dark ponytail swish down the hall, trying to figure out if I would miss her when we left, or if I had missed her so long that by now I was over it.
* * *
That afternoon I rode the bus home by myself. In my usual seat at the back, I pulled my phone out of my bag and looked for the umpteenth time to see if Tim had checked in. Nada. I wondered how the meeting with the pastor had gone, how his reunion with his family was going. Part of me felt scared that his sister had shown up as a double agent and by now Tim was halfway to an antigay boot camp. What the heck did they do at those places, anyway? And what woman would want to marry a man who had to use all his spiritual energy not to be gay?
Me, I had to remind myself. I am one of those women.
When I got home, my mom was on her knees on the kitchen floor, digging through a cupboard full of pots and pans. She looked up at me and sighed. “I can’t figure out what I can’t bear to part with,” she said.
I gave a little snort, and she hauled herself off the floor to sit down at the table with me. “I know,” she said. “This whole year is turning out to be a lesson in what we can and can’t bear to part with.”
“Mom,” I said, “you’ve got six months. You know? Why not give it a rest for a while?”
“You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She closed the cupboard door like that was the end of it, but I knew as soon as I was out of sight she’d be back at it again. My mother needs her projects. I asked her if she would read my paper for American history. It was pretty much finished, but seeing as it was due tomorrow, it wouldn’t hurt to have her check it over for grammar and all that. While she read it, I texted Tim. After a few minutes of waiting for a return message to chime, I went outside and sat on the porch swing. It was colder than I expected, and I wished I’d put my jacket on, but I didn’t go back inside.
Lately I had been trying not to look at our farm as if it were the last time I’d ever see it; but just now I was feeling melancholy anyway, so I really let my eyes roam around the view. Pandora and Sombrero and the other two horses grazed on the hill. There were so many longleaf pines that even though the grass had started to brown, the main impression I had staring out was of green. From where I sat I couldn’t see the water in the river through the overhang of moss and vines, but I knew it ran low even for this time of year. I wondered if that alligator would make its way back here this summer. Chances are we would never know.
Mom came outside, my paper in her hand. I could see red pen where she’d marked mistakes. She sat next to me and slid it into my lap. “It’s good, Wren,” she said. “Really good. You should send a copy to Holly.”
“She probably knows all that stuff already,” I said.
“Still. She’ll be touched you’re thinking about it.”
I nodded. Then I said, “I don’t see why it takes so long for people to figure out what’s obvious. I mean, isn’t it funny how Holly and James getting married seems perfectly normal? When less than fifty years ago it wouldn’t even have been legal in most of the country.”
Mom tilted her head. She looked out in the direction of the river, and I wondered if she was thinking about the alligator too. “I always think,” she said, “that the world is like a child. It’s still growing up and learning what’s right. Like when you’re two, and you throw temper tantrums and snatch toys out of other kids’ hands. Or when you’re six, and you only like girls and hate guys. But then you get a little older, and you learn life is easier if you behave better, more kindly. The world is maturing just like a person. It takes time to learn what’s right and wrong. Maybe one day it will grow out of prejudice and meanness. It’s done some good work in that direction. But it’s sure not there yet.”
“It’s taking pretty stinking tiny little baby steps,” I said.
“Gay marriage is legal in more and more states now,” Mom said, though I hadn’t mentioned anything about Tim, or gay marriage, not aloud or in my paper.
“But not all of them,” I said.
“More than there used to be. And you know one of those states? New Hampshire.”
I laughed. “Maybe we should bring Tim with us,” I said. “Not that he wants to get married anytime soon. I hope.”
“I’m sure he wants to stay with his family,” Mom said, and I looked at her like she’d gone crazy. “Listen,” she said. “They love him. They’re wrongheaded right now, but I know they’ll come around.”
“You didn’t need to come around,” I said. “You accepted him right away.”
“I was never taught differently,” Mom said. “My parents made sure I knew what was right. Just like we did with you.”
I had never thought of it that way. “We’re lucky,” I said. A few moments ago, surveying our soon-to-be-lost homestead, I would not have used that phrase to describe our family.
Mom laughed. “I’m glad you think so,” she said. “Now go upstairs and clean up this paper.” She gave me a light shove, just enough to slide me off the swing, and I headed upstairs to get to work.