Chapter 13

The screen door shuddered close behind me, and the aroma of Mama’s pot roast and potatoes filled my nose. It almost made me forget what had just happened between Meadow Lark and me, because those smells meant Daddy was home.

“Forgive and be free” was one of those things Mama often told me, so as those dinner smells poked the sides of my throat, I made up my mind to consider forgiving Meadow Lark. Though I might be able to forgive her, I couldn’t forget, because that chant still flowed in my veins—Mama let him out—and because it was Meadow Lark who had put it there.

“Daddy?” I called as I followed the yummy smells. I found him in the kitchen, slicing pot roast with a long knife and wearing his chef’s apron that say MINNESOTA: L’ÉTOILE DU NORD.

I ran and put my arms around him, and he hugged me back the best he could with a knife in his hand.

“I missed you,” he say.

“River Rose Byrne,” Mama called from the dining room, “you recovered awfully fast.”

“Oh,” I say, and glanced at Daddy. “I think it was a six-hour thing.”

Mama come into the kitchen and put her hands on her hips, and looked at me long and hard. Then her face softened. “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” she say, “but I can smell where you’ve been. And what have we told you over and over about going there?”

“Well, it can’t smell as good as what you’re making for supper.”

“I didn’t say you smelled good,” Mama say back, but her voice had an almost smile to it. “Go upstairs and wash it off. You and your friend.”

“Meadow Lark—” Isn’t my friend, I wanted to say. “She’ll be here soon.”

Mama pulled down one of her good serving bowls with the gold rim from the cupboard over the stove. “You mean to say you left her there, with that slow leg of hers?”

“No . . . yes,” I say, as guilt took hold of me. I did leave her there, when she couldn’t run very fast. “I’ll go get her if she doesn’t come back soon.”

We waited twenty minutes for Meadow Lark, and Mama put the food in the oven to keep warm. Just as I was about to go back to get her, Meadow Lark opened the screen door. She smiled at me and say, “Everyone’s home now? Good. I’m starving,” and went upstairs.

When I got up to our room, she was rubbing the river off her with a facecloth.

“What took you so long?” I asked.

“I went down to that old broken-down bridge—”

“You have to stay off that bridge. It’s the one that—”

“I know, the one that got flooded a long time ago. Your family has so many rules. ‘Don’t go there.’ ‘Stay out of that bedroom.’ ‘Sit out here after supper.’ You’ve had your whole life to learn them all, but I’ve had only a few days.”

“If Mama finds out what you did . . .”

“You’re the only one that told me to stay away from that bridge, so I went on it. And see? It didn’t collapse. I didn’t fall in.”

Meadow Lark seemed to have forgotten that I abandoned her at the river, because she wasn’t acting mad at me. When someone isn’t mad at you the way you expect them to be, being mad at them isn’t much fun.

“You don’t really think Mama let Mr. Tricks out, right?” I asked.

She folded up the facecloth. “I don’t know why I said that,” she say softly.

If that was an apology for what she say about Mama, it was good enough for me. I didn’t want to stay mad at Meadow Lark.

Then, as if the subject were closed, she say, “I got something from my dad today.”

Meadow Lark opened her bureau drawer and pulled out a sheet of paper and waved it at me. “He sent me a letter.” It was on the same crinkly paper as his first letter, so I guessed it was also typewritten.

“Oh, that’s nice,” I say, and reached for it.

But she slid it back into the drawer. “I’ll let you read it later,” she say, and sniffed toward the hall. “Mmm. Your mom’s such a good cook.”

“It’s because Daddy’s home. And we better go down now.”

“Wait,” Meadow Lark say. “She might want these.” She reached under her bed and pulled out the Tupperware she brought with her and carried it down to the kitchen.

Inside were two dozen yeast rolls, the kind made with soft white flour and butter. And even after being in there for nearly a week under her bed, they looked as fresh as if they’d just come out of the oven.

Mama brought out her special bread basket, which she lined with a white cloth napkin. Then Meadow Lark placed the rolls in it. “My dad told me to bring them,” she explained.

Mama smiled. “How nice of him.”

“And he sent her a letter,” I say.

“To our post office box,” Meadow Lark added quickly, and put the last roll in the basket. “We’re still getting settled.”

“Well, then,” Mama say, “since you’re getting to know your way around, remember to stay away from that river.”

We both nodded and she picked up the basket, then sniffed the air. “You two smell like Ivory now,” she say, and went to the dining room.

Meadow Lark and I glanced at each other, and I could tell by her expression that she was thinking about the river and that log stuck in the mud and the next time we’d be able to go see it—just like I was.

The dining table looked like a holiday, gleaming with the real silverware and Mama’s good crystal and her plates with the gold trim, all set on her white tablecloth. Mama’s good platter piled with pot roast cut into chunks sat in the center, surrounded by the dishes of green beans and whipped potatoes, her silver gravy boat, and the basket of Meadow Lark’s rolls. And Mama was wearing red lipstick. She had lit two tall candles, and their flames stretched and flickered, and the room held its breath as if waiting for some wonderful, shiny thing to happen.

Everything looked so good and cheerful, the way every day should be. But it wasn’t perfect, because the chair next to Meadow Lark was still empty. No matter how pretty Mama set the table, or how good the food smelled, that beautiful scene wasn’t complete without Theron sitting in that chair.

I looked down at my lap, because I didn’t want anyone to see me looking sad. My heart hurt for Mama, that she had put so much trouble into making that table so beautiful, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make it perfect. If the meal had been shabby, maybe seeing that empty seat wouldn’t have felt so sharp.

Daddy didn’t seem to notice, and he lifted his glass of wine to Mama. She passed Meadow Lark the potatoes piled high in a gold-rim bowl. They were so smooth that when Meadow Lark plunked out a spoonful, they flattened on her plate.

“Whereabouts in Arizona are you from?” Daddy asked as he forked a chunk of roast onto his plate.

“Near Phoenix, out in the desert,” Meadow Lark say. I’d already told them where she was from, so I knew Daddy was being polite by asking her directly.

Meadow Lark poured gravy on her potatoes. She didn’t know enough to make a well in them first, and the gravy pooled around them, touching the green beans.

Then she put the gravy boat back on the table so gently that it didn’t make a noise on the tablecloth, the same way she opened Theron’s door so quietly that you knew she’d opened many doors that way before.

“There aren’t any rivers in Arizona,” I say.

“Oh, yes, there are,” Daddy say.

Mama passed me the platter of pot roast. “Help yourself, River.”

Meadow Lark sat chewing and looking at her plate, and I tried again. “Daddy, you’ve been to Phoenix. You go there all the time for work.”

Daddy smiled at me and swallowed. “I don’t go that far west very often,” he say, and at that I decided to stop talking, so he wouldn’t contradict me anymore. Meadow Lark, not me and not the pot roast, appeared to be the center of attention.

Mama held the bread basket out to Meadow Lark and unfolded the white napkin like a rose. “Have one of your rolls, dear,” she say. “How nice of your father to make them.”

“Oh, he didn’t make them,” Meadow Lark say. She chose one and put it on her plate. “We got them at the Bread Box.”

Mama took one out of the basket. “Hmm,” she say, examining it. “Well, it was thoughtful of him anyway.”

Then Mama put the roll on her plate in a way I knew meant she wouldn’t be picking it up again, not trusting where it come from.

I took one too. It was all part of forgiving Meadow Lark.

“Did you ever go to the trolley museum in Phoenix?” Daddy asked, lifting a fork of green beans. By then I’d stopped listening to Daddy talk about Arizona and the mountains and the museums in Phoenix. Something more interesting was going on right in front of me. Mama was staring at Meadow Lark, studying her, as if she were waiting for Meadow Lark to do something astounding, like catch fire.

“Butter?” Mama asked, holding out the butter plate to Meadow Lark.

Meadow Lark put a pale little square on her plate. She picked up the roll from the gold-rim plate glimmering with candlelight.

When Meadow Lark picked up the roll, Mama say, “I—you—” but her breathing sounded short and quick, like she was inhaling snow crystals, and she didn’t finish what she started to say.

Meadow Lark touched the roll with the fingers of her other hand. Outside, the blanket of cloud pulled away from a soft, coral sky. Soon it would be time to sit out with Daddy and listen and wait.

“They used to have mules pull the trolleys,” he was saying. “It took three hours to make all the stops down through the city.”

Meadow Lark tore off a piece of roll, and Mama put her hand to her mouth.

“What, Mama?” I asked.

Daddy stopped talking about Arizona and mules and looked at Mama. “Dear?” he say.

“I’m . . . ,” Mama’s eyes grew wide and glittery in the candlelight, and her lips made a red O.

“What is it, Caroline?” Daddy asked, but Mama just kept looking at Meadow Lark like she was seeing her again after a very long time.

Then she stood up. “Excuse me,” she say, and left the dining room, touching Meadow Lark’s shoulder on the way out.

The three of us sat there looking at one another for the longest time, as if we expected Mama to come back in with dessert. Finally, I asked, “What was she talking about, Daddy?”

“I think she’s just tired,” he say, and then he excused himself and went upstairs.

Meadow Lark and I looked at each other. She ate until her plate was clean, and when she helped herself to more beans, I went up to Mama’s room.

She lay flat on their bed like a plunk of whipped potatoes, her dark hair spilling off the pillow, and her lipstick a red smudge on her mouth.

“Mama?” I asked. She touched my arm and say very gently, “I’m fine, honey. Just let me alone a while.”

“I told her she needed to see the doctor,” Daddy say, but Mama shook her head.

“I’m just fine, Ingram,” she say, and looked at the doorway. “Where’s your friend? Where’s Meadow Lark?”

“She’s still eating,” I say.

Mama smiled. “She’s a nice girl. You two do the dishes. I’ll be down in a while.”

Then she and Daddy shared another one of those looks that didn’t need words, and Daddy kissed her forehead. “Let’s go, River,” he say to me, and ushered me out to the hall and closed the door softly.

“What’s wrong with her?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Did Meadow Lark say something that upset her?”

I went over in my mind what happened just before Mama left the table. Mama served the food, and Meadow Lark started eating one of her rolls, and then suddenly Mama acted funny.

“I don’t think so,” I say, but something about those moments just before Mama left the table—like the hushed moments in church—felt like held breath. Maybe Mama saw something she’d been looking for. I just didn’t know what.

“Maybe Mama will explain it to us,” I say to Daddy.

Mama was on my mind all during the time Meadow Lark and I washed the dishes and when we sat out with Daddy in silence. Silence is different from quiet, because quiet is peaceful, and all during the dusk time my mind churned with questions.

What happened to Mama?

Did she see something?

What?

Question after question come to me, each one leading to the next, until finally I asked, What does Meadow Lark have to do with it?