WE’VE FINISHED OUR SUGAR cookies and pink punch, and Dad is trying to steer us out of the classroom, but people keep getting in our way, like Mrs. Paganelli, Lori’s mother, who just let us know that the world is full of things to be thankful for if we only keep our eyes open to God’s glory.
“God bless you,” she says to Dad with a huge smile. She looks like she’s about to hug him, too, but Dad says, “Happy Thanksgiving,” and walks away fast. “Oy vey,” he whispers to me and Rachel, and the three of us start giggling, because we’re uncomfortable with the Christian talk, being the only Jews in the room, as always.
Now Miss Gallagher is walking toward us.
“Nice to see you, Dr. Orenstein,” she says, reaching out and shaking Dad’s hand. “I hope you enjoyed the play. What are your plans for the holiday?”
Dad says, “It was terrific. Thanks for all of your effort. We’ll be visiting with family in Boston.”
Miss Gallagher says, “Nice, nice,” but she has a little weird smile that could be a sign that she knows family in Boston means Mom in the nuthouse. Could Dad have told her? Wouldn’t he have said something to me if he had? Anyway, he says he’s proud that we’re managing just fine, the three of us. If we’re managing just fine, why would he need to share our private problems with my teacher, who he barely knows?
We’ve got our coats on and we’ve thrown away our paper plates and we’re almost at the door and Rachel’s whispering, “Let’s go, let’s get out of here,” when Mrs. Paganelli claps her hands and says, “I just had an inspiration. Before ending this lovely evening, why don’t we gather around and take just a quick moment to share our words of thanks?” Her question sounds more like a command, and everyone starts moving into a circle. Dad looks at us and we look at Dad, and even though we really, really don’t want to stay, it feels like there’s a magnet pulling us into the circle with everyone else, and unless we want to be even more different than we already are, we’d better just give in.
“Of course, we won’t call this prayer, but as this special holiday of Thanksgiving approaches, let us consider our numerous blessings and offer up our words of thanks.” Mrs. Paganelli takes a loud breath. She closes her eyes. She opens her eyes. She still has that smile. “Who would like to begin the sharing? What are we thankful for?”
No one says anything for a really long time. I can hear Rachel breathing. I’m thinking that I’m thankful Joey was absent today, so he didn’t have to get teased or maybe even beat up by his brothers for being a turkey, and I didn’t mind being the turkey, because I got to demonstrate all three of my leaps and everyone clapped hard when I curtsied, and also I didn’t have to fake-pray, but I don’t know if what Mrs. Paganelli wants us to share is big things, like ending the war and having enough food to eat, and before I can decide if I should brave it and be the first thankful volunteer, Miss Gallagher jumps in and says, “I’m thankful for these wonderful children, who worked hard and did such a good job in the Thanksgiving play.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Barker says. “Bravo!” She pats Dawn on the back and Dawn takes a little bow, as if peas were the only food on the Thanksgiving table.
Mrs. Paganelli says, “I’m thankful for this wonderful community and for my health and the health and love of my family, and I could go on and on with my bounty of blessings, but I don’t want to hog the show,” and then she laughs all snorty, like she’s watching the episode of I Love Lucy where Lucy and Ethel work in a chocolate factory and the conveyor belt is going way too fast and they start shoveling chocolates into their mouths and down their shirts and into their hats.
There’s a really long silence again. Most of the kids are looking at their feet. Most of the parents are looking into space. I want someone to start talking so no one will remember that the last time we all went around the room and talked was at back-to-school night, when Mom had her supersonic eye.
I check out Dad and he’s staring at Mrs. Paganelli with a really strange expression, and suddenly I realize that he’s about to cry. I’ve never seen Dad cry before. He makes a snuffling sound in his nose and shakes his head hard, and just one tear slips out of his eye and down his cheek, which isn’t enough for anyone to notice. I take Dad’s hand and he grabs my hand back, hard. It’s almost too hard, but I don’t let go, because Dad needs me. Mom needs me, too, but there’s nothing I can do for her right now, which is probably what Dad’s thinking: Hannah is all alone in this exact moment at McLean Hospital without Chirp’s Thanksgiving play and without pink punch and sugar cookies and without Mrs. Paganelli’s bounty of blessings and there’s nothing, not one thing at all, I can do about it.
“Okay,” Rachel says, “now we’re supposed to stir this frequently until it comes to a boil.” Rachel’s reading the recipe from the cookbook.
“How frequent is frequently?” I ask, starting to stir.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Just keep an eye on it. Make sure it doesn’t burn. The lemony part is really important. I’ll start cracking the eggs.”
Mom’s going to be surprised when we hand her the pie this afternoon. Wow, my girls, lemon meringue! My favorite!
“Do you think Mom will share the pie with her new friends?” I ask Rachel.
“Oh, c’mon, Chirp,” she says, sounding irritated, but then she stops. She looks at me. She tips her head to the side and wrinkles her forehead like she’s trying to figure something out. “Actually, I have no idea what to expect. I can’t picture what it’s like there.” Rachel looks like a little girl in Mom’s pink flannel nightgown. She keeps pushing up the sleeves, but they keep slipping back down. She’s worn the nightgown every night since Mom left.
“You know, Dad says we shouldn’t call it a nuthouse,” I say.
“Well, it is a nuthouse,” Rachel says.
“Dad says there’s a maple tree and a frog pond in the courtyard.”
“And lots of nutbars inside.”
“Mom isn’t a nutbar.”
“Exactly,” Rachel says. “That’s why she shouldn’t be there.” Rachel scoops some of the hot lemony stuff out of the saucepan, dumps it into the beaten eggs, mixes it, and then pours it back into the saucepan.
“At least it’s much, much better than the state hospital in Taunton,” I say.
“You need to stir constantly now until it thickens,” Rachel says.
“Dad said he absolutely never would have taken Mom to Taunton, even though McLean is expensive and he’s having to work extra hard to keep our heads above water.”
“Keep stirring,” Rachel says.
“I am,” I say.
Rachel cracks the eggs for the meringue. She turns the mixer on high, and we can’t talk anymore. The lemony stuff is hot and bubbly. I stir and stir and stir. I think maybe we did something wrong, because it’s not getting thick, and we don’t have time to start over again, because Dad said we have to be out the door and on the road by nine o’clock sharp, because we might run into Thanksgiving traffic.
“Rach,” I say, but she doesn’t hear me because of the whiny mixer. The lemony stuff is the prettiest soft yellow, and it smells like summer, but it’s thin, not thick and not thickening. “Rach!” I yell. She still doesn’t hear me. If we don’t bring Mom a lemon meringue pie, then her face won’t light up and she won’t say Oh, my sweet chickens! You knew just what I wanted!
I’m stirring so fast now that the lemony stuff is splashing on the sides of the saucepan and making smoke. My hand is aching and my heart is racing and Rachel can’t hear me and I can’t stop stirring to walk over to her, because then I’ll ruin the pie. It might already be ruined. I don’t want to bring Mom a ruined pie. I can’t bring Mom a ruined pie.
“RACHEL!” I yell as loud as I can, just as she shuts off the mixer.
“What is it, Chirp?” she says, all cranky, but then she sees my face and rushes over. She puts her arm around me, and I start to cry.
“It’s no good,” I tell her.
“It’s okay, Chirpie,” she says. She takes the spoon from me. I push my face into her neck, and she smells just like the lemony stuff. “Look. You haven’t done anything wrong.” I hear her stirring. She says, “See, Chirpie. You did a really good job. It’s getting thick, just the way it’s supposed to.” I peek into the saucepan. She’s right. My sister keeps her arm tight around me while she takes the saucepan off the stove and pours the lemony stuff into the piecrust.
“Help me with this part, Chirp,” Rachel says. We spoon the meringue onto the lemony stuff. It’s white and frothy. We press our spoons into it and make perfect waves.
“Just like the ocean,” Rachel says.
“Mom loves the ocean,” I say.
“Yeah,” Rachel says, “she does.”
“Just like the ocean,” Rachel says. She takes the pie and slips it into the oven that we preheated to 350 degrees, just like we were supposed to. We need to keep an eye on it and take it out in approximately ten minutes or when it’s a light golden brown.
“The man in the Volkswagen bus!” Rachel says.
“Yay! That’s thirty-eight!” I say.
We’ve been playing peace since we left the house. What you do is make peace signs through the car windows and keep track of how many people peace you back. I don’t understand how anyone could not be for peace, but Dad says it’s more complicated than I understand and has to do with people’s political views on Nixon and Vietnam and patriotism.
“See that lady in the blue car?” I say. “She won’t look at me.”
“Let’s try the dancing trick,” Rach says.
She squishes next to me, facing my window. “This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, Age of Aquarius.…” We sing really loud and bop our peace signs around to the beat. The lady looks at us and waves.
“Peace! Peace! Peace!” we say, pointing to each other’s peace signs, but the lady just smiles at us and keeps waving.
We’re almost to the Sagamore Bridge. On the other side is Friendly’s, where Dad says we can stop to get hot chocolate. Once we’re in Boston, we’ll have Thanksgiving lunch, since Mom is going to have her meal at the hospital without us. Kids aren’t allowed on the floors or in the dining room at McLean Hospital. That’s a policy. But there’s a coffee shop in the hospital where we can bring our lemon meringue pie and celebrate.
“Whipped cream, Dad?” I ask.
“What?” Dad says.
“Can we have whipped cream on our hot chocolate?”
“Yes, kiddo,” Dad says. “You guys are troopers. I know this isn’t the way we usually spend Thanksgiving.”
“Troopers?” Rachel says, just loud enough for me to hear. “Great. Dad thinks we’re in the army.” She’s shaking her head, like she can’t believe she actually has to live on the same planet as him.
Usually for Thanksgiving, Grandma and Grandpa come from Sayville, New York, and Dad makes a fire in the fireplace and drinks sherry in crystal glasses with them and catches up, since he’s their son, while Mom is in the kitchen with Rachel and me. Usually we sing along to the radio while we make stuffing from the Pepperidge Farm bag but add in extra ingredients, like fresh parsley and celery and mushrooms. We make mashed potatoes with schmaltz, which is Yiddish for “chicken fat,” and we brown onions in it and then whip the potatoes until they’re fluffy. We make cranberry sauce from cranberries that grow right here on the Cape, and after you add sugar and water and turn the burner on high, the cranberries pop and then you know it’s done. Usually Grandma and Grandpa bring New York cheesecake from Zabar’s, and when we’re finished eating the turkey and stuffing and potatoes and cranberry sauce and peas and salad and listening to family stories, we go into the living room and talk about how great all the food was and eat dessert.
Usually, when dessert is over, Rachel and I put on a show. Usually we do a dance number and Mom makes a special guest appearance at the end that blows Grandma’s socks off, which is a good thing, because there’s tension between Mom and Grandma that has to do with Mom being a poor kid from the Bronx. I don’t really understand what the problem is, but I know that whenever Mom thinks Grandma and Grandpa have brought us too many presents, her mouth gets tight and she takes Dad into the kitchen, where they whisper-shout until Mom runs upstairs and Dad follows her and they stay in their bedroom for a long time with the door closed, and Grandma says things like “Your mother is quite sensitive, isn’t she?” which makes Rachel and me mad, but we can’t show it, because we’re supposed to be respectful to adults, especially old ones who love us.
“What are Grandma and Grandpa doing for Thanksgiving?” I ask Dad.
“They’ll have dinner with friends. They’ve offered to come anytime just to help out while Mom’s away, but I told them that we’re holding down the fort beautifully, the three of us. It sounds like they’ll probably come visit for Hanukkah, though.”
“Uh-oh,” I say. “I bet they’ll bring too many presents.”
“If Mom is even home by then,” Rachel mumbles, quietly enough that Dad can’t hear her from the front seat.
“Will Mom be home by Hanukkah?” I ask Dad.
“I certainly expect so,” Dad says.
“See,” I say to Rachel.
“See what?” Rachel says, still quietly. “I expect so isn’t yes.”
“Well, it’s almost yes.”
“Almost yes is like almost pregnant. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Yes, it does.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Uh-huh.”
“No way.”
“It does.”
“Fine. Live in your fantasy world.”
“Are you girls bickering back there?” Dad asks.
“Almost yes,” Rachel says.
“What?” Dad says.
“Nothing, Dad. Don’t sweat it,” Rachel says. She turns away from me and keeps on peacing.
The lady at Friendly’s is very friendly. Her name is Patty, and she has a little plastic turkey pinned to her collar right near her name tag and pink lipstick and makeup that’s supposed to hide her wrinkles but doesn’t and a fancy blond hairdo with curls and twists.
“Well, you’re quite a cutie,” she says to me. “And what a pretty young lady,” she says to Rachel. “Off on a Thanksgiving adventure?”
Rachel nods.
“And your mom must be waiting in the car?” She looks at Dad. “Giving her a moment of peace, huh?” She winks. “I know how it is. I have four of my own.”
“Three hot chocolates with whipped cream to go, please,” Dad says.
“No,” Rachel says, “I don’t want any whipped cream.” She rolls her eyes as if Dad should have known, even though she likes whipped cream.
“No whipped cream for you, honey?” Dad asks.
“That’s what I said,” Rachel says. “No whipped cream. Nooo whiiiipped creeeeam.” She says it really loud and slow like Dad has bad hearing.
“Rachel,” Dad says, “enough.”
“So where are you off to?” Patty says.
“We’re going to Boston,” Dad says.
“Ohhh?” Patty says, like he said We’re hunting elephants in Africa. “Now, what’s in Bos—”
“We’re actually in a bit of a hurry,” Dad says before Patty can ask any more questions that he doesn’t want to answer.
“Oh, of course you are,” Patty says in a dried-out voice, and then she gives our hot chocolates the puniest squirts of whipped cream from the can. “Happy trails,” she says to Dad, and pretty much grabs his money and shoves his change at him.
On the way out the door, I turn around and peace her. She doesn’t peace back.
“We should have told her Mom is an astronaut and on her way into orbit,” Rachel says.
“Freeze-dried turkey,” Dad says.
“And pumpkin pie capsules with vanilla ice cream powder,” I say.
Rachel smiles.
“Right, Chirp,” Dad says, rumpling my hair. “All the vanilla ice cream powder she can eat.”
The closer we get to Boston, the worse the traffic is. Bumpa ta bumpa, Mom would say, like a genuine Bronx girl, if she were here. Mostly Mom talks regular, but sometimes her accent sneaks in, like Chirp, honey, can you pass me my cwaw-fee? I always ask Mom if she’s doing that on purpose, and she always says Doing what on purpose? so I figure she’s not.
“It’s going to be a long haul, girls,” Dad says, flicking on the classical radio station. Rachel and I are tired of playing peace. We’re tired of looking out the window. We’re tired of singing all the songs from Hair and saying bleep for the sex and drug words. I let Rachel use Eggie, my white stuffed duck, as a pillow, and she leans against the car door. She lets me lie down and put my head in her lap. Dad turns off the radio. Rachel starts to sit up so she can argue with him, but he starts singing “All the Pretty Little Horses,” which is a lullaby he used to sing to us when we were babies, and she settles back down. Then he sings “Oyfn Pripetshok,” which is a Yiddish lullaby his mother used to sing to him. Then he sings my favorite, “Annabel Lee,” about a man whose true love is killed by the wind and locked up in a grave in the ocean because the angels in heaven are jealous of their love. By the time Dad sings
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My Annabel Lee
his voice is so sweet-sad and I’m so drifty-tired that I close my eyes and hear the highway like the sea and feel warm waves of sleep rocking me away.
I open my eyes. Through the car window, I see a little slice of orange roof.
“C’mon, Chirp, we’re here!” Rachel says. She hands me Eggie, and I sit up. Dad is walking through the door of Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge. We race to catch up with him.
The office is smoky. Dad’s standing at the counter, talking to a man with pimples on his face, who’s writing things down.
“Do Rachel and I get our own key?” I ask Dad.
“Is there a soda machine?” Rachel asks.
“And an inside pool? Can we go swimming later?”
Dad looks at us and smiles a tired smile.
“They haven’t stayed in many motels,” Dad says to the pimple man. “It’s a big treat.”
Rachel turns red and shakes her head, like Dad’s just given away her deepest, darkest secret.
The man says to us, “Are you visiting relatives for the holiday?”
“No,” I say.
“Yes,” Rachel says.
“She isn’t a relative,” I whisper to Rachel. “She’s our mom.”
“That’s a relative, Chirp,” Rachel whispers, and rolls her eyes, like I have no brain between my ears.
“I know that, Rachel,” I whisper, “but when people say relatives, they mean like grandparents or aunts and uncles or—”
“Girls,” the man interrupts, “if it’s okay with your father, I hereby present you with your very own copy of the room key. Don’t lose it.” He smiles and hands Rachel a gold key with a plastic tag on it that says 228.
“Can we find the room and open the door ourselves?” I ask Dad.
“Just this once your pack mule will deliver your personal belongings,” Dad says. “Have at it, girls,” and he heads off to the car to schlep our stuff.
We run upstairs. There are so many doors. I know that the room numbers go in order, with evens on one side of the hall and odds on the other, but I want to see if I can find our room by intuition, like a fortune-teller. I close my eyes, just in case I can feel something, a vibration maybe, when Rachel yells, “Here it is, Chirp!” She’s standing in front of the second-to-last room at the end of the hallway.
Rachel puts the key in the lock.
“One. Two. Three!” We push open the door together. The room is perfect. It has two perfect beds with orange flowered bedspreads. It has two perfect water glasses in two perfect wax-paper bags to keep the glasses sanitary. In the bathroom, there are perfect white bath towels and perfect white hand towels and perfect white washcloths and perfect white soap.
“I love this place.”
“It’s perfect,” Rachel says.
“A TV!” I turn the dial, and we watch the spot of light spread out on the screen and then change into black-and-white static.
“Check the channels,” Rachel says.
I turn the dial and keep count. “Seven.”
“That’s two more than we get at home,” she says.
“We’ll watch in bed,” I say. “We’ll rot our brains!”
“Perfect,” she says, laughing.
Rachel opens and closes every drawer in the dresser. I turn the fan from low to medium to high. She pulls back the orange bedspread to see what kind of blankets there are. I open the drawer in the nightstand.
“Hey,” I say, “someone forgot their book.”
“It’s a Bible,” Rachel says. “A Christian Bible. They put them in every hotel room.”
“Who does?”
“The Christians.”
“Why?”
“So all of us will see the light, I guess,” she says.
“The holy light of Cheez Whiz,” I say.
“That’s right,” she says, giggling. “Hallelujah.” Rachel starts tickling me under my arms. I squirm away and the Bible drops on the floor with a loud thump. I rush and pick it up and dust it off, even though it’s not dusty. I don’t believe in the Christian Bible, but still it makes me nervous to drop it on the ground. I put it back in the drawer.
“Let’s open up the curtains,” Rachel says. We each take a plastic rod and push back the heavy green curtains. We stand at the window together and look out at the parking lot.
“There’s Dad,” I say. He’s got my knapsack over one shoulder, and he’s carrying Rachel’s pink suitcase in one hand and a canvas duffel bag in the other. He’s walking slowly past car after car, the only person out there. He stops and shifts my knapsack to his other shoulder. Then he just stands and does nothing.
“Wow,” Rachel says, “he looks so …” She doesn’t finish, but I know what she’s thinking. Seeing Dad so alone gives me rocks in my chest. We watch Dad walk until he’s close enough to the building that we can’t see him anymore.
“I bet he really misses Mom,” I say. “I bet it’s really weird for him to be without her.”
Rachel nods.
“Maybe we shouldn’t hosey a bed. Maybe we should let Dad choose his bed first,” I say.
“Yeah, I guess,” Rachel says. She looks really sad, and I think maybe she feels guilty that she’s been so mean to Dad. “I wonder if Mom’s been able to sleep in the hospital,” she says quietly. “She was so, so tired when she left.”
“I bet she’s been sleeping fine, but probably last night she was too excited about seeing us to sleep,” I say. “I bet she can’t wait to see us. I bet she’s plotzing.”
Rachel smiles, because that’s Mom’s word, left over from her childhood. She says it when she really, really needs to pee and one of us is in the bathroom, or when she’s dying for the first bite of her Fudgsicle in the summer and the wrapper is sticky and she can’t get it off, or when Rach and I are taking too long with all our talky explanations before we just show her our new dance move. Suddenly I remember so many things about Mom all at once, like how she wraps her arms around me and sniffs the top of my head and smells like lavender and lemons and calls me Snap Pea, and I’m plotzing, plotzing, plotzing to see her, too.
When Dad opens the door, I see him standing there with all our bags, and suddenly there are tears in my throat.
“Honey?” he says.
I just shake my head, because I don’t have any words.
“She’s okay, Dad,” Rachel says. “She just really needs to see Mom.”
Dad looks at me. I nod.
“So what are we waiting for?” Dad says. Rachel helps me clip my new purple barrettes into my hair, Dad brushes his teeth, Rachel grabs her lime-green poncho that Mom knit her for her birthday, and we hurry out the door.
Downstairs in the restaurant, Dad says we can order anything we want from the menu, since this is Thanksgiving, but he recommends that we make up our minds soon so we can get to Mom before next Thanksgiving.
I decide to order grilled cheese, because I’m afraid if I order the turkey it will make me too homesick for our usual Thanksgiving, with Dad sharpening the knife and standing at the head of the table and all of us excited because it smells so good and Mom saying not to forget the dark meat because that’s the best part and finally the platter piled up high and passed around with the bowls of mashed potatoes and stuffing and cranberry sauce and peas and salad.
“I was thinking of the Thanksgiving special,” Rachel says, “but the turkey doesn’t really look like turkey.” She looks over at the plate of a skinny man in a jean jacket, sitting alone, reading the newspaper. The turkey looks like white bologna and is covered with gloppy brown sauce.
“You might want to steer clear of the turkey,” Dad says, “but I bet the mashed potatoes will be good. We can get a side of mashed potatoes.”
“Nah, I don’t really feel like mashed potatoes,” Rachel says, just because Dad’s suggested them. Rachel always feels like mashed potatoes.
“Can we order clam strips for Mom? She loves clam strips. We can surprise her,” I say.
Dad shakes his head. “Mom is having her Thanksgiving meal at the hospital. She’ll have already eaten by the time we get there.”
“But what if the turkey looks like that?” I ask, pointing to the man’s plate. “What if it tastes like bologna? Mom hates bologna.”
“Honey,” Dad says, “we can’t bring Mom clam strips. First of all, they’re fried and they’ll be all cold and greasy by the time we get there. Second of all, it’s important that Mom participate as fully as possible in the program at McLean, and her therapist said that she needs to have her Thanksgiving meal with the other patients.”
“But, Dad—” My voice is tight and squeaky. “Mom hates bologna. She says she’d rather eat pink rubber bands. She says—” My throat hurts. I can’t think of what else Mom says.
Rachel puts her hand on my leg under the table. She pats my leg. She calms me down.
When the waitress comes over, Dad says, “What the heck. I’ll have a grilled-in-butter frankfort,” which is just HoJo’s fancy way of saying hot dog. Rachel orders macaroni and cheese. I order clam strips.
“I think I’ll give them a try,” I say.
Rachel smiles just a little. She knows I have a plan.
“Beverages?” the waitress says. She’s wearing an orange uniform the color of a Creamsicle.
“Chocolate milk shakes all around?” Dad says. We never get milk shakes. He must be feeling sorry for us.
When the food comes, we clink our milk shake glasses.
“L’chaim,” Dad says.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” Dad says. “Even though this is a tough time, there’s still a lot to be thankful for.”
What I’m thankful for is that Dad is busy putting mustard on his grilled-in-butter frankfort, so that when I slip two clam strips off my plate and wrap them in my napkin and stick it into my pants pocket, he doesn’t even notice.
I’m carrying the lemon meringue pie into a brick building that has a café in the middle of it. The lady at the desk in the Admissions Building told us that a mental health specialist is walking Mom from her room in South Belknap over to the café and by the time we get there, she’ll be waiting for us.
“Slow down, honey,” Dad says, because my legs keep going faster and faster. They want to be running. They want to be doing attitude leaps on the shiny linoleum floor until they land me right in front of Mommy, who’ll laugh and cry and take the pie and say Wow, my girls, lemon meringue! My favorite! and Oh, my sweet chickens! and then she’ll wrap her arms around me first, even before Dad, and sniff the top of my head and whisper in my ear that she couldn’t wait even one more second to see me. She’ll say What beautiful new barrettes! and her hair will be twisted up in her dancer bun and maybe she’ll be wearing her cashmere sweater the color of dried sea lavender that she saves for special occasions.
“Be careful with the pie,” Rachel says, but she doesn’t need to worry. I’m holding it tight.
There’s a lady in a bright pink dress, and she’s walking in the same direction we are. She might be a nutbar, but I don’t know how to tell. She looks regular, with matching pink shoes and curly brown hair.
“Mmmm,” she says, “that pie looks delicious.”
“It’s for our mom,” I say. “She’s waiting for us.”
“Well, I’m sure she’ll love it,” the lady says, smiling.
“I also brought her—” But then I remember that the clam strips are a secret. “Nothing,” I say, but the lady’s already passed us and turned down another hallway.
There’s a snack bar in a big, open space, and people are sitting around laughing and talking. It’s not dark and gloomy. It’s not gray, like I expected. I look around at all of the people. Where’s Mom? A man in a cowboy hat and a red-checked shirt waves like he wants us to come over. I shake my head. I don’t feel friendly. Mr. Cowboy waves again. Where’s Mom? I want Mom. Then Dad points and smiles and I’m running past the people and through a doorway into a small room in the back.
Mom doesn’t jump up from her chair to hug me. She doesn’t laugh and cry and reach out for the pie.
“Hi, Chirp,” she says in a quiet, sad voice. She opens up her arms. Dad takes the pie and sticks it on a table, and I bend down to hug her. She smells like bleach. Her hand rubs my back, like windshield wipers swiping side to side.
“Rachel,” Mom says, so I stand up and Rachel takes my place. She gives Mom a hug. I watch Mom’s hand rub back and forth, back and forth, on Rachel’s poncho.
“You must be Sy.” There’s a woman with blond hair sitting next to Mom, and she stands up and shakes Dad’s hand. “I’m Marcy. I’m the mental health specialist working with Hannah.”
Dad says hello, but he’s looking at Mom.
“Sweetheart,” he says. He smiles and leans in to give Mom a kiss, but she turns her head away and Marcy says, very quietly, “I think Hannah would prefer if you gave her just a little space at first. This is a lot for her.”
Dad nods and pulls up a chair next to Mom. He looks at the paintings on the walls, of ships in the ocean. He looks at the floor. He clears his throat.
Marcy looks at Mom.
“So, girls,” Mom finally says, “how was the drive?” She already sounds worn out, and we just got here. She has purple circles under her eyes. Her eyelids are pink and puffy, like she got bitten by mosquitoes, but there aren’t any mosquitoes in Massachusetts in November.
“Fine,” we say at the same time.
“We’re staying at the HoJo’s tonight,” I say.
“Oh,” Mom says. “That’s nice.” She takes a quick peek over at Marcy, who smiles at her.
I want Marcy to go away. If Marcy wasn’t here, then Mommy would remember who we are and how much she loves us. She’d notice the pie on the table and say Let’s dive in, and the four of us would eat it right out of the dish and get white meringue on our faces and laugh.
“So how was your Thanksgiving, Mom?” Rachel asks.
“Fine,” Mom says. “It was just fine.”
She isn’t wearing her cashmere sweater. She’s wearing a blue cotton turtleneck with greasy stains on it and brown corduroy pants.
“Chirp, why don’t you tell Mom about your play?” Dad says.
Marcy bobs her head up and down like a sandpiper. I wonder if she’s going to sit here the whole time or if she has other people’s Thanksgiving visits to mess up.
“Well,” I say, “I was the turkey. Joey was supposed to be the turkey, but he was absent. I got to dance.”
“That’s nice, honey,” Mom says. She licks her lips like they’re chapped. There’s white gunk in the corners of her mouth.
“She did a great job,” Dad says.
“I bet,” Mom says, but she doesn’t look at Dad.
“Rachel aced her last math test. She had a perfect score,” Dad says.
“Good job, honey,” Mom says, and stretches her lips into a smile, but her eyes aren’t smiling along.
We’re all quiet. I can hear people laughing in the other room. Mom runs her hand through her hair, which isn’t in a dancer bun. Her hair is down. Mom’s hair is never down. And it’s scraggly. If my hair looked like hers, she’d tell me to go brush it and pull it back into a ponytail.
“Well …,” Mom says. She reaches out and pats my hand. Pat. Pat. Pat.
Rachel gets the pie from the table.
“Look, Mom. We made this for you.” Rachel holds the pie out to her.
“Oh,” Mom says, “thank you very much. That was nice of you.” She takes the pie and plunks it in her lap, like it’s her brown everyday purse. She doesn’t look at it. She doesn’t see the perfect waves. “You made it yourselves?”
“Yes,” we say, and I’m about to tell Mom how I had to stir and stir the lemony stuff to get it thick enough, but Mom’s eyes are filling up with tears and she’s looking at Marcy and tapping her wrist with two fingers where her watch would be if she had it on.
Marcy stands up. “I think Hannah is ready to head back to her room now,” she says, then turns to Mom. “Should I give you a moment to say good-bye to your family in private?”
Mom starts to shake her head, but Marcy is already walking away. She’s waiting for Mom by the door.
“Thanks for coming,” Mom says, like we’re guests at one of the dinner parties she and Dad have a couple of times a year.
“Sweetie?” Dad says. “Is there anything you need? Is there anything we can do for you?”
“I’m sorry. I’m just so sorry,” Mom says, and her voice is tiny and scared and so little-girly that I want to block my ears hard enough to hear ocean. Mom hands Dad the pie and pushes herself out of the chair like she’s an old lady, like it’s the toughest thing she’s ever done. She hugs Rachel. She hugs me. I press my face into her neck. Bleach. I need to smell lemon and lavender. I need to smell Mom.
“Okay, honey,” Mom says, and starts to pull away.
“No,” I whisper, “no, Mom,” and hold on tight and sniff, sniff, sniff. I’m going to sniff her back to life. I’m going to sniff her back into my mother with a dancer bun who walks with long dancer steps and laughs like a northern flicker and knows what I’m thinking.
“Marcy,” I hear Mom say. “Marcy, please …” Her voice is gurgly and wet, like she’s talking underwater.
“You need to let your mother go now,” Marcy says in a principal voice, a crossing-guard voice, a man-working-at-the-bank voice. I feel her cold hands on my shoulders. This lady who I’ve never seen before puts her hands on my shoulders and tugs me backward, away from Mom. She rescues Mom from me.
“Happy Thanksgiving. Thanks for coming,” Marcy says, really fast, like she doesn’t mean it. She takes Mom’s hand and leads her away. Mom’s crying, wet strangly sobs. She doesn’t turn around and wave to us. She doesn’t curtsy or sashay or twirl. She doesn’t say See you soon, my sweeties. She just holds on to Marcy’s hand and tucks her head down low, like she’s afraid something might bean her as she walks with her draggy leg past Mr. Cowboy with his stupid hat and stupid red-checked shirt and disappears down the hall.
We just stand here, watching where she was. Tick-a-tick-a-tick-a. It’s my teeth. They’re chattering. They won’t stop. My bones are icicles.
“Get me out of here,” Rachel whispers, and she grabs Dad’s hand. Dad grabs my hand. The three of us just stand still, holding hands, stuck frozen. Then Dad says, “My girls,” and Rachel cries, “Daddy!” He squeezes my hand hard, my hand feels warm, and then he starts walking. He’s walking fast, pulling us along, towing us past all of the nutbars, fast, fast, fast, out of this place, away from here, away from Mom and our lemon meringue pie that’s still sitting on the table.
In the car, none of us says anything. Rachel stares out the window. The quiet hurts my ears, but there are no words in my mouth, no words in my head.
“Okay,” Dad says when we pull up at HoJo’s, but his word flutters and bumps like a sparrow against our front picture window at home. I don’t know what word he should have picked, but okay isn’t the right one.
When we get to the room, Rachel lies on her stomach on our bed and pretends to fall asleep. Dad sits in the armchair with his book open, but he isn’t reading. He’s just staring all squinty-eyed at the green curtains, like maybe there’s a secret message written there that will make everything make sense. I go into the bathroom, change into my black one-piece swimsuit, and put my clothes back on.
“I’m going to the pool,” I say.
“Okay,” Dad says, not looking at me.
“The rule is, you’re supposed to be fourteen or else you need to be accompanied by an adult,” I say.
“You’ll be fine,” Dad says. “You’re my Cape Cod girl. You’re my quahog. Just get out if anyone tells you to.” He looks at me, smiles, and then goes back to trying to read the curtains.
In the pool, I puff my belly up and float on my back like a dead fish.
The water’s warm. It fills my ears. My breath goes in and out, in and out. My heart thumps. If I were really dead, I wouldn’t hear my breath. I wouldn’t hear my heart. I could float right on the surface without having to move my arms around to stay up. Since I wouldn’t be moving my arms around, I wouldn’t make waves that slosh against the side of the pool. I would stay absolutely, positively still. No breath, no thump, no slosh.
When I flip over, the chlorine burns my eyes, but I like the way everything looks fuzzy and green. I like how nothing is clear. I surface-dive down, down, down. With my belly on the bottom of the pool, I’m a beautiful mermaid. I take my hair out of its ponytail and put the elastic on my wrist. I swim around with my long, flowy hair and slithery body. Tiny bubbles float off my skin. The golden hairs on my arms wave around. A mermaid never needs to come up for air. She opens her mouth and tasty minnows drift in. She drinks seawater. She swims for as long as she wants, and no one sees her unless she wants them to. No one sees her and no one talks to her and no one touches her and says stupid things. No one even thinks about her. And she doesn’t think about anyone.
I want to stay down here in the fuzzy green, not thinking about anyone, especially Marcy, with her hands on my shoulders and her ugly voice telling me to leave Mom alone, but my lungs ache and my head hurts and I can’t help pulling myself up through the water and gulping in air.
Getting out of the pool, I’m dizzy. I know about putting my head lower than my heart, so I sit on a white plastic chair and bend over. When I’m better, I get my pants. I fish the napkin out of the pocket. It’s hard to unroll it, because it’s all stuck together. Even though I bet it’s against the rules, I squat down by the edge of the pool and dunk the clam strips in, dunk, dunk, dunk, and sing my song:
Cape Cod girls ain’t got no combs,
Heave away, haul away!
They comb their hair with codfish bones,
Heave away, haul away!
Little pieces of napkin stick to the clam strips like wet snowflakes. Tiny bits of gold stuff float off the clam strips and sink.
Heave away, my bully, bully boys,
Heave away, haul away!
Heave away, why don’t you make some noise?
We’re bound for South Australia.