Miles from Ordinary Read online

  I switched everything off, closed the closet with a slam, then shut the windows halfway.

  “Momma’s room,” I whispered. “Let’s check there.”

  Past the bathroom we tiptoed. Lights on. Tub full. Sink filled to overflowing. Momma’s almost dried and dirty footprints, feet bare, on the pale pink tile.

  “She was here,” I said. Not that I had to. “But it’s been a while.”

  “Uh-huh?” said Aaron, like it was a question.

  How would I find Momma in her room? Dressed in nightclothes? Clean from a bath? Wearing Granddaddy’s old flannels shirt and blue jeans that were so big she had to tie them on?

  Would she be half-naked? Angry at a stranger following me? Sleeping?

  I tapped at the door and waited.

  There was no sound from inside the room. Only the sigh of the storm, the patter of the rain from outside.

  Turning the doorknob, I held my breath. I half expected, opening Momma’s bedroom door, to see her crouched in a corner in a T-shirt, her hair straggly, her eyes showing white. Here the lamp was on, too. I glanced around the room quick. But she wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

  “What?” Aaron said. His voice sounded surprised. “Why?”

  “Why what?” I said.

  Aaron sounded breathless. “Why all the stuff? Why all the food?”

  “Oh.” I waved my hand in the air, dismissing it. Then I looked back into my mother’s room and saw it the way it must look to Aaron.

  Stacked to the ceiling along one wall were tuna, peaches, green beans, and other canned foods. On the side of the room that had a window was the toilet paper. Sanitary napkins. Tampons. Pads of paper bought cheap at Shopko. Crawling up the wall, covering most of the window. Boxes and boxes of M&M’s with almonds reached for the ceiling, too. And clothes, all different kinds of clothes, stored in plastic containers. Every wall, every window in the room, was hidden with Momma’s storage. Food, clothing, emergency items. All the things Granddaddy had said she should buy.

  I spun around, facing Aaron, feeling defensive all the sudden. I leaned in his face. “What?” I said.

  He almost couldn’t get the words out. “There’s so much,” he said.

  “So?”

  “I mean, it’s like a grocery store in here. Why do you have it all, Lacey?”

  Yes, why?

  I had no answer. I looked back in the room again. At everything. So much of everything that the two windows were blocked.

  “I told you,” I said, turning to face Aaron. I clenched my teeth. Balled my fists. “I warned you things weren’t right.” I stared at him. Daring him. Daring him to run. To leave. So what! So what if I didn’t have a friend. So what if I was alone. I had been alone with Momma for a year. What was one more day?

  “Oh,” Aaron said.

  And then as fast as the defensiveness had come, a wave of tiredness swept over me. For a moment, I didn’t think I could keep up the search for my mother. For a moment, I wanted to walk back down the stairs, out the door, and down the road. Away.

  Where? Where? Where?

  Yes, to where? There was no place to go. Not even St. Augustine.

  I was here. I had to be here. In this place. Taking care of Momma. I looked Aaron in the eyes again. “She’s sick,” I said. “I gotta find her.”

  After snapping off the light, I pulled the door to Momma’s room closed. My fingers trembled.

  Aaron and I stood face-to-face in the darkened hall. I could feel the heat coming from him. Was he scared, too? We stood close enough I could have hugged him if I wanted. Could have held his hand if I’d had the nerve. If he didn’t run.

  “Let’s find her,” he said. His voice was light as a new leaf.

  Oh. Oh. Good. Only finding Momma was important.

  No bit of light stretched toward us from under Aunt Linda’s door. “One more room,” I said.

  I hadn’t been in Aunt Linda’s room since she left. Not even when I missed her bad. A couple of times, I’d stood outside the door, with my ear pressed to the wood, listening for my aunt. But Momma caught me once, and yelled. Told me to stop wishing for the dead to come back. Told me things were different and could never be fixed. Would never be the same.

  Then for a couple of weeks things started smelling awful near Aunt Linda’s room. It was when Momma was doing her wanderings.

  “Something’s dead up there I think,” I told her. I was afraid. Had taken to sleeping on the sofa in the living room. “The smell’s coming from Aunt Linda’s room.”

  “It’s Granddaddy,” Momma said. “He’s killed rats in there. And mice, too. Stay away.”

  So I did. I never went in that room. Never. And not because of rats and mice. I didn’t go in ’cause I was sure it would hurt too much. Hurt my heart to see the room made up the way Aunt Linda kept it. Light and airy. Windows wide like in my room. So when I stood there with Aaron, it took me a moment to open the door.

  But at last, I did.

  The light was off. Everything in here was dark.

  “Momma?” My voice went into the airless room. Dust and paper smell filled my nose.

  My hand searched the wall for the light switch and I touched something crinkly. Then snap! The dim overhead bulb came on.

  “What?” I said it this time.

  My head wouldn’t let me understand, wouldn’t let me see things right for a moment. This wasn’t Aunt Linda’s room. Not anymore.

  Pages from books had been stuck to the walls. All the books Aunt Linda left. They were now on the floor in neat stacks, the covers. And thousands of words coated all the walls, millions of words maybe, hid the soft lavender-colored wallpaper that had been here before my aunt went away.

  What was going on?

  “Momma?” I heard my voice like someone else had said the word. I walked in the room. My legs seemed broken at the knees. On the dresser I saw it.

  Mr. Dewey’s cage.

  And Mr. Dewey inside. Feathers now, with bones.

  “Mr. Dewey.” Again my voice sounded strange. Not like me. “What happened?” I stepped up to the dresser and looked at what was left of the bird. Dust covered everything. I meant to say, “No. No.” But I’m not sure the words came out of my mouth at all.

  In a slow circle, I turned, my eyes burning from what was in front of me. The long mirror, just words. The closet doors, just words. The walls, the windows, everything—just words.

  “Who’s in the bed?” Aaron’s voice sounded bizarre.

  I made myself look. To the body shape that was covered with an old quilt. Granddaddy’s quilt.

  “Momma?” Another word I meant to say. But all that came out was air.

  I’m not sure how I got to the side of the bed. Not sure how long the walk took. Not sure how long I stood there, checking for signs of breathing. And seeing none.

  “Don’t look,” Aaron said. “Maybe we should call the police.” His hand gripped my arm. Squeezing hard. Hurting. I wiggled away from him.

  “Maybe it’s her,” I said, and my voice was full of tears.

  Maybe Momma had killed herself in this room. Where I might not look. Where I might never go.

  In the book-darkness of the room, my hand reached out on its own. I pulled back the covers.

  Auburn hair, showed first. Hair like …

  … like my aunt’s.

  It’s her. Here all the time. Dead. Right here!

  Aunt Linda?

  A buzzing sound went off in my ears. It felt like there was no blood around my mouth.

  “I saw her drive away,” I said. I moved the blanket a little more. A bone-white forehead.

  “John said she visited the library.”

  Aunt Linda.

  Glassy eyes.

  That smell.

  Red lipstick.

  “A mannequin,” Aaron said. And his breath came out with the words, full of relief.

  A wave of dizziness swept over me. But I put my head down, resting my hands on my knees, and after a moment was sure I could
stand again. Where had Momma gotten a mannequin?

  “Lacey?” Aaron said. “Are you okay?”

  I shook my head.

  No. No, I wasn’t okay.

  Outside the rain beat steady and hard on the roof.

  I looked up at Aaron.

  For a moment I wrestled with what I knew I should do. But this part of me, this part all hurt and sad, didn’t want to do it.

  Because my aunt had let me down. She hadn’t done her part.

  And now all this. All this.

  She wasn’t dead. Not like Mr. Dewey. There was Mr. Dewey over there. And a mannequin here. Not a human being. Not my aunt after all.

  “We better call her,” I said. “We better call my aunt Linda.”

  XI

  It was easy to find Aunt Linda’s phone number. All I had to do was look in my head and remember what I hadn’t let myself think about in a long time.

  But it wasn’t as easy to call her.

  First of all, my hands shook so much I couldn’t press all those numbers. Second, she had left me. Left me with Momma.

  I knew the logic of it all. That Momma wouldn’t let Aunt Linda stay here. She chased her away. She threatened her with the police. With restraining orders.

  I knew what Aunt Linda had said, about trying to get back to see me.

  And I knew that I couldn’t have left Momma anyway. Not alone. What would she do without me to take care of her? How would she make it?

  Still, calling Aunt Linda was like I had given in or something.

  We walked down the stairs to the front room. I picked up the phone, steadied it in my hands. Hoped for one moment of calm.

  “You okay?” Aaron said.

  I nodded. A lie.

  “You need help?”

  She left me!

  “Lacey, I think we need to call someone.”

  I squeezed the phone. Nodded again.

  Momma was gone. I had to do it. I had to call Aunt Linda. Even if she did leave. There was Mr. Dewey. And that mannequin. All those words on her bedroom walls.

  “Let me dial,” Aaron said at last.

  I handed the phone over to him for the second time that day. Then I went and peeked out the living room window at our large yard and the houses beyond.

  Where was she? Where?

  It’s all your fault.

  The trees were dark with rain, bending a little with the wind. It was like night outside, the sky dim and clouded over.

  All my fault? Yes, yes it was. If I hadn’t insisted on Momma getting that job. If I hadn’t wanted a moment to myself. A chance to stretch without being afraid. A chance to get out of here. None of this would have happened.

  I leaned my forehead against the windowpane. It felt cool. “Momma.” I almost couldn’t hear myself. “Where are you? And what in the heck is going on here? Tell me what’s happening.”

  I remembered a book I read by Louise Plummer. About a girl whose grandmother was missing. And was found dead under the neighbor’s porch. Was that Momma’s fate? Was she gone from me already? Had she hidden herself under someone else’s porch to stay out of the rain?

  She’s dead.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. No!

  She wasn’t! I knew it! I felt it!

  Behind me I heard Aaron’s voice. “Please call Lacey back.” He was leaving a message.

  Aunt Linda wasn’t there. Funny how my heart felt like it plunged near my toes. I kept looking out into the yard. Kept staring into the rain. Fogging up the window with breath that kept me from crying.

  “Does your aunt work?” Aaron asked.

  I looked back at him. Standing there with the phone against his chest. “Yeah. At the library in St. Augustine.”

  Aaron called information. I heard him waiting. I thought of Momma missing in the storm. Walking out there lost. All afraid. Confused. There was a crash of lightning so loud I screamed. The lights we’d left on blinked out. The house fell into a muddy-water darkness.

  “I’m here, Lacey,” Aaron said. And then, “Linda? You don’t know me. I live in Peace.”

  I turned in a slow circle. Aunt Linda.

  “Lacey?” Aaron said, into the phone and to me at the same time.

  Aunt Linda.

  That walk across the living room seemed so long. One of the longest I’ve ever taken. I took the warm phone in my hand and swallowed down at the lump that grew fat in my throat. The way I’d done in school so many times. The way I’d done so many nights after my aunt left. The way I’d wanted to swallow away this past year.

  Then I said, “I need you now.”

  My mouth grew spitty, like I’d been crying for years.

  “Lacey?” Aunt Linda said.

  “Yes, it’s me,” I said.

  I couldn’t think of the words.

  All those words in that room.

  “What’s wrong, Lacey?”

  “I can’t find Momma,” I said.

  “I’ll be there in less than twenty minutes.” The phone clicked dead.

  She was on her way.

  * * *

  AARON AND I sat in the semidarkness for a few minutes. Outside the storm hammered at us. Inside the air was heavy and hot.

  “Should we open the windows?” he said.

  The thought was so strange. The only windows ever opened in the house were the two in my room where I slept. And before, the ones in Aunt Linda’s room.

  I thought for a minute. Momma wouldn’t like it much. But.

  “Sure,” I said. “Good idea.”

  Around we went, pushing at windows that squeaked out protests at being forced open. Straightaway the air outside started cleansing the air inside. Making it smell newer. Damp and clear and a little chilly.

  Lightning made the trees look blue.

  “The dining room and the kitchen, too,” I said. “Let’s get those open in there.”

  “Okay,” Aaron said.

  We made our way through the main floor, letting fresh, clean air into the house. Rain came in some of the screens.

  “I’ll clean it up with a towel later,” I said when Aaron pointed it out.

  Sadness came at me like the wind.

  “My momma,” I said, as we walked into the kitchen. “She thought that evil spirits could get in through the screens. So we kept things closed up.”

  He didn’t say anything. I was glad that the lights were off. I couldn’t quite make out his face. He was probably bug-eyed right about now. Evil spirits, right. But I saw him nod.

  I let myself down into a chair.

  Aaron sat next to me. The smell of rain rushed through the house with the wind.

  “My dead granddaddy tells her that.”

  “Oh.”

  Soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew I sounded crazy as Momma. If I’d had the energy, I would have defended Granddaddy and Momma. But I was worn out. So tired I was sure I’d never get up from that chair again. And, somehow, the dark made me truthful.

  “He doesn’t really talk to her.” I took in a gulp of the storm air. It smelled so new. “I mean, I’ve never heard him myself.”

  “That’s good,” Aaron said. He let out a little laugh.

  I wanted to laugh, too. Instead, I leaned against the table. Every part of me was heavy as bricks.

  “Lacey?” Aaron said.

  “She’s not here,” I said at last. “If Momma had been here, we’d have found her by now.” I looked out the kitchen door at the rain that fell like silver to the ground. I wanted to weep.

  Aaron said nothing.

  “I feel like someone’s squeezed the life from me. I feel like an old dishrag.” I stared into the backyard. Watched the rain. “I’m worried I’ll never see her again. Maybe she got hit by a car. I never even thought of calling the hospital.” Fear and grief, like fists, clutched at my insides.

  “She didn’t get hit by a car,” Aaron said. “We would have seen the ambulance. Heard the sirens. Something. And anyway. She’s been here. You know that. We saw all the water. All t
he lights. She’s okay, Lacey.”

  Outside the rain lessened a bit. The storm was moving on some. Not sitting right over the house.

  “And what about Aunt Linda? Why isn’t she here yet?” I said. “St. Augustine isn’t that far.”

  “It’s only been a couple of minutes since we called her,” Aaron said. “The storm’ll slow her down some.”

  He was right.

  “Thank you.” I paused.

  Aaron shrugged. “No big deal.”

  What if Aaron hadn’t spoken to me on the bus? What if he hadn’t said he would come back with me? I’da come here alone. Again. Found things this way. I moved near him. Kept my voice soft, almost a whisper. “I’m not so sure I coulda done it by myself. You know.” With my head I gestured at the ceiling even though I knew he couldn’t quite see me. I thought of this miracle. How Aaron was here at just this time. Aunt Linda would say Aaron was a gift. “It’s all so freaky. I’m not so sure what would have happened.”

  Remembering my aunt’s room sent a shiver through me. And Mr. Dewey, dead. What would John think? What would Aunt Linda do? I shivered again. Had a goose run across my grave? Something Momma said when she saw me tremble for no reason.

  “I don’t have a grave,” I had told her once.

  “But you will,” she had said back.

  “You would have done it, Lacey,” Aaron said. In the darkness of the room I could just see the blond of his hair. Could see his lips moving. There was a slim bit of light coming from somewhere outside. Light a person could talk in.

  “You would have been fine if I hadn’t been here.”

  “I don’t know,” I said again. “I’ve never been this afraid before.” That was true. I had seen Momma do some scary stuff. But not like this.

  The room’s been like that a long time. And Mr. Dewey too, in there a long time.

  I closed my eyes to the voice. Opened them to glance at Aaron.

  That was true, too. The pages on Aunt Linda’s wall. That little bird dead. Maybe even the mannequin was something that had been there in that room for who knows how long. Just because I didn’t know what was behind a closed door didn’t mean it hadn’t been there.