The lady cop glanced at them then handed it all back to Momma. “You can’t be here, ma’am,” she said. Her voice was gentle. Her face kind.
“But I love her,” I said. The words came out like they were sorry.
Momma’s grip tightened. “You love me, too,” she said.
“I love you both,” I said.
“Off my property, Linda,” Momma said.
“Angela, please.”
“Momma!”
The policeman came forward. “Tell her good-bye. Get permission to come back.”
Aunt Linda was motionless. Her face grew pale and I saw her grit her teeth.
I ran to her. Threw my arms around her neck. Kissed her face. She tucked herself close.
And then she was escorted to her car.
But Aunt Linda and me, how could we know all that when she was driving off the first night Momma made her leave?
“Give me your word you’ll call me, Lacey,” she had said.
“I will,” I had said.
Then I watched her go. I didn’t grab at the car. Didn’t run after her. ’Cause I knew it didn’t matter. That it wouldn’t matter what I did.
Aunt Linda wouldn’t stay with me.
Funny thing happened right after the police left all that time later, and I remembered it now as I cleared the last of the cart off and started shelving the Clementine books in the juvenile fiction section.
Soon as she was escorted away from our home, soon as she drove away from me not looking back even once, I got all mad at my aunt. Walking into the house that afternoon, the police done talking to Momma, I went up to my room, fell on my bed and didn’t leak one tear, not one, though the effort made my head hurt and my nose go stuffy.
Aunt Linda gone.
Gone.
Now it was just Momma and me. All alone here in Peace. All alone in this house. Granddaddy peering in at us—Momma was sure. Me feeling so achy inside. Not a bit of peace in my heart. Hating everyone, including my watchful, dead grandfather. And my aunt. And Momma, too. I hated them all.
“We made him happy,” Momma said, coming in to pat my head. “Granddaddy is sure we’ve done the right thing.”
I didn’t answer. The police were long gone. Aunt Linda, too. Momma had put on more makeup, two red circles of blush high on her cheekbones, so much mascara her eyelashes looked spidery. She wore three sweaters though it was hot in the house. Tight and closed up.
“He told me so, Lacey,” Momma said through purple-painted lips.
I wouldn’t even look my mother in the face as she walked away, stood thin near my bedroom door. Pale light falling in on her from the hall. Teetering on her high heels. There was a run in her panty hose. Had it been there all along?
“You’d hear him too, if you’d just listen.”
“I don’t want to listen,” I wanted to say. But I kept my lips glued shut. I waited for her to leave—the two of us standing there. Momma turned away first, went to her room.
When I heard Momma settle into bed, I stood in front of my dresser mirror. I whispered, “We don’t need you, Linda Mills. We don’t. We don’t.” I said the words over and over. Saying them would make them real. And I swore to myself, right then, I would never call her. Never.
Momma, all peaceful now, like nothing had happened, called from her room, “You okay, Lacey?”
And I lied to her. “Yes, Momma. I’m okay.”
Momma didn’t get out of bed for three days, except to drink sips of water and go to the bathroom. But we were okay.
VII
I worked hard trying to forget while I shelved all those books. But I couldn’t. It was almost like Aunt Linda was a part of the books. Made of pages or something. Bits of words. And she had made me a part too, by reading to me. By holding me on her lap while she read. By kissing my cheek when she ended a chapter and closed a novel and tucked me in at night. It was like now she was some fairy from another world, trapped between the covers. And if I worked hard enough, or put the books away in just the right order, I might release her.
“Lacey Mills,” I said. All these things, all these thoughts? Pure stupidity. “You are crazier than Momma.”
You are! You are!
I held tight to the novels in my hands. I sighed, all the way from my toes.
Straight up I have to say, it’s not Momma’s fault she is the way she is. She’s just scared. I blame Granddaddy and so did Aunt Linda, though Momma is the first to defend him. But who can help being afraid? Who can help missing her father, even if he wasn’t perfect? Who isn’t afraid of death?
That fall terrorists flew airplanes into the World Trade Center? I was at school. A little ol’ thing. Aunt Linda was out of town at a librarian’s meeting. Momma at home.
I knew, though. I knew, little as I was. If Momma was watching at home, we were in trouble. Big, big trouble. Why, I was watching the most horrible thing I’d ever seen in my life. If Momma was watching TV too, this would not be good for her.
The school wouldn’t let me get home. Told me I had to stay right where I was. Just in case Florida got attacked, I guess. Made us practice getting under desks and everything.
I ran home from the bus stop that afternoon. My feet hitting the pavement like hands on a drum. My stomach sick from what I had seen. My heart all twisted up. Tears coming down my face.
And oh! was I right about Momma.
The house was silent when I opened the front door. All the lights on. I couldn’t seem to find her anywhere. Not anywhere. Not
