At last, at last, I heard voices when I went into my bedroom. Saw my closet door opened just a crack. Could see the light was on. Shadows of people?
“Momma,” I said, whispering. All day I’d sat with a lump the size of a grapefruit in my chest.
I opened the door wide. There she was on the floor in front of me, curled up on my shoes, Granddaddy’s pictures pulled out around her. Even the portrait from the wall, the one where she was with him, his arm around her, it was there in the closet. In the photo Granddaddy and a younger Momma, side by side, looking almost like twins, their hair and eyes that same dark color. And that skin that won’t tan, not even a bit. Smiling. The two of them smiling. That portrait leaned against her knee. Seeing her like that made me think, Momma is okay. She is.
“I seen Granddaddy,” she said to me then. Didn’t look at me. Just said those words. “Seen him right after the buildings fell. First he was in the smoke and glass from the buildings. Then standing in the living room.”
Momma’s been talking about her dead father ever since I can remember. You know—about hearing his voice. And seeing him. Saying sometimes how the two of them talk late into the night so Momma has a hard time getting up in the morning. It used to scare me, but after a while I got used to it. I’ve never seen him, so why be afraid of a memory? Even if the memory talks to your mother?
“Momma,” I had said. “Come on out of there.” I reached in, my hand so small. I remember that, my hand being so small. I touched her dirty hair. My stomach twisted with the awful things I’d seen at school. The smell coming from the closet. The burning buildings. The sparkling glass. The smoke. The way Momma would be so upset about it. She’d been having a hard time for a few days anyway. Worrying, pulling at her hair, whispering to Granddaddy.
“He said,” Momma said from the floor, “it’s the end of the world. Said we should wait for the destruction. And save water. I ran the tub full, Lacey. And all the sinks, too.” She spoke into her chest. Not looking up.
I was petrified anyway and for some reason Momma’s words scared me even more that day. The picture—all the family pictures around her—were no longer soothing.
“Now, now,” I said. Something Aunt Linda always said to her sister. But she was at that meeting. It was just me and Momma on September eleventh. Just the two of us. And my heart was broken from it all.
“Come on.” I reached for Momma again and noticed my hands shaking.
“Can’t.”
“Come on now.”
I reached for her and Momma glanced at me.
At first I thought maybe that wasn’t my mother sitting there cross-legged near my shoes. That maybe someone had stolen her voice or something. Her face was so shiny in the sunlight that swept in from my bedroom window. And dark. I jerked away from her. And she made this smile. Like a carved pumpkin smile. With not a bit of happiness in it.
I realized then all the dark was blood. Her whole face covered in blood.
“What?” I said. “What?” For a moment I couldn’t even move. I was a statue, poised in my bedroom closet. Then I stumbled backward, hitting my nightstand. Something fell to the floor and broke. And the sun kept shining and shining.
Momma cocked her head at me like a bird does when it gazes at you. “Oh, this?” She touched her cheek and shrugged. “I don’t know.” Her voice was light, almost floaty.
For a minute I was sure I was gonna throw up. I mean, all those people dead that morning. All those people gone. All that fear. The way I felt. And Momma looking up at me. The blood. I gagged. Turned my back. Gagged again.
“Get out of the closet.” Now, looking back, I’m not sure how I even got those words out.
“Lacey.” Momma’s voice was a whine.
“Now.” Then I threw up. All over the wooden floor. Vomit splashing up on the wall. And on the small rug where I knelt to say my prayers. And I cried, too. For everything that had happened that awful, awful day. Tell me who wasn’t upset that day? Or afraid?
“Lacey?” John’s voice pulled me back into the library. “How’s Linda doing?”
For a minute I couldn’t figure what John was talking about, I was so back there on September eleventh.
I stood up, blinking. “Oh, she’s doing good.” Not a lie, really, but I had no idea what was going on with my aunt. I hadn’t seen her since she left, except those times from the window. And with the police. There was the letter, too. But nothing else. I hadn’t tried to call her at all. Okay, I did twice, but the phone went to voice mail. Probably because I had called at like two in the morning, both times after Granddaddy had awakened Momma. “Yes, she’s good.”
“She seems to be,” John said. “The whole library loves it when she stops in.”
“What?” My face went flat. The floor tilted. “She visits here?” For some reason my hands shook. I clutched the handle of the book cart.
“She used to come a couple times a month hoping that Mr. Dewey would be returned,” John said. “We’ve haven’t seen her in a while.” He peered over my shoulder at the almost-empty third cart. “Looks like you’re about finished here. We’ve got new DVDs and CDs that need to be unwrapped when you’re done.”
“All right, John,” I said. But in my head the words came out slow and fat, like bold print might sound.
He smiled big at me. “Lacey, it’s nice to have you here. You look a lot
