Aunt Linda made things right that early morning. She fixed Laurel and me huge cups of homemade hot chocolate, thick with real cream. Tried to make a game of it. She calmed Momma down. Got us back in bed. Even took Laurel to her front door that next day after we slept in and explained things.
But at school the following Monday, Laurel told everyone what had happened.
I was horrified. It felt like the skin might bubble right off my bones.
“Don’t,” I had said. I remember I had reached out to stop Laurel, but never laid a hand on her. Just waved in her direction. Then sat in my desk, my head on the desktop, and waited for the telling to be over.
She wouldn’t stop. Laurel told it again and again. About her momma being so angry and yelling at my momma. Momma was wrapped in an old coat of Granddaddy’s, the winter wind pulling at her hair. She never said a word. Didn’t even nod. And Laurel’s momma kept on how she was gonna sue if Laurel came down with even a runny nose. All this in the front yard near the mailbox in voices so loud that neighbors’ lights had popped on.
That was in fourth grade. I’d had a friend for almost one whole week.
I glanced at Aaron. “I had a friend before.”
Maybe he knew that, too.
X
As soon as I saw my house, windows curtained like blind eyes, I knew Momma had been here.
I leapt off the bus.
She had been here, but she was gone. She had to be gone now. The front door stood open a little, like maybe the wind had pushed it wide enough for a glance inside. The lights were on—I could see that from where I stood with Aaron on the blacktop road that would be good for skateboarding. Light peeked out around the edges of the living room curtains.
My stomach sunk.
None of this was like Momma. Not the lights on or the door open or the traveling alone. I mean, before I had found her when she wandered off. I had found her, most of the time, right away.
And she was always close. She hardly ever left the neighborhood.
You took her away.
I did. I had. I took her away. Led her from the safety of our home.
“That house,” she had said after I found her standing in a neighbor’s yard, pointing at their home, “that’s right where the old barn was. Where generations of Millses kept fishing boats and garden tools and tractors.”
And once …
“The place he had that car parked? There was an oak big as Florida right there. Me and our cousins and Linda, we’d climb to the top, look through the trees to the river.”
And once …
“It used to be wasn’t nothing out here but the old sand road. Nothing fancy. Nothing new. I walk that blacktop road and I don’t feel nothing of my old life. Just the eyes of the neighbors.”
It was true. All the changes. Aunt Linda had sold off part of the land. One-acre parcels to ten people. And they’d put a real road here not that long ago. Maybe three, four years ago. And their houses followed.
When the homes popped up I said, “Momma, you can’t go off like this now that we have people so close.” And she had stopped. She had. And she had always been so close. Not including after Aunt Linda. But most always before. And most always after. She was right under my nose. Really.
Now looking at our house, I almost forgot how to exhale.
Near a set of cinder blocks stacked at the corner to keep our home off the ground, I got down on my hands and knees. The wind pushed at me, blowing leaves across the yard. The air was hot, even next to the grass.
I pretended for a minute that Aaron wasn’t here. Wasn’t watching me.
“Momma?” I called.
I could see some old cane poles lying close. Could see the funnel-shaped homes anteaters made. There was a stack of rusted tools, a shovel and two rakes, piled where a hand could reach them if needed. But it didn’t seem anyone had been under the house that shouldn’t have been.
“Well,” I said, like this was something I did. I stood. Dusted the sand from my knees. Patted my hands together like I was shaking off flour.
Aaron looked at me big-eyed.
I stared back.
“She hid there once,” I said. Just gave it to him, that bit of me.
“I see,” he said. But I could tell he didn’t.
I took small steps and Aaron followed, setting his skateboard on the gray wooden porch.
“I think she’s home,” Aaron said. “Maybe inside. The door’s open. And see the lights?”
“Yeah,” I said.
To tell the truth, right at that moment I did not want to go inside. To tell the truth, I’d rather crawl around under the house. Take my chances with the rattlers and coral snakes. Instead, I pushed at the front door and it squeaked open like maybe it felt the same as me: scared.
In the living room I said, “Oh no.” Something like despair grew heavy in my stomach. “This isn’t good.”
I had to steady myself on an ancient phone table. Thought I might fall.
“What?”
“All the lights are on. Even the night-lights.”
“I noticed that,” Aaron said.
The living room was wiped clean. There was no dust in here. No breeze from outside. The windows were latched shut. The lace at the glass, breaking the outside into small pieces, like a puzzle—the tatted doilies on the back of the sofa, all of it was in perfect order. It was almost like no one had ever come in
