My whole body seemed to churn at the worries, my tummy dropping away from me with the thoughts, like when you take on the Zipper ride at the fair.
Then that anger was back again, surprising me.
If Momma hadn’t gone away, then this whole day would have been different. If Momma hadn’t left this would have been a promise fulfilled. Corny, but true.
“If you hadn’t run off, I wouldn’t be standing outside. If…,” my mind started heading places I didn’t let it go, “… if you were different, this wouldn’t have happened. If you woulda gone for help.”
I paused. Who was I to talk to Momma like this?
Who are you?
Stop! Don’t even think that!
I knew who I was. Someone mad. Really bent out of shape.
I deserved to speak my mind, even if it was to my own self.
“If you were a real momma,” I said, clenching my fists, “you’d be taking care of me.”
Aunt Linda wouldn’t have been forced to leave.
Mr. Dewey would be singing at the library.
I might have friends.
Guilt and loneliness and confusion filled me. It seemed to crawl right up my lungs and into my mouth. Why should I have to feel any of these things? It wasn’t fair.
“Don’t think this way,” I said.
And then, “Yes, do.”
I took in a deep breath.
“Get it together, Lacey. Do what you have to.” I imagined Aunt Linda home. To stay. But she wasn’t here yet. I looked down the street again.
Think straight.
Right.
Momma, I knew, was in trouble. Big trouble. I could see that when I looked at my world through Aaron’s eyes. All the food stored up in the bedroom. The closed windows. The running off. All that water. The mannequin. The words taped everywhere.
And Mr. Dewey. Poor Mr. Dewey. These last things seemed weird even to me. I felt angry with Momma. Gypped.
And there was the sorrow.
I stood outside waiting for Aunt Linda a few more minutes.
The rain became smaller, more innocent drops, but I still didn’t go inside. Gusts of wind pushed the mist at me, wetting my face, cooling me, almost calming me.
“Everything,” I said to the dark night sky, “everything is going to be okay. I’m going to just forget it all. Like none of it has ever happened.”
I started back into the house. The screen door opened with a squeak. Careful not to make too much noise, I let it close with a small wooden fump.
Coming inside frightened me a little. Sure, I’d been plenty scared at home before. Momma and her weird self. The way she’d be sometimes at night when she’d keep me awake. Us lying in her bed together. Her arms around me tight from her fear. Her hot breath at the back of my neck.
“Don’t close your eyes, Lacey. Don’t close them. If they’re always open the aliens can’t get you.”
Somehow Momma had known whenever I drifted to sleep. She poked me awake. “They put things in your brain. Strips of metal. They torture you. But not if you stay alert. You can fight ’em off if you’re alert. I have. I’ve kept them away.”
Now I checked out the dirty screen toward the night sky heavy with dark clouds. No aliens.
Checked out the road. No Aunt Linda, either.
My skin was damp and so were my clothes. I glanced at the clock. Only twenty-five minutes had passed since we called Aunt Linda.
Thoughts of Momma and her talk kept coming.
“Granddaddy didn’t want to die,” she would sometimes say when she couldn’t get out of bed for sadness’s sake. “Using the choke chain?—why that was purely accidental.”
I would say, “Yes, Momma.”
And she would say, “That I found him? He wanted that. ’Cause we’d been so close for so long. That’s why he visits me and no one else.”
“Yes, Momma.”
Standing there in the living room now, I squeezed my hands.
“Aaron,” I whispered. Not so sure why. He seemed like the only normal thing I knew. And I wanted something, anything, normal. Anything. I let my hands relax and then closed my eyes. Rolled my head back, trying to ease the knots in my neck.
I kept my eyes closed as long as I could, taking deep cleansing breaths, then let them open slow like.
That’s when I saw him.
At first I wasn’t sure I saw anything at all. So I blinked like people on TV do. You know, a bunch of times, trying to understand. Trying to clear my head.
But no. There he was.
Granddaddy.
I drew in a breath so hard it hurt my lungs. Made my nose burn. From the back of the house, I could hear the thumping of the wind coming through the door. Could smell rain.
I stared. All I could see was the paleness of his skin. The dark splotches where eyes had been. Him draped in white. He paused on the step, turned and looked right at me. Then floated up the stairs.
I quit breathing. Not even a scream would come.
All along he had been here.
Momma hadn’t imagined Granddaddy.
After a second, a noise came from upstairs. The click of a door opening. The sound of it shutting.
I couldn’t walk. I tried to, but fell to one knee, hitting hard on the wooden floor.
“Aunt Linda? Where are you? Come quick.” That’s what I tried to say. But only a moan escaped from me.
Where to go? Where to go? Tears leaked down my cheeks. My nose turned snuffy. Far away thunder sounded. Still no lights.
“He’s real. He’s here.”
Back from the dead. In my head I heard Momma’s words. Heard her fighting with Aunt Linda that last evening.
“I seen him. Daddy visits me. Almost every night. Sometimes when you’re at work. Sometimes when you’re sleeping in the next room.”
“No he doesn’t, Angela. He doesn’t.”
“I tell you, Linda,” Momma’s voice was a spray of words, “our daddy talks to me. Tells me things. And he’d talk to you too, if you gave him a chance.”
I had peered out my door, listening to them fight. Crouched near the ground so they wouldn’t find
