There was me and her and Momma, before Aunt Linda left and Momma got too sick, having picnics in the park. All of us eating pulled pork sandwiches with a barbecue sauce invented by my momma’s uncle Buddy over in Gainesville. There was the three of us, watching the Fourth of July fireworks out over the river, the night dark—the colors high and bright in the sky. And then just me and Aunt Linda, stacking books up ninety-nine high ’cause that’s the checkout limit even if you are a librarian.
“Do you remember?” Momma said. “Do you?”
“Sure,” I said. Something burned inside. “She helped us out.”
“For a while,” Momma said, her voice hard. “Selfish. She’s just selfish. Leaving the way she did.”
I bit my lip. Kept my mouth closed tight.
“She came at my invitation, not long after the accident. She stayed until she couldn’t get another thing from us.”
Not long after Granddaddy died, Aunt Linda had moved in with us. I was a baby. A tiny thing. Hair black and long and so straight it came all the way down to my eyes. I’ve seen the pictures. Me and Momma and Aunt Linda. Those two smiling and me with that long hair.
“Linda was always jealous,” Momma told me once, “because your granddaddy and I looked so much the same. All that pretty dark hair. Like you, Lacey. And she looked like our momma who run off. Brown haired, a little chunky. Skin that tanned like that.” A snap of the fingers.
“But we all have the same eyes,” I had said. And Momma had looked away like I said a cuss word.
According to Momma, Granddaddy’d left all three of us with a tidy sum. Aunt Linda could afford to work at the library. Could paint like she wanted. Momma painting beside her early on. The two of them laughing. They both did a painting of the other one painting. Those are packed away in the attic now.
Then there was the change. Momma’s mood shifting.
I still remember. I still remember sitting near her legs, wanting her to hold me. I was five, maybe six. The room dark. Her searching on the Internet. Looking for the bad things that were happening. Printing them off. Posting them. I still remember. Her too sick to touch me, pushing me away with her foot. Me edging closer under the desk. Momma too tired. Falling to the floor to sleep a few minutes at a time. Then Aunt Linda would come home and pick me up. Snuggle me close. Pet me. Make something for us to eat.
It wasn’t long till Momma’s part of the money kept her home watching the news and reading the paper, scanning for problems in the world. Keeping lists. Looking. Searching. And as night fell, her pacing, peering out the windows, locking things down tight. Not even a crack in the windows.
“I spent the money to get prepared,” she’d tell me. “Spent it all to protect us. It’s a mother’s duty to take care of her only child. To make sure she’s watched over.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I always said.
Now Momma said, “I’m not used to being around so many people.” Her voice was a whisper. She laid her head on my shoulder then and I patted the side of her face. “What if I get something wrong?” The bus hit a bump, bouncing us.
“You won’t,” I said. “I know it for sure. They’ve got that scanner. And people to pack the food in the bags for you. You know that. You’ve seen how they work. Everything is automatic. And you have the trainer.”
“Sometimes I don’t do so good,” she said. Her voice was low and it pained me to hear it. To know she knew. How often did she notice she wasn’t like other people?
“Shhh, shhh,” I said. “They’ll train you. You’re gonna do great. I’m so proud of you.”
And I was. So proud.
And relieved. And grateful too, for this chance to get out of the house. Me, me, me.
The very thought made me ache with guilt. But my want was greater than my feeling guilty. Maybe I’d see something left of Aunt Linda if I looked hard around the Peace City Library. She might be there. Waiting. Maybe she heard from John that I was starting a job there.
No, that was too much of a hope.
But. It. Was. My. Hope.
Maybe I would find a note from her. Written to me. Hidden in the shelves. A place where only I would know to look. A place only she would know where to hide it. I couldn’t quite take in a breath at the thought. Was it possible? What book would Aunt Linda choose to hide a note in? Something by A. E. Cannon? Or Claudia Mills? Maybe Betsy Byars. I knew Aunt Linda loved all those writers.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a second. There would be no note.
No note.
No Aunt Linda.
But maybe!
Just Momma. And me.
“I’m proud of you too, Lacey,” Momma said. “I’m proud of you, too.”
She kept still, all snuggled up next to me, small like a child. I felt her calm down. Could feel her take deep breaths, things she calls cleansing breaths that she saw someone do on TV to relax.
For a moment, something close to anger swelled inside. I don’t want to do this. I do not want to do this anymore. But I pushed the thought away.
This was my job. My real job. Even more important than working at the library. More important than making breakfast. More important than school, even.
When Aunt Linda left, when Momma got worse, taking care of her became something I did. And I would keep caring for her, too. All I needed was a break. Just a short break.
I breathed with Momma, looking out the window, watching the dark trees sweep past. The old rickety houses on the outskirts of Peace. Condos. Then the beach—brilliant blue after the tight, closed-in woods.
This, I thought, is gonna be okay.
I imagined Momma keeping the
