But I already knew there was no changing her mind.
So we went back, and the farm owner and the caterer were near the gate discussing Mama’s car. There was some confusion because Mama just walked right past them and into the shed where the beans were being shelled and a bunch of other vegetables were being sorted.
The owner was starting to get mad and the caterer just stood there like she had no idea what she’d done by inviting us here.
At some point I was begging Mama for us to just leave. To get in the car and go. But she just kept saying, “We say yes to everything! Even to stubborn beans covered in aphids! We say yes to everything on Wolf Day.”
I could feel the caterer standing right behind us, stunned.
“Please, Mama, let’s just go.”
The caterer and the farm owner looked totally weirded out and had no idea what to do. And then Mama started digging around in a couple other bins, one filled with tomatoes and another filled with some kind of leafy vegetable. The farmer and caterer rushed forward.
“Please stop,” said the caterer. She turned toward the farmer. “What are we supposed to do? Call the police?”
“Please don’t,” I said.
The caterer looked at me. “Honey, I don’t think I can let you go home with her.”
I looked at Mama again. “Please, Mama. Let’s just go. If we don’t they’re going to call the police.”
But she ignored us.
The caterer led Birdie and me around the corner to the front porch of a house.
“She’s just really, really enthusiastic sometimes,” I said.
The caterer nodded with sad eyes.
“Is there anyone you can call? Maybe your dad or a grandma?”
“She’ll be fine if you just let her help with the beans. Can’t she just help with the beans and then we can go?” I wasn’t crying yet, but I could feel a lump in my throat. I didn’t want her to call the police.
A loud crash came from the direction of the shed and then we saw Mama storm off to her car. “Jack! Birdie! We’re going! We’ve said yes enough!”
She got in the car and slammed her door shut and turned on the engine. She stepped on the gas so hard her tires spun on the dirt. “Jack and Birdie, let’s go!” she shouted out the window.
“I can’t let you drive with her,” the caterer said, holding on to my arm. I don’t know why, but that kind of freaked me out, like I realized that I had no clue who this woman was.
And that’s when Mama again shouted, “Let’s go!” and then backed the car out. She peeled out of the gate and disappeared down the street, without us.
The caterer said she’d drive us home, but I called Mrs. Spater, which I didn’t want to do because I knew she hated driving and leaned too far forward and cursed at her car and other drivers, and she never said those words other times. Driving would bring it out of her. But she came and got us anyway.
By the time we were home, Mama was in her bedroom. Mrs. Spater looked in on her. When Mrs. Spater came out, she said for us to be quiet and let her sleep, as if we didn’t already know that. It’d been a while since it had happened, maybe six months, but we knew what to do when Mama got sad. She once told me that when the world and loneliness became too much she needed to burrow down and that it’s best to just leave her alone. I always imagined that she was going down into a rabbit’s burrow, like Peter Rabbit, which we’d read together.
Later that night, Mrs. Spater tried to get us to come over to her side of the duplex, but by then, Birdie was sitting in the kitchen cupboard he’d sometimes hide in for fun, except this time he wouldn’t come out, not even for Mrs. Spater’s lemon pound cake.
So we didn’t have lemon pound cake and we didn’t wait for the wolf and for whatever reason, Mama didn’t come out of her burrow for five days, the longest she’d ever stayed away.
Afterward, for a few days, she tried to make us breakfast and pack our lunches and do normal things, but she wasn’t the same and I knew something was wrong when she left a wintry Saturday morning to visit an old boyfriend. It was like her mind was still in her room, in the rabbit burrow under her covers.
The police said there was slippery black ice on the road.
And that’s why she never came back.
So in my mind the beginning of the end was that Wolf Day. I could draw a straight line between the two, a long sloping line running down to the end.
• • •
The sun is almost set, the sky orange and pink, streaked with clouds. We watch as the balloons hover, the people in the baskets probably enjoying the view, maybe even complimentary champagne.
I take the wooden egg from Birdie, thinking that maybe I’ll throw it over the fence and get rid of it for good.
But it’s proof that I didn’t imagine all of Mama’s things in the silo shed.
I shove my hands, along with the egg, deep into my pockets.
I feel the glow sticks right away. I kept meaning to take them out, but then I got used to them being there.
I give one to Birdie. He watches as I open the other one, then crack it and shake. It glows neon green. Birdie does the same and his glows orange.
We sit in the grass and share the Honey Bunny Bun, even though I’m sick of them. We wave the glow sticks as the baskets
