Sisters in the Wind(59)
Boyd waited until Diego walked away to approach me.
“I’m sorry for planting one on you like that, Lucy.”
“Don’t surprise me with that kind of thing again. Okay?” I rubbed my cowlick.
My hair had grown longer, but now I wished it were super short. I wanted to be a porcupine with a spiky defense system.
“Okay,” Boyd said.
He reached for my hand. Again I waved him off.
“I need things to go slower, Boyd. I’m not your girl just like that.”
“Okay.” He looked remorseful to the point of tears.
* * *
Diego’s concerns multiplied each day that week. Emily had promised to call from the hospital but hadn’t. His calls to her went unanswered. He left lengthy messages until her phone’s voice mail was filled.
Dinner that Friday felt different. Allen and Jennifer had gone away for a weekend, so there were three empty spaces around the table. Determined to lift everyone’s spirits, Missus relayed updates from Emily’s caseworker.
“Emily and the baby are fine. She named him Leaf—as in ‘tree leaf,’ not after Leif Erikson the explorer. Well, that’s our Emily.”
“What did the social worker say about living with the aunt?” I asked.
“Well, her aunt Enid is family. We respect that.” Her voice became softer. “We agreed to Emily going to her aunt’s home this week through the weekend so they could test the waters.”
“For Emily and the baby? Or just the baby?” Again, I pressed the issue for Diego in case his emotions were cause for teasing by the other guys.
Missus gave me a curious look.
“Both, of course. Emily won’t consider any other options,” she said tersely.
I dropped the subject.
Diego remained in the kitchen to talk about Emily while I loaded the dishwasher.
“Leaf is a cute name,” I said, rinsing a dinner plate.
“It was one of her three choices.” He carried a stack of drinking glasses from the table.
“I liked Petrichor.” I offered a grin that wasn’t returned. He handed me one of the glasses, oblivious to my system of loading the bottom tray before the upper one.
“So … this weekend…” I paused, unsure how to say the big thing.
My dad had struggled with saying big things. His cancer had been the most extreme example of his reticence. For all we discussed the medical details, we never shared our feelings. It was Devery, her emotions needing only the tiniest spark to ignite a meltdown, who introduced me to the opposite extreme.
I took a deep breath before I dove in.
“If Emily likes staying with her aunt, she won’t be back.”
Diego recoiled as if slapped.
“She has to come back. To get her things. To say…” His voice dwindled to nothing.
I thought of how Miss Lonnie might have said a big thing.
“Not everyone says goodbye when they leave.”
“Good people say goodbye,” Diego insisted.
* * *
The rest of the summer was perfect, as if glorious weather was our consolation prize for the absence of Emily and baby Leaf. I took any opportunity to be outside. There were beets and cabbages to harvest. I discovered how fresh a cucumber tasted five minutes off the vine and washed with ice-cold spring water. And nightly bonfires, where I stared into glowing embers, mesmerized and soothed.
At the end of July, we met Emma, who, like Emily, arrived pregnant. She moved into the single bedroom, which had been refreshed with new paint, carpet, curtains, and bedding. Emma loved her new lavender bedroom. She was good-natured about constantly being called Emily.
Emma liked to read, so I selected six books for her to try. Her favorite authors were Stephen King and Danielle Steel, which left a lot of room in between. Scanning our library shelves, I wondered what—in our limited collection—might fall into a horror-romance hybrid genre.
In August, I decided not to attend the small, local high school or the larger one in Alpena with the AP classes. I wanted to spend every day the way I had that summer: working hard, taking siesta naps in the hammock grove, reading books, and collapsing in my bed each night too exhausted for anything except deep, dreamless sleep.
Taking the GED test meant no more classes. It meant freedom from classmates I had little in common with. No more probing questions about why I was in foster care. Relief from guys nudging their friends to catch a boob jiggle when I had a coughing fit during calculus.
I passed the five subject tests on my first try and celebrated by letting Joy pierce my ears five times over several weeks. She was professional, sharing a printed page with the different parts of the ear labeled: lobe, helix, rook, conch, tragus, daith. She had a thick needle, cotton balls, and a bottle of sterile saline spray. We started with my lower lobes, which were the only piercings mirrored on each ear. My third piercing was on my right side at the helix—the round, cordlike edging of the upper ear. Joy had at least four tiny gold hoops looped around each helix. I was fine with just the one. The fourth and fifth holes were what was called an industrial piercing. Joy had a large safety pin going diagonally across the upper ear on her left side. I decided on the same for my left ear, but with a barbell earring made for that type of piercing.
“You look like a badass bitch now,” Tonya commented at my final piercing reveal.