Almost Eden (19 page)

“Do you think it might be all right if I used your razor? You know, to shave my legs.”

Beth’s eyes and nose appeared above the top of her book. “You’re going to ride horses, not going to a prom.”

Right away my cheeks began to get hot.

“Why in heaven’s name would you want to shave your legs? You’re twelve.”

That was the problem with being honest. You have to do it all the time. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

So I told her about Mark’s joke about lending me a swather.

She didn’t laugh. She put down her book. “You sure you want to bother with this guy? If you ask me he sounds like a first-class idiot.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Only, I don’t think he’s so much of an idiot as I thought before. Sometimes he can be almost nice even.”

Beth rolled her eyes. “It’s your funeral. C’mon, you’ll slice yourself to shreds if you try it alone.” And then she looked at the scabs healing on my shins and ankles and I could see she was putting two and two together. But she only shook her head and marched me downstairs to the bathroom.

She gave me a new razor blade, and let me use her shaving cream and showed me how to run the razor over my leg real light, in slow smooth strokes. “Like this. You don’t have to press hard, and don’t be in a hurry or you’ll nick yourself for sure. And be careful around your ankles especially.”

Lying in bed later feeling my smooth legs against the sheets, I was thinking Beth was maybe not so much of an idiot as I thought before either.

“V
oh scheent et, meyahles
?” Dad grabbed Lena when he came down for breakfast, giving her a whisker rub until she squealed and giggled and squirmed to get loose.

He headed for me and Beth, too, but I ducked and Beth warded him off with a spoonful of waffle batter. Waffles, on a week day. That’s one thing conditions never favored. I definitely liked the new Beth better. Only I wondered how long she was going to stick around.

“How come you’re in such a good mood this morning?” she asked Dad.

Dad chuckled. “Look once what I found.” He went into the porch and came out holding something behind his back. “I thought Lena could do with a playmate.” And he plopped a little black-and-white fur ball on her lap.

My father. A kitten.

Wonders never cease, says my mom.

Lena let out a terrific squeal. So did the kitten. It scrambled across the kitchen table, knocking over the milk carton. Milk spilled over the table and dribbled off the edge onto Dad’s shoes.

Dad lifted one foot. Milk dripped from his shoe to the floor. “What is it with me and cats?” he said.

I scooped up the kitten and handed it back to Lena. Everyone agreed it was adorable. Tommy would have thought it silly, though. Too silly to be worth a glance. My heart hurt, a little stabbing hurt, whenever I thought about Tommy. I couldn’t help it. The kitten was cute, but I missed that old torn still.

Lena cuddled the kitten against her cheek. “I can keep it? Really?”

Dad nodded. “You feed it, you clean the litter box and it has to have its shots and get fixed when it’s old enough. That’s all I need is a litter of kittens yet.”

He didn’t fool me. Or Lena. Her face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“You can thank Elsie’s boyfriend. It was his idea.”

The milk I was drinking practically sprayed out my nose. “My boyfriend?!”

“Giesbrecht’s Mark, the one with the hair that makes him look like a sheepdog,” grinned Dad. He was getting a real kick out of this. “He phoned up, said they were looking for homes for their kittens. He thought Lena maybe would like one. Then I think he said something about the two of you going horseback riding?”

“He’s not my boyfriend. He invited Lena, too. Sounds like Lena’s the one he likes. She’s the one who got the kitten.” The more I talked the redder I got. The more I talked the more Dad and Beth laughed. Jumping Jehoshaphat. The only thing I could do was shut up.

“I don’t know,” Beth wheezed. “I think Dad’s right. Elsie has a boyfriend.”

“Elsie and Mark,” chanted Lena, “sitting in a tree–”

“Grow up,
knirps
” I tackled my little sister, wrestling her to the floor. She didn’t put up a fight even, she was so busy laughing. Only the kitten didn’t think much of all the commotion. It squirmed out of Lena’s arms and bolted across the kitchen floor, right under the broom leaning next to the back door. The broom toppled over, hit the counter, and knocked over a glass. The glass rolled right off the counter, hit the floor, and burst into a million pieces.

Dad laughed harder than ever. Beth doubled over. All
knippsing
Lena’s nose got me was more squeals and giggles.

Fuy.
I gave up. This family was more like the family I was used to. Loud and obnoxious. Funny thing was, I thought maybe I liked them this way.

“Domino,” giggled Lena. “I’m going to call my kitten Domino.”

That afternoon Sadie, Jillian, and I plastered posters all over town–at the Co-op, library, town hall, post office,
Janzen’s Variety, Rexall Drugs, Driedger’s Photography, the Credit Union, and the Harvester, which pretty much covered Main Street from one end to the other. Then we put more up at the pool and on all seven bulletin boards at all seven Mennonite churches, and even the Lutheran Church yet, too.

Dad shook his head but let us do what we wanted. Grandma rolled her eyes and muttered, “What do you want with that old
kohta
?”

Only Auntie Nettie smiled and said, “You go right ahead and keep looking. It helps nothing just to pucker the lips, you have to whistle, not?” Which is what Mom always said when Lena and I promised to clean our room and then never did.

Beth even gave us a ride out to TK’s drive-in on the highway, so we could put a poster up there, too. And then she drove us along the country roads between town and Nickel Enns’ farm, so we could have one last look for Tommy.

And when we had one poster left, Jillian said we should put it up at Eden, and maybe stop in to say hi to my mom. I’d finally got around to telling them where Mom was and what I planned to do about it. The minute they’d arrived to make posters that morning, I’d dragged them upstairs to my room and shut the door. Good thing Lena was busy playing with Domino so I didn’t have to worry about her spying on us. Just to make sure, I checked under the beds.

“What’s up?” Jillian demanded. She flopped on my bed. “You’re like a Mexican jumping bean.”

That’s exactly how I felt, too, like my insides were full of jumping beans. I took a deep breath. “Okay. Here’s the thing. I have to get my mom out of Eden for a couple of hours.”

Right away Jillian and Sadie looked at each other. For almost three weeks already my mom had been in that place and this was the first I’d said anything to them about it. But I could see on their faces that they knew already.

“It has to be at night,” I added. “Actually, it has to be tomorrow night.” Might as well give them the whole scoop up front.

“Jeepers,” breathed Sadie. “Why don’t you break into Fort Knox while you’re at it?”

But nothing fazed Jillian. “We’ll have a pajama party at my place,” she said. I could practically see her brain shifting into high gear. “Then it’ll be easy to sneak out.”

My knees went all weak like a dishrag. I sank to the floor, cross-legged. “So you don’t think I’m totally crazy?”

“Of course you are. Crazy and brilliant.” Jillian hugged her knees against her chest, looking at me all thoughtful like. “I wasn’t sure what to say before, you know, about your mom. I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“I didn’t, I guess.”
Uy.
This was something I hadn’t counted on, but if my friends were going to help out and everything, they probably deserved to know what was
going on. “Sometimes Mom…gets sort of lost. She gets sad. It’s hard to explain.”

It was hard to think of the right words, especially when I wasn’t sure what I was trying to say even. And then I didn’t have to.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Jillian. “What I’d really like to know is what are we going to do once we get her out?”

I pulled my feet up into a lotus position which was the only yoga position I knew, and breathed deep. Now for sure they were going to think I was crazy.

“Take her out to the country and show her the stars,” I said, looking them straight in the eyes.

Mom needed to see the stars. Not the way they looked when they started to come out at night. Not the way they looked in town. She needed to see the stars at two in the morning, when the sky was full to bursting. When all those gazillions of stars shining in the heavens made everything else seem…like not such a big deal. Not because the stars made a person feel small and unimportant. It was like, the opposite.

For sure you were small. But the universe was huge and glorious and somehow, you were connected up to that. It was almost like there was a power in being part of something so glorious, a power that gave a person hope. That made anything and everything seem possible.

“Show her the stars?” Sadie didn’t get it.

I knew she wouldn’t. Neither would Jillian. How could they, unless they’d seen it for themselves? I nodded. “Yep.”

“Couldn’t she just look out her window?”

“Nope,” I shook my head. “It’s not the same.” I didn’t try to explain. Either they were going to help me, or they weren’t.

First thing, we had to get Mom out of Eden. In the middle of the night. Then out into the country where there were no lights. And it had to be a clear night. Tomorrow, when it was supposed to stop raining and the new moon wouldn’t be so big yet it would drown out all the stars.

Anyways, that was my idea. If I had the guts to go through with it. Taking off to look for Tommy was one thing. Kidnapping my own mother was something else again. I could hardly believe I was thinking about it, never mind that I was going to do it yet.

It helps nothing just to pucker the lips
, I thought,
you have to whistle.

Remembering that made me feel better again. An idea wasn’t any good unless you did something about it, not?

Jillian slid off the bed to sit beside me. “Anything we can do to help, we’ll do it.”

“For sure,” said Sadie.

“Okay,” I nodded. “Here’s what I was thinking…” Their grins got bigger and bigger as they helped to work it all out.

“What are you going to tell her?” Sadie blurted out in the car, after Jillian said we should go visit my mom.

Jillian jabbed her hard in the ribs with an elbow and I hissed at her under my breath.

“What do you have to tell Mom about?” Beth frowned at us in the rearview mirror and we wiped the grins off our faces. Never mind how nice Beth was being lately, she wasn’t going to go for letting us sneak out in the middle of the night.

“Nothing,” I said, thinking fast. “For sure not about Tommy. I don’t think I’ll tell her that he’s missing. Just in case he still comes back yet.”

Beth shook her head. “That’s not going to happen. You know that, don’t you?” But she didn’t say it in a mean way. She said it like she was a little sorry even. “Stopping to see Mom is a good idea, though. You did promise Dad.”

This wasn’t how I’d planned it. What would I do if Mom didn’t know who I was, never mind recognize my friends?

But there was no way out. Before I knew it Beth, Jillian, and Sadie had swept me through the front door. Beth marched right in like she owned the place. Mom was awake, sitting in a chair in her room.

Beth stooped to kiss her forehead. “Hi, Mom. We brought you some flowers.”

“They’re lovely,” Mom smiled. “Thank you.”

Beth grabbed a water glass from the table and arranged the wildflowers we’d picked. “I’ll just get some water for
them.” She raised her eyebrows at me on her way to the bathroom. “Are you coming in or not?”

I didn’t realize I was standing in the doorway still. Behind me Sadie gave a little cough. Jillian nudged me forward. I took three quick steps across the room to give Mom a kiss.

“Hello, sweetheart,” she smiled. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you. You’re browner, and taller!”

“I’m not any taller than last week, Mom.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She winked and gave me a one-arm hug. “And look who you’ve brought with you!”

Mom seemed better, that’s for sure. At least she wasn’t so mixed up as last time. I couldn’t tell, though, if she was really cheerful, or if she was faking it.

“They’ve finally opened your window for you,” I said.

“It’s been so terribly hot the last few nights. Most of us have started to sleep with our doors and windows open because of the heat. Anything to get a breeze.”