Touch Blue (11 page)

“
I
have to trust that my families will act in the best interests of the children in their care.” Natalie sits at our kitchen table, her untouched white coffee cup in front of her. “There are reasons for these rules. You can’t just decide which ones you’ll follow and which ones you’ll break.”

“Kate and I didn’t know about this,” Dad says.

Carrie Spinney sits in my chair at our kitchen table. Her long red hair is pulled back straight on each side of her face and held behind with a silver barrette. Up close, she looks pale and older than I expected, like a washed-out version of the person in Aaron’s photo. One finger curls through the handle of the cup in front of her, but her eyes are on Aaron. “You played so beautifully today. I had no idea you were such a musician.”

Beside her, Aaron looks at the full, untouched glass of water in his hand.

“Remember the toy piano you had? And all your stuffed animals?” Ms. Spinney asks Aaron softly. “I still have them.”

His finger traces a droplet down the side of his glass. “Why didn’t you ever send them to Grandma’s for me?”

“I wanted them for when you came home.”

He wipes his finger on his shirt. “Maybe it would’ve helped me to have them. Did you ever think of that?”

She furrows her brow and glances to Natalie and Mom and then over to Dad and me standing at the counter. “Do you want me to mail them to you now?” She slides her finger out of the cup’s handle.

“I don’t care about stuffed animals anymore.”

“I like stuffed animals.” Libby sits across Mom’s lap with one arm around her neck. Catching me watching her, Mom gives me the same disappointed-in-you look she gives kids who get a failing grade on a quiz. In her hand she holds the letter I wrote to Aaron’s mother.

“You can’t imagine how hard it is not to have you home,” Ms. Spinney says to Aaron. “Not to be able to just open the back door and yell for you to come in for supper. I don’t even know what you might be having for supper.”

“Ms. Spinney, this is not helping Aaron,” Natalie says, an edge to her voice. “What he needs —”

“We have ocean food a lot,” Libby says.

Dad throws me a look, tipping his head toward the screen door. I know he wants me to take Libby outside. But I can’t move.

“When can I live with you?” Aaron asks.

Natalie looks mad enough to burst. “This has gone far enough.”

“No, it hasn’t!” Aaron says. “I need to know if it’s ever going to happen.”

Carrie Spinney touches her folded-up sunglasses on her napkin. She doesn’t meet his eyes. “Honey, not for a while. Maybe when I have my own —”

“It’s never going to happen! Why can’t you just
say
that?” he asks. “Grandma said I shouldn’t wait for you anymore, because you loved drinking too much to stop. That’s why you stopped trying to get me back. I yelled at Grandma for saying that, but it’s the truth! You love drinking more than me!”

“That’s not true. I love you more than anything.” Ms. Spinney shoots Natalie an angry look. “The program they made me do wasn’t helping.”

“You couldn’t have pretended?” Aaron asks.

“That was a hard time for me. It’s different now.” But seeing her hands quiver, she seems only barely okay. “I just wanted to see you. Someday —”

His eyebrows come down hard. “Don’t lie to me!”

“I’m here now, honey, and I’m only here for a day. Do we have to spend it angry?”

“You’re my mother, and you don’t know anything about me!” he says.

“I know you like applesauce,” Ms. Spinney says gently.

“I liked it when I was five!”

“Honey, I don’t —”

“I called them! Do you hear me? I called them. I called nine-one-one the day they took me, because I couldn’t wake you up! I tried to get you help, and look what happened! They punished
me
for it!” Aaron pushes back his chair and runs for the stairs and his room.

“I shouldn’t have come. I didn’t want — I don’t know how —” Ms. Spinney covers her mouth with her hand, her eyes filling with tears. “He’s right. I don’t even know what he likes now.”

Dad brings her the box of tissues from the top of our refrigerator.

“He likes the trumpet,” I say softly. “Especially jazz. And he told me he thinks of you when he plays and imagines you’re there to hear him.”

Ms. Spinney lifts her head, just enough for her eyes to meet mine above the tissue.

“He also likes mountains and cookie dough ice cream,” I continue. “He worries about seals being hungry and whether lobsters are happy or not.”

“When we play Monopoly, he picks the race car as his token,” Libby adds.

“I need to go,” Ms. Spinney says. “This was a mistake.”

“No.” Mom stands up. “You two need to talk. There are things he needs to say and answers he needs to hear. Let me take you upstairs to him. You have some time before the ferry.” She looks at Natalie. “Just for a few minutes?”

Natalie opens her mouth to protest, but then sighs. “I have to come with you.”

I wish I could go with them, too, but I know I can’t. So I drag myself outside and flop down on the porch steps. Hugging my knees, I lay my head on my arms, feeling low as dirt.

The door opens behind me. From under my arm, I see Dad’s sneaker come into view. The top step creaks as he sits down beside me. “What were you thinking?”

Tears come so fast I can’t even answer him. I’ve ruined everything. Now Natalie will probably send Aaron somewhere else and maybe I won’t ever see him
again. And I may as well pack up all my things with him, because we’ll be moving, too.

“Tess, I’m waiting for an answer.”

“Aaron wanted to run away,” I say, sniffling into my legs. “I heard Mom say that maybe if Aaron could see his mom, he’d give up the perfect idea he had of her. And then maybe he’d be happier to be with us. It worked that way in a book I read.” I lift my head, just enough to look at him. “Natalie’s pretty upset, huh?”

“Yup,” Dad says. “You’ve got an apology to make there.”

I nod. “Will she take him away from us?”

“I don’t know. We don’t get to decide that,” Dad says. “But we’ll all go on, whatever comes. Sometimes you have to stop trying to control everything and let life happen the way it’s supposed to, Tess. Even if it’s not exactly the way you wanted.”

I sigh. “But what if it’s not even a
little
like you wanted?”

“Then you deal with it and keep going,” Dad says. “You and Aaron both have to let go of thinking ‘I can only be happy if …’ and find a way to carry your happiness inside you. We’re all more than where we come from, Tess.” He puts his arm around me. “I’m not say
ing it wouldn’t be hard to leave here or if Aaron leaves us. But it wouldn’t break you. You’re stronger than that — whether you realize it or not.”

Overhead, a flock of Canada geese flies under the graying clouds. A damp breeze passes, stirring the grass. I cuddle deeper into Dad’s side. His shirt smells familiar and snug, of sea and soap and another smell with no name, just a “him” smell.

“We’ll never be all Aaron needs, but that’s okay,” Dad says. “We’re
something
to him.”

The trumpet music makes us both jump. Sharp and full of life, it’s a jazz song. I imagine Aaron’s mother sitting upstairs on his bed, listening.

Across the yard, Doris Varney comes out of her front door, carrying her knitting basket. She takes her usual seat on her porch. “Is everything okay?” she yells over to us.

“Not yet,” Dad calls back. “But I hope it will be.”

“He’s such a good kid,” Doris says. “And he sure can play!”

Dad lays his head on my hair. “He sure can.”

The music is strange and brave and wonderful. I don’t know the words or even what the song is called, but I don’t care.

It’s beautiful, and that’s enough.

A
fter his mother left yesterday, Aaron didn’t come out of his room. Dad let him sleep in late the next morning, and even though Aaron agreed to come fishing with us, he barely says a word to Dad and me as we walk down the road to the water together.

He’s probably thinking about how Mom and Natalie are having a meeting today to see what needs to happen next. Natalie said she wasn’t going to recommend Aaron be moved to another foster home, unless it’s what he wanted. But all Aaron would say he wanted was permission to call his mom on the phone sometimes — nothing about us. Mom said she’s going to ask for that at the meeting today.

I suppose Dad’s right. We’re all made up of our bits and pieces. People who love us, places we’ve lived, and the biggest part of all — who we are inside. I don’t know if we’ve done enough to keep our school open or
for how long, but I’m willing to believe that Dad’s right about another thing, too. We’ll all go on, whatever comes.

“I didn’t mean to get so mad at my mom yesterday,” Aaron says quietly as we walk. “I thought I would only feel happy to see her and glad she was okay. But when I started talking, it all came out.”

Dad puts his hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “You needed to say it, and she needed to hear it. You might have a chance to really get to know each other now, without those feelings standing in the way.”

“I just wanted to be where I belonged.”

I wish I could tell him he belongs with us, but I’m afraid he won’t believe me if I just say it. So as Phipps’s Gas and Groceries comes into view, I take a deep breath and head for the store porch. “Wait for me. I have something to do. I’ll be right back.”

“Hey, Tess! Did you forget to set your alarm clock?” Ben says as I come through the door. “You folks are off to a late start this morning.”

I go behind the counter and get a bucket. “Mr. Phipps, I’m sorry you went to all that trouble, but I’ve changed my mind. I’m not sending my blue lobster to Texas.”

Mr. Phipps asks plenty of questions, but I just dip
the bucket into the tank to scoop out enough water to make the blue lobster comfortable. Then I push my sleeve way up before I reach down deep.

Dad and Aaron both startle a little to see me hauling a bucket out of the store. “It’s my lobster, and I’ll do what I want with him,” I say firmly, shifting my bucket to hold it in front of me with both hands.

As we near the church, I see Reverend Beal drinking coffee on his front porch steps. Mrs. Coombs looks up from weeding the petunia border.

“Fine morning today!” Dad says.

“Rejoice and be glad in it,” Reverend Beal calls back. “Aaron, I want to talk to you. Mrs. Ellis says since we have another pianist on the island now, she’d like you to take over the job as church organist. She said she’d help you get started.”

Aaron looks down at the road. “I don’t know how long I’m staying.”

“As long as
you
want,” Dad answers.

“Would you at least think it over, Aaron?” Reverend Beal asks. “We’d pay you, of course. It’d mean Sunday services, Tuesday night choir practice, and the cherub chorus meets on Saturday mornings. Also a few special events here and there.”

I have it on the tip of my tongue to tell Reverend Beal no (so Aaron doesn’t have to), but when I glance to Aaron, I see something surprising in his eyes. It looks like longing. “Do you
want
to do this?” I whisper.

Aaron lifts one shoulder, like he doesn’t care. But his eyes are telling a different story.

“If he says yes, the parish hall piano needs tuning.” I call to Reverend Beal. “And you’d need to pay him extra for those special events.”

Dad looks surprised, but I tip my chin up, determined.

“Who are you?” Mrs. Coombs sputters at me. “His manager?”

“I’ll agree to that,” Reverend Beal jumps right in.

“And you will get a haircut!” Mrs. Coombs points her finger at Aaron. “Can’t have our organist looking like a hippie. Come by tomorrow so we can fit you for a robe.”

“It’s Aaron’s hair!” I say. “He gets to decide if it gets cut.”

Mrs. Coombs’s face is turning red. She looks like she might burst a blood vessel right there in the petunia border. “Well, I never saw such —”

“What do you say, Aaron?” Reverend Beal asks. “Do we have a deal?”

Aaron doesn’t look at any of us. He just tilts his head, staring off into air beside him. I squeeze the handle of the bucket so hard it hurts.

“Okay,” Aaron says.

Reverend Beal smiles. “Thank you.”

As we walk away, Mrs. Coombs hurries into the parsonage — to call Mom, no doubt.

“Does this mean you want to stay with us?” I ask Aaron.

He shrugs. “You can keep your school now.”

“No, don’t stay for that reason.” The bucket handle still cuts into my fingers, and I shift hands. “I don’t want to move, but I
could
. Stay because you want to be here. Stay because we would miss you. And stay because you can belong in more than one place, and one of your places is with us.”

“Listen to her,” Dad says. “Because she’s right.”

Aaron smiles for the first time all morning. He reaches over and takes the bucket from me. “That’s too heavy. Let me carry it for you.”

As we walk ahead, the bay stretches before us, the sun above the treetops of the far islands. “Look!” I say, pointing ahead. “The Sisters are visiting.”

“Catching up on the day’s gossip, I guess.” Dad smiles. “Ready?”

We pull in our deepest breaths, full of everything before us: pine-covered islands, fishing boats, and seagulls soaring through salt air.

When I can’t hold mine one second longer, I let it go. I picture it flowing out of me, down the wharf, and out across the rippling blue-gray waves to the lobster boat moored in the bay.

My heart jumps to see her. The
Tess Libby
, waiting for us.

“Welcome home,” I whisper to my lobster.