Everything I Never Told You(38)

“I’m home,” she repeated, nodding, and they ran to hug her then, warm and solid, slamming into her legs, burying their faces in her skirt. One tear trickled down Nath’s cheek, one ran along Lydia’s nose, catching in her lips. Marilyn’s hand burned and throbbed, as if she were holding a hot little heart in her palm.

“Were you good while I was away?” she asked, crouching on the linoleum beside them. “Did you behave?”

To Lydia, her mother’s return was nothing short of a miracle. She had made a promise and her mother had heard it and come home. She would keep her word. That afternoon, when her father had hung up the phone and said those astonishing words—Your mother is coming home—she had made a decision: her mother would never have to see that sad cookbook again. At Mrs. Allen’s, she had made a plan, and after her father had picked them up—Shh, not a peep, your mother is sleeping—she had taken it away. “Mama,” she said into her mother’s hip now. “While you were gone. Your cookbook.” She swallowed. “I—lost it.”

“You did?” To her astonishment, Marilyn felt no anger. No: she felt pride. She pictured her daughter tossing the cookbook onto the grass and stomping it into the mud with her shiny Mary Janes and walking away. Tossing it into the lake. Setting it ablaze. To her own surprise, she smiled. “Did you do that,” she said, curling her arm around her small daughter, and Lydia hesitated, then nodded.

It was a sign, Marilyn decided. For her it was too late. But it wasn’t too late for Lydia. Marilyn would not be like her own mother, shunting her daughter toward husband and house, a life spent safely behind a deadbolt. She would help Lydia do everything she was capable of. She would spend the rest of her years guiding Lydia, sheltering her, the way you tended a prize rose: helping it grow, propping it with stakes, arching each stem toward perfection. In Marilyn’s belly, Hannah began to fidget and kick, but her mother could not yet feel it. She buried her nose in Lydia’s hair and made silent promises. Never to tell her to sit up straight, to find a husband, to keep a house. Never to suggest that there were jobs or lives or worlds not meant for her; never to let her hear doctor and think only man. To encourage her, for the rest of her life, to do more than her mother had.

“All right,” she said, releasing her daughter at last. “Who’s hungry?”

James was already taking plates from the cupboard, distributing napkins, lifting the lid of the top box in a whiff of meat-scented steam. Marilyn put a slice of pepperoni pizza on each of their plates, and Nath, with a deep, contented sigh, began to eat. His mother was home, and tomorrow there would be hard-boiled eggs for breakfast, hamburgers and hot dogs for supper, strawberry shortcake for dessert. Across the table, Lydia stared down at her portion in silence, at the red circles dotting the surface, at the long thin threads of cheese tying it back to the box.

Nath was only half-right: the next day there were hot dogs and hamburgers, but no eggs, no shortcake. James grilled the meat himself, charring it slightly, but the family, determined to celebrate, ate it anyway. In fact, Marilyn would refuse to cook at all after her return, each morning popping frozen waffles into the toaster, each evening heating a frozen potpie or opening a can of SpaghettiOs. She had other things on her mind. Math, she thought that Fourth of July; she will need math, this daughter of mine. “How many buns inside the bag?” she asked, and Lydia tapped each with her finger, counting up. “How many hot dogs are on the grill? How many won’t have buns?” At each right answer, her mother smoothed her hair and cuddled her against her thigh.

All day Lydia added up. If everybody ate one hot dog, how many would be left over for tomorrow? If she and Nath got five sparklers each, how many would they have all together? By the time dark fell and fireworks blossomed in the sky, she counted ten kisses from her mother, five caresses, three times her mother called her my smart girl. Every time she answered a question, a dimple appeared in her mother’s cheek like a little fingerprint. “Another,” she begged, every time her mother stopped. “Mama, ask me another.” “If that’s really what you want,” her mother said, and Lydia nodded. “Tomorrow,” Marilyn said, “I’ll buy you a book and we’ll read it together.”

Instead of just one book, Marilyn bought a stack: The Science of Air. Why There Is Weather. Fun with Chemistry. At night, after she tucked Nath in, she perched on the edge of Lydia’s bed and lifted one from the top. Lydia huddled against her, listening to the deep, underground drum of her mother’s heartbeat. When her mother breathed in, she breathed in. When her mother breathed out, she breathed out. Her mother’s voice seemed to come from within her own head. “Air is everywhere,” her mother read. “Air hovers all around you. Though you can’t see it, it is still there. Everywhere you go, air is there.” Lydia snuggled deeper into her mother’s arms, and by the time they reached the last page, she was almost asleep. “Read me another,” she murmured, and when Marilyn, thrilled, whispered, “Tomorrow, all right?” Lydia nodded so hard her ears rang.

That most important word: tomorrow. Every day Lydia cherished it. Tomorrow I’ll take you to the museum to look at the dinosaur bones. Tomorrow we’ll learn about trees. Tomorrow we’ll study the moon. Every night a small promise extracted from her mother: that she would be there in the morning.

And in return, Lydia kept her own promise: she did everything her mother asked. She learned to write the plus sign, like a little stunted t. She counted on her fingers every morning, adding up over the cereal bowl. Four plus two. Three plus three. Seven plus ten. Whenever her mother stopped, she asked for more, which made her mother glow, as if Lydia had flicked on a light. She stood on the step stool over the sink, aproned from neck to ankle, and pinched baking soda into a jar of vinegar. “That’s a chemical reaction,” her mother said, and Lydia nodded as the foam gurgled down the drain. She played store with her mother, making change with pennies and nickels: two cents for a hug, four cents for a kiss. When Nath plunked down a quarter and said, “Bet you can’t do that one,” their mother shooed him away.