The Bookseller(98)
“I love you, too,” I whisper. I’m vaguely aware of a man in a dark topcoat and hat passing on my right, then turning back to look at me quizzically. To him, I must appear nothing more than a crazy lady on the sidewalk, a mildly insane person who is speaking to thin air.
“So I won’t see you anymore?” I ask my parents. “I won’t . . . I’m not going back there anymore?” I turn away, biting my lip. “Back to the other world, I mean. I’m not going back there again, am I?”
Even as I ask these questions, I already know the answers—because I am the one who is directing what my parents would say. If they were actually here speaking to me, that is.
“Kitty.” My mother puts her fingers on my forehead. “Take it out of here,” she says. “Put it here instead.” I watch as she taps my heart.
“I understand,” I say, nodding. “I’ll miss you.”
My father shakes his head. “You won’t need to,” he says. “You’ll always have us—just in a different form. Not in the way you thought you would.”
“You’ll help me . . . watch over my babies . . . won’t you?” I swallow hard. “I can’t take care of my children . . . Michael . . . without you.”
My mother laughs her beautiful laugh. “You can, Kitty. Don’t doubt yourself. Don’t doubt Lars. And especially”—her smile is generous—“don’t doubt Michael.”
I blink back tears, and then I close my eyes.
When I open them again, my parents have vanished.
Chapter 35
I sit in the station wagon outside Mitch and Missy’s school, my gloved hands on the wheel. I am thinking about the other world, about being Kitty. I remember my mother’s hand, how I could feel her touch. How I could hear her voice. I will always, I think, be able to hear my parents’ voices in my head.
I glance at my watch. Two forty-five. Mitch and Missy will come out that door soon, the one to my right, the double set with the snowman drawings taped to the windows. They will emerge with satchels flying behind them, jackets unbuttoned, mittens loose on their strings. Their blond curls will shimmer in the afternoon sunlight as they skim across the sidewalk, coming toward me as I wait.
By ten minutes after three, I will have returned to the house on Springfield Street with Mitch and Missy in tow. Michael will still be counting coins. Michael has probably counted and re-counted coins all afternoon. Michael may very well do little else besides eat, sleep, and count coins for as many days as we allow him to.
Alma will give everyone a snack: milk, an apple, a cookie. I will make a fresh pot of coffee and sit with the children while they eat, while Mitch and Missy tell us about their days. While Michael rhythmically counts nickels, pennies, quarters.
Afterward, we will leave him to his counting, and Mitch and Missy will begin their homework. They will have reading to do; their reading has improved tremendously this year, and I know that if I took the time to listen to them read aloud more often, it would get even better. After each of them has read to me for fifteen minutes, I will have them work on handwriting. Alma will put a cut-up chicken in the oven and start washing and snapping green beans.
At four thirty, I will allow the children one hour of The Mickey Mouse Club. Michael will bring the coin jar with him to the living room and will sit on the floor counting coins, occasionally glancing at the television when the other two laugh at something one of the Mouseketeers has said or done. This activity will get us to five thirty, when Lars will walk in the door and dinner will be placed on the table.
Michael will spill his milk, because Michael always spills his milk. And I will clean it up, because I don’t think it’s fair to expect Alma to do that.
In the evening, we will attempt a family game of Parcheesi. Either Lars or I will have to be on Michael’s team, because he won’t be able to sit still long enough to move his pieces properly. He will wander away, back to the coins. He will be tired after his long day, which I know from experience means he is more likely to retreat into babyish habits that he ought long ago to have given up. I will have to keep a watchful eye on him, to make sure he doesn’t put any coins in his mouth.
At seven fifteen, Missy will take a bath, and when she is done, the boys will be bathed. It will be Lars’s night with Missy, so after her hair is brushed—a job he leaves to me—he will tuck her in and tell her a story.
I will supervise the boys as they don their matching pajamas and climb into their matching beds. Michael will ask if he can sleep with the coins, and I will tell him no. He will scream, and Lars will have to come in and comfort him. We will compromise by letting him have the empty coin jar in his bed all night, the coins dumped into a bowl that I take into our bedroom and place on a high shelf in the closet. That way, I know Michael won’t be able to get to them without waking Lars or me up.
Once the children are settled in bed, Lars and I will come downstairs, and he’ll fix us a drink. We will catch each other up on our days. I will tell him about going to see Frieda, and he will be surprised that I did it, but not surprised at the things she said. Lars will hold me and comfort me as I choke up.
I will not tell him all the details; Frieda’s sentiments are not mine to share with anyone, even Lars.
After we finish our drinks, we will move on to separate tasks—Lars to his office to catch up on paperwork; I to the bedroom to tidy up, then perhaps back to the living room to read. I will seek excuses to walk down the hallway. I will stare at the photograph of my parents and me. I will go out of my way throughout the evening to pass by and glance at it once, twice, again and again. When Lars catches me at this, he will put his arms around me from the back and hold me tight, looking at the picture over my shoulder.