All the Ugly and Wonderful Things(4)

So I went with her, shivering against the cold, while my heart pounded with excitement. At the library, Wavy went up on tiptoe to reach her spindly arm into the book return. In the day, my mother would have driven us to the library to check out books, but stealing books was sweeter.

Wavy smiled and withdrew her arm to reveal treasure. The book was thin enough to pass through the return the wrong way, but it wasn’t a kiddy book. Salome, the spine said. We leaned our heads together to consider the strangeness of an adult book with pictures. Odd pictures. The cover was worn and layered with clear tape to protect it, and the pages were heavy. It felt special.

As I reached to turn the page, a pair of headlights fell on us where we crouched beside the book deposit. Wavy darted away, but I froze when my father yelled, “Amy!” Like in a fairy tale, where knowing someone’s name gives you power, my father was able to capture me.

My mother got out of the car and ran across the library parking lot. She looked so ferocious, loping toward me in her nightgown and coat, that I expected a blow. Punishment. Instead, she jerked me into her arms and pressed me to her chest.

After that, I had to tell everything. About the late night wandering. Not the stars. That was still my secret. Mom screamed and Dad yelled.

“I know you mean well, Brenda. You want to help her. I get that. But when her behavior starts endangering our children, it’s time to choose. We can’t keep her. She’s out of control.”

The police came to make a report, to get a picture, to put out a bulletin. The neighbors turned out to look for Wavy, but at dawn she returned on her own.

I woke to more yelling and screaming. That afternoon, Grandma came to get Wavy.

“It’s a horrible idea. A stupid idea,” Mom said. I marveled that she could talk to Grandma like that. It didn’t seem possible to get away with saying something like that to your mother. “You can’t keep an eye on her all the time. You can’t stay up all night.”

“What would be the point? I suppose she will do a little wandering. From what I remember, you and Val did some wandering when you were kids.”

“That was different. We were teenagers and it was a safer time.”

“Pfft,” Grandma said.

“Think of your health, Helen,” Dad said.

“You haven’t been as strong since the chemo, Mom.”

Grandma blew out a big puff of air, the same way she used to exhale cigarette smoke, and shook her head. “Tell me your solution. Foster care? Send her to live with strangers?”

“We’ll keep her,” Mom said.

“No, we won’t.” Dad stood up and blocked my view, so I’ll never know what look passed between him and Mom, but when he went to the counter to pour himself more coffee, Mom nodded.

“She might as well come home with me today,” Grandma said.

I sat on Wavy’s bed while Grandma packed her suitcase. There wasn’t much to pack. A dozen dresses that had survived the Great Unraveling. Some socks and underwear. The hairbrush that she sometimes let me run through her silky, fine hair. The last thing into the suitcase was Dust Bunny, the baby doll.

Grandma put it in the suitcase. Wavy took it out. Mom put it in. Wavy took it out. It was the only toy Wavy had. “Nothing belongs to you,” she told me once when Leslie and I fought over a favorite Barbie that later disappeared.

Wavy took Dust Bunny out of the suitcase and handed it to me. A gift? Then it was time for her to go. Grandma hugged us all, while Wavy stood near the door. Mom tried to hug her, too, but she skittered away, slipping past my mother to hug me. Not close enough for our bodies to touch, she rested her hands on my shoulders, and sniffed my hair. When she released me, she ran out the front door.

“You see how it is,” Mom said.

“She’s her own girl. You were, too.” Grandma smiled and picked up Wavy’s bag.

After Thanksgiving, I found the real gift Wavy had left me in the closet under the stairs. When Mom pulled out the boxes of Christmas decorations, I crawled in to sweep up loose tinsel and a broken ornament. Tucked in the very back was the stolen book: Salome.





2

GRANDMA

October 1975

Irv and I raised one daughter who turned out fine. Brenda married a good man, had nice kids, kept a clean house, and worked hard. Valerie, our youngest, I don’t know what happened.

I suppose nowadays, she would be diagnosed with something, but at the time, we lived with her behavior. For example, her germ problem. There was a time when she washed her hands a hundred times a day, until the skin cracked and bled. I made her wear gloves to help her feel clean. Two dozen pairs of white gloves that I washed and ironed every day.

Then her junior year in high school, she got pregnant and ran away with Liam Quinn. We didn’t like him, but we’d never tried to keep her away from him. He was a troublemaker and I didn’t feel he treated Valerie right. The sort of boy who thinks he’s the center of the universe.

Later I found out he was worse than just a selfish boy. I found out he’d gotten her mixed up with the sorts of things that put her in prison. As for that whole mess, it wearied my heart. I hoped Brenda wouldn’t hate me when she found out how much of Irv’s pension I cashed out to pay for Valerie’s lawyers. I’d hoped to do college money for Amy and Leslie, but there was nothing left for that.

The first day I took Wavonna home with me, she didn’t speak. To be honest, she didn’t talk for weeks. That’s harder on your nerves than you might think, having another person in the room who won’t speak. It turned me into a real chatterbox. I narrated everything I did, the way I had for Irv when he got bad at the end.