Living Out Loud (Austen, #3)(6)

Elle sighed. “Honestly, you should have seen her when I offered a little perspective. She was embarrassed and apologetic and…” She sighed again. “She felt like a fool.”

The thought quieted my anger, replacing it with guilt. “This…this is so…” My throat squeezed closed.

Elle reached for my hand. “I know. And Susan and John have saved us in a way. They’ve protected us from an uncertain fate, given us the chance to live well, for no other reason than kindness. Look around; look at what Susan has done just to make us feel at home and welcome.”

A shuffling came from under the bed, and Meg’s head and shoulders emerged from under the bedskirt with a National Geographic book in front of her, split open to a spread about octopuses.

“My room is one of the best things to ever happen to me,” she said matter-of-factly. “I like Aunt Susan. She gives good hugs and smells like flowers.”

We all chuckled, and Elle stood, moving to Mama’s suitcase to flip it on its side and unzip it. “I know it’s hard, but it could be so much harder.”

Mama nodded, but she still looked defeated and deflated.

“How are you, Mama?” I asked gently.

Her green eyes met mine. “I don’t know how to feel. Mostly, I think I’m numb. Like part of my brain is driving my body, giving the absolute minimum to consider participation, while the rest of me has retreated somewhere deep inside. Because when I reach in and think or feel, it’s too much. Too much—” The words were cut off by a sob that she swallowed, but her tears fell, unconfined.

Those tears drew my own from the well that I realized would never run dry. “We’re gonna be okay,” I said, wanting to believe it.

“I hope so,” she whispered, trying to smile.

“We will,” Elle added from the other side of the bed. “We’ll survive. If Daddy were here, he wouldn’t let us give up. He’d tell us to find joy every day, to hang on to each other, to turn our faces to the sun and warm ourselves with hope. So that’s what we should do.”

And we all knew she was right, though not a single one of our faces said we believed we could do it.

We’d try anyway.

Elle smiled, a comforting expression that coaxed a smile from my own lips, small as it might be. “I think a good night’s sleep in a real bed in a real room will do us all good. Annie will be spreading her sunshine again soon enough, and Meg will tell us the wonders of the deep ocean. And Mama will smile and laugh like she used to, and we’ll all love each other.”

“Well, I have been reading about anglerfish,” Meg said from the floor after a pause. “Did you know they can eat fish twice their size?”

I laughed. “You have something in common; you can eat a pizza twice your size.”

“Dare me to try!”

I winked. “Double dog dare.”

Her face brightened as she scrambled to her feet. “Oh, man, now I’m asking Aunt Susan if we can have pizza for dinner.”

“I’m sure she has something planned, baby,” Mama chided.

But Meg shrugged, grinning. “I’ll tell her I’ll name a fish after her.” And with that, she bounded out of the room.

I looked from Mama, whose smile finally touched her eyes—not deep down, but enough—to Elle, who watched us with a veil of love and pride that covered her own sadness.

As for me, I found Elle’s words to be true, simply by her having spoken them. And my heart lifted, that sagging balloon rising, warmed by the sun and reaching for the forgotten clouds.





2





Mittens





Annie

Elle was right; a good night’s sleep and a hot shower had done wonders for my disposition. The luxurious sheets and pillows helped this endeavor.

Each night got easier, and each day brought with it a little more happiness. And over the course of the following week, I found a glimmer of hope that this could someday be home.

This morning, I woke like a princess in a Disney movie, fresh as a daisy and smiling like the world was full of possibilities. Because it was.

Mama had agreed to let me get a job.

It was likely due to my incessant pestering, bolstered by Susan’s and Elle’s support. Susan had been insistent in my favor and oblivious to Mama’s distress. Elle, ever the voice of reason and sense, had noted that I needed a job, something to do, and really, there was no reason to refuse besides Mama’s worry over my health.

I’d almost done jumping jacks to prove just how fine I was, but I hadn’t wanted to push my luck.

Of course, fine was a relative term.

From the time I had been born, I’d been sickly, subjecting my parents to the pain and stress of having a child with a heart defect. I was diagnosed with a rare defect called Ebstein’s anomaly, noted by a deformed valve—pulmonary stenosis, which obstructed blood as it attempted to leave my heart—and an atrial septal defect—the fancy name for the hole between the chambers of my heart. I had an arrhythmia, too—you know, because all that other mess wasn’t quite enough for the universe to bestow upon me.

The result was a busted up jalopy of a heart, sputtering exhaust as it clanked and clacked around in my rib cage.

My first open-heart surgery was at three weeks old when they put in a temporary shunt. I tried to remember that fact when Mama was overprotective. I would imagine her lying in a hospital bed, her brand-new baby whisked away and put in an incubator so that she could breathe. I would picture Mama in the NICU, staring into that plastic box at her newborn whose skin was a terrifying shade of blue, her tiny body full of tubes and wires, her chest stapled up after being cracked open like a melon.