Ruth was jolly and unfazed. Her cheery voice a delight in the middle of their matrimonial strife.
“No problem at all,” Ruth said happily when Sylvia double-checked that she could pick him up from the airport. “Tommy texted last night so I already knew he’d missed his plane.”
“So did you take Gracie to school? What time is it anyway?”
“Just leaving now,” Ruth said.
“Can you put her on the line?”
“Sure.”
“Hi Mommy.”
“Hi sweetie, are you having fun with Ruth?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Daddy will be home later—you and Ruth are going to pick him up from the airport after school. Then you’ll be coming to Saginaw to see me in a couple of days’ time. I’m so excited.”
“Me too. Can I bring Pidgey and Blueby and Carrot to Saginaw?”
“Sure, sweetie. But maybe just choose two teddies. Three’s too many.”
“Okay. Mommy, Mrs. Paws—”
There was a shuffle and Ruth came on the line. “Sorry, Sylvia, I know Gracie wants to chat but we’d better get going; we’re running really,
really
late for school. Everything okay?”
“Well, you know.”
“Gracie misses you. I’ll get her to Skype you tonight. Gotta go.”
“Thanks, Ruth—we’ll speak later. Bye.”
THE MORNING SAW a clear blue sky, crisp, and the air light without any humidity. Sylvia got behind her the worst chore of the day. The funeral director was a kind man, full of ideas, so calm as if dead bodies were quite “by the by,” nothing to be phased about at all. So seeing her father had been less of a shock than Sylvia imagined. The director could organize simply everything and she found herself nodding at whatever he suggested. What a relief.
She said she would find the perfect suit for her dad, and raid his library for the right poem. Wasn’t Walt Whitman his favorite poet? She’d look and see who dominated the bookshelves.
It made her regret the times when her dad would chat at dinner and she, with her thoughts on school or cheerleading practice would cock an ear and say, “ah, ah, oh really Daddy, that’s great.” She longed now for just one snippet of their past conversations, more clues about who her father really was—other than her daddy and a husband to her mother. He’d spend hours reading, writing letters and pontificating about golf and Greek philosophers. It seemed dull to her at the time. Why hadn’t she asked more questions, dug deep inside his soul?
Sylvia had a good hour before she needed to set off in the car again to see the accountant and the lawyer. She wasn’t driving around in the Mustang, though. The Buick was far more reliable. She’d “been there, done that.” The countless times she could recall sitting on the sidewalk waiting for a tow truck or her dad to come and rescue her while the old Mustang spouted steam, overheated, panting like an old dog who wanted nothing more than to just lie down and get her breath back. There she still was, the loyal thing, waiting in the garage with a dust cloth spread over her, perhaps hoping for a trip to the log cabin in Elk Lake where they spent their summer vacations when Sylvia was a girl. After the funeral, Sylvia could take Grace there and maybe, instead of flying back to Crowheart, they could drive cross-country. It was crazy, but the real truth was that Sylvia had never seen the Grand Canyon and she’d like to experience it for the first time with Grace—see that majestic place through the eyes of a child. Her child. Grace had a way of making everything brighter, bringing magic to the way a bird jerked its head or a tree’s leaves shuffled in the wind. She noticed the tiniest details and had an opinion about everything.
Yes, it was important that Grace should see America’s shining star. You couldn’t call yourself a real citizen until you’d seen the wide belly of the whole country; the mundane, the magnificent, the vast fields of wheat, the great skies that yawned into an immense horizon, and the roads which glittered like arteries through the Giant that was this great nation. Sylvia loved America. It throbbed through her veins.
She and Tommy had driven via the northern route through Wisconsin and South Dakota before they arrived at Wyoming and discovered Crowheart. She remembered being transfixed by the Badlands. The earth looked like mini mountains, but was actually mounds of dried mud, ringed with striped rainbows of orange, red and gold. They drove through the Black Hills where they saw bears and the presidents’ heads carved into the rock at Mount Rushmore. That was before Grace. Before Amazing Grace came into their lives. Sylvia shuddered with anticipation—she couldn’t wait to hear her daughter’s thoughts on the Grand Canyon, read her expressions, see the awe on her pretty little face.
Grace
A
cool morning breeze wafted through the linen curtains.
Bubbling with excitement, Grace jumped up and down on her bed, leaped off and skipped around her bedroom. Ruth was packing Pidgey O Dollars and Carrot into her Disney Princess backpack. She needed Carrot because she could hide her magic pen there, and Pidgey . . . well . . . poor, poor Pidgey—he only had one arm. He needed her. And as she could only choose two, Blueby would have to stay behind.
Ruth’s blond hair made her look really different. So much prettier. She almost looked like her mother now! Well not really . . . her mom had a smaller nose and a softer face (when she wasn’t wearing her Wolfy Face) and beautiful blue eyes with long, black eyelashes. Sometimes her mom gave her an Eskimo kiss with those lashes. Grace loved that. It tickled. Yup, her mom had to be the most beautiful lady in the whole wide world.
Ruth whispered, “Hi baby, are you sure you’ve chosen your two favorite teddies?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Because I don’t want you thinking later that you wished you’d chosen a different one. Make sure you don’t leave someone special behind. Are we all ready, then?” Ruth zipped up Grace’s Disney Princess backpack and lifted it from the bed. Then she closed the window shut.
“But we don’t need to bring my backpack to school.” Grace said.
“I thought we’d just put it in the car. So it’s done, you know.”
“But it’s dark inside the backpack and my teddies might get scared.”
Ruth stood with her hands on her hips. “Okay, I was hoping it would be a surprise, but I guess I need to let you know.” She smoothed her bony hands over Grace’s butterfly dress to pull out the wrinkles. Grace noticed that she had sticking out blue veins, like rivers on the back of her hands. “Today, as a special treat, no school,” Ruth said with a huge smile.
“But I
like
school.”
“While you were chatting to your teddies earlier, I had another talk with your mom. And I called your teachers at school so they know you aren’t coming. I’m taking you to Saginaw today, instead! Isn’t that exciting? We’re getting on a plane!”
“What about Daddy? Is he coming too?”
“We’re meeting your daddy at the airport and we’re all traveling together.”
“That’s not what Mommy told me.”
Ruth gripped Grace’s hand and pulled her out of the bedroom. “Because plans have
changed,
sweetie. Wouldn’t you rather see your mom than go to boring old school?”
Grace nodded. “Can I bring my red sparkly Dorothy shoes?”
Ruth stood still for a second, cocked her head and thought about this carefully. Then she answered, “No, baby, I wish you could, but I think they might draw a little too much attention.”
“They can draw? Are they magic?”
“No, they can’t, but if you want to see true magic I’m going to make something
super
magical happen. Just you wait and see.”
RUTH STRAPPED GRACE into her car seat of the SUV, opened her door, adjusted her own seat and the rearview mirror, and started the engine.
The car drove off with a squeal and Grace looked out the window, watching Crowheart get smaller and smaller, and wondered if Mrs. Paws would be feeling cold underground, or if she had already arrived in Heaven.
“Oh, by the way, baby. Just one thing,” Ruth said. “Just for the plane trip, I don’t want you to call me Auntie Ruth anymore.”
Grace shuffled her little body into a more comfortable position. “But you said! You said to call you Auntie.”
“Yes, baby. But now, just for the plane trip, I want us to play a little game. I want you to pretend that you’re my little girl. I want you to call me Mommy.”
“But I have a mommy!” Grace’s eyes welled up with tears.
“Of course you do, baby. But just for fun. Just for fun, you can call me Mommy.”
“Why? I have my
own
mommy!”
Ruth looked into the rearview mirror and spoke to it. “You are sooo cute, do you know that? You’re as cute as a
button
.”
Grace thought of Pidgey O Dollars’s new, blue, glassy eyes that were buttons, and of the buttons on her dresses. She didn’t think buttons were so cute.
“Baby,” Ruth continued, still staring in the mirror, “I want you to do this for me, it’s important. I want you to call me Mommy for the plane trip.”
“But
why
?”
“Because there are some really big, bad, Bogeymen out there. They are dangerous. If they think I’m just your auntie they might not take me seriously enough and they could take you away. But if I’m your
mommy
then I can protect you.”
“But I
have
a mommy.” Grace thought Ruth’s smile looked like the Joker in
Batman.
Her dad had let her watch
Batman
one time, although her mom said it was too grown-up for her. She got to see the scary Joker, anyway, before her mom changed the channel. His smile didn’t move. Just like Auntie Ruth’s now.
“Okay, baby, I have an idea. How about if you call me Mama? Not Mommy but
Mama
? That could work. Then you can have
two
mommies.”
Grace crumpled her forehead. “I don’t know.”
“If you call me Mama then I can buy you a really pretty gift when we arrive. But you have to call me Mama for the whole plane trip. And also when we’re at the hotel tonight. Can you do that for me?”
“What hotel?”
“We have to change planes twice, so you need to be a very good girl. We’ll be spending the night in Chicago and then arriving in Saginaw the day after, and your mom’s coming to pick us up at the airport.”
“Where’s Chick Ah Go? Do they have baby birds there?”
Ruth laughed. “It’s a city, baby. Remember, if you behave really nicely and do as I say, I’ll buy you a beautiful gift.”
This sounded to Grace like an okay deal. “What gift will you get me?”
Ruth changed gear, taking the bend in the road a little faster. “Whatever you want, baby. Anything at all.”
“The Computer Engineer Barbie Doll?”
“Sure.”
“Okay.”
“Good girl. You promise to call me Mama, then?”
“Okay.
Grace
T
here were no chicks in Chick Ah Go.
Nobody had warned Grace that they’d be speaking Spanish here. She could hardly understand a word—they were gabbling so fast, but she knew it was Spanish because they talked like her old Mexican Oh Pear. Even Auntie Ruth (oops, Mama) was speaking funny. Grace had slept most of the journey. They had to change planes. They had another long flight and were now at the next stop. When she woke up everything was very different from home, even the smell. It was hot.
Grace had been crying for her mom, and her dad. Ruth told her that he had gone to Saginaw instead, and that they would see him there. Plans kept changing every five minutes. Ruth said one thing, and then something else.
It just wasn’t fair.
She held Pidgey O Dollars close to her heart and then pressed her cheek against the new part of his face, the clean, white, plastic surgery part. She thought about how much she loved him for real. He understood everything. Maybe
he
knew what people were saying.
“Auntie . . . Mama, why are you speaking funny?”
“Because baby¸ the plane was sent to a different place.”
“Where are we?”
“A different place, that’s all.”
“How come we’re not in Chick Ah Go?’”
“Because. But be a good girl and don’t ask any more questions. Mama needs to concentrate.” Ruth was wheeling a carry-on, looking up at the television screens. Her eyes had changed color since that morning. Like magic. They were now blue. She looked weird.
Grace clutched her little pink backpack with wheels, trailing it behind her like a pink tail. Ruth told Grace they needed to move quickly, “as quick as deer,” she explained. But she was wearing high heels and a big cowboy hat so she didn’t move like a deer at all. Grace looked at other people who had bigger suitcases, with white tags stuck around the handles which said
MEX
. Were they all going to Saginaw, too?
“Come on baby, don’t dawdle, we have to be snappy, we have another plane to catch.”
Grace rolled her eyes. “But I’m tired. You said we were staying in a hotel in Chick—
“Please hush-up already about that! I told you we are going via a different route. Hold my hand, hurry up now, don’t drag your feet.”
The journey through the airport was endless, on and on it went like the inside of a snake. Turn left, turn right, straight on. Grace was hungry. She heard her tummy rumble. She wanted her mom. And her daddy.
“Look, this is taking forever, I’m going to carry you. Damn this goddamn princess backpack.” Ruth hoisted Grace onto her right hip and battled with the two pieces of luggage with her left hand, elbow and knees.
Grace didn’t understand why they had to hurry, only to wait in a long line five minutes later. A man in uniform took their passports. He looked at them carefully.
“That’s Mommy! That’s a picture of Mommy!” Grace shouted, pointing at one of the passports.
“That’s right, baby. That’s
me.
” Ruth cackled. “That’s Mommy.”
Grace stamped her foot. “But that’s
Mommy
!”
The man handed the passports back and said something Grace didn’t understand. Then he smiled.
Ruth took her by her skinny, upper arm. It pinched. “Now look!” she whispered in a hiss, “remember what I told you about the Bogeymen? There are a lot, all dressed up in normal clothes but they are
everywhere. They are watching.
Even the walls have eyes. Now be a good girl and don’t say a word.”