Bittersweet Summer (2 page)

“Now that fourth grade is over,” Claire said, “Ms. Morgan is totally free to fall in love with my father. I think there’s a rule about room fathers, but after today, he’s not the room father any more.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said.

“You still have a mother,” Claire said. She pushed up her blue sunglasses and stared at me. “Mine is gone forever.”

It was true that Claire’s mother was gone forever. Her mother had died in an accident when we were in second grade. “My parents are seriously divorced,” I told her. “Mom travels all the time, doing her concerts.”

“She’ll come back,” Claire said, dropping her glasses back onto her nose, “when she’s tired of singing.”

“She loves singing. She’ll never get tired of it.”

“Ms. Morgan is my project, and you can’t have her, Katie.” Claire looked both ways, even though there was hardly ever traffic on our street, and crossed to the other side.

I climbed over Tyler’s pedal car to get to the porch. I hadn’t dreamed about Mom being back home in months and months. Even with no mother at home, things were fine the way they were—with Dad and my little brother Tyler and me.

I was pretty sure about that.

“I
’M HOME,” I CALLED
as I stepped into my house.

Tyler came running down the hall to meet me. His red hair bounced up and down. “Katie,” he hollered, “it’s summer vacation. No more day care.”

I dropped my stack of artwork into a chair and pulled off my shoes.

“We have to start playing.” He tugged me into the living room.

I stopped at the door. The living room didn’t look like our living room. “What’s going on in here?”

“Mother-mouse caves.” Tyler ran around the room waving his arms. “Here. And here. And here!”

He was pointing at shoes and boots and slippers. He had tucked them into every place a shoe or a boot or a slipper might tuck.

“Mouse caves?” My old blue tennis shoe lay on its side on the coffee table. Something white was stuffed into it.

“MOTHER-mouse caves,” he whispered. He reached into my tennis shoe and pulled out a tissue ball. “This is Applepie,” he said. “She’s waiting to have her babies.” He shook the mouseball next to his ear and listened. “Any time now,” he said.

I peered at the tissue ball, half expecting to see it turn into a real mouse and jump out of Tyler’s hand. He tucked the mouse back and pulled another white mouse from a red boot that stood in the bookcase.

“There are seventy-thirteen mother mouses here,” he said. “Almost ready to have little mouse babies. We will be very busy.”

“Does Dad know you took all our shoes? And that you’re using up all the toilet paper?”

“Not yet.” Tyler tugged up his shorts and grinned at me. “He’s on the phone.”

I picked up my artwork. “I have pictures,” I said. “I hope these mice like bird drawings.” I ran around the room, tucking my drawings next to shoes and into the chairs.

“That’s good, Katie.” Tyler put his hand on my arm and looked up at me with his round blue eyes. “When it’s time for the babies, I’m going to need lots more toilet paper.”

“Don’t look at me,” I said. “I hope you left one roll for the people.”

“Hi, Katie,” Dad’s voice said, making me jump.

“It’s good you’re home. I’m going to have to run to the store. We’re almost out of toilet paper.”

He stopped then, staring into the living room. “Tyler made mouse caves,” I said. “They’re pretty cute, Dad.”

“MOTHER-mouse caves,” Tyler said.

“I can’t believe it,” Dad said. “One hour ago, I had this room looking great.”

Tyler nodded and stood up straighter.

“Whoa,” Dad said. “We’ve got to get on the same track here. This house has to be spruced up.”

“Spruced up? What’s that?” Tyler asked.

“Cleaned up. I’m going to need you kids to help me make the house look good.”

I squinted at him. That didn’t sound like Dad. Usually, he didn’t care one bit how the house looked. Usually, he liked things like mouse caves.

But Dad’s face looked different today. Worried, maybe. All at once, that sour taste came back into my mouth. I sat down on the floor next to a mouse cave and looked up at him. “What’s going on?”

“I
’M GOING TO MAKE
a cup of coffee,” Dad said, “and then I’ll come back and tell you what’s going on.” He started toward the kitchen and then turned. “When I come back in here, I want this room looking good.”

“But,” I said, “Tyler made all the …”

A frown crossed Dad’s face. “I see your pictures all around. I think both of you can work on this.”

Dad hardly ever yelled at us. Even when he had too much work from Mr. Flagstaff. Even when I accidently invited people to a Thanksgiving dinner that was supposed to be just for us.

He was waiting. That frown was still there.

I got to my feet.

Dad went toward the kitchen.

“My beautiful mother-mouse caves,” Tyler wailed.

“I have a great idea,” I said. “Let’s make a hotel cave. We’ll make it behind the couch.”

It took a while, but when we finished the room looked almost normal. All our shoes were piled on their sides behind the couch, little ones on top of big ones. “That’s a lot of mother mice,” I whispered.

Tyler tucked the last mouse into place and looked around the room. “We are spruced up.”

“Our living room looks like Claire’s house.”

“At Claire’s house,” Tyler said, “nobody can build anything!”

“Maybe somebody important is coming to see us.” I sat cross-legged on the floor and stacked my pictures together.

“Maybe Mr. Friend is coming,” Tyler said. “When he came for Thanksgiving dinner, he played trucks with me. We builded bridges all over this room.”

“Mr. Flagstaff is in Germany,” I told him. “He’s not coming.” Mr. Flagstaff was an engineer, and Dad worked for him, writing thick reports. He said it was a great job because he could work here at home.

The smell of coffee came first, and then Dad walked in. “Much better,” he said, looking around. He straightened the cushions on the couch.

Straightening cushions! That’s what Claire’s dad is always doing, I thought. I squinted my eyes again at Dad. Something was definitely wrong with him.

He sat down on the couch and took a long sniff of coffee. That was normal. Dad loved sniffing coffee as much as he loved drinking it.

“This week,” he said, “I had to make some phone calls for Mr. Flagstaff because he’s in Germany. I found out that he’s no longer consulting for some of the big companies.” Dad stared into his coffee mug. “I’m afraid he’s getting ready to retire. If he does, pretty soon there won’t be any work for me.”

“Good.” I set my pictures on the coffee table. “You’ll have time to play with us.”

He shook his head at me. “I need to be working, Pumpkin. That’s how I make money for us to buy groceries.”

“Like toilet paper,” Tyler said, nodding at me.

“I’m going to need your help,” Dad said. “We need to make some big decisions here.”

I sat up straight. I liked it when Dad needed my help.

He continued. “A wonderful company in Portland may offer me a job.”

Tyler and I stared at him.

“If I get a job in Portland, we’ll have to live there.”

“Live in Portland?” I felt air whoosh out of me. “We can’t do that!”

“It’s about two hours away,” Dad said. “Too far for me to drive every day.”

Tyler kicked his feet against the couch and frowned.

“If we move,” Dad said, “we’ll need to sell this house. A real estate person is coming tomorrow to talk about that.” He sighed. “All the jobs are in Portland.”

I looked around our living room, almost all spruced up now. I remembered Tyler sitting on this rug, racing trucks with Mr. Flagstaff. I remembered me reading books to Tyler in the big, green chair. Out the front window, there was Claire’s house. I was used to looking out that window at Claire’s house.

Right then, I remembered Claire’s plans for Ms. Morgan. Could she make it happen? I wondered. Would Ms. Morgan be her new mother? Claire’s life would be wonderful. And mine? I rubbed a sad place in my stomach.

“Whatever happens, we’ll be fine,” Dad said. He pulled both of us into his lap. “You kids are not to worry. We’ll still be the three of us. We’re still a family no matter where we live.”

I listened to Dad’s heart beating next to my ear. It wasn’t helping me feel better.

Dad shifted us around so he could see our faces. “Now, tell me about the last day of school, Katie. Did you have a party?”

I blew a big sigh out of my mouth.

“The food made me sick,” I said. “And Sierra is gone for two weeks. And Claire has a really stupid summer project.”

Tears suddenly came into my eyes, and I blinked hard to make them go away. “And now, we might have to move.” More tears ran down my cheeks. “It’s hardly started, and I hate this summer vacation!”

W
E SAT IN THE
spruced-up living room while I tried to stop crying. Then the phone rang.

Dad lifted Tyler and me off his lap and ran to his office.

A moment later, he stuck his head in the door.

“It’s Claire,” he said. “Before you talk to her, I want to tell you this moving thing is a secret. Please don’t tell Claire we might be moving.”

I looked at Tyler. Dad looked at Tyler, too. We both knew Tyler couldn’t keep a secret longer than one minute.

“Never mind,” Dad said.

I rubbed tears from my cheeks as I walked to his office. The idea that we might move made my feet stumble. My sadness about the end of fourth grade seemed silly, now. “Hi, Claire,” I said.

“I’ve got to find Ms. Morgan,” she said, “so I can get started.”

I listened to Claire breathing into the phone and still thinking about her summer project. Nothing had changed in Claire’s life.

“I looked her up in the phone book,” she continued, “but Katie, you won’t believe how many Morgans there are in the phone book. What am I going to do?”

I picked loose paper clips off Dad’s desk and tossed them at his magnetic paper-clip holder. I couldn’t think of what to say.

“How can I get her thinking about marrying us,” Claire continued, “if I can’t find her?”

A little card on Dad’s desk caught my eye. A red-haired lady in a stupid hat with a feather looked up at me. “Sadie Fowler, Real Estate,” the card said. Ugh! I tossed the card at the magnet. Of course it stuck. It was a magnetic card.

“The only thing I can think of,” Claire said, “is going to the library. She might actually be there. I want to go there tomorrow.”

Dad came into his office and was pointing at his watch. “I’m expecting a call,” he said.

“My father says I have to go to the library with someone.” Claire drew a long breath. “Will you go with me, Katie?”

“I don’t know if I can,” I said. I pressed the phone against my cheek. “Are we still able to do normal things?” I asked Dad.

“Like what?” he asked.

I told him about Claire and the library. I didn’t tell him about Claire’s horrible plans for Ms. Morgan. “Of course you can do things like that,” he said. In a few moments, we had it worked out. Mr. Plummer would take us at ten. Dad would get us at noon.

As soon as I put down the phone, it rang again. Dad picked it up. “Hello, Sadie,” he said. He started writing on a piece of paper.

“I’ll see you at 10:30 tomorrow,” I heard him say. I joined Tyler on the couch. We wrapped one of Grandma’s knitted blankets around us.

“I don’t want to move to Portland,” I said.

“Me, neither,” Tyler said. He leaned against me and stuck his thumb in his mouth.

Dad came back and sat beside us. “This won’t be so bad,” he said. “We can help each other make it work.”

“What about Sierra?” I asked. “If we move, I’ll never see her again.”

“We’ll make sure you get together for visits,” Dad said.

Tyler looked up into Dad’s face. “If Mommy was here, we wouldn’t have to move. Mommy wouldn’t let us move.”

Dad set down his mug and pulled Tyler into his lap. “Your mommy could give us lessons on moving. She’s traveling all the time.”

“She should stop that,” Tyler said. “Let’s ask her to come home.”

“Your mom and I don’t live together anymore.”

Dad rubbed his chin on Tyler’s head. “If you lived with your mom, you wouldn’t be with me. I would miss you too much.”

I sighed. “Everything is awful,” I said. “I think we need something to take our mind off our troubles,” Dad said. “Let’s watch a movie.”

“T
YLER IS COMING WITH
us?” Claire backed up against her dad’s car as if blocking it from us. She was wearing her sunglasses and a blue beret. Over her navy tights, she had on a long, pale-blue shirt with a wide belt.

“If he’s with us, the house will stay cleaner.” I didn’t tell her the house needed to be clean so that Sadie, the real estate agent, would like it.

Claire frowned at Tyler. “Keep your shoes off the back seat,” she said.

“Actually,” I said, “he has to ride in his car seat. My dad is bringing it over.”

Tyler stuck out his lower lip. “I’m going to read big books at the library.”

“I am going to read poems,” Claire said with a toss of her blond curls. She smoothed her blue shirt. “These are poet clothes I’m wearing.”

“That looks like your dad’s shirt,” I said. “The sleeves are too long.”

Claire rolled the sleeves up some more.

“Potes are silly.” Tyler smoothed his own red shirt and tugged on his shorts.

Five-year-olds don’t know what poets are, I thought, as we watched Dad fasten Tyler’s car seat into the Plummer’s car. Ms. Morgan had read poems to us at school. She would think it was great—Claire being a poet.

“Have a good time,” Dad said. He ran back across the street. He had half an hour to finish tidying the house. Would the real estate person wear her stupid hat when she came to our house? Would our front yard have a For Sale sign on it when we got back?

Claire got into the front seat of her car and held up the litter bag. “If you have anything to throw away, it goes in here,” she said. She held the bag in front of Tyler for a long time. Tyler stared out the window and wouldn’t look at her.