The Chance You Won't Return (26 page)

I imagined Mom answering the phone. “Now’s fine. Pull off the Band-Aid, right?”

“Right. Otherwise you’ll be thinking about it the whole time.” He uncapped a red pen. I practically collapsed into a seat in the front row, studying the graffiti on the desk so I wouldn’t have to look at Mr. Kane making either check marks or
X
s.
LAURA + ROBBIE
, it read, with a bunch of little hearts.
THIS SUCKS
.
’99 LADY MOUNTAINEERS ROCK!
A few misshapen stars. I pulled a pen out of my bag and began to sketch a few of my own.

“Alex?” I looked up, thinking Mr. Kane was going to yell at me for messing with school property. Instead he held out my test. “See you next semester.”

I grinned. “I passed?”

“Ninety-three percent. Give or take a percent. That’s why I don’t teach math.” He handed me the test, full of delightful little red checks. I’d missed one multiple-choice question about right-of-way and a couple of points from a short-answer.

“Just make sure to practice with your parents in the meantime,” he said. “Say hi to them for me.”

Say hi, as if they were all friends. As if he knew what was going on at home. He probably thought we’d all be together, stringing lights around the tree. I smiled with my lips pressed together. “Sure thing,” I said. “Have a nice break.”

At home, Mom was writing addresses on multiple envelopes. She had a whole stack in front of her at the table. Her handwriting was neat and crisp, not her more casual scrawl. She’d been taking time with these.

“What are those?” I asked, getting myself a soda. “Christmas cards?”

“Letters,” she said. “Nothing business-related. Mostly to family.”

I frowned. “Right. Family. Say hi to them for me.”

My tone was cutting, and she noticed. I hadn’t expected her to. She lifted her head, pen still midword. “Well, you don’t have to say it like
that.
What in the world’s the matter?” The way her eyes rested on my face, I knew she didn’t recognize me.

“What’s the matter?” I said. My face was getting hot, and it was hard to speak. I snatched my driving exam out of my bag, holding it up for her. “I passed my test.”

She blinked at me. “That’s good —”

“I know,” I said. “It’s really good. I get to take driver’s ed again next semester, and Mr. Kane doesn’t think I’m a total idiot now, and I can’t even tell you because you’ll pretend like it’s some stupid flying thing and not what it really is, which is this kind of great thing for me.”

“I’m —”

“No,” I said, my voice catching. I felt a little cloud of tears form behind my nose and eyes and mouth, and I threw my test onto the floor. “Just shut up, all right? I don’t even want to hear whatever you’ll come up with. I want you to be happy about this stupid, small thing — actually happy about it. Because it’s not that small or stupid to me. But you’re writing to family that doesn’t exist. We’re here, Mom, and we exist and you don’t care.” Suddenly my face felt wet. I tried to dry it with my hand.

I thought she would start crying, too, and yelling at me. At least I thought she’d run upstairs to her Amelia books. But she regarded me thoughtfully, and a little afraid. Her hands were shaking.

“I don’t . . . I know . . .” she started to say, but the door opened and Katy came in, gymnastics bag slung over her shoulder. She looked from me to Mom and back to me.

“What happened?” Katy set her bag gently on the floor as if she thought the room might explode.

“Nothing,” I said, grabbing a napkin to wipe my face with.

Katy picked up my test. “You passed?” She tried to smile. “That’s really great, Alex. Now you don’t have to worry about it anymore.”

I shrugged. “Just until I have to pass the actual driving course.”

Katy turned the test over in her hands. “Well, now maybe Jim can teach you how to drive through the house.”

Suddenly that seemed hilarious. I laughed, and the sound seemed to surprise Katy. Then she started giggling, too, and soon we were both doubled over, more tears trickling down my face. My stomach ached and I could barely breathe, but at least it was a good ache. Mom looked between us, not confused anymore, but smiling, somehow relieved. She looked like she wanted to laugh with us, too, but wasn’t in on the joke.

When Katy and I tried to catch our breath, Mom stood and put her hand on my shoulder. She gave it a squeeze. “Congratulations,” she said. “Well done.”

“Thanks,” I said.

She nodded. Then her eyes clouded and her lip quivered, so that for a second I thought she might cry. But she gathered her letters. “There’s just so much to do,” she said, voice shaky, and went upstairs.

I knew she didn’t really understand what was going on with me. But maybe she was trying to. It was all I could ask for at the moment.

Katy took a sip of the soda I’d left on the table. “It could be worse,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe.”

I called Jim that night. He asked me to hold on for a second, since his cell barely got reception in the basement. I imagined him working on something — more paintings of birds, maybe.

When I told him about the test, he said, “That’s awesome. And now you’ll be ahead of everybody next semester.”

“On the first day, I’m going to run somebody over so they’ll know who’s in charge. Although I think Mr. Kane might be kind of mad at me.”

“Depends on who you run over.”

“I mean, he did tell me I was supposed to keep practicing.”

Jim laughed. “He didn’t say what kind of practicing. Seriously, next semester’ll be so easy. And after you pass, we can — I don’t know — go on a road trip or something.”

After I passed — Jim was talking about us being together over the summer. I smiled wider. “Yeah,” I said, trying to sound casual, “that sounds great.”

Even though the thought of the highway made me dizzy, I liked the idea of a road trip. By then, it would be warm and we could drive off with the windows down and mixes blaring. We could take pictures in front of cheap tourist traps and write real postcards to friends, signing off,
Wish you were here!
We could steal kisses in front of famous monuments and highway pull-offs. It wouldn’t even matter where we’d be going, just as long as we were going somewhere and going together.

On the other end of the phone, I could hear some muffled whispers. Then Jim said, “So my parents are having this holiday party thing.”

He was quiet for a second, so I said, “That sounds nice.”

“It’s just some family and my parents’ friends, and it’s a couple days before Christmas, and you totally don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

“Hold on,” I said. “Are you asking me to come?”

He paused again. “Yeah, but you don’t have to. I know it’s kind of lame. And somebody’ll probably wear a Christmas sweater.”

“I hope so. That’s all I wear during winter break.”

In the background, I could hear Jim tell his mom I was coming and her response, “Good!” I wasn’t sure if it was genuine enthusiasm, or if she was just interested in making sure I wasn’t a crazy girl who liked making out with her son in their basement. (Although maybe I was.) Either way, I thought it might be nice to be around someone else’s family, even if relatives fought and people asked if I was Jim’s girlfriend. It would be better than a Christmas with Amelia Earhart. I could pretend it was the Winchester Christmas party instead.

“So when you said, ‘Somebody’ll probably wear a Christmas sweater,’ you meant yourself, right?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Jim said. “I’ve got a collection.”

As long as it wasn’t a linen scarf or aviator jacket, it sounded all right to me.

“What are you getting me for Christmas?” Teddy leaned against the kitchen table, watching me as I scanned the cabinets for dinner possibilities.

“Bunny slippers,” I said.

He collapsed against a chair. “No,
really.
”

“No, really. They’re the cutest, pinkest bunny slippers I could find, and I’m gonna tell all your friends about them.”

He made a gagging noise and I laughed. “I can’t tell you what I’m getting you, because then it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

“What if you gave me a hint? Three hints.”

I took a jar of marinara sauce out of the cabinet, wrinkled my nose at it, and replaced it before turning to Teddy. “One,” I said, and held up a finger. “It’s smaller than you are. Two”— another finger — “it’s colorful. Three” — one more finger — “it requires sharing.”

Teddy scrunched his mouth and stared at me for a moment. “Okay, three more hints.”

“Nope, that’s all you get until Christmas.” Katy and I had gone in on a Nerf gun set for him, which we were sure would make him the envy of his second-grade class. We figured it was the least we could do, since the rest of the Christmas season had been so nonexistent. Dad was working as much overtime as he could get during the busy season, and neither Katy nor I could muster up much holiday enthusiasm. Usually, the minute Thanksgiving was over we’d drag the box of Christmas decorations out of the basement and fill every corner with snowmen and Santas. One year, Mom showed us how to cut snowflakes from folded paper and we taped them to every window in the house. They stayed up until after Valentine’s Day.

Christmas must not have been that important to Amelia Earhart, because Mom hadn’t mentioned it at all.

I was resigning us to pasta again when the front door opened and Dad entered, whistling. “Hello, hello!” he called.

Teddy rushed to hug him, jabbering about the bunny slippers I’d teased him about. “But I don’t think that’s what she’s really getting me.”

“Oh, I think your sister has something else already worked out.” He winked at me. “Have you started dinner?” When I told him not yet, he nodded. “Good. How about we go for a drive instead? Maybe to Greene Valley Farm?”

Teddy shrieked and started jumping as if a tiny explosion had gone off in his sneakers. “We’re getting a tree! We’re getting a tree! We’re getting a tree! Katy!” He bounded up the stairs to collect our sister.

Dad told me to get my coat, but I lingered in the kitchen. “It’s okay — you guys go,” I said. “Somebody should stay with Mom, and I’ve already picked a tree a ton of times before. I don’t care.” I scanned through the cabinets again, as if expecting to find different contents, and tried to wipe memories of cold walks through the Christmas tree fields and the sharp scent of evergreen from my mind.

“Of course you’re coming,” Dad said. “Barbara Ellis is coming over. I already talked to her and —”

“May I come?”

A few feet away, Mom stood in the kitchen doorway with her hands folded calmly in front of her. She looked from Dad to me and back again. “It’s a lovely time of year. My family always had a Christmas tree.”

Upstairs, footsteps pounded against the floor. Dad shifted from one foot to the other. “I don’t know if that’s the best idea,” he said.

Mom’s face fell a little, but she nodded. “It’s all right. There’s so much to do anyway —”

“You should come,” I said.

They both blinked at me for a moment. “Are you sure?” Dad said, voice low. “Barbara said it was okay —”

“No, she should come.” I didn’t let myself think about how Mom might act with the Christmas tree farm employees or what might happen if we saw another family we knew there. She never asked to join family activities — maybe she was trying. Even if she couldn’t be Mom, she could be with the rest of us.

Katy and Teddy appeared in the kitchen, shoes on and coats in hand. “All right,” Dad said. “Everybody into the car.” He called Mrs. Ellis on his cell, letting her know that Mom was joining us.

Greene Valley Farm was beyond where Jim and I would practice driving, farther toward the mountains. Katy, Teddy, and I huddled together in the backseat. Dad turned on one of those awful radio stations that played nothing but Christmas music from mid-November through New Year’s, but we sang along anyway. In the front passenger seat, Mom mouthed the lyrics as if afraid to hear her own voice.

The parking lot was already filled with cars when we arrived. “I hope we find a good one,” Teddy said, pressing his hand against the car window.

“Oh, I think there are plenty of good ones left,” Dad said as he parked. Before getting out of the car, he leaned closer to Mom. “You can stay in the car if you want. There’ll be a line —”

“Honestly, Gip,” Mom said. “Wait in the car? I’m sure people will be too distracted by their trees to notice me.”

Beside me, Katy stiffened and I was afraid she’d end up hiding in the car instead. I squeezed her hand. “Come on, you always find the good ones.”

Dad stayed close to Mom, and Katy and I rushed after Teddy, who was intent on running up and down every row of trees before we could examine any of them. Speakers set up throughout the fields pumped in old-fashioned carols. I could hear Mom talk about Christmases with Pidge in Kansas. “We were living with my grandparents at the time,” she said. “Grandmother didn’t feel the need to raise us like ‘good little girls,’ thank goodness. It was a happy time.”

After scanning a few rows, Katy stopped in front of one tree. “I like this one.”

Teddy frowned. “That’s not tall enough! We need one that’s
at least
three more feet tall.”

“I think any taller and it won’t get through the door,” Dad said. He took a step back and admired the tree. “Looks like a good one to me.”

“You have to shake it,” Mom said. I waited for her to follow up with some bit of historical trivia about how Amelia Earhart always chose her Christmas trees, but it didn’t come. “And run your hands over it. You don’t want too many needles to fall off.”

Dad followed Mom’s instructions and only a few needles scattered on the ground. “Looks like Katy’s got a winner. All in favor?”

“Aye!” Teddy cheered. Dad and Katy hoisted the tree off the ground and headed toward the farm stand. Teddy ran ahead of them, dancing along to his own rendition of “Jingle Bells.”

Mom and I walked a few feet behind them. Down other aisles, I could see other families inspecting trees and laughing together. I wanted to believe that they were hiding something, too.

“Excuse me.” Mom and I turned to see a young couple standing a few feet away, three children under the age of eight bouncing around beside them. Strapped to the woman was an infant, tiny red-and-green-striped legs kicking out of the carrier. “Would you mind taking our picture?” the woman asked.