The Penderwicks in Spring (29 page)

“I thought you’d want to know that Oliver’s gone for good,” said Rosalind. “Ben helped with that, actually.”

This raised a spark of curiosity in Batty, a tiny pinprick of interest, but not enough to help her move or answer her sister.

“May I come in?” Light flooded into the closet. Rosalind had opened the door.

There was no room for her back where Batty lay, but Rosalind was pushing her way in, determinedly burrowing through boxes and games to get to her sister. Batty stirred just enough to hide the photographs underneath the canvas bag. And still Rosalind pressed on, shoes, stuffed animals, golf balls, and shells
bending to her will, until she was crouching next to Batty.

“Honey, everyone’s so worried about you. They’ve told me that you’re not going to school. Can you talk to me about it?”

No.

“Has someone hurt you?”

No.

“Is missing Hound making you ill?”

Not just that.

“Move over, Battikins. I’m getting a cramp.”

One part of Batty wanted Rosalind to go away, to leave her alone with her wretchedness. There was another part, though, that wanted Rosalind to stay with her, to comfort her, and this part forced Batty to uncurl herself and scrunch over to one side, but still there wasn’t enough room, so Batty scrunched over a little more, and this time, by mistake, she dislodged Hound’s canvas bag, and there in plain view were the photographs. Batty tried to cover them again, but Rosalind was already crowding in beside her, and there wasn’t enough room, and—

Rosalind spotted the photographs.

“My goodness,” she said. “Is that Hound? Isn’t that the photograph you gave Jeffrey for his eleventh birthday? And—wait a minute, what’s this other—”

Rosalind cut herself off, with a face so sad that it broke Batty’s heart all over again.

“I’m sorry, Rosy,” she said.

Rosalind came back as from a dream. “What did you say?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m—” Batty gasped, suddenly out of air. The big secret was slipping out of its box, choking her. “I didn’t mean—I didn’t know—I wish I hadn’t …”

Rosalind put her arms around Batty, trying to soothe her. “What are you sorry about, Batty? I don’t understand.”

Breathe, breathe,
Batty heard Mrs. Grunfeld say. “That Mommy died because—that you lost your—I’m so sorry.…”

The secret was almost ready to burst free now, bringing with it all of Batty’s desolation, her guilt, her fear. It was tearing her apart—she wasn’t sure she’d still be there at the end, but there was no stopping this explosion, not even when she realized how much she was frightening Rosalind, even when she heard Rosalind telling her not to move,
please don’t move, promise you won’t move, Batty,
because she would be gone for just a minute, and then Rosalind was gone. Batty was smothering, drowning in anguish, and then her father came for her, shoving aside anything that got in his way and somehow carried her out and laid her gently on the bed. Iantha was there, too, covering Batty with blankets and asking calm questions, trying to understand, but Batty could only babble about killing her mother and how they should ask Skye about it because only Skye told the truth—to Jeffrey, anyway,
Skye had told the truth to Jeffrey—and that she understood if they didn’t love her, because who could possibly love a girl who brought death with her, and that she knew she’d been a terrible bargain, a pitiful exchange for her mother.

With that, the secret was released from its box, dissipated, confessed, its power stripped away. And somehow Batty, still alive and in one piece, hadn’t been abandoned. Because here was her father, holding her and telling her how much he loved her, how much they all loved her. And now, at last, she could slip away into a sleep free of nightmares, into the healing rest she so badly needed.

When she finally woke back up that afternoon, Asimov was at the bottom of the bed, heavily asleep on her feet, and her father was in a chair beside her with an Agatha Christie mystery, the kind he read whenever he needed to relax.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

How did she feel? Something was strange. Oh! Her stomach didn’t hurt anymore.

“I feel good,” she said.

“Hungry?”

“Yes, hungry.”

“Excellent news. Stay right here.” Mr. Penderwick left, and shouted down the steps. “Iantha, she’s awake and wants food!”

Iantha soon arrived with a tray full of food: a
cheese-and-tomato sandwich, an apple, a glass of lemonade, and a bowl of chocolate mint ice cream.

“I know it’s too much,” she said. “But I wasn’t sure what you’d want.”

“Thank you, it looks good.” Batty took a bite of the sandwich. “You’re not going to both stare at me while I eat, are you?”

“Maybe,” answered her dad.

“We’re just so glad to have you awake.”

“And not crying,” said Batty. “I’m sorry.”

“Shh, shh,” said her father. “You’ve done nothing wrong. It’s I who should be fired from parenthood. But eat up first, and then we’ll talk.”

“Can you stand a few more visitors?” asked Iantha. “Ben and Lydia have been waiting for you to wake up.”

When she brought in Ben and Lydia, they were holding hands and staring solemnly at their sister. Lydia had brought Baby Zingo along, whose striped ridiculousness suddenly made Batty very happy. After all, it was nice to be alive and in this particular family.

“I helped get rid of Oliver,” said Ben. “It was really cool.”

“I know,” answered Batty. “You did great.”

“Are you going to eat all that ice cream?”

Batty handed over her spoon and let him dig in.

“Lydia has some big news for you, Batty,” said Iantha. “Tell her, Lydia.”

“Goldie put Frank in a box.”

“Not that news. Tell Batty what you just told me about the big-girl bed.”

Lydia put on her I-don’t-care-about-that-right-now face. “I want ice cream.”

“Whoa!” said Batty. “She said—”

Her father interrupted. “
Ego.
We know. We’re trying not to make a fuss, afraid we’ll cause her to revert to the third person for the rest of her life.”

“But there’s more,” said Iantha. “A few minutes ago, she said ‘I want to sleep in the big-girl bed tonight.’ ”

“I want
ice cream,
” repeated Lydia, since they were missing the important points of the conversation.

“And you’ll sleep in your big-girl bed tonight?” asked Batty.

But Lydia and Baby Zingo were already heading out on the hunt for ice cream, so Iantha gave Batty a kiss and went after them. Ben lingered for one last question.

“You’re sure you don’t have sleeping sickness?” he whispered.

“Positive!” Batty grabbed back her spoon. “And go get your own ice cream.”

“Where did he get this idea about sleeping sickness?” Mr. Penderwick asked when Ben was gone.

“Rafael.”

“Ah, yes, Rafael. I should have known.”

When she’d eaten all she could, she set the tray aside.

“Good girl,” said her father. “Now I have a lot to explain, something I should have done a long time ago. Do you feel well enough to listen or do you want to rest more?”

“You don’t have to explain, Daddy.” She didn’t think she could stand hearing the details of how she’d killed her mother. Not just when she was starting to feel better. “I understand everything.”

“But you don’t understand,” he said. “And neither did Skye.”

“Skye?” She picked up both Funty and Gibson, settling them in with her for company.

“We’ve managed to put it together, you see, through hints you gave us while you were … upset, and some detective work. It seems that you overheard a conversation between Skye and Jeffrey on her birthday? Is that true?”

“I didn’t mean to.” She felt her eyes well up. “I know it was my fault for eavesdropping.”

“Maybe or maybe not. As a rule, I don’t recommend eavesdropping, but it turns out that good has come out of this.”

Batty shook her head no. Although she didn’t like disagreeing with her father, no good had come, only guilt and sorrow.

“In that conversation, Skye suggested that you’re alive because your mother sacrificed herself by not treating her cancer. That she died to save you. Is that what you heard and what you believe?”

“Yes, Daddy. I’m so sorry. I’m so—”

He put his finger on her lips to shush her. “No more apologizing. Now I just need you to listen for a little bit. Can you do that?”

“I think so.”

“Good. Your mother and I—” He took his glasses off, cleaned them, and put them back on. “It might be easier for me to tell this as a story. Okay?”

Batty nodded, and he began again.

“Once there was a man named—well, me—and a woman named Elizabeth, but mostly we called her Lizzy, and they fell deeply in love and got married. They both wanted children, and Lizzy wanted four of them. We also wanted the children to be close in age. I’m three years older than your aunt Claire, not all that far apart, but still we didn’t always get along when we were kids. Once I tried to give her away to the people who lived two doors down. Did I ever tell you that story? No? There’s way too much I haven’t told you.” He took Batty’s hand, kissed it, then kept hold of it. “Lizzy and I planned on having four children, one every two years, but when Skye showed up so soon after Rosalind, we decided we might as well just keep going, and then there was Jane. Three healthy, delightful babies, all in a row, and we were certain that the fourth would be along soon to join them. But when she didn’t come and didn’t come, we decided to be content with our three. And we were content, for more than five years, until—it seemed
almost miraculous at the time—Lizzy discovered that she was pregnant again.”

“With me.” The hard part of the story was coming up.

“Yes, you. And we were very excited and happy.”

“But you didn’t know Mommy was sick yet, right?”

“No, but we found out soon—that is, her doctor discovered it during an exam.”

“And that’s when—”

“Shh. This is where you have to listen carefully, because this is where Skye was confused. She and I had a good, long talk—though I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive myself for letting her get confused in the first place and stay that way for so many years. I talked it through with Rosalind and Jane, too, and it turns out that somehow they understood—but Skye, well, children can get things wrong, can’t they? I should have been paying more attention.” He sat quietly, looking out the window, before going back to his tale. “After the cancer was discovered, we took Lizzy to many doctors and got many opinions, but the consensus—I should say, the hope—was that the pregnancy could outrace the cancer, maybe even slow it down. That the cancer could still be treatable after you were born.”

“Oh!”

“Yes. Are you starting to understand?”

“Then Mommy didn’t …”

“She didn’t decide to trade her life for yours, no.
It wasn’t the way Skye saw it, poor kid—she was only seven at the time, remember. No, it wasn’t so black-and-white. We knew that waiting until you were born before treating the cancer would be a gamble, but it was a gamble Lizzy needed to take. She already loved you, you see.”

“But she lost.” Batty clung to her father’s hand, to his strength. “She lost the gamble and died. Skye was right. She did sacrifice herself.”

“You must believe me, Batty—if Lizzy had been given the chance to do it again, she’d have made the same decision, taken the same risk, over and over until the end of time. She told me so, the day you were born.”

Batty had to turn away from her father now, unwilling to watch him as she asked what she most needed to know. “Didn’t you mind, though? Didn’t you resent me?”

“Resent you? I railed against fate, and cancer, and the universe.… Look at me, sweetheart. That’s better. No, I never once for an instant resented you. You were a gift, a part of your mother left behind. You must understand that there are never guarantees with a disease like cancer. Lizzy could have undergone every treatment available and still died. And then we wouldn’t have had you, either.”

Again Batty turned away from him, but this time it was to cry in her pillow for a while. They were not misery tears but ones of relief, and her father stayed with her, keeping hold of her hand until she was done.

“Thank you, Daddy,” she said, sniffing but smiling.

“You’re welcome, daughter of mine. Now, your birthday is tomorrow. I know you’ve been reluctant, shall we say, to discuss your party.”

“Reluctant?” She had to smile even more at that understatement.

“Yes, well, I think I understand now what was going on. What do you think about making it a joint party for Nick, because of his going away tomorrow night? Would you like that?”

“I would like that very much.”

“You’ve forgiven him for taking you off the bus?”

“Yes, Daddy. Maybe I’ve grown up a little since then.”

“Humph. We can hope.”

She stuck out her tongue at him.

“Despite that attractive face you’re making, I’m sure Jane and Rosalind want to see you, too, so I’ll send them in soon. Skye has gone over to Molly’s house for the rest of the day—she said she needed to get away to think, and it might take her a while to work this out for herself. By the way, she also knows that you were trying to get to Boston and Jeffrey when you boarded that bus.”

“Did Ben—”

“He didn’t give up your secret, though I have the feeling your sisters tried to force it out of him. No, I made an educated guess, and I’m embarrassed at how long it took me to get there.”

“Is Skye angry that I tried to get to Jeffrey?”

“I don’t think so. She needs to think about that, too—how banning him affects the rest of us. You know, Lizzy told me that Skye would have the most trouble coping with her death. Maybe because the two of them were so much alike, with their crazy, stubborn—” He broke off and smiled at Batty. “But you inherited your mother’s love of music. You know that, right? She always said that if she could be anything in the world, she would choose opera singer. Not that she had the voice—it was sweet but not strong, and not always quite on key, either—but she loved singing, anyway. She sang to you in the hospital, whenever she had the strength.”