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Authors: Barbara O'Connor

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BOOK: Greetings from Nowhere
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Loretta stared down at the package in her lap.
“Go on,” her mother said. “Open it.”
But Loretta wanted to hold on to that feeling just a little longer. That fluttery feeling in her stomach that came with wondering who in the world would send her a package and what in the world could it be.
She ran her hand over the wrinkled brown paper. She traced the twine with her finger. She studied the messy handwriting in blue ink.
Loretta Murphy
452 Jacob's Lane
Calhoun, Tennessee
That was her, all right.
Her name.
Her street.
Her town.
Her state.
She lifted the package and gave it a little shake next to her ear. Nothing rattled.
“Come on, Lulu,” her mother said. “I'm dying to know what it is.”
Loretta looked up at her mother.
“Who could have sent it?” she said.
Her mother put her arm around her. “You'll never know if you don't open it,” she said, giving Loretta's shoulder a jiggle.
Loretta turned the package over and inspected the bottom of it. She lifted the twine and checked underneath.
No return address anywhere.
Just a postmark.
Henryville, IN
“What state is IN?” Loretta asked.
Her mother narrowed her eyes and tilted her chin up. “Hmmm. Indiana, I think,” she said.
“Indiana,” Loretta repeated softly.
“Okay, Lulu,” her mother said. “I'll be in the kitchen. Call me when you open it.”
She stood up with a grunt and shuffled into the kitchen, her denim shorts swish, swish, swishing.
Loretta looked down at the package again.
Slowly, she pulled the twine off one side. Then the other.
Slowly, she untaped the paper from the ends of the box.
Slowly, she took the paper off.
She opened the box.
Crumpled white tissue paper lay on top.
Loretta closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and lifted the tissue paper out of the box.
She opened her eyes.
Right on top was a note.
On yellow lined paper. Written in the same blue ink and the same messy handwriting as the address on the outside of the box.
Dear Loretta:
Your mother passed on to the other side at 6:16 a.m. on June 6.
She asked me to send you all her earthly possessions, enclosed herewith.
She was a good person.
She was my friend.
And that was all.
No name.
No goodbye.
Nothing.
Loretta felt a swirl of confusion.
Your mother?
What did that mean? Her mother was in the kitchen making deviled eggs.
Passed on to the other side?
What did that mean? The other side of
what
?
Loretta stared at the note and let the confusion swirl around her until it settled, like dust on the road.
And then she began to understand.
The mother in this note must be the one her parents called her
other mother
. The one who had carried her for nine months and given birth to her and surely loved her more than anything but wanted her to have a good life, not a hard life.
The mother Loretta had never known.
The mother Loretta
did
know was the one humming in the kitchen, making deviled eggs. The one who smelled like lavender talcum powder. The one who made doll clothes out of dishcloths and cradles out of oatmeal boxes. The one who called her Lulu and said to Loretta's father nearly every day, “Aren't we lucky, Marvin?”
Loretta nodded.
Yep. That was what
your mother
meant in this note.
But what about
passed on to the other side
?
Loretta felt her heart squeeze up.
“Mama?” she called into the kitchen.
She could see her mother at the kitchen counter, mashing egg yolks in one of her heavy yellow bowls with cherries on the side.
“Um, Mama?” she called a little louder.
Her mother came into the living room, wiping her hands on her apron. “What's the matter, Lulu?” she said.
Loretta showed her mother the note and waited.
The kitchen clock went
tick, tick, tick
.
Loretta's mother sat on the couch beside her and put her arm around her. Then she put her warm, soft cheek next to Loretta's and rocked.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Just like she had done when Loretta was little.
“This is a sad, sad day, Lulu,” she said.
Now Loretta knew for sure what
passed on to the other side
meant.
Her other mother had died.
Loretta's insides felt all jumbled up. Like a jigsaw puzzle with too many pieces and nowhere to put them.
“I wonder who sent this,” Loretta said.
Her mother stopped rocking and took Loretta's face in both her hands. “I don't know,” she said, shaking her head.
They sat quietly for a while, both of them staring down at the box in Loretta's lap. Outside the open window behind them, the sprinkler sputtered in circles in the front yard.
Across the street, some kids were playing. Laughing. Hollering. Someone called, “Not it!”
Loretta took the things out of the box and laid them out on the coffee table, one by one.
A tattered pincushion shaped like a lady's high-heeled shoe.
A Japanese fan with white flowers and a tassel of silky red ribbon.
A tarnished silver pocket watch engraved with the initials
WKL
.
A picture of a hummingbird torn from a magazine.
A white leather Bible.
Tiny scissors shaped like a bird.
A sparkly poodle dog pin.
A pale blue handkerchief with the letter
P
embroidered in pink.
A heart-shaped box made of red velvet.
And a silver charm bracelet.
“Aren't those some nice treasures,” Loretta's mother said.
Loretta nodded. She couldn't take her eyes off all those things. She picked them up one at a time, turning them over and over.
Feeling them.
Smelling them.
She fingered the lacy edges of the handkerchief. She leafed through the Bible pages. She opened and closed the
Japanese fan. She took the lid off the heart-shaped box. Inside was a photograph. A creased and faded photograph of a young girl. A girl about ten or eleven. A girl about Loretta's age. The girl stood on a rock in the middle of a creek, wearing a red-checkered bathing suit and holding a towel in one hand.
Her legs were bowed and skinny.
Like Loretta's.
Her hair was straight and dark.
Like Loretta's.
“This is her,” Loretta whispered.
She stared down at the photograph. She wished she could do magic.
Abracadabra
and
poof
! The girl in the photograph would come to life, jumping off the rock and right into Loretta's living room. She would sit on the floor across from them and tell them all about herself.
“How'd she know where I live?” Loretta asked.
Her mother shook her head. “I don't know, Lulu,” she said.
Loretta studied the charm bracelet.
“Look at these,” she said, holding the bracelet up so the charms dangled in front of them.
She examined each tiny charm.
A cowboy boot.
A starfish.
A barrel with
Niagara Falls
engraved on the side.
Mickey Mouse.
A map of Vermont.
A bear holding a little sign that said
Great Smoky Mountains
.
A palm tree.
The Statue of Liberty.
A cactus.
“I wonder what she was like,” Loretta said, laying the bracelet out on the coffee table.
Her mother put her soft, plump hand on Loretta's knee. “I bet she was just like you,” she said. “Sweet and smart and funny and—”
Her mother snapped her fingers. “Hey, wait a minute …”
Loretta studied her mother's face. “What?” she said.
“I bet those charms are
places
!”
“Places?”
“Yeah, you know, special places. I bet those are places she visited.”
Loretta looked down at the bracelet. “Really?”
Her mother nodded. “Sure,” she said. “I bet you anything. You know how people get charms that mean something special to them. And look at all those.” She nodded toward the bracelet. “Every single one of them is something that comes from a
place
.”
“Oh, yeah,” Loretta said. “Like maybe that boot's from Texas.”
“And that cactus might be from Arizona,” her mother said.
“What about the starfish?” Loretta said. “Florida maybe?”
“Maybe.”
“She sure went to a lot of places, didn't she?”
“She sure did.”
Loretta put all her other mother's earthly possessions back into the box. She covered them with the tissue paper and put the lid on. She smoothed out the wrinkled brown paper with the palm of her hand and folded it into a small square.
She put both hands on top of the box in her lap and listened to the sputter of the sprinkler in the yard.
The slow, steady breathing of her mother next to her.
The tinkly music of an ice cream truck way off in the distance somewhere.
Then she opened the box, took out all her other mother's earthly possessions, and studied them one by one all over again.
 
 
When Loretta's father came home, she showed him the box. She read him the note. She took out each thing and put it on the coffee table in front of him. She showed him the photograph of the girl on the rock.
Her father pursed his lips and nodded.
Then he cupped his warm, rough hand around the back of her neck.
The kitchen clock went
tick, tick, tick
.
“Well, now,” he finally said.
“Mama and I think those charms are from places she visited,” Loretta said. “Do you think so?”
“I reckon that might be true,” he said, giving the back of Loretta's neck a little squeeze.
Loretta put all the things back into the box. The smell of fried chicken drifted out of the kitchen.
“I wonder what she was like,” Loretta said.
Her father took his baseball cap off and scratched his head.
That night at the dinner table, they talked about the charm bracelet, trying to guess where each charm had come from. Wondering out loud which place Loretta's other mother had liked best.
BOOK: Greetings from Nowhere
6.12Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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