Raising Hope (6 page)

“Hooray!” Ruth, Sara Lynn, and Mamie cheer, and Sara Lynn slides out of her chair to adjust the lighting. I blink at the brightness, and Ruth hands me a knife.

“Go ahead and cut,” she says, and I place the knife into the cake slowly and carefully, so as to cut a nice, even slice.

The dining room is quiet until I finally slice a piece, and then they all sigh happily when I get it onto the plate Ruth has set next to the cake. I smile as I reach across the table and put the plate of cake at Mamie’s place. She’s sitting up straight and prim in her yellow sundress, and she says, “Age before beauty.” We all laugh, even though we’ve heard her say this a million times, whenever any of us serves her first.

Then I cut another piece, and I’m more confident this time because everyone knows that cutting the first piece is hardest by far. I slide this plate over to Ruth, since she’s the cook. “Don’t mind if I do try my own creation here,” she says, rubbing her hands over the plate like she can’t wait to dig in.

Sara Lynn’s piece comes next. “Just a sliver, Hope,” she says as I lift the knife again. Her hair is still damp from her shower and falling straight and blond down her back. She’s wearing a white sundress and no shoes. I can smell her honeysuckle body lotion.

I slice off a huge hunk for myself. “Too much sugar,” Sara Lynn objects.

“Well, it is her birthday,” Ruth points out.

“All right,” Sara Lynn says, giving in with a sigh. “But that’s it.”

We pick up our forks and eat in silence until we’re done. The cake tastes too good for us to bother making conversation; we just shovel it in until it’s gone. “Uuuhhh,” I groan, finishing the last bite. “I’m so full.”

“I should say so,” says Sara Lynn.

“Too full to open presents?” Ruth asks, leaning back in her chair and patting her stomach.

“I’ll clear the table,” says Sara Lynn, rising as she gently stacks up the plates—“Careful with that china,” Mamie reminds her—“then Hope can open her presents.”

Ruth jumps up to help, and Sara Lynn says, “Ruth, sit. You’ve been on your feet all day.”

“If you insist.” Ruth plops back down in her chair and stretches her arms to the ceiling. “Mmm-mmm, that was good, if I don’t say so myself!” She puts her elbows on the table and leans toward me. “So, what do you think you’re getting?” she asks, nodding at the presents piled up in the corner.

“A makeover,” I say right away. I’ve been teasing Ruth and Sara Lynn about it for a month, arguing that I’m old enough to wear makeup. I get a tingly feeling all over when I picture myself at school, pulling out my makeup bag in the girls’ room and casually putting on a little blush as I study myself in the mirror. I’d better be getting a makeover; it’ll really stink if I’m the only seventh-grader still wearing just plain old ChapStick.

“Hmm,” teases Ruth, “you’re awfully sure about that. How do you know you’re not getting a dollhouse instead?”

“My sister Julia Rae and I had the most beautiful dollhouse when we were girls,” says Mamie. I roll my eyes at Ruth. We’ve all heard about the dollhouse a million times. The little dining room table with little chairs, the little beds, the little cradle that really rocked, the miniature pots and pans. “You know, everything was tiny,” Mamie says as if she’s remembering this for the first time in sixty years.

Ruth and I just listen politely until Sara Lynn glides back in and claps her hands together. “Now,” she says, “let’s get to those presents.” She picks up the pile sitting on a chair in the corner and brings them over to me.

I look at the wrapped gifts with bows and ribbons hanging off them—there’s no doubt that Sara Lynn wrapped these—and hesitate. I wave my hands over the pile and say, “Oooh, I don’t know which one to pick!” Finally, I grab the biggest box and shake it. It’s not very heavy, and from the way something in there moves back and forth, making rustling sounds, I can tell it’s clothes.

“Don’t you want to save the nice paper?” Mamie asks as I tear open the pink paper with little white polka dots. Well, I could care less about the wrapping paper, so I just keep ripping.

When I open the box and pull away layers of pink tissue paper, I take out the most beautiful sundress. It’s light purple, my favorite color, with spaghetti straps that cross over in the back and a floaty, flared skirt. It’s the one I admired at the mall a few weeks ago, and I smile widely as I picture myself in it, beautiful and grown-up, the purple skirt fluttering as I walk. “I love it!” I say, holding it up to myself and then tossing it to one side.

The next package I pick up is flat and square, and sure enough, when I tear off the paper, there are three CDs of music I like. “Thanks,” I say, and I set them down on top of my new dress and grab the next present, a small rectangular one that feels light.

“This one is something you might be interested in,” Ruth says. I rip the paper fast, open the box, and—yay!—it’s a gift certificate for a makeover at Hallon’s Department Store.

“I knew it!” I scream, jumping up and down. “My makeover!” I run around the table to hug Ruth, Sara Lynn, and Mamie.

“Beth Connors is going to do it,” Sara Lynn tells me, reaching up to pat my arms around her neck. “Ruth told her we want a natural look for a young girl.”

“A little light blush and lipstick,” says Ruth.

“Don’t you think she’s a bit young yet for all that?” Mamie asks.

“The girls all wear it,” Ruth explains as I dance around, holding my little piece of paper that’s a ticket to the new me. All I can think about is how pretty I’m going to be, so pretty that no one will even know me, so pretty that anything in the world will be possible.

At 11:37, I slide out of bed and walk over to my bedroom window that overlooks the backyard. My birthday is almost over, and I’m just not sleepy. Plus, I’m driving myself half-crazy by watching the numbers on my digital clock turn. There’s a big old half-moon out my window and lots of stars. I can see Ruth sitting on the terrace, her long legs stretched out in front of her, looking up at the night sky, too.

Whenever I think of Ruth, I always picture her moving in lots of different directions all at once. In my mind, I see her cooking something on the stove, putting dishes in the dishwasher, peeling carrots over the sink, and visiting with Mamie—all at the same time, in perpetual motion. But here she is just sitting, looking up at the sky and not doing a thing. There’s a funny little knot in the pit of my stomach when I see her like this—not scared, exactly, but the dreading feeling I get right before I get scared, the “uh-oh, here it comes” feeling. I don’t like people to be different from the way they are in my mind. It makes me feel like they’ve changed all the rules without bothering to fill me in on it. I jump up from the window and run out of my room. I want to go ask her, “Hey, remember me?” I want her to stop this lonely feeling creeping up inside me.

I run down the back stairs and through the darkened kitchen—just the little light on over the stove—and step onto the porch. The wooden planks of the porch floor are cool on my bare feet. The screen door to the outside creaks as I open it, and Ruth turns at the sound.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?” she whispers.

I run down the steps and scoot in next to her, saying, “Can’t sleep.” She puts an arm around my shoulders and I lay my head against her. I put my arms around her waist and hug her tightly, like I haven’t done in a long time, like I don’t ever want to let her go.

“What’s the trouble?” she murmurs, rubbing my back. My eyes blur as I look up at the sky, and I shrug.

“Sometimes there’s a letdown after a big day like today,” she suggests.

I nod, not wanting to talk in case I start bawling like a baby. No use, though; tears are spilling down my face. I’m feeling sad for a lot of different reasons, but they sound so stupid that I can’t possibly say them. I’ve been so busy being happy about turning twelve that I haven’t noticed until this minute that I’m sad about growing up, too. I’m sad Ruth and Sara Lynn are getting older; and if I’m a year older, does that mean Mamie is a year closer to dying? I’m sad, too, because Anne Frank died for no reason at all, only because people were stupid and hating. I’m sad because I’ll always be an understudy and never a star, not even in my new purple dress. I’m sad that I’ll never know my parents because my mom is dead and my dad, well, he just doesn’t care about me. It’s not fair. The whole world just seems unbearably unfair.

“What’s the matter, kid?” Ruth asks again, and my mind is so confused that I can tell her only one of the reasons, the one that sounds clearest to me.

“Why doesn’t my father want to see me?” I wail. “He’s your brother. Do you know?”

“Shh,” she says, putting her arms around me and squeezing tight. She’s quiet a minute and then says, “You know what I think? I think he’s afraid if he sees you, he’ll never want to let you go.”

“That’s dumb,” I protest, pulling away from her and wiping my eyes. “He wouldn’t have to let me go. He’s my father.”

She doesn’t say anything, just rubs my back and tells me to “shh” once in a while.

“Doesn’t he care about me at all?” My shoulders shake even more and I’m crying real hard, and some of this is about my father and the rest of it is about things too hard to put into words. “I don’t know who I am, Ruth. My mother is dead and my father doesn’t want me. I don’t know who I am.”

Ruth smooths my hair and rocks me back and forth until I cry myself out. She chuckles. “Just like when you were a baby. I’d rock you and rock you until you got sick of crying. I’d make deals with you. I’d say, ‘Listen here, Hope. If you shut up that screaming, I’ll take you for a walk in the carriage first thing in the morning.’ It never worked, though. You’d just cry and cry, and I’d rock you until you fell asleep.”

I smile a little, and she goes on. “And then Sara Lynn would come on the scene and take her turn rocking you.” Ruth snorts out a laugh and shakes her head. “She’d put her lips tight together in that way she has, you know? And she’d say, ‘It’s astonishing to me that a baby can make all this noise.’”

I smile at the thought of Sara Lynn being befuddled by a little old baby, and I breathe a long, shaky sigh and wipe my eyes.

Ruth tilts her head back and squints up at the stars. “We loved you, Hope,” she says, her voice all quivery and funny. “We loved you the best we could, and we love you now.”

I hug her, whispering, “I’m sorry.”

She lets me go and jumps up, clearing her throat. “Dammit to hell!” she says. “Too much sugar running around our systems after all that cake!”

She leaps up the porch steps and says, “You coming? I’m going to pop up some popcorn. The only cure for too much sugar is a dose of butter and salt.”

I walk up the steps after her, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. The kitchen brightens as Ruth flicks on all the lights and slams cabinets, gathering the corn and butter and salt.

“Shhh.” Sara Lynn strides into the kitchen in her nightgown, holding a book at her side, her finger marking her place. “Hope’s sleeping.”

Ruth points to me sitting at the table as she pours popcorn kernels into a pan on the stove.

Sara Lynn looks at my red eyes and then back at Ruth. “What’s wrong?” she asks, frowning and folding her arms over her chest. “You’ve both been crying.”

“She was crying worse than I was,” Ruth says, pointing her chin at me. She sounds so mad about it that Sara Lynn and I laugh.

“What happened?” Sara Lynn asks.

“Oh, it’s nothing but Bobby,” Ruth says, shaking the pan over the stove.

“Bobby?!” Sara Lynn’s eyes pop wide open and her hand flies up to her throat. “What about Bobby?”

“She was just wondering why he doesn’t come around.”

“Oh, Hope.” Sara Lynn sits next to me at the table and sighs.

Ruth adds, “She says she doesn’t know who she is. On account of not having any parents.”

“Honestly, Hope, that’s absolutely ridiculous—Ruth and I are your parents,” Sara Lynn protests. “Think of the poor children who don’t have anyone to take care of them.”

I set my elbows on the table and put my chin in my hands. I swear, if I lost a leg, Sara Lynn would tell me to buck up, at least I still had one left.

We’re all quiet now. Sara Lynn puckers her forehead, Ruth scowls at the stove as the popcorn begins to pop, and I roll the edges of my place mat until Sara Lynn puts her hand over mine to make me stop. I listen to the popcorn popping faster and faster, and I wonder what Sara Lynn and Ruth are thinking right now. I can hear the clock on the wall tick when Ruth takes the pan off the stove.

I take a deep breath as Ruth slams down the bowl of popcorn on the table and pulls out a chair to sit with us. “It’s not that I don’t love you,” I try to explain, “but you’re not my real mother and father. Other kids can say, ‘Oh, I have my mother’s eyes,’ or, ‘I’m good at art like my dad.’” I throw up my hands. “How am I ever supposed to find out who I take after, or even who I am?”

“You take after us,” Sara Lynn says. She purses her lips together and nods her head up and down. “You’re the spitting image of Ruth and me.”

“Well,” Ruth says, taking a handful of popcorn, “you do look a lot like me.”

“And you like to dress up and keep yourself looking nice like I do,” adds Sara Lynn.

“You can get up on your high horse sometimes, like her,” says Ruth, jerking her head at Sara Lynn and twisting one side of her mouth up into a smile.

“And you sometimes forget your manners the way Ruth does,” Sara Lynn finishes, tossing her head.

Ruth snorts out a laugh and pushes the popcorn bowl toward us. “Eat,” she commands.

Sara Lynn chews her popcorn with intention, like she’s thinking hard about something. When she swallows, she says slowly, “Listen, here’s the thing: You don’t have any of my genes in you, and you have Ruth’s only indirectly, but you have our stories running through your veins. That’s what makes you ours.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, not understanding. Ruth is looking at Sara Lynn as if she could use a little explanation, too.

“Well, we raised you. You’ve been living with us since you were a baby, for twelve years now. You know our ways and our mannerisms and our stories. Our stories of who we are have rubbed off on you. They’ve gone into making you who you are—Hope Teller.”