Summer of the Gypsy Moths (13 page)

“
W
ell?” Angel asked, for the third or fourth or tenth time. She was wedged into her favorite spot on the counter, beside the refrigerator. “What are we going to do? Do we have to leave?”

My chest still hurt as though I had been kicked in the heart, but I lifted my head off the table. “It's all been for nothing. It was never her house.” I put my head back down into the cradle of my arms.

Angel picked up the chicken and rooster salt and pepper shakers, made them kiss, then put them down, lining them up together on the same counter tile I always kept them on.
The one Louise had always kept them on. “Okay, then.” She didn't move off the counter, though—she just sat there staring at me for a long time.

“All right. Me too,” I finally said, knowing what she was thinking. “I wish we could stay, too.” For so many reasons. Because of the blueberries. Because my mother had been here. Because we had worked so hard and because I hated quitting things. Because of George, and Katie and all the new families that were coming. Because of Angel. And Louise. “But…”

“I know.” Angel glanced out the window to where George was mowing. “Are you going to tell him?”

I nodded. I couldn't say the word “yes” out loud.

“Now?”

I nodded again.

Angel nodded, too. “Okay. Back to plan A, then. I'll get my stuff.”

“Where are you going?”

“New Bedford. My aunt wrote. She's there now, staying with a friend of a relative of a friend or something. I guess I'll go there. Maybe hide out until she gets a place to live. I don't know.” She slid off the counter. “But I'm not going into another home.”

Angel pulled the Earl Grey tin off the shelf and counted out the money. “A hundred eighty-six,” she said. She
counted out ninety-three dollars and laid it on the table in front of me.

I picked up the money and tried to think of a single thing it would buy me. I gave it back to Angel. “Use it to get to your aunt. Don't hitch,” I said. “That's a
rule
, got it? And eat some fruit once in a while.”

Angel smiled a little, then leaned over and hugged me hard. She stuffed the money into her pocket and turned to leave. “I know I should go out there and tell him with you,” she said, pausing at the doorway. “But I can't.”

“It's okay.”

“I'm sorry.”

“It's okay.”

And then I went outside.

George was starting on the little strip of grass beside Louise's house. His house, I corrected myself. “I have to tell you something. It's about Louise. It's something bad,” I practiced as I walked over. I planted myself in his path, taking tiny sips of air in and out to steady myself.

George leaned down and cut the mower. “Hey.”

“I have to tell you something,” I said. And my voice was only a little shaky. “It's about Louise.” Then I stopped—the new Mr. and Mrs. Gull were heading over from their cottage, swinging their toddler between them.

“Do you happen to have a child safety gate here?”
Mrs. Gull asked. “Please say yes. We each thought the other one packed it, and—”

“I really thought you said you had it,” Mr. Gull cut in.

“No, I remember you said you had it, I'm sure—”

Mr. and Mrs. Gull kept breaking into each other's sentences and laughing about how impossible it had been to pack with Trevor being mobile. The little boy tried to make a break for it, but Mr. Gull swept him up under his arm, still squirming. “This little guy is really motoring around these days. He's into everything….”

“Sorry, no,” George said. “The nearest shopping center is in Hyannis. But maybe you could try the hardware store here.”

Mrs. Gull sighed, and Mr. Gull planted his little boy on his hip. They turned to leave.

“Wait,” I said. “There are some adjustable screens in the shed—the old-fashioned kind you slide open to fit the window? Maybe one of those would work.”

George and the Gulls followed me to the shed, but halfway there, George's phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket to look at the number. “You go on ahead. I have to take this,” he said. “It's the boat.”

We found the screens and brought the cleanest one over to Gull's front doorway and fitted it in place. It was a little short, but it would do. “Make sure he doesn't chew on the
top,” I said. “See how it's a little rusty there? Maybe you could wrap a beach towel around it.”

I left the Gulls installing a second screen across the back door to the deck, and headed back over to George. I had to finish it now, while we had a minute alone.

George was just snapping his phone shut when I got there. “I have to go,” he said. “Emergency at the boat.”

“The bilge pump?”

“Yeah, but worse. Electrical fire. Johnny Baker's in the emergency room with second-degree burns. I don't know any more. I've got to go down there now, and I'll be back…” He looked at the mower and then his watch. “I don't know when I'll be back. Did that screen do the trick?”

“It did,” I said.

“Good job. You know, you fit in here. You can think on your feet, and you don't get too riled up. Louise must be so glad you're here. And so am I. This year, I don't know what I would have done if you weren't here, with Louise laid up and all. Well, I'd better be off to the boat.”

“Don't worry about anything here,” I said. I suddenly felt elated, like I could lift right off the ground. “We'll take care of everything. You can count on us.”

George turned. “I know that. I always do.” Then he hurried into his truck. A cloud of dust and shells spat up as he spun away.

I ran back into our house. “Angel!” I yelled, pounding up the stairs, hoping I wasn't too late.

She was there at the foot of her bed, folding T-shirts into crisp origami packets. “You told him?”

“Nope,” I said. “We can't go. He needs us.”

The smile on Angel's face got wider and wider as I explained. “He really needs us,” she agreed. “And it's not like Louise is going to get any…”

“No. A little longer won't make a difference to Louise.”

“How long?”

“I don't know. Until he doesn't need us, I guess.”

“Perfect,” Angel said.

 

I went outside and stood over the mower. I remembered that I'd seen George do three things to start it. I thumbed the rubber button on the top of the handle a bunch of times like he had, flipped the choke lever forward, and then leaned over and gave that starter cord the yank of its life. The mower roared up, startling a cloud of blue butterflies and a pair of crows and filling the air with the smell of gasoline. The smell of going somewhere I'd never been before.

I discovered I liked mowing. Seeing the lawn grow neater, stripe by stripe—as if I were ironing wide green ribbons with the mower—calmed me down the way cleaning
did. It helped me see things clearly. And what I saw was this: It didn't matter that my mom and I weren't going to inherit this house. Louise hadn't owned it either, and yet it was hers. It was hers because she kept it clean, because she had painted the cabinets yellow, because she baked pies in it and grew a garden beside it and tended those blueberry bushes. She'd tied herself to this place.

I'd been tying myself to this place too, and so it felt like mine. I'd been taking care of the cottages, and the blueberry patch, and the families who came to stay, and now here I was mowing the lawn. I'd tied myself to all of it.

And then something struck me—so obvious I couldn't believe I'd missed it: The person George hired to replace Louise was going to have everything that mattered.

I knew who that person had to be. I just had to get her the job.

 

George called that night, and I was ready.

“Oh, right. Bingo. With Anita,” he said when I told him Louise wasn't home. I didn't disagree.

“When she gets back, you tell her I've got a big mess on my hands. I've got to tear out the fried wiring and replace it, then put in a new pump. Johnny Baker's going to be fine, but I need to find someone to fill in for him for a week or two, train him to the gear…. I won't be available much.
I'll send someone over to finish the mowing.”

“I already did it,” I said. “George, guess what? My mother's coming here soon—”

“You did it? You mean you mowed the lawn?”

“Yep, but about my mother—”

“You got the mower started? You gotta be strong to do that. Don't tell me you were wearing those flip-flops!”

“No. Sneakers.” I sighed. This was going to be trickier than I'd hoped.

“Boots are better. And long pants, always—the mower chips up stones and shells all the time. Tell me you wore long pants.”

“Shorts,” I admitted.

“Well,” he said. “As long as you're all right. Next time, though: boots and long pants. And safety glasses—don't want you to lose an eye. But thank you. You're a one, Stella by Starlight. You're a one. Oh, hey, I almost forgot. You wanted to tell me something about Louise.”

“Oh, I…it's not important. Never mind. But George…you know, my mom's going to be coming here pretty soon. By the end of the summer.”

“That so?”

From just those two words, I knew that Louise had told him some things about my mother, and that none of them were good.

“She used to be kind of flighty, I know, but she's doing much better now. Really responsible.”

“That's good. Well, thanks again for the mowing. You're a one, all right.”

“Wait. It's been tough, you know,” I said in a rush. “I mean, can you imagine? Losing your father when you're little, then your mother, then not having a place to live….”

“I do think that's tough,” he said slowly, as if he had to choose each word carefully. “I said so to Louise when she told me.”

“She told you how hard it's been for my mom?” I hadn't expected this.

“Your mom? No, she was talking about…”

There was a long silence, but I heard the word that George didn't say. “Me?” My voice was so small, I almost didn't recognize it. “What did Louise say about me?” I asked, bigger and louder.

I heard George sigh. “All right,” he said after another long pause. “Exact words. She said, ‘That girl doesn't have a father or a mother or a home. She needs some taking care of, and I'm the one who's meant to do it.'”

 

When I hung up with George, I went to my room, closed the door, and lay down on my bed. Everything Louise had told George was true—I didn't have a father or a mother
or a home right now—but it still didn't seem to have much to do with me.

My home—my grandmother's home—well, I used to miss that. A lot. But since coming to Louise's, I hadn't.

And I didn't actually miss my parents.

My mother? All my life, she'd been coming and going. She'd be back soon, because the court told her to take those classes and get us a home. She always came back.

And I didn't miss my father, because you can't miss someone you don't remember—I'd been only two when he left, and two-year-olds aren't known for their great memories. My mother refused to talk about him, and I only found out the two things I knew about him—that he played the trombone and that he had named me—by accident.

I closed my eyes to replay the memory. A lady had come to visit my mother. I was fascinated with her fingernails—they were long and painted a silvery purple. My mother had shooed me inside and plopped me in front of the television, turned up loud, then joined the lady out on the porch, carrying a pitcher of something frosty and pink. I could still hear them laughing and talking over the program.

“So what do you hear from your trumpet player?” Silver Nails asked, and something in my four-year-old self knew to pay attention. I slipped over to the window and listened.

“Trombone player,” my mother said. “And wasn't that
just perfect? He thought he could slide in and out of my life, in and out like a trombone, leaving nothing but pretty music.”

“Does he ever try to see…” Somehow I knew Silver Nails was tilting her head inside, toward me.

“Uh-uh. I didn't even tell him we were moving up here. Why bother? The limit of his fathering skills was naming her.”

“He named her? Oh, I wondered,” said Silver Nails.

“Some old-time song he knew. ‘Stella by Starlight.' Said it was his favorite. I suppose it could have been worse—he also loved one called ‘Minnie the Moocher.' Huh…Stella!” The way my mother said it that afternoon, my name felt like a slap to my cheek. “Stella is burdensome enough—I don't think I could take having a kid named Minnie!” Then they clinked their glasses and howled like that was a good one.

I wasn't laughing, though. I couldn't have known what the word “burdensome” meant at four, but my heart hurt from it all the same.

Now, I sat up as it occurred to me: Katie Sandpiper was four—exactly the age I had been then. I got up and knelt by the window and looked down over the cottages. I tried to imagine Katie listening to her mother howling with laughter over her name, saying things like that about her
father. Even when I pictured Katie in my old house instead of the perfect cottage below me, I couldn't imagine it.

And then I realized something. These perfect cottages didn't make the families happy. It was the other way around: The happy families made my cottages perfect. That was the magic.

I went back to my bed. I lay very still and called up my movie, because just then I really needed to picture my mother peaceful and happy to be home here with me. I closed my eyes and rolled it out: my mother coming into Louise's kitchen, hanging her jacket over the chair and sighing. But a weird thing happened. My mother still wore the “I won the daughter lottery and I'm staying right where I am” smile, but this time,
she
was the one at the stove, and
I
was the one leaning in to see what was cooking. And the pot was full of orange food.