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partly why kids were scared of her. You don’t have to be scared of her—if she’s
still teaching next year.”
“I am, though. Scared of her.”
Julie looked at her sideways. “Lot scarier stuff right here in this house.”
Winnie frowned, pushed her hand into the pillow near her on her bed.
“Oh, Winnie,” Julie said. “Come here.” She held out her arms. Winnie stayed
where she was. “Oh, poor Winnie-doodle,” Julie said, and she moved down the
bed to where Winnie was, put her arms around her awkwardly, holding her
hands out to keep the nail polish from smudging. Julie kissed the side of
Winnie’s head, and then she let her go.
In the morning, Anita’s eyes were puffy, as though all that sleep had exhausted
her. But she sipped her coffee, and said brightly, “Whew, that was some sleep I
had.”
“I don’t want to go to church this morning,” Julie said. “I’m not ready to have
everyone look at me yet.”
Winnie thought there might be a fight about that, but there wasn’t. “Okay,”
said Anita, after she had considered for a minute. “All right, honey. Just don’t sit
around and mope while we’re gone.”
Julie piled the breakfast dishes into the sink, her pink nails shining. “I won’t,”
she said.
In the hallway, Jim said to Winnie, “Doodle-bug, give your old father a hug,”
but Winnie brushed past him, patting his arm that he held out, before going to
put on her church clothes. In church she sat with her dress sticking to the pew. It
was a hot summer day; the church windows were open but there wasn’t any
breeze. Through the window Winnie saw in the distance a few dark clouds. Next
to her, she heard her father’s stomach growl. He looked at her and winked, but
Winnie looked out the window again. She thought how she had passed by him
when he’d asked for a hug, how she had seen her mother do that to him, too,
only sometimes Anita would touch his shoulders and kiss the air beside his
cheek. Maybe Julie was right, she was Mommy’s girl, and maybe Winnie was
going to turn out to be like her, someone who brushed past people even when
she was smiling; maybe she’d grow up and shoot people in the driveway with a
rifle.
Tiredly, she stood up for the hymn. Her mother reached to straighten a
wrinkle in the back of Winnie’s dress.
On Winnie’s pillow was a folded note. “PLEASE make them think I’m out
taking a walk. I’ve gone to Moody’s to catch the bus. My life depends on this. I
love you, Doodle, I do.” Hot tingles shot through Winnie’s arms and fingers;
even her nose and chin tingled.
“Winnifred,” her mother called. “Come peel some potatoes, please.”
The bus to Boston stopped at Moody’s at eleven thirty. Julie would still be
there, probably trying to stay out of sight, maybe sitting in the grass behind the
store. They could go get her in the car. She’d cry and there’d be a big fight and
someone might have to give her a pill, but they could still do it, she was still
here.
“Winnifred?” Anita called again.
Winnie took her church clothes off, took her hair out of its ponytail, so the
hair would fall in front of her face.
“You all right?” Anita asked.
“I have a headache.” Winnie scooched down and took some potatoes from the
bin in the bottom cupboard.
“You need some food in your stomach,” her mother said. “Where’s your
sister? You’d think she could have started the potatoes.” Anita put the Sunday
steak into the broiling pan.
Winnie washed the potatoes and started to peel them. She filled a pot with
water and cut the potatoes; they plopped into the water. She looked at the clock
above the stove.
“Where
is
she?” Anita asked again.
“Gone for a walk, I think,” Winnie said.
“Well, we’re about to eat,” her mother said, and then Winnie almost cried.
Uncle Kyle had told a story once about being on a train that hit and killed a
teenage girl. He said he would never forget how he sat there looking out the
window of the train as they waited for the police, thinking about the girl’s
parents, how they would still be in their house watching TV or doing the dishes,
not even knowing that their daughter was dead, while he sat on the train and
knew.
“I’ll go look for her,” Winnie said. She rinsed her hands and dried them.
Anita glanced at the clock and turned over the steak. “Just give a holler,” she
said. “Out by the back woods.”
Winnie opened the back door and stepped outside. The clouds were moving
in. The air had gotten chilly and smelled like the ocean. Her father stepped out
onto the back porch. “About to eat, Winnie.” Winnie pulled at the leaves of a
bayberry bush. “Look kind of lonesome out there,” he said.
The phone rang in the kitchen. Her father went back inside and Winnie
followed, watching from the hall.
“Yes, hello, Kyle,” her mother said.
In the afternoon it started to rain. The house got dark and the rain beat down on
the roof and against the big windowpane in the living room. Winnie sat in a chair
and watched the ocean, choppy and gray. Uncle Kyle had gone to Moody’s for a
paper, and he had seen Julie up near the back of the bus as it pulled away. Anita
had rushed into the girls’ bedroom, tearing things apart. Julie’s duffel bag was
gone, and most of her underwear, and her makeup, too. Anita found Julie’s note
to Winnie. “You
knew,
” she said to Winnie, and Winnie understood that
something had changed for good, something more than Julie’s running away.
Uncle Kyle had come over, but now he was gone.
Winnie sat in the living room with her father. She kept thinking of Julie on the
bus riding through the rain, staring out the window at the turnpike going by. She
thought her father was probably picturing this too, maybe imagining the sound
of the bus’s windshield wipers going back and forth.
“What’re you going to do when you finish the boat?” Winnie asked.
Her father looked surprised. “Well,” he said. “Dunno. Go for a ride, I guess.”
Winnie smiled to be nice, because she didn’t think he’d be going anywhere.
“That’ll be fun,” she said.
Toward evening the rain stopped. Anita hadn’t come out of her room. Winnie
tried to figure out if Julie was there yet; she didn’t know how long it took to get
to Boston, but it took a long time.
“I wonder if she’s got some money with her,” her father said, but Winnie
didn’t answer—she didn’t know.
Rain dripped from the side of the roof and off the trees. She thought of all the
starfish she had laid out on the rock, all of them drenched from the rain. After a
while her father stood up and went to the window. “Didn’t plan on things
working out like this,” he said, and Winnie had a sudden thought of him on his
own wedding day. Unlike Anita, he had not been married before. Anita had not
worn a white dress, because of Julie. “You only wear white once,” Anita had
said. There were no wedding pictures—that Winnie knew of, anyway—of her
parents’ wedding day.
Her father turned around. “Pancakes?” he asked her.
Winnie didn’t want pancakes. “Sure,” she said.
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