“What do you mean?”
“I’m tired, sweetheart. Let me rest.” She yawns and gestures to Darya’s bits of clay, which are on Mama’s bedside table. “Don’t forget to take your art project.”
Darya gathers them up. They need to dry, anyway. For two whole days, they’ll need to dry, because that’s how long it takes when they have to air-dry.
Using the oven would make it quicker, but Darya and Natasha can’t use the oven. They’re just kids.
Mama can use the oven, because she’s a grown-up. But she’s having a gray spell.
For a little while, it seemed like the gray had lifted.
But, no.
Darya tiptoes out of the room and closes the door behind her. She never does finish her art project, the one with the clay and the tree made out of twigs and the little girl hung to look like she’s falling. She and Mama keep doing picture puzzles, though. She gets better and better at thinking outside the box, and when Mama gives her the picture puzzle for that expression, she solves it in a jiffy.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Monday arrived, and Darya was jumpy with anticipation. She’d be meeting Mama in five days. Well, not meeting her—Mama was Mama; Darya “met” her on the day she was born and lived with her for five years afterward—but meeting her for real as a teenager, and she vacillated from desperately excited to petrified to foot-twitchingly impatient.
Round and round went her thoughts, just like in the song kids used to sing in kindergarten. ’Round and ’round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel. The monkey thought ’twas all in fun . . . Pop! goes the weasel.
She kept busy, hoping to make time pass faster. She went home from school with Suki a couple of times, and Suki used a new kit of hers to give Darya a “gel manicure.” After Suki painted her nails, she had her stick them into a machine that blasted them with ultraviolet light. When Darya pulled them out thirty seconds later—“Thirty seconds! That’s all!” Suki exclaimed—they were dry.
“And guess what?” Suki said. “The polish’ll stay on for ten to fourteen days. No chips or anything.”
That evening, while Darya was opening a Dr Pepper, the sparkly blue polish on her index finger came off. It fell away in a single, perfectly formed oval.
She pried at the polish on her other fingers, and pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop. She was the proud owner of ten creepy fake nails, like the fingernails of a girl who sank to the bottom of a freezing lake and died.
With Steph, who was in Darya’s algebra class, Darya passed notes back and forth about Benton Hale, whom Steph had a crush on. Lots of girls had crushes on Benton Hale. Last year, Natasha had been one of them, and for a short while, he seemed to like her back. He’d possibly sent her secret admirer notes, Natasha had told her sisters. But then, after Natasha finally got up the nerve to thank him, he asked her advice on how to impress another girl!
Except—crap.
Darya, all these months later, realized that maybe history needed to be rewritten.
She left a note for me, Natasha had told Darya on Darya’s birthday, and by “she,” Natasha had meant Mama. Natasha said Mama left lots of notes for her, and that at first she thought they were from someone else, but it turned out they weren’t.
Darya made a mental note to ask Natasha if the notes from Benton were actually from Mama.
Darya spent extra time with Tally as well, hanging out with her in the art room and trying halfheartedly to create something magnificent. It was hopeless, of course. Tally was infinitely more talented than she was. Tally didn’t rub it in, though. She didn’t bring up Darya’s mother again either, and Darya returned the favor by not bringing up Tally’s mom. They had an unspoken understanding, it seemed.
There were a couple of times when the two girls were working side by side, but not talking, when Darya considered sharing the secret of how Mama was back and how Darya would be seeing her in just a few days.
But she didn’t.
So.
She nursed a secret fantasy, though. A week or two from now, once Mama got all the way settled, maybe Darya could invite Tally over and let her see for herself that Mama had come back. No big drama, just everything the way it should be.
Mama would smile at Tally and offer both girls cookies hot from the oven, and Papa would be there, too, humming and giving Mama a quick squeeze every time he passed her, just because he could. Darya wouldn’t rub it in, though, her happy, back-to-normal family.
On Friday evening, Aunt Elena found her after dinner. “I was hoping we could talk,” she said, after knocking on Darya’s door. “Do you have a minute?”
“Sure,” Darya said.
Aunt Elena took a seat on Darya’s bed. She smelled delicious. Aunt Elena always smelled delicious. She had twenty different bottles of perfume, easily.
She bit her bottom lip, then met Darya’s gaze and smiled. Darya smiled back, quizzically.
“Natasha told me that she, ah, gave you the news?” Aunt Elena said.
Darya checked that her door was shut. In a soft voice, she said, “About Mama? Yeah, I’m going to see her tomorrow. I wanted to earlier, but Natasha said it would be better if we waited.” She remembered Aunt Elena’s departure after her birthday dinner. “You’ve seen her already?”
A smile broke over her face. “It’s wonderful having her back. She’s my sister, after all. Can you imagine a life without Natasha or Ava?”
“No, and I don’t have to, because that won’t happen.”
“Of course not. Although I’d have said the same, back when you girls were younger . . .” She let her sentence trail off, then found the end of it and started back up. “But no, you’re right. At any rate, that’s not why I’m here. I’m here to tell you some news of my own.”
“Okay.”
“It’ll be a change for all of us, but a good change, I think.” She swallowed. “It’s not that big of a deal. Just, I’m moving. That’s all.”
Darya drew her eyebrows together. She understood her aunt’s words. She just didn’t understand what they meant.
“I’ve found a garage apartment. It’s charming and I love it. And Vera and I shouldn’t live here forever, should we?”
“Is Aunt Vera going with you?”
“No!” Aunt Elena exclaimed. She blushed. “I mean . . . no. Your aunt and I could benefit from our own space, don’t you think?”
Darya didn’t know what she thought.
“My new apartment is just outside of Old Town. Two minutes by car, twenty if you walk, so you can come see me anytime.”
“But you live here,” Darya said. “You’ve always lived here.”
“Well, no.” Aunt Elena slipped her hands under her thighs. “Before your mom left, I lived near the community college. I taught American literature. Did you know that?” She took a breath. “But now that Klara’s back in town, it seems to me that we should start . . . making a space for her. A clean slate. Slowly, of course.”
“But she’ll come here, right? That’s what you mean?” Darya heard herself say. Her words seemed to float up and out of her before evaporating in the harsh light of her room.
“She’s not sure she’s ready. And the motel she’s in—it’s not the nicest. You might as well know.”
“So what are you saying, that she’s going to stop living in the motel and live with you? In a garage apartment?”
Aunt Elena touched Darya’s knee. “I know this is hard, Darya. It’s hard for all of us.”
Darya felt herself retreating inward. The world, for its part, moved steadily away from her, as if pulled by a giant rubber band.
“Are you going to tell Papa?”
Aunt Elena’s eyes slid away.
“You aren’t going to tell Papa? How can you not tell Papa?!”
“That’s really your mom’s decision. I know it’s hard, I do—”
“I wish you’d stop saying that.”
“But it is. It just is, sweetheart.” Her voice came from far away. “Klara’s
had a rough time of it. Not always, but when she was your age, something happened. Something I keep trying to grab hold of . . .”
There was a stain on Darya’s carpet. How interesting. A dull brownish-gray stain shaped like a comma, but bigger.
“It was because of her Wishing Day,” Aunt Elena said. “You can relate to that, can’t you? Since your own is coming up?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“When Klara was thirteen, she made a wish. Only, it went wrong.”
The world came rushing back. “I know. Natasha told me. About how Papa had a little sister, and her name was Emily, and Mama ‘wished’ her away.”
Aunt Elena studied her. “Listen to me, Darya. It’s important. You didn’t choose to be born into this family. I know that. Although we’re very lucky to have you—and I hope you feel lucky to have us.”
“I do.”
“And I hope you feel lucky to have your mom, even though she left.”
Darya fidgeted. “I do.”
“The thing is, I think Klara left because she felt lost. But I’m afraid she might have come home lost, too.”
Darya drew her knees up to her body and hugged her shins.
“Don’t give up on her,” Aunt Elena said. “That’s all I’m saying.”
“How have I given up on her? How could I have? I haven’t even seen her!”
“I know, I know. Shhh.”
“Are you mad at me because of the Emily thing?”
“I’m not mad, Darya. Did I say I was mad?”
“And anyway, I’m not saying I blame Mama for telling that story, because maybe she does believe it. Just, I don’t, because . . . you know.”
Aunt Elena raised her eyebrows.
“I’m thirteen, Aunt Elena. Also, I’m me. Not Ava, not Natasha, but me. I believe in lots of stuff, but I’m not sure I believe in magic.”
“Ah,” Aunt Elena said. “The thing is, I’m not sure that matters.”
“Then what does?”
Aunt Elena looked wistful. “Whether the magic believes in you.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Finally it was Saturday!
Darya got up at the crack of dawn to help Papa and Ava load Papa’s pickup with finished lutes. The sky was a fiery orange, without a hint of pink or purple. The lutes gleamed in the light, and Darya thought of alchemy: soft wood turned into softer gold.
Papa had on jeans and one of his nicer flannel shirts. Ava was wearing overalls, which she could pull off because she was Ava. Her hair was in two thick braids, and she’d gone so far as to stick a long blade of grass into one of them. She was playing the role of country bumpkin on purpose, maybe with the thought that it might help with sales, or maybe just because it was fun. Or maybe Ava was distracting herself from the news about Mama the same way Darya had tried to do?
Darya liked the “fun” idea better. She wanted Ava to have fun, and she felt guilty about going behind her back to see Mama. She certainly wouldn’t be up this early if not for her guilt, which made her wonder: Where was Natasha?
Well, Natasha was sleeping in, obviously. Which led to a new question: How was she able to sleep in? Did Natasha not feel guilty?
Ava hopped out of the bed of the pickup truck, babbling about the craft festival she and Papa would be heading for. It was two towns over, and it was called the Fall Leaves Fest. There’d be cider and popcorn and face-painting, and was Darya positive she didn’t want to come?
“A hundred percent,” Darya said. “But will you bring me a caramel apple? With chocolate and peanuts on top. Not walnuts.”
“I’ll try,” Ava said.
“If there aren’t any with peanuts, then just caramel and chocolate. But not white chocolate, because white chocolate is a scam.”
“I’ll try,” Ava said, climbing into the truck’s front seat.
“No, you will, because if you don’t, Papa will leave you behind. Right, Papa?”
Papa glanced up from the mileage log he’d been flipping through. “What’s that?”
“Ava has to bring me a caramel apple or you’ll disown her. Right?”
Ava giggled. Papa frowned.
“Disown her?” he said. “Why would I disown Ava?”
“You wouldn’t. I was joking.”
Papa closed his small black notebook and put it in his back pocket. “I don’t understand.”
Darya felt her insides lurch.
“Papa, it was a joke.”
“How is it a joke, when I’ve lost so much already?” Papa said. He stared at Ava, and his pupils dilated. “I would never disown you, Emily. Never.”
Ava went pale. She cast a look at Darya, who felt as if she were coming loose from her body.
“Papa, I know that,” Darya said. “I was just . . . I didn’t mean . . .”
Papa gazed at the sky, which was now the bleached blue of a work shirt washed many times over. Darya sought to see what he saw, and tiny shimmers of light pricked her eyes.
Then, in a flash, Darya saw through to another world, and in that world she saw a ghost of a girl who looked like Ava, though the dress the girl wore was out of style.
Papa climbed into the truck and turned the key. After two false starts, the motor caught, and the real world came back to life.
Ava closed her door and rolled down the window. “Bye! Have a good day!”
“You too,” Darya replied. “Sell lots of lutes!”
“That’s the plan,” Papa said. “And we’ll bring you a caramel apple if they have any, only not with walnuts because walnuts make your tongue burn.”
Darya’s smile slipped. Walnuts did make her tongue burn, but how did Papa know that? She’d told people she didn’t like walnuts. That was all.
“It runs in the family,” Papa said. “We’ll see you this evening.”
He drove off, kicking up rocks from the dirt driveway.
The motel where Mama was staying was worse than Darya had imagined. From the outside, at any rate. It was on the far edge of Willow Hill, dropped into a plot of dry earth and stub grass with nothing nearby but a lonesome gas station. Its courtyard once boasted a pool, but the pool had gone dry long ago. Now it was a concrete pit, run through with cracks and filled with grit and sticks and trash.
There were eight units in the hotel, built in the shape of a U.
“Mama’s in number seven,” Natasha said, coming to a stop when they were several yards away from the building.
Darya’s eyes scanned the doors and rested on the second-to-last. The 7 hung askew, painted a dull red. The door itself was white, or had once been. Now it was weathered and gray.
“It’s kind of depressing,” Natasha said. “I know.”
All Darya cared about was Mama, who was practically close enough to touch. The almost-there-ness of it all scared her, but her excitement was stronger than her fear.
Mama, not twenty feet away.
She smoothed down her hair and tried to calm her galloping heart—and then she just gave herself over to it. She hastened her pace and rapped on Mama’s door so hard her knuckles stung.
“Mama?” she called. “Mama, it’s me. Darya!”
She caught the flutter of curtains and a glimpse of pale skin. She heard a deadbolt slide free, and the door opened. Everything vanished except the woman before her.
Dark hair. Red lipstick. Anxious brown eyes that widened, then welled with tears as Darya flung herself into Mama’s arms, gasping with the rightness of it.
She was four years old again, and also a teenager. Mama was Mama again, always and forever, and if she was different in any way, Darya chose not to notice, because now was a hugging and crying time. A laughing time, too. Great hiccupy laughs, because of how Darya’s tears mixed with Mama’s, making everything salty and gross and warm and lovely.
It was several minutes before they released each other. Even then, Mama kept hold of Darya’s hands.
“Darya,” she said. Her voice sounded deeper than Darya remembered. Huskier. Alt
hough it had been so long since Darya had spoken with her that she was probably just remembering wrong. Memories were like that. Tricky.
“You’re so beautiful,” Mama went on. She caught a lock of Darya’s hair and pulled the curl through her fingers. She smiled. “You’re so big.”
Darya smiled back, her smile pushing all the way to the sides of her face.
Mama craned her neck to peer past Darya. “Natasha? Come on in.”
Natasha squeezed in. It was a tight fit with all three of them wedged within the door frame.
Darya laughed, and Natasha said, “Hi, Mama,” and gave her a quick kiss. She moved to a brown and ugly sofa wedged by the room’s radiator and dropped down.
“Yes, have a seat, absolutely,” Mama said, squeezing Darya’s hands and then releasing them. “I’ll . . . get us some lemonade. If we have any, which we probably don’t.” She punctuated her words with gestures, and both her speech and her mannerisms seemed wound up.
It was normal that there were differences, she supposed. It had been years, after all.
Mama strode toward the room’s minibar, and Darya sat down beside Natasha. The smell of cigarette smoke wafted from the cushions.
“Nope, no lemonade,” Mama said, closing the minibar’s door. A key dangled from its lock, which struck Darya as odd. The minibar was in Mama’s room, which Mama was paying for, so why the lock? Especially since the key was right there!
Mama came over to Darya and Natasha. She sat on the bed, which faced the sofa. She drew her eyebrows together, hopped up again, and returned with a wad of tissues, half of which she handed to Darya. The other tissues she used herself, blowing her nose and dabbing at her eyes.
“We’re a bit of a mess, aren’t we?” she said.
Darya blew her nose, and Mama looked delighted.
“You still do that!” she said.
“Do what?”
“Always,” Natasha told Mama. “She doesn’t know how to blow it any other way.”
Oh, Darya thought. The honking-ness of it. There was a time when it embarrassed her, but she knew no other way.