Better to Wish

  “Remember clamming?” Abby had said.

  “Remember the fair?”

  “Remember hide-and-seek with Sarah?”

  And soon the sun was dropping behind the trees and their visit was over. But already the letters had started, and now Orrin wrote as many as Abby did, sending his letters to Maureen, since she was always the first to get the mail at her house, and she gave them to Abby in school the next day.

  Zander, in the meantime, never wrote. He’d kissed the top of her head after their last dance on that wondrous night in February, and he’d called hello to her from next door several times over the summer, but while he was a writer (or planned to be one), he was not, he’d mentioned to her rather casually, a letter writer.

  “All right,” said Abby, turning away from Rose to check herself in the mirror. “I think we’re ready.”

  Adele chattered all the way from Haddon Road to the church, seated primly in the back of the car with Rose and Abby, Shirley in her lap.

  “Pop,” she called to the front seat, where her father was sitting next to Mike, “thank you for this dress. Abby said I will be the most gorgeous four-and-a-half-year-old at the wedding.”

  “Sure thing,” said Pop.

  “I brought Shirley with me,” she went on. “She has clothes on. Can I wear my flower-girl dress to church tomorrow? Sheila said to be sure to keep the dress clean. I won’t spill on it, I promise.” And on and on.

  When Mike parked in front of the church at the other end of Barnegat Point, Abby thought the street seemed unusually quiet. “You’d never know there was going to be a wedding here in half an hour,” she whispered to Rose.

  Rose shrugged and rolled her eyes.

  The little stone church was cool inside, cool but bright. Sun shone through the windows and slanted across the floor. The lone stained-glass window laid bars of red and blue and purple along the front two pews.

  “Look! I turned into a plum!” exclaimed Adele, sticking her hand in a shaft of purple light.

  “Shh,” said Pop. “We’re in church.”

  The wedding began promptly at eleven-thirty. Scattered throughout the pews were Aunt Betty and Uncle Marshall, several of Pop’s workers and their wives, Ellen, Sheila, and Mike, and several people Abby didn’t recognize. Abby and Rose stood woodenly at the front of the church with Pop, clutching bouquets of lilies. Abby’s hands began to shake and the lilies vibrated until Rose placed her hand over hers and held on tight.

  There was a small clatter at the back then, and Adele appeared in her finery, holding a basket of rose petals, which she scattered from right to left as she made her way down the aisle. Abby could see the top of Shirley’s head in the basket. As Adele passed Aunt Betty, she paused, twirled around, and said, “Do you like my dress?”

  Abby heard gentle laughter and beckoned Adele forward. When the three sisters were standing together, Abby’s hands resting on Adele’s shoulders, there was an expectant hush and the wedding guests turned to look at the back of the church. The organ, which had been wheezing out “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” paused, and as the first few notes of Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” sounded, the bride made her way up the aisle, smiling nervously, her father holding her elbow.

  They reached the front, the bride’s father stepped away, and Pop and Helen March gazed into each other’s eyes.

  Abby pursed her lips and fought back a sob.

  The reception was held at home. Mike hurried Ellen and Sheila back to the house the moment the wedding was over, and then returned to the church for Pop and Helen. Abby, Rose, and Adele rode with their aunt and uncle; Abby and Rose said nothing during the short ride to Haddon, although Adele continued chattering, this time about wedding gowns and rings and how well she had done in her vital role as flower girl.

  “Maybe we can skip the party, too,” Rose whispered to Abby as they climbed the porch steps a few minutes later and watched Uncle Marshall and Aunt Betty drive off.

  Abby shook her head. “Pop would kill us.”

  “Did you notice that Helen’s father looks exactly the same age as Pop?”

  “Yes,” said Abby dully.

  Abby plopped down on a corner of the sofa in the parlor and didn’t get up until the last guest had left. “Come on, Adele. Let’s change out of our dresses,” she said, extending her hand to her little sister.

  “No! I don’t want to take mine off.”

  “Well, you have to.”

  “No! Sheila will let me leave it on.”

  “Adele?” Helen was standing in the hallway. “You really do have to take your dress off. Look. I took my wedding gown off. It’s time to put the fancy dresses away. And then you need to take a nap.”

  “A nap?” said Adele.

  “Adele doesn’t take naps anymore,” said Abby.

  “All four-year-olds take naps,” Helen replied.

  “I’m four and a half.”

  “Nap,” Helen said firmly.

  “You’re not in charge of me.”

  “I’m your mother now.” Helen said this mildly, but Abby thought her eyes looked sharp.

  “You’re our stepmother,” Abby pointed out.

  “Go upstairs and take your dress off,” Helen said to Adele. “And then lie down and take a nap.”

  Adele glanced at Abby and headed for the stairs. Abby followed her wordlessly. An image of Helen pressing a cup of punch into her hand at the Valentine’s Day dance came to her. Fraud, she thought. Hypocrite.

  The truck arrived two hours later. It backed up the driveway and parked next to the kitchen entrance, one of the movers leaping out before the motor had been turned off. Pop met him at the door.

  “Where do you want everything?” asked the man.

  Pop began giving instructions, and Abby and Rose, joined by a sleepy Adele, watched as Helen’s trunks, cartons, and hatboxes were carried inside.

  “What’s all that?” asked Adele.

  “They’re Helen’s things,” Rose told her. “She lives here now.”

  “With us? Forever?”

  “Yup.”

  Later, Adele ran up the stairs. “Abby!” she called. “Rose! Come quick! Helen is putting her clothes in Mama’s dresser. And in Mama’s closet.”

  Abby followed her sister. They stood outside the room in which Adele had been born and in which, three and a half years later, Mama had died. Helen’s back was toward them and she was reaching for Mama’s scented coat hangers, a pile of blouses over her arm.

  Adele tugged at Abby’s sleeve and led her down the hall. “But is she really our mama?” she whispered.

  “No.”

  “So what do we call her?”

  “I’m going to call her Helen.”

  Adele looked thoughtful. “Maybe I’ll call her Mama Helen,” she said after a moment.

  Abby felt her stomach drop away. Adele, she realized, would remember no mother other than Helen March.

  Abby slid into her seat at the breakfast table, picked up her napkin, and underneath, found a slim blue box tied with a white satin ribbon.

  “What’s this?” she asked, smiling.

  Pop and Helen smiled back at her.

  “Open it,” said Pop.

  “It’s for our graduate,” added Helen.

  “I have a present for you, too!” exclaimed Adele, who was seated across the table from Abby, perched on a dictionary. “I made it myself.” She handed her sister a large piece of folded paper.

  “Thanks,” said Abby.

  Rose, who had been in a bad mood practically since the day of Pop’s wedding, said, “I didn’t know we were supposed to get you presents,” and returned to her oatmeal.

  “That’s okay.” Abby opened Adele’s picture first. “It’s beautiful!” she exclaimed.

  “I painted it without any help at all. Do you know what it is?”

  “Well …” said Abby.

  “It’s Santa Claus,” Adele informed her. “Because Santa Claus is nice and I wanted to paint you something nice for your g
radulations.”

  “Thank you very much.” Abby set the painting aside and pulled the ribbon off the blue box. Inside was a pen and pencil set, a black pen and a black pencil, each trimmed in gold leaf. “They’re lovely,” said Abby, who knew that even Darcy’s parents, poor as they were, had gotten their daughter a locket with her initial on it to wear around her neck. And that Maureen’s parents had presented her with a school days memory book. Personal presents from parents who knew their daughters well.

  Then Pop said, “For our writer,” and Abby suddenly felt both petty and pleased.

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. Laughing, she added, “I’ll write my first book with them.”

  “Girls can’t be writers,” said Rose, from the other end of the table.

  “Of course they can be. What about Emily Brontë? And Pearl Buck?”

  “Don’t you have to go to college to be a writer?”

  Abby sighed. It was enough that Pop thought she might become a writer. She wasn’t going to ask him about college again. “Girls don’t need college,” he had said many times.

  “Well, then why are there women’s colleges?” Abby once asked him.

  “Why are there lots of things?” Pop had countered. “Why are there synagogues? Why are there colleges for Negroes? Just because they exist doesn’t mean we need them.”

  Abby knew it was pointless to argue with him about such things, no matter how badly she wanted to.

  She turned to Rose. “Lots of famous writers didn’t go to college. They write from experience, from the heart. Anyway, I’d better get going. I don’t want to miss a single thing at school today. Remember, graduation starts at two this afternoon. You should get to the auditorium early if you want good seats.” (Helen no longer worked at Barnegat Point Central High. She no longer worked at all.)

  Abby hurried out the door and along Haddon to the corner where Darcy and Maureen were waiting for her.

  “Can you believe it?” asked Maureen, and she threw her arms around Abby.

  “Graduation at last,” Abby replied.

  “One more day and then we can get on with the rest of our lives,” said Darcy.

  “That’s easy for you to say. You know what the rest of your life is going to be. I don’t.”

  Darcy held out her hand and once again showed off the promise ring that Arthur Scovil had given her two weeks earlier.

  “You’re so lucky,” said Maureen.

  “So are you!” Abby exclaimed, turning to Maureen. “You got a job with the phone company, just like you wanted.”

  “I know. But I want to get married, too. I want babies. And I haven’t met the right boy yet. This time next year Darcy will probably be married with a baby on the way. I don’t want to wait too long.”

  Abby sighed. What she really wanted was to go to college. And what Pop really wanted was for her not to go to college, and instead to marry a nice rich man and settle down in Barnegat Point. Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, thought Abby. But in the meantime, while she was finding the nice rich man and not going to college, the least she could do was get a job and work, like Maureen. But Pop had nixed that idea, too.

  The girls walked through town, and when Barnegat Point Central High came into view, Abby found that there were tears in her eyes. This, she realized, was the last day, the absolute last day, that she would be a student. Year after year, since she was six and living in Lewisport, her time had been structured around school. Around tests and classes and projects and vacations. Now it was over and she was being thrust into the adult world. But someone had forgotten to give her a compass.

  “Abby?” said Darcy. “What are you waiting for? Come on. Hey, you’re not crying, are you? You big baby! Let’s get going.”

  Abby cheered up when she and her friends entered the school and were directed to a table outside the principal’s office, where the commencement-days souvenir books were being given out to the students.

  Abby accepted hers and stared at the cover: It was creamy white with Commencement Days written in fancy blue script above a red rose. She opened it. The first page was headed: Class of 19__. Underneath were spaces in which to record her name, the class officers, class flower, class motto, and class cheer. She walked outside with her friends and they sat in the grass. Carefully they filled in the blank with “40,” and then began to write.

  “Oh, look at the next page,” said Maureen. “Autographs. Let’s start collecting them. You write in mine first, Abby.”

  The girls exchanged books. In Maureen’s, Abby wrote, Blessed are those who sit on tacks, for they shall rise immediately. In Darcy’s, she wrote, Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, if it weren’t for BPCH, our brains would rust.

  Other students joined them and soon the books were being passed from hand to hand to hand and the autographs were flowing.

  2 good 2 B 4-got.

  4-get me not.

  Best wishes for your future.

  Remember Grant, remember Lee, forget them all — remember me.

  The next few hours were spent cleaning out desks and asking teachers to sign the souvenir books and eating lunch on the school lawn. At last it was time for the students to go to the gymnasium and put on their caps and gowns.

  “I know I’ve been saying this all day,” Abby said to Maureen as she adjusted the sleeves of her gown, “but —”

  “But I can’t believe we’re graduating!” Maureen finished for her.

  “Actually, I was going to say — again — that I can’t believe this day is here. But I guess that’s the same thing. Remember when we met each other, freshman year? Doesn’t that seem like just a few months ago? Even first grade could be just a few months ago. How did it all go by so fast? And now you have a job and Darcy has her promise ring. Adele will turn six on her next birthday.”

  “Did you hear that Richard Lord enlisted in the army?” Darcy spoke up.

  “Really?” said Abby. “But America hasn’t entered the war. We declared neutrality.”

  “We’ll be in it soon enough. You know that,” said Maureen. “My brother told me that our government just approved the sale of surplus war material to Great Britain. That’s kind of like taking sides, isn’t it?”

  Abby nodded. It was, although she didn’t like to think about the war. She also knew that Richard wasn’t the only BPCH senior who had enlisted in the army.

  “I don’t want to be eighteen,” she said suddenly. “I want to be Adele’s age again.”

  She felt tears spring to her eyes, but before they could spill over, she heard the booming voice of Mr. Cantwell, the vice principal, as he clapped his hands for attention.

  “Seniors, you should have your caps and gowns now. Please follow me to the auditorium. It’s time for the program to begin.”

  The seniors jostled themselves into line in alphabetical order, as they had practiced the day before. Abby glanced behind her at Maureen and Darcy, who were nearby. She gave them a wave, and then the students proceeded down the hall and into the auditorium, which was abuzz with the chatter of parents and grandparents and brothers and sisters. They filed onto the stage and Abby took her seat and stared out into the audience until she spotted Pop, Helen, Rose, and Adele. Adele was waving madly at Abby and wouldn’t stop until Rose swatted her with her accordion fan.

  A hush descended on the auditorium and Abby allowed herself a small fantasy. She squinted her eyes and pretended that instead of Pop, Helen, Rose, and Adele in the sixth row, she saw Pop, Mama, Rose, Adele, and, squirming in Mama’s lap, Fred. In her fantasy, Mama looked pink cheeked and she was smiling broadly. And Fred was not only taller but sturdier, sitting up straight, calling, “Abby! Hi, Abby!”

  Then she pretended that two seats away from her, next to Angela Michaels, was Sarah Moreside, grinning at her proud parents, who were seated behind Mama and Pop.

  Abby shook her head. She felt tears once again, and she blinked her eyes furiously, determined not to cry. When she heard the squeal of a microphone,
she straightened herself and looked defiantly at the audience. The program had begun.

  The principal welcomed the students and guests. Harley Eaton, the class president, gave a speech entitled “Looking to the Future.” Marlene Fitzsimmons sang a solo, “A Brown Bird Singing.” When prizes were awarded, Abby won Overall Academic Achievement and her classmates cheered as she accepted her plaque.

  And then … diplomas were handed out, Marlene sang “America the Beautiful,” and the student orchestra played “The Graduation March” while the seniors filed back off the stage, diplomas in hand.

  Graduation was over.

  “We did it!” Darcy cried as the seniors ran out onto the school lawn. “It’s over! We made it!” She tossed her cap in the air.

  Abby hugged her friends fiercely. Parents trickled out of the school building, and children ran in wild zigzags, laughing, hiding behind graduation gowns, and begging the photographer to take their pictures. Abby had just caught sight of Pop and Helen when someone tapped her shoulder, and she turned around.

  “Zander! What are you doing here?”

  “I came to watch you graduate. Congratulations, Abby. Nice job getting the top prize.”

  Abby grinned. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with it, though. Or with my diploma, for that matter.”

  He grinned back. “You’ll think of something.”

  Adele launched herself at Abby then, and suddenly Abby was surrounded by her family, and then by a raucous group of students: Wyman, Darcy, Maureen, kids from the annual and Words and In Our Voices.

  The photographer hurried across the lawn and took a picture of them, which wound up in the Barnegat Point Record the next week. Abby felt jubilant.

  Then the afternoon ended and her friends scattered and Abby walked home with her family, clutching her diploma and wondering what she was going to do with the rest of her life.