I’m beginning to think that Maggie isn’t very close to anyone, even Amalia.
Now I can’t sleep. All the things that were bothering me before the concert have come back one by one. I am going to have to study for exams all day tomorrow. Finals start on Monday. I wish I could talk to Sunny about Maggie. I wish I could talk to Sunny about anything.
Wednesday 6/17
What is wrong with me? Why am I so angry at Sunny?
Here’s what happened.
I studied like crazy for my math final. I felt that I was ready.
“Well, I’m not ready,” Maggie said as we walked into our math classroom. “My mother made me go shopping yesterday afternoon. I only studied for four hours.”
I didn’t study for four hours and I thought I’d studied a lot. I knew that Maggie would ace the math final and I told her so. She still looked worried but changed the subject by asking if I thought Sunny would show up for the exam. I told her I didn’t know, but that even if Sunny did take the final I didn’t see how she could pass math. Not with all the classes she’s cut.
We took our seats. I put out two sharp pencils, folded my hands, and waited for the exam to begin. If Sunny didn’t take any of her finals she’d fail the year. She’d have to repeat eighth grade. We wouldn’t graduate from Vista together.
I thought about the plans we’d made for after high school graduation. We had been talking about them for years. First we wanted to spend the summer in Europe. Then we’d go to the same college, hopefully as roommates. I really believed we would do those things. They were our shared dreams. Well, they used to be.
I turned my attention to Ms. Whalen, who was giving her final instructions before passing out the exam.
That’s the moment Sunny walked in the room. As she passed me to go to her seat, we made eye contact. She smiled. It was a sarcastic smile, more like a smirk, that said, “You didn’t think I’d show up, and here I am.”
I didn’t know how to respond, so I looked down at my desk.
Then I thought, Did I read the wrong thing into Sunny’s look? Maybe the smile wasn’t meant to be sarcastic. Maybe she was reaching out to me. I decided the next time we passed each other I’d be the first to smile—a real smile. I’d see how she responded.
Sunny finished the exam early and left the room before I did.
I thought about Sunny as I fiddled with my locker.
Then I felt a tap on my shoulder.
I turned around with a big smile on my face.
There stood Jill.
“Uh, hi,” I said.
“Hi,” said Jill. She was wearing a pink sweatshirt with a big picture of the head of a boxer dog on it. It read, “I my boxer.” Inwardly I groaned. Sunny and I had given it to Jill for her eleventh birthday.
I sighed. Maybe I was acting childish by being so critical about how someone dresses.
“How are you doing?” Jill asked.
“Okay,” I said.
I couldn’t believe Jill was talking to me. We’d barely spoken to each other in months.
“The math exam was hard,” Jill commented.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“How’s Carol? I mean with the baby and everything. Isn’t it time for it to be born?”
Maybe that was it. Jill wanted to know about Carol’s pregnancy. Jill loves babies. I told her that Carol was due any day.
“That is so great,” she gushed. “You must be so excited.”
“It is pretty exciting.”
There is no way Jill would understand that I was not thrilled about the baby. Still, I found that I didn’t feel angry at Jill anymore. I actually felt a little sorry for her. She thinks I don’t hang out with her anymore because of the Carol-is-pregnant incident, when it is about so much more than that. I felt a little guilty about how I’d been treating her lately. I guess that’s why I found myself inviting her out for a soda.
“Sure,” said Jill with a giggle.
We walked out of school together.
“So … how’s Carol feeling and everything? She must be big,” said Jill.
I told her that Carol was bedridden. Next, Jill said she’d heard about the fire. “No wonder you’re angry at Sunny,” she continued. “I wouldn’t talk to her either.”
I told her it was more complicated than that but didn’t try to explain.
Jill said, “I know what you mean. Sunny’s acting so wild and hangs out with all these older guys. Do those guys go to her house?” Jill’s eyes were sparkling.
I told her I didn’t spy on Sunny and changed the subject by asking about Jill’s dogs—Spike, Shakespeare, and Smee. Unfortunately, none of them are as cute as the boxer on Jill’s shirt. But she loves them and can talk about them endlessly. Which she did.
While we had sodas I told Jill some of the names Carol and my dad were considering for the baby. I also told her they didn’t want to find out the sex.
“I think that’s cute,” Jill gushed. “I
wouldn’t want to know either.” So like Jill. But I didn’t mind that much. I guess that shows how desperate I am for a friend.
I wonder if I’ll ever have a best friend again.
I can’t believe how fast the time flies. I’ve been sitting on this park bench for an hour writing in my journal. I better go home and help entertain Carol.
Wednesday evening 6/17
What a day.
When I got home I had an eerie feeling something was wrong. It was too quiet. No music or television sounds coming from Carol’s room. No video game sounds from the living room. No Mrs. Bruen calling from the kitchen, “Is that you, Dawn?”
I ran to Carol’s room. Her bed was empty and unmade. I knew that Mrs. Bruen wouldn’t leave a room looking like that unless it was an emergency.
I thought, Carol must be at the hospital. I should look for a note.
I flew down the stairs and into the kitchen.
There was a note all right:
“Baby on the way. We’ve called the ambulance. We’re going to the hospital. Your father will meet us there. Mrs. B.”
I was excited and nervous. The baby was being born. Maybe right that minute! But Carol was going to the hospital in an ambulance. What was wrong? I wanted to be at the hospital with everyone else. I had to know what was happening. I would go crazy if I waited at home alone.
I looked out the window toward Sunny’s house. Mr. Winslow’s car wasn’t there. I thought, Ducky. I’ll call him.
But Ducky wasn’t home.
I had to get to the hospital. Fast. The only person I could think to call was Maggie. Luckily, she was home.
“This is so exciting!” she yelled. “You have to go to the hospital. Reg and I will pick you up in fifteen minutes.”
Twenty-five minutes later we pulled up in front of the hospital. Reg told Maggie that her father didn’t need him until ten o’clock, that he would wait for us in the parking lot.
I knew my way around the hospital from all my visits to Mrs. Winslow, so I led the way to the maternity wing on the third floor. As we passed the nursery window, I looked in. The newborns were lined up in rows of little cribs. Two were in incubators. Was one of them my half brother or half sister?
“We’re looking for Carol Olson,” I told an attendant standing at the nursing station.
“Her family is in the waiting room at the end of the hall,” she said.
My heart was pounding. It was hard not to run down the hall.
Mrs. Bruen and Jeff were the only ones in the waiting room. Mrs. Bruen was pacing back and forth. Jeff was looking out the window.
“What happened?” I asked. “Are they okay?”
“Everything seems to be going according to schedule,” said Mrs. Bruen. “Poor thing. All she must be going through.”
I hadn’t thought much about the actual birth of the baby, that it was going to be difficult for Carol.
Mrs. Bruen put her hand on my shoulder. “But don’t worry, Dawn. Carol will be fine. And so will the baby.”
>
“You came in Maggie’s limo, didn’t you?” Jeff asked. He pointed to the parking lot. “That’s it down there. Can I go for a ride?” he begged. “Can I, Maggie?”
“Not now, Jeff,” Maggie told him.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked.
“With Carol, of course,” Mrs. Bruen said.
Of course.
We hung out in the waiting room for two hours. Mrs. Bruen and Jeff worked on a jigsaw puzzle of a sailboat that some other nervous family had started. Maggie and I reviewed biology. Maggie had been smart enough to bring her book along. But it was hard to study and worry about Carol and the baby at the same time. I did my share of pacing.
Finally, my father came bursting into the waiting room. He was beaming. “It’s—a—girl!” he said in a choked voice. His eyes gleamed. I’ve never seen him look so happy. “She’s beautiful. She’s fine. Carol too. They came through with flying colors.” Tears spilled down his cheeks. I have never seen my father so happy that he cried. Never. Not even the day he and Carol were married.
“A girl?!” Jeff exclaimed. “I thought it was going to be a boy. I didn’t think of any girl names!”
Dad tousled Jeff’s hair and wrapped us both in a big hug. I cried too.
But my tears of happiness were for Dad, not for myself.
Dad suggested that the rest of us go home and have some dinner while Carol and the baby rested. Then we should come back to the hospital in a couple of hours. “I want you to meet your sister,” he said.
Half sister, I thought.
“Can I go with Maggie in the limo?” Jeff asked anyone who would listen. “Can I?”
Mrs. Bruen said Jeff and I could both go with Maggie and that she would meet us at home. For the moment, Jeff was more excited about the limo than he was about our baby half sister, No Name.
After Maggie dropped us off, I came up here to my room to write. I can see Sunny’s bedroom window from my desk. It is so weird not to call her with the news. I guess Dad will tell Mr. Winslow and he’ll tell Sunny. Weird and sad.
11 p.m. 6/17
We rushed through dinner so we could go right back to the hospital. I brought Carol her Discman and some of her favorite CDs. Mrs. Bruen picked flowers from the garden for her. And Jeff remembered to bring the baby name book. So we could pick out a girl’s name.
As we walked through the maternity floor we stopped to look in at the newborns. Now one of them would be Baby Schafer-Olson. We read all of the names, even the ones on the incubators. None said “Schafer-Olson.” Mrs. Bruen and I exchanged a worried glance. Had something happened to Baby Schafer-Olson? We rushed to Room 307.
There, lying in Carol’s arms, was the baby we were looking for.
“Hi,” I whispered to Carol and Dad.
“You don’t have to whisper,” Dad said in a loud, happy voice. “We want her to get used to noise.”
“Come on over and see her,” Carol said. Carol looked tired but so very happy.
I looked down at the sweetest infant I’d ever seen. Dad put his arm around me. “You know what, Sunshine?” he asked. Dad hadn’t called me that in so long. The tone of his voice was warm and familiar. It was the voice he used to tell me bedtime stories when I was little and that he used to comfort me when I was sad. I suppose he’ll use that voice with his new daughter. It’s her turn to have bedtime stories and a dad who makes up a terrific nickname for her.
Hearing Dad call me Sunshine reminded me of Sunny too. The fact that my nickname was Sunny’s real name was the great coincidence of our friendship. Not many people are named Sunshine. We decided this was a sign that we were supposed to be best friends forever.
I missed being Dad’s Sunshine and I missed Sunny. I felt a knot rise up in my throat, as if I was going to cry.
I swallowed and said, “What, Dad?”
“Your sister looks just like you did.”
“But …” I looked at Carol. It was Carol’s baby. Shouldn’t she look like Carol?
“She does look like you,” said Carol. “I’ve seen your baby pictures, Dawn. Isn’t it wonderful?”
I am amazed that Carol doesn’t mind that her baby looks like me. She lifted the baby and held her out to me. “Here.”
I took my half sister and cradled her carefully in the crook of my left arm. Other newborns I’ve seen looked scrunched up, like old men. But not this baby. She has smooth, soft, pink skin. And her lips are a perfect tulip shape.
“She’s so little!” Jeff exclaimed. “I thought she’d be bigger. Are boys bigger?”
My father laughed. “No,” he said. “And Elizabeth Grace is eight pounds, two ounces, which is a very respectable weight for a girl or a boy.”
“Elizabeth Grace!” Jeff cried. He threw the “name your baby” book down on Carol’s bed and pouted. “You went ahead and named her without me.”
“I’m sorry, Jeff,” Dad said. “But it just came to us. We were looking at her and I said, ‘Let’s call her Elizabeth.’”
“And I was thinking what a grace it was that she is finally here,” Carol said. “That she is my special Grace. We put them together and came up with Elizabeth Grace.”
“You can give her a nickname,” Dad told Jeff.
“Like Liz, maybe,” Carol suggested. “Or Lizzy.”
Jeff thought for a few seconds. “I’m going to call her Gracie,” he announced. “That’s my name for her.”
“Gracie,” Carol and Dad said in unison.
My dad looked at me and I nodded. I thought Gracie was a perfect nickname for Elizabeth Grace.
“I like it,” said Dad.
“Me too,” Carol added.
“She is so lovely, Carol,” Mrs. Bruen said. “Now, wasn’t it worth all those months in bed?”
“Yes, it was,” Carol said. “You were right.”
I felt as if I were dreaming. I couldn’t take my eyes off the peaceful infant in my arms. “Elizabeth Grace,” I whispered. “Happy birthday.”
Then we all sang “Happy Birthday” to the newest member of our family.
I’m too tired to study for my finals. I have all day tomorrow to study. I’ll go to the hospital too. I want to visit Mrs. Winslow when I’m there. I promised to tell her all about the baby after she was born.
There’s also something else I want to do with Mrs. Winslow. I hope it works.
Afternoon 6/18
It was hard to study this morning. Dad was calling all our friends and relatives to tell them about Elizabeth Grace. A lot of them wanted to talk to me. I guess they were worried that I’d be jealous, which is pretty weird since I’m thirteen years old. When Dad wasn’t on the phone, it was ringing with congratulations from people who had heard about the baby from the people he had called.
Around noon, Dad and I drove to the hospital together. “After I see Carol and Gracie,” he said, “I have to drop in at the office for a couple of hours. Mrs. Bruen is coming over this afternoon. She can give you a ride home.”
“Perfect,” I said. “I want to have time to visit Mrs. Winslow too.”
Dad was going straight to maternity on the third floor, but I got off the elevator at the cancer care unit on the second floor. There were no excited fathers on the second floor. No glowing mothers. No newborns. I walked down the hall past rooms of very sick and dying people. A shiver went down my spine and I felt overwhelmingly sad.
On this floor people were fighting for their lives. Some of them would die. Their loved ones were helping them leave the world. On the third floor infants were being helped into the world.
I took a deep breath, put a smile on my face, and walked into Mrs. Winslow’s room.
She was sitting up in a chair looking out the window. “Hi,” I said softly. She turned to me. Two little tubes came out of her nostrils and were connected to an oxygen tank. “Sun—Dawn,” she said. “Hi. At first I thought you were Sunny.”
“I have good news,” I told her.
“The baby?”
I nodded. Then I sat on the edge o
f the bed and told her everything. I realized that Mr. Winslow had told her Gracie had been born but still she wanted to know every one of my details.
“I love newborns,” she told me. “I always wanted more children. There was one miscarriage after Sunny. Then no more pregnancies.” She smiled. “I was very blessed to have Sunny.”
I thought angrily that Sunny wasn’t much of a blessing to anyone these days. But I pushed the thought away. I didn’t want any negative energy in Mrs. Winslow’s room.
Mrs. Winslow reached over and patted my hand. “Tell me again what the baby looks like.”
The skin on Mrs. Winslow’s hand and arm was transparent and wrinkled. She was very thin. I thought of the expression “skin and bones.”
“Okay,” I said. “But I think I can do better than that. I want to take you to see her.”
For an instant Mrs. Winslow looked excited by the idea. Then a cloud passed over her face. “Oh, I can’t go,” she said.
“I bet the nurses would let you.”
“It’ll be so depressing for Carol and everyone. I mean, it’s such a happy time for them. They don’t want to see me.”
My heart ached for Mrs. Winslow. She was worried about everyone but herself.
“Don’t say that,” I said. “Don’t even think it. I want you to see Gracie. And you said yourself that you love newborns.” I stood up. “Let me at least ask the nurses, okay?”
A big smile erupted on Mrs. Winslow’s face. A familiar twinkle came into her eyes. “Dawn, I can’t think of anything I’d rather do today than meet Elizabeth Grace Schafter-Olson,” she said.
Her face was beautiful. She was beautiful. I thought, A person’s beauty is deep inside. It is even deeper than good health.
We got permission right away from a nurse, who hurried off to find a wheelchair. I helped Mrs. Winslow get ready for our visit. She put on the bright blue silk robe Mr. Winslow and Sunny had given her for her birthday in April. She ran her hand over the shiny fabric. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked. “I love wonderful fabrics.”
She was practically bald from the chemotherapy, so she decided to cover her head with a scarf. She picked out a pink-and-yellow-striped one from the stack of scarves she’d brought with her to the hospital. She wrapped it around her head and I tied it in a fancy knot at the nape of her neck.