Touch Blue

  His eyebrows come down hard. “Don’t lie to me!”

  “I’m here now, honey, and I’m only here for a day. Do we have to spend it angry?”

  “You’re my mother, and you don’t know anything about me!” he says.

  “I know you like applesauce,” Ms. Spinney says gently.

  “I liked it when I was five!”

  “Honey, I don’t —”

  “I called them! Do you hear me? I called them. I called nine-one-one the day they took me, because I couldn’t wake you up! I tried to get you help, and look what happened! They punished me for it!” Aaron pushes back his chair and runs for the stairs and his room.

  “I shouldn’t have come. I didn’t want — I don’t know how —” Ms. Spinney covers her mouth with her hand, her eyes filling with tears. “He’s right. I don’t even know what he likes now.”

  Dad brings her the box of tissues from the top of our refrigerator.

  “He likes the trumpet,” I say softly. “Especially jazz. And he told me he thinks of you when he plays and imagines you’re there to hear him.”

  Ms. Spinney lifts her head, just enough for her eyes to meet mine above the tissue.

  “He also likes mountains and cookie dough ice cream,” I continue. “He worries about seals being hungry and whether lobsters are happy or not.”

  “When we play Monopoly, he picks the race car as his token,” Libby adds.

  “I need to go,” Ms. Spinney says. “This was a mistake.”

  “No.” Mom stands up. “You two need to talk. There are things he needs to say and answers he needs to hear. Let me take you upstairs to him. You have some time before the ferry.” She looks at Natalie. “Just for a few minutes?”

  Natalie opens her mouth to protest, but then sighs. “I have to come with you.”

  I wish I could go with them, too, but I know I can’t. So I drag myself outside and flop down on the porch steps. Hugging my knees, I lay my head on my arms, feeling low as dirt.

  The door opens behind me. From under my arm, I see Dad’s sneaker come into view. The top step creaks as he sits down beside me. “What were you thinking?”

  Tears come so fast I can’t even answer him. I’ve ruined everything. Now Natalie will probably send Aaron somewhere else and maybe I won’t ever see him again. And I may as well pack up all my things with him, because we’ll be moving, too.

  “Tess, I’m waiting for an answer.”

  “Aaron wanted to run away,” I say, sniffling into my legs. “I heard Mom say that maybe if Aaron could see his mom, he’d give up the perfect idea he had of her. And then maybe he’d be happier to be with us. It worked that way in a book I read.” I lift my head, just enough to look at him. “Natalie’s pretty upset, huh?”

  “Yup,” Dad says. “You’ve got an apology to make there.”

  I nod. “Will she take him away from us?”

  “I don’t know. We don’t get to decide that,” Dad says. “But we’ll all go on, whatever comes. Sometimes you have to stop trying to control everything and let life happen the way it’s supposed to, Tess. Even if it’s not exactly the way you wanted.”

  I sigh. “But what if it’s not even a little like you wanted?”

  “Then you deal with it and keep going,” Dad says. “You and Aaron both have to let go of thinking ‘I can only be happy if …’ and find a way to carry your happiness inside you. We’re all more than where we come from, Tess.” He puts his arm around me. “I’m not saying it wouldn’t be hard to leave here or if Aaron leaves us. But it wouldn’t break you. You’re stronger than that — whether you realize it or not.”

  Overhead, a flock of Canada geese flies under the graying clouds. A damp breeze passes, stirring the grass. I cuddle deeper into Dad’s side. His shirt smells familiar and snug, of sea and soap and another smell with no name, just a “him” smell.

  “We’ll never be all Aaron needs, but that’s okay,” Dad says. “We’re something to him.”

  The trumpet music makes us both jump. Sharp and full of life, it’s a jazz song. I imagine Aaron’s mother sitting upstairs on his bed, listening.

  Across the yard, Doris Varney comes out of her front door, carrying her knitting basket. She takes her usual seat on her porch. “Is everything okay?” she yells over to us.

  “Not yet,” Dad calls back. “But I hope it will be.”

  “He’s such a good kid,” Doris says. “And he sure can play!”

  Dad lays his head on my hair. “He sure can.”

  The music is strange and brave and wonderful. I don’t know the words or even what the song is called, but I don’t care.

  It’s beautiful, and that’s enough.

  After his mother left yesterday, Aaron didn’t come out of his room. Dad let him sleep in late the next morning, and even though Aaron agreed to come fishing with us, he barely says a word to Dad and me as we walk down the road to the water together.

  He’s probably thinking about how Mom and Natalie are having a meeting today to see what needs to happen next. Natalie said she wasn’t going to recommend Aaron be moved to another foster home, unless it’s what he wanted. But all Aaron would say he wanted was permission to call his mom on the phone sometimes — nothing about us. Mom said she’s going to ask for that at the meeting today.

  I suppose Dad’s right. We’re all made up of our bits and pieces. People who love us, places we’ve lived, and the biggest part of all — who we are inside. I don’t know if we’ve done enough to keep our school open or for how long, but I’m willing to believe that Dad’s right about another thing, too. We’ll all go on, whatever comes.

  “I didn’t mean to get so mad at my mom yesterday,” Aaron says quietly as we walk. “I thought I would only feel happy to see her and glad she was okay. But when I started talking, it all came out.”

  Dad puts his hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “You needed to say it, and she needed to hear it. You might have a chance to really get to know each other now, without those feelings standing in the way.”

  “I just wanted to be where I belonged.”

  I wish I could tell him he belongs with us, but I’m afraid he won’t believe me if I just say it. So as Phipps’s Gas and Groceries comes into view, I take a deep breath and head for the store porch. “Wait for me. I have something to do. I’ll be right back.”

  “Hey, Tess! Did you forget to set your alarm clock?” Ben says as I come through the door. “You folks are off to a late start this morning.”

  I go behind the counter and get a bucket. “Mr. Phipps, I’m sorry you went to all that trouble, but I’ve changed my mind. I’m not sending my blue lobster to Texas.”

  Mr. Phipps asks plenty of questions, but I just dip the bucket into the tank to scoop out enough water to make the blue lobster comfortable. Then I push my sleeve way up before I reach down deep.

  Dad and Aaron both startle a little to see me hauling a bucket out of the store. “It’s my lobster, and I’ll do what I want with him,” I say firmly, shifting my bucket to hold it in front of me with both hands.

  As we near the church, I see Reverend Beal drinking coffee on his front porch steps. Mrs. Coombs looks up from weeding the petunia border.

  “Fine morning today!” Dad says.

  “Rejoice and be glad in it,” Reverend Beal calls back. “Aaron, I want to talk to you. Mrs. Ellis says since we have another pianist on the island now, she’d like you to take over the job as church organist. She said she’d help you get started.”

  Aaron looks down at the road. “I don’t know how long I’m staying.”

  “As long as you want,” Dad answers.

  “Would you at least think it over, Aaron?” Reverend Beal asks. “We’d pay you, of course. It’d mean Sunday services, Tuesday night choir practice, and the cherub chorus meets on Saturday mornings. Also a few special events here and there.”

  I have it on the tip of my tongue to tell Reverend Beal no (so Aaron doesn’t have to), but when I glance to Aaron, I see something surpri
sing in his eyes. It looks like longing. “Do you want to do this?” I whisper.

  Aaron lifts one shoulder, like he doesn’t care. But his eyes are telling a different story.

  “If he says yes, the parish hall piano needs tuning.” I call to Reverend Beal. “And you’d need to pay him extra for those special events.”

  Dad looks surprised, but I tip my chin up, determined.

  “Who are you?” Mrs. Coombs sputters at me. “His manager?”

  “I’ll agree to that,” Reverend Beal jumps right in.

  “And you will get a haircut!” Mrs. Coombs points her finger at Aaron. “Can’t have our organist looking like a hippie. Come by tomorrow so we can fit you for a robe.”

  “It’s Aaron’s hair!” I say. “He gets to decide if it gets cut.”

  Mrs. Coombs’s face is turning red. She looks like she might burst a blood vessel right there in the petunia border. “Well, I never saw such —”

  “What do you say, Aaron?” Reverend Beal asks. “Do we have a deal?”

  Aaron doesn’t look at any of us. He just tilts his head, staring off into air beside him. I squeeze the handle of the bucket so hard it hurts.

  “Okay,” Aaron says.

  Reverend Beal smiles. “Thank you.”

  As we walk away, Mrs. Coombs hurries into the parsonage — to call Mom, no doubt.

  “Does this mean you want to stay with us?” I ask Aaron.

  He shrugs. “You can keep your school now.”

  “No, don’t stay for that reason.” The bucket handle still cuts into my fingers, and I shift hands. “I don’t want to move, but I could. Stay because you want to be here. Stay because we would miss you. And stay because you can belong in more than one place, and one of your places is with us.”

  “Listen to her,” Dad says. “Because she’s right.”

  Aaron smiles for the first time all morning. He reaches over and takes the bucket from me. “That’s too heavy. Let me carry it for you.”

  As we walk ahead, the bay stretches before us, the sun above the treetops of the far islands. “Look!” I say, pointing ahead. “The Sisters are visiting.”

  “Catching up on the day’s gossip, I guess.” Dad smiles. “Ready?”

  We pull in our deepest breaths, full of everything before us: pine-covered islands, fishing boats, and seagulls soaring through salt air.

  When I can’t hold mine one second longer, I let it go. I picture it flowing out of me, down the wharf, and out across the rippling blue-gray waves to the lobster boat moored in the bay.

  My heart jumps to see her. The Tess Libby, waiting for us.

  “Welcome home,” I whisper to my lobster.

  We’ve barely started for our first buoy when I tell Dad I want to go to the south end of Sheep Island. As he turns the wheel, I hold my hand over the rail and let sea spray, silky and cold, bead on my wrist and run down my fingers.

  On the other side of the boat, Aaron is stuffing bait bags. I imagine him in December seated at the piano in the parish hall, playing carols at our island holiday party. “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” “We Three Kings,” “Away in a Manger” — Mrs. Coombs will want them all. And I’ll be singing along in the front row, or maybe I’ll even turn the pages for him.

  “Why are you smiling?” Aaron asks.

  “I was just thinking how Mrs. Coombs will want you to play Beloved Christmas Carols of Really, Really Old People on the parish hall piano this December.”

  “Bah, humbug.” He rolls his eyes, but I see the smile he’s trying to hide.

  Across the water on Bethsaida, two cars drive along the shore road. There are people outside at Amy’s old house — must be the summer people who bought it. Maybe I will introduce myself sometime when I walk by.

  I promised myself I wouldn’t write any more letters to Amy until she wrote to me again, but I’m gonna break that vow when I get home. Maybe she’s busy with her new life or maybe thinking about me makes her miss everything she left behind. Whatever her reasons, she’s still my friend. I don’t want to lose her, even if I write more times than she answers.

  I let my eyes move farther up the shoreline to Jenna’s house. She’s outside with her dog. I lift my arm to wave, though I think it’s too far for her to see me.

  She waves back and I grin. Maybe Amy and Jenna don’t like each other, but that’s okay. I like both of them.

  As we approach Sheep Island, I take the blue lobster out of the bucket and cut the bands from his claws. He snaps at the air. “Stop right here,” I tell Dad.

  He slows the boat, and I hold the lobster out to Aaron. “Throw him back.”

  “What?” Aaron asks. “I can’t take him. He’s yours.”

  With my free hand, I clutch my throat, like I’m having an attack. “Oh, Aaron! Don’t you know? It’s terrible bad luck when someone gives you a blue lobster to refuse it. In fact, it’s the worst unlucky thing in the world.”

  Aaron makes a face. “You’re making that up.”

  “Best not chance it.” Dad smiles.

  I stand there until Aaron finally reaches for the lobster. Leaning over the rail, he sets him gently on the sea. “Today’s your lucky day, blue one.”

  The lobster stretches out in the sunlit upper inches of water. Flexing his tail, he shoots backward, disappearing down deep.

  As Dad puts the boat into gear, I reach into my pocket and pull out two pennies from the year I was born, a teeny plastic lobster, the white quartz heart Amy gave me, the shard of pottery with the sloop painted on it, and my circle of blue sea glass.

  Running my fingers around the sea glass’s smooth-worn edges one last time, I feel queasy, like I’m about to jump off a cliff without knowing what’s waiting at the bottom. I hold my hand over the rail and drop each lucky thing into the ocean so quickly there’s barely a splash.

  Watching our boat’s bubbly wake as we pull away, loss sweeps me — but not a sad loss. More like giving up something I’ve held on to, and finding it’s okay to let it go.

  Dad turns us out of the channel, and I stand in the stern, shading my eyes, watching Sheep Island growing smaller behind us. I imagine the blue lobster down there somewhere, climbing over boulders and sunken ship bits.

  “I’m glad he’s back where he belongs,” Aaron says.

  “Not really. I caught him over near the Point, not where we let him go.”

  Aaron’s smile falls. “Will he be okay where we left him?”

  “Well, he’s blue! That’s gonna stick out no matter what,” I say. “And lobsters are like people: Some take to strangers okay, and others come at each other with their claws wide open. But he’s in a good place, and it can be a home for him, if he’ll let it be.”

  Aaron looks back toward Sheep Island. “Tess, after the skiff is launched, do you think we could visit Dead Man’s Island? I’d like to see that sailor’s headstone. Maybe bring him some flowers or something?”

  I nod. “It’s the first place we’ll go.”

  Dad gives me a proud grin. “Here, Tess. Take over for me,” he says, letting go of the wheel.

  “What?” I stare at him.

  “A fisherman’s gotta learn to drive, doesn’t she?” he asks. “Or maybe you’ve changed your mind about wanting —”

  “No!” I rush over. Laying my hands on the wheel, a shiver of thrill shoots through me.

  “Feels good. Doesn’t it?” Dad asks. “Let’s practice out to sea where there’s nothing to run into.”

  As I turn the wheel, Uncle Ned’s voice comes over the radio. “Tess Libby, where are you headed, fool? England?”

  Dad pushes the talk button. “Tess is learning to drive the boat, Ned. She wants to join the family business.”

  “Well, ain’t that something!” Uncle Ned says. “But, Tess, if you wanna learn how to be a truly great lobsterman, I could use another sternman. Then you could learn from a real fisherman.”

  “Tess wants to catch lobsters, not seaweed!” Dad snorts.

  “Hey, Tess!
Watch out you don’t hit the lighthouse,” another fisherman teases. “It’s that big white thing sticking up out of the water.”

  “Jacob, I hope you’re paid up on your boat insurance.”

  Aaron reaches his hand out for the mic. Dad and I both pause before Dad hands it over. “This is Aaron,” he says. “Leave her alone or you’ll have to deal with me.”

  “Oooh,” another fisherman says. “Tough words from an organist.”

  Figures Mrs. Coombs spread that news already! I brace myself for Aaron to be mad, but then he shrugs. “You know,” he says slowly. “The organist controls how long the service goes on Sunday. I could keep playing and playing — how many hundreds of hymns do you think are in those hymnals?”

  “Now, that’s a threat,” Uncle Ned says. “The reverend goes on longer than enough as it is.”

  As Aaron puts the mic down, I turn to Dad. “Do you think I could try —”

  He nods, reaching over to grip the rail. “Hang on tight, Aaron. Tess is gonna let her loose.”

  My hands on the wheel, my heart near to bursting, I aim the Tess Libby’s bow at the horizon.

  And gun it.

  In this book about luck, it feels especially appropriate to admit I am the luckiest author on earth to work with such a gifted editor as Leslie Budnick. Thank you, Leslie, for sharing your genius with this book, and for all the grace, patience, humor, and warmth you’ve shown me on this book’s journey.

  My sincere thank-you to my wonderful agent, Tracey Adams, and to everyone at Scholastic, especially Marijka Kostiw, David Saylor, and Adam Rau, and to Anne Dunn for adding their remarkable talents to this book.

  A special thanks to my critique groups and writing friends, who have read many drafts of this book and always encouraged me to keep going. A big hug to Terry Farish and Toni Buzzeo — it was a best-luck day for me when we became critique partners.

  Grateful appreciation to Kaelyn and Clay Porter, Mark Wallace, Tori Arau, Mona Pease, and Kathleen Clemons, who let me ask lots of questions and patiently answered each one.