Home Is the Place

  Georgia closed her door again and slipped the final journal back into the hidey-hole. She pressed the panel into place. Then she lay on her bed and cried.

  The trouble with going to school in Barnegat Point was that, well, it was in Barnegat Point, not in Lewisport, which meant that the Lewisport students had to be driven there and back every day. In the Nobles’ case, someone had to drive Georgia and Richard to the middle school and Henry to the elementary school. When the weather was nice, Mrs. Noble occasionally allowed Richard, and now Georgia, to ride their bikes into Barnegat Point, but this didn’t happen often, and anyway, the ride was long.

  Today, a slushy, frigid January afternoon, Georgia stood in front of the middle school with Ava and Talia, burdened by their backpacks, blowing on her mittened hands, and stepping from one foot to the other.

  “Where’s your mom?” Talia asked Ava.

  “She’ll be here.” Ava looked at her watch. “Hey, where’s Richard? Isn’t he coming with us?”

  “He’s supposed to,” said Georgia. “But you know Richard.”

  Richard’s behavior recently had been unpredictable. He’d turned thirteen the week before, not that that had anything to do with anything. When he’d begun seventh grade in the fall, he’d also begun keeping his own hours, ignoring the rules his parents set for him. A 9:00 curfew meant nothing. Richard couldn’t drive yet, of course, but he had friends who could, and he came home whenever he felt like it: at 11:00 on a school night, later on weekend nights. When his enraged parents asked him what he thought he was doing, he replied, “Hanging out.” Sometimes he didn’t reply at all, just walked past the Nobles and into the bedroom he shared with Henry. If a punishment was meted out, Richard ignored it.

  “What’s my mom supposed to do if Richard isn’t here when she comes?” asked Ava.

  Georgia shrugged. “Just leave. He won’t care. He’ll find someone else to drive him home.”

  Georgia’s mind was on other things. One was the empty storefront in Lewisport. It was the building that had housed the dollhouse store, and after that had finally (finally) failed, her father’s juice bar. The juice bar had been as unsuccessful as the store — but mercifully had lasted only several months. Now it too had closed, and the building stood empty.

  Mr. Noble had done a lot of the carpooling recently.

  “He doesn’t have anything else to do with his life,” Richard had muttered to Georgia one afternoon.

  Georgia had rounded on him. “Yes, he does!” she’d said loudly, then lowered her voice, realizing her father was just steps away in the kitchen. “Yes, he does,” she’d whispered.

  “Name one thing,” Richard demanded.

  Georgia’s face had reddened. “He’s thinking about a new business.”

  Richard snorted. “Good luck with that.”

  “Well, if you know all the answers, what do you think he should do?”

  “Teach. He’s a teacher. That’s what he’s supposed to do.”

  “Where? There aren’t any teaching jobs around here.”

  “Well, he could do something,” said Richard, but suddenly he looked and sounded defeated.

  This was not unusual for Richard, as he brought home one failed test, one pathetic report card, after another.

  “You’re in danger of being asked to repeat seventh grade,” his mother had warned him recently.

  “So?”

  “Do you want to stay back?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “If you would just settle down and pay attention to your assignments you could do very well,” said his father. “I’d be happy to tutor you.”

  “I don’t care about school!”

  Georgia had retreated to her room then. She’d closed the door quietly and pulled out her guitar.

  Now she squinted into the foggy afternoon light. “There’s your mom,” she said to Ava, as a blue Subaru pulled into the school parking lot.

  The girls piled into the car.

  “Where’s Richard?” asked Ava’s mother.

  “He’s not coming,” Georgia replied. She saw Mrs. Norwood glance at her in the rearview mirror and she lowered her eyes.

  “All right then. Off we go.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Mrs. Norwood pulled up in front of the cottage.

  “Bye!” called Talia and Ava.

  Georgia wriggled out of the car. “Bye,” she replied. “Thank you, Mrs. Norwood.”

  Georgia stood for a moment looking at the little house. Her father’s car was in the driveway, which was not unusual. The lights were on both downstairs and upstairs, which was unusual. Georgia entered the house, stepping over Noelle, and hanging her wet coat on the peg by the door.

  “Hello?” she called.

  Henry peered out of his room. “Don’t go upstairs,” he whispered.

  “What? Why not?”

  “Something’s going on. Mom and Dad are both up there, and Mom said not to go up.”

  Georgia frowned. “Well, I’m going up anyway.”

  “No, don’t,” said Henry, reaching for her. “I think Dad’s crying.”

  Georgia twisted away from him and ran to her parents’ room. She heard soft footsteps behind her and saw Henry hesitate at the bottom of the staircase. “Stay there,” she told him. Then she called out, “Mom? Dad?” When there wasn’t any answer, she knocked on their door.

  “Not now,” her father called back.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I said, not now.”

  “Please let me come in.”

  Georgia heard whispered voices, and a moment later her mother opened the door. Georgia leaned around her. A suitcase was on the bed. It was half-packed, with more clothes tossed on the bed and others spilling from hangers in the closet.

  “What’s going on?” Georgia asked.

  Her mother turned to her father. “Why don’t you tell her?” There was an edge to her voice.

  “Tell me what?” Georgia bit her lip. She took a step into the room.

  Her father, who had been busily arranging things in the suitcase, sat on the bed and faced her. Georgia could see that Henry had been right. Her father was crying.

  “Tell me what?” she said again.

  Her father patted the bed. “Come sit next to me, Georgie Girl.”

  Georgia sat. She looked at her hands and realized they were shaking.

  “Honey,” said her father, and he reached for her hands, holding them tightly in his until the trembling stopped. “I’ve decided … I’ve decided to go away for a while.”

  “Go away? What, like on a trip?” Then something occurred to her. “Are you going to look for work?” She didn’t want to move away from Lewisport, but if her father found a job somewhere else, moving might not be the worst thing in the world.

  Her father sighed. Across the room, her mother shook her head in disgust.

  “No,” he said. “I just need a little time to figure some things out.”

  Georgia frowned. “Figure what things out? Why can’t you do that here?”

  “I need to figure out what to do with myself, with my life. The store failed. The juice bar failed. I can’t find a job. I feel like a failure. I think I need a little space for thinking. I need to be somewhere different.”

  Georgia’s mother sank into the armchair by the window and put her face in her hands.

  “Mom?” said Georgia.

  “I’m okay. It’s going to be okay.”

  Georgia turned back to her father. “Where are you going? How long will you be gone?”

  “I’m going to stay with Aunt Kaycee and Uncle Mitch —”

  “Aunt Kaycee and Uncle Mitch? Why are you going all the way to New York?”

  “Georgia, I don’t have the answers right now. I’m sorry. I just need to get away.”

  “From us?” Georgia let go of her father’s hands and stood up. “You need to get away from us? That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

  “No, not from you,” said her father. “It’s hard t
o explain. I need to think.”

  “But why can’t you think here? With your family?” Georgia looked at her mother, who shrugged.

  “I’m sorry, honey,” her father answered. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

  “Yes, it does! You’re leaving me.” Georgia felt tears spring to her eyes.

  “I’m leaving, but I’m not leaving you. Or your mother or your brothers. I’m leaving in order to make things better. I need to figure out what to do. I need some answers.”

  Georgia stood in the doorway. “Okay,” she said at last. “I don’t understand, but okay.” She wiped her eyes and walked down the stairs and into her room, where she found Noelle curled on her bed. Henry knocked on her door. “Go away,” said Georgia. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  She heard his footsteps pad slowly back toward his room.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later Georgia heard more footsteps. Her parents were coming downstairs. She opened her door and saw her father lugging his suitcase into the living room. Her mother walked heavily behind him and into the kitchen, where Georgia heard the refrigerator open.

  “Henry?” said their father. “Could I talk to you for a minute?”

  Henry, eyes puffy and red, emerged from his bedroom.

  Georgia once again closed herself into her room. She couldn’t bear to hear what their father would say to Henry, but her closed door didn’t muffle Henry’s sobs.

  At last, with a sigh, she joined her father and Henry in the living room.

  “When … are … you … coming … back?” Henry was asking, the words leaving his mouth in gasps.

  “I don’t know, but as soon as I can.”

  The front door opened and Richard strode in. “Hey,” he said, looking from Georgia to his father to Henry. “What’s wrong?”

  “Sit down,” said their father.

  Richard listened for about twenty seconds before he slammed his backpack onto the floor and shouted, “This is crap! This is crap!” He stormed into his room and slammed the door.

  “That went well,” said their mother from the kitchen.

  Georgia watched their father. He set his suitcase by the front door and put on his winter coat. Then he kissed Georgia and Henry. He knocked lightly on Richard’s door and called, “I’ll be back soon.”

  “You are such a liar,” was Richard’s reply.

  Georgia’s mother busied herself in the kitchen.

  “Good-bye,” Mr. Noble said to her, standing uncertainly in the doorway.

  The refrigerator door closed. A cabinet door opened.

  Georgia’s father picked up his suitcase, carried it outside, got into his car, and backed it onto Blue Harbor Lane.

  Georgia watched the taillights disappear around the bend. Then she crept into the kitchen and hugged her mother from behind. “I’ll help you make supper,” she said.

  * * *

  Supper was eaten in silence.

  When it was over, Georgia cleaned up the kitchen. She refused to cry. She helped Henry with a math work sheet, then did her own homework. Richard switched the television on and the four Nobles gathered in front of it, silently and humorlessly watching reruns of Seinfeld.

  “Bedtime,” said their mother eventually, long after Henry’s usual school night bedtime.

  Richard and Henry slogged into their room.

  Georgia turned to her mother. “Do you think he’s coming back?” she whispered.

  Her mother shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  Georgia sat on an iron bench in her small backyard and looked up at the cloudless blue sky. She closed her eyes and listened to the sound of the surf across Blue Harbor Lane, breathed in the scents of salt and sand and the lavender plants at her feet. She remembered Great-Grandma Abby once telling her about two rosebushes that used to grow not far from where she was sitting. Georgia opened her eyes, left the bench, and scuffed around the yard. No sign of where the rosebushes had once grown but, she realized, Great-Grandma must have been talking about a time seventy-five years or more in the past.

  The rosebushes had been special to Great-Grandma’s mother, Nell. The blooms on the bushes had been a lovely deep pink, Great-Grandma had said, but that wasn’t why the bushes had been special. They’d been special because of what they’d represented.

  “What did they represent?” Georgia had wanted to know.

  Great-Grandma Abby had stared off into space before she spoke. “My father planted a bush for each of the babies my mother gave birth to that didn’t live, that never even drew a breath of life. One for a little girl named Millicent and one for a little boy named Luther, after my father. First I was born, then my sister Rose was born, and then came Millicent and Luther. My mother never got over them. No mother expects to see her children die before she does. It isn’t the natural order of things.”

  Georgia had found that a supremely unsatisfying explanation. She looked again for the spots where two sad rosebushes might once have grown, but found nothing. She knew they had eventually been moved to the garden of the big house in Barnegat Point when Great-Grandma Abby’s father had become wealthy and they had left the little beach cottage behind. The cottage had become a vacation house then, and now it was once again a home. Georgia wished it were a home with two old rosebushes by the iron bench.

  “Georgia?” her father called from the back door. “What are you doing out there? Want to go into town with me?”

  The idea of walking to Lewisport’s collection of stores and businesses was appealing, but Georgia was enjoying this quiet, lazy morning in the middle of a three-day weekend. As usual, her friends had gone away for the vacation. Ava and the Norwoods were spending Memorial Day with relatives in Portland, and Penny and Talia and their parents had flown to Chicago for a wedding. The Nobles, on the other hand, were having another vacation at home.

  No amount of begging by Richard and Henry had been able to change their parents’ minds. (Georgia had not bothered to beg.)

  “We can’t afford to go anywhere and that’s that,” Mr. Noble had said the first time the subject arose.

  Since her father was still without a job, this had made perfect sense to Georgia. She was just glad he was home again. He had spent several weeks with his sister, Kaycee, and her husband when he’d needed to figure things out. Then he’d returned to Lewisport and announced that he knew what to do with his life after all. He was going to sell real estate. And he did. He’d sold a fishing shack on an inlet not far from Blue Harbor Lane. He’d sold two small homes that were miles from the beach and couldn’t be considered vacation property. He’d sold a slightly larger house that had been lived in by a couple for close to sixty years and badly needed a new septic system in addition to all new appliances and a complete makeover.

  “This isn’t working,” Georgia’s father finally said in disgust. Eight months after he returned from Kaycee’s, he left again. But two weeks later his car pulled into the driveway and he’d announced once more that he was home.

  “Now what?” asked Mrs. Noble, shaking her head.

  “I don’t know. Back to real estate, I suppose.”

  “Back to real estate?” exclaimed Richard when he heard the news. It was late, eleven thirty on a school night, and Richard had just walked through the door. No one mentioned the fact that he had missed his curfew. “Don’t you sometimes wonder why we left Princeton?” he asked.

  “Every day,” his father had replied, rubbing his eyes. “Every single day.”

  Now Georgia blinked in the sunlight, having almost forgotten what her father had asked her. “Go into town?” she repeated. “I guess not. But thanks. I’m going to practice for a while.” She patted her guitar, which was sitting beside her on the bench. “Maybe Henry will go with you.”

  Five minutes later Georgia watched her father and Henry stride down Blue Harbor, identical baseball caps worn backward on their heads. She picked up her guitar and strummed it thoughtfully. Her lessons with Mr. Elden were going well. She took
only private lessons now that she was in middle school. When she’d graduated from the elementary school, she’d entertained the hope that Mr. Elden would move on to the middle school with her, but of course that hadn’t happened. He was a beloved fixture at BP Elementary. Georgia felt lucky that her parents always found a way to pay for her private lessons.

  Now if she could just put together a band of her own. That was her dream: to play guitar in a band. But Penny and Talia, who took flute lessons, were hopeless and unenthusiastic musicians, and Ava, who had played keyboard in the elementary school band, had given that up, saying that her dog could play better than she could. (Privately, Georgia agreed with her.)

  So Georgia sat on the bench and strummed and daydreamed and imagined outfits that she would one day wear onstage.

  “Honey?” her mother called to her from the kitchen window. “Are you wearing sunblock?”

  “No.” Georgia set down her guitar. “I was about to come inside, though.”

  “What are you going to do today?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing. Which is fine with me.”

  The seventh graders had been burdened with homework lately, in addition to studying for final exams. Georgia was happy for a little island of freedom and free time.

  She entered the cottage, which was cool and dim and smelled of fresh air and the warm days of spring, sat on her bed, and carefully put her guitar back in its case. She thought about the rosebushes again. She didn’t know why they kept creeping back into her thoughts.

  Georgia’s mind flew to the journals she’d found two years earlier. She remembered skimming through the last one and discovering Nell’s awful secret — and then hastily closing them into their hiding place. She hadn’t looked at them since.

  “The rosebushes,” Georgia said aloud. “Maybe I can read what Nell wrote about the babies.”

  She crossed her room and quietly closed her door. Then she examined the panel on the wall. She realized she didn’t know how to open it. When Richard had thrown her boot at it two years ago, it had seemed to pop open on its own.