Did all these kids come from perfectly happy families? Weren’t any of them hiding something that was going on at home? They didn’t seem to be. They didn’t seem to have a thing on their minds but lunch and friends and lipstick.
The nurse came back in and shut the door, and the sounds from the hall fell away. Still, Willa could hear when orchestra practice started. Darn. She loved orchestra. They were learning “The Gliding Dance of the Maidens” by Borodin. The first few notes were so soft and uncertain—weak notes, she always thought—that it took her a moment to sort them out, but they grew stronger on the main melody. It was the “Stranger in Paradise” melody, and the back-of-the-room boys always crooned, “Take my hand, I’m a strange-looking parasite…” till Mr. Budd tapped his baton against his music stand. Mr. Budd was very handsome, with longish golden curls and bulging muscles. You could mistake him for a rock star. If Willa sold the most candy bars and got to go to dinner with him, she would be completely tongue-tied. She almost didn’t want to go to dinner with him.
The orchestra broke off and started over. Same weak beginning, same “Take my hand…” but growing louder now and more sure of itself.
“Is Mom going to be there when we get home today?” Elaine asked.
Willa glanced at her. She had lowered her arm and was crinkling her eyebrows worriedly.
“Of course she is,” Willa said.
* * *
—
Of course she was going to be there, but even so, Willa told Sonya on the bus that she couldn’t go home with her after school. “I have to babysit my sister,” she said. She said it just in a murmur, so that her sister wouldn’t hear. Her sister was sitting all by herself across the aisle from them again.
It was hard to tell from the front of their house whether anyone was inside. True, the windows were dark, but it was daytime, after all. The grass had a flattened, beaten-down look and the leaves of the rhododendron bush by the porch were rolled up tight as cigars; that was how cold it was. Willa fished for the key on its string inside her jacket. She could have tried ringing the doorbell first, but she didn’t want to make her sister stand waiting and then have nothing happen.
In the foyer, there was a ticking silence. In the living room the only motion was the stirring of a curtain hem above a radiator. “She’s not here,” Elaine said in that small voice of hers.
Willa threw her book bag onto the couch. “Give her time,” she said.
“But we already gave her time! We gave her all last night!”
“Thinking time,” their father called it. Their mother would shout at him and stamp her foot, or slap Willa in the face (such a stinging, shameful experience, being slapped in the face—so scary to the person’s eyes), or shake Elaine like a Raggedy Ann, and then she would grab her own hair in both hands so that even after she let go of it, it stayed bushed out on either side of her head. Then next thing you knew she’d be gone, with the house standing shocked and trembling behind her, and their father would say, “Never mind, she just needs a little thinking time.” He wouldn’t seem perturbed in the least. “She’s overtired, is all,” he’d say.
“Other people get overtired,” Willa had told him once, “but they don’t act the way she does.”
“Well, but you know she’s very high-strung.”
Willa wondered how he could be so understanding when he himself never lost his temper—had never even raised his voice, as far as she could remember.
She wished he were here now. Generally he was home by four, but they couldn’t count on that today because he’d be riding with someone else.
“You want a snack?” she asked Elaine. “How about milk and cookies?”
“Well, cookies, maybe.”
“No milk, no cookies!”
That was what their mother always said; Willa used their mother’s merry, singsong voice. It was an effort, though.
In the kitchen she poured a glass of milk and set it on the table along with two Oreos. She didn’t take anything for herself because she had this weird feeling that something was stuck in her throat. Instead she fetched her book bag from the couch and carried it into the dining room, where she always did her homework. Before she’d even started on it, though, Elaine arrived, bringing her cookies but not her milk, and settled opposite her. First-graders didn’t have homework, so Willa asked her, “Want to color in your coloring book?”
Elaine just shook her head.
Willa made up her mind to ignore her. She drew out her math assignment and set to work, but she was conscious all the while of her sister’s eyes on her. Every now and then she heard a mousy crunching sound as Elaine took a nibble from an Oreo.
By the time Willa started on her history questions, Elaine had finished both cookies and was just sitting there, every now and then heaving loud sighs that Willa pretended not to notice. Then the telephone rang. “I’ll get it!” Elaine said, but Willa beat her into the kitchen and grabbed the receiver first. “Hello?” she said.
“Hi, sweetheart,” her father said.
“Hi, Pop.”
“Everything okay there?”
She knew what he was really asking, but all she said was “Yup. I’m doing my homework and Elaine’s just had her snack.”
There was a pause. Then he said, “Well, I ought to be there before long. I’m just waiting for Doug Law to finish meeting with a student.”
He was riding with Mr. Law, then. That was better than Mrs. Bellows, who sometimes stayed in her office as late as six or seven. Willa said, “Okay, Pop.”
“Get ready for the world’s best grilled cheese sandwiches!”
“Okay.”
She hung up and turned to Elaine, who was watching her closely. “He says he’ll be home before long,” Willa told her.
Elaine heaved another sigh.
Willa looked around the kitchen at the counter crowded with dirty dishes, more dishes in the sink, Elaine’s untouched glass of milk sitting on the table along with the clutter from yesterday. “We should clean up,” she said. “Want to help me do the dishes? Me washing and you drying?”
“Yes!” Elaine said. She sounded excited about it; ordinarily it was their mother who washed and Willa who dried. “Do I get to wear an apron?” she asked.
“Well, sure.”
Willa tied one of their mother’s aprons just under Elaine’s armpits, to keep it from dragging on the floor. Then she filled both sides of the sink with hot water, and Elaine hauled the step stool over so she could reach the counter. After Willa had washed the first plate and dipped it into the rinse water, she set it in the dish rack and Elaine picked it up carefully and dried every little crevice with a towel. She took ages at it, but that was all for the better, Willa figured. She started moving more slowly herself, drawing out the process, and when she’d finished washing the dishes she wiped down every surface, including the stovetop, and she cleared the clutter from the table and returned Elaine’s milk to the fridge.