She looked at me again.
“I didn’t marry until I was thirty. My husband was forty-six. He divorced his first wife when he was thirty-one. He didn’t have any children with her, and what happened to him up here,” she said, pointing to her temple, “was considered premature.”
She waited a moment, probably to see what I would say. I was thinking about Daddy telling me his losing his hair was premature. When I said nothing, she thought I didn’t know the meaning of the word and quickly added, “Another apple rotting. That means it shouldn’t have happened yet. My father outlived my husband. Can you imagine that? My husband just forgot what he was doing one day and took too many sleeping pills. I didn’t know.”
Then, more firmly, she said, “Don’t think I knew. I wasn’t trying to escape.”
I didn’t understand. Escape? Escape from what?
She pressed her lips together quickly, as if she had said something wrong or terrible. After a moment, she continued in a softer tone.
“Anyway, I was all alone in this house again. Except for Mr. Pebbles and Mr. Pebbles and Mr. Pebbles,” she said. She paused, and then suddenly, she slapped herself so hard on the right side of her head that I jumped in the seat.
“Stupid, stupid me, talking about my dead husband when we should be talking only about you. Here I am, going on and on about sad things, too. I don’t have enough pennies for all that I’ve told you already. If I keep up like this, I’ll have to go to the bank first thing in the morning and get rolls and rolls of pennies.”
I stared up at her, astonished at how hard she had slapped herself. The side of her face was so red I thought she was bleeding. Then, just as suddenly, her face softened into a smile again.
“Come, let me show you the room,” she said, plucking my hand off the table. I rose quickly so that she didn’t tug me. I had no doubt she would have nearly pulled my arm out of my shoulder.
She saw me glance with concern at my carry-on bag.
“No one is going to steal your things, Saffron. This is not a train station. It’s my house,” she said. “And Mr. Pebbles doesn’t steal.”
Mr. Pebbles rose to follow us.
I walked with her past the small living room on the left, with furniture that looked, as Mama might say, because she often had said it about some of ours, “exhausted.” She wouldn’t know where to begin to clean in this living room, I thought. There were magazines on the table in front of the dark-brown sofa with torn skirts. Some of the bottom of the sofa appeared to be touching the floor where the springs had dropped through. I could see the thick dust on the dark wood coffee table and side tables, and the gray carpet looked like it hadn’t been vacuumed since it had first been installed. There were stains as big as coffee cups on it, and the ends were frayed. Crumpled pieces of paper were on a side table, and bread crumbs were in a small light-blue dish. Another dish contained the browning core of an apple.
“I’m not as neat as could be when I’m all by myself,” she said, seeing how my eyes were scanning the room. She smiled. “You can help me clean it up properly. I bought all that furniture in there when I first got married. After my husband died, I planned to buy new furniture. But then I thought, what for? Everything has been broken in and fits me. Why get a new horse when the old one still takes you wherever you want to go?”
Horse? I thought. What horse?
“I was right, wasn’t I?”
When most adults ask if they’re right, they are really not asking you a question. It’s usually something they want you to do or believe. But the Umbrella Lady really was waiting for me to respond, as if my opinion was important. I didn’t want to nod, but I thought I had better, even though I didn’t understand what a horse had to do with furniture.
Satisfied, she smiled, and we continued down the hallway, past the short stairway on the left, to a door on the right. I could see there was a door to the outside at the end of the hallway. It had a frosted paneled window and a silver doorknob. She knocked on the door on our right and said, “Hello in there. Are you decent?”
Then she laughed.
“There’s no one there, but I like to do that. It’s fun to imagine people here sometimes. I’m sure you’ll do it, too. There’s nothing wrong with having imaginary friends. I bet you have one already. I had one at your age. I still remember her name, Pookie. Do you still have an imaginary friend?”
I shook my head. “I never had an imaginary friend.”
She didn’t look pleased. “Well, you should have had one. Imaginary friends keep you from being lonely. Did you have any real friends, a neighbor?”
“Mama was my best friend,” I said, and she smirked with a twisted smile.
“Did she tell you to say that?”
“No.”
“Not in so many words, you mean.”
She opened the door and reached in to flip a switch that turned on a fixture that looked like a big bowl in the center of the ceiling. It was so bright I couldn’t look at it long.
“I’m going to replace that soon with something softer and more fitting for a child’s bedroom. I just needed the extra light right now. I’m not that old, but my vision’s not what it used to be.” She thought a moment and then added, “But nothing is what it used to be. Sometimes that’s good.” She smiled at me. “It will be for you.”
What did that mean? The more she said confusing things, the more I longed for Daddy to come to her house and take me off to our new home.
“It’s a beautiful room, though, isn’t it?” she asked.
The bedroom was the strangest I think I had ever seen, not that I had seen all that many bedrooms in other people’s houses. The furniture was nice, but the walls had streaks of blue and gold, pink and green, going haphazardly in all directions.
“What color do you like the best?” she asked before we took another step.
“I like blue,” I said quickly. I always had. Daddy liked blue, too, but Mama liked green.
“Oh, so do I. This is called robin’s-egg blue,” she said, placing the palm of her right hand on the streak. “I knew any little girl who could color as well as you do would see how perfectly it goes with the princess white furniture. Don’t you love this bedroom? Can you just imagine how perfect it will be? It makes me wish I was a little girl again, but then, lots of things make me wish that.
“Don’t worry. It’ll be a while before you have such a wish. There’s not much you can do about that, anyway. When you’re older, you’ll realize that life is simply a list of important documents: your birth certificate, your diplomas, maybe a marriage certificate, your AARP card, and your death certificate.”
Now she was really confusing me.
“I’m not being sad,” she quickly added. “No pennies necessary. I’m just stating facts. But let’s think about the room. Don’t you love it?”
I gazed at the poster bed. The top of each post had a sparkling crystal ball. The curved headboard and footboard had embossed ribbons and bows. There was a white comforter and a very large white pillow. On the right of the bed was a matching desk and chair, and on the left was a dresser with an oval mirror framed in the same wood. There was only one side table with a lamp. The shade was a darker white. A pinkish area rug was rolled up and off to the left side. The floor had narrow dark-brown wood slats and right now was covered here and there with what looked like brown wrapping paper, probably to keep dripping paint off it.