“Well?”
“I suppose so,” I said.
She smiled. Her face could change so quickly, including the shapes of her eyes and her chin, as quickly as someone taking off one mask and putting on another.
“You really are a smart little girl. I just knew the moment I set eyes on you that you would be,” she added, and picked up my bag so I would stand up. I started to, but it was as if Mama had her hand on my head pushing me down, so I stopped.
“Oh, you mustn’t be afraid of coming with me, Saffron. I’m as full of good things as a jar of mixed jelly beans.”
She smeared her friendly smile over her face again. If I had a grandmother like the ones I saw on television, she probably would look like the Umbrella Lady looked right now, I thought. I shouldn’t be afraid. Maybe she was someone’s grandmother. Maybe her granddaughter or grandson was waiting for her at home and she wanted me to meet her or him.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a rat scamper across the train platform and disappear off the far corner. Just as the Umbrella Lady had predicted, a stronger breeze lifted the strands of hair off her forehead, where the wrinkles deepened and spread to her temples, making it look like her face was cracking.
My stomach churned, not only from the ugly odors but probably because I hadn’t eaten for some time. Mama used to say, “Someone inside is complaining that she’s starving.” Then she would laugh, and we’d have lunch. The Umbrella Lady would probably say, “There. Your clock has told you.”
When I looked up, I realized that because of the station lights, I couldn’t see any stars. Stars were always comforting. With the darkness on both sides and across the tracks, it felt as if I had slid into a large black box. I shivered. Where was Daddy? I wondered. Why was he taking so long? Why didn’t he think I’d be cold and hungry? I didn’t want to stay here and wait any longer, and her idea was logical and seemed okay. Even though I wished I could, there was no way I could say no.
I rose again, and she put the note and the coloring book on the bench carefully, just the way she had said she would.
“There. He’s sure to find it. He’ll look and find it because this is where he left you, right?”
I nodded. She took my hand, and we started away. Her palm felt rough, and her fingers were thin and long like wires clamped tightly around my hand. When we stepped away from the station lights, I finally could see some stars in between gray-black clouds that puffed up proudly as they floated over them. She looked up, too.
“I always carry an umbrella,” she said. “Just in case. Weather commentators don’t get it right too often. Despite their science, I call them fortune-tellers. And besides, more things can fall out of the sky than just rain, snow, and hail. We just don’t see them, but they’re falling all over us. Believe me.”
I had no idea what that meant. I turned and looked back when we reached the corner of the platform. What if Daddy was angry at me for leaving? I remembered how his face could get so ugly and scary that I thought he could wear it on Halloween.
I stopped walking.
“Now, now,” she said. “You don’t want to change your mind, do you? You can’t sit in the cold much longer without getting sick, and how would your father like that? He’d blame himself, and everyone would be upset. That’s not a way to travel, now, is it, sniffling and coughing?”
I shook my head, but I looked back again.
The coloring book would be the last thing he had given me, and I wouldn’t have it.
CHAPTER TWO
When you’re older, time seems so much more important. At home, I would go almost all day without looking at a clock or caring what time it was. Mama would tell me when I had to do my schoolwork and when I could play. It was only lately that even she would forget or not care what time it was. She didn’t check my schoolwork and often didn’t give me anything new to do. My father didn’t know because he was still angry about her not sending me to public or private school.
“You’ll be responsible for what happens,” he had told her.
It became just like the Umbrella Lady later described. My stomach would tell me I was hungry, and I would go looking for lunch. Mama might be just sitting in the old maple wood rocking chair with the cushioned seat and staring at the picture in the ruby wood frame over the fieldstone fireplace, a picture of a sailboat heading for the horizon. A woman was seated, and a man was standing and pulling on a rope running up the mast. I used to think it was heading toward the edge of the world, and if the sailboat continued, it would fall over and tumble down into nothingness. Maybe Mama had given me that idea when she said, “I hope he gets it turned around before it’s too late.”
Whenever she saw me standing there, she would realize it was lunchtime and get up. More and more, she forgot and I had to remind her.
Anyway, I rarely thought about the actual time. However, I always believed most adults looked at a clock at least a dozen times, if not more, every day. They certainly looked at their watches that much. Daddy usually did, so I thought everyone did, except Mama.
She had a watch in a jewelry case. It was a watch that Daddy had bought her when they first were married. It was gold, not with a round face but shaped more like a triangle. It had a tiny diamond next to each number. On the back was inscribed Love, D. There was a tiny scratch next to his initial. I always wondered if it had been there when he had first given it to her. He had said it was custom-made for her, but one day she decided that she didn’t like anything on her wrist or her fingers. She wouldn’t even wear her wedding ring anymore, and she never wore a bracelet or a necklace. I remembered Daddy complaining about that, asking her why she let him buy her all those beautiful things if she wasn’t going to wear them, and her saying, “I’m not a Christmas tree. Stop trying to decorate me. It won’t change anything.”
I had waited for him to say something else, say at least that he knew she wasn’t a Christmas tree, and what was supposed to be changed? He had merely shaken his head and walked away with his shoulders slumped. Then he had stopped, turned around, nodded at me, and said, “When she finally goes to school, give her the watch.”
Before Mama could say anything, he had added, “Time is what staples us to reality, Lindsey. Otherwise, we’re like astronauts untethered in outer space.” He had waited a moment and then went “Ah,” waved his hand as if he was chasing a fly away, and walked on to his home office to, as Mama said, dive into and swim in his computer to either get ahead on or finish his work at the insurance company.
I was thinking about time while we were walking to the Umbrella Lady’s house, because the streets were so quiet. It had to be very, very late, or as Daddy might tell Mama when he realized she wasn’t getting me ready for bed, “It’s a day past her bedtime.”
No children were playing outside, and there were no cars going up and down. There were no stores on this street. We had passed a few on the way from the train station, one that was by a gas station, so I stopped to see if Daddy was in there.
“Wait. Daddy,” I had said, but I didn’t see him.
“Satisfied?” the Umbrella Lady said when it was clear there weren’t even any other customers in there. She tugged me by my hand.