Chapter 148
Chapter 147: The card
Nick’s POV
But I wasn’t going to think about that. Mum was mum and I was going to draw her how I remembered her.
I’d written inside: *I didn’t mean it. I love you. Nick p>
That was all I’d written because I couldn’t think of other words that were as true as those three sentences and I didn’t want to put in words that weren’t as true. And I knew that this was what I needed to apologise for. I said a lot of cruel and horrible things to her because the rest said it and nobody stopped them so I thought it was true and wanted to hurt her because she kept stopping me from having fun with Aunt Catherine but I didn’t understand why back then..but I did now.
I looked at the card again, the only thing that I had in connection with my mum.
The problem was I didn’t know where to send it. Dad had said he was going to help and then he’d left, and I’d thought about asking Catherine but something stopped me from asking Catherine. I wasn’t sure exactly what the something was. It wasn’t that she was mean. She was being nice.
But the card was for Mom.
And asking Catherine to help me send something to Mom felt like-I thought about it-felt like telling a secret to someone who might not keep it the right way.
I put the card back in the drawer. And laid down on my
bed.
Looked at the ceiling, which had the glow stars on it that I’d put there with Mom when I was four. We’d arranged them into shapes that weren’t real constellations, made-up ones, and Mom had named them.
There was the Llama. There was the Backwards Fish. There was the one that looked like a boot that she’d named Gerald for reasons she’d never explained to my satisfaction.
Gerald the Boot.
I looked at Gerald the Boot for a while.
Mrs. Peterson knocked at four-thirty.
“Can I come in?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
She came in and looked around my room the way she did, the checking-everything-is-alright look before proceeding to do or say what she had come here to do or say. Then she saw the drawer, which wasn’t fully closed, which meant the corner of the dark blue paper was visible.
She came and sat on the edge of my bed, which she didn’t usually do. Usually she stood in the doorway or by the desk. Sitting on the bed was different and it meant that this was something she was going to say
1:3
< The Card
Clam
that she hadn’t said before. Was she leaving too? I wanted to ask her but she spoke first cutting me off.
“What’s that?” she asked, about the blue paper, her eyes still on it looking very curious.
Without a word, I get out of bed and walked to the drawer and I got it out. Held it for a moment. Then I gave it to her.
She looked at the front. The picture of me and Mom, the careful drawing. She looked at it for a long time without saying anything.
Then she opened it.
She read the three sentences. I didn’t mean it. I love you. Nick.
She closed it again very carefully, the way you closed something that was important.
“You made this,” she said.
“Three weeks ago,” I said. “But I don’t know where to send it to so she can see it”
She was quiet. The kind of quiet I recognized from this morning, the deciding quiet.
“I might have a number,” she said.
I sat upright immediately as I looked at her eagerly. “A phone number?
“Yes.” She was looking at the card still. “Not an address. But a number she’s been using. She called this morning, Nick p>
The thing that happened in my chest when she said that was big. I pressed my hand against it without meaning to.
“She called here?” I said.
“She called to ask about you.” Mrs. Peterson looked at me directly, the way she did when she was giving me true information and wanted me to know it was true. “She wanted to know you were all right. She wanted to talk to you, but you had school p>
I thought about Mom calling while I was at school. I thought about how the call between them might have gone. I remembered when I had called with Dad’s number only to not have it connected and Grandma had told me later on that sometimes people change numbers which made me realize that she could have a new number and I didn’t know how to get the new number. I had cried that night. Mrs Peterson had brought a glass of warm milk and told me that things would work out and it really did. That Mum would call me because I was her kid and mother’s love their kids no matter what but since she was sick, I had to be very patient which I was and Mrs Peterson was right.
I thought about her calling from somewhere far away, which was Seattle, which was where Dad had gone to find her, and she’d called here and I’d been at school doing clay shapes that weren’t right. And wished that I was sick so I could have stayed home and not miss her call.
“She said to have you call when you were home,” Mrs. Peterson said. “She said she’s thinking about you p>
I looked at the card, the feeling of getting to talk to my mum again overwhelming me that I needed a second to process it. I cleaned my face and took a deep breath as Mrs Peterson rubbed my back, not
23
The Card
saying anything because there was nothing to say. She didn’t rush me or make me feel like a child for having a big reaction to such a great news but waited patiently until i git myself again
“Can I call her?” I asked
“That’s why I came in,” Mrs. Peterson said.
Comments
LUCK DRAW >
す
Vote
Florence
A passionate storyteller who brings emotions to life through her words. When she’s not writing, she finds peace nurturing her garden.