dismissed?”
I shrugged.
He noticed the paper I’d been doodling on. He turned it toward him. “What is this?” he asked.
“It’s just a note,” I said. “Sometimes I write them to Dora in code.”
“You write code,” Jimmy said.
I looked at his mangled hair and the uneven place on his lip and I ended up explaining how it worked—two letters forward in the first word, two letters back.
“Write me a sentence,” Jimmy said.
I wrote him a sentence.
Kv dccjq tgcnna jmlcjw.
He took the pencil out of my hand. I watched his lips move while he figured it out.
Finally he nodded. “You don’t need to feel lonely right now,” he said.
I felt a tightening at the back of my throat, but I fought it down.
My mother’s voice found its way into the kitchen. “Are you two working on your history project?”
30
That night I had a dream that a genie who looked like Mr. Clearwater came out from behind the bathroom mirror in a cloud of blue smoke and offered me three wishes, and after I wished for world peace and an end to global warming and the melting of the ice caps, he clapped his hands and said, “That’s three” (counting global warming and the ice caps separately instead of together), and then he yelled at me and told me I’d forgotten Dora. “What on earth were you thinking?” he asked, twirling his mustache and fading back into the mirror.
I got out of bed. Dora used to complain that our lives were too ordinary. She used to say we needed more adventure, more unexpectedness, maybe more of a thrill. But I wanted our lives to be ordinary, to be built out of ordinary things: Dora feeding bologna to the fish at Nevis Pond; Dora making me a pancake with a swear word baked into the batter; Dora and I painting our toenails together on the bathroom floor.
It was 4 a.m. I went downstairs and found my father in his pajamas in the kitchen, reading the paper. The cat, Mr. Peebles, was crunching on something in his dish.
“Yesterday’s news,” my father said, turning a page. He didn’t seem surprised to see me. “It’s still too early for today’s.”
I sat down across from him at the table. The hair on one side of his head was sticking out. “Do you want to work on the crossword?” he asked.
“No. I’m not good at puzzles.” I had never sat in the kitchen in the middle of the night before. “I don’t think we should leave her there,” I said.
I thought my father would tell me that I shouldn’t worry, that everything would work out. But he only nodded and folded the paper.
Mr. Peebles crept under the table, rubbing in a figure eight pattern against my legs.
“How about some breakfast?” my father asked.
31
On Saturday I called the Grandma Therapist’s answering machine, because I thought the sound of her voice might help me think. “If you are in crisis,” the message said, “please call the emergency hotline at the following number.” I pressed the receiver to my ear and thought about the Grandma Therapist’s fuzzy shoes and the way she sometimes tilted her head when we talked. What exactly did she mean by
crisis
? And what did she think I ought to do about Dora?
“I wish you well,” the message ended. “We’ll be in touch.”
At the sound of the beep I hung up and immediately redialed. “Hello. You have reached the office of—”
“Who are you calling?” my mother asked. She had come up behind me in the kitchen.
“No one.” I hung up.
“You were standing there for such a long time.”
“It wasn’t that long,” I said.
My mother straightened out a pile of papers on the kitchen counter. “I meant to ask you how your therapy appointments are going.”
“They’re fine.” Did she somehow know who I’d been calling?
“Because we can find someone else for you to talk to if you’d rather.” She opened an envelope. “Are the appointments…helpful?”
I wasn’t sure—I didn’t know what they were supposed to accomplish. When I was in the Grandma
I shrugged.
He noticed the paper I’d been doodling on. He turned it toward him. “What is this?” he asked.
“It’s just a note,” I said. “Sometimes I write them to Dora in code.”
“You write code,” Jimmy said.
I looked at his mangled hair and the uneven place on his lip and I ended up explaining how it worked—two letters forward in the first word, two letters back.
“Write me a sentence,” Jimmy said.
I wrote him a sentence.
Kv dccjq tgcnna jmlcjw.
He took the pencil out of my hand. I watched his lips move while he figured it out.
Finally he nodded. “You don’t need to feel lonely right now,” he said.
I felt a tightening at the back of my throat, but I fought it down.
My mother’s voice found its way into the kitchen. “Are you two working on your history project?”
30
That night I had a dream that a genie who looked like Mr. Clearwater came out from behind the bathroom mirror in a cloud of blue smoke and offered me three wishes, and after I wished for world peace and an end to global warming and the melting of the ice caps, he clapped his hands and said, “That’s three” (counting global warming and the ice caps separately instead of together), and then he yelled at me and told me I’d forgotten Dora. “What on earth were you thinking?” he asked, twirling his mustache and fading back into the mirror.
I got out of bed. Dora used to complain that our lives were too ordinary. She used to say we needed more adventure, more unexpectedness, maybe more of a thrill. But I wanted our lives to be ordinary, to be built out of ordinary things: Dora feeding bologna to the fish at Nevis Pond; Dora making me a pancake with a swear word baked into the batter; Dora and I painting our toenails together on the bathroom floor.
It was 4 a.m. I went downstairs and found my father in his pajamas in the kitchen, reading the paper. The cat, Mr. Peebles, was crunching on something in his dish.
“Yesterday’s news,” my father said, turning a page. He didn’t seem surprised to see me. “It’s still too early for today’s.”
I sat down across from him at the table. The hair on one side of his head was sticking out. “Do you want to work on the crossword?” he asked.
“No. I’m not good at puzzles.” I had never sat in the kitchen in the middle of the night before. “I don’t think we should leave her there,” I said.
I thought my father would tell me that I shouldn’t worry, that everything would work out. But he only nodded and folded the paper.
Mr. Peebles crept under the table, rubbing in a figure eight pattern against my legs.
“How about some breakfast?” my father asked.
31
On Saturday I called the Grandma Therapist’s answering machine, because I thought the sound of her voice might help me think. “If you are in crisis,” the message said, “please call the emergency hotline at the following number.” I pressed the receiver to my ear and thought about the Grandma Therapist’s fuzzy shoes and the way she sometimes tilted her head when we talked. What exactly did she mean by
crisis
? And what did she think I ought to do about Dora?
“I wish you well,” the message ended. “We’ll be in touch.”
At the sound of the beep I hung up and immediately redialed. “Hello. You have reached the office of—”
“Who are you calling?” my mother asked. She had come up behind me in the kitchen.
“No one.” I hung up.
“You were standing there for such a long time.”
“It wasn’t that long,” I said.
My mother straightened out a pile of papers on the kitchen counter. “I meant to ask you how your therapy appointments are going.”
“They’re fine.” Did she somehow know who I’d been calling?
“Because we can find someone else for you to talk to if you’d rather.” She opened an envelope. “Are the appointments…helpful?”
I wasn’t sure—I didn’t know what they were supposed to accomplish. When I was in the Grandma
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