could watch Sammie enter and leave rooms all day long. Sapphires: that showed how shallow she was. The way to Lacey’s heart was through onion rings.
Chapter Eight
ELLA DANE HAD BEEN E-MAILING her clients. She had taken to the Internet with astonishing ease and had become an online pet psychic. Mostly she tried to persuade people their dogs wanted to be vegan. She told them dogs felt compassion for all living things and truly preferred hydrolyzed soy protein to beef, and in return, the owners deposited twenty dollars a month into her PayPal account. Surprisingly, she had over fifty clients. Lacey couldn’t understand it.
Somehow, Ella Dane had supported herself and Lacey ever since the day they left Grandpa Merritt’s house forever, a day just as hot and sticky as this, though it had been September. Lacey was six, a first grader, when her teacher held her back at the end of school to say, “You’re not riding the bus today, your mom’s picking you up.”
Ella Dane arrived at school not in Grandpa Merritt’s extended-cab Ford pickup but in a blue car Lacey didn’t recognize, a sickly hatchback lunging against its wheels. She had to get in the driver’s door and slide over Ella Dane, because the passenger door was punched in, and it was terribly hot. “Can’t you turn the air on?” she said.
“There’s no air.” Ella Dane lowered her window. The passenger’s side had no window, only a sheet of thick plastic duct-taped to the crumpled frame.
The hatchback was full of black garbage bags. One of them was open, and Timmy the bear peered out of it. Lacey grabbed him and said, “Why’s my stuff in garbage bags?”
“I packed our things, we’re leaving.”
That was all Ella Dane would say, then or later. That morning, Lacey had kissed Grandpa Merritt good-bye and gotten onto the school bus with her Barbie backpack and sparkly sneakers. That night, she and her mother slept in the car on a strange street. A week later, they moved into a motel in a new town halfway to the coast, and Lacey found a palmetto bug in her book bag. It ran across her hand. Each individual thorned foot clutched her at a particular point. She couldn’t get the feeling off her skin.
Grandpa Merritt had lived in an old neighborhood in Columbia. The magnolia was twice as tall as the house, and in September when the furry cones fell, little Lacey picked out the ruby-red seeds. Grandpa Merritt suspended a hula hoop from the ceiling and hung gauze curtains from it, so she could have a princess bed. After that day, she never saw that house or that room again. By the time she was old enough to visit Grandpa Merritt on her own, he had suffered three strokes and was trapped in the nursing home bed. He clutched her with his dry claw and mouthed words she couldn’t understand. The hair on his arms was a wiry white fleece. Long ago, he used to swing her up over his head and catch her, swing her and catch her again.
They’d lived with him for a year. One year of coming home to the same house every day, one year of having a real house, her own home, and then back on the road with Ella Dane, always on the way to somewhere else, just as it had been for the first five years of Lacey’s life, since before she could remember.
“Because we can’t,” Ella Dane said, whenever Lacey wanted to go home, when things were worse than usual and they were sleeping in the car again. “Because I had to,” she said, when Lacey wanted to know why, why, why had they left Grandpa Merritt. “Because I had no choice.”
After his stroke, Grandpa Merritt lay on his kitchen floor for two days, the telephone out of reach on the wall. If the Kendalls had been there, he might not have been reduced to the wet-mouthed stammering thing strapped in the nursing home bed. There had to be a reason.
“That’s done,” Ella Dane said. “Now I’ve got to write the blog.” She blogged about the challenges of raising a vegan dog. She’d taken Bibbits off his
Chapter Eight
ELLA DANE HAD BEEN E-MAILING her clients. She had taken to the Internet with astonishing ease and had become an online pet psychic. Mostly she tried to persuade people their dogs wanted to be vegan. She told them dogs felt compassion for all living things and truly preferred hydrolyzed soy protein to beef, and in return, the owners deposited twenty dollars a month into her PayPal account. Surprisingly, she had over fifty clients. Lacey couldn’t understand it.
Somehow, Ella Dane had supported herself and Lacey ever since the day they left Grandpa Merritt’s house forever, a day just as hot and sticky as this, though it had been September. Lacey was six, a first grader, when her teacher held her back at the end of school to say, “You’re not riding the bus today, your mom’s picking you up.”
Ella Dane arrived at school not in Grandpa Merritt’s extended-cab Ford pickup but in a blue car Lacey didn’t recognize, a sickly hatchback lunging against its wheels. She had to get in the driver’s door and slide over Ella Dane, because the passenger door was punched in, and it was terribly hot. “Can’t you turn the air on?” she said.
“There’s no air.” Ella Dane lowered her window. The passenger’s side had no window, only a sheet of thick plastic duct-taped to the crumpled frame.
The hatchback was full of black garbage bags. One of them was open, and Timmy the bear peered out of it. Lacey grabbed him and said, “Why’s my stuff in garbage bags?”
“I packed our things, we’re leaving.”
That was all Ella Dane would say, then or later. That morning, Lacey had kissed Grandpa Merritt good-bye and gotten onto the school bus with her Barbie backpack and sparkly sneakers. That night, she and her mother slept in the car on a strange street. A week later, they moved into a motel in a new town halfway to the coast, and Lacey found a palmetto bug in her book bag. It ran across her hand. Each individual thorned foot clutched her at a particular point. She couldn’t get the feeling off her skin.
Grandpa Merritt had lived in an old neighborhood in Columbia. The magnolia was twice as tall as the house, and in September when the furry cones fell, little Lacey picked out the ruby-red seeds. Grandpa Merritt suspended a hula hoop from the ceiling and hung gauze curtains from it, so she could have a princess bed. After that day, she never saw that house or that room again. By the time she was old enough to visit Grandpa Merritt on her own, he had suffered three strokes and was trapped in the nursing home bed. He clutched her with his dry claw and mouthed words she couldn’t understand. The hair on his arms was a wiry white fleece. Long ago, he used to swing her up over his head and catch her, swing her and catch her again.
They’d lived with him for a year. One year of coming home to the same house every day, one year of having a real house, her own home, and then back on the road with Ella Dane, always on the way to somewhere else, just as it had been for the first five years of Lacey’s life, since before she could remember.
“Because we can’t,” Ella Dane said, whenever Lacey wanted to go home, when things were worse than usual and they were sleeping in the car again. “Because I had to,” she said, when Lacey wanted to know why, why, why had they left Grandpa Merritt. “Because I had no choice.”
After his stroke, Grandpa Merritt lay on his kitchen floor for two days, the telephone out of reach on the wall. If the Kendalls had been there, he might not have been reduced to the wet-mouthed stammering thing strapped in the nursing home bed. There had to be a reason.
“That’s done,” Ella Dane said. “Now I’ve got to write the blog.” She blogged about the challenges of raising a vegan dog. She’d taken Bibbits off his
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