Staying Together by Ann M. Martin Page B

didn’t — not entirely — wouldn’t have believed what Willow had to say. So when Olivia and Flora had looked expectantly at Willow, she had laughed and said, “My earliest memory is sitting on Santa’s lap in a department store and telling him I wanted a credit card for Christmas. I didn’t even understand what a credit card was, but I knew my parents bought all kinds of stuff with theirs, so I figured instead of asking for the stuff I’d just ask for the card.”
    Olivia and Flora had laughed, and Willow had not told them that the story was entirely made up and that her earliest memory was of hiding in her closet while her mother rampaged around Willow’s room, yelling, “If you can’t take care of your toys, then I’m going to give them to children who
can
take care of them.” She had angrily stuffed things — Willow’s teddy, her dolls, her princess wand, and other toys Willow didn’t care to remember — into a garbage bag, which she took not to needy children but to the dump before Mr. Hamilton came home from work that evening. When her father had looked around her room and asked where everything was, her mother had said tersely, “We decided to have a cleaning-out.”
    Willow had grown up tiptoeing around her house — literally — unsure of what her mother might object to or what new rules she might suddenly put in place. Some of the rules made sense — like, take off your shoes before you come in the house. Others made no sense at all — inside doors must be left open at a ninety-degree angle, for example. Some rules stayed in place; others were eventually forgotten by Mrs. Hamilton, although not by Willow or Cole. Doors open or closed? Set the table with the dishes right side up or upside down? They never knew what might cause a burst of shouting or crying or a 5:00 a.m. phone call to neighbors.
    Plenty of labels had been attached to Mrs. Hamilton’s state of mind over the years as she had checked in and out of hospitals, but Willow hadn’t paid much attention to the diagnoses. She’d just wanted to get through each day. She had enjoyed the calm, even days when her mother was gone, and she hadn’t been sure what to think when her father had finally told her the exact date her mother would be returning from her most recent stay in the hospital, although she had been reassured by her father’s insistence that things were going to be different from then on.
    â€œI promise I’ll be at home more,” he had said, “and we’re going to work much more closely with your mother’s doctors.” Willow had believed him. But as the day of her mother’s return drew closer, she became more anxious.
    And now today was the day.
    â€œWhen you come home from school,” Mr. Hamilton told Willow and Cole over breakfast that morning, “your mother will be back. I’ll be picking her up in a couple of hours.”
    Willow glanced at her brother, who pointedly would not look back at her. “Want me to meet you on the corner after school?” she asked him. “We could walk the rest of the way home together.”
    â€œOkay.”
    When Willow turned off of Main Street that afternoon, she saw the small figure of Cole ahead. He was sitting on the curb on the corner of Dodds and Aiken, trailing a stick back and forth in the sand and dead leaves that had accumulated in the gutter over the winter.
    â€œHi!” Willow called when she spotted her brother.
    He glanced up and waved at her but said nothing.
    Willow was alone. Olivia and Flora had walked as far as Needle and Thread with her but then had gone into the store to visit their grandmothers. Willow was glad. She didn’t feel like talking about her mother, and she certainly didn’t want any worried glances when she and Cole stepped into their house to greet her after her long absence.
    â€œCome on,” she said to her