15

EAGAN

It’s working. Ribbons of light are making the fog shrink. Instead of an ocean of gray, it’s more like a huge lake.

Then I notice that some of the figures across from me look like they’re kneeling in prayer. Is that what I should be doing?

We aren’t churchgoers. Dad was raised Methodist, and Mom used to be Catholic. We go to church on Christmas, a nondenominational one, then skip until the next December rolls around. Yeah, we’re one of those families.

But I always loved that little baby in the manger, the center of the whole world for just one night, even if we didn’t pay attention to Him the rest of the year.

Just as that thought occurs to me, I hear a voice. It tells me not to be afraid to face the hard memories, to look beyond the happy ones. It tells me that now is the time to be reconciled to my soul. What does that mean?

“Who are you?” I call out. “Can I see you?”

“Soon,” the voice says. The voice is high, like a child’s. That takes me back to another memory, one that pulls me in like a vacuum.

“Eagan.” Mom’s voice filled my open doorway. “Get down here now.”

“I’m doing homework,” I yelled back.

It was a small lie. I was supposed to be looking for a baby picture for a story I was writing in English. But instead I was IM’ing Scott.

What’s your middle name, Eagan?

Hermione.

Parents big Harry Potter fans?

Harry Potter wasn’t even published when I was born, moron!

Sorry. R U mad at me?

No, I hate that name. Mom named me after a character in a Shakespeare play.

What play?

Don’t remember, but Hermione was a beautiful queen.

So U R a queen?

Call me UR Highness. I never read the play but I looked it up online. The queen dies.

That sucks

But she’s restored to life at the end

“Eagan.”

Gotta go.

I clicked off the screen and ran downstairs. Mom stood in the living room with her arms folded. A bowl with popcorn kernels and an empty glass lay next to my math book in front of the TV.

“What’s this doing on the living room floor?” she screamed.

“I was going to pick it up.”

“You know the rules.”

“I’ll do it in a minute. I have to get ready for practice.” I turned to go back upstairs.

“Do it now.”

“What difference does it make if I pick it up in five minutes?”

“It makes a difference to me. If you want to live in filth, confine it to your own bedroom.”

She could be so rude sometimes. “A bowl of popcorn, an empty glass, and my book isn’t filth. Why can’t it wait?”

Her face had turned red and she was shouting. “Just do it now.”

She called this our living room, but the curved glass coffee table looked more like a piece of art than a place to set a cup. The fluted floor lamp and the Roman shades and the Vermeer reproduction—this room didn’t have a homey feel. It was more like a showroom. The TV in the corner was an afterthought, an allowance for the rest of the family.

I stood my ground. “Are you expecting company?”

“No. I don’t want questions. I want you to pick this up.”

“I will! Why do I have to do it this very instant?”

“Because I’m your mother.”

“Well, that’s a good reason. And I should wait because I’m your daughter.” I shook my head as I stomped over and picked up the bowl and glass. But I couldn’t let it go. “What difference in the whole history of the world does this tiny mess make? And who cares, anyway? The whole world is falling apart, countries at war, disasters at every turn, and you worry about this.”

Mom just continued to stand there, her arms folded, her mouth set in a tight line as though it might explode if she opened it.

After emptying the popcorn kernels into the garbage and putting the dishes in the dishwasher, I stomped back up to my room. I picked through my drawer where I’d stuffed the letter she’d given me after I’d cleaned out my wastebasket. I still hadn’t read it.

Dear Eagan,

How did we get to this point? You’re my whole life and I only want the best for you. That’s why I’m hard on you. But please know that I love you more than anything else in the whole world.

Oh, please. I stopped reading and stuck the paper in my desk drawer, then turned back to my homework. I still needed a baby picture, but there was no way I was asking Mom to help me now. I went into her bedroom and opened her walk-in closet. The back shelf held a plastic storage box filled with extra pictures.

I flicked on the light switch and pulled the box down, nestling into a space on the floor between a shoe rack and a clothes bin, with the box between my legs. There were old pictures here, ones of Mom and Dad when they were young, looking a lot skinnier. They were holding hands, and Dad had a silly grin on his face, like he’d just said something funny. Mom’s eyes were slanted toward him, and her lips were parted, like she was trying to keep from laughing. They looked, um, happy.

I set the box aside and dug farther back in the closet. I found two more boxes and a taped-up shoe box stuffed clear in the back with the word “pics” in black marker across the top.

Who could resist a shoe box full of pictures? These photos must be really old. I slowly pulled back the dusty tape. The tape felt old, as if the box hadn’t been opened in years. It felt secret. I stopped and listened for Mom’s footsteps. I heard her downstairs, the sound of the mixer whirring in the kitchen.

I filed through the photos. They showed Mom with a huge belly. She was pregnant with me. Her face was round and soft, without the worry lines across her forehead that were always there now, and her hair was shoulder-length. Same color and almost as long as mine. She was sitting on a blue plaid sofa with a crocheted blanket laid across the top. I vaguely remembered that sofa and the cream-colored blanket. I remembered making forts out of it on the living room floor.

That was when our house was a home, not a showcase. When our furniture was more comfortable than the floor.

I turned over the picture and froze. Another picture of Mom with her large belly. But in this photo, a little girl was sitting next to her. A little girl in a pink pajama top about three years old with mussed-up brown hair. The blanket was laid out across both their laps as they huddled close together.

I held my breath and felt a sudden chill sweep through the closet. My hands shook as I stared at the picture, at the girl I now recognized. The little girl was me.

Then who was Mom pregnant with?