Tears prick at my eyes, my parents and brother too near my thoughts with the dream I just had. My throat swells and I can’t say anything.
“Harmony?” Summer’s voice trails in from the kitchen. She strides into view. “There you are.” She steps a little closer and I blink away the moisture brimming in my eyes.
Finn’s eyes narrow a little, as if he’s worried about me. And maybe he is, but it won’t last.
“Sorry for the stow away.” Summer laughs, but the noise only feels awkward in our cumbersome silence. “How are you today, Finn?”
“Fine.” His grin falls flat. “I just brought Esther the newspaper. She’s in it.”
Summer’s lips part into a grin. “Really?” She reaches for the paper in my hands, but I yank it away before she can get too close.
“Could you please just go? Just take her away and give me a minute. Just a minute,” I say without meeting her eyes.
A shaky breath exhales from Summer’s chest. “Come on, baby girl.” She picks up Harmony who starts to cry when Summer carries her from the room.
“Essie!” Harmony calls, reaching a hand out to me, as if the very person who asked her to leave would save her.
“You really shouldn’t do that,” Finn says, flicking his chin toward the doorway Summer and Harmony just went through.
Anger burns in my chest—who is he to tell me what to do? “Why is that Finn?”
“You could hurt someone.”
“And I shouldn’t hurt other people?” I twist my fingers around the paper. “That’s real—coming from you.” He’s always speaking harshly to others—his parents, his friends, me.
“Because you deserve to be close to someone. You deserve a family. That won’t happen if you constantly push people away.”
I swallow down the lump in my throat and hold up the paper he brought. “Thanks,” I say, moving around him to open the front door. “Goodbye, Finn.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow?”
I nod him out, unsure if I’ll really be at work the next day. The door closes and my heart plummets to this awful, lonely, hopeless place. The lump in my throat grows and I run up the stairs, Finn’s paper clutched in my right fist.
Slamming the door to my room, I throw myself onto my unmade bed. I hold the paper up and, behind a sheen of tears, I look over the picture the paper printed and the short story about the bookstore. My name is mentioned half a dozen times with a quote from Marley about knowing the minute she saw me that I’d be an asset to their little shop. It’s kind and loving and somehow makes me feel even more alone. The tears blinding my vision fall, and my mind replays Finn’s words—his face—his vulnerability. They’ll be proud of you, he’d said.
But who will be? Who will even care? I reach for the black permanent marker on my desk and pull the cap off with my teeth. I sit up and stare at the picture of me and my book tree. I start to scrawl their names over the article before they even have time to run through my thoughts.
Mom. She would have cared.
Dad.
JoJo.
Lisa. My chest aches with my aunt’s name on the same paper as the rest of my family.
Cytha.
I try to imagine their reactions. I make up what Mom would say, how Dad would beam, and even how JoJo would be proud of me, his little sister. I rock back and forth on my bed as I build the images and words from the ground up. But Lisa’s words I hear because they are a memory of words I heard not that long ago—Well done, Essie girl. You’re going places. A sob lurches from my chest, because I miss her—more than I realized. Because she always told me that—you’re going places—and I don’t really know if I am or if I even can.
I’ve been so busy saying I like being alone that I didn’t realize how much being alone can hurt.
The tears start to fall, and once the dam has broken, I can’t seem to stop it. My emotions have their own agenda—one that I am no longer in charge of. When my bedroom door opens, I don’t even look up. Summer moves the paper on the bed in front of me—no doubt she’s seen the names written in big black letters over top of the article. She doesn’t speak, but she wraps her arms around me, not caring, it seems, that I don’t return the gesture. Still, my head falls to her shoulder in front of me and I wet her shirt with my tears, my sobs loud and uncontrollable.
There’s a thud from downstairs, the front door opening and closing, and then footsteps thundering up the staircase. I don’t see my uncle. My eyes are swollen and closed, but he sits behind me, enfolding me and Summer in one swoop. I am sandwiched between the two, but I’m not sane enough to be annoyed or embarrassed by it.
A small cool hand wraps around my bare foot dangling from the bed. Harmony sniffles and murmurs between her own cries. “Essie.”
I’m not sure how long we sit there, how long I cry, or where the bottomless supply of tears have come from. I have ruined Summer’s shirt, my uncle is home in the middle of the day, and Harmony hasn’t budged from my feet.
When I find the courage to open my eyes, I see Angelo sitting on the floor holding a sleeping Brayden. Rodrick’s entire family has surrounded me. Every inch of my body, my bed, and the floor are filled with the Ray family. I’m not sure if the children have a clue what’s going on. I’m not even sure if Summer and Rodrick know why I’ve completely lost it. Then again, do I? Do I understand why a picture in a paper, why a tree made of books, why a few simple words—they’ll be proud of you—broke me down until I could hardly breathe?
But one thing is obvious—I am absolutely not alone.
18
The following day I am up by eight. I shower and dress and try not to worry about Cytha or Finn. No memories or futures haunt my dreams and I feel somewhat rested. I went to bed early after crying my eyes out yesterday. Logic tells me to be embarrassed by the episode, but the strange thing is, I feel so new, so fresh, and renewed, that I can’t.
The kids are around the table eating oatmeal with bananas in it when I charge downstairs. Summer stands at the stove, a half apron tied about her waist. I have a specific question for her, and yet seeing her there, so homemakerish, I am distracted, wondering what Summer did before she had children.
“Essie!” Harmony barks, her pudgy little hand waving to me.
“Good morning, Harmony.” I pat her shoulder and ruffle Angelo’s hair as I walk by. “Morning, Angelo.”
He tilts his head, his eyes shifting upward to see me better. “Hi, Esther.”
I stand at the counter, a couple feet from Summer, and swallow back the nervous lump at my throat.
“Would you like some breakfast, Esther?” She glances at me with anxious eyes.
I can’t blame her. “Yeah, thanks.” I snag a slice of banana and pop it into my mouth. “Summer, did you have a job before you had kids?”
She laughs. “I did. It was a lot less work than my kids are.”
My lips turn up at her words. “What did you do?”
“I taught P.E. to elementary kids. I’ll go back one day.”
“Huh. That’s… cool.”
“Yeah?” She shifts another glance at me before pouring two more bowls of oatmeal and slicing another banana. “Do you know what you want to do?”