Rules for Stealing Stars

Eleanor and Astrid zip up their fleeces and remind Marla and me to get ours, and I guess we’re all walking over there together now. Eleanor and Astrid have not smiled.

We should not stop at the mailbox on the way to the bagel store, because I really, really want to actually get a bagel and eat it in peace, to the sounds of Dad’s lame folk music and rapid-newspaper-page-turning. I want Marla’s mood to stay strangely gleeful for a few hours, and to watch television with my sisters, and maybe even to run down to the lake for a swim and a game of Marco Polo, which Mom tells us is a terrible, dangerous game but which we can’t help loving for its loud yelling and splashing and stealthy swimming. Maybe, if we can convince Dad, there will be some hamburgers burned on the public grill at the beach that we haven’t used all summer.

I want it to look and feel like summer.

But. We stop at the mailbox.

A package and letter have come for Astrid.

There’s a postcard for me that says Mom is proud of me.

There is nothing for Marla.

Astrid reads her letter out loud and overenunciates the part where Mom asks how Marla is doing. Marla sits on the lawn in protest and doesn’t look at how huge and ridiculous Astrid smiles. Look! See! Mom loves you! her smile says.

“I’m going to my room,” Marla says.

“We agreed to go get bagels, so let’s do that,” Eleanor says. “I think it would mean a lot to Silly. And we all had a long night taking care of you. So let’s do what the family wants now.” She crosses her arms. I raise my eyebrows at Astrid, who raises hers back at me.

“I’m okay,” I say, because the last thing I want is Marla stomping her way to the bagel place and all the way back and giving me that hard stare she gave me earlier.

“Marla’s fine. Everything’s fine. We’re getting bagels. We’re going to eat them in the kitchen together. You can spend the rest of the day in your room, if you want. Now, what else did Mom give you, Astrid?” Eleanor says.

Astrid takes out the little gifts Mom included in her package: a turquoise stone on a small silver chain and a tiny dream catcher with pretty white feathers hanging off it.

“Give them to me,” Marla says. There aren’t many things I really love about my sister, but I love that she asked outright instead of pretending it is okay to not have received any presents or letters from Mom yet.

“Okay,” Astrid says, because Astrid doesn’t need anything. Astrid sort of lives in a world where necklaces and dream catchers and sick moms don’t really exist anyway.

“You want to talk about it?” Eleanor says. She doesn’t sound sympathetic, only matter-of-fact. That’s how Eleanor is now.

“We can get the bagels, okay? Happy?” Marla pockets the little gifts and doesn’t say thank you. It’s getting too hot for our fleeces. The morning is turning into not-morning, and the sun is summer-strong and we are right in its path.

“You want to talk about Mom not sending you stuff?” Eleanor clarifies, but not very nicely.

Astrid starts walking toward the store. She doesn’t have it in her to be part of our fights. Or she really wants bagels.

“I’d be mad, so I don’t blame you. No one blames you,” Eleanor says. “But you can’t throw a tantrum every time you’re sad about Mom. We’re all dealing with that.”

Marla turns around, kicking up some grass. “I’ll be inside,” she says. The door slams behind her, and Eleanor and I are alone.

Eleanor sits in the grass, taking the place where Marla was.

“Astrid can do it herself,” Eleanor says. It surprises me, how quickly the air whooshes out of her, how fast she goes from totally-on-top-of-it adult to defeated little girl. Littler than me. She pulls her knees in to her chest and rests her forehead there. “Wait with me, okay?”

I sit down next to Eleanor. There’s a zero percent chance Astrid is going to remember what kind of bagels I like, but there is a one hundred percent chance that she’ll come up with something wacky—peanut butter on garlic, cinnamon raisin and salt paired together with cream cheese in between. It’s always an adventure with Astrid.

“Does Mom hate Marla?” I say. I always thought Marla was Mom’s favorite, but with her bruised wrist and the envelopes without her name on them, I’m starting to think I got it all wrong.

“I think Marla reminds Mom of herself,” Eleanor says.

“Is Marla like Mom?” It’s the question I can’t stop asking in my head, so I might as well ask it out loud now.

Eleanor pulls up a chunk of grass. It’s the kind of thing I usually do, not her. “I don’t know.”

“Have you heard the name Laurel before?” I say. I’m wondering if it’s slipped out of Mom’s mouth the way so many other things have in bad moments.

Eleanor looks at me almost cross-eyed.

“Sure, we all have. It’s on the bench by the lake,” she says.

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