“My mom was terrible at math. She was a writer,” I said, as if that was explanation enough. But I wasn’t, and my mom knew that better than anyone.
Lena considered the next book. “Page 1. This is just the title page. It can’t be the content.”
“Why would she leave me a code?” I was thinking out loud, but Lena still had the answer.
“Because you always know the end of the movie. Because you grew up with Amma and the mystery novels and the crosswords. Maybe your mom thought you would figure out something that no one else would get.”
My father half-heartedly banged away at the door. I looked at the next book. Page 9, and then 13. None of the numbers went higher than 26. And yet, lots of the books had way more pages than that….
“There are 26 letters in the alphabet, right?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s it. When I was little, and couldn’t sit still in church with the Sisters, my mom would make up games for me to play on the back of the church program. Hangman, scrambled words, and this, the alphabet code.”
“Wait, let me get a pen.” She grabbed a pen from the desk. “If A is 1 and B is 2—let me write it out.”
“Careful. Sometimes I used to do it backward, where Z was 1.”
Lena and I sat in the middle of the circle of the books, moving from book to book, while my father banged on the door outside. I ignored him, just like he had been ignoring me. I wasn’t going to answer to him, or give him an explanation. Let him see how it felt for a change.
“3, 12, 1, 9, 13…”
“Ethan! What are you doin’ in there? What was all that racket?”
“25, 15, 21, 18, 19, 5, 12, 6.”
I looked at Lena, and held out the paper. I was already a step ahead. “I think—it’s meant for you.”
It was as clear as if my mom was standing in the study, telling us in her own words, with her own voice.
CLAIMYOURSELF
It was a message for Lena.
My mom was there, in some form, in some sense, in some universe. My mom was still my mom, even if she only lived in books and door locks and the smell of fried tomatoes and old paper.
She lived.
When I finally opened the door, my dad was standing there in his bathrobe. He stared past me, into the study, where the pages of his imaginary novel were scattered all over the floor and the painting of Ethan Carter Wate was resting against the sofa, uncovered.
“Ethan, I—”
“What? Were going to tell me that you’ve been locked in your study for months doing this?” I held up one of the crumpled pages in my hand.
He looked down at the floor. My dad may have been crazy, but he was still sane enough to know that I had figured out the truth. Lena sat down on the sofa, looking uncomfortable.
“Why? That’s all I want to know. Was there ever a book or were you just trying to avoid me?”
My dad raised his head slowly, his eyes tired and bloodshot. He looked old, like life had worn him down one disappointment at a time. “I just wanted to be close to her. When I’m in there, with her books and her things, it feels like she isn’t really gone. I can still smell her. Fried tomatoes…” His voice trailed off, as if he was lost in his own mind again and the rare moment of clarity was gone.
He walked past me, back into the study, and bent down to pick up one of the pages covered with circles. His hand was shaking. “I was tryin’ to write.” He looked over at my mom’s chair. “I just don’t know what to write anymore.”
It wasn’t about me. It had never been about me. It was about my mom. A few hours ago I had felt the same way in the library, sitting among her things, trying to feel her there with me. But now I knew she wasn’t gone, and everything was different. My dad didn’t know. She wasn’t unlocking doors for him and leaving him messages. He didn’t even have that.
The next week, on Christmas Eve, the weathered and warped cardboard town didn’t seem so small. The lopsided steeple stayed on the church, and the farmhouse even stood up by itself, if you set it just right.
The white glitter glue sparkled and the same old piece of cotton snow secured the town, constant as time.