I stare wide-eyed at her. “She wasn’t. At least, she’s not supposed to be. Dad said she wasn’t coming until August, just like always.”
Nana Pete is Dad’s mother. Despite living all the way down in Texas, she comes up to visit us at Mount Blessing every summer without fail. Sometimes she takes a plane, but more often than not, she drives her big green Cadillac, which she calls the Queen Mary. There’s nothing she likes more, she always says, than a “good ol’ road trip.” And while she is Benny’s and my paternal grandmother, she has made a point to include Honey in every single thing we’ve ever done with her, starting when we were just little kids living in the nursery. In fact, I can’t ever remember a single time with Nana Pete that didn’t include Honey.
Benny slaps his knees. “Can we go? Please?”
Honey laughs out loud and tosses her robe carelessly over one shoulder. “See you guys later.”
“Oh, come with us,” I say. “You know she’ll ask for you as soon as she sees us.”
“No more Great House for me today,” Honey says, walking on ahead. She looks over her shoulder. “But tell her I’ll see her later. Maybe after dinner.”
“Where are you going?” I ask uncertainly.
Honey spits out a blade of grass and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “Back to the East House, I guess. Christine probably thinks I’ve committed suicide by now or something.”
I cringe at her offhand comment. Suicide is a mortal sin. “Okay,” I call after her. “I’ll see you later, then.”
Honey lifts her arm in response but doesn’t turn around. Benny tugs at my arm, leading me in the opposite direction, but I find it hard to take my eyes off Honey as she moves farther away from us. Her head is held high, her back straight and proud.
It’s so strange. Every once in a while, even though I know it’s wrong, I find myself wishing that I could be more like her.
HONEY
It’s the middle of May, which means that the field behind the horse barn is full of new butterflies. On any other day, I’d be running around like a nut, numbering the different species, examining their wing patterns, and writing everything down in the little notebook Winky gave me. Not today, though. Today those tiny buggers could have wings of pure gold and I wouldn’t give them a second glance. After tearing off that damn blue robe, I lie down in the grass instead, turning on my side when it hurts too much, and stare at the sky for a while. I’m supposed to be down in the East House with Agnes and all the rest of the kids, saying afternoon prayers, but that’s just not gonna happen. If I was in that room right now, I would probably punch someone. And if Christine wants to give me a hard time about it later (which she won’t), she can go jump off a cliff.
When the noise in my head gets too loud, I pull the tiny ceramic cat out of my front pocket and hold him up over my face, directly in line with the sun. George is a Siamese, about the size of a large pecan, and so small that most days I forget he’s even there. He’s the only thing I have left of my mother, Naomi, who left him behind just before she took off. Sometimes I wonder just how demented she really was, thinking that a four-inch ceramic cat could actually take her place. I don’t know whether to cry or laugh when I think about it.
“Hey, Georgie,” I say, studying the soft brown markings along his nose and ears. “How are you? You get squished at all from everything that went on in there?” His blue almond-shaped eyes stare back at me. I turn him around, checking every angle. The tiny chip in his tail is still there, but everything else looks intact. “You’re a tough cat, you know that?” I lower my arm so that I can see him up close. He is trembling.