She watched the Abrams house for a long time. Their car was parked outside, but Sorrow didn’t see anybody. Mrs. Roche had said they would soon be leaving to stay with Mrs. Abrams’s family in Boston, because Julie was so upset from seeing the fire she had been crying and crying for days. The other Mr. Abrams and his family were going to watch the house while they were gone. A blue tarp fluttered over the burned corner of the barn, lifting and falling with every gust of wind like a creature breathing. The Abrams fields were brown near the fence, but farther away their land was greening as the weather warmed. Bushes along the driveway erupted with small white flowers. A pair of jays chased each other across the meadow, dipping and diving, and swept into the woods.
The sight made Sorrow’s insides ache. She didn’t want to look at it anymore, but she didn’t want to go back to the house either, where everything was cold and quiet and wrong. She wanted to run into the mountains and hide and never come back, the way Grace Lovegood had when her mother had killed her sisters and brothers. Run away to crawl into a fox’s burrow, alone and scared until she heard the shouts of townspeople looking for her. Then she must have crawled out of her hiding place and—
Sorrow didn’t know where she went next. She had never heard the rest of the story. She didn’t know who had taken care of Grace after her mother was hanged, if there had been anybody at all.
She could ask Mom. Sorrow stood slowly and brushed dried leaves from her skirt. When she got back to the house, she could ask Mom to tell her the rest of the story. She hadn’t asked for a story since before the fire, but Mom wouldn’t refuse, no matter how sad and tired she was. She never refused a story. Sorrow would bring her a cup of tea sweetened with honey and climb into bed next to her, and Mom would sit up with the pillow bunched behind her, her voice growing less hoarse and less distant the more she talked, and when she was finished they would go downstairs together to help Grandma make chicken and biscuits for dinner.
Emboldened by her decision, Sorrow ran back to the house. By the time she reached the fallow field, she was breathless with excitement. She knew how to help Mom now. She skipped along the dirt road and up the hill. The day felt a little warmer than it had before, the sun a bit stronger. She knew this was the right thing to do.
Grandma was sitting on the back porch with her quilting frame. The needle was still stuck in the fabric, untouched.
“I’m going to ask Mom for a story,” Sorrow said.
She yanked the screen door open, and Grandma reached out, her knobby fingers beckoning.
“Grandma?”
Grandma gestured her closer. She pulled Sorrow into a hug and pressed a kiss to the side of her head.
Sorrow squirmed away. “I’m going to get her to come down for dinner. You’ll see. I promise.”
She was halfway up the steps before she remembered she wanted to make tea, so she had to go back down, set the water to boiling, and find Mom’s favorite mug, the one she had bought from a potter named Eulalie at the farmers’ market. Patience had always called it the Eulalie Mug, but Sorrow didn’t know if it was okay to call it that anymore. She didn’t know if it would make Mom smile or cry. She decided she wouldn’t call it anything, not until Mom did first.
When the tea was finally ready, she carried it upstairs, wincing when a few hot drops sloshed over the side. She opened the bedroom door with her free hand.
“Mom?”
Mom’s room was dark and stuffy; she must have closed the window and drawn the curtains after Sorrow left. In the faint light from the hallway she could barely make out Mom’s shape in the bed.
“Mom, I brought you tea. With honey.”
Sorrow’s boot crunched on something on the floor. She looked down.
It was a small pill, now ground into white powder. There was another one a couple of steps ahead. A small orange bottle lay on the floor beside the bed. Sorrow set the tea on Mom’s bedside table and picked up the bottle.
“Mom, you dropped your medicine.” She shook the bottle; there was only one pill left inside. “Mom?”
Sorrow reached for her shoulder to shake her awake. Mom groaned softly but didn’t open her eyes.
“Mom? Come on, Mom, wake up.”
Sorrow’s heart began to beat quickly. Her hands were shaking. There was a line of spit trailing from Mom’s mouth, glistening and wet on her jaw.
“Mom? Please wake up. Mom?”
Sorrow shook her again. Mom didn’t even groan this time.
“Grandma!” Sorrow ran into the hallway and shouted from the top of the stairs. “Grandma, Mom won’t wake up! Grandma!”
Downstairs the screen door opened, then snapped shut, and Grandma was hurrying up the stairs. She pushed past Sorrow and perched on the edge of Mom’s bed. Grandma shook her shoulders, patted her cheeks gently.
“I tried that.” Sorrow’s eyes were hot with tears and it was hard to breathe. “I tried that already!”
Grandma picked up the pill bottle and shook it, just as Sorrow had done.
“It was on the floor,” Sorrow said.
Grandma dropped the bottle onto the bed and grabbed the pen and notebook she wore around her neck. She scribbled some words and shoved the page at Sorrow.
Go to Abrams. Tell them to call ambulance.
Sorrow stared at the words on the page. “The Abramses? But—”
Grandma shook the page. When Sorrow still didn’t move, she stuffed the note into Sorrow’s hand and turned her to the door with a shooing motion: Go.
Sorrow ran. Down the steps and out of the house, around the yard to the driveway, and she sprinted through the orchard so fast she felt every jolting step in her bones and her teeth. She knew Mom would hate that she was going to the Abramses, hate that she was inviting them into family business, but she didn’t stop, didn’t even pause, and in a flash she was stumbling down the hill to the cider house meadow. She cut herself twice ducking through the barbed wire fence, and blood blossomed on her hand and wrist as she sprinted through the field on the other side.
Then she was pounding on their door, and Mr. Abrams was answering. His eyes went wide with surprise and his voice was booming and scary, but Sorrow could barely understand the words. He guided her inside, bewilderment etched all over his face. Sorrow had never been in the Abrams house before. Mr. Abrams seemed tall and alien and terrible, looking down at her, waiting for her to explain herself. Sorrow sucked in several breaths before she remembered Grandma’s note. She handed the crumpled paper to Mr. Abrams, and her legs gave way as he read it over. He asked her twice what was going on, but she couldn’t answer. He shouted for Mrs. Abrams and ran to the phone. Sorrow thought, as she wheezed through the taste of iron at the back of her throat, that she needed to tell them Mom was sick, needed to tell them that she had never seen Mom so still and so limp. Mom would hate it. She would hate it more than she hated anything, that Sorrow was here asking the Abramses for help, but Sorrow didn’t care. She didn’t care if Mom hated her forever and ever as long as they helped. She needed to make them understand. She had never seen Grandma so scared.
29
PRIDE LOVEGOOD
1914–1980