Jess had come up with the idea to put the rest of Maddie’s ashes in the sunflower garden at the Salt House. Or maybe it was all of us. We’d been sitting at the table after dinner one night, and Dad was in the best mood. Maybe it was because he was taking a long vacation. Or maybe it was because we were moving when the construction was done. Or maybe it was because Mom had made brownies and cut them up in wedges and put the whole pan on the table and we were eating out of it with our fingers. Piece by piece. Like a cake. And Mom wasn’t even telling us to stop. She was just watching us, and then she left the kitchen and came back carrying the wooden box with Maddie’s ashes.
I still felt bad for stealing them and making such a scene that day. But Mom had promised she’d tell Dad and he wouldn’t be mad at all, and she was right because even though the box had water rings all over from when it fell in the ocean, Dad reached over and pulled me onto his lap when Mom sat down and asked everyone to think about a good place to spread them.
Dad said, “She liked dirt,” and I nodded, because she did. She’d crawl as fast as she could to dig her hands into it before anyone could grab her. And then it seemed like everyone thought of the same thing at once. Jess said, “Sunflower,” and Dad said, “Garden,” and Mom said, “Perfect,” and I just smiled and took a bite of my brownie. Because it was perfect.
And then the day had come, and the sun had been so bright and the sunflowers so tall and yellow, bent over and looking down at us like a family of happy faces, that I wasn’t even sad like I was that day at the ocean. I told Mom this before I went to bed that night. She said she felt the same way, and wasn’t life funny like that? Sometimes, she said, what you think is going to happen is nothing like what actually does.
I had to agree because not in a million years would I think we’d be moving to the Salt House. Like to live.
Which was why Smelliot was staying with us. Peggy was taking Alex to some boat-building school way up in the part of Maine that always made Grandma do a fake shiver. And when Peggy got back after dropping Alex off, she and Smelliot were renting our house. Mom thought it was a good idea that Smelliot spend some time here. Plus, Mom kept telling Peggy to take her time coming back, that she should take a mini-vacation after all her hard work.
Peggy had spent the last two weeks decorating Mom’s new office. Mom had loved it so much she got her editor to do a story on it. A bunch of people came over to the Salt House with big lights and cameras with these long lenses. After the magazine came out, Peggy said her phone started ringing off the hook. Mom and Peggy couldn’t stop talking about it. They’d say, Can you believe how good it looks? And then they’d start hugging and talking over each other, saying no, I didn’t do anything, you did it all, and blah, blah, blah.
Now Mom was telling me to cheer up—that it wouldn’t be so bad. I scowled at her and went to my room. I made a sign for my door that said No Boys Allowed and taped it right up so Smelliot would know that my part of the house was off-limits to him. But then Dad walked by and stuck his head in and said he’s a boy and how would he lie with me in my bed at night and read me my book if he couldn’t come in? So I crossed out boys and wrote—No Smelliots Allowed—and then Mom walked by and gave me her look so I took it down and decided when Smelliot got here, I’d ignore him.
That was still my plan when they pulled up in Alex’s truck, but when Smelliot got out, he walked right over to me. He was holding a plastic bag, and he stuck it out to me. It swung back and forth in front of my nose.
“It’s for you,” he said.
“Me?”
“Yeah. Take it.”
I folded my arms in front of me and asked him if he thought I didn’t know better. There was probably dog poop in it. Or worms. Maybe even a lit firecracker waiting to blow up in my face. But he put the bag on the step.
“Suit yourself,” he said.
Everyone was down on the sidewalk, saying good-bye to Alex. Dad shook Alex’s hand and told him if he wanted a job in the summer, all he had to do was ask. Then there was a pause when nobody said anything until Dad said maybe we could all go inside and have a cup of coffee and give Alex and Jess a minute alone. I told him I didn’t drink coffee, and he picked me up and put me on his shoulders, so high up, my head was as tall as the stop sign, and Mom said, “Jack, please, the doctor,” and Dad let out a sigh. But he put me down. Then he leaned over and kissed Mom on the cheek.
Smelliot was still standing next to me. I waited until my parents and Peggy went upstairs to say, “See. They’re not getting a divorce.”
I put the emphasis on the v. It had taken me an hour to find it in the dictionary after deforest only said something about trees. Believe me, Jess had heard about that.
I thought he’d have something stupid to say, maybe even another lie. But he just shrugged. Like that was that.
I folded my arms and stuck my face out at him. “And I heard you’re moving in here and your Dad’s not. So who’s the one getting the divorce now?”
I expected to feel good after I said this. He had it coming, after all. But the way his head tilted back, as if what I’d said was a punch he never saw coming, made my stomach hurt, like the words had turned right around and socked me too. Grandma would say it served me right. If I didn’t have something nice to say, then I shouldn’t have said anything at all. Too late now, I thought to myself.
I pressed my tongue into the roof of my mouth, tried to think of what to say. I could lie and say I hadn’t heard that his dad wasn’t moving in, even though I had heard it. Mom had said that Mr. Finn was going away for a bit to try to get better and to not ask Smelliot about it. When I asked what he needed to get better at, Mom had just sighed and said, “Better choices, Kat. Learning how to make better choices.” I hadn’t asked anything more because I had no idea there was a place you could go for that. I’d gone outside, out of sight, before she got any bright ideas about sending me to the better-choices-place.
“Don’t tell my mother I said that about your father,” I blurted out.
He kept his face blank, as if none of it mattered. “He’s not my real father. He’s my stepfather.”
I considered this. It was a twist, all right. “Where’s your real father?” I asked suspiciously. He was a known liar, after all.
“In heaven. He died a long time ago. I don’t remember him.”
I thought about telling him I knew someone in heaven too. Usually people made a sad face when I told them this news. And then I’d have to make a sad face too. It was tiring. So I stopped telling people about Maddie.
But he didn’t look sad when he told me about his dad. So I gave it a shot.
“My sister’s in heaven too,” I said.
Smelliot’s face didn’t change at all. If anything, he perked up, like he was happy we found something we had in common.
“What’d she die of?”
“She stopped breathing. She went to sleep and didn’t wake up.”
“It’s not a bad way to die,” he offered. “Better than getting ripped to pieces by a man-eating sloth.” He bent over and pretended to rip into something with imaginary claws. I didn’t ask, but I hoped that wasn’t how his father died. I watched him until it seemed like he was never going to stop.
“So what’s in the bag?” I said loudly, and pointed behind him.
He stopped what he was doing and looked at me. Then he reached in the bag and pulled out something shiny and silver. The sun caught it and sent a light in my eyes.