~~

I have not seen the puppy for three days.

~~

I go to school now.  It’s called Kindergarten.  I have a new teacher named Miss Carter, and she’s ok, but I miss Mrs. Lindstrom from preschool.  Whenever Mrs. L. smiled at me, her eyes sparkled.  Miss Carter smiles just with her lips, but not with her eyes.  When Mrs. L. held my hand, it felt warm and strong, like it would help me through anything.  When Miss Carter holds my hand, it’s too hard, and I want to pull away.  I try to be nice to Miss Carter.  She seems to need it.

There are a lot of kids in my class.  Some I know from preschool, but most are strangers.  I like to be quiet at school.  Even when there is a lot happening around me, I think about being far away.  Miss Carter doesn’t like that I’m so quiet.  Sometimes when all of us kids are sitting on the rug and she’s asking us questions, she points to me and says something like, “Gail, what did you do this weekend?”  I search in my mind for some words, but there are none, so I just stare at her.  She asks again:  “Gail, tell us just one thing you did this weekend.”  I feel all the children’s eyes on me, and my face gets hot.  Everyone’s waiting for me to speak, but all I want to do is hide.

It helps that I can see John at school sometimes.  He’s in 2nd-grade, so his classroom is in a different hallway.  But he passes through the Kindergarten hall on his way to lunch or to the bathroom or out to the playground, to check on me.  If he catches my eye, he waves at me from the hallway, and I wave back.  Miss Carter’s told Daddy that she thinks I need to “be more independent.”  I’m not sure what that means, except that every time John is around, she looks at me with hard eyes.

The best thing about Kindergarten is that my friend Shane is in my class.  We sit next to each other on the rug and play on the playground.  We both love to run.  I’m faster than Shane, but I always let him catch up, and when we race, I sometimes let him win.  Shane and I share a seat on the school bus.  In the afternoons, his stop is before mine and John’s.  But usually I get off with him and walk the rest of the way home.  

~~

When John and I are back from school, he makes me a snack.  We then have chores to get done before Daddy and Aunt Nora come home with the twins.  John cleans up the dishes in the kitchen and sometimes starts dinner.  I pick up in the living room, which is usually full of the twins’ things.  I also have to make sure the bathroom is neat and tidy.  When our chores are done, John has to do his homework, and I’m alone.  I play in my room, and Blue and Sissy keep me company.  Or I go outside and spend time with Jewel.  Lately I’ve been going outside every day, looking for the puppy.

Later, everyone else comes home.  Daddy and Aunt Nora and the twins.  Aunt Nora usually hurries off to get back to her own house.  Then Daddy cooks dinner, and John and I take turns setting the table and looking after Connie and Timmy.

Things work well, I guess.  But I know that John cries at night.  I know that the twins won’t ever feel what it’s like to have a mama.  And I know that Daddy smokes more than he used to.  I worry about Mama, too.  Missing her is like being hungry all the time.  I look at her picture sometimes and remember how it was sit in her lap and see her earrings twinkle.

Daddy says she left because of him, because she doesn’t love him anymore.  But I know that it’s not just because of him.  Maybe it’s because of all of us.  Maybe… because of me.

That’s the thought that I bury deep inside.  Only Blue, Sissy, and Jewel know that I cry.  I wear Mama’s necklace all the time.  I imagine that it’s magic, and that as long as it’s around my neck, Mama will remember me.  Its magical powers erase all the things I did that she didn’t like – and what’s left in her mind is only the good me.

~~

It’s early morning, and something in my dreams has woken me up.  I tiptoe outside in my nightgown – no coat and my bare feet in a pair of sneakers.  The October chill grabs my bones and shakes me.  Through the wet grass and leaves I run, down to where the trees start.  I stop for a second and then step into the dark morning woods.  I hunt and hunt and hunt.  All I can hear is my breath.  In the dim gray, I squint my eyes.  What are those three white dots in the leaves?  

Then I see it: a little light-brown smudge down in the dark-brown gully.