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  “Then you know it’s harder to start using the arm if you form habits without it. And people who lose limbs and wear a prosthetic are more successful in their healing and their lives. I read that in the manual Fitz left behind,” she said, certain that Dad would be impressed with her knowledge. The way he always had been.

  Dad leaned toward her and pushed himself up with the help of his left leg. It was awkward, unnatural. “Lucy, this isn’t your concern.”

  “Of course it is! You’re my dad. We’re a team.”

  “Not in this,” Dad said, sharp as Papo Angelo’s meat slicer. Then he softened. “We don’t treat you like a child, Lucy. But that’s what you are. This is a grown-up problem.”

  And there Lucy went, swinging up, up, up on the Giant Swing, her stomach in her throat, the solid ground of her life growing small beneath her. They had always been a team. In everything. It was the only thing they’d ever been. Now, suddenly, they weren’t.

  Lucy reached toward where her pocket should be, to count her stones, but it was the middle of the night, so her stones were back on the windowsill.

  “You should get some sleep,” Dad said. He scooted away from Lucy and leaned against the tree trunk. “I’ll be in shortly.”

  Lucy slowly walked back toward the house and climbed beneath her clean lavender sheet. She looked out the window at the darkness beyond, reminding herself of what Mrs. Peacock had told her about homeostasis. That a person under conflicting stresses and motivations has to find a way to maintain a stable condition. Dad was just trying to find his way.

  I’ll always come back to you.

  Dad had promised. And Dad never went back on his promises.

  7

  the thick of things

  As the end of June turned to July, Lucy continually tried to categorize her thoughts as the Giant Swing catapulted her off into the wild blue yonder. She was a planner and a plotter, and yet her mind and heart were smack out of plans and plots.

  For the very first time in her life, Lucia Mercedes Evangeline Rossi was at a loss.

  Of course she was a child. She knew this quite literally. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t handle adult things. She’d been doing it for years. In point of fact, many people in their family relied on Lucy for her skills as a reasonable person. She was forever being called upon to sort out fights among the Joes, categorize pantry items in Papo Angelo’s deli, and generally bring a logical and insightful addition to family conversations. She was the levelheaded one, the one who read all the books. The one who didn’t fly into fits of despair over a change in plans or a too-big helping of mustard greens on her plate.

  Mom and Dad had trained her to be a critical thinker, and she prided herself on this ability. Lucy just needed to remind Dad how tough she was. She envisioned herself made of iron and steel and all sorts of other tough stuff. She would be like the stones in her pocket that had survived for millennia.

  * * *

  —

  On the Friday morning before the Fourth of July, while Lucy stirred the milk in her cereal bowl, contemplating another day at the library with Dad, maybe, or an afternoon staring at her parents’ closed bedroom door, Mom bustled around the kitchen at a frantic pace. She wore a polyester skirt that showed too much knee, in Lucy’s opinion, and she was trying to do too many things at once. She clipped an earring onto her earlobe with one hand as she wiped down the kitchen counter with the other, forgetting to put on her rubber gloves in the process, which would have caused Grandma Miller to give a three-hour lecture about both the decency of hiding knees and how gloves were meant to keep a lady’s hands beautiful. And what would become of the female species if we all had farmer hands?

  Eventually, Mom stopped all the things she was doing and sat down across from Lucy.

  “I have a job,” she said without preamble. “I have to go in and fill out some paperwork today.”

  Lucy blinked and reached into her pockets for the stones. “Well, this is sudden.”

  “It is. Someone Papo Angelo knows. They need a manager for an apartment complex. The same job I had in Chicago.”

  “I didn’t know you needed a job.”

  “Just for the summer while Dad figures things out. Anyway, you’ll be going next door to G and Rosie’s starting today.”

  “What?” Lucy dropped her spoon into her cereal bowl and splashed her clean red T-shirt. “Then who will be here for Dad? Who will look after him?”

  Dad might not think he needed looking after, but Lucy knew he did. He was still being stubborn about his prosthetic arm. Stubborn about tending to his healing incision. Stubborn with his words and affections. Lucy needed to stay. To remind him what he was working toward. What they were all working toward. To be a team again.

  Mom glanced down the hall toward their closed bedroom door. “Dad can look after himself. You don’t need to help him,” Mom said.

  “You sound mad. Are you mad?”

  “Oh, Lucy. Of course not.”

  Unable to look Mom in the eye, Lucy stared at her Press-On Nails. Mom kept a drawer of prepainted nails so that when one would pop off to parts unknown, she’d have another ready to go in its place. Lucy took pride in finding the fugitives, in the small fern on the kitchen table, or the fruit drawer in the refrigerator, and presenting them to Mom with a flourish.

  “Look at me,” Mom said. “I’m not mad. But I will be if you don’t get yourself out of this house. You need to have a summer. Go swimming with your cousins. Learn how to make doilies with Aunt Rosie. Categorize your rocks.”

  Lucy was sure this was Grandma Miller’s fault, putting thoughts in Mom’s head about what, exactly, everyone should be doing with their summer. She’d overheard Mom on the phone when she didn’t think Lucy was listening, saying things like:

  We’re fine for the moment.

  Of course I’ll let you know if I need you.

  No, I don’t want to send Lucy right now.

  Grandma Miller wanted Lucy out of “the thick of things” and believed Lucy was being damaged beyond repair by witnessing her father’s slow recovery. As though Lucy were the house of sticks from The Three Little Pigs. And while Lucy knew Mom was, in fact, the house of bricks from the same nursery story, she wasn’t sure that was true when it came to Grandma Miller. Grandma Miller was the type of wolf who could blow anyone’s house down, no matter what it was made of.

  Lucy felt no better than a plant, or a box of shirts, something easily moved from one place to another. All her careful planning and study, everything she’d prepared for in order to help Dad, had been a waste of time. He didn’t need her. Didn’t even seem to want her around. Neither did Mom.

  “Can I at least check on Dad throughout the day?”

  “Lucy, you are going next door. You’ll be home each night. Dad will be fine without you. Do you trust me?”

  “I guess so.”

  But for the first time in her life, Lucy wasn’t sure that was true.

  * * *

  —

  Mom packed a “few things” for Lucy to keep next door so she wouldn’t have to run back and forth and bother Dad. She looked like a nervous bird being chased by something bigger, and Lucy was so mad at being gotten rid of, like she was an infestation of cockroaches, that she didn’t even try to help. She couldn’t believe Mom had gotten a job. That Dad didn’t think he needed help. That unless Fitz was there to help Dad, the arm stayed in the case in the closet, its absence like a harbinger of doom.

  When Lucy and Mom stepped out their front door, Lucy could hear the usual commotion coming from Uncle G and Aunt Rosie’s two-story ranch. The noise echoed off the hills of Alum Rock Park. Music, shouting. A door slammed. The sprinklers went on.

  “This is not going to be fun,” Lucy said.

  She couldn’t help but think of that awful rhyme, step on a crack, break your mother’s back, as she stepped on every c
rack in the short sidewalk until they reached Uncle G’s brick path.

  “When I was your age, Grandma Miller sent me away each summer to Ladies’ Charm School. Two whole months! You think your cousin is obnoxious, you should see a bunch of girls who all want the Perfect Poise crown at the end. You’re going to be fine.”

  As Lucy studied the bricks, she tried hard not to let the tears fall. They were Chin-Up Women, Stiff-Upper-Lip Women, and she would remember that.

  She would show Dad how brave she was.

  Lucy watched her mom out of the corner of her eye. Perfect French twist, perfect pearls. The way she kept fidgeting with those pearls. Mom wore a halter dress, her pale shoulders already turning pink in the midmorning sun. Papo Angelo liked to say that Mom was a swan in a pond full of ducks, and they couldn’t blame her for being a swan. But in her darkest corners, Lucy did sometimes.

  The front door opened just as they reached the porch, Uncle G filling up the doorway wearing a brightly flowered apron and flailing a spatula.

  “Just in time for pigs in a blanket!”

  Mom handed Uncle G a heavy canvas bag. “Now, there’s cream in there in case of a rash. And baby aspirin, as she tends to get mild headaches—”

  “Moooommmm!” Lucy said, trying to take the bag. “I’m not an infant.”

  “No more than two per day. I’ve included her favorite eight-track of Beethoven, which she listens to sometimes in order to relax. She’s got her zinc oxide for the sun, and her sun hat. Don’t let her forget, or her nose will burn, then there’s—”

  Uncle G put his hand on Mom’s shoulder, which miraculously pressed her Off button.

  “We’ve got this,” he said.

  Mom turned to Lucy and squeezed her tight, then took her by the shoulders. “Be good. Okay? Listen to Uncle G and Aunt Rosie. I’ll see you later.”

  “Okay.”

  Mom glided down the walkway and onto the sidewalk, catching the toe of her pointy shoe where the bricks met the concrete. A bird squawked in a tree just above.

  Uncle G’s brand-new SmokeGuard 700 went off somewhere inside the house.

  “Darn that contraption!” Aunt Rosie yelled.

  Lucy couldn’t believe Mom was leaving her in the middle of all this pandemonium and disorder. She reminded herself again that nothing worth doing is ever easy as she stood in the doorway, one hand in each pocket, clutching as many stones as she could, her only defense against the world.

  8

  serendipity is not a hair product

  Aunt Rosie swatted at the smoke detector with a broom until it stopped howling and then pulled Lucy into a tight hug while Cannoli, their pillow-sized tortoiseshell cat, brushed herself against Lucy’s ankle. Aunt Rosie smelled like flour and Rose Milk, and Lucy was grateful she’d grown tall enough that her face no longer pressed into Aunt Rosie’s rather large bosom.

  “We’ll get you fixed right up!” Aunt Rosie declared, as though Lucy were a broken coffee mug. “Gia!”

  For a long time, years and years, Gia and Lucy had been pen pals. Five years older than Lucy, Gia had sent school pictures that Lucy kept in a scrapbook with all Gia’s letters and recipes, magazine cutouts and drawings. Gia had come to visit each summer, having been close to Dad, who used to babysit her when he was in high school, and Lucy would in turn visit Uncle G and Aunt Rosie. Gia was like an older sister, which was why her secret protest at Travis Air Force Base had felt like such a betrayal.

  Because they had entwined over the years, the way the trunks of trees will if planted too close together, Gia knew everything about Lucy. She knew Lucy was terrified of the wigs propped on their Styrofoam heads in her mother’s closet, but would cup a spider in her hand, and that while Lucy had never believed in Santa Claus, she had admitted to believing in the Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs bird and Lucky Charms leprechaun when she was in the first grade. And Lucy knew everything about Gia, her obsession with palomino horses and how she was saving all her money for a white fringed vest so she could be a rodeo star, which then turned into an obsession with being a Pan Am stewardess. Gia had written those facts into her letters a couple of times a month for years. Then they trickled down to once per month, and then once every couple of months, and then stopped altogether when Lucy and Mom moved out from Chicago. At seventeen and in high school now, Gia sometimes talked to Lucy the way she talked to the other babies in the family, as though she were still a kid. Lucy’s cousin was gone, and a Prell commercial model had taken her place.

  “Hey, cuz,” Gia said, and gave Lucy a pat on the head. She took the canvas bag from Uncle G. “C’mon.”

  “Come right back! We made pigs in a blanket!” Aunt Rosie called from the stove, and Gia sniffed with irritation.

  Gia led Lucy toward the downstairs bedrooms. “We’re going to be pigs in a blanket if we keep eating like that,” she whispered.

  “Well, I, for one, love pigs in a blanket.” Lucy sniffed right back.

  Gia led her down the hallway, turned right—past her room—and kept going, straight into Uncle G’s office at the end of the hall. There, a pullout sofa had been heaped with pillows across from Uncle G’s cluttered desk. Cannoli leapt into the middle of the pillows, blending with all the fluff, and promptly rolled onto her back, as usual, expecting a tummy rub. Cannoli was the only cat Lucy had ever known who was so trusting, and she wondered, not for the first time, if she hadn’t been given the proper amount of cat marbles.

  “Mom thought you might like your own space.”

  Lucy took in her surroundings and figured it would be best that she stayed out of Gia’s room anyway, because Gia had hung her protest signs on her wall. LOVE NOT WAR and THEY CAN’T KILL US ALL! Lucy didn’t want to see them, afraid that in a moment of anger, she might just rip them to shreds. Not that she was prone to hysterical anger, but she did have fifty percent Rossi bones after all, even if she couldn’t feel them mostly, and she couldn’t be too careful.

  “Mom cleaned out a drawer so you can keep some extra clothes,” Gia said, twisting her hair around one finger. She’d taken to wearing Easter-egg-colored lipsticks, today powder blue.

  “Girls!” Aunt Rosie shouted from the kitchen.

  “Are you ready to tell me why you’re so mad at me?” Gia said.

  “No.”

  “Well, I made you this anyway,” Gia said, and tied a braided piece of cobalt-blue yarn around her wrist. “Peace?”

  Lucy scratched Cannoli on her tummy. There was a piece of cobalt yarn tied around her collar.

  “Yes, even you, Cannoli,” Gia said as she rubbed her tummy, too.

  “I’ll think about it,” Lucy said. She knew she needed to talk to her cousin. Probably should have already, but she’d had enough to worry about without adding Gia to the list.

  Gia flicked one of Lucy’s braids. “Coming, Ma!”

  * * *

  —

  As Lucy helped Aunt Rosie and Uncle G clean the kitchen, Gia played James Taylor on her record player at an obnoxious volume. During the short ten minutes it took to clean, three of Gia’s giddy-goose friends came through the door, one by one, without knocking, and made a beeline for Gia’s room.

  Why did Gia have to have so many friends, anyway?

  And then Josh showed up.

  “Hey, Lucy,” he said, and pulled her right braid, like he did every time he saw her.

  Lucy’s face was warm, as though she were sitting in a beam of sunlight.

  Because although she had tried repeatedly not to be in love with her cousin’s boyfriend, it was hopeless. Joshua Giovanioli made Lucy’s heart swell up into her throat so that she was about to choke all the time. It was a miracle she had survived the last six months at all. He was tall, at least six feet, skinny as a reed, so that Aunt Rosie was constantly chasing him with cacciatore chicken legs and such, and had dimples on his cheeks that gave Lucy the urge to poke her finger right i
nto the middle of one.

  “Do you want to go to the beach with Gia and her friends?” Aunt Rosie said.

  Lucy couldn’t imagine anything worse than sitting for an entire day in the baking sun with a bunch of giddy-goose girls, even if Josh would be there.

  “That’s okay, Aunt Rosie. I’ll just work in my garden for a little while.”

  But Uncle G had other ideas. After they finished cleaning, Uncle G motioned for her to follow him into the garage. “You can help me pack up my tools for the day.”

  Uncle G loaded her arms with as much as she could carry out to the truck. “Why did you tell that Milo kid he could go digging around in my garden?” Lucy said as she stacked it all in the back of the truck.

  “What garden?” Uncle G said with a wink.

  “It’s a garden!”

  Uncle G laughed his deep belly laugh. “He asked if he could put in some plants to attract the dragonflies. He explained that the creek pools there, so it was the only place that would work. Dragonflies like the calm water.”

  “Why’s he so obsessed with dragonflies?”

  Uncle G took his tool belt off the work table and handed it to Lucy. “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “I don’t know where he lives.”

  “That’s Glenna Bartolo’s grandson. He’s visiting for the summer from North Carolina.”

  Glenna Bartolo was a nice lady who lived a couple of blocks over. Lucy had delivered meatballs from Papo Angelo’s deli a few times when she’d been earning postage money.

  “Maybe I have enough things to worry about.”

  “He could use a friend, Lucy.” Uncle G slammed the tailgate shut. “And so could you.”

  Lucy rubbed the toe of her sandal into a rust stain on the cement driveway. She could feel her nose turning pink. “I don’t have time for friends.”

  “What, you’re so busy?”

  She had been. But Mom and Dad had taken that away from her.