Eight Keys Part 14

I didn't bother to get a plate. I smashed two pieces together for my pizza sandwich and bit down on the point. The gush of steaming sauce smothered my tongue. Mmm.

Franklin took one piece, put it on a plate, and started picking off the cheese.

I tossed my crusts onto Franklin's rejected cheese pile and got my next pair of pieces.

Franklin wasn't talking much.

"What's the matter with you?" I asked.

"Nothing." He got up from the table and poured a gla.s.s of orange soda. He didn't ask if I wanted one.

After dinner, we worked on the puzzle. Franklin silently connected pieces. Now that the s.p.a.ceship and Earth were put together, there was a lot of boring night sky to do.

A puzzle-piece fight would be more fun. I threw one at Franklin's forehead to get things started.

"Hey!" he cried, too loudly. It couldn't have hurt.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing."

"Liar."

Franklin seemed to stew for a minute, and then asked, "Why did you invite me over?"

"It's pizza night. You always come over on pizza night."

"Why didn't you invite Caroline?"

"Caroline?"

"Yeah, she's always around now."

"She's not. She doesn't even eat lunch with us."

"Well, you two seem to get along great and I don't trust her."

"Why not?"

"She's friends with the enemy."

"What?"

"Yeah, the enemy: Amanda. She's so mean to you."

"Caroline's nice."

"How do you know?"

"Because she acts nice."

"Exactly. It could be an act." Franklin always gave people the benefit of the doubt. What was his problem? "You don't really know her."

"It feels more like I don't know you. You aren't acting like you." The Franklin I knew liked everybody. Even Diana the cat girl. The Franklin I knew had never been mad at me for making a new friend.

But actually, I had never really made a new friend before. It had always been just me and Franklin.

I ran out of things to say, right in the middle of our conversation. I took half of the white-speckled black pieces from Franklin and examined the stars, as if I could learn them by heart.

"All by yourself today, Cricket?" Leonard asked.

I nodded.

"Finish that book?"

"Yeah. I read it a couple times. And picked out some new ones."

I'd stacked them on the desk in the library. I was doing my homework in there almost every night now, and having a lot less trouble getting it done. At least if I forgot to put the homework back in my bag, I knew where it would be. Most nights, Uncle Hugh worked quietly downstairs in his workshop, so I wasn't out there by myself.

"You starting to like reading a little more?" Leonard asked.

"Maybe." I had even filled out a couple entries in my reading journal for Mrs. Wakefield.

"Maybe's a start," he said. "Interested in earning some snack money?"

"Sure. Aunt Bessie's not coming to get me until five."

"Everything okay with your friends?"

"Yeah." I hadn't invited either of them. Franklin had sat through lunch like his soy milk was sour, even though Caroline wasn't with us. And Caroline seemed to be included in Amanda's afternoon plans.

Leonard gave me one of my favorite jobs, mixing the trial-sized-can paint samples that people requested. I liked knowing that even though there are hundreds of colors to pick from on the little sample cards, they're all just a couple bases with extra color squirts to change them. I got paint on my hands and jeans. But everyone, even Aunt Bessie, knows that jeans look cooler with paint splotches.

At the burger place I got fries covered in cheesea"a treat I never order with Franklina"and a vanilla milk shake. It felt good just to sit there on my own. It was a little lonelya"there were other tables of older kids from schoola"but really, it was okay.

The next day I didn't ask anyone to hang out, either, and went right home after school. I visited Aunt Bessie in the kitchen and made myself a peanut-b.u.t.ter dipping plate of sliced apples, carrots, and celery. Then I went out to the library, threw my bag on the floor, and set the snack on the desk. I flopped into the chair, crunching a carrot, and something on the desk caught my eye.a A key.

It hadn't been there yesterday.

Uncle Hugh was out on deliveries. I thought of asking Aunt Bessie if anyone had been out here today, get right down to sleuthing.

But that idea didn't feel right. It seemed like whoever was leaving the keys didn't want me to know who he or she was. I left that mystery for later and picked up the key.

a a a Taped to the wall was a message: CHOOSE TO LIVE, CHOOSE TO LOVE.

There were pictures on the wall in this room, too.

In one, a man holds a newborn baby. The man is crying, but, underneath that, he has an expression of wonder. He's in other pictures, smiling and looking happy as he plays with a growing baby and toddlera"on park swings a at the beach a with blocks. In one picture, the toddler has become a little girl. Her dark hair is just starting to grow beyond her shoulders. The man stands behind her, brushing it, but his eyes seem sad and faraway. In the last picture, he looks old. His hair is only wisps, his skin pale. He sits in a wheelchair. The girl in his lap holds a book, laughing.

This room was about Dad and me. Together.

The only other thing in the room was a sketchbook, its pages full and puffy. It was just sitting, dusty, in the middle of the floor. Aunt Bessie probably would have had a heart attack, but I sat right down in the grime and opened the book.

It wasn't filled with sketches, but with words.

I started on the first page: a This morning we went to your favorite playground. It took us a long time to get there because your pink sneakers were missing. Finally, Hugh found one under the couch (with sixteen dusty blocks, seven Cheerios, and one AWOL stuffed rabbit), and you discovered the other in your toy chest. How can your shoes get lost every day?

By the time we got to the park, all the swings were taken, but you headed to the sandbox instead. Then you wanted to climb on the monkey bars, which are too high for you to reach. I helped you up there and you moved your arms from bar to bar, pretending you were moving on your own.a a Today it was raining, so we didn't even have to look for your sandy shoes. You sat with your face pressed to the window, waiting for the rain to stop.

Eventually, I got you into the kitchen for a "cooking" project. We made peanut-b.u.t.ter toast. There was peanut b.u.t.ter everywhere! You put on all kinds of toppingsa"Cheerios, marshmallows, chocolate chips.a You were one big sticky mess when you were done eating! It was straight to the bath after that.a a Today was your first trip to get a haircut. I didn't even want to cut your hair, but Bessie told me it would grow out nicer if we got it cut along the way.

They made a big fuss over you at the barbershop. My barber put a board across the arms of one of the chairs for you to sit on. He wrapped an old b.u.t.ton-up shirt around you and set to work. You kept your eyes fixed on me watching you the whole time. Only when the haircut was done and I carried you over to the mirror did you look. "Pretty!" you announced.a a I spent most of my day in the hospital for treatment, but Bessie tells me that you had a good day. You picked up colored leaves outside and brought them in and taped them in a notebook to keep.

I hate days when I don't see you. They happen more and more.a a Today I came home after you were sleeping, and I sat by your bed for a little while, petting your hair, careful not to wake you from your dreams.

You looked a little bigger. You were growing, after all, even in the couple of days I was gone. And you will keep growing. You will change without me.

But I remind myself that I know you. I know your heart, and that will stay the same, so I will always know you.a I had to put the book down after that one. It can be hard to read with water in your eyes.

He said he knew me, he knew me a but I was so little. Was it really true that inside, my heart was the same? From the sound of it, I wasn't even Cricket yet. And what did the note mean? CHOOSE TO LIVE, CHOOSE TO LOVE?

I shut the journal, even though I had only read some of it, and went downstairs. Uncle Hugh wasn't back yet, so I headed inside the house.

The door to Annie and Ava's room was open. I could hear Ava, cooing, waking up from her nap. Annie didn't seem to be around, so I walked over to the crib. Ava was tasting her foot and talking to it.

"Hi, Ava," I whispered. I reached out to stroke her cheek. It was soft and a little wet from being b.u.mped by her spitty foot.

"Go ahead. Take her out." Annie had walked up behind me.

"I don't know how."

"Course you do. It's natural. Put your hands around her there, under her arms, and lift."

I put my hands around Ava where Annie had said to. I would have laughed or gotten mad if someone squeezed my middle like that, but Ava was used to being picked up. I lifted her out, making sure her toes cleared the bars. I held her stiffly, far from me.

Annie took my hands and helped them hold Ava under her b.u.t.t and on her back, pressing her against me. It felt good, her little warm body, like a hug in which I did all the hugging.

"Now bring her over here so I can change that pee-pee diaper."

I followed Annie to the changing table, and she helped me lay Ava on the thick pad.

"She likes this, see?" Annie played "This Little Piggy" on Ava's toes, kissing them and blowing raspberries on the bottom of her feet. Ava shrieked and laughed.

My mother had never done that to me. Maybe Dad had?

"How did you find out she liked that?" I asked.

"I don't know. It was just a game we started to play. Wasn't it, sweetie?" she asked Ava in a soft voice. Ava smiled back. "There, all done." Annie sat Ava up.

"Grab some of her toys. We'll go to the living room."

In the living room she laid Ava down on a blanket on the floor.

"Will you stay with her while I get some laundry started?" I must have looked nervous. "You don't have to do anything, just stay here."

She left. Ava looked around.

"Hi," I said. "It's okay." I picked up one of the toys, a fat b.u.mblebee with crinkly wings. "See? It's okay." I turned the bee a little in front of her, making the wings crackle. I moved it closer to her. She looked a little cross-eyed, trying to focus, but when I touched it to her nose and said, "Bop!" she laughed. I pulled the bee back out. "Buzz a bop!" Ava laughed again. I put the bee down and placed my hand near hers. She wrapped her fist around my pinky. I let her hold on.

Maybe Dad did know me as a little kid. Some things seemed the samea"me losing things, loving peanut b.u.t.ter.

But I didn't lose things as much anymore. Other sides of me seemed to have come and gonea"like me being a chirping cricket. Maybe now I was more like the Elise Dad knew than I'd been other times.

Kind of like how I really thought I knew Franklin and then he turned into a weirdo about Caroline. Where did that come from? Would he change back?

How could you ever really know someone, if they could change on you?

What did Dad mean by CHOOSE TO LOVE? What did choosing have to do with anything? Don't you either happen to love someone or not?

I looked down at Ava, who was looking up expectantly.

"Sorry." I picked up the stuffed bee again.

Uncle Hugh came home and found me with Ava. "Having fun?"

I shrugged. "Annie's doing laundry."

"Here," he said, lifting Ava off the floor and sitting down on the couch, settling her in his lap facing him. He made lovey-dovey faces and she responded with happy coos.

"Uncle Hugh?"

"Yes, Cricket?" He made a different face at Ava.

"I found a new key and room. It's about me and Dad together a but his note says *Choose to live, choose to love.' What does that mean?"

Uncle Hugh looked at me then. "I'm going to tell you the truth, is that okay?"

"Yes."

"Good. What I think it means is this a when your mom died, your dad was so sad, he could have just become wrapped up in being sad, but he didn't; he chose to be a father to you. And when he got sick, he could have become wrapped up in being sick, but he chose to be a father to you. He chose to keep living, and he kept finding ways to show his love for you, no matter how hard things were."

While I thought about that, Uncle Hugh started asking Ava, "Do you have a wet diaper?" even though her mother had just changed it. She was laughing.

"What is he saying to me, though? Nothing like that is happening to me."

"Maybe not. But in life people come and go. We don't always have control over it. But we can control how we respond. We can keep going, keep living the best we can. We can love the people we have instead of shutting them out. We can do our best to get to know them in the time we have."

He turned back to Ava. "Like you, little one. How lucky we are to have you here with us. How lucky!"