My Life in Dioramas (19 page)

When the light went
from the sky, my father lit the fire. I went to find the long pokers we used to toast marshmallows, and they were sticky with dust so I washed them.

We continued talking about everything but what was actually going on. I figured my parents knew what the plan was for the house—flipping it—and that they were okay with it, and were doing what they had to do. If they didn't know, I honestly didn't want to be the one to tell them.

I didn't want to think about the week ahead. About having to face Megan at school. And telling Stella that it was really
happening. And telling Naveen Big Red was no more. It was all going to be just . . . sad.

Even the excitement I'd first felt when Sam told me he'd written about my scooter diorama had turned sour. I liked a boy. It was possible he liked me. But I was moving so it didn't even matter.

I heard my parents talking quietly down by the fire as I got ready for bed. I knew how the night would go. They'd sit out there and talk until the bulk of the fire went out. Then my mom, sleepy, would drift up to bed and my dad would sit out there, staring at the stars and probably smoking a cigarette until the fire's last embers were nearly dead.

I couldn't sleep.

I got up and went down to the craft room and made a simple diorama, my simplest yet. Just a bonfire. Two chairs. My mom and dad. Gazing up at the stars.

I left it on my mom's night table and went to bed.

24.

A sign that said
IN CONTRACT
got added to the
FOR SALE
sign. I didn't understand why they didn't just take the whole thing down already, but it wasn't up to me.

My parents didn't start packing, exactly, but they did seem to do a more ambitious spring cleaning than they'd ever done before. Each item moved or dusted revealed a hibernating stinkbug, or one that was just waking up, and I vacuumed or flushed more of them than I could count. Without dance class twice a week—the studio had refunded my troupe fees and class fees—I had a lot of extra time on my hands.

That weekend we had a yard sale. Small pieces of furniture, artwork, a bunch of random rooster things like trivets and creamers. All of it got put out on the driveway
for passersby to study and pass judgment on. I felt mortified that my parents were taking nickels and dimes for our junk, and spent the whole time hoping none of my classmates would drive by.

But then Naveen biked over and we snuck off and had ice pops. I filled him in about the rapid end of my dance-troupe career. He told me all about a new bottle-launcher he was building. For smaller bottles. Just for fun. Then we went back and looked at my parents' impressive collection of soup ladles together.

When we were calling it a day, having unloaded most of the furniture and not a lot of the other stuff, a young couple with two little girls stopped by to have a look. They were on the hunt for dollhouse furniture and asked me if we had any. I said, no, that we had nothing like that, and I felt sort of bad about it since the girls looked so disappointed.

Their mom talked to my dad for a while, while I introduced the girls to Angus. The mom said she was sorry they hadn't driven by sooner, maybe seen the
FOR SALE
sign. They were living in an apartment in Poughkeepsie and had been saving up for a house but hadn't quite started looking.

“I would have bought this place in a second,” the mom said, sighing.

“Yeah,” Dad said. “It's a great house.”

“Where are you moving to?” she asked, probably just thinking she was being friendly.

My dad winked and said, “Oh, you know. On to the next adventure.”

I tried to make that my mantra for the next few days:

On to the next adventure!

I started to have elaborate daydreams about what my new school would be like. Maybe it'd have, like, four floors and be all modern and cool. Maybe I'd see some boy across a room and we'd lock eyes and I'd have a new crush just like that. Maybe I'd have some amazing teacher who would introduce me to some subject or book that would change my life and make me want to join the Peace Corps or become an FBI agent.

Anything could happen!

Real estate paperwork came in and my parents signed it. Phone calls to lawyers and agents were made. We started packing and purging and then packing some more. A closing was set for the following week, the first week of May.

My parents talked about possibly homeschooling me through the end of the year and I told them not to be ridiculous.

A moving truck was hired for the closing date, to put our stuff in storage until we knew what our next move would be.

Big Red seemed to know something was happening. I swear it was like it was pulling out all the stops to convince us to stay. The tulips and daffodils seemed to bloom in brighter shades of pink and purple than ever before. The cardinal reclaimed its daily perch out back
and sang louder than ever. Forsythia blooms the color of tennis balls appeared down by the court. Pants and her kittens were frolicking every day, wherever you looked. I still hadn't named them and was starting to think maybe it was better not to get attached.

Spring had totally sprung, and the downstairs rooms suddenly seemed dark and dingy. I moved my diorama production to the dining room table. Since I was so close to completing the whole house, I decided to do the kitchen and dining room, and then, finally, the living room.

The small, wiry Christmas tree was one of the few things left in the bag Naveen had given me, so I decided to make my living room diorama a Christmastime scene. I built a fireplace out of cardboard and covered it with gray and black and brown shapes to mimic the stone face. I cut orange and red tissue paper into flame shapes and lit it up. On the other end of the room, I cut windows and placed the Christmas tree in front of it. I didn't think I could make ornaments small enough so I searched around my supplies for tiny beads and strung them on fishing wire, then wound it around the tree. I pulled out a box of our Christmas stuff from under the stairs and grabbed tiny pieces of tinsel and strung them as garland. I raided my mother's wrapping paper and ribbon stash again and found leftover holiday paper, so I made small boxes out of whatever I could and wrapped them, and put them under the tree.

It took me longer than any of the dioramas had so far. I spent a long time with wooden sticks and markers, trying to mimic the wooden beams on the ceiling. I worked in painstaking detail on the butterfly chair so that the pattern and colors were just right. I made mini-parents—one in each chair—and put Angus on the rug at their feet. Then I added myself, lying on the floor looking at the presents. It wasn't based on any specific memory of Christmas, just a general feeling of being how we all ended up on Christmas Eve each year.

I finished it the night before the closing date and decided to show it to my parents. Upstairs, surrounded by boxes, they were pretty much sitting in the exact positions I'd put them in—Angus, too.

“You guys need to get out more,” I said. And I turned the box to face them.

My mother took one look at it and started crying.

My dad got up and put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “It's really lovely, Kate. Just”—his eyes were filling with tears—“lovely.”

Back downstairs I found a large moving box but before packing up, I stacked the shoeboxes carefully, putting each room in its place.

It was my whole life.

In dioramas.

25.

The pink streak in my hair
had faded with each passing week, with each passing shampoo, without my really noticing it. And on the day of our move it was gone.

It was a Wednesday—and my parents insisted I go to school. My mother was staying at home to meet the movers and my father was going to the closing. The truck would be loaded by the time I got home and then we'd be on our way. I put my box of dioramas in the trunk of the car, not trusting them to not get crushed in the truck.

I drifted through the day, not really raising my hand in class or talking much beyond the necessary. Sam Fitch told me he was going to miss me and I couldn't look him in the eyes when I said, “Thanks.” Mrs. Nagano asked if she could keep my dioramas—and I had to fight hard not to cry.
I thanked a few of my teachers, who wished me well, but I didn't have the energy for a whole day of big, sad farewells. What was the point?

Stella and I rode the bus home side by side in silence. “We'll text and have sleepovers and then we'll apply to the same college,” she said, squeezing my hand, but I wasn't convinced any of it would happen.

My mom was sitting on the front steps petting Angus when I walked up. Which seemed like a normal enough scene until I saw that she was crying.

And that Angus was lying there perfectly still.

“I guess Angus didn't want to move either,” my mom said without looking at me.

“No,” I said. “NO!”

I ran past her and opened the front door so I could run up to my room and throw myself on my bed to cry, but—
bam
—the house was empty.

All the furniture already gone.

All the walls blank.

The chalkboard in the kitchen had been wiped clean.

Everything that showed that we'd ever lived there was gone.

I dropped down to my knees right there in the empty dining room and cried and cried because . . . really, universe? Didn't we have enough to deal with? Hadn't we been messed with enough? Weren't we all already trying so very hard to hold it together?

My father came in and said, “Kate. Come with me.”

He'd been out back in the woods, digging a hole. And now he was done.

He'd moved Angus down there and now we were going to bury him.

My mother just stood there in her jeans and white shirt, not talking, not crying—only occasionally lifting a tissue to wipe her nose.

My father struggled to put Angus in the hole and then he started to shovel dirt on top of him. “I seriously”—more dirt—“cannot”—more dirt—“believe this is happening,” he said.

I couldn't tell if he was angry or just tired or what. He seemed sort of crazed and maybe we all were.

I started to look around for something to mark the grave with so if I ever came back I'd be able to find this spot, maybe lay some flowers down for Angus.

There was a flat stone down by the pond that seemed like it might do the job. I tried to lift it but it was really dug in. So I kicked it a bunch of times and hurt my foot doing it and I started to cry but now my hands were too dirty to wipe the tears away and then the earth finally let go of its grip on the rock and I carried it over to where my dad was patting his pile. I bent down and lowered the rock and my dad helped me get it settled.

“You were a good dog, Angus,” I said.

My mother said, “Well, at least one of us gets to stay.”

I wasn't sure what was going to happen then. But I watched as my father looked at my mother, and I guess she shook her head and laughed a little and then he laughed a little, and then he said, “If you'll pardon my French, this has been a—”

“Watch it,” my mom said.

The wind kicked up and I heard bells.

“You forgot to pack your wind chimes.” I went up to the porch, took them down, and carried them to the car.