The Moment Keeper (4 page)

Rachel pulled her paper toward me and shifted in her seat so her back was blocking Reid from seeing her picture.

“OK, children,” Miss Becky said. “Time to share. Anyone want to volunteer to go first?”

Reid’s hand shot up. He was always first to volunteer for anything.

“OK, Reid. Come to the front of the classroom so everyone can see your picture.”

Reid pushed out his chair and walked to the front and stood next to Miss Becky.

“This is my dad and this is my mom,” he said, pointing to the different stick figures on the big sheet of white paper. “And these are my sisters. Rebecca. Rachelle. Renee. And Randi. And that’s me.”

“So you have four sisters?” Miss Becky asked.

Reid shook his head so fast I thought his thick black glasses would fly off.

“And a cat but I forgot to drawn him. His name is Rudy.”

“Very good,” Miss Becky said.

“And guess what?” Reid asked. He didn’t wait for Miss Becky to reply. “Our names all start with R.”

“That’s right,” Miss Becky said. “They do.”

Reid walked back to his seat, strutting like one of those Mummers Grandma always likes to watch on TV on Thanksgiving Day.

“Who would like to go next?”

I sat and listened as student after student talked about their families. I didn’t want to share my drawing. But eventually I was the only one left who hadn’t gone.

“Sarah,” Miss Becky said. “Your turn.”

I picked up my drawing and went to the front of the class. “This is me and my grandma.”

Reid raised his hand.

“Yes, Reid,” Miss Becky said.

“Where’s your mom and dad?”

My body stiffened, like the time Grandma caught me sneaking chocolate-chip cookies after she said I couldn’t have any more because we were soon going to eat dinner.

I swallowed hard. “I don’t have any.”

Reid tilted his head and even with his thick glasses on I could tell he was scrunching his beady little eyes. “Why not?”

“You know, Reid,” Miss Becky interrupted. “Just like there are different kinds of ice cream, there are many different kinds of families. Some families have moms and dads and sisters and brothers. Others have just a mom or just a dad or a grandma or a grandpa. What’s important to remember is that they are all families no matter how they are made up.”

Reid scratched his head.

Rachel raised her hand.

“Yes, Rachel,” Miss Becky said.

Rachel smiled. “I like Sarah’s picture.”

From that day on, Rach and I were inseparable.

“And God bless Mommy and Daddy,” says Olivia, her fingers, stained with magic marker, interlocked and her eyes pinched shut. “And Emma and Jack. And the nice lady at the deli who gave me a slice of cheese. And the man who came to the house and gave Mommy flowers from Daddy. And my teacher, Mrs. Plato. And those people Mommy and I saw waiting for food outside that building on the way to school today. Oh, and God bless Pepper. That’s our neighbor’s cat. He has three legs. Amen.”

“That was a very nice prayer,” Elizabeth says, brushing Olivia’s ringlets off her face.

Tom agrees. “I know who Emma is. Who’s Jack?”

“He’s new at school. I played with him today. He said he doesn’t have a mommy or a daddy. He has a grandma.”

Tom looked at Elizabeth. “Well, princess. I’m glad you played with Jack. I’m sure that made him feel good.”

“Yeah. He cried. A lot. And then when we started to play, he stopped. For a little. But then when his grandma came to pick him up, he cried again.”

“I see,” Tom says.

“Emma asked him why he cries so much and that made him cry more. Why does he?”

“Cry so much?” Elizabeth asks.

Olivia nods.

“Sometimes people are sad,” Elizabeth says. “And they just need time to be happy again.”

“Will he be happy again?” Olivia asks.

“I’m sure he will,” Tom says. “But you can keep praying for that to happen.”

Tom pulls the pink blanket up to Olivia’s chin and kisses her on the forehead. Elizabeth tucks Olivia’s teddy beside her and kisses her on each cheek.

“Sweet dreams, Princess,” Elizabeth says. “Love you bunches and bunches.”

Every night, Grandma and I had the same routine. Even when I got older, parts of it remained. Like the part where she hugged me and kissed me on the cheek and told me how much she loved me and how proud she was of me before she went to bed. No one has ever loved me as much as Grandma. I thought that Bryan did. I thought he was my Prince Charming, coming to take me away. But I was wrong. So wrong. But that’s a moment for another day.

The best part of our nightly routine was Grandma reading me a book. Of course, we said prayers, too. But the book always came first

“Got the book you want to read?” Grandma asked me, then five.

I grabbed a book from the bookshelf Grandma had found at a yard sale. She sanded and painted it and made it look like new. I loved my pink bookshelf.

“Didn’t we just read that book last night and the night before and the night before that?” Grandma asked.

I nodded and my pigtails laced with purple ribbons bounced.

“Well, OK then. Hop on up.”

I snuggled next to Grandma on the patched sofa. She slipped one arm around me and started to read, her index finger sliding under the words as she went.

I loved the story of Cinderella. How she went to the ball and met the prince and had mice for friends. Oh, and a fairy godmother who made all of her dreams come true. In my mind, the fairy godmother looked like Grandma, whose basic wardrobe was tan khakis and some sort of button-down blouse she made, usually a floral print.

Grandma tucked me in bed and placed a glass of water, half full, on my nightstand. I always liked to have a drink nearby so if I woke up and was thirsty, it would be right there.

I folded my hands and Grandma folded hers and we prayed together.

“Wait,” I said when we got to the “Amen” part.

“And God bless Rachel and Grandma. Oh, and can you make Matt happy and love me like he loved my mom?”

I heard Grandma gasp, and I opened my eyes to see her wiping her blotchy face on her pajama sleeve.

I prayed and prayed my whole life for Matt to be happy, but he never was. I wanted him to be happy more than I wanted him to love me. I gave up on him loving me when he stopped coming around after Grandma kicked him out of the house. I wasn’t mad that Grandma kicked him out. He kept wrecking things and made Grandma cry all of the time. It wasn’t long after Grandma kicked him out that we moved into a small apartment where the landlord mowed the yard and did other outside work. My bedroom wasn’t as big as it was in the house, but it was right next to Grandma’s instead of down the hall and I liked that.

Chapter 7

Olivia sets her pink and purple princess table with her ceramic floral china set. There’s a setting for her and her best friend, Emma, and one for Olivia’s doll, Sadie, and one for Emma’s doll, Nellie.

“Is it time yet?” Olivia calls to her mother.

“Almost,” Elizabeth says.

Each week, the five-year-olds have a play date and this week it’s at Olivia’s house. The doorbell rings and Olivia races to the front door. The girls hug and Emma and Olivia run to the playroom where they’ll spend most of the afternoon. The room is packed with every toy a little girl could want – from a play kitchen to an immense dollhouse to a puppet theater complete with a red velvet curtain.

Elizabeth walks in with a plate filled with grapes, carrot sticks, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut into quarters, diagonally. She places a quarter on each girl’s plate.

“Don’t forget Sadie and Nellie,” Olivia says. “They’re hungry.”

Elizabeth puts a quarter on their plates, too, and sets the rest in the middle of the table.

The girls dig in Olivia’s sparkly pink dress-up trunk for hats and boas to wear. Olivia wears her Cinderella gown and Emma chooses the Snow White dress. Olivia picks the tea-party hat with the pink chandelle feathers and matching boa and short-sleeve gloves. Emma picks the tea-party hat with the ruffle trim and matching boa and long-sleeve gloves. They pull out the pink and purple chairs with heart-shaped cushions and place their dolls across the table from one another. Then they pull out the other two chairs and sit.

“What’s that, Sadie? You think this is good? Me, too,” Olivia says.

“Nellie thinks it’s good, too,” Emma says.

The girls’ giggles draw a curious Elizabeth, who peeks in the room and finds them changing their dolls’ diapers.

“You have a real baby sister to change,” Olivia says. “I wish I did.”

“Maybe you could ask Santa for one?”

Ever since Emma got a baby sister, Olivia’s been asking her parents for one. They’ve told her that she’s special, picked just for them and that even if she never has a baby sister, or brother, she can always have friends over to play. Olivia doesn’t quite understand the why behind it, but having Emma over always helps.

“You’re my bestest friend,” Rachel said, hugging me.

It was the first — and only — time Rachel was allowed to play at my house. We spread the blanket out on the living-room floor and pretended to have a picnic on the beach. The tan vinyl hassock was a sand dune and the sofa was our sailboat. We had so much fun pretending
– until Matt came home.

It was in the middle of the afternoon and Grandma was in the kitchen baking chocolate-chip cookies. Matt opened the door and stumbled in with a woman whose top was cut so low that I thought her double-Ds would pop out. He knocked over the black tole-painted TV tray inside the front door where Grandma kept her keys. Grandma heard the noise and rushed into the hallway.

“Matt,” Grandma said. “It’s the middle of the afternoon. Sarah has a friend over.”

Matt took a couple of steps toward Grandma, almost knocking her over. “I have a friend over, too.” His speech was slurred. “This here’s Candy.”

“Matt,” Grandma said. “Not now.”

“Get out of my way, old woman,” he said, swatting her with the back of his arm.

He looked at me. “What are you lookin’ at, kid?”

I swallowed hard and stepped in front of Rachel to protect her. “Go. Don’t hit Grandma.”

Rachel was holding onto the back of my shirt so tightly that I thought it was going to rip.

“Oh, Mattie,” the woman said. “Let’s just go to my place.”

Matt looked at Grandma, then at me.

They stumbled out the same door they came in and Grandma ran to the kitchen to take the burning cookies out of the oven. The kitchen filled with smoke and the fire alarm made a shrill sound, the kind that no matter how well you cover your ears, you still hear it.

“Want to play grown-ups?” Olivia asks.

Emma nods.

“I’m a dancer. What do you want to be?”

“A teacher.”

The girls divide the room, each taking a half for her “apartment”.

Olivia pretends to call Emma. “Were the kids good today in school?”

“There was one little boy who was bad. He pulled a girl’s hair.”

“What did you do?” Olivia asks.

“Gave him a timeout.”

“Want to come over for dinner?” Olivia asks.

“What are you having?”

“Macaroni and cheese.”

“The SpongeBob-shaped ones?” Emma asks.

“Yes,” Olivia says.

“Be right over.”

Elizabeth stands outside the room and smiles. I think she loves listening to the girls play. I know these moments are some of my favorite to record. Olivia and Emma act out what they see in real life.

One night, I was playing with my Barbie dolls in my bedroom. I was around five. I didn’t know that Grandma could hear me.

“What are you doing here?” Barbie asked. “You can barely stand.”

I made Ken wobble. “Come to get me some money.”

“But I gave you money yesterday,” Barbie said.

“And I need more today, woman.”

“You know better than to come here like this,” Barbie said.

“Are you going to give me the money or am I going to take it?”

Grandma walked in. Her hands shook. “No, no, no. That’s not how we play.”

She sat on the floor and picked up the Ken doll.

“Would you like to go out for dinner?” Grandma said in her best male voice.

“Ken doesn’t like to go out to dinner. He likes to drink,” I said. “He likes that bar around the corner.”

Grandma shook her head. “He stopped drinking.” Again, Grandma pretended to be Ken. “Would you like to go out to dinner?”

“That’s too expensive. Why don’t you pick up a roasted chicken at the grocery store and we can pretend that it came from a fancy restaurant?”

Grandma put the Ken doll down. “I can’t play anymore,” she said, and went to her room. I heard her crying.

Chapter 8

Olivia bites into an apple and her eyebrows jump to the top of her forehead. She pulls the apple away to look at it.

“Mom,” she yells. “My tooth’s in the apple.”

Elizabeth sets down the basket of laundry. “So it’s finally come out. That tooth has been dangling for days.”

Olivia grabs some tissue and dabs the blood. She hands her mom the apple.

“Emma got a dollar for her tooth last week,” Olivia says. “Wonder what the tooth fairy will bring me.”

Elizabeth pulls the tiny tooth out of the apple. “Guess you’ll have to put your tooth under your pillow tonight and see.”

Olivia jumps up and down. “I have that special pillow Daddy bought me. It has a pocket for the tooth.”

Elizabeth smiles. “I forgot about that. You’ll have to show Daddy when he gets home.”

By the time I lost my first tooth, Matt wasn’t living with us anymore. Despite Grandma’s efforts to get him help, he sank deeper and deeper into a drunken abyss.

Sometimes, I’d catch Grandma looking through old photos of Matt when he was a baby. She even showed me a lock of hair from his first haircut and a baby-food jar filled with his baby teeth. Grandma did the same for me. She kept a curl from my first haircut in a plastic baggie and she covered a baby-food jar with pink construction paper and wrote “Sarah’s teeth” with a black marker on the side. I lost my first tooth at school.

“Look, Rachel,” I said, pinching one of my bottom teeth with my thumb and index finger and wiggling it. “Grandma said it will come out soon.”