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Authors: Therese Walsh
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pay”—and stared out at the bus.
Let it be all right , I thought to whoever might be listening. Send some good luck my way .
“Well, sure, I’ll let her know,” Jim said, and I spun around. Hehung up the phone, then scratched at his head with the same hand that nudged aside his cap. “Your sister left a note on a napkin at Ramps saying you were here and would pay for the pie and drinks.”
“She’s gone?” I asked, but I knew already, felt the truth of it churn in my gut with all that coffee.
In the distance, the train whistled.
CHAPTER SIX
On Fate. Or Luck.
OLIVIA
W e didn’t have a computer at home, not even an old one like they used to have in the health office at school, so whenever Mama and I needed to look something up online we had to walk a few miles to the next town over, which was just as small as Tramp but had a free library. We always had a great time there and were able to answer a lot of the random questions that filled my head when I was younger—like how fish have babies, why salt melts ice, and if worms sleep.
I wish I could drive , Mama would say sometimes. I’d give her a hug and tell her I was glad we couldn’t drive, because that meant more time for us to talk. She didn’t have a license because of a series of accidents she’d had while I was still in public school. I didn’t miss her not driving, but it was true that the weather wasn’t always ideal for walking, and I knew that lost license bothered her.
One chill fall day, we had to walk to the library. I had a test to study for, and neither of us knew how to divide algebraic expressions. Midway between Tramp and the library sat a lone house, where an old woman lived with her seven dogs. She was always in her rocking chair on the front porch, and never shushed her packwhen they barked at us, either. As we passed on this particular day, the dogs barked as usual, but the woman wasn’t on the porch. It was sort of weird, but everyone has to go to the bathroom now and then, so we didn’t think much of it until the dogs started going crazy the farther we got down the road.
Something was wrong.
We turned back, and though Mama was nervous about the dogs, I told her there was no reason to be. The barks of angry dogs were black karate chops in the air, but these dogs weren’t mad; the high notes of their barks were blue with anxiety. Once she knew that, Mama went with confidence onto the woman’s property and up the porch stairs. I followed, even though she said to stay put near the road.
Turns out the woman who lived there had been trying to reach a photo album at the top of a bookshelf and had stepped onto a low shelf to do it, toppling the whole thing—books and all—onto her legs, both of which had broken. She’d been trapped there for two and a half days before we found her. Two and a half days without food or water, and not having a bathroom except for the floor. Mary Lee Wilson was her name, and we found something out about Mary later on, after she got back from the hospital and felt better. Mary was a retired teacher, and she was nice, too, once you got to know her. She died a year later, but not before teaching me everything she knew about algebra and in a way that I finally understood.
Things happened for a reason, Mama always said, even when you couldn’t see the why of it right away. Mama lost her license. I couldn’t stay in public school. Tramp didn’t have a library. We had to walk miles from home to get to a computer. They all seemed like inconvenient things. But Mary Lee Wilson may have gained an extra year of life because of all those things, and that was saying a lot.
The distance from the ground to the floor of the boxcar was more than I’d thought it would be. The bed of the car I’d found—a blue one with an open side door—was even with my armpits. I rested myhands there along with my bag, feeling flecks of rust against my skin and the hard slap of reality.
I couldn’t do
Let it be all right , I thought to whoever might be listening. Send some good luck my way .
“Well, sure, I’ll let her know,” Jim said, and I spun around. Hehung up the phone, then scratched at his head with the same hand that nudged aside his cap. “Your sister left a note on a napkin at Ramps saying you were here and would pay for the pie and drinks.”
“She’s gone?” I asked, but I knew already, felt the truth of it churn in my gut with all that coffee.
In the distance, the train whistled.
CHAPTER SIX
On Fate. Or Luck.
OLIVIA
W e didn’t have a computer at home, not even an old one like they used to have in the health office at school, so whenever Mama and I needed to look something up online we had to walk a few miles to the next town over, which was just as small as Tramp but had a free library. We always had a great time there and were able to answer a lot of the random questions that filled my head when I was younger—like how fish have babies, why salt melts ice, and if worms sleep.
I wish I could drive , Mama would say sometimes. I’d give her a hug and tell her I was glad we couldn’t drive, because that meant more time for us to talk. She didn’t have a license because of a series of accidents she’d had while I was still in public school. I didn’t miss her not driving, but it was true that the weather wasn’t always ideal for walking, and I knew that lost license bothered her.
One chill fall day, we had to walk to the library. I had a test to study for, and neither of us knew how to divide algebraic expressions. Midway between Tramp and the library sat a lone house, where an old woman lived with her seven dogs. She was always in her rocking chair on the front porch, and never shushed her packwhen they barked at us, either. As we passed on this particular day, the dogs barked as usual, but the woman wasn’t on the porch. It was sort of weird, but everyone has to go to the bathroom now and then, so we didn’t think much of it until the dogs started going crazy the farther we got down the road.
Something was wrong.
We turned back, and though Mama was nervous about the dogs, I told her there was no reason to be. The barks of angry dogs were black karate chops in the air, but these dogs weren’t mad; the high notes of their barks were blue with anxiety. Once she knew that, Mama went with confidence onto the woman’s property and up the porch stairs. I followed, even though she said to stay put near the road.
Turns out the woman who lived there had been trying to reach a photo album at the top of a bookshelf and had stepped onto a low shelf to do it, toppling the whole thing—books and all—onto her legs, both of which had broken. She’d been trapped there for two and a half days before we found her. Two and a half days without food or water, and not having a bathroom except for the floor. Mary Lee Wilson was her name, and we found something out about Mary later on, after she got back from the hospital and felt better. Mary was a retired teacher, and she was nice, too, once you got to know her. She died a year later, but not before teaching me everything she knew about algebra and in a way that I finally understood.
Things happened for a reason, Mama always said, even when you couldn’t see the why of it right away. Mama lost her license. I couldn’t stay in public school. Tramp didn’t have a library. We had to walk miles from home to get to a computer. They all seemed like inconvenient things. But Mary Lee Wilson may have gained an extra year of life because of all those things, and that was saying a lot.
The distance from the ground to the floor of the boxcar was more than I’d thought it would be. The bed of the car I’d found—a blue one with an open side door—was even with my armpits. I rested myhands there along with my bag, feeling flecks of rust against my skin and the hard slap of reality.
I couldn’t do
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