Read Online The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson - Free Book Online Page A

blame her. She’s taken him by the hand and is now escorting him on a docent walk through the house, showing off her willowy women, with whom he seems duly and truly impressed, from the exclamations he’s making, in French, I might add. This leaves Big to resume his scavenging for bugs and me to replace fantasies of my spoon with Joe Fontaine’s mouth. I can hear them in the living room, know they are standing in front of The Half Mom because everyone who comes in the house has the same reaction to it.
    “It’s so haunting,” Joe says.
    “Hmm, yes . . . that’s my daughter, Paige. Lennie and Bailey’s mom, she’s been away for a long, long time . . .” I’m shocked. Gram hardly ever talks about Mom voluntarily. “One day I’ll finish this painting, it’s not done . . .” Gram has always said she’ll finish it when Mom comes back and can pose for her.
    “Come now, let’s eat.” I can hear the heartache in Gram’s voice through three walls. Mom’s absence has grown way more pronounced for her since Bailey’s death. I keep catching her and Big staring at The Half Mom with a fresh, almost desperate kind of longing. It’s become more pronounced for me too. Mom was what Bails and I did together before bed when we’d imagine where she was and what she was doing. I don’t know how to think about Mom without her.
    I’m jotting down a poem on the sole of my shoe when they come back in.
    “Run out of paper?” Joe asks.
    I put my foot down. Ugh. What’s your major, Lennie? Oh yeah: Dorkology.
    Joe sits down at the table, all limbs and graceful motion, an octopus.
    We are staring at him again, still not certain what to make of the stranger in our midst. The stranger, however, appears quite comfortable with us.
    “What’s up with the plant?” He points to the despairing Lennie houseplant in the middle of the table. It looks like it has leprosy. We all go silent, because what do we say about my doppelganger houseplant?
    “It’s Lennie, it’s dying, and frankly, we don’t know what to do about it,” Big booms with finality. It’s as if the room itself takes a long awkward breath, and then at the same moment Gram, Big, and I lose it—Big slapping the table and barking laughter like a drunk seal, Gram leaning back against the counter wheezing and gasping for breath, and me doubled over trying to breathe in between my own uncontrolled gasping and snorting, all of us lost in a fit of hysterics the likes of which we haven’t had in months.
    “Aunt Gooch! Aunt Gooch!” Gram is shrieking in between peals of laugher. Aunt Gooch is the name Bailey and I gave to Gram’s laugh because it would arrive without notice like a crazy relative who shows up at the door with pink hair, a suitcase full of balloons, and no intention of leaving.
    Gram gasps, “Oh my, oh my, I thought she was gone for good.”
    Joe seems to be taking the outburst quite well. He’s leaned back in his chair, is balancing on its two back legs; he looks entertained, like he’s watching, well, like he’s watching three heartbroken people lose their marbles. I finally settle enough to explain to Joe, amidst tears and residual giggles, the story of the plant. If he hadn’t already thought he’d gained entry to the local loony bin, he was sure to now. To my amazement, he doesn’t make an excuse and fly out the door, but takes the predicament quite seriously, like he actually cares about the fate of the plain, sickly plant that will not revive.
    After breakfast, Joe and I go onto the porch, which is still eerily cloaked in morning fog. The moment the screen door closes behind us, he says, “One song,” as if no time has elapsed since we were in the tree.
    I walk over to the railing, lean against it, and cross my arms in front of my chest. “You play. I’ll listen.”
    “I don’t get it,” he says. “What’s the deal?”
    “The deal is I don’t want to.”
    “But why? Your pick, I don’t care what.”
    “I told you, I