Read Online This Is How I Find Her by Sara Polsky - Free Book Online

Cynthia stop talking. I don’t look up as her boots clomp over to the garbage and her fork shoves the last of the food off her plate. The dish clinks into the sink.
    â€œI have to leave for rehearsal,” Leila says. Her boots move from the sink to the doorway. “I’ll be home late.”
    The rest of us stay quiet as Leila moves through the living room and the front hall, as the door closes behind her. I picture her on the other side, looking down the steps to the lawn, her car in the driveway, the opposite of the view I had yesterday. If the scene were a photograph, what would her caption be?
    I push my own chair back from the table and stand up with only one more quick glance at Aunt Cynthia and Uncle John. Like Leila, I dump the last of my food into the trash and my plate into the sink. As I follow my cousin’s path out of the room, I hear my aunt’s and uncle’s voices fill the silence behind me, soft but rising.
    â€”
    I’m in the guest room—my room—finishing the last of my math homework when I hear the knock at my door. Three soft taps, then whoever’s on the other side clears his throat and taps a fourth time.
    â€œCome in,” I call. The words are too quiet and I have to repeat them before I hear the knob turn. In the chair behind the tiny wooden desk, I shift so I can see the doorway. My legs jut out to the side and I jiggle my feet. The chair creaks under me.
    Uncle John steps into the room, meets my eyes, then looks at the floor. He takes a seat at the end of the bed, elbows on his knees and wrists hanging down. I remember the way he used to be, teasing Leila and me, trying to make us laugh. He seems so serious now.
    â€œYou have to understand that this is stressful for your aunt too,” he says.
    I do?
    â€œShe is worried about Amy. She just wanted to make sure you know you’re welcome here.”
    I shrug. I’m not sure I care what she was trying to do, and I don’t really want to listen to Uncle John taking her side.
    â€œBut that’s not actually what I came up here to talk to you about,” he says.
    I stop moving my feet, and under me, the chair stops creaking.
    â€œHow would you feel about a job in my office after school?” Uncle John asks.
    I look up. That wasn’t what I expected him to say. Was this what he and Aunt Cynthia were talking about in the kitchen after I followed Leila out?
    â€œI was thinking maybe two afternoons a week and Saturdays,” he says. “We could use your art and math skills, and we pay our part-time employees by the hour.”
    Ah.
    Uncle John and Aunt Cynthia must know how much my mother’s time in the hospital will cost us. This must be their way of offering to help.
    I look at the floor again, wondering what my mother would say. Would she wave Uncle John off with a laugh, tell him she’d come up with some other way to get the money? Would she be angry or offended? Would she agree and promise to pay him back later, everyone knowing but not saying that that would never happen?
    I wish for her, a sharp thought that leaves an ache behind, like the smoke from a blown-out candle after a birthday wish.
    I imagine her sitting in this chair, having this conversation with Uncle John, and that’s when I know: she would refuse the money. She’d be convinced the two of us could manage on our own. But I also know Uncle John is right. My mother’s illness and her irregular job mean she can’t get good insurance. I think of the way I divide our money every week—anything she’s gotten from selling a painting, whatever the neighbors have given me to watch their kids for a few hours after school—to pay for our groceries, the rent on our apartment, her medication.
    There usually isn’t anything left over.
    â€œOkay,” I say. “That would be helpful.”
    It doesn’t feel like I’ve said enough.
    â€œThank you,” I add after a