Read Online Up From the Blue by Susan Henderson - Free Book Online

I wish you wouldn’t take it out on me.”
    I don’t think she expected me to answer. It seemed that she just needed to say it out loud. She turned on the TV, and even before an image appeared on the screen, I heard a couple having a painfully slow conversation with an organ playing in the background. The picture of the fancy living room that emerged was neither black-and-white nor color, but a mix of various grays with occasional pink and green bands running through it. Even so, I was glad to pretend I was in that living room instead of Anne’s. But what I enjoyed the most were the commercials that showed familiar scenes from the air force base—the hangars, the uniforms, and close-ups of the American flag.
    Later that night, she remembered my suitcase in the trunk of her car and brought my things to the bedroom where I’d stay for the week. Though I was already dressed for bed, she insisted I change into clean pajamas.
    When she left me alone in the room, I opened my suitcase to find Dad had packed two butterscotch candies and the World Book Encyclopedia for the letter D with photos of every breed of dog. Beneath the book were clothes that smelled like home. I simply tipped my face into them, holding my stomach tight as I bent over, though it did nothing for the ache.
    By the time Anne came back to check on me, I was under the covers with an armful of clothes, and when she leaned down to say good night, I pretended to be asleep.
    My mind was full of images that had piled up through the day: miles of cactus; painted thimbles, perfectly spaced; the man making a cuckoo sign in the grocery store; the gray American fag with green and pink horizontal stripes. One week. One long week, but then I would be back with my family.
    I tried to imagine Momma beside me, opening Alice in Wonderland to the last chapter while I touched the remaining rubies and the spots of glue where the jewels had once been attached to the cup. I tried to feel the warm, bitter drink moving down into my limbs, tried to feel her right there, staying at the edge of the bed until I fell asleep. But when I shut my eyes, I saw us screaming each other’s names, and getting farther and farther apart.

    IT WAS THE SUDDENNESS of leaving Momma that had upset me the most—the shock of being warm and sleepy one moment and then confused and hurried the next. When I woke up in thestrange bed, I had that same feeling of disorientation, of being wrenched from all that was familiar and known.
    My neck was sore and there were creases on my arms and legs from the clothes I’d tucked under the covers. I opened the door and headed into the violins.
    “You’re not an easy sleeper,” she said over her teacup, taking a different vitamin with every sip.
    “Momma usually tucks me in.”
    “Well, I can certainly tuck you in.”
    I shook my head so violently I could feel the beginning of another headache.
    “Okay. It’s okay. Here, sit down for breakfast.”
    She set a steaming bowl in front of me, something lumpy like tapioca but without the sweet smell. When she went to the sink to wash her hands, I unwrapped both butterscotch candies my dad had given me and put them in my mouth.
    “Do you want something hot to drink?” she asked, picking up her teacup and taking another sip.
    “Muh-uh,” I said, trying to keep the candy in my mouth without clicking them against my teeth.
    “Oh, you tried the porridge. Do you like it? I added dates and walnuts.”
    She peeled a tangerine at the sink, and popped one section after another into her mouth. “Your family will probably arrive at the new house sometime tonight,” she said. “I’m sure we’ll hear from them any day now.”
    She smiled, finishing the last piece of fruit, then ran the peel down the garbage disposal. Between this news and the effect of the candy, my spirits improved so much that I crept up behind and tapped her. Startled, she flicked the switch and the noise of the disposal stopped.
    “Sometimes, don’t