The Blue Girl by Laurie Foos Read Free Book Online Page A

nuts. When we’re gone , I think, she’ll crack the nuts open with her teeth . She motions to us, but it’s so dark I can only make out the outline of her hand—I can’t see what she’s hiding. I think that if Mama were here, she could talk to the old woman—not in English, not in Russian—in some strange, unknown language, and she could get her to open her hands. But I don’t have Mama’s gifts.
    The old woman says, She is very hungry , and gives me a look of such meanness, I almost crush the moon pies before I remember they’re in my hands. She says, You took so long to come, the girl is starving. The girl needs to be fed .
    Irene says she’s sorry, but we have children who need us, things to attend to, we don’t mean to be forgetful. Theold woman doesn’t answer. She pokes at my moon pie with her finger.
    Go , she says, and I hurry through the small room with no chairs, almost tripping as I head down the hallway to her door. I think of knocking, but she’s always in bed, this girl, so I turn the knob and go inside.
    She looks bluer than before, but how this is possible, I don’t know. How she became blue in the first place is a mystery to us all, how she breathes, where she came from, what she wants. What we want from her.
    Standing here feels so much like a dream that I’m sure I’ll wake up in a minute and find Mama shaking me in my bed, telling me it’s time to go swimming in the lake, time to get some sun on my face. I think I’ll wake up and there will be no husband who ignores me, no limp-haired daughter, no boy who worries me with his swearing. It will just be me and Mama and Papa playing durak. I’ll be one of the summer people again. My brothers will throw rocks in the lake, and I’ll dance in the ripples.
    She’s sitting up in the bed looking less serene than usual. There’s no peace in her face, her brows knit together, her crazy hair juts out worse than Caroline’s. I think of offering to comb her hair. I think the girl would like that, would like a mother’s touch, except that I’m no good with hair.
    I say, I brought you pies, your favorite . And when she smiles. I say, I hear you’re very hungry .
    It’s the first time I’ve seen her nod. Her head moves slowly, up and down, up and down again, like a baby when you first teach it to say yes or no, even though no is always the favorite.
    I ask if she’d like one of my pies, and she nods again, up and down, her whole neck bending then coming slowly up. It looks like a great effort, this nodding, but she smiles when she does it, so I think it must not really hurt. Her blue lips part as I hold out a piece for her. She closes her eyes, smiling while she chews, and I think of Mama saying, This girl, so easy to please. You were that way once .
    When she finishes three pies in just a few big bites, I watch for signs of choking, but they seem to go down smoothly, no gasps. When she swallows the last bite I hear the song in my head, loud at first, tiny bubbles , then a soft tiny bubbles . . . I wish the girl knew the words.
    I’m about to get up when she lets out a grunt, a low noise in her throat, so low it stops me, and I fall back in the chair.
    I unfold the empty napkin as if to say, That’s it, no more , but she shakes her head back and forth, childlike. She holds out her hand to mine. I don’t take the hand. I just look at it. Even the fingernails are blue.
    I say, No more, that’s all I have . She shakes her head at me again. I get up from the chair and move toward the door. Libby’s next, I think, and she can’t wait with Ethan home, so there’s no time for lingering.
    When I’m halfway to the front door, the old woman says, There is always more, so much more. You have no idea how much more .
    I don’t look back. I move out the door as fast as I can. I don’t even wait for Irene or Libby the way