Chapter 31

31

Today’s not a good day, I’m afraid.” Mr. Ellington stood in the doorway with a wet cloth in his hand. I’d knocked on and off for five minutes until he answered. Thomas and Daniel had gone to their aunt’s house, he’d said. Mrs. Ellington wasn’t feeling well. He must have seen the disappointment in my face because as I turned to walk home, he reached for my shoulder.

“Just a minute, Blythe. Let me see if she’s up for some company after all.” I waited in the front hallway until he came back. “Go on up. She’s in bed resting.”

I’d never been in their bedroom before, but I knew it was the room at the end of the hall. I was nervous—it was such a private space—but I also felt special. The door was ajar, so I slipped through quietly and Mrs. Ellington sat up in bed.

“Come in, honey. What a nice surprise to see you today.” She had no makeup on and her hair was wrapped in a silk scarf. Her eyes looked smaller and her eyebrows were thinner, but she looked just as beautiful as ever. She patted the bed beside her and I wondered if I shouldn’t get so close, if that would bother her. But she patted again so I sat down and put my hands politely on my lap.

“I don’t look so good today, do I?”

I didn’t know how to answer. I looked around her bedroom instead. The gold curtains were pulled to the side with rope, and the textured, leaf-patterned wallpaper looked exactly like my mother’s, only it was a deep yellow instead of the hospital green in our house that I had never liked. I ran my hand over her bedspread, which matched the curtains. Everything looked so luxurious and warm. I thought of my own mother’s bed, never made, the sheets rarely washed.

“Are you going to be okay?”

“Oh, yes, I’ll be okay. I’m not sick, not exactly.”

“What’s wrong, then?” I knew it was bold of me to ask, but I needed to know. I could smell something strange, pungent and sweet, like the yogurt other kids had in their lunches at school. There was a small container of pills on the table beside her, and I wondered if they were the same ones I had seen in my mother’s room.

“I’m not sure it’s my place to talk to you about the birds and the bees, but you’re a mature ten-year-old.” I must have turned red. My mother and I had never talked about sex or where babies came from, but I had an idea of how it all worked from kids at school. Mrs. Ellington lifted the comforter from her middle and pulled her white nightshirt down taut over her swollen stomach. I hadn’t noticed her being fat there before, but she was always dressed so nicely in things that weren’t tight and ill fitting, like my mother’s.

“You’re having a baby?”

“I was. I was pregnant. But the baby didn’t make it.”

I had no concept of what not making it meant, of what would have happened to the baby inside her. Where had it gone? What had happened? She must have sensed my confusion. She slowly pulled the comforter back over her middle, as though it hurt to cover it up, but she smiled through whatever pain was in her. I saw she had a hospital bracelet on her arm, the same kind I’d seen my mother come home with once years ago after she’d had a bad bout of the flu. I didn’t know what to say. I pointed to the pills on her nightstand.

“Do you want more of those?”

She laughed. “Well, yes, but I can only have one every six hours.”

“Will Thomas and Daniel be sad?”

“I hadn’t told them they’d be big brothers yet. I was going to tell them soon.”

“Are you sad?”

“Yes, I’m very sad. But you know what? God has a way of taking care of things.” I nodded as though I understood, as though God were someone I trusted, too.

“She was a little girl. I would have had a daughter.” She put her finger to my nose and her eyes welled with tears. “Just like you.”