Love, Aubrey

“Hi,” I said.

She looked up. “You have a scar on your head,” she said.

Usually, people stare, or they ask, “How did you get that awful scar?” Bridget made it sound normal.

“Hello, Aubrey,” Bridget’s mother said. Then she did something I wasn’t expecting. She knelt in front of me and slowly gathered me into a hug. “Your grandmother told me about you. I’m very glad you are here.”

I stood stiffly. I met Bridget’s eyes. She was using her thumb to smudge away the stickies on her cheeks. She looked steadily back at me without seeming to be afraid to. She had known the whole time, I realized then. She knew everything.

I relaxed in Bridget’s mother’s arms, resting my head on her shoulder as she rocked me. When I finally pulled away, there was wetness on her shirt. Drops I didn’t need to carry around anymore.

“I don’t play on rainy days,” I said. I grabbed my covers back and rolled over, knocking her off me, and hid my head.

“Why not?”

“Rainy days are bad,” I answered. “Bad, bad, bad.”

Gram thought again, and spoke slowly. “When your grandfather died, it hurt so much. I remember feeling like I was broken. I thought that if I was broken, there was no point to getting up in the morning. It was so hard to get out of bed, to make breakfast, to take care of the house. And I thought, if I did those things, why would they matter?

“But then I realized I had other things.”

“Like what?”

“I had many other people who mattered to me, and to whom I mattered. None of them could ever be your grandfather, of course, but in the end I got out of bed again. For you.”

“It’s okay to wait,” Gram said. “I’ll drive you over when it stops.”

I’d ridden the bus in the rain before, but it was a drizzly, soft, and safe rain. The rain was pounding, sweeping, drizzling.

My hair was braided, in two tails, the same way Bridget would wear her hair, the way we’d planned.

I was going to see Amy today.

I had a science presentation. My report, “The Understory Story: The Life Cycle of a Forest,” was tucked in my backpack. It was six pages, plus the bibliography. Gram had marked the end of several days’ work by buying me one of those clear plastic covers with a red plastic spine that slides on to hold the whole thing together.

“No,” I answered Gram. “I—I’ll get on the bus when it comes.”

I took a celery stick and a carrot and put them on a plate. Bridget gave me a funny look and put a turkey sandwich and a cupcake on my plate, too.

“I was so scared today,” she whispered.

“I know,” I said. “She’s fine, though.” I pressed my face against her chest, a hug.

“You must miss Savannah so much,” she whispered.

“I do,” I whispered back, even more softly. I could hear Bridget’s heart beating, and I held on tight.

“It has gears and everything,” Bridget said, pointing to the switches on the handlebars. “And real hand brakes.”

“This is from you?” I asked, amazed.

Bridget nodded. “And my family. We thought you must need a bike back in Virginia, but you need one here, too. Dad says we can go bike riding on our own this spring, if Gram agrees. Get on.”

I sat on the swing in her yard, wishing that our conversation had gone differently. Maybe I shouldn’t have told her at all.