Hyacinth Girls Read Online Free PDF

mom left the room, “I’ll kill myself.”
    “Don’t kill yourself,” I said. “You can always come stay with me.”
    “Sure. A baby in the dorm. A screaming baby on the keg.”
    “Once I start working, we’ll get a place together. Okay?”
    It was the first time I’d said it, and Joyce didn’t respond. I’d taken it for granted that she’d want my help, but we had never discussed the details. I let the subject drop, but the next time we talked on the phone, Joyce was the one to bring it up.
    “When we move in together, I think we should decorate our place like a jungle,” she said. “Leopard-skin couch. Fuchsia walls.”
    There was a deliberate jokiness to the way she said all this, like she was afraid I hadn’t been serious. She didn’t have to worry. I knew exactly how to play along.
    “We’ll get zebra-print sheets and snakeskin pillows.”
    “Hang mosquito nets from the ceiling?”
    “And stick an elephant in the corner!”
    We began to make plans that seemed more and more real. There would be a house near a park, swimming pools in the summer. We’d pick pumpkins at a farm for Halloween and give Callie her first taste of apple cider. We’d teach her to sled and ice-skate, to jump double Dutch, and there would be chalky hopscotch squares all over the driveway. I knew that there would be sacrifices, but that was almost the best part. When Joyce was around, selflessness would be easy.
    After I graduated, I returned home to Cansdown, found a job in a dental clinic, and saved up to rent an apartment for the three of us. Within a few months, we’d found a small two-bedroom in Honey Hill, the center of town. Joyce and Callie took the larger bedroom, while I took the smaller. She put a potty on our bathroom floor, set up a play area in the living room, and filled up the refrigerator with snacks and juice boxes and the cheese slices Callie would roll into tubes before eating. In the morning there were songs in front of the TV, shrieks, small socks pulled over small feet, the smell of apple juice, puzzle pieces shovedunder the couch. I was still very young, but suddenly I felt settled, full of responsibilities and adult knowledge. I watched how Joyce handled her daughter, playful yet firm, unself-conscious, and I tried to imitate her. I learned the names of stuffed animals, how to slow down a tantrum, bedtime rituals. Each night, Callie sat on the edge of the bathroom sink, and I hummed the tooth-brushing song while Joyce got out the paste. At three years old, Callie already had her own little quirks and habits, her own sensitive, formidable personality, and when I saw her chuckling, or patting her own arms, or babbling nonsense to herself, I knew that Joyce had been right. Callie was born lucky, and it was up to us to keep her that way.
    —
    I burned the soufflé I tried to make that night. It was cheese and broccoli, so it stank up the house. I could still smell its charred odor in my hair when I took the call from Callie’s school the next day. My hands were clammy as I waited for the news, but then Mrs. Jameson surprised me. A group of students from Callie’s class had come forward unexpectedly. Each one had sworn that Robyn put the paint on herself.
    Paint, I thought triumphantly, not ink at all.
    Mrs. Jameson was remarkably unapologetic. “The interesting thing is,” she said, “the student who originally reported the incident came to me today and told me she’d been wrong. She said she’d made a mistake. I thought it was quite a coincidence, everyone coming out with the same story like you said.”
    Her voice was skeptical, as if she was planning to tell me that everyone was lying except for precious Robyn.
    “Well, I’m relieved that you listened to them,” I said harshly. “And I hope you’ll hold these girls accountable for the lies that they’ve told.”
    “Yes,” Mrs. Jameson said. “Thank you for your help.”
    —
    We celebrated together. After dinner, I took Callie out for