The Way Back to Happiness Read Online Free PDF Page A

from camp and would be there in a matter of hours.
    For about two seconds Alabama was almost glad to see her aunt, until she realized what her being there meant. After Gladdie’s call, she’d retreated in a funk to her upper bunk in the rustic cabin, where all her cabin mates were filtering out to catch buses or be picked up by parents. Packing up her things, Alabama convinced herself there had been some mistake, or that she’d dreamed the conversation with Gladdie. Her mother couldn’t have died while she was here, horseback riding, canoeing, and swimming. She couldn’t have died, period.
    But Bev’s arriving to pick her up confirmed that the worst had happened, and the following days were a nightmare. Aunt Bev was so bossy, so judgmental of how she and her mom had lived. Back in the apartment in St. Louis—which, granted, seemed a lot messier than when Alabama had left it—her aunt’s face puckered in distaste every time she looked around. Worse, she kept bursting into tears, and when she wasn’t weeping outright, she was nattering on about how brave Alabama was, and how she must have been very strong to endure Diana’s moods, Diana’s troubles.
    Alabama finally exploded at her. “We were happy! ”
    Which, obviously, wasn’t the whole truth. But they had been a little happy a lot of the time.
    And a lot happy some of the time.
    And then Bev had started going on as if it was a given that Alabama was going to move to New Sparta with her. As if.
    The woman was delusional. There was no way that arrangement would work, and what’s more, Alabama couldn’t figure out why Aunt Bev would want to live with her. Alabama never made the tiniest effort to pretend she liked her. Bev’s own mother knew that the two of them together would be a domestic train wreck, and Gladdie couldn’t have been happy about having moving boxes stacked ceiling high in her living room and Brenda Boyer breathing down her neck.
    The next time Brenda broached the subject of “talking to Miss Putterman,” Gladdie declared, “Alabama is not moving in with my daughter Bev,” with a finality that Alabama found comforting, even if Brenda didn’t.
     
    What changed everything was the tapioca incident. One night in the dining room of The Villas, Alabama made the fatal error of taking the last tapioca cup. She grabbed it from the dessert buffet, sat down, and then, three spoonfuls in, she caught sight of an old woman named Penny making her torturous route toward the buffet. Penny had suffered a stroke a few years back, and now she moved in slow, tiny steps that always made Alabama think of Tim Conway in a Carol Burnett skit. Having painstakingly loco-moted her way to the dessert table, Penny stopped, collapsing against her walker when she saw that the only thing left was orange Jell-O.
    Disappointed, the old lady turned back. That’s when her gaze locked onto Alabama’s tapioca.
    Now, as a guest at The Villas, Alabama—or Gladdie—paid seven dollars for the evening meal. Highway robbery, Gladdie called it. The sum was more than what the normal residents paid, and probably ten times what the food was actually worth. Occasionally Alabama didn’t even bother going down for dinner, preferring peanut butter crackers in front of Jeopardy! to noodles Stroganoff and diverticulitis discussions. But never mind that she was paying through the nose. At that moment, Penny Beauchamp glared as if Alabama was a freeloader. A tapioca thief.
    The next day, a hesitant tap at Gladdie’s door announced Brenda again. “I’m sorry to bother you, Gladys.” She edged into the room. “We’ve had complaints.”
    Gladdie’s guard went up instantly. “Who complained?”
    “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to divulge that information, but—”
    Gladdie cut her off. “You don’t have to. Everyone with working eyeballs still in their heads saw the look Penny sent Alabama last night.”
    Brenda’s gaze skittered toward Alabama. She hitched her throat. “Yes,