Her problem wasn’t leaving the closet, it was working so hard to forget real life.
I catch sight of the window in my peripheral vision. The blinds are open for once, like Eleanor or Astrid needed to remember how pretty pine trees and blue sky are. Outside that window is a sunset. We have spent the whole day visiting closets and gathering stars and waiting for Marla to come back to us, and now the day is changing back into night again. And at first, that’s all I think, when I see the splash of pink and blue and yellow and orange and purple outside the window. But then I see how incredible it is that all those colors are marking the sky.
The real sky.
The sky in the real world.
It is a watercolor. It is magical and strange. I guess I thought it was amazing that I could make the sky pink in my closet, forgetting that the real sky can make itself pink any day it wants.
And it’s just as magical, when it’s in the real world.
I want to say all this to Marla, and so much more. That the closet is not nearly as magical as the way the sunset is an entirely different color every night. The closet is not as magical as the fact that some days a sunrise is heartbreakingly beautiful and other days it is just light coming into darkness and isn’t worth the five-thirty wake-up call at all. The closet is not as magical as the unpredictability of the lake’s temperature or the strength of the ocean’s waves, or how many blooms will appear in the garden from one year to the next.
Even a dandelion poking up in the middle of a field of green grass is beautiful, when you stop to notice it.
Plus, there are pancakes and bacon, like Mom said. And crickets chirping. And wacky weather patterns. And people who make you laugh even after you’ve been mad at them for days, and pennies dropped in the middle of the woods, and so many books, and the bite of popcorn with the most butter on it, and Astrid wearing her hair in French braids, and Eleanor’s knees when they are freckled from the sun, and Marla’s inability to pronounce the words February and restaurant and bureau, and Dad’s terrible jokes and the smell of a shampooed head and hours-long games of Monopoly and even, sometimes, Mom laughing or singing along with pop songs we didn’t think she’d ever heard of.
I can’t say all of that. I put both hands on my throat, like I might need to protect my heart from leaping right out of there.
“I bet you can’t even guess what color the sky is here tonight,” I say instead. “Your sky in there is always purple, which is pretty, but out here . . . Can you guess?”
“Blue,” Marla says, certain. So, so sure. And I would have been too, if she’d been the one asking me. “Blue or black, I guess, if it’s late enough.”
“Nope. Not blue tonight. Pink,” I say. “And orange. And tomorrow it might be gray. Or pure white. Or nearly purple. It’s impossible to say.”
I know I’m glowing now. I can feel it, and I’m not sure if it’s from eating all those stars, or from remembering everything that I don’t hate, everything that isn’t the worst, but there it is. A glow. A warmth. A star, inside me, like Astrid said.
I pick a little more at the splinters. They are coming off faster now, this corner of the door coming to pieces, but it won’t be enough, if she doesn’t want it.
“Pink,” Marla says.
“We forgot what was out here. We all forgot,” I say. Eleanor nods, which of course Marla can’t see, so I elbow her to make her say it out loud.
“I’m scared of how sad Mom is,” Marla says. I almost make her repeat it, that’s how small and blue and quiet the words are. But we all pause, and I think there’s some delay that helps us hear the words, and we know not to make her say them again, because they are the saddest, scariest, worst words.
“Mom’s who reminded me of all the nice little things in the real world,” I say. “Mom’s remembering. She wrote you a letter. She sent you a package. She wanted you to remember how nice it can be out here.”
I dig at the weak parts of the door.
Astrid and Eleanor do too.
And on the other edge of the door, on the far, dark side of the closet, Marla digs too.
Forty-Four
The sound of Marla’s fingers digging into the wood on the other side of the closet makes my heart race.
“The warmth feels good,” she says. I don’t want to question what’s made her change her mind, and that’s as good a reason as any.
That, and finally saying the truth.
“We’re all scared of how sad Mom is,” Astrid says. She matches Marla’s low, shy tone, and Eleanor and I dig more, hoping Marla can feel the glow of agreement and safety and general okayness.
She does.
The door comes to pieces.