I kept moving around the room, making dinner because no one had eaten yet. I doubted there was much besides moldy maraschino cherries at Château Moderne for Silas. “Are you hungry?” I asked her.
“No,” she said, her voice also small. But when the pasta was on the table, noodles with butter the way she liked them, she did pick up her fork. I moved onto the next phase of my plan.
“What are you doing?” she asked me after a while.
“I’m making blondies. It’s a bar cookie, like brownies but with no chocolate, and I hate them,” I explained.
“Then why are you making them?”
I sat down next to her at the table. “I’m going to talk to Mrs. Alford,” I said. “I’m bringing blondies because I’m guessing that she doesn’t like chocolate.” Only someone of that ilk would have told her grandson that Lyra’s parents didn’t love her.
Lyra’s lower lip started to tremble. “She’ll be mean.”
“Not to me. And I don’t care what people say, anyway.” I tried to be that way.
“You don’t?”
“I already know what’s true and what’s a lie,” I said. “Even if she says hateful things, like that I’m trashy and dumb, I know that I’m not.” That was what I’d heard from kids when I’d first started at my new school, when I’d come to live with my parents. It made sense to me that I’d cried every day. “Mrs. Alford was definitely wrong when she said that nobody loves you.”
“She didn’t say it,” Lyra corrected me. “Boris did. She’s his grandma.”
“But Boris learned it from her. He probably didn’t know how to be mean like that until somebody taught him. People can teach us to be mean, but they can also show us how to love. Your brother does that for you,” I said. “He loves you so much and you’re the most important thing in the world to him.”
She looked at me silently.
“I know that’s true, without any doubt. He’d do anything for you,” I said. “And you also have me. You may not want me around, but I’ll always help you, too.”
She nodded, just a little, and I realized that I was talking too much.
“When you finish eating, do you want to help me bake? We can make brownies for us to have, too.”
She nodded more and we did that. When the pan of blondies was ready and our brownies were cooling, I told her to watch me through the window as I went to Mrs. Alford’s house. “I won’t let her be mean,” I promised, but I could tell that Lyra didn’t totally believe that.
I knocked on the door and that woman answered, but she didn’t open her screen. “Hello,” I said through the metal. “I brought you something.” I held up the baked goods but she didn’t look.
“You better have brought an apology,” she stated.
“Yes, Lyra shouldn’t have sworn at your grandson, and I’m sorry about that,” I said. I wasn’t acting in the capacity of Lyra’s attorney but I still wouldn’t admit to potentially criminal behavior.
Mrs. Alford didn’t have a problem saying it, though. “She tried to hit him with a bat! Come Monday, I’ll be letting the children’s authorities know.”
“No, please don’t do that.” The words themselves were pleasant but I said them very firmly. “Lyra is only a little girl and she’s had a lot to deal with in her life.”
The other woman snorted. “I know it.”
“So does your grandson, and he taunted her with that knowledge. It was cruel but she still shouldn’t have reacted like she did. Can you give her a little grace? She’s only seven and as you just admitted, you already know that she doesn’t have her parents around.”
“She has that brother. What’s he doing about all this?”
“The best that he can,” I stated. “Everyone in the situation is doing the best he or she can, including me. That’s why I’m here, to ask if you could please let this incident go.”
“I don’t even know who you are!”
“I’m Camille Carpenter. It’s nice to meet you and I hope you’ll enjoy these blondies. My business card is tucked in the foil if you need to get in touch with me in the future.” I held up the pan again to show them off.
She looked at it and then started to open the screen, so I stepped to the side. “I don’t want my grandson to get hurt,” she said. She took the bars from me, but she didn’t look any happier.
“I don’t want that either. I never want a child to get hurt, certainly not physically but also not with words. Lyra knows that she did something wrong and she’s very sorry. It will not happen again.” The concrete steps didn’t crack apart to let me fall into Hell, so maybe that was the truth. “As I said, we would appreciate if you could give us all some grace as we try our best. Please.” I turned and walked down her steps.
