Olive had shrugged, thought,Not me. I’m not special at all,but she didn’t want to contradict her. Mama was sitting on the edge of her bed, tucking her in even though Olive was too old to be tucked in, really.
“Some people, they have magic in their veins. You’re one of them. You and me both. Can’t you feel it?” Then she reached down and touched the necklace, theI see allnecklace, and smiled real big.
. . .
Now Olive stared at her dust-covered father, knew she had to keep going, that he might know something, might be carrying some crucial piece of the puzzle around without even realizing it. “Do you remember the necklace Mama wore all the time then? The silver one?”
“I think so, yeah. Why?”
“Did you give it to her?”
He sighed. “No, I didn’t.”
“Do you know where it came from?” she asked.
“I don’t know, Ollie. It was probably a gift, I guess. Maybehegave it to her.”
Olive swallowed hard. She didn’t need to ask which “he” Daddy was talking about. It was the mystery man, the other man, the man Mama supposedly left them both for.
But what if it wasn’t true?
“I think it would be best,” Daddy said, “for you to forget all about that necklace.”
Olive could feel the silver pendant against her chest. She wanted to reach up and touch it but didn’t want to give Daddy any clues.
“I think you’ve got other things you need to be concentrating on right now.” He looked at her, his brow furrowed like he had a bad headache coming on. “School starts next week,” he said at last.
“I know,” she said, her mouth suddenly dry. She’d been trying hard not to think about it.
“Things are going to change around here this school year.” He was breathing harder now, his face red. He looked like a man ready to stroke out. “You think you’ve been fooling your old man here, but you haven’t. I’ve gotten the calls. The letters. Your report card. I know how much school you missed last year. How many assignments you missed. You passed ninth grade by the skin of your teeth, Ollie. I even went up and had a meeting with the principal and your guidance counselor.”
“What?” she gasped.
“They understand that last year was tough for you. That there wereextenuating circumstances.But things have to change, Ollie. This year they won’t be so easy on you. They know you can do better.Iknow you can do better.”
“Daddy, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
He shook his head slowly, like his neck was sore and his head was so, so heavy. “I don’t want apologies. I just want to see that this year it’ll be different. That you’ll go in there and bust your ass. Make up for last year. You’ll go in there and make your mama and me proud.”
He looked at her, eyes rimmed with red.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“Know what else?” Daddy said now, the sledge swinging in his hand like a heavy pendulum. He wore his stained leather work gloves, so worn that his index and middle fingers poked through on the right hand. “I think you should stay the hell out of Rosy’s. I don’t want you talking to that Sylvia Carlson anymore.” He spat out the name like it left a bad taste in his mouth. “Stay clear of her. She’s half in the bag most of the time. If there was any clubbing going on, Sylvia probably put your mama up to it. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Sylvia’s the one who introduced your mama to—” He stopped himself here, his face reddening under the pale layer of plaster dust.
Olive finished the sentence in her own head:Him.
Him again. The man Mama ran away with.
She almost asked the question that came into her head then, the question she’d been asking herself again and again since she’d found her mama’s necklace:What if that’s not what happened? What if Mama didn’t run off with some man she’d met in a bar?
But the answers to those questions were almost more difficult, more painful to imagine, than thinking that her mama had been unfaithful, had a boyfriend on the side whom she took off with.
“Let’s get back to work,” Daddy said, turning from Olive, swinging his hammer as hard as he could into the wall, sending the plaster flying, smashing right through the thin wooden strips of lath. He pulled his hammer back, hit the wall again and again, with so much force, so much anger, Olive thought he might bring the whole house down around them.
FLOORS AND TRIM
CHAPTER 29
