Finding Miracles by Julia Álvarez Page B

cousins drove out from the city. Mr. Eli Strong was back. Knowing how he had stood up for me made me want to hug him. But shy as we both were, it would have been doubly embarrassing to do so. Instead, I complimented his cuff links, small, gold happy faces like those smiley yellow ones people stick on envelopes. Even that made him blush and stammer thanks.
    That night, Kate joined the cousins next door for their usual marathon gossip session. Grandma had put us in three adjoining bedrooms, and Nate had his own pullout couch in the pool room—the place is a mansion. Anyhow, I bowed out. “I’m real beat, guys,” I explained. Glances went around the room.
    I lay in bed, unable to sleep, hearing the occasional laughter or dramatic rise and fall of voices through the wall. A while later, Kate came into our room. She sat on the edge of her bed in the dark, like she wanted to say something.
    “What?” I asked.
    “Nothing.”
    Brilliant, I thought. At least I had an excuse for not being good at heart-to-heart stuff. I wasn’t the
real
child of a therapist. “Kate,” I said, sitting up in my bed. “Do you want to talk about it?”
    I could see her faintly shaking her head. Then, after some more tense silence, she spoke up. “I just want to say one thing, Mil. We don’t have a perfect family, okay? But it’s not the worst, okay? So, please, please, please, think about what you’re doing before you go and...”
    “And what?” I challenged. “What is it you think I’m going to do, Kate?”
    “I don’t want to talk about it!” Kate sounded fierce and scared, both. “I don’t know about you, but I would like to get some sleep tonight.”
    “Kate, I swear, nothing is going to come between us—”
    “I said I didn’t want to talk about it!” Her voice was so loud. A second later, there was a knock at our door. The cousins. “Everything okay in there?”
    “We’re fine,” Kate called out. I’m sure the cousins were not convinced. But very unlike them, they didn’t barge in. Maybe Kate had talked to them. Great, I thought. That made me feel even less like I belonged in this family.
    I lay there, helpless and also angry. I wanted to tell Kate that she was the one creating the separation between us by refusing to even let me talk. But it’s like what Pablo had told me his grandfather had said. Things of the heart, you couldn’t rush them. Kate would come around when she was ready. I just hoped I would be ready then, too.
    We tossed and turned. I don’t think either of us slept a whole lot that night.
    Sunday morning, while everyone lounged in the sunken living room, recuperating from one of Della’s huge breakfasts, I slipped into the library to be by myself. I reached up for To Kill a Mockingbird—we had read it last fall in English class—and a whole panel of painted books popped out. I was snapping it back in place when I heard steps behind me.
    “I’ve been wondering where you went to!” Happy was wearing a colorful robe she called a caftan. It made her look dressed up even though it was basically a long nightgown. She sat down in her red velvet Queen Something chair and patted for me to take the love seat in front of her.
    I sat there, feeling awkward, not knowing where to look. When I finally did glance up, Grandma’s eyes were looking straight at me.
    “You have the most beautiful eyes. you know that, Milly? They don’t hide anything. They show me how sad you are.”
    Don’t you dare cry!
I ordered those eyes.
Or I’ll be really
pissed at you!
“I’m okay, Grandma, really,” I managed.
    Happy let out a weary sigh. “No one in this damn family ever tells me the truth. But I’m going to tell you the truth, Milly. Your grandma can be a real bitch.”
    The shock of hearing her say so stopped whatever tears had been congregating at the corners of my eyes. Grandma! I almost laughed right out.
    “I’ve made a lot of stupid mistakes,” Grandma went on. “Just ask your father. He’ll tell