My Mother Got Married by Barbara Park Page A

turned to me. Then he smiled this really sad smile.
    “It’s really been hard on you, hasn’t it?” he asked me softly.
    I didn’t answer.
    “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I wish I could have made things easier for you. I just didn’t know how.”
    He put his arm around my shoulders again and held me.
    I didn’t pull away.

(twelve)

T
    HOMAS GOT to take his sling off a few weeks ago. You can tell that he misses the attention it brought him. The other day he made a sling out of an old towel and wore it to dinner. He asked Lydia to cut his meat loaf. Ben told him to go upstairs until he could act normal.
    I guess you could say the two of us are making progress. Thomas and me, I mean. The last time Martin came over to play Monopoly, he started making the top hat and the iron dance with each other.
    “Stop it, Thomas,” I ordered.
    He ignored me.
    “I mean it. Put them down.”
    He continued to dance them around the board. I had no choice.
    “Okay, Thomas. That’s it. If you don’t stop, I’m going to make the hand come out of the closet and kill you.”
    Thomas isn’t as worried about the hand as he used to be. He put his mouth on his arm and started making bathroom noises. He seemed to think this was really hilarious. He was still laughing when I dragged him into the hall and locked him out of the room.
    Martin was very impressed. He said as soon as we get a little more violent, we’ll be practically normal.
    I don’t want to make everything sound okay, because it’s not. This isn’t one of those “they lived happily ever after” endings. I don’t believe in those anymore.
    Lydia still hogs the phone like crazy. She sits there for hours saying absolutely nothing of interest. I’m serious. I’ve had better conversations with a Mattel SEE ’N SAY.
    Also, she still locks herself in the bathroom. These days I’m not as nice about it as I used to be. If I want to get in there, I just pound on the door and start screaming, “I gotta go! I gotta go!” When it comes to going to the bathroom, I have no pride.
    The two of us don’t fight exactly. Mostly we just make fun of each other. Like the other night when I took off my tennis shoes, she held her nose.
    “P.U.! What died?”
    “Whoops, sorry,” I apologized. “I almost forgot. Big noses are more sensitive than normal ones.”
    “There’s nothing wrong with my nose,” she snapped defensively.
    “I didn’t say there was, Lydia. Noses like yours come in very handy. If we ever have a fire, you can spray it out.”
    “Daaa-aad!” she screamed.
    When Lydia tattles, she makes dad into two syllables.
    Speaking of dads, mine took me to the zoo for the hundredth time last weekend. We don’t look at the animals anymore. Mostly we just have a picnic lunch and talk and stuff.
    My father told me that he’d noticed a difference in me lately.
    “You don’t seem to be as angry as you used to be,” he commented. “What d’you think? You think that maybe you’re finally starting to adjust to your new situation?”
    “No!” I retorted quickly. “I’m not adjusting. Just because I’m not sulking all the time doesn’t mean I’m adjusting.”
    I hate it when parents think you’re adjusting. It takes the guilt off of them or something.
    I’ll tell you one person who’s finally started to change, though, and that’s my mother. I’m serious. She’s finally beginning to treat Thomas the way she should have treated him all along. The other day he called her a “giant poopy” and she marched him right up to our room and made him stay there all day.
    Thomas still wasn’t speaking to her at dinner. Even though we were having hamburgers, he refused to eat.
    I could hardly keep from laughing. It was great seeing someone else in trouble for a change. Just to be annoying, I stuffed a giant bite of cheeseburger into my mouth and grinned at Thomas with my mouth opened. Ben said for me to get down from the table until I could eat like a human