All the Children Are Home by Patry Francis

Author:Patry Francis [Francis, Patry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 2021-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

Zaidie Writes a Valedictorian Speech

AGNES

WHEN I FINALLY GOT KICKED OFF SWIM TEAM, IT WAS ALMOST A relief—both for me and for Coach Lois. There was no need to mention the missed practices, the chronic tardiness, my general lack of seriousness. She didn’t even bring up the clincher: A week earlier, she’d caught me out in the alleyway puffing on a joint with a couple friends. Nor did I try to explain that I was just goofing around. If I actually inhaled the stuff, I might have had an asthma attack. No, instead she just talked about making space for another girl. “Someone who really wants to be here.”

I closed my eyes, which made me feel as if I was still in the water, the way I always did for the first hour after I climbed out of the pool. How could I describe the sensation? Was it freedom? Power? Peace? If I knew the answer to that, maybe I’d be the swimmer Coach Lois thought I had it in me to be.

“It’s okay, Coach. I’ve been thinking of getting a part-time job anyway,” I said. “Thanks, though. You taught me so much about . . . well, just so much.”

Tongue-tied and strangely flushed, I got out of there fast as I could.

Jimmy rarely made it in time to watch my practice like he used to, but that day he was waiting in his car when I came out. In the past, he would have known something was up right away. Those days, though, his mind was too cluttered to think much about me.

He leaned over and cracked the passenger door, obviously impatient to be somewhere else. “What took so long? I thought you were never comin’ out.”

“No one said you had to pick me up. In fact, I’d rather walk.”

Still, I climbed in and fiddled with the car radio, switching it from the hard rock he liked to top forty. As “I’m a Believer” filled the car, I waited for Jimmy to complain or for the sunny strains of the chorus to drown out the clamor in my head. But Jimmy was too preoccupied to notice and no matter how loud I turned up the music, I still heard Ma’s voice. Still saw her disappointed face. I might be all right with quitting—okay, being kicked off the team—but how was I going to break it to her?

I needn’t have worried. Soon as we pulled into the driveway and saw the family on the porch, the rest of the day evaporated. Even Spider Johnson, who’d been our mailman for as long as I could remember, was all hopped up.

“Your sister got something from that college in New York,” he called out. “We been waiting for you. Better hurry up; I still got mail to deliver.”

“Good old Spider,” Jimmy muttered. “You’d think he was the one going off to college.”

I laughed. Ever since Zaidie started receiving catalogues from places like New Mexico and Hawaii, the mailman had been fired by her dreams.

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