Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume

Author:Judy Blume [Blume, Judy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
ISBN: 978-0-307-81778-5
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2012-03-21T16:00:00+00:00

NINETEEN

Bitsy is reading a book called How to Feed Your Kids Right. And now, every morning, Jason and I get a teaspoon of raw bran in our cereal. This will prevent hemorrhoids in later life, Bitsy assures us.

“What’s a hemorrhoid?” Jason asks.

“Never mind,” Bitsy says. “Just eat your cereal with bran and you’ll never have to know.”

“But if I don’t know what it is how do I know I don’t want it.”

“Believe me,” Bitsy says. “You don’t.”

Bitsy is taking us very seriously, as if we are her kids, as if we are her responsibility. But I figure we’ll be going home soon. Maybe before Christmas, because Mom has seen Miriam Olnick at the family counseling center four times in the past two weeks. She has joined Bitsy’s Jazzercise class and is looking healthier. She is still tense and apt to run off to her room when you least expect it, but she’s getting better. Although sometimes when I am trying to talk to her, like about Bitsy giving me an allowance, she spaces out and I know she’s not hearing a word I say.

“What do you and Miriam talk about?” I ask one evening. I am sitting on the kitchen counter, nibbling a piece of celery and Mom is fixing her specialty, spinach pie. She has volunteered to make dinner tonight, to give Bitsy a break, but I don’t think Bitsy is overjoyed. She considers the kitchen her turf. This is the first time that Mom has cooked a meal since we got to Los Alamos.

“We talk about everything,” Mom says. “It’s easy to talk to her.”

“Do you talk about Dad?” I ask. “About that night?”

Mom hesitates, then says, “Yes.” She says it very quietly and she doesn’t look up.

How come she can talk about him to Miriam, but not to me?

When dinner is ready I help Mom serve it. Walter just picks at the spinach pie and I feel angry at him for making Mom think there is something wrong with it.

He makes things even worse by saying, “It’s good, Gwen. It’s just that I had a big lunch.”

“It’s outstanding,” Bitsy says. “I haven’t had spinach pie for years. Walter doesn’t like …” She stops abruptly and covers her mouth with her hand, realizing her mistake.

“I guess you could say I’m strictly a meat and potatoes man,” Walter explains.

“It’s all right,” Mom says. “I should have asked before I made it.”

I am hoping that Mom doesn’t break down and cry over this. She sounds as if she is on the brink. I wish we could just laugh it off, but there is too much tension at the table for laughing. I can’t help remembering that we had spinach pie on the night that my father died …

We’d been walking on the beach—all four of us—singing This Old Man at the top of our lungs. Mom and Dad had their arms around each other and were in one of their touchy-feely moods. I was thinking about later, about going out with Hugh, when Jason came up from behind and dumped a pail of water over my head.

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