The Umbrella Lady Read online

  I had been thinking that I might run to a policeman, but what if she was right? What if he asked where my father could be or where he had said he had gone? I had no answer, so he might not believe me and do just what she had said.

  What if no one in this town had seen him?

  We continued on, my heart racing.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  People saw us, some pausing to watch us walking, but no one called to the Umbrella Lady or stopped us to ask who I was. I was glad, because I wasn’t sure I could lie and say I was her granddaughter. I didn’t feel like I was, and Mama had taught me to always tell the truth. She said lies became little scars on your heart. I remembered her telling me that at dinner and looking more at Daddy when she said it. He had kept eating and didn’t look at either of us.

  Much later, when we were alone, I had asked him about it, and he had said, “Lies are tools. Just like a hammer and a saw. If you use them right, use them to help someone or maintain peace and happiness, fine. Unfortunately, if your intentions are not recognized, you’re in danger.” He had looked at the doorway. “Someone will slice you up.”

  I didn’t understand what he had meant. Even though he had said it would bring peace and happiness, it sounded wrong to use lies.

  I wanted to ask the Umbrella Lady if she was using lies like a tool. Was she doing that now, lying to keep me happy?

  She held my hand firmly and marched ahead, still facing forward, never looking to her right or left. I practically had to skip to keep up with her, and she squeezed my hand so hard when she made turns that it hurt. I was afraid to ask her to slow down or to complain. After all, she was taking me back to the station and, hopefully, Daddy. I imagined him sitting on the bench looking so sad, but the moment we appeared, his face would explode in happiness. I wondered if the Umbrella Lady was hoping that, too. Maybe, despite what she had said about how wonderful it was finding me, surely she really wanted to get rid of me now. That way, she wouldn’t have to take care of me anymore.

  At the same time, there was no question that she was angry that I was making her walk to the station. I was very confused.

  Even though we were going faster, it seemed longer walking back to the station than it had walking to her house last night. Of course, now there was traffic, so we had to pause to cross the street. The few stores located close to the station were open. I watched the customers going in and out, just in case Daddy had come back and had stopped in one to ask about me.

  As we continued, I saw that more people were looking at us, but again, no one called out to say hello to the Umbrella Lady.

  Didn’t she have any friends who wanted to greet her or wave to her? She didn’t seem at all upset about it. In a way, she reminded me of Mama avoiding our neighbors.

  I pushed the thought aside; that wasn’t the most important thing right now. Right now, my attention was fixed on the station the moment it came into view. Maybe Daddy hadn’t read the note she had put on the station door yet. Perhaps he didn’t see it and, as I imagined, had gone right to the bench to wait for me, expecting that wherever I had gone, I’d want to come back or someone would bring me back to the very spot where he had left me. He’d be shocked about my hair and my new clothes, but the Umbrella Lady would explain it. She’d talk about how she couldn’t get it to smell fresh, no matter what. He’d thank her. “Sure,” he’d say. “It will grow back,” and we’d get onto the train just as he had said we would.

  The Umbrella Lady was right about one thing: a new day brought hope.

  We turned the last corner and walked onto the street leading right to the station. In the bright morning light, the station, the platform, and everything around it looked older and more run-down. The platform floor was dirtier and had all sorts of papers, cans, and bottles thrown across it and around the tracks. I hadn’t been able to see any of that in the darkness.

  A group of about a half dozen men were waiting for the next train. Some were reading the paper, or struggling to because the strong breeze made it difficult. Two women who looked about the age of the Umbrella Lady sat on my bench, talking and laughing. I was disappointed, but I was happy now that she had returned to the station late last night and retrieved my coloring book.

  As we headed directly for the entrance and the ticket booth, people glanced at us curiously, probably more at me, because my hair was cut almost down to my scalp.

  When we reached the door, the Umbrella Lady stopped.

  “There,” she said, releasing me. She gave me a little nudge toward the entrance. “See for yourself, thank you.”

  I stepped closer, saw the note taped to the door, and read it.

  If you’re looking for Saffron, please call 555-2332. Or come to 351 Wildwood Drive.

  “Well?” she said. “I think I deserve an apology for your thinking I was lying to you.”

  “I didn’t think you were lying to me.”

  “Yes, you did,” she said firmly.

  She stood there, staring and waiting.

  I was so confused I didn’t even know if I thought for sure she was lying. Not knowing what to do, I said, “I’m sorry,” then quickly added, “We should go right back. Maybe he saw it this morning and he’s on his way there.”

  “If he wants to find you and he went to the house, don’t you think he’d wait?”

  “I don’t know.” I really didn’t. I was too confused.

  “Well, I do. I’m a little older than you. I think I know what’s best. You are really a nervous Nellie.”

  A nervous Nellie? My father had not come back for me. Why shouldn’t I be nervous? He wasn’t here waiting on the bench right now, either.

  I felt like bursting into tears but swallowed the urge. I know my eyes were tearing up.

  I looked at the people waiting and then heard the train coming.

  “Where’s Daddy?” I moaned.

  “Where, indeed?” she said. She thought a moment and lost her grouchy face. “All right. C’mon. Since you got me out, there is no point in just standing here wasting time. I wasn’t planning on going out this early, but we’ll start by getting you those new shoes. And after that, since we’re close by, we’ll go to the grocery store and get a few things we need. You can pick out some cookies.”

  I glanced at the note again. It loomed there. Right now, it was my only hope of any contact with my father.

  “Saffron!” she snapped, and I turned to leave with her.

  Immediately, she seized my hand, again holding on a little too tightly. I nearly tripped, so she slowed down.

  “Watch where you are going, and stop looking at people,” she ordered. “When you look at people, they think they have to talk to you, and none of these people has anything to say that we want to hear.”

  How did she know that? Maybe one of them had met Daddy and he had told them what I looked like. Of course, without my hair, it might be almost impossible to recognize me. Everyone who ever met me or saw me commented on the color of my hair. It was very special. Daddy used to say I could be spotted in a crowd of a thousand people.

  I walked more carefully so she wouldn’t squeeze my hand so hard. The partly sunny sky hadn’t yet done much to warm the constant wind, which had grown stronger since we had left the Umbrella Lady’s house. I saw an American flag on a pole in front of a small beige and almond-brown house, flapping so hard that it looked like it was trying to fly off. Some people were holding on to their hats as they crossed the street. Now everyone was walking at least as quickly as we were and probably didn’t want to stop to talk even if they knew the Umbrella Lady. I scanned people everywhere, but there was no sign of Daddy, no sign of his thinning chestnut-brown hair.

  She tapped her umbrella on the sidewalk in rhythm with every step.

  “Winter is marching in earlier than we were told,” the Umbrella Lady muttered. “I can smell the seasons. I’ll have to get out a warmer coat that will fit you and a proper hat. Now that I think of it, we had better buy some boots as well as new shoes. I have nothing
your size. Shoes won’t do when the snow comes, and it comes hard and fast sometimes here. Before you know it, you’ll be helping me shovel out the sidewalk.”

  She pinched the collar of my jacket.

  “We’ll hang this up until next spring.”

  Shovel out the sidewalk? Next spring? Did she really think Daddy wouldn’t come for me until next spring? It felt like my insides were twisting and tightening. I looked back and to the sides, hoping that Daddy would suddenly appear and scream out my name. I would run to him faster than I ever had.

  “We have so much to do today,” she said, “too much for one day, maybe for one week. But being busy keeps us alive. Those old people you see,” she said, nodding at an elderly man sitting on the porch of his house, “are just waiting like you do when you go to see the doctor or the dentist. Life for them is just one great lobby now. Death will come around like the postman and tell them they have to be posted. Special delivery,” she added. “They all think doing nothing is a privilege they’ve earned. Fools. The real privilege is still being capable of doing something to help yourself until you are too old to pee in a toilet.”

  That sounded terrible. Mama never talked about old people like that.

  She smiled. “We don’t waste a moment of our day, do we?”

  She looked like she was expecting an answer, again as if we had been together all my life. I felt myself tightening up to the point of stopping and screaming. How could she make all this sound so simple and good? Why wasn’t she talking more about finding Daddy? Didn’t she care?

  “We have to go to the police,” I said, “and tell them Daddy didn’t come for me.”

  She stopped as if I had just hit her or stomped on her foot. “Who told you to say that?”

  “Nobody. I know you do when someone is missing or hurt or something terrible has happened.”

  “How do you know so much about missing children?” she asked, her eyes smaller.

  “From television,” I said.

  She nodded as if I had admitted something I had kept secret until now.

  “You spent more time with television than with your parents, I bet.”

  I didn’t know what to say. She probably was right. Daddy had worked so much, and Mama had started to stay by herself more and more.

  “Well, we don’t have to go to the police yet. No one is missing. They’ll say it’s too soon. We’ll look like fools, and when we really need the police, they won’t come.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not?” She stopped again but continued to hold on to my hand tightly. “Didn’t your parents ever tell you the story of the boy who cried wolf?”

  I shook my head.

  “That’s the first lesson a parent should teach her child as soon as the child is bright enough to understand. I’m sure you are and were years ago. The story is about a shepherd boy who repeatedly tricks the people in his village into thinking a wolf is attacking his flock of sheep. When a real wolf comes and he cries for help, what do you think the people do?”

  “They don’t come to help because they don’t believe him.”

  “Exactly. See? You understood quickly. When we really need the police, they won’t believe us if we go to them now. Let’s go to the shoe store and then the grocery store. We’ll buy what we need and get home to start painting your room,” she said. “Besides, didn’t you hear what I told you earlier? You told me you have no uncles and aunts and your grandparents are dead. There’s no one else.

  “If the police think your father is missing, they might want to put you in an orphanage somewhere, and no will find you then. Believe me, you won’t have as nice a place to live as you do with me.”

  Then she muttered, “But you’ll soon realize that… Someday I expect you’ll get up and say, ‘Thank you, Mazy Dazy.’ ”

  She smiled at me, but I guess I wasn’t looking as happy as she wanted me to look. I saw the way her smile slowly hardened into a look of displeasure.

  “I hope I have the strength,” I heard her say in little more than a whisper.

  We walked on, faster, the tip of the umbrella clicking sharper and louder on the sidewalk as she swung it with every step.

  From what I could see when the Umbrella Lady said we were on Main Street, this village looked smaller than mine. There wasn’t as much traffic or as many people walking on the sidewalks. The shoe store was just a short distance from where we had turned onto Main Street. It was in a brick building next to a hardware store. There were no other customers inside when we entered. It was a small store, with shelves for men’s shoes on the right and women’s and girls’ on the left. In the middle were black chairs. Someone had just been here, because there still were some boxes of shoes he or she had tried on left at the foot of one of the chairs.

  A short, bald man in a flannel shirt and baggy dark-gray pants came around the counter quickly. When he smiled, he showed that he was missing teeth on both sides.

  “I need some substantial shoes and some fur-lined shoe boots for her,” the Umbrella Lady said. She didn’t say hello, nor did he. Was this the first time she had ever been in his store? Did he know her?

  “Absolutely,” he said. “Perfect.”

  She sat me on a seat, and he brought something to measure my foot.

  “Granddaughter?” he asked. The Umbrella Lady didn’t answer, so he went right to measuring my foot. “Let me show you some of our newest—”

  “Substantial,” she emphasized. “No flimsy fads.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  He hurried behind the counter, down a hall, and disappeared.

  The Umbrella Lady looked at me and nodded. “You don’t have to speak much,” she said. “We’re here to buy what we need and get moving. People waste too much time with small talk and nosy questions.”

  “My mother said that, too, about our neighbors.”

  “Um.” She nodded. “I want to hear more about your mother. Not all of it today,” she added quickly. “I know you don’t like talking about her right now, but after a while… time is like a big Band-Aid. You’ll be able to talk about her and not cry so much.”

  I didn’t like her saying that. It was as if she was saying Mama could be completely forgotten.

  “Why are you buying me things?” I asked.

  She widened her eyes and pulled herself back as if I had spit at her. “Well, how’s that for gratitude? Use that bright mind of yours and think. If I don’t, you won’t get them as fast, and you need them. It’s getting cold. I just told you that winter is here. Do you want to sit in the house for months and wait for spring, never go out for fresh air?”

  “Daddy will buy what I need before it starts to snow where we are going to live.”

  “Will he? I tell you what,” she said, just as the bald man came back out with boxes in his arms. “When he comes for you, he’ll pay me back.”

  “I have three new styles,” the shoe man said, and began opening the boxes. “All substantial.”

  The Umbrella Lady inspected shoes from each, held up one of the last pair, and said, “This is the one.”

  He helped me put them on, and then the Umbrella Lady told me to walk around. I really didn’t like them. They looked clumsy, with a square front. I thought about saying they hurt. Then I thought it didn’t matter. Daddy would buy me prettier shoes, and I’d leave these in her house.

  “You said substantial,” the bald-headed man said. “I have others,” he added, maybe because I wasn’t smiling.

  “We’ll take those. Now, shoe boots,” the Umbrella Lady said.

  He nodded, quickly gathered up the other two boxes, and went down the same hallway.

  The Umbrella Lady squinted. “Not pretty enough for you, huh?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Did your mother have pretty shoes?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And pretty dresses, too.”

  She pulled herself up and pressed her lips together for a moment. “Did she? My father thought pretty meant unnecessary. He�
�d have dressed me in truck drivers’ clothes if he could.” She nodded at my feet. “You’ll get used to those substantial shoes.”

  “My daddy will buy me prettier shoes where our new home is,” I said defiantly.

  “The Daddy Dream,” she said. “All little girls are born with it.”

  The shoe-store man hurried back out with two boxes in his arms. “I just got these in. No one else in town has them,” he said, smiling at me.

  “I doubt she cares what anyone else in this town has or doesn’t have. I know I don’t,” the Umbrella Lady said.

  He hurried to take out one shoe from each box. She took each and turned it around. Then she handed one back.

  “This one,” she said, looking at me, “is prettier.”

  The way she said prettier made it sound ugly. But the boots did feel comfortable and looked nice. She could see I liked them.

  “All right. Pack us up,” she told the shoe-store clerk. She handed him my old shoes. “Give these to charity.”

  She had taken away all my clothes, and now she was taking away my shoes, I thought, but I didn’t say anything.

  I wore my new shoes out of the store and carried the new boots in a bag. We walked around the block to another street, where the grocery store was located. When we took a cart and entered, we finally met someone who wanted to say hello to the Umbrella Lady: a tall, thin young man with dark-brown hair who was holding the hand of a little girl probably only about three years old.

  “Mrs. Dutton,” he said. “How are you? It’s Jeffrey Polton. I didn’t know you lived in Hurley now. I thought you were over in Grahamsville.”

  The Umbrella Lady studied him a moment before replying. “You sat in the third row, second seat,” she said.

  He laughed. “As sharp a memory as ever. We could never fool you. I went on to get my law degree, got married to a girl I met at college, and came home last year when a job opening occurred at Orseck, Wilson, and Stratton here. I start tomorrow, actually. This is my youngest, Kristen. Almost four. We have a boy, Josh, who’s six.”