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feelings: ugly, unwanted, and alone. I know that despite their smiles and singing, these people don’t really care for me. I blow out the candles, missing Mommy and Gram, seeing their beautiful faces in my mind. I wonder if they know it’s my birthday.
     
    Just after school is out, I get sick again and have to stay in bed. Vera tells me that the family is going on vacation, so I’m going to stay with Gram, and they’ll get me after they come back. I should be ecstatic, but I’m too sick to care. They bundle me up with my suitcase and drive to Wichita. Suddenly we are at Gram’s house, and she’s smiling and wrapping her arms around me. “Sugar Pie, poor sick Sugar Pie,” she croons.
    Gram folds me into a soft bed with clean white sheets. She tries to hide her alarm at my deflated condition and high fever, but I can see she’s worried. The doctor takes my temperature and gives me a shot. I huddle under the quilt, feeling protected and safe. Gram is a kind nurse, waiting on me day and night with juice, pills, and soup, putting warm washcloths against my forehead and a hot water bottle on my feet. Sometimes her tenderness makes me cry, but I don’t let her see that. She yells at my mother and father on the phone, “She has rickets and malnutrition!” I don’t know what that means, but she says it’s their fault for not noticing.
    I rock for hours in my mother’s childhood rocking chair holding my doll. I rock and rock, grateful for the peace in the house. Gram watches me carefully, puts her face close. “Tell me, what it was like at Vera’s? How did she treat you?”
    I want to tell her the truth. The words gather in my mouth, but before I can speak, I remember that words are dangerous. When they come back, Gram will pass on everything I say, and Vera will beat me harder than ever. At night I cry, feeling desperately worried, waiting for them to come take me away from Gram. I know that they will be mean again and that I will be unhappy. There’s nothing I can do about it, so I just wait, shaking and worrying.
    One morning Gram decides to boil an egg for me for breakfast. She bounces around her sunny kitchen, happy, I can tell, because she’s going to get me to eat, which I don’t do much. Eggs—doesn’t she remember I can’t eat them? Already I feel like throwing up. She spreads apple butter on toast and pours a glass of milk. I stare at the runny egg whites, not touching them, shaking. Gram kneels on the kitchen floor. It makes me sad to see her like that, begging me to talk to her. I don’t want to make her mad, but I’m scared to talk. Movie-like images run across my mind: Vera’s spankings, her scary eyes, the boys’ cruel teasing. It all gathers up like a steam engine and comes out in a rush of tears and sentence fragments. She smoothes my hair and listens, with tears rolling down her face. I don’t dare tell her what happened with Freddie. Her face is sad, then angry, and then sad again. She pats me and strokes my hair, saying, “Poor little Sugar Pie. It’s all right.”
    When I am through talking, she declares: “That’s it! You’re not going back.”
    “But they’ll get mad. They’ll make me go.”
    “You’re not going back with them, and that’s final!” Her eyes are fierce. I’ve never seen her like this before. She calls my parents, screaming that they forced me to go and didn’t see that I was suffering. She tells them again that I have rickets and anemia. “I will not give that child back to them. She just sits in a chair and won’t talk. She’s skinny as a rail. She’s not the same little girl.”
    After many loud phone conversations over the next few days, Gram announces that my parents have agreed to let me stay with her. Gram finally looks happy, and I feel hopeful for the first time in a long while. Still, I wait for Vera’s return, rocking in the rocking chair. Will Gram really keep me? I don’t trust any of these adults; they change their minds all the time. I