Read One Pink Line for Free Online

appointments back then, because it was a tradition that we’d go for Dairy Queen after each visit, regardless of whether it was an annual check up, or vaccination. I remember that particular appointment because I was just beginning to understand what the percentages meant, and it was the last appointment I looked forward to. The nurse asked my mom if I’d gotten my period yet, when she was finishing her routine check.
    “Oh no, Grace hasn’t even turned ten years old,” Mom said.
    The nurse re-examined my charts. “Yes, of course, she’s just so tall!” she wailed. “I’m always thinking she’s so much older.”
    I gave her an evil look. “Maybe you should check Patch for pubic hair,” I suggested.
    My mother’s jaw dropped, and only Patch got ice cream that day.
    Whenever my mother was annoyed with something I’d done, she would ask my dad to have a word with me about my behavior. Oftentimes, he would just saunter into my room and say, “Mom wants me to have a word with you about your behavior.” And we would both smile and roll our eyes. I wasn’t a bad kid, and he knew it. Once he’d leave the room, I’d go looking for my mom and tell her that I loved her. She would hug me, and we’d move on. She never liked for there to be animosity between us.
    There were times when she and I would go shopping and spend hours at the mall. She’d pack sandwiches for both of us, and we would take turns sitting on the floor of various dressing rooms while the other tried on outfits. We had a very straightforward thumbs-up, thumbs-down rating system for things. No grey area, she’d say to me, either I thought she looked fabulous in the clothes, or they should be burned. Unfortunately we could never share anything because I was so much bigger than her.
    I received a Christmas gift from my Nana Lynne the same year I turned ten years old. As usual, it came via UPS in an enormous pink box. Patch looked at me and the elegantly wrapped package with envy because there was nothing from Nana Lynne for him. Inside were two shiny, new American Girl dolls surrounded by loads of miniature contemporary fashions and matching accessories. A vacation on the Swiss Alps? They’d be prepared. Horseback riding in Telluride? No sweat. Yachting in Bermuda? These gals had ascots in four colors. The problem was that I’d grown tired of American Girl dolls the year before. But as I unloaded the contents of the box, underneath the patriotic beauties and their travel gear was another, smaller box wrapped in red glittered paper. I fished it out and read the card.
    With love from your Aunts, it read.
    I tore open the paper and inside was a brand new iPod. Apple’s newest musical phenom, which had only just been introduced to the public, and there it was, like the Hope Diamond in my hands. My friend Amy’s older brother had one, but that was the only one I’d ever seen. I cradled it like it was an American Girl doll and I was five years old.
    “Mom!” I shouted from the kitchen.
    “In here, Grace,” she yelled from the family room.
    “You have to come here!”
    “On my way,” she said, and I could hear her place the remote onto the glass coffee table.
    I was holding the iPod high in the air as she walked in the kitchen where the pink and red boxes had exploded in a frenzy of sparkles and tissue.
    “What is it?”
    I walked over to her, and placed it in her hand. “It’s an iPod, can I use your computer?”
    She looked at me like I’d just gotten away with something. “This is too much for you, that was very generous of them.”
    “Mom, can I use your computer?”
    “Use your dad’s.”
    “I can’t, it has to be a Mac, and I can download a ton of music onto this tiny thing.”
    My mom handed it back to me. “Okay, sweetie, but please call Nana Lynne and thank her first.”
    Patch walked in to survey the excitement. “Can I listen too?”
    I ran past him, up to my parents’ room, closed the door and spent the next two hours