The Long Way Home Read online

  “Unstick yourself,” Dana suggested.

  Her aunt looked at her seriously. “You know, that is very good advice.”

  * * *

  When Dana finally fell into bed that night, she lay awake for a long time while Julia snored softly beside her. Apart from the visit to Papa Luther’s house, the day had been perfect. An early walk on the beach, cousins, a picnic, a trip to Barnegat Point, and dinner with Aunt Adele. And her father hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol.

  “Let’s go wait outside,” said Dana to her brother and sister. “Mom, can we wait for Aunt Adele outside?”

  Dana’s mother stepped out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “All right. But keep Peter close by you. Don’t go far.”

  “We’ll stay on the stoop!” Dana called, and she and Julia and Peter opened the front door of their town house to a warm but windy October afternoon. They sat in a row on the top step and craned their necks to the left, straining for the first glimpse of their aunt as she walked along Eleventh Street from the subway.

  Dana still could not believe that Aunt Adele actually lived in New York City now. Just three months had passed since Dana had suggested that her aunt unstick herself. A month after that, Adele announced to Papa Luther and Helen that she’d given notice to Mrs. Cabot, the seamstress, and that she had saved enough money to buy a train ticket to New York City. There hadn’t been much that Papa Luther could say to this. He knew that Dana’s family would let Adele stay with them for as long as she liked. She had a train ticket and a place to live while she looked for work, and that was all she needed in order to leave Barnegat Point.

  Two days later, Adele, carrying a large suitcase containing all of her clothes, had stepped off a train at Grand Central Station, where she was greeted by Abby, Dana, Julia, and Peter. She’d lived with the Burleys for a mere two weeks before she’d found what she considered her dream job — in Bobbie Palombo’s costume shop.

  “A costume shop?” Dana had said when Adele had rushed through the door of the town house with her good news.

  This day also happened to be the first day of third grade for Dana and Julia, and the twins and their aunt had arrived home just minutes apart. “Our teacher is awful!” Julia was exclaiming to their mother and Peter, when Adele blew through the door.

  “I found work!” Adele had cried. “Better than that, I found a job. A job I’m going to love.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Dana’s mother had said. “What’s the job?”

  “I’ll be working in a costume shop.”

  This was when Dana had said, “A costume shop?”

  “It’s owned by a woman named Bobbie Palombo, and the company designs costumes for films and Broadway shows,” Adele had replied proudly. “At first I’ll just be making the costumes, but maybe one day I’ll design them, too. I’ll get a paycheck in two weeks and then I’ll start looking for my own apartment.”

  “Aren’t you going to live here?” Dana had asked, dismayed.

  “Not forever, sweetie. I love living here, but I want my own place. And you don’t want me cluttering up your guest room forever.”

  “Yes, we do,” Dana and Julia had insisted.

  “Stay!” Peter had commanded.

  But in no time, Aunt Adele had found an apartment on West Fifty-Third Street and had packed up her belongings. The apartment wasn’t as close to Bobbie Palombo’s as she would have liked, but it wasn’t too far away either, and it was near the theatre district, so that when Adele was a bit more established, she could just walk to a Broadway show whenever she felt like it.

  By the October Sunday when Dana sat expectantly on her front stoop with her brother and sister, she had visited Adele’s apartment several times. It consisted of a small living room with a kitchen at one end, an even smaller bedroom, and the teensiest bathroom Dana had ever seen. The bathroom was so small that it didn’t even have a tub in it, just a shower. Dana could stand in the middle of the bathroom and, turning in a circle with her arms outstretched, brush all four walls with her hands as she went around. Her aunt painted the walls of the living room pink and aqua, and she bought a red lamp shade that rattled with beads, and she set a birdcage on a pole by the window and grew an African violet in the cage. Dana thought the apartment was wonderful.

  Peter was the first to spot Adele that afternoon. He shot to his feet. “Adele! I see her! Adele!”

  Dana and Julia clattered down the steps, Peter at their heels, and they ran along Eleventh Street, stopping several feet from their aunt, when Julia said, “What’s that?”

  Adele was cradling something in her hands, something squirmy.

  “A kitten,” she replied. “I just found him. And I don’t think he wants to be held.”

  “You just found him? Where?” asked Julia.

  “In front of the sandwich shop on Sixth Avenue. He looks half starved. No one in the shop knew anything about him.”

  “Are you going to keep him?” Dana wanted to know. They were walking slowly back to the town house now, the kitten wiggling mightily.

  Adele shook her head. “No pets allowed in my building.”

  “I keep him,” said Peter firmly. He reached up to pat the kitten.

  “We have to ask Mom and Dad first,” Dana told him.

  “Mommy!” yelled Peter the moment they stepped inside. “Mommy!”

  “Peter, what is it? My goodness.” Abby hurried out of the kitchen again, this time wiping her hands on her apron.

  Adele, looking sheepish, held the kitten out to her sister. “I found him down the block. I didn’t mean —”

  “Can we keep him?” Dana interrupted her. “Adele isn’t allowed to have pets at her apartment.”

  “Please?” said Julia.

  “Please?” said Peter.

  Adele placed the kitten in Peter’s arms, and the wiggling and squirming came to an end. “He likes me,” Peter announced. “Mine.” He stroked the orange fur and presently they could all hear the kitten begin to purr.

  “We have to talk to Daddy,” said Dana’s mother. “We have to make a family decision.”

  “Mine,” said Peter again, settling cross-legged on the floor with the kitten in his lap.

  “Family decision,” Abby repeated. “Daddy will be home in an hour.”

  “His name is Tail,” Peter continued. “Tail Burley.”

  * * *

  Zander Burley’s study was on the top floor of the town house. He wrote his novels there and answered his mail and made phone calls to his editor and agent. Dana heard the typewriter clacking away at all hours of the day and sometimes the night, too, weekdays, weekends, whenever her father said inspiration had struck. Dana hadn’t read any of her father’s books. They were too long and had too many big words, and anyway they were for grown-ups and didn’t interest her. But they interested lots of other people. They were best sellers and they won awards and Zander was one of the most famous New York City writers of his time.

  On the day when Adele arrived with Tail in her hands, Dana’s father wasn’t at home.

  “I’m stuck,” he had said that morning, which meant something very different from what Adele had meant when she’d said she was stuck. When Zander Burley was stuck, his words wouldn’t come and he couldn’t finish whatever scene or a chapter he was working on. Dana’s mother called it writer’s block and reminded her husband that it never lasted long. Zander said he didn’t care what it was called or how long it lasted; it was still an awful feeling.

  “So I need a change of scenery,” he had continued. “Then I can finish this chapter.” Not much later he had left the house, saying he’d be back in time for dinner with Adele.

  Dana noted that he’d left the house empty-handed.

  “Where’s his work?” she’d asked her mother. “How is he going to write without all his papers?”

  Her mother had shaken her head and disappeared, tight-lipped, up the stairs.

  Which was how Dana knew her father was not going to finish his chapte
r, but instead was going to look up a few friends, and then they would all find some liquor together. The fact that it was Sunday didn’t matter. Zander could find a drink anywhere at any time.

  * * *

  Dana’s father came home just before dinner, as he had promised. By then Tail had pooped under the dining room table and also had climbed the living room curtains to such a height that Adele had needed to stand on a stepladder in order to unhook his claws from the fabric and hand him down to Peter.

  “Huh,” said Dana’s mother, scrubbing the dining room rug with disinfectant. “If we’re going to keep Tail, we’ll need to remember to let him outside from time to time. And,” she added, suddenly looking stern, “if Daddy agrees that we can keep Tail, someone is going to have to clean the poop out of the garden every day.”

  “We will! We will!” Julia and Dana cried.

  “And we’ll have to get a kitty bowl,” Abby continued.

  “A kitty bowl?” said a deep voice. Dana turned around to find that her father had returned and was standing in the front hall, looking from the stepladder by the living room window to the stain on the carpet. “What’sh going on?” he added, placing a steadying hand on the telephone table.

  “Daddy!” Peter yelped. He held Tail aloft. “Look! I have a kitty.”

  “I found him this afternoon,” said Adele hurriedly. “And the children want to keep him.”

  “But I said we have to make a family decision,” added Abby. She paused. “If you’re capable of making a decision.”

  “Of coursh I can make a deshision. Why couldn’t I make a deshision?” (Dana’s mother glared at him.) “What are we deshiding? Whether to keep the little kitty cat? Let ush keep it. Why not?”

  “I’m not sure you’re thinking clearly just now. We’ll need to find a vet. And he’s already pooped under —”

  “It’sh one little tiny kitty cat. Go ahead and keep it.”

  “We can keep him! Daddy said!” exclaimed Julia, and Peter hugged Tail to his chest.

  “I would hardly call this a discussion,” muttered Dana’s mother.

  Dana’s father took a step away from the table and stumbled into the wall. “Dinner ready?” he asked. “I am one hungry pershon, yup, one hungry pershon.”

  Dana saw Adele glance at Abby. “Are you sure you want me to stay?” Adele whispered. And then, “I’m sorry about the cat. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

  “Stay,” said Abby. “It’s all right.”

  * * *

  The meal that followed was fight-free, although no one said much except Peter, who commented endlessly on Tail and what he was doing under the table, which, thankfully, did not include pooping.

  By the time Abby was serving coffee, Dana’s father looked less glassy-eyed. He smiled at Adele. “Tail has made Peter awfully happy,” he remarked. “Thank you for finding him.”

  Adele left soon after, Julia and Peter took Tail upstairs to show him the bedrooms, and Dana sat in the library with her sketchbook.

  “Productive day, dear?” she heard her mother say to her father in the living room.

  “It got away from me. I met Frank and he knew about this bistro —”

  “Why do you do it?”

  Silence.

  “Really, why do you do it?”

  “Don’t give me a hard time, Abby. I have a whopping headache.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  Dana wanted to call, “Leave him alone! He let us keep Tail!” Instead she tucked her sketch pad under one arm, put her hands over her ears, and crept up the stairs to her room.

  “Dana! Over here!”

  Dana, arms linked with Patty and Marian so they formed a chain at the top of the school steps, scanned the group of parents waiting on the sidewalk below.

  “Dana!” the voice called again. Then, “Julia!”

  “Adele!” Dana dropped Patty’s and Marian’s arms and ran down the steps to the edge of the little crowd, where Adele stood with Peter. “What are you doing here?” She threw her arms around her aunt.

  “I have the afternoon off,” she replied, and hugged Julia, who had joined them. “I told your mom I’d take you to the park.”

  “Goody!” cried Dana. “Can Patty and Marian come with us?”

  “Patty and Marian?” said Julia, her face collapsing, just as Adele said, “Of course they can. Where are their mothers?”

  Dana pointed. “Over there.”

  The grown-ups held a hurried conversation, and soon Dana, Julia, Peter, Marian, and Patty were walking lazily along Ninth Street with Adele.

  “No homework, girls?” Adele asked.

  Dana held out her empty hands. “Nope. None. School’s almost over. Only one more week. Then no more third grade.”

  “School’s out, school’s out, teacher wore her bloomers out!” sang Marian.

  “Bloomers!” Peter cried, and erupted in giggles.

  They reached Sixth Avenue and turned right.

  “I love this bakery,” Adele said presently, pausing to look at an enormous wedding cake in a window display. “If I had a wedding cake, I wouldn’t put a bride and groom on the top, though. I’d want the moon and a circle of stars instead.”

  “I’d want fairies,” said Dana.

  “I’d want extra icing,” said Patty.

  Marian leaned in for a closer look. “I like the bride and groom, but I think they should be wearing bathing suits and standing on a desert island.”

  Julia looked thoughtful. “I like the cake just the way it is. That’s the exact cake I want when I get married.”

  “What about you, Peter?” Adele asked. “What do you think should be on top of the cake?”

  “Tail,” he replied, predictably. “Tail in a wedding dress.”

  During Tail’s first trip to the new animal hospital on Sixteenth Street, the vet had informed the Burleys that their cat was a girl.

  They crossed Sixth Avenue and turned onto Tenth Street, Adele setting a leisurely pace — unlike Abby, Dana couldn’t help thinking. Dana’s mother always seemed to be in a great big hurry. But Adele wandered along, stopping at shop windows and asking the children about all sorts of things, except school.

  “What do you think is the best age to be?” she wanted to know. And later, “If you could invent a new kind of weather, what would it be?”

  They found an abandoned hopscotch court on the sidewalk in front of a brownstone, and Adele tossed a pebble and jumped along to the other end, the girls and Peter following, Peter jumping heavily in every square with two feet.

  At last they reached the park, sweaty and out of breath.

  “This must be the hottest day of the year so far,” said Adele.

  Julia fanned herself with her hand. “Our teachers opened every window in school.”

  “And a bee flew in our room and landed on Mrs. Jefferson’s head!” exclaimed Patty.

  “Look! Ice cream!” shouted Peter.

  Sure enough, the Good Humor truck was standing near the entrance to the park.

  “Peter can always spot ice cream,” said Adele. She began to search through her pocketbook. “Anybody want a Good Humor?”

  “Yes!” cried Dana and Julia and Peter and Marian and Patty.

  Dana’s ice cream began to drip down her fingers the moment she unwrapped her strawberry shortcake bar. She licked it fiercely.

  They walked around the park then, all six of them slurping away. They watched two squirrels racing in spirals up a gingko tree. They watched children on the swings and the slides and the monkey bars. They watched old men sitting on benches and reading the newspaper, dogs on leashes, and a mother hovering around her little boy, who was zooming a wooden plane through the air.

  “Don’t go near the garbage can!” the mother cried. “Don’t put your hand in your mouth! Stay away from the litter! You’ll catch polio.”

  Julia looked nervously at her aunt. “You can catch polio from litter? Is it that easy?”

  Dana thought of the pictures sh
e’d seen of children who had contracted polio, crippled children with braces on their legs, and one terrifying photo of a girl exactly her age, who was spending her life inside an iron lung, which now did her breathing for her. She would never get out of the lung, Marian had told her. It would have to breathe for her forever, even when she was an old lady, if she lived that long.

  “You’re not going to get polio,” said Adele. “Don’t touch the litter, wash your hands often, and keep them out of your mouth.”

  Julia looked down at her nearly finished ice-cream cone. “I’m holding the cone in my hand!” she wailed.

  “Don’t worry so much about everything,” said Dana. “We’ll wash our hands when we’re done.”

  “But by then it will be too late.”

  Dana sighed. “Come on. Let’s rinse off our hands in the water fountain.”

  She crossed the park, the others following her, and stood behind three girls waiting in line at a stone water fountain. When it was her turn, she stuck her hands, one at a time, under the stream of water, shook them off, and wiped them on the skirt of her plaid dress. Julia rinsed off her hands, then Patty rinsed hers off, and that was when Dana noticed the mother and the little boy with the airplane again.

  The mother was watching them, brow furrowed, lips set in a disapproving line. “That water is for drinking,” she said. “You’re getting your germs all over the fountain.” It was Peter’s turn to wash his hands and the woman stared at him for a moment, and then grabbed her son’s wrist and pulled him away, looking over her shoulder at Peter and shaking her head.

  Dana glanced at her aunt, who took Peter by one wet hand and led him toward the benches at the edge of the park. “Let’s sit for a moment,” Adele said to the girls. “We’ll dry off and cool off, and then you can go play.”

  Marian and Patty obediently sat squished together on a bench, and Patty withdrew a grimy length of string from the pocket of her skirt. “Let’s play cat’s cradle,” she said, and looped the string around her hands.

  “Me first!” cried Marian.

  Despite herself, Julia leaned in for a closer look.

  Dana turned to Adele. “Did Dad tell you the news?” she asked.