The Rule of Threes, Marcy Campbell [short novels to read .TXT] 📗

duo? I couldn’t help but think . . . I mean, if Dad had really wanted a son, why didn’t he and Mom have one of their own? I was twelve years old, almost thirteen. They’d had plenty of time.

“Well?” Mom asked. She turned and took a long look at me, then turned back to the sink to scrub at a spatula covered in bits of egg.

“No,” I said.

We washed and dried quietly for a few minutes until Mom said, “Your father loves you so, so much, you know.” How was it that my mom always knew what I was thinking? Even when I didn’t want her to?

She shook the water from her hands and looked at me. “They have thirteen years to catch up on,” she said.

“But this is just temporary,” I sputtered. “Tony’s going back to his mom, and then everything can get back to normal.”

Mom let out a big breath, which parted the steam cloud in front of her. “We really don’t know yet what’s going to happen, sweetie. Tony’s mom just got out of detox. She’s got ninety days in the program house to try and get herself together. And that’s not a lot of time.” She ran some more water. “There’s a lot to undo. No matter what, though . . . your father has met his son, and we can’t take that back. We wouldn’t want to.”

My eyes started welling up, and I covered my face with the towel. I thought Tony would be back with his mom by Christmas, but what if . . . ? I felt especially bad because I knew that, despite what Mom said, I did want to take it back, take it all back. No Tony, none of this, just me and my parents on the beach finding the horn of the tiniest unicorn in the world.

I felt like a terrible person for thinking that.

The next thing I knew, Mom was hugging me, and although I still had my face covered with the towel, I could hear her crying, too, her voice husky and choked. “This is very hard for me, too, Maggie, you understand that, right? Even though I’ve known for a few years that Tony existed, and that there was a chance someday we’d meet him, well, I certainly didn’t expect . . . I didn’t expect it would be like this.”

I pulled the towel away from my eyes, and we looked at each other, and for some reason, the realization that we were both crying made me feel better, weirdly, like we were in this together. Without really meaning to, I felt myself smile, and that made her smile, and just as suddenly as we had started crying, we stopped.

“What do we do now?” I asked, wondering about the weeks, the months, the years ahead.

Mom shook her head like she didn’t have an answer. She ran some cool water into the sink. The scalding stuff must have gotten the better of her, even with her tough hands. She said, “We finish the dishes.”

Back in my room, I was still feeling really cruddy about how Olive and I left things, and I knew I’d be worrying all night unless I apologized, so I texted her.

Hey, sorry things were weird at my house. Didn’t mean to take the Rachel thing out on you. Sorry . . .

She replied right away.

You’ve got a lot of stuff ur going through. Everybody does.

Yeah. Hey. You are an awesome artist!

awwww, thanks

I know what would cheer us up!

Shopppp-payyyyy!

When Olive and I entered the Good Samaritan Thrift Shoppe the next day, Mildred, the owner, yelled, “Hello, my favorite thrifters!” from behind the counter, which made us laugh, as it always did. We loved the store, don’t get me wrong, but a lot of the reason we loved it was Mildred, who was the cool grandma every middle schooler wished she had, every middle schooler but me, anyway. My grandma was already pretty cool, even without red cowboy boots like Mildred’s. Her long, white hair was swinging as she came around the counter, pointing to her boots.

“Like ’em?” she asked. “Came in yesterday, and only cost me five dollars. Little big on me, but they’ll do.”

“They are fantabulous!” Olive said.

“They absolutely are,” I added.

“Thank you,” Mildred said and did a little curtsy. “Now, what can I help you girls with?”

“We’re competing in a design contest at our school,” Olive said. “And we have to decorate an outer office.”

“An outer office?” Mildred asked, looking puzzled.

“It’s basically a lobby,” I explained. “The secretary sits there, and you have to go through it if you need to see the principal.”

“Uh-oh, I hope you girls never have to see her,” Mildred said.

“It’s a him, and he’s not so bad,” I replied, though I saw Olive raise her eyebrows. She, along with most of the sixth-grade class, it seemed, was not a fan of Mr. Villanueva. They didn’t like all his rules, even if that was kind of why I did like him. Still, I didn’t want to ruin things with Olive just after patching everything up, so I didn’t say anything more.

Mildred asked, “So, do you girls need any help from me, or do you just want to browse?”

“Browse,” we both said. There was nothing more fun than browsing the Shoppe. We’d once asked Mildred why it was spelled that way, and she said it was meant to be fancy. We liked to pronounce it shop-pay. Rachel was best at it: “Ladies, let’s go to the shop-pay,” she’d say in this snooty accent.

I was still kind of miffed that Rachel had texted Olive to back out of our meeting. Why wouldn’t Rachel text me? Was she afraid I’d get mad?

I had to be honest, though: I would have gotten mad.

“What about this one?” Olive asked. She held up a fluffy rug with blue and purple stripes.

“Do you think we should text Rachel? Tell her we’re here?”

Olive frowned. “Well, we’re already here. By the time she’d get here, we might be gone.”

“Yeah, I guess . . .”

“So?” Olive shook the rug at me. “What