Free Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech Page A

upstairs. Mrs. Winterbottom offered me a brownie, so I sat down at the table. What I started doing was remembering the day before my mother left. I did not know it was to be her last day home. Several times that day, my mother asked me if I wanted to walk up in the fields with her. It was drizzling outside, and I was cleaning out my desk, and I just did not feel like going. “Maybe later,” I kept saying. When she asked me for about the tenth time, I said, “No! I don’t want to go. Why do you keep asking me?” I don’t know why I did that. I didn’t mean anything by it, but that was one of the last memories she had of me, and I wished I could take it back.
    Phoebe’s sister, Prudence, stormed into the house, slamming the door behind her. “I blew it, I just know it!” she wailed.
    “Oh sweetie,” her mother said.
    “I did!” Prudence said. “I did, I did, I did.”
    Mrs. Winterbottom half-heartedly chipped away at the burned brownies and asked Prudence if she would have another chance at cheerleading tryouts.
    “Yes, tomorrow. But I know I’m going to blow it!”
    Her mother said, “Maybe I’ll come along and watch.” I could tell that Mrs. Winterbottom was trying to rise above some awful sadness she was feeling, but Prudence couldn’t see that. Prudence had her own agenda, just as I had had my own agenda that day my mother wanted me to walk with her. I couldn’t see my own mother’s sadness.
    “What?” Prudence said. “Come along and watch?”
    “Yes, wouldn’t that be nice?”
    “No!” Prudence said. “No, no, no. You can’t. It would be awful.”
    I heard the front door open and shut and Phoebe came in the kitchen waving a white envelope. “Guess what was on the steps?” she said.
    Mrs. Winterbottom took the envelope and turned it over and over before she slowly unsealed it and slipped out the message.
    “Oh,” she said. “Who is doing this?” She held out the piece of paper: In the course of a lifetime, what does it matter?
    Prudence said, “Well, I have more important things to worry about, I can assure you. I know I’m going to blow those cheerleading tryouts. I just know it.”
    On and on she went, until Phoebe said, “Cripes, Prudence, in the course of a lifetime, what does it matter?”
    At that moment, it was as if a switch went off in Mrs. Winterbottom’s brain. She put her hand to her mouth and stared out the window. She was invisible to Prudence and Phoebe, though. They did not notice.
    Phoebe said, “Are these cheerleading tryouts such a big deal? Will you even remember them in five years?”
    “Yes!” Prudence said. “Yes, I most certainly will.”
    “How about ten years? Will you remember them in ten?”
    “Yes!” Prudence said.
    As I walked home, I thought about the message. In the course of a lifetime, what does it matter? I said it over and over. I wondered about the mysterious messenger, and I wondered about all the things in the course of a lifetime that would not matter. I did not think cheerleading tryouts would matter, but I was not so sure about yelling at your mother. I was certain, however, that if your mother left, it would be something that mattered in the whole long course of your lifetime.

18
    THE GOOD MAN
    I should mention my father.
    When I was telling Phoebe’s story to Gram and Gramps, I did not say much about my father. He was their son, and not only did they know him better than I, but as Gram often said, he was the light of their lives. They had three other sons at one time, but one son died when a tractor flipped over on him, one was killed when he skied into a tree, and the third died when he jumped into the freezing cold Ohio River to save his best friend (the best friend survived but my uncle did not).
    My father was the only son left, but even if their other sons were still alive, my father might still be their light because he is also a kind, honest, simple, and good man. I do not mean simple as in simple-minded—I mean he likes