Free This One and Magic Life by Anne C. George

sandwiches and we took them to the beach and sat in the shadow of Buck Stuart’s sailboat to eat them.
    â€œI wish Mama wasn’t crazy,” Hektor said, his mouth full of peanut butter. It came out “cwazy.”
    â€œWell, she isn’t, always,” Donnie said. “Think of the nice parties she has. And how pretty the flowers always are.”
    â€œHa!” I said.
    â€œWell, she’s not!” Donnie glared at me. “You just don’t give her any credit.”
    I held out my arm toward him. The sun had turned the scar just above my elbow a jagged red. “You mean I don’t give the devil her due?”
    â€œThat was an accident!”
    â€œThrowing a knife is an accident?”
    â€œShe didn’t mean to hurt you.”
    Nobody was going to win this argument. We had it all the time. Donnie always took up for Mama.
    â€œShe’s sick, anyway,” he said.
    That was always the last line of the argument. We crumpled up the wax paper our sandwiches had been wrapped in and stuck it in Buck’s boat.
    â€œLet’s walk to the hotel,” Donnie said. And that’s what we did. A slight breeze blew across the water. Our lips tasted salty when we ran our tongues around them. We drank for a long time from the fountain by the pier.
    â€œThere’s Mrs. Cates,” Donnie said. We saw her coming from one of the guest cottages, her arms full of sheets and towels. She spied us.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” she called. “There’s a thing called school, you know.”
    â€œMaybe it’s a holiday,” Donnie said.
    â€œAnd maybe you kids are playing hookey.” She smiled. “Well, I didn’t see you. Okay?”
    â€œOkay.” We watched her go on down the walk, carrying her bundle.
    â€œI’m hungry again,” Hektor said. “And I have to go to the bathroom.”
    â€œWell, you can go to the bathroom here,” Donnie said. “But we don’t have any money.”
    â€œI want some almond pie.”
    â€œToo bad.” Donnie disappeared into the bathhouse with Hektor. I sat on a bench and watched two swimmers go back and forth the length of the pool. Back and forth. They couldn’t be enjoying themselves.
    And then I heard our mother’s laugh. I thought for a minute that I was hearing things. And then I heard it again. It was coming from the cottage next to the one Mrs. Cates had just come from. I got up and walked toward it. And then I stopped. I turned around and saw that Hektor and Donnie had come out of the bathroom and were blinking in the light, looking for me.
    â€œHere I am,” I said. “Let’s go home. Let’s walk down the road. It’s closer.”
    When we got home, Papa was there. And in the afternoon, Carl came. He and I sat in the swing and he showed me the schoolwork I had missed that day. But I wasn’t paying much attention. All I could think of was that I knew where Mama was and I ought to tell Papa. But I didn’t. Willie Mae had made us a birthday cake and was fixing meat loaf and mashed potatoes for supper; Papa was reading in his study. Hektor had fallen asleep on the front porch and Donnie was listening to the radio. Everything was peaceful. It was enough to drive you crazy.
    The trouble was never knowing which Mama we were going to get. She might sit in her room for days, just sit there looking out of the window or looking at the same page of a book. She wasn’t crazy like not knowing where she was. She would speak to us and even ask how school was. But it was like she was a stranger. A very formal stranger. And then we would hear her singing in the kitchen. She would hug us andplan shopping trips to Mobile and have parties, shrimp boils and cocktail parties and seated dinners. Sometimes she would tell Papa and sometimes she wouldn’t. He would come in from work and there would be a houseful of people, most of whom he didn’t know. Willie