Free Amandine by Adele Griffin Page B

questions I knew she wanted to ask. When she asked me nothing, I was grateful. She understood I was not able, not ready to talk yet.
    “I’m just across the road,” she said as I opened the car door.
    I nodded, then ran up the walkway to my house. Free. Neither of my parents would be home for another couple of hours.
    Relieved to be alone, I toured slowly through the rooms. First my parents’ downstairs, then my upstairs. Everything was neatly arranged under my mother’s precise hand. Pillows plumped, this month’s magazines in the wooden rack. There was aspirin in the medicine cabinet and there were fresh herbs in the kitchen window. It was nice here. Anybody could come into this house and feel at home, or at least as at home as I felt.
    The upstairs was as tidy as the downstairs. Maybe that’s why it didn’t seem as if it belonged to me. I noticed that the wastepaper basket was empty, that my mother finally had thrown out my flowers. She swept through my room every few days or so just to make sure I wasn’t hoarding snacks or storing up a collection of empty glasses and mugs.
    But she did not know about my treasures. Neither of my parents did. It would not even have occurred to them to look. Somehow, though, it occurred to Amandine.
    I did not hesitate. I took the cigar box from my shelf and headed over to Mrs. Gogglio’s. My mind was empty. When I stepped onto her porch, I heard wind chimes, and my mind filled with their same erratic, tuneless clink.
    She opened as I knocked. She must have seen me from across the way.
    “Delilah! I’m having tea. Do you want some tea? Do you like cinnamon toast? I was fixing some for myself.”
    “All right.”
    “You have a seat in the front room there. I’ll be right out.”
    I sat. Mrs. Gogglio’s house was nice in a different way from ours. It was soft and faded and filled with things my parents would have rolled their eyes at; dressed-up mice dolls and framed Dolly Dingle pictures and netted lace everywhere—in the curtains, on the pillow fringe and lampshades. When Mrs. Gogglio came back and set down a tray, I saw that the tea set had a Popeye motif. Knock-kneed Olive Oyl danced with Bluto on the kettle. Li’l Swee’Pea beamed woozily from the creamer.
    “Cream and sugar?” she asked.
    I nodded. My mouth tasted metallic, as if I’d bitten it and drawn blood.
    Watching Mrs. Gogglio pour tea was relaxing. She took extra care. Two sugars, cream. Stir, stir. Clink, clink.
    My treasure box was opened on the coffee table. We blew on our tea together, sipped, and stared at it. I put down my teacup first. She lingered over hers. I had not bothered to hide the double-coupon book. In its green felt sleeve, it perched on top of Amandine’s dragonfly pin. Other treasures, Mary’s friendship bracelet, a fountain pen that had belonged to a teacher at my old school, lay in a jumble.
    “I’m listening,” she said. She placed her winking Popeye cup on his saucer.
    “I’ve got these things,” I began slowly. I stirred my fingers over the box, then let them fall on my favorite treasure, a cigarette lighter I’d had for so long that I couldn’t even remember who it had belonged to before me. “And some of them aren’t mine.” I cleared my throat. “What I mean is, they all belong to people I like. People who have a lot—to offer, I guess. And I guess I feel like if I can take a chip off that person, just a tiny little chip, then part of what they have becomes mine. But it doesn’t, really. It’s just some dumb, stolen piece of nothing.” I pushed my hands through my hair. I was raw, my insides turned out.
    “And you’re here because you think you’re ready to stop holding on to these things?” she asked. Her voice was soft, her rosy apple face serious, trying to make sense of the information.
    “Yes. Well, I’m not sure,” I finished lamely. “It’s something I’ve done for a while now. But it doesn’t help me, or anything. It doesn’t make me feel