Free Somewhere I Belong by Glenna Jenkins Page A

right? So you had some left?”
    I nodded.
    â€œAnd Eugene got a little bite to eat too.”
    Now I was beginning to understand.
    â€œSo what would have happened if he hadn’t taken your lunch?”
    â€œHe’d be hungry.”
    â€œSo did he take you sandwich because he was a bully?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œSo how do you think you should deal with this, Pius James?”
    â€œI could give Eugene my sandwich,” I said.
    â€œSure you could. Better still, you could ask your mother to make him one.”
    â€œMa would do that?”
    â€œSure she would; it’s just two slices of bread and some peanut butter and jelly. For Ma, it wouldn’t be such a big deal. For Eugene, it would mean he wouldn’t go hungry. And he’d know somebody cared.”
    I looked up at dad and smiled.
    â€œSo, you know what this whole thing is about?” he asked.
    I waited.
    â€œIt’s about figuring out whether a person is doing something because they’re nasty and or because they need to.”
    When he came to me several nights after he died, he asked me the same kinds of questions—ones that made me wonder if he had read my mind.
    â€œYou’re worried about the move, aren’t you, Pius James?” he said. “You’re wondering why your mother’s decided to go. What are your thoughts on the matter?”
    I stared up at him, too afraid to speak.
    â€œYour grandmother has a fine home; Prince Edward Island is a wonderful place to live,” he continued. “You’ve had some great times there, but you probably don’t remember because you were too young.”
    â€œBut, I don’t want to go,” I said.
    â€œGive me one good reason,” he replied.
    I thought for a moment and didn’t know where to start. First, there were all my friends. Then, there was Glendale Park and the winter hockey games and baseball in spring and summer. There was ice cream next door at MacCormack’s Grocer. And Aunt Mayme and Uncle George lived three blocks away.
    I looked up at him and shrugged my shoulders.
    â€œHow do you think your mother feels, Pius James?”
    I didn’t answer.
    â€œScared, maybe? What do you think?”
    â€œMa?”
    â€œSure,” he said. “Why not? She’s got you four kids and no breadwinner. It’s not like she could go out and get a job. And who would look after you fellas, anyhow?”
    I kept looking at him. He kept talking.
    â€œWhat do you think her choices are, Pius James?” He waited, then said, “She could stick you kids in an orphanage or divide you up among the relatives. In which case, some of you would be going to Prince Edward Island anyhow. Or, she could go home to her family and keep you fellas together.
    â€œShe needs help, Pius James. Don’t you think she’d doing what she needs to do?”
    I stared up at him, tears streaming down my face. Then I watched him and the shining orb disappear and the room go black.
    I thought if he appeared to me once, he would do it again. So I tried to conjure him up several times before we moved. Some nights, I’d go to bed thinking hard about a problem I had had that day. I would ask a question I needed an answer for, hoping he would come. I tried again on the overnight train to Prince Edward Island and during our first few nights at Granny’s. I’d drift off to sleep, disappointed each time. But when I thought about it, it made sense that he had come to me that one time because he had just died and was not so far away.
    After that first day at Northbridge Road School, I tried to conjure him up again. If there was a time I really needed to talk to Dad, it was then. And when he didn’t appear, I wondered if we had moved too far away. Or whether he had, somehow, appeared to Larry. But this wasn’t a question I could put to my older brother—he would tell me it had just been a dream.

The next morning, Uncle Jim