Free The Window by Jeanette Ingold Page A

a drawer and wondered what she should take.
    "You're leaving, aren't you?" Her mother's voice at the doorway made her jump. "I thought so."
    "How did you know?"
    "Gwen, please. It can't be so bad here that you have to run away."
    "There's not anything bad, Mama," Gwen said. "It's just that..."
    "Then why?" her mother asked, but she didn't wait for an answer. She shook her head as though she had already decided arguing was useless. "Well, I can't stop you, but I won't take you back, either."
    Gwen spent the next long hours by herself, waiting for evening, for Paul. He'd written that he'd found a room for her just off base, that he was using his first real leave to come get her. Gwen had planned to go off with him and then write, but somehow her mother had guessed.
    Her mother came up to the attic just once more. "I hope you'll get married?"
    "We already are," Gwen said.
    Her mother made a strangled sound, more like a snort than anything. "Here, then," and she thrust one of her own nightgowns into Gwen's hands. "You can't go to your husband in pajamas."
    When Paul's car sounded in the drive, Gwen grabbed her suitcase and ran down all the stairs and out to meet him. And then, for all her hurrying, she looked back. Looked back at an empty porch and nobody waving good-bye.
    Her mother's nightgown was on top of everything, in her suitcase.

    Ted has started picking me up on his way to school. It's not far out of his way.
    He honks and I go out to his car, a vehicle that he is very proud of. He got it right after he got his license, he told me, because the bus doesn't go near his house and his mother wanted to stop driving.
    "His parents," Aunt Emma said, "think the sun rises and sets on that boy. If he wanted his own airplane, they'd find a way to give it to him."
    This morning I'm only halfway to his car when he calls, "Mandy, come here and hold out your hands. Together and carefully."
    He puts something soft and warm and incredibly light in my palms. "A baby possum," he says. "I found it by the road."
    "Alone?"
    "A big one was nearby, run over. I think it was this one's mother."
    The baby is so small I can almost hold it in one palm, and I'm terrified I'll hurt it. "Take it, Ted," I say, "before I drop it."
    "You won't. You can raise it."
    "Me? You found it. Him. Her. Whatever."
    But even as I talk, groping for a joke, my insides are thumping over because I want so much to care for the little thing. I'm wishing I dared trust it to one hand. I want the other free to stroke it, and find the top of its head, and how its tail feels.
    At the same time, I'm panicky.
    "I don't know anything about taking care of an animal," I say. "I've never had a pet. What do you feed it?"
    "It's a baby, Mandy." Ted sounds exasperated, but he's laughing, too. "Milk, of course."
    "And Aunt Emma probably won't let me keep it. If she wanted a pet, she'd have a cat or a dog."
    "Why don't you ask?"
    I pull back one hand just a little, begin to explore the hairless tip of its tail with my finger. A low growl and hiss make me wonder if I'm going to get bitten. Then I realize probably it's the baby that's frightened.
    I leave the opossum with Ted and go in the house to find Aunt Emma. I was right about her not wanting a pet. "Keeping a wild animal is probably not even legal," she says. "I'll call the shelter and see what they say to do."
    I won't beg. It's something I've never done and I'm not going to begin now. I turn, walk partway down the hall.
    And turn again and go back.
    "Please, Aunt Emma. Just until it can go out on its own?"
    "Mandy..."
    "Please?"
    There's a long silent moment, a moment in which I swear to myself that if Aunt Emma says no I won't ever ask her for anything again. Won't ever ask anyone for anything. I shrug and start to say, "Never mind."
    "I guess," she says, "we could try feeding it some of the milk replacer your uncles keep on hand for calving. I should have an eyedropper somewhere."
    Then she catches my arm as Ted and I are leaving.