Storms 01 - Family Storms

Why even think about it?
    We stopped at the dock, and I looked out at the lake. It was so still. Down on the left, the trees were reflected in the water, giving it a greenish tint. Toward the other side, I saw terns. They were visitors from the ocean. The two rowboats tied to the dock looked brand-new. Mrs. March stepped up beside me, folded her arms, and looked out as if she had never seen it until now.
    “Isn’t it beautiful?”
    “Yes,” I said. I hesitated but then asked, “Does Mr. March really want me here?”
    She spun around and seemed about to say,
Of course.
Something she saw in my face made her pause. “Did Kiera say something terrible last night about her father?”
    When you first meet someone, you can’t help but wonder how much of the truth you should tell and how much you should hold back. It was something I had learned from the way Mama spoke to people, especially after Daddy had left us. Lying seemed to be an important way to protect yourself, and most people didn’t seem to know or care that she was lying.
    What should I do now?
I wondered.
Get Kiera in more trouble?
    “I just wondered,” I said.
    “It’s not for you to worry about,” she replied quickly. “The reason I brought you here is to have your recuperation managed well so that you’ll be up on your feet and get the opportunity to have a new, wonderful life. You let me worryabout the rest of it, Sasha.” She looked out at the water again for a moment before turning back to me. “I made a promise to your mother,” she said.
    “My mother? When?” Had my mother been alive for a while and no one had told me?
    “At her burial, at the cemetery,” she replied.
    “Oh.”
    “I promised her that I would look after you, and I won’t let anyone stop me from fulfilling the promise.”
    My daddy had made a lot of promises, I thought, and after we were thrown out on the street, Mama had made lots of promises, too. What was the real difference between a promise and a dream? Just like dreams, the day after, no one remembers them.
    “Put your promises in writing,” Mama would tell Daddy. “Not that it would mean much more,” she would mumble to me.
    A promise was a wish made of smoke, I thought. You could see it, but you couldn’t grasp it, and you couldn’t take it anywhere. You had to wait for the wind to see where it would go or if it would just disappear.
    I had no doubt that Mrs. March wanted to fulfill her promise to Mama, but even she, sitting on top of that beautiful, rich world, was helpless when it came to putting her fingers around the promise of happiness when it was for herself and her family.
    What could she really do for me?

12
Mr. March
    T wo nights later, I finally met Donald March. Mrs. Duval came up to my room to tell me that dinner would be served earlier than usual, and that Mrs. March had requested that I be brought down to the dining room.
    “She said you should choose anything you would like to wear except a tank top. Do you need help with anything?”
    “No,” I told her.
    “Then I’ll be back for you in twenty minutes,” Mrs. Duval said.
    I couldn’t help being very nervous, so nervous I could feel myself trembling. Kiera told me that her father would send me away, and although Mrs. March told me not to be concerned about it, that it was her problem, I still felt I’d be more uncomfortable in Donald March’s presence than I would be sleeping in a cardboard carton. Maybe because we had had so little that anyone would want, neither Mama nor I had been terribly afraid out there. Everyone living in the street appeared just as unconcerned. Perhaps we all thoughtnothing more could happen to us. Now I was in what had to be one of the most expensive homes in the whole country, if not the whole world, and I knew deep in my heart of hearts that much more could happen to me there.
    I had a difficult time deciding what to wear. When I started to choose something, I stopped to wonder if it was too fancy or not fancy enough. I had no doubt that Kiera would laugh at me, even ridicule me, in front of her father if I made the wrong choice. He might look at Mrs. March and smirk as if to say,
How could you bring someone so common and stupid to our home? I don’t care what your reasons were.
    Because of my cast, I could only wear skirts or dresses, and I wasn’t sure which dresses of Alena’s were formal. Mrs. March had made such a thing of what I would wear when it was only the two of us. Why wasn’t she