Lucky Girl by Jamie Pacton (novels for beginners txt) 📕

broken teeth—falls off as I gently close the gate. The entirety of my front yard is filled with children’s play equipment. There’s a busted metal swing set, which Mom got out of the trash recently. A twisty yellow slide leans against it, not attached to anything. Scattered over the rest of the dead grass and weed-filled flowerbeds are dozens of plastic toys, playhouses, toddler swings, and every other sort of outdoor play item in between. It looks like a daycare threw up out here, except everything is decidedly hazardous and unsafe for kids. Mom started collecting this stuff from garage sales at the beginning of the summer.

“Mom, this is junk,” I’d said then, hoping to forestall a new obsession. “There’s nothing personal or sentimental about it.”

“Nonsense, Fortuna Jane,” she replied, bustling past me with an armload of broken plastic dump trucks. “Children loved these things once. That means they’re personal, and we should rescue them from being forgotten in a landfill somewhere.”

The space under the umbrella of “things loved by a child once” is nearly infinite, but the space in our house is limited. Simply put, we don’t have room for much more junk. But Mom wasn’t concerned about that.

“But you don’t even know who they belonged to!” I had protested.

“It doesn’t matter. My job is to keep things from being forgotten. Your job is to help me.” She put the toy trucks down near a water table that was filled with rotting leaves. Sighing, I helped her unload the rest of the stuff she’d managed to “rescue.”

At least she hasn’t brought the outdoor play stuff into the house yet.

I step over two sandboxes shaped like turtles piled on the front porch and shove my key into the front door.

Our old farmhouse has been in the family for three generations, and Mom was raised here. She moved away for college, met my dad, and they headed to Nashville for her to try to be a country singer.

But then five years ago, when I was twelve, my firefighter dad got caught in a huge blaze and didn’t come home.

Mom was never the same. She sold her guitar, moved back into Grandma’s house with me, and started buying things that reminded her of my dad. At first it was a few things—a sweater like he used to wear. Or a book that had been his favorite.

But one day, she came home from a consignment store with a mug that had a photo on it.

“LOOK AT THIS!” she’d said, storming into the kitchen where I was working my way through some math homework with Grandma’s help.

“Hi, Mom,” I said, not looking up.

She had plunked the mug down on the table in front of us.

“LOOK,” she demanded.

I glanced up to see a picture of a redheaded kid in a soccer uniform staring back at me. #1 SOCCER STAR! was written across the top of the mug.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” said Mom quickly. “But that doesn’t matter. How could someone throw this away? Imagine if you were that kid and you found out the mug with your picture on it had been given away like it was trash!”

Grandma and I shared a long look.

But we didn’t say anything when Mom left the mug on a shelf in the living room.

“She’s still grieving your father,” said Grandma, so quietly that only I could hear her. “She’ll get over this phase soon.”

She didn’t. Not even a little bit.

I push open the front door and flick on the light, knowing what awaits me inside: eyes. Thousands of them, staring at me from the mugs, T-shirts, and photos that fill our house. You know how they say the eyes on some paintings follow you? Well, multiply that feeling by a thousand and throw in a bunch of cheesy messages, and you’ll have an approximate idea of how it feels to walk through my living room.

World’s Best Dad!

#1 Grandma!

Baby’s First Christmas!

The personalized items all shout at me from the bookshelves that line the walls and the piles Mom has made on the floor. I can no longer see the carpet, but there’s a path among all the mounds of stuff. Perched on one pile is a half-eaten bowl of cereal—Mom must’ve had breakfast in here before she left for work. I gather it up and hurry into the kitchen, expertly navigating through the living room like a slalom skier.

The kitchen isn’t much better than the living room, but thank God Mom doesn’t hoard food. In fact, even when we have enough grocery money, she usually forgets to buy it, so that means I keep the fridge stocked with what I can, when I can. But every available inch of counter space is covered in more garage-sale and thrift-store finds. Most of this stuff isn’t even personalized—Mom bought it because she thought we needed it or someone told her a story about it. Even if it’s a pile of Big Gulp cups or a rusty can opener, she’ll ask the person selling it if there’s a story behind it. And if they don’t tell her a story, she’ll make up one about it.

She swears there’s an organization to everything, but it’s beyond me. All I can do is keep my own space clean and not mess with her stuff. Because she always knows when I do. If I were to throw away one of the four dish-drying racks piled on top of the stove, she’d know. Same with every other plastic cup, dented spoon, and piece of junk in the cabinets.

After stepping around a pair of high chairs that have appeared in the kitchen since I left for school this morning (apparently the nightmare-daycare mess is starting to enter the house), I rinse the cereal bowl and load it into the dishwasher, along with the other breakfast dishes I put in there earlier. Mom stopped cleaning years ago, and if I didn’t pick up stuff, we’d have animals living among the piles of things. Well, we probably do,