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Her family owns the farm next door, and my mommy was best friends with her mommy, so she’s always around. She’s okay, I guess. For a girl.
I don’t say anything when Sadie sits by my side. She’s in her white nightgown and her beat-up rain boots with ladybugs on them.
“Why are you up?” I ask, plucking another blade of grass and wrapping it around my finger.
“Daddy was loud this morning, and I saw you out here.” She points at her house. Her bedroom window faces the cemetery. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say with the meanness in my voice that suddenly showed up the day my mom didn’t come home.
“It’s okay, you know.”
I whip my head toward her. “What is?”
“To cry.”
I scoff and pluck a handful of blades, tossing them one by one on the dirt pile. “I don’t cry.”
She sighs and crosses her legs, making sure her nightgown covers her knees. Her hands fiddle with the edge of the braid that’s twisted around her head and down her neck. She’s always touching her hair. “Okay.”
I want to get up and leave. Leave her here and stomp back to the house. I want to be alone.
“My mommy says you’re the glue.”
I frown. “What does that mean?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know, but glue keeps things together. Fixes things. Last year, Daddy broke Mommy’s favorite vase, and he glued it back together. Couldn’t even tell it’d been broken.”
I roll my eyes. Sadie’s mommy told my mom and my aunts that story. I’m not sure why she was always repeating that story. “Whatever.”
“She said glue doesn’t always stick though. And sometimes water still seeps in through the cracks. She told Daddy that one day, you won’t be able to hold it together.”
“I don’t care, Sadie.” And I don’t. Her mom always says weird stuff. Saying I’m glue? Sticky white stuff that takes forever to dry? What is she even talking about?
“I think she’s saying that if you don’t let your feelings out, one day they’ll come out anyway.” Sadie’s always doing this. She’s so smart, and she explains things to me even when I don’t need her to. “That no glue is that strong.”
“Super glue is. Daddy used it on Emmett’s highchair leg, and it hasn’t broken since.”
“Oh. Well… I don’t know.”
We sit in silence, listening to all the animals waking up. I need to get back.
“I miss her,” Sadie says.
My hands fist the grass blades. “She wasn’t your mommy.”
“My mommy cries all the time. She misses her too.”
Tears pool in my eyes, but I force them back. I haven’t cried yet, and I’m not going to do it in front of Sadie Wilkins. “So do Benny and Emmett.”
“I know. You must miss her.”
A tear slips from my eye, and I swipe it away with the back of my hand.
“It’s okay, Jude.”
“I just have something in my eye.” I rub my eyes, hoping she doesn’t notice my other eye is filled with water too.
She slides closer. Her white nightgown is dirty now.
