The Lit Report (19 page)

Ruth has started reading because it's something to do while she nurses Jane. I've given her all my favorite books,
but she won't read anything by Dickens and she still thinks Jane Austen is a stuck-up priss. She really liked
Catch-22
, though, and I had to get her every single Vonnegut book from the library after she read
Slaughterhouse-Five
. Right now she's binge-reading Anne Rice vampire novels, which is actually kind of scary. I'm reading an awesome book called
The Poisonwood Bible
by Barbara Kingsolver. One of the characters is like Pastor Pete on crack. Absolutely nuts. Ruth's gonna love it. Or not. Hard to tell.

One of Ruth's rules is that Boone and Jane must be read to every day, without fail.
Goodnight Moon
,
Baby Beluga
(my dad's fave, for obvious reasons),
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
,
Peep-O
. Jane's attention span leaves something to be desired. She's like a gnat with
ADD
. Boone has all the makings of a serious reader, though. He furrows his little brow and bats at the pages with his pudgy paws. That's my bro. Jane's more into gnawing the corners and drooling. I've started making a library for them, although it will be a while before I can read them
Mr. Gumpy's Outing
or
The Wind in the Willows
or
The Lord of the Rings
. In the meantime, Ruth's fallen madly in love with Toad of Toad Hall, and she thinks Stuart Little is a blast in his little red convertible. But then, she's always liked guys with cool cars.

Another of Ruth's rules is that she, Miki, Dad, me and the babies must eat dinner together at least once a week. She also thinks we should have an extended family Christmas
this year—Mom, Gary, Nana and me; Miki and Dad and Boone; Ruth and Jonah and Jane; Maria and Mark. I'm working on Mom. Ever since she started dating Gary, she's relaxed a bit around Dad. And Gary's an okay guy. Not terribly exciting, but I don't need an exciting step-father, if that's what he becomes. Boring is good, if he makes my mom happy. Miki and Dad are cool with anything we cook up (ha-ha) for Christmas, as long as Dad gets to sing cheesy Christmas carols (he and I do a smokin' rendition of “Baby, It's Cold Outside”) and Miki gets to play charades. I happen to know that my mom kicks ass at charades, so I'm hoping the opportunity to act out
Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill!
will tip the scales in favor of the family Christmas.

In the meantime, I'm doing the whole long-distance thing with Jonah—e-mail, text messages, Facebook, phone calls, webcam, the occasional visit—which is a pain, since I'm trying to keep my grades up, and he can be
very
distracting. When we're together, it's awesome; when we're not, it sucks. Sometimes he gets on my nerves, especially when he won't shut up about his favorite knife or the best way to do a
chiffonade
, but most of the time I'm so busy I forget to miss him. Does that mean I don't love him? I don't know. Time will tell, I guess.

I'm still working at the bookstore a couple of evenings a week, saving all my money for when I leave home next year. Mom's surprisingly okay with me moving out. Maybe
it's because she won't have to sleep on the couch anymore. Or maybe she and Gary want to shack up together. Who knows? She's busy with school and happier than I've seen her in a long time. And she totally deserves it, even if it means I'm not the center of her universe anymore. I feel a bit like an astronaut floating through space, my only connection to my past a long thin cord of memories. As long as no one clamps the cord, I'll be okay.

I doubt whether Ruth and Jane will come with me when I leave. Ruth's really settled in at Dad's, and she's definitely not ready to tackle another big upheaval. And I don't think Miki could get by without her. I understand all that. What I don't understand is that she actually believes her mother is going to start acting like a regular mom and grandma. That's part of the reason she wants to stay where she is. She told me that she thinks that as long as she doesn't give up on Peggy, there's a chance Peggy won't give up on her. That equation makes sense to her for some reason.

Anyway, I try not to make elaborate plans anymore, especially elaborate plans for other people's lives. It's just too disappointing when things don't work out. I know Ruth thinks it's way more exciting not to have everything all planned out ahead of time, but my dad doesn't call me Little Miss Sobersides for nothing. Going with the flow isn't my natural state, although I have cut down on the obsessive list-making. The only lists I make these days are for groceries.
Like David Copperfield, I'm not sure if I'm the hero of my own life. Writing it all down has helped, but I still feel a little freaked out sometimes, like I'm the survivor of an emotional earthquake and I can't find my emergency supplies.

As I get to the end of this story, my fascination with first lines isn't much help to me. Now I keep thinking about last lines—aren't they just as important? Shouldn't a novel's last line sum up the book in a way that lingers (preferably like the scent of roses or chocolate chip cookies, not like a fart) in the reader's mind? When I look back over all the first lines I quoted and all the books they were taken from, I realize there's actually a theme, a connecting motif, as Mrs. Hopper would say. Which is kind of crazy, since I chose the quotes because they were from books I love, not because they were part of some Julia Riley literary grand plan. Really. But sometimes things just work out, whether you make a plan or not. So I'm not going to tell you what the theme is—if you don't figure it out, it doesn't really matter. It's just a story. My true story. And yes, there will be a test.

Sarah N. Harvey
is an editor and the author of
Puppies on Board
,
The West Is Calling
(with Leslie Buffam) and
Bull's Eye
, an Orca Soundings. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia, with a combative fish named Yul.