She opened the cupboards, she even looked in the fridge. The only thing she found was Helen’s gold bracelet, its hook clasp still pinched shut. As she picked it up, the gust of cold disappeared.
“No need to shout,” said Helen, standing in the doorway behind her. “Oh, you found my bracelet. I was looking for it.”
Marigold spun.Impossible!“How did you—” She bit her cheek. “I saw you vanish. You were in the kitchen, then you weren’t.”
“Yes, because I went outside.” Her mother struggled to put on her bracelet. “Help me with this.”
Marigold observed that Helen’s wrist was too thick for the chain to have fallen off on its own. A fact she wisely kept to herself. “I’ll have to open the clasp.”
“Careful of the charm. It gets loose.”
Marigold opened a cupboard drawer, taking out a pair of tweezers the bakery used for decorations. The trickiest part was getting a good grip on the clasp, which kept snagging on her gloves. With patience, she pried one end open, catching the charm on her palm as it slid off the hook. It was an odd shape, almost like a freckled surfboard. “What’s it supposed to be?”
“A peanut. I think.”
Helen’s tone was quiet, almost tender, which surprised Marigold almost as much as the fact that she had actually answered.
“Did Po Po give it to you?” Marigold tried to sound cheerful. “You’ll be able to ask her soon.”
Helen shrugged and held out her arm. A sign she was done talking.
Marigold wrapped the bracelet around her mother’s wrist, tempted to take off her gloves and sneak a touch. Most objects only delivered a glimpse of the past, but Helen had worn this gold chain for years. It must be a trove of her memories.
Or not,she thought, recalling the last time she went delving into Helen’s past.
She reattached the charm to the hook, then gave it a final squeeze. “There. All done.”
“Thanks.” Helen rolled down her sleeve.
“You still look pale,” said Marigold. “You should drink some water—”
“I’m fine.” Helen’s nostrils flared. “No need to play doctor.”
Another time, Marigold might hold back from arguing, but she’d seen the pain on Helen’s face when she’d been struggling not to disappear. Her mother needed help.
“Mom, you can talk to me. Stop preten—”
“Iamtalking to you.” Helen ripped off today’s date from the tear-off calendar. “It’s Monday. Did you hear from Stanford?”
“Yes.” Marigold was startled that her mother had remembered.
“And?”
“And...” Marigold’s voice turned soft, vulnerable. She set down the tweezers. “They rejected me.”
A bar of silence followed, and deep in the secret trenches of her thoughts, Marigold dared imagine that Helen might reach out and pat her shoulder, that she’d offer a word or two of consolation, in that tender tone she’d taken when talking about her bracelet.
A muscle on her mother’s cheek twitched, and she folded today’s date in half, then half again. “I told you girls don’t become doctors,” she said with a sniff. “No need to make that face, Marigold, it’s the truth. Go, take the sponge cakes to the bakery. They’re done cooling.”
Marigold gritted her teeth. Any concern she’d borne for Helen evaporated as she picked up the still-warm tray.
She left the kitchen and didn’t look back.
Chapter Forty-Three
It was Rosie’s fault that Marigold had to go to prom.
Peony and Marigold knew that the youngest Yuen was their parents’ favorite. Rosie could paper the insides of her locker with tardy slips and ditch sixth-period algebra to sneak over to Tower Records, yet somehow she was able to coax Helen into piano lessons, a weekly allowance, and now—permission to go to senior prom.
