Sharon Creech - Walk Two Moons

The second reason that I think Phoebe nearly fainted dead away was that there was Mike Bickle, Phoebe’s potential lunatic, in her own living room. It was one thing to think he was coming, and another thing to actually see him standing there.

I didn’t know what to think. For a second, I thought maybe Mike had kidnapped Mrs. Winterbottom and was bringing her back for some ransom money or maybe he was now going to do away with the rest of us. But I kept thinking of seeing them together the day before, and besides, Mrs. Winterbottom looked too terrific to have been held captive. She did look frightened, but not of Mike. She seemed afraid of her husband.

“Dad,” Phoebe whispered, “that’s the lunatic.”

“Oh Phoebe,” her mother said, pressing her fingers to her cheek, and when she made that familiar gesture, Phoebe looked as if her heart was splitting into a thousand pieces. Mrs. Winterbottom hugged Phoebe, but Phoebe did not hug her back.

Mr. Winterbottom said, “Norma, I hope you are going to explain exactly what is going on here.” He was trying to make his voice firm, but it trembled.

Prudence stared at Mike. She seemed to find him handsome and was flirting with him. She fluffed her hair away from her neck.

Mrs. Winterbottom tried to put her arms around Mr. Winterbottom, but he pulled away. “I think we deserve an explanation,” he said. He, too, stared at Mike.

Was she in love with Mike? He seemed awfully, awfully young—not much older than Prudence.

Mrs. Winterbottom sat down on the sofa and began to cry. It was a terrible, terrible moment. It was hard to make any sense out of what she said at first. She was talking about being respectable and how maybe Mr. Winterbottom would never forgive her, but she was tired of being so respectable. She had tried very, very hard all these years to be perfect, but she had to admit she was quite unperfect. She said there was something that she had never told her husband, and she feared he would not forgive her for it.

Mr. Winterbottom’s hands trembled. He did not say anything. Mrs. Winterbottom motioned for Mike to join her on the sofa. Mr. Winterbottom cleared his throat several times, but still he said nothing.

Mrs. Winterbottom said, “Mike is my son.”

Mr. Winterbottom, Prudence, Phoebe, and I all said, “Your son ?”

Mrs. Winterbottom stared at her husband. “George, I know you will think I am not—or was not—respectable, but it was before I met you, and I had to give him up for adoption and I could hardly bear to think of it and—”

Mr. Winterbottom said, “Respectable? Respectable? The hell with respectable!” Mr. Winterbottom did not normally swear.

Mrs. Winterbottom stood up. “Mike found me , and at first I was frightened of what that would mean. I’ve lived such a tiny life—”

Phoebe took her father’s hand.

“—and I had to go away and sort things out. I haven’t yet met Mike’s adoptive parents, but Mike and I have spent a lot of time talking, and I’ve been thinking—”

Mike looked down at his feet.

“Are you going to leave?” Mr. Winterbottom asked.

Mrs. Winterbottom looked as if he had slapped her. “Leave?”

“Again, I mean,” Mr. Winterbottom said.

“Only if you want me to,” she said. “Only if you cannot live with such an unrespectable—”

“I said to hell with respectable!” Mr. Winterbottom said. “What’s all this about respectable? It’s not respectable I’m concerned about. I’m more concerned that you couldn’t—or wouldn’t—tell me about any of this.”

Mike stood up. “I knew it wouldn’t work,” he said.

Mr. Winterbottom said, “I have nothing against you, Mike—I just don’t know you.” He looked at his wife. “I don’t think I know you, either.”

I was wishing I was invisible. Outside, the leaves were falling to the ground, and I was infinitely sad, sad down to my bones. I was sad for Phoebe and her parents and Prudence and Mike, sad for the leaves that were dying, and sad for myself, for something I had lost.

I saw Mrs. Partridge through the window, standing on Phoebe’s front walk.

Mr. Winterbottom said, “I think we all need to sit down and talk. Maybe we can sort something out.” Then he did what I think was a noble thing. He went over to Mike and shook his hand and said, “I did always think a son would be a nice addition to this family.”

Mrs. Winterbottom looked relieved. Prudence smiled at Mike. Phoebe stood motionless, off to the side.

“I’d better go,” I said.

Everyone turned to me as if I had just dropped through the roof. Mr. Winterbottom said, “Sal, I’m sorry, I truly am.” To Mike, he said, “Sal is like another member of the family.”

Mrs. Winterbottom said, “You’re mad at me, aren’t you, Phoebe?”

“Yes,” Phoebe said. “I most certainly am.” Phoebe took my sleeve and pulled me toward the door. “When you all decide exactly how many people are in this family, let me know.”

We stepped out on the porch just as Mrs. Partridge placed a white envelope on the steps.

It seemed fitting that at this point in my story of Phoebe, Gramps called out, “I-dee-ho!” We were high in the mountains and had just crossed the Montana border into Idaho. For the first time, I believed we were going to make it to Lewiston by the next day, the twentieth of August, my mother’s birthday.

Gramps suggested we press on to Coeur d’Alene, about an hour away, where we could spend the night. From there, Lewiston was about a hundred miles due south, an easy morning’s journey. “How does that sound to you, gooseberry?” Gram was still, her head pressed against the back of the seat and her hands folded in her lap. “Gooseberry?”

When Gram spoke, you could hear the rattle in her chest. “Oh, that’s fine,” she said.

“Gooseberry, are you feeling okay?”

“I’m a little tired,” she said.

“We’ll get you to a bed real soon.” Gramps glanced back at me, troubled.

“Gram, if you want to stop now, that would be okay,” I said.

“Oh no,” she said. “I’d like to sleep in Coeur d’Alene tonight. Your momma sent us a postcard from Coeur d’Alene, and on it was a bountiful blue lake.” She coughed a long, rattly cough.

Gramps said, “Okay then, bountiful blue lake, here we come.”

Gram said, “I’m so glad Peeby’s momma came home. I wish your momma could come home too.”

Gramps nodded his head for about five minutes. Then he handed me a tissue and said, “Tell us about Mrs. Partridge. What was she doing leaving a gol-dang envelope on Peeby’s porch?”

That’s what Phoebe and I wanted to know. “Did you want something, Mrs. Partridge?” I asked.

She put her hand to her lips. “Hmm,” she said.

Phoebe snatched the envelope and ripped it open. She read the message aloud: “Don’t judge a man until you’ve walked two moons in his moccasins.”

Mrs. Partridge turned to go. “Bye-bye,” she said.

“Mrs. Partridge,” Phoebe called. “We’ve already had this one.”

“I beg your pardon?” Mrs. Partridge said.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” Phoebe said. “You’ve been creeping around leaving these things, haven’t you?”

“Did you like them?” Mrs. Partridge said. As she stood there in the middle of the sidewalk, with her head tilted up at us, and that quizzical look on her face, she looked like a mischievous child. “Margaret reads them to me from the paper each day, and when there’s a nice one, I ask her to copy it down. I’m sorry I gave you that one about the moccasins already. My noggin forgot.”

“But why did you bring them here ?” Phoebe said.