I wasn't about to give him that satisfaction. The next morning I took the
watch out of the wooden box where I kept my geode, put it in my purse,
and brought it back to the store. All morning I nervously waited for Mr.
Becker to leave for lunch. When he was finally gone, I opened the
display case, slipped the watch inside, and rearranged the other watches
around it. I moved fast. The week before, I had stolen the watch without
breaking a sweat. But now I was terrified that someone would catch me
putting it back.
IN LATE AUGUST, I was washing clothes in the tin pan in the living
room when I heard someone coming up the stairs singing. It was Lori.
She burst into the living room, duffel bag over her shoulder, laughing
and belting out one of those goofy summer-camp songs kids sing at night
around the fire. I'd never heard Lori cut loose like this before. She
positively glowed as she told me about the hot meals and the hot showers
and all the friends she'd made. She'd even had a boyfriend who kissed
her. "Everyone assumed I was a normal person," she said. "It was weird."
Then she told me that it had occurred to her that if she got out of Welch,
and away from the family, she might have a shot at a happy life. From
then on, she began looking forward to the day she'd leave Little Hobart
Street and be on her own.
A few days later, Mom came home. She seemed different, too. She had
lived in a dorm on the university campus, without four kids to take care
of, and she had loved it. She'd attended lectures and she'd painted. She'd
read stacks of self-help books, and they had made her realize that she'd
been living her life for other people. She intended to quit her teaching
job and devote herself to her art. "It's time I did something for myself,"
she said. "It's time I started living my life for me."
"Mom, you spent the whole summer renewing your certificate."