Amber Brown Is Feeling Blue Read online

  I pull objects out of the bag to explain the book. Paper dolls of the Watsons ….. I pretend to have the characters talk to each other. The mother is saying to one of the boys, “I think that it’s time for you to stay with your grandmother for a while, until you learn to be good.”

  Then I pull out a copy of a newspaper headline about civil rights from the 1960s, explaining what the country was like, what it might have been like for some black families during that time.

  And then I take out the little church that I borrowed from Kelly’s dad’s train set …. and explain how four girls were killed when someone set off a bomb in the Birmingham church. I tell about how they were only a few years older than the people in my class.

  I say, “Look around the class and think about what it would be like if, all of a sudden, four of us were killed because of prejudice, because some people didn’t like our color.”

  I end the report by saying, “This is a very funny and sad book, and I love it, and I think that everyone should read it.”

  My mother applauds and says, “Good job. May I borrow the book?”

  I nod. “It’s from the library. So I’ll renew it, and then you can read it.”

  The doorbell rings.

  I jump up.

  I can’t wait to see him.

  I hope that he likes the way I look.

  The doorbell rings again.

  “We’re coming. Hold on.” My mom does not sound as happy as I feel.

  I open the door.

  It’s my dad.

  I jump up into his arms.

  “Ooph,” he says.

  Maybe I’m going to have to stop doing that now that I’m in the fourth grade. It’s just that I was always able to do that when I was in the second grade, which was the last time he really lived in this house.

  He looks over at my mother and nods. “Sarah.”

  “Philip,” she answers.

  Their voices are very cold.

  But they’re not fighting with each other.

  Not yet.

  Maybe they won’t fight with each other anymore.

  I give my dad a kiss on his balding head and get down.

  We all just stand there for a minute.

  And then my mother says, “Let’s go into the living room and talk.”

  “I was hoping that we could go out and get something to eat,” Dad says. “I haven’t had a chance to have dinner. I rushed right over here as soon as I dropped off my bags.”

  Mom looks at her watch. “No, sorry. It’s a school night.”

  For a minute, it looks like Dad is going to say something, to disagree, and then he repeats, “It’s a school night.”

  “Mom,” I beg.

  My mom looks at him and then at me. “We have some leftovers from dinner. I suppose that while we’re talking, I can feed you.”

  “It’ll be like old times.” My dad smiles a funny smile.

  “Let’s hope not.” My mom lifts an eyebrow.

  As we walk into the kitchen, my dad and I hold hands.

  I hope that Mom doesn’t mind that I’m holding hands with Dad and not with her.

  It’s so weird.

  We’re all in the house together.

  I wish it was like old times, the old times that were good.

  At least that way I wouldn’t still have to make this awful decision.

  But I don’t think that’s going to happen….

  Chapter

  Thirteen

  A decision is a decision is a decision.

  And I, Amber Brown, have made my decision.

  It is the second-hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my entire life.

  The first-hardest is the thing that I have to do next.

  That will be telling my parents what my decision is.

  I, Amber Brown, wish that I could just write that decision on a piece of paper, leave the room while they read it, and then when I come back in, have everything be OK. I wish that no one’s feelings would get hurt. But it’s not going to work that way.

  I must make the announcement.

  I’m only nine years old, in the fourth grade.

  Why do I have to do this?

  I know the answer to that. I have to make the choice because I have no choice.

  Sometimes life is confusing.

  Sometimes it’s not easy.

  This is one of those times when it’s both … confusing and not easy.

  The only thing that came close to being this hard was having to say good-bye to my best friend, Justin, when he moved to Alabama.

  This is a bazillion times harder than Justin’s good-bye, and that was absolutely, totally, and terribly awful.

  “Mom, Dad,” I say, “I, Amber Brown, am spending Thanksgiving with Dad.”

  My dad claps his hands.

  My mom looks like she’s going to cry.

  They both look at me, and then they look at each other.

  My dad’s smiling, but he’s not gloating, like “Ha-ha. I won.”

  He quietly says, “Sarah, Amber will stay with you Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.”

  My mom looks at him. “That’s what WE decided, that whomever Amber didn’t get to be with at Thanksgiving, she would be with at Christmas.”

  I almost ask if they’ve worked out who I will be with on Groundhog Day, but I don’t.

  Mom looks very sad, but not very mad, which was what I was afraid would happen.

  I figure that I have to say something. “It’s not that I love one of you more than the other … but, Mom, you and Max have each other. Dad has no one. He’s just moved back.”

  She knows that’s true, that he’s got a few friends left over from when he used to live here, but all of them are busy with their own families on Thanksgiving.

  I am my dad’s own family.

  So I am staying with him.

  “I can pick Amber up at school on Tuesday, and then we can go directly into the city,” my father says.

  “You can pick her up here,” Mom says. “I will feel much better knowing that she’s with you …. not waiting at the school because you got delayed at a business meeting or something.”

  My dad looks angry, but he bites his lip.

  “Philip, you would do the same if you were me. I would worry….. Amber is the most important thing in my life.”

  “Mine, too,” my dad says.

  I feel wonderful that they both are saying that.

  I have something to say, though. “Hey ….. I’m not a thing. I’m a person.”

  “We know that, honey,” my mom says.

  I can see that there are tears in her eyes, tears that are close to rolling down her face.

  This is definitely not fair.

  I, Amber Brown, feel bad, though.

  In fact, I feel really bad.

  I want to go to Walla Walla with Mom and Max.

  And I want to go to New York City with my dad.

  And I want my parents to get back together.

  And I want Mom and Max always to be friends and do things together.

  I want to make choices and not feel guilty.

  I want to not have to make choices, not ones like this.

  The ones I want to make are things like ….. Should I have chocolate or vanilla ice cream? If I get a new bike, how many speeds should it have? Should my allowance be raised? Should I have to do homework, or not have to do homework?

  Now, these are good choices for a kid to make … not the ones that I have to make … choosing one parent instead of the other.

  “OK.” My mother sighs and stands up. “Philip, I’ll have Amber ready to be picked up here at three-thirty. Her bags will be packed. Just let us know what kind of clothes she’ll need … and write down all the information I’ll need … where to contact you, what the phone number is … and I’ll give you the same.”

  All of a sudden, my life has gotten much more involved … much more organized.

  My father stands up. “OK.”

  When my mother pi
cks up the dishes to put in the dishwasher, my father offers to do it.

  She shakes her head. “No, Philip, you are a guest in my home. I’ll do it.”

  They look at each other.

  I bet they are thinking about when he wasn’t a guest in her home, when this was his home, too.

  They must be thinking about that because I, Amber Brown, am.

  “Thank you, Sarah,” he says. “Thank you for everything.”

  While she is putting the dishes away, I walk Dad out to the living room and to the door.

  He leans downs and gives me a hug. “Amber, I am so happy that we are going to be spending Thanksgiving together.”

  I just stand there.

  He says, “You feel bad that you’re not going to be able to spend Thanksgiving with your mom, right?”

  I nod.

  “I can understand that.” He looks at me. “Would you rather go with Mom? I want you to do what you want to do, not what you think you should.”

  “Dad,” I say, “I made my decision. I don’t want to think about it anymore. What I wanted was not to have to decide … but I did … because you and Mom made the decision to get divorced, to not be a family anymore.”

  “Maybe that’s why I want you to think about it before your decision is final,” he says.

  I try to figure out what he means by what he’s just said. Does that mean that he’s sorry he and Mom got divorced? Does it just mean that he knows it’s important to make the right decision, because being divorced has been good?

  Grown-ups. Grown-ups who are parents. Grown-ups who are my parents…. It’s all very confusing.

  I think about what Justin once said…. You can pick your friends. You can pick your nose … but you can’t pick your friends’ noses….

  Well, I didn’t get to pick my parents.

  I am glad that I have them, though.

  I just wish that I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of my life picking one of them and not the other.

  Chapter

  Fourteen

  Dear Justin,

  Guess what??????!!!!!!!!!!

  My dad’s moved back from Paris.

  You probably already knew that, because my mom tells your mom everything.

  I’m glad our moms are still best friends and phone each other all the time and write each other.

  Thanks for sending the picture of you at Halloween. (I know that your mom was the one who sent the picture, but I love the way that you wrote on it….. “I am Dracula … and I want to bite your neck … but I’d probably get rabies.”)

  My dad and I went to New York for Thanksgiving.

  It was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo fun.

  We stayed at a hotel. (They had mail chutes on each floor. It was soooooo cool to watch as the mail went down ….. the chutes were glass. One morning I saw a pancake going down. I don’t want to think what the mail looked like when that splattered on it.)

  On Thanksgiving Eve, we went over to the American Museum of Natural History….. Oh, Justin, it was sooooooooooooooo fun. I wish that you had been there. It’s called “Inflation Night,” and on either side of the museum, people were blowing up the balloons that are in the parade. I heard someone say, “Just think of Barney as half full instead of half empty.”

  You should have seen that stupid purple dinosaur. Parts of it looked gigantic, and parts of it looked like it had liposuction … you know, when doctors get fat out of a person’s body … well, this looked like a definite case of dinosuction.

  While we were walking around, we met some people that my dad used to work with before he moved to Paris. They are the Fagerstroms. They live in Texas and were just visiting for the holiday. The mom and dad are Terry and Marie … and they have three kids, Ian, EmmaLee, and Eli.

  We all went to dinner at the Museum Cafe. The kids all teased me and said that I “talk funny.” I think that I, Amber Brown, talk absolutely New Jersey Normal … and they are the ones that talk funny. I kept calling Eli, who is three, “cowpoke” and kept poking him. He poked back. Once he accidentally poked me in the nose …. and Dad said I was “poker faced.” And then all of the grown-ups laughed. I just hate it when they make jokes I don’t understand.

  It was really late when we finished dinner, and Dad and I went back to the hotel.

  In the morning, we went to the parade. It was so fun …. the balloons …. the floats …. the little nerdlets crying because some grown-ups cut in front of them. I kept looking at the television cameras and waving. I kept hoping that you and your family were watching.

  Afterward we went out to a great restaurant, Little Jezebel’s, for Thanksgiving lunch. Then I called Mom … and Max. It was only breakfast time in Walla Walla, and they were having pancakes with syrup for breakfast. But no mail!

  It sounded like they were having an OK time … but that they missed me. And that made me feel sad.

  Mom told me not to feel blue. Just to have a good time and we’d all be together at Christmas.

  Before I had a chance to think about what she’d said, she told me, “We all … that means you and I and Max. After Christmas you’ll be seeing your dad again.”

  Anyway, I hope that you had fun over Thanksgiving. Your mom told mine that you like your Dracula costume so much that you were thinking of wearing it at Thanksgiving … a Pilgrim vampire. You know that if you had come over on the Mayflower, you probably wouldn’t have been a Pilgrim. They said that they were “Saints.” You definitely would have been a “Stranger.”

  If you are still a vampire, don’t forget to leave deposits at the blood bank.

  Your friend,

  P.S. Justin …. guess what now? I’m your friend …. but since you’re Dracula …. I guess you’re my fiend…. What a difference an “r” makes.

  P.P.S. Speaking of “r’s” and letters, are you going to WRITE BACK SOON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!???????!!!!!!

  P.P.P.S. I’ve made you a little scrapbook of what my Thanksgiving was like. Maybe next year you and your family can go to the parade with me and whichever parent I’m with. Justin …. you are sooooooooo lucky that your parents are still together and that they still love each other.

  I wish that mine did.

  But then if they did, I wouldn’t know Max …. I wouldn’t have two places that I’m going to live …. I wouldn’t be Amber Brown the way I am now.

  It’s OK…. Sometimes I feel blue, sometimes I see red, sometimes I’m green with envy….

  I’m Amber Brown …. and I guess I’m just always going to have a colorful life.