Hope and Other Luxuries Read Online Free Page B

summer-school Milton course, sitting in a desk at the back of the room and taking it all in.
    It must have seemed strange to the other adults that the small me had such flawless manners. Those manners were flawless because I understood one simple fact: they were essential to my happiness. If I were to break down and have tantrums, my mother would have to leave me at home, and I didn’t want that to happen.
    I loved spending time with my clever, pretty mother. She treated me with respect, and she shared her life and her friends with me. When I asked her questions, she took them seriously and did her best to explain. As little notice as the rest of my family took of my existence, it was worth hours of silence to have the chance to go places with her.
    My mother spent hours each week with her closest friends. Unused to children, those friends treated me like an odd but surprisingly thoughtful little adult. They greeted me fondly and made me feel at home. I identified with them more and more as I grew past my toddler years, and although I couldn’t understand much of what they talked about, the images my imagination showed me while they held their scholarly discussions were absolutely enthralling.
    By the time I was five, I was listening avidly to everything the grownups said, and I stored up questions to ask my mother on the way home. I could read the emotions of adults as they turned from earnest argument to angry sarcasm, and I could follow the details of their complex debates. Needless to say, my vocabulary skills were off the chart.
    It seemed to me by this time as if I had been born understanding how adults thought. It was understanding children that I had trouble with. Their silly dramatics often surprised and baffled me. They didn’tunderstand my big words, so I couldn’t have meaningful conversations with them, and they changed from hot to cold in a flash. My best friend in the morning might be swearing she’d never speak to me again by noon, and then the next morning, she’d want to be friends again.
    Adult friends didn’t do that sort of thing. They were loyal. They could be trusted.
    As first grade crept by, I learned how to get along with my peers. I had a boyfriend and a group of friendly classmates who listened to my ideas about what game to play next. I grew to love recess in first grade. I ran and shouted and skipped rope and had a great time.
    Nevertheless, the people who really mattered to me were the people I had grown up with. My mother’s close friends meant more to me than the other members of my own family did. They had been a constant presence in my life, and they noticed my ups and downs. They asked how I was doing, and they listened to my sober explanations of my childish adventures.
    I felt sure that these were people who really loved me.
    Then, when I was in second grade, my mother went through a religious conversion of sorts, and she and her closest friends had a falling-out. From one day to the next, those friends were gone from my life.
    And my strange little world blew apart.
    Like any happy child, I had taken love for granted. But now, as I kept my vigil by the front window and waited in vain for the phone or the doorbell to ring, I finally faced the new truth of my blown-up world: these people my mother and I loved must never have loved us back. Her bright conversation and my perfect manners had been for nothing.
    Thrown back into my family again, I realized once more just how unimportant I was. My middle-school brothers didn’t even remember how to play. They certainly had nothing in common with me.
    Drawing from old habits, I would bring a stack of books into the hall and sit quietly outside their door for hours, but this time, I could feel that I wasn’t included. Busy as always, the other members of the household stepped over me or around me. I was the afterthought of the family, ignored and unneeded.
    My proud, well-mannered heart broke into pieces,