Monday I Love You Read Online Free Page A

go on with my life as if this hadn’t happened. Wondering if I’d tell on them, knowing I wouldn’t.
    I’m telling. Like a six-year-old, I’m telling.
    Maybe we could move, go someplace else. Maybe my father’d get a job somewhere else. Lord knows we’d moved plenty in the past. Why couldn’t we move one more time?
    What would that solve? You take yourself with you, some wise man once said. I was my own baggage, large and cumbersome baggage.
    I emptied my head of everything. I’d taught myself to do that when bad things happened. Things I couldn’t face, couldn’t cope with. I simply thought of nothing.

5
    â€œWhich one is you?” Estelle had asked when I showed her the glossy photo of the Gathering of the Schmitt Clan my mother had framed and hung over the livingroom sofa. When I pointed to a dark and scowling child third from the left in the front row, Estelle said, “I’d know you anywhere.”
    Why’d you ask then? I wondered.
    Nobody warns you about turning five. It seemed I’d started out all right, then when I hit five I turned fat and ugly. They’re always full of stuff about watch out for puberty, the teen years are the worst, all that. Nobody says a peep about five. Baby pictures have me smiling, cute as a button, even if my legs are a little stubby and my clothes pull against my waist. Then I went to kindergarten. A whole new world lay out there, one I wasn’t sure I could handle.
    My mother held my hand. I remember that much. Her other hand held her cosmetics suitcase. The room blared with light; little tables and chairs stood waiting. The room was full of kids in various stages of anxiety. Some of them looked smug. They were the ones who knew how to write their names and even read a little. But their faces wore smug looks just as surely as their feet wore new shoes. The smell of new shoes was very strong in the room. I always associate the smell of new shoes with kindergarten. There was a blackboard and piles of clean erasers. Lots of chalk. We were instructed to sit at one of the little tables and fold our hands and wait for further orders. Wait until the teacher got her act together.
    The teacher didn’t look a whole lot bigger than the children, I remember. I’ve thought about that some since and decided they pick kindergarten teachers for their small stature rather than for their ability to lead children through the paths of higher learning.
    When they took the roll call and the teacher called out, “Grace? Grace Schmitt?” in an unnecessarily loud voice, I panicked. The name sounded familiar to me but not enough to make me raise my hand. Saying “Here” was out of the question. I remember it seemed like a long morning. Midmorning we had juice and crackers, and the rest was downhill all the way.
    I longed for the comfort and security of my own backyard and a bathroom with only one toilet. All those toilets confused me. And, instead of doors, they had little droopy red curtains to shield us from curious eyes. I went into each stall, praying for a door, but all I got was another droopy red curtain. Kids ran in and out, poking their fingers at me, issuing shrieks as they ran that made me think of wild birds. It was very unsettling.
    Just as I was getting to like kindergarten, getting used to it and all the strange children and the red curtains, our teacher told us we’d be moving on.
    â€œJust think, children,” she said, clapping her little hands with glee, “in the fall you’ll all be first graders. You’ll be in school all day ! Won’t that be grand?”
    I was dismayed. I wanted to stay put. I was the kind of child who didn’t adjust easily, who preferred the familiar to the strange.
    â€œCan’t I just stay here? With you?” I whispered. But no one heard me.
    Then another, even stranger event occurred: a family reunion.
    I’d never been to a family reunion until an