Jennie
Chapter One
Grandpa’s chair was still in the corner of the living room.
Nobody had moved it.
María thought that was worse. For three days, the house had been full of people carrying foil-covered dishes and flowers and saying things in voices that were too soft.
They hugged Papi.
They hugged Daddy.
They hugged Mateo, who stood stiffly through most of it with his arms pinned to his sides like he had forgotten what they were for.
Then they hugged María.
Everyone bent down when they hugged her.
She hated that.
She was ten, not five. But grief had apparently made her smaller.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
“Your grandfather loved you very much.”
“He’s in a better place.”
That one made her angry. Grandpa had liked his place just fine. He liked the brown chair in the corner with the cracked armrest. He liked coffee that was too hot and toast burned dark enough that Daddy once asked if he was trying to eat charcoal. He liked his garden even when nothing grew the way he said it should. He liked old game shows and insisted he only watched them because there was nothing else on.
He liked María.
So whatever place everyone thought was better could have waited. Now most of the people were gone. The flowers remained.
So did the food.
Papi had spent the morning trying to fit everything into the refrigerator, moving containers from one shelf to another as though a better arrangement might somehow make any of it useful.
The house smelled like lilies, coffee, and food nobody was hungry enough to eat.
Only Grandpa’s chair looked normal. Brown leather. One cracked arm. The cushion still dipped in the middle where he always sat.
María stood in the living-room doorway and looked at it.
“Hey.” Mateo came up behind her.
She didn’t turn.
At thirteen, he had recently started leaning against doorframes whenever possible. María wasn’t sure why. Maybe thirteen-year-old boys became too tired to stand correctly. “You coming?”
She shook her head.
“Papi said we’re supposed to help.”
Another shake.
Mateo sighed.
“You know he’s gonna send Daddy in here.”
María kept looking at the chair.
“He’ll do the face.”
That almost got her. Daddy had a face for when he was trying very hard not to sound annoyed. His mouth got tight, and his eyebrows went up, and somehow that was worse than if he had simply said he was annoyed.
María felt the beginning of a smile. Then it disappeared. Mateo waited a moment. “Fine.”
He walked away. A few seconds later she heard him in the kitchen.
“She won’t come.”
Papi said something too quietly for María to hear.
Mateo answered, “I asked.”
Daddy said, “Leave her alone.”
“I did.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
A cabinet closed harder than it needed to. María stayed where she was. Before Grandpa died, people called her quiet. Afterward, they said she was having a hard time. She didn’t understand why those were suddenly different things.
María had never liked talking when too many people were listening.
Words felt different when people waited for them.
Too big.
Too noticeable.
If she took too long to answer, people repeated the question as if she had not heard it the first time. Grandpa never did that. He would ask something once. Then wait.
Sometimes he waited so long that María forgot she was supposed to feel uncomfortable. Once at dinner, Grandpa had asked her what she thought of a drawing he was working on for the garden.
María had stared at it for a while.
Daddy said, “María, Grandpa asked you a question.”
Grandpa looked at him.
“She heard me.”
That was all. María answered when she was ready. Now Grandpa was gone, and everybody seemed to be waiting.
Waiting for her to cry.
Waiting for her to talk.
Waiting for her to become whatever they thought she had been before. She crossed the room and sat on the floor beside the chair.
Not in it.
Nobody sat in it.
María leaned her shoulder against the leather.
Outside, a truck passed. Somewhere down the block, a lawn mower started and then stopped. The refrigerator hummed from the kitchen.
She closed her eyes. For a second, she could almost hear Grandpa turning a page.
Almost.
Then something moved outside the window. María opened her eyes.
Someone was in the backyard.
She sat up. The late-afternoon sun hit the glass at an angle, making it hard to see clearly. There was a figure near the garden. About her size, maybe.
María watched.
The figure moved closer. Not quickly. Not like someone who was worried about being caught in a yard that didn’t belong to them. Just closer. María got to her feet. She went to the back door and opened it.
“María?”
Daddy’s voice came from the kitchen.
She stopped.
He was standing at the counter, fitting containers into a cardboard box. Papi was washing one of Grandpa’s mugs at the sink. Mateo sat at the table tearing a piece of bread into smaller and smaller pieces.
Daddy looked toward the open door.
“What are you doing?”
María pointed outside. Daddy followed her gesture. For a moment, something softened in his face. “Oh.”
Papi glanced over.
“What?”
Daddy nodded toward the yard.
Papi looked.
Then he looked at María.
“You want to go outside?”
She nodded.
“All right.”
That was it.
María stepped onto the porch.
The backyard felt wrong without Grandpa in it.
Bigger.
Emptier.
His watering can sat beside the steps. One of the garden hoses still crossed the grass in a lazy curve. A pair of work gloves rested on the little table near the shed. Things waiting for someone who wasn’t coming back.
The girl was near the garden now.
María stopped on the bottom step.
The girl stopped too. For a moment they only looked at one another. María expected a question.
What’s your name?
Do you live here?
Why aren’t you talking?
Questions always came first with new people. This girl didn’t ask any. She walked closer and sat on the edge of the porch. Like she had already decided María didn’t need to explain herself. María looked at her.
The girl looked back.
That was all.
After a while María sat too. They were quiet together. It was the easiest silence María had had since Grandpa died. Inside the house, Mateo laughed at something Daddy said. The sound tightened something in María’s chest.
She missed laughing.
Then she immediately felt guilty for missing it. As if wanting to laugh again meant she wanted Grandpa less. She pulled her knees against her chest. The girl glanced toward the kitchen window.
Then back at María.
“I don’t want them to put his things away,” María said.
She had not planned to say it. The words simply came out. The girl stayed beside her.
“They keep saying they’re only sorting.”
María picked at a loose thread on her jeans.
“But sorting means deciding what stays.”
The girl was quiet.
“And deciding what stays means deciding what goes.”
María stared at the garden.
“Aunt Rosa already took a box.”
She swallowed.
“Daddy said she wanted some of Grandpa’s books.”
The girl still didn’t interrupt.
María liked that.
“I don’t care if she wanted them.”
The answer came easily in María’s mind.
Then she shouldn’t have taken them.
María turned toward the girl.
That was how she would remember Jennie at first.
Not as someone who filled every silence.
As someone who somehow made the silence easier to understand.
“You think so?”
Jennie gave the smallest shrug.
María almost smiled.
“You don’t even know Aunt Rosa.”
Jennie looked unimpressed by this problem.
That made María smile for real.
Only a little.
But enough.
The back door opened.
Daddy stepped outside with a dish towel over one shoulder.
“There you are.”
María looked up.
His eyes went to her first, then to Jennie.
His mouth lifted at one corner.
“Making a friend?”
María looked at Jennie.
Then nodded.
Daddy leaned against the doorframe.
“Well. Your friend looks pretty comfortable.”
María glanced beside her.
Jennie had settled in like she intended to stay.
Daddy looked at María again.
“Dinner in twenty minutes.”
She nodded.
He started to go back inside.
“Daddy?”
He stopped.
It was the first word she had said directly to him since breakfast.
His hand stayed on the door.
“Yeah?”
“Can I stay out here until then?”
Daddy looked at her for a second.
Then he smiled.
Not the smile he had been giving people at the funeral.
Not the one that looked like work.
A real one.
“Sure.”
He went inside.
Through the kitchen window, María saw him say something to Papi.
Papi looked outside.
María watched him.
He smiled too.
She frowned.
She hadn’t done anything.
Then she realized.
She had talked.
One word.
Then a question.
That was all.
She hadn’t known anyone was waiting for that.
Jennie bumped lightly against her shoulder.
María looked at her.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
Jennie tilted her head.
María looked toward the empty garden.
“Everybody keeps acting like I’m supposed to.”
Jennie stayed beside her.
María stared at the worn path Grandpa had made between the porch and the garden over the years.
“I don’t know how to be normal again.”
For a moment neither of them said anything.
Then Jennie answered.
“You don’t have to be.”
María looked at her.
That was not what adults said.
Adults said things would get better.
Adults said time helped.
Adults said Grandpa would want her to be happy.
Nobody had said she didn’t have to be anything yet.
María let out a breath she had not realized she was holding.
“What’s your name?”
The girl looked at her.
“Jennie.”
María nodded.
“I’m María.”
“I know.”
María frowned.
“How?”
Jennie shrugged.
Maybe she had heard Daddy call her.
Maybe she had heard Papi.
Maybe she had been around longer than María had noticed.
María decided it didn’t matter.
Inside, someone dropped a spoon.
Mateo yelled, “That wasn’t me.”
Daddy yelled back, “Nobody said it was.”
“It sounded like you were going to.”
Papi laughed.
María listened.
Then she looked at Jennie.
“You can stay if you want.”
Jennie didn’t answer right away.
She just sat beside María while the light changed over Grandpa’s garden.
For the first time since the funeral, María did not feel like everyone was waiting for her to become someone else.
And Jennie stayed.
Chapter Two
Jennie came back the next morning.
María saw her from the kitchen window before anyone said a word.
She was halfway through a piece of toast, standing near the counter while Daddy made eggs, when movement near the garden caught her eye.
Jennie was there.
María stopped chewing.
Daddy noticed.
"You okay?"
María nodded.
His eyes followed hers toward the window.
"Oh."
Papi looked over from the table.
"What?"
Daddy tipped his chin toward the backyard.
"Her friend's back."
María looked at him.
There was no surprise in his voice.
No teasing either.
Just that same calm way adults sometimes said things when they had already noticed more than María realized.
Papi looked outside, then back at her.
"Well," he said. "Looks like she found you again."
María turned toward the window.
Jennie was still there.
Waiting.
María finished her toast faster than she meant to.
Mateo came into the kitchen wearing one sock and carrying the other.
"Where's my charger?"
Daddy kept stirring the eggs.
"Good morning."
"I said good morning yesterday."
Papi took a sip of coffee.
"That should cover the week."
Mateo opened a drawer.
Then another.
Then one that had never contained a charger in the history of the house.
"Seriously, where is it?"
"Where did you leave it?" Papi asked.
"If I knew that, I wouldn't be asking."
"That logic is hard to argue with."
Mateo rolled his eyes.
María almost smiled.
Then he noticed where she was looking.
"What?"
She shook her head.
Mateo glanced toward the backyard.
"Oh."
María looked at him.
"What?"
"Nothing."
He found the charger on the counter directly in front of him.
Daddy said nothing.
María carried her plate to the sink.
"Can I go outside?"
Daddy looked down.
"Shoes."
María followed his eyes.
Bare feet.
She went back for them.
When she stepped onto the porch a few minutes later, Jennie was near the steps.
"You came back."
Jennie sat beside her.
"Why wouldn't I?"
María looked out at the garden.
"I don't know."
Jennie waited.
María picked at the rubber edge of her sneaker.
"People leave."
The words slipped out before she could stop them.
Jennie didn't answer right away.
María liked that about her already.
Most people rushed to fix things.
Grandpa never had.
Jennie didn't either.
The garden looked worse in the morning.
Sunlight showed everything.
Dead leaves.
Bent cages.
A watering can tipped on its side.
One of Grandpa's gloves near the shed.
María stared at it.
"They're going through his stuff today."
"So?"
María looked at Jennie.
"So they're getting rid of things."
"That's not the same."
"It is."
"No, it isn't."
María frowned.
"You don't know."
Jennie gave a shrug that irritated her immediately.
"You're annoying."
"I know."
María looked away.
For some reason, that made her feel better.
Inside the house, a cabinet opened.
Then another.
Something ceramic clinked against something else.
María stiffened.
"They started."
Jennie glanced toward the house.
María stayed where she was.
"What if they throw something away that mattered?"
"Then go look."
"No."
Jennie waited.
"I don't want to."
Another cabinet opened.
María stood.
Jennie stood too.
Neither of them said anything.
They went inside.
Daddy was at the counter with three mugs lined up in front of him.
Papi had a cardboard box open on the floor.
María stopped in the doorway.
Daddy looked over.
"Hey."
She stared at the mugs.
One blue.
One white.
One with a faded fish on it.
Grandpa's.
"What are you doing?"
Papi turned toward her.
"Sorting."
"You're taking them."
"No," Daddy said. "We're deciding what stays here and what goes to family."
"That's taking them."
Papi opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
Daddy looked at him.
María hated that.
The look adults gave each other when they were deciding how much truth to use.
"I want the fish one."
Papi looked at the mug.
The handle was chipped.
The picture had faded so much the fish barely looked like a fish anymore.
"That one?"
"Yes."
He picked it up and held it out.
"Okay."
María blinked.
"Okay?"
"You can have it."
She took the mug with both hands.
It was heavier than she expected.
She held it against her chest.
Daddy leaned back against the counter.
"You don't have to ask permission for every little thing you want to remember him by."
María looked at him.
"What if I want all of it?"
Daddy's face changed.
Only a little.
But enough.
Papi sat down at the table.
"Come here."
María didn't move.
He didn't ask again.
After a moment, she went to him.
Papi wrapped one arm around her waist.
"You know we can't keep everything."
"You just said I could."
"I said you could keep things that matter to you."
"They all matter."
Papi looked at the mug in her hands.
"I know."
"No, you don't."
The words came out sharper than she meant.
Papi looked at her.
María expected him to correct her.
He didn't.
Instead he nodded once.
"You're right."
That stopped her.
Papi looked toward the box on the floor.
"I don't know exactly how this feels for you."
María swallowed.
"But I know how it feels for me."
She looked at him.
Papi's eyes were red around the edges.
Not crying.
Not now.
But close enough that María noticed.
For the first time, she understood that the boxes might be hurting him too.
Jennie sat near the doorway.
Quiet.
María looked back at the mug.
"I don't want his stuff gone."
Papi rested his hand over hers.
"It won't all be gone."
"That's not what I mean."
"I know."
Across the room, Daddy turned away and pretended to be interested in a stack of bowls.
Papi took a breath.
"You know what your grandpa used to say about keeping junk?"
María shook her head.
"That if you haven't used it in a year, throw it away."
"That's stupid."
Papi laughed.
A real laugh.
Small, but real.
"He also kept twenty-three screwdrivers."
Daddy turned around.
"Twenty-four."
Papi looked at him.
"You found another one?"
"In the laundry room."
"Why?"
"No idea."
María looked between them.
She almost smiled.
Papi pointed at the mug.
"And he refused to throw that thing out even after I told him the handle was going to fall off."
"He said coffee tasted better in ugly mugs," María said.
Papi smiled.
"There you go."
María looked down.
She remembered Grandpa holding the mug.
His thumb through the chipped handle.
Steam rising past his face.
The memory hurt.
But not the same way the chair did.
This one had sound in it.
She could almost hear him complaining about instant coffee.
"Can I keep this one?"
Papi nodded.
"That one is yours."
María carried it into the living room.
Jennie followed.
María set the mug on the little table beside Grandpa's chair.
Then she sat on the floor.
Jennie sat beside her.
María rested her head against the side of the chair.
For a while they were quiet.
Then María picked up the mug again.
She turned it in her hands.
Something moved inside.
A faint scrape.
María frowned.
"What?"
Jennie leaned closer.
María tipped the mug.
Nothing fell out.
She looked inside.
There was a round cork coaster stuck to the bottom.
"I never noticed that before."
Jennie looked at her.
"You sure?"
"Pretty sure."
María slipped a fingernail under the edge and pulled.
The coaster came free.
Something had been folded beneath it.
A small square of paper.
María stopped breathing.
"What is it?" Jennie asked.
"I don't know."
She unfolded it carefully.
Grandpa's handwriting covered one side.
Only five words.
María read them once.
Then again.
Start where we always started.
Jennie looked at her.
María looked toward the backyard.
Toward the garden.
Her heart began beating faster.
"I know where."
Jennie smiled.
And for the first time since Grandpa died, María wanted to find out what came next.
Chapter Three
The note stayed folded in María's pocket all through dinner.
She didn't tell anyone about it.
Not because she'd decided to keep it secret.
She just didn't have the words yet, and secrets were easier than explanations.
Mateo talked about a video game.
Papi asked about homework María didn't have.
Daddy made a joke about the mug's chip getting worse every year, which made Papi laugh so hard he had to put his fork down.
María ate faster than usual.
Jennie waited by the back door the whole time, like she knew what was coming.
As soon as the dishes were cleared, María slipped outside.
The evening light had gone soft and orange, the kind that made ordinary things look like they were remembering themselves.
Jennie was already in the garden.
"You found the spot?" María asked.
"I didn't find anything. You did."
María frowned.
"You're supposed to help."
"I am helping."
"How?"
"I'm here."
María rolled her eyes, but she didn't argue.
She stood at the edge of the garden and looked at it properly for the first time since Grandpa died.
It had been his favorite place in the whole yard, maybe the whole world. He liked to say a garden was the only thing that punished you and rewarded you in the same season, and you never knew which one you'd get until it happened.
Start where we always started.
María closed her eyes and tried to remember.
Every visit to the garden had started the same way.
Grandpa would walk to the potting bench first.
Always the bench.
Never the tomatoes, never the fence, never the hose.
The bench.
María opened her eyes.
"There."
She crossed the grass to the wooden bench pushed against the fence. It was warped from years of weather, one leg propped up on a brick where the ground had sunk. Grandpa's trowel still lay on top, rusted at the edge.
María ran her hand along the underside of the bench.
Nothing.
She crouched and looked beneath it.
Weeds. A cracked terra-cotta pot. A rusted watering can lid.
"Nothing," she said.
Jennie sat a few feet away, watching.
"You're only looking where it's easy to look."
María turned around.
"That's not fair. I'm looking everywhere."
"You're looking where you can see. That's different."
María opened her mouth to argue, then stopped.
She looked again at the brick propping up the bench leg.
She'd never really looked at it before. It was just there, the way things Grandpa fixed with whatever was nearby were always just there.
She knelt down and touched it.
It moved.
Not much.
Just enough.
María's heart sped up.
She worked it loose and set it aside.
Behind it was a shallow hollow in the dirt, no bigger than her fist.
Something metal caught the last of the evening light.
"Jennie."
Jennie came closer and looked over her shoulder.
María reached into the hollow.
Her fingers found a small tin box, the kind that used to hold mints or hard candy, rusted at the corners but sealed shut. She pulled it free and sat back on her heels, holding it like it might not be real.
"Open it," Jennie said.
"I'm going to."
"You're just sitting there."
"I'm building up to it."
"Build faster."
María shot her a look, but her hands were already working at the lid, which had rusted just enough to stick.
It gave with a small pop.
Inside were three things.
A handful of seed packets, faded and curling at the corners. Beans. Marigolds. Something called Early Girl tomatoes, the paper gone soft with age.
A small notebook, no bigger than María's palm, its cover cracked and spotted with what might have been dirt or might have been years.
And a second folded note.
María set the seed packets and the notebook carefully in the grass beside her.
She unfolded the note.
Grandpa's handwriting again, a little shakier than the first note, like maybe this one had been written more recently, closer to the end.
Some things only grow after they've been buried awhile.
María read it twice.
Then she felt something hot and unfair rise up in her chest.
"I hate that," she said.
Jennie tilted her head.
"Why?"
"Because it's not even about the seeds."
"No."
"He's talking about me."
"Probably."
María's eyes stung.
"I don't want to be buried. I don't want to have to wait to grow. I want it to just be okay now."
Jennie didn't say anything right away.
María wiped her face with the back of her wrist, angry at herself for crying over five words on a piece of paper.
"You hate it because you understand it," Jennie finally said.
María looked at her.
"That doesn't make sense."
"Yes it does. If it didn't mean anything, you wouldn't be mad."
María wanted to argue.
She couldn't find a place to start.
She looked down at the little tin box, the seed packets, the small stiff notebook.
"Why would he leave me seeds?"
"Maybe he wanted you to plant something."
"I don't know how to garden."
"He probably knew that too."
María almost laughed. It came out messy, half a laugh and half something else.
She picked up the tiny notebook and turned it over in her hands. The cover was blank. No title, no name, nothing to explain what was inside. She opened to the first page.
Handwriting again. Smaller this time, cramped into narrow lines, like the notebook had never been meant for anyone else to read.
Dates.
Weather.
Planted beans, too early, will probably lose them to frost.
Tomatoes finally coming in. M. ate one straight off the vine and made a face like she'd been personally betrayed.
María stopped.
She read it again.
She remembered that. She remembered exactly that. She'd been eight, maybe seven, and the tomato had been warm from the sun and tasted nothing like the tomatoes from the store, and she'd spit it into her hand and Grandpa had laughed so hard he'd had to sit down on the bench.
She hadn't known he wrote it down.
She turned the page, and then another, feeling something in her chest go tight and strange, not quite sad and not quite happy, some third thing she didn't have a name for yet.
Jennie watched her read.
"There's more," María said quietly. "There's a lot more."
"You should probably take that inside before it gets too dark to see."
María looked up. The sky had gone from orange to a deep, bruised blue while she wasn't paying attention. The porch light had come on without her noticing anyone turn it on.
She closed the notebook carefully, the way you'd close something breakable, and held it against her chest along with the folded note.
"Are you coming?" she asked.
Jennie didn't answer right away.
"I'll be here."
María looked at her a moment longer, then gathered the tin and the seed packets and started for the house.
Halfway across the grass, she turned back.
Jennie was still sitting by the bench, a small shape in the near-dark, watching her go.
"Thank you," María said, not entirely sure what she was thanking her for.
"For what?"
"I don't know. Being here, I guess."
Jennie didn't answer that either.
But she didn't look away.
And María carried Grandpa's notebook inside like it was something alive.
SOME FRIENDS STAY WITH YOU FOREVER.
María remembers Jennie as the friend who was always there.
But memory has a way of keeping its own secrets.