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By Root 1258 0

but his older siblings had already passed away. None of her cousins still lived in Memphis. She had no obligations to visit anyone there. And how cool to discover that, when she and Ava visited, she actually liked the city of Memphis, found it fascinating, when she’d never appreciated it before. The wonderful old buildings downtown. The civil rights history. The place where the blues and rock and roll took off. The place where her parents had lived together for a year, and where her mother had come, as a young girl, to seek her fortune. A whole new old world lay before Caroline, waiting to be explored. She loved being a stranger in her own hometown. Because Memphis was her hometown, even though she’d lived there only until she was two.

She simply had to live in Memphis for a while. Had to.

Caroline was standing there, in Ava’s doorway, on the verge of screaming at her daughter once again, when she heard a voice behind her.

“Does she like the book?” Nance asked.

Caroline hadn’t heard the woman approach, wondered what she was doing at this end of the house.

“I was looking for the little girls’ room,” Nance said, laying a hand on her elbow. “Your daddy fell asleep.”

Ava, hearing a voice other than her mother’s bothersome one, glanced up and smiled her brilliant smile.

Caroline felt something inside her settle a little. All she wanted was for Ava to be happy. And to have her own place in the world. Well, that wasn’t all she wanted. She herself wanted to wander free in Memphis, tethered, only lightly, to Ava.

“Thanks for the book,” Ava said to Nance.

“It was very nice of you,” Caroline said to Nance. Then she turned to Ava. “But right now you need to put it down and study for your algebra test.”

“Just let me finish this,” Ava said.

It was one thing to be ignored when she was alone, and another to be ignored in front of an audience. She wanted her could-be mother to see that she’d become a good parent in spite of being abandoned as a baby. “You need to do it now,” Caroline told Ava in her stern voice.

“Okay!” Ava hurled the book across the room. It slammed into her bookcase and landed, open and pages folded, on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Caroline said to Nance. She walked over to the book, picked it up, smoothed the pages, wanting to howl and gnash her teeth and laugh at the same time. “Ava doesn’t like math. Her tutor is on vacation.”

“It doesn’t make any sense!” Ava said. “Who cares what X equals?”

Caroline agreed but knew better than to say so.

“I used to teach algebra,” Nance said from the doorway. “Many moons ago. How about if I help you study?”

Ava didn’t say anything, but her relaxed face told Caroline what she needed to know.

Caroline sat down on the carpet, clutching the Elvis book, which was shaped like a phonograph album. It was a bit strange that Nance would volunteer to tutor Ava—unless Ava actually was her long-lost grandchild. Either way, if it made things easier on Ava—and Caroline—and if it helped Ava pass algebra so she could get into Rhodes, then why would she say no? She’d see that they studied here, so how much trouble could they get in? “We’d pay you what we pay Laura,” Caroline said.

“Oh, no,” Nance said. “Just leave us alone for an hour and I double-dog guarantee she’ll do fine on that exam.”

“It’s only a couple of days away,” Ava said, sliding to the edge of her bed.

“Let’s not get our hopes up too high,” Caroline said, but for the second time that morning Nance—Mrs. Archer, Mary, Mom, whoever she was—had caused her to feel lighter, less burdened; and as she sat there cross-legged on the floor, she could almost feel herself levitating, like those transcendental meditation people in Fairfield, Iowa, who claimed they could fly.

* * *

On the following Saturday, Caroline and her father and Nance worked in the yard. Caroline and Vic’s property had been landscaped and well tended by the previous owner, so all Caroline’s family had to do was maintain it. The backyard didn’t take much work, being mostly ferns and monkey grass and English ivy shaded by live oak trees, so they usually focused