"Oh," said Claudia.

"Too bad," Kristy sympathized.

"But you did look nice in April's gla.s.ses," Claudia said. - "Lots of people have to wear them," added Kristy.

I could tell they were trying to make it seem as if it were okay that I needed gla.s.ses, but they really didn't think so. Didn't they think it would be fun to wear gla.s.ses?

Sat.u.r.day morning, on the way to the eye doctor, my father asked me to read him the signs on shops we pa.s.sed. "Your distance vision seems fine," he said. He patted me on the leg. "Don't worry, honey, whatever the problem is with your vision, gla.s.ses will take care of it. I think you'll look very nice in gla.s.ses. A real intellectual."

"Thanks, Dad," I said. I wasn't sure what I was - thanking him for-. I was too nervous to carry on an intelligent -conversation. What if I couldn't fail the vision test? Would the doctor know that -I had cheated in order to fail it in school? Would he tell my father and report me to the school authorities? - There was a man, another child and his mother, and a receptionist in the doctor's waiting room. Near the receptionist's desk I no- ticed a rack of gla.s.ses frames. I went over to look at them.

"The ones on the two bottom rows are your size," the receptionist said. "There aren't any lenses in them. You're welcome to try them on."

I would finally be able to see how I looked in real gla.s.ses! I tried on the red frames first.

I looked in the mirror expecting to be pleased by what I saw. But I wasn't. My whole face was covered with two red circles. I didn't look great in gla.s.ses after all. In fact, I thought I looked terrible. I tried on the horn-rimmed gla.s.ses. I looked like a rac.o.o.n!

I didn't see any frames that were dull silver like Ms. Elison's. Suddenly, I didn't want gla.s.ses. First of all, I didn't think I looked good in them. And secondly, they didn't make me feel less shy after all. I was totally embarra.s.sed standing there trying them on. In fact they made me feel more shy.

"Why don't you try on that pink pair?" suggested the receptionist. "They're second from the right in the first row."

"No, thanks," I mumbled. I made a beeline for the chair next to my dad's What was I going to do? I didn't want gla.s.ses, but I had failed the vision test at school and now I was at the eye doctor's. I decided that I would do the best I could on the test. I would pa.s.s it on purpose and I wouldn't need- gla.s.ses. My only problem then was that the doctor might tell my father and my school that I must have failed the other test on purpose. Still, I made up my mind to pa.s.s the doctor's vision test. I didn't want gla.s.ses. Period. The end. I shuddered remembering how awful I looked in them.

"Did you like any of the frames?" my father asked.

"Nope," I answered. I swung my feet back and forth and studied my lap. "They all look awful."

"Cheer up," he said. "Maybe you won't need gla.s.ses."

I looked up at him and grinned. My father wouldn't be upset that he took me all the way to the doctor to learn that I didn't need gla.s.ses.

"I bet I don't need them, either," I told him. "Mary Anne Spier," the nurse announced. "This way, please."

"I'll wait here," my dad said.

I followed the receptionist down the hall and into the examining room.

"I'm Dr. Crews," said the young man who greeted me. He pointed to a chair that reminded me of the haircutting chairs in beauty parlors. "Sit here, Mary Anne." The room was filled with all kinds of equipment, including the machine that April had described.

The first part of the test was similar to the vision chart at school. Rows of letters, like those on the chart, were projected on the wall one line at a time. I did great for a whole bunch of lines. Then there was a row of letters that I couldn't read. But they were such tiny letters, I figured no one else could have read them either.

For the next part of the test, Dr. Crews pulled a machine down in front of my eyes and had me look through it. Then he put in lenses and asked me to look at the wall again. He projected on the wall two identical rows of letters that he called "one" and "two" and asked me which was clearer. This -part of the test went on for a long time. I couldn't wait for the eye test to be over and for Dr. Crews to tell my father that I didn't need gla.s.ses. Maybe I'd ask my dad to bring me to the park so I could meet up with - my friends and tell them the good news.

"Well, Mary Anne," Dr. Crews said. "We're almost finished here." He swung the machine away from my eyes. "Your school nurse was correct in recognizing that you need gla.s.ses, but you'll only need them for reading." He put a pair of heavy gla.s.ses on my face and handed me a page with paragraphs in different-sized print. "Read the third paragraph for me," he said. I did. Then he took the gla.s.ses off. "Now read it." Without the gla.s.ses the words were all fuzzy and I had to strain to read it. Dr. Crews was right. I needed gla.s.ses. He was writing something on a prescription pad. "Let's go explain everything to your father," Dr. Crews said.

I couldn't believe it. Gla.s.ses? Me? I thought I had great vision! I had only wanted gla.s.ses for the fun of it and because I thought I'd look good in gla.s.ses. But now I didn't want to have anything to do with gla.s.ses.

Still, half an hour later I was at Washington Mall going into a store called Out of Sight Eyewear.

"They can have your lenses made up in an hour," my dad explained. "But first you have to pick out frames."

Out of Sight Eyewear had hundreds of frames. I didn't know where to begin. "Let's ask for help," my dad suggested.

A young woman handed me frame after frame. I was so upset by the idea of having to wear gla.s.ses that it was hard to pick out frames. As far as I was concerned every pair I tried on looked terrible on me. Finally, I narrowed my choice down to three frames. I tried each of them on for my dad. "You pick," I told him.

"The pair with the brown rims," he said. "Ilike the way they match your hair."

Dad and I walked around the mall and ate pizza while my gla.s.ses were being made up. I was pretty depressed. I'd even missed playing with my friends at the park. They'd have left by now. But an hour later I owned a pair of horn-rimmed gla.s.ses in a bright blue case.

"I'm glad we caught your vision problem early on," my dad said as we drove onto Bradford Court. "It would be a shame to have you straining your eyes to read. That could create an even worse problem."

"Uh-huh," I said. I opened the car door and stepped out. It was a beautiful fall afternoon, but I wasn't happy. I hated that I had to wear gla.s.ses.

Kristy's three-year-old brother, David Michael, ran toward me. "Mary Anne, Mary Anne, I want to see your gla.s.ses."

"How do you know I have gla.s.ses?" I asked. "Kristy said. Please, I want to see your gla.s.ses."

I opened my blue case and showed David Michael the gla.s.ses. "Put them on," he ordered.

I did. Even in front of a three-year-old kid I felt myself blush. David Michael grinned at me and said, "You look like a grown-up."

"Thanks," I said. "See you later."

I took my gla.s.ses off and turned to go into the house. David Michael pulled on my jacket.

"You have to go show Kristy," David Michael told me. "Kristy said."

After telling my dad where I was going, I went over to the Thomases' and up to Kristy's room. Claudia, Kristy, and April were sitting on the floor with their backs to me. I could see they were cutting out something, but I couldn't tell what it was. Kristy wasn't the type to play with paper dolls. And I didn't think April was either. I decided that Claudia had gotten them involved in an art project.

"Hi," I greeted them. "I'm back." The three of them turned around and looked up at me through huge, handmade cardboard gla.s.ses frames. "Hi!" they shouted.

"We made a pair for you," Claudia said. "Put them on." She handed me a pair of bright red cardboard frames decorated with sequins and tiny stars.

We stood at Kristy's bureau mirror and looked at ourselves. We totally cracked up.

When we finally stopped laughing, Claudia asked, "Did you need gla.s.ses, Mary Anne?"

I nodded. "For reading."

"Mine are for distance," said April. "Let's see yours."

I opened the case and showed them.

"Put them on," they ordered in unison.

I took off the goofy gla.s.ses and put on my real gla.s.ses.

"They look neat on you," said Claudia.

"The brown frames match your hair," added April.

"You look so smart in gla.s.ses," said Kristy. "People can tell you like to read and everything."

"Just like Ms. Elison," April remarked. I can tell when my friends are telling the truth and when they're saying something just to make a person feel better. They were telling the truth about my gla.s.ses.

"Thanks," I said.

I took my gla.s.ses off, put them carefully back in their case, and snapped the case closed. Maybe wearing gla.s.ses wouldn't be so bad after all.

Chapter 6.

My dad and I rarely talked about my mother. I knew that was because it made him sad. But I was sad, too - sad that I hardly knew anything about my own mother. I wasn't even sure what she looked like. There weren't any pictures of her around the house. I vaguely remembered seeing a photo alb.u.m of their wedding, but it was so long ago that I couldn't even remember when or how I happened to see it.

When Stoneybrook was preparing for Heritage Day I became even more curious about my mother. My friends and the kids we babysit for were looking into their own family histories. 'Mine was one big blank.

Then I had the idea to look through boxes in our attic to see if my father had saved anything that would tell me about my family history. I knew it was a sneaky thing to do, but I felt it was the only way I could learn about my own roots. So one afternoon, when I was alone in the house, I checked out the attic. Most of the boxes up there belong to Sharon and Dawn, but finally I spotted an old cardboard box that was labeled "Miscellaneous" in my father's neat handwriting.

The first thing I found in the box was a photo alb.u.m. I opened it. The first few pages were photos of my parents' wedding. Seeing my mother's picture took my breath away. Even though she's an adult in those pictures I could see that I looked like her. Soon I came to a few photos of my parents with me as an infant.

Next came two pages of pictures- of baby-me with another couple. I looked carefully at their faces, but I didn't recognize them. In one photo, I'm on the shoulder of the man who's, standing between two high rows of corn. In another, the woman and I are petting a baby goat. In still another, I'm sitting on a porch step between the man and woman. Who were those people? Where did they live? And what was I doing with them?

Next came two pages of pictures of a birthday party. I was in all the pictures. I was sure it was me because I had on my "Mary Anne" necklace. The birthday cake had a single big candle. These were pictures taken at a party celebrating my first birthday! There were about a dozen adults and children whom I didn't recognize, including the mystery couple. But my father wasn't in any of those photos. Why not? There were two more pages of me in the alb.u.m. Sometimes I'm alone and sometimes I'm with the man and woman. Who were they?

"Mary Anne!" a voice shouted. I was startled out of the past. It was my father. He and Sharon were home!

I flushed with nervousness and shame. I didn't want them to know that I was snooping in the attic. I quickly shut the box, ran out of the attic, and yelled down the stairs. "I'm in my room. I went to bed early." I did go to bed after that. But I didn't sleep. I was more confused than ever about my past.

I didn't return to the attic the next day or the day after that. For the next week, as I. helped my baby-sitting charges explore their own family histories, I tried to shove aside the questions I had about mine. But I couldn't forget the photos I'd seen, and at odd moments I would remember the box in the attic and wonder what other secrets it held about my past.

I was also thinking a lot about my mother. I realized that I didn't even know where her grave was in the cemetery. Mimi had died recently. I thought about how the Kishis often visited her gravesite. I wanted to visit my own mother's grave.

One afternoon I biked to the cemetery to look for it. I searched up and down rows and rows of grave markers, but I couldn't find a gravestone for Alma Baker Spier. I ended up crying over Mimi's grave. I realize now that losing Mimi was one of the reasons that I had been thinking about my own mother so much lately. In a lot of ways, Mimi had replaced the mother I never knew. Now Mimi was gone, too, and one loss was reminding me of the other. - - - When I left the cemetery I headed directly home to revisit the box in the attic. I wanted to learn whatever I could about my past, even if it was confusing and painful. And believe me, what I learned in the attic that afternoon was confusing and painful.

First, I looked at the pictures again. But they didn't tell me any more than they had before. So I opened another box which was marked "Correspondence." I took out a bundle of letters that lay on top and were all addressed to my father. I sat back on my heels and began to read them.

I figured out from those letters that the man and woman were Verna and Bill Baker. They were my mother's parents, which made them my grandparents! I learned that after my mother's funeral, my father had asked them to take care of me. They'd agreed and taken me with them to their farm in Iowa. Verna and Bill had raised me instead of my own father! I was shocked by this news. Why hadn't my father told me that I didn't live with him when I was little? Why had he given me away in the first place? How could he?

I read a couple of letters from Verna telling my father little details about my baby life. In one letter she went on for a whole page about how I'd taken my first step before my first birthday. I guess ,she didn't realize that he didn't care. After all, he hadn't even bothered to go to my first birthday party. He didn't want me!

Realizing that my father had given me away was so upsetting that I ran out of the attic without going through the- rest of the box. It was difficult to face my father at dinner, but I managed to pretend nothing was wrong. I couldn't sleep that night thinking about how my father had given me away. I was also perplexed. Why had he taken me back? Had my grandparents died and he had no choice? Was the only reason that I lived with my father because he couldn't find anyone else to take care of me? - Around two in the morning I returned to the attic to find the answers to these questions. What I learned made me feel a little better -at least temporarily. The rest of the letters from Verna to my father told me that when I was about eighteen months old my father told my grandparents he was ready to take care of me himself. My grandparents were afraid my father couldn't handle raising a child on his own. But my father insisted that I belonged with him and even hired a lawyer to explain it to my grandparents. (That's the part that made me feel better.) My grandparents were unhappy about giving me up, but finally they agreed and I moved back to Bradford Court. I put the letters back in the box.

The next afternoon I accidentally overheard a phone conversation between Verna Baker -my grandmother - and my father. Had my father been in touch with her all these years? I wondered. And if so, why hadn't he told me about my grandparents and why hadn't I ever seen them the way other kids see their grandparents?

By listening in on their phone call, I learned that my grandmother and father hadn't spoken to one another for many years. My grandmother was calling now to. tell my dad that my grandfather had died. She said that she wished my grandfather had seen me before he died and that she wanted me to visit her now. My father - objected and said that it wouldn't be good for me. Verna sounded angry and scolded-my dad.

Quietly I hung up the phone. I was afraid they'd hear me crying. I couldn't believe it.

My grandmother was alive. The one who hadn't wanted to give me up eleven and a half years ago. And now she wanted me back. But she didn't sound like a nice grandmother. She sounded mean.

It took a day or two for me to build up the courage to confront my father about what I had learned from the box in the attic and from the phone conversation he'd had with my grandmother. I needed his rea.s.surance that he really did want me to live with him. And I had to tell him my fear that my grandmother had some legal claim to me. Would I have to go live with her?

My father was - pretty surprised about my discoveries. But he also - seemed relieved to have everything about my past out in the open. He explained that I wouldn't have to live with my grandmother - whether she wanted it or not. But as far as he could tell, all she wanted was for me to spend a few weeks with her. She didn't want to die without knowing her only grandchild. I asked him why, if she was so anxious to see me, they hadn't kept in touch with us all those years.

My father said that at first my grandparents were very angry at him for taking me away. "And Iowa is clear across the country," he added. "They -couldn't have seen you without seeing me. If they lived nearby it might have been different."

"But lots of kids only see their grandparents once a year," I protested.

My father explained that losing me was a big loss for Verna and Bill. "And it came on top of losing their own daughter," he said. "I guess they felt visiting you only once a year or so just would have made them sadder. We could all see you were going to look like your mother."

I learned then that I reminded my father of my mother. But he said he liked that, and he thought my grandmother would, too. We hugged and cried.

After that conversation I thought about my grandmother a lot. I loved the idea that I had a grandmother - a grandmother who had loved and cared for me when I was an infant.

A grandmother who - even though she wanted to raise me herself - agreed to let me return to my own father. I wondered if I would love her as much as I loved Mimi. Of course I would, I thought. She's my own flesh and blood. She's my mother's mother.

I'd done a lot of snooping around to learn my family history. But there was still one letter - the most important letter - that I hadn't read. It was a letter my mother wrote to me before she died. She'd told my father to give it to me when I was sixteen. But he decided that if she had known how mature I'd be at thirteen, she would want me to have it. He called me into his study and gave it to me.

The letter is four pages long. Here's a part of it: After I finished reading my mother's letter (and crying) I went to find my father. He was sitting on his couch in his study, in exactly the same position he was in when I'd left him half an hour before. I knew he'd been thinking about how my mother was speaking to me from the past through her letter. He must have remembered the day she wrote it and asked him to save it for me. I could see that he'd been crying, too.

I spoke first. "Thank you for giving me my mother's letter. You can read it if you want." He shook his head no.

I sat next to him on the couch. "1 want to know all about her, Dad. But don't worry, I won't ask you a lot of questions. I know it's hard for you to talk about her."

He looked at me with sad eyes. "It's okay, honey," he said. "Ask me anything. I only want what's best for you."

"I want to visit my grandmother," I said.

A wave of hurt and panic crossed his face, but I continued anyway. "I want to be with her. Especially now that Bill . . . my grandfather. . . is dead. She's all alone in the world. Please, Dad."

He cleared his throat. "I don't know, Mary Anne. I don't know if that's such a good idea." His voice sounded far away, as if he were talking to himself. "I guess we all made the wrong decision by not keeping you in touch with your grandparents. But that was what Verna and Bill wanted. They could have written a letter or picked up the phone at any time, just as Verna did yesterday." There was fear in his eyes. "What if you go there and don't want to come back? If you wanted to live with her, I'd have to let you."

"I'm not going there to live with her, Dad," I said. "I'm just going for a visit. Don't you think my mother would want me to go?"

"Yes," he whispered, "of course she would." He was silent for a few seconds, then he said, "Maybe you could go next winter. During school vacation."

"I want to go as soon as possible," I said. "Before school starts. I can't wait to meet my grandmother."

I could see, that my wanting to visit my grandmother hurt my father's feelings. But I didn't understand 'why. I thought my dad was being selfish. He'd had me to himself all these years. Now it was Verna's turn to spend some time with her very own granddaughter. The granddaughter she'd - wan-ted to raise and hadn't seen in eleven years.

The next day my father bought me a round trip plane ticket to Iowa. "Verna will meet you at the airport," he told me. "You leave in two days. Is that soon enough?"

I gave him a big hug. "Thank you, Dad," I said.