No Place Like Home

Gracie is almost four. She has short mousy brown hair like a boy and big brown eyes. Gracie likes her Strawberry Shortcake book, her Barbie doll and the big blue Smurf her Daddy gave her the last time he came for a visit. Gracie lives with her Mommy, her Grandma and her Grandpa in the upstairs part of her house. Her uncle Luke and his girlfriend, Donna, live in the downstairs part of the house. Uncle Luke and Donna have a black puppy called Ben that jumps on her and licks her face. Gracie shares a bedroom with her Mommy. Gracie's Mommy is a really good drawer, and sometimes when her Mommy isn't sad, draws pictures for her. Gracie's Mommy also used to like to brush Gracie's hair when it was long, but Gracie cut off her ponytail by accident. That's when everything changed. Gracie had found some scissors and wanted to practice her cutting, but her Mommy was lying on their bed, smoking a cigarette and not listening. Grandma was at her job at the hospital, where she took care of sick people. Grandpa was in his big brown chair watching TV, and there were one, two, three beers on the table next to him, so it wasn't smart to bug him. Gracie had a good idea that she could give herself a haircut. She pulled up her little stool to the bathroom sink, climbed high up onto the counter so she could see in the mirror and started cutting right below the ribbon that held her hair together. It was tricky to do and hard to balance on her knees, but after cutting and cutting, the whole ponytail fell off. When she tried to put it back on, it wouldn't stick and she got scared and tried to hide her hair in the toilet, but only some of it flushed down. Her Mommy came in then and cried and cried, saying, "What have you done?" over and over and over. Gracie remembered the time her Mommy came home with new curly hair that was coloured bright yellow instead of being the same as Gracie's. Her Grandpa was mad at her Mommy and yelled, "You're not my daughter! Get out of my house!" Would that mean that Gracie wasn't Mommy's daughter anymore? She tried to say sorry but her Mommy went far, far away in her eyes, pushed past Gracie and flushed the toilet. Gracie watched as the rest of her hair went around and around in a circle and disappeared.

Gracie cutting her hair made everyone mad. That night when they were sitting in the kitchen, waiting for dinner, Gracie's Mommy wasn't talking to her. Instead, she sat staring at the wall, with a cigarette in her hand. Gracie was worried the burned up bit would fall on Mommy's plate, but she didn't dare say anything. Dinner was ready, and Grandma asked Mommy to put the food on the table. Bang! Mommy slammed the potatoes on the table. Bang! Mommy slammed the peas on the table. Bang! Mommy slammed the ham on the table. Grandma yelled, "Stop it, Caroline!" Gracie kept very quiet and didn't move, not even kicking her legs back and forth and only tracing a line with her finger across the flower pattern on the plate in front of her to help stay still. Her uncle Luke came upstairs, shouting, "We are trying to study! What's going on?" Then there was a lot more shouting and Donna came upstairs, and she picked up Gracie and took her downstairs. Over Donna's shoulder, Gracie could see Mommy and Luke shouting at each other and Mommy pushing the peas off the table so they went crash on the floor and rolled everywhere, even under the fridge. And then Mommy and Luke were on the stairs, but Mommy's feet weren't on the ground. Luke was holding Mommy by the neck and pushing her against the wall. Mommy's face was red and Grandma was shouting at him to stop. Donna brought Gracie into a room where Ben was whining and said, "look after Ben for me, Gracie," then she shut the door and left them alone. Gracie gave Ben a pet and a hug, and he licked her face so no one could tell she was crying. Later on when it was quiet and Mommy had gone to bed, Grandma gave Gracie a bowl of ice cream for dinner.

Mommy wasn't Mommy for a long time after that. Then one morning, Mommy took Gracie for a walk to the playground. It was a long walk and they had to go down, down, down a hill and up, up, up another hill to get there, which made Gracie's legs very tired. On the way, Mommy said to Gracie, "Gracie, Mommy loves you very much, but Mommy isn't feeling very well right now." "Why Mommy?"

"Mommy's just very sad"

"Because I cut my hair? I'm sorry Mommy."

"No, baby, not because you cut your hair. Although that was very silly." Her Mommy tried to smile a real Mommy smile for her, but her eyes looked sad behind her big glasses.