\u201cMake yourself at home!\u201d Mary Frances said. She dropped my suitcase by the shoe rack and waited for me to step inside.<\/p>\n
Home? <\/em>I thought. I\u2019ll never feel at home. <\/em>I tiptoed through the double doors into the living room. Sunlight streamed through the windows, reflecting off the glass tabletops and polished lamps. Everything was so neat, so organized, so normal. <\/em>Not like where I was coming from.<\/p>\n My family never opened the windows\u2013they covered them with blinds and curtains. They had secrets they didn\u2019t want the world to know, like their addiction to drinking and prescription pills. It was the seventies, and the inside of our house looked like some kind of lifestyle experiment gone bad.<\/p>\n When I was in sixth grade, my older brothers and I became wards of the state. I went to live in Vidor, Texas, with a foster family\u2013Jimmy, Debbie and their two young daughters.<\/p>\n They did their best to make me comfortable, but I spent most of my weekends babysitting the girls rather than getting to know my sixth-grade classmates. It was a hectic existence for an 11-year-old kid like me.<\/p>\n Then one day a shiny tan Cadillac pulled into the driveway and out stepped Mary Frances, Jimmy\u2019s mother. She had driven almost four hours from Austin to visit her granddaughters, but she still looked fresh in her tailored tan pantsuit, her white-blonde hair fashioned into a puffy bouffant.<\/p>\n Man, <\/em>I thought, she has style. <\/em>I mean, a suit that matched her car?<\/p>\n \u201cYou must be Carolyn,\u201d she said, looking me square in the eyes. Her fabulous bouffant bounced as she bent toward me. That day, she offered to take me to live with her at her condo for the summer.<\/p>\n Why is a woman like Mary Frances interested in an awkward kid like me? <\/em>I wondered. Was my foster family just passing me along? Getting rid of me or something?<\/p>\n \u201cWell?\u201d Mary Frances asked. \u201cWould you like that? We\u2019ll have a real good time, I swear.\u201d<\/p>\n I looked at her and her bouffant and nodded.<\/p>\n Now I wondered what I had gotten myself into. There wasn\u2019t a speck of dust in Mary Frances\u2019s condo, no clutter anywhere. I\u2019d never lived in a place like that before.<\/p>\n In my bedroom there was a big bed covered with a fluffy white blanket. An oak dresser fit neatly by the window. I opened one of the drawers: paper-lined and lavender-scented.<\/p>\n \u201cThis will be your bathroom, dear,\u201d Mary Frances said. She pointed to a door inside the bedroom.<\/p>\n My own bathroom? <\/em>I peeked in at the sunken bathtub, marble sink and white shag rug. What if I trailed dirt on the carpet? Or left toothpaste on the counter? Would I be sent away?<\/p>\n That night on the big white bed, I kept my body stiff as a board. I didn\u2019t want to mess anything up. I could hear Mary Frances fussing around in her room. Fitfully I drifted off to sleep.<\/p>\n The next morning, Mary Frances offered to take me on a mini shopping spree at Dillard\u2019s.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t have to, ma\u2019am,\u201d I protested. I didn\u2019t want to take advantage.<\/p>\n \u201cI know that, honey,\u201d she said. \u201cBut you could use a few new things. Come on.\u201d<\/p>\n At the store, Mary Frances asked a saleslady to help us, like our own personal shopping assistant. I didn\u2019t know you could do that!<\/p>\n I\u2019d been to department stores before. But this was totally different. I actually got to pick stuff out. I actually got to try stuff on. I found a linen summer dress dotted with pink and blue daisies.<\/p>\n \u201cNow find something else you like,\u201d Mary Frances instructed. She was dauntless.<\/p>\n Something else? <\/em>I marveled. The choices overwhelmed me\u2013everything from hot pants to bell-bottoms. I settled on a tan pantsuit, just like Mary Frances\u2019s. The clerk showed me to a fitting room. I tried on the summer dress first\u2013a perfect fit\u2013and emerged, twirling tentatively.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWell!\u201d Mary Frances exclaimed. \u201cWho\u2019s that pretty young lady?\u201d The clerk nodded in approval.<\/p>\n Before we checked out, Mary Frances added a nightgown, a peach-colored two-piece bathing suit and a leather-fringed purse\u2013not to mention my first adult undergarments. Finally, someone had noticed I was growing up! I couldn\u2019t wait to fold my new clothes in the dresser drawers back at the condo.<\/p>\n Little by little, Mary Frances put me at ease. I started to trust her because she trusted me. She let me pick out whatever I wanted to eat for dinner and gave me lessons in etiquette\u2013which fork to use when, the proper way to cut with a knife, the straight-backed posture she said was appropriate for a young lady.<\/p>\n She took me swimming and brought me to the library, where she volunteered. Mary Frances was like the grandmother I never had. And she had that personal style\u2013both unique and traditional. I\u2019d never met anyone like her.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve got a surprise for you,\u201d Mary Frances said one day. We drove in her Caddy and I tried not to squirm in suspense. She pulled into the movie theater.<\/p>\n Spelled out in backlit letters on the marquee was Star Wars, <\/em>the movie I\u2019d been dying to see all summer! My secret crush was Luke Skywalker, the main character in the Star Wars <\/em>novelization I\u2019d read about five times by then.<\/p>\n Sitting in the movie theater next to Mary Frances, a bucket of popcorn between us as we traveled to a galaxy far, far away, was the closest I\u2019d ever come to heaven on earth. It was one of those moments you wanted to live in forever.<\/p>\n Normally, I didn\u2019t intrude on Mary Frances, but that night I felt so happy I poked my head into her room to say goodnight. What I saw horrified me.<\/p>\n \u201cMary Frances!\u201d I gasped.<\/p>\n She sat before her bedroom mirror, applying night cream to her face\u2013but what had happened to her beautiful blonde hair? She was completely bald!<\/p>\n She looked up and saw she had forgotten to pull the door shut. A moment passed that was as awkward as the other one had been perfect.<\/p>\n \u201cI was sick, dear,\u201d she said softly. \u201cI had a brain tumor.\u201d<\/p>\n I could see the long, ugly scar. Her wig rested on a foam head. I knew it was impolite to stare, but I couldn\u2019t look away. How could something so terrible happen to a person as perfect as Mary Frances?<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a rough illness, Carolyn, but I survived it,\u201d she said. \u201cJust as you will survive what\u2019s happened in your life. God will help you. He helped me. I wouldn\u2019t be here otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n She pulled me into a hug. I let myself go, leaning on her shoulder, and let loose all my tears.<\/p>\n After that summer, I went back to live at my foster parents\u2019 house. But they got separated, and I went to live in a different home. Over time I lost track of Mary Frances.<\/p>\n But not really. You never really lose a person you trust and love, and who loves you back. I remember so much about Mary Frances\u2013her pantsuits, her perfectly polished furniture, her big tan Caddy.<\/p>\n What I remember most, though, is that beautiful bouffant resting on its wig stand while the two of us in our nightgowns hugged for what seemed like forever.<\/p>\n