Chapter 4
It’s the last week of October and I was supposed to have a sleepover at Ashford’s house, but Martin and Edwin are turning seven this week and the twins are everything that matters at home now.
I’m once again forgotten.
Grandma Bergman is visiting from Norway for the first time since my brother was born and when Mom and Daddy introduce her to baby Erik, she starts crying.
“Just like Grandpa,” she tells Daddy and he nods proudly.
Nobody ever looks at me that way. I could never compete with the twins before and now I guess I cannot compete with baby Erik either. He is named after the Norwegian grandfather I have never met.
Martin and Edwin start running in circles around me and they make fun of me. They scream all kinds of mean things: “Ashley is a girl;” “three brothers and a sister;” “loser, loser.”
Mom is grinning in the background. She never takes the twins seriously. She is quieter than usual, because she and Grandma Bergman never got along and used to fight a lot before we left Norway and moved to England.
Daddy doesn’t like it, and as soon as Grandma goes for a nap in my bedroom, he hisses at Mom. “Be fucking nice, Sarah.”
Mom shrinks under him like she always does, and she holds baby Erik at her chest like it is her shield. But he must be scared, too, and when Erik starts crying Daddy is more annoyed and lifts a hand in the air.
That’s when mom calls me out loud. “Ashley?”
I run as fast as I can and she hands me baby Erik. He clings at me with his mushy arms and wet chin and he weighs nothing. I feel bad for Erik and my hate disintegrates.
“Go play,” Mom tells me and then, I am invisible for the rest of the day.
The only one who seems to remember me is my friend Ashford. His dad phones home the day after the twins’ birthday.
Mom calls me in the kitchen. She’s not wearing glasses, because Daddy broke another pair when he slapped them off her face last night. “Gregory Hale asks if you want to go for a sleepover with Ashford,” she tells me and Daddy looks at her with one of his faces.
I know not to say anything and wait until they make a decision for me. Daddy looks at me and starts shaking his head, but Mom adds, “It’s one less for dinner.”
Daddy bites his lower lip then, really sinking the teeth in as if that is the only way to stop his anger. It’s the first of many times I see him do this and my stomach grumbles.
“Okay.” He leaves the kitchen without another word.
???
Before coming to England, I never really celebrated Halloween.
Ashford tells me he never celebrates either, but when we sit down on his couch and watch Nightmare Before Christmas, he knows all of the songs.
Most of the words he gets wrong and when I tell him, he throws marshmallows at me.
I catch one with my open mouth, but half of them fall on the floor and it makes him laugh.
We play catch in his dining-room until it is almost bedtime and then, we brush our teeth and go into his room. Ashford tells me about skeletons and how pumpkins are just his favourite because they are the same colour as his hair.
He also tells me his dad will take him door-to-door to ask for sweeties tomorrow. “You could come as well,” he offers.
I know Daddy won’t let me go out two days in a row, so I just shrug and hope Ashford will not ask again.
After we brush our teeth, Ashford and I sit down on the carpet of his bedroom floor to play UNO, and I am winning only because I got two plus four in a row.
Ashford is concentrating extra hard because he’s the one who always wins.
I am scared that if I win, he will be angry at me and stop being my friend.
“Ash?”
I turn around and I feel Ashford snap his head towards the door too, where Gregory Hale is standing. His mom is never around.
“Oh.” Ashford’s dad looks at us with amusement. “Ashford, sweetie, it’s quite late. There’s school tomorrow. It’s bed time now.”
With a soft smile, he closes the door behind him.
Flipping a card, Ashford looks down.
“Well that’s a problem,” he says.
For a moment, I think he’s referring to the UNO card.
Maybe he doesn’t know if it is a red nine or a red six.
I know it is a nine, because there is a line right at the bottom, so theoretically he could play over my green nine.
But I get it that it can be confusing. “What is?” I ask carefully, studying Ashford’s thinking face.
Ashford plays his nine over my nine. “You’re Ash. And I’m Ash, too.”
“Hum.” It’s like it has never hit me before and suddenly I feel very stupid. Surely in the two years we have been friends, I could have thought about this.
“But you’re Ash. And I’m Ash.”
It makes total sense to me, he’s Ash with the red hair and the loving quiet family.
I’m Ash with the brothers and the dad who yells, brown hair and crazy eyes that sometimes are blue, sometimes are grey.
But I can hear how stupid it sounds. I stare at my cards and there is nothing I can play, so I pick a card and it is another plus four.
My hand shakes as I put it down, not believing my luck.
“Blue. UNO,” I whisper.
Ashford crosses his legs and studies me. “We could find you another nickname?” he suggests.
“No. Please.”
I can feel my heart beating wildly in my chest and I know, this is the moment where Ashford will get angry that I’m winning and he will tell me to leave.
I will be alone again. Alone with three brothers and Mom who is always tired and Daddy who is always angry.
“I don’t want to be ‘Ashley’,” I explain.
“What do you mean? You are Ashley.”
I simply shrug, eyes focused on the cards laid out on the carpet before me. I know I should have not played the plus four, Ashford will hate losing again.
He picks four more cards and adjusts his hold, struggling to keep all of them in his small hands.
“Oh. You don’t like your name? Why not?” Ashford asks, ignoring the game completely.
I look up and I’m surprised to see his brown eyes on me. Is he making fun of me? “It’s a girl’s name,” I tell him, because it is what everyone has been telling me my whole life.
“But you’re not a girl,” he says so easily, as if it is enough for him. “Are you?”
I blush furiously. “No, I’m a boy.”
“Okay,” he replies, and I wait for him to say something else; to play a card.
When he does neither, I turn back to the lonely blue card in my hand.
This is it. One last card. I called UNO, I called blue.
There is one last thing to do. I discard the card, and the blue eight rests at the top of the pile.
Nervously I lift my empty hands to showcase my win.
Ashford grins at me and nods approvingly. “I’ll be Ford then.”
“Ford?”
“Yeah. Like Ash-Ford. But just Ford. So you can be Ash.” His tone is final and I wonder how often he has thought about this before.
I want to argue, tell him that it is not necessary.
He does not let me. “Rematch?” Without waiting for my answer, he’s shuffling the UNO cards again.
We play three more rounds, our voices as low as whispers so that his parents won’t come in and find us awake, still. Ashford wins all rounds and it’s like the world is balanced, again.
When we finally turn the light off and lay on his large bed, I know it is really late. There is enough space between us for our favourite stuffed animals, my brown teddy bear and Ashford’s blue dolphin.
“Ash?” I call him softly but he just breathes in the darkness. I wonder if he has fallen asleep already.
I try again, a little louder this time, and the entire bed starts shaking with Ashford’s giggles. “What?” Confused, I turn to lay on my side.
“You are so bad at this. We said I would be Ford from now on,” he whispers at me.
I watch him as he finds my teddy bear between us and squeezes it to his chest. The brown of the toy matches the shade of my friend’s eyes. What a coincidence.
“Oh. Right, sorry. Ford.” The name tastes weird in my mouth.
But as I watch his sleepy face, I realise how right it fits.
“Ford,” I say again and it fits perfectly the brown of his eyes; the curly red hair; the skin a couple of tones darker than mine from the sun; the dimples framing his bright smile.
“Ash,” he says back in a way that makes me feel like the name was always supposed to belong to me and to me only. He looks at me with new curious eyes, as if it is the first time he’s seeing me.