Wonder: Part Two

Apparently, she had checked herself into the hospital because she’d been feeling nauseous.

They bulge outward because his eye cavities are too shallow to accommodate them.

When he was very little, before a piece of his hip bone was surgically implanted into his lower jaw, he really had no chin at all.

When he looks in the mirror, does he see the Auggie Mom and Dad see, or does he see the Auggie everyone else sees? Or is there another August he sees, someone in his dreams behind the misshapen head and face?

We change plans, go to plan B, interrupt conversations, go back on promises depending on his moods, his whims, his needs.

The truth is, there’s a scene in the movie when Drew Barrymore dresses E.T. in a blond wig: and that was a ringer for Auggie in our Miley Cyrus heyday.

Miranda had always been such a prude about clothes, and here she was all pink-haired and tube-topped.

I’ve seen Auggie brushing his hair in the bathroom mirror. He meticulously tries to get every hair in place.

The hallway lights were out. The only thing illuminating her was the blue night-light in August’s bedroom.

“I know, I know.” I nodded indifferently.

“Of course she has a MetroCard!” answered Dad, fully exasperated. “Yeesh, Momma! Stop worrying so much! Bye,” he said, kissing her on the cheek.

Both sides of Dad’s family were Jews from Russia and Poland. Poppa’s grandparents fled the pogroms and ended up in NYC at the turn of the century.

I’d never realized how funny she was (not laugh-out-loud Daddy-funny, but full of great quips), and she never knew how lighthearted I could be.

And no, I won’t mention the fact that Mom has never made any of my costumes, because it really has no bearing on anything at all.

“But this is crazy, Auggie!” I said emphatically, pulling the new comic book away from him, too.