Chapter 11

Vivian got sick. She came home with her face flushed red, like the sky at sunset, walking unsteadily, and collapsed onto the bed the moment she got through the door.I went over and shook her. Her whole body was burning—hotter even than my mother used to get with her fevers. It scared me. I thought of my mother, how she'd fallen asleep just like this and never woken up again. I couldn't let Vivian fall asleep too.I did what my mother used to do for me. I ran to the bathroom, soaked a towel, and laid it across Vivian's forehead. It heated up fast, so I kept running back for a cooler one.I wanted to cook for her too. I wanted to make her a sun-shaped egg. I turned on the stove, poured in oil, and cracked an egg into the pan, but the oil spat and popped, burning my hand. It hurt so badly. The egg burned black in the pan—nothing like a sun at all.I carried the plate of ruined, blackened egg over to her bedside. Vivian was still asleep, muttering in her fever. I couldn't make out the

Chapter 12

Vivian got better. She stopped washing dishes at that loud, crowded restaurant. She took every dollar we had and rented a tiny little shop right below our apartment. She bought a pan, a spatula, and dozens and dozens of eggs, and hung a sign above the door: a big, round, sunny-side-up egg painted next to two words—Sunny Side Up.Vivian started selling fried eggs. Hers always came out round and gold, just like a real sun, and she'd draw smiley faces on top with ketchup. Everyone loved them.I helped out at the shop too. I couldn't do the math or talk to customers, so my job was sitting on the little stool by the door, drawing my suns, my notebook open beside me. Every customer who came in to buy an egg could see them. They all said the same thing—that the poor slow kid's suns were really something to look at.One day, a woman in beautiful clothes came in to buy an egg. She saw my drawings and asked Vivian, "Did your brother draw these?"Vivian nodded."I own a gallery," the woman s

Chapter 13

Many more years passed. Our shop, Sunny Side Up, moved to a bigger space. Vivian didn't have to fry every egg herself anymore—she'd hired a helper. Her job now was sitting behind the counter, doing the books, and watching me draw my suns. My drawings had started selling to places far, far away. Vivian told me they'd flown off to another world, the same place where my mother was.One day, near closing time, Vivian was so tired she fell asleep with her head down on the table. I was afraid she'd catch a chill, so I went looking for something to cover her with. I dug through the old backpack I used to keep my clothes in, and though I never found any clothes, right at the bottom, I found a very old wallet.It was my mother's.There was no money inside, just a folded, yellowed piece of paper. I pulled it out and handed it to Vivian when she woke up.She unfolded it and read it for a long, long time. As she read, tears started falling, the same way she'd cried in the rain the first time I

All Chapters of Drawing 30,000 Suns for Mom: Chapter 11 - Chapter 13

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13