Stillwater

by Mary Jo Hazard

  He set his cup down and handed me his handkerchief. Wishing I could die on the spot, I wiped my face and blew my nose.

  “Grace,” Mom said softly. “Look at me, baby. Your father was sick. He had mental problems. He was manic-depressive. You were little, but you must remember when he used to be home from work for weeks at a time. He’d get sad and depressed and couldn’t do anything. He wouldn’t even leave the house.”

  “But you never said he couldn’t work,” I looked at her. “You told me he was on vacation.”

  She brushed my hair off my forehead and continued like I hadn’t interrupted her. “Sometimes he’d cry, Grace, and you’d say, ‘Don’t cry, Daddy, please don’t cry. I’ll be good,’ but it had nothing to do with you. You were always a good girl. You tried to help him even though you were a baby yourself.”

  I choked back tears.

  Mom reached for one of Doc’s cigarettes and drummed it on the table. Her hand was shaking so much she couldn’t light it, so she handed Doc the lighter, and he lit it for her. “You were very young,” she went on. “When your father couldn’t work, there were days when he wouldn’t get out of bed. He wouldn’t shower or get dressed. He wouldn’t play with you and Denny. Dr. Whalen prescribed Thorazine, but your father never took the medication like he was supposed to. He’d have to be admitted to the hospital. Shock treatments worked, but he hated them.”

  Shock treatments? My own father had shock treatments? I took a deep breath and blew it out.

  She wiped some tears away and went on. “Then he’d feel better, but before long he’d get depressed again. He’d drink because he was depressed. That made it worse. I couldn’t help him, Grace.”

  “What does that mean? Why didn’t you make him take the pills? You make Denny take pills when he’s sick. Didn’t you care?”

  “Grace, your father didn’t think straight when he was sick,” Doc said, pushing his cup in a circle on the table.

  I sniffed and looked over at him. I couldn’t think straight either.

  “Once he felt good, he didn’t think he needed the pills,” Doc continued. “He forgot about how bad he’d felt. He thought he was okay. He didn’t want to depend on pills—that can make a man feel helpless. Alcohol was his way of self-medicating his pain.”

  “He always did that,” Mom said, taking another drag on her cigarette. “He’d tell me he was taking his medicine, but instead of taking it, he drank. He’d stop at Riley’s Tavern after work and drink for a couple of hours.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “We’d have a big fight when he got home, because I knew he’d been drinking. Oh, he’d promise he’d never drink again, but the next day he’d head right back to Riley’s.”

  I remembered their fights. Denny and I’d be eating dinner in front of the television when my father came in. He’d be really, really happy—he’d tickle us and make us laugh. Sometimes he’d sing silly songs, and Mom would come into the living room and start screaming at him because he was late. I’d turn the television up and sit real close to Denny so we couldn’t hear them fight. And I’d think to myself, If I were my father, I wouldn’t come home early either.

  “I even made your father go to Father Flanagan and take the pledge, Grace. You were too young to know what that meant—you were only in kindergarten. Your father promised on the holy Bible that he wouldn’t drink alcohol for a year.”

  That sounded crazy, but I looked at Doc and he nodded.

  “At first, he didn’t drink a drop, and it was wonderful. Every day he took his medication, and he felt good. We started to do family things that we hadn’t done in a long time. When school let out, we went camping, and at night after dinner, we went for long walks in the country. He bought you a fishing pole and taught you how to catch fish over at Two Trees.”

  Camping on Lake George was fun. I did remember Mom and Dad laughing a lot—they didn’t fight much at all. After dinner Mom would put Denny and me to bed on army cots in the tent; she always left the flap open so we wouldn’t be afraid. Denny fell asleep fast, but I’d lay awake and listen to my parents talk. The smell of the campfire would drift into the tent; I loved that smell. Mom and Dad would sit by the fire, and Dad would play his harmonica. I’d fall asleep listening to him play “Put On Your Old Gray Bonnet with the Blue Ribbons on It” or “Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Answer Do,” but my absolute favorite was when he played “Amazing Grace.”

  “Well, before the year was over, your father forgot all about the pledge—he went back to drinking—even more than before.” My mother sighed. “It was a vicious circle, Grace. I kept hoping he’d snap out of it, but he was sick. He couldn’t take it anymore. Even the smallest things were too much for him. He was in so much pain that one day,” my mother’s voice broke, “he ended his life. I know how hard this is, Grace, but your father loved you and Denny more than anything in the world.”

  Killing yourself was not the way to show your kids that you loved them.

  CHAPTER 19

  Louanne was asleep in my bed when I went upstairs. I turned the light off, climbed in beside her, and stared at the ceiling. The curtains were open, and the moonlight filled the room. I closed my eyes, and my father’s face stared at me. I opened them, and he disappeared. Memories flooded through me like bright ribbons—one leading to the next. My father smelled like Old Spice; he loved the way moonlight shimmered on the river; he loved buckwheat pancakes, venison, and singing. Only now the memories felt different; it was like he had died all over again.

  Why didn’t he love me enough to stay?

  I started to cry, remembering how he’d change the words to his favorite songs to make me laugh. I looked out the window and tried to hear him singing, “Amazing Grace, the precious girl who fills my heart with joy…”

  I should’ve stayed home from school the day my father died. He might not have done it if I had been there. I kept thinking about how I could never get that day back—that morning, the morning I lost my father forever.

  One time, my dad was babysitting us, and when my mother came home, he was laughing and chasing Denny around the apartment, pretending to be the tickle monster. I was reading at the kitchen table. Mom asked me if my father had been drinking beer. I told her not much—he’d only had three cans. She got mad, and he got sad. I shouldn’t have told her; I should have kept my mouth shut.

  The bedroom door opened, and my mother walked in. I closed my eyes and pretended to be sleeping. She pulled the covers up around me, kissed my forehead, and tiptoed out. What if she died? And Doc—he was in his sixties. Who would take care of Denny and me? I snuggled deeper in the bed and tried not to think.

  Louanne turned over with a little sigh. I wondered if Uncle Tony would ever kill himself. He didn’t drink, but he didn’t always take his medication. He seemed sad too; he didn’t smile much. He loved Gabriel and riding his bike. Those were his happy things, and maybe they were enough to live for. I crossed my fingers.

  The moon had moved higher in the sky. I rolled over on my stomach, buried my head in the pillow so Louanne wouldn’t hear me, and cried myself to sleep.

  Next morning, Louanne was still sleeping when the bedroom door opened and my mother came in. She walked over to my side of the bed and waited for me to open my eyes.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Morning, Grace,” she whispered, rubbing my shoulder. Her eyes were red and swollen; mine felt like they were too. “I looked in on you a couple of times, and you were asleep. I don’t have to go to school today. I can stay home and spend the day with you and Louanne.”

  I did not want her hanging around watching me. I needed to think about lots of things in my own way and time. “Mom, go to work. I’m fine,” I said, knowing I’d never be fine again—never fine.

  “Grace, I can cancel my in-service. How about I make you and Louanne pancakes?”

  “No, go to school. Honest, I don’t want pancakes,” I said, getting out of bed. “It’s too hot for pancakes.”

  Louanne stirr
ed and opened her eyes.

  “We’ll get cereal,” I said, trying to act like it was a normal day. “We have to go over and feed the kittens.”

  “Morning, Mrs. Bryant,” Louanne said, sitting up in bed.

  My mother nodded. “Morning, honey. Doc and Denny just went to the gas station to get a new muffler for the car. They’ll be back in an hour or so. If you’re sure you girls don’t need me, I might as well go to school.”

  “Great,” I said, bending down for my slippers, which weren’t under the bed where they were supposed to be. “Mom, did you take my slippers? Why do you always…”

  She pointed to my slippers under the chair, where I’d left them yesterday.

  “Sorry, Mom,” I said, shaking my head.

  She threw her arms around me and hugged me for a long time. “It’s all right, Grace. I understand.”

  We grabbed a couple of doughnuts and walked over to Louanne’s with Gabriel. Maggie met us on Louanne’s back porch a few minutes later.

  “How long is your aunt going to be away?” Maggie asked Louanne.

  “I’m not sure,” Lou said. “She’ll probably call me today.”

  “What’d you do last night after I left?”

  Louanne and I looked at each other. “Well, Lou won the Monopoly game,” I said, tugging on my earlobe. “And…”

  “And what?”

  Louanne stuck her legs out in front of her, crossed her ankles, and looked off in the distance.

  “I found out how my father died,” I said, standing up. “He killed himself.”

  She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and said in a low voice, “I know.”

  Louanne and I exchanged looks.

  “What do you mean, you know?” I said, squaring my shoulders.

  “Look, don’t get mad,” Maggie said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “My mother told me last year when Mr. Sanders killed himself. She didn’t mean to. We were having breakfast when my father read about Mr. Sanders in the paper. He asked my mother how many years has it been since your father shot himself, and I freaked. She told me but made me promise not to say anything until you brought it up.”

  “So everybody knew,” I said, beginning to cry. “Except me. Nice—and he was my father.”

  “I didn’t,” Louanne said, lifting her chin. “Honest.”

  “I couldn’t tell you, Grace,” Maggie said, grabbing my hand. “I didn’t want to believe it myself. Please don’t be mad.”

  I pulled away and whistled to Gabriel. I put him back in the dog run and filled his bowl with water from the hose so that Maggie wouldn’t see how hurt I was.

  The kittens pounced on us when we opened the carriage-house door. They were growing so fast. I scooped up the gray one; he wasn’t skinny anymore—his tummy felt like a little round ball. Aunt Michelle said I could have him when he was big enough to leave his mother; I couldn’t wait. I named him Ambrose because it means “immortal.” If Ambrose was immortal, he’d never die.

  We brought the kitties outside so they could play and chase butterflies. The mother cat stretched out close to her babies and closed her eyes. It was a perfect summer day. The grass was thick and green, and the climbing roses on the side of the carriage house had reached the rooftop. Bees buzzed around the flowers, but they didn’t bother us or the cats.

  “I should’ve figured out my dad killed himself a long time ago,” I said, watching Ambrose bat a leaf around. “I knew it was strange that my mother and Doc wouldn’t tell me what happened. And another thing…you know how everyone always eyeballs us and asks my mother how my brother and I are doing? ‘How’re the children doing, Sarah? They’re so young. God bless them.’ That always felt weird to me.”

  “Since my dad left, people ask Aunt Michelle how I’m doing right in front of me too. ‘How’s she holding up—poor little thing?’”

  “Poor little thing is different than being a ‘God bless ’em.’ God bless ’em doesn’t sound good,” I said, swatting at a fly.

  “I think God bless ’em is okay,” Louanne said, twisting her hair around her fingers. “People probably feel sorry for you.”

  “I don’t want people feeling sorry for me. I don’t want people knowing secrets about me. I don’t want to be a God bless ’em. I want to be normal.”

  “Yeah, I get it,” Louanne said, sighing. “I’m not a poor little thing.”

  “Well, try having a father who beats you,” Maggie said, crossing her arms. “I don’t want that, either.”

  Louanne looked at me in surprise.

  “Wow,” I said, wishing I had a magic wand. “Everything sucks.”

  “Did you ever wish you were a Bobbsey twin?” Louanne asked. “The four of them have perfect lives. Their father and mother love each other and the kids. I think about that family at night when I can’t sleep. I want to be Nan.”

  “It sounds nice,” I said, reaching into my pocket. “I brought a 3 Musketeers bar—all for one and one for all, forever and ever.”

  None of us had a perfect life, but we did have each other.

  A week later, things returned to normal—well, not for me, but the Dodds came home from the state hospital with Uncle Tony. Maggie and I sat on the floor watching Louanne pack. I couldn’t wait until she was gone. It wasn’t that I didn’t love her, but things were different now. Since the night I found out about my father, everybody watched me, even Lou, to see if I was okay. And I wasn’t—even when I tried my best to act normal, I couldn’t. And knowing that Louanne, one of my best friends, was worried about me only made it harder.

  Sometimes, for no reason at all, the tears would start rolling down my cheeks, and I’d have to run into the bathroom and lock the door so nobody would see me cry. And it wasn’t crying like I’d cried before—it was “I can’t stop crying no matter how hard I try” crying.

  I had terrible nightmares about my father shooting himself. I’d beg him not to do it, but he’d smile at me and pull the trigger. One night, I dreamt that he shot Denny and me because we didn’t drink all our milk. Night after night, I’d wake up screaming. Louanne would wake up too and try to comfort me. I’d be frantic and afraid to go back to sleep in case I had another terrifying nightmare. She was probably afraid to go back to sleep; if I was her, I would’ve been.

  I wasn’t hungry, and when I did eat, nothing tasted good. Doc tried hard to get me to eat. Three days in a row, he treated the three of us to root beer floats at the coffee shop, but I couldn’t eat more than a couple of bites. Maggie had to finish them off.

  My mother didn’t say anything much, but she was extra nice. She didn’t yell at me to pick up my room or make me do my usual chores. She made all of my favorite foods for dinner, mashed potatoes with gravy, chicken pot pie, raspberry pie, and strawberry shortcake. I pushed the food around my plate and pretended I was eating, but it didn’t fool her. “Just take a couple of bites,” she’d say, like I was a baby.

  Doc kept telling me that he loved me and, even though he knew that I wouldn’t believe him, in time I’d feel better.

  Everyone was so nice that part of me felt bad that I got really angry at Doc and my mother when I found out. I knew Denny would feel like I did when he found out; it was like having your dad die again, but worse. There was no way I could tell Denny—not now, anyway, when he was so little.

  When Louanne finished packing, we walked over to her grandmother’s to help her settle back in and ran into Uncle Tony in the upstairs hall.

  He reminded me of my father after he came home from the hospital—sad and vulnerable. His eyes were red, and he was smoking a cigarette with a long ash that looked like it was going to fall off any second.

  “Tell me he doesn’t like smoke,” Maggie whispered, poking me in the ribs.

  “Shut up,” I said. What if he can’t take his pain anymore? What if he kills himself one day, when things get to be too much? If a little thing like Aunt Michelle’s waffles for lunch set him off, how does he cope with everyone in town thinking he�
�s the arsonist?

  “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” she whispered.

  I ignored her.

  When Uncle Tony got close enough, I reached out and touched him on his arm. Louanne gave him a big hug, and he patted her awkwardly on the head. He nodded in my direction but didn’t reach out or make eye contact. I crossed my fingers, hoping that the hospital had helped him once and for all and that there was no reason to panic about him killing himself.

  After he was downstairs, we checked his bedroom door. He’d already added the dates of his latest hospital stay—next to the list of the dates of the fires. It was obvious that Uncle Tony was home whenever a fire broke out.

  He went back to his old routine, sleeping most of the day and riding his bicycle at night.

  CHAPTER 20

  “Maggie and I are riding over to Mill Hollow,” Louanne said a few mornings later when I opened my front door. She was smiling her “Don’t ask what’s really going on” smile.

  Ever since I’d found out about my father’s suicide, I’d avoided everyone, afraid that I’d start to cry and couldn’t stop. When I woke up in the morning, I’d remember my father making Denny and me pancakes in funny shapes, and I couldn’t eat. If I went outside in the yard, I’d touch the swing and think how he’d made it just for me when I was two. When I went to bed at night, I’d recall how he’d tuck me in and sing to me until I drifted off to sleep. I’d go over and over all the good stuff about him and could never believe he’d kill himself.

  Just as I was about to tell Louanne I couldn’t go to Mill Hollow, my mother walked into the room.

  “Oh, girls, that sounds like so much fun,” she said, watching me with worried eyes. “Doesn’t it, Grace? A nice long bike ride with your friends?”

  “I guess,” I said, thinking anything would be better than staying home with my mother today.

  Mill Hollow was over the river and through the woods—like the words of the old song, “To Grandmother’s House We Go”—about three miles out in the country. It was a happy place. When I was little, my father took me there sometimes to fish for brook trout. Now that we were old enough, we went there by ourselves to sunbathe and have picnics.