by Karin Cook
• • •
The week before the spell-off, I grew anxious and distracted. Every time someone spoke a word I did not know, I tried to see it spelled, right there in the air or against the pattern of some kid’s cross-stitched sweater, a teacher’s plaid skirt. I broke every conversation into fragments, splitting each word into letters, not really hearing anything. Once, Nick waved his arm in front of my face, his thick fingers webbed together. “Yoo hoo. I-s a-n-y-o-n-e h-o-m-e?”
I spent the evenings after supper combing through my dictionary and drifting off into a scattered sleep of spelling rules and exceptions, the letters coupling and breaking apart in mixed combinations. Elizabeth made fun of me. How could I care so much about school?
All that effort wasn’t showing in my work. I grew careless, my papers filled with dark ink crossouts. I developed a habit of changing my mind about words, writing one letter over another, making layers of ink and smears across the paper. The underside of my hand was always slightly blue.
“Try this,” Mama said and added a petal to the dark ink center, turning my misspellings into flowers.
I drew them, petals giving way to bouquets, stems curling into the margins, like weeds.
The night before the competition, Uncle Rand came in long after my bedtime. I heard him set his wineglass on top of the dictionary on the nightstand. I was lying on my stomach, everything tucked up under me, my head turned toward the wall. I felt him lift the covers off me and push my shirt up. The words came to me, filling my mind, first as letters and spaces, then forming into whole words: f-o-s-s-i-l fossil; e-n-g-a-g-e-m-e-n-t engagement; c-o-n-c-h conch. Each time my mind cleared, I could feel his touch—warm and a bit damp. Was it his hand or his tongue pulling lines across my body? What was he spelling? It was the exceptions that rose to my mind next: i before e except after c or sounding like a as in neighbor and weigh. The variant spellings were my favorites; they proved that there wasn’t always just one answer: aeroplane a-e-r-o-p-l-a-n-e and theatre t-h-e-a-t-r-e. Then his body was over mine, not touching but just above, and I could feel the hair on his chest, sense the movement of his flesh. I heard a mumbling deep in his throat, muffled sounds like gasping. I lay still and thought of the silent consonants g-n-a-t gnat and k-n-u-c-k-l-e knuckle.
This last word stuck and somehow comforted me. Knuckle. I thought of Samantha, her hand wrapped tight around a pencil, moving across her notebook without stopping, the smooth page rippling like a sheet under the weight of her fist.
The next morning, Uncle Rand made my favorite breakfast. Bull’s-eye eggs, with toast and home-fried potatoes.
I poked at the yokes with my fork until they bled. Uncle Rand nudged me gently. “Eat up,” he said, “you’re going to need some protein.”
I could smell him in the food. His stale morning breath, like dishes sitting too long in the sink. I didn’t look up, instead I sat hunched over while my stomach churned.
“You’re probably too nervous to eat,” Nick said.
“Can I have your potatoes?” Elizabeth asked, blinking at me. She had on blue eyeshadow that made her face look strangely white.
“Nice lids,” I said and pushed my plate at her.
Mama came into the dining room wearing one of Nick’s flannel shirts. Her clothes were haphazard; the netting at the back of her wig was showing. Her sloppy look made me feel impatient. She didn’t look like a mother.
“Are you going to wear that?” I asked.
“It’s comfortable,” she said, looking down at herself and then up at Nick. “It’s okay, isn’t it?” she asked.
“I think you look great,” Elizabeth said, scowling at me.
Mama smiled at her and then looked twice, catching sight of her makeup. “Elizabeth, take that stuff right off,” she said, suddenly stern, “or you’re not going anywhere.”
Elizabeth pushed her stool back loudly. “That’s so unfair,” she said and stomped up the back stairs.
Nick stepped behind Mama. “You look like a million bucks.” He brushed her hair casually with his fingers, covering the exposed netting at the back of her head.
I could hear Uncle Rand in the kitchen. The weight of each step, his voice as he whistled. The sound of him made my mind go blank. But the harder I tried to push it away, the stronger the memory surfaced. He was there, behind me, a shadow on every thought, peeking over my shoulder and breathing his hot breath.
The junior high transported us in a minibus, two counties over, to a rival school. On the bus, my team practiced. Saying the word, spelling it, and saying it again. We took turns, spelling the words that had been asked in previous years, trying to second-guess which, if any, might reappear. Jonathan Marcus had a good one. He was the only boy chosen among four girls. He felt he had something to prove. He asked about the crested green and red bird in Central America that shares its name with the monetary unit of Guatemala.
“Quezal q-u-e-z-a-l quezal,” Samantha responded.
“Wrong,” he said. “It’s spelled with a t—q-u-e-t-z-a-l.”
“Guess again,” Samantha said, flipping her hair.
“I don’t have to guess,” he said, “I have it right here in front of me.”
This was my specialty; rather than let a dispute go on and on, I’d learned how to settle it quickly with my dictionary. I retrieved my Webster from my bookbag, its red glossy cover quieting the bus. Everyone waited as I flipped through the pages, my finger moving down the column. Seeking authority was the best I could do. I didn’t trust myself in these matters.
I mouthed the words query, quest, question. “Quetzal with a t,” I announced.
Just as Jonathan filled the bus with a self-righteous “yes,” my finger moved below queue, a word for pigtail or braid that I had not known, to quezal without the t.
“Let me see that,” Jonathan demanded, snatching the dictionary away from me and tearing the cover.
Samantha settled back in her seat, smug and confident. She would win it for us that afternoon, long after Jonathan had been knocked out for forgetting the first i in plagiarism, bringing his fist down hard on the table in anger, after I had blankly switched the l and e in tentacle, Samantha would last ten words longer than anyone else, spelling ellipsis and valediction. For her last word, she would spell onomatopoeia o-n-o-m-a-t-o-p-o-e-i-a onomatopoeia. Like automatic poet, I thought to myself as she spoke her letters into the air, each floating over the audience, where her family and mine sat next to each other in the third row, our siblings taken out of school, flanking our mothers with the men on either side like bookends.
As I looked out from the stage, I felt suddenly ashamed. Other families shared a look of togetherness. Mine seemed separate, as if they had been thrown together by accident. Too many adults, all with different last names. Nick was younger than the other fathers. Nobody else had a live-in uncle. And Mama didn’t even look like herself—bloated and wearing a wig. Elizabeth twisted in her seat, distracted. I couldn’t catch anyone’s eye. I had no idea how to feel.
GIFT
That fall, Osage oranges fell from the spiny bodark trees, their fleshy green skins splitting open and rotting on the street. The stench was everywhere. While Elizabeth hoped for Fridays, I looked forward to Mondays—the moment when I could walk away from it all, leaving the stuffy air of the house behind me as if that life belonged to someone else. I buried myself in school projects, earning extra credit and red plus marks across the top of every page.
When I wasn’t doing schoolwork, I shadowed Jamie Sanders as he maintained the lot, checking the oil and transmission fluid. By the time it turned cold enough to funnel antifreeze into the plastic overflow tank, I knew my way around an engine: could tell the difference between the valves and seals, could even jump-start a battery, hooking the claws of one black cable to the negative terminal and the other to the engine block for grounding. I liked the hum and predictability of function. I could stare deep into the engine, counting the number of cylinders, watching the belt spin, and listening to th
e click of pistons and the smooth whir of the fan—metal and rubber churning together—every part working as it should.
By the time Mama was ready for her last chemotherapy treatment, it was December, but no one in our house was acting like it. There were no lists, no bustling sense of preparation. In the past, Mama had always been early to buy wrapping paper and tape. All over the neighborhood, people were stringing up lights and decorating their porches. We didn’t even have a wreath. Everything was on hold.
The night before Mama’s appointment with the Mosquitoes, it snowed. I watched as the flakes blanketed the driveway, a fine dusting which quickly thickened, whiting out the decay of fallen leaves and brown grass. The world outside grew so quiet I could hear the beat in my head, like marching. The wind blew hard and Nick sealed the upstairs windows closed with duct tape to keep the draft out.
Later, in the bathroom, Elizabeth and I traded off supplies as we got ready for bed—toothpaste, soap, hand towel—and moved through our rituals without talking. All around us were signs of neglect. My toothbrush was sprung wide, resembling an exotic caterpillar. The shampoo and conditioner bottles were filled with water—our attempts to stretch out their contents. We had been waiting for this day without even realizing it.
The next morning I woke to the sound of Uncle Rand clomping down the stairs in his boots. I watched from the window as he joined Nick and Jamie with a shovel. Jamie was always the first one out in a storm hoping for a bit of extra work. It was as if he lived at TransAlt, the first to arrive each day before school, the last to leave in the evening. They looked like astronauts in their puffed coats and heavy boots, the three of them digging in time around the station wagon.
“Get dressed,” Mama called from the bottom of the stairs, “and come down for breakfast.”
Elizabeth took a long time in the bathroom, told me to go away when I banged hard on the door. When she finally undid the latch, she was wearing a towel over her nightgown. She lingered, straightening up the counter around the sink, moving her Noxzema and hairbrush to one corner.
She shook her head. “Something’s happened.”
“Could I have some privacy?” I asked.
She hesitated, looked away, and then directly at me. “I got it,” she said, her face suddenly flushed.
“What?”
“It came,” she said, “just now.” She retied the towel at her waist and shrugged. “Can I borrow something?”
All at once, I knew what she was talking about. How could this have happened out of order? It was unnatural! It didn’t seem fair that she should get hers before I got mine.
“Show me,” I demanded. “I don’t believe you.”
Elizabeth didn’t resist. I felt curious, but queasy too. She took off the towel and handed it to me. There was toilet paper shooting out from the sides of her underwear. She pulled them down, exposing a wad of carefully folded paper towels layered with toilet paper. At the center was a thin brown line. I had expected something brighter, a cherry red, more urgent looking. She bent the papers toward me and then looked up, anxiously.
“It’s practically nothing,” I said, more in anger than surprise.
“You have to help me,” she said, her voice rising. She seemed as disturbed as I was by this reversal of events. “Please,” she begged, “I’ll wait right here.”
I went for the Starter Kit which I had stored at the back of my closet. I resented having to open it. I’d already imagined for myself which products I would use and when. I surveyed the various pastel boxes until my eye settled on the item I was least likely to use—the old-fashioned pads that were supposed to clip to a belt. When I handed the box to Elizabeth, her temper flickered and then dissipated. She knew that those pads were the worst pick of the lot, but thanked me anyway.
I got dressed in front of the mirror in my room—turtleneck, button-down, sweater—layering myself against this news. My breasts were nowhere near the right shape, not full or round, just empty flaps of skin.
As I headed down the stairs, Elizabeth called out to me. “Hey Tilden! Don’t tell anyone.”
The kitchen smelled like chicken. Mama had cooked filets and cut them into strips. “Want toast?” she asked, holding a plate out to me. The pieces were buttered and stacked to encourage melting. I took a piece off the bottom.
“Where’s Elizabeth?” she asked.
“She doesn’t feel well.”
Mama stiffened. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I said. “It’s just a stomach ache. But she’s not throwing up or anything.”
I could see Mama’s own nausea rise, her cheeks suddenly pale, her pores large. She set her paper napkin over the rest of the food on her plate. Nick came in to change his clothes and left Uncle Rand and Jamie Sanders in the foyer, kicking their boots against the door frame and shaking snow out of their cuffs. The cold air from outside traveled along the floor and chilled the kitchen.
“School’s on,” Uncle Rand announced. He looked at me and then away. His face was raw. He wiped his nose on his sleeve, grabbed the keys and went back outside to start both cars.
Jamie Sanders leaned against the wall, half in and half out of the house; his hands were pushed into his pockets, his shoulders shrugged up around his ears. He looked as if he were on the verge of saying something, but didn’t. Instead, he pressed the clumps of snow from his boots with his toe until they melted into the mat.
Elizabeth came into the kitchen wearing her winter coat. She rummaged through the snack drawer for a breakfast bar and pocketed her lunch money off the counter. She avoided looking anyone in the face while she waited by the back door for the town car to warm up.
“Everyone have everything you need?” Mama asked.
We nodded automatically, even Jamie, and then all left the house together—Nick and Jamie on either side of Mama as she balanced herself against the ice, Elizabeth and I at arm’s length from each other until we reached the car. From inside the station wagon, Uncle Rand, Elizabeth, and I watched through fogged windows as Nick’s town car slid side to side, the tires spinning on the surface, before grabbing hold of the sand. Jamie lent his weight to the back of the car, guiding Mama and Nick out of the driveway and onto the road. They drove away slowly, leaving fresh tracks in the snow. From the back, I saw Nick put his right arm across Mama’s shoulders.
Is this it now, I wondered. Is Nick really permanent?
Mama was sick right up until a week before Christmas. The final treatment made her as weak and grumpy as all the others had. She wasn’t up for the hustle and bustle of the holidays, even canceled our trip to New York City to see The Nutcracker. She barely felt up for Main Street or the Walt Whitman Mall.
“Let’s not do gifts this year,” she suggested.
Elizabeth was angry. She had hopes of receiving a Walkman, was even holding out for a Sunfish sailboat. She left Mama in the middle of a sentence about learning to appreciate what we have and went out to the garage to drum up support from Nick.
“I wasn’t finished,” Mama said to the door and then to me because I was the one left standing there.
“I know,” I said, weakly.
I hurried out the door to retrieve Elizabeth. TransAlt had become a winter sanctuary. I liked the flow of activity—the sound of the drivers’ voices over the radio, Lainey’s playful bantering. All the coming and going made the place seem alive in contrast to the stillness of the house. Even Mrs. Teuffel, who usually stood at her fence for conversation, made her way around the snow pillars at the end of the drive every afternoon with crackers or cookies, looking for company. She liked to sit near the police scanner to monitor the local activity, said it helped her rest easier to know what was what before she turned in for the evening.
Elizabeth went straight to Nick, raising her objections loudly enough for everyone else to hear over the drone of the electric heaters. “Mama’s not planning to celebrate Christmas,” she started, “can you believe it? She said we ought to think of each and every day as a g
ift.” Elizabeth waited for a response and when one didn’t come, she launched in again from a different angle. “It’s unchristian, isn’t it?”
Mrs. Teuffel’s body bent closer to the discussion with each word.
“Now hold on one minute,” Nick said. “I don’t believe anyone said anything about not celebrating. Just because your mama doesn’t have the energy to shop, doesn’t mean that Santa won’t be around.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes at him. “Oh please. We’ve never had a Christmas like this …”
She didn’t complete her sentence. Suddenly it seemed as if everything had gone wrong. “We came all this way,” I wanted to scream, “and now look!”
Mrs. Teuffel turned toward Elizabeth and spoke from the corner of her mouth, like a ventriloquist. “Now that’s unchristian.”
Elizabeth took it back. “That’s not what I meant,” she said in a high, shrill voice.
After a small silence Nick said, “Truth is, I don’t think she’s feeling real good about how she looks.” He offered this as an explanation, when really he seemed to be asking for advice. He raised his brows, pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek and looked down over his shoes.
“Well I don’t suppose she is,” Mrs. Teuffel said, now fully in the conversation. “She’s been to hell and back.”
Nick nodded once and then again as if applying her words to a bunch of things he hadn’t said out loud. It was the first time since Mama’s surgery that I noticed how tired Nick looked. The skin around his eyes was creased and gray.
“You better be doing your part to make her feel …” Mrs. Teuffel hesitated, cleared her throat and started up again. “She needs to know that you, all of you, love her as much as ever, that’s all.”
Things got real quiet after that. Nick seemed sorry to have brought it up, looked embarrassed as he shifted his weight from one leg to the other and adjusted his belt.
