Sticky Notes

by Dianne Touchell

  “That’s inappropriate, Fossie. Apologize,” Mom said. Aunty was smiling, though. Chubby Lady leaned forward.

  “He’s not frightened right now. And he knows I’m here to help,” she said.

  “How do you know he knows that?” Foster asked.

  “Well, he’s quite happy, isn’t he?”

  “He’s doing his imaginary sewing. He does that when he’s not happy,” Foster said.

  “That’s enough, Foster,” Mom said, reflexively resting her hands on Dad’s to still their busyness.

  Chubby Lady continued talking to Mom. “You may find the worst time of day in terms of distress is late afternoon. We’re not really sure why. It’s fairly common, though. ‘Sundowning,’ they call it, and there are—”

  “I think he was scrying,” Foster said.

  “You think he was crying?” James asked.

  “Scrying! Dad told me about it. Mirrors are magic. Dad told me a story about Nostril Dumbass who lived hundreds of years ago. He used mirrors and bowls of water to see into the future. And other people did too. Witches and queens like the one in Snow White. That’s why we shouldn’t cover the mirrors, because Dad was scrying. We need to know what he saw. Has anyone just asked him what he saw?”

  Everyone was looking at him. Foster swallowed hard to push his heart back down to where it was supposed to be. “People did it before they went into battle, even! Just to decide what to do about stuff and find out what other people were doing, and if you had some dragon’s blood—”

  “Enough!” Mom shouted. She wasn’t usually a shouty person, but Foster had noticed that lately she wore the kind of sour face that smacked of a whole lot of stuff rolling around just beneath the surface. It was the sort of face Dad would say was begging for a good scrying. Foster had also noticed that most of the time she spoke to him lately, it involved her being spitty and him being humiliated. He didn’t like being shouted at, especially in front of strangers who should be punched, not invited to the table to talk about Dad as if he weren’t even in the room.

  Foster knew that breaking the mirror proved that the general was still in there. That he still had his great powers. No one else understood, and he couldn’t make them understand if they all looked at him like they’d been slapped upside the head by a wet fish and then became shouty. There was no cavalry in that room. The clothespin basket was getting tighter and tighter around the captive. Foster could almost see the imprint of its hard plastic edges on Dad’s face. That snarl of lines around his eyes was his skintight prison getting close enough to choke him.

  No one said anything for a while. There was just tea-sipping and contemplation. When James reached across and took hold of Foster’s hand under the table, Foster slapped it away because that one act of kindness might make him go bonkers.

  “I think we need to talk about all these things you’re worried about, Foster,” James said. “But probably not now. A bit later.”

  “I’m not worried,” Foster said.

  “Have you thought about getting some help for the boy?” Chubby Lady said this while leaning across the table to touch the back of Mom’s hand. The touch made Mom raise her eyes and look directly at Foster. “We can help organize some counseling for him. He seems slightly detached from reality. There are support programs for the children of—”

  Foster hadn’t climbed the jacaranda in a long time. He began to feel the familiar flurry of tickly, papery wings in his chest that always made him want to climb. But it was dark outside, and there was a moon tonight. It had risen into the top left corner of the kitchen window and glazed everything nicely. Foster liked the moon. He liked its predictable changing from nothing to fullness. He liked the way its light was put out every month and then came back. He knew it was called waxing and waning. Dad had told him that. Dad had even sung him a song about it. Foster tried to remember the words to the song now but the only thing he could keep in his head was the song about a bullfrog named Jeremiah. So he sang that instead.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  Mom had been asking Foster this quite a lot lately. Dad used to ask him that too. But Mom asked it differently from Dad. She asked as if she had no real curiosity. She asked as if she had been told to ask him because asking would show interest. She was never looking at him when she asked. She was always busy with something else, her hands and eyes constantly moving. If there had been a stillness to the question, Foster might have welcomed it. But he had an awful feeling that Mom wanting in on his thoughts was just a trap he’d better not step into. Saying what he thought hadn’t gone too well for him lately. His shift from the ancient tradition of using frogs and toads in magic to “Jeremiah was a bullfrog” had made Mom burst into tears and earned him an appointment with a special doctor who also spent most of the time asking Foster what he was thinking about. So, rather than feel relieved that he was being seen and his thoughts were valued, Foster just felt bossed around.

  When Mom asked “What are you thinking about?” her face said she was far, far away. Maybe even back in her castle. Mostly Mom seemed tired. The strange thing was that it wasn’t a normal tired. It didn’t look like the kind of tired that follows hard work or a long time concentrating on something important. Mom didn’t roll her shoulders or yawn or get up to put the kettle on like she usually did when she was feeling tired. This was a moody tired. It made her unpredictable, and Foster heard her complaining to Aunty on the phone about headaches. Her words became a bit slurred, and she seemed to cry more easily than she used to.

  A couple of times, Foster came across Mom with her head drooped, rivulets of drool greasing her chin. He learned quickly enough that she was not comfortably napping and she might swing from this inactivity to anger without warning and with even less grace. Whenever Foster came across her in this state of dozy instability, he played quietly and watched the clock, waiting for Dad to come home.

  Dad was spending more time during weekends at day care. When Dad was in the house, Foster felt a single purpose. To tell him stories, read him picture books, and watch his face. Foster was sure that even if Dad wasn’t talking, he was listening, so he behaved as if rescue was always imminent.

  Dad was always more responsive after day care. Foster felt it was a shame that Mom seemed to miss out on Dad’s best hour because she was already very tired when he got home. Aunty usually drove Dad home from day care because Mom had already had a few tired wines. Foster reckoned that probably helped her when Dad wasn’t very nice to her. It certainly helped her not bite back, which everyone said she absolutely must not do. But then one day Mom had bitten back in a way that shocked everyone.

  That particular afternoon, Dad was really chatty. They were all gathered around the kitchen table apart from Mom, who, after checking that Geraldine was still in the yard, started peeling beets at the sink. Aunty encouraged Foster and Mom to join in, to try to be involved in the stories Dad was remembering, even if he didn’t seem to be making much sense. Foster was happy to sit holding Dad’s hand while Aunty tried to steer him toward things that had happened a long time ago. That was his best place, his happiest place. The long ago. So between all the hissing and harrumphing Dad sprayed in Mom’s direction, he had periods of nonstop banter and giggling with Aunty and Foster. It reminded Foster of that Christmas when Dad had had four glasses of blueberry port with a beer chaser. There was the same joyous temper in his tone and his eyes. Every now and then he would bawl at Mom for a few seconds, his irritation increasing when Mom didn’t respond. But Aunty would bring him back to point with a distraction, a question, a memory.

  Foster didn’t notice that Dad had become quiet right away. He was watching Mom deliberately doing the lazy peel on the beets. She said beet peeling had to be done quickly and efficiently to prevent skin staining. Foster had always liked watching her do it. But this time she was doing it slowly, haphazardly rolling the bulbs in her palms, deliberately smearing herself with the purple juice. It bothered him in the same way it bothered him when Mum dresse
d Dad in clothes that didn’t match. He was about to walk over to her and ask if he could help when he noticed Dad staring at her in a peculiar way. Then Dad said, “The gall of that woman.”

  He actually used that word too. Gall. Foster remembered that very clearly because he had thought Gall was an ancient Roman province. He had only recently read about it in a picture book.

  Aunty immediately interceded, “Malcolm, do you remember that dog we had when we were kids? The one that went missing for weeks and we all thought we’d never see again? Even put up a memorial to it in the back garden. And then it just walked into the yard one day! Do you remember that? You loved that dog so much. Dad let him sleep on your bed after that because you were so worried he’d go missing again. What was that dog’s name? Do you remember that dog?”

  “Geraldine?”

  “Geraldine’s the dog we have now, Dad.”

  “Oh.” Dad paused, seemed to go away for a bit, and then said, “People in Korea eat dogs. In soups and stews. The best meat is from a beaten dog. Makes the meat tender. They say a beaten dog tastes better.”

  That was when Mom reacted. She bristled quite noticeably, as if she had a bad taste in her mouth or someone had walked on her grave. She turned slowly to look at them and then filled her cheeks with air. Foster looked again and more closely, just to make sure, but that was exactly what she was doing: puffing out her cheeks until they were all mottled, her eyes squeezed shut. He wondered if she would burst. He wondered if her cheeks were full of words, trapped in there behind her teeth. Foster imagined those trapped words milling about, trying to knit themselves into proper-meaning things. He suddenly felt nervous. He pressed his lips together to prevent a smile from splitting his face. Then Mom pressed both her hands down on the kitchen table, palms flat and fingers extended. She leaned forward, simultaneously releasing all the air in her face. The hot rush that was discharged from Mom’s pooched lips made a squeaky fart noise and was close enough to Dad to disturb his hair. Then Mom said the only word that had been stuck in there. “Woof.”

  Dad stood up and released a yawp that shuddered through the house. Foster scooted out of his chair and pressed himself against the wall. Safest place to be. He didn’t know why, but it occurred to him that that was precisely the sort of noise one would make just before throwing something. He had never heard Dad make a sound like that before. He didn’t know anything that deep and gravelly could come out of a person. Aunty began fussing with dishes and talking loud and fast at everyone and no one, thrusting plates with uncharacteristic force into the sink. Foster wondered if he should help her clean up, but there was something in her manner that made this look like more than just a cleaning-up. Aunty looked like she was preparing to clear out. If she was, Foster decided, he was going with her. Mom uprighted herself and stepped away from the table, leaving two purple handprints as dark as bruises. She looked very heavy-lidded and steely angry. Her face made Foster ache in a strange way. It was more than fear making Foster’s chest thump and mouth dry out. It was awe. Mom had managed to slap them all down with one hot word.

  Things were weird. All the grown-ups in the house had started looking at each other sideways.

  Aunty had moved in with her dog, Archie, which Dad took to with an affection that baffled Foster, given Geraldine was still in danger of being pushed into oncoming traffic by the very same man. Mom complained about the dog being in the house all the time. She said it stank. She had a brief and triumphant hissy fit when she started finding what she thought was dog poo all over the house. Finding out that Dad was collecting his own poo in ice-cream containers seemed only to disappoint her, because then she didn’t have an excuse to throw the dog out. Other than that, Mom seemed to take all these changes in stride. Foster watched her seeking out suspicious containers hidden around the house.

  Mom worked more hours because Aunty was able to be there in the evenings. Foster felt better with Aunty there. Even though Mom and Aunty still weren’t good friends, Aunty was a good buffer between Dad and Mom. Dad didn’t get anywhere near as angry at Aunty as he did at Mom.

  There had been a meeting after the woofing business. That was what Aunty called it. The woofing business. Foster didn’t understand why Mom had woofed at Dad, only that something had changed that day. Something had broken. Like when mountain goats perch their twiggy-legged bodies on rock faces and then suddenly head butt each other off. Foster had seen it on a TV show. Dad said they have cloven hooves that help them keep their balance on very small ledges. They look impossibly stable on the steepest cliffs. But even the most sure-footed can topple, especially when challenged by another goat. Whenever something went really wrong, Dad would always laugh and say “Well, she’s at the bottom of the mountain now.” Just like a head-butted goat. That was how Foster felt. No more pretending to balance. No more pretending at all.

  “I think it’s really important that we’re all honest with each other here,” James said. Aunty had organized the meeting because she thought Mom was “losing her marbles.” That was what she had said on the phone, anyway. So James, Sophie, Skinny Lady, Mom, and Aunty all sat in the family room with no tea tray and no sausage rolls. Mom couldn’t be bothered, apparently, to which Aunty had said, “Thank God!” Dad was in day care. Foster sat in the kitchen with his soldiers.

  “She’s at the bottom of the mountain now,” Foster said loudly.

  “Fossie, what are you doing in there?” Mom asked.

  “Eavesdropping.”

  “How do you know a word like that?” Sophie asked.

  “From Dad.”

  “What did you mean, Foster? What did you mean when you said ‘She’s at the bottom of the mountain now’?” James asked.

  “It’s something Dad would say when someone lost their marbles.”

  There was a brief silence before Aunty started to laugh, something she attempted to swallow in a discreet snicker but that eventually cracked the air in a great barking guffaw. Soon she was gulp-sighing on the exhale and snot-sniffing on the inhale.

  “That’s so true!” she said.

  “What else did your dad say?” Sophie asked.

  “He said that stories are the most important thing. He said people don’t tell stories or listen to other people’s stories enough. He said people are mad as March hares but to love them anyway. He said battles are won or lost before the first shot is fired. He said babies need to get the finger of God on them. He said if God is real, then so are dragons. He said the brain is a superhero and he said Mom is a princess. Oh, and he said an unkind word can clear a room quicker than a fart.”

  All of this was delivered while Foster moved his soldiers around the spill-stained placemat in front of him. He used cutlery to make a shining river through the brown wasteland and contemplated a full-frontal desperado assault over the benefits of a guerrilla-pincer move. A few moments passed before he realized everyone had gone silent. He wondered if they’d all snuck out of the house like Dad sometimes did. He looked over and could see heads above the top of the couch. He waited a bit longer, then slid from his chair and walked over.

  “Why are you crying, Mom?”

  “Tired, Fossie. Just tired.”

  “Do you want some wine, then?”

  “Just come sit with me.”

  Mom scooched over in Dad’s lounge chair so Foster would have enough room to squeeze in. He liked that.

  “Well. Now that we’re all at the bottom of the mountain together,” Sophie said, “let’s get a plan in place that suits everyone and make sure everyone gets the support they need. Carer burnout is a serious and devastating issue, and we are on the cusp of that here. So let’s just open the floor and…”

  Foster unfurled his fingers and wiped his palm sweat off the general with the bottom of his shirt. Mom’s hand rested on the small of his back, making circular motions like she used to do to coax him to sleep when he was little. The general had started looking rough. His sword was gone, snapped off when Foster had accidentally stepped on him.
The small disk of plastic grass he was rooted to had cracked. Still solid enough to keep him on his feet, but something needed to be done about it. Foster wasn’t allowed to use the smelly glue because it could stick your fingers together so bad you’d need a blowtorch to get them apart again. At least, that was what Dad said. But some sticky tape would work in a pinch. One of the general’s eyebrows had rubbed off too. Foster thought he should stop picking him up by the head.

  It took a while to get used to the door alarms. In the beginning everyone other than Dad started setting them off. They weren’t scary alarms. They played songs or chimed, depending on which door it was and whether it was being opened or closed. Foster would just call out “Sorry, that was me!” and Mom or Aunty would come and reset it. When Aunty set one off, she would usually mutter a bad word and reset it herself. Eventually they got used to the alarms. They didn’t frighten Dad, which was the main thing.

  James said it was important to keep Dad and everyone else in the house safe. Special clips were put on the cupboard doors. Foster could still open the cupboards. It was just fiddly work. You had to slide your fingers inside a gap and push on a plastic spring. There was nothing in those cupboards Foster needed, but he couldn’t help trying out the little clips to see how difficult they really were. Dad never attempted to snake his fingers inside the small opening. He seemed happily resigned to a drawer not opening when he pulled on it. Mom left two cabinets unclipped and filled them with plastic bowls and lids so that Dad could pull everything out and put everything back in if he felt like it. Sometimes Foster would help him sort out the right lid for each container.

  Mom removed the door locks on the bathroom and bedroom doors too—just in case. Foster didn’t like that so much. He couldn’t reach the bathroom door while he was sitting on the toilet, and Dad kept walking in on him. That meant Foster had to call out for Mom or Aunty to come and get Dad. That meant even more people fussing about in the bathroom while he sat there with his tighty-whities around his ankles. Foster started holding it and only pooing at school.