Oh the drama.
“You’re all a barrel of laughs. Regular comedians. You’re just pissed cause I got the biggest doughnut.” I held my chocolate glazed high. “Your covetousness disgusts me.”
Bill glanced at his watch. “Shit. It’s after one. I have to get back to work.”
“Mmm. I do, too.” Catherine stood up, finished the rest of her Boston cream, and gave me a peck on the cheek. “C’mon, Jude. I have a meeting at two.”
“Okay, okay. I’m coming,” Jude moaned. She gave me a quick hug and trailed Bill and Cat out the door. “Thanks for the free doughnuts, Ricky. Try not to let Nurse Goodyear cop a feel!”
“Hey you slobs,” I yelled down the hall. They’d left sugary crumbs all over my goddamn desk. “Who’s supposed to clean this up?” My question fell on deaf ears. They were already on their way down the stairs.
I surveyed the mess.
“Lovely.”
I sighed, and swept the crumbs into the waste basket.
“Ugh. Amateurs.”
My cleanup completed, I logged onto the Red Cross website to see how long it would take to get my donor card.
Why should I be left out of their elite little group, right?
CHAPTER 62
“Mommy? Daddy?”
Celeste’s tired voice woke Cat and I out of a deep sleep. I looked at the alarm clock: two-thirty in the morning.
“What is it, Pookie?” Catherine sat up and turned on the bedside lamp. The light cast a soft glow on Celeste’s chubby face, highlighting her disheveled amber hair. She rubbed her eyes and pouted.
“I can’t sleep.” Her words were thick with congestion, her eyes red-rimmed.
“Not feeling good?” Celeste had hopped into Catherine’s waiting arms, head nestled against her mother’s shoulder. A wet cough rumbled deep in her chest. She nodded.
Coughing and congestion had been the norm for the past several weeks, something the pediatrician had diagnosed as a common cold. The cold—which had started not long after Celeste’s fifth birthday—seemed anything but common, however, as no amount of medicine quelled the symptoms. Not a night went by where Celeste wouldn’t wander into our room during the wee hours, unable to sleep. It was unusual and worrisome.
I ran my hand through her damp hair and felt her forehead. It was cool. No fever at least.
“Wanna sleep with Mommy and Daddy tonight, princess?” I said.
“Yeah. Can I, Mommy?”
“Of course you can,” Cat said, holding up the blanket. “Here, get under the covers.”
Celeste dug in like a groundhog and snuggled between us.
She sniffed. “Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“Are you and Daddy gonna wrestle tonight?”
“No, sweetie. Go to bed.”
“G’night, Mommy. G’night, Daddy.”
I rubbed her shoulder and said, “Nite nite, Celeste.”
~~~
“This is getting ridiculous.”
Catherine nodded at my statement, then sipped from her third cup of coffee. Dark circles shadowed heavy-lidded eyes. Saturday morning cartoons shouted from the TV room while my wife and I slumped our elbows on the table, hardly able to keep from dozing off.
Celeste had spent most of the night tossing and turning, which meant Cat and I had spent most of the night tossing and turning. We were exhausted.
“She seems a little better now, though,” Catherine said. We looked at the munchkin, engrossed in her cartoons and coloring book. “It gets worse at night. The pediatrician said it’ll go away.”
“But it’s not going away, is it?”
“Nope.”
The phone rang. I put down my fork and cradled the handset between my shoulder and ear.
“Hello?”
“Good morning, Baby Boy. How’s tricks?”
“Hey, Mom. Tricks are disagreeable right now.”
“What’s wrong?”
I gave her the lowdown.
“Doctors,” she spat. “They do more harm than good, if you ask me. Do you think it’s a coincidence they call it practicing medicine, Richard? They never get it right. Maybe it’s time to bring her to someone else.”
“Cat and I are starting to think the same thing.”
“Maybe the poor girl’s allergic to something. I bet it’s that silly hamster.”
“God, I hope not,” I groaned. Mom detested rodents and anything resembling them. Her hatred toward Mr. Wiggles was well documented. “Celeste loves that thing.”
“What is it?” Cat asked.
“Mom thinks she could be allergic to M-I-S-T-E-R W-I-G-G-L-E-S.”
Catherine winced.
“Take her to an allergist, Richard,” Mom said. “Have them do a scratch test. I had to do the same with you when you were younger. Lord, but you were a pain in the ass. Cried like a little girl as soon as you saw the needles.”
“Thanks for the heart-warming trip down Memory Lane, Mom.”
“You’re welcome, dear.”
We spoke for a few minutes more before hanging up.
“Beth may have a point, Ricky.” Catherine nodded to the tiny form huddled in front of the TV lost in a world of creative freedom. “I hate to see her so drained all the time.”
“I know. I’ll call an allergist first thing Monday morning.”
~~~
“It’s not good, Cat.”
Catherine plopped a final potato into the pot of boiling water. “Mr. Wiggles?”
I nodded.
It was as we feared. The scratch test revealed Celeste was indeed allergic to the hamster escape artist. I hated keeping the truth from her on the drive home from the doctor’s office, face messy from tirelessly attacking an ice cream cone the size of a traffic pylon with her tongue, not a care in the world. It tore me up inside.
Cat shook her head and wiped her hands on a dish towel. “We’ll have to tell her. Soon.”
“I know. I didn’t want to do it alone. She’s going to go nuclear when she finds out we have to get rid of her furry buddy.”
“No! You can’t get rid of Mr. Wiggles! I love him!”
Wily, silent Celeste had snuck up on us. Again. Fists clenched at her sides, she stared at us through pools of tears. Her whole body shook.
Catherine knelt in front of her. “I’m sorry, Celeste. But we have to.”
“No, no, no, no, no.” A foot stomp followed each denial. “Uncle Bill gaved me Mr. Wiggles. I want him to stay.”
“Pookie—”
“No!” She fixed us with one last glare, and stormed off to her room.
“Well, that didn’t go so well,” I said.
“I’ll go talk to her.”
“No. I will. I’m the one that kept it from her. I’m the one who should fix it.”
Upstairs, I knocked on Celeste’s door. “Can I come in?”
“No.”
“Please?”
“No.”
I opened the door a crack. Celeste was standing in front of Mr. Wiggles’ cage, watching him run toward an unattainable destination on his hamster wheel. She ran to her bed and buried her face in the pillow as I walked in.
“Celeste,” I said, sitting next to her. “Mr. Wiggles is making you feel yucky. I don’t want to see him go any more than you do, but he can’t stay here anymore.”
“I don’t care. You and Mommy are mean.”
“We’re not trying to be. We only want what’s best for you.”
I heard footsteps in the hall over the squeak of the hamster’s exercise routine. Catherine appeared in the doorway, looking sad.
“I don’t want him to leave, Daddy.”
Celeste’s muffled, tear-filled voice broke my heart. How do you explain to a child that nothing in life is permanent? That things end? Kids bounce back quickly, but they live in-the-now, and right then, she was devastated.
“Things change, Celeste. Remember when you lost your first tooth?”
She pulled her head from out of the pillow and turn
ed over on her back. “Yeah.”
“You were so upset when it fell out, like a part of you was missing. But then what happened?”
“Another one growed in.”
“That’s right. Another one grew back in its place. You don’t forget that old tooth, though, do you?”
She shook her head. “Uh uh. I ‘member all kinda stuff.”
“Because you’re a smart little girl. You’ll remember Mr. Wiggles. I know you love him, and he loves you, too. But you won’t forget him when he goes, and I know he’ll remember you.”
She played with a tassel on her shirt, deep in thought. “Is he gonna die, Daddy?”
That took me by surprise. Kids are great at a lot of things. Taking a conversation and steering it into unexpected directions is one of them. “What makes you think that?”
“I dunno. Sarah from school had a cat named Mittens. Mittens was really, really old. Like, old as you and Mommy, and one day Mittens wasn’t home anymore and Sarah’s mommy tolded Sarah that Mittens had to go away, but then her big brother tolded her Mittens didn’t go away and her mommy was just lying to make Sarah feel better and that Mittens really died.”
“That was mean of Sarah’s brother,” I said.
Celeste shrugged. “Big kids’re always mean. They can’t help it. But is that what going away means, Daddy? Are you and Mommy just tryin’ to make me feel better?”
Catherine walked in, sat on the other side of the bed, and said, “That’s different than what’s happening with Mr. Wiggles, princess. Sarah’s cat—”
“Mittens, Mommy.”
“Right. Mittens. It sounds like Mittens was very old. Mr. Wiggles is still young, but he makes you feel bad. We’re going to give him to a nice family who he won’t make feel so yucky, and he’ll be happy.”
“But he’s gonna die one day, right?”
My wife and I exchanged a glance. Neither of us were prepared for this.
Rather than lie, I told her the truth.
“Yes, Celeste. One day Mr. Wiggles will pass away.”
“Does everything die?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know why,” Cat said. “But that’s how things are, princess.”
Celeste looked away. “That’s sad.”
“I know it is. But,” I said, pointing to her chest, “as long as you keep Mr. Wiggles here in your heart, as long as you always think about him, he’s still with you. It’ll be like he’s never gone away.”
“Really really?”
“Really really.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“Feel better now?” Catherine asked.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Good.”
“Can he stay with me this one last night, Daddy?”
“I don’t know, Celeste …”
She sat up and held her hands together. “Please, pretty please? Mommy, just this one more night?”
“All right,” Cat agreed. “Just this one night. But then that’s it. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Cat and I kissed Celeste on the forehead.
“Better get cleaned up for dinner,” I said.
“Okay. And Daddy?”
Catherine and I stopped on our way out into the hall. “Yeah?”
“D’you think I can maybe have a fish? I gotted a book from the libary at school and all the fishies were so pretty!”
I smiled and took Cat’s hand in mine. “We’ll see, Pookie Bear.”
CHAPTER 63
The next day I called Mom during my lunch hour to inform her of two things: that Celeste’s symptoms were the result of a severe pet allergy, and Mr. Wiggles would be living the rest of his natural life in someone else’s house.
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, Richard.” For once she wasn’t yelling over the phone. While she loathed that hamster with the fire of a thousand suns, even she wouldn’t gloat, knowing full well how much her granddaughter cared for him. “How did she take it?”
“Not too well at first, but we had a talk. Now she wants a fish.”
“A fish?” I pulled the phone away from my ear. So much for her not yelling. “They’re just as much a pain in the ass. Disease, pH levels … what did you tell her?”
“I told her we’ll see.” Any parent knows using the words ‘we’ll see’ is a diversionary tactic. Can I have this, Daddy? We’ll see, kiddo. As in, I don’t have the heart to tell you “no” right now, but I’m hoping you’ll forget in a few days so I never have to come right out and say it.
Mom chuckled. “I’ve used that one a time or two in my day.”
I rest my case.
“Where do you think I got it from, Mom? I learned from the best.”
“You won’t get any argument from me. Are you busy, Richard? You sound distracted.”
I was.
Colbert & Colbert was in the middle of health insurance changes. The contract with the current provider was at its end and the deadline for the open enrollment period in which to pick a new health plan had snuck up on me. Between my workload, organizing the blood drive, and the recent Celeste drama, I’d put off filling out the forms until the last possible minute. Said last possible minute was end of business that very day, and if it hadn’t been for Sandy’s text early in the morning—HEALTH INSURANCE FORMS: GET THEM TO HUMAN RESOURCES TODAY OR ELSE!—I’d be stuck with the worst of the packages by default.
Hectic best describes that morning. Not only did I spill coffee on my shirt, I dealt with a flurry of questions from a lispy kindergartener regarding nothing but fish. When can we get a fish, Daddy? Can we go to the pet store this weekend, Daddy? D’you think we should get a couple fish so they don’t get lonely, Daddy?
My answer to these burning questions? You guessed it: “We’ll see.”
Thank God for Catherine, who not only stepped in and deflected the aquatic inquiries like a human shield, but told me where to find Celeste’s social security card, which I needed to fill out the multitude of forms awaiting me at the office.
“It’s in the file labeled ‘Celeste’ in the office cabinet,” she’d said as I juggled putting on a clean shirt while opening drawer after drawer.
“What is?”
“Her social security card that you’ve been grumbling about for the past half hour. You could have asked.”
I am a man. We don’t ask directions, and we don’t ask where silly things like social security cards are kept. True story.
Since I was so late, I’d grabbed the whole elusive file and placed it in my briefcase.
“You’re the best, baby,” I’d said, kissing her on my way out.
“I know. Drive safe.”
Now, I had a sea of paperwork spread out on my desk, which by some miracle hadn’t been covered in crumbs from my turkey on whole wheat.
“Can I call you back later, Mom? I have a bunch of paperwork that needs getting done.”
“Absolutely. Have a nice day.”
I opened the file. In it was anything and everything related to Celeste, organized neatly and efficiently, thanks to my wife who was much better at bookkeeping than I ever was. Finding her social security card, I set it aside and allowed myself a few minutes of nostalgia to go through my daughter’s early history.
It felt like taking steps back in time as I worked my way backward chronologically to the day she was released from the hospital, flipping past her birth certificate, the security bracelet that had once called her fragile, pink wrist home, and the hospital discharge papers.
I looked at the photo on my desk and smiled, finding it hard to believe there was a time when she wasn’t walking, talking, smiling. More difficult still was recalling how small she was when we’d first brought her home, so tiny compared to the energetic cherub that stared back at me from the confines of the picture frame.
Sitting back in my chair, I scanned her birth information to see exactly how much she’d grown in the past five years.
Something caught my eye, and
my smile turned into a frown.
“That doesn’t seem right.”
I pulled a laminated card from my wallet and set it down next to the open file. Back and forth, back and forth went my eyes, from the hospital paperwork to the blood donor card I’d gotten in the mail two weeks after having donated. The office seemed eerily still. All was quiet.
The memory came to me in vivid detail as I thought back and searched the recesses of my mind. Waiting in line for registration. Another donor card, old and tattered. A blood type that brought to mind the name of an old Goth rock band.
Maybe I was mistaken? That had to be it. I’d read something wrong, or remembered something incorrectly. That was the only explanation.
I logged onto my computer and brought up the familiar website. For the next several minutes I scoured the page, hoping I’d gotten it wrong, wishing I didn’t know half as much as I knew I did.
A cold, sinking feeling crept up on me as I compared the discrepancies between what was in the file, what was printed on my card, and the unerring information that all but screamed at me from my monitor. The edges of my vision grew blurry, so intense was my stare.
I wasn’t wrong, no matter how much I ached for it.
No. No way. Impossible.
And yet it wasn’t impossible. The information I had before me was cruel, irrefutable, and very, very real.
Doubt became nervousness. Nervousness turned into anger. Rather than chew my fingernails—a habit that, at the ripe old age of thirty-one, presented itself with less and less frequency—I balled my hand into a fist and slammed the desktop. Papers rode the resultant wave of air and floated to the ground. Pencils, pens, and paperclips rattled. My card, the offending file, both spilled over the edge. The photo of Celeste in her floral dress, smiling and happy in front of the placid brook shuddered and crashed on its face.
I was barely aware of my gut twisting, of the onset of throbbing in my fist.
Almost nothing registered.
Nothing except for the facts I’d stumbled upon.
They mocked me. Like the perpetrator of a cruel April Fool’s joke, they laughed in my face.
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