Not Perfect: A Novel

by Elizabeth Laban

  “So what’s your story?” Toby said at the exact moment she was about to say she had to go. Her story? Ha!

  “You know what, I just got a text from my daughter’s friend’s mom,” Tabitha said, holding up her phone as if for proof. “I guess Fern isn’t feeling as well as I thought she was. I have to at least call, probably I have to go get her.”

  “Oh, okay,” Toby said, clearly disappointed. “Same time, same place next week?”

  She hesitated, and before she could answer, he smacked his forehead with his palm.

  “Actually, I think my daughter has a birthday party to go to. I’m taking her, so . . .” he trailed off.

  Part of her wanted to ask him what his story was, the other part thought it was better to not know. Honestly, wasn’t her life complicated enough?

  “Okay, well,” she said, feeling her phone buzz again. Now Sarina’s mom was calling her. “I have to take this.”

  She wound her way through the crowd, around the maze of chairs, and answered before she reached a quiet place.

  “Hold on, hold on,” she called into the phone. “Just leaving a noisy restaurant.”

  She pushed out onto Spruce Street and appreciated the quiet for a second.

  “Hi, I’m here,” she said.

  “I’m so sorry to bother you,” Kaye said. “But Fern just isn’t herself today. I know you said she had been sick earlier this week. I don’t know if it’s that, or if she’s just tired. She really doesn’t seem to want to play, and she says her knee hurts. I don’t think she injured it at all, at least not since she’s been here, but when I tried to look at it she pulled it away. I thought I better call you.”

  “Thanks,” Tabitha said, glancing at Toby through the window. He kept looking around like he expected her to come back. Or at least that’s what she briefly imagined he was doing; he probably hadn’t given her a second thought since she walked out. She was not thinking clearly. She took a deep breath. “I’ll be right there.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Tabitha shook her head and closed her eyes as she listened to Fern coming down the hall toward the bathroom, again. She heard the hitch in her gait as Fern tried not to step heavily on her right leg. Tabitha had thought she was really asleep this time. She walked out into the hall.

  “Does it still hurt?” Tabitha asked through the mostly closed door.

  “Oh, no,” Fern said quickly. “I just had to pee.”

  Tabitha made a face, but there was no one to see her make it. There was no one to widen her eyes at as if to say, Clearly something is going on, what is her deal not admitting to it?

  “Well, I can hear you limping a little,” Tabitha said gently. “It must hurt.”

  “No, it really doesn’t,” Fern said. Tabitha just stood and listened while Fern flushed and then ran the water. When she came out, she was standing tall on both legs, but Tabitha thought she saw her grimace.

  “Well, will you do me a favor? Will you come sleep in my room tonight?” Tabitha asked. At least then Tabitha would be able to keep an eye on her.

  “Okay,” Fern said. She walked slowly, but without a limp, into Tabitha’s bedroom and sat heavily on the bed.

  “Let me see,” Tabitha said, patting the place next to her on the bed.

  “There’s nothing to see,” Fern said. “I told you, I think I twisted it a little at Sarina’s, but it’s much better now.”

  “Well, I’m glad about that,” Tabitha said. “But let me see anyway.”

  Fern awkwardly brought her leg up so Tabitha could have a look. Really, it looked okay. Tabitha couldn’t figure it out. She had given her Advil but she wasn’t sure it had helped, and now she couldn’t get a straight answer out of her. She’d try a little Tylenol. Maybe that would help her sleep. She knew it was okay to alternate doses of Advil with Tylenol when pain was really bad; sometimes they’d had to do that when Fern was smaller and had earaches. Fern still couldn’t swallow pills, so Tabitha hunted for the liquid Children’s Tylenol. She looked in her medicine cabinet first, then her travel bag, and finally the medicine cabinet in the bathroom Fern usually used, but she was pretty sure she wouldn’t have left it there. And she was right. On her way back to her room, she glanced under Levi’s door. His light was out. She felt completely trapped. She couldn’t go out and leave them alone, she didn’t even have money to buy more Children’s Tylenol. Could she give Fern adult Tylenol? She didn’t think so, and besides, she would never be able to get it down.

  Tabitha walked back into her room empty-handed, wishing someone else could be the grown-up for a while, and saw Fern was fast asleep. She was afraid to move her, even an inch, so she went around to the other side of the bed, Stuart’s side, and got in. She lay there with the lights on, hoping Fern wouldn’t wake up, hoping her knee would feel better in the morning. She needed to get up to turn out the lights. In one minute, she’d do it.

  “Get up, it’s so late,” Levi said, standing over her. She looked around. Fern had curled into a ball, but left her leg straight, and was still sleeping.

  “Shhh,” she said to Levi, putting her finger to her lips.

  “No, she has to get up, too,” he said, exasperated. “We’re already late for school.”

  Fern opened her eyes and immediately started to whimper, leaning over her knee, which was probably stiff. As soon as she got her bearings, she was quiet and shook her head a little.

  “It’s okay,” Fern said. “I was just having a bad dream.”

  It was alarming to Tabitha that even in sleep Fern didn’t bend her knee. It must be much worse than she was letting on.

  “Levi, you go get ready, I’ll call and say you’re coming but going to be late,” she said. “I have to make sure Fern is okay.”

  Fern did not seem to be okay. Tabitha was absolutely sure that she was trying not to cry. Tabitha looked at her leg. It looked red in a way it hadn’t yesterday. She reached out to see if it felt warm, and it did. She got a cool, wet washcloth, which she handed to Fern, but Fern refused to use it; she just kept saying that she was okay.

  “Let me just call school,” Tabitha said. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Okay,” Fern said. Tabitha was sure she was sniffling a little. Was that from trying not to cry, or did she have a cold? Might she have a virus that settled in her knee? Tabitha thought she’d heard of that happening before. She went to the bathroom, just a few feet away, and slowly closed the door to make her call.

  “Larchwood School,” a woman’s voice said.

  “Rhona?” Tabitha asked, hopefully.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Tabitha. Brewer.”

  “Oh, Tabitha, I was just about to call you. The kids aren’t here yet,” she said.

  Tabitha pulled the phone away from her ear and glanced at the time. It was almost quarter to ten. She had no idea it was so late.

  “Yeah, sorry, we overslept,” she said. “Levi is coming—he’ll just be late, obviously. I wanted to ask you about Fern. She’s having pain in her knee. It looks okay to me, maybe a little red, but she didn’t injure it in any obvious way. Can I bring her in to see Monica?”

  Tabitha knew the answer. She’d been to enough committee meetings to know using the school nurse this way was out of the question, something that was completely frowned upon. But she’d do anything at this point to have Fern looked at, and avoiding the co-pay at the pediatrician’s office would be helpful, too. In fact, she regretted asking. If she had driven Fern to school, she could have pretended it came on suddenly when she got there, and Fern could have gone to the nurse. Too late for that now. Fern would never have agreed to it anyway.

  “Hold on,” Rhona said, surprising Tabitha. While she waited, she peeked out the door and saw Fern testing putting weight on her leg. Finally, Rhona came back. “Hey, sorry, I just wanted to ask Monica since she was right here, but I’m sorry to say that won’t work. Monica suggested a warm bath and also to call your pediatrician. You know how it is, if it happens separate from school, Monica
can’t look at them. But I really hope Fern feels better soon.”

  “Thanks for asking,” Tabitha said. “It seemed worth a shot. I hate to have Fern miss more school—since she was just out with that stomach bug. Also, I called our pediatrician and they have a wait, so . . .”

  “Oh, how long is the wait?” Rhona asked.

  “I don’t know,” Tabitha said. “I’ll call back now.”

  “Good idea,” Rhona said. “And I’ll keep an eye out for Levi.”

  After hanging up, Tabitha punched in the numbers for Stuart’s cell phone. It connected, the name STUART came right up, and it rang. Once, twice, three times. Now was when it would normally go to voicemail but no, it didn’t. It kept ringing, and Tabitha wanted to scream, Where are you! How could you just disappear like this! There wasn’t even a place to deposit a message that he might listen to later. There was just empty space. Didn’t he wonder what was going on with his children? With her? She pushed the red button to stop the call and went into her messages. She texted him something she had never thought to text him before. If he didn’t respond to this, he wouldn’t respond to anything. She clenched her teeth, which she knew would give her a headache within the hour, so she unclenched them. She looked at her phone, at the message waiting to be written, and she typed 9-1-1. Then she pushed “send.”

  Somehow, she thought if she really got desperate, if she couldn’t stand it anymore and wrote the worst possible, most frightening message, Stuart would respond. To her, 911 meant something was very wrong, someone could be in serious trouble. It was far worse than a painful knee and being late for school. Still, she felt fine about sending it. But then nothing happened. It looked like it was moving toward being delivered, but there was no confirmation. She shook the phone up and down, waiting for the tiny word of satisfaction—Delivered—to appear below her text, but it didn’t. The words no cell-phone service ran through her head. She sank to the floor and waited a minute, maybe two. Then she got up and went back to her bedroom.

  “Fern, let me just check on Levi, okay?” she said. “You aren’t going to school today, so just sit tight. We’re going to figure this out.”

  Tabitha found Levi at the front door, his hand on the knob. She wanted to say, Really? Were you just gonna leave? But she didn’t. All she wanted was for him to get to school okay.

  “I spoke to Rhona,” Tabitha said. “She knows you’re coming.”

  “Okay.”

  “Please be careful,” Tabitha said. She had a moment of thinking better of it, calling him back, and taking him in a cab. Somehow, it seemed, he had gone from being walked every day to being totally on his own. Was that what the phrase “he grew up overnight” meant? She hoped not. She walked out into the hall and waited while the elevator made its way to their floor.

  “Bye,” she called as he got in, and the doors closed.

  She went back to Fern without even taking her usual perch by the window to see him leave the building and guess which route he’d take. Now Fern was sitting up, her back against the head of the bed, a pillow under her knee. Maybe she was the smartest one of all. Tabitha hadn’t thought to elevate it. She had the television on, and seemed peaceful enough. Maybe Tabitha should have tried harder to get her to school? No, this was okay.

  “It feels even better than before,” Fern said sweetly. “But I think a little rest might help.”

  “It’s a good day to rest,” Tabitha said, feeling a touch of relief. By tomorrow it would be fine, she was sure. Most things that hurt just needed a little rest.

  “You hungry?” she asked.

  Fern nodded, mesmerized by the television.

  Tabitha went into the kitchen and stood frozen. She wanted to text 911 over and over again to Stuart. 911—our daughter is in pain. 911—we have no food. 911—where the hell are you? She looked through the cabinets and found crackers. She hoped there might be some cheese. There was—manchego—which she sliced thinly, laid on the crackers, and drizzled with the fancy balsamic (Fern’s favorite). There was only about a half inch left in the bottle.

  She took the plate in to Fern, who immediately started munching on it. She actually seemed fine.

  “Do you want to try to go to school for the afternoon?” If she could get her there before lunch, that would be good. The school provided great lunches, all part of the tuition, so that was already paid for. Tabitha hated to have Fern miss that. Here it would just be more crackers—there wasn’t even much cheese left.

  “I don’t know, maybe,” she said, finishing the crackers and using her finger to dab up every last drop of the vinegar. Tabitha had been hoping she would leave a little, but she couldn’t blame her. Tabitha could wait until lunch. What she did need was coffee. She’d started using thin, white socks as filters and just a tiny bit of coffee each day, forming her own version of a Melitta drip coffeemaker. It was weak, but enough to get her through. As the hot water soaked through the grinds and cotton and dripped into a mug, her phone beeped. Stuart? She rushed to look, but it was just a reminder. The reminder about the meeting with the rabbi. Today. And she hadn’t even warned Levi about it. Despite all her Post-it notes, she hadn’t remembered. She had gotten so used to seeing them there, she didn’t even notice them anymore. She shook her head. They couldn’t possibly miss it again.

  It turned out Fern did not want to go to school in the afternoon. She wanted to eat cheese and crackers with balsamic vinegar—Tabitha was now sorry that she even introduced the balsamic today—and watch movies. After a warm bath, though, her leg seemed much better. Tabitha suspected it was still sore based on the way Fern walked to the bathroom. When Levi came in at a little after four o’clock, Tabitha was almost afraid to tell him.

  “We have the meeting with the rabbi today,” she said, as casually as she could.

  “No way,” he said.

  “Well, we have to go, we missed last week,” she said. 911—our son is having a bar mitzvah soon and it isn’t going well! “The rabbi is expecting us.”

  “Okay,” Levi said.

  “Okay?” she asked, surprised by his turnaround.

  “Yeah, okay,” he said. “Then you can tell Dad about it, and he’ll have to come home. If we’re working on my bar mitzvah, he has to be here.”

  “Right,” Tabitha said. “That makes sense.”

  Fern agreed to stay home and lie in Tabitha’s bed. Tabitha and Levi headed to the car, which was parked on Pine Street in a good spot. She tried not to think about finding another spot when they returned from the meeting as she eased the car out into traffic.

  When they got to the synagogue, Tabitha felt like she always did: that this was a nice place, but she didn’t really belong. The building was soothing with its art on the walls, carpet on the stairs, and the smell of prayer books in the air. But she worried someone would ask her a question she couldn’t answer—like: “What were the ten plagues?” or “Why did Moses part the Red Sea?” Or ask her to say the Shehecheyanu. They checked in, walked up the two flights to the rabbi’s office, and waited outside. The door was closed, and Tabitha thought it was proper etiquette to wait instead of knocking. But five, then ten minutes went by, and nothing happened. Levi was getting restless. Finally, the door opened.

  “Oh, you’re here,” the rabbi said kindly. “I was just going to come looking for you.”

  So they should have knocked.

  “Please, come in,” he said.

  They followed him into his big office, which was at least as soothing as the rest of the building, and sat around a table.

  “Should we wait?” Rabbi Rosen asked.

  “Wait?” Tabitha asked.

  “For Stuart,” he said, pointing toward the one empty seat. For some reason, the image of Toby decorating the chair at the sports bar and throwing confetti around it came to her mind. She took a deep breath.

  “He isn’t coming,” she said. “I am so sorry I didn’t let you know sooner. He’s on an extended business trip.”

  “Oh, I see,” the rabbi sa
id. Then he looked at Levi. “Do you want to reschedule for another time, when he’s back?”

  “Sure,” Levi said.

  Once again, Tabitha felt like she was in quicksand. 911—I can’t lie like this anymore!

  “It might be a while,” she said quickly. “The miners’ unions are having a really hard time.”

  “Okay then,” Rabbi Rosen said, threading his hands together and placing them gently in his lap. “Let’s get started, and you guys can fill Stuart in when you talk to him.”

  Levi shot Tabitha a look, which she caught out of the corner of her eye. She just kept looking at the rabbi, nodding and smiling. He smiled and nodded back. Surely he’d run a meeting with just one parent before. Surely he’d witnessed the fallout from a broken family.

  “I want to accomplish three things during this meeting,” the rabbi said. He put three fingers into the air. “First, your project, that should be set and you should get going with that right away. Second, and even more important, your D’var Torah, or your speech, talking about your Torah portion, what it means to you, and how your service project fits into it all. That is also the time to thank everyone who has helped you along the way. And finally, three, I want to make sure you’re comfortable with your Torah portion itself.” As the rabbi listed each item, he pointed to a different finger.

  Tabitha sat tensely on the edge of her seat. All those tasks seemed impossible to her. She tried to think of something to say, something that would sound knowledgeable and helpful. When she got home she’d learn the Shehecheyanu.

  “I know what I want to do for my service project,” Levi said, and Tabitha was hugely relieved that someone else was talking. “I want to volunteer at The Family Meal.”

  “Ah, that’s a great organization,” the rabbi said. Tabitha sat back and let their words swim around her. They worked it all out, and it seemed like she almost didn’t have to be there. If Stuart were there, how involved would he be? Would he be trading Yiddish words and bits of knowledge with the rabbi? Was this better, letting Levi take the lead? Maybe it wasn’t awful. They came up with a plan: how many hours Levi should spend with The Family Meal, what his basic speech would be, and when he should meet with the rabbi again with a complete draft, and they established that, yes, Levi was comfortable with his Torah portion. Tabitha hadn’t even heard him practice it, though she wouldn’t know what was right and what wasn’t anyway.