by Dar Williams
Phyllis was always a big talker. Now she and my dad were going full tilt. A couple hours later, I went to the kitchen for some cake.
My dad’s bedroom door was ajar. I walked past it, then I backed up, hearing how much their voices seemed to have changed.
They were looking at his pictures from summer camp. Dad was talking about how afraid he was every night, because the kid in the upper bunk told him he might get bitten by a rabid skunk. They talked about rabid animals, and how if one bit you, you’d have to get twenty-five shots in your stomach. My dad sounded like a kid who was still afraid of getting bitten, even though we’d been on lots of camping trips since then.
He said, “Do you like snakes?”
And she said, “Of course, I like snakes.”
“Would you touch one?”
“I have touched one. At the zoo. With my dad. Would you touch a snake?”
“I don’t know,” said Dad, laughing like a boy. “I think I would at a zoo. But I wouldn’t touch it in the real world, if you know what I mean. We had a snake in our basement one night, and nobody would touch it. It wasn’t even poisonous!”
She said, “That’s really scary! I mean, even if the snake isn’t poisonous, it could still bite you. It could crush you.”
They both squealed.
The boy finished his story. “Anyway, my mom said my dad should deal with it, but he wouldn’t, so she called the fire department.” The girl laughed, and he went on. “She also called when there was a skunk, and she didn’t wait for him to deal with it!”
They both continued to laugh. She imitated his mom. “Honey, really, DON’T deal with it!”
This was strange. I had heard this story before. But never like this.
I got closer to the door and heard the boy ask, “How did you get the name Phyllis?” I held my breath.
She said, “My grandmother. How did you get the name David?”
And he said, “My grandfather.”
There was a pause, and then they talked about oceanography, and how they had always planned to make a ship out of unbreakable glass so they could always go below deck and see all the fish. Then Dad was giving Phyllis a lecture on what to do if she was attacked by a shark, as if we ever did anything besides swimming in lakes and creeks.
I was amazed at what Phyllis had done. She had led him back so far into the past that he was opening up rooms full of childhood thoughts and memories he didn’t even know he had!
He started yawning. “Hey, I’m really tired,” he said, sounding surprised.
I saw him lean over and point to their high school yearbooks. “I really liked looking at those yearbooks,” he muttered as he drifted off to sleep. “I remember when you got pretty. You went away for the summer before ninth grade, and you came back pretty.”
Then my dad lay down and started to sleep, curling up and snuggling with his pillow as if it were a stuffed animal.
I backed away from the door so Phyllis wouldn’t see me, but she flung the door open as she left his room. She was her full-grown self with her full-grown voice, wiping some tears away. “Amalee!” she gasped, as she closed the door. “Did you hear that?”
“I heard the whole thing,” I whispered. “Why are you crying? You know you’re pretty, Phyllis,” I teased, but then I realized she was crying because of his confession that he thought she was pretty in high school.
“That’s nice of you to say, Amalee. I just feel a little closer to fourteen than forty right now. And … and he never said I was pretty back then. He just stopped talking to me for a year. But that doesn’t matter.” She looked at the closed door. “Now I’m scared I’ve exhausted him.”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” I assured her. For weeks he hadn’t sounded as alive and excited as he had just now.
“I don’t know what happened,” she whispered back. “I just had a plan. I couldn’t bear to see him so unhappy.”
“I know. He’s been acting like he’s already a ghost,” I said.
“Oh, no, don’t say that, even if it’s true,” she muttered. I noticed her eyes welling up with tears again. “I know I talk a lot,” she went on, smiling nervously. “And I know you think I talk a lot and that I’m sort of a busy-body. Don’t deny it. So I had this plan…. I thought I could talk him into remembering himself, remembering things that make him happy. I was so determined to make him happy again, I just kept talking and talking. And look what happened!”
“You made him happy,” I said.
She clutched my arm. “Do you think I did?” Now tears were rolling down her cheeks. “Do you think I did something wrong? Did this happen because I talk too much? Sometimes I talk too much.”
I knew how Phyllis felt. I remembered all those times Hally stared at me when I couldn’t stop talking, because I felt nervous. “No, Phyllis, you don’t talk too much,” I told her. “And you didn’t talk too much.”
Phyllis opened the door. There was Dad, half-smiling and fast asleep. We had no idea if he’d remember whatever had just happened.
Phyllis asked, “Amalee, did you see us, or did you see a different us?”
“Your voices were different.”
“How different?
“If you don’t know, I don’t know.”
Dad woke up about four hours later. Phyllis and I sat on his bed while he told us that he’d dreamed of fighting a snake and sailing in a glass boat surrounded by angelfish, barracudas, and sharks.
He seemed almost happy then. But in the days that followed, Dad looked terrible. He was sicker. Phyllis was panicked that she’d done something wrong, but I knew she hadn’t. When Dad perked up at all, it was when I talked about jungles, oceans, forests, or even my social studies project on the first Thanksgiving. Phyllis had helped him clear a path to his childhood, and it made him happy whenever he went there. There was nothing wrong with that. Sometimes, I wished I could go there, too.
A few days later, Dr. Nurstrom showed up with what he called an intravenous bag, or IV bag, which meant he wanted to feed my dad with a tube. Joyce promised that she could check on Dad every four hours or so. She would be sleeping in the living room. Dr. Nurstrom was kind enough to tell me to look away while he put a needle in Dad’s arm. That’s how Dad would be “fed.” I thought all eighty pounds of me were about to hit the ground in a faint. He put some tape over the needle, so I didn’t have to see what was going on.
“Are you sure he shouldn’t be in the hospital?” I prodded.
“Yes, but I need all of you to make sure the needle is in, not just Joyce. I’ll be coming in twice a day, and you can use the beeper I gave your dad. It has my number, plus the number for Helen Forrest, a nurse who lives in New Paltz, and the one for Northern Dutchess Hospital.” He stopped as if he’d remembered something. “Uh, tonight I can’t come.”
Joyce was standing next to him. “Why not, Robert?” I was surprised to hear her call him by his first name.
“Oh, it’s just a little award ceremony.”
“Are you getting an award?” Joyce asked, her eyes sparkling.
“Why, um, yes. It’s an award ceremony for me.”
“Well, well! This is an important night!” Joyce exclaimed.
“You could say that.”
Dad suddenly spoke up, surprising us with the fact that he was awake.
“Could my friends go?” Dad asked Dr. Nurstrom. “They make a very good cheering section.”
Dr. Nurstrom, or Robert, was trying not to look excited. “I’m sure they could come.”
“Actually, the only person who can make it is Joyce,” Dad realized.
“Well, in that case, I’ll seat you at my table,” Dr. Nurstrom said.
Was my dad creating an excuse for Joyce and Dr. Nurstrom to go on a date? Somehow this whole IV bag and needle thing didn’t seem so scary if my dad was doing that! I was still scared, but I trusted Dr. Nurstrom more now, and I’d overheard him telling Joyce we just had to be patient for a while. I believed him. After all, he was an award-winnin
g doctor.
At school, Ellen and Hally were unusually nice to me. Hally said she liked my sweater. I could have sworn she hadn’t the last time I wore it. I think she said it was a peculiar shade of green that didn’t quite go with my coloring. I would have stopped wearing it, but she had pointed out something wrong with all my clothes by now, so what choice did I have?
Ellen and I both went to our lockers before lunch. “Oh, no!” she moaned. “My lock is jammed again!”
“You can put your books in my locker,” I offered.
“Thanks.” Ellen rushed over. “Tell me your combination, so I can get my books later.” I felt a little uneasy as I saw her write it on her hand.
She repeated, “Thank you so much!”
I’d seen the first robin redbreast of the spring on the way to school. I decided the new season was making everyone more friendly.
In science, something funny actually happened. It was pretty awful, too, but I think Mr. Hankel should have expected what was about to happen.
He started the section on digestion. He pulled down a diagram.
We were fine for the mouth part. He talked about how digestion begins in the mouth, how saliva starts to break the food down. Then he ran his pointer down the esophagus, telling us about peristalsis, which is the rippling motion that pushes food down to the stomach. For the stomach, he even had a special effect. He pulled out a bone he said he’d soaked in vinegar to show the effect hydrochloric acid has in our stomachs. He bent the bone like it was made out of rubber. Interesting.
But things started to fall apart when he got to the large intestine. First it was giggling. We all knew where this was going. Then there were the obvious digestion noises every time Mr. Hankel turned his back. He started on the gallbladder, which wasn’t even the bladder, but the laughing and the noises got louder. And then Mr. Hankel got so angry! I was a little surprised. How many years had he taught this? A million? He should have known.
He erased everything off the board and gave us a pop quiz on the parts of the ear. We were quieting down when we heard him mutter, “I don’t know who got you all so riled up, but I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
Well, then even I had to laugh. The next five minutes were a chaos of sound effects, most of which required two hands, and then the bell rang.
It was not such a bad day.
Dad had been on the IV for three days when I woke up to scratching and screeching noises down the hall. What would today bring? Dad’s health, teachers, my so-called friends. Would things get better or worse?
I’d finally given up on talking to Dad about his real life or my real life. I was trying to live without anyone being able to answer any questions.
I thought maybe it was Phyllis making all the noise, so I got up. I actually liked our rides to school together, listening to her Broadway musicals. As it turned out, the noise was John. He was disappearing into my dad’s room with a kitchen chair. Someone else came in the front door. It was Carolyn, with her short, freckly arms, sharp nose, and tight, thin mouth. I could see the small muscles in her arms as she carried in a painting easel.
“If I’ve parked out on the road, will I get a ticket?” she asked me. That was Carolyn, asking the person who couldn’t drive. One thing I actually liked about her was that she didn’t treat me like a kid. I think she forgot. I shook my head. No, no ticket.
“Do you have any coffee?” she asked, heading for the kitchen. “This is a little early for me.” I nodded, then followed her into the kitchen to get some cereal.
“You want some?” she asked, pouring water for the coffee, and when she saw me with the cereal box, she said, “Good idea. Can you make me a bowl, too?” She pulled a couple of bananas out of her straw bag. “You can slice these on top.”
I started talking with myself in my head. Carolyn is bossy. That’s okay. It’s just what she’s like. She brought bananas. That’s a good thing. Say thank you.
“Thank you,” I said out loud, but I didn’t like the way it sounded. It sounded aggravated.
John walked in. “Who wants eggs?” he asked. He saw me with two bowls of cereal. “Oh, well, I want eggs. And how about I make you a scrambled egg and tomato sandwich for school?”
I said, “Thanks, John. Sure.”
“No problem. Hey, Carolyn, if you don’t have enough coffee for me, your butt is seriously in the ringer.”
“Oh, you want some?” Carolyn jumped up to make an extra cup.
“I help Carolyn lug her painting stuff into your dad’s room, and she doesn’t even remember to make me coffee,” he groaned.
Carolyn didn’t seem to hear him. “I’m going to paint a trompe l’oeil mural on your dad’s wall,” she said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s French for ‘fool of the eye.’ You paint something so realistic the eye thinks it’s real. I could paint the lawn and the sky outside his window, and you would think that I’d just knocked down the wall.”
“You’re that good?” I asked.
John turned and gave me a look. I looked at my cereal.
“Oh, yes,” Carolyn said, matter-of-factly. “But I’m not painting the lawn. I’m painting an enchanted garden.” She strode out, with John about to follow. He had two plates of eggs.
“Who’s the second plate for?” I asked.
“For your dad, silly! Could you bring us some juice? I’ll come back for the coffee.”
“Haven’t you heard?” I asked. “He hasn’t eaten in three days.”
“No!” John looked unsteady. “Oh, Lord, I saw the IV bag, but I thought it was, you know, vitamins or something. I don’t know anything about this. I’ve hated all this medical stuff since my mom died in a hospital.” He stood and considered the eggs. “I’m just going to wave this under his nose. And then I’ll eat it myself.”
I got ready for school and visited Carolyn, John, and my dad as I was leaving.
“How are you, Dad?” I asked.
“Just tired, sweetheart,” he answered with a half smile. “John’s got me propped up, so I’m going to watch Carolyn paint. Then I’ll sleep, I’ll watch, and I’ll sleep again.”
“I’m taking care of your father today,” Carolyn pronounced. This worried me. She had offered me a cup of coffee. What would she do to my dad? I saw the real possibility that she could knock him out with paint fumes and so I cracked the window open with a thin book that Carolyn had brought.
“Hey, I was going to read that to him!” she said. “It’s about the effects of acid rain on the indigenous cultures of northern Quebec. Stunningly written. Real cultural resonance and sensitivity.”
“That sounds very uplifting, Carolyn,” said John. “But I agree that the window should be open, and besides,” he said, winking at me, “I know the way you work. Once you start, you’re unstoppable. Your talent has a mind of its own.”
“That’s true,” Carolyn agreed thoughtfully.
I kissed my dad and winced when he said, “Be good.” It was only last year, when I was in the fifth grade, that he would say, “Be good,” kissing me on the top of the head. I would say, “And what is good, according to philosophy?” Philosophy is the study of everything good and bad, right and wrong. He would say something like, “Well, this philosopher says don’t drop your history report in the snow on the way to school, and we can call that good. Wait! That’s me telling the day to be good for you!” I would laugh, and so would he. Things had really changed.
I walked out of Dad’s room with John, who started laughing as soon as we were in the hall. “Oh, man, acid rain? What was Carolyn thinking? How about some good bedside reading?” He went on, “And it’s a good thing your dad has that IV bag. Carolyn can’t make toast. But she is good at lettering.”
He nodded at my lunch bag. She had written my name on it in a beautiful medieval-looking script.
“Have a good day,” said John. “Don’t let the mean kids get you down.”
How could I even begin to tell him that I was one of
“the mean kids”?
School was a blur of misunderstandings from start to finish, like getting in trouble when my pen ran dry and I couldn’t find another one.
First I was stared at for rustling in my book bag, and then I was “separated” when I asked Ellen if she had another pen. She just gave me a blank look. So much for being on her good side. Luckily there was a pen on my new desk, the only good thing that happened in school today.
Lenore pestered me about whether I wanted to sleep over. “My mom says you have to tell me yes or no. What are you doing next Friday night?” I’d already told her I couldn’t come this week.
“My aunt is coming,” I told her.
“What about Saturday?”
“She’s coming for the whole weekend.”
“I could come over.”
“She’s taking me fishing,” I said.
“In March?” she asked.
“Uh … she’s from Canada.” What a pile of lies. I had no aunt, let alone one from Canada.
“Oh, okay then,” she said. “Sunday?”
“No,” I said, and walked away, out of lies.
I ate lunch alone backstage. I looked at my lunch bag, with Carolyn’s beautiful writing of my unusual name. Inside was the egg sandwich, and I could tell it was made with care. Carefully cut in triangles on lightly toasted bread, with just the right amount of salt and pepper. Even the tomatoes weren’t soggy. John also put in an apple and a big piece of cake. Maybe he knew how much I hated school, or maybe that’s what he always did for people.
We studied the arrival of the French in North America in social studies, and that was cool. They came through Canada, trapping beavers and otters as they paddled on the St. Lawrence River. They weren’t like the settlers who came with a religious mission. They just wanted to hunt and fish and make a lot of money. They lived rough. I thought of my made-up aunt from Canada who was going to take me fishing in March. I thought about her all the way home.
The first thing I saw when I got inside was Carolyn standing outside my father’s room. “I don’t know what came over me,” she said, almost shaking. “I thought this would take a few days, but it’s — it’s done! And it’s quite extraordinary!”
