by Dar Williams
She didn’t seem as sharp as she usually was. In fact, if there was one word to describe how she was acting, it was shy — shy about whatever it was she’d done.
She looked me in the eye. “Amalee, I’m very good, but this is different.” How could I tell her that something very different was going on for all of us? She hadn’t seen John working in our kitchen, where sometimes it looked like he had more than two arms. She hadn’t watched Phyllis zooming herself and Dad back to childhood to help him forget his sadness.
“Do you want to see?” Carolyn asked.
We went into the room. I didn’t know what to say. I expected a wave of paint fumes to hit me as we walked in, but instead I could almost smell what I can only describe as the color green. I smelled moss and leaves and long grass because they were right there in front of me. Plants whose stems were as thick as celery, with huge shiny leaves and large drooping flowers, plush green grass leading into a hedge, and slightly off to the side, a giant gnarled tree with silvery branches spreading out in a spiral over carpets of tiny white flowers and violets. Under its branches was an archway.
I looked over at Dad, who was sleeping, no surprise, and turned back to Carolyn’s incredible creation. As I walked closer to the painting, I saw the garden continuing farther in. On the other side of the archway were ancient-looking fruit trees, with all their peaches, apples, plums, and apricots catching the soft, golden sunlight. The trees grew in fields of tall grass and wildflowers, and when I stepped forward, I could make out the beds of small white flowers in the distance beyond. That’s when I walked into the wall.
“That’s a wall,” Carolyn said, in explanation.
“Thank you,” I replied sarcastically.
She wasn’t making fun of me, of course. That was the great thing about Carolyn’s seriousness. She would never make you feel stupid for believing something that wasn’t real. She might have walked into the wall herself and realized, as I did, that the wall was less like a wall and more like a blanket of warm summer air, and that it smelled like grass.
I stepped back and clapped my hand to my mouth.
“I know,” Carolyn spoke in a whisper. “This isn’t my work. It’s better than me.”
We both looked at the garden again. I saw more things. In the wildflower field, there were flowers that looked almost like fireworks, and others that looked like big floppy bells.
Carolyn stepped forward and stood with me, close to the painting. “I think I see what happened,” she said under her breath. “You see, I kept on painting and painting, but the flowers seemed too small. There they are, over there.” She pointed to tiny distant flowers. “And then I thought, No, fields full of wildflowers. That’s what I’ll do. And I thought, No it’s still not enough! And I painted a hedge over the whole thing, with an entrance you could see through. But the hedge was too heavy and too boring, so I painted flowers in front of it, but it still wasn’t enough! This is your father we’re talking about! This wasn’t good enough for him! And I thought, maybe a big, ancient Japanese maple, and then maybe rubber plants and rain forest plants, big Amazonian plants, maybe that would be dramatic and beautiful. Beautiful enough.”
“And look at it,” said my dad. “The enchanted garden.”
We both swung around and saw him, wide awake.
Carolyn still looked like she couldn’t believe it. “I guess so,” she whispered.
Then she bent over and took something out of her straw bag.
“David,” she said, anxiously, “I got you something.” She straightened up, brushing something off. “Would you like an apricot?”
In her hand was a small apricot, glowing deep yellow, almost orange, rosy along the side. It looked warm from the sun.
I felt myself almost wanting to yell at her. Hadn’t she listened to anyone? He couldn’t eat! That was the problem! I also shot a glance over to the painting, where the apricots on the trees looked exactly like the one she was holding out. They were so similar, I almost wondered if this was enchanted fruit, if Carolyn had wandered into the garden just long enough to pluck one ripe apricot from the tree.
“C’mon,” she said, extending the fruit to him.
My dad took it. He closed his eyes and smelled it, and then he took a bite. I held my breath. He took another bite. He almost finished the apricot.
“I thought you’d like it,” she said quietly.
He tried clenching and unclenching his fingers. Carolyn put a bunch of sprigs in his hand. “Chew on these. This is milk thistle. It’s for your liver. And this is the root of a purple coneflower, echinacea.”
Echinacea? That sounded like a monster from a Greek myth, one with six heads.
“It’s for your immune system,” Carolyn explained. “And Saint-John’s-wort. For depression.”
My dad chewed a little on each, then said weakly, “Nice of you, Carolyn, sleep …” and he fell asleep. I wasn’t sure if that meant it was time to remove the IV bag.
He looked okay. I could even see a little color in his skin, as if he had a little of the sunlight on the apricot inside him.
Carolyn and I walked out as his eyes started to close.
“I’m discovering something,” said Carolyn. “I think I — like making people happy. I mean, everybody likes to make people happy, but it never seemed to work with me. I don’t know why.”
Poor Carolyn, with her mysterious paintings. She’d been speaking in code for as long as I’d known her. I always thought that Carolyn, from the planet of Carolyn, with the secret language of Carolyn, was saying, “Look at me!”
Well, sure she was. But today I saw that she’d been saying something else the whole time. She’d been saying, “Can’t anybody see that I care?”
Carolyn was mostly quiet as she ate two helpings of pasta with pesto and some vegetarian meat loaf. She didn’t believe in the phrase “uncomfortable silence.” I’m sure silence was very comfortable to Carolyn. She liked a lot of time to think.
When she left, I peeked in on Dad, then skidded over on my socks to the phone. I hadn’t wanted to hurt Carolyn’s feelings when she was at our house. But what had she just done?
Joyce answered the phone on the first ring. “Are you all right?” she squeaked out, knowing it was me.
“I think so. It’s just that … Carolyn got Dad to eat.”
“Did she? Wow.”
“Is it really ‘wow,’ Joyce? I mean should I take out the IV-needle thing?” I tried to sound calm.
“I’ll call Dr. Nurstrom and get back to you right away, Amalee,” she answered, and I’m not sure if she sounded grateful for the trust I placed in her, or for the opportunity to call Dr. Nurstrom.
The nurse, Ms. Forrest, came by in about an hour and spent some time in Dad’s room. “He’s really weak,” she pointed out. “I think we should keep him on the IV for the weekend. Did he ask to eat?”
“Uh, no,” I answered honestly. “His friend really wanted him to eat something, so he did.”
“And he didn’t throw it up?” she asked gravely, as if I wouldn’t tell her if my dad had thrown up! I shook my head.
“I took care of him,” said Ms. Forrest, adding that I should just let him sleep tonight, and that she was always on call.
Still, I lay awake waiting for his little beeper to go off, letting me know that there was an emergency. Or, at least, I thought I was awake. I found myself walking down the hall, into Dad’s room, and up to the painting, which was still full of sunlight, even though it was close to midnight. I saw the leaves of the rubber plant move a little. I saw wind blowing through the wild grass, bending the fragile stems of the violets, then, finally, blowing the red leaves of the tree upward to reveal their white undersides. As I smelled the violets and felt the wind in my hair, I heard laughter behind me.
“You’re just a kid!” my father said, laughing, as he moved beside me.
“It’s true,” Carolyn said, standing next to him. “You’re a kid. That’s a fact.”
I realized I hadn’t
felt like a kid for a while. Dad nudged me forward. “Don’t you want to go in?” he asked. I held out an arm and walked straight, right into the garden. Dad and Carolyn were following behind.
“Can you climb up there?” he asked me, pointing to the Japanese maple.
I looked at Carolyn. Could I? Did she paint a strong tree?
“The Japanese maple is a very dense hardwood,” she said. “The branches are like iron.”
I started climbing up the tree. It felt like a staircase that you climb with your arms as well as your legs.
When I was about ten feet up, I looked down at my dad. He was laughing. I went up another few feet and out along a big branch. There was Carolyn’s world, Carolyn’s gift to my dad, fields of wildflowers, fancy flower beds in S shapes, circles around ponds, orchards and hills of soft grass blowing to the south.
“Hey there!” Dad called. “We’ve got to get going! The sun’s going down!”
I joined them at the bottom, and giddy from our time in the garden, we turned to leave. Carolyn leaned over and whispered, “Relax, Amalee. Some things are a mystery. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Then we stepped out of the garden and into the room. And then I woke up.
I was relieved it was the weekend. The week in school had its moments, but I liked the peace of having a full weekend to do my homework. Dad’s friends were more … predictable than anyone at school.
Phyllis stayed for the whole weekend, checking in on Dad, who did not eat again, but who clearly felt better. John dropped by on the way to the bank on Saturday morning, very excited about something, but when I asked him what was so exciting, he just said, “Life. Life itself, my little daffodil.”
Monday morning arrived. It was April Fool’s Day, but in the morning, there was no joke, just a good feeling in the air. Dr. Nurstrom came very early and took out the IV.
“I don’t understand it,” he said. “But it happens often enough. You don’t need this anymore. I just can’t believe you are so ahead of schedule. You’re accepting the drugs better. It looks like your liver is functioning at a much higher level than it was last week, and overall, your immune system seems to be working more smoothly.”
He shook his head. I thought of the roots and twigs Carolyn had given my dad for his immune system, his liver, and depression. Did he seem less depressed to the doctor?
As if he were reading my mind, Dr. Nurstrom said, “You’re in better spirits, too, and you have better color.” He reviewed his charts. “I haven’t changed anything. The only explanation for this progress is my undeniable charm.”
Dr. Nurstrom cracked a joke? He must have, because my dad smiled. Dad turned to me and said, “Amalee, could you make me an egg?”
“It’s remarkable that you want to eat,” the doctor said.
“I know,” Dad told him. “I wish I could have eaten John’s eggs the other day. He put the plate under my nose, and I wanted to eat them — as much as I wanted to throw up!”
Oh, gross! I started out of the room. “Do you want two eggs, Dad?” I asked.
“No, just one.”
Everything was turning out better than expected this morning, and all I could do was shake my head and laugh.
I brought my dad the egg, made myself a scrambled egg sandwich, took an apple and a big piece of cake, and headed off for school.
I got to my locker and panicked. I had no pens or pencils, and my English and social studies notebooks weren’t there.
“Idiot!” I said out loud. Everything crashed down. I was so angry at myself. Ms. Severance would hate me. I was so busy playing in enchanted gardens and thinking about my dad’s doctor that I left my notebooks at home! I could have sworn I hadn’t even brought them home, just the books and assignments, but I must have.
I went to English class. Ms. Severance looked at me with a cold eye. I was a minute late. “As I said, please take out the test I handed back on Friday. Let’s go over it.”
I had nothing. I opened my science notebook to take notes. Then I saw an anatomy test in the folder. I unfolded it and pretended it was the English test, my stomach looping into bigger and bigger knots as Ms. Severance strolled toward my desk. I was able to hide the test the first time around. I pretended to be checking some other notes in my notebook.
I did this again the second time she came to me. As she circled my desk, I looked straight down at my notes, and then I heard, “That isn’t my handwriting.”
The bottom of the anatomy test was sticking out.
“Amalee, what test are you looking at?”
“Science,” I said. A few kids laughed.
“That isn’t funny,” said Ms. Severance.
“No,” I said. “I left my English notebook at home.”
“So you didn’t come to me at the beginning of class — oh, that’s right, you were late.”
I wanted to scream out, “Please! You’re the only teacher I like. Why do you hate me?”
I couldn’t say anything. I looked over at Ellen and Hally. They were laughing behind their hands.
I was in shock all through math class. Whatever good happened in school, there was always the bad lurking around the corner. School was just a house of needles, always about to collapse. Every day, I felt a little pinprick underfoot, a reminder that it was all about to fall apart.
That day at lunch, I looked down at my bag. I’d lettered it myself, trying to make it look like Carolyn’s handwriting. It looked sloppy, silly. Then I heard a rustling sound. In the darkness, I saw a figure. It was another girl. I watched her stand in front of the ropes that drew the curtains.
She tucked her long hair behind her ears nervously, and then she ran her hands down the ropes, nudged her foot against the sandbags, looked up at the lighting beams, and finally looked over at me.
“Oh, God!” she whispered, surprised to see me.
“I won’t get you in trouble,” I said.
“Oh!” She clutched her heart. “I did theater in my old school. My mom says all theaters smell the same, so I should come smell the new stage.”
“Does it smell the same?” I asked. I watched her relax a little.
“Yeah, it does, actually,” she said, laughing a little. “I guess it smells like old costumes and dusty curtains.” She banged on one of them. We both coughed.
She stood for a second. She had light brown hair. It was the new girl. For one moment, we were perfect strangers, perfectly nice and perfectly well-meaning. I already liked her. I liked the way she looked at things and the way she beat the curtain. I liked the way she liked things that didn’t have to do with people.
“I’m Sarah,” she said. “Sarah Smythe.”
“I’m Amalee,” I said. “Amalee Everly. As you can see, I really like the cafeteria.”
I held up my lunch.
“I understand,” she said. “I think all cafeterias smell the same, too.”
“Here, you have to try this.” I reached into my bag for John’s cake. I couldn’t believe what I felt at the bottom. There were two pieces. Even though I had packed the lunch myself, I could hear John laughing in my head, saying, “Honey, I just know when you’re gonna need a little extra!”
So we sat there and ate our boulders of cake, and then we disappeared.
I forgot about Sarah during science class, realizing I had social studies next, again with Ms. Severance. And no notebook for that class, either. Science was a long walk from social studies. I always had to run just to make it on time. And today, of course, there was a teacher behind me. “No running!” she said. “And I’m going to walk behind you to make sure you walk.” I walked quickly for a while, and when she went into her classroom, I started to sprint. And that’s when I tripped.
Everybody thinks boys are mean, but it’s girls. Their laughter echoes more in the hallway. Nobody helped me up, nobody helped me with my books. Nobody asked if I was okay. My knee hurt. I was late for social studies. This time it was a surprise quiz, but we were allowed to use our notes, if we had our noteb
ooks, of course.
I wrote an answer for every question, even if it was just a guess. I looked up and saw Ms. Severance frowning at me. She didn’t wish me well, no matter how hard I was trying.
After class, I heard a voice behind me.
“Amalee, wait up!” It was Lenore. “Can you stay at my house this Friday?”
“I already said I couldn’t.”
“Well, that’s just the thing. My mother says you’re lying.”
“I’m what?” I didn’t stop walking.
“She said she doesn’t believe you have an aunt from Canada. She says you shouldn’t lie to people.” Lenore was panting as she tried to catch up with me. If I could just get to the stairs, go down the stairs, through the door, into the woods — “She said you should be grateful when someone offers to help you.” We were close to the top of the stairs. “And she says,” Lenore sounded very smug and victorious, getting right up behind me, “that your dad is dying.”
She knew.
And it was as bad as I’d thought. My shell of secrets was broken, and the mean words and anger were all swooping in, like birds who like to punch their beaks into eggs so they can suck everything out.
She stood about an inch from my ear, breathing. I swung around and pushed her away from me. And then she was nowhere. Behind me was open space. I had pushed her down the stairs.
She yelled as she went down, hitting her head once and crumpling at the bottom.
Other kids came to the top of the stairs. I started running down.
“You pushed her down the stairs!” someone yelled.
“You killed her.”
Hally and Ellen joined the crowd.
“What have you done?” Ellen cried out like a bad actress in a worse film.
She looked like she was going to faint.
Hally pulled something out of her bag, looking disgusted. “Here!” she yelled, throwing two notebooks down the stairs. English, social studies.
Lenore sat up and batted paper away from her. “Lie down,” I said.
