Blue Sky Hill [01] A Month of Summer

by Lisa Wingate

  “Teddy?” I whispered. He’d been fine last night. I’d explained to him that Daddy Ed was in the hospital for a few days so the doctors could straighten out his medicines and help him feel better. I’d let him listen in while I called the hospital and checked to be sure everything was all right. Teddy and I had ordered a pizza and watched part of a movie together. The evening was peaceful. I’d fallen asleep on the sofa. When I woke up, Teddy was carefully covering me with the white afghan and getting ready to go to bed.

  Now he was clenching the blanket and weeping, his body trembling in spasms of grief.

  “Teddy, what’s wrong?” I crossed the room, sat down on the coffee table, slipped my hands between my knees. Even in April, the house was cold at night. The thin cotton pajamas, which would have been perfect in Santa Monica, felt like ice against my skin. “Teddy? Did you have a bad dream?”

  Teddy continued rocking, his sadness spilling into the blanket. I had no idea what to do. What would Hanna Beth do if she were here?

  “Hey, it’s all right.” I leaned closer, tried to see his face under the thick, tangled mop of hair. He needed a haircut. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

  His breath wheezed inward. He shook his head, gathered the edges of the blanket closer to his body and hunched over the bundle, stroking the fringe in a slow, repetitive motion.

  I sat helpless, watching him. “Did your mom make this?” I asked, finally. “The blanket—did your mom crochet it?”

  He didn’t answer, just continued rocking. “Teddy, is this your mom’s blanket?” When Macey was younger, if I was away overnight, she went into my room, took my pillow off the master bed, and slept with it. For the past year or so, I’d noticed that when I traveled and came back, my pillow was still in place. “Are you lonesome for your mom? Is that what’s wrong?”

  His sob formed into words that disappeared into the blanket. Stroking the damp tangles away from his cheek, I leaned over so I could see him. “Teddy, it’s okay to miss her. Of course you miss your mom. I know it’s been hard without her here, but …”

  “I wan’ Mama,” he sobbed. “I wan’ Daddy Ed home.”

  I was struck by the fact that, even after the torment my father had put Teddy through these past weeks, Teddy wanted him here, with us. “Teddy, sometimes people have to go to the hospital for a little while when they’re sick, so the doctors can help them get better. Remember? We talked about that last night?”

  Teddy pushed farther into the sofa pillows, away from my hand. “Nobody don’ come back. Mama don’ come. Kay-Kay say, ‘I goin’ hop-sital, Teddy,’ and Kay-Kay … and Kay-Kay don’ come …” The words disintegrated into a sob that shook his body. His shoulders quaked until the bones seemed to rattle beneath his skin.

  A lump of emotion rose in my throat. I thought about what it would be like to be Teddy—confused, alone, first his mother, then his caretaker, and now Daddy Ed gone. The world was crumbling around him, everything changing, and he was powerless to stop it, unable to predict where it would end, unable to understand the time, and distances, and complications involved.

  I laid my hand on his shoulder, felt the quaking tide of grief, felt myself sink into it, understand it. Life could be normal one day, and in a split second, everything changed. For now, there was only pain and fear, and a desperate fight to stay above the flood.

  “It’s okay, Teddy,” I whispered. “We’ll figure it out. I promise we’ll figure it out.” Leaning close, I rested my chin on his shoulder, then slipped onto the sofa and sat beside him. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of things. They’ll come home. They’ll come home.” How could I promise that? What if I was wrong? “It’ll be all right.” Would it be? Could I make it all right? What would all right look like?

  Bending forward, Teddy lowered his head into my lap the way Macey sometimes did when she’d suffered a dose of preteen heart-break at school. Hanna Beth’s blanket fell over my knees. “I wan’ Mama.” Teddy’s voice was a whisper of pain, the hoarse, tender outcry of loneliness. “I wan’ Mama. I wan’ Mama.”

  “I know you do,” I whispered. “I know you do.” I slipped my arms around him and curled over him, cradling him, cradling my own wounded spirit. “We’ll go see your mom in the morning,” I promised. “We’ll go see Hanna Beth.”

  I awoke on the sofa, covered with the white afghan. Teddy was gone. On the coffee table, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a glass of milk sat waiting. I could hear Teddy down the hall in his plant room, talking to the seedlings.

  Sitting up, I caught the scent of peanut butter, and my stomach rolled over. With all the emotion last night, I didn’t feel like eating anything. I hid the sandwich in the bottom of the kitchen trash and poured the milk down the drain, so as not to hurt Teddy’s feelings. There was something incredibly tender and sweet about the fact that he never made a sandwich for himself without making one for me.

  My cell phone started ringing before I was halfway up the stairs. I hurried the rest of the way, turned the corner to my room, and grabbed the phone off the nightstand. Answering, I sat down on the bed, still feeling logy and off-kilter.

  “Hi, Mom.” Those two words washed over me like the cool, salty ocean breezes of home.

  “Hi, sweetheart, how’s my girl? I tried to call you last night, but Grammy said you’d taken your pain medication and you were out like a light all evening.”

  “I just woke up,” she said in her drowsy just-out-of-bed voice. I loved that voice. I could picture her sitting on her pink bedspread, her soft brown hair tussled on the pillow. I knew how she would smell, how it would feel if I snuggled in and wrapped my arms around her. She would lay her head against my chest and burrow into the crook of my shoulder.

  I pictured her slim, knobby ankle wrapped in a temporary brace, and sadness slid over me. I hoped Kyle had come home last night to tuck her in, that he’d hung around this morning long enough to talk to her about her leg, maybe bring her breakfast and comfort her. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there yesterday.”

  “Mom, it’s not that big a deal.” Macey was business as usual, surprisingly chipper, considering. “They’re gonna put a walking cast on it in a couple days, and the doctor said then I can do everything— except maybe go to the beach, because of all the sand getting in it, and dance and gymnastics … but I don’t know … I didn’t want to go to state all that bad, anyway. I think I’m ready for a break from gymnastics.”

  “Mace, you love gymnastics.” I pictured my little girl in her leotard and sweatpants, up in the game room for hours on end, all the furniture pushed to the edges so she could practice walkovers and stride leaps, doing handstands against the wall and holding them as long as she could to build her upper-body strength for tumbling passes, watching the Olympics on DVD and dreaming of being there one day. “You’ve always loved gymnastics.”

  “I know.” She sighed into the phone, then hesitated in a way that indicated something important was coming next. “It’s just that … well … you know I’m always going to gymnastics and stuff, and I don’t get to just, like, hang out with my friends, go shopping and stuff like that, y’know? I think maybe next year in school I want to do junior drill team.”

  The last words came rushing out as if they’d been saved up for a while. Drill team? I thought. Where the girls dress in short skirts and dance like mini NFL cheerleaders? That? My little girl? “Well, Mace, that takes a lot of time. Are you saying that you want to give up gymnastics and do drill team instead?” I had a sense of being out-of-body, as if someone else should be standing here having this conversation with an emerging teenager.

  “Yeah … I mean … I guess so … for a little while.” She sighed again, and I could picture her sitting there picking at the white strings on her coverlet, finally finding the courage to level with me, long-distance. “Drill team’s cool, Mom. Hardly any of my school friends do gymnastics anymore.”

  “So now we’re picking our activities based on what our friends do?” The words sounded harsh, lik
e something my mother would have said. Was I always so quick to dismiss Macey’s opinions?

  She went silent. “I dunno,” she muttered finally, sounding defeated. “I just thought about it… .”

  I pictured the trophy shelf on her wall, crowded with ribbons and medals and tiny golden statues of miniature gymnasts in beautiful poses. I remembered taking her to her first gymnastics class when she was four, just a baby with her chubby legs, her round stomach not yet the slender waist of a girl, her head still too big for her body in the pink leotard. It wasn’t long before the coaches singled her out, saw potential. Years of training, of competitions and exhibition performances followed. When I missed a meet because of work, Macey and I reviewed the tapes later, reliving her triumphs and tragedies over popcorn and root beer floats.

  Now all of it might be coming to an end. I wasn’t prepared. Her life was moving on. I wanted to go back to every competition, every exhibition performance I’d missed, every fragment of her childhood I’d let slip by, and be there in person.

  “Mom?” Macey probed the silence tentatively, like a surrendering soldier raising a white flag. “It’s not a big deal. I mean, I was just thinking about it, but Coach Kara would probably have a fit anyway. She thinks I can make elite, and—”

  “Mace.” I stopped her from doing what I’d always done with my mother, bending to her will, then resenting it later. “Just give it all some good thought, okay? We’ll talk about it when I get home, but it’s your decision. I want you to do what you want.” The words trembled with emotion. Too many things were changing at once. Too many things ending, beginning, turning blind corners.

  “Mom, are you all right?”

  I held the phone away from my mouth, trying to quell the rush of conflicting emotions.

  “Mom?”

  The last thing Macey needed, lying at home with an injured leg, was to hear me falling apart, long-distance. “Yes, honey, I’m fine. I just miss you, that’s all. I’m sorry I wasn’t there with you at the emergency clinic yesterday, and that I’m not there today to take care of you while you’re home sick.”

  Macey coughed into the phone. “Moh-a-om. I’m not a baby. I can handle it.”

  Even though the comment was meant to reassure me, it stung. “I know you’re not a baby. I’d just like to be there with you, that’s all.”

  “I’m fine, Mom. My leg doesn’t even hurt that much today. Grammy’s, like, driving me crazy about it. She won’t let me get out of bed. I told Dad she doesn’t have to stay after I get the walking cast on. I can stay here by myself in the afternoons.”

  “No, Macey, you can’t stay there by yourself.”

  She huffed a frustrated snort. “Did Isha put the moves on Dad?”

  “Macey!” My voice exploded into the room and echoed down the silent hallway. Blood drained from my face and I had a sudden attack of vertigo. “That’s … that is inappropriate. Why would you say something like that?”

  She didn’t answer right away. No doubt she was calculating damage control. “I heard Dad and her talking. It’s no big deal.”

  What did you hear? Tell me what you heard. I wanted to probe her, get an eyewitness account, but I knew that would be wrong. “I don’t really know what happened. I wasn’t there.” It felt strange to be defending Kyle, giving him the presumption of innocence, especially considering what I’d seen in the sidewalk coffee shop. “It’s nothing you need to worry about, all right?”

  “Grammy’s here with a snack tray,” Macey said flatly, with no indication of what she was really feeling, of what she thought, of how much she’d overheard.

  My mind slid back to the day my mother told me the harsh truth about my father. He wasn’t the steadfast, loyal family man, the devoted, loving husband and father I’d believed him to be. In fact, he didn’t love us at all. He was trading us in, moving on. She was foolish to have trusted him in the first place… .

  “I better go.” Macey’s voice seemed far away.

  “I love you, Mace,” I said quietly.

  “Love you, too, Mom.”

  Closing the phone, I lay down on the bed, let my head sink against the pillow as the sun crossed the ceiling and the dragonflies sailed around the room. There was no magic in it, only the painful memory of having left this place behind all those years ago.

  Because of Hanna Beth.

  Because of Teddy. Teddy, who was in the backyard now, building yet another lopsided bench to hold plants that, like Teddy, were waiting for Hanna Beth to return to this house. As usual, everything was about Hanna Beth.

  Even though I didn’t want them, resentments crept from hidden places inside me, emerged from old wounds, never properly healed. Closing my eyes, shutting out the dragonflies, I thought, I don’t need this. I have problems of my own. I could find some kind of halfway house for Teddy, have Dr. Amadi send my father to the nursing center with Hanna Beth, close up this house, go home and try to salvage what’s left of my life. Why should I stay here? Why should I put Macey’s future, my future, the future of my marriage, if there was one, further at risk?

  For Hanna Beth?

  I lay steeping in the bitterness, filling myself with the emotions it would take to leave, to close up the house and let it all go. The idea felt good. It felt like justice, like a made-for-TV legal case in which the evidence turns over at the last minute, and everyone gets what they deserve. It tasted sweet, tempting. I pictured myself getting in the car, driving away from Blue Sky Hill, leaving behind the stacks of old mail and newspapers still piled in the corners waiting to be sorted, abandoning Teddy’s ridiculous collection of fast-food trash and plants, walking out on my father’s senseless piles of old paperwork and files—leaving it all to rot with the house. When we were gone, those people could take over. They could invade every corner, sift through the convoluted history of our family, learn all our secrets, then burn the evidence.

  I’d be gone, and none of it would matter.

  Standing between me and my imaginary escape, there was Teddy, his arms full of smashed cups and used foam containers, his eyes filled with need, with desperation as he asked me to promise I wouldn’t leave.

  Swinging my legs off the bed, I sat up, gathered my clothes, showered, dressed, sipped Sprite and nibbled on toast in the kitchen until my stomach settled. Then I went into the yard and told Teddy to put on some clean clothes. We were going to the nursing center to see Hanna Beth.

  We detoured on the way to check on my father. Dr. Amadi was coming out the door as I went in. I stopped to talk to him, and Teddy paused beside me, his attention wandering to a fish tank built into the wall at the end of the corridor. “You can go look up close, if you want to, Teddy,” I said. “Don’t go any farther, okay? I’ll be right here.”

  Teddy measured the distance with an uncertain glance. “Ho-kay,” he said finally, and started toward the fish tank.

  I waited until he was out of earshot, then turned back to the doctor. “How’s he doing today?”

  Dr. Amadi blandly recounted my father’s condition while writing on his clipboard. Imbalanced electrolytes, blah, blah, blah, uncertainty about the medications in his system, blah, blah, blah, they were keeping him sedated for now, and they would know more tomorrow, blah, blah, blah. “He’s resting comfortably,” he finished, and raised a self-satisfied brow, as if that solved everything. “We will assess his progress today, then most probably move to some tests, MRI and ultrasound. There is the possibility that his rapid decline is the result of a secondary condition—head injury, stroke, a series of small strokes. These things can go undiagnosed in the dementia patient. If he has been alone in the house, all of these are possibilities.” He gave me a narrow look. “Has he fallen recently?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, feeling as though I’d been accused of something and should defend myself. “Not that I’m aware of, but it could have happened.”

  “I see.” The doctor stepped away from the door, holding the clipboard against his chest, the silent message being th
at he was finished jotting notes and therefore ready to move on. “We will know more in two or three days, when the erroneous medications have been cleansed from his system, and his electrolytes are once again within normal range.”

  “Forgive me for not understanding,” I said. It was a typical legal maneuver—soften up the opposition by apologizing for your stupidity, then ask the tough questions. “But yesterday I had the impression that he would only be here for a day, possibly two. Can’t we go ahead and run the tests today?”

  Dr. Amadi tipped his chin upward, bristling. “We will, of course, care for him to the utmost of our ability. We will be in contact as things progress. There is very little you can do for him now.”

  Sidestepping me, he brushed by and disappeared down the hall.

  I gaped after him as he turned the corner, then I stepped into the room and watched my father sleep for a few minutes. Teddy came in, and we stood there together, neither of us saying anything. It was impossible to know how to feel about my father, finally quiet, crumpled in a hospital bed with his mouth hanging open and his gown wet because he’d been drooling on himself. I moved the pillows and adjusted his head. As I turned to leave, Teddy went back and covered him with the blanket, then stood over the bed, gently stroking his hand.

  My emotions did a wild swing, and I exited the room, then waited in the hall. When Teddy came out, he patted me on the head as if I were a child. “It all right, A-becca. Daddy Ed sleepin’.” He pressed a finger to his lips. “Ssshhhh. He sleepin’.”

  “Yeah,” I answered, and we started down the hall.

  “We gone see Mama now?” Teddy’s face lifted hopefully. “Mama here?”

  “Down the street at the nursing center,” I answered. “We’ll have to go in the car.”

  “Kay-Kay here?” He scanned the corridor and peered into the rooms we passed, as if he expected to see Kay-Kay in one of them.

  I thought about what he’d said the day before, that Kay-Kay had gone to the hospital and not come back. If Kay-Kay had suddenly become ill, all of this might make some sense. Perhaps the stress of taking care of Teddy and my father had been too much. “I’m not sure, Teddy. We’d have to know her full name to check.”