“Is she talking to…”
“Her mother.”
“Thank you for calling, I had no idea she was having this much trouble. What should I do?”
“There are books, videos, and hundreds of web pages on how to deal with children. I can give you the name of an excellent social worker.”
“What about right now?”
“Love, Mr. Hunter.”
I wasn’t sure how I was going to provide that, although I was certain that I was the wrong man for the job. The things I witnessed that morning had to be textbook examples of grieving. Yet, I had overlooked them. How? Love. Stephanie might as well have told me to perform heart surgery.
A minute later, Stephanie got Spring for me. I gave the little girl a hug. Her hair looked even messier than it had when we’d left the apartment. I needed to do better with that, too.
Carrying Spring out of the building, I tried to prioritize my activities for the day. “Spring, we’re going to run by my office because I have to talk to someone there. And then maybe we could go to the zoo?”
She didn’t say anything.
“Remember the penguins? We can go see Mr. Jimmy and get a hot dog, if you want.”
She stared over my shoulder.
“What if we spend the whole week together?” As I said this, I tried to figure out how I would deal with all of my work responsibilities. “Would you like that?”
With an emptiness in her eyes, she agreed.
Right now, I was the only person in Spring’s life. The 40-pound bundle in my arms depended on D-Man, drinker of tequila and conqueror of inebriated partiers.
Poor thing. I could spin a PR campaign with the best of them. I could convince people that they should drink water that someone might have peed in. But I didn’t have any idea how to show love to a child.
We walked for a few blocks before I realized we were at the entrance to Mason Brand. Spring stood stoically next to me and I wondered what Diane would tell me to do. Even after returning for Spring, I had arrived at the office 30 minutes earlier than I had before Diane entered my life. Mason loved it, thinking that I was becoming more responsible. I knew better. When you’re up early and the woman you love is already out of the house, you might as well go to work. The funny thing was that I actually felt more productive. Of course, I didn’t usually show up with a kid next to me.
“Dylan.”
With the soft intonation, I didn’t need to look to know who it was, just what she was wearing. “Laurel. Hi.”
“And who is this?”
“Spring, this is Laurel. Laurel, this is my new executive assistant.”
“You are a darling little girl,” Laurel said with the kind of voice that adults use on kids when they aren’t accustomed to talking to kids. I remembered it well.
“Isn’t she?” Just like her mother. “Is Mason in?”
“Are you kidding? Of course, he’s in. By 9:30, he’s usually getting ready for lunch. Would you like me to look after …” She pointed to Spring.
Spring didn’t have to smile to get people to like her. She just had to show up. At another time in my life, I might have wondered how I could use this to my advantage. I asked Spring if she would stay with Laurel for a few minutes.
“You’ll be right back?” she said.
“Right back.”
She nodded.
I knocked on Mason’s door. “May I see you?”
“Sure, Dylan. How are you doing? How is Spring?”
“You know me, I’m all right.” I sat down. “But Spring, she’s having some trouble.”
Mason walked out from behind his desk and sat next to me, patting my knee.
“Of course she’s having trouble. Dylan, that little girl is going through a helluva lot, and you and I will never know how much, but I guaran-goddamn-tee it is going to take some time.”
“She needs more time to…”
“More time? Hell, she hasn’t had any time. I didn’t expect you in today… or this week.”
“The week? Mr. Mason, I would sincerely appreciate the time off. If you needed me, I could work from home and I’ll keep my cell on. I just don’t want to leave Spring in daycare. It’s just that I don’t know how to help her. I don’t even know if I can help her. But I’m the only one she has.”
“Dylan, that’s how we get by. We do the best we can with what we have. And if that means putting our lives on hold while we figure out how the pieces fit together, then that’s what we have to do. That’s what you have to do.”
“I don’t have time,” I said, “to put my life on hold. There are a hundred things I need to get to and every one of them is screaming at me.”
Mason pulled his chair in a little closer. Close enough to where I could see the lines in his face. Mason wasn’t born into money and, for that alone, I would have respected him. So many people started off the same way, but times were different 50 years ago. While I had always wondered what it would be like to be in the Army or the Marines, Mason knew. He fought in the war under General MacArthur — twice. The first time was in 1950 when UN forces recaptured Seoul, and the second time was after President Truman relieved MacArthur of his command. For the last twelve years of MacArthur’s life, the general lectured against politics and hired Mason to keep him out of real trouble. That was Mason’s first real gig.
“Dylan, there are more important things in life than working. Don’t get me wrong. If you work for me, you’d better work hard… and I know you do. But that isn’t why we work. We work to enjoy the other things in life our family, our friends. I was glad when you found that lady friend. If you’re happy at home, you’re happy at work. And those goddamn drivers around here! We were awful sorry to learn about Diane.
“Thirty years ago, my wife, God rest her soul, got breast cancer. I was 35 and our boy Denny was 13 then. I tell you, it ate her up, Dylan. I think about her a lot. Of course, it’s been so damned long ago. Denny has his own kids. He remembers some things about his mother, but he’s forgotten plenty. I hate that.
“What you can do with Spring is spend as much time with her as possible. Help get her back on her feet. And she’ll do the same for you.” He slapped my knee. “Take the rest of the month off. Stay with Spring. Work is work. And Billie can stomp on the fires, while you’re out. You’ll do the same for her one of these days.”
“Mr. Mason…”
“I said don’t worry. It’s just work. That’s why I pay you so well. It never goes away and we’ll have plenty of hoops for you to jump through when you get back.”
“I can work from home.”
“Dylan, you have a different job to do right now. Get the hell out of here.” Mason walked back behind his desk. “Take care of Spring. She needs you.”
“But she’s not mine.”
He looked at me sternly. “Didn’t you just say that you’re all she has?”
I nodded.
Mason leveled his eyes on me. “Do I need to say anything else?”
Leaving Mason’s office, I didn’t know how to feel. I hadn’t had a month off since before college. If Billie was going to be “stomping fires,” I’d be fine as long as she didn’t steal my clients in the process. It probably wouldn’t take me a month to find the right home for Spring, but it was good to know that the time was available, if I needed it.
At the end of the hall, Laurel and Billie huddled around Spring. I hurried my pace to reach her. “Is she okay?”
“She’s fine,” Laurel said. “Just us girls chatting.”
Spring sat between Billie, who continued to look out of place next to her, and Laurel, who kept a pencil’s width away from her. In her yellow jacket, Spring looked like a piece of cheese in a Gucci sandwich.
“I’m not going to ask what you were chatting about. It’s better if I don’t know. Ready to go, Spring?”
Spring took my hand and we walked to the elevator. Billie escorted us.
“Dylan, call if you need anything…” Laurel said.
“I’m going to take so
me time off,” I said to Billie. “Maybe we can talk later?”
“Sure, D-Man. Maybe I’ll bring some dinner by later this week? Indian?”
“Thanks. Sounds good.” It was nice to see that Billie cared. “Bye.”
The elevator doors closed.
“Spring, I want to talk to you about something. Remember when I asked you if you’d like me take the week off?”
She tipped her head, which I assumed meant yes.
“What if I took the whole month off? Would you like that?”
She offered a bigger head tip.
“We could spend some time together, go to the zoo, see the penguins and the ducks…”
She nodded recognizably.
Yes, she’d like that.
Again, I thought about the phone calls I needed to make. But for the first time, as I held Spring’s hand and saw that something I did for her had even the tiniest positive impact, I wondered about what I was hoping to accomplish with those phone calls.
Chapter 9
Right Where I Was
After spending all of Tuesday playing with Spring, I knew I had to at least try to discover what Diane had left behind in Chicago. I called Mr. Barnes and he read Diane’s records to me. They offered no leads and listed me as Diane’s only contact. He also mentioned that she had failed to complete any of the medical questions “ in case I was interested.”
I made a second call to a decorator. I described what I wanted, and for a few extra dollars, they could get to it right away. It would cost me again to return the apartment to normal when I moved, but until then, it would be worth it. I wanted to do something tangible for Spring, even though she might only be with me for a very short period of time. The painters arrived that very afternoon.
Diane had left only a few clues behind and these clues had to answer every question for the rest of Spring’s life. That was an awful lot to carry in an old relic like her suitcase. While I would have preferred waiting for the painters to leave and for Spring to go to bed before opening it in private, I found that I no longer could. I carried the bag to the kitchen to examine, while the painters worked and Spring watched a movie.
The old relic had been places and had the stickers to prove it; blue and gold stickers written in German, a green and white one from Switzerland, a blue patch from Morocco hand-sewn onto the leather. There were others. On one side, a blue and white sticker displayed a palm tree and a harvest moon, but it didn’t look very old, and there was an outline of another beneath it. The suitcase looked like something a man would have picked out. It certainly didn’t represent Diane.
I hovered over the top of it with a letter opener ready to destroy the latch. I slipped the letter opener beneath the small brass clasp and wiggled it back and forth until I felt the mechanism twist. With more pressure, the latch popped onto the kitchen tile. I did the same to the other side, this time sending the brass latch flying toward the sink. I jiggled the suitcase. It wouldn’t open and now I had broken a piece of lock into each latch. Fortunately, one of the painters came by at that point to ask a question. After asking me if I wanted help, he removed a knife and grabbed the suitcase. He slid his knife into one latch and then the other. Pop, pop. “No charge,” he said, then returned to his job.
I opened the suitcase, expecting answers, but I was unable to ask the right questions. On the top, a shirt, turned inside-out and labeled A Taste of Chicago, covered some of the other items. There was a heavy purple sweatshirt from Northwestern University and a Bears ski hat. I set the items on the countertop before noticing something inside the hat. It was a picture of Diane standing in front of Lake Michigan and, based on her hairstyle, had to be a few years old. Also in the suitcase was a black, porous rock like a walnut with a hole the size of my little finger, a few paperbacks, a college textbook on photography, an old candle, a Cubs baseball cap, and a broken aluminum thermos that rattled when it shook. In the bottom of the case, a deck of cards, still unopened, featured a Route 66 highway sign.
I stared at the pile of stuff. There was nothing here that was going to help me; certainly nothing that was going to connect me to someone who would take responsibility for Spring. The pile seemed to be mocking me, reminding me how little I knew about Diane. Of course there were messages here, the way there are in attics or storage closets. But I couldn’t read these messages. Diane had said she had sold everything clearly, nothing here except maybe the old thermos and the deck of cards had any use. Why had she locked them up in an ancient suitcase and toted them on the airplane flight that would start her new life?
While the decorators finished, Spring and I spent the entire next day out of the apartment. It was amazing what you could get, if you were willing to pay a 30% surcharge. In the late afternoon, after she “talked me into” a trip to Haagen-Dazs, I took her to her room.
She seemed very confused.
“Look,” I said, “it’s your new room. It’s yellow! Yellow bed, yellow dresser, a yellow rocker, even yellow walls. And we’ll hang some paper up over there in case you’re ever…inspired.”
She looked a little stupefied, like she was wondering where I had put her old room.
“And look there,” I said, pointing. “What’s that?”
On two of the walls, I had cartoons painted. One wall featured a line of ducks playing with a teddy bear.
“What’s that, Spring?” I said, pointing.
Spring stared at the image on the other wall. Painted in purple was a simple box, quartered and a simple sliver of a moon.
“… Harold?”
“Yes, Harold’s window.”
Spring sat on her new bed. Her expression was more animated and she seemed intrigued with her new room.
“Look here,” I said, opening the closet door. Harold stood inside peeking out at the moon and still wearing his pajamas. “He’s in your closet…”
Spring laughed spontaneously. It sent an unfamiliar thrill through me. I realized that I had been anxious about her reaction.
But then her brow furrowed. “Where’s Mommy going to sleep?” she said.
My mood sank and I went to sit next to her on the bed.
“She’s going to stay right next to you while you sleep. I picked up Diane’s picture and handed it to her. “She’ll always be with you… here.”
I put my hand over my heart. I knew we were going to have this conversation many times. Spring touched my hand.
“Here?”
“Yes, she’s inside me.”
Then she put her hand over her heart. “I can feel her.”
“As long as your heart beats, you know she’s inside of you.”
Spring stared. She was clearly confused, but she was trying to understand. Then she climbed off the bed and pulled a book from her new shelf. She sat in the rocker and leafed through the pages.
“You okay if I go inside?” I said.
She nodded from over the top of the book.
I returned to the suitcase and once again piled the contents onto the countertop. There had to be a reason Diane kept this stuff.
“I’m trying Diane,” I said to my vision of her. “I’m trying to understand. I know it’s a slow process, but you’ve got to give me more than an E, a suitcase full of clothes and an old thermos.”
I went through the items again. Maybe they weren’t her things and she was holding them for someone The shirts could have belonged to anyone. And then the picture. Why would she keep a picture of herself? It looked like it meant something to someone… maybe Spring’s father? An old boyfriend? I put the contents back in the suitcase and went to have a talk with the urn.
“What is it, Diane? What does all that stuff mean?” I was very agitated. I suppose I just needed to release some of the tension. “Is it supposed to tell me something? Well, it isn’t good enough. I need more. If you want me to help Spring, I need more.” I was pacing and stupidly half-waited for an answer.
“Who are you talking to?”
Busted.“Sorry, Spring. I guess I wa
s talking to myself.”
She looked disappointed. “Oh, I thought you said Mommy’s name.”
That’s when I noticed I was feeling a little hot and needed some air. My chest felt tight and I tried to inhale. At first, it felt like allergies, when you can only get so much oxygen. I decided to sit down. I must have looked bad because Spring seemed very concerned and sidled directly next to me. Maybe I was having an allergic reaction. To the level of responsibility.
I took a deep breath and smiled. “It’s okay, Spring. I’m just tired.”
She hugged my leg.
“I’ll be okay,” I said again, feeling a strong need to reassure her. Staring into her eyes, I could see a thousand questions behind them, but the most important one remained: “When will Mommy be home?”
There was a very real chance that I was all Spring had which meant that I instantly needed a neural link in child rearing, something the people in the Matrix movies could provide if they weren’t, you know, fictional. I could bandage her knee and maybe handle soothing her after a simple nightmare the kind of thing you could pick up from an ad for cold medicine or greeting cards. If it got more complicated than that like dealing with grief, for instance I was way out of my depth.
I went through a mental checklist of my qualifications: I could help arrange Spring’s stuffed animals, and I knew what she liked for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Mr. Barnes said that Spring could remain at his daycare facility as long as necessary, which would be a huge help once we started doing that again. I knew that Spring’s favorite stuffed toy was a Teddy Bear disguised as a duck, and that she liked to draw.
Did any of that qualify me to parent her in any way? It hardly qualified me to be a Saturday night babysitter. I hadn’t been paying enough attention while Diane was alive. I didn’t think I needed to. I figured that my role in Spring’s life would be to provide comic relief at most.
Spring stared at me, probably still unsure of my condition. That made two of us.
“Can you go get your crayons? I have a special request.”
At first, she looked confused, but went to get them anyway. She returned with blue, yellow, orange, and eggplant and handed me the blue crayon.
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