Death by Toilet Paper

by Donna Gephart

  Mom.

  I can’t tell Mom what happened either. She’ll be crazy mad at Angus for hurting me and stealing our money. Our rent money. She’ll probably go to school and tell Mr. Sheffield, and that would be even worse. If Angus got in trouble with Mr. Sheffield, he’d make me pay for that every single day for the rest of the year. And it’s a long way to June.

  I decide I won’t even tell Toothpick. It’s too embarrassing how I let Angus hurt me and take my money.

  I keep walking.

  There are fewer houses. Bigger houses. More trees.

  I keep going, along sidewalks, up and down hills.

  When I realize where I am, it feels like a complete surprise, but part of me must have meant to come here all along.

  My leg muscles cramp from traveling so far. I massage them briefly and continue past the ornate iron gates. I walk beyond the wide entrance and begin the trek along the winding driveway, bordered by grass and tall pines. And rows and rows of gray …

  Shalom Memorial Park Cemetery.

  I think about the people under all those headstones. So many headstones. Different sizes, different words and dates on them. I think about the sad kids and moms and aunts and zeydes and …

  Heartache washes over me like a wave—a tsunami—but I keep trudging forward.

  Up the hill and around a curve in the road, past where Bubbe Mary is buried.

  My heart knows the way.

  Mom and I have visited Dad’s grave plenty of times, but I’ve never come alone.

  It feels like a punch to the gut to see the cold, gray stone with his name engraved—TODD EPSTEIN—and the dates of his birth and death. Mom also had them write LOVING HUSBAND AND FATHER. YOU’RE UP AMONG THE STARS NOW, which is kind of perfect. I know Zeyde paid for the headstone and the funeral, because I overheard Mom talking to Aunt Abby about it.

  There are a few small rocks on top of the headstone, which means Mom’s been here.

  I touch the stone but don’t feel anything except cold, dry rock. I don’t know what I expected to feel. I wish I could feel Dad’s hand on my shoulder one more time. The ache to feel it penetrates to my core.

  Dad.

  I breathe in heaving gasps, knowing how much I let him down. Knowing I was so stupid to let Angus take my money. Our rent money. That money would have meant we could finally achieve our Grand Plan.

  I touch Dad’s name on the stone and think of his name on our mailbox, which makes me think of our apartment. And the bright orange eviction notice plastered on the door. We can’t get kicked out! I have to come up with something else. Something that will save us.

  But I’m so tired. There’s nothing left in me. No more ideas. No more plans. No more … hope. Every glimmer of it was extinguished when Angus smashed my head into the lock and stole our money.

  I sink down and lean my back against the edge of Dad’s stone, like he’s holding me up somehow.

  And while I sit there—numb and hollow—some awful thing pushes open a door in my brain. A door I don’t want opened—a door I never wanted opened again—but I haven’t the energy to hold it closed any longer.

  A memory seeps from its hiding place, corrosive and painful.

  It happened in our living room/dining room/kitchen.

  Two deliverymen managed to squeeze a full-size hospital bed into that space—the kind of bed with gray side rails and wheels underneath.

  The bed arrived just before Dad returned from his last stay at the hospital—fifth floor, cancer patients. Many patients were bald and curled small in their beds, like Dad.

  Mom and I spent a lot of time in Dad’s hospital room. I was in sixth grade then. I did homework there, and sometimes a nurse would give me a plastic cup of vanilla ice cream with a flat wooden spoon. Once in a while, the three of us watched TV together. But that usually turned into Mom and me watching, because Dad slept a lot. Mom was supposed to be working, but she stayed with Dad.

  All Dad talked about when he was in the hospital—when he talked at all—was wanting to come home. I remember him grabbing Mom’s wrist once and pleading, “Shelley, please. Get me out of here.”

  When Dad was finally back at our apartment in the hospital bed in the living room/dining room/kitchen, he slept most of the time.

  Mom stayed beside him, holding his hand, sleeping on the couch near him, and once I saw her in the bed with Dad, curled up next to him. Her eyelids were open, but his were closed. She stared so intently at his face, it looked like she was memorizing him.

  One time Mom left me with Dad for a few minutes so she could shower.

  While sitting beside him, I kept thinking about how different Dad looked from the photo of him on the beach that Mom had near her bed. He looked nothing like that strong guy showing off his muscles. In the hospital bed in our living room/dining room/kitchen, Dad was whisper thin. His face looked like a skull with skin stretched over it. And his voice had evaporated to a raspy whisper, too. I needed to lean close to hear when he talked.

  Even though Dad was thin—except for his belly, which protruded like it was stuffed with a basketball—I didn’t realize how bad things were.

  I still went to school and to Toothpick’s house and everything, but Mom must have known, because she spent every minute with Dad. She stopped going to work at the accounting firm, where she’d worked as an accountant’s assistant for just over a year. She’d already used up the time she was allowed to take off, but still, she stayed with Dad. Even when her boss, nasty Ms. Jenkins, told her she’d lose her job if she didn’t return to work, Mom stayed with Dad. Even when Mrs. Schneckle said she’d take over and keep Dad company so Mom could at least go to the grocery store, Mom stayed beside Dad. When Zeyde begged her to get out, to take a break for a little while, Mom didn’t budge.

  Mom even made sure I was next to Dad when she took a shower. She didn’t want him to be alone even for a minute. So I was next to Dad while Mom showered this one day.

  Dad strained to talk to me, grimacing with effort.

  I remember wishing I could help him, wishing Mom were there to translate, in case I missed any of his words. All I could do was lean close, hold my breath and pay attention.

  Dad smelled sweet, like the powder Mom sometimes used.

  “I love you, Ben,” his whisper-words said.

  Chills rippled through my body, like it somehow knew what my mind couldn’t possibly understand: that would be the last time I’d hear Dad say those words.

  “I love you, too,” I said, desperate for him to know how much I meant it.

  Dad let out a ragged breath. “I’m counting on you.”

  I nodded once, still close to his whisper-breath mouth.

  “I’m counting …” Dad coughed and squeezed his eyelids against the pain, then opened them and looked at me. “You need to … take care of …” He grabbed my arm, except his hand was so weak I hardly felt the pressure of it, which made me sad, because I wasn’t supposed to be way stronger than my dad at eleven years old.

  “… your mom.”

  Dad looked at me with eyes that were clear for the first time in a long time, so I focused one hundred percent on what he was saying.

  “Take care of … your mom. I’m counting on you … Ben.”

  “I will,” I tell him. “I promise. I will.” I didn’t even know what that would mean, but I’d say yes to anything. I’d do anything. If only …

  Dad’s hand slipped from my arm, his eyelids closed and his whispered words swirled around my brain in an endless loop: I’m counting on you, Ben. I’m counting on you, Ben. I’m counting on you, Ben.

  Mom came out of the bathroom, toweling off her hair. “Everything okay?”

  Dad was so sick he could barely talk, and he slept most of the time. How could anything be okay? I nodded, hoping Mom couldn’t see tears sliding down my stupid cheeks.

  I swivel around now, touch Dad’s headstone and cross my arms tightly over my chest. The back of my head still aches from Angus shoving me into the lock. But
what’s going on inside my head is much more painful. Dad’s words continue to swirl around my mind, like they never stopped: I’m counting on you, Ben. I’m counting on you, Ben. I’m counting on you, Ben.

  I didn’t know it then, but those were the last words Dad would ever say to me.

  He stopped breathing the next night. Mom was with him, of course. I was sleeping in my room under his painted galaxy.

  I didn’t go to school that day or the next. I didn’t return until after we were done sitting shivah for him.

  Even though Dad’s gone, I’ve carried his words with me ever since, in a heavy bag attached to my heart.

  The problem is, I haven’t taken care of my mom. I’ve let everything fall apart. I didn’t follow through with Dad’s Grand Plan. I was supposed to help get Mom through her last test so she could pass and get that job at Mr. Daniels’s firm as an actual accountant. Accountants make a lot more money than accountant’s assistants, like the position she held at the other accounting firm. Everything would have been fine if we could have just made it until then. But now we’re going to get kicked out, because I let Angus take the money we needed to pay Mr. Katz.

  I failed my dad with his very last request of me.

  What kind of person does that? I wish he’d never asked that of me. But he did. And I failed.

  I stand and search the ground for a couple small stones to place on top of Dad’s headstone. After I drop them near the ones Mom must have put there, I whisper, “I’m sorry, Dad.” I put my cheek on top of the cool stone. “I’m sorry I let you down.”

  Then I begin the long walk home.

  Inside our apartment building, I don’t even stop at the mailbox. I don’t have the energy, and I don’t care what’s inside anymore.

  Walking up the seven steps from the foyer to our apartment feels like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. Somehow I arrive at our front door, to the awful orange notice where Mrs. Schneckle wrote Mr. Katz is a shmendrik, and I let myself in. Every time I see the notice, it’s like a punch in the gut. I wish it would go away.

  All I want is to go into my room, curl up under my comforter and watch Barkley swim around his tank. He won’t judge me for being a failure. He won’t remind me that I didn’t keep my final promise to Dad. He’ll just swim and eat and poop and keep me good company, like Dad said he would.

  Even if he isn’t a dog.

  Inside the living room/dining room/kitchen, I drop my stupid empty backpack on the couch and walk down the hallway to my room.

  I’m glad the apartment is quiet. I need to be alone right now.

  I collapse onto my bed and am about to kick off my sneakers when I see it—the roll of lousy, gray toilet paper.

  “No! No!”

  I drop down on one knee in front of my desk and grip the sides of the tank. “Barkley!”

  The tank’s lid is open, and the lousy, gray toilet paper is inside, lying on the blue layer of gravel, leaning against the castle. The toilet paper has sucked up almost all the water in the tank, except for a few inches at the bottom.

  “Zeyde!” He was probably trying to make the toilet paper softer and didn’t realize Barkley was in there. “Barkley.”

  I pull out the bloated, dripping roll and throw it on Zeyde’s bed, not caring if I ruin anything.

  Barkley’s swimming slowly through toilet paper bits, which look like minnows. I want to scoop the tiny pieces of paper out, because they’re clouding Barkley’s water, but I don’t know how to do it. There’s so many of them.

  I want to scoop Barkley out and put him in fresh, clean water so he can breathe, but I can’t do that either. He needs conditioned or distilled water, and there’s no time for that right now. The shock of being dropped into plain tap water might kill him.

  And I can’t do that.

  I look up briefly at the galaxy, wishing for the millionth time my dad were here to help me, to tell me what to do.

  As I look more closely inside the tank, I realize Barkley’s not swimming anymore.

  He’s floating.

  Maybe he never was swimming.

  His black eyes stare at me as if to say, Do something. I’m counting on you, Ben.

  “Barkley?” I croak.

  I tap the outside of his tank, even though you’re not supposed to do that.

  Then I grab his package of fish food and carefully sprinkle three pellets on top of the water. Only three. It’s bad to overfeed a fish, so I’m always careful to give him only two or three pellets twice each day.

  Barkley usually darts to the food the moment I sprinkle it in.

  Now the pellets lay on top of the polluted water, floating among the toilet paper bits.

  Barkley doesn’t dart after it.

  He doesn’t move at all.

  That’s when I know.

  I look at the stupid stars on my stupid ceiling, then back down into the tank, where Barkley floats among the toilet paper bits.

  “Oh, Barkley …”

  “Who’s Barkley?”

  I jerk around.

  Zeyde’s standing in the bedroom doorway. He looks so happy. He walks over to the daybed, picks up the bloated, wet toilet paper roll and laughs.

  “It’s not funny!” I scream. “You killed my fish!”

  Zeyde’s eyes go wide. “I … I … I’m just coming back from Mrs. Schneckle’s. She made cinnamon cookies and coffee.” He kisses his fingertips. “Delicious, boychik!”

  “I don’t care what she made! Did you hear me? You killed my fish! You murdered Barkley!”

  Zeyde tilts his head. “Who’s Barkley?”

  A wave of heat courses through my head, and I feel like I’m going to plotz.

  I look at Barkley, floating in the toilet paper bits. I look at Zeyde, his mouth open. “How could you do that?” I shout.

  The door to our apartment opens and Mom calls, “Benjamin?”

  “What?” I bark.

  Mom strides down the hall and stands in the doorway of my room with a hand on her hip. “I got a call from school today.”

  I inhale sharply. “Zeyde killed my fish.”

  “I … I …,” Zeyde stammers.

  Mom marches in, looks at the tank, then at Zeyde, who’s still holding the toilet paper. “Oh, Dad.” Mom puts a hand over her mouth, then drops it. “Please tell me you didn’t.”

  “I was just making it softer,” he whispers.

  Mom grips my shoulders. “Look at me, Ben.”

  I don’t.

  “Benjamin Epstein, look at me.”

  My head is throbbing, and I don’t think it’s from Angus having slammed it into the lock. I have trouble focusing on Mom, even though she’s standing right in front of me.

  “I’m going to take care of this,” Mom says.

  “You can’t,” I say, not sure if I’m talking about Barkley or Angus stealing our rent money. My head feels like it’s stuffed with toilet paper. “It’s too late.”

  I look over at Zeyde and scream, “How could you kill my fish?” Barkley was from Dad!

  Mom tightens her grip on my shoulders and looks into my eyes. “Ben, you need to get some air. Go take a walk or something.”

  A few tears dribble out. “I don’t want to walk.” I don’t tell Mom I just walked about a million miles and am about to fall over.

  She pulls me to her for a hug that practically suffocates me.

  It makes me think of Barkley, suffocating from all that lousy toilet paper floating in his tank. It makes me think of Dad, near the end, when each breath sounded like a struggle.

  I sob once and my whole body shudders.

  Mom pulls me even tighter. “In fact,” she whispers into my hair, “I want you to go to Michael’s house. I’ll call his dad to make sure it’s okay.”

  I nod, snot dripping from my nose.

  “Stay there tonight,” Mom says. “I didn’t realize it, but …” She pulls back from me and looks at the fish tank. “You need a break, Ben. You need a break from everything. Don’t you?”

&nb
sp; I nod and wipe my nose on my sleeve.

  “We’ll talk about what happened at school later.”

  Those words make my stomach cramp.

  “I can walk you there,” Zeyde says, like he’s trying to make up for what he did.

  Mom and I both turn to look at him.

  “I’m fine,” I say, even though I’m hot and achy. “I can go by myself,” I practically snarl at Zeyde.

  Mom tousles my hair. “Go, Benjamin. Go now.”

  I turn and walk out, without saying so long to Mom or Zeyde. Without saying good-bye to Barkley.

  Shivering in the night air, I find myself standing in front of a familiar door and have the energy to knock only once.

  But it’s enough.

  The door opens, like it has a hundred times before.

  “Your mom called,” Mr. Taylor says. “Come in.” He enfolds me in his massive arms for a hug. His bearded chin rests on top of my head. “Oh, Ben. I’m so sorry.”

  I allow myself to fall limp in Mr. Taylor’s embrace.

  He half walks me, half carries me to the couch in their living room. “You don’t look so great, pal. Here. Lie down.” He tucks a square pillow under my head. And I realize the back of my head doesn’t hurt anymore. Nothing seems to hurt anymore. But I’m freezing.

  Toothpick’s eyes are wide as he watches his dad take care of me. There’s a giant gash on his neck, and it takes me a second to realize it isn’t real. I try to smile, but can’t.

  I try to say hi, but nothing comes out of my dust-dry mouth.

  Toothpick bites his bottom lip. I think he looks like my mom when he does that. Maybe it is my mom and I’m hallucinating. Maybe …

  I want to tell Toothpick I’m okay so he’ll stop looking at me like that—like I’m dying or something—but I don’t think I am okay. As I’m lying on the Taylors’ couch, little stars of light explode behind my eyelids, but my eyelids are open.

  I try to tell Toothpick and his dad I don’t feel so good, that I’m dizzy and the room is spinning, but words don’t come.

  And everything goes dark.