“This afternoon. Go home and rest. Can you promise to do that?” She looks at me and then at my parents. We nod. I don’t know why Dad is nodding. I’m not going home with him.
The doctor holds up a cautioning finger. “No strenuous physical activities. I mean that. For the next few weeks, I don’t want you involved in any contact sports. Do you understand, Alan? No climbing ladders or trips to Disneyland for awhile. And if you have any dizzy spells, vomiting, balance problems, go straight to hospital. Promise?”
I nod. She goes on. “I don’t think you’ll have any problems, though. I think you’re fine. In the meanwhile,” she smiles, closes my folder, “you can go home and get some sleep.”
I’m still worried. Not about dizziness. “Doctor, will I ever get all the memory back?”
“There may not be much to get. You can’t always remember a dream, even if it’s a vivid one. And anyway, it’s probably not a happy memory. You may be better off without it. I wish I could forget my last dentist’s appointment.” She smiles.
“That’s it,” I say.
“What?” She’s startled.
“A dentist’s appointment. Miranda had a dentist’s appointment yesterday. She couldn’t have walked home with me.”
And at that moment there’s a knock on the hospital door and Miranda walks in. But not by herself; Prudence is with her. Prudence, with her hair done up nicely under a little beret, and a clean leather jacket and blue jeans. She looks pretty. Even with the ring stuck in her eyebrow and a big wad of gum in her mouth, she looks pretty.
Miranda, of course, looks spectacular. Her eyes are swollen and her hair is uncombed and the collar of her jacket is all rucked up. Spectacular. “Alan,” she says, running over to take my hand. “How do you feel?”
“Fine,” I say.
“You didn’t answer your phone last night. Prudence told me about your accident before school this morning and I…are you sure you’re all right?”
Prudence stands there, hands on her hips, cracking her gum.
Mom stares at her. Not exactly friendly. Prudence ignores her. Dad straightens up to stand taller, and runs his hand over his hair to smooth it down. Prudence ignores him too.
My mother speaks to Miranda. “You must be the girl I spoke to on the phone. It’s nice to see you, dear,” she says. “I appreciate your concern for Alan’s health. Where’s your mother – parking the car?”
“No, Mrs. Dingwall.” Miranda stands up straight. “Prudence and I – we came on the nine o’clock train from Cobourg.”
I stare at Prudence. The curtain in my mind is slowly lifting. I can see bits of what happened yesterday. Prudence. Her hands, gripping tight; the muscles in her arms, bunching and pulling. Prudence.
My mom and dad are telling Miranda she shouldn’t have come to a big city like Toronto by herself. Doesn’t she know how dangerous it is? She’s only thirteen years old. She should call her parents right away. They’ll be so upset. And of course she’ll have to come home with my mom and me.
No one seems too worried about Prudence. No one says she’ll have to come home with us too.
Miranda smiles at my parents and doesn’t say anything. In her own way, she’s as tough as Prudence. A mind of her own. She squeezes my hand; I squeeze back. Meanwhile I’m thinking, no wonder my own arms feel like they’ve been dragged out of their sockets. No wonder I have bruises, not just from the rocks on the riverbed and the branches and stumps and rushing water, but from her incredibly strong hands.
Prudence saved me. The curtain across my memory has lifted and I can see now. I see her face an inch from mine, her hair dripping wet. I’m lying on the riverbank, coughing water. I remember Prudence covering me with her coat and going away. Getting smaller and smaller as she stood up, and then disappearing. And I disappeared too, and woke up in this hospital with my mom beside me.
I try to catch Prudence’s eye, so I can thank her. She looks away.
The doctor is leafing through my file. “Prudence Armstrong,” she says “you found Alan … is that right? And dragged him out of the river and called the ambulance?”
Prudence looks at her, nods.
“Pleased to meet you.” They shake hands. The doctor waves good-bye to me and leaves the room.
My parents, thank heavens, stop talking. They stare at Prudence with open mouths and look embarrassed. I want them … I want my dad to thank Prudence. To say, “Thanks for saving my son.” He doesn’t.
But somebody should.
“Thank you, Prudence,” I say.
She shakes her head. “Don’t thank me. I didn’t come here to be thanked.”
“Why did you come here, then?” asks my mother.
“I came to apologize,” says Prudence.
A Miracle All Right
“Why?” We all ask it together but it’s me she turns to.
“For following you around. For threatening to beat you up. For being a bully. I’m sorry, Alan. I’ve already spoken to the other Cougars. We won’t bother you anymore. In fact, we won’t bother anyone anymore.”
Outside the old year is dying, getting ready for winter. Inside the hospital room, a new era is being born. I try to think of something mature and graceful to say. “Huh?” is what comes out.
She looks at the ground. “Well, Mary and Gary might still try to bother you. They’re bad kids – the way I used to be. I told them they’d have to deal with me if they acted up – maybe that’ll stop them. But they’re bad kids. Mad and bad.”
“Oh, the poor things,” says Mom. Prudence stares at her.
“If it’s not too difficult a question,” I say, “how did you, er, decide to… well….”
“To change my ways?” She smiles. Another difference. The old Prudence never smiled. “Is that what you are asking, Alan? What made me want to give up hurting people? Threatening them, making them scared? What made me want to become one of the good guys? Is that it?”
“Um, yes.”
She looks serene and kind of thoughtful. “Would you believe I heard a voice from heaven? Speaking to me?”
Nobody says anything, and she goes on.
“I followed you home from school yesterday, Alan. On my bike. I’d done it for a couple of days. Did you see me last night, in your garden?”
I nod.
“I thought so. I took off pretty fast but I wondered if I’d been fast enough. Anyway, after school yesterday I rode over to the King Street bridge – that’s the way you usually go home. I was inside the variety store there by the river, looking at a magazine, when I saw you come over the hill. I ran around the side of the store to get my bike, and that’s when you fell in.”
My mom whispers, “Oh no. Oh no.”
“I didn’t fall. I tripped over that dog.”
“Yes. The collie dog.” She frowns. “She isn’t your dog, is she, Dingwall? I never thought of that.”
“No,” I say. “Not my dog.”
“She didn’t have a collar, you see.”
A cart squeaks down the hallway and enters the room. The guy pushing it is an orderly – not the one from this morning. He takes away my empty lunch tray. Prudence goes on.
“I ran over to the water. I don’t know what I was going to do. I was kind of glad that you’d got in trouble.” She turns to me, blushing. Another first. “I’m sorry, but I was. I said to myself, ’Yes! He’s got what’s coming to him!’ I felt powerful, like I was calling down vengeance from the sky to punish you for bad-mouthing me and my team, and breaking Gary’s nose.”
“Alan?” says my mom, displeased. “Did you break somebody’s nose?”
“Son?” says my dad. I can’t tell if he’s pleased or not.
I shrug my shoulders.
“You were lying in the water,” says Prudence, “and you started to drift away. And then I heard a voice. I don’t know how I knew it was an angel, but I did. ’Save him,’ said the angel.” She’s smiling, reliving the memory.
I can think of only one explanation. “Did
the angel have a high, squeaky voice?” I ask.
“No,” says Prudence. “It was a deep voice. And it was right beside me, warm and strong and sort of – wet. Very alive! I never thought angels would sound so alive. Almost in my ear. ’Save him and save yourself.’ And it called me by name. ’Save yourself, Prudence.’ I don’t know what I was saving myself from. I turned my head and there was the collie dog. Are you sure she’s not yours?”
“Not mine,” I say. “All I do is trip over her.”
“But,” Miranda frowns at Prudence, “are you saying – was it the dog’s voice you heard? Warm and wet and all? The dog is really an angel?”
“I don’t know,” says Prudence. “I only know I heard it.”
Standing there beside me, a suddenly nice girl. Prudence. It’s a miracle all right.
“Anyway, before I really understood what I was doing, I was running downstream and wading out to grab you.”
The bruises on my arms throb with recollected pain.
“Thanks,” I say again. This time my parents say “Thank you” too. Prudence looks away. My dad goes over and holds out his hand. Prudence’s grip makes him wince.
Angela the nurse comes in without a thermometer or blood pressure gauge. Almost like she’s naked. At least she’s got a clipboard. “There are a couple of forms to fill out,” she tells my parents. “Then Alan can go home.” They follow her out the door to fight over which one of them ought to sign the forms. My dad is still wiggling the fingers of his right hand.
“Your folks are okay,” Prudence says to me. Does she mean it? I’ve never met her folks. If she means it, I don’t think I want to meet her folks.
“Do you guys believe in my angel?” Prudence asks us.
I don’t know what to say.
“I believe in voices,” I say. “Sometimes I hear them too.”
She nods. “It’s funny that you should ask about a squeaky voice, just now. Because when I got you onto the bank, I tilted you on your side, and all this water poured out of your nose and mouth. And a different voice – a high, squeaky voice – said, ’Thank you.’ At first I thought it was you, Dingwall. You know when you talk without moving your lips? But I called your name and you didn’t say anything. So then I thought I was going crazy, hearing voices where there weren’t any. I got mad for a moment. That voice reminded me of you insulting me at the soccer game. I actually thought about tipping you back in the river, only, of course I couldn’t. Not after having pulled you out.”
“No,” I say faintly.
“So maybe it was another angel talking to me.”
“Maybe. Or a nose.”
“What was that?” she asks.
“I said, who knows?”
The girls leave the room while I get changed. Mom has a knapsack full of clean clothes from home, including clean underwear. Blue this time, if you’re interested. It’s a sunny, windy day – I can tell from the window of my room, which overlooks the dumpster, by the way. I don’t know why everyone kept staring out at it last night.
Mom has decided that we will all go home to Cobourg together. Me, her, and the girls.
Not Dad. He has to get back to his meeting in Vancouver. “I’ll get back here soon,” he says. “Maybe we can see a hockey game. Or basketball. Do you follow basketball?”
“Sometimes,” I tell him. We’re standing outside in a windy parking lot. The girls are already sitting in the backseat of the car. Mom is standing by the driver’s side, staring at us. The wind is whipping at her coat.
“Well, Alan, I’m glad you’re feeling better. I was really worried, you know,” he tells me.
“Yeah,” I say.
We stare at each other for a minute. My mom calls to me to hurry up.
“Well – bye, son,” says my dad. He holds out his hand, kind of tentatively, and puts it on my shoulder. After a minute he takes it off and turns to walk away. He’s not going to say he misses me, or thinks about me, or loves me. He’s not going to say any of those things.
Prudence is right. He’s okay. But is that all he is? Okay? Shouldn’t a parent be more than that? Shouldn’t your dad be more than just, okay?
“I love you, Dad,” I say, but the wind whips my words away. He doesn’t hear me, doesn’t turn around.
A Forgotten Voice
For a week my head aches under the bandage. I rest at home, surrounded by pillows and CDs and rental movies. Victor drops by most days after school to tell me how much homework I’m going to have to do when I finally get back. Mrs. Grunewald comes all the way down the street from her house to tell me I’m a sweet boy, and to leave off a cake she made herself. Miranda phones every evening. Not a bad life, if it weren’t for the headache, and even that goes away in time. When the bandage finally comes off, I’m as good as new.
I stare at myself in the bathroom mirror. Wednesday afternoon. I’ll be going to school tomorrow. Only two days left in the week. My head is smaller than I’m used to, without the layers of white wrapping. My hair has grown a bit and is sticking out all over the place. Serious case of bed-head. And I look – I don’t know how to put it – older. I know I am older, a whole week older, but what I mean is I look older than that…like I’m almost grownup … like I’m ready to start driving and shaving and worrying about a job. It’s the eyes, mostly. They look as if they’ve seen a lot of stuff.
Then my mom knocks and comes in. She kisses the top of my head. “Feeling better, my little honey bun?” she says, like she used to when I was small.
“Uh huh,” I say.
“It’s nice to see you without that ugly bandage. Why don’t you wash your hair? Shall I run you a bath? Maybe with some bubbles?”
“Okay,” I say.
“You could play with the plastic frog that swims all the way across the bathtub.”
“Okay,” I say. Maybe I don’t look much older to Mom.
“Remember to rinse thoroughly,” she says.
I get out of the bath, put on clean clothes, come downstairs. Mom is putting on her coat. “I have to go to the office for a bit. Are you going to be okay on your own?”
That’s what she always says – “a bit.” “I’ll be gone for a bit.” “I’ll be ready to go in a bit.” “I’ll be back in a bit.” Sometimes a bit is an hour, sometimes more. When she promised to sew my torn blue jeans, a bit was two months.
“Sure,” I say.
There’s something I’ve been meaning to do. Five o’clock in Cobourg is two o’clock in Vancouver. I phone my dad at work. I want to make this a business call.
I’ve given it a lot of thought. I can’t change the way Dad and Mom feel about each other. I can’t expect them to wake up and like each other, suddenly – to move back together so I can have real parents again, and it’ll be like it was before Dad left. I can’t change the people they are. I can’t turn my dad into an affectionate, loving father. He’s okay. He cares for me. He’s all the dad I’m going to get.
I can’t make him give me a hug, but there’s one thing I can do. I can tell him how much he means to me, how much I love him. If he were around I could do it in person. But he’s almost never around. He’s a long-distance dad, so I’ll do it over the phone. And I’ll do it now, because if I put it off, he’ll only move farther away.
“Hello,” I say into the phone. “Could I please speak to my dad?”
“One minute. I’ll transfer you.” That’s Mrs. Hertz, his secretary. I’ve met her. Her nose twitches all the time. I take a deep breath and press the phone into my ear.
“Is that you, son?” my dad asks.
“Yes, Dad.”
“Alan?” Like he has a lot of other sons.
“None other,” I say.
“Is something wrong? You okay? And your mom?”
“Everything’s fine, Dad. How are things with you?”
“Fine, fine. Can’t complain. Well – gosh. You sound so grown-up. How are you doing? How’s Helen? Gee, son, it’s nice to hear your voice.”
“Yours too, Da
d.”
“And I’d love to, uh, keep talking to you, Alan. But I’ve got a meeting in a few minutes. This is a working day, you know. So I’m afraid –”
“Wait!” I shout it into the phone.
Silence.
“Before you hang up, Dad. Just let me say: I love you.”
Silence.
“There. That’s all.”
Silence.
“See you sometime. Bye, Dad.”
“Wait!” Now he sounds agitated.
“Yes, Dad?”
“Wait a second. I love you too, son. I hope you know that. You’re my son and I will always love you. Do you know that?”
“Sure, Dad.”
“I’m sorry I live so far away. Your mom and I…well, we don’t get along, but that’s not your fault. It’s our fault. When you’re older you’ll understand more.”
“Sure, Dad. I don’t mean to put you on the spot there at work. I wanted to tell you how much I love you at the hospital, but I felt lousy and there never seemed to be any time. Now I’m feeling better. In fact, I go back to school tomorrow.”
“That’s great, son. Just great. I’m pleased. Make sure you treat those girlfriends of yours nicely – the ones who came up to see you on the train. They seem to like you a lot.”
“Yeah. Uh. I have to go now, Dad.” I can feel the skin of my face tightening as it gets hotter and redder. I suppose it’s only fair. I embarrassed him. Now it’s his turn to embarrass me.
“I’m glad you called, son. Maybe you could do it again sometime.”
“Maybe,” I say, and we hang up together, both of us knowing I’m not going to call again, and he’s not going to be too disappointed.
When Mom comes back from work, she wonders if I’m feeling all right. I look a little feverish, she says. My eyes are red and swollen.
I tell her I’m okay.
I make sure I’m early when I call on Victor the next morning. I don’t want to be late my first day back to school. It’s a crisp clear morning, sun glinting off the frost. We haven’t had snow yet, but you know it’s coming soon. Victor’s mom won’t let me walk. “Whatever are you thinking of, you foolish child?” she says, but in a nice tone of voice. She stands at the door, and drifting out from the kitchen is a smell I know well, a bewitching scent of blueberry pancakes. “Of course you’ll take a ride with my man. He’ll be leaving in a few minutes, so you’ve time to step in for a bite.”
The Nose from Jupiter Page 10
