You Shouldn't Have to Say Goodbye

by Patricia Hermes

  “You sure did,” I said.

  THAT WAS SATURDAY AFTERNOON, AND I DIDN’T SEE ROBIN or talk to her until Monday at school. Mom was so mad at me that I wasn’t allowed to see anybody until Monday. She said that what we did was dangerous, and she called Robin's mom and told her about it, even though I cried and begged her not to. “I have to, for her own good,” Mom said. Then, when Daddy returned from tennis that afternoon, I got the big lecture from him about how foolish I had been, even though I didn’t do anything! Half of me was mad at Robin for getting me in trouble, and half of me was scared that she was in even more trouble. I couldn’t wait till Monday morning to find out.

  But even then, I didn’t have much time to talk to Robin until gymnastics practice after school. We had been rehearsing for the gym show every day since school started, and that was the day we were to choose the events we wanted to be in. When I finally saw Robin, we were in the gym, getting ready for practice. She looked at me sheepishly. “Sorry,” she said.

  “Yeah, me too. Did you get into a lot of trouble?”

  She just shrugged. “How about you?”

  “I had to stay in all weekend. You know, I really begged my mom not to call yours. But she said she had to.” I tried to mimic Mom's voice: “‘For Robin's own good,’ she said.” I made a face. “How much trouble did you get into?”

  Again, Robin shrugged. “Not much. My mom—I don’t think she even knew what your mom was talking about.” She turned to the ropes. “Come on. Want to climb?”

  She swung onto a rope, and I sat down on the mat and quickly pulled off my shoes. I was thinking about what Robin had just said about her mother. How come her mom didn’t understand? What was wrong with her, anyway? But then Robin was yelling down to me. “Will you get your bod up here?”

  I grinned at her and swung onto the rope, shimmying all the way up to the ceiling. At the top there's a huge metal rod that holds the ropes, and we’re supposed to climb up, touch it, and then slide back down. Robin was on the rope next to mine, and we practiced a few times, going up and down as fast as we could. Once, when we got to the top, instead of just touching the bar, Robin swung off her rope and onto the rod, holding it as though she were chinning.

  “You know better than that!” It was Mr. Anderson, the gym teacher, yelling up at us. “That's dangerous, and you know it.”

  Robin quickly switched back to the ropes. “Sorry, Mr. Anderson,” she called down, and she smiled at him.

  But he didn’t smile back. “You know the rules, Robin. If you do it again, you’re out of the show. Period.”

  “Yes, Mr. Anderson,” she said meekly.

  We watched him turn away, and Robin made a face at his back. “Spoilsport,” she whispered. She looked at me. “Everybody wants to spoil your fun. What routines are you going to do for the show?”

  “Floor routines and the ropes. What about you?”

  “Ropes and I’m not sure what else.”

  “Why don’t you try the balance beam? You’d be great”—I grinned at her—“considering what you did on the roof on Saturday.”

  “Nah, too easy. Anyway, did you ever see the faces of the girls on the beam? Miss La-de-das. And besides, only the fattest girls choose the beam.”

  I giggled. “Yup, Julia.”

  I looked down.

  Julia was on the balance beam just then, tottering back and forth, looking like a cow trying to walk a fence. She was wearing tight white shorts, but they were thin, and you could see her underwear through them, pink, with yellow flowers—tank-sized underwear. She got to the end of the beam then and swung around, one foot extended.

  “Go, Julia!” Robin yelled.

  Julia looked up and grinned, but as she did, she plopped off the beam and onto her rear end on the floor.

  “O-kay, Julia!” Robin called.

  Julia didn’t look up.

  “That wasn’t nice,” I told Robin. “Julia's a good kid.”

  “Yeah, but she doesn’t mind. She knows I was just kidding her.” She called down though, as if to make sure that Julia knew it was just a joke. “You okay?” she yelled.

  Julia nodded, rolled her eyes, and rubbed her bottom, and we all laughed.

  “Come on,” I said to Robin. “Let's get down. My arms are killing me. ”

  “Wait a minute,” Robin said. “Why don’t we work out a routine with the ropes? Something really spectacular, like maybe climbing up, switching ropes in midair, switching back. Something. Chin off the rod up there.” With her head, she indicated the rod that Mr. Anderson had just shooed her off.

  “You get on that, you get thrown out,” I reminded her.

  “Not if we don’t do it till the night of the show, and by then it’ll be too late to throw us out.”

  “But it's dangerous. He just said so. You know it's too fat to get a good grip on, and slippery, too.”

  Robin gave me one of those looks. “Don’t be such a goody-goody.”

  “I’m not a goody-goody!”

  “Well, whatever. A scaredy-cat then.” Robin started to slide down the rope. “If you don’t want to, I’ll ask someone else. Robert. He won’t be scared.”

  “I’m not scared!”

  She grinned at me. “Then let's practice.”

  I made a face at her; then I grinned back. I knew I had just been had, but it was okay. For the next hour, we practiced hard, racing up and down the ropes as fast as we could, trying to switch ropes part way up, then switch back again. It was hard to do because we had to swing the ropes out to make them meet, then wrap our legs around each other's rope before switching over. Even though it was exhausting, it was fun. Mr. Anderson watched us for a while, then came to help us. He taught us how to heave our bodies into the swing and how to hug the rope with our legs before switching. Of course, we didn’t try to chin on the bar while he was there, and I hoped Robin would forget about that part of it.

  When practice was finally over, Robin and Julia and I slowly walked home together. We were all pooped and we hardly spoke, just waved bye to one another at the corner.

  When I got in, it was already almost dark. I opened the door and shouted, “Hi, Mom!”

  There was no answer.

  “Mom?” I went to her office door and listened, but there was no sound of voices and no typewriter. I knocked lightly, then opened the door. Sometimes Mom's using a tape recorder, or a dictaphone, or something with ear plugs, so she doesn’t hear me call. But no Mom in her office.

  “Hey, Mom?” I shouted.

  “Honey? Sarah, is that you?”

  I bounded up the stairs. “Hi, Mom.”

  “I’m in here, honey.” Her voice came from the bedroom.

  I went into her room and stopped, surprised. Mom's never in bed in the daytime! She was dressed, but lying down, and the blinds were drawn as though it were night. “What's the matter? You have a headache?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t feel well at all. ” Mom struggled to a sitting position. She patted the bed beside her and I sat down, beginning to be worried. “I don’t know what it is, ” Mom said when I sat down, and she sounded worried too. “I’ve talked to the doctor, though, and to Daddy. Daddy's on his way home. As soon as he gets here, I’m going to the hospital.”

  “The hospital! For a headache?” My heart was thumping hard. “Why?”

  “It's not a headache, Sarah. It's something else. See, there was blood today. And this soreness and ache in my back and side.” She shifted uncomfortably in bed, then put a hand out to the quilt, trying to pull it up around her. “And I have a fever. I’m burning up and shivering at the same time.” She didn’t look at me.

  I turned to the window, blinking fast, because I felt as though I were going to cry. I’m not a baby. I know mothers get sick. But I was scared.

  “So what are they going to do at the hospital?” I asked, still without looking at her.

  “Don’t know.” Mom sighed. “But Dr. Kelly said we’d better run some tests immediately and find out what's wrong
. That's why he wants me in the hospital, even though it's almost night.”

  “But…” I couldn’t continue.

  “Hey!” Mom reached out and pulled me close. “Stop sounding so worried. It's going to be all right.”

  “You sure?”

  Mom smiled a little, then put on a fake frown and spoke in this really deep voice. “I—am—sure!” She sounded like one of those voices you hear on TV, coming out of the sky.

  I couldn’t help smiling. “Really?”

  She nodded, but she looked worried, and she sounded worried when she spoke again. “I hope so.” She held me close. “Now, if you don’t give me a love right this very minute, I’m going to get up out of this bed and beat you up.”

  I smiled into her shoulder and put my arms around her. I started to squeeze her hard, and then I remembered how I had hurt her Saturday. So I held her and hugged her gently, but what I really wanted was for her to hug me, to hold me, to tell me that everything was all right, because somehow, I was afraid it wasn’t.

  IT WAS WEIRD, WAKING UP THE NEXT MORNING WITH DADDY sitting on my bed instead of Mom. “Hey, Punkin,” he said. “Wake up.” He brushed my hair away from my face and kissed my ear. “Up and at it!”

  “Go away,” I muttered, rolling over and sticking my head under the pillow the way I usually do. I hate mornings, that day even more so, without Mom there.

  “Come on.” Daddy got off the bed then, and I could hear him pulling up the blinds. He started humming softly. “Morning has broken…”

  “Go away,” I growled again. I couldn’t imagine anybody singing in the morning. Even Mom knew that.

  He went right on singing.

  “Dad-dy!” I pulled the pillow tight around my ears, trying to shut him out.

  “Come on, Punkin,” he said again. “It's seven-thirty.”

  “What!” At that I sat straight up, pulling the sheet with me to keep covered. “Seven-thirty? Mom wakes me up at seven o’clock! I’m going to be late.” I glared at him. He should know what time I wake up.

  He just ruffled my hair and turned to the door. “Get dressed and don’t be such a grouch. I’m taking you out to breakfast, and then I’ll drive you to school. You’ll have plenty of time.”

  “O-kay!” I jumped out of bed and flew into my clothes. I love going out to breakfast, and Daddy takes me lots of times, but always on Saturdays, never on school days. I was dressed and ready in record time, partly because I was hurrying so, but also because I skipped my regular chores, making my bed and collecting laundry. I hate collecting laundry, and Mom is always bugging me about it. Since she wasn’t there, though, she couldn’t mind, and Daddy didn’t seem to know that there were things I was supposed to do.

  When we got to the diner, I ordered my usual Saturday morning breakfast—bacon and eggs and pancakes, with orange juice and hot chocolate. Neither of us had said anything about Mom yet, and I had the feeling that Daddy was avoiding it. When the waitress brought Daddy's coffee and my hot chocolate, we sipped quietly for a minute, but after a while, Daddy looked at me over the rim of his cup. “What's on your schedule today?” he asked.

  “School,” I answered. I meant to be funny, but Daddy answered me seriously.

  “I know, honey, but what's happening at school today?”

  I sighed. “Algebra quiz at nine; gymnastics practice after school. Nothing else much. Oh, yeah, soccer practice too. Five o’clock.”

  “How's the gymnastics going?”

  I put down my hot chocolate and poked at the marshmallow, pretending I was drowning it. Why was Daddy asking me about gymnastics? It seemed weird, because that's what Mom and I always talked about. I mean, Mom helped me like a coach, and Daddy helped me with the soccer. I looked up, and Daddy was still watching me, waiting as if he really wanted to hear. “It's going pretty well,” I answered.

  “And algebra?”

  “That's good too,” I said. “Getting mostly A's.”

  “That's good. You’re a smart girl, Sarah.”

  I nodded, but I looked away. Mom always told me that, and I wanted to talk about Mom now, but it was as if we had a silent agreement of some sort to talk about everything else. I drowned my marshmallow again, then looked up. “What's on your schedule today?” I asked.

  “I’m going to spend the day with Mom at the hospital.”

  “You’re not going to work?” I was surprised.

  “No, not today. Mom's having some tests done, and I think she’d like it if I were there. Besides, then I’ll get a chance to talk to the doctors too, and see what's going on.”

  I felt relieved then. We’d know by that night what was wrong, and now that Daddy had brought it up, I felt free to ask. “What's wrong with Mom? What are they testing for?”

  Daddy was stirring his coffee, and he didn’t look up. “Oh, I don’t know exactly, Sarah. You know Dr. Kelly. He's so cautious. I think he's going to test Mom for everything he can think of.”

  “What's everything?”

  “Here,” Daddy said, looking up at the waitress who was approaching. “Here's our food.” He pushed his coffee cup aside, making room for his plate, but he didn’t answer my question. I kept watching him for a minute, thinking he would, but he didn’t look back, and I didn’t want to ask again.

  I began to eat, but I kept glancing up at Daddy every so often. He looked good, handsome even, all dressed up in his suit, white shirt, and tie. Usually when we went there on Saturdays, he was in tennis clothes or old work clothes, but dressed up, he was really handsome. I looked around the diner to see if anyone was noticing us, and when I saw a woman watching me, I smiled. Then I turned back and ate my breakfast.

  After we both had finished, Daddy paid the bill and drove me to school. When he dropped me off, he kissed me. “See you, honey,” he said.

  “See you, Daddy. Please tell Mom I love her and—you know.”

  Daddy smiled. “Surely will.”

  “Oh!” Suddenly I remembered something. “Lunch money! I don’t have my lunch money.”

  Daddy reached into his pocket. “How much do you get?”

  He didn’t know how much lunch cost every day? “A dollar,” I answered.

  “It costs a whole dollar for lunch?”

  “It's sixty-five cents, and sometimes I get an ice cream. I usually have change left,” I explained quietly.

  “Okay.” Daddy nodded and handed me the money, then began fumbling with his key chain, trying to get a key off. “You have to get in the house this afternoon!”

  “Daddy, I have a key.”

  “Oh. Okay.” He looked at me awkwardly for a minute. “See you, honey.”

  “See you, Daddy. ” I felt awkward too, and sat there, half out of the car, just looking at him. “Bye,” I said finally.

  “Bye.”

  I slammed the car door, and as I did, I saw Daddy reach over and switch on the radio.

  The rest of the day I was restless. Although the algebra test was hard, it felt good to concentrate. I could forget for a while about Mom and what was happening at the hospital. Most of the day was lousy, though, and I decided not to tell anyone except Robin that Mom was in the hospital. I’m not sure why I decided that, unless it was because I felt that if I didn’t tell, no one would ask me what was wrong, and I wouldn’t have to wonder myself. When I told Robin, she looked a little worried, but then she shrugged and said everything would probably be all right. Besides, she said, grownups got sick all the time.

  After gymnastics practice, I went home and let myself into the house. It was silent and weird feeling. There was no sign that anybody had been there all day. Mom's usual pot of coffee wasn’t on the stove. My sneakers were still on the kitchen floor, where I had left them the night before. The only sounds were the ticking of the clock, and the quiet hum of the refrigerator. I opened the refrigerator and poked around inside, then went to the bread drawer and got out some bread and put it in the toaster. But I wasn’t even sure I was hungry. I looked at the clock. Ten to four. A whole
hour till soccer practice. I could call Robin just to talk, but she’d think I was weird, wanting to talk when we’d just left each other five minutes before.

  I went to the window. No one outside, no kids, no joggers, not even a dog. For some reason, it reminded me of a day when I was very little and had gotten lost in a playground, but I didn’t know why I remembered that just then.

  I turned away from the window, suddenly fighting back tears. The toast had popped, and I took it out. Cold! I stuffed it down the disposal, reached for a tissue from a box on the counter—and then jumped about a foot because the phone rang, practically in my ear.

  I grabbed it, my heart pounding. “Hello?”

  “Okay!” the voice said. “How's THE KID?”

  “Mom! How are you?”

  “Not bad. Not great, but not bad. How was your algebra test?”

  “A breeze! Bet I got an A! ”

  “Good girl! And gymnastics?”

  “It wasn’t bad. A short practice because of soccer. Robin and I worked on the ropes. I’m getting calluses on my hands.”

  Mom giggled. “I’m getting calluses on my rear end from sitting in this bed.”

  “When are you coming home?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I told Dr. Kelly I’m going home tomorrow, ready or not. I can’t stand this place.”

  “Oh, Mom, are you really coming home tomorrow?”

  “Well, maybe, but no promises. He may want more tests.”

  “What did he find? Does he know what's the matter?”

  “Not yet. It takes time, Sarah. You know that. I had a bunch of tests done today, but some of them take a while to get the results back. As soon as I know, believe me, you’ll know, and I’ll get out of here. It won’t be long.”

  “Promise? Because I miss you.” It was the first time I had said it out loud.

  “I miss you too, honey. Is Daddy there?”

  “Daddy? No.”

  “Well, he will be in a minute. He left here about fifteen minutes ago so you wouldn’t be home alone.”

  “Oh, that's all right. I don’t mind,” I lied.