The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac

by Kris D'Agostino

  When he returned from these trips, it didn’t take long for him to start complaining about the intolerable boredom and dread of suburban life. “I’m dying to be away again” was an infamous mantra of his. He’d pace around the house, from room to room, observing all of us in our daily routines. He’d point out exactly what it was we were doing wrong. He was the constant critic during my childhood. But in the air, at the helm of the jet, I know he worries about nothing. I know he experiences catharsis of a kind he can never find on the ground. And now he is not up in the air or down on the ground. He is nowhere. Relegated to the world of the sick and the suffering and the weak. Where does that leave him? He is like the deer. Subject to fate and chance. He needs to see the other end of that paradigm. I need to show him how to think like a person wielding a gun.

  I am doomed to never understand my family.

  I take the second invitation to the paper shredder in my father’s office. I destroy it, knowing full well that no matter what I do, I am doomed. Doomed to attend the ceremony, the reception, all of it.

  “MAY I BE EXCUSED?” he asks at the dinner table.

  “No, you may not,” is my mother’s stock reply. “The family is eating together and you are going to sit here and act normal and be part of dinner.”

  “You can’t just sleep all day,” Chip tells him.

  “I’m sleeping right now,” he says, lifting his shoulders slightly, cradling his head in his hands.

  “Very funny,” my mother says.

  “I’m fucked,” he says. He moans. He starts to cry. His crying bouts are still frequent. These tearful episodes can be triggered by anything. A bill arriving in the mail, a phone call from a doctor’s office confirming an appointment, an episode of Law & Order he’s already seen. We ignore him.

  “The appraiser’s coming tomorrow,” I tell the table. “Don’t make any sudden messes tonight.”

  “The house is in good shape,” our mother says. “You boys did good.”

  For the past two days, in anticipation of the appraiser’s judgment, Chip and I have cleaned and organized nearly every section of the house in our spare time. We threw out thirteen heavy-duty garbage bags filled with unused clutter from the basement and junk from our bedrooms and all the common areas. We scrubbed and polished the bathrooms. We picked up around the yard. We did everything we could think of to make the place look its best.

  When dinner is over, I rinse plates in the sink and load the dishwasher.

  “Need any help?” Chip asks. He’s still at the dinner table, reading the New York Post.

  “I got it,” I say.

  He stands, folds the paper, and walks over to join me at the sink.

  “Can you think of anything else we may have overlooked for tomorrow?” he asks.

  “It’ll be fine,” I say. I rinse the salad bowl and place it on the bottom rack. I close the machine and start the cycle.

  “I think so, too,” my brother says.

  “Can I ask a favor?” I say.

  “Of course,” Chip says.

  “I was thinking maybe you could write a check to pay for this, save Mom and Dad the money. I could give you half, just not right now.”

  “Sure,” Chip says. “No problem.”

  He pats me on the shoulder in what I’m sure he thinks is a brotherly way.

  THE APPRAISER APPRAISES. I’m there to greet the man when he rings the bell. I shake his puffy hand. A smell of cigars hangs about him. Chip covers the $250 fee, as he said he would. My father stays in the TV room the whole time. I tell him to try to keep the volume down. My mother introduces herself to the appraiser, then hangs back, following us from room to room, floor to floor, without saying much.

  The house scores points for the modern kitchen, renovated four years ago at our mother’s insistence. The deck is, of course, a positive addition. The third-floor bathroom (my sanctuary) brings the total count up to four, a very good number as far as bathrooms are concerned, the appraiser informs us. No central air is a bad thing. No wallpaper on any of the walls is a good thing. No carpeting is another positive. Mold spores in the basement is bad. The appraiser notices the cat pee smell hovering around my bedroom, another deduction. His estimate comes in at a little over $1 million. Just as we suspected. The house has appreciated greatly in the time we have lived here.

  The appraiser leaves. I can see my mother is shaken, most likely filled with painful thoughts about the possibility of actually having to leave her home. She goes to the TV room and sits quietly beside my father. I feel good that it is done. For me, the thought of losing the house is sad, but I think it’s better to be prepared than to just blindly hold out, waiting helplessly for whatever is coming. It’s like wielding the gun: There is some amount of control in every situation. You are never totally powerless. If we have to sell the house, we might as well be in a position to get as much as we possibly can for it. Chip walks around, inspecting the places of interest the appraiser pointed out. He is convinced the house is worth more. Everything revolves around money and the lack of it. All of our problems seem to come from this one open wound. I am convinced more than ever that I need to be making more money. I take up the search for a new job with increased determination and resolve.

  I go to and from work. I train the retards. I show Arham his numbers and colors. I take him around the school and encourage him to make eye contact with people when he says hello. I teach him the alphabet. I reward him with Oreos when he successfully recites it back to me. I lie on the floor and listen to records in my bedroom and stare at the light fixtures until I see colored spots on the walls.

  << 20 >>

  It isn’t in the mailbox. I see it lying in front of the door as I come home from work. It is addressed to Elissa.

  She is sitting in the kitchen, making tea, when I bring it to her. She takes the envelope from me and sits looking at her name, scrawled across the front in large, sloppy letters.

  “Asshole,” she says.

  She tears it open. A sheaf of twenty-dollar bills falls out, along with a handwritten note. She twirls hair between her fingers, spreads the cash out on the table. She reads the note quickly, turns it over, and looks at the back. She reads it again.

  “What does it say?” I ask her.

  “What do you think it says?”

  “What are you gonna do?”

  “I’m going to do what I was always going to do,” she says.

  “I’m going over there,” I say.

  “What for?” She laughs. “To beat him up?”

  I think about this for a while.

  “I don’t know what I’ll do,” I say finally. “I’ll get Wally and David. We’ll egg his house or something.”

  “I’m the one in high school,” she reminds me. “It’s okay. I’ll go. You can drive me.”

  She directs me up Route 9, through Ossining, into Croton. We do not listen to music. We turn onto a long uphill street running at a severe angle away from the river. Up and up, I can feel the hatchback struggling to make the ascent. Elissa tells me to take a left. We zigzag through narrow roads lined with small houses sitting practically on top of one another. We pass Croton High and a field where a baseball game is under way. We make our way down a dead-end street.

  “It’s here,” she says, pointing. I pull over in front of a white house with a screened porch. The hatchback idles loudly as we sit looking.

  “I don’t even know this shithead’s name,” I say.

  “Bjorn Copeland,” Elissa says.

  “He’s European?”

  “He’s not European.”

  “All right, well, what’s the plan?”

  “I don’t know,” Elissa says. She opens her door and gets out. I follow. I walk behind her, noticing the way her stomach has grown. Her gait has become lopsided. The energetic teenage swagger she usually moves with isn’t as noticeable. Her strides seem older now.

  We mount the steps to the house and march through a screen door onto the porch. A strange smell hangs in
the air, like faint remnants of a fire. Elissa rings the bell. We wait. She rings again. No one comes. No sound from inside the house, no movement.

  “I don’t think anyone’s home,” I say. Elissa takes the envelope from her back pocket and lays it on the ground. She tears the note up, throws the pieces into the air.

  “This was stupid,” she says. She turns and together we head back to the car. The sun is setting above us, making its way down past the tree tops. Color is spread across the sky. The wind rustles up through the branches. It feels good on my face.

  “Whoa,” Elissa says. She stops in the middle of the walkway. Her hand darts to her stomach. She feels around, rubbing her belly, a strange look of concentration on her face.

  “Is it time?” I ask. I shuffle my feet awkwardly. I’m not sure if I should run back to start the car or take out my cell phone and call 911.

  “No, you moron,” she says. “It moved.”

  AT FIRST I say no. When I see the way she is looking at me, I relent and go with her. Our mother comes, too.

  The three of us sit waiting in obstetrics. There are pamphlets. I leaf through one detailing early childhood development and the warning signs of mental retardation.

  When I shake Dr. Fine’s hand, there is sweat between our palms.

  “Is it okay I’m here?” I ask him, not even coming close to looking in his eyes.

  “Of course it’s okay. My understanding is the father’s out of the picture?”

  “Very,” my mother says.

  “I remember when we were looking at ultrasounds of Elissa,” Dr. Fine says. He laughs at this.

  The baby is hard to make out at first, so much gray on the screen. Swirling lines and circles and pulsing parts. Dr. Fine draws the wand slowly over Elissa’s belly and the picture becomes clearer.

  “See that?” he says, pointing. A large blob is quivering in gray static. “That is the baby’s head. And there is the heart.”

  “It looks confused,” I say.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Elissa says.

  “In this family it has no choice,” our mother says. Everyone looks. The baby floats, tiny. Its heart bumps. We watch it. Elissa’s stomach is like taut balloon elastic, a swollen thing covered in blue gel.

  “The halfway mark is not far away,” Dr. Fine says. “I’m a little concerned about your blood pressure. Bit on the high side. I want us to keep an eye on it. And remember, stick to foods on the list. I’m going to have my secretary put some paperwork together. A few rules you should already be following.”

  “I’m pretty much fucked for life,” Elissa says. Dr. Fine coughs into his hands, makes an uncomfortable chuckle.

  “Do you want to know the sex?” he asks. We look at Elissa.

  “Let’s be surprised,” she says.

  IN THE PARKING garage, in the car, our mother cries. She turns the engine over and her head drops.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” Elissa says. She leans over from the passenger’s seat and puts her hand on our mother’s arm. “I know how bad my timing is.”

  “It’s not you,” she says. “It’s your father. I really don’t think he’s going to be around much longer,” she says. She has trouble getting the words out. “He’s not doing well at all.”

  “We know, Mom,” I tell her. “But if he doesn’t want to get better, there isn’t much we can do.”

  “It’s not like we can force him to think positively,” Elissa adds. “He’s convinced he’s dying.”

  “We need to be tough with him,” our mother says. She stops crying abruptly. She wipes her eyes dry. “You don’t know what it’s like for me,” she says. “Every day he moans and cries. He talks about death constantly. He refuses to see a therapist. He doesn’t eat. He sleeps all day long. I’ve taken him to so many doctors I’ve lost count and they all say the same thing. If he wants to fly again, he needs to convince the FAA he’s mentally fit to be in the air, and right now there is no fucking way he’s going to do that. Not wearing a bathrobe with a gun in his pocket. Not with a garage full of sleeping bags. It’s a total no-win situation.” She pulls onto Seventy-First Street and starts the drive home.

  “The man needs help,” she continues. “He needs to be on medication, but he can’t get on medication because the FAA doesn’t allow psychiatric drugs to be taken by their pilots. He doesn’t take the medication, he won’t be able to fly. He does take it, they won’t let him.”

  “It’s a shitty situation,” I say.

  “I need you guys to back me up,” our mother says. “If we see him just lying around, moping, we need to make him get up and do things. He needs to start acting normal.”

  “Cal should take him to that wedding,” Elissa says.

  “No way,” I say. “I’m not going.”

  “All your friends are gonna be there,” our mother says.

  “I hate those people.”

  “Would you think about it, Cal?” my mother says. She turns her head to look right at me. “It would get him out of the house.”

  “You take him to the wedding,” I say.

  “I wasn’t invited,” my mother says.

  “He’ll have to wear a suit,” I say.

  “We’ll get him into a suit,” our mother says. “I’ll force him if I have to.”

  “He loves spending time with you,” Elissa says.

  “He thinks you’re the only one who gets him,” our mother says.

  “I know this,” I say.

  “He loves you,” Elissa says.

  “I know this,” I say. “I’m completely aware of this.”

  “You should take him,” our mother says. “The two of you should go.”

  I look out the window. I watch buildings go by.

  “I don’t want to go,” I say.

  “Just think about it.”

  “Maybe,” I say.

  “Good,” my mother says. “I already RSVP’d for you both.”

  << 21>>

  June begins. Elissa starts to put on weight. She continues to eat massive amounts of food. She looks pregnant. It’s no joke anymore. There is a realness to it now. There is a shape. Her cheeks puff out. A new calendar is pinned to the door of the upstairs bathroom. It hangs above my father’s hair-loss pictograph. Marked with big red X’s, counting off the days till she’s due. November 13.

  Everyone seems to be in a better mood when Elissa is around. My father smiles more in her presence. He asks to feel if the baby is moving. He puts his hand on her stomach and waits. He jerks away when he feels the slightest kick.

  “Whoa,” he says.

  Brigitte’s paper S’s still decorate most of the house.

  One night, Chip steams Elissa’s favorite vegetables and even goes so far as to bring home veggie burgers and soy hot dogs from the grocery store.

  Following my advice, Inez is let go. Chip and I assume most of the cleaning responsibilities. We clean. We traipse from room to room with feather dusters and Pledge. We dust everything spotless. Emma barks at the vacuum, cowers when I swing the hose in her direction. I take over laundry duty so my mother can dedicate herself fully to keeping my father from sinking deeper into his self-created void. She handles all the finances. For months now, my mother has been looking after Elissa. She has been making sure Elissa gets enough sleep at night. She has been taking Elissa to school in the mornings. Has been consoling her when other kids give her a hard time. Just as earlier in the year, it was my mother who talked to the principal, the teachers, explained the situation to them, assured them Elissa would finish her assignments, take her exams, and be ready for graduation. It was my mother who accompanied Elissa to breast-feeding and childbirth classes from day one. I imagine it like this: A bunch of expectant couples positioned on mats in a cherry-colored room practicing their breathing. Elissa the only one there with her mother as a partner.

  “I HAVE TO PEE, like, every five seconds,” she says to everyone at dinner. She inhales her food. Afterward she relaxes on the couch with our father. They watch reruns of Law
& Order. Chip and I join them. We stretch out on the sectional, the four of us. Elissa devours two candy bars.

  “Are those things on the list?” I ask.

  “They’re on my list,” she says.

  “Dr. Fine would disapprove,” I say.

  “It’s no big deal,” she says. Her head is propped up on pillows. Her stomach is a mound. She plays with a hole in her jeans.

  “Boy or a girl?” Chip asks during a commercial break.

  “I told them I didn’t want to know,” she says.

  “That’s retarded,” Chip says. “What if people start buying clothes for a girl and it turns out to be a boy? How are people gonna know what to get for it?”

  “I’m going to build a mobile,” our father says. “With little airplanes.” He rubs the top of his head, feels the hair there, the beginnings of curls, new and short.

  “When exactly are you going to do that?” Chip asks. “You watch TV or sleep all day.”

  “Not all day,” he says. He moans. “Your mother is already on my case. Don’t you start, too.”

  “You’ve been behaving like a pussy ever since the operation,” I tell him. “You aren’t sick anymore. You need to start acting like it. You need to get off the couch and do something with yourself.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” he says. He reaches a hand across the empty section of couch between us and tries to touch my arm.

  “Don’t,” I say, pulling away from him.

  “You’re weird,” he says.

  “No, I’m not,” I say. “You’re weird.”

  “Can I lay my head on your shoulder?” he asks.

  “No,” I tell him.

  My mother comes into the room with her cooking apron on, in her hand a wooden spoon, which she points at my father. Some tomato sauce flies onto the carpet.

  “James,” she says, “I have some good news for you. Cal is taking you to Chris Hillman’s wedding. You’re his date.”