Dreamsleeves

by Coleen Murtagh Paratore

  Funny how they named me a name that means “dream,” because I am very surely convinced that having me was the beginning of the end of their dreams.

  One kid, two kids, three kids, four …

  and every year my father drinking more.

  The eye of man hath not heard,

  the ear of man hath not seen,

  man’s hand is not able to taste,

  his tongue to conceive,

  nor his heart to report,

  what my dream was.

  — SHAKESPEARE

  Dear Diary,

  Today my dad’s drinking got worse.

  This morning I heard the telltale clink of ice cubes in a glass in the kitchen before I even got out of bed. My father drank this morning, before he left for work.

  So now my dad drinks all day long. Morning, noon, and night.

  I mention this to Mom, but she just shakes her head and sighs, looking so beaten down. Things were happy for a while after her birthday but then the arguing started again. We haven’t visited our house in the country. I’m afraid it says SOLD by now.

  My mother has put on a lot of weight, even more than I remember with Dooley and Eddie. Her face is bloated and she’s always sweating. Her ankles are as fat as thighs. Mom moves through the house like she’s sleepwalking, like a zombie from that horror movie I once saw, her eyes sparkless, faraway, sadder than I’ve ever seen her.

  She wakes up — goes to work — comes home — makes dinner — bathes the little ones — tucks them in — goes to bed, only to get up the same time the next morning to do it all over again. She doesn’t go up to her writer’s house. She isn’t writing at all.

  Dooley has graduated to real underwear now, no more training pants. He studies Beck’s every move, determined to be a big boy, too.

  After dinner Mom asks if I’ve seen Dooley. We search for him everywhere. “Dooley? Dooley?” The kitchen door opens. Dad walks in with Dooley in his arms.

  “Don’t you ever, ever try that again,” Dad is yelling at D as he spanks him.

  Dooley is screaming, “I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m sorry!”

  “Please don’t hit him, Roe,” my mother pleads.

  “He was racing those stupid little cars outside,” my father says.

  “But … I … I … I …” Dooley tries to talk between his sobs. “I thought … I … I … I saw my red one….”

  “He was almost down to the sidewalk!” my father yells at my mom.

  “You could have gotten hit by a truck and killed,” he screams at Dooley. He spanks him again and throws him on his bunk bed. “Stay there!” He shuts Dooley’s door, pours a drink in the kitchen.

  We all feel so bad for Dooley, but we don’t dare go in there right now.

  Later I see Callie sitting on D’s bed, rubbing his back.

  “I know how much you miss your car,” she says. “Come on, I’ll help you make a dream. It worked for Beck, remember? He got to go to the baseball game.”

  My father has another drink and another drink.

  We all try to stay out of his way.

  Nobody talks. Nobody says a word. Nobody wants to make him madder.

  When I say good night to Dooley, I see a HELLO MY NAME IS label with a little red car drawn on it stuck on his pajama sleeve. As soon as I get some money, I’m going to buy Dooley a red car identical to the one he lost and say, “Hey! Look what I found down by the curb!”

  My father’s snoring on the living room couch, a full drink on the table.

  I take the drink and dump it down the sink, put the empty glass back on the table.

  The next day, my aunt Mary from Saratoga — who we usually only see at Christmas because my dad says all my “een” cousins are “noisy as a bunch of cats” and my aunt Mary “never shuts her mouth” — stops by unexpectedly with a quart of fresh, plump strawberries.

  “Oh, thank you, Aunt Mary,” I say. “Come on in.”

  Maybe I will talk to her, tell her how bad the drinking is getting. We aren’t really close, hardly ever even talk to her, just at Christmas really, but she’s family and …

  “I have a doctor’s appointment in Troy,” Aunt Mary says. “I need to get glasses. Glasses. Can you believe it, Aislinn? At my age. I didn’t think I’d need glasses until I was at least …”

  Tell her, A, go ahead …

  “Aunt Mary?”

  “Yes, dear?”

  Dooley walks out from his nap. “Well, look at you,” Aunt Mary says, scooping him up for a hug. “You’re growing like a weed. Oh my gosh, look at the time.” She sets Dooley down, pats his head. “I’m going to be late, gotta run.”

  “Aunt Mary … can I talk to you sometime?”

  “Sure thing, honey buns,” Aunt Mary says. “Your mother’s got my number. How is she doing anyway? She sounded so down the last time she called. You gotta take good care of her, A, with the new baby on the way and all. I tell your uncle Devon all the time how it’s a crying shame Mags has to work. Raising five kids and another job, too.”

  Aunt Mary kisses my cheek. “Give your mom my love. Enjoy the strawberries! Hope to see you before Christmas!”

  When the little ones are down for a nap, I make strawberry shortcake, my father’s second-favorite dessert. His favorite is warm apple pie with a slice of cheddar cheese on top. I’m trying desperately to stay in my father’s best graces, keeping the house spotless clean, getting all the laundry done, giving the little ones their baths after dinner — anything and everything I can think of to keep him from getting mad and taking back my permission to go to “Maizey’s camp.”

  When my mother gets home from work, she says I can go out for a while. My father is at a sales meeting in Utica and won’t be home till late.

  I dial Maizey’s number. “She and Sue-Ellen went to the park,” Mrs. Hogan says.

  “I’m going to the park,” I tell my mother.

  As I’m walking down the steps to my bike, I hear Mom yell, “Where do you think you’re going, buster? Get back in here, Dooley.”

  I laugh. Dooley. That boy is fearless. Did he forget that spanking already?

  Maizey and Sue-Ellen are on the swings — Maize-n-A’s swings. They are wearing almost identical Mexican peasant blouses and hip-hugger jeans with embroidery around the bottom. I’m wondering where Maizey got the money for new clothes. She usually only gets new things at the holidays and her birthday, like me.

  Maize and Snoop-Melon are talking and laughing, pumping their legs back and forth, trying to see who can go higher, just the way Maize and I always did.

  My stomach flip-flops. I start to turn away.

  “Hey, Aislinn,” Sue-Ellen calls. “Come here!”

  They stop pumping. Sue-Ellen drags her Keds sneaker along the ground to slow herself down and Maizey follows her lead. I walk toward them.

  “Do you want to be in?” Sue-Ellen shouts in a voice that sounds like a challenge.

  “In what?” I say.

  “The club,” she says.

  “What club?”

  “We’re all turning into teenagers,” Sue-Ellen explains, “me first, and when you’re a teenager you’re either in or out.”

  “In or out of what?” I demand, exasperated.

  “Popularity, of course,” Sue-Ellen says with a laugh. “My sister, Angela, who’s in college now in Connecticut explained it to me. When you get to high school, everybody gets sorted out. You are either in or you’re out. It’s all decided by Halloween.”

  “We are going to be cheerleaders,” Maizey says.

  “For Halloween?” I ask, only half-joking.

  “No, dummy, for real,” Sue-Ellen says. “Cheerleaders are always in the coolest clique.” She says this as if it’s set in stone like a Commandment. “You need to make the team in eighth grade if you want a shot at the freshman squad.”

  “And how do you know all this?” I say.

  Sue-Ellen laughs. “Well, my mother was the head cheerleader in high school. Her team went to the nationals senior year.
My sister, Angela, was a head cheerleader, too. She taught me some great moves. I bet you girls haven’t ever seen the …”

  “Show A a cheer, Sue,” Maizey interrupts, all excited.

  Not needing a second request, “Sue” hip-sway-struts over to the grass. She rolls up the bottoms of her jeans, flicks back her hair, hands on her hips, starting position. And then she belts out a cheer, moving back and forth in perfect rhythm, shaking imaginary pom-poms in her hands. She ends with a dramatic soar, arms and legs stretched out into a great big jubilant X in the air.

  “Isn’t she great, A?” Maizey says, all goofy-faced like Snoop-Melon is her hero.

  “Yeah,” I say, “great.”

  “Sue-Ellen’s been teaching me,” Maize says, “so I’ll be all set for auditions.”

  My stomach feels pom-pom pummeled. Maizey and I were going to be practicing together. But I probably wouldn’t make the team anyway. Even if I did, I couldn’t go to after-school practices. In September Mom goes back to working the night shift, four to eleven, and then the new baby’s coming … who else will take care of the little ones? And besides, I couldn’t go to the games anyway. The games are nights and weekends, and my father would never let me go … I was stupid to even think …

  “I guess I could teach you, too,” Sue-Ellen says to me, in a surprising display of kindness. But when her eyes take in my clothes and hair, I realize it is pity she’s feeling.

  “No, thanks,” I say.

  “My mother’s judging,” Sue-Ellen blurts out. “When the gym teacher heard what a great cheerleader my mother was, she asked if she would be on the panel.”

  “Good for you,” I say, kicking a stone as I turn back to my bike.

  “What’s your problem?” Sue-Ellen says, hands on hips. “I was just trying to help.”

  “I don’t need your help,” I blurt out in a mean voice, wishing instantly that I could snatch those words right back.

  Sue-Ellen looks like I slapped her, like nobody has ever talked to her that way before. Then a chilly smile spreads across her face.

  “Don’t come to my party, then,” she says, shrugging her shoulders.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, feeling sick. I look at Maizey. She looks at the ground.

  I can’t stand this snotty girl, but this is my one chance to see Mike all summer. Are you stupid, A? What’s the matter with you? Get down on your knees, beg, plead. “Really, Sue-Ellen,” my voice cracks. “I’m sorry.”

  “Save your sorries,” Sue-Ellen says, tossing back her beautiful hair. “You are out. Got it? Out.”

  I look at Maizey. She stares at me, her face a jumble of emotions.

  “Let’s go, Maize,” Sue-Ellen says, “we’ll be late for the barbecue. Daddy’s grilling steaks today.”

  I turn and bike home crying, Snoop-Melon’s one word taunting over and over.

  Out. Out. Out.

  We live, as we dream — alone.

  — JOSEPH CONRAD

  There’s a crashing sound out in the kitchen and I bolt upright in bed.

  “Cheap bill box,” my father shouts.

  He’s talking about the brown wooden container hanging on a nail on the kitchen wall. There are three sections labeled in a swirly gold script, Bills, Memos, Letters, but the whole thing is filled with bills. It probably fell on the floor when my dad yanked it off to bring to the table, where my mom will be sitting with the checkbook and a pen and a worried look on her face.

  Bill night is never a good night.

  I open my radio-receiver ears as wide as they will go.

  “What the hell?” my father shouts and I jump up, fear burn-tingling like Fourth of July sparkler sparks all up and down my skin.

  “Look what they charged for that ambulance, when you should’ve been watching your own kids.”

  I hear the freezer door open, ice cubes snap-crackle-popping up in their little blue-sectioned tray, then clinking down in a glass, my father unscrewing the cap of a liquor bottle, pouring it in, splashing in some ginger ale.

  I wonder how many drinks he’s had. I check the green glow time on my clock. It’s ten o’clock. He’s probably had six or seven by now.

  “And I thought I told you to pay the electric,” he says.

  My mother mumbles something.

  “Well, how much were groceries?” he says.

  My mother mumbles something.

  “What?!! What the hell are you buying?” he shouts. “I haven’t had a decent meal this summer. All you feed us is crap.”

  That’s not true. I get out of bed to go stand by the doorway near the refrigerator. Mom makes good meals for us.

  “Food’s expensive, Roe,” my mother says. “And diapers and baby food. A gallon of milk just went up again and a pound of hamburger is nearly two dollars.”

  Is that all? I think. Two dollars? I remember seeing a receipt for my father’s booze in the bag from the liquor store. Twenty-eight dollars and forty-four cents. My mother could have purchased fourteen pounds of hamburger with that much money.

  “You know my commissions are in the gutter,” my father says.

  And I suppose that has nothing to do with your drinking!

  The refrigerator door opens, the light casting a goldish glow on the wall. The refrigerator is the only new appliance my family owns, everything else is hand-me-downs, or should I say hand-me-ups, from Nana. Mom wanted the “avocado” color, but my father said, “No, gold.” I see from the hand that it’s my mother opening the door, maybe getting some soda. I step back so as not to be seen.

  “Well, maybe if you didn’t eat so much,” my father shouts, “you wide load.”

  I hear a shuffle and a yelping sound. I move quickly around the corner. My mom is in the refrigerator. She braces a hand against a silver rack to push herself back up. When she turns around, there’s a line mark on her forehead from where it hit the metal.

  I snap and rush toward my father. “Did you push her?” I scream.

  My mother is crying. “No, honey, I tripped.” Her hands are on her stomach.

  “I’m going to bed,” my father says. He swats the bill box off the table and kicks it across the floor, where it collides with the broom; the handle slams down on the linoleum.

  I hug my mother. “He pushed you, didn’t he?”

  She shakes her head no, but I know she is lying.

  “Just go back to bed, A, please,” she begs me, wiping the tears from her face.

  I hang the bill box back on the nail. I stand the broom up by its dustpan.

  I hate him … I hate him … I hate him … I hate him beats like bongo drums in my brain. What can I do? Who can I tell? How can I make him stop?

  I lie awake until I think of something to do.

  Getting out of bed, the first sound I hear is the faint tick, tick, tick of the brown clock on the living room mantelpiece, the ledge that’s supposed to look like a fireplace where we hang our stockings on Christmas Eve except there’s no real fireplace and no chimney for Santa to slide down. I picture the chimneys on “our house” in the country. The house we’ll never own.

  My father is snoring on the couch. In the kitchen, I glance at the clock: nearly midnight. Hurry, Cinderella, you don’t have much time!

  I fill the teakettle and set it on a burner.

  I take six Lipton’s tea bags from the box and put them in the teapot.

  I lift up the kettle before it whistles and make the strongest pot of tea I’ve ever made — dirt-dark brown like the liquor in his bottles.

  One of the bottles is newly opened, not too much drunk out of it yet. I pour three-quarters of the liquor down the drain and then I replace the missing liquor with tea.

  Maybe my father won’t notice. Maybe it will still taste the same, but it won’t make him so mean.

  Back in bed I can finally go to sleep feeling better that I took some action. A little midnight tea party, we’ll see if it works. At least I did something. I tried.

  The closer we get to giving our dream to the wor
ld,

  the fiercer the struggle becomes to bring it forth.

  — SARAH BAN BREATHNACH

  In the morning I lie in bed listening to my father retching in the bathroom. It’s worse than I’ve ever heard.

  Good. Serves you right, for hurting Mom last night.

  He vomits and vomits as if he can’t stop. The sounds he makes are so horrible, I almost feel sorry for him, almost.

  When he’s finally out and I get up and go into the bathroom, I see what looks like blood in the usual pink and yellowy splats of vomit around the white toilet seat and on the gray and white linoleum floor. Blood. That can’t be good.

  At nine o’clock, summer school is in session. I don’t have much enthusiasm for teaching or anything now that Sue-Ellen disinvited me to her party. I hate that girl. And, Maizey? How could she betray me like that? Not even trying to stand up for me?

  Beck and Callie are working on their spelling lists.

  “Today’s the letter M,” I tell Dooley, checking to make sure he’s holding his pencil correctly. “Up the mountain, down the mountain, up the mountain, down the mountain.” D is still wearing his little red car dream tag on his sleeve. It’s got smudges all over it and the stickiness is wearing off, but he wears it every day without fail.

  Eddie’s gotten really good at stacking the donuts. “One … two … fee …”

  I hear car tires crunching the gravel in our driveway. My father.

  “Good job, class. Keep working. I’ll be right back.”

  I walk into the kitchen. My father is pouring a drink. I stand there in the doorway watching him, frozen. Will he notice the difference from the tea?

  He takes a swig, then rushes to the sink, leans over, and spits. “What the hell?” He picks up the bottle and sniffs. I try to turn quietly away before he sees me.