“Where the hell were you?” my father shouts at me, his face beet red, forehead dripping with sweat, jaw clenched.
Dooley’s eyes are open. He isn’t bleeding. He doesn’t appear to be hurt. “D!”
“A!” He holds out his arms to me, crying, a blue Matchbox car in his fist. “The dream wasn’t working so I went to find it myself and …”
“Hi, A.”
I turn to look.
Mike Mancinello is coming up the walkway with a bouquet of flowers in his hands. Surprise. He is right here in my yard where he shouldn’t be. Where he can never be till I’m seventeen. Oh, no. It’s like the day turned to midnight. I feel faint.
“Who the hell are you?” my father shouts.
“I’m A’s …”
“Classmate,” I finish. “We go to school together.”
My father’s face is bloodred mad. “Well, she’ll see you in September, then.”
I turn to face Mike, his beautiful brown eyes look so confused, so worried for me.
“In the house, Aislinn,” my father shouts.
“Are you all right?” Mike says quietly, sneaking a quick look toward my father.
“I’m fine,” I say, holding back the tears.
“Now, Aislinn, you heard me,” my father yells.
“Here.” Mike hands me the flowers, looking confused and concerned. “Call me, okay?”
“Go,” I say. “Just go, quickly.”
Mike stands there. He wants to help. My body is shaking. “Please, Mike, go.”
“All right, but call me,” he says, and takes off down the side of the house.
Dooley is crying hysterically now. I turn back toward them.
“Here, baby, come here.” I reach my arms out.
“I’ve got him,” my father says, elbowing me with such force that I topple into the concrete drainage gutter, smashing down on my elbow.
My father hurries up the stairs with Dooley, pausing on the top step to look down.
Mike is walking back up toward me. “No!” I say, “please … go.”
“Get up in the house and in your room,” my father shouts to me. “Now!”
Elbow throbbing, legs soft as Play-Doh, I walk up to jail with my flowers.
This is going to be awful. The electric chair or worse.
Beck and Callie are standing in the kitchen clutching hands trying to be brave, holding back their tears. I see one of them gave Eddie a bottle. That was good.
I go to my room, stick the sock between the door and frame and close myself in. I look at Jeffrey, Clarissa, and Flop lined neatly in a row on my nicely made bed. I look at Frisky. He’s gone! Oh, no. I look on the floor, under my dresser, underneath my bed. I catch sight of my face in the mirror. “It will be okay, it will be okay,” I say over and over again.
It’s only a matter of time until he comes.
When my father finishes spanking Dooley for leaving the house to find his little red car, I hear his shoes thundering across the hardwood floorboards of the dining room to my room. With no warning knock, the door swings open, slamming against my forehead. I fall back against my desk.
He lunges toward me.
“I’m sorry, Dad … I don’t know how …”
The slap comes, open palmed and hard against my mouth.
My face stings like iodine poured on an open cut. I taste blood on my lip.
“Leave her alone!” Beck is screaming, standing in my doorway with his fists up like he’s going to punch my father.
“Don’t hurt A, Daddy,” Callie says, sobbing. “I’ll tell Mommy!”
“Go watch TV,” my father shouts at them. “Now!”
He reaches for a clump of my hair and pulls me toward him, so close I can see the red lines on the whites of his blue, blue eyes, so close I can smell the liquor on his breath, from the bar he must have stopped at before he came home. “You’re grounded for good, do you hear me? And stay the hell away from guineas.”
He leaves. I push the door closed.
“I hate you!” I scream into my pillow, collapsing on my bed, sobbing. “Grounded for good?” I laugh like I’m insane. I’m already in prison, what could be worse? I hate you! You’re no father, you’re a demon. You’re not going to purgatory; you’re going to hell!
I’ll run away, that’s what I’ll do. Hide out at Maizey’s until the party’s over and then hitch a ride to another city. No, you deserve worse than that. Maybe I’ll sneak out of bed tonight and get that big sharp knife from the kitchen and plunge it in down deep till you’re dead. I hate you for hitting me, for calling Mike a “guinea.” You think you’re so important being Irish, calling good people you don’t even know awful names.
You’re the one who’s greasy and stupid and sneaky and evil. I’m going to tell everybody you’re a drunk. I’m going to get you arrested. You’re the one who belongs in jail. You. Not me. I didn’t do anything wrong … and then I remember. Frisky.
Frisky, oh, no. I search every inch of my room. No. And I can’t go look for him or my father might hit me again.
This is the worst day of my life.
It’s dark and quiet. My mother is sitting next to me on my bed.
The fog of sleep lifts and it all rushes back over me, the traffic stopping, Dooley, Mike, my father hitting me, Frisky gone …
Mom turns on my desk lamp and moves the cone toward me so she can have a good look at my face. She goes and gets a towel, soaks it in warm water, and dabs it gently against my lip. She cleans off the gash on my elbow. She goes and comes back with Bactine and a bandage. All the while tears are rolling down her cheeks and she’s whispering, “I’m sorry, Aislinn. I’m so very, very sorry.”
We hear the kitchen door open and slam. I jump.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “He’s going out, not in.”
Mom gets us a box of Kleenex. She brings me a ham and cheese sandwich and a glass of chocolate milk. She insists I eat something.
“Now tell me what happened,” she says. “All of it. Every bit.”
And so I tell her … about Sue-Ellen’s pool party and Mike and how I thought I had gotten all of the little ones safely settled in before he called today, but somehow I didn’t notice D sneaking out to go searching for his little red car….
“This isn’t right,” my mother says, shaking her head. “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to go to a pool party or talk to a boy on the phone. I told your father it was way too much to expect you to watch three children and a baby all day long. A baby would be hard enough. Watching one busy toddler would be …”
“You need to make him stop drinking!” I scream.
I take a deep breath. “Please, Mom, please. You’ve got to do something.”
My mother’s head drops till her chin touches her chest. Her shoulders heave up and she starts to sob, her whole body shaking with the force of a storm.
“I know, honey. I know. I just don’t know what.”
She says she’ll get the little ones to search all over for Frisky. “Don’t worry,” she says. “We’ll find him.”
When Mom leaves, I lie awake picturing that sharp silver knife in the kitchen drawer.
DoDo noble things,
not dream them,
all day long …
— CHARLES KINGSLEY
There’s a quiet after the storm, like always.
Dad brings home onion-garlic potato chips and orange soda and three boxes of Friehofer’s chocolate chip cookies. But I am way, way past food bribes for forgiveness.
I will never let him hurt me or anyone in my family ever again.
On Sunday morning I decide to test out my Dreamsleeves idea in a very brave way. I take a name label from my father’s desk, snip off the HELLO MY NAME IS — you’d think a grown man could handle “hello” without a reminder — and I print out a message with a red marker.
Now it’s not a name tag; it’s a dream tag. When we get to church I will wear it on my sleeve.
My plan is to be the fir
st O’Neill to file into the pew, so there will be Beck, Callie, Dooley, and Mom with Eddie on her lap between me and my father, so that even if Dad does see my dream, he won’t be able to do a thing about it.
What’s he going to do, yell at me? I don’t think so. My father would never raise his voice or cause a scene in church. He has too much respect or maybe fear of God and Father Reilly for that. Sunday is the one day Roe O’Neill is always on his best behavior.
My heart is racing, my palms are sweaty; it’s almost time. After the Sign of Peace I take the label from my pocket and follow my mom and dad up the aisle toward the altar. Just before it’s my turn to receive Communion, I stick my dream on my sleeve, right up top where Father Reilly cannot miss it:
Please make my dad stop drinking.
When Father Reilly extends the little round host perched between his thumb and pointer finger and says “The body of Christ,” I look him straight in the face, lock his eyes in mine, and I point to the dream on my sleeve.
The priest’s bushy gray eyebrows rise up a bit. He reads the label and nods.
“Amen,” I say, smiling.
He places the tiny white wafer on my tongue.
I make the sign of the cross and start back to my pew, nearly dancing I’m so relieved. Father Reilly will make Dad stop drinking. Mission accomplished. My dad will do anything that priest tells him to do. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before! Well, I did, but confession isn’t a place where you can talk.
The back-to-your-seat line is moving slowly. Maria Carroll is kneeling, hands folded at the end of a pew. She smiles a big sunshiny smile when she sees me. Then she leans toward me, staring at my sleeve.
Oh my gosh, I forgot. I quickly rip off the label, crumple it in my pocket. But Maria read it. I can see it in her face.
After Mass, when our family files out into the vestibule, Maria Carroll is waiting for me. She squeezes my arm gently, leans in, and whispers, “Come see me, A. I mean it. I want to talk to you.”
“Okay,” I say, “I will.”
Father Reilly is talking to my parents. “I’d like to stop by for a visit later, if that’s all right with you?”
“Yes, of course, Father,” my mom says, delighted. It’s not every day a priest comes to visit.
“Would three o’clock be okay?” the priest asks.
“Certainly, Father,” my dad says, beaming with pride.
Alla-lu-ya!
Alla-lu-ya! Lu-ya! Lu-ya!
Thank you, God, thank you, God, thank you, God.
Thank you! Finally my dream’s coming true!
We hurry down the hill home.
“A, please help the little ones change into play clothes,” Mom says to me. “And then give them some cinnamon toast.” She rushes to her room to change into a smock and scurries back into the kitchen before the toast pops up. “No time for a big brunch today,” she says. “I need to bake a cake for Father.”
My mother bustles happily about the kitchen, pulling out flour, sugar, baking pans, eggs and butter and chocolate. She even breaks a smile once or twice, as if a huge burden has been lifted from her shoulders. As if she, too, knows our problem is solved.
“I’m going to a car show in Albany,” Dad says. Figures he’d leave when there’s work to be done.
“Don’t be too long, Roe,” Mom says. “Father’s coming at three.”
I’m so excited I think I will burst. I mop the dining room floor with Murphy’s Oil Soap and polish the table and buffet with Pledge. I set out a tablecloth and our holiday china dessert plates and cups and saucers. I fill the sugar bowl and the creamer, put out cloth napkins and forks and spoons.
After she finishes baking, Mom gives each of the little ones a bath and changes them back into their Sunday-best clothes. She’s sweating hot from all the exertion.
“Mom, go get yourself ready. I’ll take care of Eddie.”
I dress E in a cute blue and white sailor suit and comb his wispy hair.
After the cake is cool enough to frost, my mother surveys the dining room table to make sure everything looks perfect. “We need a centerpiece,” she says. She goes to the china closet and takes out the heavy crystal vase. It was a wedding present. Everything expensive we own was a wedding present. I love looking through Mom and Dad’s white-with-gold-trim wedding album. They were so young and happy.
Mom hands me a scissors. “Clip some flowers from Nana’s garden.”
Outside, I snip daisies next to the gnomes. White-bearded Red is sitting on a tree stump, a book propped on his lap. The book is open and Red’s staring intently at the pages. There is the imprint of a tulip on one page, a daisy on the other. One time I told Nana that Red “wasn’t really reading” because there weren’t any words on the pages. I was seven or so and proud of how smart I was. “He’s studying how to make a good garden,” Nana said. “That’s hard work, too, you know.” I love you, Nana. I miss you.
Bouquet in hand I turn to go in, but not before I admonish the brown-bearded, big-bellied, green-hatted gnome, Green, with the beer mug hoisted high in his hand.
“You really should stop drinking, Green. It isn’t good for you.”
And even if this should not happen
merely to dream it is enough.
— PEDRO CALDERÓN DE LA BARCA
At three o’clock sharp, the front door buzzer rings. “Go let Father Reilly in, A,” my mom calls. “And where is your dad?”
I walk down the inside carpeted stairwell to the first-floor landing, a staircase that hardly ever gets used and not at all now that Nana is away. I unlock the two locks.
“Hello, Father,” I say, so grateful that he came I nearly hug him. This is it. The day I’ve prayed for. The day someone will make my dad stop drinking. My whole body is sizzling-shaking with excitement.
“Afternoon, Aislinn,” he says, nodding his head with a smile and a wink. He smells like soap and Listerine. He removes his hat and follows me up the stairs to our living room.
“May I take your coat, Father?” I ask. It hasn’t rained in weeks, but better safe than sorry, I guess.
“Welcome to our home, Father,” Mother gushes, first wiping off her hands on the apron she’s wearing over her nicest maternity dress, then clasping the priest’s hand warmly in hers. “We are so honored.”
It’s a really, really big deal when a priest comes to your house. The only other time I ever remember him coming was after we buried my uncle Mark and he stopped by the luncheon downstairs at Nana’s.
My father walks in. Thank goodness. Imagine if I went to all that trouble and risked my dad seeing my Dreamsleeve in church and got Father Reilly here for a once-in-a-lifetime chance and my father didn’t come home!
“Sorry I’m late,” Dad says, all smiling, reaching out to shake Father Reilly’s hand. “It’s not every day we have a holy visitor.”
My father is in a very good mood, all bubbly and cracking jokes. Hopefully that’s because he had a good time at the car show and not because he stopped at a bar.
I start to get a sick feeling in my stomach. Oh, no, what if Father Reilly reprimands my father for drinking right in front of all of us instead of in private? What if he threatens to hold back absolution for my father’s sins and my father gets scared, or worse, angry, and takes it out on us when Father leaves? What if …
“Let’s have some refreshments,” my mom says all cheerfully, like the mother on The Brady Bunch, motioning us toward the dining room.
“Here, Father, sit here,” she says to the priest, offering him the chair at the head of the table where my dad usually sits.
“You sit here, Roe,” Mom says, motioning my father to sit at the other head spot, which is where she usually sits.
My body is tingling, pins and needles all over.
B, C, and D are speechless. They just keep staring at the priest like “what the heck is he doing here?”
Mom offers Father Reilly a cup of tea. I offer the creamer and the sugar bowl.
Mom s
ets the chocolate cake trimmed with pink rosebuds in front of our guest and he nods most appreciatively.
“Well, look at that,” Father Reilly says. He whispers something to Callie and she giggles. “Yes, you can have two pieces,” she says, giggling some more.
Dad smiles at Father Reilly like “isn’t she adorable?”
Callie is loving all of this attention. We never have visitors. This is certainly a special day. Mom cuts the cake and I pass out the plates.
The cake looks scrumptious, but I’m too nervous to eat. How will he do it? Will he ask my father to walk outside with him? Or come by the rectory later?
Mom pours tea for my dad and me and then milk for the little ones.
Callie keeps trying to get Father Reilly’s attention again. She leaves the table and when she comes back, she has one of the name labels and a pen with her. She motions for Father to bend down. She whispers something in his ear.
“Say that again,” the priest says.
Callie whispers in his ear and hands him the name tag and pen.
“Well, all right,” the priest says, laughing. “Let’s give this a try.” He writes something on the label and sticks it in the pocket of his black suit coat.
“No, you’re supposed to wear it,” Callie says, giggling.
“Let’s eat,” my mother interrupts. “Will you say grace, Father?”
“Certainly. Let us bow our heads and pray.” Father Reilly thanks God for this “lovely cake” and for “this fine Catholic family seated around this table. Amen.”
I open my eyes. Father Reilly is looking right at me. He winks and smiles like “don’t worry, everything will be fine.”
I sigh, relieved, the weight of the world lifted off my shoulders. I close my eyes, thank you, God, for making my dream come true. I open my eyes.
My dad’s almost crying he’s so proud of this happy family scene before him.
Mom asks Father Reilly about his summer plans.
Dreamsleeves Page 13
