A Different Kind of Normal

by Cathy Lamb

  “Three sets of brains.” Tate tapped his head.

  “You have three sets of brains!”

  My mother actually squealed.

  Damini said, matter-of-factly, “She is dumb.”

  “Yep. Three sets of brains. That’s why I have this head.”

  “Then don’t joke about it!” Terri huffed. “You can’t joke about getting a head like that!”

  I sucked in my breath as something carnal popped to mind when Terri said, “getting a head.” I tried extremely hard not to sneak a peek at Ethan and think anything naughty.

  My mother said, her gold bracelets jangling, “Tate has already gotten a head? Remember, mad passion equals safe protection!”

  “I won’t joke about getting a head again,” Tate deadpanned.

  He’s a teenager. He was not naïve. The slang for that particular sex act was not lost on him.

  “You made me think you were going to give me a head like yours!” Terri put her hands on her skinny hips.

  “Yes, ma’am, I did. I am guilty about pretending I was going to give you a head. It was bad.”

  “I can’t even think about getting a head like that!” Terri’s angry face tightened up. “I sure don’t want one!”

  “I don’t want you to give me a head, either.” Tate wrinkled his nose.

  “Oh Tate, you are wonderful,” my mother breathed.

  “Quick on his feet,” Caden said, crossing his arms, those muscles bulging.

  “Sharp as a tack,” I said.

  “I wasn’t going to give you a head,” Terri protested, too flustered and riled up to understand the undercurrents. “You were trying to give me a head!”

  “I can’t give you a head,” Tate said again. “Technically that’s not correct.”

  “I love his sharp, incisive intellect,” my mother said.

  “It’s General Noggin,” I said.

  We all nodded. “General Noggin.”

  Ethan stepped in. “How about if we start the raft trip? I think we’re all acquainted and ready to go.”

  “I a damn princess,” Harvey said. “I go in da boat.”

  “I want a beer!” Heloise said. “Daddy beer.”

  “Boo boo!” Hazel said.

  The guides were standing nearby, they had not bothered to cover their laughter.

  Terri’s face scrunched up tight. “I hope the rest of my day is not going to be rotten!”

  “I think it’s going to get worse for you, dear,” my mother said. “We’re going to be on water. You might get your hair wet.”

  “It’s only the beginning,” Caden said. “You’ve told her about the Class Seven rapids?”

  Terri’s mouth dropped. “Class Seven?”

  “Come along,” my mother said cheerily. “That man over there is waving at us. Must be our guide. I believe it’s our time to hit the river. I hope we don’t drown. No heads, Tate!”

  “Yes, don’t give her a head!” Caden said. “That’s just not right.”

  “Fine. We’ll forget about the spitting,” Damini said, that jokester. “But Tate’s germs did cause my leg to fall off. I’m never going to forgive you for that, Tate. I miss my leg. Never stop missing it, not for one minute.”

  “I know, I’m sorry, Damini. I should have kept my germs to myself.”

  Terri’s eyes almost popped out.

  “He’s kidding,” we all said to her. “He’s kidding.”

  We had a most excellent time on the river.

  I hadn’t been that happy in a long time. Probably years.

  Ethan sat by me on the raft. He was attentive and protective. He was funny. He told me early on, whispering, that Terri was his brother’s wife’s sister and Terri was driving the sister-in-law crazy with her meanness, so much that the sister-in-law had begged Ethan to take her for the day.

  “Trix is pregnant,” he told me, “and she’s a great sister-in-law, but she has a two-year-old, too, and she’s wiped out and still has morning sickness and her head is over a toilet and Terri is giving her lectures about not becoming fat and frumpy and why isn’t the house cleaner? My brother’s in Japan on business, and Trix called, crying, then my brother called, pissed off at Terri for upsetting his wife and begging, so I had to.”

  “Ah. I thought she was your girlfriend,” I whispered back.

  His face froze. “No, Jaden. She is not my girlfriend. I don’t have a girlfriend.”

  “I’ll be—”

  Oh dear. I snapped my mouth shut. I had been about to say, “I’ll be your girlfriend.”

  “I’ll be . . .” I cleared my throat. “I’ll be gosh darned surprised at that.”

  “Gosh darn surprised?”

  I put my paddle back in the water. Gosh darn surprised. “Yes. Darn surprised, doctor.”

  “Ethan.”

  “Ethan Doctor.”

  “Just Ethan.”

  I stole a glance at him, not too long, because the longer I stared, the hotter I became for that man. “Ethan.”

  “Stroke.”

  “Stroke?” Like stroke my body with his hands?

  “Yes, stroke.”

  His voice was gentle and pure and low.

  “Okay. Stroke.”

  He nodded at my paddle.

  “Oh! Stroke. Stroke that. The paddle. I’ll stroke the water,” I told Ethan.

  “Yes. The water needs a stroke.”

  An awesome image of me stroking Ethan popped into my mind and I couldn’t help but slide him a glance.

  He knew.

  I knew he knew what I was thinking about.

  He smiled.

  It was an exhilarating, sexy rafting trip down the river. Not only because all of us, except for Terri, jumped off the raft and floated down part of the river with life jackets, splashing each other, and not only because the picnic lunch was delicious, despite Terri’s complaints about it being “too fattening for her figure,” and not only because my mother led us in raunchy songs, to which we all (except Terri, but including the guides) joined, and not only because my mother pushed Terri in the river and she did, indeed, get her hair wet and came up swearing, and not only because there were incredible rapids and animals to enjoy and a yellow sun all friendly overhead, but because I was with Ethan.

  Ethan and I.

  On a raft, in a river, together.

  Together.

  At the end Damini announced, “I am double and triple glad we were all invited on Jaden’s Raft Date with the Sex Doctor.”

  Hazel said, “Hex doctor!”

  Heloise said, “Ex doctor!”

  But Harvey had it right, twirling in his princess dress. “Sex doctor! Damn!”

  Terri seared me with a mean gaze.

  I could not have turned more red.

  My mother positively cackled.

  Ethan smiled at me. I smiled back. What else could I do?

  A couple of days later, after planting purple and yellow mums in pots in my greenhouse for our front porch, I mixed up coriander, sea salt, fennel, and sage, running them all through my fingers, comparing the textures, using Faith’s silver spoons to blend a tad here and there.

  I didn’t want to do this, but it pulled me. I was compelled. Compelled to do what I didn’t want to do over Grandma Violet’s crystal plates and Faith’s silver spoons though I didn’t want to know the answer.

  I smelled what I didn’t want to smell: death.

  My hands froze over the herbs and spices, panicked, sick. Anguished.

  Please, not Damini, not the triplets.

  Not Tate.

  Please, God, not Tate.

  On a rainy afternoon Tate played basketball on our court for three hours. He came in for dinner. He would not acknowledge me.

  My sweet, kind boy had turned into a cauldron of anger.

  He worked in his Experiment Room that night for two hours. When I tried to give him a hug, he pulled away.

  “Not even a hug, Tate?”

  “No. My brain waves are not feeling it.”

&nb
sp; “Tate, you’re hurting me and you’re being vindictive.”

  “I don’t have a vindictive bone in my body, Mom. I’m not feeling it for hugging you. I love you, though. It’s almost too late. All the guys are already practicing after school. The coaches are watching. I know they’re picking teams in their minds. I’m a junior, Mom. Two years. That’s all I have left of high school.”

  “You—”

  “Me, what, Mom? You are always interfering, always hovering over me, always overprotective as if I’m a baby, as if you think I can’t handle anything on my own. You won’t let me do what I want, what I need to do. I can hardly breathe I’m so mad. You say you’re keeping me safe, but I am hating this, Mom. I am hating my life.”

  I was miserable.

  He was miserable.

  I called my mother at one in the morning. She was up. She always is. She sleeps about five hours a night. I tell her it’s because she’s hungry, being that slender. She says it’s because she’s still enjoying the cocktail she had before bed.

  “Throw him out in the world,” my mother said.

  “Throw him out in the world? Are you kidding me? No.”

  “Throw him out into the wide, wide, wonderful world of high school basketball then.”

  “No.”

  “My darling daughter, you’re suffocating your son and you need to stop it.”

  “I am not suffocating him.”

  “You are. You absolutely are.”

  “Mom, you know he is not a normal kid. He is a kid with a shunt in his head. Do you get that if he’s hit hard enough on the head, he could have serious problems? He could die?”

  “I know. But it’s unlikely.” For once all flighty and raunchy comments, that dry humor, was gone. “Even Ethan said so.”

  “Unlikely isn’t good enough.”

  “It’s all we all have. We all take risks. Getting in a car is a risk. Scuba diving is a risk. Skiing is a risk. It’s improbable he’ll be hurt, even with the problems he’s had.”

  “What about the kids on the other teams? What about the fans? You’ve heard it almost every time we’re in public: Retard. Martian head. Two heads. Cockeyes. Frankenstein. Bobble-head.” I felt tears spurt up. “Freakoid. I’ll sit there and I’ll watch his face shutting down, closing up like he does when he’s humiliated or attacked, and that excitement will ebb away. We’re playing other kids in other communities. They’ll make fun of him. They’ll be rude, they’ll yell mean stuff from the stands, they’ll chant. They’ll yell, ‘Crooked eyes.’ Maybe they’ll come after him after the game. . . .”

  “Jaden—”

  “He’s tough, and he uses humor to deflect a lot, but he’s sensitive, too. I can picture him running onto the court, excited that he’s being allowed to play, and the audience getting quiet and staring and laughing and snickering. . . .” I put a hand to my tears, thinking about people attacking my son.

  “Is that why you’re really not letting him play? That you don’t want him to be hurt by the fans?”

  I couldn’t even speak for a moment, my throat constricting so tight. “No, I am worried that he’ll become critically hurt, but do I want Tate to endure more teasing than he has to? No. Of course I don’t.”

  “Your wanting to protect him is hurting him more than hearing ignorant, pubescent, zitty, awkward teenagers with elf ears saying cutting things to him.”

  “That’s not true.” My shaky hand could hardly hold the phone.

  “It is true.”

  “You’re wrong. My job is to protect him.”

  “That’s my job, too. I’m his Nana Bird. But he is furious with you, Jaden, and your relationship will go downhill for the next two years unless you let him play. He may grow to hate you and anything that happens on that court—even if it is self-esteem smashing—will pale to how he’ll feel about you the rest of his life for not letting him at least try out.”

  “He wouldn’t do that to me.” Right?

  “He doesn’t want to. But he loves basketball, Jaden. Loves it. Could something bad happen? Yes. But sometimes you have to risk the bad happening to let the rainbows in. This is his rainbow. Let him dance with the rainbow.”

  “I hate dancing,” I muttered. I jiggled my legs to rid myself of stress.

  “That’s because you never learned how. You haven’t danced for years, Jaden. The dancing was beaten out of you when you were young. I understand how it happened, but you need to dance, you need to let him dance.”

  “I don’t want to dance.”

  “You’re still young. Dancing should be in your life. Tate’s young. He needs to dance his own dance.”

  Sometimes my mother can be darn poetic.

  “Let him play,” she said. “Let him play.”

  Later I made hazelnut chai tea and stared out my window at the moon. It was getting dark much earlier, the skies heavier, cool winds blowing. Soon all the maple trees lining the drive would be bare, their branches intertwined sticks outlined against a white or gray sky. There would be rain, probably snow, definitely icy mornings.

  How many times had Faith stared out this window and watched the weather, the snowflakes, windstorms, rain, a quilt wrapped around her shoulders, troubled, anxious, worried?

  Miserable?

  TATE’S AWESOME PIGSKIN BLOG

  Here’s another photo of my uncle Caden. His arms are the size of tree trunks. He’s six foot six and yeah, the dude has a ponytail and he looks as if he could rip apart Halley’s Comet with his own hands. He was a professional wrestler, now he’s a single dad of four kids and owns Witches and Warlocks Florist.

  Here are photos of his flowers. Yep, he made a zebra out of black and white carnations, and that tequila bottle flower arrangement is six feet high. The boobs in this photo were made out of pink flowers for a woman who beat breast cancer. He made them three feet across and a foot tall with red rosebuds for the you-know-whats, and the lady loved them. “She’s gotta celebrate,” he told me. “She’s gotta celebrate in a huge way, too.”

  Here’s a photo of my cousin Damini, dancing.

  She was adopted by my uncle Caden when she was four from an orphanage in India.

  She is wearing a silver sparkly dress made by the designer, Cattrell Five, which my Nana Bird bought for her.

  See that prosthesis? She lost her leg in the orphanage when it was infected after a snake bit her.

  Sometimes she takes it off and chases a particular boy with it. I’m not going to say anymore or she’ll call me a “farting fruitcake,” and come after me.

  BUT HERE ARE DAMINISMS, DAMINI’S RULES FOR LIFE:

  1. Sometimes you have to swing a leg to make a point.

  2. Every time you eat, be grateful you’re eating.

  3. If you are a stupid person, please shut up.

  4. Be nice to animals. In your next life you might come back as a slug, remember that.

  5. Plant the same flowers as your ancestors did, then you have a true family garden. We Bruxelles each have one; the tradition started a long time ago by my great, great, etc. super duper brave grandma, Faith Stephenson.

  6. Learn how to make Taco Soup because it is delicious, and read a lot of books because they are delicious, and if you don’t read how do you learn anything?

  7. Watch the seasons change, that’s what my aunt Jaden says, and I think she’s right.

  8. I wear short skirts with ruffles, sequins, and fluff because I love them. I’m not gonna hide my leg. Don’t hide anything about yourself.

  9. I know what it’s like to sit in a dark room in a crib alone and feel as if no one loves you. Love a lot of people for a happy life.

  10. Tate is a pain in my keester.

  When Damini and I hang out together in public, we receive a lot of odd looks, and sometimes mean comments. I’m bigheaded. She has only 1.5 legs.

  We don’t care.

  So that’s Damini.

  Here’s a photo of her on a skateboard. Here’s a photo of her skiing. Here’s a photo of her bicycling.
Here’s a photo of her chasing me with her mouth open wide enough to catch a goose.

  Here’s a photo of your brain’s neural pathways. Damini, I don’t know if you have any neural pathways. Could be all you have up there is a green Cyclops monster telling you what to do. . . .

  Everybody, send me your list of ten Daminisms. You know, the stuff you know about life, the rules you live by, what you know in your own noggin, that kind of thing.

  Tate and I spent almost two hours reading the entries.

  His blog received 400 hits that day.

  I took Tate to play chess with Maggie Granelli on Saturday.

  “Hello, Maggie Shoes,” Tate said. “I’ve come to beat you. I will give you no quarter, I will be merciless, I will be thorough in my attack, and then I’m going to have some of that lemon cake on your counter, okay?”

  “Greetings, Bishop Tate. Today I am feeling lucky. Your demise on this chessboard will please me greatly. And have all the lemon cake you want.”

  They began. Tate won both matches. There would be no pity wins.

  Maggie’s roses still have a few blooms. Pinks, reds, yellows . . .

  Her time is shortening.

  There are many reasons I became a hospice nurse.

  One was because of Grandma Violet. Violet was a healer, as was her mother before her. People all over our town, for miles out, came to see her, from the time she was seventeen years old. She used herbs, massage, meditation, a little sterilized acupuncture to “release the evils,” and she used her Silent Spells.

  She used “talk healing,” too, where she sat and listened, her red curls bopping around, her hands holding her client’s.