Everything Is Fine. Read online

  The Deans.

  I don’t remember if Mr. Grobin was there but I don’t think he was.

  My old best friends.

  And then a whole bunch of people from the church and from Mom’s art classes.

  Dad’s people were there too. His boss named Jerry who told me once that my face was a pumpkin, some other sports guys and three football players who played for the Skins. Dad was excited about that. “They didn’t need to come all that way.”

  The whole church was full.

  Dad had his TV voice when he gave his talk.

  At the end he said this: “I love my wife. I love my daughters.” It was the first time his voice broke. He cleared his throat. “This is what God intended. It was Olivia’s time. Even though we weren’t ready for it, my family will get through this.”

  Everyone nodded. Cried. Whispered.

  I just sat and so did Mom.

  Afterward, we stood and shook people’s hands.

  I didn’t know that was how funerals worked.

  BOX OLIVIA WAS IN: pencil on paper

  SMASHED

  Afterward at our house, people were everywhere.

  Dad had hired a cleaning lady and got a caterer and we had too much food because people brought stuff anyway.

  In the family room, I was sitting in the corner on the couch.

  There were voices and ladies in black and fat men and people laughing and some kids running around. I sat and watched the shoes.

  Then one pair of brown shoes with a buckle said, “Why not an open casket?”

  The other pair, high heels, black, said, “Are you kidding? She was all smashed up. It was horrific.”

  The other: “Really? It was that bad?”

  Black shoes: “Umm, yeah. Believe me, there was no possibility of an open casket.”

  Smashed up.

  I closed my eyes.

  MOM?

  I put my hand on the door.

  “Mom? Please open the door.”

  I hear a muffled sound. Her voice.

  Then I remember the screwdriver.

  Once when Mom was in a lesson, Olivia had locked herself in the bathroom.

  She wouldn’t open the door and Dad was at work and I couldn’t get Olivia out.

  I didn’t want to tell Mom so I tried everything. A credit card like on TV, a butter knife, a hammer, a piece of paper.

  Nothing worked and Olivia was crying. Finally, I got a screwdriver and put it in the lock and it twisted for about three minutes. Something clicked.

  I pushed open the door and there was Olivia — tear-streaked face and her dark curls plastered to her head.

  I never told Mom about that. I didn’t want her to know because I was really watching TV when I was supposed to be watching Olivia.

  I was always in charge of her and I was always messing up.

  But at least this mess-up lets me get in to Mom.

  MIRACLES

  When Mom was pregnant, she always peed.

  One time at dinner, Mom had to go to the bathroom three times.

  At the movies, four times.

  Dad called her Miss Piss.

  “Oh, there’s my Miss Piss.”

  Mom would throw a pillow at him and I’d write Miss Piss in my notebook.

  My teacher said, “What’s Miss Piss?”

  “My mom. She pees all the time.”

  Teacher looked at me funny. “Did you just say what I think you said?”

  But I’d be coloring or doing my handwriting and not caring what she said.

  We were all very happy because they had to do operations to get Mom pregnant, but it worked. Olivia was a miracle.

  “You were a miracle too,” Dad said.

  “I was?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “You and Olivia are both our miracles.”

  “Good,” I said.

  At home Mom would be laughing and singing and Dad would come home early.

  Mom was going to make the art room the nursery, but I said, “She should sleep in my room.”

  “Baby, you don’t want a newborn in with you.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  And I did.

  So my room was the nursery, and me and Mom found all sorts of cool things to paint and do to my room.

  SONG

  There’s this one song: If a thing is hard to do, I’ll not sit and cry. I’ll just sing a merry song and try try try.

  Tra la la la la la la la Tra la la la la Tra la la la la la la la Try Try Try.

  I make that song go in my head to stop everything. To make everything stop.

  It’s a stupid song I learned in choir.

  OKAY

  It takes me nine minutes to find the screwdriver.

  Dad had moved everything around since Mom stopped doing things, and it was stuffed in a cupboard in the kitchen.

  The whole time I’m thinking, be okay, be okay, be okay.

  Because there was a time when she did something that wasn’t okay.

  It happened just before Dad left.

  She did it with pills but she said it was an accident.

  “I just needed to sleep,” she said. “I just needed some sleep.”

  Dad and I sat with her at the hospital for two days.

  Dad paced and paced and paced and I ate M&Ms.

  When Mom woke up, she looked at him and said, “I just needed some sleep.”

  Dad swore.

  Later, in the hallway, I heard the doctor say it would be better if Mom checked in somewhere.

  “She needs around-the-clock care.”

  Dad said he understood, and he came in and told Mom. She just stared at the ceiling. He cleared his throat and his voice was shaky, but he said that he thought the doctor was right. “I can’t do this, Roxie. I can’t be here. And there’s that ESPN thing. I have to go soon.” It was his last chance. He said, “Mazzy can stay with Agnes. It won’t be for long, hon. The doctor said it’s best.” I felt sick.

  Mom’s face was stone. “I just needed sleep,” she whispered.

  Later, when Dad went out to get some fresh air, Mom said this: “Mazzy, I’m going to talk to your dad, but you need to help me, okay? I don’t want to go to a facility. I am not going to a facility.”

  “I don’t want to live with Aunt Agnes,” I said.

  “You don’t have to. We’ll do this together. Do you understand?”

  I didn’t exactly but I said, “Yeah, Mom.”

  When Dad got back, Mom sat up and said, “Dave, Mazzy needs me. She just told me that she needs me and she doesn’t want me to go. I’m not going to a treatment center.”

  Dad looked at me but Mom said, “She can hear this. She’s a big girl.”

  He sighed and Mom went on. “We can hire someone to help around the house. We could even have Bill come. I’ll go to therapy. Whatever. We can figure it out, but Mazzy needs me, and I need Mazzy.” Her voice was clear.

  Dad was shaking his head.

  “I’m not going, Dave,” she said, and sat up taller.

  Dad leaned against the wall and let out a long breath.

  “We can handle this. I just got tired. That’s all.” Her voice ran out.

  Finally Dad looked up. “Roxie, I have to go to Connecticut. The job can’t wait any longer and I can’t leave the two of you alone.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Mom said. “Right, Maz?” She looked at me.

  “Yeah, Dad,” I said. “I’ll take care of Mom. We’ll be fine.”

  “See?” Mom said.

  And Dad sighed again.

  TAKE CARE

  That night Dad said he really wanted me to go to Kansas.

  “I can’t leave you and your mom alone.”

  “Dad, please. Please don’t make me go.”

  He said if I didn’t want to go to Kansas maybe he could find something else.

  He said, “Couldn’t you stay with one of your friends?”

  Dad didn’t get how nothing was the same anymore. He wasn’t there. I just wanted to be with Mom.
“No, Dad.”

  “What about summer camp?”

  “No. I want to be home. We’ll be fine.”

  He closed his eyes and I said, “I promise, Dad. It’ll be okay.”

  That night I heard him on the phone with a whole bunch of nurses.

  And then with Bill.

  PAINTING OLIVIA

  I’ve tried to paint Olivia.

  I’ve tried and tried.

  I can’t do it.

  I can see her face but I can’t paint it.

  I wonder if she hates me.

  NOT OLIVIA: oils on canvas

  STUPID

  So far, Mom hasn’t done anything stupid. She’s stopped talking. She’s stopped eating. She’s stopped moving. She’s stopped showering. She’s stopped everything. But she hasn’t done anything STUPID.

  “Be okay, be okay,” I say over and over while I look for the screwdriver. When I finally find it, I run to the bathroom, and just before I put it in the door, I say three more times, “Be okay, be okay, be okay,” and do a yoga breath.

  COLBY

  Colby comes home on his bike wobbling around because he has on cleats and football pants and a big bag on his back.

  I say, “I didn’t even know our school had a team.”

  “Yeah, duh.”

  “Oh,” I say. “So did you make it?”

  Colby wipes some sweat from his forehead. “Not yet,” he says, and he comes and sits in the sprinklers with me. “I’m dead. Two-a-days are killing me.”

  “What are two-a-days?”

  “Two practices in a day. I’d think you’d know that with your dad and everything.”

  “Oh,” I say, and pull out a dandelion. “But you’re not on the team?”

  “Not yet.”

  I look at him. “Then why do you have to do two-a-days?”

  He just shakes his head, which is lying in the wet grass, and then he opens his mouth so the water can get in.

  Then I say how I might be a cheerleader.

  He opens his eyes and says, “Yeah right.”

  “What?”

  “You’re not going to be a cheerleader.”

  “Why not?”

  He closes his eyes again.

  “Why not?” I say again.

  “Because.”

  “Because why?”

  He crosses his ankles and starts rubbing his stomach.

  “Or I could be on the football team.”

  He laughs loud then. “Dream on,” he said.

  “I could. I could be an LB.”

  “An LB?” Now he flips over on his stomach and is looking at me. I pull out another dandelion and eat it.

  “Sick.”

  “What?”

  “You just ate a dandelion.”

  “I know.”

  “You are so weird.”

  “So?”

  “So you are.”

  “So?”

  “And you are not going to be an LB. You are way too little. Plus they don’t even call them LBs. That sounds so dumb. You don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

  But I do.

  And Colby probably knows I do, because of my dad and everything.

  DAD

  Dad played football in college. His dream was to go to the NFL — the Steelers or the Bears.

  But he tore his Achilles his senior year.

  He tried to play after that but he was never really the same.

  So then his dream was to work Monday Night Football. He almost has his dream.

  I am going to ask Dad if calling a linebacker an LB sounds dumb.

  DAD AS A FOOTBALL PLAYER: paint on canvas

  ME

  I rattle the screwdriver but the door won’t open.

  There is no sound from the other side of the door.

  I rattle some more. “Mom,” I say, “please open the door.”

  Quiet.

  “Mom, what are you doing in there? You told Dad you wouldn’t do anything stupid.”

  Still quiet.

  I rattle and rattle and rattle until finally the lock clicks and the door swings open.

  The lights are glaring and her makeup is spread across the counter. Her brushes are out, her hair dryer, hair spray, gel, mask, almost every ounce of every bathroom product is crammed on the counter.

  I look at the tub — the shower curtain is pulled.

  “Mom?”

  She doesn’t answer but I do hear a sort of whimper.

  I yank the curtain.

  Her clothes are off and she is huddled in the corner of the empty jetted double tub.

  “Mom?”

  The whimpering gets a little louder and she just sits there.

  “Mom?” I kneel down by the tub.

  Her face is in her knees.

  “Mom, it’s okay. I can help you. Do you want me to help you?”

  She doesn’t say anything. I reach out to touch her shoulder and she moves away.

  She is shivering and her shoulder blades stick out. Her skin looks like Elmer’s glue.

  I don’t know what to do.

  Until I think of what to do: I get her blanket.

  Then I crawl in the tub and sit facing her.

  She looks up. “What are you doing?” she whispers. Her lips are blue.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  Mom just watches. And finally smiles.

  I smile back.

  We sit like that for a while.

  And a while.

  Until she suddenly says, “I can’t do this.”

  Her face crumples and she is back in her knees.

  “Do what, Mom?”

  She sniffs and says even more quietly, “I can’t be normal. I can’t face Dave. I can’t face anyone.” She looks up at me. “And I can’t be a mom.”

  I try to do three yoga breaths because for some reason I can’t get air.

  “Mom, don’t say that. You’re a good mom.”

  She is shaking now, and the Elmer’s glue looks almost transparent.

  “I let her die, Mazzy. I watched my own baby girl die.” She is shaking harder now and I can feel tears coming up in my head but I don’t want them to come. I don’t want them to come. “I shouldn’t be talking about this with you,” she says. “I have no one to talk to.” And then her voice trails off.

  “Mom,” I whisper. She is shaking and shaking and then sobbing. Sobbing so loud — louder than anything I’ve ever heard in my life and suddenly I’m shaking too.

  “Mom,” I whisper louder. “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault.”

  Her head snaps up. “Then whose fault was it?” Her voice all of a sudden steady, her face a mess of snot and tears.

  For some reason I feel scared. I’m scared.

  “Nobody’s,” I say.

  “What?” she says back.

  “Nobody’s.”

  “Mazzy, if it wasn’t my fault, whose fault do you think it was?” she asks, her voice suddenly more than strong, almost a yell.

  I take a deep breath.

  Three deep breaths.

  And then I say it.

  I whisper it.

  “Mazzy, I can’t hear you.” There is a tremor in the air. “What did you say?”

  Finally, I look straight at her and say what we both know is the truth. What Dad knows is the truth. What probably the whole neighborhood and the cops and the paramedics and everybody know is the truth. “Mine, Mom. I said it was my fault.”

  HOT

  The day Olivia died it was hot outside just like now.

  Sweaty hot.

  And it was 9:43. My first gymnastics class ever started at 10:00 and it was in Springville, which was a half hour away.

  For two weeks I had put up signs: Gymnastics 10:00 Saturday, August 4th, Springville Center.

  I put them up in the kitchen, in my parents bathroom, on the fridge, on my dad’s steering wheel. Everywhere.

  It was because I saw this flyer at the grocery store for Xtreme Gymnastics and I wanted to do it and I go
t all my friends to sign up and it was going to be perfect.

  But sometimes things didn’t always happen how they were supposed to.

  Dad said, “Mazzy, you’ve papered the whole house,” and then he laughed. “You’d think this was the most important gymnastics class on the planet.”

  I karate chopped at him and said, “I just don’t want to miss it.”

  “Yeah. I get it.” He laughed again. And he karate chopped back.

  But then the day of the class he was called in to work.

  And Mom was mad because she had art critiques and didn’t have time and she’d have to take Olivia with her and she didn’t have time for this and why did Dad always do this. I was sitting by the door waiting and Mom was rushing around and I said, “You can just drop me off early and come back,” but she said, “I don’t have time, Maz. I have to get to the art center by 10:30,” and then she was getting in the shower but it was 9:15 and she wouldn’t be ready in time.

  I didn’t want to go if I was going to be late. I could feel the heat rising in my throat.

  “Mom, I don’t want to go,” I said.

  But she wasn’t listening. She was yelling to get everything ready, to get Olivia wiped up, and she was putting on her makeup and she was almost ready, she said, and I was still standing by the door waiting and waiting and waiting.

  Then it was 9:49 and I said, “I’ll just stay home.”

  Mom poked her head in the hall. “You are not staying home.” Olivia was sitting on the floor.

  Finally she came out of her room with bags and some books and her art portfolio and hurry hurry we’re late, get your sister and let’s go. The phone rang. Her cell rang. Olivia started crying. Hurry Hurry. This is costing us a fortune, Mazzy, and we’re late.

  I picked up Olivia.

  I picked up my bag.

  Mom was on the phone and she motioned to go out to the car.

  Outside.

  I went outside.

  Me and Olivia were outside.

  I opened the Range Rover door and a burst of hot air hit my face.

  Too hot.

  I put Olivia down on the grass. She crawled around. I put my bag on the ground.

  I wanted to cry.