Everything Is Fine. Page 9
I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to walk in late. Mom was still inside. I felt sweat start on my forehead. I looked over at Colby’s. Everything was still. The whole neighborhood was still on a Saturday morning at 9:52. Why wasn’t Mom out here? Why did it never work? Mom was too busy to take me. Dad was too busy. I didn’t want to go. I got in the car. It was so hot. It was so hot and the sweat was trickling down my back.
Finally she came out.
10:01.
Finally she got in the car.
10:02.
She was still on her cell phone.
She smiled at me.
I ignored her.
She turned on the car.
10:03.
The sweat made it down to my butt.
She backed up fast.
She backed up so fast.
Too fast.
So fast.
She backed up.
And
we heard it.
A bump.
Mom said, “What was that?”
I said, “I don’t know.”
Mom looked back at me, and her face went white. “Why isn’t Olivia in her seat?”
I looked over.
Olivia was not in her seat.
Olivia was not in her seat.
Olivia was not in her seat.
Olivia died at 10:04 on Saturday, August 4th.
I still have the gymnastics flyer.
BLACK AND WHITE
After I say “It was my fault,” Mom puts her head back on her knees and sobs.
I just look at the tile on the wall.
Black tiles brown tiles white tiles. Black brown white black brown white black brown white.
Mom doesn’t say anything black brown white black brown white.
She just sobs and shakes and sobs and shakes and black brown white black brown.
“Mazzy,” she finally whispers.
Black brown white black brown white. “Mazzy.” Her voice in a tunnel.
Black brown white black brown white. “Mazzy, look at me.”
Black brown white — “Mazzy” — she is grabbing my arms.
“Mazzy, it wasn’t your fault.”
Brown.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Black.
“Did you hear me?”
Brown.
“Did you hear me, baby girl?”
White.
“Did you hear me?” A hand on my arm.
Black.
“Mazzy.”
Brown.
Arms around me. My mom’s arms the first time in a year.
White.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Black.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
White.
I put my head on her shoulder.
ARTICLES
Dad collected articles after it happened.
Articles about other incidents. “It’s not that uncommon,” he’d say. Like that would make it better.
He’d put them on the fridge. “It happens all the time. Five kids were killed in Iowa. Separate incidents. All involving backing up.”
Then Mom stopped coming into the kitchen.
And he stopped bringing them home.
TUB
Mom and I sit in the tub for a long time.
So long that she starts shaking because she doesn’t have any clothes on and the blanket I brought is thin.
“Hang on,” I say.
I get her robe and three more quilts and pillows and a bag of chips.
I also bring a new sorbet and two spoons and the noni just in case.
“What are you doing?” she whispers.
“Getting this stuff.”
“I can see that,” she says, and then we are sitting in blankets and the sleeping bag and eating sorbet in the big jetted tub.
At first we just sit there.
But then I start telling her stuff. Normal stuff. Stuff she usually ignores. I say, “I think Colby shaves.”
She smiles, so I keep talking.
“I think it’s weird,” I say. “He always has these pieces of toilet paper on his face that are bloody and he also says he’s only attracted to vampires.”
She laughs and says, “What?”
“He’s only attracted to vampires.”
“Oh,” she says, “he likes you.”
“He does? How do you know?”
“Because that’s what boys say when they like girls.”
“Oh,” I say.
Mom drinks some of the noni and she doesn’t even look like it’s gross.
We sit and sit and then she says something. She says, “I’m not going to teach art lessons anymore.”
She says it quiet and I’m not sure if I heard her right.
“I’m going to do something else.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe just do art.”
“And not teach?”
“Not for a while.”
“I think that’s okay.”
“You do?” She looks at me.
“Uh huh.”
Then I say, “I got out your paintings.”
Mom is scraping her sorbet bowl and she doesn’t look mad, so I say,
“I got out your paintings and I’ve been doing stuff in your studio.”
I pause. She licks her spoon.
“Are you mad?”
“Mad? Why would I be mad?”
“No reason,” I say.
Then I take a bite of my sorbet.
Then I tell her this:
“I want an Oprah bra.”
“Why?”
“Because I hate my boobs and Oprah has this bra training that helps you pick out the right bra for your body and I want a bra that pushes my boobs together.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re so small.”
“Baby, they’ll get bigger.”
“When?”
“I don’t know but they’ll get there.”
“How big?”
“Pretty big. Look at how big mine are.”
She shows me and they are bigger than I thought they’d be.
“They’ll get like those?”
“Probably.”
“But you don’t know when.”
“Nope.”
“So I can’t get the bra?”
She blows out some air and says, “How long have I been asleep?”
“A long time,” I say.
“We’ll get you the bra.”
Then she tells me this:
“I like the noni juice.”
I don’t say anything because that makes me think of Norma.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Well, Norma’s sick and she didn’t tell me.” And then I tell her what happened.
“Huh,” says Mom.
“What?” I say.
“I’d like to talk to Norma,” she says.
“Me too,” I say.
Then I tell her this:
“And her dad is dead.”
“Whose dad?”
“Norma’s.”
“Oh,” Mom says.
“But she still talks to him.”
She doesn’t say anything.
“Do you ever talk to Olivia?”
Mom closes her eyes.
Then she tells me this:
“I might tell Dad that I want another baby.”
“Really?”
“Maybe two or three.”
“Really?”
“What do you think he’ll say?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think it’s a good idea?”
“I don’t know.”
“I know,” she says.
And then we sit.
“Would you have another operation?”
“I don’t know. No.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“
Okay.”
“Do you think it’s a good idea?”
“Yeah.”
“You do?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Okay,” she says.
Mom falls asleep first and I watch her chest go in and out and in and out.
I fall asleep second and I think about my chest going in and out.
She’s back.
OPRAH
If we got on Oprah we could tell our story.
Me and Mom.
FACE
There is a face, Dad’s, and he is staring at us.
“What’s going on?”
I wipe my eyes and try to focus.
“What are you two doing in here?”
Mom is still asleep.
“Get out of there, Mazzy. What is going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Why are you in the bathtub?”
“What?”
“Why are you two sleeping in the bathtub? Why are there signs on the doors outside? There’s a huge stain on the carpet and the house is a mess. The room is a mess.”
Dad’s face is red and his hair doesn’t look how it usually does.
“Dad, it’s fine. Everything is fine.” And it really is. Mom is back and she isn’t going to teach and they are going to have more babies. And I am going to be a big sister. Everything is fine.
But he doesn’t say, “Oh good. Everything is okay.” Instead he says, “Roxie.”
Mom doesn’t move. I look at her. She looks so peaceful.
“Roxie,” he says again. Nothing.
He doesn’t move to touch her or anything. He just gets louder.
“ROXIE.”
His voice makes me feel sick. I want to say, “Leave her alone. She’s okay. Leave her alone.”
But Dad’s face is red and he is clenched and I don’t dare say anything.
Instead I shake Mom’s shoulder.
Mom’s eyes slowly start to open. “Mom,” I whisper. “Mom, it’s okay. Everything’s okay.”
She looks dazed.
“What’s going on, Roxie?” he says.
She looks at him.
He says it louder. “What the hell is going on?”
I want to hit him. I want to hit him so hard. Everything is okay, Dad. Stop it.
Everything is okay.
I look at Mom.
And then I see it happen.
I see it happen. Her eyes start to thicken and her breathing gets deeper and then Mom goes back to bed.
DIABETES
When you have diabetes you have problems with your blood sugar.
You can get it when you’re little or when you’re old or fat.
You can die from it.
You can get your toes cut off from it.
You can go blind from it.
NORMA
Norma comes over while I’m in the sprinklers.
Dad is inside trying to “fix things.”
Norma says, “How are you?”
I say nothing.
“Mazzy, I can tell you’re upset at me, but can we talk about it?”
I pull a dandelion up and smell it. Good.
Norma stands there and I sit there and her slippers are getting wet.
Big fluffy pink slippers that are brown all around the bottom and now soaking wet.
“Your slippers,” I say.
She looks down. “Yep,” she says.
And then we are both looking at them.
“Your dad home?”
“Uh-huh.”
“That good or bad?”
“I don’t know,” I say, and pick another dandelion.
“Oh.”
“So I don’t need your help anymore.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“Not at all?”
“Nope.”
She pulls a foot out of the sopping slipper and scratches her bulby leg with her toe.
“I still need your help with the weeds, though.”
“Can’t.”
“Can’t?”
“Nope.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
And then she walks away but she leaves one of her pink sopping slippers right there in the sprinkler.
I don’t say anything.
I might cut it up.
NORMA’S SLIPPER: chalk on cement
OLIVIA
Sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes, I want to grab Olivia and shake her.
I want to say, LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO MOM. LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO DAD. LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO ME.
LOOK.
LOOK.
LOOK.
I want her to have never been born.
And then, when I think that, when I want that, I sit in the sprinklers and I am a bad person.
PROFESSIONAL HELP
When I come inside I hear Dad say, “She doesn’t want that.”
I hold the door so it won’t close loud and it doesn’t even click.
He is on the phone.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe I could quit and take care of her. It’s my fault things got this bad.”
Who is he talking to?
Dad swears and my throat tightens. “Yes, I realize she needs professional help.” Professional help.
He is going to put her somewhere.
I tiptoe the other way, into Mom’s bedroom.
She has to be better. She has to be like last night.
The lights are out and it’s so dark. Too dark.
I flip them on and there she is.
Back in bed.
With her blue nightgown and her glue face and her eyes closed.
She almost looks dead.
“Mom,” I whisper.
Nothing.
“Mom?” I stand by her bed and look at her face. She is breathing. “Mom? Mom, wake up.” I put my hand on her mouth; she doesn’t move.
I put my hand on her mouth and her nose.
She moves.
She grunts and rolls to her side.
“Mom. Please wake up,” I say.
Her body goes up and down.
“Mom? Please?”
I look at her body up and down, up and down.
“Mom? You have to wake up. Dad is going to put you somewhere.”
Up and down.
“Mom. Mom? Listen to me.”
Up and down.
“Mom!”
I can feel it rising in me. Why won’t she just wake up? Why won’t she just be normal? Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
“Mom, you don’t want to go to a facility. Remember? You said to help you. You said to help you and take care of you.” My eyes are blurring with tears but she doesn’t respond.
So I say it. I yell it: “Mom. Olivia is dead.”
Up and down.
“She’s dead.”
Up and down.
“And I’m not and it’s not my fault and it’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault. Remember? We decided. And you want another baby. Remember?”
Up and down.
“Mom, wake up. Please, wake up.”
Up and down.
“Dad is going to take you away. Mom, please?”
Up and down.
“Please, Mom. Please don’t do this.” And I start to shake her how I want to shake Olivia. I start to shake them both. Please don’t do this. Please.
Please.
Please.
Please.
Please.
PLEASE!
That’s when Dad comes in.
That’s when Dad comes in and hugs me and I am all wet and soggy and please don’t do this MOM.
SIT DOWN
Dad says, “Sit down.”
I sit down.
“Baby,” he says, but I’m not his baby. “Baby, we’ve made a decision.” We. We. Him.
“We’ve decided that your mother should spend some time at a facility that can help her get better.”
I close my eyes.
“I know you aren’t happy
with this decision, but what’s important is getting your mom better.”
Inside my eyes I can see light from the window.
“I love you and your mother a great deal.”
I hear a buzzing and I wonder if someone has left the cable box on.
“Do you hear me, Maz? I love both of you.”
I wish no one would touch the cable box.
“Maz?”
I nod.
“I love you both and I want what’s best for you.”
I think about Colby and his football pads.
“So your mother is going to go to the Park Facility. I’ve called and they are expecting us in tomorrow.”
I take a yoga breath and then I think, Do you buy your own football pads or does the school loan them out?
“Did you hear me, Maz? We’re taking your mother there in the morning so we need to get her all ready.”
That’s when I have my idea.
“Dad?” I say.
“Yes.”
“Do you still have your football pads?”
He looks perplexed. “Why, honey? Do you want to hit something?”
“No.”
“Then why do you want the pads?”
“Because.”
He folds his arms and sits back on the couch. “I still have some pads in the cold storage. You can do whatever you want with them.”
“Thanks,” I say, and I stand up.
“We’re not done, Mazzy.”
“What?”
“Sit down.”
“Why?”
“Sit down.”
“I have to go.”
“You can listen for a few more minutes.”
Then he starts talking football talk. He says that sometimes you want to make the perfect pass. You want to win the game but the defense keeps breaking down and you get sacked over and over.
“No one wants to get sacked, Mazzy. Do you understand?”
I pull a string out of my collar.
“I never anticipated getting sacked. Not like this — not over and over.”
I tie the string around my pinky.
“But sometimes,” he says, “after so many setbacks, after interceptions and penalties and all kinds of things, sometimes you have to just go back to the drawing board. You have to start over.”
I tie it too tight and my finger starts to go red.
“Maz? Are you listening to me?”
It is getting redder.
“Maz. Look at me.”
I pull harder.
“Maz. Look. At. Me.” His voice is loud.
I look at him.
“Your mom is going to the hospital.”