Their mother has told them that once one of the other counselors at Camp Waluhili got bitten by a black widow, and the venom spread so fast they had to cut out part of her leg. So she had a hole in her leg, and she kept secret things inside it, like messages. Now Amy twists this story around. To send and receive secret messages you don’t need to be poisoned or have any particular place. What you need is a secret system, a network of secret shapes.
So she makes Zoe practice drawing the symbols for dog and home and mom and dad and grandparents and hungry and thirsty and Cruella de Vil and Garfield and Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy and Target and radio. The symbol for dinosaurs is a dinosaur because Amy can’t think of anything better. Zoe practices diligently at first and then goes off to play with the dog, leaving sloppy scrawlings all over the floor that Amy picks up, emitting a slow sigh she has learned from their grandmother, the gradual deflation of a balloon.
Even the simplest words keep secrets. The more you take a word for granted, the less it tells.
The night before the girls go back to school their mom tells them what sex is and reads them a story about a woman in a car crash off a bridge
Good Housekeeping says if you crash your car off a bridge you should rescue your husband from drowning if you can, because if you have a husband you can make more children, whereas if you rescue your child you’ll only ever have that one. Their mom thinks about that a lot. What she would do if they got into a car crash off a bridge. The girls begin to practice how long they can hold their breath when they are alone in their room.
The girls dance and dance and dance to Paul Simon’s Graceland in the dining room, working themselves up into a frenzy, while their mom makes oatmeal fudgies in the kitchen for them to take for Labor Day to school
Then Zoe, wanting to hear I Know What I Know again, goes and plucks the needle off the record, resulting in a scratch. Amy leaps in and snatches the record away. A scuffle ensues. Zoe bursts into tears. Amy lets the record droop down a little in her hands. Zoe sniffs, purses her lips, and looks back and forth between Graceland and her sister’s face.
Then she lunges forward and pries at the record with all her might until it snaps in half.
In the stunned silence that follows this, before their mother comes in and screams at them that this was a library record and that now they’ll have to pay and go to your room, Zoe looks at Amy, and Amy looks directly ahead, at the two rows of four plates that hang from the white wall. Each plate features a ghost ship, which their mom has explained is when a ship sinks and all its traces disappear into the sea. And it’s like people who die but don’t get buried: the ships turn into ghosts. Sailors see them floating out on the water, aflame. Of the eight plates six of them are half obscured by bright orange fire.
If Amy could go back a few seconds, she would break the plates with her sister, one by one, rather than the record, which was something they loved and now will never have again.
In ancient Greece a scruple was a pebble stuck inside your shoe.
Amy is the tallest kid in her grade, and the fastest, and the best at math
She comes first during roll call and gets only straight A’s. Their school uses a Japanese kind of math called Kumon that lets you do however many problems you want in an hour. Amy likes to do a lot of problems without making mistakes. All the other kids disappear when she starts doing her Kumon. All she is aware of is those numbers. She loves numbers and letters and practices to improve her handwriting every evening at home.
One day in the middle of long division a hand reaches inside her bubble and attaches itself to hers. Amy gasps without meaning to. She looks up and sees the principal.
Most children dread the appearance of the school principal at their desk, but Amy is so well behaved that it does not occur to her to worry. When the principal asks her to come outside with her please, Amy politely declines. But then when she sees the stunned scandalized eyes of the principal she sets her pencil down.
In the back of the ambulance, her sister has been taken over by a ghost
Their mom gets as strong as a superhero and holds her down. Amy and Zoe had always assumed it would be fun to ride in an ambulance or a fire truck or a police car because you would get to go fast and break all the rules and not stop at any lights. But now Zoe isn’t Zoe, and everything is wrong. Zoe throws up but doesn’t know she’s throwing up, so the throw-up just drips down her chin and onto the lavender-colored dress that used to be Amy’s favorite, and the lady who works for the ambulance mops it off her, but Amy fears the towel will scratch her sister’s face.
Unlike the last time, Zoe’s eyes are white, as though she’s been erased. Her whole body jerks to one side at a rhythm that is not a human rhythm. Amy screams, Zoe, Zoe, Zoe, but Zoe isn’t there. Their mom gets angry and says to shut up because she’s making everything worse. Then every fiber of Amy’s body screams, in silence. Zoe, Zoe, Zoe.
Oh Zoe.
The ambulance takes them to the pink hospital by their grandparents’ house
Amy recognizes it when they all pile out. This isn’t where they went the last time, and this time Zoe and their mom run away into a secret room where the nurses won’t let Amy go. Amy is told to sit and wait.
Amy sits and waits. She tastes like salt, and the wet neck of her T-shirt sticks to her skin. She squeezes and unsqueezes her hands in her lap. She looks around and sees the room is full of dirty people yellowed by the light, not sitting up straight. She would like to go look for her sister, but she is scared that if she doesn’t sit and wait they’ll never let her see her sister again. She looks down at her hands, whitened at the knuckles, splashed. The old man sitting across from her begins to cry, and Amy’s own eyes dry up, and she would like to hold the old man’s hand, but she is scared he might have germs and scared that if she doesn’t sit and wait she’ll get in trouble, and then they’ll never let her see her sister again.
Oh Zoe, what does it mean to have already done something you know you’d never do?
Amy knows exactly what she would do if they got into a car crash off a bridge
She would unbuckle her sister’s seat belt and then unbuckle hers as she was simultaneously rolling down the window on her side of the car. Then they would swim out the window holding hands until they got to the top of the river. If it is winter Amy knows for a fact that she can simply kick through the ice because there is never all that much in the middle of the river, only around the edges.
Sometimes their mom sings them lullabies, and Amy likes her voice but not the songs
Zoe doesn’t listen to the words, but Amy does. Zoe always asks for the one about the boat, which goes like this:
O there was a lofty ship and she sailed upon the sea
And the name of the ship was the Golden Vanity
And she feared she would be taken by the Turkish enemy
As she sailed upon the lowland, low low lowland,
Sailed upon the lowland sea.
Now up stepped a cabin boy, a cabin boy was he,
And he said to the captain, What will you give to me
If I sneak along the side of the Turkish enemy
And I sink her in the lowland, low low lowland,
Sink her in the lowland sea.
O I will give you silver, and I will give you gold
And the hand of my daughter if you will be so bold
As to swim along the side of the Turkish enemy
And to sink her in the lowland, low low lowland,
Sink her in the lowland sea.
Well, up jumped the cabin boy, and overboard went he
And he swam along the side of the Turkish enemy,
And with brace and a bit he bore holes one, two, and three,
And he sank her in the lowland, low low lowland,
Sank her in the lowland sea.
Then he swam to the side of the Golden Vanity,
And he called to the captain to pull him from the sea
But the captain would not heed, for his d
aughter he did need,
So they left him in the lowland, low low lowland,
Left him in the lowland sea.
Then his mates pulled him up, and on the deck he died,
And they wrapped him in a sail, so very square and wide,
And they threw him overboard to float out upon the tide,
But he sank beneath the lowland, low low lowland,
Sank beneath the lowland sea.
By the last verse Amy’s stomach churns, causing her to writhe beneath their puppy-print sheets and their mother’s mother’s scratchy, bulky quilt, although nobody can tell.
It’s so hard for me now to understand myself then, which makes me want to trace things back to where they started, and sometimes I wonder if it might have been that afternoon I burned my black dress in the sink.
Nobody can tell what’s really wrong with Zoe, not even the doctors, not for a long time
Their mom says that’s because the doctors don’t know what they are doing, but their dad says, Leslie, like it might be their mom who doesn’t know.
They do different tests like the one where she has to go inside a tunnel and lie still so they can take pictures of her brain. Amy learns the difference between an MRI and a CAT scan. She knows MRIs are more expensive but that they need to do them anyway. She knows there are magnets inside the tunnel that are very strong because you have to take off your earrings before you go into the room.
At first they don’t let Amy go in. At first she has to wait outside with their dad. She tries to practice her handwriting, but now the lead in her pencil always breaks.
But Zoe won’t lie still. At first they give her shots to make her, but Zoe is so scared of the shots that she begs and begs and begs until the nurses take the needles back. Then Amy starts to be the one to sit in the room with her sister. Amy knows the knock-knock jokes to tell, like the lettuce in, we’re freezing, and the orange you glad I didn’t say banana.
Amy stops taking pictures except of Zoe’s dog, to bring to Zoe when she has to have her blood taken, because they don’t let dogs in hospitals. There is nothing in the world worse than Zoe having her blood taken. Amy tries to show her the pictures at just the right moment, just right before the nurse puts the needle in, between when they put the gray tie around her arm and when they put the needle in. Amy believes that if she can get the timing exactly right, Zoe will forget about what’s happening.
But Amy can’t get the timing exactly right. She is always too early or too late. Zoe still sobs and begs the nurses not to hurt her.
Zoe’s arms are bruised all over from all the times they have to take her blood. Amy doesn’t look at the bags as they fill up because if she does she starts to feel funny like she’s floating and like she might fall down. But she knows she can’t fall down because what would Zoe do.
Zoe has more seizures, and now they just drive to the hospital because ambulances cost a lot of money. Amy sits in the back seat with her sister and tries to talk herself into believing that her sister’s still there.
One day Zoe and the dog are intercepted by the neighbors two doors down
She is returned to their house carrying her little red suitcase in one hand and a Hula-Hoop in the other. She claims upon interrogation to be looking for the circus. She holds out the Hula-Hoop an inch or so off the ground and encourages the dog to come through it. The dog sits and blinks a couple of quick blinks, and Amy laughs, and Zoe bursts into tears.
I’d seen it in a movie once, and when we got home from the funeral, it seemed like the right thing to do, but I didn’t think about the smoke, which scared you, or how mad Mom and Dad would be when they came back because the dress was new, and I was putting you in danger.
Zoe starts taking medication that makes her wet the bed
The warmth of her urine wakes Amy up. She gets up and goes to their parents’ room and shakes their mom by the shoulder to come and change the sheets. Their mom comes and picks Zoe up and carries her into their room, placing her on her side of their bed. Zoe does not wake up. Sometimes their dad wakes up, and sometimes he doesn’t, because a lot of times he’s tired from his commute.
Finally the doctors find the tumor. The tumor is located in the left frontal lobe. The tumor is called a pilocytic astrocytoma. It is rare but the good news is it’s benign which means it doesn’t spread. Amy practices spelling pilocytic astrocytoma out loud like you do in spelling bees. Everyone is impressed that she can spell such long words. She can also spell benign even though it sounds like be nine, which Amy thinks is funny because she is about to be nine at the end of September, like the word is a message for her.
One day their parents decide to do surgery in spite of the risks. Later, when Zoe is asleep, Amy asks their mom what are the risks. Their mom says that the brain is very sensitive, and that if you operate on it, you run the risk of altering it. You can in fact completely change a person’s personality, because the brain controls everything, and for example there have been people who have had accidents that have affected their brains, and then they become criminals, or they just can’t think anymore.
Now Amy doesn’t sleep. It doesn’t wake her up when her sister wets the bed because she doesn’t sleep. Their dad buys an aquarium to put in their room because he says the fish are soothing. The aquarium has different kinds of fish in it: angelfish, minnows, and a little catfish that lives at the bottom where the rocks are.
Amy lies awake and looks at the fish. One by one the catfish eats the minnows by pulling them apart.
Amy is relieved when Zoe wets the bed so she can go and get their parents. But then everyone falls asleep again, leaving her alone.
Once there was a boy at camp who loved fish
Boys are not allowed at their camp, but this boy was somebody’s younger brother, and for some reason, he got special permission. He would follow their mom around all day whenever she would let him because he fell a little bit in love with her, even though he must have only been eleven or twelve. This was all a long time ago, before Amy and Zoe were born.
The boy was always talking about his aquarium at home and all the exotic fish he had. He always did his homework fast so he could take care of his fish. He cleaned the tank a lot and watched them and played them different kinds of music.
One day when he became a teenager he committed suicide. Their mom says it proves he didn’t know what he was doing that he shot himself in front of the aquarium, breaking the glass, and spilling all the fish out. Their mom says he didn’t die right away. His parents came running into the room when they heard the gunshot and found him lying on the floor in salt water, blood, flopping fish, and broken glass. He was saying, Shit, shit, shit, like that, over and over, and then he died.
Their dad doesn’t like for their mom to say bad words to them because he says they’re too young, but their mom says that’s just the way the world is, she didn’t make the words up.
She says suicide is the most selfish thing you can do, and to never do it.
Do you ever get our memories mixed up, Zoe?
Sometimes when they all go to the hospital together, their dad takes Amy to the maternity ward to see the babies
Amy loves to look at the babies. Amy is tall for her age, in the ninety-ninth percentile, and can, when she stands on tiptoes, peer inside the big window that shows the cradles all lined up with the babies asleep in them. Amy knows that babies sleep a lot. Their dad says when her sister was born Amy wanted to hold her all the time, but sometimes their mom had to hold her, to feed her, and then Amy would get angry and stomp around and throw tantrums. This makes Amy smile because she knows she ended up with Zoe as hers anyway.
Amy doesn’t like the food at the hospital cafeteria, which is mushy and cold. Most of the people sitting in the cafeteria are either doctors or nurses or sad. Sometimes their parents make Amy stay there for long stretches coloring in her coloring book or practicing her secret alphabet, writing notes to Zoe. Sometimes she has to wait outside her sister’s room in the pe
diatric ward with the children who are terminal. What terminal means is going to die, but their dad says not all of them are, but then their mom says, Rick, what’s the point, which Amy takes to mean they are because their dad just looks down at his big old boots and doesn’t answer.
No matter how hard she tries to only look at her notebook, the dying children’s parents always start to talk with Amy. Sometimes she’s even doing Kumon. But the parents of the dying children interrupt her and tell her she looks just like a little doll. Everyone says the same thing, that she looks like a doll. Amy feels funny when they say it, a little sick to her stomach. She doesn’t really know what they mean. Why would she look like a doll when she’s a person? Or do they just mean she doesn’t have any scratches on her skin like the dying kids do? She doesn’t ask their mom because their mom seems annoyed when people say it when she’s there. From this she deduces that she is right to feel uncomfortable.
Their mom takes her to see the babies and tells her about when she was born. Amy was born early because their mom stepped on a snake in the garage and got scared, and that induced the labor. Because of the snake Amy had to stay in the hospital a little bit longer, in a cradle just like these ones. Amy asks if the snake got away, hoping the answer is yes. The answer is no.
Amy, liberated by a snake that died, feels guilty and important. Their mom takes her to the cafeteria for lunch but gets mad at her in the middle and goes back down to the pediatric ward without her. She doesn’t give Amy any instructions on what to do next, so Amy decides to find the maternity ward by herself. She remembers never eat soggy waffles, and anyway, she remembers where it is. She stands at the window for a long time, watching the babies sleep. She fogs the glass up with her breath. She draws a tiny heart in the mist with her fingertip, and she loves the squeaking sound this makes, so she moves a little to the left and fogs up the glass again, on purpose, and draws a slightly bigger heart.
Homesick Page 3