Falling Over Sideways

by Jordan Sonnenblick

  Regina didn’t have the same problem. “Listen, I heard she was home with him, and all of a sudden, he just collapsed. And now he’s in the hospital. They’re saying it was a stroke.”

  Roshni said, “A stroke?”

  Regina said, “Yeah. You know, when your brain goes, like, FWOOSH? My grampa died of that. It was ugly. Anyway, be nice to Starbuck today.”

  Roshni said, “Oh, Claire. Why didn’t you tell me?” I was like, I tried, but nobody around here knows how to shut up for twelve seconds. Then she put her arms around me, and I kind of melted into her shoulder and closed my eyes. When I opened them again, Ryder was standing across the hall, looking like someone had just smacked him.

  In class, I kept thinking about what the doctor had said when he came out into the waiting room. First the good news: “Your husband’s stroke was confined to a relatively small area of the brain, and the clot appears to be completely dissolved now.” When I heard that, I’d thought, Yay! He’s going to be okay! A couple of weeks in the hospital, and then it will be back to normal! We’re fine! Mom was right—never worry until you have to. We’re going to be a-o—

  “And what small area of the brain are we talking about?” Mom had asked.

  “Well, that’s the bad news,” the doctor had said, looking away for a moment. “There are two language centers located in the left side of the brain, and your husband’s clot cut off the blood flow between them for several hours. Typically, in cases like this one, we expect to see, in addition to the usual weakness of the right side of the body, significant and ongoing difficulties with communication.”

  “But … but … my husband is a novelist!”

  Dr. Venkersammy sighed. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Goldsmith. That is … most unfortunate. But please try to understand: I see stroke patients come in here almost every day. A significant percentage of them don’t survive long enough to get to the hospital, or have such severe brain swelling that they don’t make it through the first day. Your husband’s stroke may seem catastrophic in the context of your daily life, but it is not what we would categorize as a catastrophic stroke. Mr. Goldsmith will probably get to go home several days from now. He will be alive, breathing on his own, probably eating on his own, probably with some mobility.”

  Probably eating on his own? How was this not catastrophic?

  “So. Your husband’s outcomes should be on the milder end of the stroke spectrum if he works hard in therapy, and if he has a lot of support at home. He probably won’t be doing any singing or dancing for a while, and his career situation is regrettable, but your husband is alive, and where there is life, there is hope.”

  Then some kind of social worker had come out to talk to Mom about setting up physical therapy for Dad, and I had sat down and cried. My dad without singing or dancing wasn’t my dad at all.

  In the middle of history class, I got caught up in remembering a made-up song my father used to sing with us in the kitchen when we were little. Once, Mom had written “butt. squash” on the shopping list on the side of the refrigerator. Apparently, that stood for “butternut squash,” but Matthew had read it out loud and started laughing. He’d asked what butt squash was, and Dad had burst into song:

  “Butt squash, 1-2-3,

  Butt squash, you can look like me!

  Butt squash, down to the floor!

  Butt squash, just a little bit more!”

  And then the three of us had started doing a made-up dance that involved squashing ourselves down near the floor and wiggling our butts. When Mom walked into the kitchen, she had been all serious, like, “What? It says ‘b-u-t-t period squash.’ That’s a perfectly logical abbreviation for ‘butternut squash.’ ” And then one of us had shouted out “Butt squash!” and the song and dance started up again.

  How could a man like that lose everything that made him him?

  I asked if I could use the restroom, and spent the rest of the period walking randomly through the hallways. The teacher gave me a weird look when I came back at the end of class, but I just rubbed my stomach, and she nodded sympathetically.

  At lunch, Roshni wanted to know everything. I didn’t think I could get through all of it without bursting into hysterics, plus the cafeteria isn’t exactly the most soothing or private spot, so I told her the absolute shortest version I could. Meanwhile, every few seconds, somebody new would come by and pat me on the shoulder and say, “I’m so sorry about your dad.” I knew they were trying to be sweet and all, but it just made me feel even worse, like the whole lunchroom was staring at me. Even Christopher, the kid with autism, stood next to me, looked into the space just over my shoulder, and said, “I heard that your father had a stroke. Do not worry. Eighty percent of stroke patients survive their initial hospital stay. That’s four out of five. The majority of stroke patients who make it to the hospital alive survive for at least one year.”

  Then he walked away. I was like, Uh, thank you?

  Ryder and Regina sat at the other end of the table. I guess they were giving me a break. It wasn’t like that solved all my problems or anything, but Roshni seemed to enjoy the extra Skittles.

  In science, while I was supposed to be wiping up my desk after a measuring lab, I started thinking about another one of the songs my father used to make up, a catchy little number called “The Wiping Cloth.” He would always sing it after dinner when he was doing the dishes. It went to the tune of “America,” from the play West Side Story, although of course I hadn’t known that when I was little. I closed my eyes and pictured him dancing and snapping that dish towel, belting out his imaginary Broadway showstopper:

  “I like to use-a the wiping cloth,

  I like to use it to wipe me off!

  I like to use-a the wiping cloth,

  I like to use it to wipe meeeeeeee off!”

  Then Mrs. Selinsky yelled at me for daydreaming. One second, I was a happy little five-year-old in my kitchen with my daddy, and the next, some insane lady was spitting in my face from a foot away, shouting, “You know who always paid attention in class? Meredith always paid attention in class! Don’t you want to be a Meredith, Clarabelle?”

  I said, “Um, my name is Claire.”

  “Okay, Clara. Well, do you want to be a Meredith? I don’t think you want it enough. Watch your step.” Then she started walking backward away from me, and stumbled over the classroom trash can.

  In the hallway, Roshni said to me, “Wow, that was kind of crazy, huh? I should have defended you, especially today. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything. You know, one day, I am going to say something to that lady. I’m going to get right in her face and be all like, ‘Nobody cares about your stupid daughter, so why don’t you shut up about her and try actually teaching us some science for a change?’ I swear, that woman is, like, brain damaged or something. Oh, God. I don’t mean brain damaged. I’m sorry I said brain damaged. Claire, where are you going? I was just trying to stick up for you. Okay, I guess I’ll text later to see how you’re doing—”

  As I walked around the corner and out of hearing range, she was still talking.

  Before leaving school, I stopped by the band room to sign up for a chair audition slot. I put my name down for the earliest time before school on Thursday because I figured coming to school early would be easier than staying late, with everything that was happening with my father.

  Ryder came out of the band room, holding his saxophone, and bumped into me. “Claire,” he said, “I’m sorry I said all that stuff about the audition today. I didn’t know your father was in the hospital, I swear.”

  “Oh, thanks, Ryder. So you’re sorry you were mean to me because my father is in the hospital?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “But you’re not sorry you’ve been mean to me every other day ever since we got to middle school? You’ve been all over me from the first week of sixth grade. Why should you change just because my dad’s brain is swollen and he might never walk or talk right again? You know what? I don’t want you to suddenly start
being nice to me just because you pity me. Just keep being a jerk. After all, that’s about right for your level.”

  It felt great to shut Ryder up for once. He turned away and trudged off down the hall without another word. I watched until he turned a corner and disappeared.

  Grandpa picked me up from school and drove me to the hospital. There was a tiny celebration going on, because the doctors had taken out Dad’s oxygen tube that morning, and he was breathing well on his own. My mom said this was a great step, but at the same time, in a way, it was scarier to be in the room now. With the tube pumping his lungs, at least we had known he wouldn’t stop breathing. Without the machine, it was possible.

  In fact, according to Christopher, there was a one-in-five chance.

  A few minutes after I walked in, Dad’s mother arrived. Gram had been away on a cruise when he had the stroke and had come straight from the port in New York City to see her son. I knew she had been calling Mom on the phone a lot, and she had texted Matthew and me several times to see how we were doing. But when she got to the room, she went straight for Dad.

  Well, first she dropped her huge purse in a chair. But then she leaned over his bed, wrapped both arms around him, and said, “Oh, Davey,” in the most painful voice I’ve ever heard. He muttered something back that sounded like a question. She pulled back, and I saw that her eyes were all glossed over with tears. She grabbed both of his hands and said, “What was that, buddy?”

  Which was so strange, because my dad always called me buddy when I was sad or hurt.

  Dad just made a grunting sound, but Gram acted like it had made sense.

  “That’s right,” she said. “I’m Mom. I’ll be right back, okay? I just have to fix my makeup.” At that point, my strong, take-charge grandmother, a college dean who had written two textbooks and survived two husbands, staggered out into the hallway. I heard an odd kind of yelping noise that I’d never heard before, and saw Matthew go out after her. I followed, and found my brother basically supporting my grandmother’s weight as she sagged against him and wept hysterically. I didn’t know what to do, so I walked around behind my brother and hugged her from the other side.

  I wondered how long Matthew’s arms would hold out, but before he collapsed and dropped her, Gram straightened up, wiped her eyes, cleared her throat, and said, “So, Claire, you were with him when this happened?”

  I nodded.

  “Oh, brave girl,” she said, and grabbed me in some kind of Jewish-grandmother judo headlock. Wow, I thought, nobody’s ever called me brave before. Or choked me quite this hard.

  “I didn’t really do anything, Gram. I just called 9-1-1.”

  “Darling. You saved your father’s life. Whatever happens, don’t you ever forget that. Now I just need to go find a bathroom and put my face back on.”

  As she walked away, Matthew made a little “humph” noise in the back of his throat and headed into the room. But I was like, That’s what I’m talkin’ about. I’m a lifesaver, baby!

  For some reason, though, late that night, I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened between me and Ryder in the band hallway. I kept hearing his voice, apologizing, and my voice, telling him off. When I finally closed my eyes to sleep, all I could see was the wounded look in Ryder’s eyes right before he turned and walked away.

  That week may have been the longest of my life. Dad gradually became more alert, and started sitting up in bed on Tuesday. Oh, and vases of flowers, bunches of balloons, and edible fruit arrangements began filling up the room. On Wednesday, he began doing physical therapy exercises. He hadn’t started using the right words for anything, though, and his whole right side was still droopy.

  As for me, I worried my way through school, and then spent every waking minute of the evenings at the hospital, except when I had dance classes. I told my mom I could stay with Dad and miss dance, but she insisted that going to the classes was part of keeping my life “normal.”

  You know, because all the girls my age were commuting from the intensive care unit to fifth-grade ballet lessons. Looking back, I have to say that my grandparents were amazing, because they were the taxi service, the food service, and basically the life-support system for Matthew and me the whole time Dad was in the hospital for that first stretch. As it was happening, though, I wasn’t grateful. I missed having my father in the driver’s seat, cranking out Beatles songs on the stereo, singing outrageously loud harmonies, and making faces at the other drivers.

  Grandma hates the Beatles.

  And Mom was sleeping at the hospital, which meant we were sleeping at our grandparents’ house, which was about a mile from ours. Every night when we got there after dance and I took my shower, I felt totally lonely because Mom had always brushed out my hair before bed. I wished she could be home with me, instead of in a chair next to Dad. I even thought, She might as well be with me. What’s the difference? It’s not like he can really talk to her.

  And then I thought, I am the worst person in the world.

  On Thursday morning, I woke up with a feeling of total doom in my stomach. I hadn’t practiced for my chair audition at all. Ryder hadn’t talked to me, or even looked at me, all week. He and Regina had stayed at the far end of the table at lunch every day. On the one hand, I was like, Hey, Skittles! But on the other, I was like, What’s his evil plan? I was kind of hoping that wiping me out at auditions, and then watching me sink from second chair all the way down into the second or third row somewhere, might be enough to make him feel he had gotten his revenge for the way I’d yelled at him on Monday.

  Even as I walked down the band hallway to play for Mrs. Jones, I kept waiting for him to pop out from behind a door to scare me or something. He didn’t, though. In fact, I was the only kid in sight. It was like one of those eerie dreams where you’re alone in school and then a murderer starts chasing you around, only this was much scarier, because it involved embarrassing myself in front of my section, the band, and my favorite teacher.

  I mean, at least after you get butchered by some dude in a hockey mask, you don’t have to listen to Ryder Scott following you around for six months, going, “Ha! You so got butchered by that dude in the hockey mask!” Although there’s a pretty good chance he would show up at your grave and taunt you posthumously for a while.

  Anyway, Mrs. Jones was waiting for me, score sheet in hand. “Claire, sweetheart, good morning! Did your family get the fruit basket the Band Parents’ Association sent over?”

  I nodded. It had basically been my dinner the night before. I was getting pretty sick of the hospital cafeteria food. “Yes, thank you.”

  “You know, we don’t have to do this now if you don’t want to. We could postpone it.”

  I shook my head.

  “I wouldn’t penalize you or anything.” Mrs. Jones must have incredibly bad eyes, because she wears huge, thick glasses that make it look like her pupils alone take up half her face. She was looking at me like the world’s kindest barn owl.

  “I know, but … it’s okay. I’ll play.”

  She patted me on the shoulder.

  I took my saxophone out of its case, placed the audition music on the stand in front of me, tuned up quickly, and then froze completely. My legs were shaking. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel my pulse in my neck. I tried to calm down, I swear. I inhaled and exhaled three times to settle my nerves. But then I just sat there like a moron. I couldn’t do this.

  “Whenever you’re ready, Claire.”

  I still sat. If I kept this up much longer, she was going to kick me out of the band, put a bucket of sand in the second chair, and just stick an alto sax in that.

  “Do you need me to count you in?”

  Nothing. Silence. Crickets.

  “Claire. Honey. Are you sure you don’t want to reschedule this?”

  I turned to her and felt like my face was going to melt. “It’s not about my dad, Mrs. Jones. I mean, it is—I didn’t practice at all this week. I haven’t even been in the same house wit
h my horn. But—I don’t know. I just can’t … ”

  Mrs. Jones pushed her glasses all the way down her nose, peered over them at me, and said, “All right, this audition is officially over. I can’t hear you at your best when your life is at its worst.”

  I sighed, and my pulse slowed. I felt like an invisible giant had just lifted his foot off the center of my chest.

  “But you know, we have a few moments now before the school day begins. Would you like to run through the piece for me a couple of times?”

  I played, and the first run-through was kind of choppy. The second one, though, was pretty good. I hit one fairly major wrong note near the end, but slurred up a half step into the correct note really fast, so the mistake wasn’t so glaringly obvious.

  As soon as I finished with that, Mrs. Jones whipped the sheet music away and said, “Now how about some scales, just for practice?”

  I ran through the mandatory scales, plus a bunch of optional ones, and everything went smoothly. Somehow, playing music felt good. It was a lot like dancing; it’s really hard to play and worry at the same time.

  When I was done running the last scale, Mrs. Jones said, “You know, if that had been your real audition, you would have made fifth chair. I know that’s a slight drop down, but it’s not terrible, considering what’s been going on in your life lately. I’d say if you can find the time to do some woodshedding this weekend, you can—”

  “I’ll take it!” I said.

  “What?” she asked.

  “If you’d be willing to count this as my real audition, I would take fifth chair. I mean, I appreciate your extension offer and everything, but it really wouldn’t be fair to everyone else. And this way, I can just concentrate on being with my dad.”

  Mrs. Jones thought for a moment, and then smiled at me. “Oh, brave girl!” she exclaimed. “Welcome to fifth chair! I’ve never been so proud to demote somebody before.” She pushed her glasses back up her nose, and I noticed her eyes were welling up with highly magnified tears.

  I was sure I was going to get absolutely sandblasted by Ryder about this, but, hey—at least I had been called brave twice in a week. That was a personal record.