Patty has said I can arrive any time after nine, and it is 9:09 when I pull into their driveway. Sandra stands vigil at the front door. How can an eight-year-old look so dour?
“Good morning, Sandra,” I say as cheerily as I can. “Where’s your mom?”
“In the shower.” She wastes no words on me. But Dawn has heard my voice and comes bounding down the hall calling ‘Mommy!’
“My girl, my darling girl.” I hoist her up so that her legs and arms surround me. She kisses my cheeks and ear and I know that nothing can spoil this weekend.
“Ian and I made you a surprise.” At this point Ian appears in the hall, running and then slowing down as he catches Sandra’s sour look. He wishes me happy birthday and hands me a plastic baggie. I put Dawn down to give Ian a hug and look at the little package. Dawn takes it from me and carefully lifts out a necklace of clover flowers and a card that she and Ian have signed. “You treasures,” I tell them in a damp voice. I didn’t know children still made clover chains; this is a remnant from my own childhood. Their card is filled with hand-drawn hearts. Dawn has made hers in green because, she explains, it’s summer.
I ask Dawn if she has her water shoes. Sandra answers for her: “You still have them from last weekend.” She is probably correct, the shoe-counter. She will be a security guard when she grows up. For a Swiss bank.
Ian and Dawn walk with me to the car, each holding one of my hands. As soon as I open the car door, I remember the car seat and go back for it.
“You forgot the car seat,” Sandra admonishes.
“I was just coming back for it,” I tell her, trying not to sound snotty.
As I am latching the car seat into the back seat, I hear footsteps behind me.
“Happy birthday,” Patty says drily to my backside.
I back out of the car and turn to face her. This will be the first of my birthdays since she was born that we will not spend together. We used to camp out together in the back yard in a tent on my birthday, just us two. Each year we took our first swim from the rope swing on my birthday. Even when we were in high school and she was the busy, popular one, she saved my birthday for being with me.
Her face, flushed from the hot shower, is unguarded. Without makeup, she has no mask. Still, I cannot read her expression. I hug her, but she is as unresponsive as a tree.
In the car, Dawn keeps up a constant chatter, about where Ian and she found the clover, their collecting it in a basket and Ian showing her how to tie the knots, and their racing each other in the pool. I tell her what a good swimmer she is, though I know the limits of her dog paddling. She sings to herself, a little song I do not recognize. Then we count cars together; she counts seventeen red cars, to my eleven blue cars. Will I have a birthday party with all my friends? I tell her that we are going to Megan’s house this evening and that Jenny and her boys will be there too.
By the time we get home, she has to pee. Take me to the outhouse, she demands, and I do. She swings her legs while on the pot and asks, for the umpteenth time, why there is a half-moon carved into the backside. I try to give her a different answer each time. It’s not a full moon because then people could look inside, is all I can muster.
On the way back to the house, she points to the miners’ misery plants. “Dizzy kids,” she says. That’s her version of kidkidizzi, the Native American word for these plants. She asks me to say the word because she likes the sound, and she repeats it correctly several times, but I expect it will come out as dizzy kids the next time she says it. She also says ‘flutterby’ for butterfly.
The rest of the day passes as sweetly as this start, and she loves my birthday party at Megan’s, even though the other children are teenagers. Because they are enough older, they cater to her, enjoy reading to her or cutting food for her. Megan’s fourteen-year-old daughter Sam has always been protective of Dawn.
I decide to cap the joy of this weekend with a swim in the river. Megan and Sam come with us, and I carry Dawn in the aluminum frame backpack. Though she is a small four-year-old, she is still heavy and I am unused to this weight on my back. The river is low this year, from a dry winter, but there are plenty of green pools, where the water is warmer this year from the low flow. I catch the sweet scent of the buckeyes blooming profusely along the path. Megan offers to lead me to a swimming hole I don’t know about. How far, I ask her, but she assures me it is not a long way. Sam leads the way on the dusty path. I worry when the trail leads us upward, where the river looks a longer way down, a rocky trough filled with shimmering green, clear mountain water. Dawn tells me not to touch the poison oak; we have trained her well and she recognizes the shiny leaves all around us. Although it is early in the day, the heat relents only when we are in the shade of the cedars. Sam turns downward onto a steep, narrow trail down the hill. I am able to keep my balance by holding onto trees along the path, but by the time we get to the river’s edge, my back is wet with sweat and my calf muscles feel wobbly. Sam has found us a gem of a spot, entirely private and with a small sandy area near the water’s edge. The pool itself looks mainly shallow except for a darker green area near the far bank. I lower the frame onto the sand with Dawn still in it, and lift her out. Her back is as drenched as mine, and the band of her sunhat is equally wet. She and I each take off our shoes. I lift her into my arms, with her facing me now, and pick my way across the hot sand to the water’s edge.
“You smell like a dusty puppy,” I tell her, and she tells me dusty puppy wants to swim. Megan and Sam are behind us taking off their clothes. With a nod toward Patty’s sensibilities, Dawn and I are wearing swimsuits.
The first sense of the water is bracing, but as welcome as iced lemonade for thirst. The gravel pokes my feet. Much as I’d like to think of myself as a country girl, I have city feet. I venture one step further, onto a smooth rock. As I bend over to let Dawn stand in the river herself, my foot slides off the rock and I am suddenly crashing to my knees. Dawn goes down into the river in front of me, her eyes and mouth wide open in mute surprise. I fall on top of her, my hand hitting gravel as I try to avoid her. I roll my weight off Dawn, trying at the same time to lift her head out of the water. My left knee feels like a sledge hammer hit it, and I can’t move that leg. Dawn comes up herself, snorting water, coughing, and bleeding from the back of her head. Megan is there in an instant, lifting Dawn, slapping her on the back to help her cough out water.
I drag myself up with the Sam’s help and limp out to the sand.
I stare at Megan’s hand on Dawn’s back. It is streaking red, and I can’t tell why, until I glance upward, as if in slow motion, and see blood oozing from the back of Dawn’s head. As Megan turns around, I see Dawn’s face with that same look of complete puzzlement.
“Mommy, why did you drop me on my head?”
I gasp and start to sob. Megan lowers her onto my lap. I tell her it was an accident and I am so sorry, but the words sound hollow and stupid and I can only clutch her tightly and sob and accuse myself. Megan now rubs her hand on my back and tells us both it was an accident and no one’s fault, but I can take no comfort. Dawn has taken hold of my right earlobe with her thumb and finger and pinched it hard. From infancy, she took comfort by stroking one of my earlobes. “Ouch,” I whisper into her ear. She eases into a tiny smile and lightens her touch on my ear. “Don’t cry, Mommy,” she whispers into my ear. She has brought me back into myself.
Together, Megan and I examine the wound at the back of Dawn’s head. Sam has wet her teeshirt and I dab it on the wound. It looks shallow, Megan tries to reassure me, but I can see a bump rising and we look at each other, knowing we need to go to the ER to make sure she has not concussed. I press the teeshirt onto her head and soothe her as best I can.
“Your knee looks worse,” Megan tells me but I cannot yet feel it. I tell Dawn that she is going to wear a special bandana to cool her head on the hike out. After Sam rinses it in the river, I tie it around the top
of Dawn’s head. Sam tells Dawn she looks like a tennis player, with that headband.
Megan offers to carry Dawn on the way out, and we each take a long swig of water from our packs before Megan lifts a reluctant Dawn out of my arms and puts her back into the carrier.
When I try to get up, I fall down again from the pain in my left knee. It too is scraped, but there is not much blood. No protruding bones, I joke -- badly, but I cannot get up without help. Once on my feet, I can barely put any weight on my left leg. The wizard Megan has brought a collapsible walking stick in her own backpack and hands it to me. With it, I can make my way, but I moan with each step.
“Go ahead of me,” I tell Megan. I don’t want Dawn to hear me. Sam walks behind me and grabs my arm when it looks like I am about to slip.
Once in the car, I start to shake uncontrollably. Until now, I have only thought about how to get us safely out of there. Now I see what I have done. I sit in the back next to Dawn in her car seat, my left leg extended as much as I can muster and my right hand on the side of Dawn’s head, stroking her cheek.
Fortunately, it takes us only forty minutes to get to the Grass Valley Memorial Hospital. Dawn has fallen asleep in her car seat, her head leaning heavily on my hand. The makeshift bandana is barely damp now; the air is so dry. While I unlatch the car seat she wakes up and looks around, asking where we are. I remove the bandana and see that her wound has swollen to the size of a plum and is taking on a rich purple hue. I explain that we are taking her to the doctor to look at her head. As I try to get myself out of the car, I see a big swelling on my own knee and quickly realize that I can barely walk, let alone carry her. Megan lifts Dawn out of her car seat and offers to carry her, but Dawn insists on walking next to me, holding my right hand. I try as hard as I can to walk as if each step does not burn, but I groan anyway.
“Mommy needs a doctor,” Dawn explains to Megan.
“You’re right, honey,” Megan tells her.
Of course there are others waiting in the emergency room, but luckily not many. A young man with a bare chest and tattoos lacing both arms has road rash on his elbow, shoulder and head, and a flapping tear in his leather motorcycle pants. They will take him before us. A young woman with stringy hair holds a whimpering infant wrapped in a blanket. I can’t tell if their issues are urgent. At the moment we enter, two attendants support an elderly man under each of his shoulders as they walk him to an examining room.
I am given two forms at the desk, one each for Dawn and me. I start mine first and complete the basic stats easily. On the second page are fifty questions about medical history. I pause at previous hospitalizations. My bout for depression has no bearing on my knee injury, but I check the box and truthfully identify the hospital and the reason. My history is otherwise uncomplicated. When I get to Dawn’s form, I clutch at the second line, her address. Megan sees me pause and points to my own, silently telling me to use it. At the line for primary physician, I pause again. I had a pediatrician for her in Nevada City while she was living with me, but Patty has found another in Roseville since, and I don’t even know that doctor’s name. I use the one I had before. At the line for signature of parent/guardian, it comes home to me that Patty is the one with legal authority. She is the legal guardian. I feel tears coming. I want to throw the pen. Will they even let me get treatment for Dawn? I glance up at Megan, whose intense look tells me to just sign the form. I press so hard that the page underneath is indented.
As we wait, Dawn wanders around the room, searching the magazine racks for something of interest. Megan, who can read me well, tells me this could happen to anyone and it is not my fault. Later, she will tell me about the time she dropped Sam, but Sam does not remember and now is not the time for her to be reminded.
Dawn has found a children’s book called Masie Saw an Elephant and tries to climb onto my lap for me to read it to her, but my left leg is hoisted onto the seat to my left and I can read to her only by her standing in front of my chair. I hold the book by circling my arms around her. It is an inane, poorly illustrated story of a girl who sees her first circus elephant, but it keeps Dawn occupied.
When it is our turn, the tech asks who the patient is. Dawn and I each point to the other, and the tech laughs. “Let’s take you first,” she tells Dawn, asking her what happened. The tech wears those earrings inside her earlobes that create dime-sized holes.
“Mommy fell on me in the river.”
At least she does not say that I dropped her on her head.
The tech glances up at me for details, which I provide. She asks Dawn if anything hurts, and Dawn points to the back of her head. I find myself liking this no-nonsense woman with her butch haircut, strong arms and ready laugh, as she gently probes Dawn’s neck, shoulders, and arms for tenderness. “I’m going to touch the sore part of your head now,” she warns, and Dawn winces but does not struggle. She asks Dawn to walk from where we stand to the end of the room and back, and she does so, with her little skipping step.
When the tech stands up to question me, I read the nametag on her blue scrubs – Ellen Manck, M.D. She asks if Dawn lost consciousness, and I explain that she fell asleep in her car seat but woke up as soon as the car stopped. She asks whether Dawn has seemed dazed or confused or nauseous.
“What’s nauseous?” Dawn asks her.
“Did you feel like barfing?” Dr. Manck asks her directly.
“No. I’m hungry.”
“That’s a good sign,” Dr. Manck tells us both.
Dr. Manck asks if we have any questions.
“Can I touch your ear?” Dawn asks, and the doctor leans down to allow Dawn to insert her finger into the hole. Her first finger fits all the way through the hole.
“Why do you have a hole there?”
The doctor and I both laugh, but she seems to struggle for a reply, glancing at me as if wondering whether this is a bad example. Abruptly she asks if we have any food with us. She takes Dawn back out to Megan and Sam to have one of the oat-nut bars and oranges we were going to snack on at the river.
When she returns, she probes the bones in my calf gently, then the front of my knee, which makes me jerk my leg in pain. “This may also hurt,” she warns, and with one hand on my thigh just above my knee and the other on my calf, she pushes my calf strongly toward my knee. “That’s good,” she reports, when I don’t react to that maneuver. “I was worried about your ACL.” She sends me in for an x-ray, which is done promptly, and then explains that, while nothing appears to be broken, I will need to wear a brace over my knee for at least a week. A tech produces a huge black contraption that, once fitted, makes me look like a cartoon bionic woman. It is about three times the girth of my knee and has a large joint with metal struts radiating like calipers from my knee.
“No long pants for a while, I guess.”
“No tight short ones either,” she jokes, and I wonder if this is an oblique flirtation. “Keep weight off it as much as you can and ice it when you get home.” No driving with this contraption, she directs. And come back if it doesn’t get better.
“What about Dawn?”
She produces a sheet listing signs of concussion and directs me to bring her back if she exhibits any of them.
“If in doubt, bring her in; a concussion can be subtle. And keep her quiet for the next few days.” I start to say I don’t have the next few days, but hold my tongue. I am already worrying about what to tell Patty on Tuesday when Dawn has to go back.
Megan stops at the grocery store for me on our way back home. I’ve only brought a twenty with me, but she won’t take it. At my house, she unpacks the groceries.
“I’m afraid you’re stuck with frozen dinners for the next few nights. I’ve got rehearsals. Stay home, and keep this on your knee.” Megan tosses me a package of frozen peas.
I limp to the door with her as she leaves and ask what to tell Patty. She pauses, as if the answer is obvious
, but she does not give me one.
“You’re not driving anywhere; that’s for sure.”
As soon as Megan and Sam leave, Dawn and I devour the bowl of berries and two microwaved pasta dinners that Megan left with us. I realize how lost we would have been without her and that I didn’t even thank her.
“I’m wasted; what about you?” Dawn nods. We both collapse onto my bed, she on her stomach and I on my back. I curve the package of frozen peas around the lump on her head and lean back into my own pillow. The rhythm of her breathing puts me to sleep.
When I wake, the angle of light on the pine trees outside is low but I can’t tell if it is late afternoon or early evening. A raucous jay rips into some complaint, and a few smaller birds twitter, but the frenetic bird chorus of day’s end has not yet begun. A squirrel clatters across our roof. Dawn is on her back next to me, her mouth a small o. Whorls of hair are flattened on her forehead. The peas are wedged between us, far from frozen. There is no reason to move, none at all, and I lapse into a doze of absolute contentment.
My second waking is at the frantic bird sound of day’s end, a competition of solo calls, broadcasting anxiety at the coming of night. Dawn is as peacefully still as she was earlier, but I have caught the birds’ tension. I need to call Patty. I can almost hear her question me about how I managed to drop my child into the river. But something has shifted inside me. I know, at least this once, that while I had this accident, much as I wish it hadn’t happened, I had taken good care of my daughter. I should be the one to watch over her for the next few days, to make sure she does not have a concussion. I believe I can do that. Even with my bum knee, I will find a way to take care of us.
Raising Dawn Page 5