Ever thankful to Dr. Warner for her help, I neatly placed each booklet, pamphlet, and letter Warner had offered in a folder I had labeled Family Treatment and carefully placed that in my messenger bag. Mike, of course, gave Dr. Warner a single, firm handshake goodbye but dismissed her literature. He refused to even take with him a simple business card.
After our own brief goodbye, Mike and I promptly went our separate ways. Even though I thought he could have at least taken something with him for further reference—a sticky note with a name on it, a phone number—I simply didn’t have it in me to lecture him at that moment. All I wanted was for my daughter to finally come home. At that point for me, nothing else mattered.
Between the gravity of Sage’s condition itself, train rides into the city, car rides up the Hutchinson River and Merritt Parkway, rambunctious students (and, in some cases, co-workers), and dealing with Mike all his issues, I was hanging by a single thread that was ready to give at any moment. I knew that I had to keep going, for my own sake and sanity. Almost every morning I woke up plagued by this unbearable tightness taking over my entire body. But I felt powerless.
Truthfully, the thought of discharge frightened me. What resources did I have? We were trying to come up with the best plan for Sage’s return, and yet the whole conversation seemed to raise more questions than it answered. What if Sage backslid? What if I missed something?
What if it happened again?
*
Two months earlier
“Mom, I’m walking up the hill right now. The bus was late, and then there were all these kids getting off for some other school. And then this lady got on the bus. She was old, and she didn’t have exact change, but she kept saying she did, but you know she didn’t. So, then there was this back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth between the bus driver—”
“Sage,” I interrupted, realizing exactly where the conversation was headed.
“What can I tell you, Mom? This is what happens when you take public transportation. This is also why Dad’s buying me a car the second I turn seventeen… which is kinda weird when you think about how he hardly ever drives himself… Annnyyyyway, so then some of the passengers started yelling at the lady to get off the bus—like actually yelling at this poor old lady. But then some of the other passengers were like, ‘That’s not right. She just practically paid the entire fare. Just let her on the bus. Buses are too expensive these days—’”
“Sage!”
“It became this battle. Then this random guy stood up and was all, ‘Doesn’t anyone have spare change to help a person out?’ And he started walking up and down the aisle, trying to fundraise for the lady. Someone gave the money up eventually. I mean, I would have donated it myself, but the man got to this other guy first. But can you believe that? Almost no one was willing to help. And the bus was just sitting there! So, all this time passed, for nothing when you think about it. Seriously, though, it’s not even that much money to help someone. She’s old. Maybe she’s forgetful. Maybe she brought the wrong change purse—”
“Sage!” My impatience was growing. Whenever she got wrapped up in one of her stories, whether true or not, Sage tended to rant and rave—flap her wings, as Mike would so accurately put it. With the pitch of her voice growing higher, and her speech patterns more erratic, it became glaringly evident that Sage was getting ready for takeoff—and wasn’t returning to planet earth any time soon.
“But then you wonder: Why doesn’t he just give her the change? You know, the fundraising man? And what about that bus driver? Couldn’t he have done anything to help? But the lady finally paid her fare and bus finally drove off. And that’s why I’m late to school… Yeah, Mom?”
“You know what?” I gritted my teeth and then took a deep breath before continuing. “I want you to just stop with the stories before you dig yourself deeper. Take a picture of where you’re standing and text that to me. Right now. You got it?” Sometimes a camera on a kid’s cell phone was the best insurance policy money could buy. It wasn’t the first time I had demanded photo evidence from Sage, and I certainly knew it wouldn’t be the last.
“But, Mommmm,” Sage whined.
“No! I don’t want to hear it!” I wasn’t having it. “Take the picture and send it to me right this instant because, quite frankly, I don’t believe you’re where you say you are. You should be in school, Sage—inside the actual building. Learning. Not around the corner. Not at the bodega buying your butter roll. In… the… classroom. I have a ton of actual work to do here, Sage. My schedule is completely packed. I have responsibilities and my own students that I need to teach—you’re lucky I’m on my prep. And I simply don’t have time for the nonsense or your stories.”
“Mom, it’s November!” I could practically hear Sage’s eyes melodramatically roll to the back of her head. “Do you really want me to stand in the glacial, bitter cold any longer than I really have to, just to take one little picture?”
“Glacial?” I had to practically bite all the way down on my lower lip to keep myself from laughing. “We’re right smack in the middle of fall. And what app did you find that word on? You and I both know we’ve had a very kind winter. Not to mention, you love taking pictures. Enough hyperbole for one day, please. You’re fine!”
There was an eerily silent pause on the other end, and for a moment there, I thought the call had dropped. Sage finally continued, but only to get wrapped up in a whole new stream of consciousness rant. “Okay, so technically it’s still fall, but just wait until February. And you know how it takes so long for the plows to come through. And no one ever wants to shovel their front walkway. I mean, we don’t have to shovel with the apartment and all, but it’s a problem when you just try walking around town because some houses just don’t do it—”
“IT IS NOT FEBRUARY!” I snapped, completely losing all pretense of composure. Then, shaken and surprised by my own outburst, I took those few moments to quietly count to ten, reminding myself that this was my Sage—exhausting, but my Sage—the daughter I loved. “Just text it,” I whispered, my voice still shaky.
Waiting for her response, I carefully rummaged through student midterms that lay in neat piles on my desk, each class set bound together by color-coded binder clips and organized by grade. I couldn’t find those darn AP English Lit blue books for the life of me. Realizing I must have left them at home, I moved on to my stack of freshman papers.
“Fine,” she uttered bitterly.
“This is not the day, Sage,” I replied.
“But, Mom, I’m not lying.” Sage wasn’t quite ready to throw in the towel. “That really did happen. You never want to believe me. Dad always believes me—but you never do! And you should believe me, because I’m not making this stuff up, and once you realize that, you’re going to feel really, really, really, really bad about not—”
“This is not the day!”
I slammed my cell down against the desk. Of course, the phone managed to somehow land against the one section of desk not buried in paper. Thanks to its heavy-duty protective rubber case, the phone bounced up, veered to the side, and smacked right into my coffee mug—sending that flying off my desk and onto the floor with a loud, resounding crash as fragments of it shattered and scattered all over. “Darn it!” I screamed. I was at an absolute loss.
Slinking slowly into my seat, I let out a long, heavy sigh that only a parent could understand: I was pushing the metaphorical rock up a painfully steep and unforgiving hill.
As if to perfectly punctuate my exasperation, the phone chimed. I glanced down at the phone from my seat before fully registering what I saw. There it was: A photo-text of Sage, or what kids call a selfie, standing before Dayton Academy’s front steps, flashing me her braces-clad smile. Her eyes lit up triumphantly like hazel-green orbs taking on a life of their own as they gleefully shouted, I told you so! to anyone foolish enough to listen.
Picking the phone up off the floor so that I could take a closer look, I examined the ph
oto for anything particularly out of the ordinary. Her hair was uncharacteristically shoved into a dark gray knit cap with a fuzzy green pom-pom plopped on top. But I still couldn’t figure out exactly what she had done. Looking at it a bit closer for another minute or so, I finally spotted it.
A few stray wisps of green hair poked out from underneath her hat.
*
I still remember that day in November all too clearly. Later that afternoon, I had found myself in the headmaster’s office, desperately pleading my case. Dr. Reardon wanted to send Sage home because she had dyed her hair green, in violation of the Dayton Academy Student Handbook, Article III, Section B, which explicitly prohibited hair color unnatural in appearance.
I guess it could be argued that Dayton Academy was way behind in the times for even having such a policy in the first place, but its conservatism had been one of its major selling points for me in the first place. Sage needed a school that offered structure and discipline—both of which she was severely lacking. And if I didn’t take the school’s rules—or any rules for that matter—seriously, what type of message was I sending her?
Still, looking back at it all, I couldn’t help but feel ashamed about how I had reacted during those few moments on the phone with her. She must have felt as if I wasn’t taking her side.
The trouble I found myself thinking about now was the question of whether Sage should continue attending the school. Would she be unhappy there still? Or would transferring in the middle of the year cause too much confusion?
I knew that transferring Sage to the school where I worked would only end in disaster. Aside from her vehement objections to the suggestion in the past, I knew she would figure out a way not only to get herself kicked out, but probably to put my job and reputation at risk as well. A public school we were zoned for might work. However, neither Mike or I could get to her quickly enough should there be another incident.
It killed me to admit that Mike held the best cards in his hand. The lone wound I had thought was long ago mended felt like it was being picked at again slowly, deliberately, scab by scab. With his seemingly boundless bank account and an endless list of people who either owed him a favor or simply liked him a lot, Mike offered the best options.
And, really, what could I do about it? Mike was her father. He had just as much right to see her and play a role in her life as I did, and it would be foolish even to try to fight him on it. Though, truthfully, I don’t think he was quite prepared for any of it. Sage could just as well emerge from an exploding building, plastered entirely with soot and debris, and look us both directly in the eyes and insist all was well. It just scared me because nothing stopped either one of them in their tracks.
Since we were children, Mike would make a huge, devastating mess and then half-heartedly work on the cleanup later. And Sage mirrored him more and more each day, leaving me playing the bad guy. It seemed like the more I fought, the more I pushed, the more resistance I met.
*
Just one hour after I’d returned home, my day was further marred by an unexpected phone call—not from Mike or Sage—but from my ever-elusive father, who had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer for which he had zero intention of receiving treatment. As I sat at my dining room table, which was covered in an entirely new slew of student essays, I listened passively as Dad explained all the plans he had made without me regarding his illness. I could hear what he was literally saying, but something about it all still didn’t quite register. From what little information he offered, I learned that Dad had been experiencing all sorts of physical problems, which he, of course, ignored until one day in late November when he passed out at a local gas station. After a series of tests, including an MRI taken at the ER, Dad was given the grim news.
“Julia, I’m seventy-four years old,” he said, “I’ve had a good run.”
“Seventy-four is not old, Dad. You should have another ten years at least.”
There was no use; it was my father at his finest, most stubbornly difficult moment to date. Sharing that his primary doctor gave him about five months to live, Dad didn’t want to hear another word or a second opinion from anyone. He didn’t want treatment, and he certainly didn’t want my no-good input, as he so eloquently put it. All Dad wanted was to check into a hospice and spend his remaining days quietly, alone and unbothered.
It was the same way in which he had lived his life.
“They might be wrong. Besides, even if they’re not, don’t you want just a little more time? You could fight this,” I insisted.
“I don’t want to fight, darn it. I want to go in peace.” And as always, Thomas P. Brody had the final word.
He then continued to carry on about how he wanted me to help pack up some of his most important belongings and take them to his final home. Dad shared that he was leaving me the house on Perry Avenue and barked that I better not sell it to some undeserving fool who didn’t know any better about homes that were built back in the day—back when people got it. He even managed to throw in a few words about how I never visited the neighborhood anymore, altogether bypassing the fact that he never visited my home either.
Still, later that afternoon I found myself back at my childhood home… but not without dragging the troops—i.e., Connor—with me for moral support.
“It’s crazy to see it again,” Connor shook his head almost disbelievingly as he stood beside me, staring up at the house I—we—grew up in.
“There it is,” I said in response.
“I can’t remember the last time I was here.” He then turned and pointed to a nearly identical house, his family’s old home. “I wonder who’s in there now. It looks like an old doll’s house.”
Come to think of it, Connor had a point. Looking up at that row of houses, what had once been a vibrant and beautiful home painted a gorgeous shade of admiral blue had grown dull and worn with abandonment, faded with the years and memories that belonged to it. When we were younger, my father—with his fireman’s strength and steadfast work ethic—had maintained it by his own hand. But as the years—soon decades—came and went, so did my father’s health and tenacity. Thus, the house had devolved into a decrepit hodgepodge of chipped paint, dilapidated gutters, and windows tarnished by grime, accented by the rust that had made its home deep within the crevices of the front gate.
“An old forgotten dollhouse,” I replied in an almost childlike whisper. There was nothing quite like the instant psychological regression of an adult standing in the midst of childhood memories.
“I have to say it. Sorry, Lia. I always got a kick out of your dad,” Connor admitted. “He’s real old-school.”
“They sure don’t make ’em like him anymore,” I muttered under my breath.
I slowly slid the gate open and to the side. Then we made our way to the front door. It was so strange. No sooner had Conner rang the doorbell than my father’s gruff voice boisterously bellowed from the other side of the door.
“WE DON’T WANT ANYTHING! WHATEVER YOU’RE SELLING, I’M NOT BUYING!” my father roared.
Unconsciously mirroring Sage, I rolled my eyes and smacked the palm of my hand against the side of my forehead out of sheer embarrassment. What was next? A few more minutes of bickering before Dad swung open the door, violently shook his fist at us, and berated us incoherently before giving Connor a good whack with his cane?
Sensing my loss for words, Connor stepped up to help. “It’s us, Mr. Brody. Connor and Julia.”
As I had predicted, the door swung open instantaneously, and there he stood. A soft gasp escaped my lips upon seeing him. Had that much time passed? Dad’s shoulders were no longer a broad pillar of strength; they were stooped and almost sullen. His stance was no longer towering and intimidating but frighteningly fragile. I hadn’t been mentally prepared for it. Fortunately, for my sake, Dad’s eyes hadn’t changed one single bit. They still twinkled with defiant mischief and just a splash of long-forgotten kindness. Apparently, impending death itself couldn’t defeat
them.
“Connor! Good to see you, son,” Dad joyfully exclaimed as he charged at Connor and then vigorously shook his hand. After a few moments of shared raucous laughter and small talk between the two of them, Dad turned to me and not-so-discreetly declared, “I see you brought the one you should’ve married to help us out!”
“Dad,” I began patiently, “Connor is here to help see what the place looks like… We’re only taking a few things. I’ve already decided to hire movers for anything substantially heavy that you want to take with you, and the rest is getting donated to charity. I haven’t even seen this… place you’re moving to. Do you even have enough room there for your things? How do you even know if St. Martha’s is any good?”
It was at that point that I thought grimly about how most stubborn old men would probably fight their children about going to hospice and would much rather die in their own homes. Just my luck to have the one father who wanted it backward.
“Look at the place? Now, why would you need to look at the place unless you were planning on selling it?” Dad grumbled.
“I didn’t say anything about selling it.” Yet.
“Don’t talk down to me like I’m one of your fool high school students. You’re not pulling the wool over my eyes.” Dad pushed past me and motioned towards Connor. “Come right in. How long has it been now? You’ll have to forgive Jules. She may be smart and lovely, but she has no sense of family history. Imagine wanting to sell a place like this. They don’t make houses like this anymore.” He stomped down on the floor twice. “That is real wood, not that fake laminate garbage they’re pushing these days.”
Feeling my face grow flush again, I bit down on my lip and proceeded into the living room, which was cluttered beyond belief with junk. I slowly made my way toward my grandpa’s old armchair, which looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since Sage was a toddler. Eyeing it suspiciously, I sat down anyway and immediately found myself coughing wildly. Placing my full weight on the chair had propelled a small dust cloud to escape from the cushion and envelop the stale air all around me. Coughing violently, tears rising, I shut my eyes forcefully as I tried my best to relax my intensely stiffening shoulders. Just a few days ago, a long, firm knot had settled itself right along the muscles that rested beside the upper left portion of my spine. It was tightening.
Painting Sage Page 6