Time froze for a moment, as I wondered what to say. I wanted to tell her the truth, wanted to blame her, wanted a shoulder to cry on, but more than that, I wanted her house to stay just the way it was, messy, happy and peaceful. “She loved it,” I said.
Mrs. Scully grinned. “I’m so glad, Tommy. You’re such a thoughtful boy.” She hugged me tight. She smelled like peaches and petunias, and I could feel the lipstick that came off as she kissed my cheek. “I’ve got something for you,” she said. “Come on downstairs.”
I followed her into the basement, which was filled with a huge table covered with the most elaborate train set I had ever seen. It had a station and a mountain, a lake to run the train around and a forest to motor through. There were all sorts of different trains, tiny signals and people, small figures waiting to get on, to journey to who knows where.
“You must think I’m strange,” she said. “To live here all alone. When my husband died, I thought about getting a smaller place, but then what would I do with the trains! Aren’t they lovely?”
“Yes,” I marveled. “They’re magnificent.”
I watched the train, running in circles around the track. I could have stood there for hours.
“You did say you were a cowboy fan, right?” Mrs. Scully started rummaging through a box in the corner.
“Yes.”
She pulled out a small train. “This is just like the engine in High Noon. You know the one, when they’re waiting for the bad guy to come into town. Grace Kelly gets on it, like she’s going to leave and abandon her husband, but of course at the last minute she jumps off and she doesn’t. You have seen High Noon, haven’t you?”
“Five times,” I said.
“Oh, you’re a fellow fan. This’ll be perfect, then.” And she handed the train to me.
It was heavy in my hand. Made of painted metal, it did look just like the one in High Noon. If only I could get on a train like that and ride away from all my problems. “It’s beautiful,” I said, handing it back to her.
“No, no.” She waved me off. “It’s for you.”
“But . . . I haven’t done anything,” I said. “You hardly know me.”
She smiled at me. “Usually I love living by myself. But at times it gets a little lonely. And you stopped by to say hello on Christmas.”
Mrs. Glazov was equally excited to see me. She opened the door almost before I was done knocking.
“Tommy,” she exclaimed. “Merry Christmas.”
She made me tea and served cookies. While we ate and drank, she read me every headline on the front page of the Tribune. I felt as proud as a mama bird that’s just taught her fledgling to fly. After the reading, she announced, “Now we play.” We ran through all our favorite Christmas carols, ending with “Silent Night.” When we were done, I sat there quietly for a minute. This is what Christmas should be like, I thought.
“Now,” she said quietly. “You go home. Things calmed down.”
“What?”
“Sometimes I hear,” she admitted. “Yelling. Crying. No more today. You go home.”
I lugged the accordion back with me, and poked my head into the living room. Dad had finished sweeping up the glass and the tree was standing again, sparkling as if it had never been knocked over at all. Pinky was playing with her new doll.
Mom walked into the room, carrying a pie. She’d gotten dressed, combed her hair, put on lipstick. But her eyes were still red from crying. “Oh good, Tommy,” she said brightly, as if nothing had happened. “You’re back. And you have the accordion! Play us something. A polka maybe. I love polkas!” She pulled out a chair from the dining room and placed it in the center of the room for me.
My father nodded, and pushed back the couch.
I picked up the accordion and sat down on the chair and started to play the brightest, happiest polka I could. This was my plan. This was what I had wanted. My dad asked my mom to dance and they began to whirl across the floor, just as they had on Thanksgiving. Pinky clapped her hands. Mary Lou looked over at me and smiled.
And that’s when I started to cry. Huge tears that rolled down my eyes, so I couldn’t even see my parents. I wasn’t sure I would be able to finish the song, but I did. Mary Lou finally noticed. “What’s wrong, Tommy?”
“I’m just so happy,” I lied.
Mom smiled and went off to cook Christmas dinner. Dad patted me on the shoulder. I pasted on a smile so fake, I thought my skin would crack. We never mentioned the tree again.
29
PAIN PILLS
If Christmas Day was bad, the week afterward was even worse. I guess I’d thought I’d spend the break with my sister, talking and playing games, like we always had before. But Mary Lou’s bandages needed to be changed every few hours and ointments needed to be applied. Mom insisted she was the only one who could do it properly, since she had picked Mary Lou up from the hospital and been instructed by the nurses. More than once, I found Mom clutching a soiled bandage, tears running down her face. Every time I offered to help, she shook her head and told me to go away.
I discovered that when Mary Lou said she could walk from the bed to the bathroom, she meant if she had twenty minutes and an hour to lie down afterward. Mom went after her like a drill sergeant, yelling and screaming and cursing at her to do the stretches from the hospital or to hobble down the hall one more time. Mary Lou yelled back at first: “I’m trying!” or “Get out of my way!” Then it changed to “I can’t do it,” and “Leave me alone,” and finally she just meekly tried to comply, tears running down her face.
Mom and Dad started arguing too, screaming behind closed doors, as if a skinny old wooden bedroom door would prevent us from hearing what they had to say. “I thought you said they were suggestions,” Dad argued. “It’s vacation. You don’t have to force her to do them every single day.”
In the living room, Mary Lou and I concentrated on our game of checkers. Pinky watched intently.
“They said it would be good for her!” Mom countered. “Don’t you want what’s best for your daughter?”
“Of course I do, but—”
“You don’t care if she’s deformed or can’t walk. If she doesn’t get better, no one will ever want to marry her and we’ll be stuck with—”
Pinky’s eyes were wide. “Is Mary Lou going to turn into a monster?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“Take her outside,” said Mary Lou. “She doesn’t need to hear this.”
“You come too,” I said.
Mary Lou shook her head. “It’s too cold for me since I can’t . . . move around fast enough to stay warm.”
“But—”
“You take Pinky. It doesn’t bother me, Tommy.”
But I knew it did bother her. The next day when I got up at 4:30 to do the paper route, I heard Mary Lou crying in her room. When I opened the door to check on her, she rolled over and pretended to be asleep. I couldn’t wait for school to start again so I could escape to St. Joe’s. I missed Eddie, but he had gone out of town to visit relatives. I thought about playing marbles with Peter and Luke. Heck, I would even have been happy to see Little Skinny.
And if the yelling wasn’t enough, Mom started rationing Mary Lou’s pain pills too, stretching out the time between doses a little bit more every day, or cutting the tablets in half. “You’re stronger than that,” Mom told Mary Lou when she complained.
When the pain got so bad that all Mary Lou could do was lie on her bed and cry, I snuck into the bathroom and got the other half of the pill that she was supposed to have had in the first place.
Those days were so awful, I jumped out of bed at 4:30 each morning, relieved to have an excuse to get away from the house for a few hours. One morning when I returned from the route, Mom was waiting for me in the kitchen, holding the bottle of pain pills in her hand.
“Yesterday when
I counted these pills, there were six. Why are there now only four?”
“Mary Lou was in pain,” I explained. “She hurt so much she couldn’t even sleep.”
“Do you want to turn your sister into a drug addict?” Her face was red with anger, her jaw clenched.
“The doctor prescribed them!”
“I’m doing what’s best for her.” Mom’s hair flew out of her bun as she shook the bottle of pills.
“But Dr. Stanton prescribed those sleeping pills for you.”
“Tommy!”
“You don’t seem to have any problem taking them!” That’s when I saw she already had Dad’s belt curled up in her hand.
“Don’t speak to me in that tone!” she screamed.
“It doesn’t matter what I say,” I muttered. “You’re going to hit me anyway.”
And she did. And I let her. Pulled down my pants and just stood there. I hated her for punishing me this way, when I was just trying to help my sister. And even though I swore I wouldn’t, I starting crying, not from the pain, but because I was so angry.
Mom yelled at me to stop, and I tried to, I really did. I wanted to be tough and stoic, but the tears kept coming.
’Course crying only made it worse, ’cause Mary Lou heard me. She hobbled into the kitchen, holding on to the door frame to keep her balance. “Stop it, Mom! Stop!” she shrieked. “I don’t need the pills. I won’t take them anymore.”
I knew Mary Lou was trying to help, but it was mortifying to have my older sister see me, my pants around my ankles, crying like a baby. I wanted to scream at her to go away, but I couldn’t get out the words.
Mom just ignored Mary Lou and kept hitting me.
Boots joined in then, barking desperately, although he stayed in the doorway at Mary Lou’s feet, not daring to set foot in the kitchen.
“Catherine!” Dad boomed, appearing behind Mary Lou.
Mom paused, the belt dangling from her hand.
Thank God. Was Dad going to finally step up for me?
Mom was breathing hard, sweat on her forehead, even though it was cold in the room.
Mary Lou was weeping quietly now. “Take me back to the hospital. Please, take me back! I can’t stand it here another minute!”
Dad led her out of the room. Boots stayed, watching me and whining softly.
Mom hit me once more with the belt, then dropped it on the floor. The house was still. It seemed, suddenly, too quiet with no one yelling or crying.
“I have a headache,” said Mom. “I’m going back to bed.” She left the room without even picking up the belt.
As I pulled up my pants, I heard the car roar to life. They were leaving now? Didn’t Mary Lou need to pack? I ran to the garage to say good-bye, but they were already gone.
Boots and I sat in the garage all afternoon, waiting for my dad to return. It was cold and my backside ached. My hands felt numb, even as I buried them in Boots’s warm fur.
Finally, my dad returned. “Tommy, what are you doing here?” His long gray overcoat fluttered as he slammed the car door.
“Why didn’t you stop her?” I asked.
“You disobeyed your mother.”
“Mary Lou should have had those pills in the first place. You know that!”
“What do you want me to do, Tommy?” Dad screamed. “What do you want me to do!”
“Nothing,” I said. I went inside and lay down on my bed. Boots pressed up against my side and I cried myself to sleep.
30
AT THE HOSPITAL
It was the Sunday after New Year’s and I was sitting in the waiting room at the hospital again, coloring with Pinky. Mom was upstairs with Mary Lou. I hadn’t seen my sister since the argument about the pain pills. I wasn’t sure what I would say when I did.
The stairway door opened and Little Skinny slipped out. He walked toward the waiting room, but froze when he saw Pinky and me.
“Hey, Little Skinny!” I called.
He turned and headed back toward the stairs.
I ran after him, catching up with him just as he was pushing open the door. “Little Skinny!” I said. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“My name is Sam,” he said.
I felt awful then. I’d forgotten I’d promised to call him by his name.
“And I don’t want to talk to you.” Little Skinny crossed his arms.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “I get it.”
He glared at me.
“You were so mean!” he said.
After everything that had happened over Christmas, I had almost pushed the coal stockings out of my mind. Add that to my list of things I wished I could forget. I shrugged. “It was just a joke.”
“It was not a joke,” he said. “It was horrible!” Little Skinny turned bright red as he got more and more worked up. “You’re a different person at the store, Tommy. I don’t know how you can be so cruel at school.”
“Did you even look in the stocking I made?” I asked. “There was an orange and a nickel and a tin soldier.”
“No,” he said. “It was filled with coal.”
“I only put a couple of pieces on top so Eddie wouldn’t know.”
“So Eddie wouldn’t know what?” he asked. “That you were being nice to me? That sometimes you act like you’re my friend, and then you’re horrible again?”
“I—I—” I didn’t know what to say. “It was Eddie’s idea,” I finished lamely.
“It doesn’t matter whose idea it was! It was really mean.”
It was mean. I knew that.
“It’s not fair, Tommy,” Little Skinny went on. “Just ’cause you’re good-looking and clever and know how to charm people doesn’t mean you get to stomp on the rest of us. You’re lucky and you don’t even appreciate it!”
“Oh, so you think my life is so perfect, huh?” We were practically yelling now.
“It’s looking pretty good from where I sit.”
“You need to get your eyes examined. My sister is half burned up!” I was screaming now. “She almost died!”
“But she didn’t,” Little Skinny screamed back. “And my mom’s going to!”
Little Skinny and I stood in the doorway, glaring at each other. In the waiting room, Pinky colored so hard, her crayon snapped. The nurse at the reception desk stared, wide-eyed, not even pretending she wasn’t listening.
The worst part was, Little Skinny had a point. Mary Lou was getting better. And his mom wasn’t. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry. About your mom and everything else.”
He rubbed his eyes and we both pretended not to notice he was crying. “We’re going to have to leave, you know. My dad said we’re closing up the store the last week in January and going to live with his cousin in Chicago.”
That was my fault too. But at least he didn’t say it.
“Mom will have to stay here,” Little Skinny went on. “She’s been in the hospital since August.”
“That’s not fair,” I said.
“No,” he agreed. “It isn’t.”
“Really,” I said softly. “I’m sorry.”
Little Skinny said nothing. But he came back to the waiting room and sat down on the brown couch. “I’m not scared of you anymore. With Mom dying, you just don’t seem that important.”
I smiled and sat down next to him. “How was your Christmas?”
Little Skinny snorted.
“That good, huh?”
We both giggled a bit, though I saw a tear run down his scar.
“Yeah,” I said. “Mine was about the same.”
He didn’t say a word. We sat in silence for a while, until Pinky said she had to go potty and Little Skinny stood up and said, “I’ll take her.” As they walked off, I tried to imagine what it would be like to be an only child like Little Skinny. At least I ha
d Pinky and Susie to take care of and Mary Lou to give me advice. I had a dog to lick my face when I was sad and Mrs. Glazov to play accordion with me.
I wasn’t sure I deserved it. I’d been mean to Luke and Peter on the bus, and awful to Little Skinny. I’d destroyed Mr. McKenzie’s reputation, sworn I’d clear his name and then gotten caught up in my own problems. I didn’t keep my word. I wasn’t a nice friend.
It was a new year and I wanted to change.
31
RACING WITH LITTLE SKINNY
Every January, the nuns took us over to Prince Pond for an afternoon of skating. Prince Pond was a small pond, about the length of one block, that froze over every winter. With the money from the paper drive, the homeowners’ association had constructed an open shelter at one end where you could build a fire to stay warm.
Sister Ann and the other nuns chatted on the bank, their arms tucked under their habits so that they looked like giant bowling pins waiting to be knocked over. Peter was fooling around, skating in circles and throwing snowballs at any girl who turned her back. Little Skinny sat in the shelter with Lizzie Johnson and some of the other girls from our class. Every now and then one of them would add a bit of wood to the fire.
Not that we really needed a fire. The past ten days had been unseasonably warm, making it above freezing for a good portion of each day. It was probably 35 or 36 degrees that afternoon, not cold at all for Downers Grove in the winter. In any case, hot from all the skating, I’d left my jacket on the bank.
Eddie had just beaten Peter and Luke in a race and he threw himself down on the ice, breathing hard. “So,” he called out, confident as a cowboy on a prize-winning steed, “who’s going to race me next?” He leaned back on his hands like he was at the beach. Everyone stared at him. “No takers?”
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