All That's Bright and Gone

by Eliza Nellums

  “Good news, Aoife,” says Dr. Pearlman, coming suddenly back into the room. I am still on the floor, but I stand up and brush myself off when I see she’s looking at me.

  “I talked to your uncle.” I can see she’s looking at Mama’s purse, which I notice now is spilled all over the table. Her wallet has fallen out on the seat of Teddy’s chair, and the empty gum container is torn open on the floor.

  “Oops,” I say. Bad Teddy.

  “Ah. As I was saying … I talked to your uncle, and I have good news for you, sweetheart.” It sounds funny when she says that. No one calls me that. Sometimes Mama calls me Jumping Bean, but mostly she just calls me Aoife. “Your uncle Donovan is going to come here to the hospital and pick you up. Would you like to go home with him? Just for a little while.”

  “Is Mama going to be there?” I ask. I haven’t seen Mama since the blue men helped her into the back of the van.

  Dr. Pearlman’s mouth curls down. “Sit down, Aoife,” she says, putting her hand on the back of the little chair. So I do.

  “Because we want to help your mommy, we want her to stay here at the hospital with us for right now. Okay?”

  It’s not okay. I look at Teddy, who is chewing on the blue strap of Mama’s purse. Stop that, Teddy, I think. You’ll get us in trouble. But I don’t say it out loud, and Teddy never listens to me.

  “Can I stay too?”

  “I’m sorry, dear, but that’s not possible. It would be better for you to go back to your house with your uncle, where you can be more comfortable.”

  When will Mama be home? Teddy wants to know. She promised we’d see the fireworks, so it has to be before then. Right?

  “My friend Hannah says that if your parents go away and leave you alone, then men come and take you,” I tell Dr. Pearlman. “And she said you might have to live with another family and you might never see your parents again.”

  “That’s not what anybody wants,” Dr. Pearlman says. She puts her hand on my shoulder, and it’s light but it’s hot and big. I don’t like it, but I don’t make her take it away. “Remember, we want to help your mommy, and you, too.”

  “And Hannah says if you’re bad, you get taken away from your family and have to live in Children’s Prison,” I say.

  “This Hannah sounds like she has a very vivid imagination,” says Dr. Pearlman. “Do you think that’s going to happen?”

  I look at Teddy. He nods his head at me.

  “It doesn’t seem to me that you have been a bad girl, Aoife,” says Dr. Pearlman. “You helped us with your mommy’s phone, didn’t you?”

  That’s true.

  “I talked to Teddy out loud,” I admit. “I make Mama angry when I do that, and sometimes she yells and tells me not to. And today she was yelling, but it was to Theo and he wasn’t there, and she didn’t make any sense after that.”

  Dr. Pearlman hugs me. The only people who hug me usually are Mama and one time Sister Mary Celeste at the end of the year, after we had kindergarten graduation.

  It feels okay though. Dr. Pearlman smells like oranges.

  “Aoife, I know today’s trip to the mall was scary,” says Dr. Pearlman. “But I really don’t think your mommy is angry with you, okay? In fact, I bet she’s very proud of you. Now, do you want to go wait for your uncle Donovan?”

  Teddy says he’s ready to play, so I figure we’d better go before he starts causing trouble.

  Chapter Two

  It smells funny in the hospital, and it’s cold. There’s nothing good to look at except a bunch of Ranger Rick magazines that have all the puzzles solved already. There is one of those wire-and-bead toys in the corner, but those are for babies.

  Teddy tries to make me laugh by making faces. He pulls the yellow beads off the wires and hangs them from his ears like Dr. Pearlman.

  “Teddy, put those back!” I whisper. “Those are for little kids to play with. They’re not supposed to come off.” But I laugh too, so I guess he got his way.

  Dr. Pearlman asked the lady nurse at the desk to look in on me, so at first she would come by every once in a while and ask, “How you holding up, honey?”

  The nurse had a nice round face and her hair was twisted up in thick, spiky braids like caterpillars.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “She’s the sweetest little lamb I ever saw,” I heard her say to another one of the nurses. “Don’t hardly make a peep.” Teddy hadn’t pulled the beads off the wires then, or she wouldn’t have said that.

  But then the caterpillar lady went away from the desk, and a different lady came instead, and she hasn’t asked me how I’m holding up at all, or anything. And I’ve been sitting here so long already.

  I tried to ask the new desk lady if my uncle Donny was still coming, but a big man came up behind me, and even though I was there first, she talked right over my head to him instead of me. He put his big square body in front of me and I had to step back. Then they talked for a long time. So I decided to go sit back down.

  Now I’m sitting in the plastic chair watching the people walk by. There is a woman on the phone talking Spanish. I know Spanish too. I know por favor and gracias and madre de Dios. There are kids at my school that speak only Spanish in their houses and English only at school, but Father Paul says Latin is the universal language for us all to worship the Lord in one voice.

  There is a woman who is crying in the corner, real quiet. I don’t like it when grown-ups cry. Most of all I don’t like it when Mama cries.

  If nobody ever comes, will I live here at the hospital forever? There are beds here. I heard the blue men talking about them.

  “Aoife!” Uncle Donny is coming down the hallway, and I jump out of my chair to run to him. He’s got Mama’s purse slung over one shoulder, and Dr. Pearlman is behind him.

  “Uncle Donny!”

  He picks me up and spins me around in the air, and I laugh and laugh although I also want to cry. Uncle Donny has hair just exactly like my mama’s, thick and wavy. I think he’s the most beautiful man in the world, and Teddy likes him, too. He’s running circles around Uncle Donny’s feet.

  If Uncle Donny was an animal, he’d be a penguin. He is funny and smart and wears suits.

  “How you doing, kiddo?”

  “I’m fine!” It’s fun to be so high up. From Uncle Donny’s arms I am almost as tall as Teddy, who can be any size and right now almost reaches the ceiling.

  “You are, huh? Well okay, then!” Uncle Donny bounces me in his arms, and I throw my arms around his neck and hold on.

  Uncle Donny is my favorite person except for Mama, who has to be my most favorite because she’s my mother. But after her is Uncle Donny.

  “Are you ready to hit the road, midget? Or you wanna hang around here a little longer?”

  “No, I’m ready, I’m ready! And Teddy’s ready, too!”

  “Ooh yeah. I forgot about good ol’ Teddy.” Uncle Donny tries to put me down, but I don’t put my feet down, no matter how far he bends over. So eventually he has to straighten up again and I go back up. “Uncle Donny’s not a pony, you know,” he teases, but he doesn’t make me let go. Instead he bounces me up and walks us over to the desk.

  “Dr. Pearlman says Mama can’t come home with us,” I whisper, looking over to where she’s talking to the desk lady. “Is that true?”

  “Uh, yeah. Aoife, your ma needs to stay here to work on feeling better. So I’m going to stay with you at your house. That’ll be fun, huh? We’re going to have a great time together!”

  “But when will she be back?” I ask.

  Uncle Donny doesn’t answer. He leans over the desk to wait for Dr. Pearlman to be done talking.

  It’s true that Uncle Donny is really fun. He plays the best make-believe games with me, and we dress up dollies with funny hats made of leaves and things. Last Thanksgiving, Uncle Donny and I mixed potions on the back porch out of rainwater and special bubbles and dried-up flowers, and Uncle Donny said it was real magic.

 
; I put my cheek up against his scratchy one and rest my head in the crook of his neck. “I want to go home,” I say.

  Uncle Donny hears me this time. “Well then you’re in luck, kiddo, because your uncle Donny is getting us sprung from this joint.”

  But he talks with the ladies for a long time after that. He talks to the desk lady, and the caterpillar lady and Dr. Pearlman. Although I was wide awake before, now that Uncle Donny is here I’m too sleepy to listen to all the talking. They’re not talking about me anyway.

  Uncle Donny’s shoulder is safe and smells good. I close my eyes and hide my face in it. I want to be a big girl, but I also really want to go home to my own house to see my stuffed animals. I don’t want to think about this morning. I just want to lie down in my own bed and go to sleep. Maybe when I wake up, it will turn out that none of today even happened at all and Mama will be there.

  “There’s going to have to be an investigation,” says Dr. Pearlman. “You can expect to receive a call scheduling a visit.”

  Uncle Donny sighs. “Yeah, I figured.”

  “If you don’t mind, I have just a few more questions for Aoife,” says Dr. Pearlman, and Uncle Donny nudges his shoulder to make me sit up.

  “Sweetheart, do you remember telling me about your friend Teddy?”

  “I’m not supposed to talk about Teddy,” I say. Teddy sticks his tongue out, because he doesn’t like pretending not to be real.

  “I just want to ask you a couple questions about him,” she says. “Is that okay?”

  I don’t know if that would be okay. I look up at Uncle Donny to check, but he’s looking down at his phone. Teddy just shrugs when I ask him.

  “Can your uncle Donny see Teddy?” asks Dr. Pearlman.

  “Of course not,” I say, forgetting that maybe I wasn’t supposed to answer. But the question is very silly. “Nobody can see Teddy but me, and one time Hannah pretended she could see him but she couldn’t.”

  “Hannah is her friend from next door,” says Uncle Donny. “Her real-live, flesh-and-blood friend.”

  “Don’t worry, a lot of children have imaginary friends when they’re young,” says Dr. Pearlman. “Aoife’s right at the age for it.”

  Teddy doesn’t like it when people call him that. He blows a raspberry at Dr. Pearlman.

  “Teddy has always been my friend,” I say. “Ever since I can remember.”

  “She started talking about him maybe a year or so ago,” says Uncle Donny.

  But he was still my friend before that. I just didn’t used to talk about him.

  “And when did the incident with her brother occur?” asks Dr. Pearlman, taking notes.

  “Almost three years back.”

  “Hannah says it wasn’t an accident,” I say.

  “Enough, Aoife,” says Uncle Donny. “Okay? Enough.”

  “I’m just saying what Hannah said!”

  “Aoife, talking about Theo is something that might make more sense when you’re a little older, okay?” says Dr. Pearlman kindly.

  “Thank you,” says Uncle Donny, resting his hip against the desk. “I’m sorry, but you understand—it’s upsetting for all of us to talk about Theo.”

  “I do understand,” says Dr. Pearlman. “Just a couple more questions, okay, Aoife?”

  I shrug.

  “Now, what does Teddy like to do?”

  That’s easy. “He likes all the things I like. We do everything together.”

  Dr. Pearlman nods. “Do you and Teddy ever disagree?” she asks.

  “Sometimes. He likes to get me in trouble,” I explain. Bad ol’ Teddy.

  “What do you think would happen if you didn’t want to do what Teddy wanted?” she asks.

  “He would be mad,” I say.

  “All right, what kinds of questions are these?” says Uncle Donovan.

  But Dr. Pearlman asks me, “And then what would happen?”

  “I think that’s probably about enough for one day, huh?” says Uncle Donny. “I think we’re about done up here.”

  Dr. Pearlman clears her throat. “I’d like to follow up with Eva,” she says. She has slipped back into saying it wrong again, but I don’t bother to correct her this time. “I think it might be good to have another conversation after CPS files their report.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure we’ll look forward to that,” says Uncle Donny. I don’t know what sea-pee-ess means, but he doesn’t sound very happy. I put my head back down on his shoulder. “Look, if we’re all done here, I’d like to take my niece home. She’s obviously had a pretty stressful day.”

  “Absolutely,” says Dr. Pearlman. “Goodbye, Eva. You were a very brave girl.”

  I don’t think I was very brave. “Bye-bye,” I say, without lifting my head.

  Uncle Donny boosts me up in his arms. “C’mon, babe, let’s get out of here,” he says. He carries me down the white hall and back to the front part of the hospital, where Officer Tom brought me first. Uncle Donny hurries through, past the coughing women and crying babies. An old man shuffles by on crutches, and Uncle Donny turns sideways to get past him. We go out through the glass doors and into the sunshine.

  “It’s still light out,” I say in surprise. It felt like I was sitting in the white room of the hospital for days and days, but now we’re standing in the parking lot and the birds are singing.

  “It’s only six PM,” says Uncle Donny. “There’s hours of light left.” He carries me over to a shiny silver car. “Thank God that’s over with. Let’s get the hell out of here, huh?”

  “You said a bad word,” I tell him, giggling.

  He laughs too. “Sometimes your uncle Donny likes to say bad words. But don’t tell anyone, okay?” He tugs on a curl of my hair. “Now, I don’t have a special seat for you in my car … do you usually ride in a car seat?”

  “There’s a booster seat in Mama’s van,” I say.

  “Yeah, well, we’re going to have to pick up the van from the mall later. Right now, how about we just try to make it home real quick, okay? You can be the lookout and keep an eye out for the fuzz.”

  The fuzz means police, it turns out.

  “Maybe we’ll see Officer Tom again,” I say, waiting for Uncle Donny to find his keys. “Teddy liked him.”

  “Oh yeah? Is that who—uh, did you meet Officer Tom at the mall?”

  “Yeah. He drove me to the hospital in his police car while Mama went in the special van,” I say.

  “The special van, Christ,” says Uncle Donny.

  Father Paul says you should never say Jesus or Christ unless you’re really praying, but I still laugh.

  “So, did Officer Tom at least put on the sirens for you?” He gets the door open without putting me down.

  “No,” I say. He stands me up on the seat, and I drop down to sit. “He said the sirens are only for when somebody could die right away. But he showed me the computer thingy in his car, and he showed me his badge, and he let me wear his police hat.”

  “Well, he sounds like a very nice, uh, cop,” says Uncle Donny. “But let’s just try to keep an eye out for his buddies until we get home, okay?”

  So I get to ride in the front seat of the car like a grown-up. Teddy sits in the back, taking up the whole seat like always.

  I don’t say anything, but my heart beats faster and my stomach hurts when Uncle Donny starts the car. I have to say a special, secret prayer to blessed Saint Joan that she won’t let the other cars hit us and smush us like a pancake. I don’t want to go right through the intersection like Mama did and have everyone honk at us.

  I feel a little better after I say the prayer. We drive in a slow circle around the parking lot and out onto the main street. Uncle Donny pulls out at the right time, and we go through the light when it’s our turn.

  Asking Saint Joan for help always works.

  “Aoife, can you tell me what happened today?” he asks me.

  “I don’t remember,” I say. It’s wrong to lie, but sometimes no matter what you say, it’s not going to co
me out right. And I already know this is going to be one of those times.

  Uncle Donny sighs.

  The truth is, Mama got a phone call. We were going to go to the mall because I needed shoes again and there was a big sale. Mama was already having one of her bad days. She was too tired to make breakfast, so I put some chicken nuggets in the microwave and we split them, but we didn’t have any more ketchup. Mama said the store doesn’t sell ketchup anymore. I said ketchup isn’t really for breakfast anyway, so it was okay. But I wanted ketchup. It’s my favorite food.

  Mama got the phone call on the way to the car, and I didn’t like how her face looked, like a piece of paper. When she got into the seat, she said, “Aoife, I want to talk to you about something important.”

  “Okay,” I said. “After this song.”

  We were playing the Disney soundtrack CD and I was singing along. Mama is a good singer. She can make up her own harmony right alongside Princess Jasmine. I’ve tried to do it, but it’s too hard, because when Princess Jasmine is singing you want to sing right along with her. Mama didn’t sing along this time. But it sounded pretty: me, Princess Jasmine, and the turn signal tick-tick-ticking. Teddy said I was on the wrong verse, and I said no I wasn’t, I was just one line ahead. And then I remembered I wasn’t supposed to talk to Teddy out loud, and I looked at Mama to see if she’d noticed.

  She was looking at her lap.

  Somebody honked at us.

  The light to turn into the mall had gone green, but Mama just sat there. The whole song ended and the turn signal was still tick-ticking.

  “Mama?” I said.

  People were honking and honking now.

  She glanced back at me, but not to where my eyes were. It was like she was looking just over my shoulder instead of at my face.

  “It’s no good, Theo,” said Mama.

  I was scared then, because Theo wasn’t there. Theo was dead. Teddy didn’t like it either. He curled up in a ball next to me and put his head under his tail.

  “Mama, it’s our turn,” I said. “We’re supposed to go now.”