They're Always With You

by Mary Clare Lockman

  I poured milk for four of us and water for Gramps. We sat down and waited for Gramps to say the blessing. He liked to add to the usual “Bless Us Oh Lord,” a bowed head “Thank you for my family.” Then we all said, “Amen,” blessed ourselves, and my dad said, “Let’s eat.”

  Soon my plate filled up with cow’s rump, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, and a crescent roll. I loved Sunday dinner. We used our good dishes and silverware on Sundays along with linen napkins. It had an extra bonus too. I didn’t have to wash the dishes because my mom was afraid I’d break one of them. She asked every Sunday if I minded if she and Aunt Florence did the dishes and I didn’t argue, believe me.

  “Colette, I can come to your game,” Aunt Florence said. “I changed with another supervisor so I don’t have to work that evening.”

  “That’s great,” I said. “I look forward to seeing you there.” The words had just somersaulted out of my mouth and I couldn’t explain it but I felt really happy. “What was your specialty shot?”

  “I used to shoot a mean hook shot.”

  “More than once your hook shot won the game, Florence,” Gramps said. He buttered a roll and winked at me.

  “Maybe you could show me your moves, Aunt Florence,” I said.

  “Oh, I’m out of practice after so many years.”

  “Some things you never forget. Pass the rolls, please.”

  Aunt Florence plucked a roll out of the basket and sailed it across the table with her right arm arced. I caught it in the air.

  “Aunt Florence, that is a mean hook shot.”

  She actually giggled and I can say for a fact that in all my eleven and a half years in Red Wing, Minnesota I had never heard my aunt laugh out loud. Her laugh was kind of contagious since it sounded so high-pitched and almost musical. I couldn’t help laughing and neither could Mom, Dad, and Gramps. We sat longer than usual that night at the table. As a rule I liked to be the first to excuse myself but with everybody talking and laughing I just didn’t get around to it. Gramps was the first to leave since his TV shows were on Sunday nights.

  My mom and Aunt Florence got busy doing the dishes while my dad cleared the table and put things away. Gramps “retired” to the living room and turned on the TV, settled into his chair, and waited. He loved to watch The Lawrence Welk Show on Saturday evenings but Sunday was his favorite for TV. He watched Walt Disney followed by The Ed Sullivan Show followed by the Glen Campbell Good-time Hour.

  Sunday nights the whole family watched Ed, as I called him. After all, the Beatles had been on his show so how could I ever even think about missing it. Tonight, for some reason, I didn’t feel like watching Walt Disney with Gramps so I found myself meandering out to the kitchen even though it was my day of rest from the dishes.

  “What are you guys doing now?”

  “We’re just finishing the pans. Want to help?” Aunt Florence asked.

  I started rubbing the inside of the pan dry and then the outside. I kept thinking about how that crescent roll just flew across the table to me. I was going to ask about basketball when these words came out of my mouth, “Aunt Florence, do you like nursing?”

  “I love nursing.”

  “Why do you love it?”

  “Well, because I feel I’m helping people who are sometimes in the scariest, most vulnerable times in their lives. It makes me feel good.”

  “Did you always know you would love nursing?”

  “No, I don’t think I did.”

  “Did you know you wanted to be a nurse when you were my age?”

  “No.”

  “What made you decide to be a nurse?”

  Aunt Florence stepped over by the window and looked out. She started to say something and then stopped but her mouth was still slightly open. I couldn’t take my eyes off my aunt.

  “Florence, are you going to watch Ed Sullivan?” my mom asked. She hung up her apron in the pantry on the special hook for aprons.

  “Yes, but first I’m going to answer Colette’s question.” I could barely hear her voice as she began speaking. “At a time when I was so frightened I didn’t know what to do, a nurse showed me compassion. She held me as I cried and made me feel that she cared about me. I’ve never forgotten her.”

  I’m hardly the kind of person who’s ever lost for words but this time I was. Since both Aunt Florence’s and my mom’s eyes were kind of wet like a drizzly summer rain, I simply didn’t know what to say. So for once in my eleven and a half years of life, I kept my mouth shut. I stood there thinking I should say something to this revelation but then I was afraid that the drizzle would become a deluge and pretty soon I would be overcome by the moment and start crying about who knows what. No, it would be too weird of a Sunday to have Aunt Florence laughing so contagiously that everyone joined in, then have her admit she was frightened so badly that she wept, then actually see tears in her eyes, then have me crying with her. I just would not do it. I did the next best thing. I hugged her. It seemed like a perfectly natural thing to do.

  Well, my mom hugged both of us and I felt as if I would suffocate so I was glad when through the group hug I heard the saving voice of my dad telling us The Ed Sullivan Show had started.

  Chapter Eight

  Mrs. Bosworth

  The next day I leapt out of bed when the alarm went off. I couldn’t wait to talk to Sally about the strange happenings of the night before. She was always at school early so I would probably find her on the playground.

  “Bye, Mom,” I yelled upstairs. “I’m going.”

  I walked so fast that I was almost running. As I rounded the corner, I saw Sally standing with two other girls. I didn’t want to be rude and yell for just Sally like the other two girls didn’t even count because I hated it when girls did that. Anyway, I couldn’t very well whisk Sally away from the other two so I just kind of eased my way into the circle, saying hi to everyone and don’t let me interrupt you. Everyone said hi.

  Sally said, “Colette, I don’t believe it, you’re here before the bell rings.”

  “I just may do this every morning,” I said. “Especially since it looks like you’re having such pleasant conversation.”

  They all agreed the conversation was pleasant enough. After ten minutes of making fun of Mr. Mooney, the principal, and talking about the unfair expectations of our teachers, we moved on to who we thought the cutest boy in our class was. Just when we decided to vote since we had differences of opinion, the bell rang, and we all lined up to go into the school.

  As we walked in, I said to Sally, “I have to talk to you.”

  “Okay. How about lunch?”

  “Agreed.”

  We each went our separate ways to our classrooms. It was hard to pay attention during history because I kept thinking of how shocked Sally was going to be about Aunt Florence’s laughing, crying, and hugging. I thought I heard someone say “Miss McGiver” but it sounded far away like it was a dream. Then I saw the sturdy shoes of Mrs. Bosworth standing next to my desk. She had her arms crossed and her light blue eyes were flashing. One thing that really made her mad was kids not listening to her.

  “Miss McGiver, can you tell us what we were just discussing in class?”

  “Um. We were discussing the difference between Athens and Sparta,” I answered quickly.

  After my answer Mrs. Bosworth’s eyes actually narrowed into a pair of slits. Her lips disappeared until all I could see was skinny eyes, a nose, and a chin. I knew all the kids were watching me but I didn’t dare look around. My eyes were locked with my teacher’s tight face.

  “We finished history a half hour ago, Miss McGiver. Can you put your history book away and take out your math book?”

  “Sure.” I threw my history book in my desk and grabbed my math book in almost one motion.

  “That’s good of you.”

  The room was as still as the air before a bad summer storm so I started wondering if the class was going to hear about how learning was a privilege or that Mrs. Bosworth didn’t ca
re to waste her time on people who didn’t want to learn. Waste of anything was sinful, she would say, but especially our God-given, not earned mind you, minds were a terrible thing to waste. I usually enjoyed listening to Mrs. Bosworth’s lectures because they were directed at screwy boys who never did their homework. I really did like learning about, for instance, the differences between Athens and Sparta in ancient Greece and I dearly loved math so this was the first time Mrs. Bosworth had planted her sturdy shoes next to my desk.

  “Do you think you can join us now?”

  “Yes, I think so.” I couldn’t believe I was getting off without a lecture.

  “Okay, then, let’s look at the problem on the board. Who wants to finish it?”

  Half the room’s hands shot up in the air like they came right out of a cannon. We had learned after Mrs. Bosworth zeroed in on a specific kid, the best thing the other kids in the class could do was show her we were paying attention. Of course, the kid who she had yelled at always shot their hand in the air but she never called on them so I waved my hand in the air fully expecting someone else to be called on.

  “Colette, go ahead.”

  I jumped out of my chair and walked up to the board. She couldn’t have been too mad if she was back to my first name that quickly. We were working on our skills in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and long division. I added the column of about ten numbers, no problem, and went back to my seat. One of the other kids was soon up there doing another of the problems.

  We still had reading to do before lunch. When the bell went off, we put away our books and papers, and waited to be dismissed.

  “Remember, class, all of you come back to school tonight with your parents. I’ll remind you again before you go home.”

  She really had a one-track mind sometimes. How could we possibly forget such a momentous occasion?

  Okay, class, you’re dismissed.” I lined up by the door when Mrs. Bosworth stopped me. “Colette, wait a minute, will you?”

  “Sure.” I knew Sally would save a spot for me in the lunchroom but I wanted to have time to tell her the latest family news.

  “Are you feeling okay?”

  “I feel fine.” I had never heard Mrs. Bosworth ask a kid how they were feeling. She assumed we were feeling fine and if we weren’t it was our problem, not hers. She did not believe in mollycoddling students since she said we got enough of that at home and that was not her job. She took her job very seriously.

  “You seem preoccupied, like something is bothering you.”

  “No, I’m okay. Just a little tired, that’s all.”

  “I hope you would come to me if you needed to talk.”

  “I would, Mrs. Bosworth.” I didn’t want to hurt her feelings since she took her job so seriously and all, but she was the last person I would ever talk to. For one thing, she would probably tell my mom right away when the reason I had talked to her was because I didn’t want my mom to know. Otherwise, I would have talked to my mom about it already and had no need to talk to Mrs. Bosworth. I suppose there were some desperate kids who just had to talk to someone and they didn’t have a Sally in their life so there they were revealing their innermost thoughts and fears to their teacher. I decided right then and there that I would never just assume someone was trying to get in good with the teacher when the kid stayed after school because maybe they had no one else they could talk to.

  “Okay, then, you can go.”

  “Thank you.” I left the room. Maybe it really was true what the kids were saying about the birth of Mrs. Bosworth’s grandson around Christmas; it had softened her up.

  Sally had a place waiting for me at the lunch table. “Okay. Give. What d’you want to tell me?”

  I started telling Sally about the emotional evening with Aunt Florence and she didn’t interrupt me once. She just nodded her head and said, “Mm hmm” and “Interesting” over and over. I told her about Aunt Florence and my mom both starting to cry. I ended the story with the fact that Mom, Aunt Florence, and I had a group hug.

  Sally laughed and said, “Good. Now you finally know what it’s like to be in my family.”

  I said, “You poor little thing.”

  “Do you think this frightening time for your aunt has anything to do with Daniel?”

  “That’s what I wondered too.” After I went upstairs the night before, all of a sudden I thought about Daniel. I was putting on my pajamas when Daniel came into my mind and there he stayed. I figured that whatever Aunt Florence was so misty-eyed about had something to do with Daniel.

  “Finish your lunch so we can go outside,” Sally said. “Hurry up.”

  I hurried as fast as I could and we went outside. The playground was asphalt so there really wasn’t much to do. The younger girls played jump rope and a game with a ball called four square but the older girls usually just walked around talking.

  “Don’t look now at who’s coming over,” Sally said.

  I looked up in time to see the Bloomer waving wildly just like I did when I tried every which way to get her to notice me down by the basket. She came running over. “Are you ready for the big game?” She clapped her hands.

  “I guess.”

  “I’ll pass to you, okay?”

  “That would be great.” I might as well be ready just in case.

  “Are you going to practice after school?”

  “Of course. I wouldn’t miss practice.”

  “I’ll see ya there then,” Patty Bloomer said. She began walking back to her group of eighth grade girls. I watched her go for a minute and then turned back to Sally. I opened my mouth to say something about the Bloomer and her idea of accuracy in her passing game when I heard my name loud and clear. The Bloomer was waving madly again. “Colette, I want to tell you something.”

  “Okay, shoot.”

  “Try to get yourself open by the basket more often, would you? I can’t pass if you’re not open.” Patty Bloomer turned away, this time for good, and strode purposefully towards the eighth graders.

  The bell rang. Everyone lined up.

  “Don’t forget, tonight’s the night,” I said. “The big event.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Sally said.

  “Save me a seat. I think we should go through this together.”

  “Agreed.”

  By the time I got home from practice at 5:30 pm, ate dinner, and did my homework, it was time to go back to school for the “big event.”

  Sally was already there so she patted the seat next to her. I quickly sat down and my mom sat next to me. All the girls in our grade were there and the two sixth grade teachers since they were both woman. Mr. Mooney was in charge of the movie for the boys and dads.

  “I’m so glad that you’re all here tonight,” Mrs. Bosworth said. She was standing on the stage next to a large portable white screen.

  “I’m not,” I whispered to Sally.

  “We’ve been showing this film for many years but this is the first year we’ve shown it to the sixth grade class. We hope it’s a good experience for all of you. We think it’s an important step to come to school with your mothers, watch this film, and then go home and ask questions if you need to. So, why don’t we get started?” Mrs. Bosworth nodded to the person standing by the projector. She walked to the side of the stage and turned off the lights.

  The screen lit up with the words, “Becoming a Woman.” The narrator began talking about growing up and how our bodies were going to change. And that was completely normal. Even our skin changed, the narrator said. It became oily.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes but there was a pimple on the screen and that pimple was getting bigger and bigger. It became what can only be described as a giant pimple – it literally filled the screen.

  “O my gawd,” Sally said. “It’s huge!” She giggled and poked me.

  Mrs. Reynolds gave Sally a look that could kill. “Do we have to separate the two of you?” she asked.

  I covered my mouth and looked straight ahead. I could
n’t look at Sally. It took every ounce of my strength to keep from laughing.

  The narrator talked on and on about our bodies growing and changing. The screen showed hair growing on some girl’s arm, then in her armpits, and then down there. Yuck! I was done. I decided right then and there that I really didn’t care what happened to my body or anyone else’s. I couldn’t watch it anymore. I chose a corner of the screen that was plain white and had nothing growing on it and I stared. I started humming.

  “Colette, you’re humming Battle Hymn of the Republic,” Sally said. “Stop it or I’m going to wet my pants.”

  “Sorry.” I didn’t even know I was humming much less why I was humming that. But I didn’t dare take my eyes off the corner of the screen. Thankfully, the film was only fifteen minutes long and I was able to think about my interview with Gramps and the big game coming up.

  The lights were turned back on and there was Mrs. Bosworth smiling and trying to look very sincere. “Girls, do you have any questions?” Mrs. Bosworth asked.

  I was elated no one raised their hands.

  “Okay, then, you are dismissed.”

  Sally and I stood outside, saying nothing. Sally finally broke the silence. “We’ll have to discuss all of this tomorrow.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Why were you humming The Battle Hymn of the Republic? I wanted to get up and march.” Sally started marching.

  She really was such a riot. “I don’t know why I was humming that. It just came out. I’m so glad we sat together, Sal, or I wouldn’t have made it through.”

  “Me either.”

  “I thought the whole film was very interesting,” my mom said. “Didn’t you?”

  “It was interesting all right,” I said. “Quite the experience. Please promise me you’ll never bring it up again.”

  My mom and I walked home. I took a bath, washed my hair, and put on my pajamas. I towel-dried my hair and thought about what I should do next. Rolling up my thick, unruly hair in brush rollers with the picks holding each roller tight to the scalp was out of the question because I couldn’t sleep a wink all night. It had to be a dire emergency for me to wear rollers to bed. I brushed my hair about 50 times and hoped it wouldn’t be sticking out all over in the morning. Maybe I would have to wear a bun like Aunt Florence after all.