Danny’s cracking up at the slippers and the tinny way the music comes out of them with every step.
Other people stare at him, and it’s probably because of the singing slippers, but he also looks skinny and a little pale, even though he’s better than he was when I first got to his house.
“We should give these to your dad,” he says.
“You know how my mom doesn’t think that song’s very funny?”
“Sure,” Danny says.
“I’m starting to feel like it’s not so funny either.” My dad’s always been gone a lot, and I’ve never minded too much, but for some reason, the sicker Danny gets, the more I wish my dad were around.
I put on the slippers myself and start stomping my feet in them.
“Lately he’s gone so much he doesn’t even bother unpacking,” I say, and I stomp even harder. Dad brings a big fat duffel bag with him in his truck. But the last couple of months the duffel’s been on the floor of the bedroom, clothes spilling out but never quite finding their way back into the drawers.
“He always comes home, though,” Danny says.
“Sometimes it feels like his truck is his home. Isn’t home wherever you spend the most time?” If we talk too much more, I might cry, and I really don’t want to cry. Danny deserves a fun, no-crying day.
“If that’s true, the hospital is becoming my home,” Danny says, and I think he means it to be a joke, but it’s the kind of joke that hurts.
“Someday the mountains will be our home,” I say. “We’ll be skiers with big knit hats and even bigger sweaters with reindeer and Christmas trees on them. We’ll wear boots and mittens. We’ll eat fresh snow.”
“What do you think snow feels like? Is it fluffy?” Danny asks. We are both fascinated by it. I want to know how it looks and Danny wants to know how it feels, and we both want to sit in it and stick our tongues out and see what happens.
“I hope it’s fluffy,” I say. “I’ll ask my dad.”
“I thought maybe we’d see it sometime soon,” Danny says. He looks sad, and his forehead is wrinkled with un-Danny-like worry. “Mom and Dad said we could drive north with you maybe. Over Christmas vacation. But I can’t go see snow if I can’t stay out of the hospital. I’m stuck here.”
“Maybe we can go next year. Mom’s always saying she’ll take us someday. I bet we can convince them to take us next year.”
“I’ll have to be better by then,” Danny says. And I see it: nervousness. He’s nervous that he won’t be better by next winter. His voices shakes and his knees do a little, too.
Seeing Danny scared scares me.
“You’ll be better soon. Look at you now! You feel good right now!” Danny rolls his shoulders and ankles and puts his hand on his forehead like he’s checking up on himself. He grins. I think he’s still scared underneath the grin, but I love that he can grin anyway.
“You’re right! I’m pretty great today. Write down everything we’ve done. I’m feeling better every minute.”
“We’re going to figure it out,” I say, opening my notebook and scribbling everything I can remember from the forty-five minutes. I take my time looking at Danny. Ms. Mendez says scientists move slowly so that they don’t miss anything. His skin has a yellow tinge, but his cheeks are rosy. He isn’t coughing or sneezing or holding his stomach like it hurts.
“Promise?” Danny asks. I nod.
“How much money do you have left?” I ask.
“A lot.”
Danny and I have never had allowances or anything. I have a grandmother who sends me forty dollars for my birthday and Christmas, and Danny walks the neighbor’s dog sometimes. But lately Danny’s been telling me that his parents have been giving him money. I’m not quite used to it, and Mom’s face pinches when I talk to her about it.
“They can’t afford that,” she mumbled to herself the other day when I told her Danny was going to save the money to get us into Disney World. “They have so many bills right now and they’re giving Danny their money?” I shrugged. I don’t think it was the kind of question she really wanted an answer for anyway.
I try not to hear my mom’s voice now when I ask, “Do you think you have enough money for a suitcase?”
Danny eyes me.
“Are we running away?” he asks. We’re not, of course. We aren’t the running-away type, and I can’t run away with my best friend who is mysteriously ill and sometimes turning blue from not breathing or white from not eating.
I love knowing that if I said yes, though, Danny would do it. He’d run away with me.
“It’s a someday suitcase,” I say. “It’s for when we go to the snow. We’ll need it someday soon.”
“A someday suitcase,” Danny says. I think he likes the way it sounds. I do too. “What will we do with it before someday?”
I picture my dad’s duffel in the middle of his bedroom—the constant threat of his leaving, the awful feeling it gives me.
“I’ll use it in my room,” I say. “I can’t really explain it, but I don’t like having clothes in the closets and my toothbrush in its holder and my socks in a sock drawer if my dad isn’t sure where his real home is. I want my own suitcase. If our house isn’t Dad’s home, I don’t want it to be mine either.”
It doesn’t quite make sense, even to me, but Danny nods like it could make sense, someday. He nods like it doesn’t matter if it makes sense or not.
“I’m sorry about your dad,” Danny says, and I know he really is. “I’m sure it doesn’t feel like home without him.”
“I should be used to it,” I say. Even though my dad’s been on the road forever, I still feel sad about it sometimes. I hate that feelings seem to happen whether or not I want them.
Danny thinks for a great long while. We listen to the fountain spray water, and we listen to the people around us discuss TV sizes and new purses and slurp on their huge sodas. A kid cries. A song we hate plays. A couple starts fighting about something.
“We can be each other’s home,” Danny says at last.
It’s the best thing he’s ever said. I can’t even speak. When I’m emotional I lose all my words, but Danny’s good at filling in the empty spaces. I get quiet and Danny talks. It’s perfect.
It’s home.
“All right, we gotta get that suitcase. It’s gonna have to be big. Snowsuits seem pretty bulky,” Danny says, and the look on his face tells me that he’s picturing it—the coats and pants that look more like sleeping bags than clothes, slipping on the ice, lifting his face to the snowfall. “Do you think we’ll go sledding?”
“Of course.”
So we buy a someday suitcase.
I give ten dollars and Danny gives sixty-five and we get something sleek and purple and it rolls in this precise, floaty way that I like.
“The Someday Suitcase,” Danny says, and it sounds like a royal proclamation, a certain future.
The next day Danny has a fever so high he goes into the hospital and gets stuck with needles and filled with fluids.
I pack the Someday Suitcase and wait for the Someday.
13
I beg Mom to let me visit Danny in the hospital instead of going to school on Monday, but she says no and tells me my life can’t stop every time Danny gets sick.
“I think it’s time to understand that Danny might be sick for a while. For a long while,” she says.
I nod.
“Do you have questions?”
I shake my head.
“We should talk about this all,” Mom says. “It’s a big deal, what’s going on with Danny. I want to make sure you understand everything.”
“I got it,” I say, and Mom makes a face like she knows I’m lying and she’s going to have more to say later.
“Dad and I will talk to you more about it anytime you want,” Mom says, and just the mention of Dad makes me miss him even more.
I’m not getting better at being in school without Danny. I keep bumping into his desk and getting bruises on my hips and my knees
because he’s not there to scoot the desk back and forth when I’m being clumsy. My art projects look sad and unfinished, and I can’t remember anything that happens in the book we’re reading for class.
I’m starting my walk home when Elsa grabs my arm. I jump. So few people talk to me without Danny around that I almost forget I’m a person in a body.
“Come with us,” Elsa says. Her doe eyes are sparkly and her hand is warm. I feel like I’m not supposed to like anyone but Danny, but I like her. And I even like Levi, who is standing to the side and humming something to himself. He reminds me a little of Jake—never doing the same things everyone else is doing, but seeming to enjoy being in his own world. I wonder if they’d get along. I wonder if they’ll meet. I wonder if Jake could like Levi as much as he likes Danny.
The thought scares me.
“I should go home . . . ,” I say, but I don’t really mean it.
“Oh, come on,” Elsa says. “Levi’s mom’s teaching us yoga and Levi has a trampoline, and his mom almost always has at least five different kinds of ice cream in the freezer.”
It sounds pretty good.
The last time I saw Rachel, it was when she came to class during a unit on families and holidays and traditions and she told us about her favorite Jewish holiday, called Purim, and brought along the best-tasting cookies I’d ever eaten. I’ve heard she thinks she’s psychic or something. She looks younger and cooler than the other moms. She wouldn’t let us call her Ms. Goldstein. I’ve always liked the mysterious gap between her front teeth and the way she tells old stories in a way that makes them interesting.
When we get to Levi’s house, she’s on the front porch, her body all twisted up like a pretzel.
“Kids!” she says, untangling her limbs and skipping across the lawn to give us all hugs, even me. “I’m so glad to see you, Clover! You have a very warm energy.” I blush. She makes it sound like the best thing I could possibly have. Elsa and Levi go inside to get ice cream, and Rachel leans down and whispers to me, “And a little sad too, hmm?”
“Yes,” I whisper back. She makes it easy to answer her.
I don’t know anything about energy, but I think Levi’s mom’s energy is perfect—glowy and somehow both calm and exciting at once.
She makes Levi carry a crystal in his backpack and she did tarot card readings at his birthday party last summer. Danny made fun of her for it, and we got into an argument about her.
“I like her,” I said. “I like the things she does.”
“You like science! This is the opposite of science!” he said.
I couldn’t quite explain it at the time, but I know now that science is about believing in more things, not less. Science is about possibilities. All of them.
I think Rachel is filled with possibilities.
We don’t do yoga.
“It doesn’t feel like a yoga moment,” Rachel says. Levi rolls his eyes.
“Is it a playing-video-games moment?” he asks. Rachel laughs.
“My boy,” she says, which isn’t an answer, but Levi takes it to mean that he can go play video games, I guess, leaving me and Elsa with his mom at the kitchen table.
“More ice cream for everyone?” she says, and scoops vanilla and strawberry and raspberry chocolate chip into our bowls. I’m so full I could burst, but I’m not about to stop.
“See?” Elsa says. “Levi’s house is the best.”
“Danny would love this,” I say. I don’t think Elsa likes when I bring him up, but I have to make sure everyone knows I’m still thinking about him even though he’s not here. “Ice cream is his favorite food.”
“How is Danny?” Rachel asks, and I can tell that she knows all about him being sick. It seems like everyone knows. The lifeguard at the pool and the librarian and the postman.
“They don’t know exactly what’s wrong yet,” I say. “But some days he’s really okay. I think we’ll figure it out.” I use the tone of voice the doctors use. I don’t want Rachel to be one more person who tells me I’m not going to be able to help. I want her to see that I’m capable of doing more.
“We’re praying for him,” she says. “It’s hard when we don’t understand something. But there are a lot of mysteries in the world.”
I nod.
“You know why I like all these crystals and yoga poses and energies?” Rachel asks. Elsa has a funny look on her face, like this is a surprise she’s been planning for me all along. And I think if I didn’t have Danny and she didn’t have Levi, Elsa would be my best friend.
“They’re fun?” I say. They seem fun—Rachel wears long, noisy earrings and her arms look strong from the yoga. I love the way the crystals look, crowding the counters and mantels. I like the music she plays—people chanting and chimes ringing and long, low notes being held for minutes at a time.
“It can be fun, sure,” Rachel says, “but I was sick once too. And when I was sick, I learned about so many different ways that people get better.”
“See?!” Elsa says, bouncing in her chair a little.
“No one knew what was wrong with me, but I went to a very special place up north, and they were able to figure it out. And I did a lot of things to get better. Some were things that normal doctors tell you to do—taking pills and having some procedures and getting lots of tests. And a lot of those things helped. And my religious faith helped me too. But we did other things there. Special healing things. The people up north tested everything and tried everything, and you know what? They figured out what was wrong and how to help me get better. So there’s always hope, Clover.”
I have the crying feeling in my chest. Kindness makes me cry sometimes. Danny says that’s silly—kindness makes him smile. But I don’t know how to explain it or stop it. It’s how I am.
Rachel’s like me—she knows that it’s better to be open to more possibilities, always.
“I’m trying to keep having hope,” I say. “Ms. Mendez says hope and science are very connected. She says science is hope plus facts.”
“That’s one good science teacher you have,” Rachel says.
“See?” Elsa says. “It’s going to be okay. You can relax.”
“What was the place called?” I ask. “The up-north place that figured you out?”
“The Somerset Clinic,” Rachel says, smiling a little, like it’s her favorite memory. “It was in Vermont. I spent a very snowy winter there a long, long time ago.” I take out my notebook and write down the name. The Somerset Clinic. I like the way it sounds. Simple and snowy and a little mysterious. It feels like it could be a place where Danny and I belong. Vermont could definitely be a place we could call home.
I imagine packing up the Someday Suitcase. I imagine rolling it through snowbanks and up mountaintops. I think Danny and me and the Someday Suitcase are about to have an adventure.
I don’t say any of that, though.
I do say: “We’ve always wanted to see the snow.” Rachel and Levi and Elsa all know that when I say we, I mean me and Danny. I could never mean anyone else.
“It’s so beautiful,” Rachel says. “And so cold. And so much whiter than I ever thought it would be.”
“We should add snow to our weather science fair project,” Elsa says. “You sure you don’t want to join us, Clover?”
I shake my head. I’d love to study the snow, but I can’t do it without Danny. And I don’t have any more room in my notebook for lists about other things. It is filling up with endless lists about Danny.
“I have an idea!” Rachel says, and she smiles her little Rachel smile that looks small but feels big. She gets a pile of white construction paper and four pairs of scissors. She calls Levi back into the room and he comes in, bleary eyed and looking a little like a zombie. It’s exactly how Jake looks when Mom says he is “video-gamed out.”
Rachel folds the construction paper up into a little square and starts cutting funny, random shapes into the edges.
“My mom’s weird,” Levi says, sighing. “Sorry.”
>
“What’s she doing?” Elsa asks. I don’t say anything; I just want to watch Rachel be magical.
Rachel doesn’t say anything either. She is totally focused on the snip, snip, snip of her scissors.
“There,” she says at last. “This will either be beautiful or terrible.” She shrugs, like either option is fine with her, and I wonder if I could ever be that free. She unfolds the paper and when it’s all the way open, I see what it is.
She’s made a snowflake.
I grin.
“Can you show us how to do it?” I ask. Rachel grabs even more construction paper.
“We’ll make a blizzard for Danny,” Elsa says. I’m so relieved she says it, so I don’t have to.
Levi is the first one to start cutting, and I’m grateful for that, too.
We make a blizzard for Danny.
It’s the best thing ever—a pile of huge snowflakes, some ugly and some beautiful. They cover the table and the floor, too. They cover the spare seats and our laps. Our fingers get tired from the cutting. We all hold our breath when one gets finished, and exhale when we get to see what kind of snowflake we’ve made.
They’re not cold or wet or falling from the sky, but I think the surprise of each new shape and the wonder of what is being created is a lot like real snow.
I think real snow is shock and wonder and beauty and healing. It is cold and brilliant and clean and special. And our Danny blizzard is all those things too.
I hope so, at least.
14
“Do I look stupid?” Danny asks. “Is it obvious I’m in a wheelchair?”
It’s aquarium field trip day a few days later, and Danny surprised me by actually coming, but he has to be in a wheelchair, because he’s weak today and his lungs aren’t strong enough for a bunch of walking. He wasn’t able to come on the bus, so he missed Paloma’s imitation of a fish eating pizza and Ms. Mendez handing out a checklist of sea creatures we have to catch sight of during the day. I took an extra one for him.
The doctors decided an outing might be good for Danny, though, and Helen and Ross will do anything the doctors say. “They’re zeroing in on an explanation,” they keep saying. “They are so close to pinpointing what exactly is going on with our boy.” But the sickness he has doesn’t have a name yet.
The Someday Suitcase Page 8