by K. A. Holt
I just want you to know
that little sign Levi did?
When he saw you at the door?
The swoopy thing?
With his tiny pinkie?
That looks like a J ?
It means juice
not James.
There’s no way he would sign
James
before he’d sign
brother.
No way.
That phone call.
That phone call.
That phone call.
Mrs. B is worried about me.
The lines between her eyebrows are deep.
She crosses her arms over her chest
which wrinkles her shirt
without her noticing.
But I notice.
I feel kind of important
to worry Mrs. B so much
that she doesn’t notice wrinkles.
How are you?
OK.
Really?
Not really.
I’m sorry.
Don’t say that.
I’m sorry for being sorry.
Don’t be a dork.
You’re a dork.
Isa and I can have a whole conversation with just
our eyes.
We’re like superheroes.
Very quiet superheroes.
With very giant eyes.
If I stole his Xbox,
if I tattooed Dork on his forehead,
if I superglued his hands to his butt,
if I renamed him Shorty McDingDong,
if I ate his guinea pig,
none of these things would make José as mad as
me admitting I like Isa.
P.S. I’m not admitting anything.
I’m just thinking
out loud
in this journal
right now
so
shhhh.
Mary, Mary, quite contrary
how does your garden grow?
With squinty eyes
and big loud sighs
and nursing notes all in a row.
WEEK 36
No, James, I don’t want to write nicer things about Mary.
I don’t think the judge will send me to juvie
because I think Mary has dishwater hair
and wants to break up my family.
So there.
I hate her. For real.
Don’t make me hate you, too.
I know hate is a strong word, Mrs. B.
I know you hate it.
I’m sort of sorry I said it.
But only sort of.
And only about James.
I would never hate James.
At least not every day.
Timothy’s Big Fat Hate Dislike List
Mary
Dr. Sawyer, but only if he doesn’t write back soon
The way José looks at me when I smile at Isa
Messed-up tracheas
Dad
Not necessarily in that order
Our favorite flying squirrel showed up today,
all smiles and googly eyes,
cooing at Levi,
telling Mom that everything looks great,
the investigation is closed.
I should be happy.
I want to be happy.
But
But
But
There’s always a big but when
Carla Ramirez, the flying squirrel, is involved.
I’m so glad you’re seriously giving it some thought,
she said,
and my head whipped around so fast
my brain jiggled.
It’s a lovely facility.
We’re lucky to have something like it in town.
And with the state benefits
for a medically fragile child
needing nursing home care, well . . .
it would help so much.
At least Mom’s smile was weak.
At least she looked like she might throw up.
At least I didn’t punch Mary in the face for smiling.
At least I didn’t leap on the flying squirrel’s back
lucha libre style.
See, Mrs. B?
I’m learning to control my outbursts.
Ten gold stars for Timothy
as we march closer
to the end of the world.
We could visit any time.
We could even stay with him.
There are doctors and nurses 24 hours a day.
I don’t even have words.
She can’t be serious.
It has to be the tiredness talking,
the no money talking.
It’s not Mom talking.
It’s not.
It’s Mary talking through her.
It’s Carla Ramirez, loudmouth flying squirrel,
using Mom’s mouth like a puppet.
Mom.
Look at him.
Levi, hanging on his wedge,
clonking himself in the head
with his bottle
doing his wheezy laugh
signing more.
You can’t give him to strangers.
You’d kill him.
Everything inside him.
You’d kill it.
Levi stopped laughing
barfed
started to choke
set off his oxygen alarms.
Mom grabbed the suction machine
cleared his airway
gave him oxygen puffs
through the trach.
His color went back to normal.
The alarms stopped beeping.
I’m afraid I’m killing him here.
She whispered it so softly
I thought maybe I didn’t really hear it.
But I did.
I’m afraid, Timothy.
I’m afraid for him anywhere.
I’m afraid all the time.
Every day.
I’m never not afraid, Timothy.
I’m never not afraid for him.
And when she looked at me,
really looked at me,
I saw how scared she was
and it scared me.
It scared me a lot.
WEEK 37
Weighing things,
what-if-ing things,
figuring things out.
Maybe I should tell Mom about Cincinnati
even without finding the money first.
Maybe she’ll stop with all the facility stuff
if she knew we could go there.
Maybe she’d be OK with being part of the
Carnival of Giving.
Maybe I don’t need to wait for Dr. Sawyer.
Maybe it’s time for a Hail Mary pass.
You can quit, you know. If you hate this so much.
She whipped her head around.
I almost expected to see fangs bared.
Why would you think I hate this?
She set down the tubing she was draining,
stared at me.
I waited for the fangs.
I see your eye rolls, Mary.
Your sighs.
Those groans when you change his diaper.
She put her hands on her hips.
I don’t know what you mean, Timothy.
Yeah. I’m sure she doesn’t.
Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes.
Wonder of wonders!
Miracle of miracles!
Mary is home sick today!
I have never been so happy
to help take Levi to his appointments.
All day doctors
and therapists
and blah blah blah.
But it will be just me and Mom and Levi.
All day.
We’ll make it fun.
I’ll make it fun.
Mom won’t even think once about
having to
take the day off
and not get paid
because she’s out of sick days.
She won’t even think once about it
because we’ll be having so much fun
at what they call Trach Clinic
but what I call
Super Fun No Mary Day.
Woooooooooo.
At least 20 more months equals
at least 14,600 hours equals
at least 876,000 minutes equals
at least 52,560,000 seconds.
If I reach out my hands
to grab those seconds
like a handful of sand
I can’t reach a single grain.
I can’t imagine what they even look like,
those seconds,
because the seconds we’re in right now
move so slow,
like a big cosmic joke.
And so when the doctors say,
Wait until he’s at least three
then we’ll see how his airway has grown,
we’ll see about getting that trach out,
Mom and I can’t even imagine
when Levi is three years old
because we can’t even imagine dinnertime tonight.
We can’t see the grains of sand
because of all the sand already in our eyes.
I bet it’s so easy
just so super easy
to take a
wait-and-see approach
when you are not the one
or even one of the ones
waiting
and
seeing.
When you are not the one
or even one of the ones
staying up all night
doing the suctioning
cleaning the barf
carrying the oxygen tanks
wiping the tears.
Yeah.
Let’s wait and see
if we all go crazy
or if the bank takes the house.
That sounds like a great plan,
Doc.
WEEK 38
Hail Mary pass intercepted
on the twenty-yard line,
run back for a touchdown.
Mom: 7
Timothy: 0
She already knew about Cincinnati!
She knew about it before I did.
I guess I should have known.
I mean, Mom’s no dummy.
There’s just no money to do it.
The travel costs alone . . .
she said.
Then to herself,
super quiet,
The travel costs alone.
And her eyes drifted over to the wall,
the picture of the whole family
in the hospital
on the night Levi was born
and did not die.
We are not playing a fair game, you know?
When even Hail Mary passes get you nowhere.
Not a fair game at all.
By the way,
Mom says those are for other people,
the carnivals that raise money
to pay bills and stuff.
Look at us! We’re great!
Mom sweeps her arms out wide
like we live at Disney World.
And she laughs
with no actual laughter in her voice
just air forcing its way through her teeth
like leaves being blown against a trash can,
an empty rattle,
a terrible sound.
The kitchen table is like a weird, flat tree
only instead of growing leaves
it grows paper.
Stacks and stacks of paper.
Mom will move a stack
but it’s replaced by another stack.
On one stack today, I saw
INTAKE
on the top of a page.
Everything was filled out.
You know what INTAKE means?
It means to take someone in.
She’s filled out the form for the facility.
If I rip off that leaf will it grow back, too?
If I cut down the whole tree
can I just make everything disappear?
José drums on the dash
his fingers tapping a complicated beat.
He’s telling me about all the turtle car things.
The clutch
the carburetor
the brake pads
the whatchamajigger that goes in the whosacallit.
I’m happy the turtle car is looking so good.
I’m happy his dad is letting him help more.
I’m happy about all of it.
Except for one thing.
I’d be way happier if
sitting next to me
was Isa
instead of José
and she wasn’t talking about anything
at all.
So many boxes by the front door
like building blocks
stacked to make
a very lame fort.
I started unpacking them
counting the supplies
putting them away,
a job that is supposed to be Mary’s now.
But Mary said,
Wait.
Stop.
What are you doing?
I said,
Unpacking.
Counting.
Putting away.
She said,
But we’re sending those back.
I said,
Why in the world would we do that?
She made her mouth into a thin frown-smile,
You know why.
And it hit me
like all of the boxes had landed on my head.
If Levi goes to the facility
we won’t need monthly supplies.
I unpacked
every
last
box.
Mom left fingerprints on my arms.
I’m looking at them right now.
Purple ovals on each bicep.
One for every hour of sleep she’s had
in the past four days.
All I said was
I won’t let you do it,
and she just flipped out.
You think this is what I want?
Her teeth were together so tight
the words were like quiet growls.
You think ANY of this is part of a plan?
Every day is a lava-riddled path, Timothy.
Every day I have to choose a step
and decide what hurts less—
which, of a million terrible choices,
is the least terrible.
Do you understand that, T-man?
Don’t call me T-man.
I just want to be able to sleep, Timothy.
She started to cry.
She squeezed my arms so hard.
I just want only family in the house.
I just want to be able to drive you and Levi
to the movies
like regular people.
But mostly, T-man? Mostly I want sleep.
Her hands popped off my arms.
Her forehead fell onto my shoulder
and she hiccup-cried
and I wondered
is she shrinking?
Or am I growing?
WEEK 39
I always thought turning thirteen would be awesome.
A real teenager, you know?
Now it just seems stupid.
Everything seems stupid.
What good is it to be a teenager
if no one will listen to anything you say?
Might as well still be a baby.
At least then people think you’re cute.
I saw the way James looked at Mrs. B
when he showed up for the “party.”
And I’m sorry to use quotes like that
because I know you a
ll tried hard,
but having a birthday party
in your court-appointed psychologist’s office
definitely deserves quotes.
Do not even try to lie, James.
I know.
She’s kind of pretty.
Like maybe a movie star
trying to win an Oscar
by dressing up like a tired psychologist.
But I kind of think she’s way out of your league.
I mean, her clothes are always clean.
That’s one thing.
Also, she is a grown-up.
I know you’re technically a grown-up, too, James
but only because you’re old.
Anyway. Thanks for the “party.”
Seeing Mrs. B meet Levi
was pretty awesome
even if she did try to hug me after
and sniffled a little bit into my hair.
No. No! Stop that! Bad boy!
I heard Mary’s voice all the way upstairs
with my door shut.
I ran to the kitchen
to see what was happening.
Levi in his eating chair
avocado smeared everywhere
because he still doesn’t really eat
just plays.
Mary was holding his hands away from his face
her mouth pinched shut.
What’s going on? I asked.
This baby will not listen, she said.
Levi’s leg flew up, kicked the tray.
Avocado went everywhere.
Mary made a noise, let go of his hands,
started cleaning the mess.
Levi looked at me
and put his grimy, smeary, green finger
into his trach.
Plugged it right up.
And then he said,
MA MA MA MA MA MA,
and looked at me, triumphant.
Holy what?!
My hands went to my hair.
I know! Mary said from the floor.
So unsanitary and dangerous.
He is a danger to himself.
Just like I’ve been saying all along.
MA MA MA MA MA MA, Levi said again,
his face turning purple as he talked without breathing,
his smile bigger than any smile I’ve ever seen.
Stop that! Mary yelled. You stop it!
She stood and yanked his hand from his trach
squeezing his wrist
hard.
That’s a bad boy, she said,
a bad, yucky, dangerous brat.
I grabbed Levi away from her,
pulled him right out of his seat,
held him in a big hug.