by Sandi Ward
“Dad,” Mary asks, “it’s Sunday. Why don’t we go to church anymore?”
“I don’t really want to see anyone,” Father mumbles quietly, head lowered as if he’s talking to his plate.
“Dad, maybe you should see people.” Jimmy grabs a second doughnut, rips it in half, and stuffs a piece in his mouth.
Father scowls. “I don’t want to have to explain it. You know they’re already talking about it anyway—”
“But Dad, of course people are going to talk. People either love Ma or hate her.” Jimmy puts his hands out in front of him as if he is a scale, balancing items on his two palms. “They love her”—and here he drops one hand—“or they hate her.” And he drops the other hand.
Hate her? I don’t understand Jimmy’s words. How could anyone ever hate our mother? She is the sweetest, loveliest, kindest person.
To me anyway.
Maybe not to everyone.
Maybe not to Father, at least, not all of the time. But she did love him once. Of that, I am sure. I remember when she held him and kissed him and loved him so, so much.
And, I remember when she . . . Well, when she was not happy. When she was tired and moody and very angry. But we all get like that sometimes, don’t we?
I need to think about it. I slink up the steep stairs and crawl under Mother’s bed. I need a break.
It is dark under the big bed, and I love it. I enjoy prowling in the night, and I sometimes seek out the dark even in the middle of the day. It feels soothing on my eyes, and I feel very safe tucked tight among the boxes.
I see one of Mother’s little, round red pills sitting by a shoebox, and suddenly I feel nostalgic. I bat it with my paw until it skids out of sight.
Mother has been taking the red pills every day since I met her. I am not sure what they do, but they seem to give her energy.
There was a time, maybe a year before Finn was born, when the pills stopped working. I knew something was wrong because Mother was too tired to get out of bed. I remember those days well. I didn’t mind Mother being in bed, because we could cuddle. We had a wonderful, amazing time together. It was a rainy month in the middle of winter, dark and damp, and I was so glad to have Mother to warm me up.
When those pills stopped working, Jimmy finally confronted Father in the kitchen one night. I watched from where I lay spread out on the tile.
“She’s gotta go back,” Jimmy begged. “Please, Pops. You can’t pretend it’s not happening.”
“I don’t want to go back. Those doctors have no idea what they’re doing. They can’t even figure out—”
“Just give them one more chance. I’m worried. C’mon. Just try it.”
Father rubbed his neck, listening. He finally agreed.
She was gone for a day, and when she returned, Mother was back to taking the red pills, plus some light blue rectangular ones. And Mother was full of energy once again. Full, full, full of it! Making lots of calls and seeing lots of friends. Telling lots of funny stories.
In those days, at bedtime, Father would sit in bed and watch her pace and talk, back and forth, wearing a trail into the rug. He listened to her stories until she wore herself out. When she’d finally lie in bed, he’d throw an arm over her, as if that alone would keep her anchored until morning. Father would nuzzle her behind the ear until she laughed and relaxed, and I would have to jump off the bed if she started to kiss him, because then he moved around too much.
I didn’t like getting kicked in the hip or the head, which is what happened if Father wasn’t paying attention.
That would be on a good night.
On a bad night, they would fight. Mother could start a fight about any old thing. She could never “let it alone,” as Father begged her to do. Sometimes he just stared at her, with a wounded pout on his face as she cursed at him. After throwing his pillow and a blanket into the hallway, she’d slam the door behind him.
Other nights, he fought back, bellowing down the hallway. I would watch the muscles twitch in his arms as he clenched his fists and screamed his heart out. Sometimes on those nights he somehow ended up back in our bed, which confused me. But when Mother changed her mind, I was in no position to argue.
Either way, it didn’t make a difference to me. Mother gathered me to her chest and caressed me when she was ready to sleep, whether Father was there or not. She was always loving toward me.
I miss her. I hope she misses me too.
The other person who really bothered her sometimes was Jimmy. Oh, there was one day when she was still adjusting to those new blue pills that she really let him have it. He just messed up one thing after another. He spilled the cereal all over the kitchen floor and forgot to take the trash out, which caused the ants to march in. Then he handed her a slip saying his homework was late for the third time that month.
Mother always kept the house very, very clean. There was never a mess until the day she left. And she was extremely organized. I don’t know how Jimmy got to be such a messy, careless child.
I was angry at Jimmy too, for making Mother so, so frustrated.
At first, she just screamed at him: how he was so disappointing, and how she couldn’t believe he screwed up again. How he was driving her crazy. How he was making so much work for her. How he was just as stupid as his father.
But this one time was different: She hit him. More than once, on the arm and his side.
Jimmy was already bigger than Mother, but he didn’t fight back. He just looked stunned and ran outside. It was a nice spring day. Believe me, he was perfectly fine.
I sat on the windowsill by the screen and watched Jimmy as he stood on the front step, talking into his little phone. “Dad. Turn around and come back. She just hauled off and started wailing on me. Yes . . . yes. But Dad, I’m late for school—okay. Okay.”
When Father arrived, Jimmy got up his courage and told Mother how he felt, standing tall while she sat on the couch in the living room. I could see he felt braver with Father there next to him.
“You don’t get to do that to me, Ma,” he warned her, his eyes finally starting to water. He blinked back the tears. “I’m not going through that again.”
I don’t know what he meant by “again.” I’d never seen her do that before.
Mother and I scowled at him. Jimmy caused the problem, not her.
Father looked worried and hustled Jimmy to the door. “You should go to school.” He walked outside with Jimmy for a minute, talking to him quickly and quietly. “Tell them you slept in by mistake.”
It was that point of the spring where the trees had just bloomed with baby green leaves and the air was heavy with moisture. They stood there on the step not noticing the beautiful day that was unfolding around them.
Jimmy whirled around. “Dad—you won’t let her call the school, will you? Because then everyone will know—”
Father assured Jimmy he would not let Mother call the school. He promised he would not leave her alone all day. And Father said he would be there when Jimmy got home from school.
“You gonna call the doctor?”
“Nah. It’s fine. She’s just tired. I’ll figure it out.”
Jimmy nodded. Father put one hand on either side of his son’s head and kissed him on the forehead.
I was mad at Jimmy, even if Father wasn’t.
Good riddance, Jimmy, I thought. Go think about what you did wrong. Upsetting Mother that way.
Father came back in and went upstairs. He never went to work that day. He brought down Mother’s little bottles of pills and made sure she’d taken them. When Father asked Mother if she felt anxious or agitated, she just rolled her eyes.
I wondered if maybe she had not taken enough pills, or she had taken too many, and her energy was off. Perhaps that was why Mother was so, so frustrated. Mother offered many arguments about why she didn’t want or need those pills anymore, but Father was having none of it. He just kept shaking his head no. He didn’t want to hear it.
Father was angry, b
ut he didn’t yell at her that day. He just counted out her pills, over and over, double-checking. Keeping a nervous eye on her. Sitting right next to her when she got tired and lay down on the couch.
So that’s about all I know about the pills. I wonder if Mother has new pills, wherever she is.
I try to hunt down that little red pill under the bed, between the boxes. Although I nose around, I can’t find it. When the doorbell rings, I decide to go see who it is.
Sweet Aruna has come to watch a movie with Jimmy. Jimmy is happy to see her. He helps her take her coat off and hangs it up. Winter is almost here, and they express a desire to stay inside on their day off.
I understand. I’ve never been outside, but after his walk Jasper sometimes comes in looking like a popsicle, coated in ice. I wouldn’t want to be out there either.
Aruna sits with Jimmy on the couch. The room is dark and the shades are drawn. There’s a movie on the TV, but they aren’t really watching it. They are preoccupied with the upcoming school winter social, talking quietly about who is going and what they’ll wear.
“Are you going to dance with me at the social, even the slow dances?” Aruna asks, slowly blinking her big brown eyes at him. She is teasing him. She wears a thick sweater, and I have never felt anything so soft against the pads of my paws, as I knead into the material while sitting right on her lap. Lucky me! Aruna really loves me, I am sure of it. And she isn’t much interested in Jasper. Which in my book makes her pretty smart.
“Yes, of course,” Jimmy replies. He has his arm up on the back of the couch behind her. Sometimes he nuzzles his head against hers as if he’s sleepy, although he looks wide awake to me.
“Are you going to try to kiss me too?”
“What do you mean try?” A sly smile emerges on his face. “I ain’t trying. I’m doing.”
When Father goes out to do an errand, Jimmy tells Aruna a few stories about the many ways his dad has been “freaking out” lately. Aruna has a beautiful laugh, like the bells Mother hung on the back screen door. She laughs repeatedly, but as the stories go on, she laughs less and less.
Until finally Jimmy doesn’t sound so amused. He sounds tired. And Aruna isn’t laughing at all anymore. She pats his leg.
“Poor Jimmy.”
“Yeah,” he joins in. “Poor me.”
I watch as Jimmy’s hand pulls away from her and slides up to his arm, covering the X scar that is hidden by the sleeve of his shirt. I know the scar is there, but Aruna probably does not. I have seen him touch the scar before, as if he’s protecting it, at times when he is upset. But I don’t know if he realizes he’s doing it.
That’s not the only scar he has. There’s another one on his leg. It is also a big crooked X. It looks exactly like the one on his arm.
Aruna slowly leans in. She kisses Jimmy once, on the cheek, just barely.
“There it is,” he says triumphantly. And now he’s laughing again.
Jimmy’s a good boy. He always bounces back.
Aruna smiles at him. She takes his hand, and he intertwines his fingers with hers.
Now, watching Jimmy, I wonder if Mother was too hard on him. Did she need to hit him so many times for being messy and careless? It seemed right at the time, the kind of thing a mother should do, but now I’m not so sure. I don’t know exactly what human mothers are supposed to do to get their children to behave.
Mother never hit me. But, of course, I’m a cat. That’s different.
My back twitches, and I jump up and start cleaning myself head to toe. I lick until my neck is sore and my tongue is raw.
Aruna and Jimmy are kind, and they do feed me, but neither one is my mother. I refuse to think bad thoughts about Mother. I don’t know why I suddenly feel so guilty.
I have let my concern for Father distract me. I’m determined to make my plans to go find her.
9
Ten Fingers, Ten Toes
Jimmy and Father are in Finn’s room watching Charlotte do something funny that makes the baby laugh over and over. It’s some silly game with a puppet. I watch from the hallway. Jimmy is laughing so hard that he is crying and holding his stomach, which makes Father laugh too.
I can see Charlotte enjoys this game. She likes the baby’s funny reactions. And I think she loves having an audience.
Charlotte is tall and thin, with brown hair that falls in waves, and there is never a hair out of place. She paints her lips the color of a blushing peach, and today she wears a beautiful necklace with big, shiny white flowers on it. Charlotte smiles sweetly at Father and Jimmy.
I wonder if most of the time Charlotte works with mothers. Perhaps our house is unique in that there is no mother here. In this house, Charlotte is outnumbered by male humans.
I am glad to see that Father and Charlotte are finally relaxed around each other. At first, they were both very formal. I don’t think Father even liked her.
Charlotte is a slightly awkward human, if you ask me. Her gestures are not always smooth, and she makes funny faces, especially at Finn.
But now Father lets his guard down and asks her questions, and he isn’t afraid to make suggestions. Charlotte can be quite goofy, not just with the baby but also apparently with anyone. Something about her makes Father feel comfortable enough to talk. It makes me glad to hear them interacting from wherever I am in the house.
Charlotte makes dramatic faces and sweeping gestures when she’s talking to Finn, and she guides Jimmy and Father so they will teach the baby in the same way. Sometimes I think that baby is making progress, and sometimes I don’t. It’s hard for me to figure out what’s going on and how much that baby is learning.
I had never seen a human baby before, but Finn looks like what I expected. Big head, big eyes, just a few teeth. Ten fingers, ten toes.
Yet something is off. Something about his reaction to the things around him is wrong.
It puzzles me. But I am determined to figure it out.
While the others are still laughing, Mary sweeps up the stairs and stands in Finn’s doorway. Her back is to me, but I can see her arms are tightly folded. It’s the same stance Father takes when he is upset and closing himself off from the world.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
Jimmy explains the game, in hysterics.
“No,” Mary interrupts. “No. What I mean is”—she points at Father—“what are you doing?”
Father looks up at her from where he is sitting on the rug. His face is blank. His mouth opens a little as he tries to think of a reply, but he is mystified. He seems to realize suddenly that Mary is angry about something, as his face opens with surprise.
Mary whips around, her long blond hair flying behind her. She stomps off into her room and closes the door.
Jimmy sits between the two adults. “Don’t get up,” he says, putting one hand on Father’s shoulder and the other on Charlotte’s arm. “She has a bug up her butt about something. I’ll talk to her. Keep working.” Jimmy wipes his hands on his jeans and stands.
He comes out into the hallway, clears his throat, and wipes the smile off his face. He knocks, just once, on Mary’s door before entering. I follow along, on silent paws.
Mary sits on her bed, up by her pillow. Her legs are crossed and her arms still folded.
Jimmy shuts the door behind him and stands in front of her. “What’s the matter with you?”
Mary grits her teeth. “You know what,” she snaps at him.
Jimmy takes a deep breath. His hair is messy, and he’s chewing gum. From my angle on the floor, his head seems to nearly hit the ceiling fan because he has grown so tall.
“Good grief, Mare.” Just like Father sometimes calls Mother Care, he and Jimmy will call Mary Mare. “What’s the one day of the week you see Pops in a good mood?”
He waits, but she does not answer. Mary does not want to play games.
“Let’s see . . . Oh, yeah, that’s right. It’s Thursday. Why is that?” Jimmy pauses again, arms spread in front of him as he make
s everything bigger with gestures. “Do you think it’s because Charlotte visits? I do. And why is he happy? Because she’s really nice. It’s that simple.”
Mary squints at him, looking even angrier.
“You know, Mare . . .” He sighs. “Sometimes people need visitors to remind them how to act. We’re not having a party in there. We’re working with Finn. Pops has had a rough time of it lately, if you hadn’t noticed, and Charlotte makes him happy.” Jimmy shrugs. “Charlotte makes me happy. And she makes Finn happy. She makes us feel like Finn is going to be okay. So you need to get over it.”
“She’s not Ma. Don’t pretend like she is, as if this makes everything better.”
“Of course she’s not Ma. Of course we’re not pretending she’s Ma. It’s got nothin’ to do with Ma.”
Mary frowns down at the bedspread.
“Listen. We all love Ma. But Ma’s not here. And Finn is growing every day. That kid needs help, and Pops needs help. Even I need help. And I’m not afraid to admit it. So leave us alone.”
Mary huffs. “Give me a break. This is all about you now?”
“Mare.” Jimmy sighs. “Yeah, I need help. Why am I not allowed to say that? Ma always loved you best. She thinks you’re perfect. She never took it out on you like she did me and Pops. We need a break, so cut us some slack.”
I see Mary’s hand move slowly toward her bedside table. And then I see the sharp, silver scissors sitting there. I don’t know what Mary is planning to do, but I’m alarmed. Jimmy is still talking, unaware. “Ma always said you got the looks and the talent and the brains in this family, that you’re just as smart as she is.”
“I’m not as smart as she is,” Mary hisses. She grips the scissors now, her hand turning red as she squeezes them in her fist. “I don’t want to be like her at all.”
I leap into action. With one swift push, I am airborne and then land just in front of Mary. She is startled, and then her shoulders relax a bit when we make eye contact.
Jimmy sits next to me on the bed and calmly reaches over me to put his hands around the hand holding the scissors. He pries Mary’s fingers loose one by one. Mary lets him take the scissors without a fight.