Relaxed, I had floated with my eyes tightly shut and felt the soft, sweet water caressing my skin.
“Did you like that?” Patanni asked, once more cradling me.
When I nodded, he let go again. Sinking, I felt only the water slapping against me and the warm descent. Instinctively, without a trace of fear, I began to move my arms and legs. The water swirled around me. Caught in the eddy, my body fluttered like a leaf in the wind. Then Patanni had lifted me up, up, and up, until he was holding me several feet above the water. The sun flashed against my eyes, and air swept into my lungs. “Again!” I had begged him. “Let’s do it again.”
“Again!” I sobbed, now suddenly whipping around and throwing myself across my bed. “Let’s do it again!” I said, crying into my grandmother’s patchwork pillows.
I was crying like this when I felt a hand on my back. “Icy,” Maizy said, gently patting me. “Icy, we’ve gotta talk.”
I turned over. Wet and red-faced. I looked up at her.
“I’m sorry, Icy,” she said. “Dr. Conroy told me this morning.”
“Told you what?” I asked, afraid of her answer.
“I was coming to tell you,” Maizy said, shaking her head, “when Stevie had another one of his accidents. It took me over an hour to clean up the mess.”
“What are you trying to say?” I asked.
“They won’t be coming,” Maizy said softly.
I whimpered, stretched out my arms to push the words away, and fiercely shook my head.
“Dr. Conroy wrote your grandparents, asking them to put off their visit for a little while. She got a call from them this morning and they agreed.”
“No!” I said, hitting at the air. “You promised.”
“It’s only been a few weeks,” Maizy said. “We need a little more time. We’ve got to get to know you.”
“But you do know me,” I whined.
“Not well enough,” she explained. “Give us just a little more time.”
“But how much time?” I asked angrily.
“Not too much,” she said. “Before you know it, they’ll be here.”
Clenching my jaw, I shook my head, wiped my face, and yelled, “You’re lying! You’re all just a bunch of liars!”
“Now, Icy!” Maizy was saying.
“Don’t you ‘now, Icy’ me!” I said. “You, pretending to be my friend. You ain’t no better than Gordie. Trying to be someone you ain’t.”
“Please listen, Icy!” Maizy said, grabbing my hands. “I promise, this wasn’t my idea. I told Dr. Conroy, ‘Look here, Icy needs to see her grandparents.’” She squeezed my fingers tightly. “But I’m just an aide. No one listens to me,” she said, biting at her lower lip. “That’s the truth, Icy Gal. I promise, on my granny’s grave, I’d never hurt you.”
“Just go!” I said, jerking my hands away. “I don’t want to talk to you right now.”
With a sad look in her eyes, Maizy said not another word. She simply stroked the edge of my mattress, as though it were my cheek, turned around, and walked away.
But I was too hurt to care about her feelings. For weeks I had waited for them to come and get me. In my bed at night, I had looked up at the ceiling and remembered winters on our farm. Matanni always gained weight while Patanni grew thinner. With my covers pulled up around me, I had smelled them both—the sweat and dirt beneath his skin; the flour and yeast beneath hers.
In the thick crack that ran along the wall near the windowsill, I had envisioned the forested hillside that protected our farm from the harsh northerly winds. In my mind’s eye, I had imagined our white clapboard house looking like an igloo in the snow, and had seen myself, all cozy in my bed, listening to winter’s stillness, hearing a twig as it cracked through the silence. Back home, the sounds of snow were forlorn and disturbing. Coldness, I knew, was not impassive. Ice clinked. A tree limb split and drums resounded.
Every night, I had dreamt about home, knowing that my grandparents would come soon, wrap their arms around me, and take me away. But they had not come. In this sterile blue room, winter was mute. When the snow finally came, it would creep silently. Tree limbs would not fracture. Twigs would not cry out. Like a dense fog, the snow would sneak up and fall upon us, and I would be trapped inside these yellow stucco walls.
Listening to the absolute silence, I cried until I could cry no longer, until exhaustion swam over me, until only rasps came from my mouth. Still, silence was better than speech. Already I knew the truth. Words were just stone-cold syllables strung together. Talking was about as meaningful as Maizy’s vow to be my friend, as her promise to never hurt me. Promises, I had learned, meant nothing more than Reid’s chirping, Rose’s cackling, my croaking after a long, difficult day. Only a deep dreamless sleep—dark, silent, and empty of promises—had the power to calm me now.
“Icy, I know you’re in there,” Dr. Conroy said, knocking at my door. Having spent a miserable night, I didn’t want to see her. After all, she was responsible for the scary dreams that had kept me awake. I wasn’t about to ask her inside.
“Whether you want me to or not, I’m coming in.” She eased open the door and peeked inside.
With arms crossed over my chest and legs shoulder-width apart, I stood in front of my bed and glared as she ventured through the doorway. “I don’t want you here,” I said. “If I can’t see my grandparents, I don’t want to see anybody, especially not you.”
Dr. Conroy walked toward me, saying, “Believe it or not, I understand how you feel.”
“How could you?” I argued. “They’re not your grandparents.”
“But I do,” she said softly.
“Well, I don’t believe you,” I said. “You promised my folks could come, then changed your mind.”
“I had to,” she said, stopping right in front of me.
I kept my arms folded over my chest and said, “I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“Oh, yes, you were,” she said, laughing.
“Take that back,” I said, stomping forward, almost stepping on her toes.
She inched back. “Compared to me, you were born yesterday.”
I swung my head and snorted, “After all your talk about telling the truth, you ain’t nothing but a damn liar.”
She walked over to the rocking chair situated in the center of the blue rug and sat down. “Come here,” she said, tapping the arm. “I want to talk to you.”
“I got nothing to say.”
She began laughing again. “That’ll be the day,” she said. “Now come here.”
I trudged over to the blue rug.
“Sit down,” she ordered.
I squatted down on my calves at the edge of the rug, as far away from her as I could possibly get.
“Icy, we need more time with you,” she said. “More time before your grandparents come.”
“How come?” I snapped.
“’Cause we need to understand what’s wrong with you,” she explained. “We need to understand your disorder.” She stressed the last word. “We’ve got to tell your folks something, and right now we don’t know what to say.”
“There ain’t nothing wrong with me,” I said.
“Now, you know that’s not true,” she said, clicking her tongue against her teeth.
“I ain’t like Head Butt-er.”
“Who?”
“Head Butt-er!” I said.
“Gordie?”
I nodded. “And I ain’t like Ace or Reid or Rose.”
“That’s right.” She drummed her fingers against the wooden arm. “That’s why understanding you is so hard. You’re not like the others.”
“So let me go home,” I said.
“We can’t,” Dr. Conroy said. “At least, not yet.”
“So let my folks come and see me,” I said.
“We can’t,” she repeated. “Not yet.”
“If you act this way,” I said, “I’ll close up like a turtle, and you won’t ever understand me.”
“But that wou
ld be defeating your purpose,” she said quietly. “You want to go home, don’t you?”
I bit my lip and glowered at her.
“The sooner you let us get to know you, the quicker we’ll be able to help you so you can go home.”
“For Christmas?” I asked.
“Maybe,” she said.
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “You’ll skin me out of Christmas.”
“We’ve got to get to know you better,” she replied.
“What is there to know?” I said.
“Well…” she hesitated momentarily, then continued, “I’d like to understand why you spoke so harshly to Wilma the other day.”
The muscles in my legs tightened. “What?” I asked, my face drawing up.
“You heard me.”
“I wasn’t so mean to her,” I said.
“Let me see.” She squinted her eyes as though she were struggling to remember. “Wilma told me what you said. If my memory serves me, you called her ugly, said that she was uglier than a mud fence.”
“I might of,” I said.
“Out of nowhere, she said, you lit into her, called her names, and acted like a crazy person.”
“I called her ugly, if that’s what you mean.”
“Why?” she asked. “How could you be so unkind? She can’t help how she looks.”
“But she can help how she acts,” I said. “Pretty is as pretty does.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying she’s spiteful,” I said. “She was making fun of Ace. So I—I got mad at her.”
“How was she making fun of him?”
“She came up to him, pointed right at the woman he was drawing, and, real mean-like, called her ‘Miss August.’ Said that she was just some girl from a girlie magazine, not actually his mama.”
“Go on.”
“‘His folks never visit,’ she said. ‘I thought he was drawing a likeness of his mother, the woman who created this.’ When she said ‘this,’ she jabbed Ace in the shoulder with her finger.”
“No one’s ever complained about Wilma,” Dr. Conroy said.
“’Cause everyone’s scared of her,” I said.
“Oh?” Dr. Conroy leaned forward; the rocker squeaked.
“Her favorite pastime is pulling the legs off grasshoppers. She shoots sparrows with her brother’s .410, and she drowns kittens in a tub of water.”
“What else?”
“Once I caught her brushing Deirdre’s teeth with a hairbrush. She’s jealous of Deirdre. Hates that she has a pretty name.”
“Doesn’t she like her own name?” Dr. Conroy asked.
“Would you?” I said, cocking my head to one side, opening wide my eyes.
“What’s wrong with Wilma?” she asked.
“W-I-L-M-A.” I growled out the sound of each letter. “Listen to it! W-I-L-M-A!” I rocked forward on my knees. “I wouldn’t want a name like that.”
“‘What’s in a name?’” Dr. Conroy recited. “‘That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Shakespeare,” she answered. “It doesn’t matter what something is called. It matters only how something is.”
“Wilma is something bad,” I said vehemently. “She’s bad, and her name’s bad—low down and ugly.”
Dr. Conroy was quiet before putting her hands squarely on the chair’s arms, leaning so far forward that she looked like she might tip over, and saying in a stern voice, “Icy, how would you know what Wilma does? Have you ever seen her drown kittens in a tub of water?”
My mouth fell open. “N-n-o, ma’am,” I stammered, realizing that I had stated fantasy for fact. “I mean, I ain’t seen her do those things, but I bet she does.”
“Imagining something doesn’t make it true.”
“Well, I didn’t imagine her making fun of Ace, and I didn’t imagine her brushing Deirdre’s teeth with a hairbrush. I saw her do those things with my very own eyes.”
“Why should I believe those things when you lied about the others?” she said.
“’Cause they’re true,” I said adamantly.
“But Maizy’s never complained about Wilma,” Dr. Conroy added. “If she saw Wilma doing something she shouldn’t, don’t you think she would?”
“Maizy’s afraid of her,” I said. “Even Delbert’s scared of her and so is Tiny.”
“Icy.” Dr. Conroy shook her head. “Know what I think?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“I think you’re scared of Wilma. Not everybody, just you. That’s why you make up stories about her.”
I could feel my face burning with hurt and rage. Even the skin on my arms turned crimson. Digging my fingers into the fluffy blue rug, I began to shake all over. Curse words zoomed through my brain, banged against my skull, and demanded to get out. I stretched out my neck. My eyes leaped forward. Sweat rolled down my forehead. “Pot calling the kettle black. Damn liar! Goddamned liar! Shit and piss on you! Shit and piss….”
Dr. Conroy leaped from the rocker. With one large step, she was in front of me, scooping me into her arms. “It’s okay, Icy,” she said, holding me against her chest. “It’s okay.”
But I couldn’t hush. The curses kept coming—louder and angrier—until, exhausted, I slumped against her shoulder and sobbed.
Sitting on the fluffy blue rug, I experienced the deadening calm which comes after any good cry and the relief of feeling nothing. After five minutes, though, the numbness faded, and the first traces of panic set in. “Lordy sakes!” I said out loud. “What have I done!” I jumped up, nervously wringing my hands. Like a record player stuck in a groove, my mind replayed each moment with Dr. Conroy. I heard myself screaming, “Pot calling the kettle black. Damn liar! Goddamned liar! Shit and piss on you!” I dug my fingernails into my hands. Blood trickled over my skin. Red blood as punishment, I thought, staring at the droplets. Red stains of sin. Oh, God! I thought. What will become of me now? Dr. Conroy will think I’m crazy, and I’ll never get to leave this place! “Lordy mercy!” I said. “She thinks I told tall tales on Wilma.” What’ll I do? I asked myself. What’ll I do? I paced around the room; my heart ping-ponged against my chest; my breathing grew shallow. “What’ll I do?” I whispered. “What’ll I do about my disorder?” Panic-stricken, I paused in front of my stack of books, bent over, and, out of the blue, grabbed the dictionary which Mr. Wooten had loaned me.
Breathing in calmly, I tried to steady myself and focus on the task at hand. “Don’t worry, Icy!” I said, reassuring myself. “Everyone here has a disorder, but you’re not like everyone here.” I wondered about the word’s meaning and about how the meaning could apply to me. “Icy, we need to understand your disorder,” Dr. Conroy had said. This was the reason they gave for not letting me go home, for not letting my grandparents come to see me. I had a disorder, yet I was not a disorderly person. My room was clean and tidy—not as tidy as Dr. Conroy’s office, but tidy, nonetheless.
Resolved, I sat down on the floor, opened the dictionary, and quickly turned the pages until I came to the d’s, then I slowly flipped over each page until I located the word I was looking for—disorder. According to the Webster’s in front of me, disorder meant “a lack of order, disarrangement, confusion.” None of these words described me. So my eyes followed my finger down the column until they came to the phrases “a breach of order, disorderly conduct, a public disturbance.” These definitions, I realized, spelled trouble. Even the following one—“a derangement of physical or mental health or functions”—seemed bad. Determined to find a more positive meaning, I switched tactics and decided to concentrate on disorder the verb. “To derange the physical or mental health or functions of,” the dictionary said. This meaning sounded worse than the one before it. I was really worried.
Alarmed, I scanned what was left of the column; all at once, the word synonyms caught my attention. Miss Emily had taught me all about these words with similar
meanings. “Brawl, disturbance, uproar,” I read. Gasping, I closed my eyes and saw clearly the writing on the wall. “Pot calling the kettle black. Damn liar! Goddamned liar! Shit and piss on you!” I had screamed. With my eyes still shut, I quietly closed the Webster’s. “It’s true,” I whispered, flicking open my eyes. “I can brawl with the best of them.” My eyes took in the insipid curtains, the pink dresser, and the flag-painted rocker. “I’ll never leave this place,” I cried.
At that moment, as if by design, I spotted the heating vent in the baseboard near my dresser. I stood, and with the dictionary in my hands, walked over to the vent and placed the book on the floor. Loosening the screws, I pried open the vent’s cover with my fingers. The space behind the cover was large, large enough for my dictionary; so I shoved the book inside, replaced the grated cover, secured the screws, and sighed. Only I would be privy to this damning definition, I thought. My disorder was now hidden away.
On the floor, near the window, rearranging my stack of books, sat Gordie. From the doorway, I watched as he frantically picked up one of the thickest, glanced at its cover, then, exasperated, shoved it between two others. Immediately his hand moved toward another book, wedged in the center of the second pile. It was my book on Kentucky wildflowers, the one which Miss Emily had given me. After he pulled it out, he looked at the title, made a grunting noise, and slammed it back on top. He’s looking for my dictionary, I thought, all at once realizing what he was doing.
Then, abruptly, he jumped up, stared at the closet, and headed toward it. Just as he was about to put his hand on the doorknob, I cranked up my courage, strode noisily into the room, and announced. “This is my room, not yours.”
He pivoted on his heels, quickly facing me.
Determined, I stared into his angry black eyes, shook my head ferociously, and snarled, “This is my room. Those are my books. You better get!”
He scrunched up his forehead and swayed forward. His face glowed purple. His nostrils flared. His lips jutted outward. His forehead twitched.
Icy Sparks Page 17