The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac

by Kris D'Agostino

  “If he didn’t sit around feeling sorry for himself,” I say, “he might actually get better.”

  “You’ll come with me?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  I try to imagine her in six months: swollen belly contrasted against her thin frame and angled features. I’m waiting for her to say something to make me feel better about my situation. I’m waiting for her to tell me everything will be okay. And then she does.

  “It won’t last,” she says. “Whatever it is you’re afraid you’ll get yourself into. It won’t last. Nothing does.”

  “But how much time will I lose in the process?”

  “One day you might look back and be happy you have the memories.”

  “I don’t know what I’m afraid of,” I say.

  “It’s more than just the house,” she says.

  “When did you get so smart?” I say, giving her a little nudge with my shoulder.

  “I was born this way.”

  My sister is a person who can enjoy the present. Something I have never been able to do. I am always too focused on the future, even when I have no idea what the future has in store. She is right, though. It is beautiful here and I don’t want to ruin the moment by talking too much. So I shut up. I look at my sister. I’ll help, I decide. Finding a new job is the solution. Keep saving money. Give the money to them. To the house. To whatever they want to put it toward. I will do the selfless thing. For once. I will do the thing my instincts tell me not to do. The right thing.

  Gabby is beside us now.

  “We’re on top of the world here,” she says.

  “I wish I had a throne to sit on,” Doug M. is yelling behind us, his arms raised in triumph.

  “We better head back to the car before it gets too dark,” I say, but I am the last one to start walking.

  EVERYONE EXPRESSES HIS or her concern. At work, Georgie informs me that my father is in his prayers. Georgie tells me this during music time with Tony. He leans over. In a hushed voice, says, “He’s in my prayers, dog.” Georgie hits his chest a few times, indicating roughly the placement of his heart.

  “You’re in mine,” I say. This confuses Georgie and he turns his attention back to Tony, back to the guitar and singing.

  In the front room, with its colored paper over the windows, Arham and I sit staring at each other in silence. Angela and Hendrick are hard at work across the rug.

  “You ready to do some learning?” I ask the little man.

  “Yeah,” Arham says. He is smiling from ear to ear. I take the lap desk off the floor and place it across my thighs.

  “Numbers or colors?” I ask.

  “Colors,” he says. “Peepee?”

  “Colors it is,” I say. “No peepee.”

  Arham nods, as if everything makes sense to him. I hold up the first card. A red triangle.

  “Triangle,” he says. His eyes go slightly cross for a brief second.

  “Red,” I say. I put the card down on the lap desk and then pick it up again. Arham looks at it, licking his lips.

  “Red,” he says.

  “Good job, buddy,” I say. “Good job.” I hand him a large piece of Oreo cookie, which he inhales with one chomp of his tiny jaws. We continue through the exercise. Out of twenty examples, Arham gets fifteen correct. Not bad. When we finish, he is slumping slightly in his seat. His head lolling with exhaustion. Our day is almost over and he is tired.

  “We can stop,” I say to him.

  “Peepee?” he asks. I think he is telling the truth. Usually when there is no task at hand for him to get out of doing, a request for peepee can be taken seriously.

  “Okay,” I say. “Let’s go.” I put the lap desk and cards on the ground and close the rewards container. I start to stand up, but the little man has other things in mind.

  “Hug,” he says. He springs out of his seat, throwing his arms around my neck, smooshing his face against mine. I can smell a nauseating mixture of Cheetos and cookies. I lose my balance and we both fall to the ground, laughing. He is cracking up.

  “Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,” he is saying. Over and over again. He rolls away from me, giggling. The sun shining through the craft-papered windows is blue and green and red and it casts colored light on his face and hair. He takes my hand and leads me to the bathroom. Fortunately for me, Arham is capable of peeing without assistance. His parents make sure to dress him solely in sweatpants and sweatshirts, easy elastic waistbands. No confusing buttons or strings or zippers. Today he is wearing New York Jets contraband and, of course, his favorite pair of hand-me-down shoes, pink ballet slippers that once belonged to his older sister.

  << 15 >>

  Everything appears to be in its proper place. Two sets of glass doors separating isolation room from hallway. Two sets of glass doors segregating germs and microbes and other unwanted particles from the sterile bubble he now dwells inside.

  On my way from the elevator, a nurse with a soft smile and vacant eyes hands me a plastic bag containing all the necessary attire to wear while visiting. I feel silly in the latex gloves, mask, and cloth booties. I look at my reflection in the doors and am embarrassed that I still dress like a teenager: dirty jeans, T-shirt. I spend a couple of seconds trying to get the surgical cap to look right, but my head is too small, my hair too greasy.

  I go in.

  I look at him. He’s drifting in and out of sleep. The Food Network blasts at top volume from the TV bolted to the ceiling. I take the remote and lower the sound to a respectable background level. He doesn’t seem to notice me at first. His face is gaunt. His eyes are sunken farther back in his head. His head is smooth peach fuzz. His skin has turned that jaundiced color I thought was reserved only for the dead. The room smells clean, antiseptic. It makes me slightly nauseated.

  “Calvin,” my father says. He pats a free space on the mattress next to him.

  “I’ll just sit here,” I tell him, lowering myself into a chair near the windows. His new view isn’t as spectacular as the first room he was in. York Avenue and the east side of Sloan-Kettering have replaced the looming span of the Queensboro Bridge. “How’re you feeling?” I ask him. He makes a face like he doesn’t know how he feels and for a while we don’t say anything to one another. Every so often he moans.

  “Oh God,” he says.

  “Oh God what?” I ask.

  “I’m dying,” he says.

  “Jesus Christ, Dad,” I say. “You’re not dying. You’re gonna be fine, just stop talking like that. It’s in your mind. The doctors are saying it worked.”

  “Eh,” he says.

  We both turn our attention to the television and watch the tail end of an Iron Chef episode. I can hear him start to snore. He is asleep. I stand and walk to the window, look at traffic below. When I lean my head against the glass, I can see all the way up York Avenue into Spanish Harlem.

  On the nightstand next to his bed, there are a bunch of “get well” cards my mother has arranged into a shrine, along with some books on spiritual well-being she has purchased for him. He refuses to even glance at them, but it doesn’t matter, my mother feels satisfied simply because the books are in his presence, as if by some miracle the information contained on their pages will permeate my father’s brain while he is sleeping. Underneath, I can see the notebook she gave him when we first came to the hospital. There are drips of dried paint across the front of it and a pen closed within, marking the place where he last wrote. I remember him saying he would never use the notebook. I open it. There are at least twenty pages of entries, including an extensive list of songs he would like played at his funeral. He’s also made some watercolor sketches and penned numerous lines of poetry and a short essay about his favorite corkscrew.

  As I read these things, I feel like I’m trespassing.

  When I was twelve years old I found some nudie mags in the closet of my parents’ bedroom. I don’t know why I had gone in there in the first place, but once inside, I became exhilarated. I kept one ear always on the door, liste
ning for footsteps on the stairs. The magazines were in a cardboard box under some blankets. When I found them, I felt like I was invading my father’s privacy. Even though I don’t put the notebook down, I have that same feeling now.

  The sound of someone else in the room startles me out of my thoughts. It’s Elissa. She is holding one of the green surgical caps in her hands. She slides nervously through the door. Her feet, encased in the sterile booties, make a soft whooshing sound as she walks. I put the notebook back where I found it and return to my chair.

  “How’s he doing?” she asks.

  “The same,” I say, not really knowing what that means. “I think you’re supposed to put that on.”

  “It looks so stupid,” she says, smiling, putting the cap over her hair and tucking her ponytail up into the back of it.

  “You look great, sweetie,” our father says. He is awake again. His face brightens in Elissa’s presence and he pats the empty space beside him, just as he had when I came in the room. Elissa goes directly to him. She hugs his dwindling body and takes his hand in hers.

  “Rub my back,” he pleads. “It’s fucking killing me.” He rolls slightly onto his side and looks over his shoulder at her like a needy child.

  “Okay, Dad,” she says. “Just for a little while, though.” She kneads her hands over his shoulders and squeezes in the places he tells her. He groans in ecstatic pain.

  “You couldn’t pay me to do that,” I say.

  “You don’t care about me,” my father says.

  “Oh, I care about you,” I say. “Just not enough to touch you.”

  When Elissa finishes rubbing his back, she turns to me and says, “I was wondering if I could talk to Dad alone for a little while.” My cue to exit.

  “Yeah, sure,” I say, standing up. “I’m hungry anyway.”

  I am nervous for her. For all of us. I hope he takes it well.

  “Do you guys need anything from the cafeteria?” I ask.

  “I’m fine,” Elissa says. Her face has taken on the soft, girlish qualities she seems able to summon at will for just such delicate situations as this. I’m sure it won’t be the last time she delivers bad news to our father.

  “WHAT DID HE DO?” I ask as I drive her to school.

  “He cried for a while,” Elissa says. “But I’m not sure he was crying about the baby.”

  “He wasn’t angry?” I ask.

  “No,” she says.

  “What exactly did you say to him, though? What were the words you used?”

  “I told him he was going to be a grandfather,” she says. She holds her backpack in her lap. Her face looks like it’s gotten a little puffier. Aside from that, she is unchanged. She pulls a package of Twinkies out of her bag and shovels them into her mouth.

  “Jeez, Elissa,” I say.

  “It’s unreal how much I’ve been eating,” she says. “Ever since the morning sickness stopped, my appetite is enormous.”

  “Pregnancy will do that,” I tell her.

  << 16 >>

  I make a list of everything in the attic:

  Boxes and boxes and boxes. An old rocking horse. A high chair with a little white steering wheel. Toy soldiers covered in dust. Stacks of framed pictures. Grandma and Grandpa on the shores of Cape Cod. Chip, Elissa, and me in front of the Louvre. Our parents’ wedding. Birthdays. Graduations. Proms. Hundreds of thirty-five-millimeter slides, just everywhere. Major moments. Frozen time. Milk crates full of my father’s record collection (which I ransacked for any decent albums long ago). A dresser full of winter attire. Wool sweaters, hats, scarves, gloves, snow pants, ski boots, skis. Old stereo components in various stages of disrepair. Luggage, so much luggage. Heaps of decorations: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Valentine’s Day. My mother decorates the house almost weekly—there is always something to celebrate. An old television set with a thirteen-channel dial. Magazines piled in a loose mound, saved for some unknown purpose. File cabinets stuffed with papers. Notebooks. Textbooks. Cookbooks. Letters. Folding chairs. Blankets. Cobwebs.

  I find solace in the attic. There are so many boxes up here.

  I kneel before a bookshelf on the far wall, near the only window. I feel dust in the back of my throat. I open the window. It’s barely big enough to stick my head out, but the breeze feels good against the stale air. I take the lid off a cardboard box labeled Calvin School Stuff. Inside are report cards, standardized test scores, photos, book reports, drawings from art class. Anything my mother could get her hands on and preserve. Ours is a house where nothing is ever thrown away. Everything is sacred, irreplaceable, of possible future use. I lay out a series of class pictures spanning from second to fifth grade. Chris Hillman and I went to Siwanoy Elementary together. In all the photos he is seated two or three kids away from me, his blond hair tightly cropped, combed nicely to one side. His smile seems to exude and embrace his nerdiness. I remember his valedictory speech, outlining the merits of social responsibility, the importance of community. He’ll be a lawyer soon. And a husband. I heard his fiancée’s parents are helping them buy a house in Nanuet, across the Tappan Zee.

  There were others who’d come up the educational ranks with me. Christian Rafelson joined the navy right out of high school. Tara Walsh—married at twenty-two, kid at twenty-three—went to cosmetology school and works at a salon in White Plains. Peter Wells, captain of the varsity hockey team, selling real estate in San Diego. Monica Pearce, tall, blond, extremely attractive, the wellspring of many a nighttime jerk-off session, still tall, blond, and extremely attractive, married to a douche bag, working at a PR firm in Manhattan, living in a two-bedroom off the park, purchased for her by her parents as a wedding gift. There’s a good chance I’m the sole alumnus from Sleepy Hollow Memorial High School’s graduating class of 2000 who’s living back home with nothing to show for his life.

  Thinking about all of this tips the seesaw on its never-ending back-and-forth journey between staying and going. I’m still convinced I need to take the altruistic route. Give what little I save to my mother, to my father, even to Chip. Keep the house. Keep a place for Elissa to bring the baby home to.

  Of course, I waver in my conviction. The seesaw has two sides. I’m jealous of anyone who doesn’t have money problems. Or health problems. Or both. I’m jealous even of my classmates who seem to have set up miserable lives for themselves. At least they have lives. I’m convinced of this. Any life is better than aimlessness. I should just move out. They’ll be fine without me. And the seesaw floats up, up, up, toward hopefulness, toward the feeling that tells me everything will be okay. I can find a better job. I can help them keep the house. Between Chip helping and Elissa and me and 40 percent of my father’s salary, the mortgage will get paid. And he’ll get better. He’ll be fine. They’ll all be fine. The baby will be the catalyst for love in this house. It won’t have to fall on my shoulders.

  I go to the well-used file cabinet—the place where my mother archives all the financial papers that cross her desk.

  From a folder labeled Winter ’06 I pull a sheaf of mortgage bills, half of which are second and third notices. It looks like she’s rolled the school taxes and property taxes into the house—$9,455 is the average amount of each bill. I find a letter, written by her, asking the bank to wave the late fees, explaining about my father’s illness and the loss of the majority of his salary. It isn’t just mortgage bills either. There is life insurance. Gas and electric from Con Ed. Credit card bills. Landscaping. Snow removal. Spraying of the trees for insects. Emergency hospital visits. Planned hospital visits. MRIs. CAT scans. Chemo. There’s even a bill for the wig she bought him, which of course he had nearly peed his pants laughing over and refused to wear.

  She’s got things pretty well organized. I can follow the papers on the house back three years (a length of time suggested by the IRS) and see how my parents fell back on their home equity line of credit to pay for things like college tuition, vacations, various credit card debts, and, most recently, those
portions of his medical bills not covered by insurance. The whole mess is daunting. It sprawls beyond even my grasp of what the word debt means. At this point, the house, which they purchased in 1992 for $299K, has appreciated to $1.2 million, but they owe nearly that much, so even if they sold tomorrow, they’d walk away with barely anything. And just as quickly, the seesaw reaches the top of its fulcrum and the weight of it all sends my whole thought process in the opposite direction. No amount of money I save will make a difference. In all likelihood it’s past any sort of fixable state. Still, it isn’t about that. It’s about being more present. It’s about making myself available. Or at least trying to make myself available. Whatever I give is really just a symbol.

  I take a last look at all the papers. There is one bill, from the Yonkers Water Company, for $312.67. It’s a third notice and some kind of warning is attached. Two quarterly statements my mother hasn’t gotten around to paying. It may have been missed in the deluge of invoices she encounters.

  I put the other bills back in their folders. I close the drawers of the file cabinet. I fold the water company invoice and put it in my back pocket.

  I go back to my bedroom. I can’t sleep, so I put things in the notebook. I concentrate to make straight freehand lines. I use a fine-point Sharpie to draw tiny floor plans of our house. I make sure to include window and door positions, staircases, cabinets, the kitchen and dining room tables, televisions. I indicate the location of each and every paper S with small red stars. I tally fifty-three in total. Fifty-three indicators of safety. Spheres of well-being. I wonder if at this point he even notices these small reminders to stay positive, wear a smile.

  I take the letter he wrote me from my sock drawer. The one where he said he felt closer to the end of his life than to the beginning. I cut out the words, trim them as close and tidy as I can with a scissors, and paste them into the notebook.

  I start a new section. A section dedicated to the breakdown of expenses for our household. I title it “Family Finances.” I try to determine everything we are paying for that isn’t absolutely necessary. To identify where, if possible, we can cut back on spending. Try to embark on some sort of family-wide savings plan. It is a sense of guilt and dread and confusion driving me to do this. It isn’t long before I’m overcome with fatigue and crawl into bed.