The Slippery Year

by Melanie Gideon

  “Julian,” says Sara, “show Auntie Mel and Ben your new glasses. You know Auntie Mel wore glasses? From the time she was in second grade.”

  “Yes, that’s true,” I confirm. “I am basically blind. But you’re not blind. You’re just a little nearsighted, right?”

  “Farsighted. We had no idea he couldn’t see,” Sara whispers to me.

  That’s what my parents said about me, too. Turns out I wasn’t lazy and not living up to my potential. I was just lazy.

  Julian steps forward wearing navy blue glasses that magnify his eyes so they look enormous.

  “How many fingers?” says Ben, holding up his hand.

  “Eighty-two,” says Julian. “What’s in the bag?” he asks, pointing to my carry-on.

  Of course, he’s looking for his present, which I haven’t bought yet. I am the kind of auntie who buys presents in the local drugstore of the niece or nephew who is expecting the present.

  “Bodhi,” says Ben.

  “Bodhi the D-O-G,” says Sara, looking horrified.

  “Yes, the D-O-G,” I spell it out, too. “He D-I-E-D and we’ve brought him home to B-U-R-Y-H-I-M.”

  “J-E-S-U-S, that’s horrible. Ben, I’m so sorry,” says Sara.

  “I don’t think you have to spell Jesus. When somebody Jewish says Jesus she’s not swearing, right?” I ask. “Because Jesus is not your lord and savior so you’re not taking his name in vain.”

  Sara sighs. Back when she got married she and her husband struck a deal that I’m sure seemed eminently doable in the throes of new love. She would convert to Judaism and in return he would take her last name. He followed through on his part of the bargain, but seeing as they hosted Christmas at their house last year I’m not so sure how she’s holding up on hers.

  “So it’s just the two of you? No husband?” Sara asks.

  “He’ll be coming in a week,” I say.

  “Great, we’ll have some girl time,” she says. “Ben, you’ve had a very long day. Would you like some granola? It just came out of the oven.”

  Ben follows her into the kitchen, a look of wonder on his face as if he’s just wandered into a fairy tale. I know exactly what’s going through his head. Why can’t I live here—in a house where mothers make homemade granola and children awake rested and happy from afternoon naps?

  “I used to make you granola,” I say to him.

  “You did? I don’t remember that.”

  “Well, nobody remembers anything from when they were two.”

  The great thing about sisters is you can look at their lives and imagine this could have been you if you had just made different choices. Lived in a different city. Had a little more of the mother gene. Stuck it out in gymnastics, or finished War and Peace.

  I watch Sara bustling around the kitchen while her infant daughter sits on the rug at her feet and babbles happily and her sons chase one another around the dining room table. I know how Ben feels because I feel the same way. We are both wondering Is this what a normal family looks like?

  Maybe this is what every woman does when in the presence of another family. She rates her happiness, her irritations—the richness of her life—her joy. And she thinks about children or the lack thereof. Did zero turn out to be the perfect number? Or two, or three, or four? Do those with one wish they had two? Do those with two secretly wish they had stopped at one? All I know is that when I play this game I always come up with the wrong number. I suspect I am not alone in this.

  Before dinner, Julian and I have some quiet nephew/auntie time on the couch. Because I haven’t seen him for a year we have to get to know each other all over again, and this is tricky. Julian is no pushover. He’s a typical oldest child—he makes you work for it. I’ve taken out my contacts because they were bothering me and put on my glasses.

  “We’re twins,” I say to him, trying to find some common ground. “Look at us. Two four-eyes.”

  He stares at me intently, then kicks my ankle.

  “Please don’t kick my ankle,” I say.

  Last summer was the summer of Please don’t spit on me, people don’t appreciate it when you spit on them, stop spitting, stop spitting on me now, goddamn it! Oops, look at that, I accidentally spit on you while I was yelling. How does it feel to get spat on? Isn’t this a fun game? A fun, secret game that we should never tell Mommy or Daddy about? Oh, don’t cry. Why are you crying? Sara, I have no idea why Julian’s crying. I think he’s hungry. Why don’t you give him some of that fine granola that you just made?

  I’m really hoping Julian doesn’t remember last summer. Perhaps he couldn’t see me back then. Perhaps I was just a blur and the reason he spat at me was to distinguish between my being a person or a rocking chair. Better yet, maybe he thought I was Auntie Dawn. Yes, that was it. Auntie Dawn was the aunt who spat on him.

  “So what’s it like having a baby sister?” I ask. “Is it just so much fun?”

  He spits on me and runs from the room.

  “Did he just spit on you?” says Sara, coming into the room.

  “I’m sure it was an accident,” I say.

  “Josie is a touchy subject,” she says, handing me a dish towel. “It’s been quite an adjustment. I have to watch the boys every minute. A week ago I caught Alek trying to smother her with a pillow.”

  “Is that normal?” I ask, for the moment feeling very sure that one child is the right number.

  “Apparently so. I asked Mom. She said the three of you used to try and murder each other all the time. Dawn in particular. She was a biter.”

  “And a spitter,” I say.

  “Really? That must be where Julian gets it from.”

  “She probably taught him. They probably played spitting games,” I say. “Last summer, for instance.”

  We hear Josie scream, a thud and then the pitter-patter of small footsteps fleeing the scene of the crime.

  “Alek!” hollers Sara and runs off.

  Saved by Alek—that little troublemaker. How I love middle children: their slyness, their deviousness—their charm. I am a middle child, well, sort of, if you count Dawn and me as one. What people don’t understand about middle children is that when you’ve got no standing to lose you are free.

  At 5:30 sharp we carry bowls of corn, salad and pasta outside on the deck. I feel a little bit stoned, having spent the afternoon playing Sorry and reading Ferdinand the Bull, all the time knowing exactly what lies ahead—bedtime at seven and waffles in the morning. I could be another child in Sara’s house. I could relinquish everything to her and it would just be taken care of.

  “I would like to be your kid,” I tell her, which is a strange thing to say because Sara is eight years younger than me. “You could adopt me,” I say.

  “Or you could move back to Freeport,” she says.

  Sara’s husband, whom I adore, who happens to have the same first name as my son and my husband and the same last name as me (it’s confusing, so mostly I call him Hey) brings me a beer and some mosquito repellant.

  “Don’t you miss Maine?” he asks.

  “Desperately,” I say, as I spray myself head to toe with Off.

  “We got a new zapper,” he says. “Don’t overdo it.”

  The zapping sound is straight from my childhood; it’s the sound of the New England suburbs circa 1976. I inhale deeply—the mossy stone walls, Queen Anne’s lace, freshly cut grass—and something inside me rests in a way I never am able to in California. The West Coast is larger than life: an epic landscape that bowls you over with its grandeur. Maine’s beauty is more personal. You can grab hold of it.

  Sara slides Josie into an ExerSaucer.

  “Do you think it’s okay that I put her in there? This thing is a lifesaver. I never used it with the boys.”

  “How could it not be okay? Look at how happy she is,” I say. Josie shrieks with delight and begins bouncing away. “Plus she’s working off that baby fat.”

  My tiny sister gave birth to a baby that weighed nearly ten pounds. Josie s
till has rolls of fat around her ankles, her knees and the back of her neck. It’s a very charming look. Provided you are nine months old.

  “We had an ExerSaucer, a baby swing and a jumper for Ben,” I say.

  “A jumper?” says Sara. “Aren’t they dangerous?”

  I shrug. “Ben turned out okay, other than bouncing on his toes when he eats or takes a spelling test.”

  We have a long, leisurely dinner. The boys play in the yard. We have a second and then a third round of beers. And then we remember Josie, who is still in the saucer.

  “Oh my God, she’s been in there so long,” says Sara.

  Sara’s husband lifts her out and when he does he finds she’s had a little accident. Okay, a big accident. Not only is she covered in poop, but so are the fabric sling and the ExerSaucer. I would like to be the kind of aunt for whom an explosive bowel movement is not a big deal, but unfortunately I’m not. They aren’t going to ask me to help, are they? I get up quickly and begin clearing the table, while Sara and her husband negotiate the triage.

  “I’ll give her a bath, you clean the saucer,” says her husband.

  Clearly Sara’s stuck with the more disgusting job, but she goes at it like a pro. She unsnaps the sling, folds it in thirds and disappears into the laundry room. A few minutes later Sara’s husband comes downstairs with Josie wrapped in a hooded towel.

  “Sweet girl,” I croon. “Are you all cleaned up?”

  She babbles at me, and Sara’s husband beams.

  “Isn’t she gorgeous?” he asks.

  “She is. She’s the most beautiful baby,” I say.

  Sara comes back from the laundry room and makes a beeline for Josie, kissing her on the cheek. Her face sours.

  “Did you give her a bath?” she says.

  “Yes, of course I gave her a bath,” says her husband. “Can’t you see she’s all wet? She’s dripping.”

  “Did you wash her hair?”

  “Sure, I washed her hair.”

  “With shampoo?”

  “She didn’t need shampoo. She didn’t shit on her head.”

  Sara takes a sniff of Josie. “Did you wash her body?”

  “Yes, I washed her body.”

  “With soap?”

  “Well, no. With water. I got all the poop off, though. That’s what’s important.”

  “You didn’t use soap?”

  “It’s okay. You’re not supposed to always use soap. It dries out their skin. Water is much better. Hey, I don’t always use soap. Lots of times I take a shower and just use water,” he says.

  “Oh, my God,” I say. “Thank you. You’ve made this so easy. Now I know what to get you for Christmas this year. Now I know what I’ll get you for Christmas every year.”

  “We don’t celebrate Christmas. We only host Christmas,” says her husband. “Men don’t like soft soap. Men like bar soap. Irish Spring. If there was some Irish Spring around here I’d use it.”

  “Take Josie back upstairs and give her another bath. WITH SOAP,” says Sara.

  “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell your mother about this,” says Sara’s husband to me.

  I spy Ben in the corner, gagging a little bit. That afternoon he’d asked if he could hold Josie. He was a good older cousin. He held her and sang to her and brought her toys. But when she spit up he panicked and tossed her to me as if she were a doll. He’s a typical only child, not used to messes, fighting, or baths without soap.

  “It’s only poop,” I say.

  He covers his mouth and gags a little more.

  The next morning when I wake, I can’t open my left eye. I stagger downstairs, clutching the rail.

  “There’s something wrong with my eye,” I tell Sara.

  “Let me see.”

  I take off my glasses and she looks at it. “It doesn’t really look swollen. Just a little red. It’s probably a stye. Try a warm compress,” she says, handing me a washcloth.

  I sit at the breakfast table, holding the washcloth to my eye. Sara brings me coffee and a waffle. Every now and then I yell, “Ow,” as my eye throbs with a piercing pain. Sara is compassionate at first but then gets a little annoyed.

  “You know, I haven’t had a stye for years, but I don’t remember them being that painful. Maybe you should go back to bed? Do you think you could stop saying ow? You’re frightening the kids.”

  I am trying to be a good trooper, but then I get a little annoyed.

  “This doesn’t feel like a stye. I would go back to bed, but I’m enjoying Julian’s kicking my ankle under the table so much that why would I leave?”

  I go to the ophthalmologist’s. He’s a warm fellow with a wonderful bedside manner.

  “What happened? Did you get drunk and fall on your eye?” he asks.

  “Please, can you just give me some eyedrops?” I beg him. “The numbing kind.”

  “Well, look at that,” he said, shining a light in my eye. “You’ve scratched your cornea. Did you walk into a tree branch? You probably don’t remember because you were so drunk.”

  “I didn’t do anything. My eyes hurt last night so I took out my contacts and put on my glasses. I woke up like this.”

  “Uh-huh,” he says.

  “So what happens now? You give me some eyedrops?”

  He wheels away from me in his chair. “You are one step away from a corneal ulcer,” he says.

  “An ulcer? Is that serious?”

  “People with ulcers need corneal transplants. So, yes, it’s serious.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “I am not kidding.”

  “Are you trying to scare me?”

  “You bet,” he says. “No contacts for a month. You’ll have to wear your glasses. Hopefully you haven’t done any permanent damage, but we won’t know for a while. Maybe next time you’ll think twice about having that third margarita and going for a walk in the woods.”

  He cracks a smile.

  “I’m worried,” I say. “You’re really worrying me.”

  “You should be worried,” he says, handing me an eye patch. “That eye will be extremely sensitive to light. I’m writing out a prescription for some eyedrops. You may use them three times a day No more than that or it will slow down the healing. Do you understand?”

  “Is it an anesthetic?” I say. “Will it stop the pain?”

  “Yes, but use it no more than three times a day.”

  See, I am not a big fat baby,” I say to Sara when I get back to the house. “I am one step away from a corneal ulcer.”

  She gasps, but it comes out like a snort because she’s also trying not to laugh. I’m wearing my eye patch, with my glasses over the eye patch and my sunglasses over the eye patch and the glasses. Julian and Alek cling to Sara’s legs like they have no idea who I am.

  “The light. It hurts. It feels like somebody is sticking a toothpick in my eye.”

  “Can you drive?” Sara asks. Tomorrow Ben and I are supposed to depart for mid-coast Maine. “There’s always the bus,” she says.

  “We’re not taking the bus. I’m sure I’ll feel better tomorrow. The doctor said no contacts for a month. Damn. I hate wearing my glasses!”

  Julian looks up at me, his little blue glasses cloudy with fingerprint smudges, charmingly askew on his face.

  “Because they aren’t blue. If they were blue I’d love them. If only they made blue glasses for grown-ups.”

  I do hate wearing my glasses. I haven’t worn them full-time since I was a girl. My glasses period was traumatizing. If I wasn’t losing them and getting grounded for losing them, or falling on top of them and crushing them, I was making very bad choices in the optometrist’s office. I had John Denver glasses when I was seven. I had gigantic pink frames when I was in middle school. My vision was so bad that without glasses I had to be two or three inches away from a mirror to see my face and at that distance everything was distorted. It wasn’t until I got contacts at fifteen that I was finally able to see what I really looked like. It was a s
hock. I have been wearing contacts every day, twelve hours a day for twenty-eight years. When I put on my glasses now I feel disoriented. Lost.

  “I’m not faking it. It really hurts,” I say to Sara, fighting off tears.

  “Oh, Mel,” she says. “Let’s get you to bed.”

  She puts me down for a nap with the rest of the kids and between the hours of one and three the entire household sleeps. The way life should be—this is Maine’s motto—and it’s true, barring corneal scratches.

  It’s a foolish thing to do, but the next morning I drive to mid-coast Maine. I’ve completely disregarded the doctor’s instructions and I’ve been putting in the eyedrops almost hourly and they haven’t helped a bit. I’m beginning to suspect the doctor gave me a placebo. Weaving down the highway, praying for clouds, wearing my patch and glasses and sunglasses—I feel like an old lady pirate.

  “Watch out for that guy selling blueberries!” says Ben.

  He’s had to say this at least five times already. There’re an awful lot of people selling blueberries heading north on Route 1.

  I swerve to the left. My depth perception is nil.

  “Just keep your eyes on the road. Let me know if I’m getting too close to the embankment,” I tell him. “That’s your job.”

  Finally, nearly two hours later, we arrive and I step out of the driver’s seat, exhausted. I want nothing more than to crawl back into bed. This is the first year we’ve rented a house—normally we stay with my mother-in-law—and it’s always a bit of Russian roulette when you rent a place sight unseen. I cross my fingers and unlock the door of our rental. As soon as we step over the threshold we both groan with happiness. Ben actually begins jumping up and down. It’s the kind of house you feel like you’ve been waiting for all your life. You knew it existed, but you just didn’t know how to get there.

  The house is called Owl’s Ledge. It’s got floor-to-ceiling windows and is filled with light and through every window you get the same stunning view: a green bowl of a meadow that leads straight down to the sea. Best of all is my bedroom. There is nothing in it but a bed. A bed that gives instructions, that issues a mandate. There are three things you can do in this room: nap, read, and well, you can guess the third.