by Dan Dillard
*****
It was about 2:00 pm that Monday afternoon when the telephone rang and my mother answered. The voice on the other end of the line belonged to Judy Sellers. She was the school nurse and also bowled on my mom’s Thursday night league team…at least back when my mother still went bowling. From what I overhead of the police conversation later that afternoon and what mom eventually told me in a medicated daze, the conversation went something like this:
“Shannon? This is Judy.”
Shannon was my mother’s name. Dad called her hey you most of the time along with some sort of grunt, but never Shannon, honey, babe, or any other term of endearment as I remember.
“Which one’s sick?” mom said.
“I’m not sure if she’s sick, really. Robin is in my office. Her teacher brought her in about fifteen minutes ago,” Judy said.
“Why?”
“Said she was staring. Just sittin' at her desk…staring…and she wouldn't respond to anything. She walked her all the way down here and Robin says she doesn't remember how she got here.”
“Hmm. That’s strange. But that kid’s always been a little strange. She okay now?” mom said.
“Seems right as rain now. She's quiet and drawing pictures. Do you want to come get her?”
“I guess so. Today's her birthday and she got up pretty early. Probably just a little overwhelmed. I can be there in twenty minutes.”
“Okay, I'll keep her here. Stop by the office and let them know you’re takin’ her out.”
“Will do.”
Mom got in her car and drove to the school, parking, no doubt, in the circular drive outside the main office where she used to pick us up. When I was at Walker’s Woods Elementary, Danny was a toddler and Robin was just a baby, she piled us all in the car and drove me to school and picked me up each day. Once we started going to different schools, and her light had been dimmed by dear old John, it was the bus for us all.
She signed Robin out and went to the nurse's room to find her sitting at the table, still drawing.
“She's been an angel,” Judy Sellers said.
“Really?” mom said. “You feel okay, Robin?”
Robin looked up from her artwork, “Yep. But I don't know how I got here. Maybe I sleep-walked?”
“Maybe,” the nurse said and gave her mom a know-better glance.
“Thanks for the call, Judy.”
“Anytime, hon. I think she'll be fine after a good night's sleep.”
“Yeah,” mom said.
“You ever going bowling again? We miss you out there. Still the same night.” Judy said.
“We’ll see,” mom said.
That’s what she always said when she meant no. She took Robin's hand and led her out the door and down the corridor to the glass doors at the front of the school. Robin gripped her stack of drawings and bounced to the car before climbing in.
“I think some ice cream might help,” Robin said.
“We’ll see,” mom replied.
Another no.
They arrived home just a few minutes before our bus pulled up at the end of the street. I watched the Russian House through the trees as we went by. It seemed to be watching back. I didn’t know at the time that Robin had come home early from school. It was days later before mom told me that story including every vague detail of her conversation with the school nurse and how Robin had asked for ice cream, as if it might have meant something. She’d been eating valium like M&M’s at the time.
Robin was sitting at the table, still tweaking her artwork when Danny and I burst in the door.
“Gimme some cake!” Danny shouted.
“Not till after dinner,” mom said.
“Let's ride bikes!” Robin announced.
“That didn't take long,” I said with a chuckle.
Mom frowned. Robin had hers out the front door and was rolling it onto the driveway before I could even get the garage door open. Within seconds she was pedaling down the driveway and along the sidewalk. The training wheels clicked and scraped as it bobbled side to side.
“Give us a minute, Robin!!” I shouted as I ducked back inside for a drink.
I heard her shout something in response.
“I'll be there in a minute. Gotta pee,” Danny said.
“Okay, but hurry,” I said.
Mom was watching her ride out the front window. I grabbed a soda from the refrigerator and popped the tab while I glanced at the pictures Robin had drawn. The one on top was of Robin. She was a cute stick figure, smiling on her pink bike with a teddy bear stuffed in the basket. The colors were just right, the lines were neat and clean. She’d taken her time on that drawing.
The screeching tire sound coming from outside seemed distant as I read the words scrawled across the top of the paper.
I remember mom gasping and putting a hand to her mouth. I remember the words, “Oh my God” coming from her. Then I remember her scream. It made me scream. That scream mixed with the sound of bending metal and breaking glass filled my head as the world fell away. I read the words again.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! was written in Robin’s chunky handwriting.
Happy birthday, baby sister.
I rushed outside into the blurry world, a world I’d never seen before, one of color and of darkness and of things that hadn’t existed before that previous Friday in 1981. It wasn't the blood and it wasn't the mangled pink bicycle. It wasn't even the shredded remains of the stuffed teddy bear that tore my heart out as Danny took his place by my side in the driveway. We watched our mother screaming...inconsolable...completely insane with disbelief. The first real emotion I’d seen from her in years. She’d been holding it all in and what happened that day punched a hole in the dam.
None of that occurred to me at the time. What occurred to me at the time was the fact that I knew it was my fault. I may have caused it all by including her in Sean’s little stunt. Robin's tiny skull was crushed. She wasn’t going to walk away. No amount of surgery or therapy was going to put her pieces back together. Even if it could have, she would never have been the same.