by Nancy Star
are not. You didn’t mean any harm. And no harm done.
Right, Grandpa?”
It took a moment for Marshall to answer. “Right.”
“You know what I think?” Reggie said to Henry.
“I think, start the day over. Get back into bed, hop out,
give yourself a stretch, brush your teeth. Like it’s a new day. That’s the way to do it. Right, Mom? Go home and
start over?”
Lane nodded. He was right. They needed to go home.
Where was home?
“Better get back to my route.” Reggie looked down
the block toward his vehicle. He didn’t seem eager to
move on. “Y’all take care now.”
Lane thanked him again and watched Reggie limp,
slowly, back to his truck.
h h
h h
That lunch was a chicken-salad-and-corn sandwich with
a side of pudding barely made it into her consciousness.
Whatever relief she’d felt was gone. What was left was
numb exhaustion. She ate without tasting.
“Doesn’t Henry like pudding?” her mother asked.
Lane looked over at Henry’s plate. He hadn’t taken a
bite of anything. “Not hungry?”
Henry shook his head.
“Aw buddy,” Lane said. “Remember what the driver
told you? No harm done. It wasn’t your fault.” She turned
to her father. “Tell him it wasn’t his fault.”
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Rules for Moving
Her father begrudgingly complied. “Not your fault.”
He turned to Lane. “Not my fault.”
“Oh well,” Sylvie said.
Marshall crossed his arms over his chest. Her mother
used the tip of her index finger to pick up some toast
crumbs from the table.
“Would you like to draw?” Lane asked Henry. He
nodded. “Want me to get your markers?”
He shook his head and got up to get them himself.
“What’s that smell?” Sylvie said as Henry walked past.
“Smells like garbage.”
Lane stared at her father. “You didn’t tell mom what
happened?”
“Nothing happened.” Marshall marched to the garage
and slammed the door.
Lane turned to her mother. “Remember when Dad
asked Henry if he thought it would have been more fun
to come here by box than plane?” Sylvie thought about it
and nodded. “Well guess what? While Dad was suppos-
edly watching Henry, Henry was climbing into that box
at the curb. What was Dad thinking, saying something
like that to him and then putting the box out at the curb, like an invitation?” She wasn’t mad at Henry for climbing into the box. And she didn’t blame him for falling
asleep there either. They’d hardly gotten any sleep at all the night before, both of them woken multiple times by
thumps and bangs and the thrum of her father bickering
with her mother, just the one voice, just his. On top of
that, there were multiple trips to the bathroom. Lane
took Henry twice; the third time he asked if he could go
alone to show her he was brave. Of course she said okay.
She fell asleep that time, waking only when he climbed
back into bed and whispered, “Mom?”
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Nancy Star
She’d answered, “I’m here,” and he’d snuggled close
and asked if he could tell her something and she’d said,
“Of course.” And the next thing she knew it was morn-
ing and sunlight was sneaking in through the slats of the
gray vertical blinds and Henry was on his back, asleep
and pale. So pale she went hunting for a thermometer.
She woke him to take his temperature, which was about
the only thing in the house that was normal.
Her anger now shifted to her mother. “Why did you
let him go outside alone?”
“He didn’t go outside. I walked with him to the garage
so he could help your father.”
“Who didn’t notice that he wandered off and fell
asleep in a box.”
“He’s a curious boy,” Sylvie said, as if that would
make things better.
“He fell asleep,” Lane reminded her. “In a box. Like
a stray cat.”
“Oh well,” Sylvie said.
“A garbage truck picking up Henry in a box is not
an Oh well story.”
“A recycling truck,” her mother corrected her.
“Tuesday is recycling.”
“What’s the difference.” Lane felt her face heating up.
“Do you understand what could have happened? Reggie
said it’s loud in his truck. So loud he can’t think. But for some reason he heard something and he pulled over and
he got out to look. Imagine what would have happened
if the garbage man hadn’t heard Henry call out.”
“Recycling man.” Marshall had come in. “Monday
is garbage.”
To avoid screaming, Lane let out a slow stream of air
and counted down from ten. “It doesn’t matter,” she told
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them when she got to eight. “What matters is, the driver
somehow managed to hoist himself up on to the back of
the truck even though he has a bad leg. What matters is,
he followed the sound and saw Henry’s hair.” Her parents
were finally still. “Reggie said if it hadn’t been so early in the run he would have started the—” She stopped, closed
her eyes, composed herself and continued, “Compactor.
That’s what he does when he gets a big box that someone
should have broken down. He starts—” She paused and
took another breath. “The crusher.”
“Here we go,” her father said. “My fault.”
Lane ignored him. “Reggie said the miracle is your
house is early on his run.” She dropped her voice to a
whisper. “If it wasn’t, Henry could have been…”
“Could have been,” her mother repeated. Her
lips flattened into a line. She reached out her hand to
press it against Lane’s cheek and then seemed to think
better of it.
Her father let out a disgusted sigh at the display of
emotion and left.
“Is Henry with you?” her mother called to him.
“Where’s Henry?”
“Getting his markers,” Lane said. But he should have
been back by now. She took the steps two at a time and
found Henry in the guest room curled up in a fetal position on the open pullout. “Aw buddy.” She rubbed his arm.
He rolled onto his back. “I want to go home.”
h h
h h
She told her mother first. “We’re going to leave tomorrow.”
This time when her mother said, “Oh well,” she
sounded sad.
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Nancy Star
Her father was back in the garage; the morning’s near
disaster hadn’t diminished his urge to organize.
“We’re leaving,” she told him.
“See you later.”
“No, I mean really leaving. Back to the city.”
He put down his drill. “You shouldn’t have scared
your mother like that. Telling her the boy could have
been crushed. Hasn’t she had enough to deal with?” He
picked up the drill. “He shouldn�
�t have climbed inside
that box.”
“What does Mom have to deal with other than you?”
He turned on the drill. Its scream was his answer. She
went in to rebook the flight. When the representative
told her there’d be a penalty for the change she asked if
it could be waived and then explained about Aaron dying
and how she felt it was important for Henry to visit his
grandparents. It wasn’t like her to say any of this.
None of it mattered. “We no longer offer bereavement
fares,” the woman told her. “But based on what you’re
telling me, you wouldn’t have qualified anyway.”
Sylvie was on the sofa watching TV when Lane told her,
“I got us on a noon flight tomorrow. We’ll leave at ten.”
Her mother nodded, half listening. “You look lovely.”
She turned to Lane, who was staring at her, dumbfounded.
“Don’t look at me. Look at you.” She pointed to the
television. There she was, Lane hugging Reggie, on the
news. “I wish you smiled while they were filming you.
You have such a lovely smile.”
“You realize you’re watching a news story about me
being a neglectful mother.”
Her mother gave her a dismissive wave. “Oh well.”
h h
h h
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Rules for Moving
In the morning on the way to the airport, Henry didn’t
speak. He said nothing on the plane, nothing in the taxi,
nothing to the doorman, nothing to the dog walker in
the elevator, nothing to the dog. Lane realized this in
retrospect. In the moment, things seemed normal. The
New Normal.
A blast of stuffy air greeted them when she opened
the door to their apartment. She pulled their bags inside.
Henry asked what they were having for dinner. It was
as if everything that happened in Florida was already
forgotten. They decided on Chinese. As usual, Henry
chose the dishes and Lane called in the order.
For the rest of the night and in the morning he was
his normal sweet and chatty self with her, so she had no
idea until she got the call from school the next day that
her son had gone completely silent everywhere else.
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February 15, 2017
Ask Roxie!
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Dear Roxie,
I’m sorry if I’m wasting your time. I know my problem
isn’t the end of the world but it’s keeping me up at
night. I hope you can tell me what’s the right thing to
do.
The problem is my daughter’s finger. Everyone tells
me, calm down, it’s just a finger. But when it comes to
children, is there such a thing as “just”? Doesn’t every-
thing matter?
It’s because of what happened last month when
we visited my brother-in-law in Wichita. He was recov-
ering from a heart attack, is why we went. We were at
his house when my daughter’s finger got slammed in
a door.
Her brother slammed the door, is how it happened.
He claims it was an accident. I wasn’t there so I don’t
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Rules for Moving
know. All I know is her finger got smashed and I nearly
fainted when I saw it.
At the emergency room they took an X-ray and
told us the finger wasn’t broken, which, thank God. But
I cannot describe how horrible it looked. It had a dent
near the top and the tip was squashed flat like a pan-
cake.
The doctor started bandaging it up—like every-
thing was over—so I asked, very nicely, don’t you think
she needs to see a plastic surgeon before you put the
bandage on?
The doctor started shouting at me. Did I even know
what the word need meant. Did I understand that no one needs to have a plastic surgeon for a tiny bruise on a little pinky. It wasn’t a tiny bruise, by the way, and it wasn’t on her pinky. It was on her pointer.
Maybe the doctor was having a bad day.
Back home, when our trip was over and it was time
to take off the bandage, I couldn’t believe what I saw.
Her finger looks bizarre. You can’t help but notice it’s
not normal. I can’t stop staring at it.
Luckily I happen to have a neighbor who’s a plas-
tic surgeon who’s done tons of work on kids in the
neighborhood. So I figured, why not ask him to take a
look? Except when I told this to my husband—who is
truly stubborn as a mule—he said, “Absolutely not. Her
finger’s fine. It works like it’s supposed to. If she’s not bothered, why are you?”
Why I’m bothered is kids are mean. Girls especially.
Twelve-year-old girls, worst of all. My daughter goes to
a sleepaway camp in the summer where the girls are
merciless. At camp you can’t hide anything. I know be-
cause I went to camp and I got teased. If you’re teased
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Nancy Star
at camp, it’s over. News gets out. I don’t know how, but
the kids at home always hear. Starts out you have no
friends at camp. Ends up you have no friends, period.
I don’t see why my daughter should end up lonely
and depressed over something we could fix if my hus-
band didn’t put his big foot down.
Last night I got a brainstorm. If I take a photograph
of her finger while she’s sleeping, and pop over my
neighbor’s house with it, I could ask him what he thinks
and no one would be the wiser. Technically it wouldn’t
be a consultation. My question is, being that I’m just
dropping by the doctor’s house, neighbor to neighbor,
would I be covered by patient client confidentiality?
I’m sorry to bother you with something so small but
my husband cannot know. He is stubborn as a goat.
Yours,
Weirded Out
Dear Weirded Out,
Wow. There’s a lot to unpack here.
Let’s start with this: Nothing is harder than seeing
a child in harm’s way. I can imagine how scary that was,
seeing your daughter’s smashed finger. It must have
really hurt! (I’m talking about her.)
Now it’s time for some tough love. You’re spinning
out of control. You started out in reality—you have a
child with a slightly odd-looking finger—which, may
I point out, might not be completely healed yet. But
then you leap to fantasy land where your daughter has
grown up and, after years of teasing, turned into a de-
pressed loner. That is a nightmare! Time to wake up!
Good morning! Now that you’ve joined me back in
reality, let’s talk.
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Rules for Moving
Number one: Stop looking at your daughter’s fin-
ger! Right now! I mean it! If you feel an urge to stare at a finger, stare at your own.
I hate to admit it but I agree wi
th your husband on
this one point: if your daughter’s finger works and she’s
fine with it, you have to be fine with it too.
I would be remiss if I didn’t stop here to point out
that you appear to have some unfinished business.
Your daughter isn’t being teased but once upon a time
you were. It is clear you are still feeling hurt about this.
That’s understandable. Being teased is painful. But
given how long ago that occurred, it’s probably time
for you to take a look at that pain. If you don’t, you risk confusing your pain with your daughter’s and that’s
going to end up painful for both of you.
Number two: Stop taking orders from your hus-
band! Right now! I mean it! The next time he tells you
he’s putting his foot down, tell him he can put his foot
wherever he wants but just because his foot is bigger
doesn’t mean he gets to decide everything.
Marriages are full of disagreements but no partner
gets to have the final word every time. You describe
your husband as stubborn. Is that all he is? Do you and
your husband have a fair and equal partnership? If not,
alarm bell! Time to get up and go for counseling. If he
won’t go, no problem. You’re a grown-up. Go yourself.
Number three: Have you paid any attention to your
son lately? Because you need to. Right now! I mean it!
A kid who hurts his sibling can feel awful, whether he
meant to do it or not. You say it was an accident but
you qualify it with “he claims.” Do you not believe him?
Was it an accident? It’s worth asking. And it’s worth listening with a kind heart to his answer.
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Nancy Star
Speaking of hearts, how’s your brother-in-law feel-
ing? I hope he’s healing well.
The only person in your family who sounds like
they’re doing great is your daughter. You should be
proud of her. You’ve raised a kid who doesn’t care that
her finger looks funny.
And if someday your daughter asks what you think
about that finger, don’t hustle her off to a plastic sur-
geon. Tell her everyone’s body gets dinged along the
way. Tell her our dings hold the stories of our lives. And if she doesn’t remember the story of her ding, tell her
once upon a time in Wichita, her finger got caught in a
door and she was brave.
Yours forever, or at least for now,
Roxie
74
CHAPTER SIX
When The Guild offices were first redesigned—polished
concrete walls and floors, long gray steel worktables,