Still Life with Tornado(44)

Those days in the middle of the vacation were too long. Bruce went for long walks down the beach by himself or stayed in the room watching TV. Mom and I went to a movie at the resort. But during the day, we just hung out on the beach and it got boring. I was ten. I didn’t have a problem saying that I was bored.

Dad said, “Figure out something to do. We’re on vacation, for Christ’s sake.”

So I drew more pictures in the sand and let the tide wash them away. I built a sand castle. I talked to the fish. I floated in the seaweed and talked to the sea god.

Here’s one thing the sea god told me after he turned Dad into a chicken and ate him. The sea god told me that I should make sure to make myself happy. I don’t know why he told me this, but he did. I remember floating there thinking about it and wondering how the sea god knew I wasn’t happy.

The sea god told me that no one else would make me happy. Only me.

And then later that night, when Mom and I were coming back from a movie, she said it to me in the elevator. The exact same thing. She said, “Just remember, Sarah, only you can make you happy.”

I had no idea how when I got back to school I would put this into the “What I did on my summer vacation” travel report for the first week of fifth grade.

Day Five: over. Day Five: more selfish bastards, Dad turning into a chicken, only you can make you happy.





HELEN’S ON HER TOES



Document everything. It’s the golden rule. Every single thing I do when I’m with a patient, it goes on the record. For their sake, for my sake, for the hospital’s sake. Documenting saves asses and I am a born documenter. When the kids were small, I could tell you the last time I changed a diaper, the last time they ate, and the last time they burped. It’s something drilled in. Even in the chaos of the ER, I write everything down. In the chaos of life, I had a little book. Since I was nineteen and Chet broke my rib, I wrote down the dates and times of his moods. Not like it helped me not marry him. Not like it saved my ass.

? ? ?

You could always tell about two weeks out when Chet was going to blow up. Two weeks. Almost to the day. He’d be a mix of quiet and trying too hard. Hot and cold. Chet ran hot or cold. Black or white. 0 or 10. Chet has no in-between except silence. It made him look like he could be in-between, but really, he was just building to the next 0 or 10.

A week out, he’d become a half-assed taskmaster. Taking out trash, cleaning little things. Making dinner. If you’d ask him to do anything at that point, he’d give you a look. He’d start picking and disappearing. Like a mosquito.

Two days before, he’d start staring at things. At nothing, really. Just staring.

It was like he was a drunk, but he’s not a drinker. It’s one thing to reach for a bottle and become a monster—a mean drunk—but it’s another thing to have that bottle inside you. A rage organ.

I think it would be easier to understand if Chet was a drunk, but he’s not one. But when he drinks, the process speeds up. In Mexico, he drank all day every day. In Mexico, two weeks compressed into one week.

I saw it coming. I didn’t know who was going to get it, me or Bruce. Or Sarah.

I stopped drinking so I could stay on my toes for when he blew up. So I’d know what to do. But when it happened, I didn’t know what to do. It never changes. Not since I was nineteen and the roast beef fell on the floor. I never know what to do.





Pity Shower



This is what happens when Mom wakes up the next day. She knocks on my door and asks to come in. She lies down in bed next to me, but on top of the covers, and she puts her hands behind her head. She is clearly not herself. This is just weird.

“Did that really happen?” she asks.

I’m just waking up.

“Did I go to a movie with my daughter last night? When she was ten? You? When you were ten?”

I try to move, but she’s taking up so much of the bed that I can’t turn over because the quilt is so tight across my chest. I grumble.

“Was it real?” she asks again.

“Yes.”

“You said there were others?”

“Yeah. A few, I think.”

“She’s coming for dinner tonight,” Mom says. “We’re having tacos.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“We have all day,” she says.

“Okay.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I kinda want to be by myself.”

“We can go to the museum,” she says.

“I’d rather not.”

She rolls over and looks at me. “Are you mad at me? About last night?”

“No. I just have stuff to do.”

“Can I do it with you?”

I sigh.

“Let me get up and get a shower. We can do some stuff.”

As she’s leaving my room, she says, “I don’t get it. Does she go to school during the day? I mean. I didn’t mean that you don’t and she might. I meant—shit. I meant what does she do all day?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I was pretty sure she was just a hallucination until you took her to the movies last night.”

“Is that why you asked me if you were crazy?”

“Maybe,” I say.