Fight Night(32)

Hoooooo, hmmmmm … so … well … that was a problem. Especially for you and your dad. I mean, I believe now that we … we adults in your life … that we didn’t pay close enough attention to you during that whole time. We were all so … there’s a low German word … I don’t know … we were in shock I guess … bedudtzt … that’s the word. That’s a good word, isn’t it! Goanst bedudtzt. Oba yo. Momo was gone … and we didn’t stop to think that you had also lost Momo … and she loved you so much. She always had such zany ideas … do you remember, Swiv? You were always going around with her on the bus to funny places … exploring … And then, really, you were left to your own devices … Your dad, I mean he took care of you when your mom was gone, he made meals and put you to bed and everything else … But he was in a fog of his own, and then his drinking was getting worse and worse by the minute while your mom was away, and he couldn’t reach her and she wasn’t calling, and we just didn’t know what was really happening. I remember coming to your place one evening and your dad was there on the back porch all wrapped up in a blanket … just staring off into space … smoking, smoking … always with a drink … always ice cubes clinking. His hands were so chapped from the cold because he couldn’t hold his cigarettes with mittens on … I remember thinking well, good, there are ice cubes in his drink! That will water it down at least. I sat with him and we talked a bit. I don’t even know if he was still going in to work … and I didn’t know where you were. Were you in your room? Or off playing with friends? I should have known where you were … I’m sorry, Swiv. I mean, I knew you were around. But I should have made it my business to talk with you, to … really talk with you! I’m very sorry about that … no, no, I know you’d say it wasn’t … but I’m telling you, okay? That’s … that’s what happened! Hooooooo …

And that’s how it went for quite a while … at the beginning, in the first few weeks, we did hear occasionally from your mom, if she could get the internet … it sounded like she was having fun, and there were funny stories … the director was a hoot … well … she was upbeat in her letters. She talked about wanting you and your dad to come visit her there … but then … she stopped writing as much, and then … there was just radio silence. So … listen, why don’t you put that … put your jean jacket here … oh, here’s a blanket, do you want to curl up in it? We’re still on the ground. Look at that! Well, I wonder about this mechanical difficulty … enna-way, it happens. Don’t worry! It happens all the time.

So … well, and then the days went on … we all waited for your mom to call or to e-mail. I don’t know … I don’t think your dad was going to work then. You had stopped going to school, too … we were in a holding pattern. Now, when I think about it, I think I should have gone there, to Albania. I should have got on a plane and gone to your mom … What’s that? Oh, I know, honey, you’re right. Shred the guilt! You’ve heard me say that so many times, haven’t you! It was my friend Wilhemina who said it to me first … it’s a true thing … it’s good … But … yes. Ach, yes. Yo, yo, yo … Do you remember my friend Wilhemina? Here, pull that blanket over your knees … there we go, sweetheartchen.

Hoooooooo … so … that’s where we were at! Oh. Yes, please … thank you. Swiv, would you like … could we get another glass of water, please? Why don’t you put your little tray down. It’s that little knob … yeah … So … none of us could connect. We couldn’t connect with each other, we couldn’t connect with your mom. Wilhemina came to my apartment almost every day and we played several games of Scrabble in complete silence. She’d make tea in my kitchen … and your dad always on the porch with his drink in his glass, but where were you? Where were you that whole time? What were you thinking? Swiv, I have to apologize to you, again. I’m so, so sorry … you must have felt absolutely abandoned! And then all that nonsense from your school … conflict managers … ha! You needed your mom. You needed your dad! You needed me. You needed Momo. You needed someone! I guess that was basically the beginning of your … you know … sort of fractured relationship with school … Well, it stands to reason! You were a fighter. We were … blind. You were basically taking care of your dad … he had checked out, really, he was frozen … you were running the household! I asked your dad if you should come and stay with me but he said no … I think he would have just fallen apart entirely if it hadn’t been for you. He had the notion that he needed to take care of you, but it was you taking care of him … And we … hoooooo … but okay! So then … then what happened? Well … exactly. What did happen? Your mom eventually came home. She had been away for four months. And then … Well … She came home.

And … and … oh, for Pete’s sake … I do apologize. Just one second. I think I’ve got some tissue here … Oh, I’m emotional! Well … one moment, please. Uno momento. Let’s break for a word from our sponsors! Hooooo … okay. So. Thanks, honey. So. Your mom came home and she had … well, a lot had happened to her over there.

Oh, I mean she was wild-eyed when she came home. Just … wild-eyed! We were all frozen, we were all just paralyzed because we didn’t know what to do or say. I mean … she was so skinny and her face and her arms were tanned, so brown from being outside … her face was so thin and bony and brown and then her huge pale, pale eyes like … I don’t know what. Now I think that she was getting rid of her old self. She was getting rid of the self that was vulnerable, the self that had maybe inherited this horrible disease … her genetic legacy. Maybe. Or she was getting rid of what she was afraid would be her fate. I could be wrong … but I think she was fighting to be someone else … and to live. But in the process she was coming to the edge of death … not death but … ohhhhh … it was hard to watch. Yup, yup, yup, yup, yup … She would come to my apartment and sit at my table, that little table in the kitchen … and we’d talk. At first not very much. She couldn’t sit still for very long. She was going for long, long walks … I worried about you. I talked with your dad on the phone. He’d almost given up. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know who she was anymore, he said. She had started taking anti-depressants. She had started taking sleeping pills. She was getting thinner and thinner. She didn’t cry, she didn’t laugh. She didn’t eat. She didn’t read. She didn’t sleep. She was … rigid. Just frozen. I’d call asking where she was, how you were …