“Aren’t you sexy as usual,” my mother said to Ethan, mockingly blinking her eyes at him, to quickly take the attention off Damini.
“And you are even more lovely than the last time, Rowan. Hi, Jaden.”
“Hi, Ethan.”
And then he hugged me. I hugged him back, soft and warm and happy.
It was a rather long hug under a happy sun and Tate said, “Here they go again. We should load up the rafts and get ready, this ogling could take awhile. Take the children away first, that includes me. I can’t be corrupted by this lovey-dovey stuff, this romance, this blatant lust.”
Ethan cleared his throat, pulled out of the hug, then put a hand out toward the Barbie and said, “I’d like to introduce Terri Torkleson.” He told Terri our first names.
“Aren’t you Elsie on
Foster’s Village
?” the Barbie asked my mother, awe in her voice.
“Yes, I am.” My mother flashed her a toothy smile. “Did you know”—she leaned in close—“in an upcoming season we’re going to kill a woman who looks exactly like Barbie? Platinum hair. Lots of makeup. Wears white. Too thin. Extra large boobies. Rather mean, she is, and cold!” She wrinkled her sculpted nose. “She’s going to be roped up, first, then she’s going in a dark hole, then we’re dumping scorpions all around her, and if she moves”—my mother clapped her hands together with glee—“she’ll be bitten to death.”
“Oh!” Terri said, shivering. “That . . . that sounds
scary.
”
“We only do it to characters that the audience hates.” My mother fluttered her manicured nails.
Tate came up close to Terri. She pulled back, a tiny, repulsed sound escaping from her throat. I took a step toward her to let her have it, but Caden pulled me back. “Let Tate handle it,” he whispered. “Let him be a man.”
“I have a big head,” Tate said to her, quite cheerfully. “But I don’t bite. Except on Tuesdays.”
The Barbie’s mouth dropped open.
“Bite!” Harvey said, hopping in his sparkly dress. “Bite me! I a damn princess!”
“What’s happened is that my head has grown and grown and grown since last year.” Tate spread his arms out wide. “The doctors, for example, Dr. Robbins here, they don’t know what’s going on.” Tate stepped in real close to Terri, who actually leaned away from him. Caden tightened his grip on my slugging arm.
“Watch this and mark my words”—my mother giggled—“I love his ingenuity, his creativity, most of all, his zingers.”
“Hold on to your panties,” Caden muttered. “This is my boy.”
“Hold your panties!” Hazel yelled. “I don’t got panties. I got Superman underwear!”
“I got pink panties!” Heloise shouted.
“I got princess panties!” Harvey said. “Damn!”
“My head used to be a normal size, the same as everyone else. A normal human’s.” Tate threw his hands straight up in the air, as if baffled by his growing head. “I woke up one morning and it was bigger. The next day bigger still, and now, I mean, I have one eye higher than the other and one and a half heads. General Noggin, that’s what I call the other part of my head. Dr. Robbins thinks I have a virus.”
Terri’s expression moved from disgust to abject fear. She actually gasped.
“It’s this head-growing virus. You get it, and your head expands.”
Ethan laughed, covered it up with a cough, and studied the ground.
“All that fat in the squiggles of your brain, it expands and pushes the bones out, pushes the skull out, the stuff moves and shifts around, including that blue jelly-like substance in your brain, and all the prickly points that move messages across your mind, and all the squares and triangles in the center of your head, boom boom, it all swells.”
“Oh my God!” Terri spit out.
“Oh my God!”
“Somehow my thinking brain became infected and my head keeps getting bigger.”
“Oh my God!” Hazel shouted, her tutu bopping.
“Oh my God!” Heloise and Harvey shouted, too. Harvey spun in his white princess dress. “Damn!”
I caught Ethan’s eyes and muffled my own laugh.
“This virus that I have, it’s called bigorollautilliomousous type B virus number one-two-four.”
Terri sucked in a terrified breath with a squeak and took two steps back, willy-nilly frightened.
“My head has grown in the last month, too,” Caden said, picking up Harvey, the princess. “It’s been tough and double rough on me.”
“What? Your head has grown, too?” Terri said to my brother. She mini-screamed, hand to mouth.
“Yes,” Caden said solemnly. Caden did have a large head, but it was the large head of a muscled, giant-sized, He-man.
“It’s contagious, then?”
“I’m afraid that’s the truth,” Tate said. “I’m afraid so. Contagious. Highly.”
“I can feel my head expanding.” Caden bent over to show Terri his head. “You can see a straight crack at the top where things are starting to split and spread.”
Terri’s mouth opened wide as she leaned in and examined Caden’s crack. “You have a crack?”
“Yes, I have a crack,” Caden said, not smiling, standing up again, Harvey clinging to him. “My crack is cracking.”
“I have a crack, too,” Tate said, holding his arms way out. “A wide crack and it’s getting crackier overnight. It keeps spreading. Crack crack.”
My mother patted her bobbed hair. “My head is still small. I haven’t caught the Big virus three-two-one yet, thank heavens, unless it’s in my bust. It could be.” She stared at her chest. “They are blooming.”
“I . . .” Terri said. “I . . . don’t think I want to raft today, Ethan. . . .”
Ethan smiled at me. I grinned back. We kept staring at each other. The man softens me out to mush.
“Ethan!” she whined.
Tate said, “Oh no no no. Chill out. The bigorollautilliomousous type B virus number one-two-four is only contagious through my spittle. Do you know what spittle is?”
“No,” Terri whimpered, wringing her hands. “No.”
“It’s spit! Spit! Spittle is spit!” Tate pointed both fingers at his wide-open mouth and took another step closer to the cringing Terri. “From my mouth.”
Ethan’s muffled laugh traveled up into the blue sky.
“He wouldn’t,” Caden whispered, about to bust his sides open from trying to keep his laughs in.
“He’s no spitter,” my mother said. “He’s a polite young man, with a deep knowledge and appreciation of Emily Post. He read her when he was six, you know, but one must take revenge when one can.”
“Spittle,”
Tate said. He touched his tongue, then studied the spittle.
“Shit!” the Barbie shrieked, taking steps backward.
“Not shit,” Tate said. “It’s spit!”
“Get away, step back, step back.”
“You won’t catch it unless I spittle on you, Terri!” Tate shouted.
My mother giggled. “He is priceless, priceless!”
My brother wheezed out between choked laughter, “Prepare for the comedy show.”
Terri’s face was scrunched up tight.
Then Damini brought the house down.
“It’s nothing to worry about.” Damini took off her leg and held it up. “The Big virus number six-four-one-twelve works differently on all Americans. For me, I lost my leg. But it’s okay. I don’t need a bat for softball anymore because I have this. I have a weapon attached to my knee. And I can use my leg like a javelin, too. The bad part is that I always get pulled out of line at the airport for extra screening. You’ll get used to it, Terri. Your head may not grow. An arm might drop off, though, or your butt. It could happen to your front privates, too.”
Damini swung her leg through the air, circling it over her head like a gladiator.
“What? What?” Terri shrieked.
“Remember, you can only catch the Big six-four-one virus with spittle,” Tate reminded her, leaning in close.
“Stay back, stay back,” Terri of the fake boobs screamed, then whipped away and ran.
Tate turned to smile at all of us, his eyes, those sweet blue eyes, mischievous and full of humor.
“Get her,” Caden whispered.
“Your humor is luscious,” my mother said, wriggling her fingers. “Luscious.”
“I’m proud of you, son,” I told him. “Very proud.”
Tate did a wee hop and hurtled after Terri.
“Oh, Tate!” I yelled, but I was laughing too hard to make much noise.
“Run, Tate, run!” Caden called.
Damini strapped on her leg. “I’m gonna catch her!”
Heloise yelled, “I fight ninja!” and whooped.
Hazel held up her sword, tutu bopping. “I a sword fighter!”
Harvey yelled, “I magic! Damn!”
Damini took off, and the triplets joined the chase, too.
I glanced at Ethan. He was bent over, cracking up.
I thought my mother had sprung a leak in her eyes she was laughing so hard. Caden’s laugh was booming,
booming,
and I had to cross my legs because I thought I was going to pee.
It was my mother who did it. She yelled, “I’m going to wet my panttttieeess!” and made a wiggle-run for the bushes, knees tight together. That made me laugh harder, and not even thinking about what Ethan thought, I scuttled off after her, trying to hold my legs together, but also trying to hustle my butt before I had an accident.
Behind me I could hear Tate yell, one more time, close on Barbie’s heels, “Unless I spittle on you, you’re safe!”
Damini said, “It probably won’t be your leg that falls off! It might be your boobs!”
“Da boobs!” Harvey said.
“Da boobs!” Heloise and Hazel echoed.
8
D
ixie bolted straight up in bed, blank eyes staring into the corner, her mouth open in awe. “Oh my goodness!”
“Momma,” her daughter said, stricken at this sudden movement from a woman who had hardly moved in three days. Lynnie reached for her mom. “Are you okay?”
Dixie stared at the corner, her eyes open wide, joyous.
This was not the first time I had seen this happen. In fact, as a hospice nurse, I’ve seen this same scenario with dying people many times.
Usually this abrupt and surprise movement, where the person who is dying suddenly sits straight up in bed, even if they’ve been in a deep, semiconscious sleep, takes place within seventy-two hours of when they die. Now, they may not have moved much, if at all, for many days. They may not be talking much, if at all. Their eyes, to us, are not focusing, or focusing less and less often.
“Momma,” Lynnie said, rubbing her mother’s back.
“Oh my goodness,” Dixie breathed, still staring. She smiled into space.
We were gone to Dixie, she was not aware of us at all, and she would not be again.
Tears streamed down Lynnie’s face. “Oh, Momma.”
“It’s okay, Lynnie,” I soothed. “Let her be.”
“But what, what is she doing?”
“She’s taking a peek into heaven.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s seeing where she’s going next.”
Dixie made another gasping sound, then whispered, “Oh my goodness! Wow!”
As quick as she was up, Dixie lay straight back down again, her eyes blank, staring, the light completely extinguished, as if someone had blown out the lit match inside of her. Seconds later, her eyelids closed, her chest rising and falling gently.
I patted Lynnie’s back.
In the last months, I’d spent a lot of time holding Lynnie as she cried.
That’s what I do.
I spend a lot of time holding people. Sometimes it’s the person who is dying. Often it is the people who love the person who is dying.
Dixie died peacefully the next day. She had not been with us since before the “Oh my goodness” moment. Her soul was gone, her body was shutting down. I was there with her, as was Lynnie and Lynnie’s daughter, Sarah, who was sixteen.
“You know she used to be a Rockette?” Sarah said, through a fountain of tears.
I thought of the many times that Dixie’s legs would kick, of their own volition, these last weeks. “Yes, I knew that. She told me. I bet she was talented.”
“Yeah. She was. I can’t even imagine Grandma as a Rockette.”
“When you’re old, you won’t be able to believe that you’re old.” I grinned at the kid. She was dressed in black with black makeup. She told me later that she pierced her nose with a bullring to piss off her father, who took off with a coworker. “You’ll peer in the mirror and think,
That can’t be me. I’m not that old. I still feel twenty-five, only I’m not such a loose cannon anymore and my knees don’t work.
”
She snickered. Sarah couldn’t imagine a time when she’d be old.
None of us can. But if we’re lucky, four-leaf clover kind of lucky, we become old.
And hopefully we have the same type of Rockette adventures and experiences that Dixie did.
When Lynnie and Sarah left the room, weeping, I whispered to Dixie, “Well done, Dixie. You kicked up an amazing life. I shall miss you.”
When I returned home, I headed straight to my greenhouse, cranked up Mozart, ate ten cinnamon red Gummi Bears and cried my eyes out in front of my tea collection.
Dixie had been one of my favorites.
Sometimes it is remarkably difficult to be a hospice nurse.
On my drive home from Caden’s florist shop several days later, after I’d helped Caden make a white Corvette out of chrysanthemums for a man having a midlife crisis, I went over each minute of the raft trip from heaven with Ethan.
Terri had sprinted back to Ethan, with Tate and his spittle, the triplets, and Damini in hot pursuit. She wrapped her arms around Ethan, standing behind his back and whimpering, as if she needed protection from my son and his bigorollautilliomousous type B virus number one-two-four.
“He’s kidding, Terri,” Ethan said, stifling, unsuccessfully, his laughter.
“He’s kidding?” She was red and blotchy, her white-blond hair all over her face.
“Yep, he’s kidding. And he wants to say he’s sorry,” I said. I frowned at Tate, but then I laughed, and it spoiled the disciplinary moment.
“Do apologize to me, too, Tate,” my mother drawled. “I almost wet my pink designer slacks! Then what would I do?”
“Me, too, son,” Caden said. “My stomach hurts I laughed so hard. I need a beer.”
“I need a beer, too!” Heloise said.
“Ear!” Hazel said.
“He’s not contagious?” Terri’s voice shrilled. “That head, that big head, it’s not contagious?”
“No, ma’am,” Tate said. “I was born with this powerhouse. I have extra space because of my brains. I have a lot of them.”
Terri’s face creased, once again, into lines of confusion. Could someone need extra space for more brains? I could see her grinding that idea through her fluffy mind.
“Three sets of brains.” Tate tapped his head.
“You have three sets of brains!”
My mother actually squealed.
Damini said, matter-of-factly, “She is dumb.”
“Yep. Three sets of brains. That’s why I have this head.”
“Then don’t joke about it!” Terri huffed. “You can’t joke about getting a head like that!”
I sucked in my breath as something carnal popped to mind when Terri said, “getting a head.” I tried extremely hard not to sneak a peek at Ethan and think anything naughty.
My mother said, her gold bracelets jangling, “Tate has already gotten a head? Remember, mad passion equals safe protection!”
“I won’t joke about getting a head again,” Tate deadpanned.
He’s a teenager. He was not naïve. The slang for that particular sex act was not lost on him.
“You made me think you were going to give me a head like yours!” Terri put her hands on her skinny hips.
“Yes, ma’am, I did. I am guilty about pretending I was going to give you a head. It was bad.”
“I can’t even think about getting a head like that!” Terri’s angry face tightened up. “I sure don’t want one!”
“I don’t want you to give me a head, either.” Tate wrinkled his nose.
“Oh Tate, you are wonderful,” my mother breathed.
“Quick on his feet,” Caden said, crossing his arms, those muscles bulging.
“Sharp as a tack,” I said.
“I wasn’t going to give
you
a head,” Terri protested, too flustered and riled up to understand the undercurrents. “You were trying to give me a head!”
“I can’t give you a head,” Tate said again. “Technically that’s not correct.”
“I love his sharp, incisive intellect,” my mother said.
“It’s General Noggin,” I said.
We all nodded. “General Noggin.”
Ethan stepped in. “How about if we start the raft trip? I think we’re all acquainted and ready to go.”
“I a damn princess,” Harvey said. “I go in da boat.”
“I want a beer!” Heloise said. “Daddy beer.”
“Boo boo!” Hazel said.
The guides were standing nearby, they had not bothered to cover their laughter.
Terri’s face scrunched up tight. “I hope the rest of my day is not going to be rotten!”
“I think it’s going to get worse for you, dear,” my mother said. “We’re going to be on water. You might get your hair wet.”
“It’s only the beginning,” Caden said. “You’ve told her about the Class Seven rapids?”
Terri’s mouth dropped. “Class Seven?”
“Come along,” my mother said cheerily. “That man over there is waving at us. Must be our guide. I believe it’s our time to hit the river. I hope we don’t drown. No heads, Tate!”
“Yes, don’t give her a head!” Caden said. “That’s just not right.”
“Fine. We’ll forget about the spitting,” Damini said, that jokester. “But Tate’s germs did cause my leg to fall off. I’m never going to forgive you for that, Tate. I miss my leg. Never stop missing it, not for one minute.”
“I know, I’m sorry, Damini. I should have kept my germs to myself.”
Terri’s eyes almost popped out.
“He’s kidding,” we all said to her. “He’s kidding.”
We had a most excellent time on the river.
I hadn’t been that happy in a long time. Probably years.
Ethan sat by me on the raft. He was attentive and protective. He was funny. He told me early on, whispering, that Terri was his brother’s wife’s sister and Terri was driving the sister-in-law crazy with her meanness, so much that the sister-in-law had begged Ethan to take her for the day.
“Trix is pregnant,” he told me, “and she’s a great sister-in-law, but she has a two-year-old, too, and she’s wiped out and still has morning sickness and her head is over a toilet and Terri is giving her lectures about not becoming fat and frumpy and why isn’t the house cleaner? My brother’s in Japan on business, and Trix called, crying, then my brother called, pissed off at Terri for upsetting his wife and begging, so I had to.”
“Ah. I thought she was your girlfriend,” I whispered back.
His face froze. “No, Jaden. She is not my girlfriend. I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“I’ll be—”
Oh dear. I snapped my mouth shut. I had been about to say, “I’ll be your girlfriend.”
“I’ll be . . .” I cleared my throat. “I’ll be gosh darned surprised at that.”
“Gosh darn surprised?”
I put my paddle back in the water. Gosh darn surprised. “Yes. Darn surprised, doctor.”
“Ethan.”
“Ethan Doctor.”
“Just Ethan.”
I stole a glance at him, not too long, because the longer I stared, the hotter I became for that man. “Ethan.”
“Stroke.”
“Stroke?” Like stroke my body with his hands?
“Yes, stroke.”
His voice was gentle and pure and low.
“Okay. Stroke.”
He nodded at my paddle.
“Oh! Stroke. Stroke that. The paddle. I’ll stroke the water,” I told Ethan.
“Yes. The water needs a stroke.”
An awesome image of me stroking Ethan popped into my mind and I couldn’t help but slide him a glance.
He knew.
I knew he knew what I was thinking about.
He smiled.
It was an exhilarating, sexy rafting trip down the river. Not only because all of us, except for Terri, jumped off the raft and floated down part of the river with life jackets, splashing each other, and not only because the picnic lunch was delicious, despite Terri’s complaints about it being “too fattening for her figure,” and not only because my mother led us in raunchy songs, to which we all (except Terri, but including the guides) joined, and not only because my mother pushed Terri in the river and she did, indeed, get her hair wet and came up swearing, and not only because there were incredible rapids and animals to enjoy and a yellow sun all friendly overhead, but because I was with Ethan.
Ethan and I.
On a raft, in a river, together.
Together.
At the end Damini announced, “I am double and triple glad we were all invited on Jaden’s Raft Date with the Sex Doctor.”
Hazel said, “Hex doctor!”
Heloise said, “Ex doctor!”
But Harvey had it right, twirling in his princess dress. “Sex doctor! Damn!”
Terri seared me with a mean gaze.
I could not have turned more red.
My mother positively cackled.
Ethan smiled at me. I smiled back. What else could I do?
A couple of days later, after planting purple and yellow mums in pots in my greenhouse for our front porch, I mixed up coriander, sea salt, fennel, and sage, running them all through my fingers, comparing the textures, using Faith’s silver spoons to blend a tad here and there.
I didn’t want to do this, but it pulled me. I was compelled. Compelled to do what I didn’t want to do over Grandma Violet’s crystal plates and Faith’s silver spoons though I didn’t want to know the answer.
I smelled what I didn’t want to smell: death.
My hands froze over the herbs and spices, panicked, sick. Anguished.