Dreamsleeves (10 page)

A
fter Beck leaves my room, his dream on his sleeve, I lay in bed thinking until Mom calls us for dinner. Thinking and worrying. What will happen when Dad comes home, when Mom tells him about B and C and the baby aspirin? Why didn't you call me back, Maizey? I'm sure your mom told you I called. Just when I need you the most. You're probably having too much fun with Snoop-Melon. You probably don't even care.

Every time a car horn beeps outside on the highway, I feel fear. Every time I think I hear tires in the driveway, I cringe.

When will he come home? How will he react?

Even if he believes Mom when she says it was her fault, will he still be mad and blame me and say I can't go to Maizey's “camp”? I'll never get to that party now.

My father doesn't come home for dinner. He's not there when the little ones get their baths and go to bed. Mom and I watch TV. “You should go to sleep now, A.”

In bed I hug my doll Clarissa, my ears wide as Easter bonnets, listening for him to come home. It's embarrassing to admit since I'm almost thirteen that I still keep three toys on my bed. Jeffrey, the elf; Clarissa, in a red velvet dress and black patent-leather shoes, long white hair and blue eyes with dark lashes that flutter open and shut when I shake her head up and down, “yes”; and Flop, my one-eared bunny. My cousins', “the saints',” dog Brute chewed off the other one.

When I was little and Mom and Dad and I lived down in the basement and I didn't have any brothers or sisters or school friends yet, I used to have a bunch of stuffed animals and dolls that I pretended were my children. I took excellent care of them, telling them stories and singing them to sleep. I loved all of my children, but my favorite was Bo, a big brown furry teddy bear with a green bow around his neck.

After Beck was born and the “old Polish couple” moved out of the top floor and Nana said we could move up, my father gave me two black plastic garbage bags and told me to pack my stuff. I put my Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs, Play-Doh jars, books, puzzles, and games in one bag. I put all of my children in the other.

After the big move up, the bag with all of my children was missing. I searched and searched, crying.
Where were they? In the basement? Maybe a robber stole them?

Mom helped me look everywhere, but that bag was never found.

I cried and cried and cried and cried enough tears to make a river.

Two days later, Jeffrey, Clarissa, and Flop showed up on my bed. Where was Bo? Where were all of the others? I lined Jeffrey and Clarissa and Flop up in a row and questioned them every night for clues, but they just stared back at me, silent.

A few years later, I was nine or ten then, I heard my Mom and Dad fighting one night in the kitchen. I snuck out of bed and hid by the refrigerator to listen.

“Can't you do something about her wetting the bed?” my father yelled. He was talking about me.

“The doctor says she'll grow out of it,” my mother said in a quiet voice.

“There must be pills or something. Her whole room stinks like pee.”

“The doctor said some children wet the bed because they are afraid or …”

“I should have gotten rid of all those dolls,” he said.

My heart started pounding. I leaned in closer to hear.

“What?” my mother said.

“Didn't you know that?” Dad said with a proud-of-himself chuckle. “I threw out all those smelly things when we moved. I knew we'd get her new ones for Christmas. But then she cried so much I dug three of them out of the garbage to keep her quiet.”

I quick clapped my hands over my mouth so they wouldn't hear me scream.

He threw my children in the garbage? How could he?!

“How could you, Roe?” Mom was as shocked as me. “How could you be so cruel?”

That night I cried harder than ever in my life, enough tears to make an ocean.

After I discovered what my father did with my toy friends, with only three left, I decided to keep Jeffrey, Clarissa, and Flop close as I could, lined up, one-two-three, right by my pillow, between my face and the wall, where I can keep them safe. And every night I rotate them, so that they all get even chances to be hugged.

I've forgotten the other dolls now, except for Bo. I decided Bo was found by a nice garbage truck worker on Christmas Eve who brought Bo home to his bedridden daughter who loves him very much and feeds him spoonfuls of honey. And Bo is happy.

 

Sometime during the night, I hear the fighting and jolt awake.

“What the hell's wrong with you?” my father is saying to my mother.

I hear the slam of the freezer, ice clinking in a glass.

“Leaving a bottle of pills lying around. What kind of mother are you?”

My mother is a wonderful mother
.

My mother is lying for me. My heart is pounding. My mother never lies.

She mumbles something I can't hear.

“And where the hell was Aislinn?” he shouts.

Fear grips my stomach.
Will he come drag me out of bed?
I want to hide, but I want to hear. If I can hear, I can handle things.

“She was putting laundry away,” my mother says. “That girl works so hard.”

“Well, she should have been paying attention!” he shouts.

“Roe,” Mom says in the calm voice she uses when he's drunk-angry like this. “We need to hire a babysitter. A is just a child herself, and this is her summer vacation.”

“She's
thirteen
,” Dad shouts. “And who's going to pay for a sitter, Maggie, huh? What do you think we are, millionaires? You know my commissions are down!”

They're probably down because you're drinking so much
.

“Aislinn's twelve,” Mom says. “She should be out playing with kids her own age,” my mother says. “She deserves —”

“Yeah,” my father says. He slams his glass down on the counter. “We all deserve a lot of things.”

Sue-Ellen's pool party with Mike now seems highly unlikely. Dad had said I could go to Maizey's camp unless “something” came up. This is definitely “something.”

My father is yelling louder. I hear my mother let out a sob. Eddie is crying. God only knows how many drinks my dad's had. Do you know, God? You know everything, right? Then why don't you do something?

My fear turns to fury. This isn't right. My father can't hurt my family like this. We need help. Who can help us? Somebody has to make him stop drinking!

I used to think …

If only I sweep the floor better, he won't drink.

If only I fold the laundry better, he won't drink.

If only I keep the little ones quiet, he won't drink.

If only I get all A's on my report card, he won't drink.

If only, if only, if only.

Callie shuffles in the bunk above me. I hope she can't hear them.

It's Flop's turn to be loved favorite. I hug him to my cheek, kissing his brown furry face. “Good thing you only have one ear,” I say.

I love you, A
, he says.

“Love you, too, Flop. Good night.”

O
n Sunday morning, I wake up wondering who I can tell about my dad's drinking. I also wake up wet.
Oh, no.

I get out of bed, peel off my cold, clingy pajamas and put my bathrobe on.

The bathroom is empty. Thank goodness. There are pink spots from my father's vomit on the toilet seat. I wipe them away with toilet paper.

He throws up every morning now.

I run water in the tub and clean myself off. I wish we could get a shower like everyone else in the modern world. Dad keeps promising, but his promises mean nothing anymore. Maizey said Sue-Ellen has her very own bathroom with a shower and tub and a makeup vanity with a cushioned chair and a closet you can walk around in, clothes all hung in pretty rows with matching shoes underneath. That girl is so lucky. I bet her birthday party will be fit for a princess.
Please, God, let me still be able to go.

Back in my room, I strip the fitted sheet from my mattress and stare at the little puddle of pee on top of the plastic garbage bag Mom makes me put down to protect my mattress in case of accidents like last night. How embarrassing. In the fall I'll be a teenager and I still wet the bed like a baby.

I put the wet sheet in the laundry basket in the pantry that's already overflowing with dirty clothes again even though I just did four loads of laundry on Friday. On second thought, I shove the wet sheet down into the bottom of the basket so my father won't notice. Not that he ever does laundry.

I turn on the teakettle and put a slice of rye bread in the toaster. When it pops up, I slather on some butter and Welch's grape jelly.

I take my breakfast to my favorite spot, the phone bench in the dining room.

My father is down below on the lawn. There are cans of paint by his side and he's kneeling on the grass with a brush in his hand touching up the statue of the Blessed Mother Mary. That was a gift he gave Nana for Mother's Day once.

Nana must be so busy helping Aunt Bitsy that she hasn't had time to write. I hope she's having some fun, too, riding the cable cars and going to the beach. I don't know any grandmothers who work like my nana does. When I was little I used to sit watching her iron her “work dresses,” all starched perfectly, at her kitchen table for her job at Russell Sage College. She'd put on pearls and an overcoat with a matching hat and walk sprightly up the street to the bus, shoulders back, chin up.

I thought my Nana was a teacher. It was just recently I discovered she's a housekeeper. She cleans President Froman's house, starches his shirts, polishes his floors. She is also the vice president of the worker's union. The first woman ever.

The Blessed Mother sits about as tall as Callie in the center of the sloping lawn that is our yard, a hill too steep to play kickball on. It would be a perfect hill for sledding, except if you didn't stop at the hedges you'd go over the bank across the sidewalk and smack into the highway where you'd be hit by a car,
crash, you're dead
, and so forget about sledding.

Mother Mary sits all blue and white and silent, hands folded, fingertips pointed heavenward in prayer, surrounded by the rosebushes my father plants for her each year.

Dad stops painting for a moment. He bows his head, probably praying. He's getting balder on top, his dark hair ringed round like a monk's.

My father loves the Blessed Mother. My mom has a “strong devotion” to her as well. In May, which is Mary's special month, my mother makes all of us kneel to say the rosary in front of the small Mary statue we have on the buffet in the dining room. There is always a bouquet of fresh lilacs and a votive candle lit in Mary's honor. My mother makes us say that entire rosary, every bead, no matter what. No matter if the phone is ringing, or my father is yelling, or dinner is burning, we keep praying.

Sometimes I watch my mom's face as she prays, eyes closed, lips moving, often tears streaming down.
Why are you crying?
I want to ask, but I already know why. She's crying about the drinking. It has to be that.

I think of the Beatles song: “Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, let it be.”
Send my dad some wisdom, Mary. Help him stop drinking, please.

I walk down the back steps and across the lawn to where my father is working. He has finished repainting an area of blue on Mary's sleeve and now he's got his smaller brushes out, touching up her face. He doesn't notice me. I swat away a bee buzzing close to my face. A cicada drones nearby, heralding more hot weather.

My father closes one can, opens another. “Oh, A … What do you think?”

“Beautiful,” I say. “She looks beautiful.”

My father smiles. He looks like he's going to cry — the way he does when he comes out of confession. He nods his head up and down. “Yes,” he says. “She does.”

 

We all get dressed in our Sunday best and trudge up the hill to Mass. There's the old man in the brown suit and matching hat with the gull feather in the rim. Nana's friend Mrs. Casey asks if we've heard from her yet. She stares at Mom's belly. “Are you …” And Mom nods yes.

“Oh, thank God and his Blessed Mother,” Mrs. Casey says, clasping her hands together.

Maria and Leo Carroll are talking with another young couple. Maria sees me, “Aislinn, hi!” waving for me to join them, but the organ is starting and we have to sit.

Beck's wearing his baseball dream on the sleeve of his shirt. Dad reads it and smiles. He gentle-punches Beck's arm. “Let me see what I can do, Buster Brown.”

Beck's face nearly bursts with joy. It's like they're already sitting in the bleachers, eating peanuts and Cracker Jack. Oh, I hope it comes true for you, Beck!

After I receive Communion and return to our pew to kneel, I pray the same thing I do every Sunday.
Please, God, make my dad stop drinking
.

I look up at the statues. They stare back — rock hard marble, cold and silent. I look at the face of Jesus.
Open your eyes, please. I need you to see.

After we walk home from Mass, my mother makes a big brunch, scrambled eggs and sausage, toast with jelly, cinnamon rolls, orange juice, and tea. We all sit, shoulder to shoulder, around the formica table with the Christmas-card propped leg.

My father looks excited about something. He gets a piece of paper, writes like he's making a list. “Got to get some things. I'll be back,” he says.

When I finish drying the dishes, Mom says, “Why don't you go do something fun, A? Go ahead, get out of here.”

I dial Maizey's number, no answer. No surprise.

I pack a lunch for later, bologna and cheese with mustard, a thermos of soda, some onion-garlic chips, and the Freihofer's cupcake I wrapped in a napkin and hid behind the breadbox yesterday. With so many people in the family, you have to take precautions. A box of Freihofer's chocolate chip cookies usually lasts two days; there are probably thirty in there, but cupcakes come six to a box, one for everyone. Once Eddie starts eating regular food, somebody's going to be sorry.

I put my lunch bag in my satchel with my diary and pen and sling my guitar on my back, then, checking that the coast is clear, I head up the path to my house.

Prisoner Number One, Aislinn aka “Dream” O'Neill, out on temporary parole.

In my Peely-Stick Shop I sing my heart out — “Green-Eyed Lady” by Sugarloaf, “Cracklin' Rosie” by Neil Diamond, “Ain't No Mountain High Enough” by Diana Ross, and “Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes” by Edison Lighthouse. I eat my sandwich, smiling at the happy words tacked on the trees:
DREAM. BELIEVE. LOVE
.

I think about how much I miss having Nana right downstairs from me. We are different, but we love each other strong. She keeps her feelings to herself, so proud and private. Me? I'd spill the contents of my heart to the milkman if he asked.

“We've got to toughen you up, Aislinn,” Nana says. “You need to grow a thicker skin. You'll get crushed wearing your heart on your sleeve like you do.”

I lie down, sun-stars twinkling through the pine bough roof, and take a nap. Later when I wake up, I walk to the edge of the hill, where I can see the river in the distance. There's a ship moving slowly by. Where are you going? I wonder.

I gather up my things and head back down the hill, where much to my surprise I see my father standing by the old outhouse. He's prying a board away with a long steel tool. There is a stack of lumber on the ground, and a window.

“What are you doing?” I say.

“I'm building Mom a little writer's house for her birthday,” he says. He smiles, looking at me like I should pay him a compliment.

I would except, in that moment, I have all I can do to not burst into tears. If he's building her writer's house here, it must mean he's never going to build her one at our house in the country.

We are never going to get our house in the country.