Family Reminders (3 page)

I picked up the thin yellow and black piece of paper. I’d never gotten a telegram before. I’d never even held one. I carried it into the parlor and folded myself into Mama’s rocking chair, where I carefully flattened and smoothed the telegram against my lap.

DADDY WILL BE ALL RIGHT THE DRS COULD NOT SAVE HIS LEG I WILL BE HOME TOMORROW

The rocker squeaked as I rocked back and forth and tried to take in the news.
Daddy will be all right. Daddy will be all right
. I said Mama’s words over and over again in my head, and as I did I felt a wave of relief wash over me as tears burned my eyes.

I even smiled slightly to myself as I thought about how Mama would never have allowed me to be here in the parlor first thing in the morning. The parlor was for company and for family evenings. It was definitely not for daytime use. “Might wear it out,” Daddy whispered to me whenever Mama chased us out. Usually we didn’t sit in here until after the evening dishes were done. Only then would Mama let us move from the hard kitchen chairs into the fireplace warmth and soft-chair comfort of the parlor. Sometimes, though, Daddy grew tired of waiting for our after-dinner family time.

“How about some music?” he asked. Swooping into the kitchen, he dragged Mama and me away from the sink, our hands still dripping with soapsuds
.

“Daniel, please!” Mama laughed, wiping her hands on her apron and shaking her head. “I suppose you think the dishes will do themselves.”

”I’ll help you with them later,” Daddy said as he escorted Mama and me into the parlor. Then he pulled the comfy chairs up to the fireplace and seated each of us with a bow. Finally, once we were settled, he took his seat at the piano and began to play. Polka music, Irish jigs—anything with a fast, toe-tapping beat. Pretty soon, as the music got under his skin, he couldn’t sit any longer. Still playing, he stood up, the piano stool pushed out of the way. “Piano dancing,” Daddy always called it
.

”Plumb foolery,” Mama always responded
.

Whatever they called it, whenever Daddy got to his feet you could be sure that Mama and I were laughing and clapping and singing along
.

The banging of pots and pans brought me back to the telegram and the news about Daddy. Staring at the silent piano, I tried to picture Daddy piano dancing on one leg.

Daddy came home
exactly one week and two days later. Since he’d been gone, a winter storm had blown through the valley, stripping the branches of their color and leaving a new landscape, white and bare.

Mama went to the hospital to bring him home. I stayed behind, not wanting my first sight of him to be in front of strangers. I hadn’t seen him since the accident.

”No visitors,” said the doctors at first.

“No visitors,” Daddy said later.

“Don’t expect things to be the same,” Mama warned me before she left the house that morning. During the long wait I baked Daddy an apple pie. While it was in the oven, I set the table with the company tablecloth and the good china. I even ran outside and gathered pine branches to place in the big red pitcher that always sat in the center of the kitchen table.
Daddy’s coming home
, I sang to myself as I prettied up the house. Daddy liked a celebration, and this would be the biggest one of all.

I heard him coming before I saw him. First I heard the squeak of the front gate as it opened, and the metal clang as it closed. I waited for his whistled hello, the one he did when he knew I was inside waiting for him. The one he always did just before he bounded up the steps, racing to beat me to the front door.

Today there was no whistle, and there were no quick footsteps up the stairs. My heart fell until I remembered Mama’s warning. This was what she’d meant when she said everything was going to be different. Of course Daddy wouldn’t come flying up the stairs. Mama had warned me that he was on crutches, with his leg fatly wrapped in bandages. There was no hello, only the heavy thud of crutches and then the heavier, slower sound of his good foot hitting the floor one step at a time.

When Daddy reached the porch, I ran to the front door and swung it open, knowing that he would be waiting for my welcome with arms outstretched. Instead he stood there thin and weak, clinging to his crutches.

“Daddy,” I said, expecting his ready smile and loud laugh to erase the stranger in front of me. He looked at me and looked down shyly, like a little boy caught doing something wrong.

“Daddy?”

“It’s been a long day, Mary. Your father is very tired right now.” Mama’s matter-of-fact voice cut into the awkwardness. “He insisted on walking home from the train station. Can you imagine, in this slippery snow? We’re lucky we saw Mr. Morgan’s delivery wagon and he took pity on us, or we’d still be at it.”

Daddy winced at the mention of needing a ride. “Pity is right. I could see the way he looked at me. Felt sorry for me, that’s what.”

“Of course he felt sorry for you, Daniel. You’ve been hurt. You’re in pain. What kind of friend would he be if he didn’t feel sorry for you?” Mama answered, sounding like she had already had this conversation before.

“I don’t need other people’s pity, Liddie. I don’t want people treating me like I’m some kind of cripple.”

“Mary, why don’t you get your father a cup of tea?” Mama said, changing the subject. Her tired eyes and lined face contradicted her cheerful voice. “Won’t that be nice, Daniel? Let’s go sit down in the kitchen and warm up.”

”I think I’ll just go to bed,” Daddy answered. He pushed past me without even looking up. The sound of his crutches scraping against the floor echoed through the house.

That night Daddy didn’t come to dinner. My apple pie stayed uneaten on the table. Mama quietly folded up the tablecloth and put it away. To me, the house felt emptier than it had when Daddy was in the hospital.

The wind whistled through the trees
, bleak and sharp, as winter settled itself firmly onto the mountain. The autumn sounds changed to muffled winter sounds, and people stayed in their houses rather than tussle with the bitter cold and snow. The weeks passed. I kept expecting life to revert to normal. I expected Daddy’s old self to return, and I expected to see Mama’s face relax into an unforced smile. Instead, it seemed that nothing changed and each day felt sadder than the next.

At first Daddy spent a lot of time resting. “He’s still weak from the operation,” Mama explained every day when I barged in after school only to be hushed quiet because Daddy was sleeping. Again.

When he wasn’t in bed, he sat listlessly at the kitchen table.

“Eat, Daniel,” Mama begged, pushing food toward him. “It will make you stronger.”

“For what?” Daddy said angrily, stabbing the fork into his mashed potatoes.

For us
, I wanted to yell back at him.
For me
. I didn’t say a word, though. I just pushed my chair noisily back from the table and, with a shake of my head, marched out of the room.

One day I walked in from school as Aunt Hattie and Mama were having a hushed conversation in the parlor while Daddy took his afternoon nap. Bent over their words, they were too busy to notice me, so I hung my coat up and stood quietly at the door. I heard Aunt Hattie offering Mama money.