House Arrest (8 page)

WEEK 16

James has on his Serious Face.
His Probation Officer University face.
Mr. and Mrs. Jimenez have been interviewed
and approved.
The judge respects the situation.
Mom talks to him like a robot.
Yes, no, yes, I understand.
Her eyes are stuck to Levi.
Like he's her sun instead of just her son,
like she's a glob of plasma
reaching and stretching to him.
She gets her energy from knowing he's right there.
She can't not touch him.
You worry about Levi.
We have Timothy under control.
We have Timothy under control.
Like I am a disease.

James is pale again.
He's out of breath, like he's run to the hospital.
But I don't think he's done any running.
I think it's true:
he really
really
really
hates hospitals.
Now I know your kryptonite, James.
Now I know if we have all our meetings at the hospital
you will forget to yell at me,
all your power lost
to fear
of beeps
and sick babies
and stinging smells.

Mrs. B.
Long blond hair,
it's almost like a lion's mane.
Sharp eyes.
Green one day, gray the next,
almost never blinking.
She doesn't look like a devil
but I
feel
like I've made a deal with one.
(Does that count as talking about my feelings?)
Her computer is free for me to use.
She'll even help me print stuff,
but only if I talk about my feelings first.
Only if we can have a
dialogue
first.
Yeah. A deal with the devil.
The green-eyed devil.

Take this one.
And this one.
And these.
And this.
José's mom is throwing piles of clothes at me.
José is in the garage working on the turtle car
with his dad.
You are so skinny,
mijo
.
These are all from two years ago
but I think they will fit.
A pile of clothes builds up at my feet
like a snowdrift of José, the First Generation.
There's no way I can say no to these clothes.
No way José's mom will
let
me say no.
So I gather them up,
like the ghosts of winters past,
and already, I feel warmer.

José's mom took me to the hospital
and when we went into Levi's room
Mom was asleep
Levi was asleep
it was dark and quiet
except for the
heartbeeps
and the nurse popped her head in the door
a grocery bag in her hand.
Timothy? Someone left this for you.
Inside the bag:
two new toothbrushes
candy bars
bananas
nonslip socks
a magazine about movie stars
a magazine about video games
a
Baby Signing Adventure
book.
Who is it from?
The nurse just shrugged,
smiled,
closed the door.

Levi is feeling much better!
Maybe just one more week.
If we don't jinx it.
And then he'll be home.
And I'll be home.
No more IV tubes.
No more doctors and pokes.
No more hospital.
No more fancy home-cooked dinners.
No more José and Theresa and Sofia and Alé.
No more Isa.
How should I feel about that?
I don't know how to feel about that.

Books on the table
pencils scribbling
oomPAH oomPAH
José telling me
hurry hurry hurry up with your homework
so we can play Halo.
Yummy smells coming from the kitchen,
Isa tapping her fingers on her nose
counting syllables
or maybe integers.
Everyone busy
but no wild eyes.
Then a key in the door,
shuffling shoes.
José's mom shouts something from the kitchen,
José's dad loosening his tie,
dropping his briefcase.
Isa stands and hugs him
José tells about the math test and how well he did.
The oomPAHing stops and Alé flies down the stairs.
They are a crowd
even with Theresa and Sofia not at home.
They are all talking at once.
José's dad acts annoyed as he tries to get
to the kitchen
but he's smiling.
José's mom steps into the dining room
wipes her hands on her apron
kisses him big on the mouth
and I am still at the table
alone
feeling suddenly itchy to not be here
in this house
but I can't be anywhere else
and José's dad says over the noise,
Timothy
,
and he nods at me
and I nod back
swallowing a rock in my throat
wondering why everything just got so weird.

WEEK 17

I know everything will be back to normal soon.
I am not a moron, James.
I
know
it will not be José's house all the time.
I
know
it will not be José's mom taking me places.
I
know
it will be back to business as usual.
You don't have to talk to me like I'm an idiot.
James.
Mrs. B.
School.
Mom.
I will be back in the house arrest box.
I mean, it's not like I really left it,
I just had little tunnels
like those tunnels hamsters get to run around in.
Those tunnels can stretch across a whole room,
even up toward the ceiling
where the little hamster runs and runs.
But in the end?
All tunnels lead right back to the cage.
So don't worry, James.
I get it.
Back to normal soon.
Fine.

Look who's on his wedge
dangling like a wiggly booger.
Cutest booger I've ever seen.
Marisol is humming and signing,
Levi waves his hands
without actually signing anything.
I can tell, though.
He's happy to be home.
So happy.

What is THIS?
Mom shrieks in the kitchen.
I knew she would.
But I also know she won't give anything back.
Tamales, enchiladas,
frozen containers of
borracho
beans,
some kind of cake.
José's mom.
She made us dinner for every night this week.
I gave her my key so she could sneak inside
and fill up the empty freezer
while I was at school
and Mom got Levi home from the hospital.
We can't accept this
, Mom says
while she eats a cold tamale.
Definitely not
, I say, taking one,
sprinkling masa crumbs down my shirt.
We should totally give these back
, I say,
reaching for another.
Mom laughs for the first time in a long time.
She puts frozen beans in the microwave.
We really shouldn't accept this
, she says again,
eating a corn bread muffin.
Definitely not
, I repeat.
The microwave beeps
and we don't even get bowls
we just eat the beans right out of the container.

Nominate a charity!
Mrs. B.
Really.
Come on.
Where did you get this?
Who deserves a Carnival of Giving?
Mrs. B.
Seriously.
Um, A) My family is not a charity
and 2) Mom would never say yes.
Not in a hundred million years.
Nominations for next year's Carnival start TODAY!
By next year
we could all be flattened by an asteroid
or destroyed by a zombie plague.
I mean, you don't know.
How can you plan for next year
when tomorrow seems like
a hundred years away?
P.S. Don't rip flyers off the middle school walls.
That is super creepy.
FYI

Here's the thing with school, overall:
It exists.
It's a thing.
I go to it.
I come home.
I don't love it.
I don't hate it.
It feels like a giant mountain just—
BAM
right in the middle of the road
slowing down the rest of my life
in a super annoying kind of way.
I can't get over it, because it's too . . . much.
Unmoving.
Unmoved.
Unmoveable.
And the only way around it
is to carve a tunnel through it,
through dirt and crap in every direction
trying to maybe find something useful along the way
but mostly just getting annoyed
because there seems to be no end to the tunnel
or the crap
that just goes on
forever and forever and forever.