Authors: Tracie Vaughn Zimmer
The red boat
slices the still waters like a knife;
something Jordan says makes Gran throw
her head like a horse
and laugh so it echoes.
I watch the water drip from the tips
of their oars,
diamond necklaces in the sun.
The urge to stomp my feet,
bite somebody,
scream:
He’s
my
friend.
I’m not supposed to be
left out
anymore.
First real day of summer
and Mom is prodding me
with her “get out of bed” speech:
“We need to leave in twelve minutes.”
“You must eat
some
thing.”
“Are you wearing
that
?”
Yawn.
She’s been like a Chihuahua with
a new toy since she landed that job.
And she’s working hours
that would do Jordan’s dad proud.
I don’t speak to her,
I’m so angry over this.
But she doesn’t even notice.
“I’ll walk you in today,”
she says,
like it’s preschool
registration.
It’s worse
than I even imagined—
I’m the oldest one there, by far.
After a painful session of OT,
and speech when I’m paired with a fourth grader,
I walk out during a break
and head to Jordan’s house.
I tap on Jordan’s back door;
he’s watching cartoons and eating
marshmallow cereal straight out of the box.
When he asks if the clinic was canceled,
I just shrug
and grab a handful of cereal.
Then he’s on to the chemicals
we’ll need to change
the hydrangeas from pink to blue,
and wondering if with new mixtures
we could create our own colored
blooms.
When we arrive in the garden
Granny questions how I’m home so soon.
“It lets out early,” I lie
and walk away,
hoping these few days with Jordan
before he leaves for camp are worth
the bitter taste on my tongue.
For the last three days
when Mom drops me off
at the clinic
I walk through the front
and straight out the back
until I get to Jordan’s door.
I tell Mom
the clinic’s not so bad.
I tell Jordan and Gran
it’s over early.
And it is—
for me anyway.
At home,
I hover near the phone
to answer questions from the clinic
or erase ones that are left
while Gran lingers in the garden.
Each day I race
to check the mail for any letters
with that return address.
I hop on the phone
whenever it rings
though I’ve always hated to answer it.
Each day
my simple plan
gets more and more
complicated.
Mom and I
hit the mall to buy Jordan’s birthday present
(a potato electricity kit)
when we run into him and his dad
shopping for his clothes and camp supplies.
Somehow Mom ends up with
a wad of cash from Jordan’s dad
(who heads back to the office, relieved,
and with an invitation for dinner and cake).
We spend the afternoon
under the fluorescent glow of the mall
helping Jordan shed
his gifted-boy-geek look—
new haircut and clothes.
Waiting outside the dressing room,
I nearly confess that I’ve been skipping
the clinic to Mom.
When I open my mouth to tell her,
Jordan walks out.
I see the words disappear
like a hummingbird
between racks of clothes.
He looks so different:
in athletic jerseys,
jean shorts pushed low,
and cool basketball shoes
that replace his hideous loafers.
When we walk through
the front door,
we see Gran hunched
over the flour-covered table,
rolling out dough,
cutting it into strips to drop
in the bubbly buttery broth.
Jordan’s favorite meal:
chicken and dumplings,
and the sweet smell of
baking chocolate cake
to celebrate his
twelfth birthday.
Later, as we all
sing to him,
the candles light up his dark eyes
and a small flame
of something I can’t name
sparks just beneath my heart.
Dark clouds roll in from the southwest,
ruining a perfect morning.
Blowing hate, she comes
throwing branches in
our tomato and corn rows,
thunder laughing while
crushing our work.
Leaves scatter like confetti
on this party of destruction.
Jordan and I
watch from the covered porch.
Saplings bow to her power,
the leaves of hosta
by the back stoop
throb
like a heartbeat.
Granny braced by the screen door,
fists on her wide hips,
surveying the sky,
daring the rain to
mist her face
with each gust.
Gran always says
“This tantrum can’t last—
but we Wyatt women will.”
Jordan, Gran, and I are out in the garden
cleaning up debris but
Gran’s face is etched with anger
and determination.
I know she has more on her mind
than just this storm.
Gran feels more like my mom
since Mom was always
busy with part-time jobs
and full-time college.
I can judge Granny’s face faster than anything,
so I’m thinking it’s a good time to
find an escape.
Before I can, she starts:
“You see this mess, Josie?
Well, your lies are going to cause one just
as costly, and not near so easy to clean up.
Tell your mom you’ve been skipping tonight—
or I’m going to do it for you.”
Her eyes are squinted up
and her jaw is slack,
a portrait of disappointment.
Jordan looks like he swallowed a frog.
They both head into the house
and leave me holding
my rusty bucket. The yellow sky casts
an eerie glow of things to come.
I find Jordan stretched out
in the hammock.
Last summer, I tried it once:
tangled for hours,
frightened and helpless,
like a spider’s dinner.
He holds out his hand, helps
me scootch in.
The silence settles;
it’s the perfect kind—
when you don’t have to pretend
to know what to say.
His left arm and leg
warming my right.
For a long time
we watch
the clouds;
they look like they’re
being swept
by a God-sized broom.
He turns his face
to mine
so close, then says:
“If I had a mom,
I wouldn’t lie to her.”
Then he climbs out,
disappears between
the soft green arms
of the forsythia
for the rest of the day.
When Mom takes off
to meet Aunt Laura in Raleigh
I discover something
I’d rather not know:
it’s even easier to lie
to your mom
on the phone.
Jordan leaves in forty-eight hours
and then I’ll be stuck
alone again all summer.
And worse than that,
it feels like that
old boll weevil is back
on the farm
eating my insides—
feasting on lies.
Just before noon on Saturday,
only hours before Jordan leaves for camp,
I pack up my pride to find
him sitting on his front stoop
with a few test tubes
and some icky greenish liquid.
He tells me about his quest
for a new algae as if nothing
happened between us the other day.
Relieved, I park myself beside him.
Then Natalie appears around the redbrick garage
like a goddess,
lime bikini curving in all the right spots.
“Hey, we’re playing water volley. Want to come?”
Natalie doesn’t even glance my way.
Jordan’s face pinks up.
Unable to talk, he just nods.
Natalie shrugs. Her whole body says,
“Whatever.”
Her long legs
cast a troll-like shadow
in the nearly noon sun,
and it follows her back
to her designer world.
I can’t believe Jordan
is going to ditch me
and our last two hours of summer together.
“Do you want me to run and get your suit?”
I just stare at him,
an elephant in the birdbath.
“What? I know you love to swim.”
It wasn’t that long ago
our arms and legs were laced
together in the campground pool.
Doesn’t he realize she didn’t mean
me
?
I’d rather be in the therapies all summer
than in a pool with perfect Natalie.
“Go with her,” I spit.
He bolts off the stoop.
“I’ll see you in a month!” he calls
as he disappears behind
the stained-glass door.
Too chicken to face Gran or Mom
I spend hours moping
by the creek,
plopping pebbles, then rocks,
and finally a big stone
until hunger pulls on me,
sends me home.
An enormous quiet meets me—
no pump ticking,
pans rattling,
even the birds are
on a short vacation
from the feeders.
I find Granny
crumpled
next to the claw-footed dresser,
her white blouse stained down the front,
left hand curled like a
dried fern leaf.
My fingers icy,
I misdial the number twice
as I kneel next to Granny.
She’s breathing—I check—
but her eyes look blank
as fresh-turned soil,
and she can’t answer.
Since I’m upset,
the operator understands only
two words: Grandma hurt.
I’m sure seasons have changed
before the man and woman
rush into the bedroom
with their blue gym bag of equipment
and find me curled up with Granny,
my arm wrapped around her,
and her back soaked
in my tears.
They buckle me in the front
with the driver.
Over the screaming siren
she calmly explains—
patting my knee with one hand,
driving with the other—
that they’re doing their best for Gran,
but not the old lies
I think I’d rather hear:
that everything will be just fine.
The ER social worker is busy handling
a shaken-baby case
(you can overhear everything in an ER),
so they hand me over
to the hospital chaplain.
I’m expecting some bald, bent old man.
Instead,
a woman about Mom’s age
rolls up in a sporty wheelchair.
Pastor Anne is patient enough to get
all the answers I know to all the questions
for all of the forms.
She hunts Mom down at Aunt Laura’s house,
tells her the story,
and keeps me company—
chatting about movies and Jesus and books,
busy enough to forget my insides have turned
to pudding
for the hours it takes
until Mom arrives
from the city.
We wait outside the doors
to the intensive-care unit.
Mom lies like it’s an old habit—
telling the nurses I’m the required
fourteen years of age—
and a python of guilt squeezes my heart
when I think of the lies I’ve told
to this point.
They buzz us through two sets of doors.
Before we can go see Gran,
we wash our hands with
a caustic sour soap
and promise not to stay too long.
Mom sucks in her breath when she sees Gran
hooked up to three different bags of solution
drip,
drip,
dripping
into her arm.
Tubes wrap around her face
and up her nose;
the green machine that attaches to it
makes a
whuff, whuff
sound
as it moves.
Her heartbeat bleeps on the monitor,
a soft, slow rhythm.
Mom asks Gran’s nurse a blue-million
questions, taking notes and names.
She’ll have read the same articles