My grandmother knocks on the door to my bedroom. Quick like a shot, I am out of my closet.
“Sarah, where would you like to go for dinner?”
“Be out in a minute.”
Nope. Still not coming out. I’m going to climb out the window and run away. You will have to find dinner on your own.
She says, “Looking forward to talking about summer plans with you. Maybe we’ll go to Chuck E. Cheese!”
“Okay,” I say.
It’s all the enthusiasm I can muster.
Chuck E. Cheese and I don’t get along.
The last time I was there, if you’ll remember, was the year of the sucky birthday party and the little-girl dollhouse and the spilled drink, which was all Jim Beam then. This was before Jim Beam met Dr Pepper.
I said I wasn’t going to talk about it, but here I am with a card from Jane, aka my mother. This birthday is starting to feel like that one.
At least my mother remembered. I have nothing from Dad.
When I turned eight, he gave me two stuffed animals, a charm-locket necklace, a stack of books, a play makeup kit, pink leopard-print slippers, a water bottle with my initials on it, a yellow diary, and the little-girl dollhouse.
It was pink, of course.
Each room of the dollhouse had a little light on the ceiling, and you could turn each one of them on and off. There were even pictures on the walls of happy faces, which I suppose were meant to be the family members of the dolls.
My mother’s birthday card was on the floor next to me.
“Why do I only get a card?” I asked. “Why don’t I get more from her?”
“I don’t know, Sarah,” he said, his face still glued to the TV.
“Maybe because you move so much, she didn’t get our new address.”
“I gave it to her. She knows.”
“Can we call her right now and ask? Maybe there’s something else.”
“I’ll ask next time, but I don’t think there’s anything else.”
“Do you think her brain will ever get well?”
“I don’t know.”
“I wonder what she was like when she was eight.”
“That was about when her own mother died. She moved to her father’s house in South Texas.”
“So we are alike?”
“Well, yes. Maybe.”
“I want to paint her a picture. What does she like?”
“I don’t know. She’ll like whatever you draw.”
“You just don’t want to tell me.”
“Sarah, I really don’t…”
His thick glass slipped from his fingers and made a loud crash against the tile floor. Glass and ice everywhere. I don’t know if it was dropped or thrown.
I sat back in my birthday-paper nest and tried to be an invisible pink thing.
“Sorry, kiddo. I don’t know how that slipped….” And then he couldn’t finish his sentence.
He was trying not to cry.
A gunfight played out on the TV. In a strange way, it was comforting. The good guys were winning.
“You don’t make me upset, Sarah,” he said. “You are my curious girl.”
I helped him clean up the glass and the ice cubes. I smelled it just to see what Jim Beam was all about. It reminded me of cough syrup.
That day, I tried to stop being a curious girl in public. I became curious in private. I went through his things when he wasn’t home or was sleeping.
That’s when I saw the shoe box.
It was on the top shelf, pushed to the back corner of his closet. When I opened it, I discovered what detectives might call an item of interest.
Dear Jane,
I know we talk on the phone some and in e-mails, but I never hear you laugh. I wish I knew what made you laugh. What does make you laugh? Oh, what a horrible letter this is. Look how many times I’ve written the word ‘laugh’? Well, I don’t mind admitting it HERE because no one ever reads all my unsent letters—but I’ve been drinking. Yes, it’s true. Mother has done her best to rehabilitate me, and mostly it has worked. Well, really, it is Sarah I do it for. But sometimes, it’s the only way I can sleep. I am weak. I am a weak, weak man.
The letter ended, with no closing, no “Love, Tom” or anything. Maybe he had fallen asleep.
You see, this is what happens when you get only a couple of cards a year from a person you don’t understand. Someone ends up spilling a drink or crying or both, and you get nowhere.