Chapter 13, Minneapolis, 1978

SISSY CAN YOU HEAR ME

My mom has gone back to night school to finish her PhD. Carolyn is eight. I am six. Dad is in charge. He cooks us waffles for dinner sometimes! He watches Hogan’s Heroes, and on Friday nights, Dukes of Hazzard. He reads us great books -Charlotte’s Web, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach. We love reading time with Dad. He uses voices and even a falsetto for female characters. The rule is we must finish dinner and have a bath before reading time. He runs the bath. It is almost too deep. I have to tilt my head back to keep my mouth out of the water. The water is super hot. It feels almost too hot, and I have to breathe-exhale-breathe-exhale to adjust as I slide into the tub. Carolyn loves it this hot, so I pretend to love it too. We share a bar of Ivory soap. We wield a red plastic beach shovel and pretend it is a boat paddle. We are rescuers paddling out of a storm, saving people along the way. When we wash our hair, we pretend to be models in a hair commercial. We scrub our heads and smile just like the Breck Shampoo girls on TV. When we are done, Carolyn helps me out of the bath, unplugs the drain, and helps me dry off. She brushes my hair while I awkwardly put on my white terry cloth bathrobe. We run into Dad’s room and climb into the enormous king bed that’s covered in a big blue fluffy comforter.

Carolyn brushes her hair and braids it herself while snuggling in and the story begins… Tonight, Tekla, a Norwegian nanny character my father likes to pretend to be, is the teller of our story. Dad is wearing my mother’s brunette pinned-up wig, an apron that ties around the waist and a hand-crocheted shawl. Tekla has been a staple character as long as I can remember. Her voice is similar to Dame Edna’s - an English character almost off the page of an Oscar Wilde play. She speaks in her English accent with a Norwegian word thrown in from time to time. Tekla makes us giggle when she pronounces words funny - like “ordinry” instead of ordinary. Or when she yells “Uff-da” at the end of a sentence. Dad’s stories are full of silly characters like Tekla, and we are a captivated audience.

I am still too scared of the dark to shut my bedroom door at night. I always ask Dad to leave the hall light on, and I often talk to Carolyn in her room from my bed until I am so sleepy, I stop. Sometimes Dad puts us to bed quickly after our story if a sports game is on and Mom is gone, forgetting to leave the hall light on. When this happens, I am frozen in panic. “Sissy,” I whisper loudly. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes, Lila,” she answers.

“Please, please, please, turn on the hallway light,” I beg.

“You do it, Lila. I’m almost asleep!” she moans in an obviously tired voice.

“Please, please, Sissy,” I beg.

“Fine,” she says. “But you owe me!”

“Okay,” I agree. The light switches on. She walks to my doorway.

“You’ve got to grow up, Lila! Monsters aren’t real. No one’s gonna get you.”

“I know. I just get so scared,” I say. Carolyn walks closer.

“Move over,” she says. I have a hot water bottle under the covers, and as she slides in beside me, I place it on her chest. “That feels so good!” she says.

“You can hold it. I’m hot enough,” I say.

“You’re not still scared, right?” Carolyn asks.

“No,” I giggle, throwing my hot leg over the covers and over her legs.

“Good,” she says, sounding slightly sleepy. I can hear her heart beating as I lay my head on her arm. She pats my hair, and I copy her breathing pattern until soon, we are asleep.