22
Snap
The days keep getting a little longer. The sun feels warm through the glass panes of the old windows. I stretch out on the floor right in a square of direct light, feeling good.
I am being fed on a regular basis. I settle down at Father’s feet every night, where I am welcome. So I can’t complain.
But these have been a difficult couple of days for Father.
One night, he talks to Jimmy and Mary about Charlotte’s visit, sitting with them on the stairs, where Mary paused to say hello to me. I like to sit on the middle stair to keep track of comings and goings.
Father clearly feels awkward, tapping his hand on his knee, stumbling on his words. My siblings are supportive and tell him they are okay with it. Father appreciates what they have to say, but at night he tosses and turns.
I think he is unsure about it.
But at the same time, now that Charlotte has gone home and he is alone in his bed, he aches for her. He stares at the wall, lost in his memories. Then he turns to grab the pillow she used and hugs it to his chest.
It’s funny to think about Father being lonely in this house full of people and pets, but I know he has been. I understand.
As soon as Father falls asleep, Finn starts screaming and doesn’t stop, all night. Father needs Mary’s help to give Finn medicine. Father flips on the bathroom light, and it is so bright it blinds them. They can’t figure out what is wrong. Finn grabs his ear. The hearing aids are off, but he still cries and pulls at his neck.
In the morning, my siblings have to go to school, but Father stays home. A trip to the doctor is fruitless, and there are twenty-four more hours of frustration and pain and crying and comforting and nonstop care. Father looks in his books but cannot find an answer.
I hear Father calling the doctor in the wee morning hours of the next day. “But he’s still screaming. His fever is so high. I don’t know what to do. You have to see him again.” Father is very upset, pressing the phone to his ear. “No, something is wrong with him. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Please, we have to come back in.”
By the time they go back to the doctor, Father is exhausted and angry and at the end of his rope. I think he is ready to throw his crutches out the window.
He finally comes home with a new kind of medicine, but it takes another full day before Finn feels better.
Mahmee, while waiting for Father to return from the doctor, calls Charlotte to cancel her appointment, telling Charlotte that she doesn’t need to come. Father, upon returning and hearing that news, is momentarily stunned.
He hasn’t told his mother how he feels about Charlotte yet. So Mahmee didn’t know Father might want to see Charlotte even though Finn is sick.
Father sulks and snaps at Mahmee whenever she tries to talk to him. He hunches over on the couch, massaging his temples, too tired to even raise his head. Father worries about Finn so much. I think his heart is heavy with it all the time, even when the baby is well. So having Finn in pain is too much to bear. He complains to Mahmee about how hard it is to raise a baby without Mother.
“Ah, c’mon, Tommy. Carrie’s leaving was a blessing in disguise,” Mahmee says, obviously frustrated. “She was more of a burden than a help to you.”
Now Father’s head whips up.
Mahmee shrugs. “What if she wasn’t well and Finn was here alone with her? He wouldn’t be able to tell you something was wrong, like Jimmy did. You wouldn’t want that.”
This doesn’t sit well with Father. His face darkens. His hands clench into fists.
“OUT,” he directs her, pointing toward the door. “Just get out, Ma. Go home. You’re not helping me.”
Mahmee is taken aback, but she sighs (just like Father does) and gets up to gather her things.
Father runs a hand over his face. “Don’t talk about Carrie. You don’t know what she went through as a kid, Ma.”
“Like what?”
Father ignores this question. “She never . . . she never really hurt Jimmy,” he continues quietly. “Nothing too bad. He’s always fine. She just gets agitated. And scared. Carrie’s much more likely to hurt herself than someone else.”
“Maybe physically,” Mahmee mutters, digging in her purse for her keys.
“What?”
“I said, maybe she never really hurt him too badly physically, Tommy. Although I never liked her laying a hand on him, for any reason. But you don’t think she’s hurt him emotionally?” She shrugs. “Forget it. I guess you wouldn’t know about that, would you? God help you. You keep yourself shut up so tight, you wouldn’t know how that kid feels. As for me, I’m glad she’s gone.”
Father’s face goes pale. He looks stunned. Before Mahmee can turn to go, Father snaps.
He grabs one crutch and stands up, yelling at the top of his lungs. “JESUS CHRIST, MA. Carrie is still the kids’ mother. If it was up to me, she’d still be here.”
And: “It isn’t Carrie’s fault that she’s bipolar.” I listen carefully, because these are the same words Jimmy said, that something is not Mother’s fault. Perhaps Jimmy heard these words from Father.
And also: “Ma, you never made an effort to understand it, or help my wife, or help me deal with it. So you can just knock it off with that crap.”
I don’t think I’ve seen him this upset in a long time. His eyes are red, and he is shaking.
Mahmee has her coat in her hand, and she stares at the floor. “She should have told you she was sick before you married her. It isn’t right what she did to you, not telling you.”
Father just shakes his head. He says it wouldn’t have mattered, and Carrie didn’t know it herself.
I am confused. I have never heard them say things like this about Mother before, and I don’t know what they are talking about.
“You don’t understand. I don’t think of her as sick. She just has a problem. We all have problems. You never talked to me about it. You never asked me about it. I would have married her anyway. I love her, Ma. It’s not a blessing that she left.”
He demands to know what kind of blessing it could be to leave a baby—a little, helpless, deaf baby—without his mother.
And, he asks, didn’t he try to protect Jimmy? Wouldn’t it be worse to have no mother? Isn’t this worse for Finn, to be stuck with no mother and a father who doesn’t know what he’s doing?
And Father says, “Don’t you understand it’s my fault she left? I have so much guilt. I don’t know if I can live with myself.”
Mahmee is badly shaken, and she says she doesn’t understand. Trembling, she swears she doesn’t understand it at all.
“Why would you say those things about yourself?” she wants to know. “You’re a good father. What did you do wrong? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“There’s more I could have done,” he says. “There’s more you could have done too. But it’s between her and me now. It’s too late for you.”
Clutching her purse, on the edge of tears, Mahmee looks at her son.
“I’m glad she’s gone and I’m not sorry to say it. Goddamn it, Tommy. You’re better off. Why can’t you see that?”
Father will not talk about it anymore and insists that Mahmee leave. Which she does.
I don’t worry about Mahmee coming back tomorrow. She will. She loves Finn. As I mentioned, my siblings are her only grandchildren. Father gets into his moods, and she understands that.
Although this is a worse mood than usual.
I watch as Father sits down again. And rests his head in his hands.
I am not sure what’s wrong. I know there is something he did, or something he didn’t do, that is eating at him. Something to do with Mother. Something that makes him upset. I’m sure he still needs to talk to her, but the opportunity to talk never comes up, and I know she won’t take his phone calls.
It worries me. Like Mahmee, I haven’t seen him do anything wrong.
I keep a close eye on Father all night, curled up behind his back, pressing my backbone against his. Sometimes I wish I could tell my humans that I love them. I can only hope that they feel it as I purr and stretch into them.
Father lies as still as a rock, sleep deprived from the past few nights of being up with Finn. Finally, everyone is sleeping in this house.
* * *
Mahmee comes again the next morning, as I knew she would. She hangs up her coat in the front closet and wanders into the kitchen. She kisses Jimmy and Mary as they take off for school. I walk up to her and rub my wide face against her ankles to show Father the proper way to greet her.
Mahmee is a good woman. She and Father have their fights, but humans do that sometimes.
Father sits at the kitchen table, staring into his coffee. Pale and bleary-eyed, he has both hands wrapped around his mug, and he slumps down in his chair. His crutches lean against the wall.
“I just want you to be nice, Ma,” he says out of the blue.
Mahmee stands there, hands on her hips. She frowns, as if unsure whether to respond.
“I don’t want you saying anything bad about Carrie. Especially in front of the kids. I did promise to take care of her, for better or worse. Remember, Ma? You were there.” He doesn’t sound bitter to me. He just sounds sad.
There is a long pause.
“I’m seeing Charlotte,” he continues. “I mean, we’re already. . . You know.”
Mahmee shakes her head. She turns to pour herself a cup of coffee. I don’t think she’s that surprised. She knows Father very well.
“You’re already what? Finish your sentence.”
“Together, Ma,” he says simply. “We’re already together.”
Mahmee scowls in disgust.
“You’re still married to the first one. You have to jump right from one woman to the next one? You can’t live without a woman for five minutes?”
He doesn’t respond. He has no answer for that.
Mahmee sighs. She looks tired too, the wrinkles creasing her forehead.
“Don’t even think about asking her to come live with you here in my house,” she warns, as if she still owns the house. And then it occurs to me that even though Mahmee moved out, maybe she does still own this house. “You better start saving for a ring before you think about that.”
Father just stares at his steaming cup of coffee. He doesn’t look at her. “I’m not in a rush to get married again. I don’t have any money for a ring anyway,” he says quietly.
Mahmee takes a long drink of her coffee, standing there in the middle of the kitchen. She looks at Finn, who is quietly sitting in his high chair. The baby seems to feel a little better, because he reaches for a piece of cereal. Walking up to her son and putting her hand on his cheek, Mahmee rubs the short whiskers on his face. Finally, he glances up at her.
“There’s no keeping the women off of you, is there?” She sighs again, studying his face. “Don’t ask me for any more jewelry,” she finally says. “Your grandmother’s ring was buried with Shannon.”
“Make up your mind, Ma. First you tell me to take a break. Now you want me to get married again.” He pauses. “I need Charlotte, Ma. Let me just try this out. See how it goes.”
Mahmee drops her hand. Father takes a drink of the hot coffee, and some color comes back to his face.
“You’ve already got three kids,” Mahmee continues out loud. “You don’t need any more. Make sure you’re careful. We don’t want any surprises again.” She’s thinking it over now, lost in her thoughts, glancing up and out the window of the back door. “I’m getting too old to babysit.”
It occurs to me she may be remembering how quickly Father met Mother and married her and had Jimmy. How it all happened too fast, as I once heard her explain it.
“Don’t you think Charlotte will be good for me, Ma?”
She turns away from him, bringing her coffee over to the refrigerator. Mahmee sets her cup down and opens the refrigerator to take out the milk. “I’ll say this. She is a hard worker. Charlotte does know sign language pretty well. I mean, I’ve seen her. She works hard with that baby.”
Father turns in his seat so he can hear what she’s saying.
“She’s a little . . . different, that one. A little different. But even so. She’s nice enough. Nicer than Carrie, if you ask me—which you did, so don’t yell at me for saying that.”
Mahmee opens the cabinet to get out the sweetener. “Of course she’d be good for you. She’d be good for all of you.”
When Mahmee starts pouring milk into her mug, and has no further warnings or criticism for Father, a little smile flickers over his mouth.
He’s feeling a bit better, just like Finn.
But I am left puzzled.
Is Mother really sick? It was true what Jimmy said? What kind of sickness does she have? My heart squeezes behind my ribs, because this is something I did not understand before. And why does Father think it is his fault that Mother left?
My tail twitches furiously as I am left with more questions than answers.