For young birds and hatchlings, a nest that is relatively safe from marauding intruders—both of the four- and two-legged variety—is a matter of life and death. Nothing is more important than that nest.
—Tiberius Shaw, PhD
They flew Dad to the special Virginia expert neurology place yesterday morning. Gram left with him, nagging Davis up until the last second to “Please be responsible” until Mrs. Bertolo could get here to watch us.
Davis said of course she would. But what do you think? The minute the cab left, she called Jonathan Dylan Daniels. And he has been sprawled on our couch eating Doritos ever since.
Oh, and Mrs. Bertolo never showed up.
Our house currently resembles an “Environmental Protection Agency Superfund Clean-Up Site.” That’s what Dad used to say when things got extremely messy around here. So I am staying in my bedroom with the door shut most of the time. At least it’s clean in here, and I don’t have to bump into Jonathan Dylan Daniels.
Jonathan Dylan Daniels is Davis’s fourth boyfriend, but this time she says she’s really in love. He is tall and hairy. He only ever talks to me when he has to. And then, he will only ever ask me, “How’s it going, Charlie.” And when I say “fine,” he looks super-relieved and walks away. Plus, he bosses Davis around. “Hey, babe, could you get me this; hey, babe, could you get me that?” If I talked to her like that, she’d clobber me.
I wonder what it’s like in Virginia.
I’ve never been outside California, except once to Colorado Springs for this stupid “Special Snowflake” camp Gram signed me up for as a Christmas present. Some present. It was basically a lot of clapping and useless awards. There was this song we had to sing: “Every snowflake’s special, and so . . . are . . . you!” And they made us point to each other when we said the word “you!” If you ask me, snowflakes are nothing special. They melt. They’re just water.
Out there far away across the whole country, in a place I’ve never seen, my dad’s supposed to be having more and better tests of his brain. And he is starting something called intensive rehabilitation. Gram told us she’s staying in a hotel right across the street from the new hospital.
“Good griefus,” Gram said last night on the phone, “I don’t know if I’m more frantic about your father, you kids, or poor Mrs. Bertolo!”
This is because on her way over here to take care of us, Mrs. Bertolo tripped over her grandson’s skateboard in her driveway and broke her hip.
Gram freaked when she found out. She yelled, “Jesus H. Christ, will it never end?” Then she yelled at the twins over the phone, warning them that they better start keeping their skateboards off the dang driveway, as if Mrs. Bertolo’s accident was somehow doomed to be repeated by Joel and Jake.
Now Gram’s trying to find someone else who’d be willing to stay with us for a few weeks. And it isn’t easy, because Mrs. Perry’s in Florida at her sister’s, and her friends Linda and Denise are on “one of those special cruises,” whatever those are.
“It’s too bad your mother didn’t have any people,” Gram says. She sighs about this every time she gets frustrated because she can’t find a sitter for us.
By “any people,” Gram means relatives. My mother had only one relative—her Tía Marta, who raised her and put her through college and medical school in Mexico City, which was where my mom was from, and where she met my dad, way back when. Davis says she can remember both Mom and Tía Marta. But the twins and I can’t.
When Davis was five, I was two, and the twins were newborn, Mom was driving Tía Marta to an eye doctor appointment, and a drunk driver hit and killed them. I can talk about it totally fine, and it doesn’t make me sad, because I was so little that I don’t remember a thing. It’s just a sad fact, to me. Gram says it happened in the middle of the day, which brings up another sad fact: drunk drivers strike at all hours.
Since then, it’s been just my dad and Gram coming over from her old people community to take care of us when Dad goes on his magazine-writing assignments. Gram grumbles about it. She thinks single fathers should stay home with their kids, and protect the nest.
Also, we make Gram “bone-tired with all our shenanigans.” Still, if we need her, she comes. Even though she likes to tell us it’s like trading Peaceful Palms (which is the name of her retired community) for Casa Chaos (which is her name for our house).
Anyhow, while Gram tries to find someone to take poor broken-hipped Mrs. Bertolo’s place, here at Casa Chaos, the dishes are piling up, the floor is sticky, and the living room smells like Doritos and old socks.
Actually, Doritos sort of smell like old socks.
Joel and Jake are on a gaming marathon and they haven’t changed out of their pajamas since Friday. Their thumbs, orange from Dorito powder, fly on the controllers. Click-click-click, kapow, bang, bang, click-click-click.
I try to concentrate on drawing birds and writing in my Bird Book, but it doesn’t calm me down at all. I go in the kitchen for a snack and see Gram’s number, written in smudgy pen on a yellow Post-it note, stuck on the fridge.
I call it.
“Who’s this? Charlie? Baby, when you call someone, you’re supposed to start by saying ‘hello.’”
I know that.
“Hi, Gram. This is Charlie.”
“Well, hello, Charlie. How are you?”
“I am not so good.”
“Oh no? Why?”
Hearing Gram’s voice, I get a hot lump in my throat and my eyes burn. I am not sure where to begin. I want to ask about Dad, want to know how he is, if he’s comfortable, if they are taking care of him, what his new room looks like, if they hung up my picture of the red-tailed hawk for him. Do people talk different in Virginia? Do the doctors look the same? Is there a gift shop?
But I can’t get any words past the lump in my throat.
Finally, I croak out the only thing I can: “Davis doesn’t get how to microwave.”
“Yeah? Tell me about it, sport.”
“She made the chicken taste like a dried-out sponge. And Jonathan Dylan Daniels spilled Mountain Dew.”
“Lordy, is that boy hanging around?” (Gram always calls Jonathan Dylan Daniels that boy.)
“Yes. He tells her ‘Hey, babe, bring me another soda’ and she does it. He puts his hand on her knee when they sit on the couch. You know what else?”
“Great heavens, what.”
“The twins put Doritos in my bed. And they hid the soap, so now I have to use dishwashing liquid to wash, and the skin on my hands is starting to crack again.”
I don’t mean to complain so much. It all just comes out.
“Oh dear. Okay, Charlie boy. Sit tight. I’m gonna call someone right now to take control of that madhouse. I’ve got a last resort phone number here, and apparently I’m going to have to use it. Put your sister on the phone.”
I yell upstairs, “DAVIS.” She doesn’t hear. I bring the phone up while Gram is still going at it:
“—And tell Davis to make sure the guest bed’s still nice and neat,” she says. I knock on Davis’s door. “—coming to straighten you dang noodle-heads out,” I hear.
Davis turns quickly from where she’s sprawled across her bed, phone in hand. Her long brown hair whips across her face as she turns, and she’s making her mushed-up-eyebrow face at me, a visual cue of anger that means: “How dare you barge in my room.”
Davis and Dad used to give me mirror lessons, to instruct me about visual cues. “Look, Charlie,” Davis would say, peering at us both in the mirror. “When my eyebrows smash together and my lips curl down like this? That’s a visual cue. It means I’m in a crummy mood, okay? Visual cue, leave me the heck alone.”
“Charlie! When will you ever learn to knock?”
I lob the phone onto Davis’s bed. “Gram found a babysitter of last resort.” I slam her door.
On my way back downstairs I hear Davis shriek, “You’ve got to be kidding!”
Gram does know some totally loopy old ladies. I wonder who she got.