“Your father and I have just finished discussing his options,” Mom says. “We feel fortunate to have skirted what was obviously a medical disaster in the making.”
Uncle Marty talked Dad into watching a college basketball game with him in the den. From the other end of the house we can hear Marty shouting. He has a bundle of money on the game.
“At this point we’re going to change our strategy. We’re going to do what I initially thought we should have done, and that is to care for him on our own. From this point your father is going medication free, and his symptoms, including the bizarre sleep disturbance, will have a chance to subside.
“Our home routines will be different for a while. I spoke to Dad’s office and they’re extending his medical leave. We expect it won’t be a long one once he recovers from the medications. I’m going to change my work schedule”—Mom’s voice breaks, and she stares at Triumph until she’s calm again—“to half-time, from two thirty in the afternoon until six. That will allow us to provide Dad with continuous care throughout the day. Billy, you will come home directly after school so that you can take over from me at two fifteen. It would be best if you and I can overlap for a few minutes before I leave, in case there’s anything we need to go over.
“I know how scary it’s been for both of you to see him this way. He told me he hates to have you see him like this. He never wanted to be someone you felt sorry for. He wanted to be someone you looked up to. He wouldn’t even want me to have this conversation with you. He wouldn’t even want me to tell you what I just said. But I did, so there it is.
“Your father and I are going to need all your help to get through this time. Once it’s over…we’ll turn the page on this chapter and never look back again. What do you think about that?”
Linda is flopped on my bed. “Of course, Mom,” she says. “We’ll do whatever it takes to get Dad well again.”
Mom raises her eyebrows at me.
I raise my eyebrows back.
“You can go, Linda.”
“Okay, Mom.” She kisses Mom on the way out.
Mom stays in my desk chair. I’m down low this time in the beanbag.
“What?” she asks, looking down at me.
“I know you need me and everything.”
“Yes.”
“But—I’m coming home right after school?”
“Yes.”
“And staying here until six o’clock? Monday through Friday?”
“That’s right.”
“What about Linda?”
“What about her?”
“Shouldn’t she come right home too?”
Mom has a few ways of looking at people that make them shut up. One is to remove her reading glasses and place them on top of her head. She kind of combs the arm of the glasses slowly through her hair first in a way that can be scary. But this time it doesn’t work.
“Shouldn’t she?”
Mom shrugs.
“You’re not going to answer me?”
“You know she wants to help. But she can’t, really. She’s just too young. This is not the time to complain.”
“Shouldn’t she get a chance to try? Maybe she’d turn out to be good at it. Better than me, even.”
“Billy.”
“Maybe she has a knack, or a special gift.”
“Will you keep your voice down, please?”
“Hey, I know.”
“What?”
“You could get her a little nurse’s uniform. Wouldn’t she look adorable in it?”
“What is the matter with you? This isn’t the time.”
What is the precisely calibrated bored look that says Mom’s judgment is so obviously wrong that everyone realizes it except her?
“What if I want to do something after school?”
“You have important plans?”
“That’s neither here nor there. What if I did have them?”
“This isn’t forever. It’s just for a few weeks. Until he’s over it.”
“What if I say no?”
“I’m not giving you a choice.”
“All right, then, I guess I won’t say no.”
“It’s only for a few weeks.”
“A few weeks. All right.”
After Mom leaves, I take her spot at the desk. Inside the desk is a Hohner Special 20 harmonica Grandma Pearl got me. I had asked for it, in fact, but it’s still sealed in the package with the instruction book. Had I ever learned to play it, I would create an ugly sound at a special decibel level only Mom could hear, letting her know I will never be her orderly.