About an hour later, Dad told us to start dinner without him. He wasn’t hungry yet, so he was going to take a shower and watch the news first. I served our food on paper plates and handed out plastic forks so the clinking of real forks and plates wouldn’t wake Mom. But she woke up anyway, and when she saw us at the table, she said, “There you are. I thought I was all by myself. I thought you guys went for pizza and left me behind.”
Carmen and I glanced at each other. Somehow, this felt like getting busted for doing something wrong.
“Well?” Mom said. “Where’s the cat?”
“What cat?” Carmen asked.
“The one that bit your tongues,” Mom joked. When we didn’t say anything, she got suspicious. “Why are you being so quiet?”
That’s when Jimmy blurted, “Rules!”
“What’s that, Jimmy?”
This time he whispered, “Quiet rules.”
“What’s he talking about?” Mom asked Carmen and me.
“Just something Dad made up,” I said. “It’s not important.”
“Yeah,” Carmen added. “Just a few quiet rules.”
Mom raised her eyebrows, curious. “And what are these rules exactly?”
We knew we had to tell her, so we described putting a towel against the crack beneath her bedroom door to drown out noise, and lifting the dining room chairs instead of scooting them, and not blow-drying our hair or hooking up our iPods to the speakers.
“And last weekend, Dad disconnected the doorbell,” Carmen said, “because Erica’s friends were waking you up.”
“They’re not the only ones who ring the doorbell,” I snapped, because she was trying to make things my fault again. “Anyway,” I continued, “Dad went a little overboard with that rule.”
“With all of them.” Carmen laughed.
I laughed, too. Dad’s rules seemed ridiculous when you really thought about them.
Somehow, I expected Mom to join the laughter. After all, she made fun of her lymphedema and her replacement breast. She joked that she glowed in the dark after so much radiation. But when she heard about the quiet rules, she slumped in a chair, her shoulders drooping. Then, when Dad came into the room, she stood up, mad.
“No more quiet rules, understand?” she said.
Dad took a step back. “What? Who? What… do you mean?”
“The girls told me all about it.”
I didn’t want Dad to get in trouble, so I said, “Mom, we like being quiet. Right, Carmen?”
Before she could answer, Mom made the “stop” gesture with her hand, so we didn’t say another word.
“I want to hear my children,” she told Dad. “I want to hear their voices and footsteps. I want to hear toilets flushing and vacuums running. I want to hear Jimmy crying and laughing, and the girls fighting. And I want to hear you, too—tapping on the computer, shaving, brushing your teeth. Why aren’t you brushing your teeth anymore?”
“I am,” Dad admitted. “But I’m using the kids’ bathroom now.”
“Why?”
“So I won’t bother you. So you can rest.”
“But I can rest just fine with noise!”
She startled me because she rarely raised her voice. She startled Jimmy, too. He didn’t cry, but he ran to me and lifted his arms so I could carry him.
Mom came toward us. She kissed the top of Jimmy’s head, patted my back, and tousled Carmen’s hair. “I’m sorry, kids,” she said. And then her voice got shaky. “I feel tired all the time. That part’s true. The radiation just zaps me, but I’m still alive.” She turned to Dad. “Can’t you see I’m still alive? Don’t make this place like a tomb. I don’t need to feel buried already. You understand? Noise is life, that’s what I’m saying. Noise is life.”
Dad approached her, hugged her, and said, “I thought I was helping you. I didn’t mean to…”
I don’t know what he said next because I carried Jimmy out and Carmen followed. We could be the nosiest kids on the planet, but we knew when it was best to leave our parents alone. But we were worried. As soon as we got to our room, Carmen said, “Mom and Dad never fight.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I guess it’s the cancer.”
We just stared at each other for a minute, the way hikers in a blizzard might stare at each other, not because they’re angry but because they’re scared that if they look away, they’ll be lost and all alone.
“I’m going to clean the bathroom,” Carmen said, and she stepped out. A few minutes later, I could hear water running in the tub.
I grabbed a few toys from Jimmy’s room. “You play with these, okay?” I said. He grabbed them, and soon was making crashing sounds as he rolled toy cars into the wall.
While he played, I made a list of everyone in Mrs. Gardner’s class. They had to do a service learning project too, so maybe they’d help. Then I listed students from my other classes. After brainstorming two whole pages of names, I took out my school directory and made phone calls. I called forty-three students. Of course, some people didn’t answer the phone, and other calls went to voice mail. But I did reach a lot of people. A good number were more than happy to sponsor me, so when my classmates said, “I’ll think about it” or “I don’t have any money” or “Let me talk to my parents first,” I didn’t feel so bad. I was still a long way from my goal, but every bit helped.