Chapter 31 #2
It was true. The Hollywood branch wasn’t quite as beautiful as the library in St. Pete, but I still loved going to work, as I got to meet all kinds of people, and learn all kinds of things.
I told them how the week before, a woman from Haiti had come in wanting to know why people said “mad as a hatter.” She’d grown up speaking French, and she was trying to understand English well enough to feel like she could teach it.
Shirley raised her hand like she was in school. “Hatter was in Alice in Wonderland. He’s not always nice. He got in trouble for murdering time.”
“That’s right,” I said. I hadn’t known she was paying attention.
“And I always thought that’s why people said ‘mad as a hatter.’ But when this woman and I looked it up, I learned people were saying ‘mad as a hatter’ long before that story was written.
” I told them what else we’d learned: that hats used to be made with a substance containing mercury, and if you were around it enough, it affected your brain.
And that happened most often to the people making the hats. So mad hatters.
“Well, I’ll be,” my father said. He never said I’ll be damned.
Janet clicked her tongue. “That’s sad.”
“You were already a librarian in Florida,” Mae said. “I don’t see why they made you go to college for it.”
“I was just shelving in St. Pete,” I said. “Now I catalog, make purchases. And I make more money.”
“They know you’re married?” my father asked.
I nodded. “There’s no marriage bar here.”
“Hmph,” he said. “Don’t know what I think of that.”
I let it go. I wondered if all he was really doing was verifying that Leonard and I were in fact legally wed.
We hadn’t been at first, and though no one knew that out here, my father knew, and it must have bothered him.
But we’d had to wait on Russ. I’d used a PO Box so even his lawyer wouldn’t know where we lived.
In the end, Russ was glad to be rid of me.
All I had to do was agree that I shouldn’t get a penny from him, as I’d committed adultery.
That sounded like a bargain to me, but I imagine my admission was hard for my father to swallow.
Mae turned to Shirley and Skip. “Either one of you mice want more food? There’s fruit salad in the kitchen. Eggs?” Both declined, and Mae told them to go wash their hands. “Your uncle Leonard got you a present.”
Leonard was of course their brother-in-law, but I didn’t correct her. Shirley stood and headed to the kitchen, but Skip stayed where he was, his gaze on Leonard’s hand.
“What happened to your fingers?” he asked.
My father said Skip’s name sharply. The reproach, in my mind, was ridiculous. I mean, they could have warned the poor kid. It’s not like he wasn’t going to notice. And he was four years old. Of course he was going to say something.
“It’s okay,” Leonard said. He explained how it happened in a general way. He just talked about the cold, not the starving.
“They’re still there?” Skip asked. “In Korea?” He pronounced it Cree-yah.
“I suppose so,” Leonard said. “Just the bones, I suppose. But see?” He wiggled his remaining fingers. “These all made it through.”
“Does it hurt?” Shirley asked. She’d come back into the room, her sticky hands held away from her romper. “Does it hurt where they came off?”
“Sometimes,” Leonard said. “It hurts where they used to be, like they’re still there.” The way he looked at her, with such patience, made a heaviness move through me. I could see the father he would have been.
“Can I touch where they came off?” Skip was already up and moving toward Leonard’s chair. Again, my father rebuked him, but Leonard nodded and held out his hand. Skip touched the nub and the rounded knuckle, looking thoughtful.
“Why don’t you have any kids?” Shirley asked. She was looking at me. I was aware of the sudden coolness of my skin, and of my father, standing beside me.
Janet clicked her tongue. “That’s a rude question, Shirley.”
I held up my hand. I just needed a second.
Plenty of full-grown adults with alleged brains in their heads asked this question.
I could certainly excuse it in a child. And I knew how to answer.
Had I not been interrupted, I would have told Shirley that not everyone who was married had children, and that Leonard and I had each other, and loved each other, and we were happy that she and Skip could visit.
“It’s a good question!” my father said. “When are you two going to make me a grandpa?” He chuckled. “Bobby’s not even married. I’m about to give up on him.”
I looked at him, speechless. I could barely take a breath. No, I thought. No. This is our home. You’re in our living room. I felt as if I were a gas stove, turned on and ticking. He looked back at me, still grinning, the missing tooth fully exposed.
I turned to Shirley. “We lost our baby,” I said. “She was born the same year you were.”
I heard Leonard’s quick exhale. Mae was silent, but she closed her eyes. Janet, still perched on the armrest, tilted her head.
“It died?” Shirley asked. There was no cruelty in her expression.
No sorrow either. Something a lot of adults don’t realize, or forget, is that most children have a steeliness to them, even if they’ve been brought up with softness.
Stories of death don’t always upset them.
Here’s my theory: If you’re lucky enough to reach adulthood without deep grief, you get lulled into thinking life is fair, and always will be.
But children have no reason to think that, no experience on which to base such a belief.
If a child is crying because his mother leaves to run to the store, and somebody tells him he’s being silly and that she’ll right back, the child thinks maybe, maybe not. Sad stories don’t really surprise them.
“We hope she’s still alive,” I said. “And loved. And happy.” I was aware of Leonard, where he was sitting. I’d insisted to him, time and again, that this hope was all we had. No betting. No guessing. My father turned away from me, looking out the window.
Shirley adjusted her Mickey Mouse hat. “How’d she get lost?”
I told her the truth: When our daughter was born, Leonard had been in Korea, and I thought I was alone. I was told she’d be better off with other people, another mom and dad. So I let someone take her to them.
My father stepped closer to the window, as if something outside caught his eye.
“Maybe they’re being good to her,” I said. “But we don’t know where she is.”
No one spoke. I kept my gaze on Shirley, who appeared satisfied with my answers. I’d heard she was a big reader. Mae said she loved fairy tales, especially.
“She’s not in California?” Skip asked. He’d gotten back up on the couch, sitting close to Mae.
“Probably not,” I said. “And even if we knew where she was, we couldn’t get her back. And she wouldn’t know us. But we miss her as much as any parents would miss a child. As much as your parents would miss you.”
Mae shook her head, her gaze still on the floor.
I didn’t know if she was sad for us, or disappointed in me for ruining the good time.
Or maybe she was mad that I’d told her children something shameful, something even worse than a stolen dog for them to repeat in front of the neighbors.
I didn’t care. My father continued to look out the window, showing me only the back of his head.
“I bet she’s okay,” Shirley said. She leaned back on one foot. “I bet the people who have her are nice. I bet she has a soft bed to sleep in, and they give her candy when she’s good, and they never lock her in the basement.”
“That’s right,” Janet said. She was still sitting on the armrest, clutching the upholstery as if she needed to.
“I bet she’s just fine.” She gave me a look I couldn’t interpret, then slid her gaze to her mother, who didn’t look up, and then to my father, still studying the window.
I felt as if I’d smashed something fragile, something made of glass.
I knew that if I looked at Leonard, if I turned my head in his direction, I would start to cry.
I didn’t wish to do that. So I excused myself, said nothing else, and walked out of the room.
—
The bedroom, of course, was Leonard’s, too, but he knocked and whispered my name. When I told him he could come in, Phoenix came in with him, jumping up on the bed beside me. Leonard shut the door and sat on my other side.
“Good for you,” he said, and put his arm around me.
A toilet flushed—maybe in our apartment, maybe not. I pressed my forehead into Leonard’s shirtsleeve, extending my bare feet into a square of sunlight on the floor. I wasn’t sorry for what I’d said. But we were being rude. My family had come all this way, and we were hiding back here with our dog.
“I’ve got to go back out,” I said. They weren’t even staying that long.
The plan was for them to drive down to San Diego that very afternoon so they could meet Bobby for dinner.
Tomorrow morning, Bobby would go with them to Tijuana and spend just the day with them there, as he had to report back to Ream Field early the next day, when the rest of the family would head to Disneyland.
Leonard and I were invited on all these excursions, but Leonard had clinical clerkship and couldn’t get weekdays off.
I said I’d have to skip the day in Tijuana because I had to work, and this was true.
Nothing had warmed between me and Bobby, and so I’d never asked for Monday off.
But I planned to drive down to Anaheim early enough on Tuesday to join everyone else at Disney.
Wednesday, I’d go with them to Knott’s Berry Farm.
Thursday, they’d head back to Florida. I couldn’t guess when I would see them again.
Leonard set his big feet next to mine. “How can I help?”
I glanced at my watch. “Take the kids somewhere?”
He nodded and stood. I looked up at him.
“I’m scared.”
He crouched, our eyes level, resting his arms on my knees. The patchy eyebrow never grew back. But he was still something to see.