“I can’t go live with my father! I hardly know him. I mean, I see him sometimes, but only because my mother makes me.”
“A girl should know her father. This is your chance to find a silver lining.”
She nodded dejectedly, then went to go to sleep on the couch. She could have slept on our mother’s bed, but she didn’t want to. And she always went up and down the back stairs instead of the front, as if she felt she did not merit going down the front, as if having a mustache went hand in hand with a lowly opinion of yourself. Personally, I would have shaved the mustache. My mother always told us we had to maximize ourselves. I pushed that thought out of my mind to make room in my head. It got pretty crowded in there sometimes.
chapter eight
“OUR FATHERS!” MADDIE CRIED OUT during breakfast. I’d waited until morning to tell the others—I didn’t want to ruin their sleep. “Our fathers?” She set her spoon down and pushed away her cereal bowl. None of us felt much like eating.
“Larry?” said Lakey, unable to disguise her hope.
“Mack?” Marilyn said. “I’m going to live with Mack?”
“I hardly even know my father,” I said.
We all looked at Maddie. The area between her eyebrows had creased into a furrow. I saw that she was about to cry, so I pulled her onto my lap. “Maddie. You’ll be okay. I’ll be in Arkansas too. We can visit each other. We’ll practically be neighbors.”
Her face lit up. “Do you think?”
“Yes, Jiro can drive,” I said. I had met him exactly seven times. I’d counted as I lay in bed last night, completely unable to sleep. Once had been for only an hour and a half and once for a few months when I was little and my mother was having financial problems. The other times he drove up to Chicago to see me. But the last two times I was kind of cold to him, I guess. Not cold exactly, but not warm. And every time he asked me to come visit and I’d say no, I’d feel guilty because I knew he wasn’t a bad person. He wasn’t as bad as Maddie’s father. She had the worst father of all of us. I knew we all thought that even though we’d never said it.
Maddie’s father was a high school history teacher, and he always spoke to us as if he were lecturing a class.
“I want to stay here,” Maddie said. She brushed away tears with her hands.
Nobody spoke for a moment. Marilyn looked down, probably because Maddie was my responsibility. I weighed my options: Tell her the truth, or don’t tell her the truth. I opted for lying. “You’re going to be okay,” I said. “I promise. And I’ll be only six hours away.” Or four or seven, whatever.
I looked at Marilyn. “It’ll be over before you know it,” she said. “We’ll never really live with our fathers. This is just temporary.”
“Why can’t we all just stay here?” Maddie said.
“Strictly speaking, we can’t live here without a grown-up,” I said.
Maddie sniffled a bit and said, “Marilyn’s almost a grown-up.”
“I only have a driver’s permit, so I’m really not a grown-up yet,” Marilyn said. “And I can’t vote yet. I’m still considered underage.”
“You seem old to me,” Maddie said.
“I know, sweetie, but I’m not.”
“Well, can I stay with one of your fathers?”
“Not unless Mom says so,” Marilyn said.
Maddie’s body seemed to almost curl up like something burning. She let out a moan that sounded like it came from a ghost, not from Maddie. I held her to me. “Maddie, the time will go so fast, you won’t even notice. You’ll forget all about it a year from now.”
“I tell you what,” Marilyn said. “We’ll each ask our fathers if there’s anything we can do to get you to live with one of us.”
“Okay,” Maddie said hopefully.
Marilyn gave us each paper, pencils, stamps, and envelopes so we could write to one another. “We’ll write letters in birth order,” Marilyn said. “I’ll write and send a letter to Shelby, and she can write more and send it to Lakey, who will add to it and send it to Maddie. That way all the letters will end up with Maddie. They’ll be chain letters. Anyone who writes one should send it to me first, and then I’ll always send it to Shelby next so we can stay in birth order. Okay, that’s settled. Next on the agenda is money. We’ll split what we have four ways and bring it with us.” Then she dismissed our meeting so we could pack. I packed seven pairs of jeans, three sweatshirts, and four tank tops, as well as seven pairs of underwear. I felt like a zombie. I also packed for Maddie: seven pairs of jeans, three sweatshirts, four tank tops, underwear, and her favorite red hat. We finished way before Marilyn. Her personal products alone took up more space than all my luggage.
Mack was staying with us that night because, he said, he needed to make an announcement. We’d just got back from seeing our mother, who mostly slept through our visit because she was all doped up on painkillers. By eight p.m. Mack hadn’t made his announcement yet. We had been tiptoeing about while Mack wrote furiously in our kitchen—his shrink made him write down his feelings. We weren’t allowed to bother him while he was writing. But we had to know what his announcement was.
“You ask him,” I told Marilyn. “He’s your father.”
We all trailed behind her while she marched into the kitchen. He looked up, annoyed. His pen had broken open while he chewed it, and blue ink covered his lips and tongue. I tried to look at his eyes instead of his blue mouth.
“What’s wrong?” he said. “You know I’m busy. I got homework from my shrink. He says I need to claim some time of my own.”
Marilyn took a big breath. “You said you had an announcement.”
I peered at his paper and saw that he was working on something called “The Quintessence of Beauty”:
Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder. This may sound “cliché,” yet is a “deeper” concept than a person might think. What is physical beauty after all—to a Blind Man? What is human beauty—to a Dog?
He sighed dramatically, as if the weight of the world were on his shoulders alone, as if there were no presidents or prime ministers or leaders and everything came down to him. “Lakey’s father is coming out in two days. Shelby, you and Maddie are taking a plane down to Little Rock tomorrow. Your fathers are going to pick you up there and take you home, Maddie to south Arkansas and Shelby to north, or Shelby to the south and Maddie north. I forget which—your fathers will know.”
“Tomorrow?” I said.
“It’s all your mother’s decision. I’m just the travel agent.”
“Why didn’t she tell us herself?” I asked.
“Because she doesn’t need the aggravation,” he answered.
“Is she starting the plastic surgery?” I asked.
“First the docs have to take care of her arm. Didn’t somebody tell you all this?”
He paused, then looked at me and Maddie. “Your plane leaves tomorrow at twelve forty-five p.m. We’ll go visit your mother before you leave.”
Twelve forty-five! That was practically morning.
“Why can’t we stay here with you?” I asked, wondering why I hadn’t thought of this before. “We’ll be really really good!”
Mack sighed. “Because I ain’t your father and I got enough problems.”
“Jiro isn’t my family,” I said.
“Who ain’t your family?”
“My father!”
“Your father ain’t your family? I got news for you: Your father is your family just like your sisters are.”
My sisters and I lay in bed that night trying to figure out what to do.
“Let’s wish that Mom gets better soon,” I said.
“Okay,” they all said, and we fell silent for a moment.
That wish towered over everything else we could possibly wish, so we didn’t say anything else. I stared at the shadows on the ceiling from the streetlamp outside. I liked it here. We had a great life. And now we were leaving that. I felt like everything was shimmering around me and was going to dissolve into thin air.
It seemed to me that everybody agreed our mother would recover, so the fear was not about her recovery, but about what her face and arm would look like. Even my face meant a lot to me. I mean, it was my face. I couldn’t imagine what life would be like if I had a different face or scars all over my face. I was already kind of shy. I wished that her face would be fine and that if it wasn’t, well, that was unimaginable. My mother was her face.
“We could run away,” said Maddie. “Does anyone want to run away?” She looked right at me, but I didn’t know what to say.
“But I love my father,” said Lakey.
“Maybe we could all live with Larry,” I suggested.
Lakey was silent. Marilyn said, “Larry’s wife wouldn’t like that, but maybe we could ask him.”
But I knew from Lakey’s silence that she would never ask him. She wouldn’t risk her security by having the rest of us stay with Larry and his new wife. I knew I would go to Benton Springs, Arkansas, and I knew I had better get used to the idea.
The next morning I had rarely felt so glum as we all sat in our bedroom in our special dresses that Mack had made us wear. They were frilly things, ridiculous dresses. The morning was already warm and humid, and the lining of my dress stuck to my underarms. Marilyn had called a brief powwow just so we could all get as much crying as possible out of our systems. So we sat there crying together.
“I love my dad, but I love you all more!” Lakey wailed.
“I can’t live without you,” I wailed.
“I can’t imagine not sleeping in the same bedroom with you!” Marilyn wailed.
But the really odd, almost spooky thing was that Maddie didn’t cry. I even asked her, “Aren’t you going to cry, Maddie?”
But instead of crying, she stared at the floor like there was something on the wood she wanted to kill.
Mack opened the door without knocking. “What are you girls doing? We have to go say good-bye to your mother.” He slammed the door, and we heard him walking away.
He was smoking as we headed downstairs, and even though I was walking last, I could smell the smoke all around me. Mack exploded when he saw his Cadillac sandwiched between two other cars. “What idiot parks like that!” he cried out. We got in his car, and he banged back and forth against the car in front of us and the car behind us.
A man ran up to the car and shouted, “That’s my car you’re banging!”
Mack cried out, “Next time leave a can opener!” And then the car was free, and he screeched forward.
Someone tooted a horn and Mack bellowed, “What do you want from me, horn blower?!”
In this fashion, listening to Mack’s tirades against the other drivers on the road, we went to see our mother. When we got there, the nurses let all four of us in her room at once while Mack waited outside. I was surprised how pale my mother looked, even paler than she had the day before. And the window shade was closed. Marilyn told Mom she looked beautiful, and the words seemed to sink into my mother like water into a sponge. Her face lit up.
“Mom, I’ll be visiting you every day,” Marilyn said. “I’ll make Mack bring me.”
“Mack is being very helpful. I declare that man does love me,” Mom said.
It was my turn. “Mom,” I said, “you’re the most beautiful woman I ever saw!”
She looked a little stricken. Then she cried out, “I’m still the most beautiful?”
I hesitated between the same two choices I always had: Tell the truth, or tell a lie. “Yes, you still are,” I lied.
Then Lakey. “Mom, I’ll miss you so much.”
“Lakey, my sweet, I’ll miss you. Of course I will!”
Lastly, Maddie. “Mom? Mommy, when will you be finished with all your surgery?”
“Maddie, it depends how it goes. But soon, honey, soon.”
As usual, the hospital room smelled of disinfectant. The flat surfaces glistened, but the rug was spotted and dirty. My mother had lifted the head of the bed, so she could sit up for our visit.
I took my mother’s good hand. “Are you worried?” I asked. She didn’t seem worried, but how could she not be?
“I’m going to miss you girls. I hate this place. It reeks of sickness. I’m not sick. I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve been sick. They need to let me out of here.”
“You’re hurt, Mom,” I said.
“I don’t want to stay here any longer.”
“Mom,” I said. “Mom, you have to stay here. I think they like you to be more cheerful. Like you’ll heal better. Why is the shade closed?”
“I asked the nurse to close it.”
“It makes it seem more depressing.”
“It’s depressing with or without the shade open.”
“Well, I’m going to open it.” I pulled the curtains to the side. The street bustled below, people going about their daily lives while our own lives had turned upside down. There was an ice-cream store across the street and a rug store and a deli. And it was true that the sun seemed harsh today, seemed to wash out the colors, seemed to make the world more depressing.
“She wants it closed,” Marilyn said firmly.
“Okay.” I closed the shade and turned toward the bed. My mother was frowning, fingertips resting on her mouth. Her face, without makeup, looked like a little girl’s. With makeup, her beauty sometimes seemed to have a subtle cruelty, but now she looked innocent. It was weird that makeup could make such a difference in her face.
She reached her hand out to mine, and I stepped next to the bed and held it. “Shelby, I’ve never told you this, but your father is a very good man. I trust that man. He’s just a bit . . . out of touch.”
“Out of touch with what?” I said.
“Well, everything,” she said.
The nurse came in. “The doctor is here to talk about your surgery tomorrow.” Mom squeezed my hand. “You take care of Maddie. I know you will.”
And so we were off to the airport. Maddie leaned against me the whole way in Mack’s car.
In the airport we walked as slowly as we could. We were still “us.” All the way up to the gate, we were still “us.” We stopped at the gate.
“I don’t like new things!” I said. “I don’t like change. I like everything to stay the same.”
“How do you know what you like if you never try anything new?” Mack said.
We heard the lady from the counter say, “Final boarding call.”
I almost threw up. I couldn’t believe this was really going to happen. I was going away. I was leaving my perfectly happy life for an unknown life with my father, and I hardly even knew him. Maybe he wasn’t even my father but my mother had told him he was. Maybe it was all a mistake, in which case nobody but my mother knew the truth. Yes, that was it! My going away was all wrong.
“You’ve gotta go, Shelby,” Marilyn said. “Quick group hug.”
The four of us hugged, and Maddie and I slung our carry-on bags over our shoulders and boarded the plane. She cried almost the whole way during the trip, saying she missed Lakey and Marilyn and she was going to miss me worst of all. I felt the same way, except about her. And then she suddenly stopped crying and seemed almost cool.
On the connecting flight Maddie started to breathe hard and fast. I put my arm over her shoulder and pulled her close. She slowed down her breathing, but her face still looked panicked. “I can’t go,” she said.
“You have to.”
“I can’t. We have to tell them to cancel the plane.”
“Shhh.”
A woman leaned over and said, “Planes are safer than any other type of transportation.”
Maddie looked at her as if she were a ghost. Neither of us answered her at first. Then I said, “Thank you.”
The plane had propellers. My mother said a plane with propellers was the sign that you were going to a rinky-dink destination. I was kind of nervous about the small plane, but I tried not to show it to Maddie. I was the grown-up now and was responsible for my little si
ster.
“I lost my list of phone numbers,” Maddie said. She started pulling clothes out of her bag as she rummaged for the list of numbers.
“I have mine,” I said. “I’ll make you a new list. We’ll get a pencil from the stewardess.” But the person behind us had a pen, so I used that, copying down all our phone numbers. I gave it to Maddie, and that seemed to calm her.
When we landed, we had to walk down stairs that were wheeled out to our plane. The first person I saw inside the airport was my father. My heart sank at the sight of him. He wasn’t even slightly exotic, Japanese-wise. He was dressed in a green golf shirt and plaid pants. He was an embarrassment to the very idea of exoticness. He wore heavy glasses. He was balding already. I could see even Maddie was surprised by the vision of my father. On the other hand, Larry had told us about an ancient Chinese philosopher named Chuang Tzu. Chuang Tzu’s heroes in his stories had names like Cripple Lipless and Uglyface. And these heroes were superior to royalty. So I knew I shouldn’t judge my father, but I did.
My father grinned widely when he saw me. The fathers . . . A low-level hoodlum, a gum manufacturer, a he-man nature guy, and an uptight history teacher, all joined by my mother’s unpredictable taste.
I felt as though a little conscience imp sat on my shoulder saying, Hug your father! So I hugged him quickly and pushed myself away.
“You grow bigger,” he said.
I didn’t know if he meant I would grow bigger or I had grown bigger. Since both were true, I said, “Yes.”
“Hello, Maddie,” he said.
Maddie tugged my hand, and I held her to me. She started to cry again. “I’ll come see you,” I whispered in her ear. “Even if I have to run away.”
Jiro handed me a baseball cap that read KOMATSU GUM. He fumbled with something in his pocket and pulled out a small, inexpertly wrapped gift. Maddie leaned over me as I opened it. To tell the truth, I was expecting a bracelet—my mother’s training, I guess. Instead, I received a cassette of “Puff the Magic Dragon.”