A Different Kind of Normal

“I already like you. I love you.”

  “I have obsessive rituals. I cut up herbs and mix them with spices. . . .”

  “I’ve seen it. It’s creative, thoughtful.”

  “I also fret and worry about Tate constantly, and I’m overprotective and hover over him.”

  “I will fret and worry with you when it’s something we should fret and worry about, and we’ll work on you not hovering too much.”

  “I have a sarcastic mouth, I’m impatient, and I have some anger issues.”

  “Your mouth is sexy, you’re not impatient with me, and we all have issues.”

  “I work all the time. I’m way too serious. The fun has been beat out of me.”

  “Same here. We can change and become more fun together.”

  “You know my mom thinks she’s a witch, from a witch line dating to a queen, and she thinks I’m a witch, too.”

  “She’s a focused, rational woman except for that part, and I find it endearing.”

  “And I have a temper.”

  “I’ve seen it many times. It’s an exciting part of your personality, and please notice I didn’t blame your red hair.”

  “Thank you. It’s not my hair, though, it’s my eyes.”

  “And I love the blue and the green. I want to be your husband and Tate’s father and your witchly mother’s son-in-law. I want to be a part of your whole family. I want to live with you forever until I’m old and creaky and you’re old and creaky and we’ll travel the world and see what else is out there.”

  “Might as well die having an adventure,” I said, overwhelmed at the thought of adventures with Ethan.

  “Yes, we might as well.”

  “I think that sounds nice, Ethan.” I sniffled. Nice? Surely I could think of something better to say to his proposal?

  “It sounds nice to me, too, Jaden.” He dropped to one knee in the snow and took the burgundy-colored box one might expect with a marriage proposal out of his pocket. “Will you marry me, Jaden Bruxelle?”

  Would I marry him? “Yes. Oh yes.” I dropped to both knees, put my hands on his face, and gave him a long smackeroo. “Yes, oh yes, oh yes, forever yes!” After more smackeroos we decided to run to the house, jump in my four-poster bed and explore the bounce of my mattress. It is a good thing no one was home.

  “Wife,” Ethan said to me afterward.

  “What?”

  “Wife.” He kissed me. “I love the sound of that word.”

  “I do, too, husband.” My voice wobbled.

  “Wife. This is my wife, Jaden. Jaden is my wife. Jaden and Ethan are married. Married couple. Wife. Husband. My wife is the love of my life. I love you, wife.”

  “I love you and . . .” I hesitated, sniffled again.

  “And . . .”

  “And thank you, Ethan. Thank you for asking me.” I couldn’t believe it. I could hardly understand it. I was going to marry Ethan. Me. Ethan and I would be together forever. I had Ethan. After all those long, sad, lonely years of wanting him, of not being able to have him, to hold him, he was here, in my bed, the snowflakes fluttering down. “Thank you for wanting me to be your wife.”

  This time it was Ethan whose voice wobbled. “It is I who should thank you, Jaden.” He picked up my hand, a chivalrous knight, and kissed it. “Thank you. I think we’re going to have a beautiful life together.”

  “Me too, oh, me too.”

  “I have wanted this since I met you.”

  “I have dreamed of you forever.”

  Oh, pish. We are silly sappy.

  We told my family the night before the tournament. I thought the ecstasy was going to kill my mother. She actually spread her arms out wide, closed her eyes, and said, “My spells worked! They took way too long, but they worked. Thank you, and thank you, God.” She picked up the charms on her necklace and kissed them.

  Caden bawled and said, “I will do all of your flower arrangements! I’ll make one arrangement into a raft, because that was your first date. Another will be a greenhouse, and a third will be of Aphrodite, goddess of love.”

  Damini said, “Whoa, Aunt Jaden. You finally have someone to make out with. Can I be a bridesmaid?” Yes, absolutely. “I love you, Aunt Jaden.” She hugged me. “I’m happy, happy for you. Remember what I said about giving you a leg if you ever needed it.”

  “I would never forget it.” I turned to my sister. “Brooke, would you be a bridesmaid, too?”

  She could not answer through all her jumbling emotions, and her face crumpled, but she hugged me with those wispy arms, and I knew that was a yes.

  Tate said, “Finally. Now you two can get on with it instead of ogling each other with lusty looks that a person of my age and innocence should never see or be corrupted by. Young gentlemen should not be privy to such unbridled passion. I am easily influenced, and you must be careful with my purity, not fill my imagination with these potent images of uncontrolled love—”

  “You’re a pain in my keester, Tate,” Damini said. He picked her up and threw her over his shoulder.

  Tate would walk me down the aisle. “That’ll be excellent, Boss Mom. I’ll wear your bridal bouquet on my head.”

  We told the triplets there would be a wedding. I asked Heloise and Hazel to be flower girls and Harvey to be a ring bearer.

  “Ya. I do it,” Heloise said. “I be bunny!”

  “Me, too.” Hazel jumped up and down. “I be monster! Roar!”

  “I be ring bear!” Harvey said, claws up. “Grrr!”

  “This is glorious,” my mother said. “I’ll have the writers put me in jail for murder for a month before I’m acquitted on a technicality so we can plan the wedding! I’ll knock my current husband out, wrap him in ropes, and toss him over the side of a rowboat in the middle of the night. It will be evilly juicy. . . .” She pulled me close, her auburn bob to my locks, tears in her voice. “This is one of the best days of my life, Jaden. Your father would be thrilled. He loved you very much.”

  I loved him, too.

  Ethan hugged my mother and me, then the whole family hugged together.

  “Roar!” and “Grrr!” the triplets said.

  “I a brown ring bear!” Harvey said.

  Maggie Granelli was seeing angels.

  In the last few days they were flying in more and more often.

  “That one is a beautiful angel, isn’t it, Jaden? Came down right off my staircase.”

  I sat beside Maggie’s bed, with the view of her cherished, but dead, rose garden, and held her hand. She was staring, her eyes blank, but wondrous, unblinking, yet fully believing in what she saw.

  “She’s beautiful,” I said.

  “Do you see those wings!” Maggie breathed, pointing at her precious, barren rose garden. “White wings, and gold, too. I had no idea! No idea at all! Oh, they’re fluttering. But this time they’re not flying away. They’re . . .” She gasped. “They’re staying with me now. Oh! Did you hear that?”

  Maggie had been declining quickly, almost overnight, her daughters with her always. Things were steep and fast now, as if the disease had realized it was late in killing her and wanted to get things done efficiently.

  “Two angels now.” Maggie smiled. “I’m pleased! Two!”

  “What do they look like, Momma?” one daughter asked, all four crying.

  “They look like angels,” Maggie said, her voice stunned. “But they’re much taller than I expected. Their wings are glowing and full of layers of feathers. . . .”

  I held her hand, and the daughters sobbed.

  I figured Maggie had, at most, a few more days.

  She would be going to the rose garden in the sky.

  I don’t need to write down how many red cinnamon Gummi Bears I ate when I left. It would be embarrassing.

  The scent of death was stronger in my herb and spice combinations, almost overpowering.

  Who was it? What should I do? Lock everyone up? My mother, Caden, Brooke, and I had talked about it again. We were worried, but what could we do? br />
  Stay at home? That’s when your house burns down.

  Take Tate out of the tournament in case it was him? He would probably try to get there, by himself, and get hit by a car.

  Keep my mother off planes to Los Angeles? She’d take the train and the train would be derailed.

  My mother said she was “delving into her spells” twice a day.

  I was delving into my worry, and it was a long, black, endless pit. I gripped the cross charm on my necklace.

  For the final game I drove Tate to school to ride the school bus with his teammates to the university gym. I tried not to cry as I hugged him. “Good luck, son.”

  “Boss Mom, I don’t need luck.” He tapped his head, his ears, and thumped his fists together. “General Noggin, Bert and Ernie, and Billy and Bob are gonna bring down the house. Road Runner is gonna put on his x-ray vision and shoot.” He put an apple on his head after he climbed out of the car. His friends ran over to greet him.

  Tate put his arms straight out and announced, “Don’t touch me! I am Tate Bruxelle, world-famous tightrope walker! Don’t make a sound, don’t interrupt my deep concentration while I traverse the Grand Canyon on this rope with an apple on my head!”

  His friends bent over laughing.

  Tate turned slowly back and said to me, not bothering to lower his voice, “By the way, I love you, Boss Mom, even though you don’t seem to truly understand quantum physics.” The apple wiggled and he froze, eyes rolling up.

  “I love you, too, Tate, even though you don’t seem to appreciate paprika as much as you should.”

  He grinned, then placed one foot precisely in front of the other. “I’m going to break the world record for tightrope-walking daredevils! I’m higher than anyone has ever been! I’m crazier than anyone has ever been! No one has ever tried to cross the Grand Canyon before on a rope!”

  “Tightrope walker Tate!” Milt yelled.

  “Out of his way, one and all,” Baron intoned. “Let the record-breaking begin.”

  “It’s a death-defying act!” Anthony said. “He could die and be squished!”

  “I am in the middle of the Grand Canyon, on a rope, no net!” Tate said, very dramatic. “The river is rushing below, birds are flying by, the wind is trying to push me off into the canyon, and, oh no, a woman in a helicopter has flashed me her boobies.... I must shield my eyes from this depravity!”

  He turned one more time and waved at me, then deepened his voice. “I will keep walking! I will not look down! I will do this for America, for America! I’ve done it! I’ve crossed the Grand Canyon on a rope despite the distraction of the flashing boobies with an apple on my head!”

  His friends cheered his announcement, wrestling, pushing each other as boys do.

  “Oh no, I’ve reached the other side and the women are all over me!” Tate screamed. “They’re clutching me, grabbing, trying to kiss me and draw me to their bodies! No one’s experienced anything like this ever, the women are in a frenzy, they’re going crazy! Someone hold them back, they’re all over me, hands going places they shouldn’t go, touching things they shouldn’t touch!”

  His friends bent over cackling.

  “Oh no, they’re stripping me of my clothes!” Tate shrieked. “I’m totally naked now, but the apple is still balanced on my head, and the women are stripping off their own clothes, too! It’s chaos, folks, total chaos! All the women are naked, and me, poor Tate, has women lining up in front of him! Here comes the helicopter boobie flasher again, AHHHHH!”

  His friends howled.

  “Help me, help me! All these women, what shall I dooooo?”

  I blinked real hard. The tightrope walker was a funny, fearless, amazing person.

  I sure loved that kid.

  The hit came from TJ Hooks.

  At the end of the game, Kendrick took the three foul shots for Tate, but it didn’t matter anymore.

  The university gym was rocking as only a high school basketball tournament can rock. The bands blared, the fans yelled at full throttle, the cheerleaders jumped about.

  On the court both teams were running drills, practicing their shots, and trying to shut out the blasting noise of the gym and concentrate before the game officially started.

  “Ah, I see we’re playing Sunrise with Martin Hooks, he of diarrhea fame,” my mother announced, quite loudly, from our seats on the bleachers about ten rows up from our team.

  “Yes, we are.” I had wished and hoped that the Sunrise team would be eliminated. No such luck. I felt ill and nervous even seeing TJ.

  “Ew,” Brooke said. “Martin’s more repulsive than ever. His face resembles mashed potatoes.”

  “Did you have to say that, Brooke?” I asked, pinching her elbow. “Now I’ll never be able to eat mashed potatoes.”

  “Me, either,” Caden said, wrestling with the triplets on his lap, who were making up a song about hot dogs. “What are we going to do for Thanksgiving now? You ruined it, Brooke.”

  “I think I feel a loosening-of-the-bowels spell coming on again,” my mother said, batting her eyelashes. Today she was wearing an orange wrap dress and black tights, our team colors, in couture. “A release of the gut. A time of reflection and contemplation done while one’s bottom is hanging over the toilet, the same spell as last time.”

  “Toilet!” Hazel shouted. She was dressed as a slice of pizza.

  “Poop goes in the toilet, not out!” Heloise said. She was a dolphin.

  “I poop, too!” Harvey said. “Poop!” He was a robot.

  “Will you teach me that spell, Nana?” Damini asked, bopping up and down, her orange and black ribbons wrapped around her ponytail.

  “It will be my pleasure, darling. Tonight.”

  Martin Hooks, protruding stomach sticking straight out like he’d swallowed the moon, was already on the floor of the gym, telling his hapless son what was what. I saw the opposing coach angrily stalk over to him. Clearly the coach was trying to get him off the floor.

  They started to argue and Martin crossed his arms. Two more coaches, both assistants, also came up to Martin, followed by a security officer. They finally managed to get him to lumber up to his seat, three rows from the bench.

  “Poor TJ.” My mother clucked. “I do have some pity for that obnoxious soul. He didn’t have a chance. I am now going to launch a preemptive strike against Martin, the toilet hugger.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I think you should, Nana!” Damini said. “Beep him! Spell him!”

  “There is no such thing as spells, Damini.” I grabbed my mother’s manicured hands as she wiggled them. She wriggled free. I caught them again. We were having a hand-wrestling contest yet again. She laughed, so did I. “I don’t believe in your spells anyhow.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I do,” Brooke said. “Spell him.”

  I held her hands tight, as Martin heaved himself up and started harassing his son again. I loosened my grip. “Gall, Mom. Go for it. If it works, his son will thank you for it.”

  My mother, with sneaky stealth, tapped her fingers together, then touched the charms on her necklace. Damini did the same thing, touching her charms, too.

  I was gobsmacked, that’d be the word, gobsmacked, as I watched Martin grab his stomach in the middle of another harangue. He could hardly stand back up and wobbled his loaded body down the aisle, presumably to the toilet.

  Honestly, it’s not my mother. It’s by chance and luck. The man was the size of an upright rhino. He was screaming. He was stressed because he has only a semi-grip on reality. My mother raised her eyebrows at me, proudly self-satisfied.

  “Give me a break, Mother,” I said.

  “Ha. I gave him a break. A gut break. A bowel break.”

  “Ah. Your witchly skills rise again, Mom,” Brooke said. “Nothing surpasses a chant and a spell to get things going.”

  Caden was soon in front leading cheers, Damini and the pizza, dolphin, and robot beside him. In the midst of the cacophony, Et
han came in. My mother stood up, waved, and yelled, “Over here, handsome!”

  Ethan smiled, shook hands with Caden, and hugged the pizza, dolphin, robot, and Damini. He climbed the bleachers and hugged my mother, who said to him, “Aren’t you a sight for lusty eyes?” He greeted Brooke, then kissed me, winked, and I felt sexy and protected. Yum.

  The whistles blew, the lights dimmed for dramatic effect, the bands played their fight songs, and each player on both teams was introduced to semi-hysterical cheering. The loudest, however, was reserved for Tate.

  The ball tipped off, and seconds later Tate shot a three-pointer, first of the game, and made it. Brooke flew out of her seat, arms up in the air. Our side went crazy. We did not sit down the whole game. Brooke’s voice was soon raw.

  By the half, we were two points ahead. Tate had made four three-pointers, layups, and free throws, and he’d been fouled by TJ Hooks three times, his defender. Martin Hooks wobbled back up the bleachers, his face red and blotchy, and blew out more criticisms at his son and Tate.

  I could see TJ’s stress. At one point, after Tate had made another three-pointer, I thought TJ was crying. At another point, TJ swore and was called on a technical. I swear he cried then, too, his face crumpling as his father threw a full litany of rage at him. Martin actually thundered down the aisle and had to be restrained by two security guards and taken out at one point when Tate made another shot over TJ.

  At the end of the fourth quarter, we were tied. We went into two overtimes. Milt, Anthony, and Baron fouled out. Sunrise lost three players, too. When we had ten seconds left, down by one, Kendrick blasted a pass to Tate from the end of the court and Tate shot outside the three-point line.

  That’s when it happened.

  TJ Hooks, with his father back in the gym and out of control, charged Tate, full speed, almost like a tackle, when Tate was still a foot in the air from the last shot.

  I saw it in slow motion, as if the scene was transferred into a speed that I could hold on to.

  TJ slammed into Tate. Tate’s feet flew out from under him. He sailed up and over, in an arc, as if he’d been sent over an imaginary high jump pole, landing on his head and neck. His head bounced once, twice, three times, hard, on the floor.