Golden Delicious (14 page)

I was about the size of a Converse hi-top. “Nothing,” I said.

She turned off the TV.

“You’ve caused enough trouble already,” she said. “Or will in the future.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

She shook her head and held up her hands. “I’m just saying,” she said, “you can’t go around taking other people’s things,
.”

“O
K
,” I said.

The following Monday, we received a general prayer that the happiness would be restored. When we turned the faucets on that afternoon, though, they spat out happiness caked with sadness and the carcasses of doubts. I remember the four of us standing in the kitchen, waiting for the pipes to clear. My Dad let the happiness run for a few minutes, and then he poured some in a glass and held the happiness up to the light.

“Is it OK?” my Mom said.

“I don’t know,” he said.

My sister grabbed the glass from him and drank from it. “Augh,” she said, spitting it back.

“Is it happiness?” I said.

Briana shook her head. “No,” she said. “I don’t know what it is.”

My mother took a sip. “It’s not sadness,” she said. “Ralph, try it.”

My father reached for the glass, but I took it from him and drank. The liquid was thick and sludgy. It wasn’t happiness, but it wasn’t sadness either. “It’s bitter,” I said. “Is it bitterness?”

I handed the glass to my Dad; he studied the liquid, swished it around and took a sip. “It’s melancholy,” he announced. “They must be flushing the pipes still.”

I took the glass back. I took another sip, and another.

“Easy,
,” said my Dad.

“
likes it,” Briana announced.

I gulped down the rest of the melancholy, turned on the tap, and poured myself another glass.

That winter I developed a skin condition—an itching—and soon it had spread all over my arms and my neck and my ears. When I showed it to my Mom, she waited until my Dad came home and then called me into the kitchen. “Show your father,” she said. I held out my arm, and my father made a face at my mother.

The next day my mother took me to see our doctor, Doctor Coat. Coat and my Mom sometimes worked together at the hospital, but we went to see him in his office in Appleseed Springs. He took one look at my arm and said, “Ah. OK. Sure. No big surprise here, given your family history.”

I just stood there. “What’s he talking about?” said one of my thoughts.

“I’m almost positive this is divorcitis,” he said. “We knew that someday this might be a possibility.” Then he looked to my Mom, whose face was a blade.

“It’s
what
?” I said.

“Oh,” said Doctor Coat. “I didn’t mean—I just assumed—”

The word was too big for my mouth. “Divorce—”

“—itis,” said Doctor Coat. “It causes eczema—that’s
the skin irritation here—moodiness, blurred vision, nausea, and an inability to have romantic relationships.”

“What do you mean, my family history?”

Doctor Coat held up his hands. “I am
really
sorry, Di,” he said. “I didn’t mean to complicate things.”

I looked at my Mom. “
You
have it?”

“Both me and your Dad,” said my Mom.

“But you’re married,” I said.

“A lot of married people have it,” Doctor Coat said. “About forty percent of Americans, actually.”

“And there’s a treatment for it,” my Mom said.

“Several, actually,” Doctor Coat said to me. “Most people with divorcitis take passive-aggressiveness, which you can buy in pill form or as a salve.”

“I take the pills,” my Mom said.

“But there’s a brand-new treatment on the market—evidence suggests that it quiets the divorcitis over time. So, who knows! With these meds, you may be able to stand in the same room as someone—maybe even, years from now, give them a hug!” He pulled a notepad from his pocket and wrote a prescription.

I took the paper and read it. “
Music
pills?” I said.

The Coat nodded. “Now, there are some side effects—defamilization, fatigue, that kind of thing. But they’ll keep the eczema at bay.”

“When will this go away?” I said.

They both stared at me.

“I don’t want to sugarcoat this for you,
,” said the Coat. “It will probably always be very difficult for you to have a happy romantic relationship.”

My Mom nodded and led me out of the office. She put her arm around me as we walked back to the Fart. “How long have you had this?” I asked.

She unlocked the passenger’s-side door. “I got it in my twenties,” she said.

“You and Dad are divorced?”

“Of course not! We fight it.” Mom pulled the Fart into traffic.

After a minute I said, “
Why
do you?”

My Mom lit a six-foot cigarette, rolled open the window and rested the cigarette against the top of the glass. “Why do we what?” she said.

“
Why
do you fight it?”

“What do you mean?”

What I meant was,
what
did they love about each other? Did my Mom love my Dad’s French Canadian frame—the barrel chest and skinny legs? Or his wild black hair and thick square glasses? Did my Dad like my Mom’s shaved head? Her muscles? The lighthouses in her eyes? What specifically?

“Because you love each other?” I said.

“Of course!” she said.

“I can’t believe this,” I said.

My Mom took a drag from her cigarette and blew smoke out of one side of her mouth. “It’s like Coat said—lots of people have it. Odor’s parents.”

“Really?”

“And the Lonelies.”

“They do?” I said.

My Mom nodded.

We farted to Ryan’s Pharmacy to fill the prescription. It took a long time—I read a magazine while my Mom waited in line for the pills. When they were ready, my Mom found me and handed me the bottle. “Here,” she said. “Sooner you take them, sooner you’ll start to feel better.”

The music pills were blue and translucent, and filled with what looked like strobe lights and dancing people.

“Take
one
,” she said.

I took out a pill and popped it. As soon as I did, the music surged through my body: the magazines started shouting, my knees buckled, and everything improved. “Bluh,” I said.

“You OK?” my Mom said.

Everything was different now. I looked back at the pharmacy counter and the tall, gray-haired, thick-glassed pharmacist behind the glass. I read his face—the mole on his cheek—and realized who he was. I ran right up to the glass. “You’re my mother,” I said.

“
,” my Mom said, and put a strong hand on my shoulder. The pharmacist said something to my mother, but his voice was low and bubbly notes.

“My mother,” I told the pharmacist.

“OK. Let’s go home,” my Mom said, and she pulled me away from the glass.

“No! Mom!” I said to the pharmacist.

“We’re leaving,
,” my Mom said, leading me past the line of sick people. After a few steps, though, I tore away from her. “I’m not going anywhere with
you
,” I spat at her. A man coughed on me and I looked in his face. “You’re my brother,” I said. He looked to his right, at an
old woman standing behind him. “You’re my sister,” I told her. “Or my father.”

She was. And I’d missed them so much!

“Come on,
,” said my Mom, and she pulled me forward.