Icy Sparks (16 page)

Fading sunlight was seeping through the nursery rhyme curtains. My bed was rumpled the way I had left it, and my books remained stacked upon the floor. Everything was as it was before supper. Sighing deeply, I stepped inside and started to shut the door when a gigantic, square-edged shadow loomed over me. The words were already formed in my mouth before I turned and saw his shrunken eyes. Swaying firmly forward, his hands braced on either side of the doorway, he deliberately scraped each foot along the floor. Then he charged.

Head Butt-er! my mind screamed.

When I came to, Delbert was holding my hand, sitting beside my bed. “Sugar child, how are you doing?” he asked as I blinked open my eyes.

Groaning, I tried to inch upward, but couldn't because an ice pack weighed heavily on my head. “It hurts,” I said.

“Of course it does,” Delbert said, releasing my hand. “Gordie packs a wallop.”

I groaned again.

“But don't you mind none. We'll have you feeling better in no time.”

I eased down, nestling deep into the covers.

“When you first came to, you was speaking like a crazy person. We had to call Dr. Lambert in Hickory Hall 'cause Dr. Conroy was out. He bird-dogged it over here and checked you over. Said you was hysterical. I been sitting here all this time wondering how a little girl like you gets hysterical. But Dr. Lambert is the ringleader, a real big shot, so I reckon he knows.”

“Uh-huh,” I muttered.

“He told me to keep an eye on you and make sure you woke up feeling better. Are you still hysterical?” he asked, leaning over, examining me.

“I don't think so,” I said.

“Not even a little?” he asked.

“No, sir,” I said. “My head hurts, that's all.”

“Good,” he said, chuckling. “Not good your head hurts. Good, you're not hysterical.”

Using my elbows, I lifted myself up. “Where's Head Butt-er?” I whispered.

“In solitary,” he said.

“What's that?”

“In a little room all by hisself,” Delbert said.

“Why?” I asked.

“He needs to do some thinking, some straightening out.”

“Oh,” I said. “One time back in Ginseng, I was asked to do some thinking.”

“And look what it got you,” Delbert said. “In bed, with a big ole headache.” He patted my pillow. “Dr. Lambert wanted Tiny to look in on you before he went home.” Delbert went to the door and made a very soft whistling sound.

In an instant, Tiny appeared. “Is she ready for some aspirin?” he asked Delbert.

“I reckon,” he said. “Feel her forehead. She's hot.”

“I can do you one better,” Tiny said, whipping out a thermometer. “Open up, young lady,” he demanded, as he thrust the cold stick between my lips. “Almost a hundred,” he announced after leaving it in for several minutes. “Dr. Lambert wants you to take these.” He bent over me with a packet of children's aspirin in his hand.

“You do what Tiny says,” Delbert insisted, pouring me a glass of water. “He's a nurse.”

“Swallow.” Tiny plucked two pills into my hand.

“Try to rest,” Delbert said.

Without hesitation, I swallowed the aspirin before moving back down in my bed, closing my eyes, drifting off.

Looking like a humongous green crab apple, I popped out from between my mama's legs.

“Aye grannies!” the midwife hollered when she saw me. “You have birthed a great big crab apple.”

“Oh, Lordy!” my mama screamed.

“Acorns don't fall far from the tree,” the midwife said, gripping my stem with both hands.

“Does she have arms?” my mama asked.

The midwife looked down. “No.”

“Does she have legs?” my mama shrieked.

“Nary a one.”

“Oh, merciful heaven!” my mama cried. “How do we know it's a she?”

“We don't,” the midwife said, swinging me by my stem, shaking her head.

At that point, my head began to cry. A long, heart-wrenching sob seeped through my green skin. “What's done is done,” my mama said, then took me in her arms and pressed me against her breasts.

Relieved, the midwife threw up her hands. “Thank God you've recovered!” she said.

Tenderly, my mama cradled my noggin. Rubbing my slick green head, she replied, “Hysterical ain't what you'd call her. Sweet dumpling, you're not hysterical.”

“I ain't hysterical. I ain't hysterical,” I cried when I awoke in the middle of the night. “Hysterical ain't what you'd call me.”

“Calm down, sugar child,” Delbert said, grabbing the pitcher from the nightstand and pouring me another glass of water. “You're just having a bad dream.”

“What color am I?” I asked.

“You got blond hair, yellow eyes, and white skin,” Delbert said.

“I ain't green?” I asked.

“Nary a trace of green,” Delbert said, handing me the glass. “Now drink this!”

I guzzled it down. “What are you still doing here?” I asked him.

“That ole Smitty called in sick, so I'm pulling a double shift,” he said. “But it's okay, since Dr. Lambert told me to keep an eye on you anyway.” He put his hand on my forehead. “Sugar darling, you're still hot!”

“It's all them little green crab apples Mama ate when she was pregnant with me,” I said.

“I don't think so,” Delbert said, “but I promise I'll wake you up if you start turning green on me. Now turn over and get some rest.”

I pulled the blanket up over my head and immediately went to sleep.

D
elbert's snoring woke me up. Like a car's engine warming up, each snore sputtered and hiccuped before booming forth and reverberating through the room. I was staring at his plump face, watching his cheeks go in and out, studying the sweet submissiveness of his skin and the neutrality of his camomile-colored hair when suddenly he choked once, gasped for air, and jerked up.

“You spying on me? he asked, his eyes springing open.

“Delbert, you snore,” I declared.

He stretched his arms over his head and yawned. “So what?”

“So, maybe nobody ever told you,” I said. “Maybe you been snoring all your life and nobody had the nerve to tell you.”

“What's to tell?” he said, rubbing his cheeks with his hands.

“What's to tell is that snoring ends more marriages than fooling around.”

“Oh, does it?” He dipped his fingers in the pitcher on my nightstand, then flicked the water on his face. “Who says?”

“My granny,” I said with authority.

“Well, my snoring don't bother me,” he said, wiping his face with his shirttail.

“If you don't stop it,” I warned, pointing my finger at him, “you'll never find a woman.”

“I don't reckon I care,” he said.

“You'll be lonely and unhappy,” I said.

“I don't need a woman friend,” he said. “I have a man one, and my snoring don't bother him a bit.”

“You sleep with a man?” An incredulous tone was in my voice.

“Goodness no!” Delbert said. “He sleeps in the next room, but he can hear me through the walls.”

“And sawing logs don't bother him?”

“Just the opposite,” he said. “If I don't snore, he can't sleep.”

“How come?” I asked.

“'Cause when he was little, he lived near the railroad tracks. My snoring reminds him of the Old Ten-forty. The rumble of that train always put him to sleep.”

“Well, your snoring does the opposite to me.” I touched my forehead and grimaced.

“You got a goose egg,” he said, shaking his head, smiling, “but don't worry, sugar darling, it'll get better.”

At that moment, the sweetness of his words let me know that I could trust him. Slightly more masculine and all grown up, he was simply another Lane Carlson. “Will you…” I hesitated. “Will you keep him away from me?”

“Honey child, I promise I'll try.” He reached out and took my hand. “Nobody should hurt a sweet thing like you.”

O
n the day of my grandparents' arrival, I could taste my joy. Like peppermint, it tingled inside me. Delight square-danced over every inch of my body. From my closet, I—cheerily—selected an evergreen wool jumper, and from my pink dresser, a white cotton blouse. I pulled up dark brown socks and slipped on my brown loafers. In front of my dresser mirror, I brushed my hair. Matanni said that a hundred strokes every day would make it shine. So I brushed and brushed till the strands, electrified, shot up. Then, feeling foolish and silly, I raced to the bathroom and splashed water over my head; my hair flattened like a wet dog's fur. Next I combed out each tangle, twisting each lock around my index finger until it coiled up like a snake, drying in a loose ringlet down my back.

I ate a light breakfast, cornflakes with bananas, and returned to my room. For four hours, I waited; but my grandparents didn't come.

Kneeling on the floor in front of my books, I leafed through
Little Women
; I examined the pen and ink illustrations but was unable to concentrate on the words. When I glanced up, I saw the gray morning through the parted curtains. I rose, and crossed over to the window. The last traces of the fall leaves had long since disappeared; the landscape was dull and cheerless. No patients lingered outside; no cars passed by the iron spiked fence; every so often, a wail pierced through the monotonous daily noise; but then it trailed off, as though it had never been.

I ran into the hallway and stared at the clock on the opposite wall.

I've missed lunch, I thought. It's one-thirty, and they aren't here.

I looked at the patchwork pillows on my bed. Rose, yellow, lilac, tan, green, white, blue, they were so colorful. White ruffles served as borders for both. Matanni had spent hours sewing them.

They promised to take me out to eat, and I've missed lunch, I thought.

I ran back out into the hallway. It was one-forty. Ten more minutes had passed. “Why aren't they here?” I asked myself.

I returned to my room and sat on the edge of my bed.

Closing my eyes, I stretched out both legs, scissor-kicked and fluttered them, and pretended to be swimming in Sweetwater Lake. When I was seven years old, Patanni had taught me how to swim. Cradling me in his arms, he had carried me into the water. “Close your eyes,” he had said. “Don't be scared. In a minute, I'm gonna let you go. But remember, my arms are right below you, ready to catch you, if need be.” Then he turned me loose.

Relaxed, I had floated with my eyes tightly shut and felt the soft, sweet water caressing my skin.

“Did you like that?” Patanni asked, once more cradling me.

When I nodded, he let go again. Sinking, I felt only the water slapping against me and the warm descent. Instinctively, without a trace of fear, I began to move my arms and legs. The water swirled around me. Caught in the eddy, my body fluttered like a leaf in the wind. Then Patanni had lifted me up, up, and up, until he was holding me several feet above the water. The sun flashed against my eyes, and air swept into my lungs. “Again!” I had begged him. “Let's do it again.”

“Again!” I sobbed, now suddenly whipping around and throwing myself across my bed. “Let's do it again!” I said, crying into my grandmother's patchwork pillows.

I
was crying like this when I felt a hand on my back. “Icy,” Maizy said, gently patting me. “Icy, we've gotta talk.”

I turned over. Wet and red-faced. I looked up at her.

“I'm sorry, Icy,” she said. “Dr. Conroy told me this morning.”

“Told you what?” I asked, afraid of her answer.

“I was coming to tell you,” Maizy said, shaking her head, “when Stevie had another one of his accidents. It took me over an hour to clean up the mess.”

“What are you trying to say?” I asked.

“They won't be coming,” Maizy said softly.

I whimpered, stretched out my arms to push the words away, and fiercely shook my head.

“Dr. Conroy wrote your grandparents, asking them to put off their visit for a little while. She got a call from them this morning and they agreed.”

“No!” I said, hitting at the air. “You promised.”

“It's only been a few weeks,” Maizy said. “We need a little more time. We've got to get to know you.”

“But you do know me,” I whined.

“Not well enough,” she explained. “Give us just a little more time.”

“But how much time?” I asked angrily.

“Not too much,” she said. “Before you know it, they'll be here.”

Clenching my jaw, I shook my head, wiped my face, and yelled, “You're lying! You're all just a bunch of liars!”

“Now, Icy!” Maizy was saying.

“Don't you ‘now, Icy' me!” I said. “You, pretending to be my friend. You ain't no better than Gordie. Trying to be someone you ain't.”

“Please listen, Icy!” Maizy said, grabbing my hands. “I promise, this wasn't my idea. I told Dr. Conroy, ‘Look here, Icy needs to see her grandparents.'” She squeezed my fingers tightly. “But I'm just an aide. No one listens to me,” she said, biting at her lower lip. “That's the truth, Icy Gal. I promise, on my granny's grave, I'd never hurt you.”

“Just go!” I said, jerking my hands away. “I don't want to talk to you right now.”

With a sad look in her eyes, Maizy said not another word. She simply stroked the edge of my mattress, as though it were my cheek, turned around, and walked away.

But I was too hurt to care about her feelings. For weeks I had waited for them to come and get me. In my bed at night, I had looked up at the ceiling and remembered winters on our farm. Matanni always gained weight while Patanni grew thinner. With my covers pulled up around me, I had smelled them both—the sweat and dirt beneath his skin; the flour and yeast beneath hers.

In the thick crack that ran along the wall near the windowsill, I had envisioned the forested hillside that protected our farm from the harsh northerly winds. In my mind's eye, I had imagined our white clapboard house looking like an igloo in the snow, and had seen myself, all cozy in my bed, listening to winter's stillness, hearing a twig as it cracked through the silence. Back home, the sounds of snow were forlorn and disturbing. Coldness, I knew, was not impassive. Ice clinked. A tree limb split and drums resounded.

Every night, I had dreamt about home, knowing that my grandparents would come soon, wrap their arms around me, and take me away. But they had not come. In this sterile blue room, winter was mute. When the snow finally came, it would creep silently. Tree limbs would not fracture. Twigs would not cry out. Like a dense fog, the snow would sneak up and fall upon us, and I would be trapped inside these yellow stucco walls.

Listening to the absolute silence, I cried until I could cry no longer, until exhaustion swam over me, until only rasps came from my mouth. Still, silence was better than speech. Already I knew the truth. Words were just stone-cold syllables strung together. Talking was about as meaningful as Maizy's vow to be my friend, as her promise to never hurt me. Promises, I had learned, meant nothing more than Reid's chirping, Rose's cackling, my croaking after a long, difficult day. Only a deep dreamless sleep—dark, silent, and empty of promises—had the power to calm me now.

“I
cy, I know you're in there,” Dr. Conroy said, knocking at my door. Having spent a miserable night, I didn't want to see her. After all, she was responsible for the scary dreams that had kept me awake. I wasn't about to ask her inside.

“Whether you want me to or not, I'm coming in.” She eased open the door and peeked inside.

With arms crossed over my chest and legs shoulder-width apart, I stood in front of my bed and glared as she ventured through the doorway. “I don't want you here,” I said. “If I can't see my grandparents, I don't want to see anybody, especially not you.”

Dr. Conroy walked toward me, saying, “Believe it or not, I understand how you feel.”

“How could you?” I argued. “They're not your grandparents.”

“But I do,” she said softly.

“Well, I don't believe you,” I said. “You promised my folks could come, then changed your mind.”

“I had to,” she said, stopping right in front of me.

I kept my arms folded over my chest and said, “I wasn't born yesterday.”

“Oh, yes, you were,” she said, laughing.

“Take that back,” I said, stomping forward, almost stepping on her toes.

She inched back. “Compared to me, you were born yesterday.”

I swung my head and snorted, “After all your talk about telling the truth, you ain't nothing but a damn liar.”

She walked over to the rocking chair situated in the center of the blue rug and sat down. “Come here,” she said, tapping the arm. “I want to talk to you.”

“I got nothing to say.”

She began laughing again. “That'll be the day,” she said. “Now come here.”

I trudged over to the blue rug.

“Sit down,” she ordered.

I squatted down on my calves at the edge of the rug, as far away from her as I could possibly get.

“Icy, we need more time with you,” she said. “More time before your grandparents come.”

“How come?” I snapped.

“'Cause we need to understand what's wrong with you,” she explained. “We need to understand your disorder.” She stressed the last word. “We've got to tell your folks something, and right now we don't know what to say.”

“There ain't nothing wrong with me,” I said.

“Now, you know that's not true,” she said, clicking her tongue against her teeth.

“I ain't like Head Butt-er.”

“Who?”

“Head Butt-er!” I said.

“Gordie?”

I nodded. “And I ain't like Ace or Reid or Rose.”

“That's right.” She drummed her fingers against the wooden arm. “That's why understanding you is so hard. You're not like the others.”

“So let me go home,” I said.

“We can't,” Dr. Conroy said. “At least, not yet.”

“So let my folks come and see me,” I said.

“We can't,” she repeated. “Not yet.”

“If you act this way,” I said, “I'll close up like a turtle, and you won't ever understand me.”

“But that would be defeating your purpose,” she said quietly. “You want to go home, don't you?”

I bit my lip and glowered at her.

“The sooner you let us get to know you, the quicker we'll be able to help you so you can go home.”

“For Christmas?” I asked.

“Maybe,” she said.

“I don't believe you,” I said. “You'll skin me out of Christmas.”

“We've got to get to know you better,” she replied.

“What is there to know?” I said.

“Well…” she hesitated momentarily, then continued, “I'd like to understand why you spoke so harshly to Wilma the other day.”

The muscles in my legs tightened. “What?” I asked, my face drawing up.

“You heard me.”

“I wasn't so mean to her,” I said.

“Let me see.” She squinted her eyes as though she were struggling to remember. “Wilma told me what you said. If my memory serves me, you called her ugly, said that she was uglier than a mud fence.”

“I might of,” I said.

“Out of nowhere, she said, you lit into her, called her names, and acted like a crazy person.”

“I called her ugly, if that's what you mean.”

“Why?” she asked. “How could you be so unkind? She can't help how she looks.”

“But she can help how she acts,” I said. “Pretty is as pretty does.”

“What are you saying?”

“I'm saying she's spiteful,” I said. “She was making fun of Ace. So I—I got mad at her.”

“How was she making fun of him?”

“She came up to him, pointed right at the woman he was drawing, and, real mean-like, called her ‘Miss August.' Said that she was just some girl from a girlie magazine, not actually his mama.”

“Go on.”

“‘His folks never visit,' she said. ‘I thought he was drawing a likeness of his mother, the woman who created this.' When she said ‘this,' she jabbed Ace in the shoulder with her finger.”

“No one's ever complained about Wilma,” Dr. Conroy said.

“'Cause everyone's scared of her,” I said.

“Oh?” Dr. Conroy leaned forward; the rocker squeaked.

“Her favorite pastime is pulling the legs off grasshoppers. She shoots sparrows with her brother's .410, and she drowns kittens in a tub of water.”