The Mighty Miss Malone (15 page)

“Patience?
Patience
? Do you have any idea how it kills me to come in that door and see my boy and know that he’s stopped growing? To know that all we can afford is to take him to Doc Taylor, a man who’s so old and stuck in his ways he probably delivered George Washington?”

“Roscoe, listen—”

“No! Do you know what I automatically do every day when
Deza runs up to me to give me a hug and a kiss? Did you know I find myself turning my face or breathing out of my mouth the minute I’m close to her? Do you know why?”

Mother softly said, “Oh, Roscoe, no, don’t say that.…”

I stopped breathing.

Father said, “It’s true, Peg, you don’t want to hear it, I don’t want to say it, but it’s the truth. I’ve found I can’t breathe out of my nose when I’m near Deza because of the smell of her teeth. How sick is that? How pathetic am I that I can’t even breathe normally around my own child?”

Their room was quiet for a full minute.

Tears stung my eyes. I tried to stop listening, but …

Father said, “And I know you, Peg. I know you’re going through the same thing, we both know that that little brown-skinned angel is something beyond special. You know if there’s any chance in the future, it’s riding on her narrow shoulders. So you tell me, you tell me how can I come home empty-handed knowing that that sassy, smart, beautiful, charming little girl … my Mighty Miss Malone … is slowly rotting away on the inside and we can’t afford to have her teeth looked after, we can’t even get them pulled? If I come home and see that the spark that makes Deza so precious is gone, I’ll hate myself.”

Mother said, “Oh, please, Roscoe, stop.…”

Father said, “I don’t know which is worse, the smell of her rotting teeth or the smell of the camphor you get from those white people to soak in cotton and stick in her cavities. I’m at my wits’ end, I … cannot … do … it … one … more … time! Peg, I’ll end up killing someone.”

Mother said, “This isn’t a good time for you to be deciding
something this big. Don’t you see, dear, this is the horrible letdown of Joe losing that fight, this is you still grieving about your friends. You need to heal, you need to give it time. All I ask for is another couple months, we’ve come this far together and we need to stay together. Give it some time.”

I could hear Father jump up. I was surprised that he had his shoes on upstairs this late at night. They thudded over and over as he paced the bedroom.

“Time? What am I supposed to do? Should I tell Jimmie, ‘Son, hold on, we just need a little time before we can get you to a doctor who’ll tell us why you haven’t grown in three years’? And what about Deza? Am I going to tell her, ‘Hold on, darling, in another year or two we’ll get those teeth taken care of. In the meantime just snap the bad ones off at the roots’?”

His pacing stopped.

“Roscoe, stop and listen to yourself. All we need is a little more time and—”

“We don’t have any more time, Peg, we’ve run out.”

Mother’s tone changed. “Oh, so since time’s run out, your answer is for
you
to run out too?”

There was silence, then, “I’m sorry. I have to go. I’ll write soon’s I get settled. I love you.”

Their bedroom door opened, then shut. I heard nothing from Mother. Father’s shoes slowly clomped down the stairs.

I ran to my bedroom door and watched my father sinking down the staircase. He stopped at Jimmie’s door, tapped twice, then went in.

I slumped down in my doorway and waited for him to come out.

I was surprised that my second brain was keeping so quiet. It’s such a worthless brain. When you don’t want to hear from it, it can’t stop running its mouth. Times like this, when you could use some noise to drown everything out, or when you’d appreciate a little advice about who you should hurt, that no-good brain chooses to be quiet.

I can’t say how long I waited in the doorway.

Jimmie’s door came open and Father looked back into the room. “I love you, son. I’ll send for you. You’ll like Flint. I can’t say how long it’s going to take, but I promise we’ll be back together.”

He closed the door and stopped to lean against the railing. I started crawling into my room. I know Father.

He was coming to see me next.

I wasn’t halfway into the room when I heard Jimmie’s door come open. Father must have turned around and gone back in to tell Jimmie something else.

I slipped back to look down the steps.

It was Jimmie who had opened the door.

He threw himself at Father and wrapped his arms around Father’s waist from behind.

“Daddy, don’t go!” Jimmie cried into Father’s back. “I don’t like school anyway, I can look for work, even when school starts back up, I can help with the bills, just stay!”

Father pulled Jimmie off of his back and the two of them slumped onto the steps.

Jimmie was unconsolable. Father pulled him into his lap.

What broke my heart was that Jimmie, who hated, more
than anything, stuff that made him look small or weak or young, didn’t stop Father as he cuddled him like a baby in his arms.

Father kissed Jimmie’s forehead and wiped at his tears.

“Son, son, son.”

“I can do it, Daddy. I’ll have the pie lady paid off in no time. Then I can get a job paying cash. Please, give me a chance. Don’t you remember what you call me?”

Father said, “Of course I do, son. You’re my Genuine, Gentle Jumpin’ Giant, Jimmie.”

“That’s right, and don’t forget about Deza. I bet she’ll work too, even with all that reading and studying she does I’ll bet you she’ll find time to chip in too. With all four of us working we can be good again. Go, ask her, ask her now, she’ll do it, Daddy. You know how she is, you know she’s a champ!”

Father said, “Yes, she is, Jimmie, but I explained it and you promised me, son. I need all of you to look after things while I’m gone. I’m only asking because I know I can count on you.”

Jimmie scooted out of Father’s lap and sat beside him. They wrapped their arms around each other.

“I promised, Father.” Jimmie sniffed. “And I’m just like you, a man of my word. I’ll do everything you asked me to do. We’ll look after each other, Pa. I swear we’ll be all right, I’ll do what I have to. And I won’t tell a soul about what really happened out on—”

Father put his hand across Jimmie’s mouth and stood up.

“Go try to get some sleep, son. I’ve got to say goodbye to Deza.”

Jimmie ran into his room and slammed the door.

As I creeped back to my bed the second brain finally decided to start. “Oh, God, kiddo, don’t let him come say goodbye, just let him leave. If he comes in here I’ll hurt him bad!”

I closed my door, then crawled under my blanket. I pulled the pillow over my head but still could hear the slow clomp-clomp-clomp of Father’s feet coming up the steps. The sound stopped outside my room and the longest time passed before he tapped lightly on my door.

“Deza?”

I pulled the pillow tighter over my head to stop him from seeing me. And to block the smell of my mouth.

“May I come in?”

I would never answer him.

My door opened and I heard a couple of clomps as Father came to me.

He stood at the foot of my bed.

“Sweetheart, you awake?”

No! Go! Go!

“Deza? I need to tell you something.”

I pulled the pillow tighter over my head, held my breath and prayed he’d leave.

Father sighed and said, “I
will
get us back together, Deza. Please take care of each other. I know it’s hard, but we’ll get this ship righted as soon as we can.”

He walked to the side of my bed and I could feel him lean down.

I kept holding my breath and squeezing the pillow tight on my head.

He put his hand on top of the pillow but didn’t tug it away.

He said, “Remember, Dar Dawt, that kisses … kisses … kisses make you stronger.”

He pressed his face against my pillow three times and clomped to my door and down the steps.

I squeezed the pillow to my head even harder. I could feel the spot where Father had put his wet face. I threw the pillow at the door as hard as I could.

The second brain yelled, “Quick, kiddo! Push him down the steps! He’ll break his leg and then he can’t leave!”

I squeezed my jaws together so hard that little fairies of red-hot light shot out of my back teeth and bounced around inside my skull.

Something crunched and crackled inside my mouth and I got woozy. It worked. The bad brain finally shut up.

I knew I could never hurt my father.

I let out a cry and was surprised to see how much blood sprayed onto my pillowcase.

I heard the front door open and close.

And I was glad to see him go.

The people who run the Gary Public Library are very, very smart.

If you’re looking for a book you don’t have to go through every shelf until you get lucky and find it, all you do is get the book’s Dewey decimal number out of a card catalog and you know right where it’s going to be.

It’s too bad that whoever’s in charge of coming up with superstitious sayings doesn’t work at the Gary Public Library. They could’ve saved me a lot of time and frustration in trying to figure out what a saying really means.

The saying “Bad news always comes in threes” is a good example.

I wonder if the bad news is supposed to come three times to each family, or if it’s going to come to each
person
in the family three times.

It seems like for the Malones it’s three times for each person.

Nearly a month had gone by and the mailman hadn’t brought anything from Father.

Mother got home from work at about six o’clock and I met her at the door.

She looked tireder than she usually does.

She kissed me and said, “Hello, Deza, any news?”

I told her what me and Clarice were reading and how Dr. Bracy had started paying Jimmie for the work he did for her, but we both knew that the only
real
news that we all were waiting for hadn’t happened.

I could tell by her small smile that she already knew.

“Did you make supper, Deza? I’m so hungry I could eat some bugs.”

They weren’t ever going to let me forget the heartbreak I’d suffered with the buggy oatmeal.

When we sat to eat Mother said, “Jimmie, Deza, I’ve been thinking, we haven’t heard anything from your father and to be quite frank, I’m starting to get a little worried.”

This was very disturbing. If she admitted that she was a little worried, it really meant that she was just about in a panic.

We set our forks down.

“So I’ve decided we should go to Flint and get some firsthand information. Your grandmother Malone is there and will know something. I haven’t been able to get ahold of her but I’m sure we can stay with her until we can get on our feet.”

“Get on our feet? Mother, we’ll be back in time for the start of school, won’t we? Mrs. Needham—”

“Deza, I’m terribly sorry, the Carsdales are moving to Europe. They’re starting to close their house down. In two weeks I’ll lose my job. Jimmie, you’ll be coming with me until then, they’ll need help and will pay you.”

She looked at me. “I’m sorry, Deza, but you and Jimmie will go to school in Flint and with me and your father working we’ll do fine.”

I don’t know how long I sat there in shock before I heard Jimmie say, “Ma, I can stay here with Deza, you go find Father and—” He slapped his forehead. “Wait!
I
can go find Father, you two stay here and—”

“No! We will stay together. I’ve asked Mrs. Carsdale to write me a recommendation letter, she’s good friends with a lady in Flint whose husband is vice president of a bank there.”

She got up and took her plate into the kitchen.

“Well, kiddo,” my second brain said, “you didn’t really believe any of this good stuff with Mrs. Needham was going to happen, did you?”

I didn’t, the only real surprise I had was that my back teeth had gotten so bad that I only had to squeeze them half as much as I usually do to make that stupid second brain shut up.

I knew how Father felt.

I hadn’t had teeth knocked out of my head and hadn’t floated around scared to death on a terrible lake, but every morning, after I made breakfast for Mother and Jimmie, I would sneak into my parents’ bed and didn’t want to move or think or anything. I wouldn’t even read a book.