What Came First (33 page)

“Who’s excited about camp?” I chirp.

The twins are silent (there’s a first). I flip on the radio and back out of the garage, singing tunelessly along with Gwen Stefani.

I, for one, haven’t felt this lighthearted since . . . well, since the first day of kindergarten, when everything was fresh and new and they hadn’t yet begun a battle of wills with Mrs. Rath. Camp will be different. And if not, at least camp will be shorter. By the time the counselors have exhausted all attempts at controlling the twins, it will be time for first grade.

We are halfway down the block when I spot the dead snake in the road. I slam on the brakes. Fortunately, there is no one behind me.

“Is it our snake?” Sydney asks.

As always, I check the tail first. “No. This one’s a rattler.”

“Cool!” Harrison says.

I press the accelerator and drive around the lifeless reptile before Harrison can decide he needs a closer look. My heart races. Is this some kind of bad omen? No. As far as I’m concerned, the only good snake is a dead one.

Waiting outside the preschool building where the camp is held, I spot Mary . . . oh, hell, was it Beth or Ann? I start to walk toward her (Mary
Jane,
that’s it)—but when I see that she is talking to a couple of moms from the twins’ kindergarten class, I stop in my tracks. Something tickles my arm: a fat black ant crawls toward my elbow. I shriek and flick it onto the pavement.

“Don’t hurt it!” Harrison yells, falling back on the ground.

Next to me, a mom I don’t know chuckles. “Boys and bugs.”

I smile at her, thinking,
Three weeks from now, she won’t meet my eyes.

Just then, the camp director opens the door. She looks young and eager enough to be in high school. Her dark hair is cut in a bouncy bob, her eyes are big and brown, her mouth is painted cherry red.

I say, “Are you Miss Rossi? I’m Wendy Winder. We talked on the phone?”

“Yes!” she trills, leaning down to talk to the children. “
You
must be Sydney! And Harrison! We are going to have the most glorious time together!”

I half expect a bluebird to land on her shoulder.

“Mom,” Sydney whispers, her brown eyes fixed on the young woman with the bright red lips.

“What?”

“It’s Snow White!”

It’s going to be a good three weeks.

Eric waits until we’re pulling into the grocery-store parking lot to drop the bomb.

“So I told Laura I’d donate again.” He puts the car in park and turns off the ignition.

I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach. “Please tell me we’re talking blood.”

We’re really quiet for what feels like forever, and then he goes, “No. But it could be worse. At least it’s not a kidney.”

I want to scream,
This is not funny! A kidney would be better than this.
Instead, I get out of the car, cross the parking lot, grab a cart, and head into the store.

I pick out bananas while Eric sorts through the summer fruit and comes back with a plastic bag of plums because they’re on sale. Then I get tomatoes and he gets lettuce. Then we head for the cereal aisle.

Just when I think we’re not going to talk about it anymore, Eric goes, “You can go with me if you want. It might make you feel more a part of the process.” He plucks a box of Honey Nut Cheerios off the shelf and drops it in the cart.

My hands clutch the cold plastic handle so hard, they hurt. “You’re asking me to come into the bathroom with you. At the doctor’s office. And, and . . .” I’m about to say something really crude, but next to us, a mom pushes two little kids in one of those carts with a plastic car on the front.

One of the kids is blond. Streaky blond. Could he be another one of Eric’s kids? How many are out there?

“Only if you want to come.” Eric strolls down the aisle until he finds his favorite granola.

“I don’t want to.”

“That’s fine.”

He’s sounding all casual, but he’s looking way too fascinated with Cream of Wheat.

I push the cart closer to him, but I can’t get past the woman with the car cart. A chubby hand reaches out of the passenger side and plucks a sack of chocolate cereal. If the mother notices, she doesn’t say anything.

“It’s not fine,” I tell Eric. “Nothing about this is fine.”

“Whatever you want to do,” he says.

“It’s not what
I
want to do! It’s what I want you to
not
do!”

The mom with the car cart stiffens, but at this point, I don’t give a crap. I’d throw my engagement ring at Eric, but, oh yeah—he never gave me one.

I go, “Do you even think about how many hundreds of children you could have running around? Does that not even bother you?”

He shakes his head. “I only did it five, six times, and my—” He shoots a look at the lady with the car cart. “It wasn’t exactly a fast seller. Wendy Winder, the one with the twins, she bought her vials three years after Laura, and I wasn’t even her first choice. Man. If there were a Big Lots for this kind of thing, that’s totally where my guys would’ve ended up.”

“It’s not funny, Eric.”

He sighs. “I told Laura I’d do this for her.”

Hearing her name makes me snap. “Fine! Then you can go jerk off for Laura—or you can marry me. Take your pick, Eric!”

“Excuse me.”
The mom straightens the car cart as her child rips open the plastic cereal sack. Little brown pebbles spill over the hard floor. They crunch under the wheels of her cart.

At last, Eric meets my eyes. “Tell me you don’t mean that.”

I say nothing.

Six hours. That’s how much time I have until I have to pick up Harrison and Sydney.
Six whole hours.
I love summer camp!

Over the summer, I developed a long mental list of the things I would do once I had time. Organize the closets, join a gym, sort the toys, shampoo the upholstery. Instead, I head over to Target, where I browse the books and housewares, the shoes and plants. And no one bothers me! There are plenty of little kids there with harried mothers. I ignore them all. After an hour or so, I leave with a new fall purse, long pants for Harrison, and a whole bunch of food that we may or may not need.

Out in the vast parking lot, the air is hot and my minivan is hotter. I have no choice but to go straight home. That’s okay: the house is empty!

Back in my kitchen, I sing an old Tiffany song while I put the food away.
“I think we’re alone now. There doesn’t seem to be anyone a-rou-ound.”

Upstairs, I prepare for a shower, then decide to take a bath instead. When was the last time I took a bath? I can’t even remember. With Harrison and Sydney around, I can’t even manage a ten-minute shower without someone pounding on the door.

The cold tap turned up full force, tepid water spills from the spigot into the oversize, soap-scum-coated tub. If I want my water chilly in August, I’d have to add ice cubes. Tepid is fine.

I’ve just stepped into the tub and am contemplating how much I hate my cellulite-ridden body when I hear the phone ring. I hesitate. Could it be the camp calling? So soon? The kids were perfectly healthy when I sent them off less than two hours ago, without the slightest sniffle or fake stomachache. If Snow White is calling to say that Sydney is crying or Harrison hit someone, what am I supposed to do? Rush down to the church and yell at them?

And then I remember: I was supposed to call my mother back. She’s probably curious to hear how the drop-off went. Ah, well—another half hour won’t make any difference.

I turn on the jets and position a folded towel beneath my head. Eyes closed, I enjoy the sensation of pulsing water on my soft flesh. I haven’t felt this relaxed in . . . maybe forever.

Six hours alone, Monday through Thursday.
I am going to be one clean mother.

I don’t know how long I soak. A half hour? Forty minutes? When I finally haul myself out, I set to work on my hair. The desert air is so dry, there’s maybe a ten-minute window in which to blow-dry. The instant I turn the dryer off, I hear the phone ringing, once, twice—and then it stops.

I grab the first clothes I find—a red T-shirt that is a little too big, and denim shorts that are a little two tight—and hurry down the stairs, irritated at whoever called, even if it’s my mother. Two months I’ve been with the kids 24/7.
Two months
. Does anyone really begrudge me my six lousy hours?

When I see the red number five blinking on the answering machine, my irritation turns to fear. My mother wouldn’t call me that many times.

“Mrs. Winder? This is Tammi in the St. Stephen’s day camp office.”
Her voice quivers
. “We have your Harrison here. He’s been stung by a scorpion. On the playground. We think—his counselor thinks it was a bark scorpion. He’s in a lot of pain, and, and—I’ll try your husband.”

Next is Darren.
“Wendy?
Wendy?
”
There is a click, and a dial tone.

The third call is Darren again.
“Wendy? Pick up. Are you there?
Are you there?
”

Fourth call:
“Wendy. Lane Plant here. I just got off the phone with Darren. Asked me to see if you were home. I thought I saw you drive up earlier, but I just rang your doorbell, and there was no answer.”

The fifth call is from Darren again, but I don’t bother to listen to what he says. Instead, I grab the phone and dial his cell number with shaking hands.

“Where were you?” He sounds like he’s been crying. Darren never cries.

“In the bath, I didn’t hear—”

“Harrison’s been stung by a scorpion.”

“I know! Is he—”

“The traffic. It took me so long to get to the church. We’re at the hospital. Just got here . . .”

Harrison is with Darren? Then why can’t I hear him screaming in the background? Oh my God oh my God oh my God . . .

I say, “But what happened? Where was he stung? I don’t understand how he—”

“Meet me at the ER. Scottsdale North.” The line goes dead.

I need to find my keys. Where is my purse? Did I bring it in when I came back from Target? Did I take it upstairs? Maybe I left it in the car.
Where is my goddamn purse?

I am crying and stumbling and I think I might pass out.
Where are my keys?
I need to calm down. I need to function. I need to breathe.

Harrison. Oh my God. I’ve told him to watch out for poisonous insects, begged him not to turn over rocks. Bark scorpions. Those are the bad ones, right? Rarely lethal to adults, but to small children . . .

The doorbell rings. I think it might be Darren, coming to pick me up—forgetting for an instant that he’s already at the hospital; he just told me that—so I open the door, and there’s Lane Plant, big and dark and hairy as ever but looking gentle. Looking like a friend.

“Darren called me.”

“Harrison,”
I sob.

“I know.”

Lane drives me to the hospital. We don’t even discuss it—he just puts his arm around me and ushers me to his pickup truck. It takes us almost half an hour to get there. I cry the whole way.

He finds a parking spot near the emergency room entrance and walks me across the scorching pavement and through the automatic glass doors. Darren isn’t in the waiting room, so Lane tells the receptionist who I am, and she tells us to take a seat. It is cold inside, so cold. I wrap my arms around myself. My teeth chatter.

“You okay?” Lane asks.

I shake my head.

Finally, Darren comes down the hall and into the waiting room. I stand up, terrified, trying to read his face.

“Is he okay?” My voice cracks.

He looks at Lane and then back to me. “They gave him antivenin. He’s going to be okay.”

“Oh, thank God.” The tears, which I’d kept under control since we got inside the hospital, burst out in full force.

Lane says, “That’s great news” or something like that, and then he leaves.

Darren and I stand a few feet apart, and I want him to hold me so badly, but he’s got this stony look on his face and I figure he’s mad that I didn’t answer the phone. I’m mad at myself too. I should have been here from the start.

Darren leads me into a tiny room, where Harrison lies on an examining table, curled in a fetal position, pressing an ice pack to one hand. A nurse tells us she’ll check back, and she leaves us alone.

“Mommy,” Harrison whimpers.

“Oh, baby!” He usually scolds me when I call him baby, but this time he drops the ice pack, locks his arms around my neck, and holds on tight. He smells of boy sweat, dirt, and rubbing alcohol.

“It hurt so bad,” he says.

“My poor baby.” I run a hand up and down his spine.

“I wasn’t gonna kill it,” he whimpers. “It didn’t have to sting me.”

I laugh and cry at the same time. “Big meanie. Was it really a bark scorpion?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’m pretty sure. It was under a rock and there was this leaf kind of covering it. So I moved the leaf. And that’s when it got me.”

When he sniffles, I lean back to get a tissue from my purse, but he holds on tight, and we stay that way until the doctor comes in. He checks the swelling on Harrison’s hand and tells us he wants him to stay for a few more hours.

“Can you pick up Sydney?” I ask Darren. “She’ll be done at three.”

“Sure.” His face is hard. The doctor is still talking to Harrison, so I say, “Be right back,” and guide Darren into the hallway.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “That you couldn’t reach me. I was so thrilled to have the whole day to myself, and I know this sounds awful now, but I went to Target and then I took a bath. I heard the phone ring once, but—”

Darren keeps his eyes on the wall when he speaks. “You know, going through all this today—getting Harrison at school, and he looked so scared, then driving here and working so hard to keep it all together . . . for the first time in a long time, maybe ever, I felt like I was his father.”