Hungry Hill: A Memoir

Chapter 41 - A Yellowed Cheek

A Memoir 203 41. A Yellowed Cheek Late Thursday aftern o o n , my aunt reports that my father’s improving , may return home as soon as tomorrow, and suggests we not visit him. We’ll have Tommy’s birthday when my dad gets home. Afraid Tommy would feel cheated, I duck into Liberty Bakeries on my way home from school on Friday and pick up a dozen cupcakes. After a supper of tuna sandwiches, we sing Happy Birthday as tunelessly as ever. Squeezed into a booth at East Longmeadow Friendly’s later that night, I have just set it up that Dotty Homan, Big Black Dot (my brothers’ nickname ), will pick me up at eight tomorrow morning for a National Merit test. Dotty is saying she has no idea why she is bothering to take the test when Anne Sullivan taps me on the shoulder. “Carole, the waitress over there is calling your name,” Anne says. No one ever gets a call at Friendly’s. The chilling fear of this summons flashes through me, paralyzing and energizing me at the same time. At once, a phantom-like body of fright, bigger than I am, pushes me toward the waitress . My friends are watching me. “Your brother, Michael, said for you to call home. It’s very important,” the waitress says, straightening her white apron and fluffing her hair. “Please use the pay phone.” She clicks her tongue and points to the wall phone. How do I get there? Do I slip the dime in? Are those my fingers dialing the phone? Is that my voice sounding so normal? I, Carole, have entered a zone where only my body functions. Breathing quickly, inhaling, inhaling, I cannot talk myself out of the panic bubbling up in me—I know what I am going to hear. “Dad’s dying and you’re at East Longmeadow Friendly’s. Have one of your friends with a car drop you off at Mercy.” “Right now?” I ask as if Michael’s words have not registered. In the zone, comprehension and reality do not exist. “Yes, now, if you want to see Dad while he’s still alive.” I am not here at this hangout; I am in a horror film, aware of a stirring behind my back where four or five friends form a semicircle around me, alarmed at the 204 H u n g ry H i l l phone call. Pat Smith hands me my coat, Dotty will drive me, and Maria offers to tell the twins I’ve left early. As with the drinking, my friends know nothing of my father’s hospitalization, another twig in my nest of secrets. Why am I so humbled by their small gestures of kindness? The freakish air of normalcy to these arrangements only confuses me. Tubes in his nose, tubes in his arms, oxygen tank next to the bed, eyes closed and yellowed skin. This is not my handsome, well-groomed father but a species of my father the hospital has created. Unwilling to step into the smells and colors of that room, I linger in the doorway while my aunt and uncle look up at me, nod somberly, and stare back again at the creature in the hospital bed. Down the hall, Mary is half-held by Dr. Blackmer’s bearish arms with Michael and Danny on either side of her like bookends. Dr. Blackmer lets Mary go and approaches me. I draw in a breath. “This is it, Katsy, time to say goodbye. Your old man doesn’t have much longer.” Dr. Blackmer’s words, spoken as if he were discussing the mildness of the March breeze, hammer me. At thirteen, I never heard the words, time to say goodbye, but at sixteen, this hateful phrase dances through my head, making me want to rebel, to yell, to question God, all actions that would displease my father. “But he, he,” I stammer in disbelief, “was at work on Tuesday.” My breathing is shallow, catching in my throat. “I don’t know how he made it to work.” Brutality and honesty drip from his dry, white lips like icicles from a rooftop in late March. “My aunt said he was getting better.” Am I trying to argue Dr. Blackmer out of another death sentence? If he sees me trembling, will he pull out a hypodermic? “Go see him now.” His hand centers on my back. Like a grotesque ballroom dancer executing a waltz step...