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sadie_cocopuff(Mimicking adult voices, at first quiet, getting louder.) “It was just an argument. They’ll get over it.” “You always take your own kid’s side.” “That’s not what this is about.” “I don’t approve of the way you’re raising your daughter.” “Why are you making such a big deal of this?” “Come on, Kelsey, we’re leaving!”
It’s been a year since I’ve seen her. “Dear Diary, I miss Kelsey. “Dear Diary, I want to write Kelsey a letter. I will look for her address.” “Dear Diary, I found it!” “Dear Diary, today I sent Kelsey a letter. Mom wanted to know what it said. I read it to her, except the end: P.S. Best wishes to your mom. Maybe her mom will like me again.” “Dear Diary, today was the Kolache Festival. Kelsey’s mom had a booth at the end of the street, but she wouldn’t let Kelsey come down to my house. She came down the sidewalk to say hello but her mom made her go back.”
It’s been ten years since I’ve seen her. “You didn’t tell me Kelsey was going to the movie with us! I didn’t know she hung out with the drama group. We used to be best friends a long time ago, before our moms had a fight. It was so weird seeing her again. She’s really changed. I don’t think she recognized me at first. I wonder if she remembers when we were friends. That was such a long time ago…”
After Kelsey, I make new friends, school friends: Audrey, Candace, Heather. In third grade, Heather starts getting headaches. By the end of the year, she isn’t in school anymore. They explain to us that she has a brain tumor and has to stay in the hospital. She doesn’t come back for fourth grade. My mom takes me to see her in the hospital. We take her a rainbow hat with a propeller on top: mom says she doesn’t have any more hair because of chemotherapy. It’s too dark in her room. I don’t say hi because she can’t hear me. Beanie Babies everywhere; on the blackboard across from her bed, a math problem, incorrect – “to challenge her mind.” Her parents go to get coffee while my mom sits with her. I sit in a wheelchair outside her room reading Little Women until it’s time to leave. I don’t understand why we came. “Dear God, please, don’t let Heather die. I’ll do anything if you make her better. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
“Hallie, Heather spoke her first word today! She said ‘Mom’! They think she can come home soon.”
“Hallie, I have some sad news. Heather passed away today. Can you tell your parents for me?” “Dad, Mrs. Johnson needs to talk to you!” I don’t cry. My dad doesn’t understand, but some things are too important for crying. That night we play on the playground, waiting for our to parents take us to the funeral home. Audrey hands me a piece of paper: “…I wish I could die, for now my friend Heather is up in the sky. Oh Hallie, I don’t know what I’d do if it happened to you.” I don’t want to show my mom. “Mrs. Gammon, look what Audrey wrote!” I knew she would cry. In her casket, Heather looks like a doll with pearly pink fingernails. Heather never wore pink when she was…alive.
My granddad has had health problems for the last few years, but nothing to worry about, my parents always said. He’s just getting old. It’s normal. In the car with my mom, I listen to her cell phone conversation. “What’s wrong with granddad?” “He has a tumor in his chest. They’ve decided not to treat it. The chances of success for surgery are too small.” Long pause. “How long?” “He could hang on till Christmas. Maybe months longer. Nobody really knows.”
The universe splits off into another reality. Here, I live my normal life. There, I remember that granddad is dying. I spend as little time in that other world as possible. “I went to the doctor with them.” “Did you talk to your dad?” “Yes, he understands.” Dad and I visit grandmother and granddad’s house almost every day after school. I get used to the oxygen tank, the nurses who come in to keep him company, the repetitive conversations. One thing doesn’t change: granddad still makes the same corny jokes as ever. Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!
He still seems strong at Christmas. I stop holding my breath and forget about that alternate reality for the time being.
It’s a few days before Valentine’s Day. It won’t be long now. I hope he makes it: Valentine’s is his anniversary. We’ve stopped visiting. By then he’s mostly gone. Mom says he’s not in any pain, but he’s not really granddad anymore. He makes it to February fifteenth. Around midnight, my dad calls. “Hallie, let me talk to mom.” I know. I go back to my French collage. Some things are still too important for crying.
This one is considerably more light-hearted. I didn't like playing outside much when I was a kid, but when I did, these plants that used to grow around the tree in our front yard were my favorite toys. To my parents' credit, they never got mad at me for uprooting the landscaping.
Today is bright, hot, clear and sunny – a perfect day for a parade. Our front yard is on the main street of town. Our sidewalk is old and broken, and between it and the yard is a black rail fence that I like to walk on. Sometimes I’m a tightrope walker, but today I’m leading the parade. I need a flag, a baton, a crown. The plants that grow around the big tree in the front yard are perfect. If you pull them just right, they break off at the root, and you have a thick, smooth stem, maybe a foot long, with a wide leaf at the top. I use them as arrows, brooms, flags; and if you slit the leaf very carefully with your fingernail, you can bend the stalk in a circle and poke it through the slit to make a crown. Today I need lots of leaves. Some of them break in the middle of the stalk, and some of the leaves tear, but it doesn’t matter – there are plenty more.
You can’t have a parade with just one person. I go inside to find my little sister and her stroller. She doesn’t need the stroller – she can walk now – but I like to push her around like a parade float with wheels. I make her a leaf crown too, but she doesn’t want to wear it. I give her a leaf flag to wave instead. I march up and down the sidewalk, pushing the stroller, waving my leaf baton. Where is my audience? Only a few cars drive by. Not many people are going places on a Sunday afternoon.
It doesn’t seem right to march without music. I go inside again to find my tape player. It’s made for little kids, with big, colorful buttons and a microphone – I’ve had it for a long time. Sometimes I use it to record songs I play on the piano, but I don’t want those for my parade. I pick a tape out of the tape box, one of my favorites – the blue one. I don’t know what it’s called because the label rubbed off a long time ago, but it has good sing-along songs. I take the tape player outside and set it in the middle of the sidewalk that leads to the front door. I turn it up as loud as it will go, but I still can’t hear it at the end of the sidewalk. Sometimes when I get back to where I can hear it, my marching doesn’t match the music, but I skip to get back in step, leaning on the handles of the stroller.
I have music now, so it’s a real parade, but there are still no people stopping to watch. Maybe they don’t know it’s a parade. I run inside again and make a sign with crayons that says “Parade! Admission $1.” I have to dig through the junk drawer to find Scotch tape, and I have a hard time sticking my sign to the fence – the tape peels the rust off. I use a lot of tape and try not to touch the rust. I don’t like to get my fingers dirty. It’s a little hard to see the sign because of the ivy growing under the fence. I hope people can see it from their cars. I think they should be able to – it’s almost as big as a stop sign.
I keep marching up and down the sidewalk, singing along to the music, pushing my sister’s stroller. After a little while she gets hot and cranky and wants to go inside. I push the stroller without her, but it tips over too easily without anybody in it. I march by myself. Now I can beat my leaf baton up and down like the conductor of a band, stepping with my knees high. My tape runs out and I have to stop to rewind it. Still nobody is stopping to watch. I guess they can’t see my sign after all.
The sun is going down, glaring in my eyes, and I’m getting tired of parading. I haven’t seen any cars in five minutes. I turn off my tape player, throw my baton and crown in the grass. The yard is covered in leaves. I leave my sign on the fence – somebody might see it and want to come to the next parade. I didn’t have an audience today, but that’s okay. Maybe one of these days…
