Halfway There (11 page)

“Do you ever think about what it means to be getting older?” I asked.

“What about it?”

“I mean, what did it feel like when you got menopause?”

“It's not a disease. Why? Do you think you caught it from me?”

“Yeah, I do think I caught it from you. You got it first, remember?”

“Still have it. I had a hot flash yesterday so bad I had to change my shirt.”

“How many times a day do you have those things?”

“It depends. Have you had one yet?”

“No. Hey, which sounds older, 46 or 50?”

“Both sound young to me.” Ellen grinned.

“It's going to be okay, isn't it?”

“Probably, but people say no one gets out of here alive.”

“Wow, that's comforting.”

“I'm here for you, baby.”

“Gray hair, absent-mindedness, and all?”

“Sure, but you'd better stop looking at the waitress like that. You're such a man sometimes.”

Hairy chest, mustache and all. I smiled. What else could I do?

My sister is a breeder. She can't help it. She was born that way. She tried it my way, but could only get there after more than a few beers, so she decided to do what came naturally to her and settled down in the 'burbs with a nice guy with whom she promptly had two kids. My sister occasionally shares them with Ellen and me, and although I'm convinced they like Ellen better, I love them anyway.

The first one came into our lives about eight years ago—a little girl named Lynne. We used to hang out a lot. My sister dropped her off at our house for an afternoon when she had to run errands or overnight when she needed some “me” time. I loved it. Lynne and I did lots of things together.

Of course, I made sure we did all the stuff that
would make her mom crazy, like eating spaghetti for lunch. I would strip Lynne down, plop her into the high chair, put a bowl of noodles, red sauce, and meatballs in front of her, then turn on the television to
Star Trek: The Next Generation
and wait.

Lynne would start slowly, pick a bit, and then whack her little fork on the tray. When I looked up, she smiled as if to say, “You'd better be watching because I'm doing this for you.” I always smiled back because I knew what was going to happen next.

After Lynne had my attention, she raised the entire bowl above her head and with great dramatic timing held it there for a moment, a moment which begged for some responsible adult to say “No!” or “Stop!” or some other silly adult thing. In that moment, with the spaghetti raised high, she looked deeply into my eyes and overturned the bowl and its contents onto her head. With the ritual completed, Lynne and I both returned to eating and watching our show—Lynne eating from her head and me from my plate. My sister usually showed up just as we were finishing. To this day, I'm still not sure if she was angrier at our table manners or at me “indoctrinating” her daughter into
Star Trek
fandom.

In those early years, Lynne also made it clear she
was going to be her own person and a force with whom to be reckoned. The best example of this has to be when I had the opportunity to keep Lynne for an entire week while her father made an honest woman out of her mother. Ellen was going to be out of town, so it was going to be only the two of us. This was actually fine with Ellen because as much as she loved Lynne, Ellen had not quite gotten over what is now known as the “Baby Bottle Incident” for which I am responsible because it was I who left them alone for over an hour without proper instructions. When I finally arrived home, I found both of them and our neighbor crying inconsolably. When I stepped into the kitchen, Lynne nearly leapt from Ellen's arms into mine as if to say “Finally, someone who knows what she's doing!” Yeah, right. Anyway, I was looking forward to having Lynne to myself and already planning all the things we would do together—the park, the zoo, a museum or two. It was going to be awesome.

It was awesome. There were a few mistakes, such as taking her to an outdoor museum where she could touch and climb on the displays, then taking her to an indoor museum where she could not. There was forgetting the diaper bag, which is always a big
no-no. I recall a few others, but none compares to THE NIGHT OF THE EARACHE, which will live forever in our family lore.

Lynne and I had had a nice little dinner at a neighborhood coffee shop, and after dinner she played with toys in the kids' area while I graded papers. Time slipped by until I realized it was nearly seven, way past bath time and practically past bedtime. I gathered my papers and bundled her up. As we walked to the car, Lynne pulled on her ear and said it hurt. I gave her a reassuring snuggle, figuring a warm blanket, bottle, and bedtime would do the trick.

As we stepped into the house the phone was ringing. I grabbed it as Lynne and I headed up the stairs.

“Hello?”

“I'm just calling to check in and see how things are going.” It was my newly-created brother-in-law. His words sounded more like “Heeey, I'ms jus' calling to chick in and say hower things goin'.” He doesn't have an accent. He was a bit under the influence.

“We're fine, John. Just fine. How are you two doing?” I went into my room and put Lynne on the bed. I started to undress her which was hard to do because she started squirming.

“We're good. Yeah. Things are good. Well, your
sister isn't doing too good.”

“What? What's wrong? What happened?” I put my hand on Lynne's chest to hold her still as I pulled off her very full and aromatic diaper.

“Nothing really. Well, she's got the shits. I think she ate something.”

“I thought it was the water you had to stay away from in Mexico.”

“No, we weren't drinking any water, but we were drinking!” He started to laugh. It was about this time Lynne started to wail.

“What's wrong, honey?”

“I just told you.”

“No, not you. Lynne.”

“What's wrong with Lynne? Is she okay? She's crying? What's going on?” Suddenly, he was sober. “Let me talk to her.”

I gave Lynne the phone. She had enough words by this time to carry on a short conversation.

“Daddy?”

I took this momentary reprieve to drop the disgusting diaper in a bag and then into the wastebasket knowing full well the dog would probably be at it before I could manage to get the bag out of the house. I went back into the bedroom, hands full
of ointment, powder, and diaper.

“My ear hurts,” Lynne said to her father. I took the phone away. She voiced her displeasure by screaming and crying giant tears that rolled down her little cheeks and plopped on to the comforter. I could hear my sister yelling in the background, while John was yelling something back at her. I tried my best to get his attention.

“John! John!”

“What? Huh? I'm going to call my mom. She can help. We'll get you some help. Put Lynne back on the phone.”

“I don't need your mother to come over, for heaven's sake.” I wiped Lynne's butt, slathered on the ointment, and fastened the diaper. Tears were still spilling, but at least she had settled down a bit.

“No, really, it's fine. Mom knows what she's doing. Just relax. She'll be there in a bit.”

“I AM RELAXED. I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING! Your mother lives an hour away. I don't need her to drive over here to put Lynne to bed.” Lynne started screaming again, making it very clear she was part of the conversation.

“Okay, okay. It's okay. Fine. Okay. What do you want to do?”

“John, I want to get off the phone. I need to put Lynne to bed. I have your number if I need anything. You two go back to having some fun.”

“Did I tell you she has the shits?”

“Yes, John. I'll talk to you tomorrow.” I hung up the phone.

“My ear hurts,” Lynne hiccupped.

“Yes, honey. I know. Let me get you into your pajamas.”

She stared at me. I dressed her in her night clothes and picked her up. Lynne started screaming once more. Nope. That wasn't going to happen. I put her down on the bed. She stopped. I picked her up. She screamed. I put her back down.

“What's wrong?”

“My ear hurts.”

“Okay, honey. I'm going to get you a warm washcloth and Bear. I'll be right back. Stay here.”

She nodded.

I came back with Bear and the hot washcloth. I also decided not to pick her up again, so instead tucked her under the covers of my bed. She wrapped her arms around Bear. I held the cloth to her ear and waited for her to fall asleep.

One minute—her eyes were still open.

Two minutes—her eyes were still open.

Three minutes—she pushed the washcloth away.

“Cold.” Tears started again.

“Okay, honey. Do you want another washcloth?”

“NO!”

“How about I go get you some medicine that will make your ear feel better?”

I came back with children's Tylenol. I poured it in the little spout. I handed her the spout. Lynne has always been good about taking medicine. I wasn't worried. Lynne looked at the spout. She looked at me, then back to the spout. She was trying to figure something out, something hard. She looked at me once more.

“How can something in my belly make my ear feel better?”

Oh God
. I didn't know what to say. I stared at her, dumbfounded. First, what kid thinks like that? Second, how in the hell do you answer a question like that? For a split second I thought about calling for some grandma help, but I rallied.

“It just does.”

Lynne wasn't having any of it. If I couldn't explain it to her, by God she wasn't taking it. Lynne dropped the spout on the bed.

“Okay Lynne, here's the deal. If you don't take the medicine, then I have to take you to the doctor. The doctor can help. We'll just get into the car—”

I tried hard not to make it sound like a threat. It really wasn't. I didn't know what to do. I wasn't going to force the stuff down her throat.

“No. I'm okay. Okay now.” Lynne curled up on Bear and closed her eyes.

I watched her for a few minutes. My mind was blank. We had had a little contest of wills and Lynne had won. I wasn't sure what she'd won, but she'd won nonetheless. Lynne had moved from being a baby to be handled into a person with whom reason must be used. A person I needed to learn to respect in a whole new way. Her
own
person.

It was a hard night with lots of tears, but we got through it—all three of us: Lynne, Bear, and I. Which is a really cool thing, if you think about it.

I didn't go to high school in Saint Louis. I don't have any insights into a person's socio-economic or religious status when they tell me where they went to high school. It is strange to think that after twenty-plus years of being a Tower Grove South resident, I can't share in this fundamental Saint Louis tradition. I want it to mean something that I've been here long enough to watch the ten or so blocks of my neighborhood evolve from drug houses and random street fights to coffee houses filled with preschoolers, and twenty-something couples jogging in the park with their dogs. They probably went to high school here, so ultimately it doesn't matter how
long
I've been here. If I can't call a local high school my
alma mater
, I am forever a transplant.

This whole feeling of being an outsider became more than I could bear when Ellen came home from the grocery store one afternoon.

“Well, it happened.”

“What happened?”

“That happened.”

“What's that that happened?” Our banter was a source of immense joy and I loved it when it went on and on. But that day she cut it short.

“I'm standing in line at Schnuck's this morning, and it's a long line, so the lady behind me starts talking about an article in the newspaper. I don't even remember what. Before I know it, she's asking me where I went to high school. I mean, I know you told me people actually ask that question, but I never believed you.” Ellen started to shelve the groceries. For once, I actually tried to help.

“What did you say?”

“I told her I didn't grow up in St. Louis. I'm a transplant.”

“You know, we could just
pick
a high school.” I put the bread on top of the refrigerator and grabbed a couple of cans from the table.

“How would that work? We would just start telling people we graduated from a place? What would
happen if they went there too?” Ellen took the bread off the top of the refrigerator and put it
inside
the refrigerator.

“Seriously, what are the chances of that? I don't think it's gonna happen.”

Ellen started to clean out the refrigerator's vegetable drawer.

“You know I hate it when we let this stuff go bad. Have you finally figured out we aren't eating spinach by the pound no matter how much of it you buy?”

“If I don't buy it, we'll never eat it, right?” I took a few cans into the pantry. It was hard to ignore that Ellen had lined up the cans on the shelves with their labels facing forward, organized by type. It was a little creepy, so I put my can of tuna backwards on top of the soups. Call me a rebel.

“Okay,” I turned toward Ellen to block her access to the pantry. “So where do you think we would have gone to high school if we grew up here?”

Ellen wrinkled her nose at the smell of rotting spinach. She waved it at me and then threw it in the trash.

“Hey, we have a composter now, you know.”

“Do you want to bring it out there? You vomit at the thought of picking up dog poo. You wouldn't
make it past the porch.”

“Fine, okay. So where would you have gone?” I felt safe sitting down at the kitchen table because Ellen had moved on to the refrigerator items.

“I would have been homeschooled,” Ellen replied.