Danny's Mom (15 page)

I met her eyes. “We really do have a lot in common. I was seven when my mother died.”

“Cancer?”

I nodded.

Kate laced her fingers with mine as the waitress approached, a coffee pot in each hand. She nearly crashed into Tina, heading for the rest room with a cigarette and Fred's lighter. I pulled my hand away from Kate's.

“Ladies’ night out, Mrs. M.?” Tina asked as she paused at our table. “And who's your friend?”

“I'm Mrs. Stanish,” Kate answered, sparing me the introduction, “and you must be Tina.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Tina moved on, then stopped and turned back. “Stanish … wait … as in Zach Stanish?”

“Yes, young lady. I'm Zach's grandmother.”

Tina stuck the cigarette in her mouth. She looked puzzled, as if she wanted to say something but couldn't remember what. When she moved away, Kate shook her head. “Let's talk about something else. Tell me about Joe.”

Chapter Sixteen

O
n my way home, I thought about what I had told Kate: that Joe always did what had to be done, but that he wasn't often accessible. I'd told her that Joe paid the bills on time and never forgot to let Moose out. He always returned phone calls, picked Danny up at Noah's when he said he would, and never missed Little League if he'd promised to be there. But shortly after Danny was born, Joe's heart had seemed to harden toward me. Perhaps he sensed that being a mom was more important to me than being a wife. And though Joe softened on vacations and at the garden supply shop before Mother's Day, he often squelched my laughter and taught me to measure my words. In the months after Danny died, Joe's heart had turned even harder.

Maybe mine had too—with Joe, anyway. We couldn't break the wall between us, and we couldn't move around it. Separate from each other, we tossed blame like a ball. Yet we lingered in our relationship. How could we not? We had a history together. We were Danny's parents.

Joe didn't ask about the art fair when I greeted him from the doorway to the den. “How was your evening?” I asked.

“Fine. I ate with Mike.”

Moose stood by the ottoman. He stretched his solid neck and looked at me. Then he plopped down, resting his head between front paws, inviting me to join him and Joe.

Joe just stared at the TV.
And at four-thirty this morning
, a newscaster reported,
fire swept through a two-story house in Woodside.
The camera zoomed in on the charred building, then pulled back to the sidewalk, where blackened firefighters gathered by a hook and ladder.
Two boys, six and nine, were trapped in an upstairs bedroom
. Neighbors, jackets over sleepwear, surrounded a sobbing woman in a yellow nightgown.
A smoke alarm was found in the upstairs hallway, the fire chief said later, but batteries had not been installed.
Two photos filled the screen: round-faced boys with large, dark eyes and curly hair.

“No fuckin' batteries,” Joe said under his breath. He didn't face me. “Stupid parents.”

“I'm going upstairs, Joe. Come on, Moose.”

The camera panned a slick news center as theme music grew louder.
Sports and weather up next. Stay tuned.

Moose stood slowly. “Let's go, Moose-Moose. Time for bed.” He followed me to the stairwell, pausing for a moment at the bottom before starting up the steps. I went after him, poised to catch his rump if his legs gave out. In this slow-motion climb, the weight of the day pushed hard on my shoulders.

Upstairs, Moose moved faster as he headed for Danny's room, where he stretched out on the blue carpet. “Good night, old boy,” I said softly, kneeling to stroke his head. I ran my hand down his back, then rubbed his front paws.
Mommy, remember you said Moose will be a big dog 'cause he has big feet?
Moose rolled on his side. I lay down, pillowing my head on his soft belly, and breathed in a fresh, herbal scent.

Joe must have bathed him, I thought as I caressed Moose's smooth, thick coat. But when had he found time? My arm looped under Moose's chin to pet his fleshy jaw. For a while, I stayed
that way, listening to the silence, trying to conjure the sound of Danny's laugh. When I took a deep breath, the air pressed on my heart.

I stood to look for Danny's tennis racquets, which I had propped against his bookcase. Gone. Then I pulled open the second drawer of his dresser, where tennis and camp clothes enfolded memories. Only one shirt remained—a worn white T with deep blue lettering: B
AY
V
IEW
T
ENNIS
.

Joe and I hadn't talked about Danny's belongings. I just accepted their gradual disappearance as a needed step in my walk through grief. As always, Joe simply did what had to be done. He would bid on a project, take out the garbage, bathe Moose, and pack up Danny's life.

I studied the few trophies that Joe had left on Danny's bookcase. An open carton in the corner of the room held special prizes: Danny's Scholar-Athlete plaque, an All Conference commemorative plate, and a Coach's Award trophy, which I lifted from the box. I fingered the engraving at the base of the statue: B
AY
V
IEW
H
IGH
S
CHOOL
C
OACH
'
S
A
WARD
. 1999. D
ANIEL
M
ALLER
.

I carried the trophy down the hall and placed it on my night-stand. The silver figure of a tennis player rested against a tall blue column. I ran my hand from player to base. C
OACH
'
S
A
WARD
. D
ANIEL
M
ALLER
. Danny and Meadow Brook and Kate tossed with Rayanne's message as I fell asleep.
An apartment on the Upper East Side. Three bedrooms, two baths. What's to think about
?

In the morning, the trophy was gone.

Chapter Seventeen

S
o, where was Mr. Maller last night?” Tina asked, cracking her gum, when she stopped me in the corridor by the art room the next morning. Her raccoon eyes stared, daring me to look away.

“Tina, that's none of your business.”

“Oh, isn't it?” Her hands flew to her hips, drawing attention to her midriff, visible below a blue, baby-doll top.

“No, it's not.”

“You're so wrong, Mrs. M. You see, Jen and I were talking last night, you know, when we saw you at the Athena? And everything makes sense now.”

“What are you saying?”

“Well, now we know why you went off on us about what a good teacher Richardson is.” Tina blew a slow, perfect bubble and waited for it to pop. “My parents still say that dyke shouldn't be allowed to work here, especially since she's been eyeing us in the locker room. And we all know who put her up to that, don't we?”

Students quickened their pace in the hall. A backpack banged my side. “I don't know what you're talking about, Tina, and I'm not going to have this discussion here. If you want to talk about the locker room, then make an appointment in the counseling center. We'll talk about it
in my office.” I spoke slowly yet forcefully, hoping to quash the anger that rose in my throat.

“You really don't get it, Mrs. M.? We're on to you now.” She leaned against a locker, shoulders back, chest forward.

The bell rang. Students ran. A wake of debris trailed them to their classrooms: chewing gum and candy wrappers and crumpled papers. I stooped to pick up an empty Tootsie Roll box. Tootsie Rolls, the biggest seller in the Key Club's fund-raising drive. Then I stood and faced Tina again. Just the two of us, alone in the hall. A tingle worked down my arms. I crossed them and breathed slowly.

Later, I'd remember this run-in with Tina as a recognition of one of my father's lies: that kids don't have power. Or that, if they do, it's linked to good grades and good values. It was a complete lie, because Tina had neither, yet she grabbed all the power. And though my colleagues nodded in agreement when I shared the problems I had with Tina, they knew, as I did, that speaking with the administrators would not help at all.

“Really, Mrs. M., it's simple,” Tina went on, ignoring my request that she make an appointment if she wanted to speak with me. “See, the way I figure, maybe Richardson spies on us to report to you. Know what I'm sayin' here?”

“I certainly don't. And this discussion is over!”

“Well…I guess you're even denser than I thought.” Tina turned and walked away. I bit my lip and opened Callie's door, wondering why I had let Tina corner me like that, harassing me with innuendoes. Of course, I couldn't yet see how grief obscured my judgment.

Paintings and drawings from the fair filled half the art room; junior prom decorations cluttered the rest. A giant paper-mache volcano sat in the middle of the floor, separating art fair pieces from prom ornaments. The volcano reached toward the light fixtures, from which paper birds hung on lengths of colored yarn. As students moved from cabinets to worktables, the birds darted overhead, as if flying.

Three junior girls slopped orange and brown paint around the volcano's base. One of them looked up and caught me hugging the wall just inside the door. “Hi, Mrs. Maller!” she called over the sound of a female vocalist on the boom box. “Whaddaya think? Pretty good, huh? Wanna give us a hand?”

I stuck to the wall like a small child at an ice rink, scared to move in from the rail. “Looks like you're doing just fine on your own,” I answered.

Callie stood up from a group cutting paper pineapples in the back of the room. Her smile steadied me. I moved to the table where girls worked in assembly line fashion.

“Grab scissors,” Callie told me. “We need all the help we can get. Prom's in two weeks, you know.”

Susanna Smith, a junior with the raspy voice of an old smoker, pulled out the empty chair to her right. “I don't know how we'll ever get these done this period,” she said, “though it does go faster without the boys.”

Callie stayed focused on cutting spiky, green leaves, which the after-school decorating committee would later glue on the paper pineapples. “After all these years, Mrs. Maller, I've finally learned how to do this,” she said as she feathered the leaf tips. “The boys get passes to the computer room, the girls choose the music, and bingo! We pick up the pace.”

I didn't sit at first, but rested my hands on the back of Susanna's chair. “I can't wait till the prom,” Susanna said to no one in particular. “My boyfriend's wearing the most outrageous tux.”

An image came into focus: Danny in the rented tuxedo he'd worn to Noah's stepbrother's wedding two years earlier. For a moment, I couldn't breathe.

Callie walked around the worktable and placed a hand on my shoulder. “You okay?”

“I…I don't know.” I ran my tongue over my bottom lip. “We'll talk later.”

Callie inched out the chair Susanna had readied for me. “Come on. Sit for a minute. We really could use your help.”

I pulled scissors from the coffee can in the middle of the table. Susanna handed me a sheet of brown construction paper and pointed to the pineapple stencil. Callie went back to her seat, where she chatted easily with the girls, like friends at a coffee klatch.

“How many more, Mrs. Harris?” a student asked. “My fingers are cramping from all this cutting.”

“We're almost there, girls.” Callie thumbed the stack of pineapples like a deck of cards.

I finished the piece in my hand, careful not to clip off the prickly points, and placed the scissors in the can. “Sorry, ladies, but I've got to get back to the counseling center.” My voice sounded fake to me, as if I were reading from a script that called for a happy tone. I pushed out my chair. “Fifth period, Mrs. Harris. I'll see you then. And by the way, the art fair was terrific. Great job.”

Callie winked. “Well, Friendly's wasn't the same without you, though Mollie managed to down a sundae in your honor.”

As I entered the center, Sue held out a message. I looked at Kate's name on the slip of paper.

“She wants you to call whenever you get a chance,” Sue said. “Oh, and I think you should know Mr. Stone came by just a little while ago and asked where you were.” She lowered her voice, causing me to stand closer to her desk. “I told him you just stepped out for a minute. And when I asked if I should give you a message, he said no, he was just making the rounds. But I thought you'd want to know.”

I thanked Sue and went into my office, where I closed the door and picked up the phone. Kate answered on the first ring. “I'm so glad you called back. I didn't know what your schedule would be today.” Her voice flowed over me like a warm bath. I slumped a bit
in my chair. “Now I don't want to disturb you if you're busy, Beth. Tell me if this isn't a good time.”

“Actually, it's not. But it's good to hear your voice.”

Danny in a tuxedo. That vision again. I closed my eyes and felt tears heat the back of my eyelids.

Then another image: Tina in the hall. I told Kate about that— which I knew, even then, was totally unprofessional. Kate allowed me to speak fully. No interruptions. No judgments. How different from my conversations with Joe. And when I finished, Kate explained and excused my behavior: “You're not yourself, dear, and you can't expect to be. It's still too soon. You remember what I told you about the spillover of grief?”

“Yes, but I've got a job to do. And I can't do it when I don't think clearly.” Tears, which had started slowly, now ran unchecked down my cheeks.

Kate seemed to know I needed a minute. “Just put down the phone, dear. No need to hang up. I'm not going anywhere. I want to hear how things were with Joe when you got home last night.”

I followed Kate's suggestion, laying the phone on a stack of college catalogs, and reached for a tissue. I looked up when the door opened and Peter walked into my office. He put fisted hands on my desk. “Is that a parent on the line, Mrs. Maller?” He spoke in a loud voice, as if addressing a student assembly.

My breath caught in my chest. If I said yes, I was talking with a parent, Peter would ask which one. And Peter knew I wasn't Zach's counselor. But if I said no, then Peter would nail me for using school time for personal business. I hung up the phone.