Sleeping Beauty (9 page)

It is fine, Darla, dont worry. Well be a-okay. I just wanted a little backup tonight, thats all. Were going to be fine, fine, fine.

And if I believe that, I have some swampland in Florida Id like to sell myself.

Mickey and Jeff arrived at seven-thirty with the boys, who smelled of soap and mens aftershave.

I turned my back and they dumped the whole bottle on themselves, Jeff admitted. It almost gags me, but they dont seem to mind how they smell. I suppose it will wear off eventually.

Dont worry about it, they are washable. Having my house smell like the mens cologne department at Macys is the least of my problems.

But we have washed them.

Oh. Good thing I like Jean Paul Gaultier.

Mickey barely let me say hello to the little guys. She held them so tightly she reminded me of a benevolent boa constrictor so I stayed out of her way.

When the boys were tucked in and sound asleep, she came into the kitchen with tears running down her cheeks.

How am I going to feel without them?

Relieved? But I didnt say it out loud.

Think of the new baby, of the wonderful family youll have.

Mickey snuffled like an elephant with a head cold and threw her arms around me.

Take care of them, Suze? Just like I would? You are my sister and they love you almost as much as they love me.

Okay, good. Put even more responsibility on my shoulders.

You know it, sis.

After several minutes of emotional blubbering, Jeff was able to pry my sister off me and shoo her out the door. I could see her sobbing as they drove away.

I paced the floor after they left, the full weight of responsibility lying heavy on my shoulders.

Frankly, without backup, I realized that I didnt dare go to sleep. What ifWhat if.

I couldnt let my sister down.

Therefore, I baked more cookies, painted the other wooden chair with a rhinoceross gaping maw on the seat of this one, made a shadow box of my grandfathers shaving equipment and stored away the rest, and finished every bit of office work I could do on my computer. I also purchased new pots and pans and a collectible porcelain doll on QVC.

It was with huge relief when I heard Tommy and Terry padding from their room into the kitchen the next morning. They, at least, had survived the night.

Whats more, they were even cuter than when theyd gone to sleep. Both boys covered my face with wet, delighted-to-see-you kisses, ate toast with peanut butter and jalapeño jelly, a combination theyd discovered by accident at my mothers house, and went happily to the babysitter where they would stay during the day.

I, on the other had, was not cute at all. My eyes were bloodshot, my hair stringy because I ran out of time getting the boys ready and couldnt shower and my exhaustion was as apparent as my pathetic hairdo.

I fell asleep twice in my office, once over the top of my computer, somehow deleting most of the work Id done. The other time, I dozed off in my chair but woke up on the floor under my desk. Fortunately, everyone whod come looking for me had not looked down and assumed I was out doing company business.

Five oclock came far too soon, however. I had to pick up the boys and make it through the evening on those two brief naps.

Fortunately, Darla arrived at my door just at dinnertime to find the twins blowing bubbles in their soup with straws and me just plain foaming at the mouth.

I ve always scoffed at the idea of zombies and the hocus-pocus about the walking dead those misguided fans of horror movies seem to relish. That was, however, before I became one myself.

I havent cleaned my bathroom in a week. That was when Darla returned to Chicago to wrap things up there and left me alone with the twins again. Whats the use? The tidal wave that hits it every night when the boys take their bath will undo any polishing or scrubbing I might attempt. I dont know how, but the twins have managed to get water spots and soap scum not only on the ceiling but also inside closets and the medicine cabinet.

One evening, before Id run their bathwater, I dashed to the laundry room to get clean towels. By the time I got back, theyd discovered a can of hair spray I hadnt placed high enoughlike on the ceiling fixture perhapsand sprayed it over the entire room.

Hair spray dries quickly. I know this for sure because when I walked into the room, the floor was like a sheet of thin black ice. My feet went out from under me, the towels flew in the air as I tried to right myself and as I fell, I felt my head smacking hard on the toilet bowl.

I couldnt have been out long because when I opened my eyes and slowly reached up to feel the goose egg on my scalp, Tommy and Terry were standing over me giggling.

Auntie Suze hit the potty! Tommy said, his eyes wide.

Children have a puzzling love for references to bathrooms and underwear. When Tommy said potty , Terry broke into gales of laugher. Potty, potty, potty.

Dotty, dotty, dotty, Tommy rhymed.

Potty dotty, dotty potty. They fell on top of me giggling.

Auntie Suze, she went dotty, yes indeed she hit the potty, I muttered.

Im not much of a poet but the subject matter isnt all that profound either. I should be glad, I suppose, that I didnt have a concussion or brain damage from the fall.

Or maybe I did.

I soldiered through bath time and our nightly rituals. Bath, stories, back rubs and finally, prayers. Those prayers are getting me through the day. If there is anything sweeter or more trusting than a childs prayer, I havent discovered it yet.

Now we lay us down to sleepBless Mommy, Daddy, our new baby sister in Souf Amerita, Grandma and Grandpa Charles, Grandma and Grandpa Martin, bless Hammie, bless Chipper

The list can sometimes be ten minutes long, especially if they start naming playmates and stuffed animals. I cling to the hope that they save the best for last.

and Auntie Suze who hit her head on the potty.

And now shes dotty!

Yes, Lord, please do help me. If dotty is the worst I am by the time Mickey and Jeff get back, Ill be lucky.

The phone rang shortly after I returned to the living room feeling washed out as the towels Id just thrown in the laundry. It was Darla.

Hows it going? Are you going to make it?

Oh, ye of little faith.

Have you slept yet?

I attempt to stay awake while the boys sleep. After the long night, I take them to the sitter as early as possible so that I can get an hour or two of shut-eye before I have to go to work. I do it in reverse in the afternoon, picking them up as late as I can, sleeping outside the babysitters house in my car until the very last minute. I also try to get forty winks during my lunch hour. The schedule is wearing on me. Ive already lost four pounds.

Im getting some sleep, I prevaricated.

Im sorry I cant be there with you. Since my moving plans got pushed back, its been crazy here. If you can hang on a few more days, Ill be there to stay with you.

Hang on, Suze, hang on, like a shipwrecked sailor to a life raft in the ocean.

Im looking forward to it, I admitted. A good nights sleep seems like an impossible dream.

Don Quixote aside, Im worried about you. Youll ruin your health trying to stay awake like this.

But think of all the things Ive gotten done.

Ive organized my recipes, written letters to everyone Ive ever known and a few I didnt, found a chat room full of insomniacs on the Internet, seen every infomercial ever produced, purchased a new wardrobe on QVC and taught myself to crochet dishcloths from a how-to book. And thats not to mention that every drawer, closet and shelf in my house is immaculate. When I die of exhaustion and my family goes through my personal belongings, theyll be very impressed with how tidy Id become.

Go to see Dr. Grant, will you? He said hed find you a physician at his clinic.

Gotta go, Darla. Talk to you soon.

One of these days youre going to listen to me, Suze. Just dont wait until its too late.

Too late for what? I wondered. As I faced another long, weary night, my curiosity got the best of me. What was that story David had told about a family who couldnt sleep?

The best and worst thing about the Internet is that everything you want to knowand even more that you dontis at your fingertips.

Even though I knew better than to poke at a hornets nestthe one in my mindI searched fatal familial insomnia.

Words leaped off the screen like an assault against my complacence. Increasing insomniapanic attackshallucinationsrapid weight lossdementia. doesnt show itself until or past childbearing years. Maybe I was already in the fourth and last stage of the disease! Never mind that its inherited and only twenty-eight families in the world suffer from it.

Now thoroughly depressed, I just dug myself deeper into the pit by searching for cases in which sleepwalking was used as a murder defense. Homicidal somnambulism , it was called, and the outcomes of the trials varied given the judges and juries.

It took a pint of chocolate-chip-cookie-dough ice cream, a half a jar of hot fudge topping eaten right with a spoon and three glasses of warm milk with cinnamon to settle me down. Maybe insomnia isnt so bad, considering the alternatives.

Now, too full to sleep, I wandered into the living room. The twins had demanded tonight to see pictures of me when I was their age and all my photo albums were strewn across the room. Im eclectic in my photo management. That means whenever I have new pictures, I stick them into albums wherever there is room, no matter what is on its other pages. Thats why I found photos of Ben Thomas squeezed in between my high-school graduation pictures and those of the birth of the twins.

Ben. Until that moment Id nearly forgotten about him. Without his picture staring out at me, Im not sure I would fully remember his face anymore. Odd, since Id once been head-over-heels in love with him.

College football star, math whiz, lady charmer Ben. But the most marvelous thing about him was that out of the hundreds of women on campus, most of whom were actively chasing him, hed been attracted to me. I made him laugh, hed said. And wed laughed a lot in the two years wed been together. He was going to be a veterinarian and I, another whiz kid in mathematics, was going to somehow save the world through numbers.

Ben was a public figure in those days. Student government, homecoming king, quarterbacka golden boy, so to speak.

It had been blissful for a time, that relationship of ours. Id ordered a subscription to Brides Magazine and started wandering through the china section of large department stores looking for the perfect pattern. Sometimes Id even swing through the bridal department just, of course, to keep up on the fashions. Ben caught me a time or two and didnt protest, which, in my mind, sealed the deal. A June wedding, a starter house, a white picket fence and a dogI had it planned perfectly. Unfortunately Ben changed the plans midstream without letting me know.

I sat back and recalled the fateful conversation that thrust my little fantasy into the harsh spotlight of reality.

Suze, weve got to talk. Ben had looked more somber than usual and probably more handsome.

Can it wait until after dinner? Ive got a project to finish up.

No. We need to talk now.

Never having heard that particular tone in his voice, I agreed immediately and followed him to a park bench on one of the large expanses of grass between buildings on campus.

Whats up?

Ben looked at me with such a miserable expression on his face that he worried me.

Whats wrong? Something with one of your family?

No, nothing like that.

Hed called this meeting. Why wasnt he getting on with it?

Suze, some of the guys have beenThey think its a big joke butI know Im probably wrong to feel this way but

What are you talking about? And how is it you are supposed to feel?

Im supposed to not care!

I was completely confused. I put my hand on his arm but he pulled it away. Dont do that, Suze. Its difficult enough already.

Do what? Touch you? A shudder of fear went through me, a foretaste of what was to come.

I think you are probably the prettiest, funniest, most compassionate woman on this campus, Suze. Probably in this state or even the country, Ben rambled, but I just cant help it. It makes me uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. And with the guys ribbing me all the time, Ive found its something I dont think I can handle right now.

What on earth are you talking about? There was a dullness in Bens pale blue eyes that Id never seen there before and my senses had gone to high alert.

A bunch of guys I know date girls in your dormitory. They talk about the crazy things you do in your sleep.

Thats no big deal. Everyone knows me by now. Its not as if I can help it, you know.

Are you sure? His expression brightened. Take pills or something?

I shook my head vigorously. I tried that in high school. My parents made doctors run a gazillion tests on me, which proved nothing. All the meds did was make me disoriented and sleepy all day in class. Id finally be waking up about the time I was supposed to take another one so I could go back to sleep.

So youll be like this for the rest of your life?

I suppose so. Im not happy about it, if thats what you mean, but Ill get along. I glanced at him from beneath lowered lashes. Well get along.

He paled. Im not sure I want to get along with that, Suze.

At first I wasnt sure what he was saying. It was my problem, after all, not his.

But hed made it his problem. Its embarrassing, you know?

Better than anyone, I replied, not liking the way the conversation was going.

I know Im just a college kid right now, but Ive got plansaspirations. You know, goals.

What does that have to do with anything, especially my sleepwalking?

I know we havent discussed it much, Suze, but Ive been thinking a lot about it lately. Maybe I dont want to go to veterinary school after all. My uncle is a state senator and hes been talking to me about going into politics.

While Id been building and decorating my dream home, hed decided to go into politics? I can still remember thinking that this was a far worse nightmare than any Id had while I was asleep.