Susan Pfeffer - Life As We Knew It

It’s a good thing I didn’t burn it. Or maybe it’s not such a good thing!

Matt needed something from his bedroom.

It’s hard for Mom to get upstairs since she fell the second time, so I go to her room if she needs something from there. Jon only started going upstairs last weekend. Up till then, I got whatever he needed, and of course I’ve been doing the same for Matt.

“Do you think you’re ready?” Mom asked him.

“Sure,” Matt said. “I wouldn’t do it if I weren’t.”

Mom exchanged glances with me, but when I started to get up to go with him, she shook her head ever so slightly.

Matt made his way out of the sunroom, through the kitchen, down the hallway to the staircase. I don’t think any of us breathed as we heard his lumbering steps on the staircase.

Then the sounds stopped.

“Go,” Mom said to me.

I ran to the staircase. Matt was standing 4 steps up.

“I can’t do it,” he said. “Damn it to hell. I can’t get up the stairs.”

“Then stop trying,” I said. “Just come down and try some other time.”

“What if there isn’t another time?” he said. “What if I’m a useless invalid for the rest of my life?”

“You may be an invalid, but you’ll never be useless,” I said. “Matt, has it occurred to you that the reason you’re so weak is because you pulled Mom and Jonny out of the sunroom that night? That maybe you sacrificed your health to save their lives and that’s something you should be proud of? They wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you. You have no idea how much you give to us every single day. You think I liked nursing all of you? I hated it. But I’d think of how you do things, without complaining. You just do what has to be done, and I tried to be like you. So walk down those stairs and get back to bed and if you stay exactly the way you are now, you’ll still be the strongest person I’ve ever known.”

“It takes one to know one,” he said.

“Great,” I said. “We’re both the bestest people ever. Now tell me what you want upstairs and go to the sunroom before Mom gets hysterical.”

So he did. I watched to make sure he made it down the stairs, then I ran upstairs and got what he needed in the first place.

It’s going to kill us if Matt doesn’t get stronger. But he doesn’t need to know that.

Mom’s birthday.

Christmas, when Mom had shared her candy with us, I ate 2 of the 4 pieces I took, and saved the other 2.

So Mom’s birthday present was 2 pieces of candy. Jon let her beat him in chess. And Matt walked to and from the staircase 3 times. She said it was the best birthday she’d ever had.

Jon’s strong enough to demand time on the skis and I’ve run out of excuses to keep him from using them.

Every morning I go out and ski by myself for an hour or so. It keeps my mind off food, and that’s good, too.

Then after lunch I go out with Jon and watch while he skis. Mom won’t let him be outside alone yet. He doesn’t last more than 15–20 minutes, so it’s really not that bad.

Matt walks to and from the staircase 3 times every morning and 4 times after lunch. I think he’s going to try climbing the stairs next week, just a couple at first, and then build up, however long it takes.

Mom isn’t ready to do laundry, but she’s making our lunches again. Somehow everything tastes better if Mom’s the one who prepares it.

At my insistence (and I love that I actually won an argument) we kept the plywood off the one window. Most of the snow is gone from the skylights, so there’s a little more natural light in the sunroom. I don’t think the air quality is much better, but I can tell the days are getting longer.

There’s a lot of stuff to worry about, but I’ve given myself a holiday. I can always worry next week instead.

I came home from my morning ski and found Mom frying something in the skillet.

It smelled wonderful. We haven’t had any fresh vegetables in so long, and there’s no point frying canned spinach or string beans. We were practically jumping with excitement by the time Mom served lunch. I couldn’t figure out what we were eating. The texture was kind of like an onion, but the taste was a little bitter.

“What is it?” we all asked.

“Tulip bulbs,” Mom said. “I pulled them out of the ground last summer before the ground froze. I’ve been saving them for a nice treat.”

We all stopped chewing. It was almost as though Mom had sauted Gorton.

“Come on,” Mom said. “We won’t be the first people to eat tulip bulbs.”

It was a comforting thought. That and hunger pushed us through lunch.

Valentine’s Day.

I wonder where Dan is.

Wherever he is, he’s probably not thinking of me.

Matt walked up 6 steps.

We all pretended like this was no big deal.

I stayed in this morning. I said it was because the book I was reading was so interesting, but of course that was a lie.

We had lunch and then Jon and I went out while he did his skiing. I thought he’d never get tired, but after a half hour or so he was ready to go back in. I think by next week Mom’ll let him go out on his own.

We went back to the house together. I ran in, got the skates, took the skis and the shoes and the poles from Jon, and said I’d be home in a couple of hours.

And then I did what no other athlete has done before. I won 2 Olympic gold medals in 2 different sports in the same afternoon.

First I won the cross-country ski race. I went from home to Miller’s Pond and won by so much I couldn’t even see my competitors.

But that was just a warm-up. When I got to the pond, I skated my legendary gold medal-winning long program. I could hear the thousands of people in the stands cheering my every move. My crossovers, my Mohawks, my spiral, my spins. My breathtaking single toe loop. My Ina Bauer. The brilliantly choreographed, seemingly spontaneous footwork sequence.

The ice was showered with flowers and teddy bears. The TV commentators said they were honored to be in the arena to see such a performance. I wiped away a tear or two in the kiss and cry. Every one of my competitors came up to me and congratulated me on the skate of the century. I stood proudly on the podium as the American flag went up. I smiled and sang along to “The Star Spangled Banner.”

America’s darling. The greatest athlete in American history. And a shoo-in for 8 gold medals in swimming at the next Summer Olympics.

“Did you have a good time?” Mom asked when I got back from the pond.

“The best,” I told her.

“Jonny, why haven’t you eaten any supper?” Mom asked him this evening.

“I’m not hungry,” he said.

That’s the third day in a row he hasn’t been hungry at suppertime.

I guess he went into the pantry when none of us were looking. I guess he knows now what the rest of us

figured out already.

I wonder if he’s noticed that Mom’s hardly eating anything.

We were all asleep when suddenly noises woke us up. Noises and light.

I think we all woke up disoriented. The only noise we ever hear is each other and the wind. And light comes only from the woodstove, candles, oil lamps, and flashlights.

This was a different kind of noise, a different kind of light.

Matt figured it out first. “It’s electricity,” he said. “We have electricity.”

We leaped off our mattresses and ran through the house. The overhead light was on in the kitchen. A longforgotten radio was broadcasting static in the living room. The clock radio was flashing the time in my bedroom.