Torey Hayden - Somebody Else’s Kids

“Your kids would like that?” His voice was painfully soft.

“It wouldn’t take much time.”

“And what about me?”

I looked down at my hands.

“Where the hell do I come in, Torey?”

“Come on, Joe, let’s not fight.”

“We’re not fighting. We’re having an adult discussion, if you can understand that. And I just want to know what it is those children have that no one else in the world seems to have for you. Why can’t you put them away? Just once? Why can’t something else matter to you besides a bunch of fucked-up kids?”

“Lots else matters.”

Another pause. Why, I wonder, are all the important things so easily strangled by small silences?

“No, not really. You never give your heart to anything else. The rest of you is here but you left your heart back at the school. And you’re perfectly glad you did.”

I did not know what to say. I did not even fully understand how I felt about it myself much less how I could explain it to Joe. We were still standing there in the dimly lit kitchen. Joe kept shifting the tape back and forth in his hands. I could hear his breathing.

Finally Joe shook his head. He looked down at the linoleum floor and shook his head again. Slowly. Wearily. Bad as I felt about him, there was an almost painful longing to try out Candy’s ice-cream recipe. He was right. My heart was there and it never would be at Adam’s Rib, no matter where my body went. Like so many times before, I ached to please both him and myself.

“Joe?”

His eyes came to me again.

“I’m sorry.”

“Just get your jacket and let’s go.”

I never did try Candy’s recipe that night. After Joe brought me home, I went to an all-night grocery store and bought another can of orange juice. With 144 ounces of juice mixed up in six jars in my refrigerator, I set out at 1:30 in the morning to make ice-cream. Then I discovered I had no ice cubes. It did not matter too much. I was far too tired to care. So I went to bed.

The next day, armed with Candy’s letter, half-a-dozen cans and the makings for vanilla ice-cream, I headed for school.

“What’s this?” Lori asked as I began setting out the materials toward the end of the afternoon.

“We’re going to do something fun,” I replied.

“Something fun,” echoed Boo behind me.

“Like what?” Lori asked. Skepticism tinged her voice. Too many people had tried to pass off work on her under the guise of fun. Lori was not falling for that ruse anymore.

“We’re going to make ice-cream.”

“Ice cream? I never seen ice-cream like this before.” She was standing very, very close, leaning against my arm, breathing on the little hairs and making them itch. She wanted a good look at what I was doing as I shook up the mix. Boo had commenced twirling on the far side of the table.

“Have you ever seen ice-cream made?” I asked Lori.

“Well … no. Not exactly. But I didn’t think it was like this.”

“Boo! Take that off!” He had the big mixing bowl on top of his head like a helmet.

“Hee-hee-hee-hee! Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!”

“Oh no,” Lori wailed and smacked her forehead with one hand. “He’s gonna take his clothes off now. You shouldn’t oughta have said that, Torey. Now he’s going to take everything off.”

“Lor, get that bowl from him. He’s going to break it. Boo, come back here. And for crying out loud, leave that shirt on. Boo? Boo!”

Both of us took off after him and oh, what fun Boo thought that was! Never before had we chased him during one of his deliriums. “Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo. HOO-HOO-HOO-HOO-HOO-HOO!” The bowl on his head went sailing to the floor. It did not break but rather went careening off into a corner with Lori after it.

The bowl recovered, I let Boo run. There was no point in chasing him; it appeared only to make him wilder. I called Lori back to the table and we resumed preparations for the ice-cream. Together we washed the bowl. Boo, meantime, stripped down to total nakedness. Gleefully he rubbed his round little belly and hopped up and down. For the life of me, I could not help but think how much like a little monkey he looked – and sounded. We could have been spending a day at the zoo.

I chipped ice into a pan over the sink while Lori put the ice-cream mix into the bowl. Boo danced around us, laughing. Near me on the counter I lined up the three coffee cans and set the orange juice cans inside them. Carefully I layered salt and ice.

“Here, Tor, I’ll bring over the ice-cream stuff,” Lori called.

“No, Lori, please wait. I think that’s too heavy for you. Wait. I’ll bring the cans over to the table.”

“No sir, it ain’t too heavy. I’m strong. See?”

“Lori, wait, would you?”

She would not. Hefting the wide mixing bowl in both arms, she struggled around the table. I could not make it from the sink in time. I saw the entire disaster coming but I could not prevent it. Halfway around the table Lori dropped the bowl. It did not survive this time. The bowl nicked the table corner as it fell and glass and cream went everywhere, pouring down the front of Lori’s clothes, across the tabletop, out in a huge white puddle on the floor.

Lori froze. Indeed, I did also. Even Boo was momentarily motionless.

“I didn’t mean to,” she whispered. Impending tears made her voice tiny and high-pitched.

That thawed me. I came over. It was hard not to say I had told her to leave it alone, so I took a deep breath. “Look, I know you didn’t. Those things happen.”

“I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I know. Lor. It would have been better if it hadn’t happened, but it did so the best thing is to clean it up.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Lori, I know you didn’t. Don’t cry about it. It isn’t that important. Come on.”

Still she did not move or even look at me. Tears rolled over her cheeks but she did not brush them away. Her eyes were fixed on the broken bowl. Boo walked around to stand near me. The crash had knocked the silliness out of him. Kneeling, I began to collect the glass shards.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to,” Lor said again.

I stared at her. “Lor?”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Are you all right. Lor? Lor, look at me.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

Concern pushed my heartbeat up. I rose, broken glass still in my hand, and looked at her carefully. “I know you didn’t mean to, Lori. I heard you. And I’m not angry. It’s okay. Now come on, snap out of it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again. Her voice was still the tight, high voice of a frightened child. She did not look at me yet. In fact she had not moved at all since the bowl broke.

“Lor? Lori? What’s the matter?” She was scaring me. It was becoming apparent that something more had happened to her than simply dropping the bowl. A seizure? That was my instant thought, although many of my children had had seizures before and none had ever looked like this. With one hand I touched her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

She refused to move from the oozing puddle at her feet. Over and over again she whispered how sorry she was, how she had not meant to do it. This unusual behavior frightened me so much that I was totally without confidence as to how to handle it. Finally I went to the sink for a bucket and sponges and began to clean up the mess myself. Lori never moved an inch. She remained paralyzed by some force of which I had no perception.

Boo seemed as scared as I was. Warily he moved around the periphery of the action. Gone was the earlier delirium but also gone was his usual rigid inwardness. He watched us with concern.

Desperate to relieve the mounting tension, I began to sing the only song Boo knew. Willingly he joined me.