Terri Paddock - Come Clean

‘That’s better, isn’t it? I think so, too.’

‘Why are we here?’

‘Tic Tac, Justine?’ She rattles the box.

Laughter springs up within me even as my eyes wobble. I unfasten my seat belt. ‘This is no time for mints, Mom. Listen, I know I was bad last night, but it was just once. I was – was…stupid. I promise, Mom. It’ll never happen again. Can we go home now? Please.’

‘Oh. That’s right, you’re thirsty. You don’t want a mint, you want some water. How silly of me. Let me go get you a glass.’

‘Are you listening to me, Mom?’

‘Certainly, Justine. Mommy’ll bring you some nice cold water.’

She snatches the dentured key ring and darts into the building after Dad. Probably I should make a run for it then and there. But, like our parents, I’m not thinking clearly. We all need a chance to come to our senses.

By the time they return with another woman – and without any water – I’ve thumped all the car locks down. Our father realises this when he tries to open my door.

‘Open the door, Justine.’

I pretend I’m stone. Like when we were little and used to play statues.

‘I said, open the door.’ Ferociously, he jiggles the outer handle. ‘Helen, the keys. Where are the keys?’

Our mother delves back into her handbag. The bag is on the small side and it’s a big ring of keys, but they appear to have gone missing nonetheless. Her hands tremble, like my own. One by one, she removes the familiar purse contents and places them on the kerb. When the purse is empty, Dad seizes it from her, rips the lining pockets inside out, tips the whole thing upside down and shakes it, lint and stray pennies go flying.

Then Mom discovers the keys in her coat pocket.

Dad brandishes the dentures fob like a mad prison warden. The keys for the Volvo jingle heavily against those for the house, which domino the ones for the practice, the spare set for Mom’s VW and the little skeleton one for the cabinet where he stashes the Novocaine and other anaesthetics. ‘We’ve got the keys, Justine.’

‘I can see that, Dad,’ I holler.

Still I don’t open the door. Dad marches to the driver’s door and inserts the appropriate key in the lock. The button pops up. He grins triumphantly, but I pound the button back down quicker than he can lift the handle. His grin turns to grimace. After a few more tries, me punching the button down each time, he scurries round to the passenger side. I’m there before him too and we rerun the same routine.

‘Helen, get the spare keys.’

Mom stands, flummoxed, with her purse disembowelled all over the pavement.

‘Where are the spares, Helen?’

‘In the key cabinet, Jeff. At home. ’

Dad removes his tie and circles the car a few more times, until he’s panting. That’s when the other woman steps in.

She places her hand on his elbow. ‘I don’t think that’s necessary, Mr Ziegler.’ She’s pretending to talk to our dad, but her eyes are trained on me so I glare straight back. ‘Justine knows she can’t stay in there for ever. She’ll come out when she’s ready.’

I grit my teeth. I’m not sure whether or not I’m scared shitless or angry as hell. I bead up my eyes and fix them on her. Her own eyes – small, grey and widely set – hold my gaze. She’s nearly as tall as Dad and there’s too much of her body, too tall, too wide, too much. Around her neck hang two cords. At the end of one is a discus of keys, fobless and even more crowded than Dad’s; at the end of the other, a whistle.

I recognise this woman. Her name is…Hilary, I think. I’m pretty sure she’s the director of this place, the big cheese. I don’t know her last name – they never use last names – but I know her. She sat in on my sibling interview soon after you were admitted. Your intake, that’s what they called it. Barely uttered a word then, just watched me like she’s watching me now. I didn’t like her. Didn’t like her then, don’t like her now. I would say hate, but Mom told us never to say you hate on first impressions. Hate’s a thing that needs time to grow.

Ten minutes pass, maybe less, maybe more. I press the spot on my forehead just above the bridge of my nose until I glimpse stars. Twenty minutes. I unbutton my coat. Thirty minutes. There’s no air in here. Forty minutes. The smell from the vomit is horrible. Forty-five minutes. The smell’s overpowering, it flavours the air. I pinch my nose and take short, sharp, shallow breaths so I don’t have to taste the wretched stuff all over again. Fifty minutes, it must be fifty minutes. I consult my Swatch for the 2,367th time. I’m hyperventilating, my head is ratta-tat-tatting. I may pass out. If I pass out, they’ll get me.

What would you do in this situation?

An hour later, I open my door and puke at Hilary’s feet. She doesn’t move, just blows her whistle until four new feet bound into my field of vision.

‘Very good, Justine. Now you can accompany us inside of your own accord or Mark and Leroy can assist you.’

I raise my eyes to Mark and Leroy who are standing, stonyfaced, legs apart, arms folded, shoulders swelling. They should be visiting college football recruiters, and arguing with our dad about who’s likely to make it to next year’s Rose Bowl, not witnessing me wring my guts out.

‘Your choice. What’s it going to be?’

A week late, dragging along an uninvited guest. That’s how we arrive in this world. It’s that time of day where people don’t know whether to call it night-time or morning and Mom’s been in labour for going on ten years. She alternates between a shade of puce and a white so white you could lose her on the gurney if you crossed your eyes. The doctor shouts at Mom to push and she pushes and pushes and pushes.

‘I can see the head!’ bullhorns the doctor. Then, in a motion that might seem sudden if everyone hadn’t been congregating so long round Mom’s nether regions, you slide out.

‘It’s a boy!’

You’re holding on to your winky and wailing. Mom throbs in strobe-light fashion, one constant pulse of pain, but still reaches out to draw you to her bosom. ‘A boy.’ Her lips flutter into a feathery smile.

‘Here comes another one!’ announces the doctor.

‘Another what?’

‘Eh?’ The doctor’s clearly half deaf. How else can his missing that second heartbeat in the first place be explained?

A fresh contraction doubles Mom up as one of the nurses wrenches you from her. And then here comes me, follow-the-leadering you right out the trap door, a little soggier, a little quieter, with nothing to hold on to but Mom’s umbilical cord, which I let go of pretty swift-like.

That’s how we imagine our birth, anyway. We can’t say for sure. Mom never told us particulars. When we got to an age of wondering after such things, she’d answer vaguely. ‘It was such a long time ago,’ she’d say. Or, ‘They had me so drugged up, kids, I didn’t know who was coming or going.’ Or, if maybe we’d been why-ing her for awhile already, she’d just snap, ‘Because,’ even though it wasn’t a ‘because’ kind of question in the least, or, ‘Does it really matter?’

This is what we know for sure: we were born sometime in the morning (5:00 a.m.? 11:52 a.m.?) on 25 August at the University Hospital in Piedmontville, North Carolina, home of the Central State University, where Dad was finishing up his dental degree. You came out first and, seven and a half minutes later, I appeared.

We’ve never had it confirmed but we strongly suspect Dad was nowhere in the vicinity of the hospital when we made our grand entrance. We figure he arrived later, at a respectable hour, the sun high in the sky. Maybe he’s been taking an exam or memorising a textbook or practising with his drills. Or maybe he’s late because he’s picked Grandma and Grandpa Shirland up from the airport. Grandpa’s still alive at this point though already ancient and doddery, gone soft in the head with age. He clings to Grandma’s arm and stops to let his heart slow down after the excitement of the doors that whooshed open and closed all by themselves.