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••• Thursday, February 05, 2004

February 5, 1970. A Thursday.

The Girl With Gum In Her Hair was in a hurry to get home from school, for a change. Typically, she trudged home alone, after the other kids were long gone. She always felt bad to see Mrs. Swigert standing alone at the corner, waiting for her. Mrs. Swigert was the crossing guard. She was very nice, in a gruff, raspy, Pall Malls unfiltered kind of way. She knew to wait for The Girl before retiring her post for the day. She'd been doing it for years.

The Girl was eager to get home early today, because she had a present for her mother. It was a wooden cutting board, shaped like a pig. She had made it herself. With a saw.

The cutting board hadn't always been a pig. A week earlier it had been a house, with a chimney. A couple days later, however, one side of the house splintered off. Disappointed and heartbroken, The Girl planned to throw it away.

But wait! From a different angle, the broken house looked like a pig. With the chimney for a snout and the remaining roof ledge as an ear, the only thing this pig needed was a rounding of the rump.

The Girl with Gum in Her Hair hoped this gift would make her mother smile. Who knows, maybe the story of The House That Broke into a Pig might even make her mother laugh, a little. There hadn't been much laughing in the house, seemingly for months and months. And even though The Girl never saw her mother cry, she heard the muffled sobs in the middle of the night, and tried not to see her puffy eyes in the morning.

Just a few days before, her mother told The Girl, "Daddy doesn't have much time." The Girl nodded. While deep down she knew the exact meaning of her mother's words, The Girl was just young enough to successfully clutch at simpler, more literal interpretations. In fact, The Girl could easily finish her mother's thought with a variety of much happier endings. Daddy doesn't have much time left in the hospital... Daddy doesn't have much time to get tickets to the Shrine Circus... Daddy doesn't have much time before he leaves for his annual fishing trip to Canada....to finalize plans for our summer vacation...To shop for an anniversary present... It was so easy.

Her mother had never told The Girl that her father was dying. Never. If a girl's father was really dying, wouldn't someone sit down and tell her? Of course they would. The Girl secretly took this omission as a good sign. In fact, her mother never told The Girl that her daddy had cancer. First he was "sick," then he was "very sick." And finally, he didn't have much time. Shoot, I was "sick" at Christmas for two days. I'm fine now. "Sick" is doable. And who has enough time, these days?

The Girl was finally told about the cancer by neighborhood nemesis NeeNee Tunning, who blurted it out during an insult exchange. NeeNee obviously won that round.

After crossing with Mrs. Swigert, The Girl was two shortcuts from home. From the last shortcut, she had a generous view of her front yard. Every day, she peeked at the familiar view before stepping over the rickety wire fencing. When she peeked on this day, however, she found the view disturbing. There were too many cars parked out front. Too many Buicks, to be precise. That many Buicks meant uncles. Daddy's brothers. ::Oh, how those Hollanders loved their Buicks, back in the day::

When she first saw the cars, The Girl felt kind of sick, even clammy. As she clutched the wooden pig, snuggled safe in her parka, she tried to come up with a painless, logical explanation for the bevy of Buicks. But she came up with nothing. By the time she reached her driveway, however, The Girl was feeling better. She had refocused on the gift and her plan to make momma smile. Maybe even laugh, a little.

When The Girl came in the back door, her mother was waiting for her. She looked a wreck. Behind her stood the three Dutch uncles. Silent and strong and maybe just a little ragged, like soldiers behaving bravely, in the face of a hopeless cause.

As her mother's eyes cried the truth, The Girl's brain screamed "No!No!No!" Not yet. The Girl was supposed to make momma smile. Maybe even laugh, a little. As her mother gestured to speak, The Girl shoved her the pig and blurted "Look what I made you!" This sudden behavior, without apparent context, caught her mother off-guard. As her mother reeled, The Girl pounced on the opportunity to keep her world as it was, for even a few more seconds. In pre-adolescent, hyperspeedbreathlessjabber, The Girl rat-tat-tatted the amazing story of The House That Broke into a Pig. "First, I cried...But then I saw the nose....and I just sanded here.....there....and here...and, no here too....and the ear there...And isn't it funny?....And wasn't I clever?.... And don't you just love it...........? It's a pig!"

The soldiers were crying.
The Girl's mother knelt down.
Daddy's gone, she said.
The Girl, she nodded.

Another House Broken.
This one beyond repair.

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# posted by Marcia @ 6:26 PM


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