What I Wanted to Tell You

"I don't need you anymore," I said. This was my first trip home from college and I wanted to be sure to set things straight with my mom. She needed to know, right off the bat.

"But you always need your mother," she said, glancing nervously around the room of the restaurant. "As a matter of fact, I still need my mother, even though she isn't around any more." Now what was I to think about that weird statement? Why would she need her dead mother?

We were waiting for our table. Mom looked over to my father for support. Getting none, she looked back at me. Her eyes swept up and down my thin frame. "You look good. Aren't you glad you wore that dress?"

I gritted my teeth, swearing to myself this was the last time I'd come back home. You better believe this was the last time I'd get dressed up. Would I still have to call her every Sunday from the dorm phone and answer all the questions  she'd saved up throughout the week?

Why would I ever want to come home now that Penny was gone. The little white terrier had died that first month after I'd left for school. My parents said they were as sad as I was. I hated them for saying that. How could they know how I felt? I'm the one who took care of her for 13 years. To them she was just a dog. The house isn't the same without her. Worse, they'd gotten another dog, another white terrier. Not a cute puppy, but an older dog with a stupid name, Twinkle-Toes. My mother didn't even have the creativity to change it to something cool.

In Perspective

I walked beside you as you were rolled down the hall by the two blue-gowned orderlies. Their task-oriented expressions were unreadable. No one was talking.  I couldn't think of what to say. I wondered what you were thinking. You had all these neat expressions about how you gotta go sometime, about numbers being up, about next best alternatives. I wondered what kind of pep talk you were giving yourself-like all the good advice you'd given us over the years.

This was follow-up surgery, the kind they talk about when the stories are told about the first one not going so well. The doctor gave you pretty bad odds for this go around. Still, you were optimistic. Or something.  The family will talk about the one good day you had-with all that new oxygenated blood your semi-fixed heart was pumping. You got on the phone and gave everyone advice. Get married. Have a family. Get a job. Get a new job.

I knew I couldn't go any further than the double doors looming ahead. You lifted your arm, the one without the needle taped to the inside of your elbow. Then you raised your head and turned toward me. "There's a dress in my closet," you said. "A dress. What are you talking about?" I asked. "It has tags on it, you'll find it. Return it and get the money back. It hasn't been 30 days," you said.

Home Sweet Home

We moved into that house when I was seven years old. I know that for sure since my dad let me write my name in the wet concrete poured that morning for a walkway in the small back yard. I also pressed my handprint down for eternity. Before the furniture arrived that afternoon, my new room had nothing in it but a white shag carpet. That was fine with me and I lined up my books and toys down the middle of the room. Then I went downstairs to inspect the new kitchen. My parents were really proud of the pink Kitchen Aid dishwasher. My dad was really into gadgets. He also had an alarm clock with a woman's voice announcing the time when you pushed a button. 

While the furniture was being moved in, I kept Penny, our West Highland Terrier puppy, on a leash. She was really my dog but I let my parents say she was a family dog. I was the one who fed her, took her on walks, and gave her baths and haircuts. There was a big wide staircase covered with carpet. I held Penny on my lap as I rode on a piece of cardboard-sliding down those stairs-until we got caught. 

After we were settled in the house, my mom let me pick out wallpaper for my room. I picked blue flowers. I was at school the day the guy came to put up the wallpaper. As my mom explained later, the wallpaper guy hung the right pattern but the wrong color. The flowers were orange. I was so angry I cried. My mom made a deal with me. She said that if I still hated the orange flowers after one week, she would let me paint them out. As far as I know, after all these years, they are still there on the wall.

Blue Monkeys

Beautiful frescoes of Blue Monkeys from thousands of years ago have been unearthed at Akrotiri on Santorini. When I saw these wall paintings I knew I had to write a book about the Blue Monkeys and how they traveled into the future.