really
hates hospitals.
Now I know your kryptonite, James.
Now I know if we have all our meetings at the hospital
you will forget to yell at me,
all your power lost
to fear
of beeps
and sick babies
and stinging smells.
Mrs. B.
Long blond hair,
it’s almost like a lion’s mane.
Sharp eyes.
Green one day, gray the next,
almost never blinking.
She doesn’t look like a devil
but I feel like I’ve made a deal with one.
(Does that count as talking about my feelings?)
Her computer is free for me to use.
She’ll even help me print stuff,
but only if I talk about my feelings first.
Only if we can have a dialogue first.
Yeah. A deal with the devil.
The green-eyed devil.
Take this one.
And this one.
And these.
And this.
José’s mom is throwing piles of clothes at me.
José is in the garage working on the turtle car
with his dad.
You are so skinny, mijo.
These are all from two years ago
but I think they will fit.
A pile of clothes builds up at my feet
like a snowdrift of José, the First Generation.
There’s no way I can say no to these clothes.
No way José’s mom will let me say no.
So I gather them up,
like the ghosts of winters past,
and already, I feel warmer.
José’s mom took me to the hospital
and when we went into Levi’s room
Mom was asleep
Levi was asleep
it was dark and quiet
except for the
heartbeeps
and the nurse popped her head in the door
a grocery bag in her hand.
Timothy? Someone left this for you.
Inside the bag:
two new toothbrushes
candy bars
bananas
nonslip socks
a magazine about movie stars
a magazine about video games
a Baby Signing Adventure book.
Who is it from?
The nurse just shrugged,
smiled,
closed the door.
Levi is feeling much better!
Maybe just one more week.
If we don’t jinx it.
And then he’ll be home.
And I’ll be home.
No more IV tubes.
No more doctors and pokes.
No more hospital.
No more fancy home-cooked dinners.
No more José and Theresa and Sofia and Alé.
No more Isa.
How should I feel about that?
I don’t know how to feel about that.
Books on the table
pencils scribbling
oomPAH oomPAH
José telling me
hurry hurry hurry up with your homework
so we can play Halo.
Yummy smells coming from the kitchen,
Isa tapping her fingers on her nose
counting syllables
or maybe integers.
Everyone busy
but no wild eyes.
Then a key in the door,
shuffling shoes.
José’s mom shouts something from the kitchen,
José’s dad loosening his tie,
dropping his briefcase.
Isa stands and hugs him
José tells about the math test and how well he did.
The oomPAHing stops and Alé flies down the stairs.
They are a crowd
even with Theresa and Sofia not at home.
They are all talking at once.
José’s dad acts annoyed as he tries to get
to the kitchen
but he’s smiling.
José’s mom steps into the dining room
wipes her hands on her apron
kisses him big on the mouth
and I am still at the table
alone
feeling suddenly itchy to not be here
in this house
but I can’t be anywhere else
and José’s dad says over the noise,
Timothy,
and he nods at me
and I nod back
swallowing a rock in my throat
WEEK 17
I know everything will be back to normal soon.
I am not a moron, James.
I know it will not be José’s house all the time.
I know it will not be José’s mom taking me places.
I know it will be back to business as usual.
You don’t have to talk to me like I’m an idiot.
James.
Mrs. B.
School.
Mom.
I will be back in the house arrest box.
I mean, it’s not like I really left it,
I just had little tunnels
like those tunnels hamsters get to run around in.
Those tunnels can stretch across a whole room,
even up toward the ceiling
where the little hamster runs and runs.
But in the end?
All tunnels lead right back to the cage.
So don’t worry, James.
I get it.
Back to normal soon.
Fine.
Look who’s on his wedge
dangling like a wiggly booger.
Cutest booger I’ve ever seen.
Marisol is humming and signing,
Levi waves his hands
without actually signing anything.
I can tell, though.
He’s happy to be home.
So happy.
What is THIS?
Mom shrieks in the kitchen.
I knew she would.
But I also know she won’t give anything back.
Tamales, enchiladas,
frozen containers of borracho beans,
some kind of cake.
José’s mom.
She made us dinner for every night this week.
I gave her my key so she could sneak inside
and fill up the empty freezer
while I was at school
and Mom got Levi home from the hospital.
We can’t accept this, Mom says
while she eats a cold tamale.
Definitely not, I say, taking one,
sprinkling masa crumbs down my shirt.
We should totally give these back, I say,
reaching for another.
Mom laughs for the first time in a long time.
She puts frozen beans in the microwave.
We really shouldn’t accept this, she says again,
eating a corn bread muffin.
Definitely not, I repeat.
The microwave beeps
and we don’t even get bowls
we just eat the beans right out of the container.
Nominate a charity!
Mrs. B.
Really.
Come on.
Where did you get this?
Who deserves a Carnival of Giving?
Mrs. B.
Seriously.
Um, A) My family is not a charity
and 2) Mom would never say yes.
Not in a hundred million years.
Nominations for next year’s Carnival start TODAY!
By next year
we could all be flattened by an asteroid
or destroyed by a zombie plague.
I mean, you don’t know.
How can you plan for next year
when tomorrow seems like
a hundred years away?
P.S. Don’t rip flyers off the middle school walls.
That is super creepy.
FYI
Here’s the thing with school, overall:
It exists.
It’s a thing.
I go to it.
I come home.
I don’t love it.
I don’t hate it.
It feels like a giant mountain just—
BAM
right in the middle of the road
slowing down the rest of my life
in a super annoying kind of way.
I can’t get over it, because it’s too . . . much.
Unmoving.
Unmoved.
Unmoveable.
And the only way around it
is to carve a tunnel through it,
through dirt and crap in every direction
trying to maybe find something useful along the way
but mostly just getting annoyed
because there seems to be no end to the tunnel
or the crap
that just goes on
forever and forever and forever.
WEEK 18
What are you feeling today, Timothy?
Mrs. B asks this every week.
Not how are you feeling, Timothy, but what are
you feeling.
I am feeling José’s shirt on my back.
I am feeling my toes pressed against the tips
of my shoes.
I am feeling the squishy couch under my butt.
I am feeling the breeze from the vent
blowing down my neck.
I am feeling the broken pencil in my pocket.
I am feeling the itch of a zit on my nose.
I am feeling the growl in my stomach because
it’s past lunch
and not quite dinnertime.
But what do I say?
I feel nothing, Mrs. B.
I feel nothing.
Feeling nothing doesn’t earn me time on the computer.
You know how that makes me feel?
Sad
Mad
Tired
Grouchy
Frustrated
Those are not dwarves.
They are feelings, OK?
They are like nickels and quarters
jangling, jangling, jangling
buying me time on Mrs. B’s computer.
What are you looking for?
Mrs. B’s hair slides around off her shoulder
trapping her face next to mine
trapping us in a corner
trapping me until I answer.
A doctor.
She doesn’t say anything.
I feel the warmth of her face
near my face.
I smell her perfume or shampoo
that somehow smells tired.
I type subglottic stenosis
and click search.
Mrs. B writes something down.
She slides a piece of paper toward me.
Subglottic stenosis pediatric doctor
I type in the extra words.
There are 35,600 results.
So many links.
Mrs. B stands up
her hair slides back into place.
For one second her hand touches my shoulder
then she moves away.
35,600 results.
That’s a lot of doctors, right?
I suddenly feel a lot less trapped.
By everything.
Yeah.
35,600 is not the number of doctors
who fix broken babies,
it’s just a bunch of studies
and hospitals
and things that have nothing to do with anything.
Uuugh.
Now what?
Mystery bag contents for the week:
Bread
Milk
Cheese
Bologna
Spaghetti
Sauce
Vanilla yogurt
Frozen OJ
And in a second mystery bag:
popcorn kernels
butter
an action movie DVD
with the $4.99 sticker still on it.
When I picked up the bag
off the mat
I looked down the street
like I always do
and this time
this time
I saw something.
A red car turning by the stop sign.
The same color red as James’s car.
Mom and I are watching the movie
upstairs
alone
with popcorn
in her bed!
It’s so weird
hearing the suction machine downstairs
and knowing Levi is down there
but that we’re up here.
Every time I hear it I jump
but Mom’s hand goes to my knee.
He’s fine, she smiles.
Let’s have some you-and-me time, OK?
OK.
I should be used to night nurses by now,
but we hardly ever get one scheduled.
It’s nice.
But weird.
I better put this notebook down
before I get butter all over it.
Are you leaving these bags, James?
Has it been you the whole time?
Even at the hospital?
Because I know how much you hate hospitals.
It must have been hard
to show up there anyway
and pay to park
and go inside
and get buzzed into the ICU
and stay hidden from us
and give a bag to a nurse
and ask her to give it to us.
I mean, that’s a lot of stuff to do
when you’re scared of a place.
Our breath must have been really bad
for you to go to all that trouble
to get us new toothbrushes.
If it was you leaving the bags.
It might not have been.
I don’t know.
Leaving bags of cool stuff . . .
that doesn’t seem like a
Probation Officer University thing.
That seems like just a nice person thing.
WEEK 19
We’ll find the money.
Mom was talking to herself.
We’ll find a way.
Her face leaning forward,
her hands in her hair,
papers all over the kitchen table.
She didn’t see me
so I snuck back upstairs.
The Carnival of Giving.
I’m thinking about it.
Thinking about that stupid flyer
Mrs. B stole from school.
The one still crumpled up on my desk,
the one I can’t quite throw away.
Mom would never say yes.
I can’t help but wonder . . .
No.
It’s stupid.
We’re fine.
Please don’t worry.
It’s not like we live in a cave in China.
Or in a hut in Africa.
It’s not like there are flies circling my face.
Or clods of dirt caked on my feet.
We have enough.
We’re OK.
Please, Mrs. B, don’t talk about social services again.
We’re doing our best.
We’re fine.
What is that, T-man?
Don’t call me T-man.
I held up the bag so Mom could see inside.
I couldn’t help smiling.
Thick-cut bacon
sourdough bread
eggs
syrup
a cactus with a pink flower
and a pair of tiny socks
exactly Levi’s size.
I know it’s you, James.
Only you could give things
prickly and soft
sweet and sour
all at the same time.
You and that journal, Timothy.
Isa sat next to me at lunch, smiled,
made my head go all sunny.
I didn’t know she had B lunch.
My cheeks went red from the sun in my brain.
I have to keep the journal. Court-ordered.
(You know, when she nods, her hair shines extra shiny
like she must have sun in her head, too,
shining through.)
What are you doing here, gordita?
José dropped his tray next to mine
splattering spaghetti sauce
making Isa jump back and scowl.
I’m tutoring during C lunch.
Maybe you should skip lunch.
Then he puffed out his cheeks and laughed.
I really wish he wouldn’t do things like that.
She’s his sister, fine.
But still.
Isa stood up, no bites taken from her lunch.
See you later, Timothy.
She turned, and was gone.
My cheeks still red, but now for a different reason.
How goes the turtle?
Huh?
The car? How’s it going? With your dad?
Oh. Fine.
Are you, like, bonding and stuff ?
I don’t know.
He’s not teaching you the meaning of life?
I don’t know. Mostly he yells at me a lot.
Oh.
Yeah.
Thanks for the food.
I just brought it over. But you’re welcome.
Bye.
Bye.
José is acting weird.
WEEK 20
We were laughing so hard,
so hard that no sound was coming out.
Me and Mom
laughing and laughing
because the birthday candle wouldn’t stand up
in the pile of vanilla yogurt
in the blue bowl
on Levi’s tray.
It would pitch one way
and then the other
and Mom would scream and laugh
as she tried to get it upright
and not burn her fingers.
I thought Levi was laughing, too,
at first,
maybe trying to blow out the candle
with puffs of air from his neck.
But he wasn’t laughing or puffing,
he was choking.