Math Scratch Paper
Mad
Sad
Mad
Sad
Mad
Sad
Never
Glad
Bad
Dad
Mad
Sad
Before Bed
I scrounge in the cupboard.
There!
In the way back.
An opened bag of crackers.
I sneak it past Dale
under my shirt
to my room.
Click.
I lock the door.
Crinkle, crunch.
Stale.
I eat every crumb.
Bedtime Prayer
“Don’t forget to pray,” says Mom.
“Okay.”
She flicks out my light and leaves.
God, please don’t let us starve.
Please keep the baby inside Mom safe.
Please bring Chris back safe.
Please bring Dad back
or punish him good.
Overheard
Going for a drink of water, I stop.
Mom’s on the phone.
I peek around the corner.
“I know. Thank you for saying so.”
Her voice is all melty.
She’s curled in the chair
and holding the phone tight.
Dad?
“You don’t need to say that, Paul.”
Yuck! It’s her friend.
“It’s just so hard on all of us.
And I’m so angry.”
She starts crying.
“Thank you. See you soon.
Me too.”
Forget the water.
I hurry back to bed.
Me Too
I kick the covers off my bed.
They tumble to the floor.
Me too.
Did Mr. Paul say,
“Love you,”
or something lame like that?
Is that what Mom said
“Me too” for?
But she always yells that
to him after he calls out,
“Love ya!” to her and Dad
as he drives off in his old Porsche.
That’s always seemed so fake
and creeped me out.
And now
it’s creepier.
Mom
She’s crying again.
Her sobs
seep through the concrete walls.
There’s no way she knows it,
or she’d stop.
But I hear it.
I know exactly how she’s feeling.
I turn my pillow over
and feel for a dry spot.
Red Xs
“Here you go, Essie.” Ms. Dryden
drops a pill in my hand.
She closes my fingers over it.
Her warm hand
makes my pain less
for a second.
“Hurry to the fountain
and come right back.”
“Okay.”
My head thuds when I stand up.
Ms. Dryden holds on to me
until the pounding fades
and I can walk.
I aim for the door
without looking at anyone in class.
I think it was Wally
who patted my back.
I’m so glad
Mom’s given Ms. Dryden
a bottle of medicine
for my headaches.
The office even made it
so I don’t have to go to the nurse.
I can just get the pill
and start feeling better
without missing class.
Mom might have told Ms. Dryden
about Dad leaving while they were talking.
Maybe.
But I’m not going to say anything,
and I bet she won’t either.
If she actually does know anything.
At all.
If I get a headache,
Ms. Dryden marks a red X on the calendar
and gives me one pill.
It usually works.
The pounding stops
till the next day.
Lunch
Gary laughs
and leaves
half his sandwich
on his desk.
Buffy didn’t eat the crumbs
left in her chip bag.
I ball my trash up.
Every speck of my
peanut butter sandwich
is gone.
I’m almost drooling
for Wally’s granola bar.
“Want a bite?” he asks.
“Well, sure. If you
aren’t really hungry.”
He snaps off a piece for me.
Mmm.
I suck it till it turns soggy
to make it last
as long as I can.
Thanks to the Sumerians
So we made
pretend cuneiform letters
and pressed
the shapes onto
a round clay cylinder.
My make-believe message says,
“My dad left,”
over and over
around the whole thing.
Now I get to roll
it out across
a big piece of soft clay.
My dad left.
“How beautiful,” Ms. Dryden says.
“What does it tell us, Essie?”
“Dad loves me.”
“How nice.” She moves on.
I roll out
another row.
Friends
Wally and I
sit on top of the monkey bars.
“Are you okay?” he finally asks,
covering my hand with his.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Sure?”
I nod.
“I don’t believe you,” he says.
Me either.
I don’t pull my hand
away.
Pretty Scary
“Your mom having a baby
is pretty scary, isn’t it?” he asks.
“What?”
I shade my eyes
to see his face better.
“You know,” he shrugs,
“they’re so little,
and noisy,
and smelly.”
“So?”
Wally swings his legs.
“It just seems like
when babies arrive,
bigger kids disappear some.”
“Yeah?”
“That’s what happened
when Wilhelmina was born
a couple years ago.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. That’s when I started drama.
My parents never could both make it
to my plays.
One had to stay with the baby at home
or walk her out in the hallway.
It seemed like
I wasn’t as important anymore.”
“Hmm.”
“This year they’ve promised
to leave her with a sitter
and both come to my play.”
“That’s great.”
“We’ll see.”
Zap
“There’s the buzzer.
Come on.” Wally climbs down.
I jump.
Shooty pains
zap my legs
when I land.
I shake out the tingles.
I’m
not
going to disappear.
Chatter
“The cops think
the kidnapper is someone
Chris’s dad
put in jail a while ago.”
“Whoa.”
“I guess you can make a lot
of enemies
when you’re a lawyer.”
I wonder if Chris’s
dad
feels like it’s his fault.
But it’s not.
Absolutely not.
By the Side of the Road
Mom takes the turn
and we drive by
a home
with a bunch of stuff
put out on the curb.
There’s one old stuffed chair
that stands out from everything,
sitting on the tippy edge of the cement,
alone.
A FREE sign is stuck to it.
And nobody is even taking it.
Mom picks up speed.
I watch it out the back window.
That’s what you do when you don’t want something.
You stick it out on the curb
and leave it.
The garbage man will take it
if no one else does.
Those people sure don’t want
that chair anymore.
It doesn’t look that bad
to me.
Ahhh
The automatic doors
whoosh open
and the library air-conditioning
blasts us.
“Ahhh,” Mom, Doozerdude, and I say.
We take off in different directions
to find our books,
but we are all
smiling.
Really Cool
I search the kids’ fiction shelves
and fill my bag.
Then, really cool like,
I wander over to the YA section.
There’s an author’s name I’ve seen before.
I pull the book down,
to rush over
and make me put it back.
I glance over my shoulder.
She’s not even looking at me.
Dale waves,
down in front of the little kids’ books.
I wave back,
feeling very grown-up
in YA.
Checking the Calendar
How do days and nights
keep happening
when a huge chunk of my life
is missing?
How can Friday just zoom by
like nothing?
It’s been five days
without Dad.
Can a clock keep running
if the battery is taken out?
Can a computer run
without a hard drive?
How can days and nights,
our family,
keep going
without Dad?
Chris has been gone eight days.
Is his family still going
without him?
Ring!
“Yes.
No.”
Mom squeezes the receiver.
Her hand is white.
“Fine.
See you then.”
She hangs up.
“Your father’s coming
tomorrow afternoon.”
“Whoop-de-doo!” Dale yells.
“This Saturday would be his day off,” she says,
“because last Saturday he worked.
Even though it was Thanksgiving weekend.
If he really was working.”
She rambles on and on.
Thinking It Through
He really wasn’t missing.
To us he was.
But not to him.
Dad’s always known
where he was.
Does Chris know
where he is?
He’s the one
really missing.
That’s why
the police
have to find him.
Dad
can make it home
all on his own.
If he wants.
Waiting
“Mom,” I say.
She doesn’t answer
and keeps mumbling
while looking out the window.
Dale leaps around the room.
“I’ve got to find
that Corvette for Daddy to play with.”
He digs through his can of cars.
“He always likes to play with the Corvette.”
Mom’s still stuck at the window.
What’s she thinking?
That she’ll see Dad driving up
any second?
He’s not coming till tomorrow.
That she hates Dad?
That she loves him?
“It’s not here. Maybe it’s in my room.”
Dale zips off.
I tiptoe away,
embarrassed I was staring at Mom.
Pretty soon
she’ll be crying.
I don’t want her
to have to disappear
to her room
like she’s been doing lately.
Pretending she
doesn’t cry.
Midnight
“Es.” Dale shakes me awake.
“What?”
I pull away. “What do you want?”
He squeezes the tail of his rubber lizard, Izzy.
“He’s coming back.
Just like I said he would.
He’s coming back tomorrow
for forever.”
“Maybe, Doozerdude.
Go back to bed.”
“Okay.”
His feet pad across the terrazzo to his room.
I snuggle down.
Maybe Dad is coming back
for forever.
Even Later
When he comes back,
will it be for keeps
or just be some stupid visit?
How can someone visit
their own home?
What will it be?
What will it mean?
When is tomorrow
going to get here?
All Day
Dale drives his cars
around the braided rug.
The Corvette is in a special
parking place
on top of the TV.
I read two books
as the clock hums above the couch.
Mom paces.
Does laundry.
Mops.
Paces.
She showers.
Does her hair up.
Puts on her best maternity dress
with the polka dots.
Paces.
I turn pages.
Dale drives in circles.
All day long.
All afternoon.
Until the sun sets.
And we each end up in the living room
staring at the floor.
Too ashamed to look at the clock
for the millionth time.
Too ashamed to look at each other.
Because
we believed him.
In the Bathroom
I go to ditch my tissue
in the trash can
and see it in there.
The Corvette.
Doozerdude
chucked it.
I fish it out
in case he changes his mind.
It’s hidden way back
behind the washcloths now.
Tucked in Bed
I press my lips
together
as tight as I can.
I try to hold it in.
Not to cry,
because I know Mom’s listening in the hallway.
And she’s beat from taking care of Dale’s bawling.
But my face is burning up
keeping the tears inside.
My eyeballs are going to catch fire.
I have to act
like I don’t care
he didn’t show up.
If I care,
I might see
that he doesn’t.
I’m Not Worth It
Obviously.
Sunday Morning
“Hello?�
� Mom answers.
Dale and I look at each other.
“Where were you?” she hisses,
then heads to her room with the phone.
I bet she has some more hissing to do
at Dad
for not showing up,
for not coming back for forever,
for not giving us money,
for leaving in the first stinking place.
“What about the house payment?”
Her door slams on the question.
“I’m glad she went to her room,” says Dale.
“Me too, for once. I don’t want to hear about it.”
I hope
the baby can’t hear it
either.
An Inch
Dale pouts.
“How come
he doesn’t ask
to talk to us, Es?”
“I don’t know.
What would you say, anyway?”
“Well.” He crushes some cereal
with his thumbnail.
“That I was first in the fifty-yard dash last week.”
He starts picking at a scab on his knee.
“And that I’ve probably grown like an inch
since he was here.”
“Since he left,” I say.
“Since he was here.”
“It’s not the same thing, you know.”
“I know.” He picks and picks till it bleeds.
I pass him my napkin.
“Just stop already.
It’s only been a week, anyway,” I say.
He shrugs,
flicks the scab onto the floor,
then presses the napkin
to his knee.
We watch the blood seep through.
“Since he left here,” Dale admits.
Church
Mom hauls us to church.
After Sunday school
we sit in the same pew
like always,
the three of us.
Of course
Dad’s not in the back
ushering,
making me proud.
He’s not here at all,
making me embarrassed
when folks ask,
“Where’s your daddy, Essie?”
I slouch down
and look away without answering,
and they don’t say much else.
On the way out,
I slip right by Pastor Lyon
and his wife
so they won’t look at me
and know something’s wrong
with me
or my family.
Back Home
I lift my legs from the poky fat grass.
Dad said this kind would be best
for our yard.
But it’s so prickly,
until you stop moving all around.
The clouds hang heavy and poochy.
Dad loved to lie in the grass
with me
and figure out all the cloud types.
We’d argue if it was cumulonimbus
or just cumulus.
Or if it was just a big cat floating
through the sky.
I’d always bounce my head on his stomach.
And he’d laugh and bounce my head more.
“Ow!”
Red ants swarm my legs!
I leap up
and beat my calves.
The ants bite hard
and hang on.
“Stop it! Mom, help!”