The Age of Grief - Jane Smiley [46]
Anyway, other things were going on. They always are. A patient called me at nine thirty in the evening and said that her entire lower face was swollen and throbbing, an abscess resulting from a long overdue root canal. You remove the dead tissue and stir up the bacteria that have colonized the region and they spread. That’s what an abscess is. I met her at the office and gave her six shots of novocaine, which basically numbed her from the neck up. Meanwhile, at home, Leah awakened and began crying out. Dana went in to comfort her, and Leah began crying, “I want my daddy! I want my daddy!” as if Dana were a stranger. Dana was a little taken aback, but picked Leah up, to hug and soothe her, and this made Leah so hysterical that Dana had to put her back in bed and tiptoe out, as if in shame.
By the time I had taken Mrs. Ver Steeg home and put the car in the garage, all was quiet. I was tired. I drank three beers and went to bed, and was thus unconscious for the second bout of the night, and the third. In each instance, Leah woke up crying for me, Dana went to comfort her and was sent packing. The longer she stayed and the more things she tried, the wilder Leah got. The first bout lasted from midnight to twelve thirty and the second from two forty-five until three forty. Leah began calling for me to get her out of bed at six. I woke up at last, wondering what Dana was doing, motionless beside me, and Dana said, “I won’t go to her. You have to go to her.” That was the beginning
She lay on the living room carpet, rolled in her blanket, watching Woody Woodpecker cartoons from the forties. I drank coffee. She was happy. Between cartoons, she would get up and walk over to me and begin to talk. Some of the words were understandable, the names Lizzie and Stephanie, the words “oatmeal” and “lollipop.” But more intelligible was the tone. She was trying to please and entertain me. She looked into my face for smiles. She gestured with her hands, shrugged, glanced away from me and back.
When Stephanie and Lizzie came down at seven, attracted by the opening theme from “Challenge of the Superfriends,” she retreated to the couch. When Dana got up and staggered down the stairs in her robe, looking only for a place to deposit her exhaustion, Leah shouted, “No! Go away! Don’t sit here! My couch!” She would take her oatmeal only from me. Only I was allowed to dress her. If Dana or Lizzie or Stephanie happened to glance at her, she would scowl at them and begin to cry. Dana, forgetting herself, happened to kiss her on the forehead, and she exclaimed, “Yuck! Ouch!” and wiped the kiss off. When I went to the bathroom and closed the door, she climbed the stairs behind me, saying, “I go get my daddy back.” We were embarrassed. By eight forty-five, when I was ready to leave for the office, we had run out of little jokes.
It was not simply that she didn’t want Dana near her, for she would allow that most of the time, it was also that she had exacting requirements for me and was indignant if I deviated from them in the slightest. If she expected to climb the stairs and find me in my bedroom and I made the mistake of meeting her in the hallway, she would burst into tears and shout, “Go back in room! Go back in room!” I would have to go back into the bedroom and pretend to be ignoring her, and wait for her to come find me and announce herself.
I don’t think this ever happened to my father, who had a plumbing supply business and wore a white dress shirt to work every day. He referred to my brother and sisters and me as “the kids,” in a slightly disparaging, amused tone of voice that assumed alliance with the great world of adult men, the only audience he ever really addressed himself to. I don’t know anyone who calls his children “the kids.” It would be like calling his spouse “the wife,” not done these days. We call them “our children,” “our daughters,” very respectful. Would Leah thrive more certainly on a little neglect? Should we intentionally overlook her romantic obsession,