The Age of Grief - Jane Smiley [73]
She said, “Not go to bed.”
“Yes, I’m tired. I’ll walk you in the morning.”
“Picky up.”
“I’m going to take you to your bed now. You can have a bottle of juice. Tonight, even the dentist says you can have a bottle of juice.”
“Picky up.”
I carried her into the kitchen, filled a bottle with diluted juice, and began up the stairs.
“No bed.”
“Time for bed. I’ll lie down beside you on the floor.”
“No bed.”
I put her in. She was wide awake. I lay on the rug, and she rolled over and looked down at me through the bars. Her eyes were big in the dark. She reached her hand through the bars, and I gave her mine, though it was awkward. She looked at me and held my hand, and I fell asleep. Maybe she never fell asleep. We were up and walking by six. When Dana got up, I said, “I talked her into letting me get some sleep. I talked her into it.” Dana handed me a piece of toast. I grew, once again, overconfident. The goodness of warm toast, the sweetness of cold orange juice, the attentions of my wife, the new maturity of my two-year-old. “Two years old!” I said. “I talked her into it.” I thought I knew what I was doing.
We walked all of that day, until about six, when she got down out of my arms to interfere with Lizzie and Stephanie at their Parcheesi game. After dinner her fever went up and we walked until eleven. On Tuesday, we walked from six fifteen in the morning until ten thirty, when she got down for good at the sight of the Barbie bubbling spa boxed up in the front hall closet. I set it up. I found every Barbie and every water toy in the house, all the hair ornaments and four spoons. I gave her Tylenol and a bottle of juice, and then I went into the living room and collapsed on the couch. After a few minutes I could hear her start talking to herself and humming. I ached from the soles of my feet to my chin.
At noon I still hadn’t moved, and Leah came in the living room to chat. She said, “Are you sleeping now?”
I said, “You’re soaking wet.”
She said, “Are you sleeping on the couch?”
I said, “Let’s go upstairs and change out of your pajamas. Is your diaper wet?” And just then Dana walked in, her face as white as her jacket, which she hadn’t bothered to take off. She closed the door behind her and, without speaking, turned and climbed the stairs. I said, “What’s the main symptom?” and she said, “Aches and pains. My joints feel as if they’re fracturing and knitting every second.” Her voice trailed off and I sat up on the couch. Leah said, “Are you waking up now?”
Stephanie and Lizzie came in at three ten, when I was thinking about dinner. I hadn’t thought about dinner in four days, and I was ruminating over steak and baked potatoes and green beans in cheese sauce, my father’s favorite meal. They threw down their backpacks and called for milk. While I was in the kitchen, someone turned on the TV. By the time I had returned, Stephanie was face down on the couch. I was nearly jovial. I thought I knew what I was doing. I said, “Is it your turn, Steph? Have you got it?”
She rolled over. She said, “I feel bad now.”
“Do you want to go upstairs? Mommy’s up there. She’s got it, too, but I have a feeling it will go away fast for you and Mommy.” She held out her arms and I picked her up. There was Tylenol in every room in the house, and I grabbed some. She said, “Ooooh.” It was a long-drawn-out and deeply resigned moan, the sound, it later turned out, of the fever rising in her veins like steam in a radiator. By the time I had carried her to her room, my shirt where she lay against me was soaked with her sweat. She said, “The yellow one.”
I thought she was asking for a certain nightgown. I said, “Sweetie, you don’t have a yellow one. How about the pink one?”
“Throw away the yellow one. My house.”
I sat her on the bed and counted out five children’s Tylenol. She collapsed, and I sat her up, opened her mouth with that practiced dental firmness, and put in the tablets, one by one. Her hair was soaked with sweat. She said, “Melon. Melon, melon, melon.” I laid her out, and put my hand across her forehead. She was incandescent. I