daughter

A Daughter’s Fever

Miranda looked down at the small crib. It was without ornament – nothing like the wonderful crib she had at home, with the painted bars and the bright sheets and blankets. Hospital cribs don’t have to be pretty, merely functional, just like hospital beds. It was strange that she’d never thought of hospitals having cribs before. Of course, when she’d given birth there was a crib, but it was small, it was near her own bed, and her daughter hadn’t been in it much; Miranda had preferred to hold her in her arms as she slept.

Miranda stirred, tearing her eyes away from the sight of her little golden-haired girl red with fever. She’d been sick for five days already. When Miranda saw that the fever wasn’t going down, she’d taken her girl to the hospital. It was a throat infection of some sort, that’s what the doctors said, but the fever was still so high… Miranda couldn’t stop worrying. She hummed with nerves.

She looked at the lone chair that could fit beside the crib. There were others in the room, but they were occupied by other parents watching their sick infants. What a dismal place to bring a child, Miranda had thought when she’d first walked through the door to that room. Her opinion of the cheerless place hadn’t improved since. Her husband was in their chair, fast asleep; the poor man. He’d borne with Miranda’s worries and unfounded fears and had tried to calm her, but she wouldn’t calm. She couldn’t calm. She’d exhausted the poor man.

Miranda thought of her work. She was needed, she knew. Real people, everyday people, depended on her. She knew some of them would be in agonies without her support and encouragement. She felt bad for not being there for them, but that feeling was in a very small corner of her mind. She really mostly felt bad because she was worried sick and still her little girl’s fever raged on.

She looked back into the crib and wiped the sweat of her daughter’s forehead with a small white towel. The doctors said that she needed to wait and let the medicine do its work. She waited.

Sorry-Sorry-Service

The waitress was pretty, in a conventional way. Her hair was that sort of natural bright yellow that all those who dye their hair want to have. Her figure was trim but womanly, short without being stocky. Her eyes were big, brown and innocent looking. Her school-girl looks were probably the only reason people were being semi-patient with her.

She’d been running around tables all day. She had no idea why she was lucky enough to get this job at Patisserie Valerie, one of the most popular hangouts in Soho. She had no idea how she was there with her English being so imperfect. She also, unfortunately, had no idea whether or not she would be allowed to stay; so far, she was a disaster.

A group of three came into the cafe: a red haired woman, a girl in her late teens who looked like her daughter and a young man with dark, curly hair. They sat down at a table, and the waitress was shooed over to them by the woman who’d been helping her on and off all day. She bobbed over to the table and asked in her broken English what they wanted to drink. They answered, and the flurry of words was almost too much for her. She went to the kitchens to relay the order. Once she brought it, she realized that she’d forgotten two items. She hadn’t understood what they wanted, she supposed.

Asking about the food was worse. The young man, bless him, merely wanted the sandwich as it was written in the menu, but the woman and her daughter asked for all sorts of changes. Simple enough, if she could only understand what it was they wanted. She felt like her brain had turned to mush, and she only understood every third word, though she dutifully scribbled in her notepad obligingly the keywords that she could understand.

It took her three runs to the kitchens and back to make sure she had everything right. Then the kitchen botched one of the orders. She lost her head completely, and took the order out anyway, saying as she did so that she told the man what to do and he hadn’t done it right. She was about to set down the plate anyway, but the three stared at her uncomprehendingly and then asked her to please get them the order they’d asked for. They didn’t mind waiting, but they wanted to eat the food they’d ordered – not whatever the kitchen’s whims were.

The waitress felt the tears well up, but they didn’t break out. She quickly brought the things back to the kitchen. When she came back, finally with the correct order, she bobbed a sort of half curtsy and explained that “It’s my first day, so sorry, so sorry.”

***

The really strange thing was that when I returned the next day for another meal at the same place, I got the same waitress. It was, again, her first day – sorry-sorry – and again the orders weren’t done right. I don’t blame her. I’ve waitressed. It’s hard, it’s pressuring, and it requires some knowledge of the language. I do, however, blame the restaurant for not even pairing her with a more experienced waitress for a couple days. My mother tells me, however, that Patisserie Valerie has been known since she lived in London more than twenty years ago as a place with good food but notoriously bad service.

The food, at least, was indeed delicious.

Dora’s Birthday [Part III]

Part I

Part II

Dora was curled up in an uncomfortable hospital chair, pretending to sleep. She felt like they’d been in that stupid waiting room for hours and hours. Either her father or her mother were always with her, but her Grandpa had gone to sit with Grandma in her room. Dora’s mother explained that Grandma was still unconscious [“sort of like asleep,” she’d said when Dora asked what that meant] and that Grandpa wanted to be with her when she woke up. Dora wasn’t allowed in yet.
This was her worst birthday ever. She was hungry and uncomfortable and tired and bored. She was also scared about Grandma – everyone was acting like Grandma might not wake up at all, and that thought made Dora so sad. She loved her Grandma very much. It was she who had let Dora help bake chocolate chip cookies, and it was she who gave Dora lovely books to read and helped her read them. Her parents did some of the same things too, of course, but Dora always spent Friday afternoons and evenings at her grandparents’ house, and she loved their routines there together. Grandpa would make something yummy for dinner and Dora and her grandmother always had the dessert all ready for afterwards. Then they’d maybe watch a funny video or play games or read books together, all three of them. Dora was scared that things would  change now.
Just as Dora felt like she would start crying again, she felt a soft touch on her shoulder. Her father shook her gently, thinking she was asleep. She opened her eyes and saw him peering down at her with a smile.
“Dora-Dear, Grandma’s awake now. She says she’s feeling well enough for you to come in and see her.”
Dora sat up immediately. Her father took her by the hand and led her down a long corridor. Dora glimpsed people in the rooms they passed. Some of them frightened her, because they looked so very ill or they had tubes coming out of their noses and mouths. Some were moaning and some were snoring loudly. Dora averted her eyes and clung hard to her father’s big hand. She didn’t want Grandma to look like that.
Her father stopped at one of the rooms and gently pushed Dora through the door, encouraging her. She walked shyly up to the big hospital bed and stopped beside her mother who was sitting on one side of it. Her mother lifted her up into her lap, and Dora could see that her Grandma was sitting up in bed, smiling at her.
“Grandma!” she yelped and almost threw herself on her. Her mother held her back with a smile.
“Grandma’s feeling better but she’s still a little weak, pumpkin. No jumping on her quite yet, alright?” her mother chastised gently.
Dora was smiling fit to burst, and leaned over and gently pecked her grandmother who was proffering her cheek. “Grandma, are you okay now?” she asked.
“I will be, beautiful Dora, I will be,” Grandma answered in her smooth, melodic voice.
“And I’ll be able to come over to yours’ and Grandpa’s house and we’ll bake cookies and you’ll continue reading me The Little Princess?” she asked hopefully.
“Yes, honey-pie. When I get out of here, we’ll be able to do everything we used to.”
Dora felt as if her heart would burst. She broke into a fit of giggles. She was so happy that everything was alright with Grandma that she even forgot about the fact that she hadn’t eaten any cake.

Dora’s Birthday [Part I]

It was Dora’s birthday, and everything seemed to be going wrong.
When she woke up in the morning and walked to the bathroom, she stubbed her toe and it really hurt. Her mother tried to find some ice for it, but the ice-box was empty, and so she made Dora hold a cold can of beans on her toe instead. Dora pointed out, as she held the can, that it was leaking. Her mother said a bad word, apologized, and got a cloth and some soap to clean up the bean-juice from the floor.
Later, after Dora had had breakfast – with her toe still throbbing – her father came into the room and said “Happy birthday, Dora-Dear! Seven is huge.” He lifted her into the air and kissed both her cheeks. When he put her back down on the floor, though, she slipped on the wet area where her mother had washed and fell right down on her butt. That hurt too.
It was a school day, and Dora was looking forward to having everyone sing to her and lift her up on a chair. She skipped upstairs even though her behind still ached and her toe felt swollen. She was about to put on her favorite pair of red shoes with blue stripes on them, when she saw her dog, Brownie, look at her guiltily from the doorway. Dora knew that look. She peered into her shoes, and sure enough, Brownie had left a big puddle of puke in one of them. Dora yelled at Brownie, who got scared and ran away. She regretted it afterwards, but it was getting late, so she put on her second favorite pair of shoes [white with green polka-dots] and went downstairs where her parents were waiting to drive her to school. She stuck her tongue out at Brownie, who was sulking underneath the coffee-table, as she went out the front door.
At school, things seemed to be looking up; all her friends wished her a happy birthday, and Mrs. Peterson, the first grade teacher, smiled warmly and promised that Dora would get an extra chocolate chip cookie for dessert at lunch-time. But then, at lunch-time, the dessert wasn’t chocolate chip cookies after all – it was vanilla ice-cream, which Dora detested, so she didn’t end up getting any dessert at all.
When Dora got home from school, she found Brownie hiding under her bed. She lured her out with soft cooing noises and stroked her, saying she was a bad dog for puking in her shoe but she she loved her anyway. Then it was time for Dora to leave again with her parents. They were all going to Dora’s grandparents house for a nice dinner, a yummy cake, and what Dora was looking forward to most: presents!
Dora was sure things were finally going to go well now. After all, what more could go wrong? She’d had her toe hurting in her shoes all morning, her butt was still feeling very bumped from the fall, her shoes weren’t as comfy as the ones she really liked, and she hadn’t had anything sweet at all today! But now things would be fine, because things were always fine at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.

The Teacher

The Teacher heaved a deep sigh as she clasped her worn brown bag. Her hands, no longer slender and delicate, were riddled with swollen veins. Her wedding ring couldn’t come off her finger even if she’d wanted it to. Thankfully, she didn’t. Her marriage was the one thing that still made sense in her life.

The Teacher’s hair had been dyed red so many times that it had taken on a slightly metallic orange tint. She knew she looked like a joke, and she definitely knew the various nicknames she was known by throughout the student body, but white hair meant being a grandmother to her. That word hurt her too much. Grandmother. She had almost been one, and if the loss hurt her, she could only imagine how much it had hurt her daughter. Hurt enough that she had cut herself off from her parents because, in her words, it had been too difficult to see their eyes wander to her barren stomach and then fill with tears.

The Teacher picked up her case and walked slowly down through the empty halls, littered with crumpled paper and the occasional forgotten textbook. She sighed again as she walked. teaching didn’t make sense anymore, and for the last few years, this simple fact threw her whole life out of skew.

Her students weren’t different. Perhaps there were more cellphones in class, more kids copying essays off the internet, but all in all, high-school hadn’t changed all that much since she herself had been a twelfth-grader. No, it was some general something that irked her. Maybe it was the fact that so many parents didn’t seem to care what or how the teachers taught anymore. Maybe it was the fact that Bobby Jones and Nora Lessinger kept showing up to school with no text books because the funding for students like them who came from very low-income families had run dry. Maybe it was the fact that her daughter wasn’t speaking to her, and every teenager she looked at in her class seemed to somehow remind her of her personal life.

The Teacher exited the school building, and the sun flooded down from between a few grey clouds. In the parking lot, as always, was her husband in their old dark green Fiat. She could faintly hear the first Led Zeppelin album playing inside. She smiled at him, gave a little wave, and walked over. At least something still made sense in the world.

Three Ladies at Peet’s

Three ladies sat outside Peet’s Coffee in Santa Monica. There were many little tables outside the coffee-shop: one was inhabited by a trendy man in his early twenties, wearing a brown hat and reading a design book; one other table was occupied by a balding man with glasses perched precariously on his nose who was proofreading a paper as he sipped his coffee and occasionally looked up at the people going by; the third table was surrounded by three ladies.

The three ladies were of varying ages. Two were in their early fifties and looked like sisters – both had similar features and they had that sort of friendly and easy manner with each other that comes from a good sisterly relationship. The third was obviously a family member as well – the daughter of the one and the niece of the other. These ladies were surrounded by lots of baggage – a purse, a backpack, four pounds of Peet’s coffee blends, another shoulder bag, and, of course, three large cups of coffee, a cinnamon roll and a small box of chocolates.

The conversation between the ladies was fast and carefree: gossip about family members and family events, chit-chat about the merits of good coffee, small talk about travel plans. Somehow, in all the chatter, the subject of ostrich meat, an option that had been on a menu of a restaurant where the ladies had been the night before, came up. There was some discussion over the general aversion to the very idea of ostrich meat, and then with a casual remark from one of the ladies about how it tasted like roast beef, the table exploded. The ladies all burst out laughing as one of them spit out her coffee, overcome with laughter, and the other two followed suit while trying to control themselves and the flow of coffee spilling over their baggage.

Eventually, the three got themselves under control, though still giggling, and got up to leave. As they were walking down the sidewalk, the young hip man called out with a smile that he enjoyed their laughter and liked to see that they were having fun. He wasn’t mocking – he was sincere. He had enjoyed the sight of three ladies laughing at a table in the Los Angeles sunlight. Only the young lady had noticed that the other man, the quiet one with the glasses, had smiled to himself as well as the three had been laughing hysterically.

The youngest lady walked away from the whole encounter feeling that the world was a good place if people could enjoy the enjoyment of others.

Ella’s Grandma [A Short Story]

Roberta Marshall put her head down on her desk and wept. The tears flowed freely from her heavily made-up eyes and created black streaks on her cheeks. She wasn’t thinking about her make-up, though, and nor was she wondering how to conceal her reddened eyes. In fact, Roberta Marshall wasn’t thinking about anything very practical.

After a few more sobs, a rational thought did spring into her mind. She thought to herself I’m being unreasonable.

A few minutes later, she went further.  I’m being stupid.

The tears didn’t stop flowing, though. She felt a grief that went deep in her, piercing some of her most precious memories. She felt as if her whole childhood was about to disappear.

Eventually, the torrent flowing from Roberta’s eyes came to a halt, and she lifted her head up from her arms. She looked around her big office and was glad to see that the door was closed. Shakily, Roberta reached for her telephone, dialed a number and waited.

“Hello?” a soft voice answered.

“Mom?”

“Roberta?” the voice became incredulous. “Are you crying, Honey?”

“Not anymore, but I was.” Roberta’s voice, still thick from her recent crying jag, replied. She spoke again, a plea in her voice. “Mom, do you have to sell the house?”

Silence, almost a physical silence, came through from the other end of the line. Roberta could feel it weighing upon her. After what seemed like an eternity, Roberta’s mother heaved a sigh.

“Oh, Honey,” she breathed. “Yes, we have to sell the house. It’s not practical for us to live there these days. Your father really has a difficult time on the stairs and it’s simply not worth it to rent out the place.”

Roberta already knew all this, of course, and she felt guilty forcing her mother to go into the painful subject again. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She remembered thundering up and down those stairs with her brother. She remembered breakfasts in the big kitchen and birthday parties in the backyard and, later, arguments about curfew in the cozy den. Now it would all be gone. The tears threatened to overwhelm Roberta again, but she swallowed the lump in her throat and spoke into the phone again.

“Sorry, Mom. I don’t mean to make this harder on you,” and after a moment’s pause, she began again with a cheerier voice. “And anyway, you and Dad will be closer to Devin and me now, and you’ll get to see Ella more often.”

“Exactly, Honey. This can be a good thing,” her mother answered bravely.

“Ella will be happy to see her grandma more often, that’s for sure,” smiled Roberta as she spoke. After a few more minutes of falsely cheery talk about Ella’s toys and diapers, Roberta hung up the phone.

The tears began streaming out of Roberta’s eyes even as she collected herself and began to work again. She would cry on and off for days, but eventually, she learned how to cherish the memories of the big house and reconcile herself to the reality of losing it. At least, she always comforted herself, Ella’s happy that her grandma can babysit her sometimes.

In The Spirit of The Gilmore Girls

I don’t know how many of you out there are aware of the TV show “The Gilmore Girls” and I also don’t know whether or not it had as much hype surrounding it in its native country as it did here. I think every single one of my girlfriends watched and loved it at a certain time in their high school years.

My mother and I are not to be excluded from the GG fan base! Oh no, we watched it religiously whenever it was on, and rejoiced at the time when the reruns were on every day and we got to giggle at the excellent script and sigh at the love affairs and family dramas. The odd thing about looking back at that time is that my mother and I, though on good terms in comparison with many a mother and daughter of the day, were not nearly as close as we are now.

Now, she and I, the two girls in the house with only our cats to keep us company, are close. We’re very close, I should think. I cannot express how much it means to me to be able to consider my mother as a friend and confidante, and I love our evening routine of dinner and a movie together. I hope against hope, though it’s quite a foreign thought to me as of yet, that I manage to have such a good relationship with my children as my parents had with me.

Move [Part VIII]

Marianne was afraid for the first time in days. That is to say, she was consciously afraid – her muscles, whether she knew it or not, had been clenched in a sort of animal fear ever since she had first woken up in that cold steel room. But this was different. Marianne had gotten used to the routine of this place, these facilities in which she acted as lab-rat. Her mind was constantly ticking away and her plan was slowly forming during those short spans of time when she knew she wasn’t monitored as closely.

She was unprepared, therefore, for what was currently taking place. She had come to think of Miss Flanders as a scientist; pure, precise and utterly ruthless when it came to her experiments, one of which was Marianne, Adept [for she had been promoted from Novice apparently] #824. Marianne wasn’t ready for Miss Flanders to come into her room, sit down, and try to chat with her.

When Miss Flanders had entered, Marianne froze in what she had been doing. A panic that she had been discovered rose in her, for she had just been making her usual rounds of the room, jogging, trying to see if she could detect any more cameras in there. She jogged so as to have excuse in case she was asked what she was doing, taking rounds and rounds of the room as she did – exercise, she would reply. She promptly forgot this excuse, however, as the fear of Miss Flanders’ entrance erupted in her mind.

Miss Flanders didn’t ask a thing about what Marianne was doing. She didn’t speak for several minutes, but just sat down on the vacant bed in the room and stared politely at Marianne. Marianne couldn’t help noticing that Miss Flanders’ pupils were very wide, so her eyes looked blacker than ever. She also detected a strange smell about the woman, though she couldn’t explain what it was.

When Miss Flanders opened her mouth and asked Marianne the question, in a false, bubbly voice, Marianne knew that things were only going to get worse from now on, and she had to sit down on her bed to stop her legs from buckling completely.

“So, Marianne, what’s your mom like?” Miss Flanders asked.

“Wh-why? Why are you asking that?” Marianne was thinking furiously, trying to figure out what was happening here. She guessed by now how the Set worked, and she was chilled to her very bone at the thought of what they might do to her mother.

“Oh, I just want to know what you think of her. I mean, dear, all our other volunteer subjects talk about their families all the time,” Miss Flanders’ cheery voice was somehow much scarier than her normal, deep, musical and threatening voice. “You, however, seem rather quiet on the subject. You haven’t, for instance, asked to go home since those first few days.”

“Your OTHER volunteer subject? Meaning you think I’ve volunteered for this?” Marianne tried to take the subject away from her mother, but wasn’t sure whether or not Miss Flanders would see through this.

“Yes, you did. You applied, you got accepted, you signed the papers. Now, what about your mother?”

Marianne gulped. She knew that what was coming wouldn’t be a pleasant interview. She’d lie as well as she could, tell Miss Flanders that she absolutely loathed her mother, tell her whatever it took to try and convince her of that. She knew the truth though. She knew that they were planning something to do with her mother. As she lied fluidly to Miss Flanders, Marianne was speed-thinking, trying to figure out her plan and how she could carry it out quicker than she had intended. She resolved, as Miss Flanders raised her eyebrows in disbelief at Marianne’s lies, to begin practicing.

I’ll practice every night if I have to, she thought to herself. We’ll see how they like a taste of defiance soon enough.

Miracle Baking

The sky was iron grey all day long, and the wind was sandy and much too warm for a January afternoon. The air was strangely silent as well, as if all the voices in the world were stifled, waiting for something to happen, something to erupt. If this were hurricane or tornado country, or even commonly quaky, I’d say that it was as if everyone was waiting for one of those natural disasters to occur.

And yet, it seemed that the air began to thaw, the sky literally brightened and became blue for a few moments before the sun set and it turned a brilliant pink and red. The reason seemed to be an oven, in an apartment, on the fourth floor of a building. In that oven sat a trey of chocolate chip cookies, baking slowly, spreading warmth and a smell so mouth watering that you could stand a mile away and salivate.

Never underestimate the power of a cookie to make everything seem better – even the weather.