“Yes,” he said. “You can call Mommy from the car.”
Something must have shown in his face, then, because Zoe said, “Dad? Do you feel bad?”
“Oh…I don’t know. A little, I guess. How about you?”
She nodded. “Some, expecially at first. But now it’s okay. Because one thing about Mommy, is you have to know something. You have to be careful. She is very gentle.”
Griffin stood still for a moment, trying to think what she might mean, keeping himself from correcting her expecially. Finally, he said, “Do you mean, she’s very fragile?”
Zoe pursed her lips, thinking. Then she said. “Yes. But also she is very gentle, too.”
“…Right,” he said, and started to close the door. He stopped when he heard Zoe call him.
“Why do girls play dolls?”
“Why? Well, because they like it. It’s kind of for them what baseball is to you. And also, I guess it’s practicing, for when they have babies.”
“How do they know they’ll have babies?”
“Well, they don’t. But they…assume they will.”
“I’m not.”
“All right.”
“But…Dad?” She scratched at her neck, sighed. “Could we play one game of doll tonight?”
“Yes. Yes, we can. As soon as we get home.” He would not think of telling her he had no idea how. For the next several weeks, he would know how to do everything. That would be his job, to show her that.
“So now what?” Zoe asked. The Barbie doll had been dug out from under a mountain of toys in Zoe’s closet, and she had been dressed in a shimmering apricot-colored evening gown.
“So now…she goes out,” Griffin said.
“Where?”
He leaned back against the side of Zoe’s bed. It was hard to sit cross-legged on the floor anymore; he was getting old. “To a nightclub.”
“What for?”
“Well, to dance with Ken.”
“I don’t have Ken.”
“Do you want to ask for him for Christmas?”
She thought for a while, her chin resting on her knee. She smelled of soap and shampoo, was dressed in her pajamas, though the hour was early, only seven. She’d wanted to get ready for bed before they watched A League of Their Own— again—but first she’d wanted to ‘play doll.’”
“If I get Ken, does it take away something else?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like do I get him instead of something else?”
“No. I think you would get him in addition to other things.”
“Oh.”
“Should I put him on your Christmas list?”
She lay on her back, sighed. “No. He’s boring.” She held the Barbie doll high over her head. “I can see up her skirt.”
“Well.”
“Want to see?”
“No thanks. What do you say we watch the movie?”
“Okay.” There was some regret in her voice.
“If you want to keep playing doll, I will.”
“No. It’s nothing to it.”
“There’s nothing to it.”
She stood, stashed the doll in her top dresser drawer. “That’s what I said.” And then, “Uh oh.”
“What?”
“I think Amos is dead.”
Griffin got up and came over to the cage. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know. But before, you could find him, because he’d be moving all around. I think he’s dead.”
Griffin pushed gently at the shavings, looked carefully. “I don’t see him. I think he escaped.”
“No,” Zoe said. “He didn’t.” She put the cage on the floor, knelt beside it, and poked around. Then, “Yeah, there he is. He’s dead.” She put the cage back on the dresser, turned around and burst into tears. “I fed him, and he wouldn’t eat!”
“I know you did, Zoe. You took really good care of him.”
“He’s so stupid!”
“Come here, Zoe.”
“No.”
“Come here.” She came to him and put her arms around his neck, sobbed against his shoulder.
“It’s okay,” Griffin whispered. He rubbed Zoe’s back, gently outlined her shoulder blades, her small vertebrae. He closed his eyes, rocked her.
“I miss Mommy.”
And now in his own eyes, the prickle of tears. “I know you do, sweetheart.”
“Why did she go?”
“Well, I think she tried to tell us both today. What did she say when you talked to her tonight?”
“That she would see me tomorrow. She’s coming to get me tomorrow and we’re going somewhere special, that’s all she said.”
“Do you know where?”
“No.”
“Well, tomorrow is pretty soon, isn’t it?”
She rubbed at her eyes. “…Yes.”
“Only a few hours away, right?”
“Yes.”
He leaned in, spoke to her nose to nose. “Soooooo…” He kissed her forehead. “So should we watch the movie and eat some beef jerky?”
“I gotta bury Amos.”
“I think the ground’s a bit hard, Zoe.”
“So what should I do?”
“Well…”
“We could flush him. He’d dead, I guess he won’t care.”
“True.”
She got the cage and brought it into the bathroom, Griffin close behind her. Then she dropped the still form of the ant into the toilet. “Rest in peace, amen,” she said, and flushed the toilet. She stood silent for a while, then turned around.
“I guess I won’t find any more ants for a while.”
“I’m surprised you found this one.”
“He was in the house. In my room. Mommy really hated him. Dad? Can we get a puppy?”
“Maybe sometime. But not just yet.”
“You always say that.”
“I suppose.”
“Dad?” Her face serious now. “Do you think Amos starved to death?”
“No. I think he died of old age. I don’t think you had anything to do with his death. I think he ate when you weren’t looking. I think he liked living with you very much, and that he died of old age.”
“Yeah,” Zoe said. “He did like me. I know that.”
They put the cage back in Zoe’s closet, and then he took her by the hand to lead her somewhere else.
Chapter 16
Sunday evening, they were eating dinner when Ellen called. Griffin had told Zoe she could have anything she wanted. The menu was buttered noodles, sweet pickles, and ice cream sundaes for dessert with whipped cream from the can—no restrictions on the amount used, Zoe added firmly, and made Griffin promise. She was in a hurry to finish the noodles so that she could get to the ice cream, was putting them down at an alarming rate, and Griffin had just said “Slow down so you don’t choke!” when the phone rang. Zoe answered it, talked briefly to Ellen, then handed the phone to Griffin.
“How’s she doing?” Ellen asked.
“Pretty good.” He watched Zoe reload her fork and finish off the noodles.
“She sounded a little sad.”
“No. I don’t think so. We’re getting ready to make ice cream sundaes—we just finished dinner.”
“Oh, yeah? What did you have?”
Griffin hesitated. Maybe he should make up a basic-four-food-groups menu. But what the hell. “Noodles and pickles,” he said. “Sweet pickles.”
Silence.
“Hello?” he said.
“That’s all?”
“Yeah. Zoe got to pick what she wanted.”
“Maybe you should make a little salad. She likes the raspberry vinaigrette in the fridge. And maybe a little cheese.”
Griffin said nothing, nodded yes to Zoe about getting out the ice cream.
“Griffin?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you make her a salad or something?”
“She had pickles,” Griffin said, and then, “Listen, we’re pretty bu
sy around here. Going to see how much whipped cream will fit on a bowl of ice cream.”
“On a sundae,” Zoe said, loudly. “We’re going to have ice cream sundaes. Why? Because it’s Sunday!”
“She sounds good,” Ellen said, and there was some wistfulness in it. No. He would not tell her to come over.
“Gotta go,” he said, and hung up.
He took two bowls from the cupboard. Was Ellen alone? “Ready to make your masterpiece?” he asked Zoe. Probably she was in her apartment, curled up on some secondhand piece of furniture, smiling up at Struts. “You want hot fudge?” he asked Zoe, and she nodded with her whole upper torso. “And two other toppings, too, Dad, I want three!”
“All right, let’s see if we have that many.” Want to go out for dinner? Ellen would say. And he would say, Let’s order in.
“We do have that many!” Zoe said. “Remember? We just got them at Jewel when we went! We got strawberry and caramel and hot fudge!” She went to the refrigerator and pulled the jars out, dropping one in the process. “It’s okay,” she said, quickly picking it up. “It’s not broken.”
Griffin handed Zoe the ice cream and a serving spoon. “Knock yourself out,” he told her.
“Really? Like I can do anything and you won’t say anything?”
“That’s what I promised.” It was someone else whom Ellen would wake up to, someone else who would see her tousled hair in the morning. Someone else would comfort her if she had a nightmare, someone else—
“Dad!”
“Yeah?”
“Watch!” Zoe loaded her bowl with ice cream, then poured the first of three toppings over it.
“Hold on a minute,” Griffin said.
“No fair! You said!”
“I just want to put a plate under that,” he said. “It’s going to drip all over the place.
Griffin watched Zoe put on more topping, then nuts, then a six-inch pile of whipped cream. And then, as the ice cream tower began falling over, he grabbed the mixing bowl. When the sundae had been safely transferred into the larger vessel, he watched as Zoe put a cherry delicately on top. It was like putting a half-inch bow on a hippo’s head.
“Do we have any film?” Zoe asked.
He hesitated, asked gently, “You want to show Mommy?”
“No. I want it for my room, by my bed. And to bring to school!”
Griffin got the camera, took a close-up of Zoe’s creation, already melting, and then watched as she knelt on her chair and began eating it. “They have contests with these things,” she said. “There’s an ice cream parlor that makes big ones like this and if you eat it all, you get a prize. Can I get a prize if I eat all this?”
“I think maybe this is the prize,” Griffin said.
“Please? Just, like, one dollar?”
“All right.”
“Yes!” She shoveled huge mouthfuls of ice cream into her mouth.
“Zoe.”
She looked up.
“Not so fast.”
She swallowed. “It’s a contest, Dad! You have to eat fast!”
“There’s no one you’re racing.”
“Uh huh!” She took another huge mouthful. “The clock!”
He sat at the kitchen table with her, reading the sports page, until she said, “Finished, Dad.”
The bowl was empty. He looked at her, amazed.
“I don’t feel too good.” She undid her pants button. “I think I ate too much.”
“Well, I guess so.”
“My stomach hurts.”
“Zoe, you should have stopped. You must have eaten half a gallon of ice cream!”
“It was a contest! I had to—Wait. I think I have to throw up.”
Griffin stood, alarmed. “Do you have to? Do you think you’re going to?”
Zoe held up her hand. “Take it easy, Dad. I’m not going to do it here.” She sat back in her chair, uttered a very soft oh, and vomited all over herself and the floor.
She looked up at Griffin. “Sorry.”
Griffin sighed, headed for the mop and bucket. “Get out of those clothes. Just leave them here. Go wash up and put on your pajamas.”
“It was a accident!” Zoe said.
“An accident,” Griffin said wearily.
“Yes!”
“Go and change.” It always made him feel a little sick, too, when he had to clean up after someone this way. When he was in elementary school, where someone seemed always to be getting sick, he used to feel sympathetic waves of nausea. Once, he had thrown up on the classroom floor moments after another child had, sending the second-grade teacher into a tizzy and thrilling the rest of his classmates. Soon afterward, he and Cynthia Mayfield, the pretty little blond girl whom Griffin told everyone he loved, were lying side by side on cots in the nurse’s office, waiting for their mothers to come and take them home.
“You’re not even sick,” Cynthia had said. “You just want to go home.”
It was true. Griffin liked it when he was ill and his mother let him lie in her bed. It had a wide expanse, compared to Griffin’s twin-sized mattress. It had four pillows and a comforting smell to the linens that was a blend of his mother and his father. There was a comforter with a silky blue cover, and Griffin used to punch it down to make valleys in which he hid his plastic soldiers from the enemy. His mother would make chicken soup and bring it to Griffin on a tray. She would play Chinese checkers and hangman with him, and she felt his forehead frequently, which he loved: he could smell her perfume and hear the jingle of the charm bracelet she never removed. His father would call to check up on him, and his mother would talk in a low, concerned voice, and Griffin would strain to hear all the he, he, he’s. He compared notes with Ellen once; all she would say was that her parents were “not that way.”
After Griffin cleaned up, he went into Zoe’s room and found her lying on her bed in her underwear, reading, the bill of her baseball cap pulled low over her forehead. “I thought I told you to get ready for bed,” he said.
She pointed to a pair of pajamas, lying on the floor.
“You might think about putting them on.”
“I will.” She kept reading.
Griffin pulled the book from her hands. “Now.”
“Jeez! Crabby! I can’t help it if I got sick!”
“Zoe, I am not angry at you for getting sick. I just want you to get ready for bed. You have school tomorrow.”
“I know it! I’m the one who goes, not you!”
The phone rang, and Griffin said, “I’ll be right back, and when I do, you’d better be ready.” Ellen again.
“Okay! You don’t have to yell.”
“I’m not yelling.”
“Are too.”
“THIS IS YELLING! YOU SEE THE DIFFERENCE?”
She stared at him, and Griffin, embarrassed, left her room and went to answer the phone. He’d tell Ellen to stop her damn calling; she was making everything worse.
But it was not Ellen on the phone; it was Donna, asking if he was ready to start work tomorrow.
“Oh, God,” he said, flopping down on the bed. “Is it tomorrow?”
“You forgot?”
“No, I…” He got up to close the door, then sat at the edge of the bed. “It’s just…Ellen moved out today, so it’s a little chaotic around here.”
“Oh, Griffin, I’m so sorry. I’ll get someone else.”
“You don’t have to. I’ll do it. I want to; I just forgot for the moment. Listen, can I call you back?”
“Of course. Take your time; I’ll be up late.”
Griffin went back to Zoe’s room. She was in bed, the lights out. He sat down on the bed beside her. “Zoe, I’m sorry I yelled at you. I really am.”
Silence.
“Did you brush your teeth?”
“Yes, way before, because my mouth tasted gross.”
“Okay, so you’re all set then? Ready to go to sleep?”
“I guess.” Her voice was so small.
“You okay, Zoe?”<
br />
She was quiet for a long time. Griffin watched her bending her panda’s ear back and forth. Finally, “I kind of miss Mommy a little. What is she doing right now?”
“Well, I’ll bet she’s missing you, too.”
“Is she sad?”
“I think…a little, maybe, because when you miss someone, you feel sad, right? But I also think she’s kind of happy.”
Zoe looked at him. “Why?”
“Because she’s going to see you tomorrow.”
“Dad? But we’re staying here, right?”
“We are.”
“One thing is, I do not want to move.”
“We will not.”
“Okay. Can I have a drink?”
When Griffin came back, Zoe’s eyes were closed. He set the water on her nightstand without a sound. Of course she wasn’t really asleep yet. But he, too, needed to pretend she was.
Back in his own bedroom, Griffin pulled a pillow over his face. The absolute darkness was comforting, even the slight suffocation. He pulled the pillow closer to his face, then closer, then flung it off. He picked up the phone to call Donna, but then put the receiver back in the cradle. Maybe he should tell her to find someone else. Maybe he shouldn’t be doing something that would take him away from the house so often. But then what would he do every night? Sit around the house, pretending not to care that she was gone? No. He liked kids; he needed the diversion; he had said that he would do it.
He dialed Donna’s number, and she answered on the first ring.
“Hi,” he said. “It’s Santa. Are you being good?”
“Oh, Griffin, how are you?”
“I’m all right. It’s probably better this way. It was getting too tense, us both being here.”
“I know what that’s like. But listen, if you do need some time, and you want me—”
“No. Thank you. I’m fine, really.” He looked out the window, at the branches moving in the wind that had just picked up dramatically. Did Ellen have a good blanket over there?
“How’s your daughter doing?”
“She’s fine, she seems to be just fine. Ellen told her she was just going away to think about some things, and that she’d be back.”