I didn’t sleep much the month my father was in jail. Worry kept me awake—I worried he wasn’t getting enough to eat or taking the kind of medicine he needed to get well. I worried the anger in his eyes when the officer took him away would be the last expression I ever saw on his face. I worried there was nothing I could do to make him forgive me.
My mother didn’t want to talk about him. If she was worried, it didn’t show. She went to work and I went to school and when we were at home, we both pretended it had always been this way. Just she and I, sitting at the dinner table. She and I, watching Mork and Mindy reruns. My mother and I, just trying to get by on our own. The problem was I didn’t want her to be okay with just getting by. I didn’t want her to get comfortable with my father being gone. I also didn’t want her to get upset, as she always did, when my father came home. I felt protective of and angry at them both, but mostly, I felt scared.
At night, after my mom had gone to bed, I allowed thoughts of my father to come to me. I remembered the time I was seven years old and my mom was gone for the week at an accounting conference. My dad kept me out of school and drove us four hours to Ocean Shores just so he could teach me to find the Big Dipper in the night sky.
“The stars are clearer at the ocean,” he said. “You can’t see them as well in the city because of all the lights.” We were huddled on the sand beneath a thin blanket he had stuffed beneath the backseat of his car. I was still in my pajamas—he hadn’t thought about dressing me in something warmer.
“What’s that one, Daddy?” I asked him, pointing up at the biggest, brightest star I saw. It flashed and I imagined it was winking at me.
He peered up, leaning over to see where I was pointing. “Ah, the North Star. Sailors used it to guide them on their voyages, honey. It was the map they used to find their way home.”
“Oh.” I believed my father, not having any reason to doubt he knew the name of every star in the sky. I couldn’t fathom his not having the answer to any question I had.
Could he see the stars in jail? I wondered. Did they have a place outside where my father could stand and breathe fresh air and look up at the night sky? Or was he always trapped in a cell, caged in like the animals at the zoo? I imagined him pacing like a tiger, tight and lean, his blue eyes like lasers, targeting his prey. Were there doctors in jail? I wondered. I had no way to find out. If only he would come home, Mom would forgive him like she always forgave him and I would find a way to make him understand why I’d done what I did.
As the days passed, I fed the idea that when he got out, my father just needed to find the right doctor. Someone who would help him figure out how he could get well. He’d always complained the doctors in the hospital didn’t listen to him, so after school one afternoon I walked to the public clinic my mother sometimes took me to when I was sick. The doctors there were nice, so I figured if I just got in to see one, I could find out if they’d be able to help my dad get better.
Having something to do after school was better than going home and spending the afternoon alone, as I had been doing while my father was gone. My mother couldn’t afford a sitter and old Mrs. Worthington across the street said she’d keep an eye out for intruders but she didn’t have the energy to watch me. The silence in the house was paralyzing; every creak of the floor or bird flapping against the window shot anxiety through my bones. There weren’t enough locks in the world to make me feel safe.
“Hi,” I said to the receptionist when I arrived at the clinic. “I need to see a doctor. A nice one.”
The receptionist, a skinny girl with carrot-colored curls and a turned-up freckled nose, looked up from her computer and snapped her gum. “All our doctors are nice. Have you been here before?”
“Yes. With my mom. My name is Eden West.”
“Where’s your mom now, sweetie?” She peeked over my shoulder and scanned the waiting area, which only had a couple of other people in it.
“She’s still at work.” It suddenly hit me that they might not let me talk to a doctor without my mother there. “She’s on her way, though. She told me to go ahead and get in for the appointment and she would meet me here.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
I could tell she was suspicious and I wasn’t used to handling all these questions from grown-ups. Usually my mom took care of this kind of thing. “I’ve been having stomachaches. Bad ones.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Lots of diarrhea. And gas.” It was a little alarming how easily the lies slid off my tongue.
The receptionist managed to keep her composure, but I saw her nose twitch with distaste. She looked back at her computer screen, typed a little, and then smiled at me with closed lips before speaking. “Dr. Adams isn’t in today, but Dr. Vick can see you in a few minutes. I assume you have the same insurance company?”
“Yes.” I had no idea if this was true, but I figured I’d find a way to sort it out later if it became an issue.
“Go ahead and have a seat and I’ll call your name when it’s time.”
“Thank you,” I said primly. “And where’s the bathroom?” I dropped my chin to my chest. “You know. Just in case?”
“Through the door on your right.” She turned back to her work, happy to be rid of me, I supposed.
I sat in a peach-colored plastic chair and set my backpack on the linoleum floor. The old man sitting across from me had his arm bent at the elbow and held his head in one hand. His eyes were closed. A chubby blond woman was curled up on the only couch in the room. She was pale and breathing fast. I wondered if I might catch something while I sat there. Maybe if I got sick, they’d let my dad out of jail early and he’d come home. If I was sick, he couldn’t be mad at me. He would sit at my bedside and read to me, like he’d done when I was seven and had strep throat. He made me homemade Popsicles out of a mixture of orange juice and 7-UP and fed me chocolate milkshakes for breakfast. Getting sick was a brilliant idea. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? And where better to pick up germs than at the doctor’s?
I glanced around the room, careful that no one was watching me as I rubbed my hands on the seat next to me. Someone sick had to have sat there today. Maybe they sneezed and left me their germs. I licked my fingers.
“Eden West?” A door had opened and a nurse called out my name. The receptionist stood up and whispered something in the nurse’s ear. The nurse nodded slowly, both of them looking at me with a concerned expression. Good. She thought I was really sick.
“Right here,” I said, and I stood up, grabbed my backpack, and followed her through the doorway and down the hall into an examination room.
“Climb on up.” She motioned for me to get on the exam table. I dropped my bag down and did as she asked. “You know what, Eden? I forgot I need to make a quick phone call. Can you excuse me a minute? I’ll be right back.”
I nodded. “Okay.” She left the room and was gone just a couple of minutes. Was she calling my mom? Was I going to get in trouble?
When she came back, she shut the door behind her, smiled, and stood right next to me. If she had called my mom, wouldn’t she have said so? Instead, she put her hand on the top of my thigh and something about the tenderness in her touch made me want to cry.
“So, tell me what’s been going on with you, Eden.”
“I have stomachaches.” I hoped the tremor in my voice made the lie sound more convincing.
“I see. When do you get them?”
“All day. All the time. But after I eat, especially.” I tried to think of all the times in my life I’d suffered from stomach pains and what had caused them.
“After you eat anything in particular?”
I shook my head. “Not really.”
“Do you vomit?”
I made a face. “No.”
“Diarrhea?”
I nodded. “Yes. Lots.” I figured lots of diarrhea was a significant enough symptom to convince her I had something wrong with me. “And gas,” I added helpfully.
“Okay, well, let’s take your temperature and blood pressure, and Dr. Vick will be in to talk with you.” She set the glass thermometer underneath my tongue and wrapped the blood pressure sleeve around my arm. I swung my legs back and forth, as though I were on a swing, anxious for this part to be over with so I could talk with the doctor about my dad.
“All done!” the nurse announced. “I’ll go check to see if your mom has made it yet, and Dr. Vick will be right in, okay, sweetie?”
“Okay. Thank you.” She closed the door behind her and I let my eyes wander over the tiny room. There were posters on the wall instructing you on how to cover your mouth with the inside of your elbow when you coughed instead of with your hand. I thought about how many sick people might have been in this room that day, so I hopped off the exam table and went to the sink and rubbed my fingers over the faucet, then licked them again. The sooner I got sick, the sooner my dad would come home.
There was a sharp rap on the door and the doctor entered. I tucked my hands into the front pockets of my jeans and ducked my head down. Dr. Vick was a heavy man with wide-set brown eyes and enormous black eyebrows. His scalp shone beneath the fluorescent lights.
“Eden?” he inquired.
I nodded and hopped back onto the exam table. The white paper crinkled beneath my butt. He sat down on a cushioned stool with wheels and pushed himself over next to me. It felt strange to be looking down on a grown-up. And a doctor, to boot.
“I’m Dr. Vick,” he said. “I know you usually see Dr. Adams, but he isn’t working today.” He smiled. “I hear you’re having stomachaches.”
“And diarrhea.”
He nodded, a serious expression on his face. “Why don’t you lie down and I’ll see if I can find out what’s going on?”
I complied and found myself staring up at a poster on the ceiling with a picture of a kitten hanging precariously from a branch with the words hang in there, baby! emblazoned across the bottom. I wondered if the photographer had pushed the kitten off the branch in order to snap the picture. How else would he have captured that moment, unless he was the one who made it happen?
Dr. Vick pushed himself up off the stool and stood next to the exam table. “Can you take a deep breath for me?” he asked. “And hold it for a minute?”
I inhaled and my stomach rose up like a balloon was trapped inside it. Dr. Vick pressed gently with his fingers, wiggling and moving them around my abdomen. I convulsed and blew the air out when he pushed a particularly sensitive spot next to my ribs.
“Uh-oh,” he said, pulling his hands back. “Did that hurt?”
“No. It tickled.”
He smiled. “Oops. Sorry. You can sit up now.”
I did, and he sat back down on his stool. He made a few notes in his chart before speaking again. “So, I don’t feel anything wrong right off the bat,” he said. “Is there a time of day that it gets worse?”
I hesitated a minute, unsure how much longer I should be pretending I had something wrong with me when I was really here to talk about what Dr. Vick might be able to do to help my dad. I needed to get home before my mom got off work and I was wasting valuable time.
“It sometimes gets bad at night. But I think that might just be because I miss my dad.”
Dr. Vick tilted his head and gave a little frown. “And where is your dad?”
“Well, he got in trouble. And so now he’s in jail.” I didn’t like the look on Dr. Vick’s face so I rushed to explain. “But it’s only for a month and it isn’t his fault. He has something wrong in his brain that makes him do wrong things sometimes. He doesn’t mean it.”
The doctor looked concerned. “What kind of wrong things are we talking about, Eden? Does he hurt you?”
“No!” I didn’t like where this conversation was going, so I tried to start it over. “My dad is wonderful. He’s an artist and just feels things a lot more deeply than most people. At least, that’s what my mom says. He just gets either really good or really bad moods.”
Dr. Vick nodded. “I see. Does he go to the doctor for this issue? Does he have medicine?”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Well, that’s why I’m here, actually.”
Understanding blossomed on the doctor’s face. “You aren’t having stomachaches?”
I dropped my eyes to the floor and shook my head. “No. I’m sorry. I just needed to talk to a doctor who can help my dad get better. If you could just give him a medicine that doesn’t make him feel so awful and change his personality like the one he usually takes, he would take it and everything would be okay.” I paused and looked back up at Dr. Vick. “Do you have that kind of medicine?”
He sighed, a quiet sound. “I’m not a psychiatrist, Eden. And even if I were, I couldn’t give you medicine to give to your dad. You should know your mother will be here any minute.”
“What?” I asked, a panicky feeling in my stomach.
“Yes.” He stood up. “The nurse called her when you first got here. She asked that we keep you occupied until she arrived.”
“No, please!” I jumped down and grabbed his arm. “I just want you to tell me what I can do to help my dad get better. When he gets home. Please? I need you to help me.”
Dr. Vick reached over with his free hand and placed it on top of mine. His eyes were kind. “Eden, I understand how hard it must be to have your dad struggle with his moods like this. But there’s nothing you can do to fix him. Sometimes people get sick and there’s nothing anyone can do to make them get well.”
“I don’t believe you.” My bottom lip trembled. “You’re a doctor. It’s your job to make people get better.”
“That is my job. But I can’t fix what’s wrong with your dad. I don’t know if anyone can.”
“Please help me,” I said, the tears rolling down my cheeks. “I don’t know what else to do. If he doesn’t get well, my mom might make him go away.”
Dr. Vick carefully extricated himself from my grasp and handed me a few tissues from the box on the counter. I took them and blew my nose hard, probably sending all the germs I’d worked so hard to ingest right back out of my body. I’d never get sick now. My daddy wouldn’t come home.
“You can stay in here for a few minutes,” he said.
I didn’t answer him, instead kept my eyes to the floor. This was pointless. Doctors are supposed to help people and all he’s going to do is get me in trouble. The nurse came in a moment later with a glass of water I didn’t want to drink.
“Your mom is on her way,” she said. She put her arm around my shoulders. “Let’s have you sit in the waiting room until she gets here, okay?”
I shrugged. I didn’t care. I let her lead me wherever she wanted me to go.
My mom showed up in less than fifteen minutes, rushing into the waiting room like she was being chased. She threw her eyes around the room until she found me. “Eden! What were you thinking?”
I didn’t answer. I stood up and grabbed my backpack. “Can we just go home?”
She sighed and hugged me. I stood straight and motionless in her arms. She kissed the top of my head. “You can’t save him, honey. You know that, right? There’s nothing either one of us can do.”
I looked up at her. “You’re giving up.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But only because he gave up first.”
