You Shouldn't Have to Say Goodbye (3 page)

When practice was finally over, Robin and Julia and I slowly walked home together. We were all pooped and we hardly spoke, just waved bye to one another at the corner.

When I got in, it was already almost dark. I opened the door and shouted, “Hi, Mom!”

There was no answer.

“Mom?” I went to her office door and listened, but there was no sound of voices and no typewriter. I knocked lightly, then opened the door. Sometimes Mom's using a tape recorder, or a dictaphone, or something with ear plugs, so she doesn’t hear me call. But no Mom in her office.

“Hey, Mom?” I shouted.

“Honey? Sarah, is that you?”

I bounded up the stairs. “Hi, Mom.”

“I’m in here, honey.” Her voice came from the bedroom.

I went into her room and stopped, surprised. Mom's never in bed in the daytime! She was dressed, but lying down, and the blinds were drawn as though it were night. “What's the matter? You have a headache?”

“I don’t know. I don’t feel well at all. ” Mom struggled to a sitting position. She patted the bed beside her and I sat down,
beginning to be worried. “I don’t know what it is, ” Mom said when I sat down, and she sounded worried too. “I’ve talked to the doctor, though, and to Daddy. Daddy's on his way home. As soon as he gets here, I’m going to the hospital.”

“The hospital! For a headache?” My heart was thumping hard. “Why?”

“It's not a headache, Sarah. It's something else. See, there was blood today. And this soreness and ache in my back and side.” She shifted uncomfortably in bed, then put a hand out to the quilt, trying to pull it up around her. “And I have a fever. I’m burning up and shivering at the same time.” She didn’t look at me.

I turned to the window, blinking fast, because I felt as though I were going to cry. I’m not a baby. I know mothers get sick. But I was scared.

“So what are they going to do at the hospital?” I asked, still without looking at her.

“Don’t know.” Mom sighed. “But Dr. Kelly said we’d better run some tests immediately and find out what's wrong. That's why he wants me in the hospital, even though it's almost night.”

“But…” I couldn’t continue.

“Hey!” Mom reached out and pulled me close. “Stop sounding so worried. It's going to be all right.”

“You sure?”

Mom smiled a little, then put on a fake frown and spoke in this really deep voice. “I—am—sure!” She sounded like one of those voices you hear on TV, coming out of the sky.

I couldn’t help smiling. “Really?”

She nodded, but she looked worried, and she sounded worried when she spoke again. “I hope so.” She held me close. “Now, if you don’t give me a love right this very minute, I’m going to get up out of this bed and beat you up.”

I smiled into her shoulder and put my arms around her. I started to squeeze her hard, and then I remembered how I had hurt her Saturday. So I held her and hugged her gently, but what I really wanted was for her to hug
me
, to hold
me
, to tell me that everything was all right, because somehow, I was afraid it wasn’t.

I
T WAS WEIRD, WAKING UP THE NEXT MORNING WITH DADDY sitting on my bed instead of Mom. “Hey, Punkin,” he said. “Wake up.” He brushed my hair away from my face and kissed my ear. “Up and at it!”

“Go away,” I muttered, rolling over and sticking my head under the pillow the way I usually do. I hate mornings, that day even more so, without Mom there.

“Come on.” Daddy got off the bed then, and I could hear him pulling up the blinds. He started humming softly. “Morning has broken…”

“Go away,” I growled again. I couldn’t imagine anybody singing in the morning. Even Mom knew that.

He went right on singing.

“Dad-
dy
!” I pulled the pillow tight around my ears, trying to shut him out.

“Come on, Punkin,” he said again. “It's seven-thirty.”

“What!” At that I sat straight up, pulling the sheet with me to keep covered. “Seven-thirty? Mom wakes me up at seven o’clock! I’m going to be late.” I glared at him. He should know what time I wake up.

He just ruffled my hair and turned to the door. “Get dressed
and don’t be such a grouch. I’m taking you out to breakfast, and then I’ll drive you to school. You’ll have plenty of time.”

“O-kay!” I
jumped out of bed and flew into my clothes. I love going out to breakfast, and Daddy takes me lots of times, but always on Saturdays, never on school days. I was dressed and ready in record time, partly because I was hurrying so, but also because I skipped my regular chores, making my bed and collecting laundry. I hate collecting laundry, and Mom is always bugging me about it. Since she wasn’t there, though, she couldn’t mind, and Daddy didn’t seem to know that there were things I was supposed to do.

When we got to the diner, I ordered my usual Saturday morning breakfast—bacon and eggs
and
pancakes, with orange juice and hot chocolate. Neither of us had said anything about Mom yet, and I had the feeling that Daddy was avoiding it. When the waitress brought Daddy's coffee and my hot chocolate, we sipped quietly for a minute, but after a while, Daddy looked at me over the rim of his cup. “What's on your schedule today?” he asked.

“School,” I answered. I meant to be funny, but Daddy answered me seriously.

“I know, honey, but what's happening at school today?”

I sighed. “Algebra quiz at nine; gymnastics practice after school. Nothing else much. Oh, yeah, soccer practice too. Five o’clock.”

“How's the gymnastics going?”

I put down my hot chocolate and poked at the marshmallow, pretending I was drowning it. Why was Daddy asking me about
gymnastics? It seemed weird, because that's what Mom and I always talked about. I mean, Mom helped me like a coach, and Daddy helped me with the soccer. I looked up, and Daddy was still watching me, waiting as if he really wanted to hear. “It's going pretty well,” I answered.

“And algebra?”

“That's good too,” I said. “Getting mostly A's.”

“That's good. You’re a smart girl, Sarah.”

I nodded, but I looked away. Mom always told me that, and I wanted to talk about Mom now, but it was as if we had a silent agreement of some sort to talk about everything else. I drowned my marshmallow again, then looked up. “What's on your schedule today?” I asked.

“I’m going to spend the day with Mom at the hospital.”

“You’re not going to work?” I was surprised.

“No, not today. Mom's having some tests done, and I think she’d like it if I were there. Besides, then I’ll get a chance to talk to the doctors too, and see what's going on.”

I felt relieved then. We’d know by that night what was wrong, and now that Daddy had brought it up, I felt free to ask. “What's wrong with Mom? What are they testing for?”

Daddy was stirring his coffee, and he didn’t look up. “Oh, I don’t know exactly, Sarah. You know Dr. Kelly. He's so cautious. I think he's going to test Mom for everything he can think of.”

“What's everything?”

“Here,” Daddy said, looking up at the waitress who was approaching. “Here's our food.” He pushed his coffee cup aside,
making room for his plate, but he didn’t answer my question. I kept watching him for a minute, thinking he would, but he didn’t look back, and I didn’t want to ask again.

I began to eat, but I kept glancing up at Daddy every so often. He looked good, handsome even, all dressed up in his suit, white shirt, and tie. Usually when we went there on Saturdays, he was in tennis clothes or old work clothes, but dressed up, he was really handsome. I looked around the diner to see if anyone was noticing us, and when I saw a woman watching me, I smiled. Then I turned back and ate my breakfast.

After we both had finished, Daddy paid the bill and drove me to school. When he dropped me off, he kissed me. “See you, honey,” he said.

“See you, Daddy. Please tell Mom I love her and—you know.”

Daddy smiled. “Surely will.”

“Oh!” Suddenly I remembered something. “Lunch money! I don’t have my lunch money.”

Daddy reached into his pocket. “How much do you get?”

He didn’t know how much lunch cost every day? “A dollar,” I answered.

“It costs a whole dollar for lunch?”

“It's sixty-five cents, and sometimes I get an ice cream. I usually have change left,” I explained quietly.

“Okay.” Daddy nodded and handed me the money, then began fumbling with his key chain, trying to get a key off. “You have to get in the house this afternoon!”

“Daddy, I have a key.”

“Oh. Okay.” He looked at me awkwardly for a minute. “See you, honey.”

“See you, Daddy. ” I felt awkward too, and sat there, half out of the car, just looking at him. “Bye,” I said finally.

“Bye.”

I slammed the car door, and as I did, I saw Daddy reach over and switch on the radio.

The rest of the day I was restless. Although the algebra test was hard, it felt good to concentrate. I could forget for a while about Mom and what was happening at the hospital. Most of the day was lousy, though, and I decided not to tell anyone except Robin that Mom was in the hospital. I’m not sure why I decided that, unless it was because I felt that if I didn’t tell, no one would ask me what was wrong, and I wouldn’t have to wonder myself. When I told Robin, she looked a little worried, but then she shrugged and said everything would probably be all right. Besides, she said, grownups got sick all the time.

After gymnastics practice, I went home and let myself into the house. It was silent and weird feeling. There was no sign that anybody had been there all day. Mom's usual pot of coffee wasn’t on the stove. My sneakers were still on the kitchen floor, where I had left them the night before. The only sounds were the ticking of the clock, and the quiet hum of the refrigerator. I opened the refrigerator and poked around inside, then went to the bread drawer and got out some bread and put it in the toaster. But I wasn’t even sure I was hungry. I looked at the clock. Ten to four. A whole hour till soccer practice. I could call Robin
just to talk, but she’d think I was weird, wanting to talk when we’d just left each other five minutes before.

I went to the window. No one outside, no kids, no joggers, not even a dog. For some reason, it reminded me of a day when I was very little and had gotten lost in a playground, but I didn’t know why I remembered that just then.

I turned away from the window, suddenly fighting back tears. The toast had popped, and I took it out. Cold! I stuffed it down the disposal, reached for a tissue from a box on the counter—and then jumped about a foot because the phone rang, practically in my ear.

I grabbed it, my heart pounding. “Hello?”

“Okay!” the voice said. “How's THE KID?”

“Mom! How are you?”

“Not bad. Not great, but not bad. How was your algebra test?”

“A breeze! Bet I got an A! ”

“Good girl! And gymnastics?”

“It wasn’t bad. A short practice because of soccer. Robin and I worked on the ropes. I’m getting calluses on my hands.”

Mom giggled. “I’m getting calluses on my rear end from sitting in this bed.”

“When are you coming home?”

“I don’t know yet, but I told Dr. Kelly I’m going home tomorrow, ready or not. I can’t stand this place.”

“Oh, Mom, are you really coming home tomorrow?”

“Well, maybe, but no promises. He may want more tests.”

“What did he find? Does he know what's the matter?”

“Not yet. It takes time, Sarah. You know that. I had a bunch of tests done today, but some of them take a while to get the results back. As soon as I know, believe me, you’ll know, and I’ll get out of here. It won’t be long.”

“Promise? Because I miss you.” It was the first time I had said it out loud.

“I miss you too, honey. Is Daddy there?”

“Daddy? No.”

“Well, he will be in a minute. He left here about fifteen minutes ago so you wouldn’t be home alone.”

“Oh, that's all right. I don’t mind,” I lied.

“Okay,” Mom said. “Now I’m going to call you lots because I miss you lots. And take down my number so you can call me.”

“Wait a minute.” I scrambled for the chalk and went to the little blackboard that hangs on the kitchen wall and wrote down the number.

“Got to go now,” Mom said. “There's somebody here to take me away for more tests, and I feel like a pincushion already. Now, Daddy will be there in a little while, okay? I’ll see you in just a day or so.”

“Okay, Mom. Bye.” I hung up, went back to the drawer, got out more bread, and put it in the toaster. Daddy was on his way home. Mom would be home tomorrow. Suddenly I was starved.