Continued from Sunday, November 2
The turning signal clicked several times as we slowed to make a left-hand turn. We passed Andersons’ house. I remembered how the night my mother had Brennan, as Dad, Tara and I were driving home from the hospital our car stalled and we had to go to their house to use the phone. I smiled as an image resurfaced of Tara, just a week short of her fourth birthday, and I, barely six years old, had been crying. Why? Were we scared? Tired? Emotionally overwhelmed? I couldn’t remember.
The Monday after I had informed my mom of my symptoms, she picked me up from Nicole’s where we were playing Monopoly yet again. “I made you an appointment. It’ll only take a few minutes.” I relayed the message to Nicole, promising to be back in less than thirty minutes.
“Don’t pick up the game,” I instructed. I later found out the little shoe and silver dog sat on Park Place and Free Parking for days, and Nicole had cried when her mother suggested it was time for the game to be picked up.
An hour after being picked up, I listened to my mom on the phone while I sat immobile on the couch with my arms around the dog. “Sandi? It’s April. Can Nicole come over and watch Tara and Brennan until my parents arrive to take the kids to their cabin for the weekend?” Her voice lowered and I pressed my face into the loose, soft skin around the dog’s collar. I whispered the news into Jessie’s ear to drown out the telephone conversation. Jessie licked my hand, then squirmed to get away.
My mom’s voice cut through my thoughts. “Do you want to listen to the radio?”
I nodded my assent. It was too quiet. Tears were beginning to prick at the back of my eyes. To hold them off, I thought of Nicole’s arrival ten minutes after the phone call. Her arrival was accompanied by an indescribable expression on her face, one I didn’t understand, for twelve-year-olds rarely understand abstract ideas like unconditional love and “when you hurt, I hurt”, but one I’ll never forget; it’s been burned into my heart.
The tears were now threatening to run over, so I shook my head and focused out the window instead. Alice’s rabbit was chasing a giant corn cob in the clouds. A rainstorm of bugs splattered the front windshield. Rows of beans melted into stalks of corn. Speed limit 55 mph; Ames 41 miles. A giant billboard shouted child abuse happens more than we know. A black and orange sign promoted the Iowa Workforce Center, the daytime home of my father.
“Dad’s gonna meet us directly at the hospital. He should be there by the time we get there.” She was reading my thoughts.
Forty-one miles, forty miles, thirty-nine, thirty-eight. Impatience to get there battled with anxiety of what I would find when I did arrive. Anxiety won.
I pulled my knees up to my chest and looked down. I had started wearing mascara that summer and now little black spindly spider legs were painted on my knees, left over from the doctor’s office. The doctor had said, “Her blood sugar is 489. She’s diabetic.” And with those two little sentences he confirmed every mother’s worst fear: something wrong with their child. I had been paralyzed—hadn’t known what to do, so I had pulled my legs up and rested my eyes on them. Then it seemed appropriate to cry, but that was really too much effort and I had stopped after about ten seconds. Ironically, now I couldn’t seem to stop myself from crying and would continue to do so for the next ten or twelve weeks.
In the days, weeks, and months to come my dad would become my personal moral booster. He would encouragingly whisper, shout, or cry, “Kick it in the butt!” (“it”—being the problem du jour—ranging from my health to schoolwork to a cranky attitude). But right then, I had no mantra. I had nothing but the knowledge my life would change—and I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.
I licked my thumb and wiped the spiders away, one leg at a time. Kick it in the butt. One day at a time.
God, I thought, if you change this now I promise to stop wearing mascara. I’m not a grown-up. I thought I was, but I was wrong. I’ll never fight with my siblings again. I’ll be more responsible with Jessie. I’ll—
No more, I told myself firmly.
I laid my head back down on the seat and examined the footprints on the dashboard, probably left over from Tara. She was gonna be in big trouble when Dad saw those.
Twenty-nine miles, twenty-eight, twenty-seven.
So I had diabetes, huh? Well, big deal. So that meant I had to take shots twice a day. For the rest of my life? … My brain searched frantically for a response to that disturbing news. Well, if my grandma did it, then so could I. And so what if I couldn’t eat sugar ever again!
Wait. Ever?
Oh dear.
To be continued...
