Secret for a Song (10 page)

D
r.
Daniels was the iconoclastic upper middle class American: short, stout to the
point of irony, and prone to exuberant proclamations intended to show patients
how chummy he was. None of that “I’m your doctor, not your friend” bedside
manner for Dr. Daniels. He was every man’s companion, every woman’s confidante.

I
distrusted him intensely.

When
Mum and I walked in to his elegant waiting room (with jazz playing from the
speakers, and a Koi pond decorating the middle of the space), he was talking to
his receptionist, guffawing loudly, probably at some joke he’d just made. This
time of morning, he had no other patients waiting.

When
he heard us come in, he turned, his rounded cheeks pink with mirth.

“Sarita!”
he called, coming over to envelop her in a hug. His lab coat barely fit around
his massive girth. “And Saylor!” He leaned forward as if to extend the warm
welcome to me, but I stepped back. Dr. Daniels let his arms fall back to his
sides without missing a beat. “What can I do for the two loveliest ladies in Ridgeland?”

I
resisted the urge to roll my eyes at his obvious ass-kissing while Mum, in a
discreet whisper, told him that I had an “issue” we wanted him to take a look
at.

For
as long as I could remember, this was the way it always went when I got sick.
Mum brought me here, and in the manner of somebody saying her three-year-old
had had a toilet training accident, proceeded to tell Dr. Daniels or his
assistant that I needed to be checked out. I was never allowed to come by
myself, presumably because I might over-inflate the issue or bring shame to the
family name in some way. Were they worried I might be seized by a sudden urge
to take off all my clothes and jump in the Koi pond to swim with the fish? I
wasn’t sure. I just knew I was guarded closely in Dr. Daniels’s office because
his clientele was one that mattered to my father and his business of twisting
the truth.

The
last time I’d been in to the clinic had been over six months ago, when I’d
contracted bronchitis as a commuter freshman. And yes, it had been on purpose.

My
dad had come down with it first, and I made it a point to pick out his used
tissues from the trash. It’s not important what I did with them. The point is I
did get sick. It was really an ingenious plan because my parents couldn’t say
for certain that I’d done it on purpose. After all, how often does only one
person in a household ever get sick? Families usually catch everything from
each other.

I
didn’t take any medication for my cough and sore throat, and eventually it got
so bad that my lungs filled with fluid and my fever topped out at 104 degrees.
When I came in here, I was on the verge of pneumonia. Dr. Daniels had actually been
concerned—I’d seen that telltale spark in his eyes, so different from his usual
wary weariness.

I
hopped up on the examination table while my mother sat in a chair and watched.

“So
let’s have a look, shall we?” Dr. Daniels said, washing his hands briskly at
the sink. As he pulled on a pair of gloves, I took off my big jacket and
unzipped my hoodie.

“Oh
my,” Dr. Daniels said, peering at the cluster of abscesses hanging from my skin
like diseased grapes. “Those are rather inflamed. How’d this happen?”

I
looked down at his bald, shiny head, reflecting the lights from above, and
shrugged. “Don’t know.”

“Hmm.”
He straightened up, his face reddened from the increased blood flow. He snapped
off the gloves and heaved them into the trash with a flourish, like he was
playing basketball. Pushing his glasses up on the greasy bridge of his nose, he
said, “We’re going to have to do a puncture aspiration on these; basically lance
and drain them. And you’ll have to take care of them at home after that,
packing them with gauze and washing the site regularly.”

I
saw Mum shifting in her seat, uncomfortable with the medical talk. You’d think
nineteen years with me would’ve helped her squeamishness a bit.

Dr.
Daniels turned to his tray table and began to pick out the supplies he’d need
to exorcize me of my illness du jour: a pack of sterile gauze, rubbing alcohol,
cotton swabs, and, ironically, a syringe much like the one I used to create the
abscesses in the first place.

“I
think I’ll wait outside,” Mum said, gathering up her coat. Her face was a shade
paler than usual.

It
might’ve pleased me that she was so affected by the suggestion of my pain, but
I knew from past experience that she simply had a disdain for bodily fluids of
any kind.

I
was a few months shy of ten when I started my period—long before any other
girls my age I knew. I’d awoken that morning with a stomach cramp like nothing
I’d ever felt before. The area right above my pubic bone felt like someone had
reached in, grabbed my uterus in a vice-like grip, and squeezed to see what
would come out. The results were all over the crotch of my panties and in a
neat little circle on my sheets.

After
panic had washed over me, I’d felt a sort of righteous joy settle in. It was
poetic justice, wasn’t it, that I, Saylor Grayson, maker-upper of diseased
yarns, would die of something bloody and extremely painful. Que sera sera, I
thought to myself as I floated downstairs, rivulets of blood trickling slowly down
my legs. Mum will cry and wish she’d been more tolerant of my predilection to
getting sick, but it’ll be too late. They’ll find a tumor as big as my hand
nestled behind my pubic bone.

I
tried to hide the smile on my face as I showed her the blood-soaked cotton of
my panties; pointed to the stains on my inner thighs. But she didn’t break down
in tears. Her expression, if anything, was what you might expect from someone
who’d discovered a dead mouse under their floorboards.

“That’s
your period,” she’d said, straightening up and away. “Don’t you remember we talked
about this last summer?”

Now
that she mentioned it, I did remember. I’d hung on to every detail, and had
checked my underwear every day for the next week. But then other things had
caught my attention. To a nine-year-old, last summer might as well be last
millennium.  

I’d
trudged back upstairs and cleaned up my sheets. Washed my underwear and myself.
Asked for a pad, wore it like a diaper with maximum disdain. Mum had me take
each used pad outside to the garbage can instead of just wrapping and tossing
it in our trash. Apparently my menstrual blood was just that disgusting. She
insisted she did the same, but I didn’t believe it.

When
she was gone, Dr. Daniels chuckled. “A delicate Indian flower, your mother.”

I
didn’t say anything.

As
he picked up a packet to get a needle for his syringe, he glanced at me. “Take
your hoodie and shirt off all the way, please.”

I
stared at him, but he kept his head down. The clock ticked. The packet ripped.
“Can I get a gown?”

He
gestured to the shelf. “Take your pick.” Then, very deliberately, he closed the
curtain between us to give me privacy, as if he was going to do that the whole
time.

When
I was disrobed and had only a thin hospital gown covering my skin, I opened the
curtain again. Dr. Daniels stepped toward me with a cotton ball. “I’m going to
numb the area first.”

 The
procedure was quick, and in spite of the anesthetic, painful. Dr. Daniels used
a scalpel to make little slits in the abscesses. What drained out looked like a
mixture of curdled milk and cheese. I watched in fascination as he packed the
abscess cavity with gauze and applied a thick bandage over the whole thing.

Once
it was over, Dr. Daniels peeled off his gloves, his mouth hovering just shy of
a smirk. “Bet you won’t be doing that again.” Did he think the pain of the
procedure made any difference to people like me? But I didn’t say anything.
“What’d you do, inject feces into your skin?”

Again,
I stayed silent. Since I’d hit puberty, Dr. Daniels and I had this strange
thing going on. I didn’t know what it was—he’d hit on me or make some awkward
motion to, I’d rebuff him, and then he’d get cold/sarcastic/try to hurt me. I’d
never mentioned it to anyone because, come on. Talk about an easy way out for
the shrinks.

Oh,
so
that’s
why Saylor’s so fucked up: Sexual abuse. Of course! It all
makes sense now. Let’s talk about how Dr. Daniels stunted your sexual growth by
targeting your body at such a critical age. Let’s talk about how hurting
yourself makes it possible for you to get attention for something besides your
sexuality. Blah, blah, blah. No, thank you. Besides, the dude had never abused
me. It never went past insinuations and lame-ass attempts to see me naked or
topless or whatever. I preferred not to think about it.

Once
I was back in my shirt and hoodie, I drew the curtain back again so I could
leave. But Dr. Daniels raised a hand to stop me.

“Uh
uh uh,” he said, his mouth spreading out in a grin. “Aren’t you forgetting
something?” With a flourish, he pulled out a green sucker from his lab coat
pocket and handed it to me. “For being such a good girl today.”

I
took it without a smile. “Thanks.”

“You’re
welcome, sweetheart.” He patted me on the back, his hand absently rubbing the
hook-and-eye closure of my bra under my hoodie.

I
twisted my shoulder a bit to get his hand off and jumped off the table. I
grabbed the door handle and swung the door open.

“Can
we go now?” I said to Mum, who was right outside on a chair.

She
nodded and stood, turning to thank Dr. Daniels. I tossed the sucker in the
trash and headed out toward the waiting room.

I
hung out by the Koi pond to discourage the receptionist from talking to me. The
fish came up to me, their tails wiggling furiously, almost as if they were
wagging them. I’d heard people say you could pet Koi, that they were actually
affectionate, but all I felt was a slight revulsion as I looked at their
bulging eyes and gasping lips. One of the fish hung back from the rest of his
buddies, smaller and not as brightly-colored. He had a small boil on his side.
I wondered if he was sick.

“Hey.”

It
was Carson, his wheelchair about two feet away. I hadn’t seen him. “Oh, hey.”
My palms were sweaty; my thoughts hovering, panicked, around how I’d explain
who Carson was to Mum without giving away that we’d met in a support group.

“You
okay?” Carson asked. Then he shrugged. “Well, you know, considering.”

At
first I thought he could see my anxiety, but then I realized he was asking
because we were at a doctor’s office. I smiled; my skin under the bandage
throbbed. “Yeah, fine. Just a routine visit. You?”

He
shrugged. “I’ll live. For now.”

I
laughed, just a little. Mum still hadn’t come out. “That’s good to know. Um,
will you be at Sphinx tonight? To see Drew play?”

Carson
shook his head. “I’m not usually up to late nights anymore, unfortunately. Wish
I didn’t have to miss it, though. I don’t know how much longer he’s going to be
able to do that, you know?”

I
thought of Drew, fumbling the CD. I hadn’t added two and two, that the loss of
hand coordination meant he’d have to stop playing guitar. Like every other
healthy person probably did, I fumbled mentally for something positive to say,
as if one positive would completely eradicate the gravity of what Carson had
just said. “Well, if he can’t play the guitar, at least he’ll still be able to sing.”

Carson
looked at me for a long, silent moment. I wondered if he was thinking that I
didn’t seem authentic enough for a person who’d been diagnosed with MS. I
wondered if he could see straight through me, like a pane of glass, to the
center of my rotten core. But then he said, “That’s the thing about FA. It
takes your voice, too. Slurred speech is another side effect, like compromised balance
and coordination.” He shook his head. “It’s the worst possible disease that a
musician could’ve got. So fucked up.”

The
interior door opened. I saw Mum paying the receptionist in my peripheral vision,
and knew I needed to bail. “Yeah,” I said, my mind distractedly playing with
what Carson had just said. “I have to go, but I’ll see you later.”

I
walked out into the snow to wait for Mum.

A
t
six p.m. on Wednesday night, I headed downstairs to check out the dinner
situation. Dinner was always an exercise in nonverbal communication at our
house. I called it the Dinner Code.

Situation
#1 of the Dinner Code was as follows: Mum was pleased (which happened on the
rare occasions that Dad deemed it necessary to eat with us). She’d set out the
nice linens and have a meal ready to go at the table a la Pollyanna. Situation
#2 of the Dinner Code was less idyllic. Mum was in her usual nihilistic, “my
family’s the bane of my existence” mood, which meant I had to fend for myself. Situation
#3 of the Dinner Code was becoming more and more common. In this final
situation, Mum was in her fantasy “I don’t have a family; I’m single and happy”
state of denial and usually wasn’t even home around dinnertime.

As
I crossed the den, I heard my dad in the kitchen.

“Noah
Preston? What did he want?”

“I
don’t know,” Mum replied, her voice distant, as if she was turned away. She was
probably working on her dollhouse as she spoke to him. Tonight was likely
situation #2 in the Dinner Code. “He just said to tell you he’d been trying to
get in touch with you for the past week.”

“Christ,
I know that. There’s a reason I haven’t answered his fucking calls. How the
hell did Preston get our home number?”

“I
don’t know. And there’s no reason to curse, Victor.” A pause. “Have you said
hello to Saylor since you got home?”

“Give
me a break. It’s only been about an hour and she’s nineteen. No
nineteen-year-old waits with bated breath for her dad to come home from a
business trip.”

A
brief silence.

“You
could ask her about those abscesses.”

“If
she said she had nothing to do with it, I’m inclined to believe her.”

My
mother let out a snort.

“Do
you always have to be so fucking cynical?”

I
hurried into the kitchen, making sure my slippers made all the noise in the
world on the wood floors. My parents stopped talking. When I walked in, my dad
was watching the doorway expectantly, a smile plastered on his face. “Hey, hon!
How’s my beautiful girl?”

“Hi,
Daddy.” I walked to the fridge, opened it, and got out a bowl of pre-made
salad. “When did you get home?”

“Just
walked in the door,” he said without skipping a beat. Mum didn’t look up from
her dollhouse. “What are you up to tonight?”

“I’m
going to listen to a friend play at a bar.” I dished out some salad into a bowl
and waited for him to ask me more. But there was only silence. He didn’t want
to know; asking was just a formality. I should’ve definitely known this by now.

I’d
learned shortly after my grandma left that Dad didn’t
really
care. He
was only gentle with me because it was easier than having me cry about him
being mean, like I did with my mum when she disciplined me. He bought me things
because the “ooh, shiny” effect kept me busy and away from prying into his
life.   

Once,
in first or second grade, we’d all made cards for our fathers at school. It was
right before summer break, so I guess it must’ve been in lieu of Father’s Day.
I chose black construction paper because I knew my dad liked non-girly colors
like that. I’d folded my card carefully along the middle, and applied a lot of
glitter glue to my drawing because glitter glue was the ultimate way to say “I
love you” back then.

The
teacher had set our cards on a wire rack to dry when this little asshole named
Johnny who ate his boogers and thought I was too weird to have a right to exist
went and ripped up my card. The teacher had promptly sent him to the
principal’s office, and had promised me she’d send a note home with me
explaining what had happened so my dad wouldn’t feel left out. I told her I
didn’t want the note. What I wanted, instead, was to make my dad another card.
Since there wasn’t enough time for me to make another one during class period,
I had to stay in during recess. I didn’t care; it was totally worth it to me.

I
waited all afternoon and half the evening out on the front porch for my dad to
come home. When he did, I produced my card with a flourish. He’d spent about
half a second looking at it, thanked me with a big grin, and then we went
inside to eat dinner. When I came out the next morning to go to school, I saw
that he’d left the card on the rocker on the front porch. It had rained in the
night, and the card was soaked through. The glitter glue had washed completely away.
When I tried to pick it up to take it inside and dry it, it ripped. 

“A
musician,” Mum said, setting her paintbrush down. She stood up too quickly, and
her bar stool fell over with a thunderous crash. She didn’t even notice. “Not a
very reliable career, is it?” She went over to the sink and began to wash her
hands, oblivious to how much her dismissive tone cut at me.

My
dad stared at her, a murderous look on his face.
Christ, Sarita. Don’t rock
the boat, for fuck’s sake.
But when he turned to me, he was smiling again.
“Have fun, sweetheart. I’ll be in my study if you need me.”

I
lifted my hand in a goodbye as he walked past me and out the kitchen. “Music
isn’t unreliable. And it’s not a waste of time, because I know that’s what
you’re thinking,” I said to Mum. “Not as much a waste of time, anyway, as
painting dollhouses for no reason.”

She
turned to me, a smirk on her face. “Is that so? You’re utterly knowledgeable,
aren’t you, on all the ways of the world?”

We
stared at each other until, finally, she sighed and stuck her paintbrush into a
little pot of water, which turned a cloudy white. Brushing past me, Mum grabbed
a bottle of water out of the fridge. “I’m going out.”

After
dinner, I sat in front of the TV in the den, watching whatever was on. I didn’t
bother to turn on the lights since I’d be leaving soon anyway. I was aware of a
laugh track, dramatic music, and then a car commercial, but not much else. I
played absently with the bandages on my chest. Dr. Daniels had told me to change
them often to encourage healing, but I wasn’t in any hurry for that.

At
seven-thirty, my phone vibrated. It was a text from Zee.

Will
be a bit early. Is that okay?

Yes,
I texted back, my
fingers flying over the keys.
Completely okay.