please?
I study her face—
lower lip bitten bloody, eyes glazed over.
I’ve said all the wrong things
and she’s totally shut down.
Maybe
we’re too differentafter all
too far away
from one another’s realities.
Sure. Let’s go.
Lemme just
get these off.
I lean over to remove
my skateshiding
the disappointment on my face.
Thanks,
Lyric says
already walking
away from me
toward the exit.
And those are the last words
we speak to one another.
The drive back to her apartment is
silent and full of ice.
CHAPTER 9Lyric
LIP OF THE DAY: Creature
It’s a week or so after my eighth birthday and I have a fever of 103. Grammy Viv is volunteer chaperoning a fifth-grade lock-in at the school she works at. It’s just me and Mom tonight at her house. Instead of a trip to the hospital, Mom puts every sweater we own on my body, and then wraps me in three blankets for the night. Mom doesn’t believe in meds—of any kind—but she’s got an arsenal of home remedies she’s read about on the internet to keep us safe. “You need to sweat the fever out, Lyric. Then you’ll feel better. I don’t trust these white doctors to help you.” I am delirious, my whole body heavy and slick. I fall in and out of rough sleep while Mom paces around, in and out of the kitchen from which she occasionally emerges and makes me open my mouth for a paste or tincture. My tea set lies on the living room floor, where I’ve leftit meticulously organized, and at some point, I fever-dream that the little cups and milk and sugar jug turn into talking friends, just like inBeauty and the Beast, and I giggle at their little plastic faces in my mind. What I remember of what happens next is foggy, but either way, it hurts. Either way, it’s the beginning of the end. After a long night into the early morning, my fever is still above 100. Mom has fallen asleep by my side, snoring lightly in my ear. I don’t register it as snoring at first, more like purring, the sounds a delighted cat might make while sitting by a warm fire during a snowstorm. I try to snuggle closer to her—Mom still and cuddly is rare; she’s usually all flash and movement, hard to pin down. My head is a rush of pain as soon as I shift, and then everything goes black, I lose consciousness and become an earthquake of a girl—a body full of shift and grumble and strain. When I come to seconds later, Mom is slapping my cheeks, yelling: “Lyric! Lyric, baby! Look at me, shit! Focus your eyes on me, baby.” My eyesight is fuzzy, but I’m in my body again, even if it is limp with the aftershock of what I later find out was a seizure. Then Mom is carrying me into Grandma’s small pink bathroom. She puts me into the tub and turns on the freezing-cold tap. I start to cry, it’s so icy, my whole system shocked into a splintering pain. I am eight, but I might as well be a toddler having a tantrum. I howl, and scream, and kick my heavy legs as Mom holds me down, yelling to stay still and be brave. And this is how Grammy Viv finds us, drenched in sweat and frigid water, me howling and Mom pinning me, trying to break the fever but breaking me instead. Grammy Viv doesn’t say a word. She pulls Mom off with a force I’ve never seen before, and then guides me out of the tub. She wraps me in every clean towel she can find, and then makes the call. The ambulance is there in minutes, and even though Mom is sobbing and pacing and yelling, it’s Grammy Viv who rides with me to the emergency room. It’s Grammy Viv who stays with me as they treat my severe dehydration. It’s Grammy Viv who brings me home hours later, and tucks me into her bed. It’s Grammy Viv who stays by my side the next couple of days, makingsure I get lots of fluids, take my meds. It’s Grammy Viv who’s still there when I finally recover.
I’m hoping that some of the footage from the ice rink is salvageable, but as I scan through the files early Thursday morning, I can see that we really didn’t get one single moment from last night that I can use or send to the brand. My stupid anger shut things down before we could even snap any still photos, so I’m out of luck there as well.
“Ugh!” I groan into my pillows.
“That you, Lyric? You up? Lemme make you some cinnamon toast before school.” I hear Grammy Viv slowly moving in the kitchen. Toast is about the only thing she can still make on her own, but even still, I get worried she’ll burn herself pulling the bread out.
