Mister Tubby

Shiny walls and shiny people.  Auntie’s hands, shiny from washing them.

-Don’t touch, she says.  Because I like to touch everything.

A squeezing of gel in my hands.

-Rub, she says.

I rub hard until the gel disappears.  It smells sharp.

-Stop scratching so much.

-But I’m itchy.

-That doesn’t matter.

Itchy, plaid dress.  Blue plaid.  Hate blue.  Hate the stockings because they wriggle around my knees.  Auntie says: Sunday best!  But it’s silly because Mama says there’s no such thing, and that I’m happier in play clothes; I don’t blink so much.  Nervous habit.

-Why are you doing that with your eyes?

-They itch.

-Why does everything itch today?

Auntie doesn’t understand things.  Mama says she was like that when she was a girl, always too busy in the head.  Mama says Auntie had big thoughts.  Sometimes big is small.

-Where’s the dog?

-It’s not a dog.  It’s a bear.

-Did you leave it in the bathroom?

-No.

Mister Tubby is in my bag.  I call him Tubby because he’s plump.  I don’t tell Auntie this, though, because she won’t like it.  She says I shouldn’t call people names because of how they look.  She says this whenever I call Rayme Stinky.  I try to tell her that Stinky has nothing to do with looks – because you can’t look stinky, but you can smell stinky.  She says it’s the same thing – and that all babies are stinky sometimes.  So, I don’t say Mister Tubby’s name in front of her.  Even though he’s a stuffed bear and not a person.

-It needs to be washed.  Has mom ever washed it?

-I don’t want him washed.  The smell will change.

-But the germs – the bacteria!  Very bad for you.

Auntie looks tight like a rope.  Her blouse goes all the way up to her chin and her hair is pulled back – the way Mama does my hair for school pictures.  I think she must be very uncomfortable.

The man with the grizzly beard comes for Auntie.  They talk in whispers in a corner away from the light.  I watch Auntie’s hands.  They are moving the same way Mama’s hands move when she paints.  I told Mama this one day.  I said: Auntie paint-talks.  Mama laughed.  I think you might be right.

When Auntie comes back, she is smiling like the doll Grandma used to keep in the glass case.  Except Auntie’s teeth have lipstick on them.

-We’re going to see mom now.

I think it’s about time.  We’ve been waiting so long I forgot to eat lunch.  Or maybe Auntie forgot to remind me.

I follow Auntie past the swinging doors.  We walk a long way and then we turn and get into an elevator.  When the elevator stops, Auntie peeks out and tells me to wait.  I’m afraid the elevator door will close, but Auntie has one foot in the elevator and one foot out.

-O.K., she says, Run!

I don’t know why I’m running, but I run very fast until the big desk with the papers and coffee cups disappear.  Then we are walking again, but Auntie is walking very fast and because she is holding my hand, I am skip-walking to keep up.  She keeps turning to look for the desk.

-What’s wrong? I ask

-You’re not allowed on this floor.

-I’m not?

-No.  The nice doctor downstairs is doing us a favor – so you have to be quiet.  O.K.?

-Why can’t I be on this floor?

-Because they’re afraid you’ll get sick.  That you’ll catch it.

-What mama has?

-Yes.  But you can’t catch it like this.  Don’t worry.

-Only if she sneezes on me?

-Not even then.

Auntie stops for a moment.  She pulls me into a nook.

-You can’t even catch it with kisses.  O.K.?

It’s the first time Auntie isn’t worried about germs.

Mama is smiling when I get there, but she isn’t.  And she lets me sit right next to her on the bed.  It is a hard bed, but she is softer.  Not as soft as she usually is, though.

-My girl, she says.

She pets me and kisses my cheek, and her kisses are long and wet – not plucky like they usually are.  I keep wiping my cheek and Auntie keeps wiping her eyes.  I whisper to Mama that Mister Tubby is in a bag downstairs.  She tells Auntie to get him, and Auntie gives her a look but goes anyway.

When Auntie is gone for ten seconds, I squish my head into mama’s body, right near her heart.

-You’re beating fast, I say.

-That’s because my heart is happy to see you.

Silly!  Hearts can’t see.  Can they? 

Mama scoops me up.

-I have to go away, she says.

-For how long?

-A long time baby.

-Where are you going?

-The same place Snowball went.

-In the ground?

-That was just his body.  His spirit went somewhere special.

-Can I come?

-One day.  Not yet.

-I don’t want you to go.

-I know.

-I’ll miss you.

-I’ll still be with you.  In different ways.

-Different ways?

-Yes.  When you laugh.  And dream.  When you’re sad I’ll wrap my arms around you just the way I’m doing right now.

-Will I see you?

-In memories. 

-I don’t know.

Mama stops talking for a minute and her breathing sounds scruffy.  Her fingers are tickling my arm.  Long, skinny fingers like mine – except hers didn’t used to be skinny.

-How would you like to live with Auntie?

-No.

-Why not?

-She won’t let me eat ice cream on the couch.

-Well – that’s not so bad.  You can eat ice cream in the kitchen.

-She wants to wash Mister Tubby.

-Maybe that’s not such a bad idea.

-She can’t wash him!

I want to hear Mama’s laugh-hiccups, because they chase her in her sleep and they tick-tock like the clock on my classroom wall.  I want to be in my old bed, looking at the stars on the ceiling.  Mama put them there so I wouldn’t hear the train.  I said to her: But I can still hear the train.  She said: That’s because you’re listening.  One night, you’ll be so busy looking at the stars that you’ll forget about the train.  I think she was right. 

-I’ll tell Auntie not to wash Mister Tubby.

-She won’t listen.

Mama lifts my chin until I am looking her right in the eyes; dark eyes, squinty – like the way they were that time the doorbell rang, and we had to hide in the bathroom because we couldn’t pay the rent.

-Auntie will not wash Mister Tubby.  I promise.

Auntie’s feet are clicking in the hall.  She walks in with Mister Tubby, but she is holding him far away from her body – the way she held me in a picture I saw once.  I go to take him but Mama grabs him first.  She squeezes him so tight that his head looks funny.

-Don’t hurt him! I say.  But I’m really just angry that Auntie is back.

I am in the shiny room waiting for Auntie again.  She told me not to talk to anyone and not to leave my spot unless I have to go to the restroom – and to make sure I put paper on the toilet seat before I sit. 

I swing my legs fifty times.  I have a staring contest with a woman in a white suit.  She writes with a red pen and sometimes she puts the pen behind her ear.  She has a lot of teeth.  White - like her suit.  I know this because she smiles every time she loses the staring contest.  When she smiles, I think of Mama – because Mama used to smile so much and so big that Auntie said if she didn’t cool it, she’d get lines in her face.

Once, I heard Auntie ask Mama why she’s always so happy.  Mama said: Because I want to be.  Auntie groaned – but Mama didn’t stop smiling.  Mama says smiles and happiness go hand in hand.  You can’t have one without the other.  Sometimes I believe her.

Mister Tubby is sitting on the chair next to me.  I tell him he’s being very good, but then I think the woman in the white suit is watching me, and that maybe I look silly – like a baby.  Because I know Mister Tubby can’t answer me, but I like talking to him anyway.

Maybe it will be that way with Mama.

I decide I don’t care what the woman thinks, and I lift Mister Tubby up and kiss him. His fur is soft and prickly at the same time, and I see buttercups and twinkling lights and music notes. 

Auntie comes back and sits beside me.  She hands me a warm, scratchy cup.

-What is it?

-Cocoa.

She puts her arm around my shoulder.  At first it feels stiff.  Then, it becomes rubbery.

-You can sleep in Rayme’s room if you want.  With her.

-Rayme’s a baby.

-I know.  You don’t have to.  You can have your own room.

Stinky will probably cry all night and keep me up. Maybe I’ll have to rock her – the way Mama used to rock me.  Mama said I couldn’t relax any other way.  She said I was testy.

-I guess I could stay in Rayme’s room.  Just for a little while.

-I think she would like that.

Auntie looks droopy in the eyes, and I want to tell her to smile, but she never liked it when Mama said it, so I don’t.  But maybe I will later.

-How’s Mister Tubby? she asks.

I look at her face.  She doesn’t seem angry about the name.

-Guess what? I say.

-What?

-Mister Tubby smells just like Mama now.