All Fall Down: A Novel (15 page)

“Tell me the story of the night I was born.” Asking someone with memory loss to tell you a story, to remember something on cue, was risky . . . but this was one of my father’s favorites, one I’d heard him tell dozens of times, including but not limited to each of my birthdays. Maybe he would talk for a while, and I could sit quietly, catching my breath, maybe sneaking a pill in the ladies’ room before we left.

He took a bite of his sandwich, dabbed at his lips, and began the way he always did: “It was a dark and stormy night.” I smiled as he went on. “It was three days after your mother’s due date.
We lived on the fourth floor of an old Victorian at Thirty-Eighth and Clark. I was a starving graduate student, and she was . . .” He paused, his eyes losing focus, his features softening, his face flushed, looking younger than he had in years, more like the father I remembered, as I mouthed the next five words along with him. “Your mother was so pretty.” We smiled at each other, then he continued. “When she started having contractions, we weren’t worried. First babies can take a while, and we were maybe ten blocks from the hospital. Her bag was packed, and I’d memorized the numbers for two different cab companies. She had one contraction and then, ten minutes later, another one. Then one more five minutes after that, then one two minutes after that . . .” He used his hands as he told the story—how my mother’s labor progressed faster than they had expected, how by the time they got down to the street to wait for the cab, rain was lashing the streets and the wind was bending the trees practically in half, and the mayor and the governor were on the radio, telling people to stay inside, to stay home unless they absolutely had to leave. “I was ninety percent sure you were going to be born in the back of a taxicab,” my father said.

He got every detail, every nuance of the story right—the way the cab smelled of incense and curry, the driver’s unflappable calm, how he’d left my mother’s little plaid suitcase on the sidewalk in front of our house in his haste to get my mom in the cab, and how one of the neighbors had retrieved it when the rain stopped, dried each item of clothing, and brought it over the next day.

“Did you want more kids?” I asked him. All these years of wondering, and I’d finally gotten up the nerve to ask. He waited until the waiter had cleared our plates and taken our orders for two cups of coffee and one slice of buttermilk chocolate cake, and patted his lips with his napkin again before saying, “It
wasn’t meant to be. We had you, and then your mother had her trouble . . .”

“What trouble?” I asked, half my mind on his answer, the other half on my sandwich. He probably meant the Accident. That was the only trouble I’d ever heard about.

He pushed the salt and pepper shakers across the table like chess pieces and did not answer.

“Was I a hard baby?” I asked. Had I been like Ellie, shrieky and picky and inclined toward misery? Again, no answer from Dad. I knew, of course, how overwhelming a baby could be, and I suspected that in addition to feeling like a newborn’s demands were more than she could handle, my mother had also felt isolated. It couldn’t have been easy, I thought, and pictured Little Ronnie, her flawless skin suddenly mottled with stretch marks, her beauty sleep disrupted, all alone in the apartment and, eventually, in the big house my father had bought her. Who had she gone to with her questions and concerns? I’d had friends, a pricy lactation consultant, and the leader of the playgroup I attended, who had a degree in early childhood development. I’d had Janet, and my own mom, and even the Indomitable Doreen. My mother had no one. Her own mother had died before I was born, and as a teenage bride and young mother, she hadn’t yet formed bonds with the types of women I’d come to know. She had only my father . . . and that might have been lonely.

I pictured her now, back in Cherry Hill. Was she trying to clean up the mess in the kitchen? Was she paging through old photo albums, the way she had the last time I’d spent the day with her, looking at pictures of cousins I couldn’t remember and uncles I’d never met? Was she remembering my father, dashing and young and invulnerable, and wishing that she’d been the one to get sick instead of him?

“Excuse me,” I said. The bathroom at Honey’s had a rustic wooden bench to set a purse or a diaper bag on. The walls were hung with framed magazine ads from the 1920s advertising nerve tonics and hair-restoring creams, and a mirror in a flaking gold frame.

I looked at my reflection. My face looked thinner, and the circles under my eyes seemed to have deepened over the past few weeks. I’d lost a few more pounds—with the pills, I’d found myself occasionally sleeping through meals—but I didn’t look fit or healthy, just weary and depleted. Even on my best days, I was no Little Ronnie, with her bright eyes and long, thick hair, the kind of girl a man would want to tuck in his pocket and keep safe forever.

Turning away from the mirror, I reached into my purse. I crunched up two pills, washed them down with a scoop of water from the sink, and walked back to the table. I’d had an idea of how to give my mother some extra time, and make the day go by. “Hey,” I said to my father, “do you want to go see Ellie?”

• • •

As soon as I walked into BouncyTime, I knew that bringing my dad there had been a mistake. Raucous music boomed from overhead speakers. The singer fought against the roar of the blowers that kept the climbing and bouncing structures inflated. Kids dashed around the room, screaming, racing up the giant slide, hurling inflatable beach balls at one another’s heads, or shooting foam missiles out of air cannons. A clutch of mothers stood in a circle, in the Haverford uniform of 7 For All Mankind jeans and a cashmere crewneck, or Lululemon yoga pants and a breathable wicking top in a complementary color. Along the wall, a smaller group of dads had gathered, heads down, tapping away at their screens, looking up occasionally to cries
of “Daddy, look at me!” or, more often, “Daddy, take a video!” I found Dave with two other men, one a lawyer, one who ran a dental insurance business.

“Hey,” said the lawyer. “It’s the Sexy Mama from the
Wall Street Journal.
”

“That’s me,” I said, pasting a look of fake cheer on my face. “Have you guys met my dad?” I let Dave handle the introductions while I looked around for Ellie. She wasn’t in the bouncy castle with the girls, or waiting in line for the air cannons with the boys. Eventually I found Hank, sitting glumly on one of the benches with an ice pack clutched to his forehead. He pointed out Ellie huddled against a wall, with her skirt smoothed over her lap, playing with what appeared to be the iPod I’d lost the week before.

I walked over, trying not to look angry. “Ellie, is that my iPod?”

She looked up. “You’re not supposedta BE HERE!”

“Well, hello to you, too.” I sat down on the floor beside her and held out my hand. “You know the rules. You don’t just take other people’s things. You need to ask first.” She threw the iPod at me. It hit me just above my left eyebrow and fell to the floor.

“Ellie! What was that for?”

“Jade and Summer and Willow all have THEIR OWN iPODS!” She widened her eyes into a look suggesting she could barely bring herself to contemplate such unfairness.

“Ellie, we do not throw things,” I said, struggling not to yell. Ellie ignored me.

“And they’re the new touch ones, not STUPID TINY BABY ONES like YOU HAVE!”

“We don’t throw,” I repeated. “And you shouldn’t have taken Mommy’s things without permission.”

Ellie stuck out her lower lip. “I didn’t even WANT TO COME to this STUPID BABY PARTY! Why can’t everyone just LEAVE ME ALONE!”

I sighed as she started to cry. Maybe—probably—this place was just too bright and noisy for Eloise. As if to confirm my thought, she leaned against me, resting her head on my shoulder. “I’m sorry I taked your thing and threw it at your head.”

“It’s okay,” I told her. “Just next time, ask first.”

At the sound of sniffling, I looked up to see Hank. “Will you do the slide?” he asked.

Ellie shook her head. “Too scary,” she proclaimed.

“What if we went down together?” I asked. “You could sit on my lap.”

Ellie narrowed her eyes, judging the steep angle of the slide, watching the kids zip down, hands raised, mouths open, squealing with glee. Most slid on their own, but a few made the descent seated on parents’ laps.

“You want to try it?”

She sighed, as though she was granting me an enormous favor. “Oooh-kay.”

“How about you, Hank?”

He shook his head. “I’m allergic to burlap.”

But of course. I got to my feet—not half as gracefully as one of the yoga moms would have managed—and held out my hand. Ellie and I were walking toward the line at the back of the slide when Dave intercepted us.

“Hey, Al. You want to check on your dad?”

“What’s wrong?” I peered toward the benches where I’d left him, and saw him sitting there, staring into space the same way he stared at CNBC.

“He seems kind of uncomfortable.”

I gave him a patient, beatific Mary Poppins kind of smile, and hoped I didn’t look drugged. “Ellie and I are going to try the slide. Just sit with him. I’ll be there in two minutes.”

“I don’t wanna,” Ellie said as soon as she realized she’d have to climb a ladder built into the back of the slide to get to the top.

“Honey, I’ll be right here. Just put your hands like this . . .” I bent down and lifted, putting her feet on the bottom rung and her hands on the one above it. “Now just take a step . . .”

“I don’t WANT TO DO THIS. I’m SCARED!”

“Hurry up!” shouted the little boy—Hayden? Holden?—behind us. I scooped Ellie into one arm and hauled us both up the ladder.

“Come on! You’ll love it! I used to love slides when I was a little girl!”

“I WILL NOT LOVE SLIDES!” said Ellie, but she let me carry her to the top of the slide. Red-faced, panting, with sweat dribbling down my back, I grabbed a sack, marveling at the lack of progress—in these days of satellite radios and wireless Internet, why were kids still sliding on actual burlap sacks? I hoisted Ellie in my arms and got us in position.

“One . . . two . . . three!”

I kicked off with my heels. I could hear my daughter screaming—from fear or delight, I wasn’t sure. Nor was there time to figure it out, because the instant we got to the bottom of the slide, someone grabbed my shoulders and started shaking me.

“What are you doing with my daughter?”

I tried to wriggle away, but my father’s hands were clamped down tight, his fingers curling into the flesh of my upper arms. His shirt was untucked, his tie had been yanked askew, and the
Velcro closure of one of his shoes had come undone and was flapping.

“How could you be so irresponsible?” he asked.

“Dad.
Dad!
It’s me, Allison!”

“You put her down right this minute, Ronnie! Don’t you ever,
ever
do that again!”

Oh, God. Eloise was wailing as another mother-child duo came hurtling down the slide and slammed into my back, knocking Ellie out of my arms and onto the floor . . . where, unsurprisingly, she started to scream.

“Ohmygod, I’m so sorry!” said the mother.

“How could you be so irresponsible!” my father was shouting.

“Ellie’s mommy is in trou-ble,” sang the little boy as I finally managed to wrench myself free. Ellie, weeping, limped dramatically over to Dave. Everyone in the place was staring at us, moms and dads and kids.

“Um, ma’am? Excuse me?” A teenage girl in a BouncyTime T-shirt tapped my shoulder. “You can’t stay here. There are other people waiting to use the slide.”

“Believe me, I am trying to leave,” I told her. I took my father by the elbow and steered him away from the slide and over to the metal bench against the wall.

“Dad,” I said, trying to keep my voice low and calm as, beside me, Dave attempted to soothe Ellie. “Listen to me. I’m your daughter. I’m Allison. That was Ellie, your granddaughter, and she’s fine . . . that slide was perfectly safe . . .”

“Why was Grandpa YELLING at me?” Ellie wailed. She lifted the hem of her skirt and blotted her tears.

“Ew, gross!” a little boy said. My eyes followed his pointing finger. Oh, God.

“I think your dad had an accident,” Dave said. His voice was quiet, but not quiet enough. I figured Ellie would be revolted,
but instead she slipped her hand into my father’s hand and pulled him toward the door.

“Don’t worry, Pop-Pop,” she stage-whispered. “Sometimes that happens to me, too.”

• • •

Ellie and Dave arranged to ride home with Hank’s mother. I got my dad back into the car, slipping a towel from the trunk onto his seat, and concentrated on getting him back home as fast as I could.

“Dad, are you okay?” I asked. “Do you need anything?”

He didn’t answer . . . he just lifted his chin and turned his face away from me. As soon as we were moving I rolled down my window, holding my breath and hoping he wouldn’t notice. When I heard what sounded like a choked sob from the passenger seat, I kept both hands on the wheel and my eyes straight ahead.
Get through this,
I told myself.
Get through this, and there will be happy pills at the end.

We arrived to find my mother asleep on the couch, curled up in her housecoat with her bare feet tucked around each other, the same way Ellie arranged her feet when she slept. “Do you want me to . . .” I asked my dad, then let my voice trail off and cut my eyes toward the stairs. My father ignored me, pressing his lips together as he made his way past me. I waited until I heard the water running in the bathroom before I let myself collapse at the kitchen table. The room was still a mess, the sink piled with dirty dishes, the counters greasy and streaked, the flowers I’d brought the previous weekend dying in a vase of scummy water. I emptied the vase, loaded the dishwasher, sprayed and wiped down the counters, and took out the trash. I pulled a package of turkey thighs past their expiration date out of the refrigerator, along with a bag of softened zucchini and three dessicated lemons, and threw them all away. I dumped sour milk down the
drain, wiped off the refrigerator shelves, and boiled water for a pot of tea, which I placed on a tray with a napkin and a plate of cookies.