P>“Don’t take your shirts off where they can see you, for any reason,” Isaac instructed. He yawned. “And don’t let’em see any bruises, either.”
“And don’t tell them about Mommy,” Taylor agreed.
“Or Roy,” Zac shuddered.
“Yeah.” Isaac sank onto the couch, resting his chin in his hand. He felt shaky; if he stood up too long or walked too fast, he got really dizzy. He wanted to hide this from Dan and Nora; he was scared he wouldn’t be able to.
“Maybe we should wait outside on the stoop,” Taylor suggested.
“Okay,” Isaac agreed.
Zac skipped across the room and to the door. “Mommy has a key, right?”
“Yeah,” Isaac agreed, locking the door behind them. “Anyway, she’s probably not going to come home until we do. She’ll probably be out all day and night.”
“Yeah,” Taylor nodded sadly. “She probably will.”
The three of them were sitting on the stoop when Dan drove up in his battered Volvo station wagon, painted a dull olive green. Zac smiled to himself. He knew that car. It was his favorite car in the whole world.
“Hey!” Dan grinned, getting out of the car. “How are you guys doing?”
Taylor held back, shy suddenly. Isaac bit a fingernail and wondered how he was supposed to react. Zac didn’t hesitate for a second.
“Dan!” he yelled, flying across the sidewalk. “I was looking and looking for your car, an’ then I saw it!”
“Hey, buddy.” Dan swung Zac into his arms and grinned at the other two. “You didn’t have to wait outside. I could have come up and knocked.”
“No, we wanted to,” Isaac said quietly.
“We really did,” Taylor seconded, suddenly finding his voice. “We couldn’t wait.”
“Me neither,” Dan smiled. “Nora had to work, though. The guy who was supposed to work today’s wife had a baby last night, and so she had to fill in for him. She felt really bad about it.”
“What kind of baby was it?” Taylor asked, climbing into the back seat of the car.
“A human baby,” Dan was a bit taken aback.
“No!” Taylor shook his head. “What KIND?”
“An Indian baby?” Dan asked, deliberately misunderstanding him. “An East Indian baby, I mean. I mean, it’s parents are from India. Or their parents’ parents. I don‘t know. Anyway, the baby is an American baby. Of East Indian parentage.”
“NO!” Taylor bellowed, laughing. “What KIND?”
“A boy baby?” Dan queried.
“That kind,” Taylor agreed. “I wasn’t a girl baby when I was born, I was a boy.”
“Is that so?” Dan inquired. “I could have sworn Ike told me you were a girl. Didn’t you, Ike?”
“I guess,” Isaac shrugged. His brain felt like it was working slowly. He’d missed most of that conversation.
“No, I was a boy!” Taylor insisted. “And I was adorable.”
Dan chuckled. “Did your mother tell you that?”
“No,” Zac shook his head. “She just telled him he cried a lot.”
“I did cry a lot,” Taylor agreed. “But I was adorable anyway. I saw a picture.”
“I’m sure you were,” Dan nodded. “All three of you.”
“You were, too, I bet,” Taylor said.
“I was really chubby,” Dan said, “and bald, and my father got my picture taken naked on a bearskin rug.”
“Could you see your BUTT?” Zac sounded scandalized.
Dan nodded solemnly. “Uh huh.”
Zac shook his head. “I think you should hide that picture.”
“Do you think I should?” Dan mused.
“Put it somewhere,” Zac instructed, “where no one can see it.”
I remember that, Taylor found himself thinking, and that and that and that and that, too. He remembered the way to Dan and Nora’s house, and all of the landmarks along the way. It was a nice feeling, remembering things.
“That’s your house,” he said to Dan, when he recognized it.
Dan nodded, “That’s my house.” He pulled into the driveway. “You know, I was thinking. . . what do you guys want to do today? I mean, we can do pretty much anything. I thought we’d just stop at home for a little while, drop stuff off, y’know. . .”
“I want to see the cat!” Taylor piped.
Dan grimaced, “Tay, I do not understand the attraction. . .”
“Is that cat still here?” Zac gasped.
“Don’t worry,” Dan told him. “We’re keeping him in the basement. It’s nice and warm down there, he has his own kitty litter. . .”
“And he can’t come up?” Zac asked.
Dan shook his head. “Nope.”
Zac heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank God!”
Dan grinned. “I thought that would make you happy.”
Sure enough, Gallagher was shut away in the basement, and the house was safe, for the time being. “And he can’t come out,” Zac keep saying.
“No way,” Dan assured him. “Not in a million years.”
“I hate that cat!” Zac exclaimed.
“Everybody does,” Dan observed, “except Taylor.”
“Taylor’s crazy,” Zac shook his head.
“Probably,” Dan agreed. He grinned at Isaac. Isaac managed a half-hearted smile back.
“I didn’t mean he was really crazy,” Dan apologized quickly.
“Oh, no. . . that’s okay,” Isaac said. “It’s not that. It’s. . .” he shut his mouth quickly. He had almost told Dan about how awful he was feeling.
“What’s the matter?” Dan asked, concerned. He sat down at the kitchen table across from Isaac. “You’ve said about three words since we got here.”
“Nothing.” Isaac shook his head and studied his hands.
Dan raised an eyebrow. “You expect me to believe that?” he asked.
Shoot, Isaac thought. He knows. . . “No, I’m okay,” he lied.
“Do you feel all right?” Dan prodded.
Isaac nodded. “Uh huh.”
“Would you tell me if you didn’t?” Dan challenged.
Isaac shrugged, a guilty look in his eyes.
“That’s kinda what I thought,” Dan agreed, reaching out to feel Isaac’s forehead. He frowned. “You don’t feel good, do you?”
“I’m sorry,” Isaac sighed.
Dan rolled his eyes. “Don’t be sorry! What were you supposed to do about it?”
Isaac shrugged again, helplessly. “I don’t know. . .”
“It isn’t like it’s your fault.” Dan rummaged through one of the kitchen cabinets. “I know there’s a thermometer around here somewhere. . .”
Shoot, Isaac was thinking. Shoot, shoot, shoot. What if he had to tell Dan now? I’ll just say I think I’m getting the flu, he decided. I’ll say my friend down the hall has it, and I was playing with him a lot. Never mind the fact that he doesn’t actually exist.
Dan, giving up on finding the thermometer in the cupboard, glanced over his shoulder at Isaac, concern filling his eyes. “Maybe it’s in the bathroom. You want to lie down, Ike?”
Exhaustedly, Isaac nodded.
“Okay.” Dan looked like there was more he wanted to ask, but he held back most of his questions. “You feel like you’re going to throw up or anything like that?”
Isaac shook his head. “No.”
“Okay, get into bed, then. . . I’m just going to go look in the bathroom for that thermometer,” Dan told him.
“It’s okay,” Isaac told him. “I’m okay.”
Dan shook his head. “Ike, it’s okay NOT to be okay. . .”
“What’s that mean?” Isaac inquired.
“It means stop pretending you feel all right and go get in bed,” Dan instructed. “I will be in momentarily.”
And he was, rolling his eyes and clenching his fists. “I’m going to go look for it in the OTHER bathroom.”
“It doesn’t matter that much. . .” Isaac began, but Dan was already charging down the hall.
“Where the damn hell is that stupid thermometer?” Dan murmured to himself, rummaging throught the medicine cabinet.
“Oooh,” Taylor breathed. He’d followed Dan upstairs and was standing in the doorway of the bathroom, his mouth wide open and his eyes as large as saucers. “You said. . .”
“Shoot,” Dan muttered, blushing guiltily. “Tay, I. . .”
“It’s okay.” Taylor brightened. “It’s frustration. That’s what my teacher says when she says that.”
“Your teacher says. . .” Dan began.
“Is this the thermonniker?” Taylor inquired, holding it up.
“Where’d you find that?” Dan asked, so amazed it didn‘t even occur to him to correct Taylor’s pronunciation.
“Under the couch,” Taylor sang.
“Why were you looking under the couch?” Dan would never in a million years have looked there, and it amazed him that Taylor would have thought to do it.
“Because Zac went behind the couch when I let Gallagher out of the basement,” Taylor explained, and I was looking under the couch to see if I could see him.”
“Gallagher’s out of the basement?” Dan stammered.
“He was feeling sad down there all by himself,” Taylor said, “and I was scared of all the darkness down there. So I let him out.”
“Where’s Zac now?” Dan asked.
“He’s still behind the couch,” Taylor said. “I think.”
“Well, put Gallagher back down in the basement,” Dan instructed, “and tell Zac to come out from behind the couch. And Taylor?”
Taylor turned to face him, smiling brightly. “Uh huh?”
“Just forget I said those bad words, okay?”
Taylor nodded. “I will.”
“I shouldn’t have said them,” Dan went on. “They were wrong.”
“Oh, it’s okay,” Taylor told him.
“No, you shouldn’t have had to hear them.” Dan grinned. “Thanks for finding the thermometer.”
“I’m good at finding things,” Taylor agreed, skipping down the stairs.
“Very good,” Dan agreed.
“Nora, what’s a normal temperature?” Dan asked. “How do I read this thing?”
“Dan!” Nora wailed into the phone. “What do you mean, you can’t read a thermometer? What do you mean, what’s a normal temperature?”
“Well, a normal temperature is ninety six point eight, right?” Dan asked. “So, how can I tell if it’s higher than that, and what does it mean if it’s lower?”
“Dan, for one thing, a normal body temperature is ninety eight point six,” Nora sighed. “For another thing, his temperature is, I promise you, probably not lower.”
“But does he have a fever, though?” Dan was desparate.
“Dan, how should I know?” Nora was exasperated. “I’m at the hospital. Does he feel warm?”
“Comparatively,” Dan agreed.
“Comparatively?” Nora wasn’t sure she wanted to know what Dan meant.
“Compared to Taylor and Zac.”
“That’s a start,” Nora agreed. “Yeah, he probably does have a fever. How high is it?”
“That’s what I have to read the thermometer for!” Dan exclaimed. “I don’t know how to read the stupid thing! What am I supposed to do?” He was clearly unprepared to handle this situation.
Nora shook her head. “I’ll read it when I get home. Do we have any Tylenol? Children’s Tylenol?”
“We don’t have any kids,” Dan pointed out. “Usually.”
Nora sighed. “I’ll bring some home. Is he all right?”
Dan shrugged. “Hangin’ in there.”
“Well, make him drink some ginger ale or something,” Nora instructed. “So he doesn’t get dehydrated. And tell him I hope he feels better. And say hi to Taylor and Zac.”
“Hi, Taylor. Hi, Zac,” Dan called.
The two of them looked up from the pictures they were coloring at the kitchen table. “Hi, Dan.”
“Da-an,” Nora threatened.
“Sorry.” Dan bit his lip guiltily. “Adult behavior, right?”
Nora giggled. “Okay. Well. . . I’ll be home soon, I hope.” She paused. “I really hope, Dan. Are you sure you can handle everything by yourself?”
“Mmmhmm,” Dan promised, unconvincingly
Nora tried to belief him, but she wasn’t especially reassured. “Okay. Page me if anything happens.”
“Okay.” Dan was trying to hang a spoon off of the end of his nose, to the great amusement of Taylor and Zac. “I will.”
“Okay, then.” Nora nodded. “Um. . . bye, honey.”
“Bye!” Dan sounded unusually happy, Nora thought, and wondered why. (The spoon was finally dangling from the end of Dan’s nose, and all was would be well in the world, for the next five seconds, at least.)
Nora, in the emergency room, hung up the phone and rested her forehead in her hand for a moment, inhaling deeply. “Oh, God. . .”
She should have known better than to have been so worried. Dan, as incompetent as he sometimes sounded, was actually quite capable of taking charge for the afternoon. This was not especially an accomplishment. . . he was thirty-three years old, after all.
Dan said this to Zac. “I am thirty-three years old, after all.”
“When were you born?” Taylor asked.
“1956,” Dan told him.
Taylor and Zac exchanged a horrified glance. “That’s ol-l-l-ld,” Taylor breathed.
Zac swallowed nervously. “Are you going to die soon?” he quavered.
Dan smacked himself in the head. “Am I that old?” he asked.
“It’s okay,” Taylor reassured him. “People are living a lot longer these days. Like to forty, even.”
“They are?” Dan sounded incredulous.
“Yeah.” Taylor nodded. “Don’t worry.”
Isaac spent the day lost in a haze of half-consciousness and interrupted sleep. Up here, in Dan and Nora’s guest bedroom, he could give into incoherence, he could finally rest for awhile. Minutes, taken second by second, stretched on forever. Hours felt like years. He hadn’t been this sick for a long time. He hadn’t let himself get this sick for a long time.
It felt kind of good, in a way. At least here you could just lie in bed and nobody would bother you. There weren’t two extra people squirming around, hogging the blanket and kicking you. A few times, Isaac was dimly aware of skin much cooler than his own resting against his forehead, more than once he knew that someone was peering around the crack in the door, checking in.
The late afternoon light was fading from the sky when Isaac felt Nora sit down on the edge of the bed. He opened his eyes. “Hi,” he mumbled.
“Hi.” Nora smiled. She brushed his hair back from his forehead and frowned, like Dan had done. “I got you some Tylenol. . . what’s the matter?”
Isaac swallowed. His stomach hurt. It had ever since that thing with Roy the other day, and now he could hardly stand it. Still, he didn’t want to tell Nora that, for fear he’d have to tell her what had happened.
“I kind of have a headache,” Isaac admitted. That wasn’t a lie. “A bunch of people have the flu.” That wasn’t a lie, either. He knew he probably didn’t have the flu, but a bunch of people somewhere had to have it.
“Who?” Nora prodded.
Isaac drew in a breath. “People,” he said. “Like, at my school.”
“Yep, it is going around,” Nora sighed, nodding. She felt his forehead. “Did Dan eventually figure out how to read the thermometer?”
Isaac nodded. “I had to show him.”
“You did?” Nora was taken aback. “You knew how?”
Isaac shrugged. “It was just numbers. And some silvery stuff.”
“Well, I’m going to take it again, okay?” Nora found the thermometer next to the bed and handed it to Isaac. He put it in his mouth.
Nora took it out, turned it around and replaced it. “That was the wrong end, honey.”
Isaac rolled his eyes. “I knew it was. But Dan kept saying it was the right end. So I thought maybe he was right.”
“No wonder he couldn’t read the thing.” Nora tried to look disdainful, but she couldn’t hide her grin. “He never figured it out?”
Isaac shook his head. “No, never,” he said, around the thermometer. “He finally said it was. . . de. . . de. . . deceptive?”
“Defective?” Nora asked.
“Yeah, that,” Isaac agreed. “Defective. And then he said he was going to call the company.”
“Did he?” Nora gasped.
Isaac shrugged. “I don’t know. I was sleeping. Actually, he was going to break the thermometer, but he didn’t want to have to clean the mercury up off the floor.”
Nora shook her head, grinning. “Honestly, Ike, I really don’t know why I. . .”
Dan appeared in the doorway just then, his hands encased in red potholders shaped like lobster claws. “Honey, I was going to tell you. . . oh, hi, Ike, you’re up, how’re you doing. . . I was going to tell you that the thermometer doesn’t work. It’s broken or something. The mercury isn’t heat responsive.”
“That’s because you had the wrong end in his mouth,” Nora informed him.
Dan bit his lip. “The wrong end?”
“Mmmhmm.” Nora nodded. “The wrong end.”
“Well, I guess that must have been why,” Dan decided. “Is it working now?”
Nora took the thermometer out of Isaac’s mouth and squinted at it. “103,” she read, her hand going back to his forehead again. “You must really feel awful, honey.”
“I’m okay,” Isaac piped, nonchalantly.
“Ike,” Dan rolled his eyes.
Isaac folded his arms across his chest. “I really am.”
“And I’m Elizabeth Taylor,” Dan announced.
“Hi, ELIZABETH,” Isaac shot back, annoyed.
Dan burst out laughing. Nora started, too, shaking her head. Isaac grinned.
“Seriously, I’m okay, though.”
“Okay,” Nora didn’t feel like arguing. “I’m just going to give you some Tylenol, though.”
Isaac nodded. “Okay.” He didn’t really feel like arguing anymore.