The mommy was at the University Medical Center Clinic where she worked — the mommy’s work was anesthesiology which made your tongue twist like a corkscrew — one of those words that make you laugh and cringe — you could hear it, and recognize it, as a dog recognizes his name, but could not ever pronounce it.
Mommy puts people to sleep the daddy said. Mommy is paid very handsomely to put people to sleep and to wake them up again — if Mommy can. The daddy laughed saying such things like riddles — the daddy often laughed saying things like riddles which made Tod uneasy and provoked him to say in a whining voice Why’d you pay to sleep? — why’d anybody pay to sleep? — you can just go to bed to sleep can’t you? Daddy’s being silly — because really you never knew if the daddy was being silly or serious or something in-between and not-knowing was scary.
This day was a special day. At breakfast, Tod knew.
The daddy waited until the mommy left for work then pushed aside the bright yellow Cheerios box and the daddy whistled loudly preparing French toast pouring maple syrup lavishly onto slabs of egg-soggy toast so the toast floated in the syrup and spilled out onto the Formica-top breakfast nook table. Some of the toast burnt in the frying pan and the daddy scraped it out with a sharp knife and the smell of scorch filled the kitchen, the daddy grunted opening a window and fresh air rushed in making Tod sneeze. It was one of those fierce bright mornings the daddy loved little dude so, hugged him so hard Tod shrieked with laughter anxious the daddy would crack his ribs or drop him onto the hardwood floor.
Love you li’l dude! One day, you’ll know how much.
The change in our schedules — this was what the mommy called it speaking in a lowered voice on her cell phone when the daddy wasn’t near — began so soon after Tod’s birthday — which was March 11 — when Tod was four years old — that sometimes it seemed maybe his birthday had something to do with it. Tod knew better but sometimes he felt that the daddy blamed him — for it was just a few days later that the daddy was downsized.
What this meant wasn’t clear for if Tod asked his father what was downsized his father just joked waving his hands in the harassed-daddy way as if brushing away flies Some kind of shrink-wrap it’s the principle of mummization which Tod didn’t understand — for the daddy said such things, to make you realize you didn’t understand — not just to Tod but to everyone including the mommy and Tod’s grandparents — and once — this was in the park, the daddy was talking with a friend — Miniaturized is what it is, each day I shrink a little till my kid and I will be twins and fit in each other’s clothes.
This was scary too but Tod knew, the way the daddy laughed, and the other man laughed with him though not so loudly as the daddy laughed, it was meant to be a joke, and meant to be funny.
Now it was, in the weeks following Tod’s fourth birthday in March, the daddy was home much of the time. This was so strange! — for as long as Tod could remember the daddy had always been away at work all day and returned in time for supper at 7 P.M. or sometimes later after the mommy had put Tod to bed. Now the daddy was always home. The daddy was home in the morning after the mommy left for the medical center. The daddy was the one to make Tod’s breakfast and walk Tod six blocks to nursery school and return at noon to bring Tod back home.
No longer was there any need for the nice Filipina lady to take care of Tod after school. Suddenly it happened that Magdalena was gone for the change in our schedule came abruptly and seemingly irrevocably and within days Tod was forgetting that there’d ever been Magdalena for now there was just the daddy in the house when the mommy wasn’t there. There was just the daddy to rouse Tod from bed, bathe him and hug him hard in the bath towel and feed him. And sometimes it was the daddy who put Tod to bed if the mommy came home late. All this because the daddy had been downsized — which was a word the daddy pronounced like it was something sharp inside his mouth cutting it or a red-hot coal the daddy would have liked to spit out except it was making him laugh, too — or was the daddy trying not to laugh? — you had to look at the daddy closely like somebody on TV to see if he was serious or not-serious but if you looked too close at the daddy the daddy became angry suddenly because the daddy was like Canis familiaris he said he did not like to be stared at at close quarters Got that, little dude?
There was a threat in this — a threat of a sudden backhand slap — not a slap to hurt but a slap to sting — and it was risky, if you smiled when you shouldn’t smile or failed to smile when you should. But Tod was little dude and this was a good sign. Tod liked being little dude. Tod was thrilled being little dude for this suggested that the daddy wasn’t mad at Tod just then.
Li’l dude just you and me. Love ya!
Most times when the daddy took Tod to nursery school in the morning and to the park in the afternoon, the daddy would make sure that Tod wore his Yankees cap and a warm-enough sweater or jacket and the daddy would tie his sneakers the right way — tight! — so the laces wouldn’t come loose and cause Tod to trip over them. If the daddy whistled tying Tod’s shoelaces this was a good sign though if the daddy hadn’t remembered to wash Tod’s face and hands after breakfast this might be a not-good sign like if the daddy’s jaws were covered in scratchy stubble and if the daddy’s breath was sour-smelling from cigarettes the mommy was not supposed to know that the daddy had started smoking again. Nor was it a good sign if when they were walking together the daddy made calls on his cell phone cursing when all he could get was fucking voice mail.
Tod’s nursery school was just a few blocks away from their house and Terwillinger Park just slightly farther so there was no need for the daddy to drive. There was no need for a second car. In the park the daddy smoked his cigarettes — This is our secret, kid — Mommy doesn’t need to know got it? — and read the New York Times — or a paperback book — (the daddy had been reading a heavy book titled The World as Will and Idea for a long time) — or scribbled into a notebook — or stared off frowning into the distance. At such times the daddy’s mouth twitched as if the daddy was talking — arguing — with someone invisible as Tod played by himself or with one or two other young children in a little playground consisting of a single set of swings and monkey-bars and a rusted slide. Sometimes the daddy fell into conversations with people he met in the park — there were young mothers and nannies who brought children to the playground — and women walked dogs in the park — or jogged — or walked alone — and often Tod saw his father talking and laughing with one of these women not knowing if she was someone his father knew or had just met; once, Tod overheard his father tell a flame-haired young woman that he was a married man which was one kind of thing and simultaneously he was the father of a four-year-old which was another kind of thing.
Whatever these words meant, the woman laughed sharply as if something had stung her. Well that’s upfront, at least. I appreciate that.
This was a time when they’d begun going to the park every day. This was a time when the mommy’s work- hours were longer at the medical center. This was a time when there was just one car for the mommy and the daddy which was the Saab, that had become the mommy’s car. Before the downsizing there had been a Toyota station wagon which the daddy had driven but this vehicle seemed to have vanished suddenly, like Magdalena.
Turnpike. Totaled. Towed-away. End of tale! the daddy reported with terse good humor of the kind Tod knew not to question.
“Let’s surprise Mommy at work. D’you think ‘Dr. Falmouth’ would like that?”
This day in Terwillinger Park the daddy snapped shut his cell phone in disgust — shoved it into a pocket of his rumpled khakis that drooped from his waist beltless and a size too large — and spoke in a bright-daddy voice as
