Tales from the Shark Tank

Thursday night I learned I was capable of a performance I do not wish to repeat. Either my van emulated the Knight Bus from Harry Potter’s universe, or I accomplished an act of driving that should be limited to professional stunt drivers on a closed course. For a middle-aged mother with her son and godson in the car, it was heartstopping.

Ok, yes, the road was slick; it was snowing hard, and there was already ice on the road. We weren’t going far, and I am generally a very careful driver. So when I came up on an intersection, intending to turn right, I started tapping the brakes a good half a block back and expected no trouble. That expectation was disappointed spectacularly and rather profanely; notwithstanding the presence of children, expletives were repeated rather than deleted as I not only skidded, but picked up speed. These are not antilock brakes; ok, I pumped them as I was taught lo these many years ago. Still no luck, or not enough, and it was becoming abundantly clear that I was going to slide right into the small car waiting to turn right in front of me. Room to my left? I looked – nope, there was something even bigger than my minivan waiting at the red light. Might have been an SUV, might have been a truck, I didn’t pay that much attention. But wait! There was a space between them. It was narrow – wasn’t meant for another vehicle to fit through – but it was there, and I aimed for it thinking that if it worked we’d all be fine, and if it didn’t, I’d have caused a three-car accident instead of merely two. I am thankful to report that it worked. I didn’t hit anything, not even anyone’s side mirror, and came to a clean stop in front of the large thing, in the lane that would be going straight when the light turned, and not in the intersection. Once across the street, I pulled into a parking lot and panted. Then I explained it to my small son. And then I listened, somewhat stunned, as my godson spun theories as to how the impossible had been accomplished. His favorite was that I had either turned the other cars into ectoplasm for an instant so that I could go through them, or had dispapparated and apparated my van and all contents by a few feet. I have no personal opinion on the subject. Either seems more likely that what appears to have happened, and I’ve no desire for a retest.

I’m at a loss here. I’m a wordsmith; more than what I do, my words define who I am. And I need them now, need them badly, for C. and her son, for D. himself, for C’s brother who has called here, knowing that they were very likely to be here and that if they weren’t I’d know where they were. It’s a good bet that J. will call here as well at some point, and other friends as they hear what is happening. I’m kind of a clearing house, always have been.

But I am bereft of words. I love these people too much for easy platitudes; “I’m sorry” doesn’t begin to cover it. I have nothing, no comfort, no wisdom, not even any practical ideas. I can make dinner for them, but that’s temporary. I can hug them, but that does not heal. My pain can’t lessen theirs. This isn’t pity. I don’t feel sorry for them, I feel sorry with them. I have been helpless in just this fashion before. I thought I’d learned how to handle it then. Apparently this is something I’m going to have to learn all over again. But they aren’t going to go through this alone. While I have a will, that, at least, is not going to happen.

The news is in on our friend D., and it’s frankly horrible. He has three lesions on the right side of the motor area of his brain. It’s in an inoperable area, and chemotherapy and radiation might buy him months. The family is sitting in my family room right now; R. it telling me how school is organized and D. is putting in comments. For the moment, his speech is much clearer than it was last week; the steroids are working. The next appointments are to find out what options they have. I’ll update when we know anything.

And the upside in my life, if not that of my friends? My foster daughter has just offered friends who want a baby to surrogate for them. They’ve accepted. She’s doing it just for love. And this wonderful, generous woman wants me as her mama. I am so proud of her I could pop.

I’m feeling like there are twenty nine million things I need to accomplish and figure out between now and Monday. I need to think about getting Wick a cell phone and a reliable car. (Yes, car. He took his to the mechanic and was told there were about 7 things wrong, any one of which would cost more to fix than the car is worth.) We need to find him an apartment that won’t break the budget so badly that it wouldn’t be worth taking the job. I need to figure out what the morning schedule needs to be so that everyone gets breakfast and gets where they need to be on time. I need to figure out what I can do when to make sure everything gets done. I need to figure out which out of Wick’s suits fit him and which I need to alter for him. I’m making lists, and even so I’m quite certain there are things I’m forgetting.

And there’s my son. To say that I’m nervous about single-parenting during the week for the foreseeable future is an understatement of epic proportions. I’m scared to death here. Now when he pushes me to the edge of blowing up, I can either tell myself that my husband will be home to deal with it soon (like later that same day) or turn him over to his dad and go hide or walk or whatever. My husband does the same thing with me when our boychick works on finding new levels of being high maintenance. That safety valve won’t be there, and I’m not sure what I’ll do without it. Call grandparents and scream for assistance, probably. I can ask my mom to come and let me escape for a few hours, which she is very willing to do. The trouble is that I then have to deal with questions I don’t particularly want to answer as to why I’m in such a state. Parenthood isn’t easy with a typical kid. With one who has neurological overload issues? Respite care is necessary to parental sanity, but the very nature of the problem means that you can’t just hire the teenager down the street to babysit.

I have a feeling any writing more demanding than this is going to go by the wayside for a while. There’s too much going on in the present to spend much energy revisiting the past.

The good news is that Wick has a job. He had a telephone interview yesterday, another in person this morning, and got the offer this afternoon. He starts this coming Monday. I’m very proud of him, and it’s a great relief overall. It’s got a few catches, though.

For one thing, it’s in Merrillville, which is about 140 miles north of here, almost to Chicago. I can deal with that. For another, it’s a temp contract. It will last at least until mid-March, possibly longer. It also has permanent possibilities, but until we know what will happen with that, moving doesn’t make sense. And I probably would try not to move Joseph until the end of the school year anyway. He’s doing so well, I don’t want to uproot him if it isn’t absolutely necessary. So it’s going to be me and my kids against the world for a couple of months. We’ll manage. We have to. And who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky and get offered something permanent and local. In the meantime, though, there’s a job that pays quite decently. And for that, I am very grateful indeed.

Last night, trying to go to sleep around 11:00, it struck me. Downstairs it had been quite cold. That’s not unusual for this house, but upstairs was also uncomfortably chilly, and the furnace had not turned on. We began to check, and quickly reached the conclusion that on a night when the low was predicted to be around 0 F., the furnace was not functioning. We called the repairman forthwith, and he came. While we waited for him, we found our space heater and put it in Joseph’s room, added some layers of clothing for warmth, and put another quilt on our bed. By the time the nice man arrived, I was wearing not only sweatpants and a polartec sweater, but my favorite fall weight cloak.

The man tried valiantly for an hour or more, and could not get the furnace to turn on at all. He tried bypassing things (what, I’m not quite sure), trying to manually encourage some motor or other to rotate, tried to figure out why the ignitor wouldn’t ignite, and so on and on. Finally, he gave up and told us we could spend a lot of money to fix it, or about 20% more to replace it. We have opted for replacement. The new furnace is en route; tonight we will sleep much warmer. But meantime I’m dressed in multiple layers, getting ready to take Joseph and our housemate someplace warm. Downstairs it’s cold enough to see your breath…inside the house. And I really, really, really want to beat Murphy up and steal his lunch money!

Followup: As of 4:30 p.m., the new furnace is in and the house up to 60 F. I suppose the measure of how far I acclimated to the cold is that I’m quite comfortable in jeans, a turtleneck, and a sweater. At least the HVAC folks give priority to people who have no heatsource at all. So all’s well that ends well…I think.

Today was spent almost entirely at the Children’s Museum. Our friends, D’s twin brother J. and his wife with their daughter, son in law and grandchildren and Joseph and I all converged on the place. Turns out that the J’s daughter and her family live on the south side of Indianapolis, which makes this a good rendevous for D. and J. to see each other. (J. and his wife live in St. Louis) The kids had a grand time. R., who is 12, got to try the rock-climbing wall, and did very well indeed at it with Uncle J. holding the safety rope. His 4 year old cousin got to ride the carousel. My sweetie pie got to play among the trains to his heart’s content, and all of them were enchanted with the new dinosaur exhibit.

That was quite amazing. The displays are partly real fossils, partly reconstructions, and they have signs showing what part is what. They also ask questions designed to make the kids – and adults – think. There is one skeleton of a species that is normally a predator, but then they posed the question as to whether that particular animal would have been capable of hunting, or if she survived by scavenging. They also pointed out why – bones broken and healed badly, a hip that was displaced from its socket, and even evidence of a type of brain tumor that would have made her shaky. My son, eager to get to the trains, practically had to drag me out. He’d seen enough of the dinosaurs, but I was fascinated!

And then everyone came home, and we visited for a bit before Wick and I reminded them that they had a four hour drive home still. They didn’t want to go. I don’t blame them; as long as they could hang out with us, they could keep the worries in the background. But R. had homework, and D. was exhausted. And truth be told, I’d had as much as I could handle for the moment as well. I’ve baked a batch of bread, and spent a fair amount of time communing with a stationary bike, it being far too cold and windy for safe walking. I’m feeling much more human now. And I have a few days to recharge my internal batteries before I do it again.

For my friends, and for those of us who love them, we remain on hold. Seems the doctor’s office screwed up, and while they had an appointment card, the office had no appointment for them. Worse, the doctor was in surgery, so there was no “wait and we’ll get you in.” They drove down for nothing. I can’t think of much worse than having to wait yet longer.

The rescheduled appointment is for next Thursday, so now I’m keeping that day open for them. Meanwhile, we’re plotting a trip to the children’s museum for all of us in the morning, and I’m about to go cook dinner for the multitudes, since they’re basically in a state of “do I have to move?” So more later, gentle readers. Right now I have chosen family to take care of.