ignored. Breakfast was coffee and packaged donuts. For Danny, of course, not even that much. Bedtime arrived when we felt exhausted.
Dr. Field had told us that that was all right for a while.That we should avoid all areas of tension or confrontation within the family for at least the next week or so.
I was
not
to yell at Danny for not eating.
Field had spoken first to him for half an hour in his office and then, for another twenty minutes, to Susan and I. I found him personable and soft-spoken. As yet he had no idea what Danny’s problem could be. The gist of what he was able to tell us was that he would need to see Danny every day until he started eating again and probably once or twice a week thereafter.
If he did start eating.
Anyhow, I’d decided to ignore the whispering. I figured if I’d stuck to my guns about quitting the Goddamn cigarettes I’d never have heard it in the first place. But then something Jenny said sailed through the half-open door loud and clear and stopped me.
“I still don’t get it,” she said. “What’s it got to do with that
box?
”
I didn’t catch his answer. I walked to the door. A floorboard squeaked. The whispering stopped.
I opened it. They were huddled together on the bed. “What’s what got to do with
what
box?” I said.
They looked at me. My children I thought, had grown up amazingly free of guilty conscience. Rules or no rules. In that they were not like me. There were times I wondered if they were actually my children at all.
“Nothing,” Danny said.
“Nothing,” said Clarissa and Jenny.
“Come on,” I said. “Give. What were you guys just talking about?”
“Just stuff,” said Danny.
“
Secret
stuff?” I was kidding, making it sound like it was no big deal.
He shrugged. “Just, you know, stuff.”
“Stuff that maybe has to do with why you’re not eating? That kind of stuff?”
“D
aaaa
d.”
I knew my son. He was easily as stubborn as I was. It didn’t take a genius to know when you were not going to get anything further out of him and this was one of those times. “Okay,” I said, “back to bed.”
He walked past me. I glanced into the bedroom and saw the two girls sitting motionless, staring at me.
“What,” I said.
“Nothing,” said Clarissa.
“G’night, Daddy,” said Jenny.
I said goodnight and went downstairs for my cigarettes. I smoked three of them. I wondered what this whole box business was.
The following morning my girls were not eating.
Things occurred rapidly then. By evening it became apparent that they were taking the same route Danny had taken. They were happy. They were content. And they could not be budged. To me,
we’re not hungry
had suddenly become the scariest three words in the English language.
A variation became just as scary when, two nights later, sitting over a steaming baked lasagna she’d worked on all day long, Susan asked me how in the world I expected her to eat while all her children were starving.
And then ate nothing further.
I started getting takeout for one.
McDonald’s. Slices of pizza. Buffalo wings from the deli.
By Christmas Day, Danny could not get out of bed unassisted.
The twins were looking gaunt—so was my wife.
There was no Christmas dinner. There wasn’t any point to it.
I ate cold fried rice and threw a couple of ribs into the microwave and that was that.
Meantime Field was frankly baffled by the entire thing and told me he was thinking of writing a paper—did I mind? I didn’t mind. I didn’t care one way or another. Dr. Weller, who normally considered hospitals strictly a lastresort, wanted to get Danny on an IV as soon as possible. He was ordering more blood tests. We asked if it could wait till after Christmas. He said it could but not a moment longer. We agreed.
Despite the cold fried rice and the insane circumstances Christmas was actually by far the very best day we’d had in a very long time. Seeing us all
Yvette Hines, Monique Lamont