Dad has visited twice this year, once at Christmas and once in spring.
He’s changed a lot. His hair used to be bushy and black – now it’s short, tidy, and salt ‘n’ pepper grey. For my whole childhood, he had a beard. Now it’s just a moustache.
Mom says he looks very “distinguished.” All I know is that he smells and sounds pretty much exactly the same, but it feels like a very familiar thing from a far distant galaxy. Kind of a paradox. He still tries to kiss me on the lips, which is sort of endearing and very gross. I always turn my face. I can’t kiss my dad with the same lips that have smooched boys! Blech!
And who knows where his mouth has been. Mouths are mysterious things, you’ve got to be careful with them. You never know where they’ve been. Could be they’ve just been talking and eating or whatever – totally innocent! – or could be they’ve been mashing up against someone else’s germy face.
When my dad visits, he tries to spend quality time with each one of us. It’s funny because he never has much to say. He just drives and looks over at me with a smirk. He says things like, “I can’t believe how much you’ve grown.” Like he’s a long-lost uncle or something.
Last time he took me to Four Foot Falls for McDonalds. He offered for me to bring a friend, which I thought was nice. It would be a long way, just with Dad. But I had trouble choosing between Pammy and Miranda, that new Mennonite friend I made last fall. They’re both so different from each other.
To tell the truth, I have a better time with Miranda. Not just because she’s a new friend, but because she’s more interesting. She has hazel eyes and lo-o-ong, thick hair that I get to play with. She tapes herself talking to me. We make slushies by mixing snow and jell-o mix together, and we go sliding on our bums down the humungous hill next to her house. I choreograph long beautiful dances, where I’m the man and she’s the woman.
She never insults me. She is very kind in that Mennonite way. I don’t have to worry about her passing evil notes to other girls that talk about “Mawmouth and her annoying habits.”
And it’s a relief that she doesn’t even have a liquor cabinet. Pammy is forever into the mischief, which means I get to go home with guilt on my shoulders every weekend that I hang out with her.
It’s actually a total relief when I get to sleep over at Miranda’s house. We never get into any kind of trouble and just play games and laugh a lot.
Last time she said, “Do you want to trade beds with Nelly? Hers is a double.”
“No, let’s squeeze together in your bed,” I said.
We laid there for a long time, talking. Our bodies were snug together, but we weren’t holding hands or anything. It didn’t feel like we were going to do the other kind of thing, like it used to feel with Charlie or sometimes with other friends.
“Do you find it strange not to go to school?” I whispered.
“I do go to school!” she whispered.
“Well, I mean, real school.”
“I do go to real school!”
“I mean, public school.”
“No, it’s not weird. I like staying home.”
“Why?”
She thought for a minute.
“In the public, there are lots of people who don’t respect God,” she whispered.
“That’s for sure!” I said.
“There are kids who watch too much TV and don’t respect their parents,” she went on.
I grunted.
“Their parents drink alcohol,” she said.
I didn’t answer. I hadn’t told her about the white Russians and all that.
“I like your parents, they’re really nice,” I said finally. Sometimes her parents look at me in a way that I can’t understand, but it makes me wish they were my own.
Then we talked about you and Jesus. We whispered about how much we loved Jesus and wished he could be our husband someday. Or maybe just our brother. We couldn’t decide.
Miranda suggested, “Turn over and I’ll write a letter on your back.”
I turned over and she lifted up my pajama shirt so my back was bare. I shivered. Her tiny sharp fingernail gently scratched a letter into my skin.
A divine feeling came over me. My head became fuzzy.
“What does that say?” she whispered.
“What?” My lips were thick.
She scratched a few letters again. DEAR ELLEN.
“Dear Ellen,” I said.
YOU ARE A DEAR FRIEND.
I repeated the words. My face was electric with pleasure.
She went on with several gracious sentences describing my wonderfulness. I had trouble paying attention beyond the buzzing of ecstasy all over my skin and into my brain. How could I have missed this feeling until now? I mean, I’ve had millions of good, happy, excited feelings – I’ve even had the feeling (Ahem. Sorry to embarrass you. But after all, you’re the one who created it. Not my fault humans like it so much.)
However. This sensation was unlike anything I’ve experienced yet. It was tingly magic, healing balm, a sweet woozy blanket of appreciation. It made me love everything and everyone and more than that. It felt like you, infusing everything upon everything with absolute pleasure.
Miranda gave me a turn to scratch on her back. I drew pictures of her house and her sisters, a ball of sunshine, a dog and cat. I could tell it relaxed her, but I didn’t know whether it gave her the same strangely beautiful, all-over fuzzy feeling as the one I got. I felt silly asking her.
Needless to say, I chose Miranda for the trip to Four Foot Falls. But then her parents wouldn’t let her. They said they don’t know my father well enough to let her go on a trip with him, even for a day. Miranda accepted their decision quietly. It’s something I would have freaked out about, but you know what she said when I got angry?
“I trust my parents,” she said. “Sometimes they make my decisions for me. It’s because they love me.”
So I invited Pammy, whose parents didn’t even ask where she was going.
Dad took us mini-golfing and go-carting. Then he bought us lunch at McDonald’s. I watched the way Pammy ate her Big Mac, as if she owned the whole restaurant. Her eyes roved here and there and everywhere while she stuffed French fries into her mouth. Then she licked ketchup from her fingers one by one and wiped them with a napkin.
“Now what?” she said, instead of thank you.