A legacy of being brave

Saturday 4 October 2008

Today Jessy went off, just a few of her tenth-grade gang taking out Rachel for her birthday. Rachel is the youngest of them all-- she won't technically be fifteen till Monday-- and yet has been elected their class president and is active in football (okay, soccer), homecoming, French club, orchestra, honour society, really just about everything. She will seem shy when you first meet her but gradually warms to where she is the most talkative little thing you've ever met. She is a born leader who tends to listen to everyone before deciding on something. As a result she seems to have a very large privy cabinet and is constantly in the company of other girls, like Jessy, Josie, Anna, Rita, and maybe two others who all offered to accompany her-- in two parent-driven cars of course-- to the mall for lunch and probably a movie.

Technically I was invited, but declined, careful to not step on Rachel's feelings, as I would be the only 11th-grade girl there today and thus the only one not among her subjects. I did phone Rita and give my apologies. Jessy skipped down the steps this morning in her oversized navy-blue HOH school sweater and cute little black skirt and white tights and navy low-heeled pumps and looked absolutely terrific... of course. None of them were in jeans. This is Jessy's influence (maybe it is mine also) of imposing our English-girls'-school fashion sense upon rural eastern Virginia. I hate to say it but they lap it up like maple syrup round here.

Mother went out with Lisa for an eye appointment. We are all dreading that little Lisa has the family curse of nearsightedness and will get early crow's-feet like I will from squinting so much because she will hate wearing her glasses. (And I really HATE contacts, so don't say it.) Little J.J. and Daddy played in the yard, riding round in the tractor to gather firewood. Daddy is hardly what you would call the lumberjack type (he is more like the gracefully-aging rock singer type) but he likes doing anything with his little namesake and J.J. will never disappoint in that way. He sat on Daddy's lap and helped steer the tractor and they went all the way down to the end of the lane, both of them picking up sticks or branches from all over the yard and putting them into the trailer.

I am not clear of my time but was as 'comfortable' as I could make myself, sitting at the piano in navy-blue cotton panties and socks. But round 3.00 J.J. had managed to get hurt somehow and they arrived at the kitchen door with all the urgency of a 911 call. 'Sit up here,' Daddy was saying, and then the water was running. 'Hold up your hand like that.'

'Okay,' he said impatiently, but he was not crying.

I got up and hurried in to be of some help. 'What happened?'

J.J. looked round at me from his place on the counter, holding up a finger which was oozing a little blood. Daddy looked up, only for a moment, not because of how I was dressed (or undressed). 'Janine, good,' he said, reaching across the room for the cupboard. 'I need-- Band-Aids and that neospooie stuff.'

'Neospooie,' J.J. laughed, as he liked the sound of Daddy's years-old nickname for it.

I got out the tube and handed it to Daddy but his hands were wet now so I offered to put it on. 'You seem very brave,' I said to my little brother. 'How did you do this?'

'On a stick,' he said.

'Just a stick?'

'Yeah,' Daddy said, half holding him as I applied the ointment and opened a plaster (Band-Aid, sorry). 'A briar or something. Nothing that will need shots....'

I looked at it. 'No, it seems fine. And you are not crying?'

'It doesn't hurt now,' J.J. said.

'Well!' I said. 'I wish I were as brave as you are. Did I ever tell you about when I had to have my first Band-Aid?'

Daddy smiled at that and turned to wash his hands, leaving his littlest in charge of his eldest.

'Daddy and I were playing ball in the sitting room of the old house,' I said. 'And the ball went under the heater and I reached under for it and cut my finger on these little metal fins in there.'

'Did it hurt?"

'Oh, yes. Well, I was only little, like you are. And Daddy picked me up and sat me next to the sink, just like you are now, and he explained to me that he was going to put a little lotion on it, and then a Band-Aid. And I said, "Will it hurt?" And Daddy said, "No, it will just be like a little diaper on there, after I put lotion on it."'

Of course I was using all the inflections that get known as 'Motherese', the kind of storytelling that makes even a cut-finger story seem riveting to a small child. 'You wore diapers?' J.J. marvelled.

'We all wore diapers,' I said. That seemed kind of ironic to day today! 'But I was like you and didn't want to be wearing them any more, so I said, "No diapers. Panties."'

J.J. laughed. Daddy seemed to get wistful at this story, most of which I have got from him over the years, and kind of wandered off-- not quite out of earshot. 'But you're wearing panties now!' J.J. said.

Yes I was. 'Well, I'm not going to wear diapers now, am I?'

He giggled hard at that.

I went on. 'So Daddy opened this Band-Aid, like this--' and I was opening it-- 'and wrapped it round my little finger... like this.' And I did that on J.J.'s finger, which was cut a lot more than mine had been on the very tip that time. 'And I didn't like it on there. It felt too new and different. And finally we had to take it off.'

'Did it bleed?'

'Not after a while. And only a little bit.' I stood up and looked at him sitting on the counter by himself. 'You really are very brave about it.'

He nodded. 'It doesn't hurt now.'

'You don't mind it being on there?'

He shook his head. 'Will it get better?'

I leaned in then and wrapped my arms round him, holding him right up to my bare chest. I didn't care. J.J. didn't care. Daddy didn't care. 'It will, now that we have that thing on there, and you are being so brave.' I stood up and smiled at him. 'So... what were you doing down there, working?'

'Picking up sticks,' he said. 'Big ones, and even bigger ones. Daddy got the real big ones.' Then looked up at me and put up both arms. 'Can I--?'

I had a big smile at that, for there is nothing so easy to indulge as a small child who wants a hug-- even if you're half naked. So I caught him up in my arm and hoisted him off the counter, and he hung onto me as I folded him against my chest. 'Well,' I said, walking round the kitchen a little to rock him on my arm, 'do you think you're done working for a while?' I looked over at Daddy at the table. 'Is this break time? Can we have tea?'

He laughed, smiling proudly up at me. 'That's up to you,' he said, and glanced at J.J. 'You two, that is.'

'I think not tea,' I said slowly, looking my little brother in the eyes, 'but maybe... chocolate milk.'

'Chocolate milk!' And I kissed him on the head, set him down on the counter again where he could participate, and got out the milk.

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