Mermaids

It is beach day, and Jamie is coming with her kids. It is a special
day because John and Jamie, our friends have moved back to
Chicago from Fresno. I have missed them both with a hollow ache for
seven years. Now they are here, living in the city, and we can be
together as much as we want.

All three of my kids and Jamie’s two are yelling with excitement,
taking over the 151 as it winds down Sheridan to a little beach on
Chicago’s lakefront. Jamie and I smile at each other. It has been so
long.

Memories float back to me, of John and I laughing our heads off at
pictures of Don in 80’s spandex, Jamie and I being pregnant together,
our babies born two weeks apart.

Jamie standing in my doorway, afraid to bring in her baby because
mine was in the NICU.

Long walks down by the lake, babies in strollers, Johannes fussing
and Sage big and placid.

They moved soon after, and Lord how I cried, big and hormonal with my
second child.
Now they are back.

Johannes, like Jude, is on the autistic spectrum. He recites facts
about jazz and the civil rights movement. I think he is wonderful.
Jamie is worried he’ll yell out something inappropriate. I am worried
Jude will take his pants off. Jamie and I laugh, because we have more
in common than we ever did.

Jamie is good for a person’s ego. She listens to every story with
rapt attention, thinks I am hilarious, and has the best laugh in the
world. She is the sort of person who will watch your gory birth tape
ten times and never laugh when you hit the doctor and beg him for
Demerol.

Karin and Eden share a seat, talking and giggling. Eden is almost
four and Karin is almost six. They are about the same size, though,
Karin has Cystic Fibrosis.

I asked Jamie how she can stand it, the fear that Karin will catch
some bug, how she can let her out of the house, not just sit and rock
her and never let her go.

Jamie laughs; pointing out she could ask the same of me.

Hemophilia is different, I say. Is it? Maybe I’m just used to it.
We sit in silence, my friend and I. You don’t get used to it. You beg
God for mercy with every ounce of your being, take a deep cleansing
breath, and then you get on the bus.


The beach is wonderful, the kids are so happy, and Jamie I talk and
talk and talk. Our lives are so similiar, kids on the spectrum, kids
with genetic, well, stuff. I am acutely aware of the difference,
however. Sage and Eden have a normal life expectancy.

Jamie muses that when Eden and Karin are older, they will relate to
each other because of all the medical crap they have endured. I can’t
decide if this is a good thing, or really super depressing.

Karin asks me to take her in the water, so she won’t be scared. She
and I play mermaid, she rides on my back while I slide through the
water. She asks me after awhile, “are you tiwerd, mermaid?” No way, I
tell her, mermaids never get tired. We find a handsome prince named
Jude and ask him for a kiss, and remind him to pull up his swim trunks.

Later Karin comes running up, she has caught an insect. I open her
hand to find a hornet, and knock it away. Did it sting you? I ask.
Nope! She says, and runs off to play. I smash the hornet with my
sandal, and watch her as she skips down the beach.

When John came out to find apartments, we went out to eat, he and Don
and I. I kept having to excuse myself to go cry in the ladies’ room.
I couldn’t sit and talk about Don in pink spandex and the time John
filled Don’s combat boots with shaving cream. I could see ER’s and
needles and suffering in John’s eyes, and I couldn’t stand it.
Something changes in your soul when your child cries and just cannot
be comforted.

We are worn out and sandy and even Jude is willing to leave. Karin holds
my hand as we walk up the beach, and Sage says behind me, I knew it,
you always wanted a girl. This makes Karin and me laugh.

We are quiet on the way home, tired and lost in thought, and I am
thinking that dreams come true and then they don’t, and some things
you love go away, and drift back to you again, if you just try to be
brave and wait patiently, and dry your tears and get busy with what
you have to do. I am thinking, I wish I were a mermaid. I would carry
everyone on the water, and I would never, ever get tired.