J. Timothy King

Kids and toilets don’t mix. They’re always going wrong at the most inconvenient times, like when I need to go.

I pushed open the bathroom door and almost stepped in it, a puddle the size of Lake Erie. Carefully lifting the lid confirmed my suspicions. The bowl was filled to the brim. Inside was a tiny log of poo and a half-roll of toilet paper.

“Shit,” I said. Then, “Gerald Ferris Robinson, Junior!”

“What?” I heard his voice echo from somewhere on the first floor. You know, whenever the Beaver’s mother used his full name, he came running.

“Come here!”

Feet bounded up the stairs, making a noise disproportionate to their size.

“What is it, Ma?”

I motioned to the toilet and surrounding flood.

He said nothing.

“I have to use the toilet, and now I can’t. I work really hard around here cleaning up after you. And I really wish you wouldn’t make my life more difficult.”

He seemed to stand a little shorter.

“That’s all I wanted to say.”

He quietly slunk downstairs, turned on the television, and turned up the volume.

I hated working in the toilet. When I was growing up, whenever my mother asked me to clean the bathroom, I would wear heavy latex gloves to protect me from the germs. I would used a disinfecting cleanser, and when I was done, I would carefully remove the gloves and throw them in the trash. Then I’d wash for 15 minutes, all the way up to my elbows, like a surgeon.

Now, plunger in hand, I needed to unclog the drain. I always got Jerry to take care of this kind of thing. But Jerry wasn’t home from work yet, and I had a pain in my butt that called out disaster, and I don’t mean the kid. As I worked, I splashed even more water onto the floor. I felt wet floor sliding under my shoes.

Then I felt long, wet hair sticking to my neck and water dribbling down my blouse. I shook my head to clear the feeling. I hadn’t had long hair since early in ninth grade.

The front door opened. A little voice screamed “Daddy!” Then thump-thump-thump, boom! and Jerry said, “Oomph! Watch my back! Where’s your mother?”

“Upstairs, but…” and I couldn’t hear what came after.

I continued to pump on the plunger handle. Footfalls ascended the staircase, stopping when they reached the top.

“I see,” Jerry said. Then he paused. “We need to clean up that puddle before it seeps through and damages the floor.”

“Look, I work really hard around here, and this wasn’t even my fault.”

“Okay.” He measured his words carefully, but before he could continue, I butted in.

“It’s the same thing, every day. He never listens. He never cleans up after himself. He makes a mess and then expects me to fix it. And now I can’t even use the bathroom, because the toilet’s clogged!”

“Do you want me to do that?”

I took a deep breath. “No. I have it.”

“Then I’ll get some towels for the floor.”

When he got back, I tore into him. “No, we can’t use those. Just let me handle it, would you?”

“What should I use?”

“I’m taking care of it.”

“No you’re not. You’re unclogging the toilet.”

“It wasn’t my fault!” I said.

“I know that. What’s with you and toilets? Just let me do it, okay?”

I shrunk back, silent. I was dry, but I felt drenched from head to toe, as though water were everywhere. I felt tears push from behind my eyes, but I held them back. Suddenly, I was on the floor. I forced my hand down into the bowl, scouring the trap with my fingers. I felt nothing in the water.

“What are you doing?” Jerry sounded angry.

“I just want my necklace back.”

“Necklace? What necklace?”

I ignored him, continuing my search. He grabbed my shoulders and tried to pull me back, but I yanked myself away.

“No! It has to be there! It has to!”

“Olivia, you’re getting shit all over your hands!”

“Why did you do this to me?”

“Little Jerry’s only 6. Little kids need to get the knack of that sort of thing.”

“I need to find my necklace!”

“Olivia, calm down!”

The next thing I new, he threw me into the shower, undressed me, washed away everything. I don’t remember him starting the water, picking me up, wrestling me under the warm rain. I don’t remember relieving myself, but clearly I had; I hate to think where. I also don’t remember him drying me off, putting me to bed, cleaning up the mess.

I woke up in bed. It was dark out. Jerry walked in and sat down next to me. I propped myself up on my elbows.

“Hi, hon. I must have drifted off. I had the strangest dream.”

He summarized for me the evening’s events. “I know a good psychiatrist,” he said.

“What?” I felt my face turn hot.

“He wants you to keep calm and to see him tomorrow at 11:30. Does that work with your schedule?”

“I don’t want a psychiatrist!”

“Look, Olivia, that behavior wasn’t… healthy. You could have a brain tumor. You have to talk to a doctor.”

I sighed deeply. “I don’t have a brain tumor.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes I do, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

Jerry sat beside me. “What’s going on, then?”

I closed my eyes for a moment to settle my stomach. Then I sat up and kissed him. “What do you want for dinner?”

“I made some burgers and fries for Little Jerry and me. We saved you some.”

I ate in silence. Jerry sat at the table with me. I could almost hear his thoughts, still thinking about the head shrink. But I wasn’t going to have any of it. I knew what had happened; I knew there was nothing wrong with me; and I didn’t want to talk to any mind-doctor about it.

When I was 9 years old, my brother Lee died. I was only a little kid and he about to start college, but he always had time for me. We played with dolls, painted and drew, watched TV, read books, went bike riding. Mostly I remember talking with him. He was like another parent to me, grown up and wise, but without any of the emotional distance that so often separates parents from their little girls.

Then one August day he got a cold, which turned into a chest infection, which turned into pneumonia. No matter what the doctors did, he wouldn’t get better. Lee had fallen victim to a little known disease called AIDS. We don’t know how he got it, though my parents always told me it was from a blood transfusion he had when I was a baby.

During the last days, I sat with him every day. We both knew what lay ahead. We spent endless hours together telling each other all the things you save up until the very end, but which most of us never get the chance to share. To this day, I can’t read Tuesdays With Morrie.

On one of these visits, I was wearing a gold, heart-shaped locket Lee had given me for my seventh birthday. Inside was a picture of the two of us from a photo booth at the mall.

Lee noticed the locket and smiled. “I remember that,” he said in short, grungy bursts.

I opened it up. There was a picture of Lee and I, smiling and healthy. Inside the cover was engraved, “Brother and sister forever.”

I looked at Lee, but I said nothing. There was a brick in my throat.

Lee took a heavy breath. “Wear it, and we’ll be together.”

From that day on, I always wore my heart-shaped locket, even to bed. It might seem silly, but to me it all made perfect sense. I kept it close to my heart so that someday I’d see Lee again in heaven. I couldn’t take it off, or else I would lose him forever.

So I wore the locket, but I never forgave God for taking my brother away.

In ninth grade, I began junior high. I recognized a few people from middle school, but there were also many strange faces. One day near the beginning of the school year, I got a pass during English class to use the bathroom. I hated using any public restroom, but some things can’t be avoided. I did the best I could. When I was done, a group of girls were loitering around the sinks. They were taller than me, and I did not recognize them from any of my classes. I knew they probably weren’t supposed to be there.

I tried to ignore them. I just wanted to wash my hands and get back to class. But one of the girls stopped me before I could reach the sink. She had short hair and an athletic build, and she was wearing ripped jeans and black boots with rivets. As she approached, she looked down into my eyes from above with a menacing coolness.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

I froze for a second. Then I ventured, “I just want to wash my hands.”

“No, I mean, what are you doing here? In this room?”

My mind blanked out. Fear surrounded me. I felt as though I were being frozen inside of a giant ice-cube. I wanted to say something witty and threatening, but I didn’t know even how to begin. If I had been able to pull it off, that would have contrasted nicely with the dainty, pink blouse and frilly skirt I was wearing. Maybe it was best that I said nothing.

The girl stepped back a moment and smiled. “I love your hair,” she said. “Blonde and pink go together.”

I laughed a nervous “Thanks.”

“How did you grow it so long?”

“I’ve just always had long hair.” I choked the words out.

Then she noticed the heart charm I always wore around my neck. She examined it in her hand. “What a pretty necklace.”

“My brother gave that to me,” I blurted out.

She yanked it from my neck and threw it in the toilet. Panicked, I dashed after it, kneeling down next to the bowl, poised to grab it back, mustering the courage. But before I could, the other girls shoved my head in. They flushed. The current sucked in my long hair, which clogged the drain. Disgusting, cold water came up around my face. I closed my eyes and held my breath and scrambled and shoved against the bowl, wanting to get away, wanting to breathe, wanting to cry.

Instead, I felt a hand wham down on my head, shoving me in further. The toilet flushed again, and water overflowed onto the floor.

I got away. I was sitting on the floor in the center of a miniature lake. My hair was soaked, and water stains spotted my clothes.

The dark-haired girl craned over me, and as she talked, she accented each syllable with a nasty finger pointed at my forehead. “This is our room. You stay out.”

One of the other girls was holding a large wad of toilet paper, which she threw into the toilet. Then they left.

I still wanted to cry, but after all that, I could not. I crawled back to the bowl and rooted around for my necklace. But it was gone. Still, I continued my search.

The door opened and I heard the dark-haired girl speaking with a woman.

“I just came in here, and she was down on the floor with her arm in the toilet and water everywhere.”

“Thanks for bringing it to my attention. You can go back to class now.”

Footsteps echoed off the hard, cold walls, approaching. They stopped.

“Well, are you planning on cleaning this up? Or shall I call the janitor?”

I ignored her.

“Hey!”

She came closer, probably as close as she could without stepping in water. I did not look, but I heard her heels clap on the dry cement.

“Look, you,” she said, “this kind of behavior is unacceptable. I don’t know what they do at your house, but here we don’t stuff toilet paper in the toilet and then play with it!”

For the first time, I acknowledged her. I stood up, stepped back, and faced her. She was short for a teacher, but stocky. She had a painted on face and dirty-blonde curls, and she wore a pine-green business suit and skirt.

When I said nothing, she seemed annoyed. “Well? Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”

“This isn’t my fault.”

“No, I suppose the toilet faeries did it, right?”

“That girl— She threw my necklace in there and did this to me!”

“You mean Samantha Haverhill?” The expression on her face was as if I had just told a very unfunny joke.

“I don’t know her name. The dark-haired girl you were talking to.”

“Samantha is one of my best students. I don’t think she would be involved in any trouble.”

I just looked at her.

“Come over here.”

She helped me dry off and had my parents take me home. They wanted to know the story, but I didn’t want to tell it. I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling. And I forgot. I forgot everything. The girls, the locket, Lee, everything.

Mom and Dad noticed changes. I cut my hair. I talked differently. I dressed differently. They sent me to a psychologist. I told them to leave me alone, that I was “just growing up.” They seemed to understand that on some level, but the psychologist didn’t. He kept pushing and pushing, week after week, session after session. I lied to Dad and told him the psychologist kept asking about sexual abuse. Then my parents saw things my way, and eventually things did reach a new normal.

But I didn’t want to talk about any of this with Jerry. And I definitely did not want to see a psychiatrist, because the psychiatrist would want me to remember, and that would be bad. So I ate my dinner as though nothing were awry, except that I was eating by myself.

Little Jerry came up to me and wrapped his arms around my waist and said, “Mommy, after you go to the doctor and you get better, can you read me Mouse Tales again?”

I scowled at my husband from across the table, such that my son could not see.

Jerry did not respond.

I looked back at Little Jerry. “I can read you Mouse Tales tonight. Okay?”

He looked up at me. “What about after you go to the doctor?”

“I don’t need to go to the doctor, Little Jerry.” I touched his nose with the tip of my finger and smiled.

He smiled back and went off to play with his trucks in front of the television.

Jerry said, “You do need to see the doctor.”

“Okay,” I said, but I had no intention of seeing a psychiatrist.

The next day I blew off the appointment with the psychiatrist. But I did call my own doctor and got her to recommend a neurologist. I was able to make an appointment for the following week. When Jerry found out, he was miffed, I could tell, but he said that he was glad I was seeing someone and that I should keep him posted.

The next weeks passed without incident. Each morning I awoke, made everyone breakfast, saw Jerry off to work, got Little Jerry on the bus to school, washed the laundry and dishes, cleaned up from the night before just in time to get Little Jerry from the afternoon bus, helped him with his homework, cooked dinner, cleaned some more, saw Jerry home, had dinner, put the son to bed, and put myself to bed just in time to start over again.

I kept the appointment with the neurologist, who scheduled an MRI, even though he didn’t think it would turn up anything. The MRI turned up nothing out of the ordinary. Everyone wanted to know if I had been under abnormal stress. I told them, no, I hadn’t.

A couple weeks later, we had my parents over for a Sunday afternoon feast, the centerpiece of which was a lovely honey-baked ham.

Dad finished his last bite and said, “That was delicious. You know, Olivia wouldn’t even eat ham as a child.”

“Why not?” asked Little Jerry.

“Because pigs are dirty animals and ham comes from pigs.”

“Yuck!”

“But the farmers keep them clean, and when we cook the ham, that kills all the germs.”

Now Big Jerry chimed in. “She’s still afraid of germs, though. When did that happen?”

I regarded him, suspected he was up to no good.

“I don’t know. She wasn’t always like that. I remember one time when she was about three, we thought she was taking a nap in her crib. She was so quiet.”

Mom said, “Richard, we’re eating.”

“Little did we know what she was getting into!”

“What?” asked Little Jerry.

“Her diaper.”

“Huh?”

“She had gone poop in her diaper, and she decided to finger-paint.”

“Eww!”

“Yup. It was everywhere. The crib was white when we bought it. But she turned it brown. Even the slats were covered. You know, the poles in the crib?” He moved his hands as though he were slathering something all over the slats of a crib.

I was no longer eating.

Then he reached his arms over his head. “The wall, too, solid brown, as high as she could reach. Her entire body, even her face, completely covered.”

“And who cleaned it up?”

“Oh! I picked her up from the shoulders, like this.” He pinched his fingers as though he were holding something toxic. “I just threw her in the tub and turned on the water. Then the crib. We got out the Lysol. I think we had to get a new mattress.”

“And that’s why she hates toilets?” Jerry asked.

But there was no answer. Only Little Jerry was laughing. There was an awkward pause.

Then Mom said, “Little Jerry, why don’t you show me your room?”

“Okay. I got a new truck! Wanna see?”

She ushered him off. Then Dad told Jerry the story about Lee. I didn’t object, nor did I add anything. I didn’t feel like talking. I didn’t feel like listening. I cleared the table and washed the dishes. In the background, I heard them talking about me, when I started high school, when my personality changed. I don’t know if they were aware I was listening. I don’t know whether they cared.

When it was time for Mom and Dad to go, I saw them to the door, said goodbye. And then I stopped breathing.

I dreamed I was in a sunny, green field. Samantha Haverhill was there. She was a teenager, but she was still taller than me. She towered over me brandishing a knife. I tried to move, but my muscles wouldn’t budge. I felt a sharp pain in my chest and I saw that she had cut me there with the knife. Then she reached inside my chest and yanked out my heart. I stood silently, unable to move.

Then Samantha dropped my heart into a hole in the ground where I was standing. She filled the hole with dirt. And I fell down and died. It’s a myth that you’ll die for real if you die in your dreams. I had died in my dreams before. My chest still hurt.

Samantha wanted to eat an apple from the tree that had grown where I had died, where she planted my heart. So she talked to the tree, “I’ve been searching for you for years, and I’ve been hungry all that time. May I please have one of your apples?”

I spoke to her out of the tree. “These are my apples. I don’t have to give you any, and I need them for my family.”

“Please. You have enough. Your family is getting fat, and you don’t even eat any yourself.”

“My blood flows through this tree like sap. These are my apples to give or to withhold.” Then I walked out of the tree, and for the first time, I was taller than Samantha Haverhill.

“Okay,” I said. “You may have one apple.”

She picked an apple, and where she had picked it, two new apples appeared.

I woke up, but not in my own bed. I was propped up, and there were wires and tubes connected to me. In the background, I could hear hospital noises. My chest still hurt. I looked around and saw Jerry sleeping in a chair, with sunlight pouring through the window all around us.

“Jerry,” I tried to say, but it was too hard to talk.

A black nurse walked in the room, and smiled. “So, you woke up.” She checked the I.V. and took my blood pressure as she talked. “I’m Adelle. Don’t try to move yet. You have a catheter in you, so you won’t have to pee. If you need anything else, you can push this button.” She picked up a button on a wire and put it in my hand. “I’ll tell the doctor you’re awake.”

But before she left, she woke up Jerry, who was happy to see me. I didn’t remember when last I’d seen him happy. He kissed me and stroked my hair and said, “I’m so glad you’re alright.”

“What happened?” I eked out.

“The operation was a success.”

Then I remembered. I had severe trouble breathing. An ambulance rushed me to the hospital, where they panicked and performed tests and panicked some more. They always tried not to show that they were panicking. Several hours later, I had an emergency open-heart bypass operation.

“Little Jerry?” I asked.

Jerry smiled. “Mom and Dad are staying with Little Jerry.”

I smiled, too.

Over the next months, I learned to let others do things for me. I was always afraid things wouldn’t get done. But I had no choice, and Jerry made sure of that. He worked from home frequently. Mom and Dad came over from time to time. Even Little Jerry learned to help out.

One day, I got an unexpected email. It was from Samantha Haverhill. She said we had gone to high school together and that she had something that she thought belonged to me. She wanted to meet.

I didn’t want to see her. I didn’t want to think about her. I ignored her email, but for some reason I could not delete it. Every time I considered it, I put it off. And the longer the message sat in my in-box, the more I did want to see Samantha Haverhill and do to her what she’d done to me.

I replied to her email and arranged to meet her for brunch.

We met in a classy tearoom. I recognized her immediately. Her hair was longer, but she was still the dark-haired girl.

She rose as I approached. “Hi. Olivia?” She offered me her hand.

She was about as tall as me. I suddenly noticed her face. It was softer than I remembered, despite marks of age. I introduced myself, and she began to talk.

“I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Twelve Steps. I’ve been going through a twelve-step program, and one of the things they tell you to do is to find everyone you’ve wronged and ask forgiveness. So I’ve been hunting down all the people I’ve wronged in the past. I want to try to make things right.”

I thought I remembered that from an episode of Seinfeld. “All the people you’ve wronged? That must be some list.”

Without missing a beat, she replied, “Yes, it is. And you’re the last name on it. I looked for you for years. I didn’t remember your name. All I had was one clue that helped me find you.”

She reached into her purse and brought out a delicate chain necklace with a gold, heart-shaped charm. She set it on the table.

I picked it up, opened it. Inside was a cheap photo of Lee and me smiling at the camera. I put it all together. She tricked me into thinking she threw it into the toilet. She swiped it instead.

“Will you forgive me?” she asked.

I felt like punching her in the face. “I don’t have to forgive you,” I said.

“I know.”

“There will always be people who won’t forgive you for the things you did.”

“You wouldn’t be the first.” She seemed resigned to fate and almost sad about it.

We were silent for a long minute.

Samantha stood. “Well, thanks for meeting me, anyhow. I’m glad to have given you back your necklace. Have brunch on me.” She placed ten dollars on the table and was about to walk away.

“Wait,” I said. I sighed. “Sit down.”

She sat back down.

I spoke in a harsh, angry whisper. “You don’t seem to realize what you did to me. My brother gave this to me before he died, and when I lost it, I thought I was going to die. You ruined my whole life! I cut my hair, changed my clothes. I lied to my parents. Damn it! I can’t lead a normal life because of you.” And I couldn’t stop. Against all reason, I found myself pouring out my soul to this person. The more I talked, the more I was surprised at what I was saying. I felt as though I were sitting as a third party to the conversation, listening to myself, getting to know myself again after all those years. I felt less and less angry. Instead, I felt sadder and sadder.

And finally I wept. For the first time in twenty years, I wept.

Slowly I began to realize that Samantha did not need me to forgive her. She had already come to terms with her daemons, or else she wouldn’t be here. She did not need me to forgive her. Rather, I needed me to.

That August, I spoke at a fund-raiser for AIDS research, in honor of Lee. I told them our story and moved the room to tears. They gave me a standing ovation. I know that sounds corny, like that’s how the story’s supposed to end: “Everyone lived happily ever after,” and all that garbage. Everyone did not live happily ever after.

We still visit with my parents from time to time—that will never change—and now I even occasionally laugh at Dad’s stories.

I still hate toilets, but at least now I can work with them.

Samantha Haverhill and I will never be close, but we do occasionally write.

And I grew my hair long again. I like it that way.