After a fitful night's sleep, I woke up to the pleasant sight of sun. I nearly forgot all that had happened until I noticed that Daddy wasn't here. A sob caught in my throat as I sat up in bed. I showered, dressed and went to the kitchen to make myself something to eat. But as soon as I turned on the stove, I stopped and went to the phone. I dialed Gina's number. Within a matter of a minute after she picked up, I blurted the entire story about Daddy and his condition.
"Do you want me to come over, Maxine?" Gina asked after I'd finished. "It might make you feel better if you had some company, if I was there."
I mused over that for a minute. "You're right Gina," I said. "I think I do need some companionship right about now."
"Great," I could almost hear Gina's smile. "I'll come over in about fifteen minutes or so and we'll do something together."
After saying good bye to my friend, I hung up the phone and went into Daddy's office wrapped in a memory of my childhood. I sat on the floor, looking up at a photograph of Daddy and I at my high school graduation. Next to it was another photo of the two of us at my kindergarten graduation. That gave me an idea. I got up and went to the living room, opening drawers and cabinet doors until I found what I was looking for: a box of crayons. I took the box out of the drawer and hugged it close. Then I plucked one out of the box and picked at the paper until enough crayon showed to make a decent point. I sniffed it, inhaling the familiar waxy scent, laughing the entire time.
There is always something therapeutic about crayons that make you feel like you accomplished something. When I was very little—maybe five or six—and I was having a bad day, Daddy would get out our big box of 124-color crayons and ten feet of computer paper, tape each end of the paper to the floor and then (this was the best part) he would slide out of his wheelchair so he could sit on the floor with me and we would just color. We would sit there for hours, coloring a picture that never seemed to end. Together, flower gardens, fairy tale forests and medieval villages formed between our fingers using little nubs of paper-covered wax.
By the time Gina arrived, I was hunting down some paper and some tape. She had let herself in and was surprised to see me running all over the place, looking for something. She looked at me as if I were crazy.
"Maxine, what are you doing?"
"Finding supplies," I answered, absent-mindedly. "Bingo!" I withdrew a fat stack of white paper from a cabinet in the kitchen. I set the box of crayons (only 106 remained) and the stack of paper on the coffee table and grinned at Gina. She stared at me.
"Arts and crafts?"
"No, crayon pictures," I explained. I placed a pink crayon in her hand and closed her fingers around it. "Daddy and I would make there when I was little. They always cheer me up."
"I still don't get it."
I held up a piece of computer paper and showed Gina how they were attached. "Daddy would tape about ten feet of this to the floor and then hang them up till we made a new one."
"You are such a cornball, Maxine," Gina giggled. "Are you saying that you want to draw crayon pictures instead of going shopping?"
"I'd rather," I admitted without missing a beat.
Gina put her car keys on the table in the foyer, took off her jacket and helped me tape the paper to the floor. I sat at one end, she at the other. We each had a crayon in hand, poised and ready to go until a light dawned.
"We need a theme," I said.
"Theme, huh? You didn't just draw a random thing?"
I shook my head. "We usually drew castles and fairy tale stuff."
Gina, always the artiste, decided we should draw our idea of Heaven. "I think all we need right now is a little paradise."
I squeezed Gina's hand and picked up a pink crayon and began to draw fluffy pink clouds along the bottom of my side of the paper. I drew angels blowing trumpets and playing harps. With a skilled hand, Gina depicted angels plucking guitars and four playing what looked like poker, claiming not all angels had musical talent.
I illustrated my mother as "chief angel": sitting on a big golden chair, holding a bejeweled scepter and wearing a gold crown in place of a halo and big pink and blue wings. As I used my middle finger to blend the pink and blue, the phone rang. I was reluctant to leave, but then I remembered it could be news about Daddy, so I sprang up and raced to the phone.
"Good morning," chirped the voice of Dr. Gallagher.
"Oh, good morning, doctor," I said, grinning. From the tone of his dialogue this had to be good news. "What's the word?"
"The word is good, Ms. Cale. Your father is awake and has been informed of his condition yet his morale is high, I'm happy to report."
"Any information on the tests?"
"He does indeed have anemia," Dr. Gallagher replied. "Not as severe as we first feared, but it's there."
"How is he?" I asked urgently, chewing on my lip.
"Comfortable, stable, can't wait to see you."
"Really?"
"Heard him say it myself."
"I'll be there as soon as I can," I replied excitedly. "Thank you, Doctor." I hung up the phone, grabbed the leather jacket, picked up my keys and raced out of the penthouse. I got to the end of the hallway when I remembered that Gina was still there.
When I sprinted back to the penthouse and found Gina staring at me, with one eyebrow raised, giving me an expression that definitely said, "what just happened?".
"Gina," I said breathlessly. I was panting from all the running. I jingled my keys in my hands impatiently. "My daddy…awake…hospital…c'mon!"
Gina didn't move fast enough for me. She stood, brushed her hands free from the crayons, picked up her jacket and met me at the door. I grabbed her arm and pulled her with me.
"You're dislocating my shoulder, Maxine!" she shouted as I tugged her along.
"That's okay. We're going to a hospital anyway," I joked.
Gina refused to see the humor.
