My mother never missed an opportunity to give me “character” lessons.  I always thought that she took these lessons to an extreme as they often ruined my “free time” with friends.  When I was about eleven or twelve, I would almost make it out of the house after school when my mother would stop me.

            “Wait!” she’d say.

            “Here we go again,” I would think.

            “I talked to Mrs. McCreedy this morning and she told me that the new baby kept her up all night, so I told her you would come over after school and take Mikey and Joey for a long walk so that she could rest.”

            “But Maaaaah, I told Sarah and Colleen that I’d be over to play today…”

            “You can go later if it’s not too dark, so get going!”

            I would barely start off for the neighbors house when, invariably, my mother would open the door to shout something else after me. “When you’re done with the walk, take in their laundry, it’s gonna rain tonight. The basket is on her porch.”

            “Okay.”  I would answer, defeated, knowing it would likely be dark by then.

            “And don’t forget to put the diapers on the top, ‘cause she’ll need them for the baby.”

            “OKAY!” I would scream, having learned already, that I would never win an argument with my mother. 

            Jesus Christ.  I got so annoyed when she acted like I hadn’t done all this stuff before.  My sister, Doreen, is thirteen years older than me and she had her first baby when I was seven and a half.  She had one baby a year for five years so I’d had plenty of practice with kids by the time I turned eleven.

            I guess that I shouldn’t have been surprised when, at the end of June, Ma told me that she had an entirely new chore for me. We had been invited to go to our neighbor, the Bartons who had just installed an actual “in the ground” swimming pool.

            “I want you to go with me to the pool today,” Mom said.

            “Okay,” I said, grateful for a chance to cool off.

            “But there’s just one thing.”

            “Here we go again,”  I thought.
 

            “Mrs. Holders coming too, and she’s bringing her little girl.”

            “Tommy Holder doesn’t have a sister,” I said.

            “Yes, he does.”

            “No, sir. How come I’ve never seen her then?”            

            “Well, she hasn’t started school yet, she’s been sick.”

            “Sick. How sick?”

            “Pretty sick.  She has trouble breathing, she’s very fragile.”

            “How come you never told me about her?”

            “I just met the Holder’s last weekend.  I never knew them to talk to till then,” she said.

            “How old is she?”

            “Six?”

            “Six, that’s no fun, why me?”

            “We thought that well, you know how to act around kids and thought that you’d be good with her cause you were so sick for so long, you know what it’s like.”

            “Great,” I thought, she had said ‘we’ which meant that she had been talking to other mothers about me again AND now she was talking about ‘my nephritis.’ I had that nasty kidney infection twice as a kid when I was five and seven.  I’d been stuck in bed for months, missed school, all the stuff that parents worried about.  Every time I had a sniffle or an ache she thought that I was sick again.  But I was eleven now and hadn’t had nephritis for four years and oh my God she was still talking?

            “Because you were in the Children’s Hospital and – ”

            “Okay, Ma.”

            “And she’s been really sick. Her name is Ruth.”

            “OKAY, MA, OKAY!”

            My mother smiled, knowing that she was good at wearing people down.

            “Jesus Christ,"  I thought.

 

            The sun was so hot that the tar road was softening as we walked to the Bartons' house in our bathing suits that afternoon.   A woman pushing a baby carriage was coming the opposite way and stopped at the Bartons' driveway. 

            “Hello, Eve-y” my mother hollered, already making a nickname of Mrs. Holder’s name. God, she was so embarrassing.

            “Hello, Clara!” Mrs. Holder replied as we caught up to them.

            “Hello,” I said.

            “This must be Ruthie!” my mother exclaimed, peering into the carriage.  “Here’s Ruthie, Jackie.”

            “Hi Ruthie.” I said, shading my eyes from the sun’s glare as I bent down to peer inside the dark baby stroller. I was so surprised by what I saw that I had to make myself stay put when I wanted to take a big step backward.  Inside, was a tiny girl, who looked maybe three years old, with her eyes covered by gigantic white-framed sunglasses. She wore a little white hat and her body was completely covered in towels from head to toe, despite the heat of the day.

            “Hi, I like your glasses,” I said.

            “Thanks!” she shouted, in an almost comically loud and gravelly way.  "Wait until you see my bikini!”

            After Mrs. Barton invited us inside the pool enclosure, I asked if Ruthie wanted to go into the swimming pool.

            “Oh, God no!” Mrs. Holder said.

            “Sun’s too high!” said Mrs. Barton.

            “Yes, Jackie, she could burn something terrible!” said my mother, like I should know this already.

            “Mommy, I want to go in!” came from the carriage.

            “Maybe later Ruthie, when the sun gets lower and the breeze calms down.”

            “Nowwwwww!” Ruthie insisted. 

            “No. You just watch Jackie for now. Go ahead and swim, Jackie swim.”

            The Trio of mothers stared at me like I had fins and should never have been out of the pool to begin with. I jumped in and started doing my Olympic style doggy paddle.  Every once in a while, I would get out of the water and go around to the diving board and either dive or cannonball back in. Finally, the women started to get ready to go into the water.  Out came more towels and bathing caps.  Mrs. Holder unwrapped Ruthie and had her hold my mother’s hand until she got herself into the pool.

            Then she reached up and pulled Ruthie down.  Gently, oh so gently, she gradually let Ruthie get wet while carefully bouncing her in the water. All of the women were now in the water and I swam over to where they were standing.

            “Stop splashing!” said Mrs. Barton.

            “You’re getting us wet!” yelled my Mother.

            “ Ruthie will get water in her eyes,” cried Mrs. Holder.

            “Sorry, sorry," I said as I stood up.

            “Do you want me to take Ruthie, Mrs. Holder?”

            She looked wary but said, “Here let me show you how to hold her.”

            Like I needed instructions on how to hold a kid.

            Mrs. Holder put Ruthie into my arms and I held her in front of me, one arm under her arms and the other arm under her knees. 

            “Be gentle and don’t let her get out of breath. If she starts to feel cold she needs to get out immediately,” said Mrs. Holder.

            “Yes, immediately,” said my Mother.

            “Right away,” said Mrs. Barton.

            Jesus Christ.

            When I held Ruthie, I started to feel that maybe I was beyond my kid knowledge base.  This little girl weighed less than my niece, Diane, who was only three years old.  Ruthie was completely white-all the way from her fuzzy hair to her toes and I could see and feel every one of her bones. I swore that I could see through her skin.   Her blue eyes seemed huge in her tiny face.  She tightened her bony arms around my neck and smiled.

            “Cool bikini, Ruthie.  What do you want to play?” I asked her.

            “Just dunk me in the water some more,” she said.

            “Don’t get her hair wet!” cried Mrs. Barton.

            “Don’t get water in her eyes!” hollered Mrs. Holder.

            “Don’t drop her!” my Mother warned.

            “Okay!” Ruthie and I shouted at the same time, and a bond was formed.

            I began moving Ruthie in the water, to and fro like the agitator in a washing machine on the gentle cycle; back and forth, back and forth.  She would laugh every now and then and holler “Faster, faster!” in her tiny but powerful voice.

            “Not too fast!” the mothers screamed at the same time and Ruthie and I rolled our eyes.

            After a few more minutes, Ruthie’s teeth started to chatter and her body began to shake.

            “You should get out now,” I said quietly.

            “Just a few more minutes.” She said with her teeth knocking against each other.

            I rocked her for a minute more then started towards the pool ladder and stood Ruthie up on the bottom step.

            “What are you doing!” cried Mrs. Holder.

            “Ya, what’s that! She’ll fall!” hollered Mrs. Barton.

            “You should know better!” yelled my Mother.

            “But I’m coming up right behind her!” I said.

            “No, no no, let Mrs. Holder get her!” my Mother yelled.

            Mrs. Holder plucked little Ruthie from the ladder and wrapped her up like a papoose with towels, covering her head and rubbing her all over until her teeth stopped chattering, which took much longer than I thought it would.  I should have paid more attention to this ritual but I figured that, having done so badly, this was the last time that I would be asked to watch Ruthie anyway.

            I was wrong. On the walk back home, my mother said, “ You did well with Ruthie, she seems to like you.”

            “Ya right.” I said.

            “No really, Mrs. Holder was very impressed with your patience.”

            “Then why did everyone keep yelling at me?”

            “We just wanted you to know how fragile she is and . . .”

            “Okay, I get it.” I said.

            “And she needs special care.”

            “OKAY!”

            “Jesus Christ,” I thought.

            I would see Ruthie about twice a week over that long, hot summer.  I would quickly “graduate” from watching how to care for her, to learning how to do it myself, being helped along, of course, by the trio of mothers shouting directions whenever I faltered. Ruthie and I grew closer, though we didn’t have much in common.  I would feel badly when she would ask me about my friends and what we did together and what school was like.  I tried to make my life sound super boring just so that maybe she would feel less sad about what she was missing out on.  Ruthie kept talking about “Someday, someday I’ll go to school.  Someday I’ll be able to swim by myself.”

            I would just nod and say stuff like, “that sounds cool” or “you will probably be good at whatever you try to do.”  But I was really trying to understand what Ruthie’s future might hold.

            After a week or two with Ruthie, I asked my mother what, exactly, was wrong with her. 

            “Well, um, she has trouble breathing and keeping her breath steady.”

            “I know that, Ma, I’ve seen her try to catch her breath. But what’s really wrong, is she going to get better?”

            “No one knows for sure. She has, um, she was born with a hole in her heart.”

            “What’s that?”

            “All I know is that she has a birth defect that left a hole in her heart and that she can’t breathe well.”

            “Can anyone fix it?”

            “There’s surgery, but it’s as dangerous as the problem is itself.”

            “Jesus Christ.” I thought.  
                 

            September came all too quickly and soon it was back-to-school time. The first time that I asked Tommy Holder how Ruthie was doing, he blew up at me.

            “Shut up about my sister and don’t tell anyone about her or else!”

            I didn’t understand why he wanted to keep this secret, but for once I actually did shut up. I let Tommy pretend to be an only child.

            Throughout the school year, I would go over to the Holders house to visit Ruthie.  Mrs. Holder, who knew how germy kids were, never let me in to see her. (I guess that Tommy had all the cooties that a mother could stand.) Instead, Ruthie would wave to me from a window and I’d wave back and after a few minutes she would watch me walk away as the New England seasons changed all around me.

            Finally, summer arrived once more and we were invited back to the pool with Mrs. Holder and Ruthie. When I first saw her she announced in a loud, hearty voice, “I’m seven years old now so I can go swimming more.  Let’s go in the pool!”

            And so we did.  The trio of mothers, Ruthie and I, would meet at the pool every Monday and Thursday.  I began joking more with Ruthie and tried to get her to laugh. She would wrap both of her painfully thin arms around my neck and ask to be dunked under water which I would pretend to do, but never did. I would let her stay in the pool until her teeth started to chatter and she loved that I wasn’t as strict as her mother. Once we got out of the pool, I would swaddle her in towels and put her hat and crazy sunglasses on her. She would sit between my legs on the warm picnic table bench and I would pat her back to help her catch her breath. I would hug her close to me so that I could help her create body heat and rub her arms and legs to dry her and get her warm. Once she caught her breath, which took a painfully long time, I would ask her mother if Ruthie could sit by the pool so that she could watch me swim.  Ruthie would then wear me out asking me to,

“Dive, dive! Or “Splash me, splash me!”

            I would dive or jump or cannonball into the water about a hundred times it seemed.  I would splash her occasionally when the trio of moms wasn’t looking. Not a huge splash, but just enough to sprinkle water on her upturned face. She and I would then giggle about the spray going unnoticed by the moms.

            Summer was in full swing by the end of July and we had kept up our bi-weekly visits to the pool.  Ruthie was as lively as ever and I let her stay in the water for our usual “extra” time together.  After I had dried her off one Thursday, she sat by the pool while I tried to entertain her.  Soon, she waved me over to talk and whispered, “Do the biggest, best, cannonball ever and splash me!”

            I could see the anticipation in her eyes as I got out of the pool and walked around to the diving board.

            “I’m going to make this cannonball a killer,” I thought.

            I focused, took two steps and bounced really hard on the board.  It seemed like I was in the air a lot longer than usual and had plenty of time to tuck my legs and roll slightly back to achieve the maximum splash.  It was huge!  I crashed into the water and hit my butt on the bottom of the pool.  My back stung from the tilted entrance into the water.  I came up for air facing Ruthie who was laughing like crazy and wiping water out of her eyes with a towel.  Then I heard the dreadful motherly trio.

            “What are you doing, you got Ruthie wet again!” said Mrs. Holder.

            “You got us all wet!” cried Mrs. Barton.

            “What the hell were you thinking!” screamed my Mom.

            It was worth the reprimand though, because Ruthie was still laughing.   She made me promise that I would do it again some time and of course I said I would and we all went home for supper.

            That Friday night Ruthie went into the hospital with severe shortness of breath. That Saturday night, Ruthie died,  JUST. LIKE. THAT.

            “Jesus Christ,” I said out loud when my mother told me she had died.

            “What did you say?”

            “Jesus Christ????” I answered, waiting for a smack, but instead she pulled me close for a hug.

            There was nothing else to say.

            The funeral was that following Monday at St. Malachy’s church.    When we arrived, the coffin had already been placed in front of the altar, surrounded by dozens of bouquets of flowers.  Ruthie’s parents were sitting in the front pew, their chins resting on their chests.  Tommy sat beside them and turned to look at me and I suddenly realized that we were the only two kids there.  Ruthie didn’t have a chance to make any friends but me. The priest began the liturgy while my eyes were riveted on the tiny, white casket.
 

            “Ruthie fits in there?" I thought.  “It’s so small.  Really it’s too small.”

            I put my arms in front of me to recall how big she was.  Remembering her like this suddenly brought tears to my eyes.  The memory of her arms hugging my neck made my heart ache.

            The rest of that day and that week was a blur.   I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel, but couldn’t sleep because I kept thinking of little Ruthie in that horrid white box.  I’d wake in the middle of the night with a scream on my lips.  I couldn’t tell my parents because my mother would think that I was feverish and that I had nephritis again.

            My Grandmother visited that Sunday and seemingly out of the blue she said, “It’s so sad about your little friend, Jackie.  Just remember that God loves all children and she’ll be healthy and happy in Heaven. You should think of her that way.”
 

            As always, Nana knew just what to say.

            That night, I closed my eyes and tried to imagine Ruthie healthy and happy.  That took a little while. Next, I tried to picture a setting that would make her happier still and I envisioned a sunny day with a calm, glassy lake.  Then I see her alone in the water, moving her arms and legs quite comfortably.   Finally, I see Ruthie turn to look at me and she giggles and slowly swims away.

                                            * * *