Here are some examples of large items: a wall, a table, a countertop.
Here are some examples of small items: a toaster, a faucet, a telephone.
This rule meant that Mother needed to change gloves ten or fifteen times per room.
The main problem with the surgical gloves was that in order to take them off your hands, you had to use your fingers, which meant coming into contact with the disgustingness.
Surgeons, of course, know how to do this without touching anything contaminated.
First, they rinse their gloves in antiseptic — in our case, Clorox bleach — then they remove one glove halfway, and the other halfway, then they take the fingertips of one glove to put the other glove in the garbage and then their bare fingers to remove the remaining glove, being careful, of course, to only touch the inside-out part, as not to contaminate the skin.
The problem with Mother’s method was this: she never trusted the inside-out part. What if there was disgustingness under the glove? What if it somehow seeped through the microscopic fissures of the latex, or under the fingernail, where it might fester, nibbling at the cuticles and eventually destroying the entire finger, gnawing at the hand until it looked like hamburger?
This meant that she would sometimes get stuck in a never-ending loop of putting on and taking off surgical gloves until she was satisfied that she had done it perfectly.
Most of the time, I helped her disinfect. After all, if it hadn’t been for my need to eat so much, Uncle Toby wouldn’t have had to bring food so often, and the process of cleaning would have been much simpler. I went along with the rules and scrubbed obediently, helping her move from top to bottom as quickly as I could.
But today, my story about Ziggy Karlo and Nana Jean ate at me, and I found myself sitting on the kitchen stairs, watching Mother tornado from one object to the next, her face pinched and white, and all I wanted was to make the story real.
I wanted Ziggy Karlo to be my friend. I wanted the ferret to dance at my feet. I wanted Nana Jean to tell the neighbor kids that I had been through a hard time so it was okay for me to be unfriendly. There would be good things cooking inside, and there would be calming talk about nothing at all, and a shoulder to lean against, and old lady skin that smelled like talcum powder and rose perfume.
“Mother,” I said.
She scrubbed the counter with a bristle brush, back and forth, back and forth, her breath coming out in jagged gasps.
“Mother,” I said again. “I’m going out to climb trees.”
She continued scrubbing. “I can’t get this off,” she said.
“I’ll be back at my regular time. Six thirty-two on the dot.”
“I keep trying, but I just can’t do it.” She pushed harder and moved faster, and the kitchen was filled with the furious sound of bristles scratching the wood.
“Okay,” I said. “Bye, Mother.”
She didn’t look up from her scrubbing. The whole room warmed from her movement, churning into a strange mixture of bleach and sweat, the two scents so strong, I forced myself to inhale and exhale through my mouth all the way from the kitchen, down the hall to the parlor, and out the door.
Outside, I leaned against the porch rail and breathed the wonderful outdoor air filled with the green smell of leaves and grass and sun and cars and people, a feast of fresh air cascading into my screaming, delirious lungs.
When I got to the copper beech tree, Ziggy Karlo was waiting for me cross-legged on the longest branch. He was wearing an orange Dungeons & Dragons T-shirt and green corduroys with red bandanna patches on the knees. Matthew the ferret was curled on top of his head like a strange white cap.
“Hey,” said Ziggy.
“Hey,” I said. “How’s it going?”
“Pretty good,” said Ziggy. “Except for the fact that there’s this nosy neighbor girl who keeps spying on me. She climbs up this tree right here, and she watches everything I do.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling my cheeks redden.
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”
“I guess not,” I said. “I guess I didn’t think you could see me.”
“Well, I did see you,” said Ziggy. “I saw you every time. Looking down at me. Staring like I was some kind of freak. And I didn’t appreciate it.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to make you feel weird.”
“You didn’t make me feel weird,” said Ziggy. “I don’t need to be made to feel weird. I am weird. I am an entirely different kind of creature from most people around here. And for your information, I’m used to people staring at me. Everyone at my old school stared at me. The kids in this neighborhood stare at me. And now you stare at me too.”
“I wasn’t staring at you,” I said, suddenly breathless because of how hard my heart was beating.
Ziggy narrowed his eyes at my lie.
“Well,” I amended, “I mean, I guess I was staring at you. But not in the way you think. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. It’s just that I like watching people. I like how your nana talks to you. I like how she hugs you and makes you things to eat and takes the snarls out of your hair. It’s beautiful.”
“You think my nana is beautiful?” asked Ziggy, looking at me sideways.
I nodded.
“I think she’s beautiful too,” he admitted. “She has always been an exquisite matriarch.”
“You use interesting words,” I told him.
“I do?”
“Yes,” I said. “Just now, you used the words exquisite matriarch. That’s beautiful. You have a good vocabulary. You told Buzz and John-John that fairies have diaphanous wings, and I have never heard a person use the word diaphanous before. It’s an unusual word. I like it.”
“I like it too,” said Ziggy.
We were both silent for a few moments, just watching each other and wondering.
“Anyway,” I said, sighing, “I’m sorry I made you feel like I was staring at you. I’ll go home now if you want me to. I won’t bother you anymore.”
I took a deep breath and turned to go. Trowbridge Road stretched in front of me with its row of tall Victorian houses, each with its own closed door. I started walking.
“Wait a second,” said Ziggy suddenly.
I whirled around. “What?”
“I was just thinking. If you would be willing to sit with me in this tree, I feel like perhaps I would rather enjoy it.”
“Do you mean that?”
“I never say anything I don’t mean,” said Ziggy. “That’s one of the many peculiar things about me that most people don’t like. It’s unfortunate. Anyway, I think this branch is big enough for two people to sit together, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling myself blush with the happiness of a wish coming true. “I think we’d fit just fine.”
“Do you want a hand?” He leaned down from the branch and offered me one.
“No thank you,” I said. “I’ve been up this tree so many times, I could climb it with my eyes closed.”
“Show me,” said Ziggy.
I closed my eyes and reached up the trunk with the palms of my hands until I found the first burl. I pulled myself up and found my foothold and then reached up for the next one, and the next one. I pulled myself up on a branch and put one leg over, then leaned on my belly and made my way around to the thickest branch, where there was a wide notch exactly the right size for my body. I leaned against the trunk, opened my eyes, and sighed.