Fifteen Minutes

Nothing actually happened when I “got busted” forging my father’s signature.

No punishment, anyway. Like I said, this would turn out to be the expected behavior in the very near future. Fourth to sixth grade seems like forever when you’re in it, but it is the blink of an eye in hindsight.

Third grade trudged on with the speed of a snail. I still passed every test. The standardized tests toward the end of the year were my specialty. Every time we took one, my parents, which was just my father, got called into the only meeting that was positive. Somehow I could have letters sent home for lack of homework and low take-home grades only to be praised for being able to …take a test. Something I proved at least weekly I could do.

I spent any weekend I could at Aunt Rose’s. This was the only stable environment I had access to when Miss Jean wasn’t around. Miss Jean kept our house in order since our mom left, but our dad kept saying that as soon as my sister was in middle school, she could be our caretaker and he could stop paying Miss Jean.

The same week I forged that signature, my father tried to forbid me from seeing my Aunt Rose, his older sister.

Visiting Baltimore was always exciting. It was similar to Glen Burnie in a lot of ways, but it was denser, older, and louder. I guess I assumed poorer people lived closer to the city, but her family seemed richer than ours, even though she didn’t have air conditioning. The windows were always open when the weather was warm, and fans did a lot of the heavy lifting our central air did at home, but it never got cold or even cool. I would listen to the trains whistle through the night and stare in the distance at the Domino Sugar sign. I didn’t know how far away it was, but I could pick it out and read it out of my older cousin’s window when I visited.

First, I called my aunt to make sure it was OK if I came up. I picked up the old, wired phone, but I knew the answer before I called. I was always welcome.

Once I had her consent, I’d start working on Jack.

“Can you take me to Aunt Rose’s?” I said, sweetly.

“Not this weekend, Dayna,” he said, sounding exhausted.

“But it only takes half an hour! You just have to drop me off!” I exclaimed.

“Dayna! You are grounded! Did you forget what you did just this week?!” Dad insisted. This was when I really turned up the heat.

“You don't care about that! If you cared about that, Mom would still be here!” I shouted.

Then I stormed upstairs, slamming every door I passed. It was just a matter of time now. Sooner or later, I was going to see Aunt Rose.

I’m not sure how many minutes passed, but sure enough, Jack was at the bottom of the stairs yelling up, “OK, Dayna, you have FIFTEEN MINUTES, let’s go, but you better call first!”

“I ALREADY CALLED! SHE SAID OK!” I yelled as I packed. I didn’t have any clean clothes or really a bag, just my school backpack and whatever “clean enough” clothes I could find. For this, I employed a simple smell test. If the garment passed, I packed it.

Jack was already waiting in the still-new-seeming Acura sports car he loved to drive. It was the first thing he bought when Mom left, but it wouldn’t be the last.

There were only two ways out of the neighborhood. One went to my school. The other went toward the 7-Eleven. Once we passed the 7-Eleven, the car turned onto the ramp that would enter the highway and we drove through the huge tree tunnels to the city. After about ten minutes, the trees gave way to retaining walls stacked with houses you could see from the back. These looked a bit like the houses in Glen Burnie, but older. They were more run down and looked like a lot more people lived in them.

When you could see the Colt 45 bottling plant, it was time to leave the highway and drive down the city streets, full of potholes, to Rose’s house.

We didn’t speak the whole drive. We didn’t need to. I was more calm now, but part of me was always mad at him. He made Mom leave and did everything he could to make sure she had to stay away. I couldn’t be anything but mad at him, but staying mad all the time was a lot of work. Guns N’ Roses played “Sweet Child O’ Mine” as I watched the familiar scenery pass by.

I looked forward to being at Rose’s. For such a rundown neighborhood, it always felt more like home. As we drifted down Hollins Ferry Road, I noted every familiar sight. The little bodega on the corner a few blocks up, the Morettis, the family down the street with two daughters my age. The Donnelly home, always in some state of construction, and finally, Rose’s house with the long backyard that had an above-ground pool at the bottom, next to the honeysuckle wall. It was a bush, but it was massive.

As we arrived, the street was taken up by various children and teenagers playing a game that involved a bat and a ball. It wasn’t baseball or cricket, just something made up on the spot by bored kids. The street itself was pocked with holes and covered in gravel from the disintegration over time. You couldn’t skate here, that was for sure.

Jack parked the car and I hopped out, leaving him behind without considering saying goodbye. He had served his purpose and I couldn’t wait to get away from him.

I walked onto the porch and heard my footfalls as I approached the door. I didn’t need to knock. I opened the storm door and then the front door. It chimed as a little stringed instrument hanging under the window swung with the force.

I could smell food cooking, probably spaghetti and clams.

“Hi Dayna!” Aunt Rose greeted me with a warm smile. “Go ahead and put your stuff upstairs in Noah’s room!” Her Queens accent made “your” sound like “ya” and “upstairs” into “upstayas.” I loved that accent. It was different from Baltimore or Glen Burnie. I thought it was a lot better. On television, there were lots of New York accents but never Baltimore. That had to be for a reason, and to me that reason was that it’s better.

I ran up the stairs. There were three stairs that led to a second set of stairs. The house was more narrow than ours. We lived in a split-level, but Rose’s house was built with the floors exactly over one another. The first door on the right was the bathroom with the flimsy shutter door. Ronald’s room was next, across from Noah’s, with Rose and Stefan’s bedroom at the end of the short hallway. It was the only room with air conditioning in the summer. Sometimes we all piled inside to sleep on the floor to stay cool if it was particularly hot outside. We had central AC at home in Glen Burnie, but sometimes it just made the house seem too cold and dank. At Rose’s, it was an escape.

I put my things next to Noah’s bed and lingered for a bit. I wanted to wait for Jack to leave. I went into the bathroom and sighed with relief. The bathroom upstairs was in tatters, but I loved it. Stefan was remodeling the shower and the parts were all exposed. It was still usable, just ugly at the moment with pipes all showing and some of the tile torn away. He had already finished the back of the room where there was a skylight and sitting area. I have no idea why anyone would want a sitting area behind the toilet and the shower, but that’s what they decided to do.

“Dayna, I’m leaving, come say goodbye!” Jack shouted from the bottom of the stairs.

“Coming!” I yelled from the bathroom. I finished up, ran down the stairs, chirped a fast “OK, bye” as I passed Jack, and walked into the kitchen.

“Um, Dayna, can I please have a hug?” Jack whined. I ran in for the hug so he would be appeased and go away.

“Alright, be good,” he said, sighing as he turned to the door to head home.

Rose would want to know about the note I signed. She worked as a hairdresser. Hearing drama and gossip was a big part of her job.

Once Jack drove away, I made my way past the fish tank in the entry hall to the kitchen and sat down at the table.

Rose turned around, started twirling her hair, and grinned.

“OKAY! What the heck happened this week?”