Everything Is Fine. by Ann Dee Ellis Page A

hasn’t done anything STUPID.
    “Be okay, be okay,” I say over and over while I look for the screwdriver. When I finally find it, I run to the bathroom, and
     just before I put it in the door, I say three more times, “Be okay, be okay, be okay,” and do a yoga breath.
COLBY
    Colby comes home on his bike wobbling around because he has on cleats and football pants and a big bag on his back.
    I say, “I didn’t even know our school had a team.”
    “Yeah, duh.”
    “Oh,” I say. “So did you make it?”
    Colby wipes some sweat from his forehead. “Not yet,” he says, and he comes and sits in the sprinklers with me. “I’m dead.
     Two-a-days are killing me.”
    “What are two-a-days?”
    “Two practices in a day. I’d think you’d know that with your dad and everything.”
    “Oh,” I say, and pull out a dandelion. “But you’re not on the team?”
    “Not yet.”
    I look at him. “Then why do you have to do two-a-days?”
    He just shakes his head, which is lying in the wet grass, and then he opens his mouth so the water can get in.
    Then I say how I might be a cheerleader.
    He opens his eyes and says, “Yeah right.”
    “What?”
    “You’re not going to be a cheerleader.”
    “Why not?”
    He closes his eyes again.
    “Why not?” I say again.
    “Because.”
    “Because why?”
    He crosses his ankles and starts rubbing his stomach.
    “Or I could be on the football team.”
    He laughs loud then. “Dream on,” he said.
    “I could. I could be an LB.”
    “An LB?” Now he flips over on his stomach and is looking at me. I pull out another dandelion and eat it.
    “Sick.”
    “What?”
    “You just ate a dandelion.”
    “I know.”
    “You are so weird.”
    “So?”
    “So you are.”
    “So?”
    “And you are not going to be an LB. You are way too little. Plus they don’t even call them LBs. That sounds so dumb. You don’t
     even know what you’re talking about.”
    But I do.
    And Colby probably knows I do, because of my dad and everything.
DAD
    Dad played football in college. His dream was to go to the NFL — the Steelers or the Bears.
    But he tore his Achilles his senior year.
    He tried to play after that but he was never really the same.
    So then his dream was to work
Monday Night Football.
He almost has his dream.
    I am going to ask Dad if calling a linebacker an LB sounds dumb.
    D AD AS A FOOTBALL PLAYER : paint on canvas

ME
    I rattle the screwdriver but the door won’t open.
    There is no sound from the other side of the door.
    I rattle some more. “Mom,” I say, “please open the door.”
    Quiet.
    “Mom, what are you doing in there? You told Dad you wouldn’t do anything stupid.”
    Still quiet.
    I rattle and rattle and rattle until finally the lock clicks and the door swings open.
    The lights are glaring and her makeup is spread across the counter. Her brushes are out, her hair dryer, hair spray, gel,
     mask, almost every ounce of every bathroom product is crammed on the counter.
    I look at the tub — the shower curtain is pulled.
    “Mom?”
    She doesn’t answer but I do hear a sort of whimper.
    I yank the curtain.
    Her clothes are off and she is huddled in the corner of the empty jetted double tub.
    “Mom?”
    The whimpering gets a little louder and she just sits there.
    “Mom?” I kneel down by the tub.
    Her face is in her knees.
    “Mom, it’s okay. I can help you. Do you want me to help you?”
    She doesn’t say anything. I reach out to touch her shoulder and she moves away.
    She is shivering and her shoulder blades stick out. Her skin looks like Elmer’s glue.
    I don’t know what to do.
    Until I think of what to do: I get her blanket.
    Then I crawl in the tub and sit facing her.
    She looks up. “What are you doing?” she whispers. Her lips are blue.
    “I don’t know,” I say.
    Mom just watches. And finally smiles.
    I smile back.
    We sit like that for a while.
    And a while.
    Until she suddenly says, “I can’t do this.”
    Her face crumples and she is back