On the morning of Dee Dee’s musical performance, she woke up with a cough.  Audio woke up defiant.  And I woke up confused about what day of the week it was.  Dee Dee’s cough was very sporadic, but loud and chunky.  Audio didn’t want to eat, use the bathroom, brush her teeth, agree that she had enough toothpaste, get dressed, accept help with getting dressed.  And every word she said and sound she made was punctuated with a stomp of her foot.  Looking at Monday’s schedule instead of Tuesday’s, I read the wrong class when I told them which specialist they would each have.  Both girls were aware that it was a Tuesday and corrected me about which specialist class they had.  I realized that there’s no need to tell the girls which specialist they have anymore because over the past quarter they’ve learned the schedule better than I have.  That made me feel good until I realized that after next week the specialist class schedule gets rearranged.   

During the day I got a call from my wife telling me that Dee Dee had called her from the nurse’s office, where she had gone to complain about her cough and ask if the nurse knew what she should do about it.  The nurse’s solution was to have Dee Dee call her mom.  The last time the nurse called home for Dee Dee (a couple weeks ago, when Dee Dee felt dizzy) she called my number.  But at the time when she called on that occasion, I happened to be on a ladder with a hatchet, banging away at an ice dam on our roof.   

From the top of the ladder, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and saw Audio’s teacher’s name.  Later (but not much), I would learn that I’d attached Audio’s teacher’s name to the main phone number to the school by accident when I’d saved it in my phone.  I’ve since fixed that.  Instead of trying to answer the phone and speak while I was up, leaning over my roof, I put my phone in my pocket and climbed down the ladder.  But not right away.  I hesitated for a moment and wondered if I should just let the phone go to voice mail, finish my task, and then climb down the ladder and find out what’s going on with Audio.  I decided that I couldn’t wait to find out what was going on and I climbed down the ladder.  But, that moment of hesitation was too long and when I tried to answer the phone, the call had ended.  Out of breath, cold, and a little wet, I tried to return a call to Audio’s teacher, got hold of the school secretary, told her I’d missed a call because I was up on a ladder, chopping at an ice dam (as if that was important for her to know), and sent her off on a wild goose chase to locate Audio’s teacher.  She placed me on hold while I stomped into the house in my wet snow boots.  My wife was standing in the kitchen, talking on her phone with Dee Dee about her cough.  When I put it together that after not reaching me the nurse had reached my wife, and that the number appearing on my phone was the main number for the school, I hung up my phone.  Now, the nurse just calls Dee Dee’s mom. 

Cough aside, Dee Dee made it through the day.  I picked up Audio at the end of her day and walked her home.  She told me about how one of the mean kids bumped her lunch tray out of her hands as she was entering the classroom, on her way back from the cafeteria and one of the teachers escorted her on an elevator to get a new lunch.  So, it turned out to be an OK day because the elevator rides were fun.  When my wife got home from work, we got ready to head over to the school for Dee Dee’s performance.   

There were about a dozen kids taking part in the show.  I don’t think that there were as many families there as there were kids, but I’m not great at gauging those sorts of things.  When we arrived at 6:20PM, the time the auditorium doors were scheduled to open, there were only two other families.  We all waited in the cafeteria which is directly outside the auditorium.  There used to be a wall that enclosed the cafeteria and created a short, odd hallway between it and the auditorium, but they removed the wall while the school was closed during the 20/21 school year.   

At 6:30PM, when the show was scheduled to start, someone who seemed to be in charge, or at least involved invited us to sit down.  I sat at a table while my wife stood with Audio who was spinning around on one wet boot.  I felt odd being the only one sitting, so I asked Audio to show me where the elevator was.  It wasn’t where I thought it would be.  I think I recall seeing the elevator door but assumed that it was for deliveries.  It’s on the opposite side of the cafeteria from where it would make sense for a teacher to use it to bring Audio to get a new lunch after dropping hers near her classroom. 

By 6:35PM there was a crowd of families in huddles around the auditorium door.  And, since we had gone to look at the elevator, we were at the back of the pack when the doors were opened.  We saw that another door was being held open by some kids and went in through that door and ended up getting pretty good seats.  After we had settled in, I saw Dee Dee poke her head out from behind a curtain at the side of the stage, smile, and wave.  I smiled and waved back. 

For all her concerns and crying over the previous couple weeks, Dee Dee did a great job.  Whether she knew her lines, or dance moves, or her spots to hit on the stage or not, she looked like she knew what she was doing and she looked like she was having fun doing it.  After hearing all of Dee Dee’s worrying out loud, I was relieved for her to see how well she was doing.  It appeared that she knew she was doing well and was enjoying herself.  And although I held my breath when it was time for her to say a line or when she did something alone (like her “cartwheel”), I was proud that she was doing as well as I knew she could.  After the show was over, the signal of which was all the kids getting off the stage and finding their families, Dee Dee came out to where we were and sat on my lap while we told her what a good job she did.