Halloween Blast from the Past

I'm not able to post the rest of this month's exclusive until the weekend, so in the meantime, here's a favorite Halloween tale from before to tide us over, "Ditzy Dinah". (The rest of "Bobbing" is coming Saturday and Sunday)

I

It’s not easy, admitting that your daughter is stupid.

When she was younger, it didn’t matter. Well, I guess it mattered. More like, people didn’t really notice. All small children can be forgetful, all little kids have shirt attention spans.

When Dina started school, it was clear that she would struggle to succeed academically.

Oh! That first day, she looked perfect in her plaid jumper, she fit right in with the rest of her Kindergarten class. But I could see that look in her eye, that building confusion, and I didn’t worry about her social skills or her ABCs. I spent all day wondering if she would be able to find her way to the bathroom.

When her second-grade teacher wanted Dinah to repeat the year, I pulled her out of school, decided what my little girl needed was to be homeschooled. She just needed one on one attention, she just needed her mother’s love and encouragement.

Turned out, I wasn’t enough. Dinah isn’t cut out for book learning.

Reading and writing? Not so much. Math and science? Forget it.

Excuse me? Did we get her tested? Of course we did! Those so-called educational consultants, those fancy doctors can give my girl a test and then label her dyslexic or ADHD or ‘somewhere on the spectrum’. Truth is that Dinah’s just not that bright.

So, why should I torture my own daughter, making her go through the same lessons again and again, when it was clear she would never catch on?

On her tenth birthday, I gave up. My girl was barely able to count past twenty, she could hardly scrawl her own name. But you know what? She was happy. I could sit her down in front of the TV for hours, and she learned her life lessons from Daniel Tiger and Dora the Explorer.

The kids down the street were the same age, but the outgrew her. They matured but Dina didn’t. They’d still let her come and play, but how much of that was out of pity? Everyone knew Dina was ‘special’.

Her selling point in the neighborhood, the reason other parents described her as a ‘perfect little angel’, was that Dinah at least used her manners. And she’d wear whatever I laid out of her. An eager fairy princess every Halloween who waved her wand at the neighbors and promised to grant wishes; pigtails and flowered dresses to church every Sunday, looking up at the pastor with rapt devotion.

Docile and sweet, she was not a girl for pre-teen or adolescent tantrums and sulks. That’s why the other parents adored her, that’s why the other kids indulged her.

And me? Did I enjoy my sweet little doll? My baby girl? Is there a mother out there who wouldn’t be jealous, when my teenage daughter is still asking for bedtime hugs and kisses?

You wouldn’t have known she was a teenager from her bedroom – a bed overflowing with stuffies – or her tastes in entertainment – seemed like Dinah was pursuing a lifelong membership of the Jojo Siwa fan club.

And how about the ditzy thoughts in Dinah’s head? Was it her goal to be like this forever?

I don’t think so. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to grow up. Dinah was always talking about wanting a boyfriend or leaving home to have adventures. This from the girl that the neighbors nicknamed ‘Ditzy Dinah’ – a name she came to embrace and even use herself. Hard to stay mad at a lost toy or broken dish when she calls herself a ditz, hangs her head in apology and then looks up at you with those doe eyes.

But could she grow up? Could she strike out on her own? Dinah’s idea of a boyfriend is a handsome prince straight out of Cinderella. She was raised on fairy tales and bedtime stories, and on her eighteenth birthday, I was forced to admit the truth – my daughter would never be ready to face the real world. The moment she set foot outside the house without my supervision, she’d be eaten alive.

So when she started talking about getting her drivers license, going on a road trip with friends – yes those same friends down the street who call her ‘Ditzy Dinah’, a nickname that manages to be sweet and cruel at the same time.

Well, was her mother about to let her go off and make a complete fool of herself? Let her be taken advantage of?

Not likely!

I told Dinah to wait a couple of weeks, until November, and then all her dreams would come true. I let her keep on dreaming about going on an adventure like Dora, about making new friends like Daniel. In the meantime, I called an old friend in Kentucky, someone who knew a way to make things right.

II

And tonight is Halloween. Now or never.

I tell Dinah that I wanted to take her trick or treating one last time, before she left for the big bad world.

Dina declines at first. Even she knew that most eighteen-year-old girls don’t go trick or treating with their mommies.

But when I show her the costume I’ve picked out for her – shiny pink dress, matching tiara and wand – and this one wasn’t off the rack from Walmart, this one is the real deal - she puts her hands to her mouth and practically swoons. “Momma! Like a real fairy princess!”

She holds the outfit in her hands and asks, wide-eyed, “Momma? All for me?”

I smile indulgently. “All for you, baby girl.”

I remember what my Kentucky friend had said. That this is something you can’t take back. And I wonder, should I keep the faith in Dinah? Does she still have room to mature?

My daughter proves my first instinct right, pulling off her clothes right there in the living room, not a glimmer of adult sensibilities. She clumsily pulls on the pink dress. It is a sparkly and frilly as one designed for the most innocent of little girls.

As always, Dinah looks to me to make the final adjustments. I fuss with the skirt, and the place the tiara on her head and hand her the wand.

She looks ridiculous. She looks like a grown woman who’s lost her mind. But when Dinah gazes at herself in the hallway mirror, she’s not embarrassed, she’s proud and pleased as she can be. I know I’ve made the right decision.

I put on part of my own Halloween costume, a crooked black hat, prompting delighted giggles from Dinah.

“Momma! You’s a witch!”

I smile. “You could say that.” Of course, I’m not a witch. But they do exist. I just paid one a lot of money.

“Can I borrow your wand, baby girl? I feel a spell coming on.”

Dinah’s mouth drops open and she hands me the wand. It’s just as pink and sparkly as her ludicrous dress, but the color doesn’t matter. It’s what was added in Kentucky that matters.

I wave the wand high, make circles in the air as I was instructed over the phone yesterday.

“What you gonna do, Momma?”

“Sweet girl,” I say softly, almost too quiet to hear. “Sweet baby girl.”

I stare at daughter, I don’t blink – but she does. All of her blinks, and then she’s so much smaller. I look down at her and I want to scoop her into my arms right here and now.

Her mouth hangs open, and she looks even less bright that usual. But that’s okay.

No one will call her ditzy from now on. She’s perfectly smart, she’s the picture of maturity – for a four-year-old.

I give Dinah back her wand. She looks down at herself, incredulous. “Momma, you really is a witch!”

And now I really do have my baby girl back.

“Perfect for trick or treating,” I say with a smile. As if this is just a game, for one night only. It’s not. The neighbors will accept what they see, a four-year-old Dinah will seem perfectly normal. The glamor didn’t even cost extra.

Dina stares at her wand as if it might be radioactive, as if it might cure cancer. “Can I make spells too, Momma?”

I laugh. “You can pretend, sweetie. Just like we do every year.”

Dinah nods slowly. Always so accepting. Does she even remember that she was supposed to be leaving home? That she was supposed to be an adult?

She grins. “Can we go round all the houses, Momma?”

I shake my head. This is the closest we get to having an argument, and we have it every year. “Just up and down our street, baby girl. Just the folks we know.” I raise an eyebrow. “And why do we only visit our neighbors, Dinah?”

“So we’re safe,” replies Dinah automatically. Case closed.

And then, for the first time, I see a flicker of mischief cross my daughter’s face. A girl who’s never played a dirty trick in her life, suddenly a dull spark of inspiration lights up her features.

She clumsily swirls the wand above her head. “I wanna be in charge,” she says with a look of pretend seriousness. “I wanna be the momma!” And then she collapses in giggles.

But I’m not laughing. Not when my whole life, my entire being blinks, and now I’m the one looking up. I’m the one dressed in pink sparkles.

“Oh, wow,” Dinah says, using my voice, my mouth, my everything.

I groan. This is momentary. This is what the Kentucky witch warned me about. Careful what you wish for. But she didn’t warn me that Dinah could use the wand as well.

“No,” I say sternly, at least as sternly I can sound as a little girl in a fairy princess costume. “I don’t think so, not even for tonight.”

At least I’m holding the wand now. I wave it above my head, and then I stare in surprise. The wand has disappeared.

No. Dinah has taken it. She is the grown-up; she can take away a child’s toy.

“Dinah.” I rest my hands on my hips, aware that I must look more like a sulking preschooler than an authority figure.

Dinah taps her chin with the wand. “Oh, wow.” She looks at herself, but I can tell from her expression that it’s what’s going on in her head that’s really shocking. “It’s like…wow. Momma, I was so dumb before! Now, I get it.” Just like that, with the benefit of being in her mother’s head, a lifetime of simple-mindedness flashes before her eyes.

I shake my head. “You aren’t...weren’t…not dumb. You’re an angel. Everybody loves you.” Hand on my heart. “Momma loves you.”

My daughter wrinkles her nose. My nose. Her expression matches the one I showed her father, a long, long time ago. When I caught him cheating. When I would have quite happily pushed him in front of an 18-wheeler.

She looks down at me. “I was a moron. They called me ‘ditzy’ and I took it as a compliment!” She narrows her eyes, whispers, “And you wanted to keep me that way?”

She raises the wand and then waves it menacingly at me. And I think to myself, My daughter is going to turn me into a frog. And I’ll probably deserve it.

I shake my head more vigorously this time, and my tiara, my daughter’s fairy princess tiara, jiggles, and then flies from my head. “Baby girl, please. I wanted you to be safe. I love you.” I hold my hands out, but now I resemble a small child, begging to be picked up. “Momma loves you, baby girl.”

Dinah nods with my head. Her expression softens. “I know you do. I love you too.” She lowers the wand, like putting down a loaded handgun. I don’t know if the wand still has magic, and I imagine a flashing neon sign.

Buyer Beware.

“You sure look cute as a button in that dress,” Dinah says. Her normal expression, spreads across her face – my face – and she gives me that innocent, vapid smile.

It’s going to be okay. At least, even if I’m in my daughter’s body, I don’t have her simple mind. I’ll call the Kentucky witch, get her to switch our bodies back. Back to normal. Because I’m not settling for whatever this is. Being taken out trick or treating, getting older but never brighter, and every Halloween the neighbors marvel at my dress and pat me on the head, all they while feeling sorry for me.

Dinah produces a frustrated moan. “But come on, Momma, if you’re going to use magic, why the heck didn’t you use it to make me smart?”

I blink. Huh. I can only shrug. “I didn’t think of that.” I can picture the witch in Kentucky, I can imagine her smirking.

“It’s okay,” says Dinah. She forgives me. She loves me. After all, I have raised a perfect angel.

She nods, holds the wand high, twirls it around in a perfect circle, and says, “It’s okay, Ditzy Dinah.”

“No! Please!”

The magic wand crackles at its tip, making us both jump and stare as it fizzles and quietens. Just a piece of plastic now.

I have enough time to cry out, to look at my daughter with pleading eyes. I have time to think of everyone at church complimenting my pretty dresses and ribbons, only to give each other sad looks. There goes poor, simple Dinah. Without a sensible thought in her empty little head. And doesn’t her mother have the patience of a saint.

I have time to do that and nothing more, before the spell takes effect, my world gets perfectly simple and small. I realize with a gasp that my costume is perfect, that it’s Halloween, and I’m the luckiest little girl in the world because I get to go trick or treating with Momma.

The End