The Answer – by Megan Coleman

It’s a Thursday evening in late 2005 at the Coleman’s. Some of them are gathered in the kitchen for a pick-up meal. Dan’s there, me, dad, Adam. Conversation starts to evolve as expected into the highly intellectual by the time we’re eating salad. Dan, as usual, seems focused only on his meal, not deigning to participate. The topic of the evening is ‘name the seven Dwarfs’. I whip out Grumpy, dad pipes up with Sleepy, Adam coughs out Dopey. That’s three. Dan, not looking up, munches his salad in silence. With a little collective effort, dad, Adam and I pull together Doc and Happy. Four and five. I scratch my head, thinking. Adam says “hmmm,” and dad taps his fingers on the table. A barely audible sigh comes from Dan’s direction, so barely audible that we mistake it for simple salad-breathing. The tapping and hmmming yield a triumphant “SNEEZY’ in unison. Six! I thump Adam’s back in congratulations, shake Dad’s hand. Swept away on a tide of smug self-satisfaction, we miss Dan’s slight, curt headshake. The man has almost had it with us, salad or no salad he’s going to blow. We’re stuck now though, one dwarf away from brilliance. Who’s the seventh? Adam, Dad and I repeat GrumpySleepyDopeyDocHappySneezy over and over. Think dammit, THINK! Who. Is.The. SEVENTH. Dwarf! Dan clenches his fist and waves it in outrage high above his head, but we’ve sunk so despondently low that we miss it. Eyes lowered, heads in hand, silence has fallen. We don’t know, we can’t think, we’re not smart enough. Then, out of the silence bursts Dan with a clear, strong: “BASHFUL!” in ringing tones. It was he, not us, who had the confidence, the wherewithal to keep his wits about him. He rose to the challenge, he kept his cool, it was Dan whose natural intelligence eclipsed our paltry efforts.

I trust that Dan has all the answers, and will dole them out to us when he decides it’s time.