by Helen Fisher
I hugged myself. The first time I’d fallen through the box my arms had shot above my head, and the force had stopped me bringing them down. This time I clutched myself and shot through the air like a bobsled crew member with fresh air for a track, or a madwoman with a straitjacket on.
So I panted and held on to myself tight. Simply knowing what was going on helped; knowing that I would see my mother again made everything worth it. As before, I began to slow down. I tipped forward and started to descend headfirst. Last time I had seen fairy lights speeding toward me, but this time there was a lightening of the gloom, but no kaleidoscope of colors. I guessed it was because this time I was heading for the shed and not the Christmas tree in the living room. It was impossible to keep my arms around me as I fell headfirst, and they shot out, as though I were diving: nature will insist on sacrificing the arms for the brain. I felt the tightening around my chest and tried to keep calm when I couldn’t breathe; I knew it would stop—but there again, nature programs us to be alarmed when breathing is threatened. I stretched my arms out, desperate to reach my destination, knowing it would mean air to breathe, and stillness, and my mother.
Then I came into the world arms first. The box broke on one side and a panel neatly flattened out from the rest as I skidded forward across the bottom of the shed at speed; one of my sleeves caught on something and peeled up as I shot across the short space, exposing my arm, allowing splinters in. Then, much too soon, my head met the shed door with a crack. There was a dull ringing in my ears, and I kept still for a few long seconds, trying to assess the damage before I dared to move. I must have looked like a discarded puppet that had been thrown against a wall, but I was panting and conscious and, it seemed, had no broken bones, and that was good enough. I righted myself gingerly until I was sitting in the gloom, legs outstretched, with my back against the door. I put my fingers inside the puckered hole of my hood and pulled it open, happily taking lungfuls of air, stale though it was. I tasted blood and pulled my gloves off to touch my lip, which I’d bitten. Patting myself down revealed only bruises, and I stood cautiously, grateful for my lack of serious injuries, but still hurting from the impact and feeling disoriented. In the cramped space I unzipped my ski suit and pulled it down, struggling to get it over my feet. Standing on one foot wasn’t necessarily the wisest move, as my shoe caught on the elasticized ankle cuff and I pitched forward, like a drunk woman bobbing for apples. In the fraction of a second it took to reach the tipping point and know I would fall, I hated myself. My face hit the shed door with a crack and my skin slid over it like sandpaper before I landed in a heap exactly where I’d arrived. I lay, momentarily motionless, before angrily yanking the suit off and flinging it away from me.
Hesitantly I pried open the shed door and saw that my garden of the past was serene in the warm air of the evening. I had been expecting winter but, at a guess, this was late spring, maybe even summertime, meaning at least six months had passed since my last visit. I only hoped it was no later than 1978—and my mother was still alive.
I went straight round the side of the house to the front door, knocked, and waited, holding my breath as I saw a light flick on behind the mottled glass panel in the door, and then movement; the rattle of a chain and the opening of the door. Two things hit me: the beautiful, sleepy-looking, smiling eyes of my mother, and the earthy green smell of marijuana. Momentarily her expression was like a question mark; then an exclamation mark. She gasped and leaned forward, bangles jangling up her arms as she reached out and gently clasped my face in her palms.
“My guardian angel,” she said, and her voice was lazy like honey. “My sister from a different mister. I was wondering when I would see you again.”
I felt my throat tighten, and reached up to touch my mother’s hand on my cheek. Her fingers felt so seductively real, I closed my eyes, holding on to the moment.
She took my hand and led me into the house. I felt like a child, safe in the knowledge that my mother would lead the way, make sure I was in the right place and that I would come to no more harm. How I had longed to be looked after by my mother, and how easily I slipped into that vulnerable role. Maybe because I had longed for it, I knew how to be her child. I wouldn’t have predicted it. I would have predicted that I would find it difficult to be the youngster I had stopped being when I lost my mother. But it seemed the child in me was only behind a closed door, not a locked one.
The living room was lit with candles, and a thin line of white smoke wound its way upward from a joint balanced in a great chunky ashtray on the large wooden coffee table that I had stubbed my toes on many times as a child.
“Sit down,” she said, wafting a hand toward the sofa. She sat on a large cushion on the floor, crossing her legs, then leaned over, took the joint, and held it out to me. I didn’t move to take it, and she made a gesture as if to say go on. Maybe it sounds naïve, but I didn’t know my mother smoked. I mean, not even a cigarette, and here she was smoking drugs. It surprised me how shocked I was in that moment. I’m no prude, and I have friends who smoke the occasional spliff, and I already knew my mother was a bit of a hippie; but for some reason it stung me to realize she smoked, and smoked alone too. I had only ever done it at college with friends. I wouldn’t even know how to roll one.
Looking at her, realizing she was an expert smoker, I saw that I was hostage to the same illusions my own children had of me, namely that I assumed my mother had never done anything naughty, and certainly not illegal.
She leaned a little closer, to urge me to take it, and I did. I took a drag.
“These are no good for you,” I said.
My mother smiled and nodded. “It’s been a long time since I did it, just a little treat now and then.”
Jeanie sat on the carpet, perched against some pillows, knees akimbo with her bare feet pressed together. Her long skirt pooled in the space created in her lap, like a big painted bowl. She stared at me, a small smile dancing over her lips. “Whenever I see you, you’re all scratched up,” she said. “You looked like you’ve been in a fight with a cat.” She grinned. “And it looks like the cat won.”
I took another drag on the joint, felt the smoke reach my toes from the inside, and it didn’t catch in my throat or anything. It was nice. I felt calm.
“I could beat a cat in a fight,” I said.
“Could you beat a dog?” she asked.
“Maybe, if it was a little one,” I said, smiling.
“Ooh, I don’t know, I think a little one would be all scrappy and hard to get hold of.” She took a cushion and pretended to wrestle with it. “I’d do better against a big dog.” She stretched forward to take the spliff from me, and leaned back, flamboyantly throwing one arm behind her head and closing her eyes as she inhaled deeply and blew a fine stream of smoke leisurely through a pout.
After a long, peaceful silence in the dim light of the room, I almost forgot what we were talking about. I was distracted by my mother’s realness, the authenticity of her being here in the same room as me. Her sheer existence and tangibility. I let it wash over me; it felt good to be home.
Jeanie made a sound like a hum. She was so stoned.
“I wouldn’t have to fight a bear,” she said, her eyes still shut. “I could charm it into submission.”
“A bear would rip you to shreds,” I said.
“Nah,” she said, waving her hand lazily and continuing to smoke. “I’ve met bears and charmed them all. Human bears.” Her eyelids opened a fraction and I could see the effort it took her to focus on me. She pointed at me with the skinny joint. “Human bears are hairy on the inside, so watch out!”
I laughed, and she laughed, and after a while, she stood with unsteady effort, holding out both hands to pull me to my feet. She linked her arm through mine and we leaned against each other like old ladies helping each other across a road.
“You know, I’d never hit an animal,” she said. “I’m a vegetarian.”
“But you would charm a bear?” I said.
* * *
I WAS TOO hungry to smoke, much more likely to faint, and my mouth watered as my mother hustled me into the kitchen and cut a slice from a loaf of bread. I could smell it, and when she smeared the butter thickly over it, I could almost taste the smooth coolness of it in my mouth. The refrigerator light lit up her face angelically, and she held up a jar of jam like it was the Holy Grail. “Want this?” she said.
“Henry make that?” I said, smiling.
“Best jam in town,” she said.
“Give it to me. Thick!”
Bread and butter with plum jam had never tasted as good as it did sitting there eating it with my mother, our appreciation of it heightened by the smoke in our lungs We just nodded and moaned our gratitude. Jeanie threw her head back and sighed loudly, licking the jam from her lips and then from the plate.
“Pig,” I said, and she snorted at me.
“Where have you been?” she said, when there were only crumbs in front of us. “I always wished I’d found out where you live, so I could drop by and see you. But when you left, I realized too late, and you were like smoke in the air. Gone.” Her hand swam in the air as she said this, mimicking the smoke rising from the ashtray.
“I didn’t mean to leave it so long,” I said. “But you’ve got your lives, you and Faye, I didn’t want to interfere and be a nuisance.”
“Silly,” my mother said, pushing herself up from the kitchen table and heading for the living room again. Her long skirt trailed on the floor and she appeared to glide from one room to the other. “You almost hurt my feelings,” she said over her shoulder, and I could see she meant it, though she pretended she didn’t.
Flumping down on the pillows again, she rolled another joint and I watched her in our comfortable silence.
She inhaled casually, and smoking looked so cool. My mother really knew how to do it. “Faye and me, we’re on our own, we don’t get that many visitors, and you’re special. One: you saved Faye’s life, and two: we have a connection.” She pointed at me and herself. “I wasn’t the only one who felt it. Right, sister? You are my guardian angel, ergo you cannot be a nuisance.”
Her easy, wide smile displayed the confidence she had in knowing she wasn’t alone in her feelings. I nodded. “We definitely have a connection. It’s just been hard for me to get back here.”
“I understand,” she said. Although she couldn’t possibly.
* * *
I MUST HAVE fallen asleep because when I opened my eyes, there were a lot more candles flickering and my mother held a glass of water to my lips. I took a sip and felt every molecule of cold liquid flowing into the far corners of me, finding the flowery outcroppings of my dried-out lungs. I took the glass from her and drained it.
“When was the last time you drank?” Jeanie said.
“I can’t even remember,” I told her.
“You’re a strange one, Faye. You were talking in your sleep.” She brushed a strand of hair from my face. “ ‘Mother, I’m thirsty,’ you were saying, and I thought, well, anyone who is thirsty in their dreams is bound to be thirsty in real life. And you look so tired. You want to stay here tonight?”
I nodded, and she took my glass, turning to set it on the low wooden table behind her, where there was a bowl of milky water. As she had done during my last visit, Jeanie tended to the scratches on my head with Dettol, but it wasn’t just the last time I was here that she had done this. This was the smell of scabbed knees, the smell of a childhood spent playing outdoors, with a mother waiting at home to make everything better again.
My mother knelt on the floor in front of me. Her hair, which had been flowing around her shoulders, was now piled messily on top of her head.
“Faye.” Her voice was soft and seemed to come from a long way off. My eyes slid over to her, and I felt so sleepy from the dope and, I suppose, my difficult journey, but I could see her face was serious. “Faye,” she said again, holding my hand in hers. “I think you’ve been sent to me, I think you’re my sign.”
“A sign of what?” I said.
“A sign that you’re meant to be a part of Faye’s life, and mine. A fortune-teller told me that a woman would crash into our lives and take care of me and my daughter.”
“A fortune-teller?” I said, laughing lightly.
“Don’t you dare laugh at me,” she said, and I stopped.
“Yes, a fortune-teller. She said I should look out for this woman because she was going to be important in our life. She said my daughter would grow up without a mother and that I would need your help.” Her voice and eyes were earnest.
“She shouldn’t have said stuff like that,” I said, in awe at the fortune-teller’s accuracy.
“But she did,” Jeanie insisted. “And I don’t care if you believe in that shit or not, because, I feel it”—she pressed her hand hard against her heart—“in here. It may not be a scientific fact, but I believe it, it’s my truth, my sign. So I’m going to need your help, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, and gave her a weak smile. She took my face in both her hands and kissed me, drawing back to look at me with a warmth so full and complete that it took my feeble smile and raised it to Herculean.
“I meant what I said when I let you in.”
I thought back to her first words to me, but couldn’t remember them. I shook my head gently.
“You’re our guardian angel.”
* * *
JEANIE MADE TEA and placed my favorite Metal Mickey mug in my hands.
“I love candlelight,” I said, enjoying the coziness and closeness of the flickering on the walls.
“There’s a power cut. There’s always a power cut.” Jeanie sat on her cushion, legs tucked underneath her; I couldn’t sit like that anymore, it hurt too much when I stood up. She sipped her tea from an enormous steaming cup, then put the cup down decisively and stood up. “Follow me,” she said, and I did. She led me through the kitchen and out the back door, where she told me to wait. Jeanie went round the side of the house and returned with a ladder, which she maneuvered awkwardly as though it were a huge mannequin. By the time I went to help her, she had leaned it over the fence and against a tree in the neighbor’s garden and started to climb it.
“My God, what are you doing?” I said.
“Don’t blaspheme. I’m climbing a ladder.” She pulled herself into the crook at the top of the trunk, her foot levering her up from the top rung. I saw her reach up and pull herself higher and to one side until she was roosted on a branch that didn’t look that wide. I thought I could see her smiling, but most of her was lost to me in the darkness and shadows of the tree. All I could clearly see were her feet dangling down and splayed like Mary Poppins when she descends, holding her umbrella.
“Up you come,” she called down to me.
“No!” I said.
“Come on,” she said.
“It’s too high,” I whispered loudly. “And it’s not your tree.”
She didn’t answer and—annoyed—I put one foot on the ladder and pressed my weight against it, checking to see if it would slide away. I adjusted it slightly so that the bottom of the ladder was wedged more firmly into the lawn, and less likely to slip. When I got to the top I puffed, not knowing what to do next. I could see Jeanie’s face now and her teeth as she grinned at me. She looked relaxed; she could have been in a hammock.
“Afraid of heights?” she said.
“Afraid of falling,” I replied, sounding more grown-up than I liked.
“Should only be afraid of landing,” she said, with a tinkle of laughter in her voice. “Land well, that’s my advice. Don’t worry about the heights, or the falls; just land like a cat every time.”
“Don’t need to land well if you don’t climb up trees in the first place,” I said, thinking about the box and how sometimes the fall was worth it, but this wasn’t.
I tried to pull myse
lf up but couldn’t get a good grip; all the branches seemed bendy. Jeanie grasped my wrist and pulled. I puffed and grappled my way into a sitting position. Jeanie was like a sparrow that looks comfortable sitting on a telephone wire, so at ease she was; I felt like an ungainly pigeon, trying to stay balanced.
“What if I fall?” I said.
“You won’t.”
“What if I do?” I insisted.
“I told you: land well.” She glanced over at me and giggled. “Come on, I bet you’ve done riskier things than this. I often come up here to look at the stars.”
Jeanie reached into her pocket and drew out another spliff. She cupped a match, which flared and died, struggling against what had seemed like a very light breeze until we came up here where the air was more alive. After three attempts, it was lit, and somehow she seemed to lie back, there must have been a branch behind her that I couldn’t see. She took a long drag, and as she exhaled we watched the smoke plume out into the night.
“Try to relax,” she said, passing me the joint as though she were a doctor and this was the medicine. Gripping a branch like it was a piece of shipwreck that would save my life, I leaned forward to take it. Like her, I took a long drag, but I didn’t pass it back straightaway. I found a good hold on a limb, and in my next breath inhaled a lungful; the sky spun slightly, and now I didn’t care as much.
“You’re reckless,” I said, managing to smile as I passed the joint back to her.
“It’s only a tree,” she said.
“We’re grown women,” I said.
“I suppose,” said Jeanie. “I’m only twenty-five. I’ve always felt grown-up, but maybe I’ve just always been a child.”
She drew a breath in and blew out smoke rings that started out neat, then grew and billowed as they rose into the leaves above us, becoming less defined and disappearing into the dark foliage. We sat in silence for a while, by which I mean we didn’t speak, but the sound of the leaves up there was louder than I would have imagined; they rustled and swished like a dry broom on a hard floor. The stars were bright and blinked on and off as the slimmer branches swayed and the leaves sometimes revealed, sometimes obscured the sky above. It was quiet and cool and there was a dreamlike quality amplified by the grassy taste of the smoke, and the rhythmic passing back and forth of the joint, and the gentle roll of our vessel.
