Bad Mommy

by Tarryn Fisher

  “A spoon?” she repeated, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yes,” I said. I pulled it from my bag and held it up so she could see.

  “What about a spoon?” Hollis walked in from the garage door, shooting me one of his easygoing smiles, as he kissed Amanda on the cheek.

  “Oh, the crazy girl found a spoon.” She smiled. A smile!

  I made a face at her, as I sipped at my wine. Hollis gave us both a look that said he thought we were crazy, then launched into a series of questions about my work and what I’d been up to. I liked him, maybe more than I liked Amanda. He was the perfect guy—the perfect husband—and I often wondered if Amanda knew how good she had it. He’d been brought up like me, and whenever we were in the same room, one of us started cracking jokes about our Catholic childhoods.

  “He’s miserable,” I said.

  Amanda and Hollis exchanged a look. Then Amanda said, “Why would you say that?”

  It wasn’t tell me more—why would you say that? It was why would you ever say something so terrible about our precious Jolene?

  “He’s told me. She’s condescending and mean—completely unsupportive. Trust me. They fight right in front of me. It’s like she’s always ready to berate him. She’s not who you think she is. I know her better than anyone.”

  I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my videos to prove it to them.

  “Look,” I said, holding it out so they could see. I watched their faces as I played the video of Jolene and Darius fighting. Amanda’s face was impassive, but Hollis looked away before it ended. He was uncomfortable, as he should be—imagine how I felt when they just started yelling at each other right in front of me.

  “All couples fight,” Amanda said. “It doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be together.”

  I heard the slight defensiveness in her voice and I wanted to roll my eyes. No one ever saw things clearly when it came to Jolene. It was becoming a real problem. I ignored the bitterness I felt, telling myself I wasn’t that type of person. I was kind, and thought the best of others. I couldn’t let the Jolene show taint the type of person I was.

  “You’re right,” I said, to Amanda. “But, he’s told me how unhappy he is.” I drove the point home by saying, “He’s told me,” in the firmest voice I could manage.

  They were both quiet, looking anywhere but at me.

  “Well, if that’s true then maybe this trip will help them,” she said, quietly standing up and walking toward the kitchen to check on dinner.

  I felt dismissed. People didn’t want to hear the truth. They had their ideas and any deviation made them uncomfortable.

  “He texted me from France, while they were at dinner,” I called after her, “right from the table to tell me how miserable he is. Just a few hours ago. It’s not going to get any better when they come back. They shouldn’t be together.”

  Hollis excused himself to go to the bathroom, while Amanda stood at the stove stirring quietly.

  “You see what I’m saying, don’t you?”

  My left eye started to twitch in the wake of her silence. I poured myself more wine and watched a sailboat rock back and forth on the water. I was familiar with that feeling. This was all Bad Mommy’s fault.

  “I have cancer,” she told me.

  “Where?”

  “Cervix.”

  She was blasé about it, but I would later learn that was part of the game. Her face was a collection of well-practiced facial expressions. The only time you knew something was off was when you looked directly into her eyes. Her eyes were off. Mad. Loose. They avoided contact but loved to watch. Dart away … stare … dart away. They reminded me of little, flitty birds. Couldn’t catch them if you tried. But, I didn’t know that yet.

  “How do you feel about that?” I asked. You could say something generic, like you were sorry, which always led to uncomfortable words, uncomfortable silence, a quick change of topic—or you could get them talking.

  “It is what it is,” she said. “Everyone has cancer. Cancer is like the McDonald’s of disease. You’re gonna see it on every block.”

  “You’re numb,” I said. It was usually a statement people adamantly denied or ran with.

  “Yeah, I guess. Aren’t you?”

  I smiled, shook my head. “Numbness isn’t like McDonald’s. I prefer to feel things.”

  “Well, congratulations, Dr. Seuss. Feel all the things. Be my guest.”

  “Is Fig your real name or is it short for something?” I asked, looking down into the drink she’d just made me. It was good. My wife hadn’t made me a drink but a stranger had. Good Samaritans everywhere.

  “That’s it, just Fig.”

  “Interesting,” I said.

  “Yeah, it’ll look good on a headstone one day.” Before I could respond she threw back her head and released a throaty laugh.

  “Is Darius your real name or is it a prop to sound smarter?” she asked once recovered.

  “My real name is Dr. Seuss.”

  She made a face at me and that’s when I realized she was drunk, or high. The whites of her eyes were rose colored. Crazy. Unable to focus.

  “We are all going to die, Doctor. Every last one of us.”

  I was amused that she’d already given me a nickname, when my name was outlandish on its own. I settled my back against the railing and looked on as she seated herself on a lawn chair and began to undo the straps of her sandals. She was wearing the most bizarre outfit, a Christmas sweater over a low-cut top with yoga pants. When she bent over, her shirt gaped open, revealing the tops of tiny breasts in a creamy bra.

  “Motherfuckers hurt like hell,” she said. She stood up, tilting her head back to look at me. She was tiny. She needed heels to be regular-sized.

  “Don’t judge my height,” she smarted.

  I was impressed—perceptive even while blazed to rosy-eyed oblivion.

  “You’re little. That’s not a judgment, it’s an observation,” I told her.

  You could tell a lot about a person’s psychology from their favorite movies. So, that’s what I asked her next. By the time she’d listed them off, the girls were calling to us from inside and I didn’t have time to respond. Later that night I listed them off to Jolene as we lay in bed.

  “Fear, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, and Single White Female.”

  “So, she likes a good thriller,” Jolene said. “Do we have to talk about this—I’m drunk?”

  She wasn’t drunk. Jolene never got drunk, buzzed yes, but she liked to keep her wits about her, stay in control.

  “Or she’s a psycho and she relates to them,” I shot back.

  She rolled her eyes. “Or maybe you’re a psycho and you’re transferring onto her.”

  I leaned back against the pillows, propping my hands behind my head. “At least now I know you listen to me.” I smirked.

  Jolene didn’t buy into all that psychology mumbo jumbo, as she called it. And every time she said that it felt a little bit like she didn’t buy into me. Forget the eight years I’d spent slaving over my doctorate, writing an eighty-thousand-word dissertation—it was all mumbo jumbo. It didn’t really matter what I said anyway, because when Jolene decided to love someone, all good sense went out the window. I was the prime example. There wasn’t a human alive who could dissuade her from her cause. Loving fuck-ups always ended up as a fuck-up, but that didn’t seem to matter when she got something in her head about someone. She accepted people without question. In mumbo jumbo we called that enabling. But, anyway—movies.

  My wife’s favorite movie was The House of Sand and Fog: starts depressing, ends depressing, and there are all kinds of depressing sandwiched in the middle. Everything with her boiled down to actions and consequences. She saw people as broken derailed trains, full of compartments and mostly out of steam. I didn’t know when she decided to become everyone’s conductor, but that’s what she does—she gets the trains moving again. I respected her for it, but this time, with this particular person, I felt the need t
o warn her.

  “She told me she has cancer,” I said, running my finger along her collarbone.

  “What? Are you serious?”

  She suddenly sat up in bed looking panicked. “Why didn’t she tell me that? Is she okay?”

  I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t know. Why did she tell me?”

  “You’re a shrink. You give off that vibe.”

  I laughed. She liked it when I laughed. She lay back down and snuggled into me, pressing her lips to my neck.

  “She’s lonely and probably scared. I’ll reach out to her again. We have to help her.”

  Well, fuck. Another day, another project. I did it for a living; Jolene did it in her everyday life. It’s what drew us together. I wanted to study people; she wanted to help them. Except when she took on a project, it infiltrated every area of our life. I could just leave mine at work every day.

  “Don’t get too involved. There’s something off with her,” I said. “Do you follow her on Instagram?”

  “Yes, but what does that have to do with her being off?”

  She wasn’t taking me seriously. Forget that I have a doctorate in mumbo jumbo, forget that I was trying to look out for her best interest.

  “I looked back to when she moved in next door. The minute you two met she started putting those little white boxes around her pictures like you do.”

  “You’re snooping on her Instagram? That’s not creepy at all.”

  “I’m looking out for you,” I countered. “You trust too easily.” This was going downhill fast. Jolene could make sane logic sound crazy with her gift of words.

  “Okay, so she followed me and liked my style.” She was rolling away now, my neck forgotten.

  “You post your workout sneakers, a day later she posts her workout sneakers. You eat at a restaurant, a day later she eats there.”

  “I just want to go to sleep,” she said, reaching to turn off the lamp on the nightstand. “Let’s not call Fig a stalker just yet. You just met her.”

  “Stalker,” I whispered. “Stalker … stalker … stalker…”

  I tapped my Bic on the yellow notepad I held and stifled a yawn. It was Monday, and Susan Noring was the patient of the hour, or as I liked to call her, Susan Boring. Mid-thirties, dishwater blonde hair, thin villainous lips; she didn’t even provide anything fun to look at while she droned on in her flat monotone. She was wearing her brown loafers. With Susan there were only two shoe options: brown loafers, or the white Keds, and the worst thing about the Keds was that they didn’t have any marks on them. Perfectly white, even their soles were spotless. That was the essence of Susan Noring the boring. She didn’t go anywhere, or do anything, or make a single decision that could potentially add color to her fucking Keds. She came to see me once a week, lingering in the reception area long after our session was over, drinking the same cup of coffee she walked in with. I wondered if there was something other than coffee in there, but I’d never smelled liquor on her breath. My receptionist thought she was nosy about my other patients, but I think coming to therapy was the highlight of her week.

  It was my turn to talk. “Why do you think you feel that way?”

  The question that beat all other questions. It had the potential to keep them talking for ten minutes, eating the rest of the hour. Two more clients after this and I was cruising toward the weekend.

  “I feel judged—whatever I do, however I do it,” she said. She was wringing her hands, something she did every time the subject of judgment came up. I had doubts about the validity of her stories, after all, there was nothing for Susan’s peers to cast judgment on. Interesting people nicked open the veins of judgment; people like Susan hardly went against the grain. But it wasn’t my job to doubt her, just to listen and prompt.

  “What do you feel judged in regard to?” I asked.

  Susan wrung her hands and gazed at me with large watery eyes. Her eyes always looked startled, they reminded me a bit of Fig’s. Susan wasn’t as clever as our new neighbor, it just showed that a little imagination could go a long way.

  “I feel as if I’m never enough. It’s the way they look at me, the things they say.”

  “Is it possible that you are projecting your own insecurities?”

  We’d had this discussion before. She’d even admitted to it and managed to change perspective for a while, but the healthy didn’t need a physician, did they? And it was harder to root out personality disorders than it was to catch Santa Claus coming down the chimney.

  “It’s true,” Susan said, looking dejected. “I never feel like I’m enough.”

  “Who do you need to be enough for?” I asked, crossing and re-crossing my legs. I refrained from too much movement during a session. It distracted the clients and set them on edge. Psychologists were supposed to have a calming nature, but in general, it was hard for me to sit still.

  “Myself,” she said.

  “That’s right.”

  I looked at my watch and smiled like I was sorry our time was up. My watch didn’t have a battery; it was a prop—a good one. Susan looked like she was sorry, too. She took her sweet ass time standing up, searching her bag for her car keys, and walking over to the door. I wondered how many times she’d touched herself while thinking of me, her long pale fingers pushing inside her boring vagina. All I would have to do was offer and she’d spread open for me like a flower. Maybe it would even mark up her Keds a little. I’d be doing her a favor.

  “Here’s my personal number,” I said, jotting it down on a corner of my notepad. “You can text me anytime you feel as if things are getting too much.” I jerked my head up like I was suddenly concerned. “Is that okay? I don’t want to presume-”

  “No, no, no,” she said quickly, not taking her eyes from the four scribbled numbers on the notepad. “That would be great.” She was worried I wouldn’t finish, worried I’d change my mind.

  I finished jotting down my cell number and tore off the corner, handing it to her. Her fingers were greedy little pigs as she took the paper from me and stuffed it into her front pocket. She wouldn’t lose it, she wouldn’t accidentally wash her jeans with the number crumpled inside. She’d walk to her car, her heart racing, and take out the paper, fingering it with excitement. Then she’d program the number into her phone, planning out her first text. It would say something like: thank you so much for trusting me with your number. Shooting you a text so you have mine. She’d erase it and type it three times over, rewording and agonizing about how to sound nonchalant and casual. How to send something that would get a response from me. Then after I fucked her, she’d feel interesting and would care less about the moms at her son’s T-ball games judging her. She would be a woman with a secret, and they liked that—to have secrets and feel mysterious. I liked that, too. I saw Susan out and spotted Lesley in the waiting room looking ruffled and tired. Lesley was fun. She had great fucking legs and big juicy tits that I’d often imagined my mouth on. I was just about to call her in when I got a text. It was Fig.

  Your wife has invited me over for dinner tonight. She seems manic. Do I bring wine or something harder?

  I stepped back into my office and closed the door. Ha! Jolene was manic. I’d been tiptoeing around the house for days hoping not to be yelled at. She got like that when she was close to finishing a book. Everyone and everything was an inconvenience to her.

  Is it for her or us? I texted back.

  Ha! Us, I suppose.

  Then get the good stuff and we can be too drunk to notice.

  She sent the thumbs up emoji.

  I liked our chemistry. She was easy to be around. I’d pegged her as a psychopath the first time I met her, which meant that she was charming and agreeable and that seeking out our affection was part of the game. She wouldn’t always be this easy. A psychopath eventually always came apart at the seams, but for now she felt like an ally. Someone to be in cahoots with against Jolene. Sometimes I felt guilty about villainizing my wife … she was in esse
nce a better person than I was, but in the end humans needed to feel connected … supported. And Fig was my girl. Fig had a sort of grim obsession with Jolene. She wanted to be her and hated that it didn’t come easily. Their relationship was tenuous. Fig, on almost every occasion, tried to one-up my wife, to which my wife with no malice allowed her the winning trophy. It made Fig angry. If she won she wanted there to be a war.

  A text came through from Susan Noring. It was a picture of her tits. Well, well, well. I had been wrong. And who would have thought she had a rack like that? Finally a scuff mark on her Keds. Well done, Susan.

  Wowzer, I texted back. Those are beautiful. I sent the picture to my e-mail, deleted it from my phone, and opened the door for Lesley.

  There was a lawsuit. It had the potential to shut down my practice. I couldn’t believe it really. How had I gotten involved with someone who’d sue me over a broken heart? Women, as it turned out, were undeniably insane.

  I thought of the fish tank in the reception area, and the overstuffed grey chairs that Jolene had chosen when we were first setting up the office, and imagined them gone. It made me sick to think of it. Everything I built—gone. All because of the weak accusations of a bitter girl. Macey Kubrika had walked into my office the first time smelling of pussy. She’s just fucked herself, I remember thinking. Probably out front in her car. I wanted to smell her fingers to confirm. I had initially been attracted to her because she was vulnerable with big tits, and she liked to lick her lips when she talked. It had taken work to focus during her sessions; I kept imagining her sitting on my face. She was a teacher and she had been born with Amelia, a birth defect that resulted in a deformed limb. I hadn’t noticed at first that she didn’t have a normal right hand. She wore baggy sweaters and pulled the sleeves past her fingers on her left hand. It wasn’t until she brought it up in therapy a few weeks later that she pulled the sleeve back from her pink cardigan to show me what she called her stump. She told me she was grateful her parents hadn’t aborted her.