by Sarah Dreher
There wasn’t a Fox Muldur in the bunch. If there were, Edith might have stayed home.
The phone rang three times, and a low, breathy voice said, “Kesselbaum.”
Stoner felt better immediately. “Hi, Edith. It’s Stoner.”
“Stoner! How are you? Is anything wrong? Is it a crisis?”
“Maybe.”
“Excellent,” Edith said.
Stoner couldn’t help smiling. “There’s nothing you like better than a crisis, is there?”
“I suppose not,” she said thoughtfully. “It’s so energizing. Do you think it’s a sickness? Do you think I should get help?”
“No, but I think I should.”
“Of course. I’m sorry. You called in a maybe crisis. How can I help?”
Stoner took a deep breath, feeling a little guilty and disloyal but desperate. “It’s Aunt Hermione,” she said.
Edith Kesselbaum waited for her to say more but she didn’t so Edith prompted, “Hermione.”
“Yeah.” She ran one hand through her hair and felt foolish. “There’s something wrong with her.”
“Is she ill?”
“Yes. Well, no. I’m not sure. She’s just not right.”
Edith treated her to one of her throaty chuckles. “Nobody in your family’s ‘just right,’ Stoner. I need to hear more.”
Now Stoner couldn’t help laughing. “If your colleagues could hear you, you’d be kicked out of the American Psychiatric Association.”
“I would, wouldn’t I? What a dreary bunch. Are you going to tell me the problem, or are we playing Twenty Questions?”
“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Stoner said. “She says she’s fine, but she doesn’t seem fine. It’s as if she’s...” She felt herself choke up. “...not really here. Sometimes I think I could almost see through her.”
“Oh, dear. That must be terrible for you.”
The tears were spilling over now. She let them come. “I’m really scared, Edith, and I don’t know what to do. She won’t talk to me and I start pushing and tonight she said I wasn’t letting her breathe...”
“You probably weren’t, Stoner,” Edith said very gently. “You know how you get.”
For some reason, knowing it was just how she did things, knowing people knew that about her and still cared for her, knowing it was really okay, made her feel better.
“I find it impossible to believe,” Edith went on, “that Hermione won’t confide in you eventually. She always does.”
“I guess,” Stoner muttered.
“And we know how Hermione can be, too. Stubborn and self-sufficient, just like you. It’s a genetic trait. Do you think we should try an intervention?”
Oh, sure, she could really picture that. All of them clustered around Aunt Hermione, the doors locked, telling her how much they cared about her and how much she was hurting them. And then what? Tough love? Throw her out and don’t let her back until she talks?
“I don’t think so, thanks,” she said.
She could hear Edith jotting something down on the pad of paper she always kept by the phone.
“What are you doing?” Stoner asked.
“Sorry. I was making a list for Max. He’s on his way to Burger King.” She turned from the phone and made kissing noises and turned back. “My God, I thought he’d never get on his horse. I’m starving. What did you have for dinner?”
Stoner tried to remember. She couldn’t. “I don’t know. Nothing. Not much. I was too upset.”
Dr. Kesselbaum “tsked” a little.
“Don’t ‘tsk’ at me,” Stoner said. “You just ordered from Burger King.”
“It may not be the healthiest food in the world, but it stays with you. You don’t faint if you miss a meal. Unlike the crunchy-granola you health freaks are so fond of.”
The thought of them as health freaks was too much for her. She laughed out loud. “The day your daughter goes in for crunchy-granola will be the day after hell freezes over.”
“I know,” Edith said. “Isn’t she lovely?”
“A pity she’s straight.”
“I’ve often said that, myself.” Edith cleared her throat. “So. My advice to you is, be patient and call me in the morning.”
“That’s not going to be easy,” Stoner said.
“Calling me?”
“Being patient.”
“Well, you’ll just have to. Do something to take you mind off of it. Have sex.”
Stoner was shocked. “Edith!”
“Eat, then.”
“All right, I’ll eat.” She could hear the disappointment in her own voice.
“Go get a Big Mac.”
“We don’t have that kind of thing in Shelburne Falls. This is rural.”
“Stoner, I know what you’re feeling. I know you thought I could be more helpful. I can’t from here. But if she’s not better by Sunday, or you’re still feeling desperate, I’ll come out there for a few days and beard the lioness in her den—whatever that means. It’s nearly summer. My patients expect me to be erratic.”
“Thank you,” Stoner said. “It’s really nice of you.”
“Nice, schmice. Does it help?”
“Yes, it does.”
“Then that’s what matters.”
“I’m sorry I get so carried away.”
“It’s my fault,” Edith said. “I should have fixed you better.”
Stoner smiled. “You couldn’t. It’s genetic.”
“You’re right on the verge of going too far,” Gwen said.
“I can’t help it, I’m really worried.”
Gwen took off her reading glasses and put her book down. “She’ll tell you, sooner or later. She always does.”
Stoner rammed her hands behind her neck and stared at the ceiling. “It might be too late.”
“What do you think’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know. Something awful.”
Gwen pushed herself up on one elbow and looked down at her. “Is this a real intuition, or just a Stoner worry?”
Stoner glanced at her impatiently. “You mean you haven’t noticed anything?”
Gwen gave a non-committal look. “Sure, she seems a little off. But I really don’t think we’re at a crisis…”
“You never do,” Stoner groused, “which is why that man almost killed you.”
Gwen frowned in puzzlement. “What man?”
“Bryan Oxnard. Your husband.”
“My late husband, unless memory deceives me.”
“He would’ve killed you, if I hadn’t gotten there…”
Gwen sighed. “Love, we’ve had this conversation a million times. We both know you go off like a cannon at the first hint of danger…”
“Do not,” Stoner interrupted in a mutter.
“And I could be walking down the railroad tracks and wouldn’t know a train was coming until it was too late.”
“That’s right.”
“Which is why we need each other.” Gwen bent down and kissed her. Her hair, falling against Stoner’s face, felt like the touch of hundreds of daddy longlegs. She shuddered.
“What?” Gwen asked.
“That tickles.”
Gwen threw herself back onto her side of the bed. “Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“You. You’re so jumpy it wears me out just to be around you.”
“I’m not doing it on purpose,” Stoner pouted.
“Sometimes I just wish you didn’t have such a stranglehold on life. Ease up a little.”
Stoner felt her temper flare. “Look, if you want to have sex, say so.”
Gwen put her pillow over her own face and groaned. “I could kill you when you’re like this,” she said after a silence.
“Like what?”
“Impossible.”
“I don’t even know what we’re talking about. I’m not sure what I’m talking about, and I sure as hell don’t know what you’re…”
“Your MOOD!” Gwen said loudly and veh
emently, slamming the pillow to the floor. “I’m talking about your lousy mood, which has gone on for days, maybe weeks, maybe I can’t even remember a time when you weren’t in it.”
Stoner made a calming gesture. “Take it easy. You’ll wake the whole house.”
“So what? I haven’t slept in nights, with you tossing and turning and mumbling. Let everyone else have a bad night for a change.”
“You know,” Stoner said icily, “just once in my life I’d like to be concerned about something and not have everyone tell me how stupid I am for being worried.”
“And I,” Gwen retorted, “would like to not be concerned, and not have you tell me how stupid I am for not being worried.”
She turned on her side, facing away from Gwen. “Good night, then,” she said.
Gwen flipped off the light and turned on her side, away from Stoner. “Good night,” she said tightly. “I hope you’re in better shape in the morning.”
I doubt it, Stoner thought. I’ll be in worse shape. Something awful is happening with Aunt Hermione, and nobody wants to deal with it but me.
She felt horribly, achingly alone.
Sure, I get carried away sometimes. Sure, things have looked bad and turned out all right in the end. But isn’t everyone wrong some of the time?
Shit.
She felt tears crowding behind her eyes.
We have a real crisis on our hands, and all they do is walk around with their heads up their… whatevers.
She drew back and looked at herself. Oh, boy, only seconds away from truly pathetic.
But I need to be worried about, too, sometimes. I try really, really hard to take care of everyone else. No one ever wants to take care of me.
Now that’s truly crazy. Gwen tries to take care of me, but I won’t let her. I can’t let her. I know that. I know it’s my fault. But I can’t help myself.
That made it worse. She felt trapped, trapped in herself, by herself. There was no way out of that.
Maybe I need to go back into therapy. But not with Edith. Not since I’m business partners with her daughter and live with her daughter and call Edith my friend. Having her for a therapist now would be too… too strange.
But I can’t think of anyone else I want to talk to. Not in that say-anything-that-occurs-to-you-and-to-hell-with-what-people-think way.
Therapists aren’t supposed to think like other people.
Except that some of them do. Some of them think exactly like other people. Some of them are other people.
I’d probably get one of those cheerful types that talks about “challenges” when you’re talking about tragedy.
Maybe Edith would know someone. Stoner couldn’t remember her ever talking about another therapist with her particular twist of mind, but then one of the twists Edith’s mind took was to be wary of other therapists. “Half of them are still Freudians whether they know it or not,” she often said. “Another thirty-five percent are behaviorists, and the rest live in California where their feet don’t touch the ground.”
“Do you have any idea,” Gwen said suddenly, “how oppressive it is to be treated like a ninny?”
“No more oppressive than being treated like a neurotic, impulse-driven adolescent.”
“Well, you act like one.”
“And you act like a...” She couldn’t bring herself to say “ninny.” It was too much. “...someone who’s never been out of the house.”
“Look,” Gwen said after a pause, “let’s not do this, okay?”
I don’t want to do it, Stoner thought. Oh, God, nobody knows how much I don’t want to do it.
She didn’t dare say anything out loud.
“Tell you what,” Gwen went on. “I’ll spend some time tomorrow with Aunt Hermione. Just the two of us. Maybe I can get her to open up.”
“Why should she open up to you when she won’t open up to...”
“Because,” Gwen said, and turned over and stroked her shoulder, which made Stoner want to cry, “you go at her like a charging goat...”
“I am a goat,” Stoner muttered. “I’m a Capricorn.”
“You and Marylou both,” Gwen went on, ignoring her. “Maybe if I can just be with her for a while, she might be less self-protective.”
“What you’re saying,” Stoner said, “is that I’m a bully.”
“You are,” Gwen said softly, squeezing the back of her neck. “Sometimes. When you’re worried, or frightened. Especially frightened.”
“I think I love you,” Stoner said, and turned to face her.
“My, my.” Gwen leaned over to run her hand through Stoner’s hair. It put her breasts dangerously close to Stoner’s face. “What a surprise. I had no idea.”
Stoner pulled her down closer and nuzzled her. She smelled like Jergen’s lotion, a vanilla/cherry/almond odor out of Stoner’s childhood. They all used the same soap and the same laundry detergent, but only Gwen managed to smell of Jergen’s lotion. “Hold me?” she asked. “Please?”
“It would be the greatest pleasure.” Gwen slid one arm under her neck...
“Hey, kids.”
...and collapsed in a heap on top of her. “Marylou, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Gwen’s body had landed on her just the wrong way. She couldn’t breathe.
“Popcorn,” Marylou said cheerfully. “Want some?”
“You had some at the movie, for crying out loud.”
“It was awful.” Stoner could feel Marylou settle herself on the edge of the bed. “I think they got it out of one of those big plastic bags at the supermarket. Maybe at Wal-Mart.”
It was getting on time to take a breath. She hoped Gwen would decide to move.
“You ate it,” Gwen accused.
“I was desperate.” She crunched loudly. “And it’s not politically correct to waste.”
“That was during World War II, when there were starving children in Europe.” Gwen moved a little, and then made sounds like taking a handful of popcorn from the bowl.
“Hey,” Stoner gasped.
“Is that you in there?” Marylou called.
Gwen slipped off of her, letting in fresh air. “We were just talking.”
“Interesting position for a chat,” Marylou said, and gave Stoner a salacious wink.
Gwen tossed a piece of popcorn at her.
“So,” Marylou said as soon as Stoner had a mouthful of popcorn, “what were you two arguing about?”
Stoner shook her head and said, “Mumph.”
“We weren’t,” Gwen translated. “We were discussing.”
Marylou smiled. “I stand corrected,” she said pleasantly and without an ounce of sincerity.
“About Aunt Hermione,” Stoner said.
“Uh-huh.”
“We don’t know what’s the right thing to do. What do you think?”
Marylou tossed a kernel into the air, caught it in her mouth, and murdered it. “Tonight?” she said. “Go to bed.”
She left the room.
“Know what I think?” Gwen asked when they’d finished off the popcorn.
“What?”
“We should all try to be more like Marylou.”
Cutter sat cross-legged on the ground, arms folded across his chest, and watched the lights in the house of the four women. He could see only the bedrooms of the old one and the pair from where he sat, and the bathroom. Not Marylou’s, she slept at the front of the house. But that was all right. The ghosts weren’t interested in Marylou. Ghosts didn’t like people whose lives sparkled in tiny lights around them. Ghosts were afraid of so much life energy.
He hoped it wasn’t his fault that the ghosts had come to this house. He’d tried not to show them his interest, but they could read his mind and sometimes good feelings crept in before he could catch them and paint them over. Sometimes the ghosts picked up on that good feeling and it made them hungry.
It had been a long time since he’d felt this particular good feeling, this bit of warmth that settled in the
center of his spine. Not since ’Nam. Not since his buddies. That was when the ghosts had found him. That was when his buddies died.
Since ’Nam he felt mostly shame. Shame at the things he’d done, and the things he’d left undone. Shame for the Vietnamese people and his part in their suffering. Shame for his country. Shame that he’d lived.
Shame had become an old friend to him. Not a pleasant friend, but one that could be counted on. That was important. Having something to count on kept you going forward.
The light was still on in the old woman’s room. But he could see them, inching their way up the side of the house and around the window. They were growing bolder. Or hungrier.
Cutter watched and waited.
She wasn’t going to sleep tonight. That was one thing she was certain of. They’d apologized to one another, “made up” as they used to say. But she knew it was only a truce. She knew Stoner knew it, too. They were both simply too upset and exhausted to argue any more tonight.
Besides, she had enough on her mind. Not that you could really say there was any one thing on her mind for more than a few seconds these days. She’d no sooner get a thought going than it’d disappear into thin air. Or one thing would lead to another until she couldn’t remember where she’d started. And, she noticed, other people were beginning to become just as loose-brained as she, after only a few minutes of conversation with her.
The movie was the thing that capped it. She’d seen The Maltese Falcon at least four times, in the original and on television and even at a film festival. But tonight, as she sat in the dark and semi-gray of the theater, not a single image appeared on the screen that she had ever seen before. It had to be The Maltese Falcon. It was right up there on the opening credits and on posters both inside and out. And no one mentioned it being a different Maltese Falcon. From the median middle age of the audience, she knew darned well she wasn’t the only person who’d seen this movie before. But she was the only one who thought there was something peculiar about it.
At one point she’d become so bewildered she’d leaned over to Gwen and said, “There’s something not quite right about this film. Do you think Ted Turner’s gotten his hands on it?”
Gwen shook her head. “It looks like the same one I’ve seen before on TV. And it’s not colorized. Definitely not a Turner operation.”
