We Came Here to Forget

by Andrea Dunlop

  “Penny, how can you say that?” My mind raced. Weren’t we close? Hadn’t I done what I could to be a good sister? Yes, I’d been focused on my skiing, but I’d tried to be there for Penny, hadn’t I? I’d listened to her as she obsessed endlessly over her health, over Ava’s. I’d tried to carry some of her pain for her, not that it ever worked. “I love you. Mom and Dad love you. We just want to help.”

  “I don’t have time for this bullshit,” Penny said with venomous efficiency, as though she were a customer-service rep at the end of her rope. “I have my own family, and they’re in crisis right now, thanks to you three.”

  “Penny, don’t do this.”

  “I have to go.” Just before she hung up, I heard Ava in the background, not crying but just making some sort of baby exclamation, the last time I’d hear her voice.

  I sat there for a long moment after we’d hung up. I could hear Blair and Luke laughing in the next room. I’d told them both about Penny, and they’d been alarmed but had remained positive and reassured me that things would work out. It meant something coming from them; they knew my family, knew Penny, who—according to them—was just kind of weird and dramatic. But in that moment, I realized that they didn’t have any idea what I was dealing with. I was alone in this.

  The next six months, as the CPS investigation into Penny wound its way through the courts, were a miserable but somehow galvanizing time. Until it was all put out in the open, I hadn’t quite recognized the toll that Penny’s illness and the constant worry about Ava had taken on me, how isolating it had been to know so deeply that something was very wrong but not be able to articulate it. Luke was better at supporting me during this time; the fact of the court case gave him a way to wrap his head around what was happening. I pushed down the thought that perhaps he hadn’t entirely believed me before. But then, I hadn’t entirely believed it myself. However alarming it was to have the doctors at Children’s, social workers, and Ava’s court-appointed special advocate involved, it validated what had previously felt like paranoia. Something was wrong, and all these people knew it. Surely, something would be done.

  CPS called me frequently as they put their case together and one such phone call made me late to training. I usually loved off-season. After months on the road and the grueling race schedule that ran November through March, it was fun to be back in Park City with all of the other Alpine athletes, training during the day and drinking beers in the evening with the snowboarders and ski jumpers, trading good-natured insults with the freeskiers. But this year was different. As I slipped into the gym as unobtrusively as possible, the phone call with the caseworker replayed in my head, and it felt as though I was looking at my teammates through a telescope, their world unreachable even as I walked among them. I’d been asked to come home for a “family meeting,” something the social worker assigned to the case had conceived of. I would see my sister for the first time in months, albeit from across a courtroom.

  My father, we decided, wouldn’t come to the meeting. He would get too angry and it wouldn’t be productive. My mom and I met with the social worker, Quinn, and I nearly gasped when I saw her. She was twenty-three at most with wide blue eyes and a pixie cut, hemp jewelry on her wrists and neck. I knew it was unfair to judge her on sight and that she was probably doing the best she could, but I couldn’t imagine that she was prepared for anything like my sister. Her office—its every surface covered by stacks of file folders—did nothing to assuage my fears. Family court is as desolate a place as you can imagine. The horrible truth is that most people end up there because of deep and systemic issues related to poverty. My sister with her shiny hair and her designer handbag did not look the part.

  Penny arrived with Stewart, his parents, his sister Pamela, and an entourage of people I’d either briefly or never met. There was Stewart’s best friend, Tim, and his wife, Samantha, and a slew of Stewart’s multitudinous rotund aunties whom I vaguely recognized from the wedding, which now felt like a far-off dream. Why had they let her bring so many people? Why should these strangers have any say in my family’s fate? At least they would finally have to listen to us explain all of Penny’s history: the lying, the obsessions, the mysterious medical ailments. But Penny hadn’t just brought an army, she’d brought a cult. For reasons I couldn’t fathom, the social worker let each of them have their say, and they talked about how outrageous the idea of Penny abusing Ava was. She had thoroughly and systematically turned every last one of them against us. From their mouths we heard not only how wonderful Penny was but how awful we were: that Penny had been neglected by my parents, that my mother and I were plotting to get Ava away from her out of spite. It was so outlandish it was hard to figure out how to even defend ourselves. In their minds, they were on the righteous side of a young mother who’d been victimized by those meant to love and protect her. According to them, Penny had had a lifetime of bad health, and her needs had always come last, neglected in favor of the younger sibling, whose glory my parents were allegedly obsessed with to the exclusion of anything else. She’d woven a compelling fiction, and I could see in their eyes that they hated us.

  By the time it was my mother’s turn to speak, it felt like we were the ones on trial.

  “I love my daughter,” she said, barely keeping it together, “and I love my granddaughter. We don’t want to hurt Penny, but she needs help.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as one auntie leaned over to another and whispered something in her ear—she let out a loud scoff that morphed into a laugh. My mother halted for a moment and I could hear her taking a deep breath.

  “Don’t laugh at my mother. Don’t you dare,” I burst out, staring daggers at the aunties, who rolled their eyes and held their hands up as though to say, Oh, pardon us. My mom took my hand.

  “It’s okay, honey.” She carried on and explained everything about how she had come to the decision to speak to Ava’s doctor. I tried my best to appeal to their empathy when it was my turn to speak. I reiterated that we loved my sister and only want to help—what other motivation could we possibly have? I told them I understood that they thought they were doing the right thing but that we’d known Penny her whole life, and we saw this all in a context they couldn’t. I was begging them to listen to us, but I could see their implacable expressions. Penny didn’t look us in the eyes even once.

  The whole ordeal was messy and complicated. The wheels of the court kept turning; Ava’s court-appointed special advocate filed a motion to try to have Penny and Ava placed with my parents, but it was denied. A psychologist evaluated Penny and found her to be deeply disturbed. Given his limited exposure to her, he told us, it was impossible for him to diagnose something as complex as Munchausen syndrome by proxy, which is mostly defined by a series of actions rather than traits, but that she certainly fit the profile, as well as showing strong indications of narcissistic personality disorder, something often paired with the MSP. Initially, his diagnosis felt like a win. After all, the psychologist was a neutral party, agreed to by both sides. I realized just how deeply I’d begun to doubt reality itself by then. On an intellectual level, I knew Penny lied, I had plenty of evidence. But on a visceral level, it still felt hard to reconcile. She didn’t seem to be lying much of the time, and it was unclear—even with the psychologist’s diagnosis—whether or not she knew she was lying, or if she had genuinely lost track of the truth.

  Of all the things I cannot reconcile about this time, one is my strange nostalgia for it. As murky and complex as the legal proceedings were, at least we had forward momentum after all the years of inertia and worry. It was impossible to imagine that all of this would lead to nothing.

  I imagined then that the summit of this awful climb was just beyond the horizon, that my life could soon go back to its normal trajectory. Having this finish line in sight let me compartmentalize and focus on my training, even enjoying a couple of the training camps in Mammoth and New Zealand. Whenever I tried to talk to Luke about Penny, he said, “Babe, don�
��t think about it. Focus on the good, okay? It’ll all work out.”

  Maybe he thought he was reassuring me, but the message was clear: he was done hearing about this.

  I flew home for the judge’s decision on a Thursday and held my mom’s hand with white knuckles as we waited. There was no jury in a dependency case such as this one: just one man who held our fate in his hands. As I listened to his words, I felt like I was in a vehicle that was being submerged, water rushing in from all sides. He’d considered all of the evidence and testimony and was recommending the child stay with her mother.

  After all that, nothing changed.

  After all that we’d been through, after drawing the line in the sand that cut Penny and Ava out of our lives, nothing changed.

  Back in Park City, I was a mess. Luke tried to be supportive, but it was clear he was losing patience with the whole thing.

  “I know it’s been rough,” he’d say, “but it’s over. Gotta move on, right?”

  He was wrong. It wasn’t over.

  Liz Is in It Now

  FOR THE next two weeks, I’m barely present in my life when I’m not with Gianluca. My world has been sharply divided into being with him, when I sink into a primal kind of ecstasy that makes me forget I even have a mind or a past, and without him, when I’m replaying moments with him, when my body is remembering his.

  The rest of the time I’m with Gemma and Edward and the dance team. I realize that they have given me what I’d missed most about my old life: the easy, uncomplicated friendship of my teammates. And, one by one, it comes out that it was not only Cali and Anders who had gone through something that turned their lives upside down before coming to Buenos Aires. Breakups, death, ruined careers—it seems everyone came here to forget something.

  One day, I run into Beau and Valentina while I’m leading a tour through the Plaza de Mayo; Beau plays a song on his phone and they do part of their routine right there in the street, delighting my tour group.

  Mostly, I see Gianluca alone late at night, and after the first time, we’re never at his place, always at mine. He never spends the night and I pretend that it doesn’t bother me. He says he can’t sleep in unfamiliar beds. Then why meet here and not at his apartment? I don’t ask because I don’t really want to know the answer.

  When we’re alone together, G makes me feel like I am the only woman who’s ever existed. Physically, being with him is like a drug, and it makes me grateful to have a body.

  At first, Cali and Gemma are thrilled, but a couple of weeks in, when we’re at Edward’s and I’m counting the moments until I can leave to meet G at my apartment, Cali asks about us.

  I shrug and smile. Nearly every night of the past week I’ve seen him, let him come over, fuck my brains out, and leave like a thief in the night. I tell myself I’m being modern.

  “Yes, you’ve been seeing a lot of him, haven’t you? Judging from the dark circles under your eyes,” Gemma says. It’s just the four of us tonight. I catch Edward gazing at Cali slightly dreamily and wonder what he’s up to.

  “Well, what does one come to Buenos Aires for if not for a romance?” Edward says, smiling.

  “Is that what it is?” Cali asks. “Has he taken you on a date or anything?”

  I laugh like she’s just said something ridiculous. “A date?”

  “Come on,” she says, looking to Edward for backup. “You know what G is like. And what about Angelina?”

  “Over. It was never anything serious according to him.” I’d asked him about this as well, the morning after our first night, panicked that I was in for a showdown I’d lose. But he said they’d cooled off, that it had only ever been a little fling, the natural consequence of their dance partnership—why did I think he forbade this sort of thing on the team?—but now they’d gotten it out of their system and they were back to being partners, just friends.

  “You could have fooled me,” Cali says.

  “Cali! You’re being a terrible spoilsport,” Gemma says.

  “I’m being protective.”

  “You’re sweet. But I’m having fun. Speaking of romance,” I say, “Gemma, how are things with Anders?”

  “Oh god. He’s having a rough go of it.”

  “Sister stuff?” Cali asks.

  “Yes,” Gemma says. “I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic, but it just doesn’t seem healthy. I came over the other night and found him watching old videos of her on his laptop, shit-faced on aquavit and sobbing. He punched a hole in the wall!”

  “While you were there?” I ask.

  “Oh no, the carnage was there when I arrived. It was her birthday last week and it’s sent him into a death spiral.”

  “How long ago did this all happen?” I ask.

  “Three years ago,” Gemma says. I’m struck by this; the way he talks about it is as though it was yesterday—three years out and he’s punching holes in the wall. What if I’m the same, what if I never actually feel better? “At least he’s here now. I think it was worse in Norway. His parents got divorced after Berit died, and his mom was so devastated that she’s left her room at their house exactly as it was. Anders told me it’s like a shrine. I know there’s no wrong way to grieve, but constantly reliving it does not seem helpful. There must be a better way. Anders is in so much pain and I just don’t know what to do with him sometimes.”

  For a moment, we’re all quiet, everyone bearing their own cross, considering each other’s.

  “Well, if you don’t mind a subject change,” Edward says, and I think, please. “Cali, I have something for you.” He gets up and leaves the room, smiling at Cali and putting a hand on her shoulder. She glances at him and I see something sparkle briefly in the air between them.

  We wait in giddy silence until Edward returns from the long dark hallway. Only Gemma looks relaxed and smug, and I think she must already know about whatever’s coming.

  Edward rolls something tall and obscured by a black bag forward. Cali gets to her feet. Of course, a cello. For a moment, I wonder how it will go, presenting her with a cello like this. I’m remembering the night of the Mexican dinner.

  As Edward pulls the covering off and Cali steps forward gingerly, her eyes grow wide and her hands come to her mouth.

  “Edward, why do you have this?” She’s examining the instrument in awe, running her fingers along its spine, the curves of the body. The three of us are mesmerized watching her.

  “I play a little,” he says, smiling serenely. Cali is enraptured, and he knows he’s done the right thing bringing out the cello.

  “Edward is quite the renaissance man,” Gemma says. “He’s got whole caches of instruments back there.”

  “That is a nice way of saying that I’m a dabbler. But I do love instruments, and it’s always nice to have them around—you never know when you might have a virtuoso in your midst. This one actually belongs to my mother. It was in New York, but I sent for it.”

  “It’s a Goffriller. Gorgeous,” Cali says. “One of the best, along with the Strad and the Montagnana. Though I’ve always preferred the Goff, to be honest. It’s brighter.” I realize the instrument must have cost a fortune.

  She looks at Edward, and for an instant I feel like Gemma and I should leave the two of them alone. Or rather, the three of them.

  “Cali, play something for us!” Gemma booms.

  She looks at us uncertainly. “I haven’t even looked at a cello in ages.”

  Edward reaches for her hand. “No pressure. It’s here for you anytime.”

  “How can I not play it though?” she says, looking surprised at her own words. “I can’t insult the Goff.” She looks down at the beautiful instrument with reverence and a bit of trepidation, as though approaching a majestic, unpredictable horse.

  Edward moves swiftly from the room and returns with a chair from the dining area. “Will this one do?” he asks. Cali nods, suddenly businesslike. He pulls a resin block from his pocket; Edward is like a stage director. Cali takes a seat, pulls the cello be
tween her long legs, and begins to adjust the stand. Edward quietly joins us on the couch. We’re hushed watching her. Even Gemma is utterly still for the first time since I’ve met her. Cali is wearing a tank top and shorts and so as she positions herself with the cello, only her bare limbs are visible, making it seem as though the cello almost disappears into her, and she into it. She resins the bow, and then begins a little warm-up routine, making a series of minute adjustments, nimbly turning the pegs and rolling her shoulders, stretching her neck from side to side. When she’s ready, she looks back up at us.

  “I’m playing you my favorite piece. It’s a Brahms. Often paired with a piano, but I like it on its own.”

  We nod.

  For some reason, I worry that watching someone play the cello alone in a room might be uncomfortable. I fear she’ll make odd movements or ridiculous faces. But watching Cali play is grace itself. Her beautiful, slender arms are a ballet of movement, and her face is lost in some otherworldly ecstasy. Her eyes remain closed, but a thousand emotions seem to pass over her lovely features. The music surrounds me and I think of Penny in her religious phase, talking about hearing the voice of God, and I wonder if I still believe there might be a God. I did before, in a vague, unexamined way. But now? After? I don’t know. This is one of many questions left unanswered: What does any of it mean? Why did it happen? Who the hell am I now?

  But if there is a God, would he not speak in a language that all could understand? One that moved you on a level deeper than words could? Would he not sound, I think, just like Cali’s cello? She moves on from the Brahms to Mozart, then Beethoven. She tells us this later; as she plays, she simply floats from one piece to the next, with only a deep breath and a pause to delineate the pieces. At last, she stops, spent. She looks up at us, as though only now remembering that we’re in the room. I can’t tell if the expression on her face is grief or joy. She excuses herself, setting the cello gingerly against the chair. She disappears into the courtyard. Edward suddenly doesn’t look so sure of himself.