Mother, Mother

by Koren Zailckas

  “I want to talk this out—”

  “I do too.” Imogene nodded.

  “—But I can’t do it now. I have to get that. It’s Rose’s old friend Amelia. She might know Rose’s phone number. I need Rose to get me out of here.”

  Imogene looked baffled. “But you just said Rose is the one stalking you. All that stuff with the trash cans—”

  “Rose isn’t after me. She’s after my parents. And judging by what my mom’s done to me, I’d say they probably deserve it.” Violet hugged Imogene, who stood, awkwardly, with her hands at her sides. “Thanks for the chocolates. Please know, I have never ever lied to you. Give your mom a hug for me. Finch too.”

  Her mother had to be lying. How would she know Violet’s diagnosis if she’d stopped returning Sara-pist’s phone calls? Still, some small but treacherous part of Violet made her momentarily doubt herself. Could she lie, compulsively, without realizing it? Sara-pist seemed to think so. Imogene was almost sold. Violet had been doing a lot of MDMA lately, and her memory wasn’t exactly what it used to be. Maybe her brain had been Swiss-cheesed. Maybe she lost snippets of facts and conversations. But she wasn’t violent. To date, the only person who believed her on that point was Nicholas Flores, and even so, he couldn’t do anything to save her. Not without a witness. Not without Rose.

  The phone booth still smelled of the musky moisturizer Corinna rubbed into her shins. The receiver was still hot with Corinna’s breath when Violet picked it up.

  “Amelia?” Violet hoped she didn’t sound as strung out and hysterical as she felt.

  “Violet. I’m so sorry. I only have a few minutes before I have to be back in rehearsal.” Amelia’s voice was surprisingly deep and flat, with a Valley Girl twist at the end that made every sentence sound wishy-washy.

  “That’s okay. It won’t take long. I just wondered if you’re still in touch with Rose. She wrote me recently—”

  “Rose wrote to you?” Maybe it was just that deflated voice that made it sound like a dig.

  “Yeah. Have you heard from her?”

  “Not in a year.”

  “Do you know anything about Damien?”

  “Who’s Damien?”

  “Her boyfriend. The one Rose is living with.”

  Violet heard a swooshing sound like Amelia had switched her phone from one ear to the other. There was the sound of a door closing. Then the din of chattering ballerinas and tuning violins fell away.

  “I don’t know anyone named Damien. I only knew her last boyfriend, and there’s no way she’d ever live with him.” Amelia’s voice sounded severe and much clearer. She must have ducked outside the echoing theater.

  “How do you know that if you haven’t talked to her?”

  There was silence. Then the click of a cigarette lighter. A sucking inhale.

  “Amelia? Are you still there? I said how do you know she’s not living with him?”

  “Because he’s married, all right? Her last boyfriend was married.”

  There was the sound of the door again, followed by another humorless female voice. “I know,” Amelia told someone. “Yes, thank you. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Violet was stunned. “Who? How long ago was that?”

  Amelia took another noisy inhale. “Her old professor”—exhale—“on structural geology or something. His name was Matt. Mister metamorphic rocks. I’m surprised they’re back together actually. After the breakup, Rose was so crushed she couldn’t even say his name. She started calling him The Volcano. Or, sometimes, The Earthquake. You know, after all those natural disasters he was such an expert on.”

  “He was married or he is married?” Violet asked.

  “He was married, then. Now, I don’t know. Two more minutes,” Amelia hissed to the person on the periphery of their conversation.

  “Did you tell this to the police when we thought Rose was missing?” Violet hoped her voice wasn’t too harsh, too judgmental. She couldn’t afford to scare this woman away.

  “No. I should have. I know what you must think of me. I know I should have told them. But you have to understand, Rose swore me to silence. She was so in love. Even after the way he acted, she was worried their affair would get him fired. Can you imagine? I was, like, screw him. He deserves to lose his job after everything he’s done to you. But Rose didn’t care. You know Rose.”

  “I know Rose,” Violet lied.

  “Then you know the way Rose forgets herself when she’s into someone. She gets so wrapped up in guys’ interests, it’s like she forgets who she is.”

  “So Rose chose science over theater because she was trying to be more like her married boyfriend?”

  “The Rose I knew didn’t give two shits about faults, or deformed rock bodies, or whatever the hell she was suddenly obsessed with. I begged her to stay. There were rumors we were doing Anything Goes the next year, and Rose was a shoo-in for Reno Sweeney.”

  Violet made a small, knowing sound. In fact, she only knew enough musicals to know she hated them with every fiber of her being.

  Amelia’s cough seemed to rattle her rib cage. “I know Relationship Rose loves love. In love, Rose thinks she’s being really devoted and selfless or whatever. But she’s not. I tried to tell her that once. I said, ‘Rose, you latch onto people because a part of you likes feeling used.’ ”

  Violet made another small, knowing sound. This time she meant it.

  “I told her she liked playing the victim. ‘Rose,’ I said, ‘you like feeling like you’re constantly unappreciated. All this has nothing to do with Mr. Geology, it’s you’re addicted to the highs and lows he gives you.’ I tried to tell her the way she loved the professor was just as selfish as the way your mom loved her.”

  “You compared Rose to our mom?”

  “Not a good move, I know. I think that’s the reason Rose stopped talking to me.” The person spurring Amelia to hang up returned. “Violet, I should really go. I have a costume fitting.”

  “One last thing? Did you know Rose had an abortion?”

  Amelia gave the sigh of someone who was emotionally drained. “Know? I drove her to the clinic. She didn’t want to do it. Your mom was pressuring her. Calling Rose a two-bit whore. Saying she wouldn’t lift a finger to help if Rose went through with having the baby; she was just going to laugh and say ‘I told you so’ while a kid made Rose fat, broke, and bored.”

  “How supportive.”

  “It wasn’t pretty. Your mom harassed her. But—and believe me, I never said this to Rose—I think it was probably for the best that Rose didn’t have that baby.”

  “Because the professor wouldn’t leave his wife?”

  Amelia’s laugh was almost bitter. “No. Rose was fine with being a single mom. I mean, I think she wanted to be a single mom. I thought it was for the best because Rose would have smothered that baby. She would have used it the same way she used everyone else in her life—to make her feel better about herself. Even if Mr. Earthquake had left his wife, I think Rose would have wanted that kid to love only her. It was the same way in our friendship. Rose got really upset if I had other friends, or if I went out alone with the theater crew. I didn’t realize how isolated I’d gotten until she stopped talking to me.”

  “Rose was that possessive?”

  “It was all those years of competing with you and Will. Rose never felt she could live up to you.”

  “Live up to me?”

  “Yeah. She always talked about the way your mom would go on about how smart Will was and how you were the naturally pretty one while Rose had to work for it. Why do you think it took Rose two hours to get ready to go anywhere? She’d go, like, paralyzed with fear anytime it was time to pick out an outfit. If her curling iron broke, her whole day was ruined.”

  Violet didn’t know which was more shocking: the idea that Rose had been envious of her, or the idea that Rose had wanted a baby and their mother had coerced her out of it. She kept trying to make sense of that gruesome fetus picture—how did that fit into
this version of the story?

  “Amelia, how long was it between when you drove Rose to the clinic and when she stopped talking to you?”

  “A few days, maybe? I figured she was just grieving or whatever. It went on longer than I ever expected. She’d already switched majors, so it wasn’t like we had to see each other in class every day. I should have called her up and apologized. But I needed a break. Rose needed so much attention and reassurance. She was like a little girl. I felt … worn out.”

  “And then she ran away.”

  “Yeah. That shocked me, but I thought it was a positive change. I think even you can agree Rose needed to put some space between herself and your parents.” A door slammed. The sound of the string instruments returned.

  “I’m really sorry, Violet. They’re calling everyone for the act two coda. I’ve gotta go.”

  “Amelia? One last thing?”

  “What?”

  “Have you ever seen Rose get violent? Do you think she’s got it in her?”

  “I don’t know. Personally, I think it’s a matter of breaking point. Anybody can be pushed to violence. And your mom pushed her hard.”

  Violet thought about that for a second, and then Amelia added: “Rose’s acting was always so seamless. I don’t think she’d ever do something wrong unless she wanted to be caught.”

  WILLIAM HURST

  WILL WOKE TO an unfamiliar presence in his room. He heard his bedside light snap on. He rolled over, completely unprepared for what he saw: his father standing awkwardly in his day-off clothes. His face was unshaven and he had a pair of haggard slippers on his feet.

  “Is all your medication in the bathroom cabinet?” Douglas asked.

  Will pulled the covers to his chin and nodded.

  “And what about your schoolwork?”

  “What about my schoolwork?”

  “Where is it?”

  “All over. Some on the computer. Some in the books in Mom’s office. Some in our heads.” Will was annoyed by the thought of his dad interfering with his schoolwork, not to mention hijacking his quality time with his mom. “Where is Mom?”

  “I told her to take the day off.”

  Douglas sounded so authoritarian when he said it, and yet Will couldn’t imagine his mom taking orders from his dad. “Where did she go?”

  “I don’t know. There was some talk about a day spa. She might catch the train to the city. She said something about an exhibit at the Guggenheim.”

  Will despaired at the thought of his mother looking at art without him. She always said she liked the way Will made her feel like a professor again. She loved explaining things, like the way early Romans were wild about orchids until they turned Christian, when the flowers vanished from their art because they suddenly seemed too sexually symbolic—the scientific name orchis deriving from a Greek word for testes.

  “Are you and Mom still fighting?” Will asked.

  “Who said we were fighting? Get dressed, please. Then come downstairs for breakfast.”

  “What should I wear?” Will yawned, expecting his father to go to the closet and select what his mother liked to call Will’s “ensemble du jour.”

  “Something warm,” Douglas said. “It’s expected to reach freezing today.” He turned stiffly and strode downstairs, where Will heard the pinging sounds of O-shaped cereal hitting two bowls.

  Dinner for breakfast, Will thought and then caught himself, knowing it should have been the other way around.

  Will couldn’t help gawking at the angry scribbles on the side of his father’s car. The scratches in the paint looked even deeper up close, as though someone had made them with a knife as opposed to a key. The fact that his father had inspired that kind of fury in someone wasn’t all that hard to believe. The real question was which sister was responsible for it? Druggy, unhinged Violet? Or calculating, vengeful Rose?

  I won’t ever let your father do the kinds of things to you that he did to Rose. Those were the words his mother had said the night before. Was there temper lurking beneath his dad’s spaciness? Will’s mother sometimes alluded to Douglas’s “hotheaded youth.” Watching him reverse out of the garage, it occurred to Will that his father was like someone who was revved up and frozen at the same time; like, emotionally speaking, he had one foot on the brake and the other on the gas pedal. One stress too many and Douglas could easily be the kind of homicidal doormat people described with the words He just snapped.

  “Where are we going?” Will asked.

  “To the doctor.”

  “My doctor? Dr. Salomon?”

  “A different doctor,” Douglas said. “A new one. Dr. Martin. He’s a friend of a friend. I’ve spent half the night looking through your medical records, and there seems to be a lot missing.”

  Did his dad think he was stupid? Dragging him out to a new doctor, trying to get his diagnoses reversed behind his mother’s back? Will was furious. “Like what?”

  “What?”

  “I asked you what is missing from my medical records. I don’t need to waste time at another doctor! I know what’s wrong with me!”

  Will could tell Douglas had mentally gone offline.

  “Dad!” Will shouted, leaning forward and straining his seat belt. “My autism is none of your business! You can’t just mess with my school and my life just to get back at Mom! I’m not going to let you use me just because you feel like a ridgeling!”

  “I don’t know what that means,” Douglas said flatly.

  “It’s a half-castrated animal,” Will spat.

  Douglas grunted in a way that said the dig hurt. He kept the windshield wipers screeching for a full five miles before he realized it was no longer raining.

  • • •

  Dr. Martin was a child psychologist, and it was unclear whether Martin was his first name or his last.

  Will felt defensive and a little jaded. Over the course of the past year, he had languished in at least three other offices exactly like the one he was in, and he didn’t trust this guy for a second. In the words of Will’s mother, most therapists were “whiny abuse victims” out to convince themselves that everyone in the world should “stop trying and wallow” the way they did themselves.

  “Where did you go, Will?” Doc Martin asked. “It’s like you’re here in body, but not spirit. What am I missing?”

  Will stared at the zany orange-striped sock peeking out of Doc Martin’s pant leg. It reminded him of Nicholas Flores’s chummy Jets tie. Did adults really think dressing like clowns endeared them to kids? You don’t “get” me, Will thought. I’m more grown-up than that.

  “You’re not missing anything,” Will said, maybe a little too glibly. “There’s just no reason for me to be here. I’ve done all this before. I’m not sick like my sister. Not sick in my emotions, I mean …”

  “You’re sick in some other respect?” Doc Martin was fishing, grasping at straws, and Will despised him for it.

  “Not sick, exactly. Just different. The autism …”

  “Yes, your father mentioned your autism. We’ll get to that in a few minutes. Because the things we experience sometimes affect our health, I need to ask you the same questions I ask all of my patients. Is that okay with you?”

  Will had no intention of being this man’s patient, but he was physically incapable of being rude. Will’s passive, honor-adults side took over, and he shook his head to say yes, it was okay.

  “Are there things going on in your life that cause you concern?”

  Will’s response came so hard and fast he surprised even himself. “No.” Floating on the periphery of his thoughts—like helium balloons grazing the ceiling—were Rose’s revenge schemes. Also, his father’s possible affair. But they didn’t really cause him concern per se. They were happening, and no amount of worrying on his part could undo them. Far better to put his energy into being the child no one had to worry about.

  “Your father said your sister was admitted to a psychiatric hospital last week. You’re not concern
ed about her?”

  Will shrugged. “If she’s sick or whatever, then she was born that way. Nothing in our family caused it.”

  The doc seemed startled for a second before his poker face returned. “You’re twelve going on forty, anyone ever tell you that? You’re very protective of your parents, aren’t you?” Will wondered whether he was trying to make him angry. When he failed to react, Doc Martin went on. “Sometimes the very loved ones who seem to be causing all our problems are just calling attention to deeper issues the rest of the family would rather ignore. Maybe Violet has a harder time pretending things are okay.”

  “No one’s acting. Things are okay.” Will was beginning to think his mother was right. The man in front of him with his Saint Nick beard and “understanding” eyes was already convinced that he knew the Hursts’ story; he didn’t give a frick what Will had to say.

  Doc Martin aimed his ballpoint pen at Will’s splint. “Your father said your sister might have hurt you. That must have been frightening. I imagine it made you feel pretty helpless.”

  “She’s where she needs to be now. She won’t hurt anyone again.”

  The shrink looked down at his notepad. “Your father also said your epilepsy has been pretty disruptive. That you can’t go to school because of it? I’ve never experienced a seizure myself. What do they feel like?”

  Will relaxed a bit. He was far more comfortable discussing health problems than family problems. He described the ice-cold sweats to Martin. He talked about the combined tightening/tingling he felt in his chest—the way that, during an attack, he forgot how to breathe. Will had described it all so many times, the words had lost their meaning. Describing a seizure was like reciting a piece of poetry or performing his one-man Edgar Allan Poe show.

  Quite suddenly, Doc Martin leaned over and stabbed his pencil into the sharpener on the side table.

  The grinding sound made Will flinch. He curled the fingers of his good hand around the leather seam of the couch.

  “I’m sorry for the noise,” Doc Martin said. “I can see that really rattled you. Do you find that kind of thing happens a lot? Are you startled easily?”