She was getting ready for an exhibition at LACMA and offered to show me her new work. It didn’t use dolls or props like her previous films. She called it the Hat series. It used old, often damaged, pictures she had taken as a kid right after recovering from the fire. The pictures still held the charge of what must have been a very difficult time.
The most striking piece was a collage of a room filled with her sister, who was wispy and much sadder-looking than I remembered. The sister was included in duplication—sitting at the foot of the bed, lying on the floor, pacing near the door, looking out the window at the ocean. A ghost in a fur coat, circling the viewer.
“Haunting,” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “I suppose.”
“Do you have any pictures of your father?” I asked. I suddenly had a strong urge to see him as he had been, to remember that time period in my life.
“No,” she said. “I don’t.”
Even with her burnt face it had somehow not occurred to me until then that the films were autobiographical—that gentle Dennis Lomack was the monstrous love object. This was before the televised lawsuit where Dennis was wheeled out, drooling and silent, by the awful woman he married.
EDITH (1997)
I knock on the door to the darkroom. “Spooks? Can I come in?”
“Hold on.” I hear her banging around, then the click of the lock.
She pulls me into the room and quickly locks the door behind me. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim red bulb hanging over us. There are trays of liquids set up in the bathtub and an enlarger on a little side table. Cronus is lying in the sink, paws fanned out, watching us. He likes the cool porcelain against his belly. I rub him behind the ears.
“Dennis and Amanda are downstairs. Everyone’s getting ready to go to the beach,” I say.
Mae doesn’t seem to hear me. She hits a button on the enlarger and a square of light appears for a few seconds, then beeps when it shuts off. She takes the blank piece of paper out of the machine and drops it into the first tray in the bathtub.
I sit on the toilet. Cronus and I watch her work. She looks like she’s in a trance as she rocks the tray back and forth, back and forth. The chemicals smell like vinegar and feet. Suddenly an eye emerges on the page out of nowhere, then a beak—a seagull.
“Magic!” Mae says. Each time a picture shows up she seems delighted like a little kid. I worry that the fire did something to her brain.
“Cool,” I say.
Mae picks the photo of the bird up with her tongs and watches it drip into the tray, then drops it into the next tray. “The eyes always appear first. I wonder why that is.”
“Dennis looks weird,” I say, changing the subject. “Gaunt. Like he lost a bunch of weight.”
She ignores me. The only thing she ever wants to talk about is the photographic process. She leaves the seagull in the middle tray and takes another print out of the last tray.
“This is fixer,” she says. “After a photo sits in here for a while, it can be exposed to light without getting damaged. It’s toxic though, so I have to be really careful it doesn’t go down the drain.”
“Cool,” I nod, trying to look interested. It’s better than her not talking to me at all, I guess, which is how it was until recently. She takes the dripping paper out of the fixer and rinses it under the spout, then hangs it up on the clothesline by the blacked-out window. I look over her shoulder at the picture. A gray rectangle.
“What is that?” I ask her.
“The ocean.”
I look closer and see some white caps. Waves. The other pictures hanging up look identical. I don’t really get it—why the pictures interest her, why she takes them over and over.
She scratches her arm with the back of the tongs. I think she winces though it’s hard to tell through that ski mask of gauze.
“Does it itch? Do you want me to tell Rose to apply some more cream?”
“Why don’t you go on to the beach without me,” she says. My fussing irritates her. In here I think she forgets for a while about her body, and she doesn’t like me reminding her. She’s not going to tell me anything I want to know anyway. “Hold on, let me just cover the paper so it doesn’t get ruined.” She puts lids over the chemical trays and hides her paper in a special plastic bag. “Go ahead,” she says.
“Do you want me to tell Dennis anything?” I try as she gently pushes me out of her darkroom and locks the door.
I wait on the other side for a response, but all I get is the sound of my own breath and faint voices from downstairs. “Okay then, I’ll see you later,” I say.
I pass Dennis on the stairs. He is heading up to see my sister. I crouch, out of view.
“Mae? Mae, darling?” I hear him say. “Maybe we can talk? Can I come in, please? There’s something I wanted to tell you.”
I creep back up the steps and catch sight of him, leaning his forehead against her door. When he sees me he straightens up.
“Ready to go to the beach?” he asks me. I nod. What did he want to tell her? Nobody tells me anything.
“See you when we get back then,” he says through the door and follows me back to the kitchen where Uncle Stewart and Amanda are talking about alumni funds and academic excellence while Rose is carefully finishing loading up the picnic basket.
We file out the back door and down the bluff to the club’s private beach. The wind is whipping sand against our legs. The men we pass stare at me even though the top of my bikini lies flat against my chest—that’s something at least one of these rich lobsters, soused at the 4th of July party, has offered to have fixed. When the men realize I’m with this group of middle-aged people that they know, they stop eye-fucking me and wave at Uncle Stewart. “Happy Labor Day!” they shout. He waves back but keeps walking. He’s trying to keep up with Amanda who is plodding through the sand like a determined cow. They make quite the pair in their stupid sun hats. Why don’t they know they should be embarrassed? Her white back is covered in moles. It’s disgusting. I don’t understand why Dennis has brought her. He’s wearing mirrored sunglasses so I can’t see his eyes. Why is he with that repulsive woman? I am sure somehow that she is responsible for what my sister has done to herself.
I slow down at the tiki bar set up on the sand. The bartender is making something with ice cubes and cherries that smells like hairspray. I can imagine sipping it and that pleasant heat spreading through my chest, making this excursion a little more bearable.
“Club soda?” the bartender says. He’s wearing a bowtie and a vest, even though it’s hot and he’s on a beach.
Rose has stopped and is looking back at me, waving for me to keep walking. I shake my head at the bartender though I’m in no rush to catch up with Rose. I don’t need a drink now, it’s fine. I’ll have one later. I’ll take a few sips of the wine Rose uses for cooking. Uncle Stewart changed the lock on the wine cellar.
We keep walking farther, past the people, towards the deserted end of the beach, until we get to the lighthouse. In the sun, its walls are blindingly white. Desert bones like in the Georgia O’Keeffe paintings Mom likes. Is that where she went, maybe? Out West? I squint at the sand, ignoring the ocean for a moment—this is what the desert must be like. I picture Mom’s head sticking out of the sand. What if I’d almost stepped on her? I have to blink several times to remove the feeling of her face under my foot. Ick. Ick. Ick.
“Can you give me a hand?” Dennis is struggling with the beach umbrella in the wind. I hold the top of it as he buries the base. I’m watching Stewart apply globs of sunscreen on Amanda and Rose. Why doesn’t it even occur to him to rub it in properly? I can’t stand to see it smeared like that on Rose’s back. When Dennis is finished burying the umbrella, I go up to her and rub in the white smears. She jumps slightly at my touch, surprised, but then leans into it a little too gratefully. Last night she gave me a bracelet that belonged to her mother. She took me aside and tearfully told me that I was as close to a daughter as she has ever had.
The bracelet is nice, thin silver chains held together with a mother-of-pearl clasp, but it seems unfair to Mae, not that Mae cares.
“The water might be warm enough for a dip.” Rose looks at me anxiously, waiting for me to smile back. I do, but I wish she’d stop handing me a knife to cut her with. It’s only a matter of time before I’m not able to resist.
Stewart offers me the sunblock, but I shake my head. “I put some on at the house already. Why don’t you put some more on Amanda.”
Rose opens the basket, takes out a loaf of bread and a Tupperware container full of butter.
“I’m all set,” Amanda says. She arranges her hand casually, flashing a diamond ring at me. They’re married? Her and Dennis? And that coy twat thinks I’ll ask her about it? I’d rather die.
“Are you set?” I say. “I’m sure you could use some more. Maybe nobody has ever told you, but your back is covered in disgusting black moles. It’s truly revolting. You should get it checked out by a dermatologist.”
Amanda snorts and takes a magazine out of her beach bag.
“What a thing to say!” Uncle Stewart says, then looks at Dennis, waiting for him to reprimand me. Of course Dennis does no such thing.
“Does anyone want some herring?” Rose asks, trying to change the subject.
“Edith, that’s unkind,” Uncle Stewart says to me slowly, like I’m an imbecile. He ignores the jar of herring Rose is pushing on him. “It’s unkind and you’re better than that.”
Am I? Well, I’m sure skin problems are a sore (!) subject for him. Amanda turns the page of the magazine, pretending to be reading it, her dumb ring glittering in the sunlight. Behind her, three seagulls land and begin tearing apart an abandoned bagel. One bird manages to hook what’s left with its beak and take off. The other two are left behind, squawking stupidly.
“We talked about this,” Stewart is saying to Rose as if I can’t hear him. “She needs boundaries and discipline.”
I stand and the sand from my lap scatters onto their faces. “I’m just concerned about her health is all,” I say sweetly as they blink and spit. Then I walk down to the water. They can play house without me. I’ll give them their fresh start.
A wave crashes and the cold foam rushes over my feet, then sucks the sand out from under me. A moment of vertigo, steadied by an arm on my shoulder. Dennis.
“Want to go for a walk?” he says.
I shrug though already we are walking.
“How are you doing?” he asks me.
“Great, Dennis. I’m doing great.” What does he think?
“Oh yeah?” he says, pulling on my arm so I’ll turn around and face him.
“Mae told me everything,” I lie.
“Everything,” he repeats.
“Yeah. So, I know.”
He nods. “Know what?”
“What you did.”
“Okay, and what was that?”
It must have been something horrible. “You know,” I say.
He nods.
“Is it true?”
“It’s probably true. Why would your sister lie?” Dennis bends down and picks up a seashell. Holds it up to the sky. It’s partly translucent in pearly layers.
“She wouldn’t.”
He throws the shell back in the water. We turn back. I step on a pile of seaweed and the tendrils squish under my feet. I don’t know what Dennis did or didn’t do, but when I left, Mae was fine. If I hadn’t left, she’d still be fine.
I glance at Amanda, who’s sitting in the shade of the umbrella. “She’s pregnant, isn’t she?” I ask. It seems obvious as soon as I say it.
“She is,” Dennis says.
“Oh,” I say. That’s why he’s marrying her. “So, you’re having a baby?”
“That’s the hope, yes.” He smiles, but I don’t smile back. This baby will be his do-over, his second chance. Mae and I are the first pancake. The shriveled one that gets thrown out.
Dennis pulls off his shirt and sunglasses and tosses them inland. “Want to take a dip?” he asks. His eyes are squinty. His chest hair is gray now. It wasn’t gray before.
I follow him into the water, still stunned. Oh, it’s so cold, so cold. I suck my stomach in, trying to keep it warm as I go in up to my waist.
“OO—OOO—OO. eee—eeee—eeeee,” Dennis says of the cold.
I take another step and suddenly the water is pulling me. Moments ago it was flat but now it’s going vertical. A wave is forming in the distance. A big one. I hesitate, taking a step back towards shore, but my knees are water-locked.
“Dive under,” Dennis shouts. The wave crests above us. “Dive!” Dennis shouts again before he disappears under the wave, while I am frozen. A wall of water comes at me. It hits me in the chest, knocks me down, pulls me underneath.
I’m being dragged along the ocean bottom, the sand scraping my back and legs. I’m being buried under water. I unclench my eyes and see a cloud of sand, hair. My mother’s hair.
And then I’m standing again, waist-deep, coughing. My top has been knocked sideways, my bottoms are full of sand. My nasal passages are on fire. A mop of seaweed bobs along the surface.
Dennis is a few feet away. “You all right?” He floats towards me. Behind him I can see another wave beginning to form, and this time, I don’t let it hit me. I turn and run, or try to anyway, using my hands as paddles. I can hear the wave breaking behind me, but it doesn’t knock me off my feet. Instead it helps me along, pushing me towards the shore where Aunt Rose is waiting for me with a towel.
“Are you all right?” she says, wrapping the towel around my shoulders. Snot is streaming over my lips. I’m shivering. She tries to lead me back to our blanket, but I lie down in the hot sand where we’re standing. She fusses, a long heavy pear, an armless goose. She kneels by me, clucks, clucks, gives me a sandwich. I eat it flat on my back without opening my eyes. Every few bites, a grain of sand gristles against my teeth.
PART III
MARIANNE
physicists say that some particles exist only when they are being watched. an electron that isn’t leaping from one orbit to another like a flea, or that isn’t being prodded by a scientist, ceases to be. i think this is what happened to me. i ceased to exist.
& then I reappeared one day, inside of ruth day’s gaze. she was a nun without a convent. god told her to leave the order & start a farm. she saw me walking along the highway & pulled over.
“i found you,” she said & i felt found.
i can’t account for the hole I crawled out of. i don’t know how much time went by. i’d lost language. i repeated other people’s words but could not form any of my own. words were just tricks for my tongue, nothing more. there was a pretty name for this condition, this meaningless repetition. echolalia. doesn’t it sound like a lullaby or a type of bird?
there were twelve of us, ruth day’s apostles, living together on a farm & subsisting mostly on the food we grew. we had morning meditations & afternoon prayers & evening meditations & night rituals. in between we did things to maintain the farm. we grew chard & spinach & kale & cauliflower & cabbage. we had an apple orchard & we raised sheep & bees. we sold unpasteurized sheep’s milk & honey & hammocks & wind chimes at the farmer’s market.
the land belonged to a mathematician. he lived with us & tended to the honey bees & drew complicated maps on dead leaves, which we gave away to people at the farmer’s market when they bought a hammock or a wind chime.
every day the people on the farm would put their hands on me & pray. i’d feel a warmth in my liver, in my spleen, in the bowels in between. this was grace that was moving through me.
eventually, meanings reattached themselves to words. i felt like adam.
i’d watch the herd of sheep & think: sheep!
i’d watch the swarm of bees & think: bees!
i’d go into the barn & look at the tigers & think: tigers… poor tigers.
we’d bought two tigers from a man in a motel. he’d been unable to care for them. those ti
gers had been in hell—mangy, underfed, hepatitic. they were happy living in the barn. they hunted mice: little meats, quick heartbeats. we brought them arrow-pierced deer. they liked their food injured but alive. the smell of fear helped aid salivation & promote digestion. we watched them run in circles for our evening meditations. their stripes moved like the view outside a train. a wordless incantation. one would catch the other—creep, creep, pounce. then both would yawn, stretch out their pink spiny tongues.
once, one escaped & ripped open my ewes & ate the lambs inside. it was spring. for days he belched wool & passed soft lamb bones in his stool. how i hated him after this. i avoided that side of the farm.
poor cat, poor cat. i have done things in my desperation, that were uglier than that…
i try not to dwell on those things. my life is split into before I met ruth day: darkness, misery. & after: surrender, light. as marianne i have hurt & failed many people. i had wanted so desperately to die & i did.
& i was reborn.
my problem had been in my units of measurement. working with the bees, i could see that the hive had a soul even if the individual bees did not. i was not meant to be a modern person. i have always been a fragment, seeking wholeness in a hole. on the farm, i surrendered. each of us surrendered & became a stitch on god’s mantle, a hair on his head.
in the afternoon, we pray by the hives. the bees form a cloud & settle on our faces, hands & feet. eye to eyes, so many eyes. their feet are pinchy as they grip our skin. when they sting it keeps us present. “ouch, ouch, ouch, we’re here,” we sing. “we’re here.” we hum our hymns into their roar. their roar is louder than a tiger’s. their roar enters & purifies us. when we’re clean, ruth day feeds us honey like a sacrament.
eat his light, not his body, she says.
& we fill with god’s light.
PART IV:
Los Angeles, 2012
EDITH
I kiss Hugh as he wipes his hands on a dishtowel. The guests are all here for my baby shower but I don’t care. I want to crawl inside his mouth. I try to press against him, though I have to do it sidesaddle because of my belly. He gently pulls away.
The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish Page 22
