“Angel,” I wanted to whisper into the phone now. “Purple cucumber. Schmatzhagen.”
The last time my mother had visited me in Michigan, I had just moved in, classes had just begun. I was nervous and new. I’d left her alone in my house with a painting project to keep her occupied, and strict instructions: Don’t take the dog out, don’t go anywhere, don’t engage the neighbors in conversation; just stay inside. I’d be back a little after four. When I came home, I found she’d taken down every painting, everything I had on the walls: the Haitian blue woman, the 1950s Virgin Mary print, the Renoir reproduction in its lacy gilt frame, the painting of fish taking other fish for a walk on leashes underwater. She’d put the paintings behind the sofa and pressed two furnace filters against them. She’d tacked sheets over my bedroom windows. I’d found the trash full of food: she’d thrown away my tube of garlic paste, canned coconut soup, couscous, jars of condiments, chutneys and pastes and olives and sun-dried tomatoes.
Back then, I’d felt censored, over-mothered, oppressed. We’d fought bitterly; she’d left early. Now I understood that these actions were her way of keeping me safe, leaching out the bad energy. But I didn’t want her coming up here, going through my papers, taking my savings bonds and bank statements for “safekeeping.” I didn’t want her cutting the buttons off my dresses. I didn’t want her running around in my fragile new marriage. Most of all, I didn’t want her scaring my stepsons again.
“If you don’t want us, just say, Heather. I’m not going to come where I’m not wanted. I very much want to see you. If you feel otherwise, please, just say. The trip is an expensive one for me. Please. Just say how you feel.” This was her natural voice.
“I can’t wait to see you!” I said, and I hung up the phone, desperate childish schemes running through my head: I could leave town, I could stay down at Dave’s. She and Bernie could stay at Dave’s while he and the boys stayed here. I could go to a hotel. They could just stay in a hotel. How bad could it be? A couple of days.
That weekend I got out extra blankets and put them on the sofa. I made up the twin bed in the guest room with fresh sheets. I found soap, new soap. I made a grocery list. School was starting in a few days. I tried to get my syllabi organized for classes, but I couldn’t think what books I’d ordered. I couldn’t imagine students reading those books, whatever they were, and me talking about them. To what end?
The evening before school started, the last Sunday in August, was a cool night with a warm breeze. I was walking down College Avenue, carrying my quinoa salad in a yellow Pyrex bowl draped with a blue linen towel. I wanted to feel effective and Martha Stewart-ish. I wanted to feel participatory and welcoming. I was on my way to a potluck dinner for new women faculty. I did not want to go. I wanted to go to parties but I hated going to parties. I had no idea why. As I crossed the street, a strange old station wagon pulled in the spot beside me. A man got out and smiled a dopey smile. I stepped back and looked at the guy, trying to figure out if this was someone I knew. He wasn’t looking at me as though he knew me, or otherwise. It took him a while to speak.
“Hey, sweetheart.” He opened his arms wide. He was holding a tall boy in his hand. In a paper bag. I knew the outline of a tall boy.
“Did I scare you?” Dave said. It was Dave, it was Dave, it was Dave. Of course it was Dave. I shifted my salad to my other hip.
“Whose car is this?” I looked inside, holding my salad as one would a toddler. There were empty beer bottles on the floor, the seat. Dave, Dave, Dave.
“Well, sweetheart, I accidentally bought a car on eBay,” he said. “Ended up high bidder.” He laughed and shook his head. “Great car, though. Great car. Single owner, old lady. Low miles. I’ve been looking for one just like it.” He sounded warm and fuzzy, fluffy, hell-bent on happiness.
“My mother is on her way up. I’m late for a school thing. Welcome new women faculty. I told you about it.” I wanted to say a lot more.
“Well, sweetheart.” He frowned, but in a deliberate way. It was not a convincing frown.
“Why are you drinking?” I said. I sounded mean as a rat.
He looked into my eyes. He said in a kind voice, thoughtful, flannel, “That’s a hard one to piece together. As I have said before . . .”
“Things have to be pieced together,” I said.
I was approaching the apartment where the potluck was being held, wondering how long I would have to stay to not be weird or rude, when a woman came toward me, saying hello.
“Hi, I’m Heather. I’m in the English Department,” I said. “Are you looking for Jenn’s? I think this is it.”
“Yes, of course, I know,” she said. “I’m Jane Small. In History. Our offices are down the hall from each other? In Lubbers? This is my fifth year here. We have met.” She smiled. “Many times.”
I opened the door and followed her up the stairs. I didn’t really believe her. Jane Small? I didn’t think so. That was not my idea of Jane Small at all, not even close. I thought Jane was a much thicker-boned person, older, less happy.
Inside, I beelined for the kitchen and concentrated on helping Jenn lay out the plates. She had beautiful plates. I said hello to Beth Trembley, who turned out to be Janis Gibbs from History. They looked a lot alike. I filled my little plastic glass with some wine. I scanned the room. Jenn’s home was the upstairs of a house, an apartment. It was nice. She had a pretty scarf over her television set. I knew people did this to add color where there would otherwise be black plastic, a blank screen. It made me nervous, though. I moved from the television to where a woman was standing alone by the stairs. She looked nervous, afraid, and I knew she must be new. New woman faculty member. I went up to her. “Hi, I’m Heather,” I said. “Welcome to Hope.”
She said, loudly, her voice stiff, “I’m Jane! Jane Small from History, we have worked together for years. I am just down the hall from you.” On the word “hall” she pointed her arm out. She held it out there. I got the idea the arm was saying Go away and Why can’t you get this? She said, loudly, dropping the arm at last: “You know me.”
The party stopped on the loud words, in the way a party like this always does. Something was said, something with sharp edges, and it rose over everything else, and it rested on top of the party for a moment, like a sheet of aluminum.
And then it fell. The party readjusted itself, and the chatter rose again and wove around the room, women’s voices, Three Mo’ Tenors on the stereo, Jenn in the kitchen calling, in her voice like silver water, “Almost ready, folks! Almost ready!”
I stared at Jane. She looked nothing like the woman I had met on the sidewalk. She had on a jacket outside? Or maybe she had changed her hair?
I slipped out of Jenn’s apartment before dinner; I didn’t say good-bye. On my way home, I walked past Dave’s apartment. I looked up in the windows. There was Jacob in the dining room with his sword, frozen in a stance, the weapon over his head, shining. He looked so serious and straightforward, like he was going to carve the place to pieces. I almost wished he would.
I felt perched on the edge of my own life. I’d been fooling myself. I had no idea what I was doing. I felt as though not one of us—Dave, Junior, Jacob, me—knew what the hell was going on and what made sense.
And so, finally, I called for help.
3
One
In the corner of the therapist’s office was a beige file cabinet. On top of it, a pebbly fountain whirred. I wondered what was in those drawers. Probably files, notes on all the other patients. Reading files, lying back on the couch. I would love that. It would help me, finding out about other people’s secrets.
“Welcome,” he said. He sounded so serious, way too serious.
He was so close, I could feel the heat off his pants on my bare legs. Sweat ran down my body, beaded under my thighs, soaked my palms, my feet. I’d been so anxious to get to the therapist’s office, and now that I was in it, I couldn’t think how to begin. I wanted to leave. I wiped my hands on my denim skir
t. I felt frizzy and frantic.
Peter Helder, Jr., was calm and dry. Sandy hair, sand-washed silk shirt, slacks dry as drapes. When he’d leaned into the waiting room to call my name, I hadn’t wanted to follow him; he looked so polished and professional and tall, like a manicured tree. Where would he go that I could possibly go?
He leaned over, even closer. “Welcome,” he said. “I’m glad you are here.” He was hovering in the airspace over my knees. He was like a vulture. A handsome gold vulture.
“What’s most pressing?” he said.
I looked at the sofa. I wanted to lie down on it and close my eyes. I wanted him to just do the therapy to me, suck it out of me while I slept. I wanted a complete overhaul. I wanted new limbs. I wanted a new neck to hold up a whole new head. I wanted to be hypnotized, brainwashed, monitored, imploded, reconstituted, turned invisible, turned inside out, and cured. I wanted my organs replaced with all new organs, no scars. I wanted him to hover over me and infuse the stew of me with clear insights and shiny bits. I wanted all this change to happen while I lay semi-dozing, in a state of beauty and receptivity, quietly thrumming, on the couch. But it wasn’t a lie-down kind of a couch. It was a forward-facing, upright, massive ship of a thing—a sofa for adults, for work, for serious conversation, maybe for reading John Steinbeck or drafting torts. There had never been a free association on this sofa in its entire life.
He leaned in even closer.
I showed my sweaty palms.
“Well,” he said, smiling. “We know you’re alive.”
A lump of speech blurbed out. I told him about Dave drinking in the car, how we’d gotten married in upstate New York but we didn’t live together, how Dave didn’t want to ever have dinner together, how I didn’t want to blame everything on Dave, how I was wondering if I should leave him, how I wanted to figure out what I was doing wrong.
But the thing that had really brought me to this sofa was my mother’s visit. I didn’t want her to come. I needed some help with her visit. So we wouldn’t have problems, as we’d had in the past. I told him I thought she might be a paranoid schizophrenic.
He waited to see if there was more. There was so much more. I told him about the incident—almost a year ago now—when I’d asked her if she heard or saw things that weren’t there, and she answered: “You just want to lock me up.”
“That’s the wrong answer, right?” I said. “Do you think she’s a paranoid schizophrenic? I’m not one hundred percent sure.”
“It’s an unexpected answer,” he said. “Unusual answer.” I waited for him to go on, to explain. But he was very quiet. He was staring into me, hard. I closed my eyes. He must have realized I did not really want to hear an answer. I was not ready to explore the implications of a mother with paranoid schizophrenia. I opened my eyes and took a breath and my voice was high and fast; I sounded like a forced-friendly version of myself. “I feel so bad that I don’t want her to come and visit. I want to be able to handle these things better. I do love my mother. She’s very old.”
He took in a long breath. “Yeah, this isn’t a good time for you to have a mom visit,” he said. “You can tell her now isn’t a good time.”
I was surprised to hear him say this. I thought therapy was all about working on difficult relationships with family members, learning to get along with your mother. I thought it was all about the mother.
“I can’t tell my mother not to come and visit me.” Again I heard my voice as forced, girlish, breathy, too high.
“You can,” he said. “It’s one sentence. She will feel some pain. Your marriage is in crisis. You tell her that you and Dave are dealing with some issues. Now is not a good time.”
I looked at his wall. He had a metal sign, cut-out letters, bolted to the putty-colored wall. It said IMAGINE. I looked at the clock. This was weird therapy. Wasn’t there supposed to be a checklist of questions? How many schools I’d attended, if there was a history of substance abuse, how old I was when my parents got divorced? Somehow, forty minutes had passed. I wanted to tell him the sign was not a good thing. A word on a wall, never good. I could never come back here. “But I can’t tell my mom not to come,” I said. “It would kill her.”
“It won’t kill her.”
“What would I say exactly? How would I say it?” I didn’t like this therapist at all. He was for rich people, for dry people, for shiny, normal, well-funded people. This was terrible, terrible New Age therapy. I would interview three therapists, good ones, and find the right one for me. A woman. I needed a woman and a checklist. I needed things to proceed in an orderly fashion.
“You tell her you love her and you do want to spend time with her. You tell the truth. You and Dave are going through a difficult period in your marriage and it just isn’t a good time for a visit,” he said. He was using a low, serious voice, the kind of tone we’d been urged to employ in dog training school, firm, low, clear, one straight line. “There’s a lot to sort out before your mom comes and stays in your house. She may never stay in your house again.” He looked at me, kind of checking me over, to see, I suspected, if I could handle the truth. He cocked his head. “You might not ever know—you might not get a clear diagnosis regarding your mother. You can still take a clear position.”
I shook my head. “I just want advice on how to not let her get to me. When she’s here. I want her to have these grand-kids.” It was so easy to romanticize this notion in my mind, to see my mom and her dear friend Bernie with me and the boys and Dave, at the beach, at the all-you-can-eat buffet, taking photographs at the Old Windmill. “She’s not young. She’s not getting younger!”
Helder shook his head. “The adult speaks. The child who wants to please her mother, who never wants to do anything to make Mom unhappy, she has to be kept in the backseat. She can’t have the car keys.” He paused. “The reality is you and Dave live in two separate houses. The semester is starting. Fuck. It’s so much. A mentally ill guest would be a very challenging thing for anyone to take on, in any circumstance. Very hard.”
I looked at the clock. I wiped my hands on my skirt. How, I asked, could I have gone my whole life not knowing about my mother? How could I have not known what Keith knew when he saw our house?
“It’s your mom,” Helder said. “Because it’s Mom.” He sounded firm and knowing and clear. “When a child has an alcoholic father, he sees him drink all day long but he doesn’t have a label, a concept. You just know that at night, when the tires make a certain sound in the driveway and the doors slam a certain way, with a certain sound, you just know you need to hide.”
I was in my father’s house as he talked, and I could see the Fairmont in the driveway, slanted, and Fred reeling through the rooms. I was in my closet.
“She was your mother,” he said, and I snapped back into the present. He said “mother” like a boy would say it, like a priest would say it, and everything, in that moment, in his office, made sense. “You don’t have to have clarity,” he said, “to take a clear position.”
I wrote this down though it made no sense to me.
“You’re shaking,” he said. He looked worried and sad and urgent. He wanted me to call her after the session, cancel her visit, and then call him back.
When I’d first moved to Holland, Michigan, nine years earlier, October’s long, dark, cold, wet days made me fat. I craved potatoes and milk and dough. I knew no one. I had no friends. At the one and only department dinner I attended, people talked about their churches, the new chaplain, and their former churches. When I called Ter Haar Floor Specialists to redo my upstairs bedroom, they said they gave the quote only to the husband. I called another company, same thing. I ate a container of Chunky Monkey almost every evening. I’d watch four episodes of Friends back-to-back, eating ice cream, then call up ex-boyfriends from previous lives. After Florida, I’d moved to Texas, and in San Antonio I’d changed apartments five times, for reasons that always seemed reasonable at the time: it was closer to work, it was quieter, it was farther from wor
k, there were more people around. I thought I liked moving. I thought I liked the prospect of a fresh start. But in Michigan, I felt worse than I had ever felt in my life. I couldn’t sleep, but I never felt like I really woke up, either. I ate and ate, but food tasted plain and strange and thick. I burst into tears between classes. I wore shapeless flowered flannel shifts and felt like a slow wool ship as I lugged my books to school and back in tights and clogs. Then it started snowing, beautiful and terrible, and I couldn’t get warm. I couldn’t figure out how to make new friends; I simply never “ran into” people and it was hard to start conversations in a friendly way. Many people in the Midwest looked the same: pale, bland, corn-fed, sturdy, plain. Same with the roads. I’d never lived on the grid before. I was constantly lost. Suddenly 163rd became 47th and then inexplicably 120th, and on all sides were identical desolate muck farms. I was going downhill fast in a flat, flat world. I applied for teaching positions in Altoona, Riverside, somewhere in Arizona. I read the job ads for teaching English in Egypt, in Dubai.
In the phone book, I’d found Pine Rest counseling services, and for a few weeks, on Friday afternoons, I’d seen a woman named Christine. Stultified by the lack of sunlight and the midwesterners’ close-knit reserve, which struck me as hard, rude, and unforgiving, I wanted drugs. I wanted to know what was wrong with my life and how I could get things together. Christine wanted me to exercise, to join Holland Area Newcomers, join anything, maybe a winter walking club, and then see.
I didn’t join things. I didn’t go to things. Why not? Christine wanted to know. I wasn’t sure. I was busy. Very busy. “I’m not a joiner,” I said. “I’m a professor.”
She said she knew many professors who were active in the community. She knew a professor in a book club and another in a dinner club. There was a professor in my very department, she said, who ran a quilting club.
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