“A, there was indeed a fire,” I said. “Mommee put Glynn’s new clothes in the bathtub and lit them. B, what’s the matter with her is that I locked her in her room before she killed herself or set another fire. She’s fine, just pissed. C, yes. I’m okay. D, yes, Glynn was here. She found Mommee doing it. I think she’s out on the patio. I wish you’d go talk to her. She’s terribly upset.”
He stared at me for a moment and then went, not downstairs to Glynn, but down the hall to Mommee’s room. I heard him speaking softly and coaxingly at her door. The crying and kicking stopped. In a moment he was back in Glynn’s bathroom, saying, “Where did you put the key to her room? She’s scared to death.”
I looked at him in silence, and then said, “It’s on the marble-top table. I can’t believe you’re doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Going down there and petting that old woman after she destroyed all Glynn’s new clothes and bathroom and most of her bedroom and could have burned down this house and killed all three of us. I can’t believe that, Pom.”
“Well, you and Glynn are obviously all right and the fire’s out. She’s obviously not all right. I never heard her so agitated.”
He turned and went out of the bathroom. I laid my head on my forearm on the edge of the bathtub and closed my eyes. We had to deal with the matter of Mommee now, but the thought of the evening ahead tired me so that I wanted to go to sleep right there, my head on cold, filthy enamel, the sour smell of destruction in my nostrils.
He stayed in her room a long time. I had made up the downstairs guest room for Glynn and had a sandwich supper on the table when I heard Mommee’s door open. Glynn had decided to stay home; Jess’s house, she said, was still an emotional uproar, and Marcia’s grandparents were visiting. She had washed her face and combed her hair and changed her clothes and seemed restored to a sort of distant calm, though she said very little. When she heard Mommee’s shuffling steps on the stairs, and Pom’s low, soothing voice, she stiffened.
Pom came into the breakfast room, his mother clinging to his arm and shuffling like a frail, crippled centenarian. If I had not seen her streaking for the river like a wild thing that afternoon, I would have thought something had happened to her, a stroke, perhaps, or a bad fall. She looked up at Glynn and me under lowered lashes, and her lips trembled. So did the hand that clutched Pom’s arm. Glynn looked at me and rolled her eyes, and I felt a fresh spasm of anger at Mommee. Ordinarily her punished-child routine occasioned only amusement in me, but tonight it did not amuse me at all. There had to be some sort of accountability for what had happened; we must not let her think she could win approbation and cosseting with destruction.
“Mommee has told me that she’s sorry about what happened, and that she didn’t mean to do any harm to Glynn’s clothes,” Pom said. “She didn’t know what the fireplace starter was. Now I think it would be a good idea if you two told her you were sorry, and then we’ll all have some supper and watch TV and put the whole thing behind us. Maybe Glynn could run up and get us some Rain Forest Crunch for later.”
He stopped and looked at Glynn and me, waiting for our apologies. I simply stared at him. Glynn’s face began to redden across her cheekbones, as if she had been slapped.
“Sorry for what?” she burst out. “I’m not the one that set fire to those clothes! I’m not the one who almost burned the damned house down! I’m not about to apologize!”
Pom’s face reddened too.
“For screaming at your grandmother, for one thing,” he said. “For calling her names. She’s not too out of it to remember things like that. She was heartbroken. You know she didn’t know what she was doing! You know we never, never yell at Mommee! It would be like yelling at a baby!”
“I won’t apologize,” Glynn said tightly. “She damned well did know what she was doing. I’ve seen her playing with the fire starter before. I won’t apologize and I wish she was out of here! Then maybe the rest of us could have some kind of normal life—”
Mommee began to wail again. She turned her face into Pom’s shirt and pressed it there, clinging to him, sobbing.
“You will apologize or you will not go to camp or anywhere else this summer, young lady!” Pom shouted. “I will not allow abuse of someone helpless in my house! I don’t know what’s gotten into you; I don’t even know who you are!”
“You’re right, you don’t!” Glynn cried. “Here’s a news flash; I’m your daughter. Remember me? The kid who’s been hanging around your house for sixteen years waiting for you to—”
“Go to your room!” Pom roared. “We’ll talk about your behavior tomorrow! And don’t you come out until I say you can!”
“I don’t have a room! That old witch ruined it!” Glynn cried and turned and ran into the guest room and slammed the door. I heard it lock behind her.
My head buzzed with horror and anger and for a moment I could not speak. I tried to control my voice, but it came out ragged and without breath behind it.
“Have you lost your mind?” I whispered at Pom. “Can you hear yourself? Did you hear how you talked to your daughter? It wasn’t her fault, Pom. Maybe Mommee can’t help it, but neither can Glynn and neither can I, and this crap cannot go on any longer! Pom, your mother almost burned down our house! She almost killed your wife and daughter, along with herself! She almost killed your wife and daughter, along with herself! Something has got to be done about her!”
Mommee’s wails escalated, and she began to gasp for breath and choke and cough.
“Shut the hell up right now, Merritt!” Pom shouted. I did. I could not have spoken if my life had depended on it. Who was this dark, roaring man? What had happened to us?
“I will talk to you when I get her quiet,” he said tightly but in a lower voice. “Maybe by then you will have gotten control of yourself.”
He turned and helped his mother back up the stairs. She leaned heavily on him. Just as heavily I sat down at the table. I felt as if the whole world had exploded in my face, and the pieces were still falling to earth around me like lethal rain. I had to get up, I had to go and see to Glynn; I had to make him understand.…But I could not move.
I was still sitting there when he came back down, this time alone.
“I gave her a shot. She’s asleep,” he said. “I don’t understand what’s going on around here, Merritt. I don’t know why things are falling apart all of a sudden. Why can’t you cope with one sick little old lady anymore? Why has Glynn turned into such a spoiled, helpless brat?”
I knew that I would be terribly angry with him again later, but right then I was merely endlessly tired. I could not imagine where I was going to find the breath and strength to make him see.
But I knew that I must, so I inhaled deeply and said, as calmly as I could, “You aren’t here most of the time. You don’t see. You can’t possibly know. I’ve coped as long and well as I could; so has Glynn. She’s a very long way from being a spoiled, helpless brat, Pom. You should have seen her today, she was so funny and normal, and so proud of her new clothes—”
He leaned forward, as if to better understand me.
“Why shouldn’t she be normal, Merritt? She’s sixteen years old. She’s had everything on earth that could be given to her; she’s had the best life we could make for her. She never learned to abuse sick old people from us—”
I knew then that I would not remind him of the anorexia, nor tell him of its recurrence. In this mood it would surely become another weapon for him.
“She has never in her life abused Mommee, if you insist on calling it that. But she has a limit, and this business with Mommee has stretched her far thinner than you can possibly know. Even I didn’t realize—”
“Both of you should have to work in the clinic all day,” he said in exasperation. “It would make what you think you have to do look like a garden party. Why weren’t you watching Mommee? Where the hell did she get the fireplace lighter? Why wasn’t someone with her? Merritt, we made a deal a long time
ago. It was your idea, as I recall. You were all for it. You’d look after the kids and the house so I could do this work. You said yourself that it was the most important thing you could imagine. You said you loved taking care of the kids and seeing that things ran smoothly for all of us. And you did it so well and you still had plenty of time to yourself, even when the boys were at their most troubled, even when Glynn was a baby and a toddler. You did almost anything you wanted to; you never had to stop your freelance work. What changed? Why can’t you look after the people who need you, all of a sudden?”
“The people who need me don’t need only me now,” I said, trying not to shout or weep at the words. They seemed so unfair that I could not imagine how he could even think them, much less say them. But I knew that he meant them. His face was wrinkled with the need, the desire, to understand.
“Your daughter needs you, too,” I said. “She’s played second fiddle to the halt and the lame at that clinic for a long time now. And then here comes Mommee. Every time Glynn expresses need of you you give her a lecture about people with real trouble, about doing real work. Pom, the reason we made the deal in the first place was so that your children, and later our child, would never have to live the way the people in the clinic live. That was the most important thing in the world to you then; that they have better lives than that. So that’s the way I raised them, and now you criticize Glynn precisely because she’s not like a them. She’s not spoiled and trivial; she’s as good and responsible a child as I know. But she needs you, too. And she doesn’t often get much of you. As for Mommee, she needs more than me or you now. If you were with her all day you’d see that she’s gone beyond anybody’s care but professional people’s. With the best will in the world, I can’t keep her safe now, or us safe from her. I cannot be with her every second out of the day, nor can Ina. Where was I? I fell asleep outside on the chaise while she was occupied up in her room and Glynn was out. With the intercom beside me. I couldn’t give her a pill because you said not to, and I had just had a long emergency session with Glynn. I was exhausted. I’m sorry. Where did she get the fireplace starter? I do not know. I’ve taken all the matches in the house away, and I thought I’d locked up all the fireplace starters. Glynn’s right, Mommee does know what they are. She’s started several small paper fires with them. Yesterday she cut up one of the drapes in her room with garden shears because I’d hidden all the other scissors, and that was with Ina in the house with her. The deal isn’t valid anymore, Pom, because things have just changed too much. Can’t you see that?”
“I’m trying. But it all boils down to the fact that Mommee is not responsible for what has happened to her, and I will not have her punished for helplessness.”
“So instead you’ll punish Glynn for it. And me.”
“I’ve never punished you.”
“Somehow what I need seems to have gotten left out of the equation,” I said.
“Well, then, what is it that you need, Merritt?” he said with the exaggerated calm that you would use with a child in mid-tantrum.
“I need…some air and light and some attention,” I said, surprising myself. “I need for you to think about what I need before I tell you. I need you to be with me, just me, every now and then. I need full-time, professional, live-in help with Mommee, a nurse or an attendant of some kind. Either that or she is going to have to go to a nursing home.”
“She’s not going to a nursing home. She’s not going to be left in the care of total strangers. We’ve discussed that. It’s not an option.”
“Pom, your mother is out of her mind. She is not who she used to be. She does not know what she is doing, maybe, but what she is doing is destructive in the extreme. You wouldn’t allow this sort of…drudgery…to fall on anybody in your clinic. Why are we so much less important to you?”
“People don’t treat their family members that way.”
“I didn’t think they made servants and captives of them, either.”
He got up and took a sandwich from the platter and went out of the kitchen. At the door he looked back.
“I’m going to catch up on some paperwork,” he said. “And I want you to try to calm down. We’ll talk again in the morning. Glynn can sit in on it, too. I’m willing to listen to what both of you have to say, but you’re going to have to say, but you’re going to have to respect my point of view, too. Meanwhile, we’re just spinning our wheels. I’ll probably be up late. You turn in. It’s been a hard day. Mommee will sleep through. We’ll get somebody in to clean up Monday.”
I did not reply, and then I called after him, “I’m going to tell Glynn she can come out of her room now. She hasn’t had any supper.”
“Yeah, all right,” he called back. “But I don’t want her going out anywhere. She’s still grounded until we talk this thing out.”
“Where would she go?” I said into the empty air of the kitchen. He did not, of course, hear me.
I went to the downstairs guest room door and knocked softly.
“Come out, the storm’s over,” I said. “I’ve got a sandwich and some milk for you. We’ll all talk this out in the morning. The fire just got your dad upset—”
“Thanks, Mama, but I really don’t want anything,” she called back. I could hear the TV going. “I’d like to watch TV for a while and then go to sleep. I’ll be fine in the morning.”
“Don’t just stay in there and brood. Come watch TV with me. Daddy’s going to be working till late. And Mommee’s out for the count.”
“I’m not brooding. I really am tired. And Dune is on again, and you know you hate that. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Night, then. Sleep tight.”
“Night, Mama.”
I fell asleep before Pom came to bed. When I woke, it was morning and he was sitting on the foot of the bed in shorts and a faded T-shirt, toweling his hair. I knew he had been out running along the river. He was drinking coffee and held out a cup to me.
“I’m sorry if I was a pompous ass last night,” he said. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper, but we had a bad thing at the clinic; I think we’re going to lose a kid. And then the fire—”
“I’m sorry about the child,” I said. “Is it the meningitis case?”
“Yeah. Listen, I think I’ll make some pancakes. I’ll take some in to Glynn. I should probably apologize to her, too. I guess I was pretty heavy with her last night—”
“Yeah, you were,” I said.
He went out of the room, and I heard him rooting around in the pots and pans drawer and knew he was looking for the skillet he liked to use for pancakes. Presently I heard the spatter and sizzle of the batter. I finished my coffee, and stretched, and got up to dress. I was just padding downstairs barefoot when I met him on the stairs coming up. His face was still and empty, and the white ring that I had not seen in a long time was around his blue eyes. My breath caught in my throat.
“What?”
He cleared his own throat, and then he said, “She’s run away. Glynn. I went to her room and there was no answer and I went in, and she was gone and the bed didn’t look slept in, and there was this note—”
I took it out of his hand. My own hand trembled so that the note fluttered crazily.
“Going out to Aunt Laura’s for a while,” it said in Glynn’s round backhand. “She said I could come. I can’t stay here anymore and things will be better for everybody without me. Don’t worry. I have my birthday money and Aunt Laura charged the ticket to her American Express card. I’d say I’m sorry but I’m not.”
I put my hand up to my mouth. I could not make any words come out. How had she done it? How did she know what to do? But in my mind I could see my child I could see my child dialing Palm Springs; hear the low, anguished conversation; watch her creep silently up the stairs to her ruined bedroom to get some clothes and her small stash of money; see the lights of the Buckhead cab as it waited up on the road.
“What in God’s name got into her?” Pom exploded. “How could she do
such a stupid thing? Of all the irresponsible, childish—”
“Hush,” I said, and went into the kitchen and dialed Laura in Palm Springs.
The phone rang and rang, and then Laura picked up.
“I thought it would be you,” she said almost gaily. “Yeah, she’s coming. I’m picking her up at Ontario a little after ten. Don’t fuss, Merritt; I’m really looking forward to having her, and apparently you all have one too many children around the house at present. Cut her some slack. She’s old enough to visit her aunt if she wants to. We’re going to take off and just drive; I’ve got this incredible rebuilt Mustang convertible, a sixty-five, a classic, and we’re going to take it on an inaugural journey. I thought up the coast, to L.A. and Malibu and maybe even up to San Francisco. Top down, radio on. Sunshine all the way. I know people we can stay with along the way; she won’t need any money. And besides, I’ve got plenty now. My new barracuda of a lawyer just parted Sonny with a wad. This is going to be my victory tour—”
“Laura,” I interrupted, “You put her on a plane back home the minute you can get a reservation. I mean that. I can’t have her tearing up and down the California coast in a convertible—”
“With a loose woman?” she laughed. “Why is that worse than a crazy woman who sets her clothes on fire? Or someone who locks her in her room when she protests? Jesus, what a circus. Lighten up, Sis. Haven’t you ever heard of the age of consent?”
“Laura, for God’s sake—”
Pom tore the phone away from me and yelled into it: “Laura, don’t screw around with something you don’t understand. Get her back here. I’ll pay you back. But do it.”
Her low, liquid laugh spilled out into the room, like a little baroque quartet.
“Fuck you, Pom,” she said, and hung up.
He turned to me, his face near purple, the blue eyes burning like embers in a dying fire.
Fault Lines Page 10
