In A Country Of Mothers

by A M Homes

  It was 1966 when Claire’s father had stormed out of their suburban Virginia split-level house shouting, “Something has to be done! This has to be put to rest!” while Claire lay on her twin bed, staring at the white lacquered furniture set, a child for the last time. She imagined her father going off to the local veterinarian and arranging to have her put to sleep. She imagined she wouldn’t live to get old. Her mother came in and silently started packing Claire’s things, putting in a few odd pieces of her own clothing as gifts. When her father returned, Claire followed her suitcase out to the car, and in silence they drove away. It was dark when he pulled up in front of the house in Baltimore, a place that might as well have been on the moon considering that Claire had never been there either. He carried the bag up the steps, unlocked the apartment, and dropped the suitcase inside. “Here,” he said, handing her the keys and an envelope from the bank. “Make it last. We can’t afford this kind of thing.”

  Her father drove off, and Claire stood in the front window, dumbfounded.

  As far as she knew, neither of her parents had ever told anyone. Her mother once said that if anyone asked, she’d say, “She’s gone off to Goucher College to study English literature”—something Claire would have gladly done, if only Goucher had accepted pregnant students.

  The phone rang just as Claire was putting on her jacket, getting ready to leave the office.

  “I know we’re getting together on Saturday, but how about meeting me for dinner tonight?” her friend Naomi asked. “I called your house and Sam isn’t coming home until late.”

  “I haven’t been home all day,” Claire said.

  “What’s another hour?”

  The golden hour, the difference between life and death for trauma patients. “Sure,” Claire said. “Ten minutes.”

  They didn’t have to discuss where to go. They always met at the same Italian cafe on Thompson Street.

  “My family,” Naomi said, “is driving me nuts.”

  Although Claire had never told her so, Naomi was her alter ego. She did and said all the things Claire only imagined.

  “I feel like running away,” Naomi said. “I just want to say goodbye, close the door, and be gone. Sometimes I look at Roger and I want to know why. Why did I do this? Why did I get married? It’s like having a fourth child. If I’d stayed by myself and adopted a baby, at least I’d be alone when I got into bed at night. There’s no escaping. It’s either his children or him.”

  Claire nodded. She twirled pasta on her fork and slipped it into her mouth. She smiled.

  “There’s nowhere I can go for a minute of silence. I’ve started hiding in the kitchen. I stay in there all night purposely burning things that smell terrible so they’ll leave me alone.”

  “Not a good sign,” Claire said, blotting marinara sauce from her lips. “Why don’t you go away for a weekend?”

  “By myself?”

  “Why not?”

  “What would I do? Who would I talk to? I’d end up staying in the hotel room the whole time.”

  “Go to a bed and breakfast upstate, or out to the beach. There’s a spa in Montauk, get a massage, an herbal mud wrap.”

  The couple at the table behind them were arguing about something unbelievably stupid, destroying their relationship because both of them were determined to win. Eating her pasta, Claire realized that if she were really doing her job, if she turned around and explained it to them, her work would never end.

  “Not to change the subject, but can I ask you a completely unrelated question?”

  Claire nodded.

  “How do you get your hair to do that?” Naomi asked. “Is it like a goy thing?”

  Claire put her hand to her hair, which was up in a bun. “Hidden pins,” she said. “I’ll show you sometime.”

  “Anybody home?” Claire called as she opened the front door. The television was blaring. “Hello … hello?” She made a mental note to talk to Frecia again about the television. She hung up her coat, flipped through the mail, and went into the living room. Adam was curled up on the sofa with his stuffed rabbit. His hair was still damp from his bath. He looked tired, as though recovering from something. Jake sat next to him, eyes fixed on the TV. Frecia was at the far end of the sofa, folding laundry, stacking clean clothing on the coffee table. Claire went to Adam and kissed him on the forehead, leaving her lips against his skin a little longer than necessary, trying to decide whether or not to take his temperature.

  “How was your day?” she asked.

  No one answered.

  “Anyone call?”

  Frecia shook her head. Claire picked up the remote and turned the TV off.

  “Mom, it’s the middle,” Jake said, still staring at the screen.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Did you finish your homework?”

  As much as she wanted to leave her children alone, to let them run their own lives, she couldn’t. They sprawled like inert objects, deflated balloons. Neither of them could focus on anything for more than a minute without becoming distracted. She was sure it was a birth defect that would become increasingly pronounced, so that by the time they were eighteen, when all the other kids were going off to college, hers would have to be institutionalized. She and Sam would begin new lives, adopting children from some far-off, war-torn country, raising them fully, lovingly. On Sundays she and Sam and the new children would go on long car rides to the distant institution where her old children lounged on plastic-covered, drool-protected sofas.

  “Did you do your homework?”

  Jake shrugged. He was in the sixth grade, at the beginning of real homework. He absolutely failed to understand that the amount and difficulty of the assignments would increase for the next fifteen years, until finally he would be expected to write a thesis. Without that he would be abandoned by his school, parents, and friends, and left to fend for himself in a world where people actually worked for a living.

  “Get your book and bring it here, right now.”

  Jake just looked at her, eyes thick as if covered by a strange film. She imagined that the news would arrive in tomorrow’s paper: TELEVISION FOUND TO CAUSE BLINDNESS AND RETARDATION. LONG-TERM EFFECTS SIMILAR TO PROGRESSIVE LEAD POISONING.

  “You,” she said to Adam, “are going to sleep.”

  “No I’m not.”

  “Yes you are.”

  Jake pulled his textbook out of the sofa cushions. “Here,” he said, handing it to Claire.

  “It’s not for me, sweetie. Open it and get to work.”

  Claire lifted Adam off the sofa and carried him to the boys’ room. Just inside their door, toys crunched under her feet. She flipped the light switch. Every goddamned piece of molded plastic her sons owned was spread out across the floor.

  “What happened in here?” Claire demanded.

  “Playing,” Adam said innocently. His sweetness saved him.

  She kicked a clear path to the bed, laid Adam down, read him a quick story, and turned out the light. Tomorrow she would remind Frecia to remind the children to put their toys away.

  “I feel sick,” Adam said, as she reached the door.

  “Go to sleep,” Claire whispered.

  “But I feel sick.”

  “Close your eyes and think about what a wonderful day tomorrow will be.”

  She gently pulled the door closed. Adam began to cry. What would happen if she opened the door? Adam would be forty years old and still living at home. If she left it shut, he’d become a mass murderer.

  She stood at the door listening. The crying stopped and there was a horrible sound, the rumble and roar of a child throwing up. She opened the door and flicked on the light. Adam was sitting up in bed — his blanket, pajamas, and stuffed rabbit covered in vomit.

  “Oh, sweetie,” she said, running to get a cold washcloth from the bathroom. She lifted his pajama top off and carefully took it and the blanket into the bathroom and put them in a plastic trash bag. She put the stuffed rabbit into the sink and turned on the water. “Freci
a?” Claire called.

  Frecia came into the room, already in her coat.

  “Can you do me a favor on your way out? Put these clothes in the machine downstairs — there’re some quarters on my dresser.”

  “We used them today for the bus.”

  “Then check my purse.”

  Frecia took the bag from Claire. “See you tomorrow,” she said.

  “What happened?” Jake asked, rushing to the scene five minutes after the fact, reinforcing Claire’s idea that he was growing slower and stupider as he got older. “Oh, stinko,” he said. “I’m not sleeping in here.” Adam started crying.

  “Is your homework finished?” Claire asked.

  Jake nodded.

  “Then go take a bath.”

  “Shit,” Jake said.

  “What?”

  It wasn’t like Jake to swear. The beginning of the end: in the morning he’d come to breakfast with an unfiltered Camel hanging out the corner of his eleven-year-old mouth.

  “I’m pretending I didn’t hear that,” she said. “Why did you throw up?” she asked Adam, as if he’d be able to explain.

  “Cookie dough,” Jake said. “He ate cookie dough before Frecia baked it. I had some too. Oh my God,” he said, clutching his stomach, scaring Claire for a second, “I’m going to be sick too.” Jake imitated throwing up all over Adam, who loved it.

  “I want my rabbit,” Adam said.

  “I have to clean him first,” Claire said, and Adam started crying again.

  She changed Adam’s sheets, then went into the bathroom to wash Woozy Rabbit. She heard Sam’s key in the lock and then him in the hall taking off his shoes so his step would be light and the children wouldn’t be awakened.

  “We’re in here,” Claire yelled.

  Sam stomped flat-footed down the hall and into the room. “What’s going on?”

  “I threw up,” Adam said.

  “You did? What a wonderful boy. God, I wish I could throw up,” Sam said. He sat down on Adam’s bed and took off his shirt and tie, which Adam immediately put on.

  “God, I’m happy,” Sam said, running his fingers through the thick hair on his chest. He unbuckled his belt, pulled it out through the loops, and dropped it on the floor. Adam stood up on the bed, posing in his father’s shirt. Sam reached up for him.

  “Don’t start or he’ll throw up again,” Claire said. She hated it when Sam came home excessively cheerful after a long day. The worse things got, the more Sam glowed. Originally, it was something she’d liked about him, and she still did on occasion, but on a regular basis all the smiling, the jokes, could bring a person down.

  “You mean, if I play with you, you’ll throw up again?” Sam asked Adam. “If I touch you even just for a second, to give you a hug, you’ll throw up?”

  Adam nodded, grinned, laughed.

  Claire was sure that if she hadn’t been standing there, Sam would have started tickling him. She gave Sam the evil eye and went back into the bathroom, washed the rabbit, and hung it from its ears, where Adam could see it from his bed. “Tomorrow he’ll be ready for you. Now, let’s put on some fresh p.j.’s.”

  Adam shook his head and pulled at his father’s shirt, which came down to his ankles. “This is my nightgown,” he said.

  “Not the tie,” Sam said, slipping it. over Adam’s head.

  Claire kissed Adam goodnight. “I’m sorry I didn’t pay attention when you said you felt sick.”

  “I told you,” he said, looking at his father for confirmation.

  “Yeah, he told you,” Sam said, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

  She knew Sam was kidding, but it made her feel like they were ganging up on her. After all, there were three of them and just one of her. Besides, she was their mother, Sam’s wife, she took care of them. They should be nicer to her.

  “I know you did, sweetie,” Claire said. “And I’m sorry. Sleep well.” She went out of the room and left Sam to tuck them in.

  In the master bedroom, even though she wanted to collapse onto the bed, she first flipped through the closet and thought about her schedule for the next day. A new patient. The former patient of an old friend, a colleague. She’d better look good in case the girl reported back.

  Claire used to believe that looking good inspired trust, gave the impression that the shrink could actually do something for her patients — if not rid them of their angst, at least upgrade their sense of style. All the same, she’d given up on it, deciding that a flawless costume caused patients to feel competitive with the therapist. Her current theory was that a well-dressed shrink seemed superior and therefore served as a depressant. These days, Claire dressed as though she were going to lunch with a girlfriend: nice, but relaxed — approachable, was how she liked to think of it. She picked out a very short black skirt and a silk blouse, hung them on the doorknob, and went looking for pantyhose. She knew the outfit might be considered unacceptable, sexually provocative; but her legs were long — why not show off? — and besides, it was late, she was exhausted, and, more importantly, nothing else was clean.

  3

  At noon the next day, while Harry was immersed in a debate with the special-effects guy about the fine art of splattering fake blood, Jody sneaked off the set.

  “I have an, uh, appointment,” she whispered to Karl. “Be back in ninety minutes.” She figured fifty for the shrinking, forty there and back.

  “Gotcha,” Karl said, winking.

  She walked straight down Broadway, passing the bookstore where they were shooting, the production trailers and trucks, smiling, nodding hello and good morning. Once she was in the clear, with everything and everyone behind her, she flagged a cab. Within seconds she was stuck in traffic.

  It was as if all of Manhattan had poured out onto the streets, the city itself doing a snakish shuffle-and-stop, shuffle-and-stop, like the “Soul Train” dance line. She checked her watch. She could’ve taken the subway, but the last time she was on it, something horrible had happened: the train ran over a man and they’d kept the subway doors closed until the police came. Jody was forced to sit there while the man moaned somewhere beneath her on the tracks.

  The shrink’s office was on Sixth Avenue near Houston, seventy-some blocks from the location and about fifteen from Jody’s apartment. She was late. Timing the two-minute-forty-second wait for the elevator, she figured how much standing in the lobby was costing her. On the way up she entertained herself with questions like: Do all the offices in the building belong to shrinks? Is everyone in this elevator crazy?

  On the third floor, she found Claire’s office and pushed the buzzer marked “Roth.”

  “Hello,” a muffled voice called through a small speaker in the wall.

  Jody considered not going in, not meeting Claire Roth face-to-face but having the session out there in the hall, chatting it up with a hidden voice, as if talking to the Wizard of Oz. “It’s Jody Goodman.”

  The door unlocked with a thick sound like a joy buzzer. Jody grabbed the knob and pushed.

  The waiting room was long and thin, three doors with chairs in the spaces between the doors. Jody sat on the chair closest to the door going out, unsure whether you were supposed to sit in an assigned chair — the chair next to the door that belonged to your shrink? The whole thing felt like a puzzle, a test designed to reveal something significant about Jody’s psyche. She had the urge to get up, take the subway back uptown, and call later to say she’d realized that she’d left the toaster oven on and had to hurry home. Reschedule? Well, right now I’m kind of busy. Oh, there’s my other line. Gotta go.

  There were two noise machines on the floor, filling the room with the rushing sound of mechanically driven air. She was proud of herself for knowing what they were: shrink technology, white noise. They sounded like a constantly droning vacuum cleaner. Jody closed her eyes and imagined holding one to her ear like a shell. More than once, when she and Barbara reached sensitive points in what Jody called their “negotiations,” she’d wante
d to lean forward and say, “Your sound machines don’t do shit.”

  The door at the end of the hall opened. “See you Thursday,” a soft voice said. Because she couldn’t decide who to look at, the patient or the shrink, Jody saw nothing.

  “Hi, I’m Claire,” the shrink said, extending her hand.

  “Hi,” Jody said, shaking hands, worried that the shrink could feel her trembling, her sweat.

  “Would you like to come in?”

  I must be crazy, Jody thought as she walked over the threshold into the office. There were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, an old wooden desk, a leather sofa, a small table for the requisite box of Kleenex, and one chair. Claire sat in the chair, Jody on the sofa. It was easy, obvious.

  “So,” Claire said, picking up a big yellow legal pad and resting it on her lap. “What’s going on?”

  “I really shouldn’t be doing this,” Jody said, laughing a little. “I just escaped from the set of a movie, and coming here, sitting here, I feel like I’m in a movie.” Jody paused.

  Two seconds had passed. Jody couldn’t imagine lasting an hour. There was silence. Jody looked at Claire and noticed she was wearing a short skirt. She’d never seen a shrink in a short skirt before. She hoped it was a good sign.

  “You made the appointment,” Claire said. “There must be something on your mind.”

  Jody had the sensation of auditioning to be Claire’s patient. At the end of the hour, just like a casting director or a theatrical agent, Claire would stand up and say, Look, this is all very interesting, but I really don’t work with people like you.

  “On the phone you said you were having some difficulty making career decisions. Would you like to talk about that?”

  Again Jody laughed, but it came out more like a snort. “For as long as I can remember I wanted to go to UCLA film school, so this year I applied, got in. And now, all of a sudden, I’m not sure.”

  Jody wanted Claire to like her, to choose her. She didn’t want to say anything about herself that would seem too terrible, too complicated. She wanted Claire to think she was easy.