In A Country Of Mothers

by A M Homes

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “It sounds incredibly frightening.”

  “I wasn’t scared. When I think about it, I have the sensation of being frustrated, of people not listening. One time I had surgery on my ears, and my mother came into the operating room with me and held my feet while they gave me the gas. I was crying and saying I didn’t want it, because I remembered how bad it smelled and tasted from the last time, and all these guys were standing around with green masks on, and the ear doctor said, ‘It’s a new flavor, you’ll like it.’ And so I breathed the stuff and it was the same as always, and I was really, really mad, but there was nothing I could do. I passed out hating everybody.”

  “Who were these people?” Claire asked, incredulous.

  “My mother, the doctors. That’s how they did it then. They figured you could lie to a kid because kids don’t remember. Later I told my mother and she said no, that wasn’t true, it wasn’t like that. But it was. I’m not an idiot.”

  “Are you angry now?”

  Jody shrugged. “My teeth are puke gray; I could have a brain tumor at any moment. I’m not exactly pleased. I’d rather die than go to a doctor, but no, I’m not angry.”

  “Why didn’t your parents protect you?”

  Jody made a face at Claire. “They were right there, believing whatever the idiot doctors said because they didn’t know who else to believe. All they wanted was a healthy baby. They would’ve done anything if they thought it would make me better, bring back the other kid, or both.”

  “If I were you I’d be furious.”

  You’re not me, Jody thought, and how come you’re saying that? You’re never supposed to say how you’d react. This isn’t about you, this is about me. “What’s the point of being angry?” Jody said.

  They sat in silence for a few minutes.

  “It’s sad,” Claire said.

  “Do I seem incredibly affected?” Then Jody quickly said, “Don’t answer. I don’t want to know.”

  “I wonder about your parents.”

  “Don’t,” Jody said.

  “Don’t you think not only about the parents who adopted you but also the ones that gave you up?”

  “The ones that gave me up weren’t parents. They were two people who probably didn’t know each other very well.”

  Jody spent the last quarter of the session in silence. She’d always questioned whether getting sick as a child was a kind of failure to thrive. Was it from the stress of being without her natural mother, the anxiety of having the ghost of a dead kid hanging over her? Or was it completely unrelated, a genetic glitch, an unaffiliated infection? Still, even now, there was a weakness in her, and she could feel it lying dormant, waiting.

  • • •

  Night shooting. It sounded romantic — falling stars, midnight riverboat cruises. The idea of staying awake while the rest of the world slept was filled with possibilities. The crew started arriving between four and five in the afternoon at the edge of Central Park. They set up lights, dolly tracks, miles of electric cable, and the ever-present food table. According to union rules every location was required to have one ton of food, half hot, half cold, delivered at specifically timed intervals for the sustenance of cast and crew. The day before, the table had been heaped high with Twinkies, Hostess cupcakes, and fruit pies. “Someone’s birthday?” the cinematographer asked.

  “Mine,” Harry said, popping a whole Twinkie into his mouth. With white filling squirting out of the corners of his thick lips, he turned to Jody. “Do you taste better than this?”

  She stood there, dumbfounded.

  Harry offered her the second Twinkie. “Want some?”

  She shook her head, locking her jaw shut.

  “It’s plump enough,” Harry had said, “but don’t you think it should be a little bigger?” He took a bite and threw the rest into the trash.

  As the sky dropped down into darkness, Jody felt the rhythm of the city playing itself out around her; she also felt her throat hurting more and more. Early on, the passersby were people coming home from work. They stopped at the barricades for a few minutes but quickly grew tired of shifting from one aching foot to another. Kids on their way to nowhere hung out forever, always asking which movie this was. Guys who’d once done something on some other film stopped and wanted to know who was directing, who was on crew, and whether the production was hiring extra help. Later on, the after-dinner crowd, the theater crowd, the club crowd, ten thousand maniacs, prostitutes, two-bit muggers, and looney-toons paraded back and forth past the blue barricades marked POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS.

  The shot they were going for was a chase that ended at the fountain with the Plaza looming in the background. Carol Heberton was going to fire five shots into a bad guy, who’d spring a thousand leaks, fall backwards into the fountain, and turn the clear water pink. The fountain was so well lit that it was positively glowing. Carriages passed in front of it, and special assistants hired for the evening followed behind the horses with brooms and large dustpans. On film this would all look incredibly romantic. The best of New York suddenly intruded upon by the worst — compare and contrast, seduce and shock.

  Even though it was summer, the night got chilly. Jody sipped endless cups of tea, and when Harry pulled her toward him some time after midnight, she let him hold her under his armpit. His body was warm, almost hot. Under the lights Harry looked sort of cute. His thin, silvery hair was slicked back, his bifocals resting on top of his head, his linen suit wrinkled, his custom-made shirt unbuttoned, his gray chest hair poking out. The rumpled look wore well after dark. Jody watched Harry deftly leading the actors and technicians through the scene, making changes on the spot. Strange things could happen in the middle of the night. But as soon as the sun crossed the horizon and the sour smell of the warming city wafted up from the sidewalks, everything good disappeared as quickly as a dream.

  At six-thirty in the morning, when they couldn’t hold the location anymore, when the cinematographer was so bleary-eyed he could barely guarantee focus, they called it quits.

  “Share a cab with me,” Carol Heberton said, not willing to wait for her car and driver. Jody was trying to flag down anything that moved.

  “Two stops,” she told the driver, sliding into the cab after the actress.

  “The Carlyle,” Heberton said. She was the old-fashioned kind of movie star — elegant, graceful, otherworldly — the Carlyle made perfect sense. Jody couldn’t picture her with Harry at the Royalton — so hip that inside, instead of a front desk, there was just a telephone you had to pick up in order to find out anything, including your own room number.

  Carol Heberton turned to her. “Who are you and what do you do?”

  “I work for Michael Miller.”

  “Aah, you’re the one.”

  The one what? Jody wanted to ask.

  “Don’t mind Harry. He’s impressed by women who say no — it fascinates him.” Heberton looked at Jody carefully. “You remind me of myself when I was young, but at my age I guess everyone does.” Heberton took a long, sad movie-star breath. Jody noticed the driver staring into the rearview mirror.

  “This movie gives me nightmares,” Heberton said. “It’s so frightening. I’ve never played a working-class person before. Maybe I should have my face done again. What do you think?” Again she looked at Jody. She put her bony-beyond-belief hand on Jody’s knee and squeezed it hard. “I’ve been approached to do a commercial. Laundry detergent. I haven’t done my own laundry since I was nineteen.”

  The cab pulled up in front of the Carlyle and a uniformed doorman hurried over. Heberton fumbled through her jacket pocket for money.

  “I’ve got it,” Jody said.

  “You’re a pal. Would you like to come in for breakfast?” And before Jody could answer, Heberton climbed out. “No, I guess not. You’re young, you have a life.” The doorman took her by the elbow and led her toward the hotel.

  “Where to?” the driver asked.

  Jody chec
ked her pockets. All she had was a ten and some tokens. Two paychecks were waiting at the office, but she’d been too busy to put in a personal appearance. “Broadway and Forty-fourth,” she said.

  When she arrived, she flicked on the fluorescents, stuffed the checks into her back pocket, and sat at Michael’s desk, looking out over New York. Then she picked up Michael’s Lego phone and dialed home.

  “Hi, Ma, it’s me.”

  “Is something wrong?” her mother asked. “It’s seven-forty-five in the morning.”

  “I know. I just had a minute and thought I’d say hi.”

  “I called you last night, you weren’t home.”

  “We worked all night. I’m at the office now.”

  “You were out on the streets all night? I don’t like that. That’s not a good idea.”

  “It’s fine. There were plenty of people around. I rode home with Carol Heberton.”

  “Oh, I like her. She used to make such nice films.”

  Jody heard the office door opening. “Hello?” a man’s voice called. “Who’s in here?”

  “Got to go,” Jody said. “Talk to you later.”

  “Call me tonight,” her mother said.

  Jody hung up and stepped out into the hall. Raymond — one of Michael’s protégés — was standing there, brandishing a thick wooden coat hanger.

  “It’s all I could find,” he said sheepishly, throwing the hanger into a closet. “Why are you here so early? You look terrible. Did something happen?”

  Jody realized she hadn’t seen herself in twenty-four hours, hadn’t brushed her hair or washed her face or changed her clothing. She probably smelled. And now her ear was hurting too.

  “Night shoot,” Jody said, her voice cracking, the sore throat finally breaking into something real.

  Raymond nodded.

  “I rode back with Carol Heberton.”

  He nodded again. “Be careful,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “She competes with Harry for all the sweet young things.”

  “Really?” Jody asked.

  “‘Really?’” Raymond said, mocking her. “Please. Let’s try and live in the real world, shall we?”

  12

  The first time Claire thought Jody might be her daughter, she threw up. She had the thought and instantly her stomach rose to her throat and she ran for the bathroom.

  “Are you all right?” Sam asked. “Do you need help?”

  “No,” Claire said, grateful to be alone. She sat on the edge of the tub, afraid to move.

  Jody reminded her of herself, but that didn’t necessarily mean they were related. They’d both grown up in and around Washington, which could explain certain sensibilities and ways of speaking. The resemblance was cultural, Claire told herself, not familial. Clearly, her own upbringing had been radically different from Jody’s. The similarity was their shared determination to overcome a family, an accident, to somehow make a life even though the essential ingredients seemed to be missing. The problem Jody posed was a countertransference complicated by the mutual adoption experience and Claire’s temptation to mother. It was not to be taken literally.

  A couple of weeks later, after Jody had mentioned her curiosity about her biological father, Claire dreamt about Mark Ein. They were back in college, at the English department, Mark sitting at his desk and Claire, too frightened to sit, standing at the door. She was very pregnant.

  “I want you to give me the child,” Mark said. “You’re completely incompetent. Give her to me and when she’s grown I’ll have her call you.”

  He looked the same as when Claire had first met him: intense, his hair and clothing thrown off balance by his energy. Seeing him again after twenty-four years, she found the familiarity of his features comforting, until she placed Jody beside him. They were identical; the same clear eyes, wavy hair, sweet lips, the same urgent nature that compelled Claire to offer herself up as if she could save them. And in the dream, when Jody appeared next to Mark, Claire could swear that his face changed to accommodate her, to become her. Hysterical, Claire began flailing at Mark, and Jody disappeared. Claire him him again and again as hard as she could on his chest, his head, his face. His nose started to bleed but he did nothing, offered no resistance. Blood dripped down onto the desk. Finally, still screaming, still waving her fists, she ran out into the hall. Her mother and father were there, waiting to take her away.

  The bedroom was dark. Next to her Sam snored steadily. Using the top sheet, she wiped sweat from her neck and chest. She curled against Sam and tried to put together what she remembered. Bits and pieces, fragments, not enough. It was never enough. She wanted to make sure Jody wasn’t her daughter; simultaneously, she wanted Jody to be her daughter. Sam shifted in his sleep, rolling away from her, and Claire got up to make herself a cup of tea.

  In the kitchen at three in the morning, she decided that Barbara knew Jody was her child. Barbara had conducted a search when Jody was her patient. She’d done it because she was curious, and because she had to stay home half-days, pregnant with her complicated first child. She had time on her hands and, on the verge of motherhood herself, was obsessed by the psychological arid genetic nature of things. She did it because she thought it would help her help Jody. All the people who’d held back on Jody, who’d refused to give her information, offered it freely and willingly to Barbara. After all, she was a professional. She knew best. And ultimately, giving away the goods relieved the guilt associated with having kept a secret for so long — a secret that didn’t belong to them in the first place. First thing in the morning, Claire would call Barbara. She watched her tea whirling around in the microwave. She looked out the kitchen window at the dark building across the way.

  She wouldn’t call Barbara in the morning, or ever. If she was wrong, if she was making this whole thing up, Barbara would think she’d gone over the edge. Not quite sure what to do, she’d call Sam at the office. Together they’d decide that Barbara should call Jody and tell her to get out while there was still time. She’d refer Jody to someone else. If Barbara found out, she’d take Jody away. She’d ruin everything.

  J-O-D-Y. Claire wrote her name across a legal pad in the good script she used for important letters to her children’s teachers, to patients who’d moved many miles away, to sign Chanukah and Easter cards. J-O-D-Y R-O-T-H. J-O-D-Y S-T-E-V-E-N-S — Claire’s maiden name. J-O-D-Y E-I-N. What the hell was her name? Jody Goodman. She wrote it over and over a million times, in every possible combination.

  “I’m so bored,” Naomi said when she called Claire at seven-thirty. “You’re sleeping? I’ve been up since six. I can’t take it anymore. Can we do something today — just for us? Go to Soho for lunch, walk around, spend money?”

  “Patients all day,” Claire said. “Maybe next week I can juggle the schedule.”

  “So busy,” Naomi said. “Are you sure you’re not having an affair?”

  “Just busy,” she said.

  Claire wished she could talk to Naomi about Jody. She wanted someone to know, but the one time she had tried to tell her, it hadn’t gone over well. “You act like you’re in love,” Naomi said. “The way you talk about her, you get all jazzed up.” Claire shrugged and said, “Well, she’s interesting,” and then dropped the subject permanently.

  At nine-forty-five Claire buzzed Polly in. In the taxi as they left the clinic, Polly had told Claire she was going home for a while and wouldn’t make the next few appointments. Claire wasn’t sure she believed her. Maybe mixing Claire with the abortion experience had been too much. Maybe just the sight of a shrink out of context made the world too confusing; maybe that’s why shrinks saw people in offices. But it had seemed like the right thing to do.

  “How’re you feeling?” Claire asked.

  For once Polly wasn’t crying. She wasn’t carrying her own personal box of Kleenex. Some days she’d start up in the waiting room. Now there was nothing on her face except a vaguely blank look. Worried, Claire half-wished for tears and consid
ered what their absence meant. Resignation, strange surrender, or perhaps even progress? “Was it good to go home for a while?” Claire asked.

  Polly didn’t answer, and they sat quietly for a few minutes. Claire decided that calling attention to the crying or lack thereof would be too aggressive. Sometimes you had to let things play out. If she mentioned noticing a difference, the temptation to regress would get stronger.

  “Is there something special you’d like to talk about?”

  Polly didn’t speak. They sat in silence for the full session, something Claire found difficult but had trained herself to do. The real trick was figuring out what she should do with herself. She’d learned to relax in her chair, to look comfortable and communicative while daydreaming behind an expression of sincerity.

  At the end of the hour, Claire said softly, “Should we make an appointment for next week?”

  Polly nodded. At least she didn’t say “No,” or “I’ll be dead by next week.” Claire hated it when patients did that, especially at the end of the session. She’d have five minutes or less to sweet-talk them into living a week longer, all the time sweating the details: How serious were they, what was the likelihood, and would it be her fault?

  “Tuesday at two,” Claire said.

  Polly nodded, then got up and left.

  Jody was coming just as Polly walked out and had to turn sideways to avoid a collision.

  “What’d you do, steal her Hershey bar?” Jody asked Claire once the door was closed.

  Claire smiled but didn’t answer. She wasn’t allowed to.

  Jody walked into the office and sat down. “What’s up?”

  Claire raised her eyebrows.

  “Did you have a good weekend? Do you want to talk about it?” Jody asked.

  Claire didn’t say anything. The fastest way to get Jody to change the subject was to ignore her.

  “Okay. Let’s talk about the multitude of ways a person can get to California,” Jody said. “There’s two roads, it’s your basic low-road, highroad deal. You can take the bus, like my father did forty years ago. It still takes a week. Or is it a month? There’s a train that goes straight from New York to Chicago, but then you have to switch, and keep on switching the whole rest of the way across, even out in the desert, where they have poisonous train-switching desert snakes.” She paused, as if waiting for a laugh track. “Or you can take my mother’s car. She’s getting a new one. We’re driving out together. It’s kind of a mother-daughter thing. She even wants my father to go, but I said no way. Not because I don’t like him, but realistically, all three of us in the car for five days, it could get ugly. My dad offered to do it himself. To drop me off in L.A. But I really need my mom. Is that terrible? Okay, I’m admitting it. I need my mother. If I get to a new place without her, I freak. I don’t know what to do — how to unpack or arrange the closets. I have zero nesting instinct.”