When My Heart Joins the Thousand

by A. J. Steiger

  Where is Mama?

  Dizziness bursts inside my skull, and my vision blurs. My legs and arms strike out blindly, fighting the water. The shore looks so far away, but I push myself toward it, even as the lake roars around me.

  Mama. Where is she?

  I remember a hand tugging mine, then slipping away. Slipping down into darkness. Then the memory vanishes, too.

  Another wave roars down on me. The rush of water is all around me, and a current pulls at my legs. A bit of information—the Great Lakes are the only lakes that have currents—spins through my head like a leaf on the wind. I fight, arms wheeling. The shore is receding. I’m being pulled back and down.

  It’s hard to see anything, but for an instant I think I glimpse a figure on the shore, beckoning me.

  Mama.

  When a current has you, you’re supposed to swim sideways. Teeth gritted, I dog-paddle, struggling against the pull. The current releases me, and I lunge toward the shore. My head goes under again. More water fills my mouth. My limbs go heavy and weak, but I force them to move. Mama is waiting for me on the shore. She’ll take me home, and this will all be a bad dream.

  At last, I crawl onto the sand and collapse. A fit of coughing wracks my body, and cold black water floods from my mouth. Weakly I lift my head and look around. But Mama is nowhere to be seen.

  My head drops to the sand. I don’t know how long I lay there, dizzy and sick, floating in and out of a dull fog.

  Two figures stumble into my view. One of them is a teenage girl, laughing. A boy follows her, shoving his hands underneath her shirt. “Brad, stop! Someone will see us!” she gasps.

  “Nobody here but us chickens, babe.” He peels off her shirt and squeezes her boobs, and they fall to the sand, him growling like a dog while she giggles and squeals.

  A weak moan escapes my throat.

  Their heads turn toward me. Their mouths drop open.

  “Holy shit,” the boy says, “is that a kid?”

  My vision goes blurry again, and darkness folds around me.

  There’s a long stretch of nothing, and then a bright white room. For a while, I don’t know where I am or what’s happening. Doctors drift in and out of the room while I drift in and out of the dark fog in my head. There’s something covering my mouth and nose, and my breathing sounds raspy.

  I hear a man say: “Amazing that she managed to swim to shore on her own. That takes some strength. She’s a lucky girl.”

  And a woman’s voice replies, “I wouldn’t say that.” A pause. “Her eyelids just flickered. Is she conscious?”

  If the man responds, I don’t hear it. I’m already sinking back into the void.

  Later, a nurse is looking at the machines around me, writing things down on a clipboard.

  “Where is Mama?” I whisper.

  She looks at me and doesn’t say a word. Her lips tighten, and she quietly leaves.

  I remember the car driving over the edge of the pier. I remember a cold hand sliding out of mine and into the nothingness below.

  Everything clicks into place. For a moment I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t move. A blinding red pain fills my whole body, like every nerve is screaming. Then all at once, the pain is gone, the nerves dead and cold.

  Alone.

  I’m alone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  I find myself on the shore, gasping and shivering.

  My throat is raw and sore, as if I’ve been screaming. I don’t remember screaming. I should be feeling something, shouldn’t I? I’ve just ripped open my deepest wound, turned myself inside out—but I’m numb.

  My clothes are still neatly folded up where I left them. Fumbling, I dress myself, get into the car, and start the engine. I can’t feel my feet or fingers, but somehow, I manage to get myself home.

  When I open the front door, the lights are on. Stanley is there in the living room, in his wheelchair, his eyes wide, his face pale. “Oh my God. Where have you been?”

  I moisten my numb lips. “How long have I been gone.”

  “Three hours.”

  I glance at the clock. Four thirty. “Sorry.”

  He wheels toward me. “Alvie. You’re drenched. Are you okay? What’s going on?”

  The door swings shut behind me, shutting out the darkness and cold. I know it’s warm inside, but I can’t feel it. “I . . .” My voice emerges hoarse and cracked. I swallow and try again. “I went to the lake.”

  His brows are drawn together, forehead wrinkled. “What?”

  I take off my coat, walk slowly toward the couch and sit down. My deadened nerves are awakening with searing darts of pain, blasting the fog from my head. I run my hands through my loose, wet hair.

  Stanley drapes a blanket around me, takes my hand between both of his and rubs it gently. “Can you feel this?”

  “Yes.” I watch him rubbing my fingers. “I feel it.”

  But inside, I’m still numb.

  “Alvie.” He squeezes my fingers. His voice is gentle but firm. “Talk to me.”

  I stare into space. This is what I wanted, isn’t it? “Mama never knew how to deal with me. She wanted a normal little girl, one she could cuddle and talk to and dress up, and instead she got this silent, broken thing who recoiled from touch.”

  “You aren’t broken.”

  But I am. I am. Slowly I rock back and forth on the couch. “I never told you how she died.”

  Stanley doesn’t say anything. He just waits.

  When I finally speak, my voice is strangely calm. “She drowned herself.”

  His breath catches.

  “It was my fault.” My voice sounds strangely indifferent, as if I’m just telling him what I had for breakfast. “In a way, I murdered her.”

  “No.” He grips my hand. “No, Alvie, that’s not true. You can’t blame yourself for what she did.”

  I stare at him. My face feels stiff, like wood. Expressionless. I should be falling apart—I’ve never talked about this with anyone—but there’s nothing. It’s as if the coldness of the lake leaked into my heart and froze my core.

  Stanley bows his head and presses my hand to his cheek. “If I had a child, I could never leave her alone in the world, no matter how much I was hurting.”

  “She didn’t leave me.”

  His body goes tense. “What?”

  I feel my lips stretching into an unnatural smile, though I’ve never felt less like smiling. “She tried to take me with her.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Mama looks at me. Her face is pale and blank, her eyes red rimmed. “I’m so sorry, Alvie.”

  Everything is broken.

  Without those pills . . .

  Things were just starting to get better, and now it’s all over.

  I’m a failure.

  I can’t keep going . . .

  She reaches out. “Come here.”

  There’s something in Mama’s face that makes me uneasy. I bite my lower lip, then approach. She pulls me into a hug, and I start to tense up, because it’s too tight. I squirm, but Mama just hugs me tighter. It hurts.

  At last, she pulls back and smiles at me, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “Go wash up and do your homework, then we’ll have dinner.”

  “I don’t have homework anymore.”

  “Oh.” She rakes a hand through her hair and laughs, a little too shrilly. “Right.”

  I go into the bathroom and wash my hands.

  Mama calls me into the kitchen. She’s made my favorite dinner, chicken nuggets with macaroni and cheese. She pours herself some chamomile tea and pushes a glass of apple juice toward me.

  Her eyes are glassy and a little too wide. When I say, “Mama,” she doesn’t seem to hear me right away. She stares into space for a few seconds, then smiles vaguely across the table and says, “What’s that, honey?”

  “Aren’t you hungry,” I ask. She’s barely eaten two bites.

  She looks down at her plate and says, “I guess not.”

  The chi
cken nuggets are dry and gritty in my mouth.

  “I love you so much, Alvie,” she says. “I want you to know that whatever happens, it’s because I love you. You might not understand, but please believe that.”

  “Okay.” I don’t understand at all.

  “Make sure you drink all your juice,” she says.

  I take another swig of my apple juice. It tastes funny, like chalk, and I hesitate.

  “Go on.”

  I look at the juice, which is a little cloudy. Mama is staring at me, waiting, so I keep drinking, and it slides thick and bitter down my throat. I gag a little, but I manage to force it all down.

  When the last drop is gone, Mama says, “I don’t want you to be in pain.”

  “I’m not in pain.”

  She doesn’t seem to hear me. She pokes a fork listlessly at her macaroni and cheese. “I never told you much about your father.” Her voice sounds faraway, like sleep talk. “That’s just as well, though. I guess I never told you much about me, either. But there isn’t much to tell. I’ve never achieved anything. School, jobs, relationships . . . none of it really went anywhere. And then when I met him, I thought finally, this was something . . . but then it was over. It isn’t your fault, Alvie.” She lets out a small sigh. “It doesn’t matter now, I suppose.”

  Bits of powder slide down the sides of the glass. My vision drifts out of focus, and I blink. My head feels funny. I look down at my half-finished plate of chicken nuggets and macaroni; blobs of orange and brown. My head droops toward my chest, and a thin line of spittle falls from my open mouth and onto my shirt.

  What’s happening to me?

  “I don’t want you to end up like him.”

  “Uhhh.” The moan slides out of my mouth, thick, like syrup.

  Chair legs scrape the floor as Mama stands. She walks around the table toward me and places her hands on my shoulders. I sway, woozy. I try to ask her what’s going on, but all that comes out is another moan.

  “Shhh.”

  She lifts me out of the chair. I hang like a rag doll from her arms, head and limbs flopping as Mama carries me over to the sofa and sits. She hunches over, cradling me in her lap, and holds me tightly as she rocks me back and forth.

  My head rolls to one side. Everything is fuzzy. The world spins slowly around me, like I’m on a carousel. Mama strokes my hair.

  Usually, she smells like honey and vanilla shampoo. Now a sour, stale smell clings to her, as if she hasn’t washed for a while, and she’s clutching me so painfully tight. Her fingers dig into my ribs, like she’s afraid I’ll float away if she loosens her grip. “I love you so much, Alvie,” she says. “Do you understand that?”

  I open my mouth, but all that comes out is more drool.

  Something is really wrong. If I could just think clearly, I’d know what it was, but every time I try to hold on to my thoughts, they slip through my fingers, like I’m trying to grab wriggly little fish.

  I try to form words: Mama, what’s going on? but my lips and tongue are numb and all that comes out is uhhh, wuh ruhh.

  She starts singing. It’s the song she used to sing to me sometimes when I was little, “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.” But now she sings it with my name. “My Alvie lies over the ocean . . . my Alvie lies over the sea . . .” Tears fall on my face. “My Alvie lies over the ocean . . .”

  A gray haze closes around me. I’m falling, and her words follow me down.

  “Oh bring back my Alvie to me.”

  I open my mouth to tell her that I’m here. But the gray fog swallows me whole.

  For a while, I float.

  When I surface from the haze, we’re moving. I can hear the car and feel a seat belt across my body. I try to lift my head, but it feels like it’s filled with cement.

  “Just relax,” Mama says. Her voice is soft and faraway. “We’re going for a ride. I’m going to take you to your favorite place.”

  My eyelids are made of stone, but I manage to pry them open a crack. Mama is driving, her face bathed in the faint glow from the dashboard, her eyes wide and blank. “Everything is going to be okay,” she says.

  I don’t know what’s happening. I struggle to put the pieces together, but it’s like looking at a jigsaw where none of the edges quite line up. If only I could think. Why can’t I think?

  Within, a small, cold, clear voice whispers, The juice. My heartbeat quickens. I have to move. I have to get out of here. I don’t know what’s happening, except that everything about this is wrong and I have to get out. But my muscles are like spaghetti. It’s like that feeling when I wake up in the middle of the night and I’m only half-asleep but my body won’t move—sleep paralysis—and my eyes won’t quite open and my mind is still fogged with dreams, and I think, Just move one finger, and I try very hard to move my right index finger, but nothing happens.

  Move. Move. Move. Move.

  I can see out the window. I see the sign that means we’ve reached the lake. This is the place where Mama usually pulls over and parks. But we keep driving, toward the wooden pier that juts out like a finger over the lake.

  And my body still won’t move.

  It would be easy just to let go and fall asleep. Maybe if I let go, everything will be okay. Maybe I will wake up in my own bed, and this will all be a dream.

  As I sink deeper into the warm darkness, her voice follows me: “Whatever happens, it’s because I love you.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Silence falls over the room. Stanley is still holding my hand, but he says nothing. There is no sound except his unsteady breathing.

  “She kept saying she loved me. That whatever she did, it was because she loved me.” I stare straight ahead. I’m floating, still empty, because if I allow myself to feel anything now, I will shatter. “If that’s love, then how can love be good.”

  He draws in a deep, slow breath. Then he touches my cheek, turning my face toward him. His eyes are vividly blue, wide and filled with tears. “That’s not what love is, Alvie.”

  I stare back dully.

  “Even if she did love you, what she did that night . . . that wasn’t an act of love.”

  “Then what was it.”

  His shoulders sag, and he suddenly looks very tired. “I don’t know. Fear, maybe? I can’t understand why she did it. But I can tell you this much. It was not your fault.”

  “Yes. It was.” The numbness has started to fade. Inside me, something is awakening, and it hurts. “I made her miserable. If I had tried harder . . .” The breath rattles in my chest. “If I’d done things differently, if I’d been different, maybe she’d still be alive. And I’m afraid. I’m afraid that I’ll always be like this, no matter how I try to be better, that it’ll happen all over again, and I—and you—”

  He seizes my hand in his, so hard I look up in surprise. “You can spend your life playing guessing games, trying to imagine some other world where you made different choices and everything turned out another way. But there’s no world where it’s okay to drug an eleven-year-old girl, strap her into the seat of a car, and drive into a lake.”

  “Mama wasn’t a bad person.” My voice is weak. “She . . . she just couldn’t . . .” I trail off. I don’t even know what I want to say. “It was too much for anyone, taking care of me.”

  “What about my parents’ divorce? Do you think that was my fault?”

  I stiffen. “No. Of course not.”

  “Then why do you blame yourself for this?”

  “That’s just . . . different.”

  “No. It’s the same thing. It took years for me to stop blaming myself for everything that happened. And sometimes, I still feel responsible.

  “After the divorce, my mom fell apart. She’d always been protective—and once Dad was gone, I was all she had. I wasn’t allowed to play outside with other kids. If I tried to sneak out, she would lock me in my room for days. I missed so much school anyway, because of fractures and surgeries, no one really thought it was strange when I didn’t show up
. Eventually she just pulled me out altogether.”

  I listen, holding my breath.

  “It wasn’t all bad. Most of the time, she was kind. Gentle. She gave me everything I needed—bought me books and computer games so I wouldn’t get bored, even though I was cooped up in the house all the time. But I felt like I was suffocating. When I told her I wanted to go away to college, she freaked out. Said I was breaking her heart, that I would kill her if I left. But I wouldn’t give up. It was the only argument I ever won. Then . . .” He stops. His eyes shine, wet and reflective with tears.

  “She got sick, started passing out. She’d known for a while there was something wrong with her, but she didn’t go to a doctor, because all the money went to my medical bills. When she finally saw a neurologist, it was too late to do anything. After that, I had to come back. I couldn’t leave her. She got worse and worse. She started having these rages, these fits where she ranted at me and threw things. There was this one night . . .” His voice cracks. He stops and takes a breath. “I was taking a bath. She broke into the bathroom, this empty look in her eyes, like she wasn’t there, and started washing me. All over. Like—like I was a baby, or something. I kept telling her to stop, but it was like she couldn’t hear a word I was saying, and I was too scared to push her away. Scared I’d set her off.” He sits, shoulders hunched, hands balled into tight fists. “It wasn’t . . . I mean, she didn’t hurt me. But the next time I went to my doctor and she asked me to undress so she could see how the latest break was healing, I had a panic attack.”

  Oh, Stanley, I think. Stanley. Stanley.

  “I know she loved me,” he says. “And I loved her . . . and my dad, too. I still do. I think it’s easier, in a way, when someone hurts you out of hate. It’s less confusing. When the ones who hurt you are the people who love you most . . . no one ever tells you how you’re supposed to deal with that.”

  There’s a hard, hot ball in my chest. Suddenly I want to go into his mother’s room and break all the ceramic figurines, rip apart the flowered coverlet and the rose-patterned curtains. Erase all the pain, all the memories.