All of These Things

by De Mattea, Anna

  “Close the shades,” she commands.

  I nod and do as I’m told.

  “Go on,” I say. Her hand clutches me once more. The grip makes me gulp, but I work through it. “What’s going on with you? Why are we here?”

  “I started thinking,” she says, “and I knew I shouldn’t because finally this happened. Now I can’t stop thinking.”

  Mom looks away, gathering her thoughts. I don’t want her trailing off too far, so I reel her in before she loses momentum.

  “What were you thinking about? Dad, Angel Mae, me… who started this for you?”

  “All of you!” she shrieks, her hands fists.

  Mom’s torso starts to sway back and forth in constant, repetitive rhythm. A long time ago, it called for intervention, coaxing her to still, but we know better now. Dr. Toussaint is clear that communication and eye contact are hard limits for Mom, and it’s a physical pain to get through. So I let her work through the coping mechanism because if she’s choosing to muddle through it and essentially share, then who am I to ward off her courage by asking her to stop moving obsessively? She’s not hurting anyone, nor can she hurt herself, here, in this bed. It’s true, what I hear in group. Everyone thinks they’re experts on the matter, but until they’ve walked in our shoes, they should keep their comments to themselves.

  The only advice I can suggest is to remember her breath. I remind my mother to breathe so as not to pick up a frenzied heart rate. The rest can go on as she sees fit, and I wonder how many years she went on this way, through school and family dynamics, being pestered and ridiculed and utterly misunderstood.

  “Why were you thinking about all of us?” I ask, lowering down on the bed beside her. “Is this okay?” I check with her.

  She doesn’t answer, so I know it’s a yes. I don’t snuggle in against her because that’s too close for comfort, but our sides graze, and she still stays halfway seated.

  She tells me how she felt absorbing the news of Sandrine and Dad. She doesn’t know why it affected her like it did when she really never gave them much thought as a couple. I think my mother knows she’s the love of his life, and it was always enough for her. Then again, I recall how enraged she’d become if Charlotte Landry from downstairs went up to talk to him. It’s never easy to distinguish why she does what she does, or feels what she feels. But I try—dead end after dead end, I try.

  It’s clear she doesn’t like the thought of my father being alone. It festered, and the way he confided in her and expected nothing back in return somehow appeased her. There was an epiphany in between, and ideas came about. She says she thinks he’s still the most beautiful man she’s ever seen, but needs a distance from even the most beautiful man. I suppose it’s in the same way certain fabrics grate at her and textures confine her, that a human body in close proximity is suffocating.

  I know this well because I try sleeping on the edge most of the time. Mom can’t feel my breath, or God forbid a hand or foot touches her skin. It’s revolting. But when her mind was running away from her, she craved my father, and it was an excruciating need. She trusted he’d secure her from the world and herself. There was a time when she wanted him to make decisions for her, and having him around this week, no matter how maladroit she is to falling in love, my mother recognized how in love she still is with him.

  “I don’t want to hurt him, Caroline. I don’t want him to feel like that God awful book you gave me.”

  I rise on a hand, pushing up to watch her intently. She shifts, jumping away from me as fear floods her face.

  “Mom?”

  “Space, Caroline. Space!” she howls.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I jump off the bed, my eyes searching.

  “Okay. Okay. I’m sorry.”

  “We agreed on an arm’s length, Caroline. An arm’s length!” my mother says, stabbing the air with an arm. “You see! It’s good enough. It’s acceptable. Dr. Toussaint said so.”

  Mom looks sick to her stomach as a compulsion to flee, or to eject me from the room, comes over her. Her hands open and close into fists, her torso rocking. Mom’s bare feet are planted firmly as her white, cotton nightgown sways to the tempo of her shaky demeanour. Had she packed that from home, but actually neglected her make-up?

  “What do I see? Tell me,” I cry.

  “I need to sit,” she says and moves to the corner under the window. She slides down on the cool floor into a fetus. “Sometimes, it’s okay, and sometimes it’s not. But your father—he knows that, now.”

  “Mom,” I say, “you said something about the journal? Please. Let me understand. Why would he feel like the book I gave you?”

  “I told you!” She grabs at her knees. “You don’t listen. That book needs someone writing in it all the time. It sits there waiting for me to share, but I leave it empty! And your father looked empty when we lived together. I don’t like going places. I can’t go to restaurants or on airplanes.” She stares at her hands that still clutch her legs. “Sandrine can. She would. And sometimes, I can’t have a man in my bed, and Sandrine can. She would. I need my room, my things, my place, and I hated being married. I hated it, but I love him. I love Nathaniel more than I love myself.”

  I flop down opposite Mom, under the other corner of the window.

  “You have to tell him that,” I whimper. “Daddy needs to know. He needs this. He doesn’t need marriage, or much of anything, really, but make his sacrifices worth it by telling him you love him.”

  “I can’t,” she retorts quickly. “It’s too much. But he knows. I made room for him in the apartment. I want him there, but in a different way than before.”

  I swallow.

  “You can’t be roommates, Mother.”

  “Sometimes, I can be a roommate, and sometimes, I can be his lover.”

  I groan in frustration. I’ve never wanted to move away from a conversation more than this one, but stopping my mother while she’s on a roll is ruinous.

  “I can’t be a wife. I don’t know how to be a wife! But he’s so busy, and he has things that he likes, like I have things that I like. And we could be together but not too together. I don’t want to feel forced.”

  I shrink back. “What are you saying? Daddy never forced you to do anything.”

  “You don’t listen! I forced me. I don’t like when he looks lost, and he looked lost to me this week. He’s always strong and sure. I don’t like when he looks weak. I hate it.”

  I nod. “Is that how he was?” I ask. “He’s been with Sandrine a long time, Mother. It makes sense that he feels a little off. It’ll get better.”

  “But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I couldn’t stop thinking how he’s a different man now, but he’s still my Nathaniel.”

  “We all changed. Dad did, too, but his commitment to us hasn’t. He still cares. He’ll always care.”

  “It felt like Nathaniel would sit there just waiting for me,” she continues. “It’s too much pressure. I don’t always need him. I don’t always want him. I like being alone. I don’t like to be bothered, but I do like to know he’s there.”

  Mom tips her head to the side and shrugs.

  “I like to smell him around the apartment,” she says. “His colognes don’t give me a headache like your perfumes do. He wears what I like. He knows what I like. He can go out now and not expect me to join him. I would pull my hair out wanting to give him more, trying to give more, but I didn’t like being a wife. It was too much for me. I can’t be someone’s partner. On some days, for a few hours, maybe, but not every day and all day.”

  She begins to rise slowly, her face flushed from increased blood pressure and restlessness. There’s a change in her stance, matching the change in her pitch and tone. The room is shadowy, and it looks like, for a fleeting moment, she may yank the curtains apart and let the sunshine start its healing. Instead, she sits on
the corner of the bed, dragging a robe over her shoulders. That, too made its way here from home.

  “When you were born,” she picks up again, “I was supposed to love you right away.”

  I pull my knees in, sensing I’ll eventually need a hug.

  “I was supposed to want to hold you and want to feed you and sense what you needed or why you were crying. I was supposed to connect with you, but I watched everyone else connect with you, instead. I probably could have walked right out of that hospital and forgotten you were born if it weren’t for your father.”

  I sit, frozen.

  “He was on cloud nine, and your Noni Sara, and the nurses… everyone fell in love with you instantly. It wasn’t like that for me. You needed me too much,” she says, matter-of-factly.

  I bow my head.

  “There was so much pressure to being a mother, to loving you immediately, but it’s only when you became a little more independent that I could finally start to like you.”

  My chin trembles, and I cover my creasing face with my hands.

  “It’s hard for someone like me to be a wife or a mother. They tell me that here. It’s not as natural as people think it is.”

  I brush away my burning tears and try sending my mind somewhere else, so I don’t have to absorb what she’s saying anymore.

  “But I didn’t like that girl sitting in your spot, Princess.”

  I look up, my eyes and cheeks hot, my heart broken.

  “And I didn’t like seeing Nathaniel weak. So I started thinking about what I could do for him. But, then I got out of control. I started thinking too much, and my brain… I hate my brain,” she says, her throat bobbing.

  “I thought I could come here so they could explain it to me again and to you and to your father because sometimes I want to die just so this emotional pain ends. The pressure to be what you need hurts,” she hisses.

  The sadness is overwhelming. I gasp, expelling vicious, hiccupping breaths and tears gush. The melancholy rips my heart, tearing at my stomach and head.

  “Oh, Princess,” Mom says, and I glare at her. Her hand is splayed across her chest, and her gaze scurries around the room. She blows a noisy breath, flinching but doesn’t rise from the bed.

  I don’t want to make her more upset than she is. I don’t want to scare her, but I can’t stop the tears.

  “Help!” she shouts. “Help! Help!”

  My blubbering has terrified her. I can’t make my way up or tell her to look away with my lungs constricting pain like this, strangling me down.

  I hear my father.

  “What’s going on? Caroline?”

  He enters first, ramming past a nurse and Sofie, collecting me until I dissolve in his arms. I weep harrowing, anguished joy and sorrow, limp in his arms.

  “Thank you, Daddy. Thank you.”

  “Shh. Now come on. What’s this about?”

  “For saving me.”

  He makes a little gulp, and Mom’s arms reach out, each hand tugging lightly at the hem of our shirts. Possessively, Dad’s arm is wrapped around my neck, driving my face into his shoulder, and he lowers a hand to grasp my mother’s.

  “I think we saved each other,” he says, his face ravaged by tears.

  I draw back. “Daddy?”

  “Yes, Princess.” He wipes my eyes with the back of his thumbs.

  “Will you stay with Mom? I need to take a walk.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” He smiles. “But,” he pauses, “we will have to talk about that fellow when you get back from that walk.”

  I shudder, but I don’t say no.

  It rained overnight, and the dew is still heavy. The sky is blotched in white, but when the sun gets the chance to do its thing, it’s unyielding. I walk from Safekeeps to the main building, hoping Sofie gives me the solitude I need. Of all the items she could have brought for me, it’s my red Sweet Caroline t-shirt I’m forced to wear. She probably did it on purpose, too.

  Of course she did.

  Thoughts of Alec are like carrying cargo, and I stare numbly at the brick exterior before trying to make up my mind if I should go in to see his painting again. I contemplate asking my father to speak to the board about taking it down or selling it, but that’s lame and irrational. I notice I can interact impersonally for now, being courteous to passersby, but the heavy-duty stuff I usually reserve for Sofie is on the back burner. With my family drama, I feel like my own island. I’m too depleted to tackle Ryan again, and if I can’t have the sea to calm my nerves and distract me, then I’ll turn to the next best thing. I press the buzzer, waving to Amy Walsh and Jed Rosenberg from behind the glass door and am given access.

  “We were on our way to check on Amalia. How did she sleep?” Jed asks, and Amy rubs my upper arm.

  “Not bad, actually. She’s fairly temperate and clear-headed. I didn’t know you worked on Sundays, too.” I say.

  “Every second Sunday,” Amy rectifies.

  “Um…” I start. “So is meeting room number two occupied? I just needed to… er… see something. Maybe take a picture of that new painting. Mom’s fascinated by it.”

  “Oh, yeah. Sure!” Jed says. “Alec’s piece. We’re hoping to receive more work from him.”

  I smile. Hearing his name makes him more real than he is in my heart and mind. It’s hard to hold myself together. I miss him desperately, and if I think back to all the occasions I could have used him, from the miserable encounter with Ryan, to conversing with Mom, I’d probably feel half as shitty.

  My eyes are heavy and closing up. I look forward to sleep, but there’s a slim chance of that when I have a shivery, British accent filling my head. I say good-bye to Jed and Amy, and take shaky, miniscule steps to therapeutic-slash-meeting room number two. A ray of light projects a streak of dust from the top of the bay window to the floor, and it’s eerie to see this space empty and quiet. Upon crossing the threshold, it’s the first thing I see. The painting sighs with me, as if it’s been wondering when I’d come around. I smile, forcing happy thoughts to supersede the longing. The canvas is as wide as the yellow love seat, and it’s actually more beautiful than I remember. I make my way to it.

  I muster up the courage to study it as if Alec were here, as if he was the one before me, and instinctively I look down, hearing his voice call out Sweet Caroline. I have to blink to tell myself he’s not here, but memories nag me. I’m so acquainted with the landscape of his body that I find relics of it in his painting. It’s absurd, until I spy his signature, and it holds me hostage.

  Alecsander Vaughn

  I reach out slowly to graze it, almost like it may burn. In the course of a day, I made decisions about relationships on my own, robbing Alec from building on us and depriving Ryan a chance to work things out. It doesn’t seem fair how this works. One always up and goes, leaving the other stranded, but I’m the fish out of water. I stroke Alec’s signature again.

  Will everything always come back to him?

  “How do you expect to start up something with anyone ever again if you’re going to always wonder about he who shan’t be named?”

  My head jerks up to Sofie’s voice.

  Damn her.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Go away.”

  “Nope.” Sofie sidles up to me. “Don’t feel like it. So, what exactly are you mad at me for?” she asks. “Is it because I organized our little road trip, or because I unintentionally stimulated someone’s interest in you, and then let him run with it?”

  I sigh. “A little bit of this and a little bit of that.”

  “That’s fair. Now, let me ask you this,” she beckons, “If Alec lived here, would you see him again? Would you go out for supper and maybe watch a movie and turn up at his exhibitions and let him pick you up at the office? Would you try?”

  I lick my lip as I inhale. “I don’t kn
ow.”

  Sofie makes a half-shrug. “Well I guess I should be happy your answer is not a blatant no.”

  “He’s too much,” I say. “I get lost and carried away. He makes me feel too good when everything is always on the brink. Alec’s not a sensible choice. He scares me, Sofie.”

  “Well, sorry to break it to you, girlfriend, but you had sensible, and you couldn’t fall in love with him.”

  I purse my lips. She’s not entirely wrong, and I’m being entirely discrediting. Alec was my navigational system, but he didn’t plot my course out for me. He was patient and obliging: an observant, keen, sensitive, insightful co-captain. The list goes on and on. I never felt like I lost authenticity with him. I was me. I offered me, and that’s exactly the opposite of what I managed with Ryan. Alec keeps me accountable and grounded and genuinely, beautifully inspired.

  I stare at the painting, urging it to turn into its artist.

  “And what scares you the most?” she asks.

  The enquiry agitates me.

  “Because he’s around at least six months a year, and you can take a plane to England, or there’s Skype and Facetime. Oh, and the things you can do on Skype to keep the flame burning while you’re apart.”

  “Sofie!”

  “What! Oh, don’t be a prude, Goldie Locks. I heard you up in that room. So, go on. What scares you?”

  I came in here looking to swim in despair. I was ready to whirl into a flurry of self-pity and heartbreak, become a bawling mess over expelling Alec from my life, and try to cope with my mother’s harsh sincerity. But Sofie won’t allow any of it.

  “You know,” I turn to face her with a blast of forged disdain, “I don’t know what, exactly, is happening between my parents, but they may be moving in together, and that means I may be moving out and in with you.”

  “As I see it,” she counters, wagging an index finger, “that means your dad’s place may be available, and we can move in there instead.”

  I laugh, and she smiles wide.