The Symptoms of My Insanity

by Mindy Raf

  We leave the room, and I know Mom might have been really loopy in there, but I think she was right. I think it’s all just the beginning too.

  CHAPTER 28

  I’m not sorry.

  “So that’s why I’m using scented candles now,” Pam says, finishing up this story about how Tootsie—her ginormously fat cat—won’t stop eating the potpourri in her bathroom and keeps throwing up lavender-smelling vomit.

  Allissa almost spits up her tea, she’s laughing so hard, and next to me at the kitchen table, Cathy Mason looks so disturbed that I’m surprised she hasn’t excused herself to the bathroom yet. I laugh-snort some milk out my nose, and even Mom, who hardly ever finds bodily function humor funny, cracks a small smile when she says, “Oh, Pam, that is absolutely disgusting.” She reaches for her wheely pole. “Okay,” she says, “who wants another piece of cake?” She slowly gets up from her chair, and we all turn and watch her rise. Walking on her own is a development as of yesterday, and it makes us all a little nervous.

  “Linda, sit yourself back down,” Pam says.

  “It’s my house and I’ll serve cake when I want to,” Mom replies, shuffling and wheeling her way over to the kitchen counter. Mom’s only been home three days, but yesterday the visiting nurse who changed her PIC line said she’s acting as if it’s been three weeks.

  “Linda, you look so good,” Cathy says.

  “Eh,” is Mom’s reply.

  I’ve been trying to keep her beauty routine up, but I’m not very good at it. I blow-dry her hair for her in the mornings, but I don’t have the skills with the round brush to get it into her usual stiff yet buoyant shape. And her hair’s a lot thinner than mine, so if I take too long, random chunks end up looking creased or waving in the wrong direction. Her makeup is on as usual, though she still has some cuts on her lips, and the skin around her eyes looks a lot looser now since she’s lost more weight.

  She takes the plastic lid off the giant cake that Cathy brought over and says, “Mmm, it smells so fresh.” Then Cathy apologizes, again, for being the dunce who brought food to a woman who can’t eat. Mom says, “Hush,” and picks up a huge knife to start cutting more slices for everyone. It’s pretty impressive, since one of her arms is pretty much useless, still hooked up to her TPN pole.

  Allissa and I help carry the cake plates back to the table. I pull a giant piece of wallpaper trim off Allissa’s back on the way. Mom hasn’t been able to do stairs yet, but after the work Allissa and I did today, she won’t even recognize the attic when she sees it.

  I should have spent today at the studio, but it’s been really nice having everyone here and hanging out. Since Allissa has midterm exams coming up, and Pam was needed back at school, I’ve been mainly on my own with recovery duty at home this week.

  “… And so the whole thing overall was really very impressive,” Cathy says, finishing up her Oklahoma! review. “Although the kiss at the end between that cowboy and soprano girl was way too long. And I’m pretty sure I saw tongue! Which I think is a tad inappropriate, especially for that time period.”

  “Hmm,” Mom says, as if she’s seriously contemplating a French kiss’s historical accuracy.

  I missed seeing the play, since opening night was Mom’s first night back home. She kept mumbling, “If it’s important to you, go,” every time she’d half wake up on the couch. And I’d respond by telling her the truth, that it wasn’t, and that it had always been more Jenna’s thing than mine anyway.

  Jenna actually called me from the opening night cast party and confirmed that Emily Belfry and Ben Roswin did indeed French throughout the entire curtain call. When Marcus called me later that week to check in, he added that he’s now had to take over lighting duty because apparently Derrick, who was not so happy about all the stage Frenching, decided to have trouble “finding Emily” with the spotlight during her big musical numbers.

  “Well, I’m sorry we missed it,” Mom says now. “But I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to finally be getting out of the house tomorrow.”

  “Are you sure you’re up for going?” Pam asks.

  “Yes! I can walk, so I can go. That was the deal. And we get to see Izzy’s portfolio!” She turns her head to me, smiling.

  “Yup,” I reply, nodding back at her.

  “Pam said your Darfur sculpture is already on display, right in front of the lobby window,” Mom says, “and that it made her cry.”

  “It did, it really did,” Pam says, mid cake binge.

  “Yes, yes, they brought it out after the show last night. It’s very large,” Cathy chimes in, “but lovely. Large and lovely.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “That’s … what I was going for …”

  Allissa stifles a laugh, and Pam gives me a wink.

  “So are you ready? Everything all set?” Mom asks.

  “Almost,” I say.

  “They should really give you a circumstantial extension, but I guess now”—Cathy stops to lick a bit of frosting off her thumb—“with the auction and all, they can’t.”

  “Nope,” I say, shaking my head.

  I thought Mom’s first two days back home would be pretty productive for me, since the nurses said she’d mostly sleep. But then Cathy was always calling to talk dance stuff. She wasn’t really asking me to do things, she was just kind of venting out loud about what needed to be done, like paint/decorate thirty centerpiece vases, design the donation box, and make signs, signs, signs. A sign for the donation table, a sign for the food, additional no-smoking signs by the bathrooms, a sign telling people where to donate, a sign telling them where to place their auction bids, and, of course, a sign thanking them for their donations/auction bids. I did help her a little with those, since I had some paints and foam boards at home. And then yesterday when I finally got a chance to open my sketchbook and start thinking about how I wanted to organize my display, Mom randomly decided she wanted me to bring all of her clothes downstairs to her. Not just the ones hanging in her closet, but all of them. Then from her position on the sleep sofa, she directed me on proper pile placements, making ones for “keep,” “Goodwill,” “garbage,” and “alterations,” all while changing her bandage dressings. So yeah, I’ve gotten no portfolio work done at all this final week.

  And it looks like I’m not going to get anything else done tonight either, because right after everybody leaves, when I finally have a moment of time alone with my sketchbook to select the drawings I want to include, my cell phone buzzes and I see a “nails/sofa bed assembly, please?” text from Mom. I’m so glad she took my cell phone suggestion, because texting is way less annoying than that awful tiny crystal bell Grandma Iris made her use over the summer.

  I find Mom leaning up against the living room door, staring at her reflection in one of her tiny compact mirrors

  “How am I supposed to go out in public with this?”

  “With what?” I ask, bending down to pull out her sofa bed.

  “With this face. And this stupid pole.”

  “Well … we could make the pole an accessory,” I suggest, arranging her pillows how she likes them and stacking the rest in a pile on the floor. “We could decorate it. Make it look festive.”

  “Very funny,” Mom says, laughing, and then quickly re-grimaces, catching her reflection again. “I’ll be an embarrassment to you like this tomorrow. You’ll be showing off your art, and people will say, ‘Well, where’s the mother?’ ‘Oh, she’s the one in the corner who looks like an aging zombie.’”

  “You do not,” I say, “and I don’t think zombies age.”

  Mom just shakes her head at me and sighs.

  “You don’t look like a young zombie either. You look great.”

  Which is true. She does look great, especially for someone who had a respirator in her mouth less than a week ago. Still, I know that by her standards, her appearance must seem horrifying.

  “So,” I say, getting her nail kit from the kitchen drawer and filling up a bowl of warm water, “you want to still d
o this, or are you too tired?”

  “No, no, yes, let’s do it,” she says, holding out what she’s been calling her “hospital claws.”

  She sits down on the sofa bed, and I pull up a chair beside her, laying out my supplies. I grab her hands into mine and assess the damage.

  “Wow, dangerous,” I tease.

  “I told you.”

  I dunk one of her hands in the bowl of water and keep hold of the other. Her nails might need filing, but her hands are still soft, and they smell like her baby oil moisturizer. I squeeze her hand a little as I file, just to make sure she’s really here, sitting in front me, and not still lying in some hospital bed, or worse.

  “You can round them. Or square them. Whatever’s easier, just make me human again,” she says, shifting on her cushion so her PIC line’s not pulling. “So,” she says, stopping her pole fidgeting and looking right at me now. “Mrs. Preston called me this afternoon.”

  “Oh, why?” I ask, focusing on gently pushing down her cuticles.

  “Just a ‘get well’ courtesy call,” she says, still eyeing me.

  “That was nice of her.”

  “Yes, it really was. She also wanted to let me know that your name has officially been cleared, and that your actions won’t be going on your permanent record.”

  “Oh.” I pause, mid file. “My actions won’t be going on my …” I’m repeating what Mom said, sincerely trying to comprehend.

  Then she says, “Izzy!” and pulls her free hand out of the water and gestures at me with it, as if she thinks I’m playing dumb or something.

  I catch her runaway hand and attempt to towel it off, saying, “What? What did I do?”

  “I know,” is all Mom says.

  “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can explain,” I start.

  “Yes, can you explain to me why you, and apparently every other girl in Broomington, confessed to being the subject of that obscenity?”

  “Oh. Um … well …”

  “Why would you put yourself in that position, tarnish your name and—”

  “I didn’t. I mean, you said it’s not going on our records—”

  “That’s not the point, Izzy.”

  “We all did it, Mom, it was the only way to—”

  “Just because everyone is shooting up needles of cocaine doesn’t mean—”

  “Mom that’s not—” I take a breath, realizing it’s not the right time to correct her on her drug analogies.

  “What then? Explain this to me.”

  I feel the weight of a thousand different words on my tongue. So many different combinations, so many ways I can tell my mom the truth.

  “Well, first of all, no girl sent that picture. It was a boy who did it. And how would you feel if … I mean if that was me, in that picture? If some boy sent it around and it was a picture of me? Wouldn’t you want all those girls sticking up for me and protecting me?”

  “I … I don’t know. I never thought of it like that, as … protecting. But I still think that whoever it is needs to be punished. There obviously needs to be some sort of disciplinary reaction to that … behavior.”

  “Right, sure, but …” I start on Mom’s primer coat, trying to keep my hand steady. “But … I’m sure she’ll be punished enough by … I mean, once her mom finds out, she probably won’t even really love her in the same way and—”

  “No … no, I don’t think that’s true. You don’t just stop loving people, especially family, just because of … just one thing they do.”

  “But what about with you and Grandma Iris—”

  “Your grandma and I … we still love each other. We’re just bad at … being around each other, that’s all.”

  “Well, Mom. I don’t want us to be bad at being around each other.”

  “We’re not.” Mom pulls me in closer to her with her half-painted hand. “Now let’s move on to more important matters, like what are you wearing tomorrow? What about that dress we got you, with the pretty flowers? Do you have shoes for that?” And she starts in on how many people will see me standing there at the dance tomorrow next to my work, and how some might even take pictures of me, and something about patterns versus solids and horizontal lines being the devil.

  “This is what I’m talking about!” I finally cut in, catching Mom so off guard, her hands flinch away from mine. She quickly steadies them, though, to protect her wet nails, and rests them stiffly on her lap.

  “What do you mean, what you’re talking about?”

  “You. Wanting me to look … how you want me to look! I hate that dress with the flowers. I hate it! And if I don’t look absolutely perfect for pictures, then … well, I don’t care. But I know you do, and that clearly you’re unhappy with the way I look all the time. But I can’t do anything about it, or do anything about how people see me and … it’s just that every time you … look at me, I … I just feel so terrible about … everything about me sometimes.”

  Mom’s looking at me like English isn’t her first language.

  “Izzy,” she starts. “I’m not … I’m not unhappy with how you look all the time. I … oh sweetie no, no, no, I just … I just want you to look your best.”

  “Yeah, but … my best according to you.”

  “No. Sweetie … I hate that you feel terrible about … I just … I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry.”

  “No, Mom. I’m sor—” I’m about to apologize, but then I stop, because I’m not sorry. In fact, I feel like that’s what I always say to people, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” It just comes out “I’m sorry” even when I’m not, or I shouldn’t be. I take a breath and instead just say, “Okay, thanks.”

  I finish up with her nails and by the time I come back into the room to plug in the mini fan, she’s passed out. Leaning against the back of the sofa bed, hands still slightly outstretched on her lap. Even my phone buzzing against the coffee table doesn’t wake her up.

  I head upstairs and see a text from Jenna. Miss you! Sculpture KICKS ASS!!! I smile, hoping those are the types of comments I get from the Italy reviewers too. Well, not in those exact words maybe.

  I’ve been trying to figure out why Jenna didn’t just tell me about what happened last summer. And I’m thinking now, maybe it’s the same reason I didn’t just tell my mom tonight about what happened with Blake. Was Jenna afraid of disappointing me, the way I’m afraid of disappointing my mom? But like Mom said, you don’t stop loving someone just because they do something that surprises or even disappoints you. Maybe facts and formulas comfort Marcus, but I think that article he read was totally wrong. You don’t love chemical reactions or particles or neuron receptors. You love whole people. Including the parts you didn’t know were there, and the parts you’re waiting for them to become.

  CHAPTER 29

  I’ve got girl-balls.

  I don’t mean to sound conceited or anything, but my sculpture really does look kick-ass.

  You can see Meredith’s photos and the mirror sections reflecting off the window when you pull up to the school’s circular driveway. Which I’m doing right now, and very cautiously, since this is only my third time driving with my permit, and since the car is filled to the brim with dance supplies and folding tables and chairs that could easily fall and wreck my carefully wrapped artwork. No big deal, no pressure.

  “So, you have your bag with your change of clothes?” Mom asks for like the eight hundredth time.

  “Yes, don’t worry, I won’t be wearing these sweats.”

  “No, no, it’s fine. Just checking,” Mom says. She pulls down the passenger’s-side mirror and checks her face one last time.

  “You look great,” I assure her, especially proud of myself for having evenly round-brushed her hair.

  Mom smiles at me, and then nervously looks out the window as I’m trying to pull up to the curb without driving over it. As soon as I stop the car, a barrage of ladies surrounds it from all sides. They’re opening doors, taking out the tables, help
ing Mom out, grabbing her wheely pole, asking me how to handle my artwork, popping the trunk, handing off folding chairs. I feel like I just stopped at a NASCAR pit stop. Once I see that Mom and all of our stuff is in trusted hands, I park the car. And by park the car, I mean that after three attempts, I pull an Allissa and decide our car deserves to take up two spaces.

  • • •

  “Ryan, watch yourself there, make sure those are locked in plaaace … ?” I hear Miss S. say as she guides some boys in setting up the display panels. She waves wildly when she sees me, and then dance-walks over to my pile of canvases and books.

  “Whacha think?” she asks, quickly swinging her body toward the display panels, her braids and twisted hair boomeranging around her head.

  “Looks good,” I say.

  She calls a couple of the guys over to help me move my stuff to the studio and then pats me on the back and says, for only me to hear, “I’m proud of you.” Then to everyone else, “One hundred and twenty minutes until show tiiiime … !”

  • • •

  I thought two hours would be more than enough time, but I didn’t count on being so distracted. Everyone’s already like six steps ahead of me, and so I’m spending a lot of time helping people move their stuff over to the display area. But I still have to mount and frame Viral and arrange all my sketches and smaller drawings in binders. Then I have to move everything out there, display, and label.

  When I get back from my third trip to the panels, my hands a little cut up from carrying Ina’s new scrap sculpture, I see Meredith and Marcus waiting for me in the studio.

  “Oh my God, is it that late already?”

  “No, we’re here early,” Meredith says. “Hi!”

  “Oh. Sorry. Hi,” I say, leaning in to give them each a hug and then realizing that I’m sweaty, and dusty, and covered in paint and they look like freshly showered movie stars.

  “Air hug,” I say, pulling back. “Wow, you both look fantastic.”