“Elena, no! That’s not true! That isn’t the idea here!”
Once upon a time, that would have been my voice raised in entreaty, my voice full of hurt and love. Now, it was Joe’s voice. And I was silent.
She’ll say anything, my writer’s mind observed. She’ll sacrifice anything to the eating disorder. If she’s willing to sacrifice herself, her hopes and dreams, everything she ever wanted, then don’t think she’s going to spare the rest of her family.
“You want to get rid of me?” Elena said. “Okay, fine! I’ll go back to Clove House. I’ll go back into treatment.”
To treatment. But not to recovery, said my writer’s mind. She doesn’t know what recovery is.
Joe and I had already discussed this. He was ready with the right answer. “If you want to go to treatment,” he said, “there’s Sandalwood right here in town.”
“I’m not going to that place!”
“Then you’re not going back to treatment.”
Suddenly, Elena turned on me, livid with fury. Her glare was so intense, it was like a physical blow.
“This is your idea!” she said. “Dad wouldn’t do it. I know Dad wouldn’t do it! You put him up to it. I hate you! I’m done with you! I’ll never speak to you again!”
She grabbed the pen we’d laid out and signed the contract with a dramatic flourish. Then she left the room. We heard the slam of the bedroom door.
In the silence that followed, my writer’s mind warned, She won’t keep that threat never to speak to you again—
But it would be more pleasant if she did.
As soon as Elena’s alarm went off the next day, she was out of bed. But she made sure I wouldn’t be enjoying this victory. She felt betrayed—completely betrayed.
“I know this is your fault!” she said. “I know Dad wouldn’t do this to me. Well, you’ll get your wish—you’ll get rid of me. You’ll know what it’s like to lose a daughter. Once I find a way to get out of here, I’m never coming back!”
Then she swept up her purse and her car keys and stalked out the door to go to class. She was through asking me for rides.
As soon as she left, Valerie came out of her room with baby Gemma in her arms. Her cheerful expression was gone for once.
“Clint called. His tech school is going to be five months long!” she said. “It’s the longest tech school can be before they send the family along, too. Clint’s not going to graduate and get his first assignment until April of next year.”
April! My heart bled for them both. Valerie and Gemma had first moved in with us last March. That meant over a year of long-distance marriage.
“Well, you know your dad and I don’t mind,” I said as I reached out to take baby Gemma onto my lap. She pulled herself into a standing position and held on to my hands. Her little body bent and swayed like a flower in the wind.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Valerie answered. “We’re grateful, really. But to be honest, I can’t wait till I can get out of here. I feel like I’m trapped inside an Intervention episode that starts over every day.”
“That’s pretty much exactly what we’re in,” I said with a sigh. “Which reminds me: do you want to help me intervene a little bit more?”
“Will I get yelled at?” Valerie asked with typical practicality.
“No, probably not—probably just me. I want to go through Elena’s clothes and get rid of the inappropriate sizes. I bought her a whole new wardrobe last spring when I went out to visit her, but she won’t touch any of it. Her old sizes are still around, and they’re making her want to stay thin.”
“And they’re making her look like a tramp,” Valerie said.
Valerie and I spent an hour combing through every item of clothing in Elena’s room while Gemma sat in the middle of the pile and grabbed up fistfuls of silky fabric. Then Valerie and I went through all the laundry bins. When we were finished, we had three black garbage bags full of clothes.
“I’ll drive them to Goodwill right now,” I said. “They’ll make someone very happy.”
“And they’ll make her look like a tramp,” Valerie said.
Elena came home and immediately shut herself up in her room. In her exhaustion, she didn’t notice that the piles of clothes were gone. This should have felt like a reprieve to me, but it didn’t. I felt like a child who had spilled nail polish on her mother’s favorite dress and hidden it at the bottom of a closet.
Sooner or later, Elena was bound to notice what I’d done. And those clothes—Elena had loved those clothes! Some of the items had been with her for years. They had precious memories bound up in them.
When she realized they were gone, she was going to feel real pain. After all the pain she had already gone through, I hated the thought of adding more. Had I done the right thing? Was I helping her recover? Or was I being the person she thought I was—was I being the evil witch?
The contract had been necessary. But was this necessary?
She said she would get rid of those clothes the day we left Clove House the first time, I reminded myself. She had plenty of time to do it. She broke her word.
But that didn’t change the way I felt.
All that evening, I paced from room to room. I carried soda cans to the kitchen and loose pairs of shoes to the bedrooms. I tried to make myself look as if I were tidying the house. Actually, I was waiting for the bomb to drop.
Should I wake her up and tell her? No, she would certainly see that as gloating. I would just have to wait until she noticed—and blew up.
You’ll know what it’s like to lose a daughter!
I already knew how that felt.
I miss the old Elena, I thought mournfully as I put dishes in the dishwasher. I miss my fellow storyteller. I remembered her laughing, her dark eyes dancing: “Guess what!”
That Elena was gone for good.
A couple of weeks later, the nutritionist called me for her weekly update. “Mrs. Dunkle, I’m afraid I have bad news,” she said.
Elena had lost weight again, for the second week in a row. It was time to start cutting off privileges.
“You know, I’m pretty sure I’ve got shopping to do,” Valerie said when I told her. “I think Gemma and I need diapers or something.” And she put the baby into the car and left.
Once again, I paced the house, pretending to put things away. I agonized over what we were about to do. Texting was the first privilege to go. Of all the penalties, it was the least harmful to Elena’s goals. But cutting off texting meant isolating Elena from the only friends she had left. And isolation was the hallmark of anorexia.
Are we helping? I asked myself. Or are we just pushing her closer to the end?
Well, if nothing else, we would be showing her that we meant business. That easy death in her room wasn’t going to happen. It would be our way: the overpass bridge. She had to believe that. She had to know it.
We had to know it.
When we told her we had turned off her texting, Elena came completely unglued. “I can’t control what I weigh!” she said. “I’ve been eating! There’s nothing I can do!”
As she said that, my imagination pulled up a memory for me of a hostile nurse at Drew Center all those years ago. She had a clipboard in her hand. Towney. Dunkle. Your family member is not allowed to have visitors. She didn’t gain weight today.
You’re punishing her for something that’s out of her control, I had told that nurse. And I had been so angry that I could remember shaking with rage.
Tell the truth—the writer’s creed. I looked this truth in the face. This was where we were now. This was who we had become.
Joe tried to reason with Elena. I didn’t. I’d already spent days and months and years trying to talk. It hadn’t done any good then, and it wouldn’t work now. There was nothing left to say.
So, while Elena shrieked, and Joe talked, I went to my desk in the bedroom and started working on bills. Numbers and receipts seemed like safe company. Plusses and minuses. Those were truths
I could handle.
But Elena followed me.
“Dad wouldn’t do this if you weren’t here!” she told the back of my head while I typed in numbers. “He’s sorry for me, I can tell. This is your idea! Your fault! You’re not sorry, you’re happy. You love this!”
Oh, yes, I thought. I surely do love this.
“You’re spiteful and evil! You’re the most invalidating person I know!”
I didn’t bother to answer.
I was surprised at how calm I felt. The more she yelled and screamed, the more numb I seemed to be. I didn’t turn around. I went right on typing numbers.
Eventually, the fight moved off, like a thunderstorm. I could hear the rumblings in the distance as it raged on without me.
Finally, it spent itself in tears.
There, I thought, that wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t any worse than it always is. A little louder, maybe, and a little closer together, but basically, the same accusations.
When Elena finally realized that her favorite clothes were missing, I was standing in the kitchen, putting away groceries. Valerie was standing at the end of the counter, talking to me about dinner. I had just come back from the store.
That was when Elena stormed in:
“Where the hell are my clothes?”
Enough time had passed by then that I had forgotten to be anxious about this moment. And by the time it came, I had heard enough shouting and ranting that I didn’t feel anxious anymore. What pain could I be causing Elena that she hadn’t already felt by now? And by this time, what pain could she cause me?
So, when I spoke, I once again felt nothing at all. “We got rid of your extra-smalls,” I said.
And Elena came unglued.
Again.
Since Valerie was present for this particular battle, she tried to intervene and defend me, but I didn’t think I needed it. I continued putting away groceries, as if Elena were nothing more than a toddler having a tantrum.
Hateful phrases bounced over me: “What you’ve done . . . Hate . . . Lose a daughter . . .”
It was all starting to feel pretty normal.
“. . . Never loved me . . . Bitch! You only pretend to care . . .”
“Hey, don’t call Mom a bitch!”
Maybe Elena was right, I thought as I found a place for a box of cereal. Maybe I did only pretend to care. Before, no matter how bitterly Elena and I had fought, I could always feel it: how much I cared, how desperately I cared. I could feel that love and longing to see her get better.
But now, I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel a thing.
Before, when Elena had yelled, it was only because she was in pain, and that was the only way she could let me know. And before, when I had yelled, it was only because I was afraid for her, and nagging was the only way I knew to show it. Elena had yelled because she hurt, and I had yelled because I loved her—to wake her up and show her the danger I saw.
But now, in the middle of this barrage of accusations, I didn’t feel the fear, and I didn’t feel the worry.
This time, I didn’t even feel the love.
“What kind of mother are you?” Elena wailed. “You don’t feel anything for me!”
Maybe it was true. Maybe that love was finally gone. Because I looked at this hateful woman standing in my kitchen, and I didn’t feel anything at all. It was as if I were standing outside myself, walking and talking on autopilot, while the part of me that mattered was off in a corner somewhere safe, watching us like a boring show on television.
“You love your books more than you love me!”
Did I? Maybe so. Maybe that was why I felt this coldness, this emptiness.
“You’re enjoying this. You enjoy seeing me . . .”
Enjoy it? No, I could take it or leave it. I reached into a bag and started stacking canned goods.
“. . . Never cared! When I did my IFS psychodrama, you were the only person in the room who didn’t cry!”
The IFS psychodrama. My imagination found the memory and played it for me. Parents and patients in a circle. Elena, so beautiful, sitting on a chair in the center. “You bitch! You whore!” raged the Critical Voice, while I marveled at the calm look on Elena’s face. My poor daughter! She had to listen to that. To suffer like that! My poor baby . . .
And suddenly, I wasn’t watching us on television anymore. I was inside the moment, and that moment held more pain for me than I had ever thought I could feel. With no warning, I went from feeling nothing to standing inside an ocean of pain. It was indescribable. It was hand-on-the-hot-burner pain. Valerie’s pain—Elena’s pain—my pain—Joe’s pain—they flashed straight through me and scorched me to the heart.
In an instant, I had my car keys and my purse. In seconds, I was out the door. I was in the car, out of the driveway, and down the street.
And I drove.
Oh, I didn’t drive crazy. I’d been a mother too long for that. I kept my eye on my mirrors. I yielded to hopeful motorists waiting to merge into traffic. But I didn’t answer the phone, and I didn’t turn around.
I just drove.
Fifty miles away, I stopped to put gas in the car and return Valerie’s frantic calls. Poor Valerie! I could hear the ragged note of worry in her voice. “Are you all right?” she said.
Am I all right? I wondered with a spectator’s casual interest. And in answer, the pain sizzled through me again, like lightning jetting out my fingertips.
“I need to go now,” I said. “I need to drive.”
“Where are you going? Tell me!” she begged.
But I didn’t answer. I was already pressing the button to hang up.
I drove through one big city after another, looking around at all the new construction, studying the rush-hour motorists with curiosity. I drove through the big grassy meadows between the big cities and sighed over the brand-new suburbs spreading across the fields like mange. I drove past ancient interchanges that had once marked important towns—towns that had since shrunk and shriveled off the map. I didn’t think or worry or rage or cry.
I just drove.
A couple of hours later, I pulled off an exit ramp to purchase a burger and fries. As I exited the freeway, I couldn’t help smiling at myself. Running away! What a childish thing to do. Really, what had come over me?
But the second I pulled into a parking place and reached for the ignition key, that whirlwind of pain surrounded me. It was agony. It was flames. It was white-hot needles. I got back onto the freeway.
And I drove.
Late that night, I called up my oldest and dearest friend. “Would it be all right,” I asked, “if I came by for a visit?”
“Sure, Clare. You know I’d love to see you. When were you thinking of coming by?”
“Well, I’m . . . Let’s see. I think I’m about ten minutes from your house now.”
I was six hours away from home.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
My oldest and dearest friend welcomed me that night as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. If her brown eyes looked shocked and her eyebrows once again asked questions, she knew to save them for another day. And as for me, I settled down in her guest bed with a feeling of simple contentment.
I had always run to her when life was caving in.
The next morning, over coffee, she finally asked me, “So, do you want to talk about it?”
I did. I talked. I told her what happened. At least, I think I did. I was hooking together words and arranging sentences, but I didn’t seem to be able to listen to myself. I couldn’t focus on the conversation at all.
Look at that sunshine! I thought as my lips moved and my tongue moved and the orderly processions of words moved out of my mouth. Bright blue sky—it’s a nice clear day today.
And my oldest and dearest friend just looked at me, puzzled and worried. Did I look like that?
No, I felt a smile on my face. What was that smile doing there? It seemed to be in response to something I’d said. Had I made a joke? Had I said something fun
ny?
My imagination reached for the tape of the last few seconds. It had movement, feeling, sight—but no sound.
Hmm, I thought. Something seems to be wrong with me. But I couldn’t feel that anything was wrong. If anything, I felt better than I had in weeks.
Joe called and told me that the girls were going out of town for a few days. Valerie was taking Gemma to see her other grandmother, and she was bringing Elena along. I could hear his voice on the phone, repeating, “So you’re safe. You can come home now. It’s safe.”
But of course I’m safe! I thought with amusement. Why wouldn’t I be safe?
The pain of the day before wasn’t even a memory.
I hugged my oldest and dearest friend good-bye, smiled at the worried look on her face, said something—I didn’t know what—the tape was blank again—and got back on the road.
Something’s wrong with me, I thought idly. Something’s different. I’m a little broken right now. But the thought didn’t particularly worry me.
Valerie called from her car to check in and tell me how sorry she was. She sounded stressed and anxious. She passed the phone to Elena, and Elena said she was sorry, too. Elena sounded as if she were reading a script.
And when I answered them, I sounded as if I were reading a script, too.
Joe and I spent a quiet evening. It was very quiet, in fact. He tried to talk to me, but I couldn’t seem to think of anything to say.
“Are you all right?” Joe asked after a while.
“I’m fine,” I said. Because I was.
“Then why aren’t you talking?” he asked.
“I don’t need to talk,” I said. Because I didn’t.
“I want you to pack a suitcase and call your mother,” Joe said. “I think you need a break.”
So I drove the seven hours’ worth of gray concrete freeway up to north Texas ranch country, where my parents live in a little three-bedroom house on my brother’s produce farm.
Joe was right. This was safe territory for me. This was very safe. I knew just what I would find when I arrived. My older brother, whip-thin and weather-beaten, in his daily uniform of white shirt and blue jeans, would be out on one of the tractors he’s salvaged from garage sales. Or he might be on the phone discussing course loads because he’s also a computer science professor at a California university. The produce farm in Texas is just his hobby—a hobby that comes with backbreaking daily labor. He and my father put up almost every building on the farm, including the two-story air-conditioned workshop and garage.
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