The Anesthesia Game

by Rea Nolan Martin

  In the guest room, Syd says, “My stomach won’t settle down.” She burps, which turns into a medley of hiccups. The hiccups make her gag. And so on.

  After a few rounds of this, Syd looks up at Hannah and using air quotes, says, “If only she hadn’t left the hospital…”

  “No way!” says Hannah. “You belong right here.”

  “But I’m such a pain in the ass…”

  “You’re anything but that.” Hannah sits beside Syd, holding her hand as she drifts in and out of focus. Ten minutes later Hannah gets an idea and says, “I’ll be right back.”

  In the hallway, she peeks into the living room to be sure Mitsy is still out of pocket, or maybe even asleep, only to see through the picture window that her sister is halfway down the hill heading toward the paddock. Good. Now Hannah can take care of Syd’s nausea without interference. She runs up the front stairs to her office on the left and rummages through the desk drawers for the old cigar box with her bag of pot. Is it still there? She hasn’t had any in so long she isn’t sure, but there it is—drawer 3 in the back under the sticky pads. She rolls a quick joint, checking out the window to confirm Mitsy’s location. She’s leaning against the paddock fence feeding carrots to Daizee. Perfect.

  She grabs some matches and runs back down the stairs into Syd’s room. She opens the window a nudge and lights up then walks briskly back across the room and kicks the door shut.

  Syd’s eyes open wide. “Is that what I think it is?” she says.

  Hannah slides the bar on the lock. “Yep. I just hope it’s not too old to work on that nausea. It’s been up there a long time.” She lights it up, inhales just to get it going, and holds it out to Syd. “Sit up,” she says. “Do you need help?”

  Syd shimmies up. “I’m good.” She takes the joint, sucks in the smoke, holds it, and releases with a big cough.

  Hannah waits nervously for her to stop coughing. She doesn’t want the cough to bring on more retching. “Maybe just inhale a little less,” she tells Syd while she checks on Mitsy out the window.

  “Mom’s gonna kill us,” says Syd, chuckling. She hands the joint out to Hannah. “Your turn,” she says.

  “Oh no, sugar. I got it started, but that’s it for me. If something goes broke here, I’m the only one who can fix it. Your mother won’t even drive.”

  After the next toke, Syd visibly relaxes into the pillows. “Heavenly,” she says.

  “Yeah?” says Hannah. “For real?”

  Syd nods in slow motion. “For real.”

  A few minutes later, Hannah says, “Tummy?”

  “Nothing coming up,” Syd says. She draws a horizontal line in the air with her hand. “Just…all…chill.”

  “That quick, huh?” Hannah settles in at the bottom of the bed and massages Syd’s left foot. Nothing seems more important right now than this—Syd’s feet. When she finishes the left foot, she moves to the right. “Working out all the stress,” she says. “Maybe we should get a reflexologist out here for you.”

  “A what?”

  “A reflexologist. The feet are mapped out according to internal organs. I think the toes are the brain, but I can’t swear to it, tee hee.”

  “Toe brain,” says Syd real slowly. “I know a few of those.” Her eyes move left to right. “Dane might be one.”

  “Ha! I thought you two made up.”

  Syd shrugs. “We’ll see.”

  Twenty minutes later, Syd says, “Can I have some yogurt? I think I could eat some yogurt.” She stares ahead. “Or a milk shake? Something creamy and yummy.” She smacks her lips. “Or maybe a fajita.”

  Hannah chuckles. “Jonah stocked the fridge this morning, so let me take a look.” She stands and slides the lock open. Her hand on the knob, she says, “Be right back with culinary delights.”

  Syd says, “Hannah Banana.”

  “Oh my God, remember when you used to call me that?” Hannah says, turning back to Syd. “You were so adorable with those chubby little dimpled legs and crazy curly brown hair…”

  “If only she hadn’t lost her hair…” says Syd mischievously.

  “If only she hadn’t lost her wig!” says Hannah, and they both explode laughing.

  “It’s not really funny, but…” laughs Syd. “Ha ha ha!” Her eyes are tearing in a good way. “But I can’t stop!”

  “Laugher is the best medicine!” says Hannah. “Not to be trite, but it’s true!” She points to the door. “As I said, be right back!”

  Syd throws the blankets off and says, “I’m coming with you. I want to see that refrigerator for myself.”

  “Really?” says Hannah. She moves back to help Syd up, holding her at the waist.

  She opens the door to the hall at the same time Syd says, “I wish you were my mother,” in a dreamy voice.

  There’s a gasp in the hall and they both lean out to see Mitsy a few feet down the hall staring blankly back at them.

  “She didn’t mean that,” says Hannah. “Did you, cookie?”

  “Mean what?” says Syd, giggling. “Look at me! I’m standing!” She takes a few steps down the hall. “The girl can walk!” she says.

  Hannah looks at Mitsy piercingly, placing her index finger on her lips. Drop it! is the message.

  Mitsy stands back as Syd passes her. Hannah can see her sister trying to pull it all in, every resource she has. “Feeling better?” she asks Syd stiffly.

  “Hell, yeah!” says Syd.

  “What’s that smell?” says Mitsy, sniffing. She eyes Hannah suspiciously. “What is that? What’s going on?”

  “Just some nausea medication,” Hannah says, grinning, and Syd throws her head back laughing.

  Mitsy follows them down the hall and through the living room to the kitchen. “Nausea…” Mitsy says, her eyes registering the download. “Not…? You didn’t…? Is that a marijuana cigarette I smell?”

  Syd laughs out loud. “You should totally have some, Mom.”

  “I most certainly…”

  “Hell, I could’ve gotten a prescription if I had the time to drive an hour to the dispensary,” says Hannah. “This is a totally legit med.”

  “This could have negative consequences…” Mitsy says. “On her lungs…and taken in combination with other drugs…you have no idea…”

  Hannah whispers into her sister’s ear. “Lighten up. Okay? We’re laughing. Have you noticed? Your daughter is happy. And she wants to e-a-t.”

  In the kitchen, Syd opens the refrigerator door and considers the contents. First she pulls out a bottle of milk, then opens the freezer and grabs a quart of vanilla fudge ice cream. “Jonah has great taste in food,” she says.

  “Jonah has great taste in everything,” says Hannah.

  Mitsy shakes her head at Hannah. “You’re a teenager,” she says. “When the hell are you going to grow up?”

  Hannah pulls a couple of spoons out of the cutlery drawer and digs into the ice cream. “If growing up means paralyzing myself with misery like you, then never, I hope.”

  “You got my daughter high?!” Mitsy says, shaking her head. “And you’re high too!”

  “No, I’m actually not, but right about now I wish I were.”

  Syd pours a pint of milk into the blender and reaches behind her for the ice cream, which Hannah hands her. She dumps a few tablespoons of ice cream into the blender. “Don’t be so stuck-up, Mom,” she says. “Life is short. Very short, as a matter of fact.”

  Mitsy’s expression freezes. Even Hannah can’t find the words.

  The whirring blender fills the void. Syd reaches up into the cabinet for some chocolate chips.

  “Better check the expiration date on those,” Hannah says. “I didn’t even know they were up there.”

  Syd backs up, leans against the counter. “I’m a little weak still,” she says.

  Mitsy places her arm around her daughter and walks her to the table, sits her in a chair. “You okay?” she says.

  Syd nods. “Mom?”

  “Yes?”
r />   “I just want you to have fun. Why can’t you ever have fun?”

  Mitsy sighs deeply and sits on the chair next to Syd.

  “You’re not living,” Syd says. “You’re half dead.”

  “But…”

  “She’s right and you know it,” says Hannah as she pours the milkshakes into three glasses, squirting chocolate syrup on top and stirring.

  Mitsy bites her lip. “I’m just…conservative. Square.”

  Syd laughs. “Square! Really? Hahahaha!” She smacks the table.

  “What do you want me to do, Sydney?” Mitsy asks in earnest. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it. I just want my daughter back.”

  Hannah places the milkshakes in front of them and sits across from Syd. They’re surrounded on two sides by windows featuring views of the front yard and carriage house. Hannah can’t believe how comforted she is, even under the circumstances, having company again in this empty house. Especially under the circumstances, she should say. The house is useful. She’s useful!

  “I just want you to take one tiny little toke of the joint,” Syd says, pinching her fingers. “Please?” She grits her teeth in expectation.

  Hannah raises her eyebrows. Will she? The suspense is killing her.

  “Oh, Syd, I don’t know. No, I’m sorry. I just can’t. Somebody has to be responsible in this bunch.”

  “That would be me,” says Hannah.

  “I,” says Mitsy. “That would be ‘I’.”

  “See, that’s exactly why you have to smoke dope, Mom,” says Syd. “You treat everybody like they’re inferior.”

  Mitsy’s eyes bulge in genuine surprise. “I do?”

  Hannah nods. “The child speaks truth.”

  “And anyway, Aunt Hannah’s the writer, not you. She can twist language around anyway she wants to. She’s the boss of it.”

  Hannah chuckles. “If only she hadn’t smo…”

  “No!” Syd holds her hand up in protest. “Don’t say it!”

  “What?” says Mitsy. “Say what?”

  Syd starts on a giggle spree that infects every living thing in her radius, including her reluctant mother. Hannah’s heart might pop, not just because Syd is enjoying herself like this, but because Hannah hasn’t seen her sister smile in about ten years. Just this one unexpected joy in the middle of dead-on heartbreak makes life worth living. A crystal clear waterfall in the middle of hell, just exactly when you think you won’t survive another minute.

  When Syd comes up for air, she says, “Smoke the joint, Mom. It will relax you. Seriously.” She nods like a charming wide-eyed bobble doll. “I swear. Okay?”

  Mitsy stares down at the milkshake then out the window at the fruit trees she and Hannah planted so many years ago. When they were carefree! “Will it make you happy, Sydney?”

  “Yes, Mommy, it will!”

  Hannah sees what this does to Mitsy. “Mommy.” How it corrals every memory of childbirth, motherhood, innocence and the wide open world that was once available to her and Syd individually and as a pair. She nods slowly, hypnotized.

  “Okay then,” she finally says, choking-up. “I’ll do it.”

  Sydney

  “Ha ha, Mom, what a stoner! I can’t believe you smoked a joint.”

  “Neither can I,” says her mom. Leaning forward, elbows on the table, she rubs her temples. “To be honest, I don’t understand why people do this to themselves.”

  “They do it to relax,” says Hannah. “Think of it as a glass of wine without the calories.”

  “It makes you stop thinking about unimportant things,” says Syd.

  “It makes you stop thinking about important things, too,” her mom says woozily. “I couldn’t even order a pizza right now.”

  “Hooray!” says Hannah. “Just open up that moldy brain cave and air it out a little. It’s about time.”

  “Hey I know!” says Syd. “Let’s dye Mom’s hair!”

  “No way!” says Mitsy, guarding her head. “Leave my hair alone.”

  “Please, Mom? I want to see you look your age again, please?”

  Syd watches transfixed as her mom runs her fingers through her dull gray hair, which has grown a bit in the last couple of months since she’s been living in her bedroom. You’d think hair wouldn’t grow in the dark, but it does. It’s not a plant. It sits about ear-length right now, and if you ask Syd, that’s worse than shaved. It looks like she’s wearing a shitty bathing cap, or just a cut-out box. No style at all. If Syd had hair, it would have pizzazz. People aren’t grateful enough for their hair, she thinks. It’s a terrible thing to waste.

  “Come on!” says Syd. “I can’t color my own hair. I wanna color yours!”

  Hannah hangs back. She won’t weigh-in for some reason. Syd’s obviously on her own with this coercion, which is fine. She’s not dropping it. “You must have some hair color upstairs, right Aunt Hannah?”

  “I do,” Hannah says in a fake bored voice, as if she could care less. She slurps the bottom of her milkshake nonchalantly.

  Mom frowns suspiciously. “This sounds like a set-up. Is this a set-up?”

  “Not at all,” says Hannah. “I’ve always got heaps of hair dye and makeup lying around. It’s my hobby, if you haven’t noticed.”

  “In any case, the answer is no,” Mom says. She taps the table. “Isn’t it good enough that you got your mother high, Sydney? On an illegal drug?”

  Syd rolls into helpless laughter. “The best, Mom, seriously,” she says, catching her breath. “I never thought you’d loosen up enough…”

  At this, her mother raises her eyebrows and Syd doesn’t know what’s coming. They wait. Finally her mother says, “Fine. Do whatever you want with me.”

  Hannah grimaces. “Nobody meant any harm, Mits.”

  Her mom shakes her head. “No, I mean it. Turn me into something happy-go-lucky. Just do it. Loosen me up.”

  “Really?” say Hannah and Syd at the same time.

  Hannah jumps up. “I was trying out a few colors before I flew up to Connecticut. Pretty sure I have a box of Garnet, Rosewood, and Amethyst Brown.”

  “What color is your hair now?” Syd asks Hannah.

  “Rosewood,” Hannah says.

  “Okay then Amethyst Brown,” says Syd. “Mom shouldn’t have the exact same color as you.”

  Mom frowns. “As long as…it’s not purple. Is it purple? Amethyst…sounds. Purple.” Her words are all slow and drawn out.

  Hannah shakes her head. “Not purple,” she says. “Softer auburn with subdued highlights. Sophisticated, but not stuffy. Modern.”

  Mom rolls her eyeballs as Hannah disappears like a magic trick. While she’s gone, Sydney says, “You’re the best, Mom. I mean it.”

  Her mother places her hand over Syd’s hand and nods. “No, you are,” she says. “You’re the best. This is the least I can do.”

  Syd beams contentment. It’s a day she’ll never forget—the day her mom quit her job as manager of the universe. The day her mother climbed into the hellhole with her, settled in, and surrendered to whatever fun could be had in a pit of pythons. You’d be surprised! Today, her mother became a member of her team, and this alone might cure them both.

  Hannah returns with the box of hair color and gets her mother on a bar stool by the sink. She works with hot pink rubber gloves like a pro. Syd is so happy all of a sudden she hardly knows herself. Who is she? She could be anywhere doing anything. Floating on a sailboat in Tahiti—Dane feeding her peeled grapes while Z swabs the deck. She can’t think of a single thing she’d rather be doing than watching her stoned mother get her hair dyed, ha ha! She breaks into a helpless fit of giggles that gets everyone else going with her. Her mother tries hard to suppress it, which makes it even funnier.

  “I’m glad this is all so amusing, Sydney,” she says, even though she looks equally amused, or bemused, whatever. Mused!

  Syd’s phone buzzes and she pulls it out of her pocket. “Thinking of u,” is the text from Z. She returns the phone to her pocket
. What’s she gonna say, “Thinking of you on your hands and knees scrubbing the deck of a schooner in Tahiti while Dane and I spit grape seeds at the fish?” No, she won’t do it. All she wants is to watch her mother’s transformation. That’s it. She’s never occupied a moment so completely in her entire life.

  After dyeing Mom’s hair, Hannah rinses it via the sink hose and wraps it in a towel. From where Syd sits, the wet hair does have a little bit of a purplish highlight to it, which tickles her silly. Just one more volcanic guffaw to rein-in. She doesn’t know how she’ll stop laughing if after all this hoopla her mother ends up looking like Barney. But Hannah looks satisfied with the results, so maybe it’ll be okay. Hannah’s an obvious genius at fashion and style. She plugs in the hairdryer and pulls out a round brush to blow out the victim’s hair.

  “You should’ve been a Hollywood makeup artist,” Syd says dreamily.

  “Let’s wait and see,” says Hannah. “You haven’t seen the final reveal.”

  “Can you get me a mirror, Hannah?” says her mother.

  “Oh no, not yet. No way!” Hannah says. “Not until your hair is all brushed out and we’ve got you made up.”

  “And dressed in a designer outfit,” adds Syd.

  “Wait a minute,” says her mom. “I said okay to the hair, not the rest of it.”

  “Just do it, Mom,” says Syd. “You’re already this far in.” She releases a big yawn.

  “Hey, cookie,” says Hannah. “You getting tired? Let’s get you installed in the living room and we’ll finish up in there. You’ll be more comfortable.”

  Syd can’t argue with that. Her body wants to go horizontal. On their way in, she loses her balance slightly and grabs the doorjamb. Her tee-shirt rises and her loose fitting pajama pants swing low on her hips.

  “What’s that, Sydney?” says her mother in a high voice.

  “What?” says Syd. “Sorry, I gotta go lay down.”

  On their way into the living room, her mom says, “Is that a tattoo, Sydney? I thought I saw a tattoo on your buttock.”

  Syd sits down on the yellow couch, curls up in the corner and gathers the soft aqua lap blanket to her chin. “I don’t know,” she says. “What did it look like?”