“I read the new pages,” I say, once he is finished, the plane slowly easing forward, the propeller humming along.
“And?”
“And… they were good.” The words seem too small. “Really good.”
The corner of his mouth lifts a little, a deep dimple popping out amid all of his stubble. “I’m glad you liked them. I was worried it was too—”
“No.” I look out the window, toward the hangar. “It was good.”
He passes me a headset and pulls on his own, his voice deep and competent as he speaks to the traffic controller. I take the excuse and close my eyes, working through his new content in my mind. We are working in chronological fashion, a way which, on its own, will probably bore the reader. Later, Pridgen will restructure it, put in hints of the future, and change up the structure of the delivery. But for now, what’s important is that Mark sees and tells the events in the way I experienced them. The reader needs to understand the emotions I felt, the catalysts and reasoning behind the decisions, and the mistakes I made.
They’ll still judge me, despite the three hundred page explanation. But, maybe some of the millions of readers will understand me.
Once we are airborne, the wings leveling off, Mark’s hands relaxing on the throttle, I pull out my laptop and start to write, picking up where Mark’s last content had left off—Bethany’s tenth month of life. And for an hour, Mark silent, the hum of the engine my backdrop… I dive deeper than just an intro. I relive a moment, and put it all on paper myself.
“I’m not your patient.” I cross my arms so she can’t see my hands shake. This is the problem with having a mother who’s a shrink. You can’t do anything without it being analyzed, criticized, and classified.
“You need to talk to someone you can trust, Helena. If you don’t talk to me, then Simon will call another doctor. And I won’t be able to protect you from their opinion.”
I dig my nails into the flesh of my palm. “I don’t need protection from an opinion. And Simon can’t force me to speak to anyone. I am fine, everything is fine—and I’d like you to leave. Now.” She has to go. I need her to. I can feel the buildup—the transition from irritability to anger to rage. The rage is almost here—and I fight the urge to physically shove her out the door.
“Explain to me what happened.”
I look away. She won’t understand. Not this woman, who is always so in control of everything. The woman who has never erred in her motherly duties, never skipped a beat over handling things, without the assistance of a man.
Meanwhile, I’ve fallen apart because of baby formula. Clumping baby formula. I’d moved it to a bowl, had gotten out the smallest whisk we had, and had beaten the mixture until my palms blistered. Still, clumps. Clumps and I DIDN’T HAVE TIME FOR THEM. When I’d tried to pour the formula into the bottle, it had clung to the lip of the bowl and dripped back, getting all over the counter, another waste of time. I’d taken out my frustration on my cell phone first, a forceful and intentional slam of iPhone against the kitchen floor, the job finished by the heel of my shoe. I’d stared down at the cracked screen and felt no relief. I’d gone for the glass bowl next—its crash much more satisfying, the noise delightfully loud until Bethany had reacted, her eyes pinching shut, her mouth opening, a shrill scream pealing out. I eyed her, her feet kicking, one sock missing, her body bucking against the high chair. Gripping the bottle of formula in my hand, I’d attempted to take a deep, uninterrupted breath.
It was clear what should be done. Crying babies should be picked up and soothed, rocked and fed and burped. The issue was that I wasn’t the woman to do that job. I was a woman who hadn’t written in four days, with a deadline looming, who had barely slept in the last forty-eight hours. And Bethany NEVER SLEEPS. She NEVER STOPS. She CONSTANTLY NEEDS, NEEDS, NEEDS. And I couldn’t deal with it. Not when I had another family that needed me. John and Maria and their special-needs daughter, a beautiful autistic girl who hides a secret from them. Their story was waiting on me, needing a conclusion, one built from words that WOULDN’T COME because of my stupid pregnancy and screwed-up hormones and why did I do this for him? Why did I ruin everything for a man who waltzes off to a job that doesn’t even cover our car payments? He doesn’t even think about my work. My worlds. My sanity. And this—she—wouldn’t stop crying, wouldn’t stop chipping away at all of that.
“Bethany was fine.” I don’t want to explain myself to my mother. I should be able to run my own house without being questioned and judged. “Simon overreacted.”
“She went to the hospital, Helena.”
Frustration bulges at my seams. “He overreacted. She didn’t need to go to the hospital.” She hadn’t. Even the doctor said so, though he’d couched it in the most evasive way possible. Bethany had been dehydrated. She had thrown the bottle of formula down on the floor and screamed out the moisture in her body. If she had just held the bottle, or stopped screaming—it would have all been fine. Instead, in those hours I had left her alone, she’d worked herself into a fit.
“How many words did you write?” The question is a cold accusation, spoken by a woman who knows me well. 3,008. The most in months. I couldn’t stop once that started. It was impossible.
“I don’t know,” I lie, turning away, my eyes catching on the clock. An hour we’ve wasted on this discussion. An hour of piling blame, worsening my guilt, a waste of precious time I could have spent writing. This evening is a rare opportunity for productivity, Simon carting Bethany away with a glare, his face haughty, as if he is punishing me, as if this would teach me. HA. Please don’t throw me in the briar patch, Briar Rabbit. Pretty, pretty, pretty please.
“It was four hours, Helena. Four. Hours.” She sticks the final words as if she’s a gymnast nailing a landing, as if those two syllables prove anything. She doesn’t understand I was doing Bethany a favor, leaving her down in the kitchen while I went upstairs, my office door shut, music turned up to drown out her screams. I left so I wouldn’t pick her up. I left so I wouldn’t break her, like I had the phone, like I had the bowl. I left her to protect her.
“Helena.” Something in her voice makes me turn back. “I think you need some time away.”
Mark looks up from the laptop, his body relaxed in the kitchen chair, some of Debbie’s chicken and rice ignored beside him. His face is calm, as if he didn’t just read something painful, something that stamps UNFIT MOTHER in giant font across my forehead. “Some time away?” he asks.
I pull my hair up, twisting it into a knot, the skin on the back of my neck damp with sweat. “She meant a mental institution.” Mother hadn’t called it that, of course. She’d proposed it as a postpartum treatment center, the sleek brochure touting massage therapists, group classes, and non-stop counseling.
“Did you go?” Mark reaches forward, picking up a fork and casually scooping up a bit of rice, his face almost bored in its serenity. If he hadn’t found success as a writer, he could have been a therapist. The calm tone, the lack of judgment… he’s better than Mother ever was.
“I didn’t fight her. I wanted to go. The idea of weeks away from Simon and Bethany—with no distractions—it sounded like heaven. And I thought…” My words drop off for a beat, and I try to find the right words. “I thought that maybe Simon would understand, once he had to deal with her all of the time.” But he hadn’t. Not perfect Simon. I came back eight weeks later to find a happy baby and husband, both of them working in seamless concert—no need for me at all. In those two months, my mother had also wormed herself into my home—her grocery lists tacked to the fridge, her magazines on my coffee table, new post-natal vitamins and organic foods stocked in our pantry.
In those eight weeks away, I finished my novel, but I lost them both. The next five years were a battle to regain my footing, my marriage, and our family.
A battle I lost.
MARK
She looks good, almost better than she did two weeks
ago, when she’d first swung open her door and scowled at him. Part of it is the sun. Just those two days in Memphis, and she’s got a bit of a tan, freckles dotting the surface of that pale skin, her nose a little pink. He hadn’t thought to give her sunscreen, hadn’t thought about the disease and how it changes your skin’s fragility. But sunburnt or not, she looks better. Her shoulders have lost their hunch, her eyes burn with attitude, and she even—on rare occasions—laughs. With Ellen, he used to get a laugh just from smirking at her. But with Helena, each laugh is like the final line of a difficult chapter. Exhausting to get to, but worth the hours of headache when it finally comes.
They are so different, Ellen and Helena. Not only in their personalities, but in how they handled their prognosis. Ellen had fought it in every way she could. Helena… Helena doesn’t seem to care that she is going to die. She doesn’t seem to have fear, or dread, or any emotion whatsoever. The cancer, the medicine—it is all an annoyance to her, something to step over in her path to get to the next page, the next chapter, the next scene. Everything in her is focused on this book.
Her head droops against the office couch, and he considers the pillow, which has shifted out of place underneath her neck. She hadn’t wanted a pillow. She had told him, in the sort of tone you’d use on a disobeying dog, that she wouldn’t be sleeping. “We need to work,” she had chided, shoving her laptop open, her settle into the couch almost defiant. “We have to catch up from this weekend. I’m not going to be sleeping.”
He had grabbed the pillow anyway, ignoring her hostile glare when he’d stuffed it under her head. Now, a low snore drags through her open mouth, the sound waking her up, and she starts in her seat. “I’m not sleeping,” she calls out loudly, though he sits just two feet away, hunched over the desk. “Oh-kay,” he calls back, as if he can’t care less, his pen moving across the crossword puzzle page, filling in the boxes with neat and careful letters. A-S-P-H-A-L-T. Before he finishes the next clue, she has fallen asleep again, another soft sound coming out of her open mouth.
He closes the crossword book and sits for a moment, watching her. Two weeks together, and they’ve finished the first seven chapters. She’s refused to give him a full outline, so it’s hard to tell how far into the story they’ve gone. At this pace, they should be fine, finishing the manuscript and submitting it to publishers before she gets too bad. He’ll get paid and be back in Memphis by Thanksgiving, spending Christmas with Maggie while Helena—his chest grows tight, like it hasn’t for a long time. There, in the recesses of his chest, the yearn for a drink. He reopens the crossword and stares at the rows of blocks and blanks, dark specks blurring as he struggles to focus.
Adult Insect. 12 across. Five letters.
I-M-A-G-O. Her, alone, bent over a bucket, vomiting. Snow outside, her struggling to walk, to fix herself something to eat.
He steels himself against the visual. She’s a wealthy woman. She can afford nurses, twenty-four-hour care. Kate will come, Kate will be here, surely. It won’t be like that.
One of her hands curls against the white fabric of her sweatshirt and he watches it, the thin fingers, the blue veins along its back. Such tiny hands to create such huge worlds.
He looks back down at the page, but his mind is blank.
I’m worse. I didn’t think I could be worse, but my body is an asshole. When I roll over on the couch, I feel my stomach heave. When I close my eyes, the room spins. Everything aches. Everything tastes terrible. I am freezing, yet I can see the damp stains underneath Mark’s armpits and the sweat dotting his forehead when he brings me hot tea. When I made it to the bathroom, I looked at the thermostat. It’s eighty-three degrees in here. My teeth shouldn’t be chattering. I shouldn’t have goosebumps along my arms.
“Here.” He moves in front of me, a blanket in hand. He covers my chest, and I watch a bead of sweat run down his neck. I don’t need his help. I’m not an invalid. I am perfectly capable of getting my own blanket and tea. I can fight this bug, or whatever this is, without his help. He should be writing. One of the two of us should be productive right now. “Open up.” He has a thermometer in hand, and he’s forgotten the clear disposable cover, the one that keeps the tip free from germs.
“It needs a cover.” I sound pathetic, the words scratchy and weak.
“We ran out. I’ll grab some tomorrow.”
I pin my lips together and he smiles in response. “Open your damn mouth.”
Bethany, her lips in a tight line, eyes wide at Simon. The dental floss stretching out from her lips, the end of it in his fingers. Open up, Bethany. It won’t hurt. Just a quick tug.
That night, their quiet slip into her room. Glitter dusted across her pillow. The silver dollar replacing the tiny tooth.
I open my mouth and close my eyes, trying to hold onto the memory, the sound of her squeal when she discovered the silver dollar, the way she had run into our bedroom and crawled in between us, glitter sparkling off her hair. She had laid back and held the coin up in the air. She had called it magic, and Simon had cut off my rebuttal with a warning look. “Yes,” he’d agreed, his head settling on the pillow beside hers. “It’s magic.”
The dirty thermometer pokes at the underside of my tongue and I reach up, taking it from Mark and closing my mouth around it. I watch his hands as they move to his hips, hanging there. He needs to be writing, yet he has nothing to write. I have to tell him something, anything. I have to give him the next story, yet all I seem capable of is sleep.
It beeps and I relax my jaw, passing the stick over to Mark, who brings it up to his face. “Ninety-nine point nine.”
“I told you I was fine.”
“Your chills say otherwise.”
“I’m fine.” I say it louder, and he raises an eyebrow at me. I bet his wife handled her death better. I bet she wore makeup and cracked jokes and was one of those annoyingly happy individuals. She probably didn’t sweat him out of the house or snap at him. “Go back to your hotel.”
“I will in a bit.” He’s been saying that for two days. If I knew where my phone was, I’d call Kate and complain. I’d have her come, purely as an excuse to get him to leave. But I don’t know where my phone is. I don’t know, right now, much of anything. “Drink some water.” He holds out a bottle and I take it. I take enough to wet my tongue, but little else. Nothing is staying down in my stomach. My body, like my mind, hates me.
My flu gives up, and two days later, I am able to eat a real meal. Kate comes to town, and brings a Scrabble board. We play in the kitchen, and I beat them handily. When they leave, it is together. I watch his hand on the small of her back, and feel a faint pull of longing. It’s been so long since I was touched. Caressed. Cared about. There had been a kiss between Simon and I, the morning that he died—a brief peck on his way out the door. In that kiss, had there been love? It’s hard to remember, my memories tainted by everything else that happened that day.
October comes, and I outline, write an intro, and tell Mark about Bethany’s second year. It was better. Less crying. Less frustration. Her words grew from day to day, hesitant pronunciations, a wide grin flashing at our praise. Mark and I sit on the back porch and watch the last leaves fall off the trees, and I tell him about our walks, how Simon and I would take her hand, and swing her into the air, the toes of her sneakers flashing at us before she landed. Mark builds a fire in the living room and I describe the forts we built, all over the house, sheets stretched across dining room chairs, and tucked under couch legs, flashlights lighting the interiors, a sea of pillows inside.
I lie on the couch, watching the slow spin of the fan, and tell him about her singing, her tiny voice filling the bathroom, my fingers working berry shampoo into her hair. Sing, Mommy. She had held out an imaginary microphone and I had leaned in close, wiping away my hair with a sudsy hand. Paired with her voice, mine sounded huge and deep, our melodies echoing off the tiled walls. Before she’d get out, she’d dr
aw smiley faces in the fogged glass of the shower door.
I wake up and hear Mark’s hushed voice, his phone to his ear, his back to me as he paces through the hall. He says his daughter’s name, and then laughs at something she says. I close my eyes and float back down into nothing.
The days blur in a mix of pills and mounting exhaustion, and when I wake up, he has written two more chapters, moving us into Bethany’s happy days—her adorable time as a three-year-old. I read over his words, smile and nod, my pen scratching notes in the margins. I try to focus on those happy memories, those bright moments of her life, but I can’t enjoy any of it, not when I know what is coming up next.
Do we all live in such oblivion? I thought he loved me. I thought the ring on his finger meant something, that my taking of his last name bound us in some way. I thought, when he smiled down at me, when he reached over and cupped my face, his lips lowering to mine… I thought all of that is brick, solid and strong, the building blocks of a lifetime together.
The letter, folded over and tucked into the back pocket of his jeans, rescued in the moment before they drop into the washing machine, changes all of that. In that letter, in the moment I read her words… everything pure and lovely between us implodes.
I should have left him, right then. Maybe then, no one would have died.
“Who was she?” Mark passed the hot cocoa over, and I took it cautiously, watching the creamy liquid almost slosh over the rim. I lifted it to my lips and stole enough off of the top to reduce the risk of spillage.
“I haven’t had hot chocolate in forever,” I remarked, lifting the giant can of whipped cream and carefully dispensing a giant mound of it into the cocoa.
“Helena.” He leaned against the counter, his arms crossing. “Who was she?”
The Ghostwriter Page 16
