Lovely, Dark and Deep

by Amy McNamara

  “I don’t know, Mom.”

  I push my food around my plate. I’m disappointing her. I used to do what she asked. I was responsible, and she left me alone. It’s not that I didn’t want to be close to her, it’s just that I wanted to keep some things for myself. She has her ideas about how things should be. My life. How I should live it. So I started to tell her only the things she would want to know. We took a vacation together, every year, three weeks in August, then came back to our routine. She felt like an awesome parent, and I was almost out of there.

  “I read,” I say, finally. It sounds lame. Like I’m apologizing. Which I kind of am, I guess.

  She makes no effort to hide her dismay. Stiffens her back against it, gets even more erect if that’s possible, and resumes the tap, tap, tapping. Like she’s pushing some kind of button that will take care of things. Patch me back up again.

  “I work at the library. And I run.”

  “You read and you run. I see. That and this boy fills a day?”

  I nod. That’s why she’s here. I should save her the trouble, tell her not to worry. Cal. Us. It has to be over. I totally wrecked it. My stomach dives. I let out a breath. Maybe he’s called. Doubtful. Silence from his end of the world. Since he dropped me off.

  “Your father told me a little about your new friend,” she says, putting a perfectly forked leaf of lettuce into her mouth. “The architect’s son.”

  I stare at my asparagus, the fillet, the little winter salad. It looks like a mountain of food that will be a lot of work to choke down. Everything seems too hard. I want to call Cal but I can’t. I couldn’t take more rejection.

  “They used to live near us, you know, in the city. Harry Owen and his wife, before you were born. When we were all just starting out.”

  My heart races hearing her say his name. Like she could make him appear.

  “Their lives sure took a turn for the worse.”

  Big sigh. Lifts her wine glass.

  “Lives do that,” I say.

  I poke the fish with my fork. Poor fish. Too low on the food chain. I push it through its sauce. Lift a bite to my mouth. Chew.

  She looks at me long and hard. Here it comes. Something. I don’t know what, but I’m pretty sure I won’t like it.

  “Work with me just a bit, okay, darling? You’ve always been such a strong spirit, you get that from me.” She raises her glass and takes the smallest sip of wine, does a quick pat of her mouth with her napkin. “Wren, it’s not a good idea, right now, for you to—I want you to go see someone.”

  She’s looking at me with such tenderness I almost don’t hear what she’s saying.

  Then I do.

  Sink inside.

  “What are you talking about? What’s not a good idea? Someone?”

  She eyes me again, and I spot something like fear there a minute.

  “Fall in love in a place like this—before college, before—I think you’re in a precarious situation right now—I want you to talk to someone. Go see someone. If you’re going to stay up here awhile longer.”

  She won’t say it. Looks at her wine. Smoothes her already perfect hair.

  If she won’t say it, I will.

  “You think Cal is a step in the wrong direction and you want me to see a shrink.”

  I stab my asparagus.

  “You can’t just walk away from Amherst after you worked so hard to get in there.” It hisses out of her like a tired snake, the old argument. Brought back from the dead, my tremendous future, and now she thinks Cal’s the bad guy.

  “Mom. You have nothing to worry about on the Cal front,” I say, closing my eyes. “Came and went.” I try to breathe evenly. Keep my heart from doing its painful little trot.

  She takes in this bit of information without comment. Forges ahead on her mission.

  “Art schools, even, if you’re planning to go—I’ve been talking to people at RISD, your dad and I have—they could have taken you the end of this month. They’ll welcome you next September if you’d like. We just need to let them know our plans.” Sighs. “I won’t insist on Amherst if you’re sure, you’re positive it’s not right for you, even though I think it would be better to begin with a solid liberal arts foundation before you pursue other—”

  I cut her off.

  “Mom.”

  She ignores me.

  “Wren, it’s too early for you to set down roots—”

  This is so absurd, I snort, choke a little on the haddock.

  “You need to be a little bit more forward-looking.”

  Forward-looking. Laughable.

  “You can’t pass all your days staring into space. It’s not healthy. There is a time for grief, but now you need to move past it.”

  It’s terrible when you can tell you’re scaring your mother. If we weren’t out in public I would put my head down on the table. I can barely imagine getting through this evening, much less planning anything long-term. Looking forward. I just want to be alone. Remake the quiet mental space I had going until I met Cal.

  “. . . or we could find you a job,” she’s saying. “A real one. Another apprenticeship somewhere. Up here, if you insist. Something interesting. Something to give you some purpose, a challenge.”

  This room is stuffy. I’m sucking in all the wet breathy air everyone else is letting out. The steam droplets on the windows make me want to gag. I used to be a regular person. I miss her.

  “. . . sitting around idle like this.”

  She’s still talking.

  “It may be preventing you from moving on, in fact.”

  She holds her hand out for mine. I’ll cry if she touches me. I keep my hands on my lap. She looks resigned.

  “This is supposed to be the time of your life, Wren.”

  God, is she getting choked up? I will die now.

  “Your friends have moved on, are growing up. You can’t just sit it out.”

  Moved on.

  “Patrick’s not moving on, Mom,” I say, suddenly angry.

  I reach across the table and finish her wine in one swallow. Startles her.

  “Yes, well.” Sigh. “I’m so sorry about that. That can’t be helped.”

  She avoids my eyes. Like we’re discussing something better left unsaid. It has to stop. This conversation. I have to let her win. That’s how it goes. I fold just to end the conversation.

  She reaches across the table and pats my hand. Lingering near her empty wineglass. Caught.

  “But you can, move on.”

  And there it is. Her finale.

  I close my eyes. She thinks I need a challenge. If she only knew.

  She reaches into her purse and pulls out an envelope. Her heavy stationery. Slides it across the table.

  “I’ve done some research. Asked for recommendations. In there you’ll find the name of a psychiatrist at the university. Dr. Lang. He’s well-regarded. You have an appointment with him next week. He’s expecting you.”

  She folds her napkin, sets it near her plate. Her move’s played. We may still be sitting here at the table, but dinner’s over. I wonder if this is how she brokers deals at the hospital. I don’t touch the envelope.

  “Mom—”

  “There’s a check in there for you. You’ll need to start a bank account if you’re going to stay here awhile yet.”

  And there’s the concession. She’s letting me stay. She could be a strike breaker.

  “Put the money into an account and use it to pay Dr. Lang and for your expenses.”

  No fight. Just terrible conditions. I should have known.

  “Mom—” I try again, but I have no idea what to say.

  “Your dad knows people,” she says, “and I have a few contacts. Friends of friends. We can find you something, get you a real job somewhere. Something good to do during this gap year.”

  Gap year. That’s how we’re spinning it. Like it never happened.

  “We’ll get you a car so you can get yourself out of that house during the day and start liv
ing like a normal eighteen-year-old.”

  “I have a real job,” I say. “Dad was right about the library. It’s been good. Fine.” I’m a few paces behind her.

  Big sigh.

  “Why is it when you think it comes from your father, it’s a great idea, but when I suggest something, you shut me out? Your job”—her voice is a bit withering here—“at the library was my idea, not his. And when I first brought it up to you on the telephone, you didn’t take calls from me for three days. Mamie, your father hasn’t lifted a finger on your behalf in years. He pours all his energy into those students of his. You’ll forgive me if I find it a little difficult to see him as your hero now.”

  I drink some water. Can’t look at her.

  She takes a deep breath.

  “There must be some people around this town other than the unfortunate boy you may or may not be seeing.” She casts a quick, doubtful glance around the restaurant. “Kids your age who do things. Whatever it is you and your friends did when you were home.”

  “We did what you wanted us to do, then we had parties, Mom. We drank and had sex.”

  I say it to shock her. It’s mean of me. I feel mean all of a sudden. Enough to break what I thought was our agreement. I did largely what she wanted me to and she looked the other way. As long as I was careful. Careful. That turned out to be the big catch.

  Her face falls. Like she might cry. Then recomposes itself. It’s a little like watching a computer delete a file.

  Now she’ll back off the real-job business. I know a thing or two about negotiation—learned from the best.

  “So,” she says, trying for a brighter tone, “you’ll show up for the appointment with Dr. Lang and let me get someone in there to clean that house once in a while.” Like she’s not asking that much. Another negotiating trick.

  I look at the small candle on our table and try to breathe.

  “Wren,” she says, a little desperate, “I love you.”

  I blink back tears.

  “Let him help,” she says. “Dr. Lang. Let him help you find your way through.”

  Find my way through. What choice do I have? Any of us?

  According to Larkin that’s the kind of question that brings the priest and the doctor running.

  I had to give in. She loves me. And she can’t leave until she feels like she’s helped somehow.

  In her car on the way back to Dad’s, fallow fields and barrens flashing past my window, I imagine her running with Larkin’s doctor and a priest, her coat whipping behind her like wings. My mother, coming to map a route out of this dark place I’m in.

  way

  too

  fast

  I HOLD ON TO NOTHING. Patrick had this Zen Buddhist thing for awhile, walked around saying stuff like The only constant is change. Acting really mellow in the face of everything. I thought it was ridiculous. Disconnected. Lacked passion. Anyhow, it’s my new plan. Let everything slip through my open fingers like sand. Mom’s visit. Sand. The fight with Cal, sand. Cal in general—sand. The past, the present, the future, all shifting, I hold on to nothing.

  Dad’s back in the studio, keeping Nick busy and away from me. He thinks it’s funny, the whole Nick-following-me-on-my-run thing, but that’s because I don’t tell him how it ended. About Cal. I don’t want to talk about it. It’s over anyway. Sand.

  Nick tries to smile at me when we cross paths. I ignore him. He is, my dad says, when I tell him not to let Nick into the house, an exuberant student. Of course he is. God. Nick’s just the kind of person my mother’s hoping I’ll find and hang out with. Mr. Positive. If there’s a scene here, he’s found it.

  Other than my mother, my phone doesn’t ring. It’s okay. It didn’t seem real anyway. Me and Cal. Us. It wasn’t real. I repeat this to myself when I run. It wasn’t real. I practice all my old tricks. Run. Stare at the water. Clock in and out at the library. I’m too messed up to hold anything together with another person. I put aside my books and say these kinds of things to myself like poems. Out loud. And I can do that because I’m in the middle of nowhere, alone in the woods, alone in the empty library, alone, alone, alone.

  The day of my appointment with Dr. Lang comes way too fast. Mom calls me about fifty times to make sure I’m really truly going to keep it. Calls Dad, too, as added insurance that I’ll actually go. And now he wants Nick to drive me to it in his car. He thinks it’s safer than me taking the Wagoneer. There’s no way in hell I’m going to ride to any shrink appointment with Nick Bishop, though, so I stare at him cold, like one of his poker pals, and say if he wants me to go, he’s going to have to let me take the truck. It’s only an hour away, anyway. What could happen? Only I don’t say that last part because that’s just the kind of humor neither of my parents find funny.

  But I go there, in my head. Imagine it. A wreck in that truck would be grisly, that’s for sure. The heavy green-and-brown hood popped open, steam rising cinematically from the engine—me, who knows where, tossed through the windshield or something. I know it would be nothing like this. I know it would be unbelievably loud and smell like hot grinding metal and melting plastic, and I know how fast a person can slip out of himself. But that’s the part that might not be so bad. The truck would probably look beautiful to people passing by, in that desolate way a crashed car can. I shake it away. No way is he going to give me the keys if he so much as sniffs a thought like that on me before I leave.

  Another bright day. Too many of them up here. Bright and cold as hell. Spring’s a fever dream. We’re frozen in place under a high-up thin, blue winter sky. Cloud free. Sun flash off the water. Blinding snow. It’s all so present, demanding. People say New York’s intense. I don’t think they’ve really paid attention to nature. The crowded streets are a buffer in New York. They give you a different sense of scale. Up here I’m a speck on the lens of the vast, glaring natural world.

  “I have triple A,” my dad’s saying. Hands me his keys. “And your phone’s charged?” He’s overworried. I wonder if my mother’s back to filling his inbox with nervous speculation.

  Nick comes out of the studio. Perfect. I roll my eyes. He takes note.

  “Sorry to interrupt.” He’s lost some swagger. “But I know you’re driving in to an appointment,” he says. “You probably know where you’re going, but I thought . . . if you wanted to take my GPS, just as an added, you know, something?”

  He doesn’t even look at me when he says this. This is the first time we’ve spoken since I tore his head off in the woods. I scared him off good.

  I open my mouth to refuse, but my dad answers before I can.

  “Great idea, Nick,” he beams, reaching out for the device. “Then she’ll know exactly where she is if the truck stalls or something. Good thinking.”

  Like Nick’s a genius. I decide not to point out that almost everyone has maps on their phone. My dad doesn’t even bother charging his.

  Mr. Sunshine leans into the truck and plugs in his GPS.

  “It’s easy to use,” he says, stretching in through the door to start the engine. “After it finds a satellite, you just put in where you’re going, and it’ll talk to you the whole way.”

  “Great.” I lean against the side of the car. There goes my quiet ride.

  “Only if you want.” He pulls himself back out of the car and points to the little screen. “You can just read the directions if you’d rather.”

  He glances at me and leans in again to switch it to mute. Exuberant student.

  “Thanks,” I force myself to say. He’s trying to help. I wonder what my dad told him about my “appointment.” Nick turns back to the studio.

  “Dad.” I look at my worried father. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I know, I know.” He squeezes my arm like he hasn’t just been standing here sweating it out.

  “I’ve driven this thing before. I don’t know what you’re so stressed about.” I look at my sneakered feet.

  “I know you don’t want to go to this.” He takes a deep breath
and flings an arm around my shoulders. “I know your mom’s making you. Just be careful and take good care of yourself when you’re there, okay?”

  He’s worried about the actual appointment. Now his worry makes more sense. I find it comforting. An ally. Dad thinks the idea’s bogus too. Doesn’t really seem like his style to have another person tinkering around inside his head. I feel a surge of relief. Someone, at least, trusts me. Gets it. I don’t need fixing, I just need time.

  I give him a long hug and climb into the truck.

  “The tank’s full,” he calls out as I pull away from the house.

  Of course it is. And the tires are probably new and just filled. I open the window and wave until I curve away.

  The drive’s too short. It’s just me and the rhythm of the heavy tires on the road. Nothing like my luxury, curve-hugging ride with Cal. The Wagoneer shudders over sixty mph, so I go slowly, and still the miles fly by, carry me closer to having to talk about it. Closer to letting someone help me “find my way through.” A lock I don’t want to pick. A map I can’t follow. Not now. I think about skipping my appointment, chucking my phone out the window, slipping away. Drive to Canada, maybe, or at least until I run out of gas, but that would kill my parents with worry, and I don’t want to give them any more grief. It shouldn’t be so hard to live without messing up other people.

  Dr. Lang’s office is two rooms on the third floor of an old building on campus. Near the university’s department of architecture. Of course. Everywhere little reminders. I shake Cal from my head and take the stairs up. The office is near the end of a large hall. A door with his name on it pushes into a tiny airless waiting room, no receptionist, no window, no art, nothing. Like a holding cell. I swallow a huge urge to laugh, break out in an hysterical laughing fit. It’s just me, two chairs, and one of those enormous droop-leafed office plants that somehow manages to grow under windowless fluorescence. I sit and bounce my knee. No magazines. Who doesn’t put magazines in a waiting room?

  I check my watch. I’m on time. Low voices sound as if they’re approaching the dark wood door in front of me. And then it swings open. A young woman strides out, slips past me quickly, and leaves. Too fast for me to see her face. If she looked happy or not.