by Joy Fielding
“I didn’t mean to betray your trust.”
“You just didn’t care.”
“Of course I care.”
“Where did you go?” I asked.
Sara lowered her gaze to the floor, then slowly lifted her face back to mine. Even in the fading light, I could see the tears glistening in her eyes. She’s in pain, I thought, aching to take her in my arms. Despite everything, it was all I could do to keep my feet still, my hands at my sides. “A friend of mine is in trouble,” she began, and my hands instantly lost their desire to comfort, clenching into tight, angry fists. More lies, I thought, fury spreading like a cancer through my brain, all but blocking out her words. “She’s been seeing this guy her parents don’t like, and they want her to break up with him, and she wants to, but she’s afraid she might be pregnant.” A pause. A gulp. The threat of more tears. “She really needed someone to talk to. What could I do, Mom? It was pathetic. She was almost suicidal. She turned to me because she knows you’re a therapist, and I guess she thought that maybe some of your wisdom might have rubbed off on me, that I’d be able to help her.”
I gasped at the sheer wonder of how her mind worked, the speed with which it concocted these convoluted stories, her effortless ability to suck me into each elaborate scenario, flatter me into becoming at least partly responsible. After all, if I weren’t a therapist, none of this would have happened. If it hadn’t been for my profession, my expertise, my wisdom, Sara wouldn’t have been dragged into this mess, she wouldn’t have had to skip out on the Sperlings, she wouldn’t have had to lie. “And were you able to help her?” I asked, continuing the charade.
“I think so.” She smiled, relaxed her guard. “Anyway, I’m really sorry I had to lie. But I did manage to get some studying done anyway. I think I’m going to do really well on this test.”
“You studied?” I asked. “Without any books?”
“What do you mean, without books? I had my books with me.” She patted her knapsack in confirmation.
“Your books are in your closet,” I said, tired of the charade.
“What?”
“Your books—they’re in your closet. You want me to get them?”
“No, I don’t want you to get them.” Sara’s voice swept across the house like a broom. “Who said you could go into my room?”
“Your grandmother has been using that room,” I began, but she didn’t let me finish.
“What were you doing snooping around in my closet?”
“I wasn’t snooping.”
“God, Mom, how can you expect me to respect you when you don’t show me any respect?”
“I show you plenty of respect.”
“How? By sneaking into my room? By rifling through my things?”
“I did not sneak into your room. I did not rifle through your things.”
“What were you doing in my closet?”
“This is not about me,” I reminded her, trying to regain control.
“The minute I leave this house, you’re in my room, snooping around, calling the Sperlings, checking up on me. You call that trust? You call that being honest? You’re such a hypocrite.”
“Watch it,” I warned.
“What do you want from me?” she demanded, as Larry had demanded earlier. “I’ve told you the truth. I didn’t want to. It meant betraying a confidence, but I told you anyway.”
“You told me nothing.”
“I was with my girlfriend.”
“The same girlfriend who collects empty cigarette packages?”
“What? What are you talking about?” Concern softened the angry lines around her eyes and mouth. “Mom, are you all right?”
“I know where you were, Sara,” I said, my voice filled with so much rage, humiliation, and disappointment, it wobbled. “I know you weren’t with any pregnant suicidal girlfriend. I know you were with my sister. I know you went to her goddamn wedding.”
The room fell suddenly silent. If I expected more tears, apologies, pleas for forgiveness, I had the wrong child. Sara stared at me with undisguised contempt. “If you knew all along where I was,” she said, her voice low, firm, resolutely unapologetic, “then why this stupid charade? Who’s really the liar here, Ms. Therapist?”
“Don’t you dare talk to me that way.”
“Then stop all these stupid games.”
Frustration froze my tongue. It lay fat, heavy in my mouth. I should have listened to Larry, gone with him to the movies, dealt with Sara after we got home, Larry at my side. I was too tired to deal with her alone, and Sara was much too wily an opponent. Everything Larry said had been right.
“I’m going to my room,” Sara said.
“You’re sleeping in the den,” I told her, surprising both of us.
“What?”
“Grandma has your room. I don’t think it would be wise to move her. She’s confused enough.” This was probably true, although I hadn’t given the matter any previous thought.
“Fine,” Sara said. She swayed toward the den.
“And while you’re there,” I continued, unable to stop myself despite my best intentions, despite my years of professional training and wisdom, “you might give some thought as to whether you really want to be a part of this family anymore.”
“What?” The look on Sara’s face told me she thought I’d lost my mind. “What on earth are you jabbering about now?”
“As of this moment, all privileges are suspended.”
“What?”
“You heard me. No more privileges.”
“You give a dog privileges,” Sara shot back. “People have rights.”
We have rights too, I heard Larry say.
“No more allowance,” I continued, fueled by her protest. “No more going out on weekends. For the rest of the school year, you’re either at school or at home,” I said, repeating Larry’s words.
“Go to hell,” Sara said succinctly.
“No,” I said. “You’re the one who’ll be looking for new accommodations. You either play by the rules of this household or you find somewhere else to live. It’s as simple as that.”
Sara looked me straight in the eye. “Fuck you,” she said.
In the next instant, I watched myself literally fly across the room at Sara, my feet off the floor, my arms out-stretched. I landed almost on top of her, my fists falling like hammers across the back of her head, her neck, her shoulders, any part of her they could find. Sara screamed, tried to escape, her hands reaching up to protect herself from my blows. We were both screaming and crying, as my fists continued to pummel her flesh.
“Stop it, Mom!” she was screaming. “Stop!”
I pulled back in absolute horror, stared into Sara’s startled, tear-stained face. “Sara, I’m so sorry,” I began.
“Fucking bitch,” she said.
Without thinking, I hauled back and slapped her hard across the face, so hard the palm of my hand stung, and the sound echoed throughout the house. I watched a torrent of angry wet tears wash the years from Sara’s face. The teenager became the adolescent, then the child, then the infant at my breast. My baby, I thought, as she pulled herself up to her full Amazonian height and slapped me right back.
I stared at my older daughter in astonishment, my cheek, my insides, on fire. “If you ever hit me again,” I told her slowly, my voice surprisingly calm, “then you’re out of here.”
“You hit me first,” she protested.
“If I ever hit you again,” I continued without missing a beat, “then you’re out of here.”
“What? That’s not fair.”
“Maybe not, but it’s my house.”
“You’re crazy,” Sara started screaming. “You know that? You’re crazy.”
It was around this time that Larry brought my mother and Michelle home.
“She’s crazy,” Sara was yelling, as Michelle cradled my mother in the front foyer. “I’m going to call the police. I’m going to call Children’s Aid.”
“What happen
ed?” Michelle asked, temporarily abandoning my mother to come to my aid, eyes shooting daggers at her sister.
“Oh, here she is,” Sara intoned. “Little Miss Perfect.”
Somehow, Larry managed to settle us all in our rooms, as a referee manages to restore order in the ring, returning the combatants to their respective corners. He calmed my mother, reassured Michelle, tended to Sara’s invisible bruises, made sure everyone was breathing normally. Eventually, the house fell silent, grew dark.
“Are you all right?” Larry asked later, climbing into bed beside me.
I lay on my side, staring at the fuzzy glow from the moon through the bedroom curtains. “No,” I said.
It was as simple as that.
Chapter 26
Don’t feel guilty,” Larry advised me often over the course of the next few days.
But, of course, I did feel guilty. How could I not? I’d hit my child, not once, but repeatedly. I’d used my fists on her back and shoulders, my open palm on her face. That beautiful face, I thought. How could I have slapped it?
“You were provoked. She had it coming,” Larry said.
And that was true. I was provoked; she did have it coming.
That still didn’t make it right.
“You taught her that she can push people only so far,” Larry said.
“The only thing I taught her is that I can’t control my temper.”
“Stop being so hard on yourself, Kate.”
“I’m the adult in this equation.”
“She’s seventeen,” he reminded me. “She’s six feet tall.”
“I’m her mother.”
“You don’t call your mother a fucking bitch.”
“I hit her.”
“She hit you back.”
Strangely enough, of all the things that were said and done that night, the fact that Sara had hit me bothered me the least. Maybe because I’ve always believed that if you hit someone, you have to be prepared to be hit back.
It was something my mother never did.
A torrent of deliberately repressed memories rushed back at me. I heard the front door of my childhood open, saw my stepfather walk through. Hello, darling, my mother greeted him. You ‘re late.
Are you complaining?
Of course not. I was just worried. Dinner was ready an hour ago.
Dinner is whenever I get home.
It’s on the table.
It’s cold.
I’ll warm it up.
You know I hate warmed-over food. I don’t work hard and pay good money for meat to have it warmed over.
Don’t get all worked up. I’ll make you something else.
You think I have all night to wait until you make something else?
It won’t take long.
You don’t think I deserve a decent meal when I get home?
Of course you do. That’s why I try to make everything nice for you.
Then why isn’t everything nice?
It is. It’s just that you were late.
You ‘re saying it’s my fault?
Of course not. These things happen. I understand.
You understand shit.
I’m sorry, Mike. I didn’t mean …
You ‘re always sorry. You never mean. You never think, that’s your problem. Why do you do these things?
Please, Mike, calm down. You’ll scare the children.
Fuck the children.
Please watch your language.
My language? Oh, that’s right, isn’t it? Your first husband, fuck his sainted memory, he never swore, did he? Well, what are you going to do, wash my mouth out with soap? Is that what you’re going to do?
Please, Mike.
You know what? That’s a damn good idea. That’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’m going to wash your mouth out with soap. Then next time you think of getting smart with your husband, you’ll think twice.
No, don’t, please don’t!
What’s the matter? Don’t you like the taste? I bet it tastes better than that shit you were going to serve me tonight, you stupid bitch.
I closed my eyes, tried not to see the bruises along the side of my mother’s mouth the next morning, the red marks on the side of her neck and arms, the angry scratch along her chin.
What did you do to my mother? I demanded on another such occasion.
Ssh, Kate, my mother warned, it’s nothing.
What are you talking about? I never touched your mother. What lies have you been telling the kid, Helen?
I didn’t tell her anything. It’s okay, Kate. I tripped on the carpet. I fell against the side of the door.
Clumsy idiot, my stepfather said.
She’s not a clumsy idiot, I told him. You are.
Even now I can feel the sharp cuff of his hand as it snapped across the back of my head. I’ll never do that, I vowed in that instant. I’ll never hit a child of mine.
“I’m no better than he was,” I told Larry.
“Stop beating yourself up about this,” he said.
An interesting choice of words, I thought. “I’m a therapist, for God’s sake.”
“You’re a therapist,” he repeated. “Not a saint. Kate, has anything even remotely like this ever happened before? No. It happened once. You were provoked and you lost control.”
He’s not always this way, I could hear my mother tearfully intone. There are times when he’s gentle and thoughtful and funny. It’s only sometimes when he’s under a lot of stress. Or I provoke him and he just loses control.
“It doesn’t wash,” I told Larry, as I had told her.
Was violence contagious? Was it passed down from one generation to the next, like some dreaded inherited disease? Was there no escape?
I canceled my appointments for the next two days, barely got out of bed. Sara refused to acknowledge my presence. She went to school, came home, stayed in the den until dinner, ate in silence, then returned to the den when dinner was through. I was the invisible woman, a role that was somewhat familiar to me, although this time was different, because this time my invisibility was something that had been deliberately imposed.
“Can I talk to you?” I asked from the doorway several nights later.
“No,” Sara said. She opened a book, pretended to read.
“I think it’s important that we talk about what happened.”
“You beat me up, that’s what happened.”
“I didn’t beat you,” I began, then stopped. “I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Leave her alone,” Larry said gently, coming up behind me and guiding me away from Sara’s door. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
“She’ll start talking to you again as soon as she wants something,” Michelle said.
“Is it time to go home?” my mother asked.
“I’m trying to find somewhere nice for you, Mom,” I told her, realizing I’d have to make some decisions soon regarding her future. It was increasingly obvious that she couldn’t stay here. “But first, we have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, remember?”
Of course she didn’t remember. She wouldn’t remember two minutes from now or two minutes after that. She had no idea why I was waking her up so early the next morning, or where we were headed as I drove south along Dixie Highway looking for Dr. Wong’s office.
“How are you feeling?” I asked her.
“Magnificent,” she said. “Where are we going?”
“To the gynecologist. It’s just a routine examination.”
“That’s nice, dear.”
It wasn’t so nice, as it turned out. It was in Dr. Wong’s office that she discovered my twin polyps and promptly removed them. “I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about, but I’ll send these off to the lab, just in case,” she said, as I struggled to bring my legs together. “Why don’t you call my office in two weeks. We should have the results back by then.”
I nodded, opened the door to the waiting room to see my mot
her rifling through the morning newspaper, a photograph of Jo Lynn proudly displaying her self-bought wedding band occupying a prominent spot on the front page. I felt sick, clutched my stomach.
“I’ll give you some pills for the cramping,” Dr. Wong said. “And no sex for a week,” she advised on my way out.
No problem, I thought, thinking of Robert as my mother and I walked slowly toward the parking lot. I fought the urge to curl into a fetal ball in the middle of the warm gray pavement. Good thing Robert and I hadn’t made those plans for this afternoon, I thought, and almost laughed.
“How are you feeling, Mom?” I asked, securing her seat belt around her.
“Magnificent. How about you, dear?”
“I’ve felt better,” I confided.
She smiled. “That’s good, dear.”
I got home, settled my mother in front of the TV in the family room, and crawled into bed. Within minutes, I was asleep, dreams of Sara circling my head, like a plane awaiting permission to land. Mercifully, I don’t remember the particulars. I only remember that at some point we got into a horrible fight and began exchanging blows, Sara’s right fist catching me square in the groin. I awoke with a start, the pain in my stomach excruciating. I ran toward the bathroom, watched as blood leaked into the toilet bowl from between my legs. “Charming,” I said, swallowing another pill, then heading back to bed.
The phone rang. It was Larry. “How’d it go?” he asked, and I told him. “Why didn’t you call me? I would have picked you up.”
“It wasn’t necessary.”
“You don’t have to deal with everything by yourself, Kate.”
“No sex for a week,” I said.
He sighed. What else is new? the sigh said.
“I’ll try to be home early,” he offered.
“No need.”
“Don’t shut me out, Kate.”
“I’m not.” I was.
I replaced the receiver, lay back against the pillow, fantasized about sex with Robert. In my fantasy, we were in one of the recently renovated rooms at the Breakers hotel, a large sun-filled room overlooking the ocean, the waves lapping through the floor-to-ceiling windows toward our king-size bed, as we kissed and caressed one another with the utmost tenderness. That’s as far as the fantasy went, maybe because of the cramps I was experiencing, or maybe because Sara kept pushing her way into the hotel room, eventually crowding Robert out of our bed, banishing him to one of the older rooms at the front of the hotel, her voice blocking out the soothing sound of the ocean.
