Family Matters

by New York Tri-State Chapter of Sisters in Crime

  “Your daughter’s skin conductance response is inconclusive. The DBS testing—”

  “What?” My parents spoke, for once, in unison. Their idea of a whisper was little short of a shout, or my hearing was better than ever.

  “Deep brain stimulation—”

  “What the insurance made me pay twenty thousand dollars of,” said my mother with sudden and bitter understanding. “Cut to the chase—isn’t she as good as dead?”

  I heard that loud and clear. Thanks a lot, Jude.

  When the doctor said, “Let me show you,” everything flared smoky gray before swirling into bile green, orange, and taupe as they trooped back into the room. I should have felt sick, but couldn’t—and something else was going on.

  “Look, her hand, it moved!” Dad. I bet he was thrilled for his book, the asshole.

  “Fuck.” My mother’s one, almost inaudible word hit my ears like a scream of wrath.

  “This is perfect,” yammered Dad, “she’s coming to! Hey, Ecs, I was out on the terrace yesterday, looking at that building across the Hudson. The one that looks like the white dog’s head with his ears perked up, and I remembered how you and Judy—”

  Machine gun fire sounded. Everyone went dead silent before the doctor said, “Yes?” His one-sided conversation told me that was his ringtone. After the call, he said, “You need to consider more than one random movement when making your decision. I have an emergency, but I’ll be around later if you have questions.”

  This is an emergency to me, I wanted to scream as I heard Marbeline Franks trot after him.

  “That was cool,” said Dad. “About the final chapter—the book’s, Ecs, not yours—”

  “Shut the fuck up, Denny.”

  “No, I’ll write this girl standing by the railing, glaring as her mother gets closer—”

  No need to tell us, Dad. We were there.

  “She killed herself.” Judy bit off each syllable.

  “She was trying to make you understand—” Dad, having wound himself up, needed to let it out, but Judy would make sure he didn’t.

  “That’s absurd, Dennis, like you believing she cut herself for fun.”

  “She was getting better,” he insisted.

  “She was on every med known to man, who knows how much booze, and even more drugs than you.”

  Okay, that was funny. Judy started me on diet pills after her friend said I looked chubby.

  “She loves us!” Dad, self-righteous.

  “Not for years. It’s over, Denny.”

  “No, no way. You saw her move!” Dad’s shouting brought Marbeline Franks on the run.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Loc—Mr. Ram, uh, both of you, why don’t you take a break? Ecstasy isn’t scheduled to be moved until Friday.”

  Moved? I was going?

  “It’ll be easier if you take a little time to think things over. Let’s meet again tomorrow.”

  “We decide this now,” growled Judy after Marbeline Franks left the room.

  “She moved, Jude. How can you pull the plug, knowing that?” My favorite squeaky shoes walked in.

  “ ’Scuse me, Mr. Lockes, ma’am. You might wanna head down the hall while I clean up your girl.”

  I could have killed Shokeela. She was sending them out when I needed to hear—fuck. Long Island meant getting parked in some shithole where they wouldn’t change my diaper; I’d get bedsores, and be raped over and over until someone noticed I was eight months pregnant.

  Judy’s Louboutins hammered across the polished floor, Dad right behind them.

  “That’s how the book’ll end,” he said, excited like he’d snagged something for free at the supermarket or his gym. “The girl is standing by the railing, and you decide—”

  “Shut up.” Menace made her voice deep as a man’s. I could picture her stopping him at the doorway, poking a finger into his chest.

  “Jude, I have to use it. It’s perfect.”

  “I’m warning you, Denny.”

  Jagged lines of green and red—Quigley! The idea of him rushed at me a second before everything turned the color of shit.

  THAT night I waited for my mother, freezing my ass off on our terrace, was exactly a year after the worst of it started. I’d spent that New Year’s Eve uptown, partying with friends. When I woke at home a couple of days later, I realized Quigley wasn’t in his cage—this Brazilian cherry thing with bamboo slats made by one of Judy’s art slaves. Whoever designed it clearly didn’t understand parrots, because it was way too easy for Quig to escape. When he did, our maid, Carmen, would panic, which made no sense. There must be heaps of parrots in Nicaragua.

  Two lattes and a Ritalin later, I still hadn’t found Quig. I didn’t believe Judy when she said the window cleaners had been in, but Super Mario, our building’s super, confirmed it. I wanted to check for Quigley in the other apartments. Super Mario said he’d handle it, but Quig never turned up. He was gone, and I didn’t even have a photo; I lost that phone at a club.

  So there I was, a year later, hanging with the same friends for New Year’s. The guys were laughing at weird shit on the internet. I must’ve nodded off, but Parker said, “Hey, Ecs, don’t you have one of these?”

  Stupid me—I looked and saw a parrot suspended in yellow liquid. Titled “Saint Sebastian,” its head was tilted to one side, and little arrows were stuck through it. Sick, I thought, because it looked so much like Quigley. His claws were even painted red-and-yellow, exactly how I’d painted Quig’s the year before. . .

  When I saw the artist was that guy who’d had his opening at Judy’s gallery the night Quig crapped on her dress, I spewed before I could think. As mad as Parker was—I puked down his back—I made him print me the photo before I got a cab home.

  Judy wasn’t there. I told Dad to find her. I was jumping.

  “FOR chrissake, Ecs, you pull me out of Mary Kate’s party for this?” Judy shivered in chartreuse pashmina and black sequins as she stepped onto the terrace.

  “You killed him!” I held out the photo of my martyred Quigley. “Look at that,” she said. “Beyond making shit, he made art.”

  “No, made into art. It’s completely different.” What I’d hidden behind the high concrete planter here on the terrace would prove it.

  “Shut up, Ecs, and get inside. You’re ruining that”—Judy’s glam rock jacket—“and I need to get back. It’s almost New Year’s.” Judy started to leave, but a loud crack stopped her in her tracks. Looking back, she saw the frame I’d smacked down onto the dark, icy terrace.

  “What the fuck?” The metal frame held her first major purchase, a Warhol silkscreen. “I’ll kill you!”

  Before she could, I flung it over the railing.

  “Aaargh!” When she came at me, sliding across the terrace in her Jimmy Choo’s, I tossed the Basquiat, then her Keith Haring and—

  Judy smacked me so hard I spun over the ice, into the planter. My feet slipped out from under me, and my head bounced off the top rung of the terrace railing.

  “You crazy fucking bitch!” She turned toward the dining room, screaming above a sudden eruption of New Year noisemaking, “Dennis, get my paintings—now!”

  While she screamed, I grabbed for the planter to pull myself up, but she yanked me away from it in fury, kicking hard with her spike-toed shoes. I pushed at her as I struggled to get away. When she skidded and almost fell, I clawed at the railing and got to my feet. I was turning to run inside when she let loose a growl that froze me in my tracks.

  As if in slow motion replay, I watched her come at me like a rabid dog. She shoved me so hard, my hips slammed the top rail before my feet sailed over my head. Christmas lights near Tribeca Cinema shone from a window that was upside down. Cobblestones glistened below me like a moonlit stream . . .

  After bouncing off a passing taxi, I landed near a blue message I’d seen chalked that week on the sidewalk: “Happiness,” with an arrow pointing northeast.

  THAT scene where I became “Teenage Victim of Tragic Accident
” was history. I could tell from hearing the ventilator’s click-woosh- poh-click-woosh-poh that I was still in Downtown Hospital, where the voices around me swirled with color so fast I couldn’t make sense of them. That had to be because I could move, all of me, easy as could be.

  Then I caught Dad’s, “No, you have to save her!”

  “Code blue,” Shokeela called out, “code blue!”

  Judy screamed words—imperceptible to the others, I’m sure— but when I heard them, the colors all changed.

  “C’mon, baby,” urged my favorite. “Hang on, stay with Shokeela now.”

  Her words bathed me while everything billowed into shimmering ice blue, yellow as pale as a January sun, white brighter than any I’d ever seen.

  MY BROTHER’S KEEPER

  Leigh Neely

  MY first indication something was wrong arrived in a manila envelope with no return address. It had a Staten Island postmark, so I assumed it was from my mother. When I opened it, I was unsure what the lump was I felt inside, so I dumped the contents onto my small kitchen table. It was pictures of my head cut out of photos. A big pile of them. Possibly from every family photo I’d ever been in.

  A small, white note floated out of the bottom of the envelope. It said, “You’re out of the family and out of the will.” It was unsigned.

  Which meant it wasn’t from my mother, but from my useless older brother. The fifty-year-old loser, who now lived with my sturdy but arthritic mother, and spent most of his days begging her for money or for her car. They fought more over the car. Her greatest fear was he would wreck it, and she loved that Buick.

  He absolutely refused to get a job. It wasn’t that he didn’t have training. Mother had paid for motorcycle mechanic’s school, truck-driving school, and a stint at DeVry University, where he was going to get a bachelor’s degree in business. Unfortunately, he wasn’t aware you’d have to study and pass tests. It did not work out well.

  He’d been married four times, but even those women eventually saw the error of their ways and sent him packing. His two daughters never saw him or spoke to him. For some reason, he felt the world owed him. Neither I, nor any of the people who had loved him through the years, could comprehend why.

  I was nearing the end of my rope with both of them. Mother would call me after an especially grueling day of enduring his begging, cursing, sobbing apologies, cursing, and begging some more to ask me what to do. I always suggested she kick his ass to the street, and then I had to endure her sobbing about how much she loved him and how she prayed for him every day, certain that God would change him.

  I’d left church behind when I left Staten Island, but even I knew God couldn’t change someone who didn’t want to change. And unlike my mother, I gave up on my brother years ago.

  So I listened to her cry, murmuring comforting words while wishing I could slam the phone down. I loved my mother, but I hated her need to take care of a man who used her for income and living space. The difficult thing to accept was her willingness to let him abuse her emotionally every day. Dad would have been horrified.

  I spread out the small pictures and looked at them for a while, and the rage that had simmered in me for months suddenly exploded. I raked the pictures back into the envelope, put on my coat, and grabbed my purse. I was supposed to meet a friend for dinner, but I’d call her from the subway. She’d understand. We talked often about my mother’s situation.

  I stewed, bubbled, and fed my rage during my trip. By the time I boarded the Staten Island Ferry, I was shaking with righteous fury. I fumed as I stood alone on the deck. This trip on the water was usually relaxing for me, but tonight I paid no attention to the beautiful Lower Manhattan skyline. I didn’t even see Lady Liberty, who was like an old friend. It was cold, but my temper kept me warm. For the first time in my life, I would confront Clayton Andrew Morgan and tell him exactly how I felt.

  When the taxi pulled up in front of Mother’s house, I was ready to take on the enemy. I stood in the driveway for a moment, forcing myself to calm down. Anger would put Mother on the defensive, and she’d take Clay’s side.

  I actually loved this house. Built in the sixties, it was new when my parents bought it. They saved for seven years for the down payment. I loved hearing my dad tell the story of the day they signed the papers. Even though Mother was seven months pregnant with Clay, he’d carried her across the threshold. This neighborhood was tidy, with its manicured lawns and layers of family memories. Before Clay started down his very long path to lazy self-absorption, we’d had many happy times here.

  But Clay was effectively wiping the good times from my memory with his behavior now. I hoped the house retained its current value. My boss was a real estate agent, and he’d promised to help me with the sale when the time came.

  Rearming myself with resolve, I walked inside and straight to the smallest bedroom that was now a den. As usual, Mother sat there with a heating pad behind her and a blanket wrapped around her legs. Her aging cat lounged on the loveseat beside her and hissed when I plopped down and disturbed her catnap.

  I dumped the envelope contents onto Mother’s lap and asked, “What do you know about this?”

  “What are these?” She turned on the lamp beside her chair. “What in the world is all this?”

  “Those are my faces,” I said through gritted teeth. “I suspect if you get out the family pictures, you’ll find I’m no longer in them.”

  Mother’s face lost all color. I sighed and felt my anger lose energy against the guilt brought on by upsetting her. My stupid anger at my brother had made me hurt my mother again.

  “Get me the photo boxes,” Mother said.

  “Moth—” I started.

  “Get me the photo boxes, Mary Faye Morgan.”

  I knew when she three-named me, I had no choice but to do what she asked. Reluctantly, I went to the hall closet and retrieved the big box full of school, vacation, and family-gathering pictures.

  There they were—hundreds of pictures from birth through college, all with my face missing. It was like a scene from a Stephen King movie. Mother picked up photo after photo and stared at the ragged holes in them. Clay had used scissors with no care for the damage.

  This was nothing new. A couple of weeks ago, he got mad and walked around the house breaking things I had given Mother. A Waterford crystal bowl bought in Dublin was shattered against the bathroom tile. A coffee mug from Las Vegas that Mother used every day didn’t survive.

  “Where’s Clay?” I asked in an effort to move my mother’s hypnotic gaze from the box.

  She looked up at me with empty eyes. “He took my car. I didn’t want him to, but he said he needed to go see his friend in rehab. I hope he doesn’t get drunk and wreck it.”

  She began looking at the photographs again.

  “You’ve got to kick him out.”

  “I can’t,” she said with tears in her eyes. “I love him. God’s going to change him. We just have to give it time.”

  “How much time, Mother? You’ve been living this nightmare for too many years. Kick him out.”

  We both jumped as the garage door slammed. My brother’s voice rang out. “What’s for dinner? I’m starving.”

  The cat jumped down and scurried under the loveseat. My mother put the lid on the box, and I took it back to the closet.

  Clay walked into the den from the kitchen with his hand buried in a bag of Fritos. “I can’t believe you haven’t fixed anything to eat.”

  “There’s beef stew in the refrigerator. I thought I’d heat it up. I’ve got some crackers.”

  “You want me to eat that garbage? You know I don’t like leftovers. Don’t we have any chicken or steak?”

  “It’s frozen,” Mother said, looking beaten. “I didn’t thaw anything.”

  “You never have anything to eat in this house. If I weren’t here, you’d probably starve to death. Give me some money and I’ll get us something from the deli.”

  “Why don’t you cook?” I said as
I stepped in from the hallway. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Before I could answer, Mother said, “Clay, did you do this?”

  When she lifted the pile of heads from her lap, his face went white. “She’s never around, Ma,” he said with a whine. “I’m here to take care of you every day. Who picked you up when you fell in the backyard? I did, where was she? Who took you to the hospital when you cut your hand peeling potatoes? Me! Where was she?”

  “The only reason you were here is because you’re too lazy to get a job, and living off Mother keeps you from being indigent.”

  “You take that back,” he demanded. “I can’t get a job. It’s hard for middle management to find work in this economy.”

  “Middle management? How does someone who sold produce at a fruit stand and made sandwiches at a deli become middle management?”

  “I have aspirations,” he said. “I’d make a good supervisor.”

  “Supervisors work their way up,” I said with a smirk. “You don’t even work.”

  “Who the hell are you to talk that way to me?”

  “I’m the one in the family who paid her own way through college and is gainfully employed,” I said. “I’m the one who doesn’t mooch off her mother and take her social security and pension income.”

  He slapped me and sent me reeling against the doorframe. I was completely shocked and couldn’t move for a minute.

  Mother screamed and began sobbing.

  “I don’t have to take this,” he said. “I’m leaving. Ma, I’m taking your car.”

  I watched my mother struggle to get out of her chair. “No, you’re not. You’re not using all my gas and leaving the tank empty again. I have to go to the doctor tomorrow and I need my car. I know you took my ATM card and almost emptied my checking account.”

  “I’ll put gas in your damn car,” he screamed.

  “No, you’re not taking it. Give me my keys.”

  As my mother attempted to move and right herself with her cane, I said, “Mother, please, let me take care of this. I’ll get your keys.”

  I HURRIED past her and caught Clay at the driver’s door. I pushed it closed before he could get inside. “Give me the keys,” I said. “The hell I will. Ma doesn’t care if I use her car.”