Freaky Green Eyes (14 page)

     
They shut me up in Prose—

     
As when a little Girl

     
They put me in the Closet—

     
Because they liked me “still”—

     
Still! Could themself have peeped—

     
And seen my Brain—go round—

     
They might as wise have lodged a Bird

     
For Treason—in the Pound—

     
Himself has but to will

     
And easy as a Star

     
Look down upon Captivity—

     
And laugh—No more have I—

Emily Dickinson. 1863.

This poem! My mother had written it out in purple ink at the front of her journal. Her handwriting was beautiful as art.

The pages of the journal were made of cream-colored, finely textured paper that had a feel, when you rubbed your thumb over it, of grain. There were about eighty pages in the journal, but my mother had used only about one quarter of these. The rest were blank.

I read and reread the poem by Emily Dickinson. It was a poem I had never seen before. “They shut me up in Prose”—I felt that I understood what the poet meant, though I couldn't have explained it.

I was excited, trembling. I was scared of what I would find in this journal. But I was happy, too. I knew! My dream had led me, Freaky had led me. I felt Mom close beside me. Whatever happened
now was meant to be.

Between the second and third pages of the journal, a sheet of paper had been inserted. Here, my mother's handwriting was hurried.

The first section was headed
SANTA BARBARA/APRIL 19
.

The waves! The waves of the Pacific breaking on the sand, wind and the cries of gulls. It's just sundown. God help me, I've run here to hide. My decision has been made for me. I have no choice now
.

For months, years I'd known the marriage was over. But fearful of knowing. But now, this afternoon, I know
.

Quietly he said,
I'LL KILL YOU. BEFORE I WILL LET YOU AND THE GIRLS GO.
Not a threat but a vow. Not anger but calm. This new, terrible calmness to him. When he pushed into my motel room I'd thought he would beat me, choke me, but he only shook me by the shoulders, to make me listen. Seeing me at the arts & crafts fair with the others, strangers to him but friends to me, he understood for the first time. Seeing that I had a life apart from him, that I was happy here.

IF YOU REFUSE TO BE MY WIFE, YOU GIVE ME NO CHOICE, AND IF YOU TRY TO TAKE THE GIRLS FROM ME, I'LL KILL THEM, TOO.
That terrible calmness in R. I had not seen before.

His voice shook, saying,
MAYBE IT WOULD BE BEST FOR ALL OF US TO DIE, KRISTA. NOT TODD
BUT THE FOUR OF US. I THINK SOMETIMES LIKE NOW, YES THAT WOULD BE BEST
.

The next section was
YARROW HEIGHTS/MAY
.

My weakness is I love R. even now. But I can't live with him.

His strong fingers. In my sleep I feel them.

No one would understand, R. is not mad. R. is wholly sane. Vicky doesn't understand/urges me to see a lawyer/therapist/marriage counselor. I can't tell her that I must work my way through this myself, to consult any stranger would be “betrayal”/would incur R.'s wrath.

Because Seattle is such a small city, R. says. Rumors will spread of the Piersons' marriage. He can't bear it, the public sign of failure. “Reid Pierson's wife? The second wife? Moving away from Seattle?”

Bonnie Lynn Byers. A mystery.

My husband's first wife. Whom I never knew.

So young when she died: 26.

He never speaks of her except to say she was “careless”—her death was “an accident, caused by carelessness.”

Last night I sat with Francesca and Samantha and we watched Reid Pierson the sportscaster on TV. The girls adore him. They bask in pride for their famous daddy. I must protect that image of him, in their minds. I must find a way to save myself/save them. My mind beats sometimes like a butterfly trapped in a wire enclosure. The sky is beyond, but I can't get to it. My wings beat/beat/beat against the wire, desperate for a way out.

The public, he says, is waiting for Reid Pierson to fail. They loved him as a football star and they loved him injured, forced to prematurely retire. The public R. fears/loves/dreads. His TV personality. His TV smile, makeup. Hairpiece. Reid Pierson is not going to fail, he has warned me.

I must not upset the children. They will only fear me/shun me/despise me. R. has turned Todd against me, these past few weeks. Since Santa Barbara. When I missed the family “celebration.” Once, Todd loved me—what a lonely, melancholy little boy he was, having lost his mother. But now, if I touch him, he shrugs me off. If I try to talk to him, he walks away. Last night he said, Look, you're not my mother, you're my stepmother, OK?

These past few weeks the girls are starting to be aware of the tension in our household. I've seen Francesca stare at me. Her beautiful green eyes. She is so like me, at that age. I fear for her sensitivity. “Franky.” Gazing at me in alarm/disgust. She seems to know what's hidden by the scarfs I wear. My long sleeves. Maybe she has overheard R.'s angry voice. I know she blames me. In her place, I would probably react like this. For she loves her father blindly, as Samantha and Todd do.

(Sometimes I feel like poor Rabbit cringing when R. storms into the room.)

Today driving Francesca home from Forrester, tried to talk to her. Asked about her swimming/diving and she lashed out at me with such bitterness I was stunned. Says she hates the name “Francesca.”

R. has said “maybe” to Skagit Harbor. Our last evening together before he flew east for five days, he was more understanding/romantic. So I have hope.

The final section, the longest section, was
SKAGIT HARBOR/SUMMER
. Mom's handwriting here was erratic, sometimes beautiful and clear, but sometimes almost illegible, as if she'd been writing quickly, or in the dark. I couldn't bring myself to read every page, every passage. I just couldn't.

Deer Point Road, Skagit Harbor. Work/work/work! Cleaning/scrubbing/sanding/painting! I love it.

R. calls me/expects me to call him. Which I am happy to do. On the phone we are often friends. I think R. can feel generous/forgiving in allowing me Skagit Harbor “days at a time” (his words).

Except: I miss Francesca and Samantha. So much. He won't allow me to bring them here. (Not yet.) When I call home, Francesca never seems to be there. Her cell phone is turned off. Vicky has said she can't get through either.

When I'm back in Yarrow Heights, it isn't the same. As if the girls don't trust me. Even Samantha. I know: they are frightened of their father leaving us. So much divorce/families breaking up among their classmates. I have promised R. I would never seek divorce/a legal separation/injunction. If he allows me this freedom, I can remain his wife. I hope.

Waking in the early morning. In this place where I can breathe. SO HAPPY.

(Is this selfishness? R. says yes.)

(To wish to breathe, not to suffocate? Yes!)

Such interesting/warm/generous people here in Skagit Harbor. And I have a gallery willing to exhibit some of my work: The Orca.

Working on silk screens. Slow/steady. R. has not been calling me so frequently. (I know, he's “involved” with someone in Seattle. This is fine with me. I dare not allow him to know that I know. But I wish him/them well.)

Good news: the girls will be coming to stay with me while R. is away on a shoot. R. has made me so happy, I could love him again. He laughed at me, saying that it didn't take much to make me happy, how different I am from other women.

He kissed me/framed my face in his strong fingers
.
YOU KNOW YOU LOVE ME, KRISTA. I'M THE FIRST MAN YOU EVER LOVED, YOU TOLD ME. AND I WILL BE THE LAST
.

The girls are here! Hardly a moment to write in this journal.

Working through the mornings in such bliss. The girls are helping me with these silk screens. At last Francesca seems to be relaxed with her mother. I had worried about R. slapping her/shaking her as he'd done when she was younger sometimes/Francesca's “rebellious” personality/but by 15 she is much more mature. I'm so relieved she has ceased being angry with me. (I even called her “Franky” a few times, and she didn't notice!) Samantha is joyous. And of course Rabbit is in seventh heaven, his favorite people feeding/petting/fussing over him and no fear of sudden loud voices/kicks.

The looks in the girls' faces, seeing their mother's work at the Orca Gallery. Of course I tried not to show it, but I almost cried. Maybe, in a small way, they can be proud of their mother, too? They don't seem to resent it that I sign my work
K.C.

Such lovely/busy days/evenings. Mero took a dozen Polaroids of us at the gallery and elsewhere. How happy we appear, yes and how beautiful. Francesca's fine-boned angular face/unnerving green eyes. Samantha's soft eyes, heart-shaped face. Of course I love R., I realize. R. is the father of these girls.

Mero, my closest friend in Skagit Harbor. In all the world. Confiding in me how shaken he was by the behavior of a lover a few years ago. Mero had been depressed for a year, yes he'd “contemplated” suicide but never got around to doing anything about it. After a period of “hibernation” he resumed his life again, he lives now for work/friends/family. “Just for life itself. This is all there is.”

The deep bond between Mero and me. A gay man/straight woman. Strange, and wonderful, the intense emotional connection; in ways I'm closer to Mero than to my own sister, Vicky. (Who has become impatient with me for not leaving R.) Where Vicky
doesn't seem to understand, Mero does, instinctively. I haven't spoken to him about my marriage, but I know that if I did, Mero would understand immediately. Why I fell in love with R. at the age of 22, why I love R. still at almost 40, yet fear the man, and can't live with him.

R. would be angry if he knew of my friendship with Mero. He hates gays—“fags.” Especially, gay athletes drive him crazy. What he'd think if he knew that the girls have met Mero . . .

On the last three pages of the journal, Mom's handwriting was rushed, panicky. I could hardly bring myself to keep reading.

Sunday. July 27. Everything is changed.

R. came, took Francesca and Samantha back home with him. I'm alone now, sick/stunned. When I called the house in Yarrow Heights, the housekeeper answered
saying, “Who is this please? Who is this please?” She's new, someone R. has hired. She doesn't know me, sounds vexed with me/nervous about reporting my calls to Mr. Pierson. . . .

It happened so quickly. Out of nowhere he appeared. Even the car he was driving is new. I was outside with the girls, he rushed at us shouting/grabbed a pair of pruning shears out of my hands.

We went inside the cabin to talk. The girls waited terrified in the driveway. How I wanted to shield them from this side of their father. . . . I pleaded with him, tried to reason with him. He kept repeating that he had “fresh evidence” against me. Claims that I betrayed him, our agreement about the girls. I'm baffled, don't understand.

From what I gathered, it might be that he'd hired a private detective to spy on me. And this private detective has invented a “lover.” To make his employer the more
furious/committed to persecuting me. I think this might be it. He spoke of being “pushed too far”—being “made ashamed.” When I protested, he grabbed my arm and began to shake me as if he wanted to break my neck. He shut his fingers around my throat until I began to choke, my knees buckled. Then he let me go—he laughed, saying he wasn't stupid enough to strangle me, the marks of his fingers would be on me. There are other ways, he said. He said he'd be back another time.
DUMP YOUR BODY FROM DECEPTION PASS BRIDGE. IT'S A LONG WAY DOWN—NOBODY WOULD EVER FIND YOU
.

He left then, with the girls. It terrifies me to think of Francesca and Samantha in the car with that man, how easily he could swerve from the highway, have a fatal “accident.” I know now that it's hopeless.

Rabbit and I are huddling together in the cabin, the door locked/blinds drawn. Though I know R. is gone. I'm thinking of Deception Pass, on Whidbey Island about 50 miles west of Skagit Harbor. The summer we went there,
to stay with friends of R.'s at their summer place on Skagit Bay.
DUMP YOUR BODY. LONG WAY DOWN. NOBODY WOULD EVER FIND YOU
.

I've been calling home. Now the answering machine is on. Maybe in the morning . . .

Now you know what you must do
.

Now you will have to remember what you've wanted to think was a dream
.

It was Freaky's voice.

It was my own voice.

I called Aunt Vicky on my cell phone from Skagit Harbor. I was waiting for the two-forty-
P.M
. bus to Seattle. I was too restless to sit on the bench in front of the Skagit Harbor Café, where the bus picked up passengers. I'd read and reread my mother's journal and the scribbled note.
If you're reading this, it means
that something may have happened to me
.

When Aunt Vicky answered, immediately she asked where I was. I told her, and she said, “Skagit Harbor! Oh, honey, why?”

I told her I'd come here to get something my mother had left for me.

“Franky, what? You went to get—what?”

A journal, I said. I was trying to speak calmly. My aunt's excitement and anxiety weren't what I needed to hear from an adult.

Since reading my mom's journal, I guess I understood that she was dead. I knew, but I wasn't thinking that, exactly. As long as I'd been reading the journal, in her handwriting, it was like she was speaking to me, and she was alive.

Aunt Vicky wanted to know more about the journal, what was in the journal, and I told her she could read it, I would give it to her to read as soon as I saw her.

And, I said, I guessed the police would want to read it, too.

“The police? Oh, honey.”

For a long moment Aunt Vicky didn't speak. The understanding passed between us what this meant.

I remembered how my aunt had wanted to think my mom was alive, and would return to us. How distraught she'd been, how desperate to believe. We'd all wanted to believe.

Even my father had seemed genuine, in his “belief.”

Aunt Vicky asked me again where I was, exactly, and I told her I was in front of the Skagit Harbor Café, waiting for the two-forty bus that would get me back in Seattle, downtown at the Greyhound station, at about four
P.M
. Aunt Vicky said she would pick me up there.

She added, hesitantly, “Franky, you should know that your father is looking for you. But he has no idea where you are.”

I tasted cold. I was very frightened suddenly.

Aunt Vicky explained, “Someone on the Forrester staff called your home, and your housekeeper called
your father, and he was upset to learn that you're not in school. He seemed to think you must be with me, or that I knew where you were. I assured him that I had no idea where you were, but I thought he was overreacting; you were probably just cutting classes with friends, at a mall or a movie, and you'd be back home at the usual time. He began shouting at me. I halfway wondered if I should call the police—he seemed to be threatening me. Before we hung up, he made me promise that I'd call him if I had any information about you.”

“Aunt Vicky, no! You can't do that.”

“Franky, of course not. I won't.”

I couldn't see clearly—my eyes were blinking away tears. Every car that passed on Main Street, which had a speed limit of twenty-five miles an hour, caused me to glance up, thinking it might be my father. When a gray or silver vehicle appeared, my heart cringed.

If he finds me. If he finds this journal. If he reads this journal. If he thinks I might share this journal with
anyone. If he thinks I might show it to the police . . .

“Franky? Are you still there?”

“Yes, Aunt Vicky. But I'm so scared.”

“Maybe you should wait inside the café? But he has no idea you're in Skagit Harbor, honey. He wouldn't think of that.”

Why wouldn't he? I would, in his place
.

This was a Freaky-shrewd thought. I didn't share it with my aunt, who was already stressed enough.

She said, trying to sound calm, “Franky, the bus is due in ten minutes. There are lots of people around there, aren't there? If I thought you were in any real danger I'd drive up to get you immediately. But it would take so much longer, honey. Please—will you wait inside the café?”

Hiding from my own father! That's how desperate things had become.

I went inside the café, though. I didn't step outside again until the bus was stopped at the curb, wheezing and hissing, bound for Seattle.

At the Seattle station, as the bus pulled in, I saw Aunt Vicky waiting for me. Her face was drawn, anxious. As soon as I stepped down from the bus, she hurried to me and caught me in her arms. “Oh, Franky! Your hair.” She thought I'd cut it.

We laughed together, feeling giddy. We were almost crying, as if we hadn't seen each other in years.

The journal was in my backpack, safely zipped in. On the bus I'd been reading, rereading. I'd memorized the Emily Dickinson poem. My hands smelled of that sweet spicy scent. I had the Freaky thought that I would write in this beautiful lavender-bound journal too. I would complete the pages my mother hadn't had time to complete.

“They shut me up in Prose.” But Prose can be freedom, too
.

Aunt Vicky and I made our way through the busy terminal, moving quickly. I was safe now, I thought. (Wasn't I? There were uniformed police on duty here.) Still I couldn't help glancing around, thinking he might be somewhere, hidden among strangers, watching me.

Since my mother's disappearance, Aunt Vicky had leased a small apartment in Seattle, but she didn't think it would be wise for us to go to that apartment right now. My father had been calling her back, she said. Even Todd had called. “They seem to think you'd come to stay with me this morning, instead of going to school. They're both very suspicious, and very irrational. Todd said, ‘You're coercing my sister to testify against Dad, aren't you? You'd better be careful, Aunt Vicky.' After your father's first call, I'd already left the apartment. I took some overnight things and booked us a room at a hotel near police headquarters.”

I was left breathless by these remarks. Aunt Vicky spoke so matter-of-factly. Franky wasn't going back home to Yarrow Heights, it seemed. Franky, too, had
crossed over
.