Happy Family (27 page)

Cici was not educated like Cheri and Solomon, but she knew things. She knew it was not just beer making her daughter's mood black. Where she'd worked, in that park with the crazy tent people and trash, there were all kinds of drugs. Drugs going up the nose and in the veins to fill the dark spaces inside. She remembers the feeling of putting a blade on her skin, tracing the line and waiting for the first cut. After the blood came pain and with that peace; pain on the outside made her stop thinking of what was on the inside. She wore long sleeves in summer to hide the red lines and even when they faded to white, she was careful to cover them up in case anyone noticed. She did not want her daughter to be like her.

She remembers thumping on Cheri's door until her fists hurt, saying, “Open! Now, now, I am not fooling.” But Cheri wouldn't even respond.
Whatever Cheri needed in a mother,
Cici thinks now, reclining in her seat,
I do not seem to have it. If she'd come from my womb, then maybe we would be able to hear each other better, to listen.
She cannot remember that feeling, the connection of blood and water and life inside of her. But she knows it existed many years ago. It makes her too sad to think about, so she stops and, despite hating reptiles unless they've been made into handbags, plucks a magazine from the seat pocket and reads a story about iguanas in Mexico.

Cookie had had better luck back on Eighty-first Street. “What do you think this is, a halfway house? I'm not soft like your mama. You either let me in there right now or next thing you know, the super's gonna be taking the door off the hinges and leaving it that way.” When Cookie emerged from Cheri's room hours later, she had a trash can full of empty bottles but few details. “That girl has a broken heart. I can smell it on her. Only thing for that is time.”

About a week later, the entire apartment felt like a bunker. Cici was pulling her hair out, yelling at Cookie that they needed to drag Cheri to a hospital. “I can deal with you. I can deal with her,” Cookie said. “But both of you locked up in here together—ain't no way I'm going to deal with that.” And then Cheri came out of her room. Skinny, disheveled, hair plastered to her head. Cici and Cookie followed her into the kitchen, where she opened the refrigerator, drank a Coke, and calmly announced that she had spoken to people at Yale and was moving to New Haven. Wasn't that what Cici had suggested, wasn't that exactly what she'd wanted?

When Cici gets to Chicago she wishes she'd brought her fur coat. Although it's spring, and fur in spring is almost as bad as white after the Day of Labor. She's standing in front of Cheri's house feeling chilly. It was painted purple when they bought it; she'd tried to convince them to repaint it in a nice neutral, an attractive ecru or eggshell, but they liked their purple house. So many stairs to walk up. What are all these newspapers doing on the porch? The robbers will think she is not home. Cici rings the doorbell and knocks, hard. Finally, she takes a few steps back and throws a small rock at an upstairs window like a child. Maybe Cheri is in her bedroom? It misses. Does that filthy black car across the street with all the tickets belong to her daughter? Would she leave town and not move her car? The last time Cici managed to get Cheri on the phone, Cheri was running into work because there had been a disaster at the museum in Iraq. But when Cici tried her at work, the secretary confirmed she hadn't been in since then—and that was more than two weeks ago. Panic rises in Cici like reflux. Maybe Cheri leaves a key—but where? Cici is about to walk around the back when she decides to try the front door. It's unlocked. A bad sign. “Cheri,” she calls. “Are you here?”

Inside smells of stale smoke, must, and dirty diaper. Mail litters the floor. A faucet drips. The refrigerator door is open. Something inside is making the dirty-diaper smell. “Hello?” Slashed limes rot on the counter along with empty bottles of gin, dead plants, and vases with desiccated flowers still with the sympathy cards on sticks. She swallows her disgust—this is not the time to be thinking about her daughter's piggery. Empty chairs and stillness. Has someone broken in? Is she going to find her daughter bleeding? “Cheri, I am here,” she calls. She remembers that movie with the knife and the shower curtain. She rushes up the stairs. No harm can come. Not to Cheri. Please, not to her.

The bedroom door is ajar. In the slate light, she can make out a lump on the bed. Has she taken too many sleeping pills, wanting to join Michael? Why didn't Cici think of this and come sooner? The telltale lump. She recalls all the years of pulling back the covers above exactly such a lump, saying, “Wake up, sleepy-toes.” She will never forgive herself if she came too late. She puts her hand on her daughter's back.

Cheri wakes with a start. She rolls over and sits up quickly when she sees Cici standing over her. “What the fuck?” Cheri says, pushing away her mother's arms and murmurs of gratitude. “What are you doing here?”

“Are you sick? Is this why you are not answering the phone?”

“I'm fine.”

“I thought something had happened to you. You scare everybody.”

“Sorry I scared you. You came, you saw…now go away.” Cheri flops back down on her back and pulls the blanket over her head. Cici opens the shade and, in the light, can now survey the full extent of the chaos: paper cups half filled with water and cigarette butts, cans of half-eaten food, files, books, clothes belching out of the closet.

“Close the fucking shade! I'm fine, now turn around and go home.”

“Fine?” Cici picks up liquor bottles that have overflowed from the garbage can. “This is no fine. You are a drunk. It is one in the afternoon.”

“Says the person who pops champagne for breakfast.”

“I am not the one living like this, leaving her door open for the world to walk in. I am not a drunk.”

“First of all, I am
not
drunk. You can give me a Breathalyzer. I'm not on drugs. I'll even piss in a cup, if you can find a clean one. Second, you can't just barge in here and tell me what to do. I'm not a kid. I'm asking you nicely to get out of here.”

“Are you sick?”

“Not going to keep saying it nicely.”

“Please do not tell me you are pregnant and drinking like this.”

“I am not pregnant, Cici. I am not sick.” Cheri rolls over. “I'm going back to sleep now so shhhh.”

“Okay, okay. You sleep.”

“No longer listening.”

“I will sit and wait for you to wake up.”

All Cici wants to do is get a giant can of disinfectant and some rubber gloves and start to pick up the garbage that surrounds Cheri's bed. She can't even find a place to perch in the bedroom. There's clutter upon clutter. When she finds a chair, it's beneath clothes. She's got to throw everything on the floor, which she cannot bear to do, so she sits with it all in a ball on her lap. This is the wreckage of her daughter's life. She feels a pain that emanates from beneath her ribs where she draws breath. A specific pain that comes from knowing that her love—no matter how unconditional and strong—cannot solve everything for her child. “Put the seashell to your ear,
cara,
and wherever you are, you will hear my voice.” All those years moving from house to house along the seashore, Cici never doubted her mother's words. She wishes she had the power to reach Cheri.

“I can feel you staring. You're like a dog.”

“You said not to talk. I need to close my eyes as well?”

“Oh, fuck it. I'm up now,” Cheri says, tossing back the covers. She rests her forehead in the palm of one hand. “Can you pass me the lighter, it's on the table.” Cici goes to the bedside table, moves a filled ashtray on top of papers and bills, rifles through them. “Oh, for God's sake, Cici.”

“What you doing with this?” Cici has found the package of razor blades underneath a bra on the table.

“Give me that.” Cheri stands, reaches over to take the box. The sudden rise to vertical makes her see spots before her eyes. “If I was going to kill myself, that's the last way I'd do it.”

“Sit down. You are very pale,” Cici says, touching her arm. “You will fall.”

“I'm always pale. Please, just get off me.”

“You need help.”

“I'm fine, I can stand on my own.” Cheri turns away from Cici but has to steady herself against the wall.

“You need help. I am here to help.”

“What do you know about what I need? You live in your own little bubble completely removed from reality, never worked a day in your life. What's your daily drama? The shoes you ordered are too tight or the pug's shits are too loose—now it's, ‘Oooh, Cheri's sleeping in the afternoon, and she's in her T-shirt and ratty old underwear,' and yup, I stink. Welcome to the den of iniquity, Mother! Go complain about it to Cookie or your friends who are only your friends because you employ them, but don't you dare show up here and judge me—”

“Do not talk to me about judging. I am sick of how you look at me, always with the hard eyes. Saying I am a stupid woman who sees nothing, hears nothing. How dare
you!
I have lived a life. You think I have had no suffering? There are many things you do not know about me. My life is not so full of cherries. I know what it is to lose. I lost my family. I lost my husband—”

“The great man that Sol was, yeah, I know. Spare me.” Cheri turns her back to Cici, who grabs Cheri by the arm and wheels her around, a primordial anger rising.

 “You think you are the only one with the right to anger? Plenty of things I have spared you.” Cici allows the words to spill out. “Your father, he was not perfect to you, but he cheated on me. He had another woman. You think this does not cause me pain? Some things are so painful we must look away to go on. But when we turn back, we can be surprised. In the end, I was able to forgive. You think I am such a weak woman. Well, I am stronger than you think.” Cici is puffed up like a lizard; she has stunned Cheri into silence.

 Cheri sits on the bed. After a moment, she quietly speaks. “When did you know?”

“You were in college…it was over long ago,” Cici says, wanting to suck her words back in.

“So you knew. And…you didn't do anything.” Cheri is looking at her with hard eyes, and it makes her angry all over again.

“Nothing is so simple between men and women. Was it so simple with you and Michael? You had not seemed so happy together. In a marriage, who is happy always? In the end I let happiness back in and if that makes me the fool, then I am the fool,” Cici says, talking to her daughter like she should have spoken to her when she was a teenager. “I do not care if you like it or no like it. I am here to help you. I am going to run a shower. You will get in it and get clean. Then we have a coffee. That is where we start.” Cheri stands stiffly, but her eyes are softer. “You hear me,” Cici says. It is not a question.

Cheri hears the water running. She's surprised she can make it to the bathroom without passing out. Her head feels like aliens are drilling a hole in it. The bathroom is steamy and humid. She wipes off a corner of the mirror with her fist. Her left breast is hanging out of the side of her tank top. She can't believe Cici knew. Then again, of course she can; it's all part of her fucked-up-family bullshit. She thinks about saying,
Thanks for telling me what I already knew.
But Cheri doesn't know exactly how much Cici knows about Sol's other life. Does she know about the house in Rye? About his son? She's not about to open that can of worms. As if her own life isn't caving in, now she needs this? “Fuck,” she says, stripping off her clothes. She steps into the shower and lets the hot water sluice down her back. Barely able to stand, she puts one hand on the tile wall. All she wants is to crawl back in her hole and be left alone. She thinks she still has some of her Sudafed-pain-pill powder. Just like in her twenties, she's too in control to go over the edge and become a full-blown addict.

When she's clean and wrapped in a towel back in her room, Cheri assesses what's left of her depleted stash. She decides that she'll do just one snort now and chase it with a swig of cough syrup. Her hand is shaking and she doesn't want to waste any of her product; she struggles to tip a small amount of powder from one of Michael's empty pill bottles onto the back of her hand. The last time she was like this, she cold-turkeyed her way back through sheer grit. The thought of doing that now makes her feel sick. And then there's Cici banging around downstairs, doing her infernal cleaning.

Cheri walks into the kitchen wearing the same tank top and underwear, her hair still wet. There are two full garbage bags lined up next to the front door. Cici is pouring espresso into two cups Cheri has never seen. Did Cici bring her own cups along with her damned espresso pot? Cheri was fortified enough to get down the stairs, but the smell of the cleaning products Cici was using mingling with coffee makes her want to retch.

“Sit and have an espresso,” Cici says, bringing the cups over to the table that's now cleared. There's a box of biscotti on the table; Cici's taken a few out and put them on a plate. “I can put more sugar in if you want.”

“This is your idea of help? Flying halfway across the country to make espresso and compare my marriage to your fucked-up marriage? Playing who is the biggest martyr?”

“That is not what I try to do, Cheri. The point I make is that I suffered too. I have felt as you are feeling now—”

“So let's stop everything and immortalize your grief about Sol,” Cheri says, grabbing the box of biscotti and shoving it in Cici's bag.

“That is not what I am saying; you twist my words,” Cici protests. Cheri fixates on the counter, where a pile of Cici's things has already accumulated. She starts scooping up whatever she thinks might have come from Cici.

“What are you doing? Stop.” Cici is by her side, trying to take the coffee grinder out of her hand. Cheri turns around to avoid her and slams her leg into a trash can.