SSC (2012) Adult Onset (40 page)

A mother alone in the mundane light of day in the middle of the week in the middle of the living room where nothing ever happens and keeps on happening, no one there to take her child, even for a moment, into the safety of their gaze where she can see how she loves it. Banal trauma, drained of drama … mondaywednesdaytuesdaywednesdaythursdaythursday no one sees. No one tells. The body tells on itself. Mary Rose broke and mended a number of times, broke the growth plate—broke time.

That’s your badness …
Badness requiring surgery. Badness tattooed on flesh in the form of a scar. Two, one for each dead baby. Badness that, decades later, can be touched off like a siren at the brush of a passerby, then dilate to a traffic-parting wail at the drop of a ladybug boot.

Her mother asked, “Is that what happened to your arm?” But was she forgetting? Or remembering.

The marks on a body are marks on a map, trails blazed in flesh, they tell you where you have come from and how to get back again. Her scars can take her home. Down through time to an apartment building at the edge of the Black Forest. Down to the racketing funnel, the tornado in the living room, beating of sound, strobing of light. Step back—not too far or you will be out on the balcony. Observe the room around the commotion. There is a coffee table, a
couch. And at the centre, a column of swirling darkness. Is it possible to slow it down? To see what is there? … But the column becomes a scrawl like a crayon wielded in the fist of a child, and it blacks out the picture.

The kettle screams.

She leans against the counter, before the big black windows.

“Did I wake you?”

“It’s okay, what’s up?”

“Nothing, it’s just, I’m a bit, I’ve been googling …”

“Oh no. Oh Mary Rose, you do not have cancer, there are not spiders living in your face.”

She laughs. “I know, I just called ’cause I’m afraid I’m going to kill myself when I was twenty-three.”

“What’s wrong?” Hil sounds wide awake now.

She laughs again. “I don’t know why I said that—”

“Are the children okay?”

“Everything’s fine.”

“You said you wanted to kill yourself.”

“When I was twenty-three—”

“I’m calling Gigi to come over and be with you.”

“It was a weird thing to say, okay? It runs in the family, a flaw which neither of our children stands to inherit.”

“I’m coming home.”

“You do not have to—”

“Don’t kill yourself, Mary Rose, don’t kill yourself in our house with our children sleeping—”

“Don’t worry, I’ll wake them up first, I’ll go to a sleazy motel out on the Lake Shore and order a mai tai and jam the cocktail umbrella up my nose into my brain—it’s possible. You can make anything into a weapon, I learned that in the militia.”

“You learned that from your mother.”

“Sorry to bother you, I’m going to hang up now.”

“Why do you need an enemy?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Something is wrong with you. Find out what is wrong with you, Mary Rose.”

Mary Rose is abruptly aware that it is possible for her not to say another word or to make another voluntary movement for the rest of her life. She does not even need to breathe. Nothing is happening. It is that easy. Eventually you forget where the switch is, then you forget there is a switch, then there is no one to forget anything …

“Mary Rose? Mister? I’m calling 911.”

“I almost hurt her.”

She tells Hil about the boot incident. She makes it sound unprecedented, her voice sounds flat but not crazy. “I think I had a short wick ’cause of the pain in my arm.”

“You’ve always had a short wick.”

“You’re implying that I’m abusive just because I told you something lots of mothers experience but never admit to—lots of parents—not to mention I didn’t actually really do anything to her.”

“Okay. I believe you, but I still think you need help.”

“Please don’t pathologize me! I really will go crazy if I can’t express the slightest twinge of frustration without you calling in the white coats.”

“I mean help with the kids.”

“Oh.”

“I think we should schedule Candace to come full-time for a while.”

“And what am I supposed to do while she does my job?”

“Finish the trilogy.”

“God, Hilary, I don’t even know if it
is
a trilogy.” She punches her head.

“Don’t punch your head.”

“How did you know?”

“You’ve already started the book.”

“I have?”

“It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be true.”

“I write fiction.”

“Fiction is not the opposite of truth.”

Hate is not the opposite of love.

“I can’t.”

Fear is.

“Then go on a trip,” says Hil.

“You want me to go away?”

Silence.

“Hil? Are we breaking up?”

“We’re married. Married couples don’t ‘break up,’ they divorce.”

Mary Rose’s voice sounds robotic in her own ears, which is how she knows she is telling the truth but from a distant galaxy. “I googled ‘bone cysts.’ ”

“…  Why?”

“My arm was sore.”

Big sigh
. “I asked you if it was and you said—”

“It wasn’t sore then, okay? It doesn’t hurt on cue, it’s not a singing frog, it’s called ‘remembered pain.’ ” Mary Rose is suddenly stung with humiliation to be caught whining over something so flaky and Freudian, her precious little psychosomatic “owie” exposed to the glare of Hilary’s mature gaze. “I’m sorry it’s not a nice neat tumour to tell you about—”

“Mary Rose, I won’t continue like this—”

“Like what?! Stop it, stop being so fucking healthy and listen to me, get off your high fucking horse and listen, then get the hell out of my life, you’re out of it anyway!”

She is shaking.

“I’m listening.”

Her palms are moist. “It sounds dumb, but maybe the thing with my arm happened ’cause of something that happened.” Where have all her words gone? She is an empty Scrabble board. Maybe she should try saying it in German. “Because it could be possible that bone cysts are caused by repeated trauma. I feel unreal, I feel like I’m making this up, are you there?” Her voice sounds dead.

“I’m here.”

“So it’s possible it broke before I was four. At least once. Are you there?”

“I’m listening.”

Her feet are warm, Daisy is lying on them.

“It’s just, it’s upsetting to think my arm might have been broken that early on and no one noticed even then.”

“Why is that more upsetting than the times you already know about?”

“Because—because—because something happened, right? If this is even correct, if the cysts were caused by a fracture or more than one, then—then … And then if that’s true, then something must have happened and no one knew.” andthenandthen

“Maybe they did know.”

“It would’ve been part of family lore, I would have had a sling, ‘Mary Rose’s first sling.’ ”

Silence.

“Hil, are you still there?”

“Why do you think it isn’t part of family lore?”

“I know what you’re saying, I’ve already thought it.”

“What?”

“She broke my arm in a fit of rage and that’s why he took her to a shrink.”

Now her voice sounds cut and dried in her own ears, cavalier even—that’s more like it,
The Importance of Being Ironic
.

“Is that what you think happened?”

“It could have happened when I was running for the balcony, I can totally picture that.”

“She broke your arm while saving you.”

“It’s possible.”

“Then why don’t you know about it?”

“Hil? I wonder if that’s why she was so harsh when I came out.”

“ ‘Harsh’ is kind.”

“Because she felt guilty. If I was a lesbian, it must mean I was damaged and … if she knew she had damaged me …”

“Do you think he knew?”

“Of course he did, he was sitting right there at the kitchen table staring at the ceiling while she tore into me.”

“I mean back then.”

“Oh. No. It was nineteen sixty-one, he went to work, he came home and read the paper, he was a man. He didn’t have to know anything.”

“You said he took her to a psychiatrist.”

“He didn’t have to catch her breaking my arm to know she needed help. I know you think he was an enabler, but he’s also the reason I’m alive, he’s why I’ve been able to achieve anything at all, he saved me.”

“He didn’t save you from her,” says Hil.

“…  Which time?”

“You just answered your own question.”

“You sound just like him.”

“I know you adore him.”

“So you do think she battered me.”

“That term is outdated,” says Hil.

“How do you know?”

“I’m on a website.”

“I love you, Hil.”

“A sign of abuse is ‘when there is delay seeking treatment.’ It’s called medical neglect.”

Silence.

“There’s no proof she broke my arm.”

“Why do you need proof?”

“Because if I knew for sure, I could forgive her.”

“I don’t know if it works like that.”

“You’re saying I have to forgive what I don’t remember?”

“You don’t have to forgive anything. I don’t forgive them.”

“I don’t even know if there’s anything to forgive.”

“You have your scars, you have your chronic pain, you have your broken heart at twenty-three, what more do you need?”

“You think I’m greedy? I’m a trauma glutton, ha-ha—”

“Just believe what you already know.”

“What do I know? Bad stuff happened and my parents didn’t get me help in time but I’d like to know if the original cause was accidental. Or not.”

“You’re obsessing over one event.”

“It’s a critical—”

“But you started by telling me about ‘repeated’ trauma—”

“Yes, but there would have been a ‘first’ trauma and I want to know if she did it on purpose.”

“Do you want it to be true?”

“I want something to be true.”

“There’s loads.”

“I’m just trying to do what you told me to, I’m just trying to”—here she does a high-pitched, simpering caricature of Hilary—“ ‘Find out what is wrong with me!’ ”

“I’m going to hang up—”

“See?! You can’t take it, no one can.”

“Take what, your self-loathing? You’re right, I’ve had it.”

“Don’t hang up.”

Silence. Is it her own heartbeat she hears or Hil’s through the phone?

Finally Hil asks, “Why did you say it was nineteen sixty-one?”

“I don’t know, I would have been walking, running—two, two and a half, that’s when accidents happen, that’s when … mothers lose it.”

“When did your brother die?”

She sighs. “I don’t know. Jesus Murphy. I’m two or three in the picture. I went to the grave.”

“It must have been devastating.”

“Even Maureen has blanks from around that time, she doesn’t even remember hanging me over the balcony. Oh my God, Hil.”

“What?”

“It could have happened when Maureen yanked me back onto the balcony, it’s called ‘forcible abduction’—”

“When was this?”

“Around that time, springtime, grave time—”

“So she was how old?”

“Seven?”

“How is that even possible?”

“Well it happened. Maybe my mother caught her in the act of dangling me and she’s the one who yanked me back to safety and that’s when it broke.”

“Then why are you the only one who remembers any of this?”

“Okay, so it was Mo on her own, all the more reason she would’ve had to yank and twist to get me back over the railing, it must have hurt like hell which is probably why I don’t remember that part, and she forgot the whole thing ’cause she felt guilty, and she never told my parents so why would I even get a sling—”

“That’s just one event.”

“Yes, but it sets up all the others.”

“But you already know there was ‘repeated trauma,’ ‘neglect’—”

“The balcony is something I can hang on to—literally, okay? It’s something I can point to, it’s a picture, I can frame it, I can say, ‘See? That’s what happened. My mother didn’t do the first one.’ ”

“The first what?”

“Assault! Accident, whatever.”

“You’re fixated on your arm, when it’s just part of—”

“It’s the key to the whole thing.”

“It’s just one aspect of a pattern of—”

“How can you not know it matters?! I’m talking about a series of events, you’re talking about a disco ball.”

“A ‘disco ball’?”

“ ‘Aspects,’ little bits, shiny busted mirror spinning on the ceiling—”

“I don’t understand—”

“I don’t want the
everythings
, I just want to get my hands on a
something!”

Hil’s voice is calm. “Even if you could prove your mother broke your arm in a fit of rage, you’d justify it with how much she suffered.”

“My mother did suffer. I don’t know if we can actually imagine what she suffered.”

“I don’t have to imagine it. I live with you.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“I’m sorry, I mean I live with some of the results of how your mother dealt with her suffering. And I’m not talking about one event. So you have to decide. Do you want to come out of the closet? Or do you want to prove that it wasn’t so bad by raising your own children the same way?”

“Hil? … I’m afraid.”

“What are you afraid of?”

I’m afraid of my hands
.

In the aftermath of the swirl, a seared silence. But not stillness. The air is in motion. It is as if sound had just now been torn from the room. What remains is the aftershock of sound. The air throbs. Thickens, takes on the sheen of a fresh bruise. What has just happened? Empty does not equal safe. Quiet does not equal peaceful. Something has retreated. It will be back, you cannot know when. And strangest of all? There is no one in this picture.
Where is the Me?

“I’m afraid that it’s true. And I’m afraid that it isn’t.”

“Sweetheart. It’s right in front of you.”

She looks at her face in the big black window. Shock of white, gaunt and shadowed. Like an X-ray.

“Mary Rose? What you’re telling me is very sad, I’m sorry.”

“How was your preview?”

“We got a standing ovation.”