The Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo (14 page)

To a Catholic, some issues have no
if
. There simply
is
. Things
are
.

A certain way. The way they are. Beyond debate.

One doesn’t need proof of fingernails. Or gravity. Or death.

“My daughter Misty was a loving person,” Grandma said. She stood from the sofa, like an alcoholic proclaiming her disease. She nodded at Murray: “Misty loved you. Deeply.” Her eyes revealed a level of sorrow, and of hesitation, that McKenna had never seen.

The children watched and listened.

McKenna’s throat constricted. Lunch was long gone, dammit, nothing there.

“She loved each of you children,” Grandma said. One by one, she fastened the kids with a wistful stare. McKenna. Tears lustrous in Grandma’s eyes. Toby. Big, simple Toby. She dabbed snot with her hanky. With Audrey, her expression changed. Disapproval. That’s because Audrey refused to look up; she pulled at a loose thread in the carpet.

The nuns made a mental note of Audrey’s latest infraction.

Grandma Pencil cleared her throat. Turned to face Murray.

After the torturous foreplay, Grandma Pencil finally uttered what McKenna already knew she was going to utter: That Misty was now being broiled on the hottest griddles in the cosmos.

Grandma Pencil used the word “convinced.” As in, “I am convinced she is in Hell.” Clearly, it was the wrong word. “Convinced” implies that doubt was, at some point, a possibility. “Convinced” suggests that she’d been swayed by a body of compelling evidence before arriving at this view. “Convinced” leaves open the idea that she might have resisted, or questioned, or, God forbid, even
wanted
it to be untrue.

Her utterance spread through the room like poisonous gas. Everyone sucked it in.

Murray and Audrey had no real reference point.
Hell?
It was disrespectful to suggest this about anybody who had died—they knew this much—but really, what the hell was Hell? Something you made jokes about. A red guy with horns and a pitchfork.

Murray’s first response was a hammer-and-chisel laugh. It whacked at the air. His hands shot into his jean pockets. He rocked on his heels while his bottom teeth scratched his upper lip.

Grandma Pencil wouldn’t wait for him to speak. Her words spilled feverishly. This woman had never doubted herself, yet now she seemed afraid to leave even the smallest gap into which someone might insert a response. She quoted Corinthians: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.” She cited the Fifth Commandment, adding that suicide, by the way, is self-murder. “It is God’s decision alone when life should be taken. To do it ourselves is to say we know better than God. Most importantly,” she said, “my daughter was not a believer. An unbeliever who kills herself only hastens her trip to the lake of fire .”

Spent, Grandma dropped onto the sofa beside the nuns. The Sears clock ticked. Outside, Snoodles barked at phantoms.

Toby broke the spell. His thick neck twisted so he could face Murray: “I don’t get it, Dad.” He frowned.

Nobody wanted to look at anyone.

“Mom didn’t commit suicide,” Toby continued. Like a boy, those eyes. Confused, hurt.
But I thought you were going to measure my feet.

“The death certificate,” Murray answered, “is unambiguous.” His voice was scarcely a whisper. He’d never gotten angry in front of the children before. Not in eighteen years. He’d always worked things out in the basement. Maybe he wanted to run to the basement now. A vein throbbed on his temple. “
Accidental overdose
is the exact wording. I’m with Toby on this.” He turned to Grandma, his face the color of rug burn. “
I don’t get what you’re saying
.”

Before the nuns had another chance to squirm, and before Grandma Pencil could reply, the noise began.

It was Audrey. She lay on the carpet halfway between Toby’s recliner and the geezers’ sofa. Hair spread like spilled paint beneath her head. Her mouth, that raven hole, opened wide and belted out a preposterous, shocking laugh.

The nuns plugged their ears. They were frightened.

A liquefied honey bun climbed out of McKenna’s throat.
Forgot about you
!

It was ugly, Audrey’s laugh. An automatic rifle: hateful, hollow. She added to the noise with her fists, which pounded the floor. “Ha ha ha ha!” Boomboomboomboom.

Murray retreated a couple of steps, eyeing her as if she might explode.

Audrey’s face contorted. She gasped, the laughter firing and firing. The noise was so loud that no one could hear Toby imploring her to stop.

“
I
get it!” she yelled, breathlessly, between bursts. “
I
get it!
Good
one, Grandma! Ha ha ha!
I
get it!”

Toby lifted Audrey and carried her upstairs.

The nuns excused themselves, each one touching Murray on the arm as they passed. They vanished out the front door.

Murray and Grandma studied different spots on the carpet.

McKenna chewed.

Grandma Pencil was banished. No dramatics. No tears. No protestations.

After fully processing the thrust of her argument—that Misty had offed herself with her prescription pills—Murray simply said, “You aren’t welcome here.”

Very politely, he escorted Grandma out the front door. She didn’t resist. As she hobbled onto the screened-in porch, Murray added, “And not just to night, Annabelle. I mean never. You’re not welcome again.”

She didn’t say a word.

Toby and Audrey applauded from the top of the stairs. They sang, “Ding-dong, the witch is dead! Which old witch? The wicked witch!” And so on.

Murray didn’t celebrate. There was no happiness in exiling his mother-in-law. He didn’t hate her. He pitied her. In his mind, there was scant difference between her and the poor suckers who’d sipped from the Guyana punch bowl. It must have gnawed at him that he’d allowed his own children to be brought into that fold.

However, Toby wasn’t a problem. He was a “dim bulb,” in Murray’s words. Toby never memorized the prayers, never understood what he was singing. “That’s a lot of lyrics!” he exclaimed. On Sunday mornings he could always think of something better to do than cramming into a pew and chanting along with a pipe organ: work the bag at Tony’s; wrestle a homeless guy; do one-handed pushups in front of the new cheerleader. Besides, that whole kneel-stand-kneel-stand routine? Such a tease! So close to exercise without actually
being
exercise.

Toby’s post-high-school plan was to abandon college in favor of a full-time job where he could “act like a man and lift some things.”

Yes, as far as religion was concerned, Murray didn’t have to fret about his first-born. Toby was a Mapes, through and through.

But then there was McKenna. McKenna the boyish. “Kenny” the virgin, the recluse. McKenna who’d kissed only two boys and had only “made out” with one of them. McKenna who’d never worn makeup, never gone to a prom, never understood why dresses and high heels were “womanly” but reading philosophy was not.

McKenna who’d graduated from St. Monica’s in eighth grade and then accepted, against Murray and Misty’s wishes, Grandma’s offer to pay for her Catholic Central High tuition. (Toby had said “Thanks, but no thanks” and gone to Creston Public.)

McKenna who in her senior year had begun a formal conversion to Catholicism. Catechism classes. Bible study. McKenna who was now enrolled for the fall semester at Aquinas College.

Grandma Pencil vanished from the Mapeses’ lives. Truth told, Grandma Pencil was happy to leave. Her possessions—four pairs of shoes, two purses, a set of dentures, her house keys, credit cards, lipstick, pocket mirror—had begun disappearing again. Grandma knew perfectly well where these items had gone, but she could never prove it.
Good riddance to evil
was Grandma’s attitude.
More time to spend with my geezers.

Audrey was ecstatic. She’d slain the dragon. She’d avenged her mother’s death. That pruny bitch couldn’t piss on Mom’s memories so easily. Suicide, indeed! The very thought!

Audrey refused to believe it. So did Toby. But still, the idea had been spoken. And from Misty’s own mother, no less. The utterance alone made it a possibility. So the notion remained, nestled in the corners of the children’s thoughts. While showering, while dressing for work, while pumping triceps, while playing Atari 5200, while sitting quietly at the front window to watch the storm thrash the trees—at any given moment the idea was whispered by the wretched little goblin in their heads:
Your mommy killed herself. Your mommy killed herself.

Questions crept in: If she
had
done it . . . then what? What would this mean? Pondering the implications, even hypotheti-cally, was unbearable. Still, the voice whispered:

She wanted to leave. She was miserable. She didn’t love you. You made her die.

Individually, McKenna, Toby, and Audrey all revisited moments with their mother. The smallest memory was scrutinized.

A day at the dentist. She pats your hand in the waiting room, says, “You’ll be fine.” You pull your hand away and pretend to read
Cosmopolitan.

A Saturday, helping her fold socks on her bed. You get called away by the telephone. It’s Ronald Urbane, the boy who will, days later, sweet talk you into kissing him behind the school. When you return, Mom is gone and the laundry basket is empty.

A Christmas morning, her somnolent smile as she unwraps the cheesy fake gold necklace you bought at the mall for $8.95. “Thank you, sweetheart,” she says. She brushes a strand of hair from her mouth. Takes a sip of her hot cocoa. No hug? She gave Toby a hug when she opened
his
present.

Where was it? Where was the clue, the moment she crossed from happiness to
other
?

Shouldn’t we have seen it? What did we do to make our mom hate life so much? Can’t we take it back?

I take it back.

Three months after Grandma Pencil was exiled, McKenna moved in with her.

But why? Was she such a devoted granddaughter? Did she really adore Annabelle, even to the point of worship, as some have speculated?

Not to burst any balloons, but it was a space issue. The Mapes house had three bedrooms. Toby and McKenna were almost nineteen and still sharing a 16' × 18' box. Do the math.

“Cripes, I had my own
apartment
when I was seventeen,” Murray said. “Don’t you at least want your own room?”

It was a practical matter. A matter of convenience. A win-win situation. A no-brainer.

Left unspoken were a few additional factors that may have prompted Murray’s “impromptu” dinner table discussion with McKenna while Toby “happened” to be at the gym and Audrey “happened” to be upstairs wearing headphones, cramming for a history test on her new bed. It was 7 p.m. Murray sipped at his can of Pabst. Every few seconds, he fiddled with his new hearing aid and cocked his head as if trying to pour his brains out onto the table. He looked powdery and lost.

McKenna couldn’t concentrate. She kept expecting her mother to appear at the saloon-style kitchen doors. Her voice sounded as real as the wood grain under McKenna’s fingertips: “Will you be dining with us, Murr, or should I pop in a Hungry Man?”

“Well?”

This was Murray, asking McKenna a question.

“I don’t need my own room,” McKenna shrugged. “I don’t hang out in there very much.”

“I don’t hang out in the burn ward,” he said, “but you won’t find me sleeping there.” He frowned, and then alternated snapping his fingers on each side of his head. “Everything sounds like a tin can.”

“Does Toby want me to go?” McKenna said.

“He didn’t say that.” Murray moistened his lips with his tongue. “But yes, he does. He needs space. You need space. You’re adults now. Those drapes ain’t a wall.”

When Toby and McKenna turned thirteen, Murray had installed a rod and curtain in the middle of their ceiling. The curtain provided privacy for dressing and sleeping, and it could be pushed out of the way when not in use. However, it had the unforeseen effect of making the room feel like a hospital. Still, McKenna had never slept anywhere else.

“Why doesn’t Toby get his own place?” McKenna said. “He’s got a job.”

Murray bounced a cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket. “The thing is, Grandma Pencil could use the company,” he said. He struck a match, puffed, then shook the match and dropped it on the table. He would have never done this when Misty was alive. The smoldering match reminded McKenna of her mother’s corpse.

“You’ve always been the closest to Grandma,” Murray continued. He blew out a cloud, then tipped his head back and touched the glands in his neck. He was always “coming down with something” these days. “You two are sort of alike, I think. You might enjoy yourself. You probably have a lot to talk about.”

McKenna felt herself flush. She tugged at one of her braids. Pippy Longstocking. That’s what they’d called her at St. Monica’s. Half a decade later, she still wore her hair like this. What was the point of changing?

“Listen, Mac,” Murray said. He fixed her with a stare. Jarring to meet those eyes. His face was in the midst of a quiet collapse, the erosion of aging, but his eyes still gleamed like precious stones. “I always thought you were the most like me. Out of all you kids, I saw myself in you.” He snapped his fingers at his ear. “You keep to yourself. You’re a thinker. Toby . . . Christ, who knows where that kid came from. He scares me, frankly. He’s my son, but what the hell? Protein shakes, flaxseed oil, bandannas? Kid’s a tree.” He knocked on the table for emphasis. “But that’s how we raised you kids. We wanted you to find your own direction. That’s what you did. And your mom and I were always proud of you. You, Mac. We probably didn’t say it enough, but I’m saying it now. We didn’t mind that you weren’t dating, proms, mall, who cares about that stuff? That’ll definitely be Audrey’s thing, doesn’t have to be your thing. Dating’s overrated, frankly.” He rang the Pabst can gently, a liquid bell, before draining the remainder into his gullet. “I mean, I wish you’d eat better. That’s not a criticism. It’s just . . . what it is. Take it or leave it.” He looked around the dining room. He sniffed. “It’s weird, isn’t it, without all the bowls?”

McKenna nodded. “Very.”

“Be right back.” Murray scooted his chair and went into the kitchen. McKenna heard the basement door open and his footsteps descending.

A minute later, he returned with a shoebox and a fresh beer. He slid the box across the table and sat down. “You probably haven’t heard much noise from the basement in a while,” he said. He didn’t wait for McKenna to answer. “I’ve slowed down over the years. But I haven’t been picking my butt down there.” He smiled and winked, “Well, maybe a little picking.” He nodded at the box. “I figure that’s my last invention. I made it for you, kiddo.”

The box was so light it felt empty. Was this some kind of perverse commentary on her weight? Was he saying she was empty inside? He’d always been absent, but he’d never been cruel. Audrey had put him up to this. Audrey and Toby. McKenna worked her stomach and throat, but there was nothing to bring up.

“Go on, open it,” Murray said.

Inside was a black plastic contraption, perhaps seven inches wide, which resembled a miniature clothes hanger with two clips on the bottom. Instead of a hook on the top, there was a one-inch plastic arm with a tiny, hooded light bulb on its end.

“Pull that light,” Murray said.

When McKenna pulled, the plastic arm extended to five inches. As it extended, the arm curved, and when it was pulled out all the way, the bulb lighted. McKenna slid the arm back to its nested position, and the bulb turned off.

“You’re a reader,” Murray said. “The clips keep your book open, and now you can read in the dark.” For a brief moment, his face was alive again, excited, exactly as McKenna remembered from when she was a girl. She hadn’t dreamed this part of her life after all.

McKenna was crying without knowing why. It wasn’t happiness. It wasn’t sadness. It was something relatively unpleasant, like shame.

Murray had turned his attention to the dirt under his finger-nail.

McKenna wanted to speak—a joke, a gush of appreciation, anything—but her mind was caught in a per sis tent loop, a needle skipping again and again on words spoken ten minutes earlier:

You two are sort of alike. You might enjoy yourself. You probably have a lot to talk about.

The questions, the questions. A swarm of bees in her head. A thousand minds, chaos, but all working together. Please don’t sting me.

“I’ll move out tomorrow,” McKenna said.