Falling in Love with Natassia

by Anna Monardo

  “The police?” Mary said.

  “Mary, if you want Natassia to see a specialist in the city,” Giulia offered, “the two of you could move into my apartment. There’s room.”

  “Thanks. I don’t think so.” Police?

  At three-thirty, Nora convinced Mary to go to the nurses’ station. “You’re the mother. Maybe they’ll tell you something.”

  Mary wasn’t ready yet to be released from the hospital, but she didn’t want Nora to cry again. She walked to the desk and told the nurse, “My daughter stopped vomiting a while ago. What happens next?” The employees’ time clock was ticking behind the desk. There was a microphone near the nurse’s mouth, and on the desk in front of her, a bag of Doritos and a scatter of fat, steel-covered patient files.

  “Oh, that vomiting isn’t the reason why you’re waiting. Your daughter has to see somebody from Psych. She can’t leave till somebody from Psych sees her.”

  “Why?”

  With a Dorito halfway into her mouth, the woman looked up at Mary. “You really want me to answer that?”

  “When are they coming, these people from Psych?” Mary was hoping they wouldn’t come for a while.

  “Shortly, honey. They know you’re waiting, but things are nutso. We got a circus going tonight. Must be the moon. Here’s a blanket. Make her a pillow, so she’ll have her head a little up.”

  At four o’clock, Natassia woke up shivering. Mary took off her sweatshirt and pulled it over Natassia’s head. Easing Natassia’s arms into the sleeves, she asked, “Does this hurt, sweetie?”

  “I don’t feel anything,” she muttered.

  “She doesn’t feel anything. She’s had tons of Novocain,” Nora said, and took off her brushed-silk jacket; they wrapped it around Natassia, who still shivered.

  Giulia left and came back with a pair of green surgical pants for Natassia.

  “Where’d you get these?” Mary asked.

  “Don’t ask. I stole them.” They pulled the pants onto Natassia, who was still shivering.

  No sign yet of anyone from Psych. Mary, Nora, and Giulia sat on the floor. Mary was down to a T-shirt. Nora put her arm around her to warm her. “Hey,” Mary said, “you guys should go home now. It’s late.”

  “No. We’re waiting with you.”

  “I don’t want to call Ross yet,” Mary said. Her friends nodded. “It’s really cold, huh?”

  “I’m going to find some blankets,” Giulia said.

  “I’m going to find the damn doctor,” Nora said. She and Giulia stood and began to walk away. Then they both stopped and looked back at Mary. “Will you be okay here?”

  Mary nodded, so they left.

  It was just after five in the morning. All night, Mary’s body had followed some instinct learned from dance: When the music is fast, the beat hysterical, the only thing to do is slow your movement. Keep your center of gravity low, hunker down. Keep breathing.

  During the hours at the hospital, with panic all around her, Mary had crouched, done nothing, waited until she understood what needed to be done. As soon as she was alone with her daughter, the hospital corridor turned suddenly quiet, and for Mary it was like that hush just before the curtain went up, while the audience quieted and Mary took her place onstage, in the dark, knowing nothing but her own heartbeat. That night in the hospital corridor, there was hush and, within it, Mary’s moment of clear sight. Shaking Natassia gently awake, telling her, “Shh,” Mary slipped the silk jacket off of Natassia, pulled off the green pants, turned the bloodstained raincoat inside out, wrapped Natassia in it, and slipped the clogs onto her feet. Mary was prepared to tell the other patients, “We’re going to the bathroom,” but no one was paying attention.

  IN THE WEEKS that followed that night, Mary kept going over and over that moment, marveling at how easy it had been to walk her daughter out of the hospital into the predawn damp September morning. There was a taxi by the door. “Grand Central,” she told the driver.

  An hour later, they were on the train going up the river to Mary’s cottage on the Hiliard School campus. They were among just a handful of people in the train car: Four or five sleepy nannies making their way to their jobs in the suburbs. A young drunk in a tux. A crew of construction workers. Mary and Natassia had a wide seat to themselves, and Natassia lay across Mary’s lap, letting Mary hold her, as if she were a baby, her head pushed into the crook of Mary’s arm, her face turned to hide against Mary’s chest. Natassia was awake now and crying, finally crying. Mary said nothing. All Mary knew to do was to hold her. There were no words anymore, so Mary used her arms to tell her daughter, minute by minute, that she was there with her.

  When the train shot out of the Grand Central tunnel, it was dawn, light was rising against the train windows, and Natassia spoke—it was really the first time she’d said anything all night. “He called me,” she whispered. “That was him on the phone.”

  “Last night? Your boyfriend called you? Is that what happened?”

  Natassia crumbled. “I’m…sorry.”

  “Oh, Natassia. Oh, Natassia.”

  They were both crying, and Mary rocked Natassia and said into her hair, “Oh no, I’m sorry, Natassia, I’m so, so sorry. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault.”

  Natassia’s thumbs were hindered by the bandages, so Mary offered her own pinkie and Natassia took it in her mouth, exactly as she’d done when she was a baby.

  For the whole two-hour trip, Mary’s arms and legs bore the weight of her big, tall daughter. Staring down at Natassia’s face, Mary tried to understand. How could her daughter—this gorgeous, genius girl who was her daughter—be so demolished by love?

  WHAT MARY LEARNED in those first days after she brought her daughter upstate was that her love for Natassia was enormous. So huge a thing was Mary’s love that it made her wise and able to see a long way inside her daughter’s hurt heart.

  “Mary,” Ross told her over the phone, “I know what you’re trying to do. It’s beautiful, it’s a fine thing, but I don’t think you can pull it off. She’s too sick. We need to consider one of these places my father’s talking about.”

  And then David would call Mary from his office: “I really should call Social Services on you this time. And Ross, that other imbecile, living up there as dim-witted as an Eskimo. Your daughter needs professional help, she needs to be in a psychiatric facility. They’ve got a spot for her at one of the best places in the country, and meanwhile you’re keeping her hostage up there.”

  “I’m her mother, David.”

  “Mother! What do you know about mothering? What,” David yelled, “do you think you’re doing? What the hell are you thinking?”

  Mary wasn’t thinking. She just moved ahead, like an animal. Mary knew that the best and only answer was the simplest one: Natassia needed her mother. Mary had no idea how she had arrived at this conclusion, she just knew she was right.

  That first morning when they arrived at the cottage, after bolting from the emergency room and riding the train upstate, Mary helped Natassia lie down on the couch, then Mary went into one of the spare bedrooms, pulled a mattress off the bed, and dragged it into the main room, right next to her own futon. She found clean sheets, made up the bed, put Natassia in it. While Natassia slept, Mary worked with the same focused industriousness that possessed her when she was choreographing under a deadline.

  She collected the sharp kitchen knives, razors, scissors, along with all her pipes, into a paper bag to store up in her office. From the closets and drawers, Mary pulled out her largest sweaters and sweatpants so Natassia would have clothes to wear. Every medication in every cabinet and on every shelf was flushed down the toilet. For the first time in years, Mary would be living without Advil close at hand to help her manage the physical pain of her work and her injuries. Within a few hours, she had stripped herself of herself. Mary was ready to become a mother.

  Before rumors began circulating, Mary called Natassia’s school in the city and told them an abbreviated ver
sion of what had happened to Natassia, told them she would be on leave for the rest of the semester, asked them to consider refunding David some of the tuition he’d already paid.

  It was past noon by now; Mary had been awake for thirty hours. As Natassia slept, Mary kept working. She called the Hiliard School nurse and got the name of the doctor the school used when students got sick. Dr. Jonson—in his seventies, semi-retired, a general surgeon, gabby—offered to come to campus, and arrived at the cottage wearing yellow golf pants with a matching golf shirt. He had a bristling gray crewcut. “Sorry I couldn’t have you come to my office, but there’s a young gal, she specialized in that sports medicine, she sees her patients there a few times a week. It’s not that I need the rent money, but, hell, the examining rooms are there, and, as my wife said, this gal could use a break to get started. Well, it works out for both of us.” He told Mary all this as she was letting him in the door.

  “Hey, thanks for coming over,” she said.

  “No problem. I’ve helped out around this school for forty-five years. My wife used to teach here, you know. American history.” When he saw the mattress set up on the floor and Natassia sleeping, he asked Mary, “Is that where you’ll be sleeping, next to her?”

  Was everybody always going to question her, doubt her? “Yeah, what’s the problem?”

  “None at all. Good idea, I’d say. You teach here, do you? What’s your area?”

  “Dance.”

  “Good for you. Dance, well. My wife, she’s crazy for the ballet. I’m ashamed to say, I fall asleep every time we go down to the city to see that ballet of New York, whatever they call it.”

  “New York City Ballet.”

  “I get her the season tickets. She likes that.”

  His voice was slow, laconic; as he spoke, he unwrapped the bandages around Natassia’s wrists.

  “They love to use the gauze, don’t they? Then they say they need more money from insurance, who charges it all back to the patient. Got you looking like a heavyweight boxer here. You a dancer, too, like your mother?”

  Natassia wearily shook her head.

  “No? I bet you’re a reader, aren’t you? You strike me as the intellectual type. My daughter growing up, that’s all she did, always lost in some corner of the house reading a book. She’s a professor now. Out in Oregon with her husband—Does that hurt you when I do that?” He was dabbing at the stitches with an alcohol rub. Natassia just shrugged. “Doesn’t hurt? Okay, that’s good.” He wrapped her up again with clean gauze. “I want you to come pay me a visit in two days at the office, so I can look at this again.”

  “Sure,” Mary said, “we’ll be there.” Natassia said nothing.

  The doctor held Natassia’s fingers in his hand and squeezed them a bit. Her bandages were now minimal; she had much more mobility. “How about you? Are you coming, or you sending your mother alone?”

  Natassia finally spoke. “Yeah. I’ll be there.”

  “Good. I’ll be glad to see you. Okay, enough of my yakking. You need to sleep, and I need to go kick butt on the golf course.” There was even a hint of a smile on Natassia’s face as she lay down.

  At the cottage door, the doctor motioned with his head for Mary to come outside and join him in the garden. He walked a little ways down the path. “Why’d she do this?” he asked.

  “Some guy. A boyfriend.” Mary’s face wilted as she began to cry. “It’s my fault. I—”

  “Hey, come on, now. That won’t help her. This world today, it’s everyone’s fault. These kids, they’re all fifteen going on forty, their shoulders piled high with all kinds of troubles. She had previous attempts, problems?” Mary shook her head no. “Well, you got to watch her now.”

  “I know that. That’s what I’m going to do. Just keep her with me.”

  “That’s the thing to do. And she needs to talk to somebody. You know that, don’t you? We need to call that New York hospital and I’ll tell them she’s in my care, but only if you get her good help up here. You got someone? A counselor, a minister?”

  “I see a therapist in Brooklyn. Well, mostly we talk on the phone. Natassia’s grandparents want her down in the city. They have a psychiatrist lined up. Really what they want is to send her away to some place.”

  “A city psychiatrist? Taking the train down there, in her condition? She’s exhausted, and depressed as all hell. Why go down there? Look what she’s got here. These gardens, they’re looking better every year, aren’t they? Up here, she’s got you watching her.”

  “I couldn’t let her stay at that hospital. It was so crazy, so—”

  “Hey, you don’t need to tell me about ERs in those city hospitals.” He had pulled a prescription pad out of his bag and was writing. “Here. This is the name and number for a therapist right here in town. She’s got a social-work degree, she’s starting a small part-time practice. She’s my son’s wife. They live over the hill, by the railroad station. Heather’s her name. Lovely girl. Just had their second baby, presented me with my twelfth grandchild, do you believe it? Anyway, that’s why she’s part-time now, in their home. I think Natalie—”

  “Natassia.”

  “Sorry. Natassia—pretty name—Natassia might trust her. That’s the important thing with these therapists. How can you trust somebody down in the city who’s sticking you for one hundred fifty dollars an hour? Bunch of charlatans, if you ask me.” He handed Mary the sheet of paper with Heather’s name. “Call. Tell her I sent you.”

  “Okay.” Standing out in the sun, Mary felt the exhaustion hit her. Then she remembered, looked in the window of the cottage. Natassia was buried under the comforter; even her head was hidden.

  “She allergic to any medications?”

  “Well, last night something made her vomit like crazy. They’d given her tetanus and penicillin shots. They tried saying she took pills, but I know she didn’t. I never thought about allergies.”

  “Did she get a rash, trouble breathing? No? That stomach upset wasn’t meds, then, it was stress.” He was writing and handing Mary sheets from his pad. “Here. This is mild, over-the-counter, for pain. Buy the smallest packet, just five or so, enough for today and tomorrow, and keep them away from her. Just a precaution. You’re not using drugs here in this house, or drinking a lot, are you? Parties?”

  “Parties? Hardly. All I do is work. I already threw out all my Advil and stuff.”

  “Smart move, Mother. Is it the adoption Natassia’s upset about? Problems with her self-identity and all that?”

  “Adoption? No. She’s mine. My natural-born daughter.”

  “Oh, sorry. I just wondered, seeing she’s not Oriental and you are.”

  “Her dad’s Jewish.”

  “I see. And he’s—”

  “Not around.”

  “Well, ma’am, can I do anything else for you?”

  “No, just thanks. You know, for coming over here. I really wanted her out of the hospital. Hey, I have to pay you.”

  “My wife will send you a bill. Submit it to your insurance.”

  “Listen, I got to ask you. Will you please keep this, I mean the details and everything, keep it from anybody you might know around here?”

  “I’ve been a doctor for fifty years this May, and I have never broken a confidence. Listen, Mother, you’ve got to stop crying. She should be all right. It’ll take time. But—”

  Mary kicked at a pile of dead leaves.

  “Mother, I want you to listen to me.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “I believe you know what you’re doing here. Any questions or problems, you call me. Another emergency, go straight to the hospital.”

  “Yes.”

  “But don’t let there be another emergency.”

  “No.”

  He was pulling dead leaves off of a rosebush. “Somebody needs to dead-head these plants out here.” A plump yellow chrysanthemum in full bloom was hanging bent on its stalk, and he pulled it off. “Here,” he said, “put that in water. That should cheer up your Natassia. Y
ou’d pay top dollar for a flower like this in the city. Okay, now, got to go.”

  “Have a good golf game,” Mary said.

  “Oh, I’m not a very good golfer, you know, but I do enjoy myself. My strategy is to see if I can make the other fellows mess up.” She watched him put his black doctor’s bag in the trunk of his tan Mercedes. He waved as he got into the car. She waved back.

  Well, that was neighborly. As Mary walked into the cottage, she was wondering what world, what fantasy kingdom, that doctor lived in. And how long, how many generations, or how much money did it take before a family could end up living that way.

  THE MODEL

  For five years, Nora lived in the south of France like a woman in a Matisse painting, lying around in a coral-striped robe or bare-breasted, an odalisque reclining on a white-sheeted chaise, on flowered damask pillows, while all around her, like the goldfish in the plump glass bowl, swam the evergreen paisleys and the beet-red blooms, the vines and fringes of the draperies hung beyond the carpet spread before the screen folded neatly as the elbow of Nora’s amber arm. Middle of the week, middle of the day, Mediterranean heat, Nora naked after lunch in the center of Christopher’s studio or in the studios of the other American painters of their crowd. The French still at table, but the artists tense at the canvas, waiting for the event: sunlight passing over Nora’s calm head. Her white long hair up or down, Nora on the cushions, sometimes on a tabletop, sometimes wearing jewelry, seeming to worry about nothing, watching the light fall in from the balcony, through the sun curtains sheer as one of her slips. Light crawls toward her. She allows the painters to pose her, touch her. Why not? No hint that this is recreational nakedness. In the wide space outside the painters’ absorption, she wanders freely, there is nothing but safety. What they want is what she wants: the only point of her day is to recline and be still. This is her apprenticeship, but she does not know for what. She thinks, For dinner, eggplant grilled with olive oil. She touches the powder of a flower’s center to her nose and wonders what there is in the world beyond the body that she does not know yet.