How We Remember

by J. M. Monaco

As I think about the jump from Peggy to Dave’s preoccupations with sandy beaches, it dawns on me how relative our notions of bad and good have been. They depend on one’s perspective. For Dave, Auntie Peggy and the ‘shit’ that happened couldn’t quite compare with the grand significance of his time in Fort Lauderdale.

  ‘I remember you liked it there,’ I say. ‘I was envious. Why didn’t you want to make a go of things and stay? You and Nicole, before you had Amy?’

  ‘It was Nicole,’ he says, pausing to finish the cigarette. ‘She was the problem. She came to visit a few times when I got those contracts but said she’d never leave Mass. Family and all that. I would have made it work, Jo. I wanted it so bad, to stay, get away from these crazy winters. All the shit. Used to go to the beach after work and swim. And the money was good there too. Could’ve got more work there if I wanted it. But I didn’t want to lose her, and we were only just married, I don’t know, a few months, I think. Even though I did screw around a little. But hey,’ he says, knocking my arm with his, ‘I’m not proud of the cheating and she never found out, but, you know, I got into a bit of partying and she wasn’t around and one thing led to another. So, maybe that part of it wasn’t great but things would’ve been different if she was there. Anyway, then one of the jobs I had finished and she said, “You’re coming home, Dave.” And here I am now. Divorced. Amy’s done OK, but I know I made a lot of mistakes that she hasn’t forgiven me for.’

  I can’t say I’m surprised by Dave’s confession, but it gives me a headache. Like father, like son.

  ‘Who knows what would have happened, Dave,’ I say, massaging my temples. ‘And it’s never too late to try to make things better. Now that Amy’s older with her own child she probably realises how hard it was for you. I mean marriage is no ballpark and once you bring kids into the picture...’ I shake my head, thinking about our parents, my mother’s heartache. The mistakes she couldn’t fix. Her inability to walk away. ‘I’m sure she loves you.’

  He closes his eyes, nods in agreement. I wonder what other right things I should be saying.

  ‘I miss Ma,’ Dave says.

  I look to see if that fleeting moment with Dave’s quivering voice will lead to any tears, but it doesn’t.

  ‘Oh, God,’ I sigh. ‘Me too.’

  And it’s true. We hardened ourselves over the course of a year or so in preparation for her death, her colluding with us with all her talk about hospice plans and what kind of memorial she wanted. We convinced ourselves we could take it, but the body, with or without the outlet of tears, has no memory at all of that kind of rationalisation.

  ‘She was a good mother, Jo. Not perfect, but you know, I put her through so much hell. You see,’ his voice rises, ‘Amy was always a good kid, overall, not too much trouble, really, but I didn’t do enough for her, wasn’t really there for her.’

  I touch his shoulder. ‘Amy knows you love her, Dave. She knows.’

  ‘But that’s not enough, is it? But sometimes, Jo, I just think I can’t do it anymore. Can’t take anymore. Everything’s too much fucking work. I just wake up and want to give up. End it all.’ He lights another cigarette. ‘Ma kind of gave up later, too, in her own way. With her smoking. And everything else. She knew she was going to get cancer. She always said it was in the genes. What’s the point of quitting, right? I’ll get it too.’

  ‘Oh, Dave.’ I feel a sensation of panic rising. My stomach is beginning to make a loud noise again but this time it’s not hunger pains. I move around trying to get into a comfortable position. I undo the first button of my jeans. ‘Are you trying to tell me you are seriously depressed?’

  ‘Maybe,’ he says.

  ‘Are you having suicidal thoughts?’

  His tone changes suddenly from morose to nonchalance. ‘Oh yeah. I have those thoughts.’

  I try to read his eyes but they’re not giving anything away. And although he’s making light of it he scares me. Is this what suicidal people do? ‘That’s serious. Have you told your shrink ?’

  ‘Oh sure, we talk about it. I mean I think about it but I’m not ever going to act on it, Jo. It’s just shit that flies around in my head, but I wouldn’t have the guts to do anything about it,’ he laughs, looks at me. ‘You don’t have to worry about anything like that.’

  ‘Well, that’s a relief…I guess. Are you sure?’ Those times when he was hospitalised in his adult years, they always happened when he had a manic episode, when his meds needed adjusting. According to Dave the bipolar high was the best feeling he ever experienced, better than any sex or drugs. ‘You feel like you can do anything,’ he told me then. ‘King fucking Kong. You think you can rule the universe. But then you crash and it’s the hardest fall you can imagine. There’s nothing worse. You feel like there’s nothing worth living for.’

  ‘Aw. That’s real sweet of you, Jo.’ Dave puts his arms around me and pulls me close to him. ‘But you don’t need to worry about that. I’m a survivor. You’re a survivor, we’re a family of survivors, Jo. Ain’t no way we’re going down without a fight.’

  Twenty

  I’m on my way out of town in the Mondeo, heading toward Beth’s, when I arrive at a familiar set of traffic lights on the main road near Auntie Peggy’s house.

  For many years when I travelled in this direction I waited patiently in the car convincing myself not to look at her house, at her car which was often parked in the driveway near the basketball net where the boys would play outside. Tonight as the lights turn green I drive straight on, but at the last second before I have to move into the lane that takes me onto the highway, my commonsense collapses and I give in to my curiosity to turn around at the next opportunity and head back. I meander slowly towards Peggy’s house, noting lights on in the front room, and continue to the end of the street. I find a place to turn around and park with enough distance away from the house so I won’t be seen.

  The place looks the same as when I saw Peggy there before she died. I happened to be in Boston that summer and agreed to join my mother on a visit. At that stage Peggy was strong enough to stay at home, although she needed help walking, couldn’t eat very much and used an oxygen canister to aid her breathing. She wore a wig but it was a good quality one that my mother helped her find.

  My mother finished her cigarette outside and once in, played her jovial, positive-nurse act to perfection. Oh, Peggy, the wig looks even better today than when you first got it, it’s like you’ve grown into it. You’ve got a great colour today in your face too. Peggy, look who’s here come to say hello.

  I had made a point of buying Peggy a goodbye-to-life bon voyage gift, the most expensive Chanel body lotion I could find, no expense spared. Nothing else seemed appropriate, considering she could no longer smoke, eat, drink or be merry, and I didn’t want to show up empty-handed. Peggy went along with the façade of playing happy families when I handed it over, all wrapped in its shiny paper and silver ribbon. When she struggled to open the top end of the wrapping I helped her tear it off.

  ‘Oh, that looks nice. You know, I’ve never used body cream. Never liked that greasy feeling,’ she said, taking a sniff after making a sour face.

  ‘But this is different, Auntie. It’s Chanel.’

  ‘Oh, yes, Chanel. Oh,’ she said, putting it down.

  ‘Go on, give it a try, it’ll make you feel like a million bucks,’ I said. But I think I knew all along that the last thing a dying woman would want is a gift from the niece who once turned her husband into a paedophile with fantasies of having his own teenage Lolita.

  ‘Oh, you know, I think I’ll try it later, after a shower. That’s what I’ll do,’ she said, smiling, but I insisted.

  ‘Just try a little bit now. It’s a special one. Only the best for you, Auntie Peggy. Just have a little smell. You’ll love it. It’s really special.’

  After I helped her open the lid, she squeezed some, with hesitation, onto the tip of her index finger, and tested it on her wrist. ‘Oh, no, not too greasy, that’s good.’ />
  ‘No, no, there’s no way Chanel’s going to be greasy, Auntie.’

  ‘Well, maybe a bit, but not too bad,’ she said to my mother. My mother took some, then I smoothed more of it on Peggy’s other arm.

  ‘Oh, not too much, please,’ Peggy said.

  ‘Just a bit more, Auntie. It’s nice and subtle,’ I said. I took more and dabbed it on my neck and arms.

  ‘Hmm, I like that,’ my mother said. ‘But you know what I really loved wearing years ago, Peggy. Oh, what was it called, White something...’

  ‘Oh, that was White Shoulders,’ Peggy said. ‘Yes, I loved that one too. You know they stopped making it some time ago now. What a shame that was.’

  ‘And Emeraude,’ my mother added. ‘I wore that one all the time. Why can’t they just keep making the good ones? Everyone loved Emeraude and White Shoulders.’

  An image popped into my mind of my mother taking the green bottle of Emeraude and spraying it all over herself after a shower, then lighting a long menthol Virginia Slim.

  ‘But nothing beats Chanel, ladies. You can’t top Chanel,’ I said.

  ‘We all have our favourites, I guess,’ my mother said with a nervous smile, looking at Peggy.

  Apart from a few bouts of uncontrollable coughing and breathlessness, there was no indication from Peggy about how awful it felt to be withering away with poisoned lungs, especially when she knew her husband was sitting in the back yard puffing on his Lucky Strikes, still faithful to his old brand. The rest of the carton sat on their kitchen countertop, next to Peggy’s medications.

  I caught a glimpse of the back of Ron’s bald head and hunched back, which looked exaggerated when he stood up and wandered around. He appeared to have reduced in size since I was a teenager, but then I wondered if he may have always been that small. His eyes stole a glance inside the house once or twice. He could see my mother and me but kept his distance. Over the hour and a half’s time we visited, there was no mention of him.

  The kitchen where we talked felt small and cramped, so different to how I remembered it when I was a child. I had spent so much time there having milk and cookies or tea with my aunt, drawing and playing games with her boys. The bigger world of the past, the structures that contained the adults I had no choice but to trust back then, had noticeably shrunk in size and importance. After Peggy’s death, I hoped they would eventually all dwindle so much they would turn into motes of insignificance.

  By the time I said my final goodbye to Auntie Peggy that afternoon I knew the Chanel lotion and even showing my face was a mistake. Something had compelled me to catch that last sight of Peggy on her way out, with her husband, hopefully, not lagging too far behind. Maybe I had to have evidence of it, see the proof with my own eyes. I left knowing, most likely, that Peggy would never use my present. For a while an insidious bitterness about that swam around inside me. All that money spent on something that would end up in the trash with Peggy’s other cheap stuff after she drew her last breath. Still, Peggy had no other choice but to take notice of it. Uncle Ron might have seen it that day too, opened it and said, Now that one smells good. She would have remembered the scent when I opened it, when I rubbed it into her skin. She would have remembered I was there in her house.

  My reverie is interrupted and I am snapped back to the present when I see the old man emerging from the side of the house near the driveway, with a slow-moving cross-breed mutt. Turns out Ron is still a smoker, one of those people who will take in a pack a day and live to ninety. The world is an unjust place. He moves first to the front of the house where the mutt sniffs then pisses on a tree stump. The dog ambles up the road on his own then stops, looks behind him to see Ron standing still in the same spot with a steady look downwards, puffing away, coughing. Eventually the dog realises he’s on his own and continues alone. He stops at the front of a house a few doors up and takes his first big dump. Even from a distance I can see his hind legs shaking.

  The dog moves on to the end of the road near the street lights and begins to head back but only after crossing to the other side where he finds another house and leaves his second dump. It’s a quicker one this time close to a large bed of yellow tulips. In spite of the dog’s wishful nods and whimpers to his master to join him for a walk, Ron remains standing in the same place, only shifting to pace slowly in front of the driveway, towards the front door and back again. When he finishes his cigarette he flicks it into the street and hollers, ‘Let’s go. Come on, let’s go.’ The mutt waddles back slowly, disappointed, and they head back inside.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ I whisper to myself in the car. ‘He’s leaving it there. Son of a bitch. Who does he think he is? If he’s not capable of walking or even picking up his dog’s shit, what else is he not doing? Not feeding him properly, I’ll bet. Son of a bitch.’

  All lights are soon switched off downstairs, then upstairs, and all is dark, like the other houses. The street is like the corner of a ghost town kept alive only by its proximity to the busier main road. I sit for a long time contemplating the dog-shit that Ron’s dog has left behind, imagine picking it up with a bag. I picture myself, quiet with intent, holding the bag in my hands, feeling the warmth of shit through the plastic, then smearing it over the front door of Ron’s house.

  I remember her expression that evening at home when the truth, or my half-version of the truth, came out about Uncle Ron.

  ‘He’s just such an asshole,’ my mother had said. ‘Bastard.’

  As I’m waiting to pull out into the busy street I notice two young white guys, maybe in their mid-twenties, both wearing baseball caps back to front, smoking by a pizza joint. I feel their eyes on me and I try not to look, but when I do one of them grabs himself between the legs with force and shouts, ‘Hey, how about some of this lady? Woo hoo!’

  Twenty One

  ‘You’re back a bit late,’ Beth says from the comfort of her usual television watching spot. A clean scent of lemon fills the living room. A can of Pledge sits on the table.

  ‘Did you eat much? I’ve got some leftovers.’

  ‘Thanks, but we ended up getting something at Kelly’s, so, yeah, that was dinner. Fried clams.’

  ‘Clams?’ she says, with a look of disgust.

  ‘It is kind of sitting like lead in me right now,’ I say. My stomach makes a rumbling sound again.

  ‘Wow. Could hear that all the way from here. You want some Pepto-Bismol?’

  I accept the offer, cringe at the chalky taste and try to lighten up the atmosphere. ‘So, hey, I stopped in at Whole Foods earlier and picked up a few things for us. Salad, bread, some other stuff. You know, you shouldn’t worry about feeding me by the way. You’ve got enough going on and I can take care of myself when I’m in and out. I also got some more wine, a nice gin for some G&T. You know, we got to keep up our supply, right?’

  ‘Look, Jo,’ she says sternly. ‘We have to eat anyway so it’s no big deal to make for one more person. I mean, it’s not going to break the bank. And we’ve got plenty of alcohol now, thanks.’

  I slump into the comfy armchair. My legs and arms feel heavy and I’m trying to visualise regaining the strength needed to put the shopping away.

  ‘How’s your brother? He still shooting off about the money business?’

  I hold my stomach and close my eyes.

  ‘Hey, are you OK?’ Beth says, sitting forward. ‘You look a bit off-colour, like really pale.’

  I wish she hadn’t asked. Driving on the highway I started to feel short waves of nausea. The fresh memory of seeing Uncle Ron, hearing that voice, the thought of my hands smearing shit all over his door (and how good that would feel) raced through my mind, then the words, everything that was said before, all at once flooded my brain. Keep this between us, OK? No one will understand …His hand touching my face. My mother’s diary… the rapist (Ron).

  ‘Jo? You OK?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ My eyes water. The taste of clams is rising up with reflux.

  Beth turns
off the television. ‘It’s the hardest thing, you know, losing your mother. Even though she was sick for a while, it’s still a shock when they’re gone.’ She releases a sigh, watches me. Waits. ‘You were at the house for a long time.’

  Beth knows enough about the O’Brien family and that house to recognise their effects. Whenever I’ve visited in the past it wouldn’t take long before I’d descend into a sullen state, all because I’d agreed to stay there in the old bedroom, the birthplace of my nightmares. Eventually when I’m an old woman, if I make it that far, maybe the memories will begin to fade. If I’m lucky maybe some of the things I wish never happened will disappear altogether from my mind with dementia. Only screwed up people like me could look forward to such a thing. What would I feel like then? Would I be happier?

  I go to bed soon after having a cup of camomile tea but it doesn’t stop the nausea from waking me up later. Then cramping. Soon I’m rushing to the bathroom with just enough time to bring up the clams. And everything else.

  The following morning, Beth sits on Danielle’s bed with its pink, flowery duvet cover and matching pillow cases. ‘There’s some broth in the fridge for you, OK?’ She’s suited up for work, SUV keys in hand, filling the air with a mix of pure cleanliness and Jo Malone perfume; after her morning run, she is a sight of perfection at 7.30am. I am proud of her and envious at the same time. Beth has what I want: feminine grace and self-conviction in middle-age. No excuses. No nonsense.

  ‘Broth?’ I say, half awake.

  ‘Chicken soup. My mother just dropped it off. I’ll call you later during a break, OK? See how you’re doing.’

  When her scent dissipates, I’m left with myself and that stale waft of sick in the air. I get up, go to the bathroom and feel relieved to have survived the night. Most of the vomiting occurred in the late night and early morning hours. Beth was by my side through it all, rubbing my back, wiping my mouth, offering water.

  ‘I should have known better,’ I cried, in between retching.