As it turned out, he’d made them himself, out of Clorox bottles turned upside down with the bottoms cut off and Christmas lights stuffed through holes he’d punched with an awl. When I got a closer look, I could see the white plastic handles still attached.
I stopped the car and saw Dad coming to the door looking squat and wavy behind the frosted glass. I was mustering strength to face him, when he opened the door, happy to see me.
I waved and popped the trunk to gather Dad’s gifts, the last ones I would ever give him.
I walked toward the house, packages in hand, dreading what the evening would bring. Would he call me names, throw a chair against the wall, hit me? Maybe it’d be something I hadn’t thought of. My trembling legs could barely hold me up.
When Dad walked outside, I saw that his right arm was in a plaster cast from fingertips to shoulder. His arm stuck out at a right angle, his wrist supported by a pole that protruded from a small rubber support stuck in a wide Ace bandage wrapped around his thick waist.
“Broke it playing senior’s basketball,” he said.
“Looks bad,” I told him.
“It’s not good.” He laughed.
I hadn’t expected him to be injured; somehow it changed things.
As we walked inside, I scrutinized Dad’s profile, foolishly expecting him to look different now that I was about to bust him for the vilest crime any person could commit. But with his thinning gray hair combed to the side, his rectangular gold wire-rimmed glasses, and his narrow lips that hardly parted even with a smile, he looked just like Dad.
He took my red wool jacket and hung it on the coatrack in the sunporch. I walked into his warm kitchen that smelled of roast beef and fresh baked rolls. In the living room I could see a Christmas tree lit in the corner. This year he’d really made an effort.
The table was set for four. Clearly, Dad had been expecting JoAnn and Jamie like in past years. I felt ashamed, as if it were my fault the other kids weren’t there, but resisted the urge to make up a story to ease the moment. I couldn’t have come up with one anyway. Dad picked up their plates and glasses and set them back in the cupboard.
I made small talk, sitting at the kitchen table with my arms on the round plastic tablecloth, waiting for my plate of roast beef and gravy.
“I have a nice apartment in Brooklyn,” I said.
“That’s good,” he said, throwing the unused silverware back into the drawer. He was mad about the other kids. He was going to be even madder when I told him what I knew.
“The only thing is, a homeless man slept in my car one night. I must have forgotten to lock it.” No reaction from Dad. I crossed my hands to keep Dad from seeing them shake.
He opened the pantry door. I had a sudden fear he might pull out a shotgun and shoot me square in the chest. But he was just getting two paper napkins. He handed one to me. “Thanks,” I said, spreading it across my lap.
Dad served me and set his plate across from mine. A red-and-white-striped candle-in-a-jar surrounded by a green plastic wreath burned as our centerpiece. I didn’t know how I was going to eat with my mouth so dry, or hold a conversation the way my mind was shooting off in a million different directions. For JoAnn’s sake I needed to confront him, but I couldn’t. I sat there—useless.
“It was nice of the other kids to let me know they weren’t coming,” he said, scooping a fork of mashed potatoes and gravy into his mouth. “What am I supposed to do with all this food?” He waved his fork toward the kitchen. He sat sideways at the table because of the cast on his arm.
It was the perfect moment to say, JoAnn would have come, but since the memories of your molesting her came up, she hasn’t been hungry.
“There’s ice on the roads tonight,” I told him instead. “Do you think they’ll salt them before I head back?” I forced chunks of roast beef and potatoes down my tight throat and wondered why I was such a coward.
“Doubt it. It’s pretty late and the trucks don’t usually go out on a holiday unless it’s really bad. Drive slowly and don’t use the brake too much. If you need the brake, tap it. Don’t lock it up, or you’ll slide.”
“Okay.”
“It’s supposed to stop snowing tonight. I bet it ends up melting tomorrow,” he said, concentrating on his plate.
After we ate, we moved to the rust-colored sectional to open presents. I handed Dad my last offerings: a red plastic box containing hundreds of different flavors of Jelly Bellies, a Pendleton wool blue-and-white-plaid shirt, and a crappy cookie dough ornament with “Dad” scribbled on top in red food coloring. I’d made it last week before JoAnn’s revelation had turned that word into “pedophile.”
“I like those lights you made out there,” I said, interrupting the silence.
“Would you like one?” he asked.
In my overanxious, exaggerated state, I’d forgotten what we were talking about. “What?” I asked.
“Do you want a plastic bell?”
I looked out the window at all of them blowing sideways in the wind. They were goofy, but I’d never wanted anything more than I wanted one of Dad’s ridiculous homemade Clorox bottle bells. “No, thanks,” I said. “They’re pretty, though.”
In previous years Dad had given gifts from his hardware store, something he considered handy. This year was no exception. The last Christmas I would ever receive anything from my dad, I got a set of yellow jumper cables and a hundred-dollar bill wrapped in Christmas paper.
“Thanks, Dad. I could really use this,” I said. He was fiddling with the TV remote.
“You’re welcome,” he said. “You never know when your car might need to be jumped. You don’t want to be stuck somewhere without cables.”
“That’s right,” I said.
I was trying to find the words for JoAnn, but they wouldn’t come. I watched him flip through channels, looking for a Johnny Carson rerun. The wool shirt I’d gotten him was pulled on over his sweater. He must have liked it.
Maybe I didn’t have to say it tonight. Maybe we could have this one last Christmas before everything erupted. I settled onto the sectional couch and stared at the TV. Dad usually fell asleep after Johnny’s monologue. I should probably go soon.
Despite my immense sorrow for Dad and his own horrendous childhood and despite my rage that he had repeated his history on us, I would let him go without words. Somehow I knew this would be the last time I’d see him and he wouldn’t even know it was happening.
I hugged him good-bye, the yellow jumper cables dangling from my hand, and walked out into the snowy night.
I was relieved to be out the door. The problem was the next hour, the next day, the next year, the next years. As screwy as it was, I did not know who I was without him.
It was death without the body.
The Clorox bottle bells illuminated the icy deck as I drove away from Dad, his good arm waving in the frosty air.
Chapter Twenty
When I returned from Christmas, I kept in close touch with JoAnn, calling her once a week. She was doing well, working with her therapist and handling her job with the same aplomb as before. It was good she didn’t need me to come down, because I was busy.
After calling off the wedding, I’d accepted a full-time job with a management consultant firm in the Flatiron Building in New York City. They were called The Strategist Group and consisted of three strategic management consultants who needed office support. They routinely hired actors when the workload was heavy because they liked “creative people,” and actors usually needed temp jobs to get by. It was the most fun I’d had at work.
When Elliott, the owner of the company, asked me to stay permanently, he said, “How about twenty-five thousand dollars a year?”
“Are you sure? Oh my God!” Financial stability for the first time in my life.
“I’m sure.”
“Elliott, thank you so much.” I smiled. “I can’t believe it.” I pictured myself buying a home or jetting off on Hawaiian vacations. It sounded like a huge am
ount of money.
Two hours later he came back to my cubicle. “How about twenty-eight thousand?”
“Why are you raising it?” I wondered.
“Because twenty-five thousand is really low, and I felt like a jerk, especially seeing how excited you were.”
“Don’t you think this is a mistake? I’m an actress. I don’t know anything about office work.”
“You’ll learn. I trust you, kiddo.” He walked out, and I spun around in my chair. With money, I would have a financial floor under me, and the best part was, Elliott believed in me. Acting was on hold. A steady paycheck, and working with people I adored, was much-needed emotional and financial support after Daniel. I had no idea that I’d need that steady income for JoAnn as well.
In March, I sat at my desk putting together binders for a presentation Elliott would deliver the next day. I collated the sections and attached black plastic spines with a binding machine.
JoAnn was lying on a gurney in National Hospital’s emergency room, watching clear liquid drip into the tube of her IV. She’d waited too long to get help, and was dehydrated; she’d stopped eating and drinking days before.
I finished the binders and ordered sushi for lunch. After taking the elevator down to the first floor, I walked to Sushi Union on Broadway and Twentieth. I picked up a California roll and three pieces of tuna and headed to Madison Square Park to eat.
JoAnn rolled up her shirtsleeve and began unwrapping the white gauze that would eventually reveal the cuts running the length of her left forearm. The agony was finally in full view of someone. The doctor was openly disturbed.
This was the first time she’d ever cut herself, and she had no idea why it had felt necessary, and yet it had. She was tired and frightened. She’d always insisted on fighting alone, but this fight was finally beyond her.
When the doctor insisted she be admitted, she was both relieved andhorrified. Pulling the white overly bleached sheet up around her shoulders, she wondered what she had started. Maybe she should have kept it a secret, every last aching detail. Maybe she should go home, but then she’d be alone again.
It was five thirty p.m. I turned off my computer and walked to Live Bait on West Twenty-third. I met Josh Hunter for drinks, my first date after calling off the wedding. He looked adorable in a black turtleneck and jeans, smelling like expensive cologne and toothpaste. We laughed, ate, and then he walked me to the subway, where we kissed for the first time. I was reeling with happiness and worry, Daniel always in the back of my mind. I unlocked my door, checked messages, and went to bed.
JoAnn curled up into a ball and tried to sleep in her single room on Nine West, the code word for the psych ward. Her room was next to the locked doors that led to the rest of the hospital, where people were having babies and routine surgeries.
Over the next three weeks I left JoAnn two messages, dated Josh, talked to Daniel, and spent a week in Boston working with The Strategist Group. Life was whipping by. I assumed JoAnn was just as busy. Sometimes we didn’t get back to each other for days at a time.
Over the next three weeks JoAnn went to group sessions and sat in the window of her room, watching a construction crew build a new wing of the hospital. She marked time by how far along they were with preparing the foundation; she didn’t call any of us. She felt ashamed and didn’t know what to say.
JoAnn experienced flashbacks, each different from the one before—a body memory in the form of vaginal pain, or a smell of stale beer that came from nowhere. It was confusing, unpredictable, and terrifying. Herdreams were so frightening that she gave up sleeping, choosing instead to walk down the darkened hallway to a community room where she’d sit quietly with others who were in their own private hells. She wasn’t sure she’d survive what she’d started, but she knew it would shake her life and her family to its core.
When I returned from Boston, there was a message from Mom on my machine. JoAnn had called her. I didn’t unpack my clothes. I threw the suitcase back into the car and headed to Washington.
JoAnn had been released from the hospital and was back in her apartment.
“What happened?” I asked when I saw her.
“I stopped pretending, and finally took myself seriously,” she said.
“I don’t understand why you cut your arm,” I said. “Are you suicidal?” If I was going to help her, I couldn’t sugarcoat what was happening.
“If I’d wanted to commit suicide, I wouldn’t be sitting here,” she said, lighting a cigarette. “Look, I’m not really clear myself. It’s embarrassing as hell.”
“Don’t be embarrassed in front of me. You know everything I’ve ever done—especially since I told you about the abortion.”
“Cutting is complicated and I don’t really understand it, but I know that I needed to feel alive and also be in control of something. That’s how numb I felt. It’s crazy.”
“It’s not crazy, it’s horrifying,” I said, but I was worried that she was slipping into something crazy. None of it made sense to me.
“It is horrifying.”
“Did they tell you what you can do to stop cutting yourself?” I asked.
“I met a good doctor, and she gave me medication to relieve some of the anxiety.” She shook her head. “What have I started?”
“It started a long time ago,” I said. “Can they make remembering easier?”
“None of this is going to be easy. It’s different for each person, but it looks like the memories are so jumbled up that it may take a long time.”
JoAnn was right; it wasn’t going to get better. It got sufficiently worse.
I reluctantly put my clothes into my suitcase and headed toward Brooklyn. I needed to be at work on Monday. Each mile farther from JoAnn felt like a betrayal and a relief. I shouldn’t have left her, but I was so overwhelmed, I needed time to process what had just happened.
I visited as often as I could. She seemed to be getting along okay—not great, but okay.
JoAnn resigned from her job in social services in June. She was worried she’d miss something and one of the disabled adults who relied on her would not get what they needed. She needed to be present and alert at work. She couldn’t risk jeopardizing someone else, even if it meant putting her own life in jeopardy by giving up the money she needed to live on.
I called Mom.
“JoAnn quit her job,” I told her. “How’s she going to get by?”
“Good question.”
“We’re going to have to help her,” I said.
“Maybe this will give her the time she needs to get better,” Mom suggested. It was the first time since all of this had started that Mom said something real and true.
“I hope so. Have you seen Dad around town?” I asked. “He hasn’t called me since Christmas. It’s like he knows something’s up.”
“More likely, he’s in his own selfish world. Does he usually call?” she asked.
“No, but I usually call him. You’d think he’d wonder if I was all right,” I said.
“That’s hoping for a lot,” Mom said.
Still, it bothered me. I was glad I didn’t have to answer any questions from Dad, but I was hurt that if I didn’t call him, we’d never speak. There was no way he could know about JoAnn. I still hadn’t confronted him.
I was waiting for something absolutely damning, a memory I could point to and say, “JoAnn knows you did this to her on this day when she was this old.” But her memories were still in vague pieces. She knew it was Dad, she knew it was in our house, but she couldn’t be specific about exactly what he had done.
In July, JoAnn gave notice on her apartment without telling me. She had no intention of being alive by the end of the month. She couldn’t trust herself to work, and now she couldn’t afford rent or food. After our childhood, where asking for lunch money in elementary school brought shame for needing to eat, she was not going to put herself through asking anyone again. But now a timeline was established.
Pulling out a blue plas
tic crate filled with journals she’d written since high school, she began the heartrending task of tearing out pages she wouldn’t want anyone to read. After tearing several sheets together into lengthwise shreds, she placed handful after handful of paper into three black lawn bags. She stopped ripping when she saw Stacy’s name, her first lover, who had made her feel more alive and happy than she’d ever felt in her life. The passages about depression and dread were ripped into tiny squares. Once she started, she didn’t stop, even for the happy parts, until she was surrounded by the white confetti of her past. One more step.
I’d still heard nothing from Dad, and vice versa. Every summer I’d visit the lake house and we’d tool around on his pontoon boat and fish for bass. What did he think had happened?
I felt guilty for missing him, after what he’d done. But it was painful to think he’d just let me float away. I had thought I was the one who’d let go.
I called JoAnn from my Brooklyn apartment, not knowing that she had chosen that night to end her life.
“How are you?” I was eating Chinese food from a cheap restaurant down the street in Park Slope. Everything was excruciatingly ordinary.
“Okay,” she said.
“Do you want to come up and visit? We can go into New York?” I asked, taking a bite.
“No. I’m good.”
“Are you eating?” I asked. “Because I can’t stop eating. I’m eating right now.”
Driving With Dead People Page 25