These days, everything on Elena seemed to hurt: her chest, her head, and her bones. Scoliosis had started curving her spine several years ago, but it seemed to be getting rapidly worse.
“You’re right,” I said. “I can tell your friends that you’re sick. They can come over some other time.”
That got Elena scrambling out of bed. With quick, angry movements, she straightened the sheets and the pillows. I helped her from my side.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she snapped. “You don’t think I can do anything!”
“I think you’re exhausted,” I said. “In fact, I know you’re exhausted.”
Elena arranged the throw pillows at the head of the bed. Her room was charmingly girly and impeccably neat. Nonetheless, she stalked around the room, dissatisfied with everything. She moved a Korean doll half an inch this way and a glass cat sculpture half an inch that way. Her face was as grim as if she were scrubbing toilets.
“So what if I’m exhausted!” she hissed. “Like that makes any difference! You don’t think I can get anything done. You think I’m a complete failure!”
“That’s ridiculous!” I said, following her into the bathroom. “I just want you to get some rest.”
Elena’s bathroom was a jewel box of shiny, pretty things: nail polish jars in every pastel shade, sequined photo frames around smiling faces, and a rose-pink Tiffany-style lamp shaped like a dress. Taped to the big mirror were pages of bright crayon artwork from the children she babysat.
Elena leaned toward the mirror as she fixed her makeup. “I’m an officer in the Future Business Leaders of America. I’m making As in every single class. Major Meadows says he would hire me to work in the ER because I’m such a valuable member of the team. But does that mean anything to you? No!”
This was familiar ground.
“Of course it does,” I said doggedly. “I’m proud of you. I am! I just wish you could slow down and enjoy it.”
“You always criticize me!”
“I don’t . . .”
“You do! Nothing I ever do is good enough for you!” Elena was shouting now. “No matter what I do, you’re always back there with that look on your face. Just once, I wish you could actually be proud of me!”
Now I was shouting, too. “Elena, I’m proud all the time! I just said I’m proud of you!”
The doorbell rang. Elena dropped the lipstick she had just finished applying into the silk-covered box that held its mates. She slipped past me and disappeared down the stairs. “Barbara!” I heard her exclaim, her voice honey-sweet—a tone of voice she didn’t use with me.
I trudged downstairs after her to play host to her friends, feeling like I’d been hit by a truck.
The next morning, Elena announced over breakfast, “You may as well cancel the appointment you made for me with that German psychologist. I’m not going. I’m eighteen. You can’t force me to go.”
Joe and I exchanged worried glances.
“But you know Dr. Harris said you need to work with a therapist,” Joe said.
“I don’t care,” she said. “Doctors held me against my will—twice! They didn’t even try to work with me. I walked in the door for a one-hour counseling session, and I didn’t get home till over a month later. Nobody is ever going to do that to me again.”
It was obvious that Elena had been thinking about this for weeks. In fact, it seemed to be the biggest lesson she had taken away from the Summer from Hell.
“Dr. Harris worked with you, though,” I reminded her. “He didn’t lock you up.”
“I like Dr. Harris,” she admitted. “But I’m not going to risk it. Some psychiatrists and psychologists might not do that kind of thing, but there’s no way to know until it’s too late. Cancel the appointment. I’m not going.”
As the months rolled by, our days fell into a very unhealthy pattern. Dead tired, Elena dragged herself out of bed and outlined a day with far too many commitments. If I tried to persuade her to slow down or skip something, she chewed me out. For everyone else, she had a smile or a laugh—even for her father. Only to me did she show her constant exhaustion, misery, and bitterness.
I am the stepping-stone she pushes off to keep from getting stuck in the mud, I thought. Her anger toward me keeps her going.
But it brought me almost to a standstill.
Martin’s new story wasn’t going well. I didn’t know why. I was fond of him and his bright, affectionate dog, and I liked the colorful, dangerous world he lived in. But I couldn’t keep up with Martin on his adventures anymore. He would take off to go do something, and I would be left behind, asking myself, Why did he do that? Where did he go? Do I even know Martin anymore?
But this story was already sold. We already had the money in savings. I couldn’t back out on it now.
Guilt and worry started to needle me. I began to set word counts. Never before had I needed to force myself to write. But the next day, when I read what I had written, half of it would turn out to be garbage. I could tell that I’d written it only to fill up the word count.
So I began to set a timer: twenty minutes to start with. Any more than that, and I couldn’t stay focused.
Maybe it’s Alzheimer’s, I thought. Maybe it’s incipient dementia. Martin’s world is hazy now, and I can’t figure out what he’s doing. I can barely even spell anymore!
As the weeks passed, I developed elaborate writing rituals. First, I had to brew the perfect cup of tea. Then, I had to check my email. Then, I had to check three news sites, always in the same order. Then, I had to set my timer. Then, I had to play a game of FreeCell. (And the longer I took on my FreeCell game, the less time I would have to write.)
Finished with my game, I would check the tea temperature. Was it too cold? I would get up and warm it in the microwave. Then I would have to check my email again. Then the news sites, one—two—three.
Sometimes, this ritual ate up the whole twenty minutes.
Even when I did manage to get some pages done, it didn’t seem to matter. “Do you want to read what I wrote today?” I asked at dinner. But, as it turned out, nobody did.
“You know I don’t have time,” Elena said. “I have an essay plus thirty study questions to get through by Friday, and I promised Jason I’d help him with his college application.”
“Sure,” Joe said absently. “Why don’t you email it to me? I’ll read it at lunch.”
But I didn’t want Joe to read it at lunch. I wanted him to read it here, right in front of me, the way he used to do, while I peeked over his shoulder and read it along with him.
I didn’t want to send my story off in an email. I wanted to share it.
“Never mind,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.”
But it did matter. It mattered a great deal. The next time I sat down and opened my laptop, poor Martin wouldn’t get anything done. Why go on a journey, he would tell me, if nobody cares what I do?
They’ll kill you if they catch you, I would remind him.
I’m dead anyway. Who cares?
At which point, I would notice that my tea had gotten cold. I would get up and reheat it. And then I would check my email. And the news sites.
And repeat.
One sunny winter afternoon, I picked up my laptop and brewed myself a fresh, hot cup of tea. The cats were stretched out in the garden room, and I carried my tea and computer into the sunlight to join them. I curled up in one of the big brown chairs, brought up Martin’s Word file, set the timer ticking, and—Ring!
It was Elena’s phone number.
“Hello?” I said, wincing.
“I need a ride to the hospital,” she said.
“But I’m working right now. Can’t you just take the bus home, and I’ll take you in an hour?”
“This is important!” she said. “This is my college career on the line. What are you doing? Just writing stories!”
“I’m doing my best to earn your college tuition.”
Elena’s voice rose. “So am I! You want
me to get scholarships, don’t you? Do you think I want to go volunteer? Do you think I wouldn’t like to come home and sit around? You had all day to get that done! Why do you have to do it now?”
I would have argued, but I recognized that exhausted teenager. Decades ago, I had seen her in my mirror. And I had heard that exhausted, bitter girl yell at her mother, too:
Unload the dishwasher? Do you realize I’m trying to write my college essay? Do you realize I’m trying to earn scholarships with this? Why don’t you unload the dishwasher? You’re not doing anything important!
And I had seen my mother turn away, defeated.
So now, in penance, I set aside my laptop. I ran a brush through my hair and found my car keys.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way, I thought as I stepped into my shoes. Or maybe it was—maybe, no matter what we mothers try to do, we can’t escape the curse of the bad karma we earned as children. But—my children were supposed to be different! They were supposed to be happy! And I remembered my two girls, dashing through the house, shouting and shrieking with laughter.
Where had it gone? How had we lost that happiness?
Anyway, this is the last year, I reminded myself as I trudged out to the car. Next year, she’ll be away at college. She hates being dependent on me, and besides, she has a point. I could have written more during the day. I should have.
While Elena did an hour of volunteering, I bought groceries and ran errands to kill time. It wasn’t worth going all the way home and back again. Then I swung back by to pick her up. And this—this was the time that made it all worthwhile, that made up for my stress and Elena’s exhausted hostility.
This was the time when Elena told me stories.
The things Elena was seeing in that wartime hospital awed and inspired her. Even if she had wanted to keep them to herself, I don’t think she could have done it. She was a born storyteller, and these were stories that cried out to be told.
Today, Elena had been working in the little building where wounded soldiers could stop by and receive free clothing and toiletries. Since they arrived straight from the battlefield, they usually had nothing of their own.
“One of last week’s new arrivals came down in his pajamas and robe today,” she said. “He just wanted to get out of his room. He’s not badly injured; he’ll be going back downrange soon. He sat at the table while the volunteer coordinator and I set out the new clothes, and he talked—just talked, the whole time. He’s been married for two years now, and he’s only been home once. He got married to his high school sweetheart right before he deployed, and a month later, he was gone. He has a baby boy—he showed us photos—and he hasn’t even gotten to hold him.
“First, he was deployed for a year. Then he and his wife were so excited, they thought he would be home for a while. But the Army came out and said he needed to go downrange again because he should have been gone for eighteen months—that’s what the new terms are. So he was home for less than half a year, and then gone again, and this time, it’s for eighteen months. Just think, the first three years you’re married, and you’re only home for maybe six months.”
“I can’t even imagine how hard that would be,” I murmured.
“So his wife back home—he’s practically frantic, he’s so worried about his wife back home. She’s young, she’s pretty, all her friends are still single, or their husbands are right there, and here she is, she has no help with the baby, she might as well be divorced. And she tells him, ‘I don’t know if I can keep doing this.’ And he’s so torn up, he can’t stop talking about it. ‘I don’t think she’ll wait for me,’ he says. He shows us her picture, she’s just a girl like me, cute blond hair, nice makeup, she’s smiling like she just wants to go have some fun, and he says, ‘What do I do? I don’t think she’s going to wait.’”
Elena fell silent, brow furrowed, watching the twists and turns of the little two-lane road as it took us through a town. I was dodging around parked cars, weaving and do-si-do-ing with oncoming traffic in a polite German automotive dance. You first, we signaled with our hands and headlights. No, please, you go right ahead.
It would never work in America. We’d smash right into each other.
My heart ached for the poor young soldier. It was what Elena did so well, I thought. She found people to care about, and she told me their stories, and they came to life for me. With just a few words, she could break my heart.
And maybe Elena was thinking about that, too.
“I want to write a memoir,” she said. “About my time in the hospital. An eating disorder memoir for girls like me.”
“I think that’s a great idea!” I said. “You have a special gift for memoir, I think. You see the stories going on all around you.”
“The thing is, I don’t know how to start.”
Several years of visits to writers’ clubs and creative-writing classes had left me with dozens of minilectures stored away in my head. I found the memoir minilecture and started it rolling.
“Well, I wouldn’t worry so much about how to start or where you’re going to end up. I’d start first by capturing vignettes: little scenes, the details you remember, character sketches, the small stories you observed. That way, you won’t lose them. Then worry later about how to string them together. That’s the least of your problems right now.”
Elena was silent for a minute.
“You could help me,” she finally said.
It was a generous offer. Sharing anything with me seemed hard for Elena these days. But—did I hold it against my daughter that my own writing was going so badly? If I did, I disguised it well, even from myself. But I didn’t consider the idea—not for a second.
“You know I’m not a memoir person,” I pointed out. “That’s your gift, not mine. My writing mind works best when it’s escaping to a world I can make up.” And I thought of what a writer friend of mine said whenever someone hit him up with a book idea at a party: Thanks, but there’s another book I’d rather write.
“This is your book,” I reminded Elena. “I think you’ll do a great job with it.”
“But I don’t have any time,” she pointed out.
I thought of Martin’s Word file, waiting at home. Neither do I! I thought. In spite of what you seem to think, neither do I.
But I didn’t say that out loud.
“I know senior year is crazy,” I said. “That’s another reason to record the little stories. Just fit in those vignettes where you have time so you don’t lose the details.”
“Yeah,” she said. “That’s a good idea.”
That night, as I lay in bed, I thought again about Elena and her memoir. It was touching that she thought of my writing skills with such faith. It had made me happy to be asked. But—write about the Summer from Hell? Me?
There’s another book I’d rather write!
Martin’s sullen face intruded into this reverie. Or maybe not, he pointed out, considering how little writing you’re actually doing.
Poor Martin! I told him in an agony of guilt. Don’t give up on me!
As I lay there, guilty and unhappy, a vision floated up in my memory of a glorious day back from the time when the girls were still at boarding school. Back then, I had a bad cold that had deepened into a sinus infection. I was feverish and thoroughly miserable. But the scene I had been working on the night before was boiling away in my brain.
Eventually, on that glorious day, I couldn’t contain myself any longer. I had to get out of bed. I pulled on my bathrobe, made some tea to soothe my aching throat, and shuffled upstairs to the garret room and my computer.
Marak’s goblins were meeting a traditional band of elves for the very first time—which meant that I, too, was meeting them for the first time. What did they look like? How were they dressed? What did my goblins think of them? What were these newcomers thinking of the goblins?
That day, I was nowhere, and I was everywhere. I hid behind trees, and I looked into the minds of strangers. I didn’t feel ache
s and pains. I didn’t even exist.
Not a sound or a worry interrupted my concentration. The girls were still happy at school. Joe was working late. Our old dog and cat were sleeping like the dead.
After a while, an annoying little problem began to tug at me. Misspellings were starting to appear on the computer screen. My fingers weren’t finding the right spot on the keyboard. And why couldn’t I see my hands?
I pushed my chair back and looked around. Night had fallen while I’d been working.
I had been with my goblins and elves for ten straight hours!
I didn’t feel like an author that day—not at all. I wasn’t published yet, and I couldn’t have cared less about genres or markets. All that mattered was that I had gone somewhere amazing and had seen things no one else in the world had seen. My house was a mess, and dinner came out of a box, but I was wildly, exuberantly happy.
And that night, the night after that glorious day, as I went shuffling off to find the cough syrup, I couldn’t wait to wake up and do it all over again.
Now, as I lay in bed and agonized over Martin’s stalled story, I recalled that day with wistful disbelief. My house was tidy, but my imagination was a total wreck. I was extremely lucky if I could forget my nagging fears and worries for as long as twenty minutes. And even when I did manage to forget for a little while, I seemed to interrupt myself on purpose. It was as if falling into my other world had become a dangerous pastime. I would get close to it, just close enough to feel the gravitational pull, close enough to find myself start to light up with interest . . .
And then I would jump up and run away from the keyboard to go iron a shirt or defrost a chicken.
Maybe if I were just writing something different.
If I can’t bring myself to care about you, I told Martin sternly, then the reader won’t care about you, either.
You always criticize me! Martin said. Nothing I ever do is good enough for you.
Meanwhile, Valerie, far away in Georgia, was making a happy life for herself among people I had never met. She’d found a job as a waitress, and she and Clint had been dating for a year. Clint’s mother sent me an email with photos of the two of them.
Hope and Other Luxuries: A Mother's Life With a Daughter's Anorexia Page 27