Soon Stepmother and Deb were inseparable, and Mother saw the warning signs of impending mania. Girl wasn’t convinced it was mania—it seemed more like purely selfish behavior in her opinion. She wasn’t sure it was a break with reality.
Stepmother stopped the car in the middle of the street, ignoring honking horns, and opened the door so she could yell “hello” to Deb as she drove by the barbershop. Stepmother wrote Deb poems. Mother traced her path through the GPS unit in Stepmother’s car, and learned that she was seeing Deb when she said she was with other people.
Mother and Stepmother broke up and got back together again on a nearly weekly basis. Mother called Girl crying, then called back a few days later to announce that they had bought a new house and everything was going to be okay. The next phone call announced that they had broken up again and sold the new house to the next-highest bidder a mere three days after they bought it, losing five thousand dollars in the transaction.
Mother moved back to Rochester and rented a furnished apartment on a month-to-month lease. Stepmother apologized and moved in with her for Thanksgiving.
“This is not my bipolar issue,” she told Girl. “This is your mother’s manic depression.”
“Mother doesn’t have manic depression,” Girl replied.
“I don’t love your mother anymore,” Stepmother said. “I am only with her because she said she would drive her car into the Erie Canal if I left her.”
Mother cried on Girl’s shoulder until both their shirts were wet with tears. She and Stepmother bought another house, this one in Penfield, a suburb of Rochester. Before they closed on it, they broke up again.
Girl talked to Mother nearly every day, and drove to Rochester every chance she could get. Mother came to Cleveland to see Girl at least once a month, too. The weight of Mother pressed down on Girl, but she would do anything she could to help Mother start over.
“I went to leave to come see you, but Stepmother said she was going to follow me,” Mother said over the phone one night when she was scheduled to drive to Cleveland. “I told her I was going to Rochester instead, but I won’t come to Cleveland if I think she is following me. I don’t know what she will do.” Mother sounded terrified.
“Do whatever you have to do to be safe,” Girl said. In the end, Mother’s ruse worked, and Stepmother did not pursue her.
A few weeks later, Mother was talking to Girl on the phone and Stepmother called in on the other line. “I have to go! If I miss her she might not call back!” Mother said and hung up on Girl quickly. It went on like this for nine months.
“Stepmother has control of our joint checking account,” Mother told Girl. “I have to talk to her about repairs to the new house. I can’t afford them on my own.” Mother was living on her Social Security and the rent Girl paid. Stepmother refused to give her any of their joint money.
“I went to a lawyer, and thank God marriage equality passed in New York. If I had switched my residency to Florida, I’d be out of luck. But New York recognizes same-sex marriages, so I am safe. And you damn well better believe that after thirty years I’m going to get half. But Stepmother will be back once she realizes I have a lawyer. Our net worth is one million dollars. Stepmother will never agree to be half a millionaire. Money is too important to her. Once she learns that the law is on my side, she’ll be back.” She wasn’t though. Instead, Stepmother flew Deb down to visit her.
Girl helped Mother set up an online dating account, and within a few weeks, Mother had a new girlfriend. Girl drove up to Rochester with the kids, and Mother had a dinner party to introduce her girlfriend to her existing circle of friends. Girl liked the new woman, with her red hair and snappy clothes. She was ten years younger than Stepmother, just like Deb was ten years younger than Mother. Whenever Mother ran into a friend or acquaintance or even the mail carrier, she told them, “Stepmother traded me in for a younger model.” Girl wasn’t entirely sure that ten years made that big of a difference when you were sixty and fifty. It wasn’t like Deb was a twenty-year-old beauty queen. But for some reason, the age difference hit Mother hard.
“If your mother gets back together with Stepmother, I will not speak to her again. I mean it,” one of Mother’s closest friends confided in Girl. “I cannot stand the way that woman treats your mother. Mother is one of the nicest, smartest people I know. I can’t stand to watch her be abused like that.”
Once Mother got a new girlfriend, something shifted in Stepmother. She began wooing Mother. She sent her flowers and mailed her cards.
“If I can convince myself that this was her manic depression I’ll take her back,” Mother told Girl. “I am reading this book in hopes that it will convince me.” She gave Girl a copy of An Unquiet Mind to read as well, but Girl wasn’t interested in convincing herself of anything. She could understand that Mother and Stepmother could grow apart and fall out of love, but she couldn’t forgive Stepmother for lying to Mother, telling her that she was crazy, or for withholding money from her. There were respectful ways to leave someone, and this wasn’t it.
Of course they reconciled. Their breakup lasted a year, and Girl had done everything she could to encourage Mother to resist, but once Stepmother turned her attention back on Mother, she melted like margarine. Girl was expected to understand and welcome her back. It wasn’t that easy for Girl. She never said, “you didn’t just break Mother’s heart, you broke mine, too.”
the basement
It was Thanksgiving. Girl and her children always stayed in her parents’ basement when they visited Mother and Stepmother. Girl preferred the falling-down acoustic tiles overhead and a modicum of privacy to the guest bedroom, where she had to listen to her parents snore and fart in their sleep. She had turned off the fluorescent tube lighting in favor of a shadeless table lamp set on the floor. Dim light from a low angle turned the cobwebs into large looming shadows. Damp air fought the space heater for dominance and won.
Girl woke at 1:00 a.m. She had to pee. She glanced at her phone, as she always did whenever she woke up, whatever the hour. Girl clicked on Facebook to see who, if anybody, had liked her latest picture. She had posted a selfie taken in front of a diorama of taxidermied beavers at the museum. “Me and My Beaver,” she had teasingly titled it.
There was a comment from Jim, the son of Mother’s best friend back from when Girl was growing up. Better than the picture I took of your beaver, it said, followed by something weird about “machine-drive type animations of kids posing and interacting with aquatic animals behind glass.” Girl re-read it and turned off her phone’s screen. She hit the button again, re-illuminating her home page, still open to Facebook, then held the button until the phone turned completely off, buzzing in her hands. Girl ran upstairs to the kitchen powder room and her bowels exploded. Terror made some people throw up, but for Girl, it was always the other end.
She went back downstairs. Girl picked up her laptop and copied the comment to a text file, then deleted the comment from her Facebook page. She deleted the picture as well. Girl looked at her sons sleeping in the dimly lit room—one boy on an old mildewed army cot, the other child on a queen-sized inflatable bed. She retreated to the twin-size foldaway that completed their sleeping island, all pushed together so she could pet their heads if they woke up. Girl put her face close to her oldest son’s cheek and breathed his sleeping smell.
She had hoped for twenty-seven years that this story would never come to light. Girl pulled the thin, department-store quilt over her shoulder and tried to think. The pictures. God, why had she ever let him take pictures? Yes, she’d been thirteen, but she had known better. It wasn’t like she wanted to run for president, but she didn’t want them coming to light now that she was a mother.
Girl tried to type a response to Jim. She used words like shame, missing negatives, and illegal. There were a lot of other words she wanted to type but didn’t. She tried to be fair. Girl had said yes, and Jim was only a few years older than she was, not a grown-up by any means. Girl decided not to se
nd her message until the next day, not until she could read it to someone who belonged to her life now. Girl lay on her back and looked at the dark corners at the edges of the rafters where the ceiling tiles had fallen down. She waited for dawn to dilute the night to gray so she could go home. She wanted to be back in her pumpkin-colored bedroom with her fuzzy, blue blanket, handmade pillows, and people she could talk true to. This was not a story she could tell her mother.
Girl could not get her lungs to fill properly. It hurt to breathe in her pectoral muscles, and in her constricted rib cage. It hurt her skin to remember, and memory made her clammy, damp, and cold. She wrapped her arms around her chest. She watched for daylight and the clicking of digits on the clock as she waited for morning.
Another trip to her parents’ basement a few months later, and once again Girl woke at 1:00 a.m., but this time there was no buzzing phone, only choking anxiety. The untold story still hung in the basement air. She could not escape the girl she had once been.
Girl went upstairs. Stepmother was awake in the living room, watching TV.
“What’s wrong, Girl?” she asked.
“I have anxiety,” Girl said, and haltingly told her the story of the photographs. She thought Stepmother would rage against male abusers, insist on talking to Jim. Girl was as afraid of directing Stepmother’s rage at him as she was scared of her judgment of Girl’s actions. Stepmother was always the voice in her head that told her that she wasn’t good enough.
“That’s all? Some naked pictures? That’s no big deal,” Stepmother said when Girl finished the story. Girl looked at her closely—Stepmother was completely unfazed. No rage, no shaming her, nothing. “Here,” Stepmother said, “take a Xanax.”
“I don’t know what it will do to me,” Girl said. “What if I sleep all day tomorrow?”
“You won’t, but if you do, I’ll wake up with the kids. Just take half a Xanax if you are so worried. And tell yourself, ‘what I am feeling is uncomfortable, but not dangerous.’ Repeat that, and try to slow your breathing. It really helps.”
Girl took the partial pill and slept until morning. Stepmother’s mental illness allowed her to understand Girl’s anxiety, more than if she had always been stable. Girl wasn’t sure the next day if it was the Xanax or the unexpected acceptance that gave her more peace.
The next day Girl was in her parents’ kitchen. She filled her glass with ice and water from the fridge dispenser. Girl had to admit it still made her happy to watch the ice cubes fall into the glass. When she was small, she thought fridge ice-dispensers were the be-all and end-all of coolness. Stepmother had wanted an ice dispenser for years, but could never justify spending the money, just like she couldn’t justify replacing the kitchen carpeting, even though it was old and stained and impractical. Their new house had come with both a great fridge and shitty flooring.
“Look, it makes crushed ice, too!” Stepmother said, filling her own glass to the top with ice chips. Girl took a long swig of water. Ice-cold water was one of the simplest pleasures in life.
“What does semen taste like?” Stepmother asked. Girl choked and spit a mouthful of water on the carpet.
“What?” she said, stalling.
“I just always wondered.”
“Well, it’s different based on what you eat, the same with women. Salty, I guess,” Girl said. Her stomach tightened in revulsion. Why did she answer? Why couldn’t she just walk away?
a series of surgeries
Mother needed a hip replacement. Girl drove back to Rochester for a few days.
“I’m so glad you will sit with Stepmother during my surgery,” Mother said. “It’s going to be so hard on her.” But Girl wasn’t going out of kindness for Stepmother; she needed to be there in case something went wrong, in case it was her last chance to see Mother alive. Girl chose to stay in a hotel instead of alone with Stepmother.
“You know you hurt Stepmother’s feelings by not staying with her,” Mother said. But there was no way Girl would stay alone with Stepmother. Since the reunification, Stepmother had not been repentant. In fact, she still insisted that it was all an innocent mistake because “I mixed up my Paxil with my Prilosec. I just wanted a friend, I didn’t know what I was doing was so upsetting.” No apology was given, no act of contrition performed. Girl was supposed to play happy family and pretend nothing had changed, but she remembered how Stepmother had lied, blamed, and gaslighted Mother the last year, and Girl wasn’t quick to forgive. She played her daughter role, but her shell was strong and not coming down.
While they were waiting with Mother to go into surgery, Stepmother had to get a donut. Mother wasn’t allowed to eat anything, but Stepmother hung over the end of her hospital bed, dropping sprinkles on the sheet as she chewed. Girl refused to eat, so Mother didn’t have to starve alone.
“If Mother dies, I am going to commit suicide,” Stepmother said, when she and Girl were alone in the waiting room. “I want you to help me. I will get drugs and I want to die surrounded by my family.”
“I understand,” Girl said. “I promise you I’ll hold your hand. I will be there and I promise you won’t die alone. You will die surrounded by love.”
An hour later, Stepmother had a reversal of opinion.
“Don’t let me die! If something happens to Mother I’ll want to commit suicide and I need you to promise me that you will save me. Don’t let me die!”
Girl made soothing noises. “Of course I will help you, Stepmother. I won’t abandon you if Mother dies.” Stepmother clung to Girl and sobbed.
Several days later, Mother was moved to a rehab facility. “It would be too much for Stepmother to try and take care of me at home,” she said. Girl called her every day. She was puzzled to hear that Stepmother didn’t visit all that often.
“I got a little lonely the other day,” Mother told Girl. “Stepmother was so exhausted from the stress of me being in the hospital that she just slept all day, and never came by. So the next day I told her I needed her to come and visit, and she did. I was proud of myself for asking for what I needed.”
Girl wanted to kick Stepmother. Really? Mother was alone in a nursing home and Stepmother just slept all day because she was stressed?
“How’s the food?” she asked instead.
“Well, it’s not great. They said they had a vegetarian menu, but it’s just grilled cheese every day, so I asked Stepmother to bring me something. She brought over the leftover Chinese.”
“From the night before you went in the hospital?” Girl asked. That had been more than a week prior. She pictured dried-out rice and rubbery baby corn rattling around a paper container with a sticky sludge of old sauce flaking off the sides.
“It was still good,” Mother said. “It was nice of her to bring it.”
Mother had spinal fusion a few years later, then a second hip replacement. Each time, Girl drove five hours to Rochester and stayed in a hotel. After Girl returned home, Stepmother visited Mother less and less frequently. Eventually, she only showed up for dinner by Mother’s bedside. Girl knew that if Stepmother was in the hospital, Mother would stay beside her in the visitor’s chair all day long.
a restaurant
“Mother, you had no business showing Brother the bill! Why can’t you keep your mouth shut?” Stepmother screamed in the TGI Friday’s lobby, her voice loud enough to quiet the half-dozen people chatting while they waited for a table. The greeter stood with the door half open, then backed up and closed it, keeping Stepmother, Mother, and Girl outside.
“I didn’t show him,” Mother replied. “He just took it.” Girl knew this was a lie, but didn’t defend Brother. At forty years old he was still the family scapegoat. Mother threw him under the bus to save herself. Girl was back in the duck-and-cover mode that got her through childhood.
Brother, his wife and child, Girl, her two children, and her nanny all went to dinner with Mother and Stepmother. The restaurant was busy, and the server was doing the best he could, but the food was slow to arrive. Stepm
other argued with him about a coupon and made him get his manager to ensure she got a free margarita that she didn’t want and tried to convince Girl to drink instead. Their table was scrunched against the wall, and the server had to stretch awkwardly to serve everyone, but he didn’t complain. Stepmother refused to sit next to Girl’s nanny, and refused to speak to her at all, not even replying when asked a direct question. Stepmother didn’t lower herself to talk to the help.
“Stepmother must be really mad to leave a tip like that,” Mother said to Brother and Girl as they were leaving. She looked embarrassed. Afraid. Mother clearly didn’t want to be there when the server saw his tip. Brother was in culinary school—preparing and serving food was his livelihood, but moreover, it was his passion. He had the word “SERVE” tattooed on his left bicep. Brother glanced at the check and calculated the correct tip and threw some bills on the table. Unfortunately, Stepmother saw him and went nuclear. When Stepmother yelled at Mother like she was a disobedient child, Girl went nuclear as well. If you had cut her, Girl’s blood would have glowed orange with hate. But as always, she said nothing. Her fear was greater than her rage.
“How can you let her talk to you like that?” Girl asked Mother while Stepmother went to get the car.
“It’s not her fault,” she said. “She has no filter because she’s bipolar.”
“Mom, she’s verbally abusive.”
Mother drew back, her face angry. “It doesn’t bother me. I have learned to let it roll off my back. It’s not her fault. It’s her disease. It doesn’t bother me at all. I don’t need you to defend me.”
To be loved by Mother, Girl could not say a word against her one true love.
Mother rode her motorized scooter to the grocery store to do their shopping, in case Stepmother needed their only car. Stepmother didn’t like grocery shopping, and besides, Mother couldn’t trust her to come home with anything on the list—she had a habit of wandering store aisles, coming out with bags of things that “looked interesting” and nothing for dinner. Mother made it clear, though, that Girl had no right to complain about it. Mother liked her life the way it was.
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