by Anna Quinn
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
February 17, 1997
It’s been five days since the scream, since she’s had her voice back, and for the first time in thirty years, she feels her voice is hers alone. She sits on a green vinyl couch in the visitor’s room, waiting for Paul. The room, with its vague gray paint, everything stale and smelling of ammonia, isn’t much better than her private room, but at least there isn’t a hospital bed with its insinuation of vulnerability and disorder. And she’d asked that Paul visit in the early afternoon when most of the patients stop screaming and take naps. She wants to reassure him she is not crazy. Her visit with John proved she was stronger, and if she can manage Paul, she knows David and Dr. Brinkley will sign her release papers. She’d brushed her hair, applied lipstick. Smiled at herself in the mirror. I’m ready.
There are only three other people in the room. One person is Carol. She sits in a metal chair by the door, knitting. She is there to make sure things don’t get out of control. The other two people are an old man and an old woman. They sit together on an orange vinyl couch over by the window. The old woman stays in room 404, two doors down from Nora’s room. Nora has seen her rocking in a chair by the window, heard her make low moaning sounds at night. Sometimes the old man sits by her bed and reads to the old woman from the newspaper. Sometimes he holds her hands, kisses her pale lips, and brushes the limp gray hair from her face.
Nora thinks then about the first time Paul said, “I love you.” They were sitting at a greasy linoleum table in Spud’s Fish and Chips at Alki Beach, sipping vanilla milkshakes and dipping french fries in ketchup. “I love you,” he’d said, holding a fry to her lips, and she’d opened her eyes wide. They’d known each other less than a year, and she knew he liked to date around, liked to keep things “uncomplicated”—keep his options open.
She’d chewed up the french fry, tried to swallow it, but it seemed to swell in her throat, her tongue thick with salt, and she had to gulp her milkshake in order not to choke. She licked her lips, almost said, “Why?” but ended up saying nothing at all because she didn’t know what to say. She knew she should say, “I love you,” back, but she couldn’t because what did she know about love? She’d never been in love before, never felt the way the women in books and movies seemed to feel when they were in love, and she didn’t feel that way now. Or at least she didn’t think she did. It was hard to know.
“Did you hear me?” he’d asked, slightly embarrassed.
“Yes, yes, I did. Sorry.”
“Am I too prosaic for you? Too commercial?”
He was always asking her this. Always wondering if they were a good fit because she loved poetry and he hated it, except for the rhyming kind.
“Am I,” he’d said again. “Am I too staid for you?”
She shrugged, ate another fry.
“I could try and be a poet, but I’d probably blow it,” he said.
She laughed, fed him a fry. Let him lick the salt from her fingers.
“You’re different than the others,” he’d said then.
She squirted some ketchup onto her plate, swirled a french fry around in it, and ate it.
“You don’t care about a lot of things most women waste time over—you know, like clothes and jewelry and hair,” he said. “You’re beautiful—in a really natural way.” And she’d thought then of that tampon commercial, that one with the make-up free girl hiking up a mountain even though she was having her period. Tampons for the all-natural, adventurous woman. She’d never felt natural like that woman. She’d never felt natural at all.
“And as long as we’ve known each other,” he said, “I’ve never seen you freak out over stupid little things—you know, like if I’m a few minutes late or something—I’ve never seen you freak out at all.” He’d emptied his milkshake, wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “I like that about you. I really do.”
They’d looked at each other for a long moment before he said, “I shouldn’t have said something so important in a fish-and-chips dive. Shit, I’m sorry.” He’d taken her hand, wiped a bit of ketchup off her finger with a napkin. “I’ll say it again later. Somewhere romantic, okay?”
And several weeks later, during a candlelight dinner at his apartment, Pachelbel playing on the stereo, he’d said it again, gazing at her, his face soft with affection, and she’d said it back to him. She’d felt a strong affection for him in that moment, an affection that might have been love. Sitting together like that with champagne and caviar, all on a white tablecloth, it did feel like a scene in a movie, and for the first time that she remembered, she’d felt normal, she’d felt hope that she was normal. Also, she thought it might be nice to be with someone.
“Nora?”
It’s Paul. He stands there. He looks handsome. He’s wearing a down jacket she hasn’t seen before, and jeans instead of khakis. She rises to her feet, uncertain, says a slightly embarrassed hello. She realizes he will see her differently now. And she’s right. His face is a mixture of shock and sympathy. Has she changed that much? She knows her weight has dropped, she’s felt the sunken space between her hipbones, but she made an effort this morning to put on make-up and change out of her robe into a T-shirt and jeans.
“How are you?” he says, walking over to her. Close up, she can see the bags under his eyes, the dark circles of exhaustion.
“Better. I’m better.”
They sit down, stiff and awkward on the green vinyl couch. Uncomfortable silence.
“You have your voice back,” he says.
“Yeah.”
“And you made it through Valentine’s Day?”
“Yes,” she says, blushing, thinking about John. Then, “Is Fiona okay?”
“She’s okay, but she’s worried about you. Asks about you all day. We’ve told her you’re getting better, that you were just really tired and needed a rest.” He crosses his arms, hands dig into armpits. “God, what you’ve been through.”
“I’m better.” Her eyes sting and she doesn’t know what else to say. She doesn’t want to say the wrong thing. He is acting so careful.
He tells her he’s sorry he hasn’t visited, explains how he’d been nervous to—that he might have made things worse, might have undone the work she was doing here. And then he says, a darkness passing over his face, his voice thick with pain, “Did you really think I could hurt Fiona?”
“I didn’t—”
“But you did. Dr. Forrester said that a part of you—Margaret,” he stops for a moment, looks down, looks so embarrassed that a flash of humiliation rips through Nora’s chest. A normal man sitting with a crazy woman in a psych ward. He meets her eyes again. His eyes wet with tears. “Margaret said that I … I … might have hurt Fiona.”
“But did he tell you why—that she doesn’t trust any men,” Nora swallows, then adds, “except for him.”
“But she’s you, right? She is you. So at some level, you thought I could hurt our daughter.”
She wants a pillow to clutch, but there isn’t one. Her hands tremble so badly she sits on them. She is frightened by her shame, ashamed of her accusations. She doesn’t want to float away.
Carol issues a warning cough, glares at Paul, asks, “Everything okay?”
“Fine,” Nora says. Carol’s voice is an anchor, reminding her how badly she wants to go home. She moves her hands to her lap. Folds them. They are still trembling, but once they are folded together, it isn’t as noticeable. Breathe in calm, breathe out reason. You can do this.
“Nora?”
She opens her eyes. When had she closed them? Here are his dark eyes, sad as the winter sky. None of this is his fault.
“Paul, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I know you wouldn’t hurt Fiona.” She exhales deeply. “I know you wouldn’t.”
“I wouldn’t. God, of course I wouldn’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Time’s up,” Carol says.
“Did you ever love me?” he says.
She says nothing. She thinks again, about the night with the candlelight. How afterward they’d gone into his bed. He’d read a poem to her, one he’d written himself, holding the loose paper in his hands, vulnerable, intimate. But vaguely, she’d known her body didn’t hold the passion it should have, that she hadn’t wanted to melt into his bones, hadn’t wanted the lights on, had wanted it dark. She’d drifted into some other space in her mind, when he’d pressed then pushed into her, that she’d been grateful when he’d finally rolled off her body. And how, despite the fact she’d lost concentration and he’d fallen asleep without saying anything, she’d felt content to lie there with him, body touching body. Content enough to marry him. Relieved she would no longer be alone.
The old man by the window stands and pulls the blinds open. An enormous shaft of light beams into the room, and the old woman claps her hands and laughs. The old man laughs too.
“Nora, do you—did you love me?”
“I-I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve been really messed up. Sorry, I don’t know. In the beginning, I thought so, and then—I don’t know.”
“I know you’ve been through a lot,” he says, casting a glance at Carol, who is watching closely. His voice softens. “Jesus. I’m really sorry about all of it, really I am. But … I think … I need to … I need to … to leave us.”
“Elisa,” she says, looking at her hands.
He is quiet for several moments. “Yes.”
“You’ve taken off your ring,” she says.
“Yes. And yours?”
“They took it.” She lifts a shoulder toward Carol. “For now. They took my shoelaces too.” Now she is crying. Fifteen years of marriage. Over. Done. No more.
He leans over, hugs her hard.
“I’m okay,” she whispers into his ear. “I’m okay.”
“Don’t rush this. Please. Don’t rush coming home,” he says, handing her a Kleenex from a box on the end table and taking one for himself.
“But Fiona …”
“You’ll see her tomorrow, right? James too?”
She wipes her eyes. “Yes.”
He stands, kisses the top of her head, and like that, they are no longer together.
CHAPTER THIRTY
February 18, 1997
“Mommy!” Her daughter races toward her. Nora kneels, wraps up Fiona, pulls her close, smells the love and light and strength of her. Fiona whispers into her ear. “I missed you so much! Are you okay? When are you coming home?”
“Soon, honey. Very soon.” She stands to hug James, Fiona latched onto her leg. He looks terrible. Bloodshot eyes, the lines in his forehead deepened.
“Nice digs,” he says, gazing around the visitor’s room, gingerly returning her hug. “The ribs doing better?”
“Yes, yes, better.”
A teenage girl wrapped in a crocheted throw comes in then, and for a moment, Nora thinks it is Elizabeth, but of course, it is not. The girl has short purple hair and pale white skin. Multiple eyebrow piercings over her left eye. She glances at them and trudges to the snack table. She pours coffee into a Styrofoam cup, rips open a yellow packet of sweetener, and lets it snow slowly into the coffee, then walks to one of the five vinyl-covered loungers in front of the TV and slumps there, stares at it without turning it on.
“Who’s that, Mommy?”
“I don’t know.” It disturbs Nora then to realize that in all this time, she hasn’t spoken to any of the patients. For twelve days she hasn’t done anything but work with “the team,” sit and stare out the window and manage the delicate space between thinking too much and not at all, walk the halls to keep her blood flowing, eat (Carol sitting there every few hours, insisting she swallow something, threatening an IV if she doesn’t), vomit, pee, sleep, take an occasional shower (the shower only because Carol puts her in, waits outside while Nora cries inside) … except for today.
Today in the shower, Nora’s body wet, the sensation of water, the sound and clean of it sinking into her skin, rippling over her breasts, a reuniting of her face with her arms, chest, legs and feet, skin and bones. It might as well have been the entire sea washing over her, her sense of self that real.
Fiona’s voice brings her back. “Oh! Look! Can I draw something?” At the far end of the room an easel stands holding a giant sketch pad.
“Of course, but give me one more big hug!”
Fiona hugs Nora hard, says, “I love you so much, Mommy!” and then runs to the easel. Nora and James sit down in restrained emotion and watch as Fiona chooses a yellow crayon and draws a huge flower. Next, Fiona replaces the yellow crayon with a green one and draws a stem for the flower.
“Paul says she’s okay.”
“She is—but God, she really misses you.”
Nora keeps her eyes on her daughter. “I miss her too. More than anyone can know.” Above her, from the speakers, Garth Brooks drawls out “Friends in Low Places.”
“Your psychiatrist suggested we not say too much to her for now, said you would talk with her once you’re home, said the most important thing is she knows she’s not to blame.”
She turns to him, tries to ignore the music. Seriously. Who would play that in a psych ward? “Thank you for being here with her. I know it’s a lot to be away from Stephen—”
“Stephen’s fine,” he says, takes her hands in his. “But I’m so … so … outraged about Dad—I … I can’t—” he chokes on his words, hands clench, practically crush their bones into fists.
“James.”
“Damn him,” he whispers, each word convulsing. “Damn the son of a bitch. Nora, he hired an investigator to find us! He’s known where we lived for months and he never said a word! Only sent that damn Christmas box. Jesus. And then when I told him what you remembered—”
His words slam hard as an iron pipe. Things are going wrong. “You told him?” She goes white and yanks her hands from his. “Oh, my God! You shouldn’t have done that! What if … what if he comes after me? What—”
“Nora! Stop! Please! He is a frail, old man with dementia. He’s in a nursing home with locked doors. Half the time I visit he doesn’t even know me. He can barely leave his chair. He’s not going anywhere. And even if he could, none of us would let him anywhere near you. God, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
She twists her body away from him and turns to Fiona who is drawing a purple bird next to the yellow flower. She inhales and exhales and her hands drop onto her lap, the fingers lace tightly together. Without moving her head, she says, “What did he say? When you told him, what did he say?”
James is silent. She braces herself. At last he says, “He denied it. The bastard denied it all.”
She feels a fist of anger in her chest, but still, she is okay. She’s not going to let him ruin her life anymore. She’s not. She can’t. She wants to get out of here. She turns to James. “And you?”
“Nora, I believe you,” he says, his eyes welling. “I believe you.”
She is unprepared for the force of this sentence. A wall breaks apart inside her.
“Thank you,” she says.
“And I’m so sorry I wasn’t here for you more. I’m really sorry. I just didn’t know. Why didn’t you tell me?” he says.
“I … I didn’t know. I—”
“Shame’s in our veins, that’s why,” he says.
She knows these words. They’re hers. Years ago, when he was sixteen, she’d seen him and an older boy kissing out behind the garage. After dinner, she’d gone into James’ bedroom and asked him about it. He’d sat on the bed, put his head in his hands and said, “Shit, shit, shit.” She’d promised she wouldn’t tell. No one would understand, she’d known that. Still, she’d said, “Hold your head high, James. Don’t let shame p
oison your veins. You’re perfect. Absolutely perfect, and I love you.”
“James, I think the weight, the weight that’s pushed me down for the last thirty years is lifting. I know I’ve got a long way to go. Every time I think of him, I … I hurt, hurt in places I didn’t know existed, in ways I—but still … I can’t—”
He pulls her tighter into him. “Fuck him. You don’t owe him a thing. You never have to see him again. This isn’t about him anymore, do you understand? This is about you getting better. This is about us doing whatever it takes to bring you home.”
They sit for a while, her head against the tremble of his chest. The inflating and deflating of his lungs coaxing a delicate part of her to life.
“Nora, I—”
“What?”
“No, never mind. It’s nothing. Sorry.”
“What? Tell me. I can handle it. Really.”
“Paul … he isn’t at the house very often. He’s home for dinner, tucks Fiona into bed. We’ve hardly said two words. I think he’s … staying with—”
“Elisa. Yes, I know.” She is surprised how remarkably calm she feels saying this. “He was here yesterday. Paul and I are done.”
His arm squeezes her shoulders. “Well, I’m staying. For as long as you need me.”
“Mommy,” Fiona calls from across the room. “Can you help me tear off this picture?”
Nora rises, makes herself walk steadily to her daughter. Fiona has drawn a purple hummingbird, its long beak deep into the sweetness of a yellow daffodil.
“Sweetie, this is beautiful.”
“My teacher says the daffodil is a symbol of new life, and the hummingbird is a symbol of happiness.”
Nora ruffles her hair. “Well you are a very smart little girl—and a wonderful artist.”
“A symbol is something that gives you a clue of something,” Fiona says proudly. “Like red is a clue for love. That’s why valentines are red.”
Nora’s stomach constricts.
“And you can make symbols from everything! Did you know that Mommy? And you can think of the symbol whenever you want. That’s what the teacher told me. She said I can think of a hummingbird, and I will feel better.”