Buffering

by Hannah Hart

  After we left I got into the car and smiled. “That was the best it could have gone! She was having a good day.”

  I looked over at Francesca, and her face was stark white. “Let’s go,” she said.

  I started to drive, and Francesca was silent. I let her stay quiet for a bit, but after a mile or so I pulled over and asked her what was wrong. She started to cry and reached out for me. Through her tears she told me that she’d been so scared that “that woman” was going to hurt me. She loved me, and she’d been sitting right by the lamp because if “that woman” was going to attack me, she knew she could fling it at her and we’d be able to get safely out the door.

  I was shocked. “Really? You were that scared?”

  Now it was her turn to look baffled. “Hannah.” She held my face and stared hard into my eyes. “You cannot go back there. Please promise me you’ll never go back there alone.”

  “I can’t promise that. I mean, what if I need to see her?”

  “Then see her in public.” Francesca was emotional and adamant; it was an unusual tone for her. She wasn’t one to let her feelings show when she spoke. She wasn’t one to let her feelings show, period. In that moment I never felt so loved but also so scared. Francesca’s desire to protect me was so sincere that it shook me to realize how blind I was to how ill my mother had become.

  “Promise me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Say it.”

  “I promise.”

  I’d kept my promise. Now, almost two years after that conversation, I was about to step into that apartment again. I had actually forgotten all about that conversation with Francesca. But as we approached the door, Kati asked, “When was the last time you were here?” and I remembered.

  “You ready?” I looked at Kati, and she gave me a latex-covered thumbs-up. We both had gloves and face masks on. I was grateful we’d opted for the extra protection, because as we approached I noticed some bugs crawling along the windowsill. The blinds were broken in places, but it was pitch black inside except for the light of a small screen that was playing Parks and Recreation.

  “Cool. Okay! Here goes.” I turned the doorknob and entered.

  The first thing I noticed was that the air was warm and humid. Familiar.

  “Oh, my god.”

  I heard Kati whisper behind me, but there was nothing more to be said. The place was rotting from the inside. We were there with a job to do. I needed to take those pictures and go. There was no time to stand outside and take it all in.

  As we entered, the cockroaches on the floor scattered toward piles of garbage, where they could stay shrouded in darkness. I took a wide shot with my camera. Click. Dust and insect shells covered every surface. Click. Her hoarding had continued in the time since I’d been there, and there were piles of books and miscellaneous objects (“treasure”) everywhere. Click. There were also jars filled with dark brown liquid, overflowing with cigarette butts. Click.

  “Coffee.”

  “What?” Kati asked. I didn’t realize I had spoken out loud.

  “Sometimes she puts cigarettes out into her coffee. She doesn’t drink the coffee once it’s cold.”

  “Oh—okay.”

  I turned to look at Kati. She hadn’t made it past the threshold. I had somehow made it into the center of the room, having followed a path through the filth that was wide enough for the single air mattress that was slowly deflating in the corner. I felt as though I was missing frames in my mind. When had I walked into the room? I thought I had just opened the door.

  I felt really hot. I was sweating, but didn’t know why. In one of the missing frames I must have entered the room and was now covered in sweat. Memory is weird. Good thing we had pictures. Click.

  I started using the flash to reveal the yellow stains that had formed on the walls. Click. Probably from cigarette smoke.

  “Do you want to turn that off?”

  Parks and Recreation was still playing on the screen. I forgot, and looked around for a remote to turn it off. I pulled open a drawer, and dead cockroaches rolled around like marbles. I took a picture and shut it, surprised to see that the roaches were dead. Maybe she’d bug bombed the place once. Good for her. Maybe she wasn’t as sick as I’d thought. Click.

  Everything was covered in dust and cockroach excrement, so instead of continuing to look for a way to shut off the TV I just unplugged it. There were boxes and boxes of old newspapers and empty beer bottles. Click. I didn’t remember my mom ever drinking beer, to be honest. Click. Then I noticed a pamphlet from the Asian Art Museum. I had gotten her a yearlong membership for her birthday, and maybe that meant that she’d gone. I almost smiled. I’d smile about that later. I felt oddly robotic. As though my hands weren’t attached to my body but I still controlled them. They weren’t responding as quickly as they normally did. I felt as though I was floating. Everything else was slowing down.

  Kati was still in the doorway, “I think you should just take a couple more—maybe just of the kitchen, okay? Then I think that you have enough.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m really surprised that there aren’t more flies in here,” Kati said, covering her face-masked mouth with her sleeve, “considering the amount of rotting food.”

  “That’s what the spiders are for,” I said automatically, moving toward the kitchen to take the pictures we’d need.

  Kati looked confused. I pointed up.

  Katie gasped. The ceiling was covered in cobwebs, speckled with black dots of spiders and their prey. A ceiling fan turned slowly, its movement having carved out a track in the webs that surrounded it. That would be a good photo. Click.

  “Oh, my god. Oh, my god.”

  I almost laughed. “What, you’re afraid of spiders?” I asked, feeling casual. I tried to walk into the kitchen, but my feet had stopped working. Odd. I snapped a picture from where I was. Click. What’s floating in that bowl? Who cares? Click. “It’s not that hard for me to be in here. Honestly, this is just like the house I grew up in.”

  Kati’s face fell slightly, but she regained herself. “Make sure you get a picture of the floor.”

  “Good call.” I crouched and took a picture of the floor. You could see a path about ten inches wide where Mom paced. Click. I noticed an electrical plug on the floor and realized the fridge was unplugged. She did that sometimes. Something about the “frequency of the transmissions” coming from the fridge. Sometimes she would actually unplug the fridge in the middle of conversations so she could pay more attention. That had led to many expired surprises when I was a child. I remember being little and trying to drink milk as soon as it was bought, while it was still cold and sweet, before it got chewy.

  “Hannah, I think you’ve got enough.”

  I looked up. “The fridge is unplugged. I’m sure everything in there is moldy. Lemme get a shot of it, and then we’ll go.”

  There was just one problem: I couldn’t really move my arms. I was confused. And frustrated with myself. I stood there and stared at the handle of the fridge. Arm, go. Hand, go. Just lift and open. Open the fucking door and take a picture.

  But my hands stayed at my sides. I was on pause. I kept staring at the handle of the fridge, begging myself to just open it. I could smell it. I knew that if I opened the door, I would get a picture that would seal the deal. Just fucking do it.

  But my body was betraying me. It refused to obey. I was stuck.

  “Hannah?”

  I looked toward Kati. My eyes were unfocused, but I could see her figure in the light pouring in through the door. The light that scattered the cockroaches. She held her hands up in front of her as she stepped into the apartment itself. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Okay are you going to take a picture?”

  “I kind of can’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I felt blank. I didn’t know how to explain. “I . . . can’t. I’m trying, but . . . I can’t.”

  Kati, a trained m
ental health professional, probably understood far better than I did how deeply I’d been triggered.

  “I can feel the skin on my face,” I said, “but I can’t move my arms.”

  It was true. I suddenly had a very odd sense of awareness of the skin covering my entire body. But I couldn’t move.

  Kati marched forward and touched my arm. It felt so foreign. “I think we’re done, okay. Do you want to go?”

  I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want anything. I was silent.

  “Hannah, I think it’s time to go. Are you ready?”

  I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know what to do. Should I try to open the door? I wished Naomi were there. She was always so good at making decisions.

  “I don’t know.” I knew my face was blank. I felt blank.

  My phone pinged. It shocked me a little, and I lifted it out of my pocket, thankful to see that my hands still worked. I pulled off my glove and swiped. There was a text from Naomi:

  Text me as soon as you’re finished. Just get what you need. Don’t linger. Don’t stay.

  Naomi and I joke about how there’s a psychic link between us. That we feel moments when we need to reach out to each other. This was one of those moments.

  “Yeah, let’s go.” Kati was out the door in about three footsteps. I turned for one last look and thought about taking the art off the walls. Mom’s sketches and drawings were yellowed and cracked, cobwebs gently dangling across them. There was even a painting Maggie did in kindergarten. They hadn’t seen each other in twelve years, but somehow she had kept it. I moved to touch it, and a cockroach scuttled out from behind and grazed my hand. I felt that.

  I started to feel everything.

  I pulled my hand back, and my stomach wrenched. My face was itchy. My neck was itchy. I’m allergic to cockroaches. Why could she never remember that? I’m allergic to cockroaches, and they give me rashes. Why didn’t she care? Why didn’t she notice? Their dust makes it hard for me to breathe. I choke sometimes when I try to sleep.

  I was filled with grief and rage. The place was disgusting. I wanted to burn it down.

  I left the apartment and slammed the door shut behind me, my knees weak as I walked down the stairs and toward the car. If I stopped moving, I thought I might collapse.

  I drove us back to Naomi’s in silence. When Naomi asked, “How was it?” I replied, “I think we got enough.” Kati told her about the spiders, and Naomi closed her eyes and told her she used to kill the ones near our mattress on the floor. I said I never remembered seeing that many spiders. Her eyes welled up, and she hugged me. “I know you don’t remember spiders, honey, but do you remember spider bites? We were covered in them.”

  “Oh.” I remembered. Naomi had a system with a needle she’d use to get the venom out. I had little green scabs on top of the swollen mounds. “Spiders are what make spider bites,” I said flatly, as if the two facts had just clicked together.

  She nodded, wiping a tear. Patient but sad. “That’s right. That’s why we kill spiders or put them outside.”

  “But what about the flies?”

  “We don’t have any flies, Hannah. We have clean houses now. With no spiders or flies.”

  “Oh.”

  Sometimes it’s hard for me to remember that, too.

  The photos I’d taken proved to be the most compelling evidence we had in our case against Mom. It was worth the trip for that reason alone.

  But more than that, the trip had changed my perspective on my own habitat. It had made me realize that certain habits I had weren’t about nature at all. They were the result of nurture. Or neglect.

  The court case would take about a month. Weeks later, I had to drive back down to LA for a press day I couldn’t miss. I was reluctant to go, even though there were chunks of time that passed when there was no work to be done on the case. I called Francesca from the road. She’d left me a message earlier that week from the Creator Summit, a yearly event for the YouTube elite that I had to miss. What had made it even harder was not being able to explain why. Everyone just assumed I hadn’t been invited. I was no longer elite.

  But what can ya do?

  We talked for forty-five minutes, and I told her all about the apartment and the spiders, and she was sympathetic and a good listener and also proud of me. It felt really good. I told her I was excited to get back to my own apartment and hang some pictures. She laughed. We didn’t speak often, our breakup policy having been to give each other as much space as we needed for as long as was needed. Sometimes it’s just not that healthy to talk to an ex.

  I thanked her for all the patience she had shown me, and she thanked me for all the love I’d shown her. I asked her if she was working on her personal stuff, and she said it was none of my business, and then I started to ask her about self-care and she told me to stop. I apologized. She sighed and said she knew she needed to but didn’t want me to nag her. I told her I wasn’t nagging, just expressing my opinion. It was tense but then we both paused and laughed.

  “Gah. We really haven’t changed, huh?”

  She sighed. “Yeah . . . you know, I think that was really the problem with our relationship. There was always a lot of love but not a lot of respect.”

  I agreed. “I’m working on that. Trying to treat myself with respect.”

  “That’s good.”

  We got off the phone, and I finished my drive. After three weeks in the Bay Area, I never thought I’d be so happy to come home. I surprised myself as I opened the door to my house in LA, a door that led to clean hardwood floors, a record player, and boxes of board games and art above the fireplace. I loved the place. It was clean, and it smelled like cedar candles. This was my home. And my home was not a reflection of madness, but of myself.

  1 I usually managed to get people into the hot tub, but only a brave few wanted to jump back and forth with me between the two.

  2 LPS conservatorship is a process in which the court appoints a person to make certain legal decisions for another person. Or, as my mom likes to call it, “adult adoption.” The difference between LPS and probate conservatorship is that you can hospitalize someone for mental illness against his or her will.

  3 Naomi had been trying to heal from her PTSD and as part of that process felt she needed a dramatic amount of space from the Hart family and Mom. She wrote a letter to one of my aunts outlining the reason for needing to cut off all contact with them in order to heal. At the time, she thought that would be a lifetime. She didn’t give me a heads up about this, which stuck me in the middle of a family debate that I wanted no part of. For a time, it was even difficult for the two of us to talk, and we became distant. After she had taken time to heal, she came back into my life and we reconciled. More on that in the next chapter.

  FABLES

  ON TRAIN THROUGH PENNSYLVANIA (PA) 11/26/10

  “Junk” a movie about a kid who uncovers the secret of his Dad’s profession and his life in the junkyard. Shot entirely from the kid’s perspective, [audience] only learns more as he learns more:

  * different scenes acting out the fantasies he has, and adventures with different materials [from the junkyard]

  * Christmas trees that come in after the holidays—always have Christmas a couple days later to get the toys people have tossed away to make room for the new ones

  * Gets in fight with boy at school over “Action Man” backpack/ “you been sifting through my garbage, hey? You don’t need to go and do that we can drop all our trash off at your house instead.”

  Teacher seems cold but offers the boy help. Recycled binders and what not.

  [Dad speaking]

  “You can always rely on people being wasteful, son. For wanting more than they have. But we’ve got the real riches here, because we want what we’ve got.”

  My earliest memories are all of Naomi. In those memories, she is telling me stories.

  My very first memory is of lying on a blue carpet, and as I lift my head I see a line of My Little Ponies all in a row. Naomi
is pointing at each of them, I don’t understand what she’s saying, but I know that she is describing each of them and they are having a parade. Naomi must be about four years old in this memory and I must be approaching one, because the only house we ever had with a blue carpet was the one my parents shared when they were together. The memory ends with Naomi looking up behind me as I am being lifted. I’m being taken somewhere and leaving the ponies behind.

  When Naomi and I would lie in bed at night on our shared mattress, I’d ask her to tell me stories to fall asleep. I’d interrupt with jokes or my own ideas, and we’d laugh and would soon be telling the story together, but when it came to a happy ending, Naomi always told it best.

  Our childhood revolved around making up stories and games. Once, for Christmas, our Grandpa Joe (our mom’s dad) gave us Star Trek action figures. They were the coolest of cool. We would take them on “away missions” and make up stories about the alien planets we visited. We’d pile them in the center of the room and divvy them up, each of us choosing one character at a time. The only rule was that you had to play each character in your pile at least once. I never got tired of those games.

  Another memory: Naomi and I were looking for something to eat, and we checked the freezer. Sometimes there would be an old bag of bread in there covered with ice crystals that could be fixed in the microwave. We found a bread bag in the freezer, but inside there were dead kittens. The family cat (a wild thing that strayed into and out of the house) had given birth to a litter, but some had died. When I asked Naomi why there were kittens in the freezer, she told me a story about how Mom was saving them for all of us to bury in the backyard.

  When we got older, Naomi started writing her stories down. Everyone said she was a beautiful writer. She also wrote poetry and won an award for her writing at school. I was jealous.