Blood Sisters

by Jo Barney

  So, the library. First objective: how to talk with a handicapped child about sex.

  I find nothing except the usual advice for parents: do talk; explain the body changes, if a child is ready to listen; go on to the physical aspects of sex, using drawings and listening carefully to questions. We’ve—scratch that, I actually have done this with Jim from the time he was showing signs of puberty.

  He didn’t seem too interested in the details and told me the school nurse had talked to his class about what I was telling him. When I found semen stains on his sheets, I talked to him again about the normalcy of wet dreams. “Okay,” he said, and the subject has never come up since.

  I do not find one reference to sex among disabled people. I do see a picture of a family, the parents with Down’s syndrome, the children of normal abilities. They look happy.

  Next project: DNA tests. What are they? This time the librarian finds a medical book that describes them as a newly developed way to determine the parentage of a child using a blood sample. I am depressed by this information. I can’t keep my secret from anyone who wants to know it. Lloyd is right.

  That leads me to divorce. Many people are getting divorced, it seems, if the number of books on the subject is any indication. In fact, it appears that there have been more divorces in the early seventies than ever before. Writers have picked up on this surge of breakups. I find ten books, among them: The Courage to Divorce, Creative Divorce, Uncoupling: The Art of Coming Apart, and Kramer vs. Kramer.

  I sit down at a library table and turn a few pages before I stop to consider why I am doing this research. I am beginning to understand that maintaining my marriage may result in disaster for my son. And for me. I have a husband who reacts to me with violence. The books in front of me indicate that I am not alone, that ending a marriage is not the end of the world, only the beginning of the next chapter of life. I’ll bring a couple of these books home with me.

  But I still have two more things on my list. The first is not so much for me but for me to understand Hank: anger management in veterans. When I ask the librarian, she finds an article in a medical magazine that she said was the latest word from psychologists who have been studying what used to be known as combat fatigue and then was codified as post-traumatic stress disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders III, whatever that is. “Thousands of Vietnam veterans suffer from it, but the condition has existed in every war,” the librarian says. “My father lived his whole life being angry much of the time. I’m sure it was the PTSD they are describing.”

  “Nightmares?” I ask.

  “A lot. My mother insisted on twin beds. She was a patient woman, but when he started haranguing her about whatever he was upset about, she walked into their bedroom or our backyard and stayed there until he settled down. We didn’t have an official name for it back then, but I remember my aunt mentioned shell shock.” She copies the article for me, and as I accept the pages, I wonder whether anyone has found a cure for it.

  I have two more words on my list but don’t have the courage to ask anyone where I’ll find the information about them. Maybe the card catalogue will have a book or two on suicide. If things get bad, I want to make sure I do it right next time. A pathetic idea, but real. I find lots of references to suicide and depression but none on methods of killing oneself.

  The other word leads me to a book called Living Sober, which a kind, but frowning, aide hands me. “Just in. By Anonymous, a review copy.” She whispers, “Hope it helps.” I leave the library with a couple of books under my arm, relieved that I am trying to get a handle on my life.

  If I decide, in some ghastly recurring moment of depression, that leaving the scene will be an option for avoiding my life with Hank, Lloyd, and, indeed, even Jim, I’ll go back to the library, look at other sources for ideas, literary ideas like Anne Sexton, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Virginia Woolf, or even Hemingway. Using a train seems too public; the oven, impossible since I have an electric stove. Maybe pills, although I don’t like leaving a mess for someone else to clean up, which also precludes shooting my brains out.

  But right now, the day is bright, I feel as if I’ve made a good effort to begin to understand what is next, and I know that this afternoon, at least, one more glass of vodka awaits me at home, no matter what Anonymous says.

  23

  The woman on the phone was right. Despite his not going to work and coming in early, Hank still waits four hours to talk to someone. When his name is finally called, he is itchy, ready to walk out.

  “Hank Ellison, right? The papers you gave us indicated the Korean War, l951-1952. You left with an injury?” A tired, harassed man shuffles papers as he looks up.

  ‘Yes. Right buttock. Still aches and is ugly scarred.”

  “Better in back than in front. So why are you here?”

  “I have a friend from our weeks in Ch’ongchon. He’s here, recovering from the same thing I seem to have, nightmares and flashbacks, and, like me, he can’t stand noise or disruption. I can’t even stand my own son. I’m angry all the time. Then I had a seizure or something on the job. All I can remember is—” Hank stops abruptly. I cannot talk to this stranger about something I’ve never talked about to anyone.

  “A really bad experience. You were a twenty-four-year-old kid? You had spent weeks anticipating the regular swarms of enemies, weapons blazing, sweeping down the hills in mobs. And then they come, hundreds of gooks firing at you and your buddies, no cover except a mound of grass or a tree trunk. When the sieges end and the Communists have backed off to get reorganized, the ground is groaning with injured men, Korean, Chinese, and Americans, all bloody, covered in mud. I understand. All too well.”

  “You were there, in Korea?”

  “A lot of us were. Some of us still are.”

  “Are we all crazy?

  “No, not crazy. Human. A person can only stand so much blood, death, and fear.”

  “So what should I do?”

  “Sign up for three months of counseling, in groups and with an individual counselor. Talking is good.”

  “That’s it? My friend was in a hospital when I visited him.”

  “Your friend probably tried to off himself. Have you?”

  “No.”

  “And you are here right now because?”

  “A flashback. Another friend told me he also had flashbacks that frightened him until he got help here.”

  “Probably the three-month counseling program. It is a lot of work. Are you willing to devote time and energy to getting right?”

  “Shit, what kind of a question is that? When do I start?”

  “We’re overscheduled right now and can’t sign up new clients. Vietnam, you know. I’m sorry, but I can’t give you a definite date at this time. Here is your case number. Call in once a week. We will do what we can to fit you in. It’s all about the funding, you know.”

  “That’s it? Call in?” Hank considers the den of desks, the lines of men like himself still in the reception room and thinks about returning to his life as he has known it lately. He is sure he won’t have a job in a week or two. What had the guy said? “We are still there, in Korea.” How many other men, fueled by their terrifying dreams, beat up their wives, yell at their kids, drop to the floor with flashbacks? “Okay,” he says as he walks away. “I’ll try calling in.” The man at the desk nods, looks to the next guy in line. Hank is dismissed.

  He walks all the way home from the veterans’ office, relieved to have curbs and cars to watch out for, instead of dark thoughts.

  Hank picks up the paper from the porch, goes into the house, settles into his chair, hears voices in the kitchen, tells himself that he can do this. For a while.

  24

  I’m remembering my first time pushing through the hedge. The hole may be bigger this time, but sharp branches jab my ribs. I wipe a threatening stick out of my way, get through with only a scratch on my arm. I also did not warn my neighbor I am coming. I have realized, desp
ite my annoyance at Patsy, that I need to know why tears had tracked her cheeks when she picked up Izzy that night. Something either bad or important happened while the little girl, Jim, and I got acquainted. Maybe Patsy will tell me through the screen door.

  I am let in, offered a cup of coffee. A packet of tissues peeks out of her pocket. To wipe her nose, probably. I can see that she is sad. I hear her mother’s voice in another room talking to Izzy.

  “I’m intruding,” I say. “I’ll come another time.”

  “Please don’t leave.” Patsy shuts the door between her mother’s voice and us. “I need a friend.”

  I have never had anyone say that to me, like I actually have something to offer. “Okay,” I say to Patsy, staring into her moist, dark brown eyes. “I’m here.”

  Patsy leads me to the living room sofa, and we get comfortable, me with my knees bent, legs under me, Patsy with her feet on the coffee table. She begins, “Two nights ago, when my husband was led away to go into a rehab treatment facility, possibly for three months, he looked at me and shouted that I was the reason for his going into treatment. That’s true, of course. I organized the meeting, got his boss involved with the plan, and I was glad he agreed to go into treatment. I loved his tears. I thought that meant he was ready to change, that we had a chance as a family. Then he asked, ‘Why have you done this to me?’” The Kleenex is now in her hand.

  “It took me until now to realize I probably am the cause of Ray’s Coke and bourbons, his distancing from his daughter, his coldness toward me as he realized that he wasn’t first in my life anymore. It happens, you know, when a baby comes—the relationships change. The wife takes the lead, as much as she can; no longer is the husband king of the mountain. A squirming, screeching, smelly, loveable six-pound being rules the house, demanding both special attention and overwhelming worry. Izzy.”

  Patsy lays her head against the sofa, her eyes closed. “I knew how this could happen, from textbooks, from clients, and I did nothing. I should have been able to handle it, support our marriage, cheer my husband into fatherhood. I knew and still didn’t see what was happening in my own home.”

  I’m reminded of something from forty years ago. “Once, when I was studying to be confirmed into my family’s Lutheran church, we studied a passage in which Jesus was taunted and someone yelled, ‘Physician, heal thyself.’ It took me a while to understand that it probably means that before one notices the problems in others’ lives, she should look to her own life. A good lesson, if one puts it to practice. I certainly haven’t.

  “But in your case, if you didn’t see what was happening in your home, it might be because you were blinded by your concern and worry about Izzy. And Ray’s choices to avoid his own problems muddied up the scene. Your skills as a counselor didn’t work, for him or for you personally. ‘Heal thyself’ couldn’t happen. You just had to make it through each day in one piece.”

  Patsy blows her nose, stuffs the tissue back into her pocket. Nods. “You’re right. Even a good social worker may not be able to save her failing marriage. Damn, Eleanor, I guess I just have to let Ray find his own answers, then wait to see what happens next. Perhaps he will not be so angry at me then.”

  “We each have a letting-go problem. I’m beginning to understand that vodka is not the way for me to do this. Maybe someone to talk to is?” I breathe, try to smile. “I am not good at this,” I admit. “Talking. Are you willing to try, even-steven, fifty-fifty? We both talk and listen and maybe argue a little? Is that how it works?”

  “That’s how I’d like it to work. Our private therapy group. Maybe we’ll admit someone else later, when we figure out how this friendship stuff works. But just us for now.”

  “Unless we invite your mother to join us. She’s steady; she might keep us on the even-steven track.”

  “Maybe. She’s still my mother, you know, much as I like her.”

  “So do we have a name? Like a very exclusive club?”

  “How about kaffeeklatsch? You bring the cookies to my house tomorrow.”

  I leave when Izzy starts fussing. Instead of going through the hedge, I walk around the block, thinking about Ray in the place he has reluctantly agreed to go to be cured of his addiction, to find a new life. That demands courage. Patsy made it happen, and she was courageous, too.

  25

  “Today, Eleanor.”

  I know who is on the line, who hangs up before I can protest. I have no alternative but to sit down at the table with the checkbook in front of me, write a check for five hundred dollars, cash it at the bank, and walk to the PO box whose number and key is still in the pocket of the jeans hanging in my closet. I follow these steps without thinking. If anyone observes me, she will believe I am a zombie. I am.

  A car honks. I have stepped into the street without seeing it. It doesn’t matter. I would be better off dead. I give the idea a passing thought. But I decide that it would be only fair if the car is driven by another zombie who won’t be bothered by killing a careless person. Careless. Careful. I am careless in my carefulness. Yet I make it, intact, to the bank. I ask for an envelope for the cash place it in my pocket next to the note and the key. Box 2223 is only a block away.

  “Good girl.” Lloyd has been standing to one side watching me open the PO box. “Just wanted to make sure you followed my instructions. I’ll pick up that envelope in a day or two, without you or any other witness that matters. See you next month.” He walks away, and I am left with a key that will define my life until I can find a way to destroy its power.

  My steps slow as I approach a liquor store. I need something to get me through this.

  “You need a friend, not a bottle of Stoli.” Patsy is standing over me as I lie on the couch, the room swirling. I don’t want to open my eyes, but I manage to ask why she is in my living room.

  “You called. Said you needed help. You sounded drunk. Izzy and I came and found you passed out. At eleven in the morning.” I can smell the coffee Patsy is holding out to me. “Try this. And then tell me what’s happening.”

  “I can’t tell you. But thank you for coming through the hedge.” My arm rests across my eyes. I just want everything to go black.

  “You have a bruise on your cheek. Another on your arm.”

  “I’m clumsy lately.”

  “No. Hank’s nightmares are getting worse, aren’t they? He struck you?”

  I don’t want to talk about what is really bothering me, about the key still in my pocket. “Yes.”

  “You can’t self-medicate yourself away from Hank’s anger, Eleanor.”

  “He says he’s gone to the VA. He’s on a waiting list.” I open my eyes, see Patsy shake her head, feel her hand on mine. “It’ll be okay in a while, Patsy. When he gets help.”

  “In the meantime, I come over and find you passed out on the sofa? No way, friend.”

  I feel Izzy patting my leg, and I begin to cry in huge gulps. But I can’t tell Patsy, or anyone else, for that matter, why I drank a half a bottle of vodka today. I can’t do that to Hank, to my son, to this friend wiping my bruised cheek. I’ll keep this secret inside until I figure out a way to destroy it. Or him. Or myself.

  “Kaffeeklatsch every morning, Eleanor. We’ll talk, commiserate the way friends do, laugh once in a while.” Her hand tightens on mine. “Our husbands will find their own ways to redemption. We can’t do it for them. They have to forgive themselves in order to begin again.”

  And I have to forgive myself for the same reason. Begin again. Is that possible?

  * * *

  Patsy and Izzy each give me a hug as they leave. I assure my friend that a cold shower and more coffee will bring me around. And an hour or so later, they do.

  I feel better, despite the fact that I did not tell Patsy the whole truth. Just talking about the half-truth brings a bloom of hope. I tuck the almost empty vodka bottle in the back of the detergents under the sink. Just in case.

  26

  Jim waves goodbye to his father, and they go t
heir separate ways, as usual, to work. His father never waves back. Jim sees Janey at the bus stop and hurries to her side. She smiles. He really likes her smiles and her cheerful “Hi!”

  “I’m getting tutored today,” he says as he pushes her chair toward the open bus door.

  “Tutored? In what? When I was in high school, I had an aide who tutored me, but she didn’t help much. She didn’t know as much math as I did, so I tutored her. Hope she isn’t your tutor.”

  Jim shakes his head. “No way. William is going to tutor me during our lunch time, and if it works, we’ll stay after work.”

  “How did you get him to do it?

  “Mom is paying him. I need to learn to read better.”

  Janey agrees. “Reading is fun. I could help you too, like now on the bus in the morning. I have lots of books you might like.”

  Jim likes the idea of Janey teaching him even more than William. She is a nice person. They ride to work without saying much else because the bus is loud and Janey’s voice is soft. As they approach the workshop, Jim hands Janey her backpack and pushes her chair down the ramp. “I can help you, and you help me.”

  “Like in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.”

  “A book?”

  “Yep, my favorite of all time. About a sister and brother who run away together and end up hiding in a museum. We’ll read it together.”

  “We aren’t brother and sister.”

  “No, but we’re friends, which is just as good.”

  “What is a museum?”