“We don’t know that,” Wendy said. “We don’t know what happened at all. I’m only telling you what my mother said.”
Win, who had finally agreed to stay home, had been playing with the Nintendo paraphernalia Waldo had loaned him. The television bleeped and flickered as a helicopter exploded again and again and was miraculously resurrected. Now he set down the controls and drifted toward Delia. “What’s going on?” he asked. “What’s the problem?”
“The problem,” Delia said, “the problem is …” Without warning, and with considerable grace, she hurled her glass of grapefruit juice and vodka into the fireplace. “I’m so sick of this family,” Delia said more calmly. “I’m so sick of my father I could puke. This is all his fault, I know it is—I don’t even have to know what’s going on to know he did it. He’s like a bulldozer without a driver out there, crashing through the world and wrecking up everything. He’s such a child.”
With her flushed face and her curly hair, Delia looked like a child herself. Win bent over the fireplace and began picking up the shards of glass. “What’s the big deal?” he said. “Your father, my mother—they’re both crazy. It’s not like this is news. What’s the point of getting all upset?”
“You’re sixteen,” Delia said scornfully. “What do you know?”
“More than you do. I know there isn’t any point in worrying about whatever they’re doing. They’re all out there on the road somewhere, buzzing around each other, and you watch, whatever’s going on, they’ll all be back tomorrow acting like nothing ever happened. And that’s because probably nothing is happening. You can’t take them seriously.”
Delia rose unsteadily and headed for the kitchen. “I have to call Lise,” she said, as if Lise had ever been any help to her. She shook off Wendy’s hand when Wendy reached out to stop her. “Don’t touch me. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this was going on.”
“I did tell you,” Wendy said. “I just did.”
“Now. After letting me sit here all night, thinking everything was fine.” Delia vanished into the kitchen and Roy touched Wendy’s forearm gently.
“It’s not your fault,” he said. “She always overreacts when she hears anything about her father. She can’t stand to side with him, but she still feels sorry for him and she gets herself all tangled up.”
When Delia returned from the kitchen she looked grimly satisfied. “You won’t believe this,” she announced. “Lise is over at Mom’s helping her pack up, and when I told her what was going on, she said that Dad and Grunkie had been there around lunchtime, in a van no less, and that Dad was in this really strange mood and he and Mom had one of their fights. Lise said she heard Dad tell Mom that he was bringing Grunkie over here for dinner.”
She said she heard him tell her, Wendy thought. “Not for dinner,” she admitted. “To stay.”
“What?” Delia said. “What else aren’t you telling me?”
Win frowned across the room at Wendy, but Wendy kept on talking. Somehow, even without the dolls in her hands, her words didn’t seem to matter anymore. All the words that had sprung from everyone’s lips all day had fused and mutated and taken on a life of their own, which seemed bound to sprout strangely no matter what she did. She said, “Grunkie was supposed to stay here. Until—you know.”
“Until he dies,” Win said firmly. He came and stood next to Wendy and picked up the dolls she’d set against the pizza boxes. “Where did you get these?” he asked Wendy quietly. “Did you take them?”
“I borrowed them.”
“I don’t get it,” Delia said, while Win scanned Wendy’s guilty face. “Why would Grunkie come here?”
“Because,” Wendy said. “Mom wanted—he was due for some chemotherapy, and Mom said it wasn’t going to do any good, and she wanted him to come stay here so someone from her stupid church could try some sort of diet on him.” She rose and beckoned to Delia and Roy and then led them into the spare room her mother had readied for Grunkie.
“Look at this,” she said. She showed them the Manual, the bookcase filled with Church literature, and the cross-stitched sampler bearing the Church motto. Nothing exists external to our minds, she read for the second time that day. Things are thoughts. The world is made up of our ideas. She made a mental note to add another item to the list in her closet: I will remember that the world is real. Ideas had gotten them nowhere, she thought. Ideas had brought her mother to this.
“He was supposed to come tomorrow,” she said. “Mom was going to pick him up. And then somehow she was going to take care of him. Except she can’t even take care of herself half the time.”
Delia laughed bitterly. “Look at this crap.”
Wendy drew a deep breath. She and Win used to try to hide their mother’s strangeness from Delia and Lise, but Henry’s crash had offered them a peculiar relief—since Delia had started confiding in them, they’d started confiding back. Sometimes, caught in a long exchange of “my mother said” and “my father did,” they had actually laughed. She had nothing to lose by saying what came next. “Mom said Grunkie must have told Uncle Henry about the neuro-nutritionist who’s supposed to come.”
“The what?” Delia asked.
“This nurse, this lady from the Church who’s supposed to help him. Grunkie wasn’t all that thrilled about the idea, I guess. And Mom said Grunkie must have told your father, and your father maybe took him away so he wouldn’t have to come here. You know how he hates Mom’s Church stuff. He thinks it’s crazy.”
“It is,” Delia said. “You told me so yourself.”
“Your father isn’t?”
They stared at each other until the doorbell rang.
“That’s probably Lise,” Delia said. “I told her to come over.”
Wendy groaned. “Now? You know she’ll just make things worse.” Lise knew everyone’s weak spots and hit them unerringly, and Wendy had always wondered if Lise noticed the way her words drove everyone away. The way she had of acting forty instead of twenty-three, as if she were decades older than the rest of them—Wendy felt a stiffness creeping up on her already, an echo of Lise’s rigid posture. Delia had, she knew, long since stopped telling Lise about anything important, and as they moved to the door she whispered to Delia, “Did you make up something?”
“About what?”
“Why you’re home. What you’re doing here. Roy?”
“Shit. I forgot all about that. Tell her I’m visiting you, okay?”
“Okay. But she’s going to remember Roy.”
Delia rolled her eyes and then pulled Roy to her and whispered something to him. Roy laughed. Delia said to Wendy, “Tell her Roy’s with you now. That you two hooked up after I left.”
She gave Wendy the same conspiratorial grin they’d shared as children, whenever they’d banded together to protect themselves from Use’s prying. Before Wendy could say anything, Roy left Delia’s side and moved to hers. “My darling,” he said in a joking voice. “My own true love.”
Her whole arm grew warm as he took her hand and held it. “My prince,” she said, trying to keep her voice as light as his.
Win, who had been watching all this, said, “Are we ready?” His voice was sarcastic. “Everyone got everything sorted out?”
Wendy and Roy and Delia nodded, and Win threw open the door. A woman stood there, not Lise, a woman older than Wiloma with short white hair and very white skin and a face so creased and lined and scored that it resembled a cotton shirt someone had washed and then forgotten to iron. Her gauzy printed skirt sagged almost to her ankles and was topped by a blue blouse. A large wicker basket was strapped to her back.
“Hello?” Wendy said. “Can I help you?”
“You must be Wendy,” the woman said. Wendy felt a prickle of fear. “Is your mother here?”
Win pushed himself in front of Wendy. “Who are you?” he asked. “What do you want?”
“I’m Christine. From the Healing Center. Your mother asked me to come.”
“Tomorrow,�
� Wendy protested as Christine walked past them and into the living room. “You’re supposed to be here tomorrow.”
“I always come the night before, to make sure the treatment area is properly arranged.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Win asked. “Barging in here like this.”
“I come where I’m called,” Christine said.
Delia laughed. “This is a joke, right?”
Christine gazed at the filthy living room and the dolls on the table and the spray of juice on the fireplace. “Nice,” she said. “Does your mother know about this?”
“Our mother’s away for the evening,” said Win.
“Why?” asked Christine. She wandered toward the kitchen before Wendy could answer, with her hands out before her like a blind woman’s. She touched the walls and the doorframes and the chairs and the drapes, as if she were trying to read them with her hands. As Wendy and Win and Roy and Delia followed her, she touched the stove, the sink, the dishwasher, and the refrigerator. Then she turned to Wendy expectantly. “On the counter,” Wendy blurted. “Under the phone.” She couldn’t understand what had made her speak.
Christine picked up the note Wendy had placed there earlier and read it. “But this is serious. Explain.”
Wendy told her the same story she’d told her father and then Win and then Delia, aware that it sounded worse with each repetition and afraid that she’d twisted, somehow, the already twisted tale her mother had told her. He said, she said, we said, she thought. They said, you said, I said. I said. She closed her eyes and felt the world chipped into bits around her, made up of the same small squares that formed the creatures and obstacles of Win’s video games. Nothing smooth and blended, everything sharp-edged and discrete, every word and act and person separate from every other, and the illusion that they formed a whole just that, just an illusion, visible only from a distance that blurred everything. Her voice trailed off and she opened her eyes to find Christine staring at her. “I mean,” she said faintly, “I mean that’s what my mother thinks. I don’t know what my father thinks. I don’t know why he went with her.”
“Your mother has good instincts,” Christine said. “Her hypothesis may be correct. Your great-uncle’s been a little resistant to the idea of being Healed. And if your uncle feels the same way …”
“He’s my father,” Delia said impatiently.
Christine turned toward Delia, her gray eyes shining like lamps. “Your father?” Wendy noticed that her eyebrows were almost invisible. “You’re the niece?”
“Wiloma’s niece,” Delia snapped. “Henry’s daughter. Grunkie’s grandniece. And my father feels the same way Grunkie does. He thinks you’re all crazy.”
Christine nodded gravely. “That would be consistent. Your father is the one who lost the farm in Coreopsis?”
“That’s him,” Delia said, while Wendy wondered what else this woman knew. “The one who loses everything.”
Christine moved to the stove and started heating a kettle of water. “But he doesn’t just lose things,” she said. “Does he? He takes things all the time, to make up for everything he’s lost. Other people’s land, other people’s love …”
Delia’s face turned a strange color, and Wendy felt her own face flush as she thought of the dolls in the living room. It was sickening, what this woman knew. Her mother must have told her everything.
Christine had kept her basket on her back, but now she leaned against the counter and slipped her arms from the straps. Quietly, she unloaded a bundle of branches with waxy leaves and shiny white berries, and then an assortment of small paper sacks that were folded, stapled, and labeled. She said to Wendy, “Where are the cups?”
Wendy gestured toward the cabinet over the sink, and when Christine reached in for the mugs, Wendy’s arm stole out and plucked a branch from the bundle and slipped it into her pocket. Win and Roy and Delia were all watching her but she couldn’t stop herself. She had to see if this woman knew everything. Christine looked back over her shoulder and said, “Are you very drunk?”
Wendy, suddenly speechless, turned to Win. “No,” he said. “We haven’t been drinking.”
“Not you two, the others.”
“What business is it of yours?” Roy asked.
“None,” Christine said. If she’d seen the branch disappear, she apparently wasn’t going to mention it. Wendy pulled her shirt over her pocket. “But I have some tea here, it’s sassafras. It’ll clear your heads.”
She measured out something brown and dusty from one of the sacks and then poured water into the teapot that stood near the toaster. Wendy watched her helplessly, wondering if there was a way to push her out into the night, and then she followed her to the table and sat down. The four of them sipped at their tea as if Christine had cast a spell on them. Her mouth was too small, Wendy decided. Or maybe it was her eyes that were too big, or the way her eyebrows vanished unless the light hit them just right. Whatever the reason, her eyes seemed to take up half her face.
“The question,” Christine said, “the question is …,” but before she could finish Lise walked in and Delia burst into tears. Roy, as if Lise were a gust of wind, leaned away from Delia and toward Wendy. Lise had shoes on, Wendy saw. Not sneakers or flip-flops, but shiny hard shoes with pointed toes. And stockings. And she carried a purse. She had cut her hair and she looked like Henry in drag. She squared her bony shoulders and said, “Does someone want to tell me what’s going on?”
“You would be … ?” Christine asked.
“Lise. Delia’s sister. Who are you?” But before Christine could answer, Delia rose and took Lise’s arm and led her out of the room. Wendy could hear Delia’s voice behind the wall, rising, falling, crying—Delia, she realized, was drunker than she looked. Roy covered Wendy’s hand with his. “Let her get it out,” he whispered. “I usually just let her cry for a while.”
Win slapped his palms against the table. “I don’t suppose,” he said to Christine, “there’s any chance you’d pack up your stuff and get out of here.”
“I have to go where I’m called. That’s my job. I’m sorry you feel I’m infringing on your space.”
Win rolled his eyes at Wendy. Roy said, “This seems like sort of a family thing. Maybe I ought to get going.”
“Stay,” Wendy said. “Please.” She was so tired that she wanted to rest her head on the table and sleep, but she knew something dreadful would happen if she closed her eyes in Christine’s presence. She’d go to sleep as one person, wake up as another; she’d wake up believing everything her mother believed she believed. She’d wake up on Christine’s side, sure the world could be fixed by faith in a simple set of rules. Christine had power; Wendy could feel it flowing across the table from those clear eyes. Something in her was so calm and strong, or so calmly mad, that Wendy could almost imagine what had lured her mother into the Church.
Christine leaned over and fixed her gaze on Wendy. “Your great-uncle’s Spirit is getting ready to transit. If I don’t help him soon, he’s going to be lost.”
Win snorted into his tea. “Lost where?” he said. “Mom told us you were going to cure Grunkie. Keep him alive.”
Christine kept her eyes fixed on Wendy. “Your mother said I was going to Heal him. You weren’t paying attention to her words.”
“You can’t cure him?” Wendy said.
“Maybe not his body. He’s let this disease get a grip on him, and it’s gone a long way—he believes in it and believes it’s going to kill him, and as long as he does, it will. But I can Heal his Spirit—I can teach him how to think correctly and give him certain herbs and foods that will free his Spirit from his disease. I can make sure his Spirit finds the Light.”
Roy tipped himself back in his chair. “I don’t get it. Are you some kind of priest?”
“I’m a certified spiritual neuro-nutritionist,” Christine said quietly. “From the Church of the New Reason.”
Roy shook his head, but he was polite and Wendy was grateful for t
hat. What must we look like? she wondered. This house, this woman, this family—to an outsider, we must all look nuts. There was a reason she never brought friends home, a reason she never dated, and this was it, right here, sitting across the table. Their lives sometimes sailed along normally for months, but when she least expected it, when she was most lured into thinking they lived like everyone else, things like this came out of nowhere. A Christine appeared, or a convoy of cars loaded with people prepared for a group meditation, or two men in dark suits rang the doorbell and wouldn’t leave.
Lise led Delia back into the kitchen just then, and this time she looked sharply at Roy. “Don’t I know you?”
Roy draped his arm over the back of Wendy’s chair. “I used to go out with your sister. Till she went away to school. Then I met Wendy.” Wendy reached her hand back for Roy’s.
“You,” Lise said. “I remember you. You had that ugly dog.” Roy flinched and Lise addressed herself to Wendy. “Delia told me what’s been going on. It’s just outrageous. Grunkie ought to be in a hospital, or at least back at St. Benedict’s. The idea of bringing him here—I don’t know what Dad’s up to, and it figures he’d mess up whatever it is, but I can certainly sympathize with his wanting to keep Grunkie out of this.”
Christine looked at Lise. Her eyes, Wendy saw, were not gray but almost violet. “You aren’t very happy,” Christine said. “Are you.”
Win laughed out loud at that and even Delia smiled. The tip of Lise’s nose looked white and pinched. “I don’t know who you think you are,” Lise said, “but if you think you have any right—”
“Have a seat,” Christine said, and Lise frowned but sat down. Delia sat, too, and then Christine said, “Now listen. We have a situation here. You two”—she pointed at Delia and Lise—“are worried about your father.” Lise opened her mouth, but Christine silenced her with an upraised hand. “You’re angry. Disgusted. But also worried. And you two”— she looked at Wendy and Win—”are worried about your mother. And you’re all worried about your great-uncle and I am, too. And the question is—what are you going to do?”
The Forms of Water Page 15