by Andrew Roe
AND WHILE SHE’S talking, while she’s answering questions and explaining how the technical medical term for Anabelle’s condition is something called akinetic mutism, her mind wanders. Where is John right now? What is he thinking at this very moment? Is he by himself? How is Anabelle doing? Is she wondering where her mom is? What’s going through Kellee Clifton’s mind as I clear my throat and stumble over this or that word? And the longer Karen looks at her, the blonder this woman’s hair gets, the redder and fuller her lips seem. She pictures men dropping at Kellee’s feet, devastated, giving themselves to her, entirely, in ways they never thought possible.
HOW DID IT begin? Simply. With smell, with scent. Roses specifically. One of her best friends, Marnie, was over and helping with Anabelle and asked where are the flowers. But there weren’t any flowers. Her daughter’s room and the rest of the house was, as usual, free of plant life and greenery, with the exception of a long-ago banished Chia Pet out in the garage somewhere.
“Do you smell that?” Marnie said, sniffing, nostrils a-flare in full bloodhound alertness. “It’s so strong. Roses. That’s roses. I smelt it out in the living room and now here, too.”
“You’re right.” A sniff or two of her own, confirming. “I don’t know where it’s coming from. Weird. Outside maybe. Or the air freshener from the bathroom. I did have some flowers that someone brought, but that was weeks ago. And just a general bouquet thing. No roses.”
They resumed changing Anabelle’s nightgown, Karen lifting her daughter’s body while Marnie removed the gown and replaced it with another, and Marnie would periodically stop and smell, stuck on it for some reason, at some point mentioning something about roses and the Virgin Mary. And that was that. And it did not seem like a beginning, but isn’t that always the case.
This was after Karen had surfaced from her dark period, a time when she did not leave the house and did not let her husband touch her and eventually did not bother with the whole ridiculous, overrated charade of getting dressed and pretending that all was well when it was not, it was horribly unwell. She would remain in her robe for days, weeks, the worn, soothingly familiar terrycloth garment (tattered, baby-blue, the left pocket long gone) one of the last gratifications available to her. When the phone rang she didn’t dare lift the suspicious device out of its cradle.
With the exception of Anabelle’s room, which remained relatively clean and uncluttered and became a safe haven of sorts (the majority of her time spent there, sitting, reflecting, sleeping in the chair beside her bed, watching the relocated TV), the house slipped into deep disarray, spreading from room to room, like a series of smaller countries succumbing to an invading conqueror. The neglect was vast, impressive. Piles upon piles of mysterious, miscellaneous crap (now where did that come from?) appeared and did not go away. There was no place to sit or eat. Hallways had to be navigated like hiking trails. The coffee table in the living room amassed geologic layers of junk mail, flyers, receipts, unpaid bills, paper plates crusted with what once was perhaps melted cheese, missing-children postcards that she couldn’t bring herself to throw away. Dust insinuated itself everywhere, seemingly with a newfound vigor, as if knowing that it could thrive in such a tolerant environment. The front- and backyards likewise ignored: rotting foliage, useless soil, grass as yellowed as straw. They couldn’t keep up, always behind, always overwhelmed. The curtains were perpetually drawn, the windows always closed, insulating them from everything outside.
As for her mental state, it was similarly cobwebbed and unruly. The only visitors she allowed in were those who had to be there: Anabelle’s doctor and physical therapists, the nurses, the specialists, the technicians who checked the machines once a week. And even then she had to work herself up to opening the door, to summoning a housewife smile, to making the minimal amount of socially acceptable conversation so as to give the appearance that she was at least functional, which she was not. And despite the fact that friends and relatives were chipping in and paying bills, plus occasionally leaving behind crisp, recently ATM-retrieved twenty-dollar bills, they were drowning in debt. Medicaid covered some of Anabelle’s expenses, but not everything. John’s erratic employment wasn’t helping matters either, while they kept waiting, waiting, for the settlement from the hospital to come through, relying on the smoke and mirrors of postdated checks and credit cards, frequent balance transfers and skipped house payments. Her closest friends took turns delivering food and TV Guide, and tried to be supportive. She’s grieving, she’s still in shock, she’s getting used to how it’s going to be from now on. Many kept using the phrase “transition phase.”
But the situation dragged well beyond what commonly constitutes a phase—ten, fifteen pounds heavier, multiple lapsed magazine subscriptions, John having left by then. She couldn’t picture the future, all the care and bills and sacrifice ahead. She wondered if everyone else had been right—that she should have put Anabelle in an institution. Maybe the burden and responsibility was too much, she’d quite possibly overestimated her capacity as a person. Maybe she couldn’t do this after all.
This all led up to the day when she was sitting in Anabelle’s room (where else would she be?), tending to her daughter and humming an Eric Clapton song, the really sad one about his kid who died, and she could have sworn a tear gently squeezed itself from her daughter’s long-dry ducts, a lone pinhead of water that dissolved just as soon as it was released. Yes, most definitely, something had been emitted: a tear. But it wasn’t a tear with origins in Anabelle’s own pain and silent suffering—and this she instinctively knew, the way only mothers can know such things; instead it was a manifestation of her daughter’s sadness about how she, her mother, had been spiraling. This realization was like getting the wind knocked out of you; suddenly, breathing was not an option. For pretty much three days straight she fought her way back, by organizing and scrubbing and cleaning and boxing and trying to set everything right. There was still a lot to do, but at least she was doing something and shedding the numb of the past months—she began, slowly, steadily, to take her life back, to emerge from the profound gloom that had held her heart hostage.
And so it was around this time, too, that they noticed the rose smell, which lingered and was still in the air when Marnie called to check in a couple of days later. Karen just then getting back into the habit of answering the phone. About fifty-fifty: 50 percent of the time answering, 50 percent not answering.
“It’s still there, huh. And you say she’s never had any bed sores.”
“No, never.”
“That’s just not possible, not with all the time she’s in that bed. Have any other strange things happened in the house recently, anything out of the ordinary?”
“What do you mean ‘strange things’?”
On her next visit Marnie showed up with a multilayered casserole and a twelve-inch porcelain representation of the mother of Christ. “A little something for the room, I hope you don’t mind,” said Marnie, who Karen knew was on the religious side but didn’t throw it in your face like some people. Karen wasn’t sure of the exact brand of faith, though she assumed Catholic because her kids went to a Catholic school. Maybe such a gift was a little bold, a little forward. But Karen didn’t think much about it, the statue, which Marnie purposely placed out of the way, on a small desk in the corner of the room, no big deal, why not. Marnie stayed for Court TV and a Hot Pocket and left.
A couple of days went by. She thought she felt an earthquake once, but there was nothing on the news, so guess not. They watched TV, mother and daughter, just like any other mother and daughter, except she had to do things like change the bag that held her daughter’s urine, among other intimate ministrations. The house was coming along. She could stand to look at herself in the mirror for more than two seconds.
Marnie stopped by again, and she deposited another casserole in the freezer and popped open a Diet Coke. They passed the can back and forth like a couple of winos. But rather than a park bench or somethin
g, here they were relaxing in Anabelle’s sacrosanct room discussing the density of bones and how muscles and tendons degenerate if not regularly used. Karen left to go to the bathroom. When she returned, Marnie was looking at the statue, intensely, like it was an eye chart she was having trouble reading: There was something there, buried in all those random letters. She reached out. Cautiously.
“Did you see this?” Marnie asked, reaching farther and then touching the statue.
“See what?”
“This.”
Marnie held up the evidence, a fingertip: damp.
“Tears,” she said.
Not long after that, Meredith Stroman, a friend from the days when they both worked in day care (severely underpaid teaching assistants at Tot Time), made her weekly coupon drop-off and told her how she’d just been to the doctor’s and that sorry if she seems a little out of sorts but in all likelihood, well, how else to put this: There was a statistically significant chance she had leukemia. Karen asked: “What’s statistically significant?” And Meredith said: “That’s what the doctors said. Statistically significant. I think it’s doctor code for we’re not entirely sure one way or the other but we just want to cover our asses.” Then Meredith asked if she could be alone with Anabelle for a while if that was OK. Of course it was OK. As Meredith described it later, she placed her fingertips first on the girl’s forehead, then her cheeks, then her pale, doll-like hands. And then, without realizing it, Meredith was in the middle of an impromptu prayer to God, asking for Anabelle’s help in defeating the sickness blooming inside her. Two weeks later the doctors were backtracking. The evidence of leukemia had vanished. They were hard-pressed for a viable explanation. “I already have my explanation,” Meredith told them. Marnie liked to point out that the day Meredith prayed to Anabelle, June 24, also happened to be the birthday of John the Baptist.
Then came more statues (and photographs, and paintings, and other various likenesses of Mary, Jesus, the heavy hitters), as well as more tears, more “signs,” and then more friends, and friends of friends, and friends of Marnie’s, and friends of Meredith’s, all of them asking for time alone with Anabelle. Karen swept up in it all, but trying to maintain an open mind and not arrive at a conclusion one way or another, not yet anyway, to let this thing (again that inadequate word) develop naturally and on its own and not explain it all away, with neither the rationality of science nor the intangibles of religion. No easy task, what with Marnie and Meredith giddy like schoolgirls, saying miracle this, miracle that, what else could it be? But there was one part of it she had to concede to: that, if nothing else, it was clear that her life was becoming seriously disrupted, and that her former seclusion had officially ended. From now on her daughter would have to be shared with the world.
Karen also got her first taste of belief, the power of it, the electric charge of it. And perhaps that’s what she’s come to appreciate the most. How these people are so devout, so sure. They believe enough for her and everyone else. And how if you believe in something enough, you become free—free from all that otherwise clouds and clutters your thoughts, that takes you away from your truest true self. The purity of purpose. Sooner or later their certainty will become her certainty, right? The osmosis thing. It’s just a matter of time. Eventually these past years of drift and doubt will make sense. Like an old Polaroid picture slowly coming into focus. That’s her. Taking shape out of the darkness. Materializing into something clear and distinct. She’d been there all along.
“SO LET ME get this straight. You just let people in?”
Of course. Of course I do, she wants to tell Kellee Clifton. She opens her door and lets them in, all of them, the whole world if necessary. How can she refuse when there is such obvious need, such a raw desire for it to be true?
But instead she replies with a simple yes. Plus she’s tired from all the chatting and describing, not used to talking about herself like this. It was exhausting. Had it already been a half hour? How long do interviews typically last? Was “Kellee Clifton” Kellee Clifton’s real name?
The men move the equipment into Anabelle’s room. They’re done with the interview, apparently. The door again—there’s a knock. The doorbell hasn’t worked in years. Karen apologizes to Kellee Clifton, excuses herself. It’s someone from before. Last month sometime. She came for her sister who had a rare blood disease, too many red blood cells or something, which causes headaches and potentially fatal blood clots. Now: remission, cured. Thank you bless you thank you. The doctors say they’ve never seen anything like it. Amazing. Unheard of. An aberration that defies medical explanation.
“I wanted you to know,” she tells Karen, sounding out of breath, like she’d run all the way from wherever she came to deliver the news as soon as possible. “I wanted to tell you in person.”
The woman has been holding on to Karen’s hands since the door opened, and it appears she has no intention of letting go. She rocks back and forth, swaying with wonder and joy, dressed like she works in a bank—blouse, scarf, skirt, heels. Then she places both of her hands on Karen’s face, as if confirming something, and begins to cry.
Kellee Clifton has waited as long as she can. She makes her move.
“Excuse me there, hi. Kellee Clifton. Channel Seven Eyewitness News. We’re here doing a story. About the miracle girl. Would it be all right if I asked you a few questions?”
GETTING LATE, THE last of the visitors gone, the sun and heat in slow decline, the day finally exhaling to a close—and Karen can barely stand. Her feet ache; her eyes burn; her stomach snarls (yes, she’d missed lunch again). Because when is there time for food? She runs the dishwasher and grabs an almost-empty box of cereal from the top of the refrigerator and then joins Dominique, her niece, who regularly stops by after school (yes, one of Anabelle’s Angels, for sure), and who’s now in the living room, slouched on the sofa in teenage recline, but without the attitude that’s associated with such a pose. She’s just tired, too.
Karen puts one hand on Dom’s knee, offers her some crumbly bits of Life with the other.
“It’s late,” says Karen. “Why don’t you go ahead and get going.”
Dom springs up, just what she wanted to hear.
“Get some rest, Aunt Karen,” she says as she gathers her backpack and perfumy magazines she didn’t have time to read, Aunt Karen noticing how her niece’s awkward and gangly body isn’t so awkward and gangly anymore: sixteen and budding into a new exterior with which to greet the world. A transition that Anabelle will never know. Such thoughts—what Anabelle has been deprived of, how she will not experience the most basic joys and rites of passage and everyday occurrences—now part of her daily mind churn.
“You look tireder than usual,” chides Dom. “Like you could melt away there into the sofa. Did you forget to eat again? I know I sound like I’m nagging like my mom, but you got to eat,” employing the stereotypical Italian accent.
“You’re right. You do sound like your mom. And like Bryce. I eat.”
“That’s debatable.”
Dominique is at that age when everything’s debatable, relative. The time when you’re disinclined to believe in anything too much.
“Did you hear we’re getting a new area code?” her niece asks.
“Again? I can’t keep up.”
“Only now I can’t remember. Six? Six-four-something? But if you dial the old one you’ll still get through.” Stopping to reapply lip gloss. Then, still puckered, she says, “I think that’s the most people ever in one day.”
“I think so, too.”
“I keep on thinking, all right, it’s going to start like letting up and then it doesn’t.”
“I don’t know, Dom. Maybe it’s not going to let up. Maybe this is normal now.”
Karen notices a new piercing: Dom’s left nostril, which now matches her right, two silver studs, each addition no doubt driving Dom’s mother crazy.
“How’s your mom doing?” Karen asks.
“She says
hi. I forgot to tell you earlier. She said she’ll try to stop by soon. Work’s been crazy-busy for her. She’s got this new boss. A real jerk. It’s stressing her out. She started smoking again. You know Mom.”
Tammy is Karen’s older sister, her only sister, her only sibling. She lives a few towns over, in Norwalk, but her visits are infrequent. Growing up, they were six years apart, always at very different places in their lives. Tammy’s suspicious of all the attention surrounding Anabelle, strongly voicing the opinion—echoing that of their mother, who fortunately lives in Colorado—that this isn’t right, that Karen shouldn’t be opening up her house and life like this. So usually it’s Dom who comes, two, three times a week.
“Tell your mom whenever she can make it is fine, I understand,” says Karen, as she walks Dom to the door, where her niece suddenly hugs her, something Dom normally doesn’t do, and it feels like a moment, a recognition of something—perhaps it’s Dom trying to tell her that she wishes her mom did more, too, wasn’t so distant and disapproving. Tammy had never liked John either.
Dom’s parked down the block (are the neighbors pissed about the extra traffic and cars? are they wondering what’s happening in there?), so Karen watches her cross the street and hurry down the sidewalk to her car. Lights are going on in houses, just minor illumination at this point in the early October evening. Outside the sky reluctantly turns red and purple and all sleek, the colors of anatomy textbook diagrams, but the heat—the hellish heat—does not relent and there’s no sign of a breeze. The forecast for tomorrow: more of the same.
Still munching cereal, Karen retires to her daughter’s room. At last it’s just the two of them. And there she is. Her baby girl. Her baby Belle. Look: her curled, restless fingers. Her bony limbs. Her long, dark, combed-out hair. Her tender shoulders and delicate ultra-white neck. Her mouth open, for now, forever, appearing as if it’s being forcefully pried ajar by an unseen pair of hands. Her eyes seeming both alive and dead at the same time.