Circe

by Jessica Penot

  “I know I fucked up and I should bow to any of your wishes, but I’m exceedingly uncomfortable borrowing money from your parents.”

  “You’re not borrowing it. I am. And I need this. You owe me this. I want to bring this baby into a real home, our home. I want to move to Foley and put some distance between that witch and us. I know the commute will be long, but by the time we find the house and close on it, you’ll only have a few months left in your internship. I’ve supported you for years and if I want to borrow money I can. It has nothing to do with you.”

  “I understand.”

  “Eric, I’ve given up a lot for you. I wanted to go to graduate school. I wanted to get my Masters. I’ve worked long hours at crap jobs supporting you and your dreams. I gave up my family to follow you to the ends of the earth and you know how close I am to my sisters and cousins. I’ve taken on your dreams. I’ve camped. I’ve hiked. I’ve done all this because I loved you and because I wanted you so badly. You’re beautiful, but you’re broken and I’m not doing it anymore. Now, you’re going to follow me. We’re going to live by my family and we’re going to have family picnics and barbeques and my mother is going to come over to dinner all the time. I’m going to go out with my sisters and you’re going to watch the baby and when the baby is old enough you’re going to support me while I go to graduate school. You owe me everything I want. You owe me everything I’ve always wanted.”

  “And more,” I answered solemnly.

  “Sometimes, I wonder if you even know me. I don’t think you do. I think I’m some twisted Madonna to you. I’m a woman. I have dreams. I have ambitions. I want a family and I need my family. I want you, but if you fuck up again, I’m leaving you forever.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Always the battle of the warrior is with one’s self.

  Anon

  Teiwaz—The Spiritual Warrior

  It never snows in Mobile. The nights get cold and long and sometimes a hint of ice hangs from the trees, but it never snows. Mistletoe and the trappings of the season carpet the downtown but a heat hangs about the holiday that always seems oddly out of place. The interns were given two weeks off for Christmas vacation, unlike the rest of the staff. It was our time to transition from one ward to another and to pull ourselves together.

  Pria and I spent a considerable amount of my first week off with our new friends. We went to dinner and enjoyed each other’s company. Pria hadn’t forgiven me for my affair, but the constant barrage of social interaction kept her distracted. Most nights we got home too late to talk and in public she mouthed devotion with an artistry that rivaled the greatest actresses. She loved me and she wasn’t going to leave me, but our relationship was different. I brought her flowers every day and studiously avoided even looking at the shoes of any other women. I had changed. Fear and loathing had burnt away all my old desires and all I wanted was what I had previously cast aside in anger and indifference. I wanted my wife and my baby.

  Pria slept soundly on her new medication and never touched me. The vomiting had stopped and she began to eat with a vengeance. There was no food item that was safe from her ravenous eyes. Before Andy and John left to go home for Christmas, we nestled ourselves safely into a routine of going out for dinner. Pria and I didn’t talk anymore. But when they flew away, the floodgate opened and I knew that the time had come to pay for my sins.

  Pria planned the rest of the Christmas holiday. I didn’t question or fight her, but I hated every step of the week left ahead of me. It began with a long drive to Orange Beach, where my mother lived in her castle by the sea. We arrived on a petulant afternoon. Thunder burnt the sky and lightning tickled the black clouds with its brilliant fingers. The day became night in the face of the storm and the once blue waves crashed angrily against the beach.

  I hadn’t seen my mother in four years. I rarely called her. I couldn’t completely explain why I had let so much time pass. There were no excuses. I just didn’t like talking to her. I was tired of feeling guilty. I was tired of feeling like I never did enough. No matter what I did for her, no matter how many gifts or phone calls there were, she always made me feel like it wasn’t enough. So I decided if I had to feel like I was letting her down, I might as well enjoy the rewards of actually letting her down. If I had to be told I was a worthless son, I should just become a worthless son.

  My mother’s pink stucco house hovered precariously on the edge of the beach. The water licked its concrete feet and kissed the tiny walkway that extended to the water. I braced myself for the worst when Pria rang the doorbell, and was very grateful when Jeremy answered the door. He smiled and embraced me. Brooke wasn’t there, but he was happily drunk. The house was perfect, a stately pleasure dome for my mother. There were no signs of Christmas, yet splendor and luxury lurked in every shadow.

  My mother slowly walked in to greet me . She smiled sullenly, the first hints of her evening inebriation already apparent in her unsteady gate.

  “Well, the prodigal son returns,” she said in her languid Tennessee drawl.

  “I’m no prodigal son,” I said as I gave her the obligatory kiss on the cheek.

  My mother looked so different I wouldn’t have been able to pick her out of a crowd. Time had reversed for her and created a creature that was preternaturally youthful without the aura of youth. She had had more plastic surgery than I could even guess at. Her eyes seemed pinched back and her lean form radiated an unnatural light.

  “You certainly aren’t,” my mother responded.

  Jeremy put an arm around both of our shoulders. “Well, let’s be nice just for tonight. It’s Christmas Eve and tomorrow Pria and Eric will go back to Pria’s family, so what’s the point in arguing?”

  My mother hadn’t cooked. I don’t think she ever knew how, but she had purchased a wonderful meal from a caterer. It was surreal sitting on the edge of that petulant sea with all the cotton candy pink décor, eating ham and sweet potatoes on Christmas Eve. I had grown used to Pria’s house at Christmas, littered with odd mismatched Christmas decorations that all lacked the baby Jesus. I liked the way her father dragged all of us to church, even Sadaf, who sat glumly in the corner trying to pretend she wasn’t mocking her own faith. All Pria’s brothers and sisters and their husbands and wives and children crammed into the eclectic house with their assorted faiths and traditions to create a cacophony of culture that mounted up to mean something wonderful. To me, Pria’s family was a testament to the possibility of harmony. Muslims and Catholics and Episcopalians and Baptists can all sit at the same table and eat turkey by the light of a Christmas tree, even if they don’t believe in it.

  All of Pria’s cousins, Hindu, Muslim, Baptist, would sit and wait with gleeful anticipation for presents and candy. The house vibrated with life, and within its walls, so did Pria. She smiled and helped her mother cook Indian food in the kitchen while her aunt cooked turkey and fried okra. Pria’s father was a very wealthy man. He managed one of the big outlets in Foley and had made a killing doing so. Their house was huge, large enough to accommodate their enormous family. Everyone laughed. Women in saris swung by talking in various languages I couldn’t comprehend. Pria’s father was like an old Roman pater familias. He was generous with all of his extended family and people flocked to him. He gave out massive gifts with a wink and, during the holidays, charity was always the most important thing. Pria’s mother hung off his arm dutifully. She smiled and basked in the warmth of his love. She knew that much of her family wouldn’t talk to her, but she said it had been worth it. Ron was an honorable man and an admirable father. Happiness was everywhere. Pria played with the children and wrapped presents. I loved Christmas with Pria’s family.

  My mother’s house, by contrast, was a dead place. There was no faith there. There was no culture. It was an empty shell where we all sat in uncomfortable silence despite all of our similarities. My mother just kept drinking more and more until her plastic face burned with the flush of the drink. Jeremy served food and talked about work and Pri
a tried to help him fill the silence with talk of our new house in Foley. Jeff lit a cigarette.

  “You can’t smoke here,” I said.

  Jeff laughed. “I know you think you’re better than the rest of us, but this isn’t your house and you don’t make the rules here.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” I responded. “I don’t think I’m better than anyone. I just don’t want Pria exposed to smoke.”

  Pria flushed and smiled. “Now is as good a time as any,” she said to me. She placed a hand on Jeff’s and smiled so sweetly he immediately put the cigarette out. “I’m pregnant,” Pria announced to everyone at the table. She looked at my mother, “You’re going to be a grandmother, Anne.”

  My mother laughed and cried at the same time and then she turned to me. “Will I even see my grandchild?” Her accusation hung in the air.

  “Mom, don’t do this,” Jeremy began.

  “Do what?” Anne said. “I haven’t seen him in four years. I haven’t even heard from you since the wedding, and now this? You show up here and tell me you’re having a baby and I’m supposed to be, what? Happy?”

  Pria always surprised me. She could be as sweet as lavender, but in a moment she could become the devil himself in all his rage and angst. She turned on my mother with a ferocity I hadn’t seen in years. “What did you expect? Are you so disconnected from reality that you don’t even realize how crazy you are and how cruel you’ve been? It was an act of mercy and forgiveness for us to come here, and I regret it already. Did you forget our wedding day?”

  “You little bitch,” my mother said. “That wasn’t my fault. I only said the truth.”

  “Stop!” Jeremy yelled. “Can’t we pretend to be a family for one night?”

  The women ignored Jeremy.

  “What truth? You have a brilliant son that you have used as your emotional crutch for his entire life. I’m sorry your husband was a cheating bastard. I really am, but you should have done something about it. It wasn’t Eric’s job to carry your baggage. I love your son and I’m no whore for loving him.”

  “Eric was my baby!” My mother was crying drunken, sloppy tears. “He was all I had. He was the one who took care of me. You stole him. He wasn’t ready. He was a baby and he was mine.”

  I stood up calmly. I had spent years locked up with my mother’s hysteria. It no longer had any impact on me. I had made a choice to avoid it and as I looked at her across the table, wrapped in my father’s money and utterly alone, I realized it had been the right choice. I extended my hand to Jeremy.

  “Thanks for trying, man,” I said to him. “It would have been nice if it had worked out. We’ll get together after New Years.”

  “Oh!” my mother wailed. “So you’re running away again. Giving up. Every time anything gets hard you just run away. You aren’t a man. You’re a scared little boy. You never cared about this family.”

  I looked at my mother. “Good bye,” I said softly.

  Jeff flipped me off as I walked out the door.

  I took Pria’s hand and we left. Pria kissed my cheek when we got in the car. She stroked my hair and rested her head on my shoulder as we drove away.

  “I know it didn’t work out,” Pria said. “But we needed to try. Going to see her was the right thing to do.”

  “Maybe. But I’m not doing it again. I wasted too much of my youth dealing with that. I’m done with her.”

  “You know,” she whispered. “That's why I’ll forgive your infidelity, because I know what you’re running from, but I hope you’ve learned you can’t heal yourself by becoming your father.”

  I had no response. I wasn’t articulate enough to describe any of the emotions my mother triggered in me. My mother always reduced me to a blubbering idiot. I couldn’t bear the constant barrage of need and emotion. Pria was right. I had been trying to become everything my mother hated most. I had become my father, deceptive and aloof.

  I smiled at Pria. She knew me better than I knew myself. “I probably need therapy, coming from that family.” I laughed.

  “I know you’re joking, but you probably do.”

  “Maybe. We’ll see. If that is the penance I need to pay for what I’ve done to you, I’ll start tomorrow.”

  “I want to go see a psychic too.”

  “Not funny. I’ve had enough of crazies for one lifetime, thank you.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I want you and I to go see a psychic.”

  “Can we go to the voodoo witch doctor after that? I have this ulcer and….”

  “I’m not kidding. Please don’t make fun of me. I need you to hear me out about this. I’m not crazy. Ever since that crap with Cassie, I’ve been having these terrible dreams and I think she did something, I don’t know, but I think, if you’re paying penance for cheating on me, you little shit, you should go see a therapist and you should come see this psychic with me ‘cause your crazy mistress cursed me.”

  I took her hand in mine and squeezed it. She could have asked anything of me. At that moment, I loved her more than I could explain. She was ferocious and vulnerable. She defended me against my mother and begged my help to fight her dreams. She was mine. She was my beloved. So the day after Christmas she and I went on another voyage. This time we drove south into the swamps to a small town called Belleville. We went to see the psychic her friend had told her was born to the sight.

  * * * *

  The psychic wasn’t what I expected. She lived in a nondescript home on the water. It was a two-story brick house surrounded by azaleas and swing sets. Several pretty young women sat in the backyard watching a group of toddlers run around in chilly air. They were bundled up in sweaters and sweat pants. They giggled with delight as they ran through the pretty yard. The four women sat at a table drinking diet sodas and talking. A tall red-haired woman turned and smiled at us as we approached.

  She stood up and took Pria’s hand, shaking it vigorously.

  “I’m Cybil,” she said. “These are my sisters and those are our boys.” She pointed to the pretty redheaded ladies at the table and then on to the group of happy toddlers running through the yard.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” she asked. “Would you like to sit and chat for a while?” She radiated a rare warmth. There was a genuine hospitality in her.

  “Sure,” Pria said. “Can I have some water?”

  Cybil disappeared into the house, leaving us alone with her sisters. Pria sat down next to them and the women continued talking about preschools and play dates. Pria happily told them she was having a baby soon and that she’d love any advice they could give her. She was then engulfed in advice about stretch marks, child birth, and getting your baby to sleep through the night. Pria glowed and didn’t even notice Cybil return. After a while, Cybil took my hand and told me that it was time. I whispered into Pria’s ear; all the talk of children and happiness faded as we walked into Cybil’s sunroom.

  The sun came in at all angles, covering the floor in shadows of trees and dancing branches. The room was barren. Only a large, Victorian table in poor repair sat surrounded by ancient looking chairs. Cybil sat down and signaled to us to sit down next to her. She lit no candles or lamps. There was only the natural light, filtered through the ever moving trees. In the distance, we could hear the wind blowing and children laughing. Wind chimes carried an odd melody into the cool room.

  Cybil closed her eyes and took my hand. She cast seven engraved stones onto the table. She studied the stones for a long time, while the music of the wind and the sounds of the children lulled us into a hypnotic peace.

  “The truth I tell you may not be the truth you want to hear. Your path has many branches, many possibilities, but each path must go through certain ends. I will only tell you what I know. This rune is your foundation. It is what began the course of action you’re now in. This is Kano, the opening. You opened yourself up to something different and made yourself free to receive.”


  She moved her hand to another rune. “This rune is your past. It is Ehwaz, movement. It is a rune of transition. It signifies great changes. Here, this rune is the new situation emerging in your life. It is Thurisaz, the gateway or the demon. The gateway is the frontier between heaven and earth. The demon stands in this gateway. This rune is where you’re now. It is Inguz, or fertility. There is new life in you. You’re growing and prospering and your wife is pregnant with twins. Life surrounds you and hope is everywhere. The next rune is the challenge you face. It is Teiwaz, the spiritual warrior. Always the battle of the spiritual warrior is with oneself, but you must battle other things. I see a darkness before you and the spiritual battle you face is with yourself and another. And now the future. Two runes for the future.”

  Cybil closed her eyes again and grimaced. “This is Hagalaz; disruption. Hagalaz can mean many things, some good, and some bad. This is the Rune of elemental disruption, of events which are totally beyond your control. Expect disruption, it is the great awakener. A storm is coming and it is bringing with it much pain and suffering. All around you the world will crumble. Everything you touch will rot and the very earth you walk will carry your curse with you.”

  Cybil opened her eyes and looked at me. She no longer looked like the sweet housewife from the backyard. Her eyes burned with rage and her mouth was twisted in anger and disgust. “What have you done?” she asked.

  “I don’t understand,” I responded.

  “Of course you don’t. How could you? You’re not someone who comprehends anything that isn’t tangible.”

  Cybil leaned towards Pria and me. She took Pria’s hand in hers. All around us the wind blew and howled. I could see the children moving out of the corner of my eye. Cybil knocked the runes with her hand. She scattered them and they fell on the floor, leaving only one on the table.