SSC (2012) Adult Onset

by Ann-Marie MacDonald

  Her hands are still around her daughter’s arms. Her hands can feel the small bones within their sleeves of flesh, bones like flutes. She watches her hands as, without warning, they pulse. Maggie screams. The hands loosen their grip but do not let go. They remain like manacles, encircling the arms. Like paper chains on a Christmas tree. She watches the hands: what will they do next? Something is going to happen, she cannot remember what.

  A bark from upstairs, a thundering descent followed by clacketing across the kitchen floor. The dog appears at the top of the steps, stops and looks at her.

  “It’s okay, Daisy, it’s just Mumma.” Mary Rose hears her own voice as though it belongs to someone else, someone who has arrived just in time. The dog growls. She lets go of Maggie. But the dog remains planted, ears pricked, eyes fixed.

  Maggie is staring up at a corner of the ceiling. Mary Rose understands she is feeling fear when she hears herself cry, “Maggie?!”

  The child is in a trance.

  “Maggie!” Is she breathing?

  She lowers her gaze and looks at Mary Rose, her expression blank. She is not breathing. Mary Rose picks her up and, as though kick-started by the movement, breath rushes back in the form of a gasp and a scream. She clings to Mary Rose like a monkey, so hard. She hangs on and cries so hard, hanging on to Mumma.

  •

  How do you heal time?

  •

  Mary Rose watches Maggie climb into the stroller and do up her own buckle. She is wearing the ladybug boots. The child was right when she said, “I can find one.” She had found it, buried in the boot rack all along, she had even been attempting to put it on the correct foot. Mary Rose feels bad as she watches her child patiently manipulate the buckle, her little face tear-stained but content now, and she feels something else too: love. She closes it promptly—like a laptop. She is sufficiently aware to know that accessing love on the heels of rage is not right, it is part of an abusive dynamic. Having ticked that box, she gets on with the day.

  The day the daytheday the day is too bright. there are sequential actions that add up to sanity going for a walk to the post office is one of them just do these correct things no one needs to know that you are untethered maybe everyone is. and then andthenand then prepositions grafting one thought to another if they take you have continuity if not you have fractured bits

  They go out by the back gate, down the driveway, onto the sidewalk along the peterpiperpickedapeckofprepositions what if she just keeps walking? One day I’ll walk out of the house and never come back. Daisy lifts her leg and pees on the corner of the fence where the indestructible cosmos will soon spring back to life. Mary Rose sees Rochelle getting into her Tercel. “Hi, Rochelle!”

  Rochelle does not immediately return the greeting.

  “Isn’t it an amazing day?” chirps Mary Rose.

  “It’s nice.” Rochelle sounds wary.

  “We’re going for a hike. We’ve got snacks, we’ve got juice, we even have our sled dog in case it snows again! We’re all set, aren’t we, Maggie, can you say hi to Rochelle?” Something is wrong with Mary Rose’s face.

  “Hi Wochewwe.”

  “Hi.”

  “I know she looks like me, but I adopted Maggie, but all babies look like me, and if all babies look like Winston Churchill, then I must look like Winston Churchill.” A smile has landed on her face like a space alien.

  Rochelle says nothing.

  Perhaps that’s because she knows she is talking to a crazy lady. “We’re going to walk all the way across town to Postal Station E and then drop off a form because Daisy almost bit the mailman, she didn’t bite him, she bit the box with the Christmas tree stand because I was writing an e-mail to my dad, and now they’re coming on the train and my mother sent me a packeege but I didn’t get it yet.” Has she said all this with an English accent? Mewwy Wose is going to start waffing. She sucks her cheek between her teeth, bites down, and tears flood her eyes. We shall fight on the beaches … Has she said it out loud?

  Rochelle says, “I can take the form in for you.”

  “Really? Are you going by there?”

  “I work there.” Voice like a canvas mailbag.

  Don’t laugh. One day you may start laughing and never be able to stop. “Thanks.” She hands the form to Rochelle.

  Rochelle gets into her car. “Need any stamps?”

  “Ha-ha-hahahaha—” She bites her cheek. “I don’t think so, no, hahahahah. Thanks, Rochelle.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  They go to the park. She pushes Maggie on the swing. They play in the sandbox. They do all the things that can be expressed by sentences suitable for a beginner reading level. Three other toddlers are there. One goes hysterical. His mother has no nice snacks. Mary Rose has nice snacks. Mary Rose opens her bag and offers a fruit strip.

  “Thanks!” says the woman. “I feel like such a terrible mother!” And she laughs.

  Matthew is alive.

  “Hi, Sue, thanks.”

  “What for?”

  The bus did not roll over—at least not in this world. There is a world in which this same crowd of parents is gathered in front of the school, keening. A world where a spot on the highway is heaped with flowers and teddy bears …

  “Have a nice weekend.”

  As the day progresses, a parallel reality plays itself out, as though the world were bifurcating with every move Mary Rose does not make. When it turns out the cap on the Thermos of chocolate milk she is shaking has not been fastened. When she sees from her driveway that she has missed the recycling truck by one second and the driver ignores her. In another world, the Thermos cracks the window, a crazy woman pelts down the street pushing a big blue bin on wheels, shrieking obscenities.

  She does not swat Maggie on the head when the child shoves her bowl to the floor, she does not grab Matthew’s ear, cheek, hair, she does not tell him to “shut up and quit whining or I’ll give you something to whine about!” She does not hit his head or his little hands, and then she does not seize Maggie by the arm and yank, does not yank her down the hall and up and over the side of the crib, IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?! She makes lunch and then she cleans up andthen she does not smash them.

  “Thank you, Mumma.”

  “You’re welcome, sweetheart. Would you like to watch a video?”

  “Yes!”

  For all that she abstains from doing, the capsule bursts in the pit-drip of her stomach and she feels the dark chemical release, re-blazing neural trails. It will pass and so can she; as normal in a world where she might lose touch with reality in ways that would never land her on a psychiatric ward or even on antidepressants. She would not be arrested or even questioned for any of the raging she did this morning, or even the squeezing. She has committed no crime. Yet she knows that she is full of crime.

  “Would you like to watch Bob the Builder now?”

  “Yes!”

  Play all.

  By late afternoon, the undone possibilities cease to flash like old-fashioned Kodak cubes in her peripheral vision, and their place is taken by a movie that begins running in her mind. It is of herself and Maggie on the steps this morning. But it does not end with her letting go of Maggie’s arms, it continues, the movie of what she did not do: She does not let go, she gets up. Shegetsupshegetsupshe jerks Maggie up by the arm, hauls her up the steps and across the kitchen; close-up on raw wing tip, straining, toddler feet fill the frame, scrabbling for purchase as though in an attempt to become airborne …

  Somewhere, someone is watching this, providing commentary—it is the mother’s own voice, but the voice has been left behind on the steps, the mother is now merely a motor function, a set of impulses moving through space—who will stop this? Again and again, like a scene untethered from a movie, Mary Rose sees the thing she did not do, the thing she knows so well how to do, as if she had done it already many times, as if she had trained for it. She looks down at her hands. They know something. But, like a child who won’t reveal who it was th
at gave them the candy, they are not telling. They can taste the tang of it, though, and they are craving satisfaction. They clench and unclench. She slips into the powder room, leans against the door and lets them batter her head as hard as they want to while she watches herself assault her two-year-old over and over again.

  Out in the living room, the children know nothing of this, they are watching a different movie.

  •

  He loved her into language. She would curl up with him and “read” the newspaper. They read the funnies together. His body was safe and gentle. His hands were patient and precise, his voice calm. Within the circle of his arms—around the newspaper, around the steering wheel, around her when he held her on the balcony—was all the time in the world.

  “Do you hear that? That’s the cuckoo bird.”

  Huge egg yolk sun streaking the sky red. So free out here. So safe.

  “Good night, sweetie pie. See you in the morning.”

  •

  Everything will look better in the morning. She was sleep deprived when the whole boot kerfuffle happened earlier today. She ought to have had a good cry last night over the stillborn baby pictures. Suppressed sorrow for her mother and her “inadequately mourned” deceased sister was bound to surface as rage—if it had been anyone else up till all hours googling grief, Mary Rose could have told them what would happen if they failed properly to discharge their feelings. Reassured by this insight, she heads upstairs with a mug of Sleepytime tea. She overreacted today, but it isn’t as if she battered her child.

  She looks in on Matthew, curled asleep with Bun in his arms. She kisses his forehead—is he a little hot?

  In Maggie’s room, a subdued thwack-thwack tells her Daisy is lying on the floor in front of the crib. “What are you doing there, Daisy?” she whispers. She leans over and looks into the crib by the dim light from the hallway. Her daughter is breathing evenly, baby lips puffed with sleep, lashes stirred by a dream.

  She bends to pat Daisy. The dog lifts her eyes and regards her from beneath a furrowed brow and Mary Rose understands as plainly as if the animal had just spoken: Daisy is protecting Maggie. From her.

  Remorse rides in like the cavalry, too late. All the unknown crimes are upon her now, the ones that draw no distinction between doer and done- to or wanted- to and did-do.

  Big tears roll down her face as she watches her beautiful baby. Something threatens to pierce her heart, like a shard of glass. She stands weeping and loving her child, but it is the love of a remorseful devil, it is not a safe love. She withdraws as quietly as possible, and smacks the tears away.

  Children are forgiving, yes, and resilient, so long as you don’t try the evil spell of “nothing happened” on them.

  No one knows, no one sees. But the body will tell. Act out in illness or in violence.

  She brushes her teeth, this woman of forty-eight who has everything. Mary Rose MacKinnon puts on kissy boxer shorts and a tank top.

  It is when she turns out the light that she becomes aware of the pain. Like the sound of a fridge humming, it isn’t until all else is still that she “hears” it. It is just present enough to disrupt sleep and she needs her sleep, tomorrow is another day; another day another pair of boots …

  In the bathroom, she switches on the light, opens the mirror and reaches for the Advil. There is nothing wrong. It is merely memory lodged in her arm. That’s your badness coming out … She knows what “badness” means. She knew at age five. Badness was hot, as her arm so often was. Badness had to do with what were called “impure thoughts”: sins you committed with your mind whether you wanted to or not. Sins you committed with your hand by touching yourself “down there.” The constant pain in her arm was not only a punishment, it was a beacon of her badness. Throbbing red light of badness, its pulsations occupied the same frequency as sexual excitement. Best keep that sort of pain to oneself.

  She closes the cabinet with a prickle of fear lest the devil appear behind her. She relaxes suddenly and looks directly into the mirror—if Satan is there, let him show his face. But there is only her own face, sheet-wrinkled and bloodshot. Hi there, and happy Friday. She swallows two pills.

  Pain blooms in her arm like a time-lapse hothouse flower. What is happening? It’s okay, you know what this is. “Remembered pain.” Phantom pain. Back-from-the-grave pain—

  “It hurts.”

  She has said it aloud and scared herself—she sounds too young, as though a child has spoken through her mouth …

  Get a grip.

  Am I having a panic attack? No, because there is still an “I,” a rind of self around the pain. Cancer. I see no indication of that. But that was six months ago. Throbbing now. The cysts have come back. I know of no research to support that. Electrical pain signal, pinging from a transmission pole in her arm up to her back teeth, shorting-out her vision. She ought to have filled the prescription for Tylenol 4s when she had the chance. You want fives? We’re talking bone pain, right? She swallows another Advil and chases it with two regular Tylenols. She holds the mirror in a staring contest; pain is something she can do. You get an old pathway that kicks up … A pathway overgrown with vines. It has slumbered for decades, but someone is hacking open the entrance. Where does it lead? There is no glimpse of a castle, just a tangle of thorns … Mary Rose steps away from the mirror, and into the path of an oncoming narrative.

  Downstairs, she opens the freezer and presses a bag of frozen organic peas to her arm. She retains sufficient self-possession not to start with “bone cancer.” Still, her hands are cold as she googles “pediatric bone cysts.”

  BOSTON CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL

  Smiling doctors in white coats, soulful children gazing into the camera. This is the real world, not just the world in her head.

  What is a unicameral bone cyst?

  A unicameral bone cyst is a fluid-filled cavity in the bone, lined by compressed fibrous tissue. It usually occurs in the long bones of a growing child, especially the upper part of the humerus.

  Check

  They affect children primarily between the ages of 5 and 15.

  Check

  They are considered benign. More invasive cysts can grow to fill most of the bone’s metaphysis and cause what is known as a pathological fracture.

  See Jane fall.

  What are the symptoms of a unicameral bone cyst?

  “It hurts. That’s your first clue.”

  Unless there has been a fracture, bone cysts are without symptoms.

  “How many times did your mother make a sling for you out of an old scarf?”

  THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE DIRECT WALES

  A bone cyst is a benign (non cancerous), fluid-filled cavity in the bone which weakens the bone and makes it more likely to fracture (break). It occurs mostly in children and young adults.

  It is not known what causes bone cysts.

  They are twice as likely to affect boys than girls.

  “As girls,” not “than.”

  If the cyst causes the bone to fracture, it is likely that your child will experience additional symptoms, such as: pain and swelling, inability to move or put weight on the injured limb or body part.

  “How could we know? You never cried.”

  You should always contact your GP if you or your child experiences persistent bone pain.

  “If you’d had a broken leg, we’d have taken you to a doctor.”

  Further testing is usually only required if:

  “Required only if,” otherwise only is modifying required.

  The cyst has developed on the end of a long bone that is still growing (an area of the bone that is known as the growth plate).

  The cyst is so large that the affected bone is at risk of fracturing (breaking).

  See Jane fall the second time.

  Curettage and bone grafting

  During this procedure a surgeon cuts into the bone to gain access to the cyst.

  While the pills have distanced the pain, they have not doused it.
Of course not, it is phantom pain! “When I reach for this glass of Scotch, what stops my hand from passing right through it?”

  The fluid inside the cyst is drained and the lining of the cyst scraped out using a tool called a curette. The resulting cavity inside the bone is filled with chips of bone, either from other parts of your child’s body or from donated bone tissue.

  “A piece of someone’s kneecap.”

  … carried out under general anaesthetic, which means that your child will be asleep during the surgery and will not feel any pain.

  Thanks to the Tylenol, someone is feeling pain, but it is not me. Not-Me is feeling it. “Mary Rose, do you read me? Come in, Mary Rose, this is Armpain, I am being held prisoner on the Planet Zytox …”

  MEDSCAPE REFERENCE

  Reoperation—subsequent operation required due to recurrence.

  A view of the hospital smokestack, as seen from Dr. Sorokin’s window, captured in a calendar of beautiful watercolours painted entirely with the artist’s foot.

  Should pathologic fractures of the long bones be treated via immediate flexible intramedullary nailing?

  Jane is crucified the first time.

  TEXTBOOK OF PEDIATRIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE

  page 357:

  … injured when the arm is forcefully abducted, for example falling and grabbing a tree branch …

  See Jane swing like an airplane.

  If the pain is chronic …

  Even Andy-Patrick respected her sore arm …

  Pressure may produce exquisite tenderness in this area so palpation would be gentle.

  “You can stop massaging it now, Dad. It feels better.”

  What causes a unicameral bone cyst?

  Nothing, you’re born with them. Her feet are freezing and sweating inside her slippers. The pain is gone. Cancer does not behave like that, is not vanquished by over-the-counter analgesics—she is either neurotic or among a minority of normal people who experience neurological pain feedback loops. If she met herself now, she would not want to be her friend. It is time to go to bed.