Unfurled

by Michelle Bailat-Jones

  We listen to it. Both of us. Then I say, “Well, no, actually, car accidents make me pretty angry, too.”

  30

  WHEN EVERYONE IS FINISHED EATING, Greta walks me to the guest cabin. The path is soft with a thick layer of needles. The night sky has become the deepest velvet black and the only light comes from a series of small lamps belted to some of the trees. Greta gives me softly mumbled indications—“There’s a thick root here, watch your step,” and “It forks here, we’ll go right.” A line of cedars hedge us in, their boughs heavy in the cold air. I picture the branch of cedar pine cones, like geese in flight, that Neil gave me several days ago and the imaginary feel of it in my hand causes a dull ache to spread across my chest. Such gifts. And I’ve refused them. I shut the thought down. The dogs are ecstatic to be outside again. They switchback from left to right, noses to the ground, darting off the path, darting back around my feet. Then I leash Daisie who is more prone to run off after the sound or scent of a wild animal.

  “Will the other one stay with you?” Greta asks. “Here we turn left.”

  “He’s not a hunter at all. He just wants to shepherd everything. Mostly me.”

  She nods. Smiles. Then points down a branching path. “That way to our cabins, most of them.”

  “How long have you lived here?” I ask.

  “I came after my daughter died. Six years ago now.”

  Like an electrical storm rising up on a vast plain, a surge of anger whips through me. Have all these people here left people behind. What about Greta’s husband or other children?

  “You moved here because you lost a daughter?”

  “In a way, yes. Tom and I needed a quiet space.”

  My storm quiets, calms. “Tom is your husband?”

  “He’s always struggled with his anxiety, but after Sage died …” She raises her head and looks up. “Losing your child is a backward kind of thing. It turns everything inside out and upside down.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  The path narrows and I step behind Greta. We reach a fork and Greta indicates to the right, “Those are the rest of our cabins.” I can see a few porch lights, the vague outline of small windows, but the night is very dark. Very cold. She walks to the left and says, “But we have three guest cabins this way. It isn’t far.” A minute or so later the path opens up onto a clearing which houses three small A-frame cabins. As we walk up the steps of the first, Greta sniffs the air. “It smells like snow.”

  I sniff. The air is dry and cold. “It smells clean.”

  “Snow is clean. You should be warm enough, but add more wood before you sleep if you’d like.”

  The cabin is painted green and yellow. A wreath of dried flowers decorates the front door. Greta unlocks this and then hands me the key. Inside there are three single beds. A sink in the corner and a small bathroom. There is not much space to move around in, but it’s neat and cozy. Warm from the wood stove already burning. I place my bag on the floor near the fire. The beds are laid with thick quilts.

  “Elizabeth’s handiwork?”

  Greta smiles. “No, Anna. Anna is our quilter. You’ll meet her tomorrow when she and Maggie return.”

  Maggie. My mother.

  The dogs sniff the room from corner to corner and then tramp down a small piece of carpet in front of the stove and curl up. Like a magician, Greta produces two twists of jerky from her pocket and places it in front of each of them before saying goodnight and closing the door behind her.

  I am not even a little bit sleepy and so I sit on the floor with the animals, listening to their thick breathing and feeling the heat that radiates from their warm bodies. Daisie shifts her head onto my leg. I watch them, losing myself in the color gradations of their fur, the slow expansion and flattening of their flanks, the gentle twitching of their limbs in sleep. It comes to me that Neil has given me Trapp without any discussion. It also comes to me that I assumed the dog was mine. I have behaved all along as though there was no question of sharing. The ache in my chest returns, the weight of what I’ve decided. What I have to do.

  After the clinic, Lisa argued both for and against my decision like a true feminist, while George shook his head and cried for me and Neil. Both of them hugged me. And both of them insisted I drive to Friends’ Farm and see my mother.

  “Think of it like that,” Lilah said. “It happened to her.”

  No, I think, it happened to us. It happened to me. And in two seconds I am up and out the door, heading toward the commune member cabins.

  It’s very dark now, a deep fog blocking the tiny lights along the path. I crunch across the pine needles, finger the rough bark of the trees, and send pine cones sliding with my tennis shoes as I stumble along, halfblind. Trapp keeps just in front of me, and every so often he slides back next to my hip to have his ears petted but then he slinks ahead again. Daisie, leashed, pads softly behind.

  We reach a first clearing with a staggering of several cabins. One of the cabin lights turns off as I approach; two remain lit. At first I sit on a bench, waiting, looking. But a nervous energy makes this impossible, so I stand and walk the path back to the other set of member cabins. Even the dogs seem to understand the importance of this silent mission and walk carefully, quietly. I can hear the rush of a river somewhere, the churning crash of a waterfall in the forest beyond the commune. Or maybe this is the sound of the blood in my ears, the race in my heart. But then it’s snowing. As if the fog has crystallized and burst into flakes. Almost instantly I can see again. The moonlight reflects through the white as it falls, as it lands on my arms and legs and shoes, as it begins to coat the trees and gild the backs of the dogs. The more it snows, the more I can see.

  Back and forth I walk along, passing the cabins, passing through the forest along the twisty paths. It isn’t too long before all the cabin lights are out. In the first clearing, a man’s snoring reaches me. I picture each of the commune members in sleep, faces relaxed, mouths slack. I wonder if their dreams are as organized or as stressful as their days. I wonder if they are haunted by their former lives, by the people they have left behind or the people that have been left by. I wonder if Lilah still dances in her sleep, if Greta dreams of her lost child.

  I brush the snow from my arms and face and move more deliberately now, not hovering at the edge of the clearings but walking along to see the fronts of the now-dark cabins. It is snowing so hard now, my feet leave impressions.

  These cabins are considerably larger than the guest cabin. Two-room structures, but sizable for a single person. There are four in a cluster, four in another, and another two off aways down a third path—and for the first time I wonder how the commune came to be, who designed it, did the founding members of Friends’ Farm build it themselves, or did they purchase it. Each cabin has a slender front porch jutting of from its symmetrical double windows and centered door. The decorations vary: flowers, birdhouses, a potted tree, carved signs. On one porch sits a statue of the Hindu god Ganesh.

  How will I do this, I wonder, worrying how to determine whose cabin is whose. I walk slowly. Quietly. Looking at each porch and door. Up one path, into a clearing, back toward the other clearing. I assume the cabins without flower boxes or with very little decoration belong to the men. But this is proven wrong when I see nameplates on two of the doors—William on one, beside a mini Christmas tree, still decorated, and Elizabeth on the other. I pass a cabin with light blue curtains. I decide that my mission is not only dishonest, but impossible. I turn around, ready to leave the second clearing and go back to sleep, but then am stopped by a painted sculpture sitting on the railing of the third cabin. I move closer. A bit more, and then tilt. Because here is Lizzy. The same wing-like fins, bright scales and white patches. The same flat-nosed face. Only this Lizzy is much larger than the original ever was, the size of a goldfish bowl, whereas the real Lizzy had been small enough to fit in the cup of my ten-year-old hands.

  The other three cabins in this clearing are totally dark. I step onto th
at little porch and put my hand on Lizzy’s cold dorsal fin. The statue is made from rough-grained clay and even though it is painted I can feel the hardened granules under my fingertips. I sweep my fingers back and forth, pressing harder and pushing at the cold hard surface. The fish’s mouth is open, a perfect O. It is being used as a vase, and a thin pine bough stands at attention from between its red lips. I remove the branch.

  I put my free hand on the front door of the cabin. It is not locked. This simple testament to how safe my mother feels living at the commune nearly stops me from entering. I think to leave the truth of her safety intact.

  But I am not yet ready for this trade and so I open the door anyway. It’s dark at first but I wait and my eyes adjust to the brightness from the snow-filtered moonlight. It’s enough and I start to make-out the shapes and forms in the room. A bed, a wardrobe, a lamp. A rug across the floor, a desk along the wall. It doesn’t take me long to see that Lizzy is also inside the cabin. A small fish hanging on the wall above the window. Another sculpture, smaller than the porch railing one, sits atop a dresser near the far wall. I cross the room and pick up the fish on the dresser.

  I put the fish back in its exact spot between a photo of my dad in his yellow rain slicker and a bouquet of dried roses tied with a purple string.

  But it isn’t just the fish. I’m there in that cabin, too. Stapled to a bulletin board are photographs of me as a child. Of my dad, too. On his ferry. On the beach in his fishing gear. Near the closet is a small watercolor of my seven- or eight-year-old face. In a frame near a small sofa is a photo of my college graduation. Another of my dad, wearing a baseball cap and smiling. And then one of Neil’s and my wedding. And there are the mirrors. Three or four of them so that every which way that I turn, I can see my adult face. I can see her. Everywhere. Ella and Maggie. Maggie and Ella.

  I examine these photographs, finger the edge of her bedspread, put my hands into a pair of gloves on a small table by the door. I open her closet and touch her clothes. I breathe deep because I do not remember what she smelled like. Did she smell like this? I recognize none of these clothes. I step inside. I reach my hand inside the sleeve of a sweater. I breathe deep because I don’t know anything about this woman. Turning back to the room I search for a shelf, or a desk. She writes everything down, Lilah told me. But of course I already know this.

  “Look,” she always said, pencil in hand, scribbling notes while I would try to follow the rise and fall of her pencil. Arm out, finger extended. Then back to the paper. Lists and phrases and letters.

  “Look,” I whisper.

  And I do. The desk against the far wall is a narrow rectangle of soft old wood. It looks old but not used. It is fairly neatly organized: a ceramic vase filled with pencils and pens, a photo of the ocean (I recognize it as the twin of the photo in Erica Reza’s office hallway), a small plastic tray with paperwork, a candy tin with no lid filled with paperclips and a pencil sharpener. Beside the desk is a narrow bookshelf, more like a shelf for holding CDs. And this is filled with notebooks. I sit at her desk. I place my hands on the wood where she would place her hands. I imagine they are the same size. I reach for a notebook at random. Place it before me and shift just enough to get the moonlight. It’s still snowing outside. The circle of grass between the cabins is growing white, brighter.

  The pages are all very similar, filled with what looks like lists. Almost a kind of ledger. With dates and descriptions of … it’s hard to understand just what … activities? names? objects? The notebook I’ve chosen includes dates from 2012:

  3/16/2012—Michael F. Canstoni, 47 years old, University of Michigan

  3/18/2012—Animal Behavior Meets Microbial Ecology (this item has a check mark beside it in red ink)

  3/25/2012—McGraw St., 2:33pm, red cars, safe

  4/16/2012—Freestead Coffee Co, blonde

  7/24/2012—726, and 12, safe

  The list goes on and on. I scan it, not understanding, pulling my scarf closer around my neck. Switch to another notebook. This one is for 2014:

  11/26/2014—Mr. and Mrs., Labrador, 8:23am, safe

  12/2/2014—crampons, two wool hats

  12/2/2014—Madison, Wilson, Jefferson

  I search back through the stack, squinting to decipher some of her handwriting in the dim light. The oldest notebooks are from late 2005. She was living at the 23rd Street Project by then. It strikes me that these are a kind of diary. I could sit and read them and try to work out who she was, what she was doing, where she was.

  “You remember how she was,” my dad is saying. “How she always noticed things. Your mom had the wildest imagination.”

  I flip through the notebooks and begin to work out who she was, what she was doing.

  8/29/2009—small apartment, Pullman (J: safe)

  8/30/2009—Veterinary Cell Physiology I

  My fingertip stops mid-trace. Re-traces the line from the beginning. I place the book slowly onto the table, look again into the first one I pulled out. Michael Canstoni. And then McGraw Street, in Seattle. Back to this one from 2009. My finger moving down the page. This isn’t really her diary. Michael Canstoni was one of the associate vets I interned for in 2012. He was only in the office a few weeks and then moved on. But there he is. Documented. A part of my life.

  I have no idea about the journal article mentioned below his name, but this kind of listing is everywhere through her notebooks. Article and book titles in veterinary science. Tucked into the notebooks are newspaper clippings as well—The Seattle P.I., the Seattle Times, the WSU Daily Evergreen, even The Wenatchee World. The dates correspond to the years I have lived in these different cities. Many of the clippings are highlighted, written upon. What is highlighted are crimes or violent events. A news item about a street brawl includes this in her handwriting: 20–30% chance. An article about hazing on Washington State University campus includes this: 4/17/2009—safe. This word repeated everywhere. Safe. Safe. Safe. In a few places it’s written, (J: safe). Is J my dad? Are we both safe? Did he tell her I was safe? And so many dates and streets and events. Safe. I unwind my scarf, wind it right back up. It is nearly eleven p.m. It is still snowing outside the window. Snowing hard now. The moonlight is white, crisp.

  I start from the beginning, reading through each notebook from first page to last page. I find it all. My marriage and my degrees. My cities. My work colleagues. Caroline is listed and so is Alex, the consulting vet. Everyone. She has checked everyone. It takes me a long long time and when I pluck out and open the last notebook on the shelf, which finishes in June of last summer, I can hardly see a thing she has written. It doesn’t matter. It will all be about me.

  How easily the world splits. How simple it is to get everything wrong. I thought I’d worked out long ago who was the villain and who was the hero. And yet both of them were protecting me, however best they could. My dad could never have allowed this woman back into my life. She might have suffocated me, suffocated us both. Too much love, how does that even work? This is a trade I could never have expected. The cabin is fully dark now, the moon gone, the snow outside the window no longer illuminated but shadowy and cold. Gathering in drifts. The flurries have become a full-fledged storm. I return the notebook to its shelf. Sit again with my hands on the wood where she might place her hands. I steal one of her pencils, tuck it into the pocket of my coat. I look at the desk, at the neatness of it. The alignment of the notebooks. Her clothes hanging in the closet. Her made bed, and carefully arranged pillow.

  Delusional disorder: the great muddy flood of my mother, the messiest room of my entire life.

  31

  WHAT REALLY HAPPENED THE DAY my mother left is this.

  Yes, I go down to the pier, scour the terminal building, scour the exit, am frightened by the one-legged man and I run back into the building to call my dad. Only before I get to the telephone, I see her.

  She is over by the far exit. In a chair. There are a few other people near her. She has a pencil and a notebook in her hand,
and she’s taking notes. Furiously. She could be a normal traveler. Someone on her way home from a conference or a visit to a friend’s house. But I know better. I know her. She’s crazy. She’s left us and I am so angry I can’t take a step toward her.

  Still, I watch her and for a moment I imagine she is waiting for me like we are traveling together and I’ve just run off to the bathroom. I imagine that she might look up and smile at me, reach into her bag and say something like, “Catch if you can,” and throw a candy bar at me. She would put her book away and start telling me something fantastic about one of the ferry captains. “He only does this during the day,” she could say. “At night he patrols the Puget Sound in a homemade submarine. Except it’s shaped like a bus. He wants to create an underwater ferry system, taking passengers from cove to cove.”

  She’s here, so close I can be at her side in just a few steps, can sit next to her because this is what normal mothers and daughters do. And even at ten, I’m aware we look very similar. I’ve heard our family friends comment on our startling likeness, the way our hair parts in the same place, the way our noses slope at the same angle. We even walk the same. So I know if I sit down even a chair away from her and she doesn’t see me, other people will look at us and know she’s my mother.

  Because she’s my mother.

  But I don’t move. I just keep watching her. Watching her and waiting for the moment when I will know exactly what to do next.

  Her head comes up from her notebook and she sees me. I know that she sees me. Her eyes meet mine across the feet that separate us. It is incredible how looking at someone you know can do away with distance. Just erase it. Nothing stands between the fact that I am looking at my mother and she is looking back at me.

  I say, “Mom?” although maybe I only whisper it.

  “Mommy?”

  She’s looking at me, and she says, “Hey, look,” and she points toward the other side of the room. “I’m taking care of it. You don’t have to worry.”