The Interruption of Everything

by Terry McMillan

  “Wait a minute. How long will this take ’cause I’m so hungry I could probably eat your shoe?”

  “Not more than five or ten minutes at most.”

  “Okay. But what kind of questions you planning on asking?”

  “Simple, everyday types of questions. I don’t want you to be afraid.”

  “Do I look like I’m afraid, sir?”

  “No, and you don’t have to call me sir.”

  “Okay. Then call me Lovey.”

  “Thank you, Lovey. Are you comfortable over there?”

  She nods yes, like he just asked her out on a date.

  “Nice and relaxed?”

  She nods yes again, and slides down in her chair to prove it. “Why she have to be in here?” she says, pointing at me.

  “Because she’s your daughter and she wants to hear how you answer the questions.”

  “Why? When it ain’t none of her business.”

  “Well, because it’s good to have a family member here who cares a great deal about you, just in case you should need their help.”

  “Whatever you say. But I won’t need no help, I can tell you that right now.”

  “Good. Here we go. Lovey, do you know what day this is?”

  She looks at him like he’s asked her something far too personal to reveal. But in the very next second, she changes her whole demeanor and thinks about it. Then she looks at me. “Do the kids go to school tomorrow?”

  I look over at the doctor. His eyes say it’s okay for me to tell her because he’s already gotten his answer.

  “No they don’t, Lovey.”

  “Then it’s Friday.”

  “Good. Do you know where you are?”

  “I’m in the doctor’s office.”

  “Do you know my name?”

  “Not right this minute. I ain’t seen you in a long time, that’s why.”

  “It’s Dr. Merijohn.”

  “You married?”

  “I am indeed.”

  “Happily?”

  “Yes. Now…”

  “That’s too bad,” she says.

  “Lovey, I’m going to say three words and I’d like you to repeat them back to me: Ball. Flag. Tree.”

  She stares dead at him and says, “Ball,” and then pauses like she’s trying to make herself concentrate, but it doesn’t work. “Can you say ’em one more time, only a little louder, ’cause I didn’t quite hear you?”

  “Sure: Ball. Flag. Tree.”

  “Flagtree,” she says triumphantly.

  “Do you know what year it is, Lovey?”

  “We just had a millimeter come. And Oprah turned fifty. It’s probably somewhere around two thousand three or four, but I been so busy I ain’t paid much attention to no calendars.”

  “Do you know who the president of the United States is?”

  “Of course I do. Jimmy Clinton.”

  “What month is this?”

  She turns to look out the window behind her. “It’s gotta be June ’cause I can see the heat.”

  “Okay. Starting from one hundred, would you count backward by seven as far as you can?”

  “What?”

  “Count backward from a hundred by sevens. Just do as much as you can.”

  She’s trying to calculate this in her head but I can see confusion rushing to her face. “I ain’t never been good in math. Give me a easier one. Please?”

  “Sure, Lovey. I’ll say a few numbers in sequential order and I’d like you to continue the sequence for three or four more numbers.”

  She’s watching his lips utter every word.

  “Two four six eight ten.”

  She’s still staring at his mouth. But I can see she’s getting upset and she clams up.

  “Okay, we can skip that one. Can you spell the word ‘drum’ backward for me?”

  “Drum,” she says, and then as if saying it louder will allow her to see the letters she yells: “DRUM!” But this doesn’t seem to be working because she says, “M,” and stops.

  “It’s okay, Lovey. You’re doing fine.”

  “Some of these questions are stupid.”

  “Which ones, Lovey?”

  “You know which ones.”

  “Do you remember the three words I asked you about a few minutes ago?”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Then why don’t you say them?”

  “Ball. Flag. Tree. Anyway, we’re almost finished.”

  “Good, ’cause this is getting on my nerves and I’m starving.”

  “Would you touch your left foot with your right hand for me please?”

  She looks down at both feet, makes an X with her arms and bends over and taps each foot with the opposite hand.

  “Thank you. Would you close your eyes for me?”

  “Why? What you gon’ do to me?”

  “I’m not going to do anything. I’d just like you to tell me what it is you smell when I ask you.”

  She closes her eyes so tight the lids tremble. I close mine too, just to be fair.

  “Okay, what does this smell like?”

  “I don’t smell nothing,” Lovey says. “Wait a minute.” She inhales deeply through her nose. “Is it some kinda tea? What is it I’m supposed to be thinking I’m smelling?”

  “I smell toothpaste,” I say, and Lovey opens her eyes and he shows us the tube from which he’d squeezed about an inch onto a tongue depresser.

  “I was just thinking it smelled like Colgate but missy here beat me to the punch.”

  “It’s okay, Lovey.” He holds up a paper clip. “Can you tell me what this is?”

  “It’s not something I use in my house.”

  “I understand. Lastly,” he says, handing her a pencil and a piece of paper. “Would you write down this sentence for me?”

  “Just make it quick, would you?”

  “Okay. Ready?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “It is a very nice spring day.”

  “Slow down, would you?”

  He and I both watch her struggle with the first word, and then it’s as if she’s waiting to see if her hand will automatically write of its own will. It doesn’t.

  “Did you get it all?”

  “Say it again. But a little slower, please.”

  “It is a very nice spring day.”

  She presses the pencil against the paper so hard the lead breaks and flies into the air and then she stands up and throws that pencil like a dart right at the doctor. “You done got on my last nerve, you know that? We better be finished.”

  “We are, Lovey. And I thank you for your patience and cooperation.”

  “You’re welcome. Now let’s go, girl.”

  “Who is that girl, by the way?” he asks.

  “She’s the girl that brought me here and the girl that’s taking me to McDonald’s. Good-bye and good luck, Dr. Frankenstein,” Lovey says, and out the door she goes.

  The doctor gives me a referral to a neurologist. Dr. Richardson is African-American and she’ll be able to give Lovey a more extensive examination and test. He tells me when he gets the results from the lab that she’ll probably order an MRI once she gets Lovey’s past medical records which he’ll be sending over.

  I tell him I’ll make that appointment as soon as I get home. I have to run to catch up to Lovey, who’s already going down the stairs. When I pull up to the drive-up window, I order her Big Mac with small fries and a vanilla shake, and when I hand her the bag she looks at me and says, “This is mine. Where’s yours?” I just tell her I’m not hungry. But the truth is, I can’t eat anything because I’ve sought answers to too many questions at too many drive-up windows and the answers have never once appeared in the sauce or on the bun.

  It’s hard to believe that Joy is still at home. The radio is on but turned down low because I can hear the washer agitating back and forth. Clothes are hanging on the line in the backyard. Lovey beelines it over to the sofa without uttering a single word. Af
ter finishing her meal, the only thing she said in the car was, “They make the best Big Macs in the world.” Joy is mopping the kitchen floor because I can see the shiny wet and dull dry spaces. I stand in the doorway and watch her. She seems somber and sober. I can’t believe that so much is going on inside her body. Why didn’t she tell anybody? I wonder if Lovey knows.

  “She’s got it, don’t she?” she says.

  “She has to go to a different doctor and get a brain scan called an MRI. I called already to make an appointment. I’ll be back in two weeks to take her.”

  “I can take her.”

  “How, Joy?”

  “In her car, that’s how.”

  “But Tiecey said you…”

  “Who you gon’ believe, me or a seven-year-old?”

  “Well, how would she even know something like this?”

  “’Cause she’s too grown, that’s why. All I gotta do is give this dude two hundred dollars and I can get the car back. That’s why I’m having the garage sale tomorrow.”

  “I can just give you two hundred dollars, Joy.”

  “I don’t want your money, Marilyn. Especially not today.”

  “What’s wrong with today?”

  “I’m taking something that helps stop me from craving. I’m trying to get through today.”

  “Well, this is a good thing.”

  She pushes the orange sponge forward and the last dry lane disappears. When she slides it back the tip of the metal jabs her in the ankle. I wince but Joy doesn’t acknowledge the pain at all.

  “I want to take her,” she says. “And you shouldn’t have to drive all this way to take our mother to the doctor when I’m right here.”

  “I don’t mind,” I say.

  “Well, I do. I look bad in front of my kids and I don’t want them to keep seeing me the way I been acting. I’m ashamed of myself for not telling you about Lovey when she’s been like this for almost a year. Maybe longer.”

  “It’s okay. But I just saw her at Christmas and she seemed fine.”

  “She was putting on. But she can’t do it now.”

  “Joy, I’m really sorry about all the things you’re dealing with, but why didn’t you let me know?”

  “What, and put a damper on your little Cosby world?”

  “Have you been to the doctor?”

  “Of course I’ve been to the doctor. If your hair was falling out in clumps and every time you ate something it felt like you gotta throw up and your stomach hurt like hell and no amount of drugs seemed to make it stop, who wouldn’t go to the doctor?”

  “Does anything help?”

  She just looks at me. “Look, I’ll take Lovey to that doctor in two weeks and you can call here every day if you want to check up on me. If it’ll make you feel any better.”

  “I don’t have to go that far, Joy.”

  “How’s your husband?”

  “He’s fine. On his way to Costa Rica on Monday.”

  “For what?”

  “That’s a good question.”

  “You mean you ain’t going with him?”

  “No, I don’t want to go.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’ve got other things I want to do.”

  “He didn’t invite you, did he?”

  “To be honest with you, no, he didn’t.”

  “Is he screwing somebody else?”

  “I doubt that very seriously.”

  “Please, Marilyn. Why is it that all women think their pussy is so good that can’t nobody top it?”

  “Did you hear me say that?”

  “You don’t have to. How old is Leon again?”

  “He’ll be forty-six the end of next month.”

  “He’s probably going through that midlife thing. I saw a special on television about it.”

  “Did you really?”

  “Yeah. What? You don’t think I’m interested in things?”

  “I don’t think that at all.”

  “You act like you can’t even imagine me watching no documentary.”

  “I didn’t say that, did I?”

  “You don’t have to Marilyn. It’s all over your face. But I’ll tell you something. Maybe I didn’t get a college degree like you but I’m not dumb. I do some seriously stupid shit, but I am far from dumb.”

  “I never thought you were.”

  “Well, finally we agree on something.”

  She actually smiles. I smile back.

  “So, is Leon tripping hard?”

  “He is tripping very hard.”

  “Ain’t much you can do about it, from what that program said, except ride it out.”

  “Ride it out. Speaking of which, I need to hit the road so I can beat the traffic.”

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?” I ask.

  “How you feeling these days? You should be going through something yourself along the female side of things, ain’t you?”

  “I’d say that’s pretty accurate.”

  “I saw a special on this, too.”

  “On what exactly, Joy?”

  “On menopause and perimenopause. I never knew there was a difference, did you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what is it?”

  I can’t believe she’s testing me. The truth is, I’m not real sure what the difference is. “Why don’t you tell me.”

  “It’s deep, that much I do know. And I ain’t looking forward to going through the peri-part, which is when you get all them symptoms, but the sooner the menopause part happens, the happier I’ll be. No period means no more babies. Anyway, what’s it really like?”

  “Whatever they said on that TV show, assume I’m experiencing all of it.”

  “Do you take those hormone pills?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You mean you want to?”

  “I don’t want to, but I might need to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they can even you out.”

  “Oh, so you’re lopsided or something. What?”

  “Didn’t they go into this?”

  “Yeah, but you the first person I know going through it I can ask. Tell me.”

  “Why is it so important right now?”

  “Because I’ve told you all my shit, and I wanna have some general idea what you might be feeling. All right?”

  “All right. Anyway, sometimes it’s hard to concentrate and you’re forgetful a lot and it feels like you’ve been PMSing for about six months.”

  “Do you still get your period?”

  “I haven’t had one in two months.”

  “The doctor on that show said you can still get pregnant, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “So what does a hot flash feel like? Seriously? I mean I don’t get it. I don’t understand what the flash part is all about.”

  “It just means you feel hot all of a sudden from inside your whole body and it lasts for maybe a minute and then goes away.”

  “So you sweat and shit?”

  “Yes, Joy.”

  “So you going through menopause and all this shit with Leon at the same time. You thinking about getting a divorce?”

  “What would make you ask me that?”

  “Because this lady on the show wrote a book about all the shit women be thinking about and feeling when they’re going through the change and she said a lot of times after the kids are gone and it’s just you and him…”

  “His mother is still there.”

  “In-laws don’t count. Not like kids do. Anyway she said that once your kids are out the house, a lot of women start looking at their whole life different.”

  “Like how?”

  “Well, she said some women freak out and get depressed and shit but it’s just ’cause they done spent so many years taking care of kids and everybody else that now they don’t know what the fuck to do for theyself. These are my own words, not hers, but it’s what she said, believe me, ’cause at first I was thinking that m
aybe that’s what Lovey was going through when they was talking about being forgetful and shit. But it didn’t take me but a minute to realize Lovey was long past anybody’s menopause. Don’t look at me like that, Marilyn.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I’m tripping or something.”

  “I don’t mean to. I just can’t believe we’re even having a conversation. Especially one that’s enlightening.”

  “Everybody can stand to get a little enlightened, especially when they don’t expect it. But anyway, she said some women end up taking pills to stop ’em from feeling depressed when they ain’t even really depressed.”

  “Then what else is it?”

  “The lady doctor said that they really secretly miserable as hell and full of rage and probably bored out of their fucking minds and just too goddamn scared to admit it ’cause it would mean they might have to make some major changes and some of ’em are too scared to change anything.”

  “Really.”

  “I’m serious. But on the flip side of this coin are the women she said that know the shit is fucked up on the home front, that the husband ain’t rocking ’em the way he used to—not even close—and basically knows the shit is dead and is just itching to make that leap, but she ain’t completely crazy, so she kinda is like taking her time and trying to figure out the whole puzzle first. But deep down inside, she knows somebody gots to go.”

  “Really.”

  “Yeah, and they interviewed both kinds. It was kinda pathetic listening to the first group whining about losing their children, like they was really lost or dead, and how now their lives felt like it didn’t have no purpose. I’m listening to these simple-ass women, thinking: you left home once upon a time, bitch, didn’t you? Anyway, some of these women got so desperate to—what was the word—nature, nurture something that they either meddled in their grown kids’ life to the point where the kids depended on them for so much shit they wouldn’t know how to get by on their own, and then some went and got somebody else’s kids to take care of. I said out loud: get a puppy!”

  I’m laughing, enjoying listening to my sister talk, and particularly to me. She knows she’s telling me something I haven’t heard. I’m looking at her with gratitude all over my face and hope she can read it.