by Lisa Alther
Let them go, it suddenly occurred to her. Let them all go. Let them all go in peace. Her parents, Marsha, Rorkie, Arlene, Jackson, David Michael, Diana, Hannah—they all had to go. She’d revolved around each of them like an Israelite around the golden calf. Whomever she turned the searchlight of her soul on had become instantly deified. But now they all had to go. All the persons, places, and possessions; all her memories, imaginings, and desires. They caused her too much pain. The only solution was to give them up voluntarily, before they could be wrenched away. There was more than one way to kill yourself off, and she proceeded to do just that, slashing through the tangled jungle of her past with a machete of renunciation.
When the mayhem was over, Caroline looked around and found this void she’d cleared wasn’t empty. It was full of the dark healing stillness she felt when she dreamed of jungle birds. She felt it on the floor by the fire with Diana, and sitting in silence with Hannah. But the birds, Diana, and Hannah were no longer present. She had given them up, along with everything else. And had just discovered there was no need to fill the void because it was already full.
A plop at the foot of her bed caused her to start. Sitting up, she saw Amelia’s yellow-green eyes blinking as she settled into a nest in the comforter. Caroline could hear steady purring.
Lying back hoping to recapture the state of mind Amelia had startled her out of, Caroline closed her eyes. And suddenly she saw that terrified toddler rise up to her full height and fling off the pink blanket, like Wonder Woman her cape. The toddler stood there in the dark, frozen, waiting for monsters to attack. When nothing happened, she looked around and found there were no monsters, only shifting shadows from the play of moonlight through the trees outside the window. Not only were there no monsters, there was no longer a terrified toddler. Through Caroline’s head ran the thought: The strength you’ve insisted on assigning to others is actually within yourself.
• 6 •
“I feel like a failure.” Caroline sprawled on the tweed couch in jeans and a work shirt. What was the point of that seizure of renunciation last month, Caroline wondered, if here she was weeping in Hannah’s lap again?
“Forget it. We don’t use that word in here.” Although Hannah had to admit, at least to herself, to feeling disappointment at hearing Caroline’s anguished voice on the phone that morning asking for an emergency appointment. Were they going too fast? Hannah had been through this with so many people that she sometimes forgot it was the first and only time through for each client.
“Well, anyhow, thanks for seeing me.” Caroline had held the phone receiver to her ear that morning like a pistol to her temple. It was her last resort.
“You can come back any time you want.” Hannah studied her, trying to figure out if this was what Caroline needed to know, or if there was a real issue. She had dark circles under her eyes, and the same clenched mouth and pained squint as when Hannah first met her. She slunk into the office and plopped down on the couch like a beaten dog, not even noticing her shawl, which was hanging over the couch.
“You look pretty awful,” said Hannah. “What’s wrong?”
Caroline sighed. “I did great for three weeks. Felt good. Handled everything that came up. But a few days ago I fell apart. Finally I decided to call you because I’m supposed to go to Boston for this two-week course, and I don’t see how I can go feeling like this.”
“Like what?”
Caroline rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I’m terrified.”
“What of?”
Caroline tried to decide what label to put on the grinding in her stomach this time. “Of leaving the boys.”
“Whom are you leaving them with?”
“Diana.”
“Has she kept them before?”
“Lots of times. It’s always been fine.” Diana was their second-string mother, just as she herself was Sharon’s. Whatever else went on between Diana and her, this was never in doubt.
“Are things bad between you?”
“No. Everything’s okay. Ever since we gave each other up for good, we’ve been getting along great.”
Hannah smiled. “So what’s the problem?”
“This is going to sound screwy, but you’re used to that with me.”
Hannah shook her head vigorously. “Don’t put yourself down in here.”
“Yeah, okay. Anyhow, I read in the paper last week about this creep in Vermont who raped and killed an eight-year-old boy. They haven’t caught him yet, and I keep thinking he’ll turn up at the cabin and hurt Jackie or Jason. Or abduct them as they walk home from school. Last night I dreamed a carload of men broke down the cabin door and tortured them.”
“I don’t think that’s screwy at all,” said Hannah. “Most mothers feel anxious when they go away from their children. It’s perfectly normal. It’s what’s kept the race going all these eons. But once you’re on the road and no longer the adult in charge, you’ll probably feel fine.” For years after Mona’s and Nigel’s deaths it had been impossible for her to leave Simon and Joanna, and she turned down vacations with Arthur all across the Caribbean.
“I guess my imagination is too vivid. I can picture the whole scene with that little boy in hideous detail. And I get so…furious.”
Hannah felt tension building in the room. “That’s understandable. It was awful. I read about it too. I murdered the motherfucker in my mind, slowly and painfully.” Actually, she castrated him, then murdered him. First things first.
“I started thinking if little kids can’t rely on adults, who can they rely on?”
“Did you hear yourself? Do you remember what you said our first session, when I asked what was the most painful thing that had happened lately?”
Caroline struggled to recall.
“You said the Jim Jones thing.”
“How can you remember when I can’t?”
“It’s my job. You should instead ask yourself what’s preventing you from remembering. Anyhow, you talked about how his followers adored him and called him Dad, and he turned around and killed them. Betrayal by parent figures has been one of your themes all along, hasn’t it? Daddy went off to war, and Mummy took to bed with depression. Marsha died. Arlene took up with a new student. And what’s just happened between you and me?”
Caroline looked pained and perplexed as she rubbed the tweed sofa cover with her fingertips.
“I didn’t betray you. But we’ve been ending our therapeutic relationship. That could feel like betrayal.”
Caroline frowned.
“But who’s doing the leaving this time?” Hannah shook a cigarette from a pack of Mores.
“I am,” said Caroline.
“And in truth, who’s always done at least half of the leaving?” She put the cigarette between her lips and lit it.
Caroline frowned again.
“The painful part about growth is the need to leave behind whatever you’ve outgrown.” Simon and Joanna had knocked themselves out trying to make their need to move out her fault. They accused her one day of being a suffocating busybody. And the next, of being a rejecting witch. She observed their fluctuating assessments of her with a fascination that annoyed the hell out of them. But Nigel and Mona departed so abruptly. This endless nonsense with Simon and Joanna was a real luxury.
“You’re making it too complicated,” said Caroline. “I have to go to Boston, and I’m scared stiff some psychopath will murder my sons. It’s as simple as that.”
Hannah shrugged. Hardly anything was as simple as that. “Well, it’s certainly a valid fear, given the globe we inhabit. Whether you want a valid fear to incapacitate you is another question.” She glanced at the shawl above Caroline’s head, the many shades of purple, red, and orange fading into each other. Hard to believe the talented woman who wove it was the same woman who now sat on Hannah’s couch trembling with terror. Probably they weren’t the same woman. This Caroline was an impostor. Hannah had to get rid of her so the real Caroline could return.
“What
I want,” said Caroline, rubbing the bridge of her nose, “is not to live in a world in which maniacs murder the children they should be caring for.”
As she tapped her cigarette into Nigel’s stone, Hannah shook her head. Caroline had just gone cosmic. Hannah had offered an interpretation. She’d offered sympathy. It sounded like time to get tough: “Well, my dear friend, you’ve been feeling pretty good for a long time now. I’d say you’re casting around for an excuse to feel bad again.” She paused, alarmed at her words. Caroline might get annoyed enough to throw off the mounting depression, or she might stomp out and kill herself. Hannah fought to maintain her composure and waited to hear what dreadful thing she’d say next. “Look, to make sense of this world, you have to have faith and humility. And I’m not sure you have either.” Wow, thought Hannah, watching Caroline carefully.
Caroline glared at Hannah through narrowed eyes.. Where did this woman get off? Caroline came in crisis—to her therapist, to her potential friend—and Hannah kicked her in the teeth. This was what you could expect from people. They all failed you in the end. She’d known Hannah would eventually turn on her like all the others….
The healthy part of her, the part that had been uncovered and strengthened during the past months, listened to these thoughts and recognized them as The Pattern, as repulsive as last year’s leftovers found moldering in a discarded refrigerator. Hannah had just put responsibility for Caroline’s state of mind right where it belonged—with Caroline. If she wanted to feel better, she should proceed to feel better. Because she now knew how to. Otherwise she should shut up, enjoy feeling bad, and stop wasting Hannah’s time.
Hannah watched Caroline’s face contort with some kind of inner struggle. Caroline’s eyes rested on the stone Venus. Maybe Caroline would throw it at her. Nobody had tried that yet. Hannah felt determined to provoke a definitive reaction: “Nobody ever said life was supposed to be easy.”
Hannah watched with surprise as a small smile spread across Caroline’s strained face, like the sun peeking through massed storm clouds. “What’s so funny?” Hannah felt herself smiling in response. The real Caroline had just returned from the gloom. The tightness around the mouth and eyes let up a bit.
“I’m trying to keep from saying, ‘I Never Promised You a Rose Garden,’” said Caroline.
“You didn’t succeed, did you?”
Caroline laughed. “You know, I always thought it was a question of achieving some permanent state of tranquillity.”
“Nirvana or something?” Even Caroline’s voice sounded different from a moment ago.
“Right, but it’s not. It’s more like learning to surf. The waves keep rolling in, each different from the last, and you have to ride them, instead of getting pounded to bits.”
“I agree.
“Good. It must be right then.”
“Think carefully before you answer,” said Hannah. “What’s the next question I’m going to ask?”
Caroline frowned, sorting back through the session, through past sessions. Hannah raised her eyebrows. “You want to know if I ever tried to go back home once I left.”
“You may have your Junior Therapist badge.”
“Junior?”
“Don’t get carried away or I’ll reject you. So what’s the answer?”
“I was just trying to remember. One night at Mass General I was in charge of the ER. I was terrified. Arlene had just ditched me, and I felt as though I’d lost my magic amulet. Here I was, responsible for all these potential crises. A five-year-old girl was admitted with meningitis or something. She died in my arms at dawn, before the doctor on duty could get there. I still don’t know to what extent it was my fault. If at all. I guess I had a nervous breakdown. Stopped working, stopped eating and sleeping, lay in my apartment all day with the shades pulled down listening on the news about the ghettos all across the country going up in flames. I developed this rash all over my body. I phoned my father and said I wanted to move back home. He said no because I’d already paid a half year’s rent on my apartment. I called my mother, and she said my father knew best. Then she went to bed in a depression.”
“So Arlene failed you. Then you failed that child. Then your parents failed you. Adults failing children. Do you see how that relates to the Jim Jones thing? And to your fears about leaving your sons? Leaving them evokes your own terror of being left.”
Caroline nodded doubtfully.
“When you were an infant,” said Hannah, “Daddy went to war, and Mummy withdrew into anxiety and depression. Leaving you feeling undefended in a threatening world. Leaving you feeling all this disaster was somehow your fault. And you’ve lived in that atmosphere ever since. But Caroline…” Hannah looked at her with urgency. “That’s all it is. It’s over now. You’re no longer a helpless infant. You’re a strong, competent woman who can defend herself.”
They sat in silence. Caroline looked across the parking lot, which was bordered by small dunes of the sand that had been spread on the ice that winter. During her months here nothing much had changed on the surface, yet underneath everything was different. She glanced at the aerial photo over the bookcase, isolating the veiled head from the cow pasture with ease. What a surprise to find you could shift the contents of your head like rearranging furniture in a room.
“So what have you discovered today?” asked Hannah.
“That I can come back home to Mommy if I want.”
“Yes. Good. And?”
A smile returned to Caroline’s face. “Now that I know I can, I don’t want to.”
“How do you feel?”
“Great.” Caroline stood up. “I can’t believe it. I’m fine.”
“No kidding?” Hannah couldn’t believe it either.
“You do good work.” Caroline stretched luxuriously, feeling her body relax for the first time in several days.
“I guess I do.” Hannah studied Caroline with amazement. Like Caroline’s waves, each person was different. She never knew exactly what would happen. This whole session was unexpected, but right. Caroline had just come full circle.
Caroline did a double take as her eyes took in the shawl on the white wall above the couch. “It looks nice there,” she said with a pleased smile.
“It does, doesn’t it? I’ve had a lot of compliments on it.”
“Thanks.”
“Thank you. So when are you off to Boston?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
“What’s the course?”
“Didn’t I tell you? I’ve switched to the delivery room. It’s a refresher course.”
“That must be fun.”
“It’s only two floors up from the emergency room, but it’s like another world. Everybody’s so happy.”
“Do you think you can handle it?”
Caroline laughed. “It’s been a strain, but I’m getting there. I just got another job offer, so I can always leave.”
“Oh yes? What job?”
“My old weaving teacher in Boston wrote and asked me to come teach at her craft school.”
“How nice.”
“Yes, it is. But I like Lake Glass.”
Hannah nodded, trying to be impartial on the topic of Caroline’s whereabouts in upcoming years. “Are you staying with your parents in Boston?”
Caroline nodded.
“How will that be?”
“Fine, I think. It’ll be interesting to see if I can behave like an adult around them now that I’m nearly middle-aged.”
Caroline paused at the door. Would Hannah still want to have lunch, or had Caroline just failed the friendship test? She looked at Hannah, the blue of her eyes exaggerated by a blue turtleneck. Caroline wanted a chance to know the woman underneath all the roles Caroline had imposed on her. But probably she blew it by crawling in here in pieces. She recognized The Pattern revving up. Just because she’d asked for help didn’t transform her into a repulsive toad.
“I want to point out,” said Hannah from her chair, “that you stood up and
are walking out my door before your hour is up. Once again, I’d like to ask who’s doing the leaving.”
Caroline paused, hand on the doorknob. She turned to look at Hannah with a wry smile. “A bit more practice and I’ll have it down pat.”
Hannah grinned. “Why don’t you call me in a few months?” She wondered who Caroline would become now that she was giving up trying to be how she thought other people wanted her to be.
“I will. But for lunch or for an appointment?”
“We could do either. But I can’t do both at once. So you’ll have to decide which.”
“Lunch,” said Caroline hesitantly. Lunch was the point of no return, but what if she needed to return?
“Okay. Fine,” said Hannah with resignation. The last thing in the world she wanted was someone else to miss. But it would be like not drinking from fear of a hangover. And she was never one to pass up a martini. She stood up and slipped on her shoes.
They walked outside into the yard together. The lake spread out below them, a soft pewter color under the overcast sky. All the ice had melted. Summer was coming. They heard a clamor in the trees bordering the yard. Looking up, they saw that the branches, swollen with new buds, were filled with chattering yellow evening grosbeaks, fresh back from more balmy lands, sporting their jaunty masks like revelers returning from a Caribbean carnival.
A BIOGRAPHY OF LISA ALTHER
For novelist Lisa Alther, as for so many of her fellow Southerners, the past is ever present, particularly in places like Kingsport, Tennessee, the small town where she was born in 1944. One of five children, Alther grew up in a region known for its coal mining and factories, surrounded by a close-knit Appalachian community. Her father was a second-generation town doctor, and her mother was a former English teacher from upstate New York. Another strong presence in her upbringing was her paternal grandmother, the founder of the Virginia Club and a pillar of the Southern way of life. Lisa attended public schools in Kingsport, taking her place in the marching band after an unsuccessful brush with flag swinging, living the typical life of a 1950s teen.