Paint Chips

by Susie Finkbeiner

  “Fine,” I mumbled.

  “Would you please come in? Have a seat.” The psychologist welcomed me into the small room and directed me to a chair.

  “You all set, doc?” the orderly asked.

  “Sure am, Ryan. You may come back for Mrs. Schmidt in one hour.”

  “Yup.” With a grunt, Ryan strutted away.

  The doctor held my chart in his hand. He also held the power to recommend my release to family for at-home care.

  I never wanted that. I would only be a burden to Dot. She needed to be busy with college and planning her future. She didn’t need to be hindered by a mother who needed constant care and support. I’d already done enough to her. I couldn’t stand the thought of her becoming the mother and I the child.

  “Cora, you are looking well this morning.”

  “Thank you.” I blushed. Compliments were rare in that ward.

  “Are you ready for our little chat?”

  “Yes.” I appreciated how he called our sessions “little chats.” Dignity was also hard to come by.

  He lowered himself into a chair by the table and glanced casually at the open folder. It contained all the events, medications, episodes, and visitors I’d had in the last month. My file must have been the most uninteresting thing to read.

  “I understand that you received some family photos.” He looked up. “Lisa consulted me about that matter.”

  “I know,” I answered. “She told me.”

  “How have you felt while looking at the pictures?”

  “They make me miss my family.” I tried to suppress the sob that threatened to break through. I cleared my throat. “They make me happy for the good times I had.”

  “That’s healthy. If you didn’t miss your family, it would be cause for concern.” He closed the file and put it on the table. “How do you feel about discussing your childhood? Are you at all interested in that?”

  “No. I’m not comfortable with that.”

  “What if I asked you to speak with someone else about it?”

  “Who would you want me to tell?”

  “Lisa.” He glanced at me over his glasses. “You seem to be comfortable with her. If I’m correct, I would say that you actually trust her. And she says the nicest things about you. She told me that the two of you are becoming good friends.”

  “She did?”

  “Of course.” He smiled. “How does that make you feel?”

  “Very nice. Very, very nice.” I folded my hands in my lap. “I don’t think I have ever had a true friend. I mean, one who really cared about me without the chance of getting anything in return.”

  “Well, I think that’s a good reason to trust her. Don’t you?” He put his hands, palm up, in front of him. “Unless, of course, you would like to tell me about your story. However, I believe that it would be more beneficial for you to discuss it with Lisa. You need to open up to someone in order to become well.”

  “I would rather tell her. But it has to be on my terms and at my pace.”

  “I think that’s fair.” He opened my chart, made a note. “What would you like to talk with me about today?”

  I liked having the little taste of control. I didn’t have many opportunities to make decisions.

  “My hair,” I said. “I’d like to talk about my hair.”

  “Okay. Let’s talk about your hair.”

  “I need to dye my hair.” I fingered the long, gray locks. “I looked in the mirror yesterday and nearly fell over. It’s become so awful.”

  “What’s so bad about it?”

  “It’s gray. Completely gray.”

  “And you think that’s a bad thing?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “What do you think that the gray in your hair says about you?”

  “It says that I’m old.”

  “I see.” He allowed for a thoughtful pause. “And is being old bad?”

  “Well, not for everyone. But it is bad for me.”

  “What about me?” He touched his pure white hair. “Clearly I’m old. Is that bad?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “So, it’s only bad because it’s you?”

  “Yes. I guess so.”

  “Okay. I see. What do you think other people think when they look at you?”

  “They think I’m a crazy old woman.” I scratched the scalp beneath the offending hair. “And they think that’s the reason I’m all alone.”

  “First off, Cora, you aren’t crazy.”

  “But of course I am.”

  “You most certainly are not.”

  “But I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “You are. But don’t you think I would know crazy when I saw it?”

  “I don’t know, I guess you would.”

  “You have difficulty with depression and anxiety.” He caught my focus. “That doesn’t make you crazy.”

  I looked away from him.

  “Additionally, graying hair is a natural progression of life. Everyone eventually develops signs of aging.” He smiled. “Wrinkles, creaky joints, liver spots. That’s all just a part of what happens to our bodies.”

  I sighed. “I just don’t think I look right.”

  “What else?”

  “I look like someone who has lost everything.” I paused, sighed. “I look like my mother.”

  “And you don’t want to look like your mother?”

  “No. That is the last thing I want. I’m already acting like her. I don’t need to look like her, too.”

  “Interesting. Go on.”

  “I look like I’ve let myself go. And that, of course, is true.”

  “Okay.” He tapped a pencil on his chin. “How do you think people viewed you before? When you felt that you looked more youthful?”

  “Perfect.” I swallowed hard. “They thought I was perfect. And I looked perfect.”

  “Like Mary Poppins.”

  I nodded, the corners of my mouth tempted to curve upward.

  “How did it feel when people thought that of you?”

  “It was a conflicted feeling. Half wonderful and half stressful.”

  “Meaning that you worked hard to keep up that impression?”

  “Yes.” My memory tried to sweep up under me. “I worked so hard. I would stay up all night to get everything done. And I worked all day to keep things perfect. It was extremely exhausting, but I couldn’t ever let anyone see that. It really was a compulsion I’d been doing my whole life. I felt that if I let anything go it would have shown my weakness.”

  “It was important for you to seem perfect?”

  “No. I wanted to be perfect.”

  “I see.” He put the pencil on the table and cupped his chin with his hand. “Are you aware that it is impossible to be perfect?”

  “Well, I don’t know.”

  “You are far too hard on yourself, Cora” He crossed his arms. “I don’t hold that standard for you. I doubt your husband did, either. And certainly your daughter would never expect perfection from you. Lisa seems to enjoy your company, gray hair and all.”

  He allowed for a pause.

  “Cora, I’m not saying that you are not to color your hair. Many healthy women do so. I would actually like to see you do something that made you feel feminine. However, you need to understand this; you don’t have to be perfect. You are loved regardless.”

  “But I feel this constant compulsion to make up for what I’ve done.” A round tear rolled down my face and splashed on my lap.

  “What do you feel that you should make up for?”

  “For what I did to my father.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Okay. Let’s redirect this. When was the last time you felt that life was perfect?”

  “The day before I knew that Steven would be deployed.”

  “I want you to think about that day. Think about the details of it. Perhaps make a list of what it was like to have the illusion of perfection an
d then see it fall apart.” He closed my file. “We can talk about that next time we chat.”

  “You don’t want me to discuss it right now?”

  “No. I want you to really contemplate it before you put it into words. You need to build yourself up for that kind of revealing discussion.” He put his hands on his knees. “Now, how are your medications working for you? Anything you would like to decrease?”

  We talked about medication, art therapy, my visits with Lisa, my lack of appetite. But all during our conversation I thought about that day, the day that my perfect world dropped into a pile of rubble. Thousands of lives were destroyed that day.

  And God sat back, a spectator to it all.

  Dot – 14

  “Dorothea, we need to leave in fifteen minutes!” Lola called up the steps.

  “All right!” I yelled. A little louder than I needed to. I blamed my nerves.

  I’d tried on every outfit in my closet. Nothing looked right. I wanted to look cool and smart and casual all at the same time. But I couldn’t seem to put anything together.

  “Are you seriously thinking about going to this college?” Grace asked, sitting on my bed, thumbing through a course catalog. “All’s they got is Bible classes.”

  “That isn’t all they have, Grace.” I pushed my head through the turtleneck of a sweater. “They have a lot of classes. I’m just checking it out today. It doesn’t mean I’m going there.”

  “Well, I think you should.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “Yeah. I mean, how many people get the chance to go to college for free?”

  “Almost free. I have to figure out room and board.” I slipped my feet into the ugly brown dress shoes I bought at the thrift store. “Man, all my shoes are ugly. Gosh!”

  “Yeah, you need to let me do all your shopping.” She laughed. “Just because something’s three bucks at Goodwill doesn’t mean you need to buy it. You have to try things on first.”

  “Shut up.”

  “But you really should go.”

  “To Goodwill? Grace, I don’t have time! Lola’s going to make me get in that hunk-of-junk van in the next seven minutes no matter what I have on! There’s no time to go shopping!”

  “Chill, Dorothea. Goodness. I mean you should go to that college.” She got up. “I bet you ten bucks that you’ll love it. You won’t be able to wait for next year.”

  “We’ll see.” I turned to her, tugging at the black cardigan over my gray turtleneck. “How does this look?”

  “Honestly?”

  “Do you even know how to lie?”

  “Not really. You look like a librarian. And not the cute kind of librarian. You look like the old, stinky kind.” She scowled. “No more pleated pants, Dorothea.”

  “What the Howdy Doody am I supposed to wear?”

  “Just wear that long, black skirt and my pink sweater.” She tossed the catalog onto my bed. “I told you twenty outfits ago that you should wear that.”

  “Thanks.” I changed into Grace’s choice.

  “So, are you going to go to that college or what?”

  “Grace! I don’t know! I’m not sure what I want to do!”

  “Is it really about what you want to do, Dorothea?” Grace did her best Lola impersonation.

  “Yeah. I guess Lola always does get her way.”

  “No.” She began picking up the heap of clothes from the floor. “I’m pretty sure it should be more about what God wants you to do.”

  I hugged her.

  “What’s that for?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.” I let her go. “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right. But if you wear those shoes I am going to smack you,” she said. “Wear mine. They’re in the closet.”

  My time was up. I slipped on Grace’s black shoes and carried my backpack down the steps where Lola waited for me.

  “Oh, that’s a nice outfit.” She smiled. “Grace picked it out, right?”

  “What, you don’t think I’m capable of dressing myself?”

  “Actually, no.”

  “Yeah, it was Grace.”

  “She has an eye for putting things together.”

  “Well, you should have seen the room. It looked like our closet threw up.” I swung my backpack onto one shoulder. “But you’ll be happy to know that she’s up there hanging everything back up.”

  “Good for her.” She zipped up her jacket. “Excited?”

  “More like totally nervous.”

  Lola and I got into the old, rusted-out minivan that someone donated only a few weeks before. She had a gift for making things work until something else came along. She would use anything.

  But the problem was that Lola never second-guessed a gift. No matter how broken down and nasty the gift might be. And that was my fear, getting into the old, rusty van. I had some serious doubts until she turned over the engine.

  “Well, I guess that’s a good sign.” I laughed.

  “Oh, this perverse generation! Always in need of a sign.”

  I rolled my eyes and shook my head at her paraphrase of Jesus. “Nice, Lola.”

  As we pulled away from the house, the van coughed up a huge, black cloud. I made sure to buckle my seat belt.

  Cora – 15

  Back in my room, I let my memory slip back to nine years before. The images of that day haunted me. At first I wanted to fight off the memories. But after the persistent nag of recollection I gave in. I indulged in the remembrance of the day my perfection died.

  ~*~

  I woke up that day as normal, after only a few hours of sleep. I made breakfast and fed the kids before sending them off to school. I filled a thermos with coffee for Steven and kissed him good-bye at the door. After they were all gone, I started on my household rituals. Everything started out typical. The sun shined brilliantly on that early fall morning.

  I scoured the kitchen floor on my hands and knees. Dot called this “Cinderella mopping.” Such a creative little one. To the average eye I scrubbed an already spotless floor. But I saw the streaks, the crumbs, the germs. I had to clean. I really didn’t have another option. I glanced up at the tiny black-and-white television on the kitchen counter.

  “What channel is this?” I wondered out loud. “Isn’t it a little bit early for this kind of movie?”

  Smoke billowed out of a sky-scraper. Suddenly the building’s identical twin erupted in flame. I left my bucket of water and moved to the living room, turning on the bigger TV.

  The reporter spoke about airplanes crashing into buildings. Fire and smoke and fear filled the sky. I couldn’t understand much after that. But I knew that many, many people stayed, stuck in those buildings.

  “Cora?” I heard Steven’s voice as he came in from the garage. “Where are you?”

  “I’m in the living room,” I called back.

  “I left work as soon as I heard. This is awful.”

  His face pale, Steven didn’t hide his terror. I’d never seen fear on my husband’s face before. He sat next to me, holding my hand.

  The towers in New York City had the attention of the entire world. Then came reports that the Pentagon was hit, too. And one plane made a fiery crater in the countryside of Pennsylvania. All of these things at the same time. How could that have happened?

  “Oh, Jesus, are You coming back now?” Steven whispered. “I can’t see how this will end well.”

  One building crumbled, straight down, into the ground. I felt more than heard the scream that broke from my body. All of those people. And now they were gone. All of them. Just like that. I had watched them all die from my comfortable couch.

  Then the next building fell the same way.

  A numbing spread through my arms and legs. I’d been horrified just moments before. But then, as if a switch was flipped, I felt nothing. A few words broke through my tingling detachment. Terrorists. War. Iraq. Bin Laden.

  War. Had I heard the word “war”?

  “They won’t send you,” I said to Steven
, trying to talk myself out of believing he would go. “They wouldn’t do that, would they?”

  “They might, honey.” He turned off the television. “They probably will.”

  “But you’re just about to be discharged.”

  “I know. It doesn’t matter. The military can stop that.”

  “But I thought you’d be discharged and become a pastor. In a church. In a safe ministry.”

  “I know. But they aren’t going to discharge me right now. They’re going to need me.”

  “No. That’s not fair,” I said, desperate. “I need you. The kids need you, too.”

  “I know that, Cora.”

  “Could we get away? Move somewhere else? You wouldn’t have to go if they couldn’t find you.”

  “Babe, I can’t do that.” He took my hands in his. “I love you. And I love Pete and Dot. Part of my job as a husband and father is to make this world a better place. It’s a hard thing. But I know it’s what God has called me to do.”

  He started to pray. He prayed for our country, our leaders, our soldiers, the families that lost loved ones, the people stuck in the buildings. He prayed for our family. He asked that we would be able to forgive those who attacked us. He prayed for me.

  And I felt nothing. I kept my eyes open, refusing to pray.

  It seemed as if God was in His heaven and all was wrong with the world. And He didn’t show any concern at all on that day.

  After his prayer, Steven left to get the kids from school. I retreated to the kitchen to make cookies. I couldn’t think of anything else to do. Pete and Dot needed something to comfort them. And I couldn’t bear to just sit and wait for them to get home.

  My large, glass measuring cup slipped out of my hands. It shattered on the floor. Picking up the shards, I pricked my finger, drawing a small bead of blood. The sharp pain broke through my numbness. An adrenaline rush hit my body. Some kind of strange relief overtook me. That familiar feeling. One I hadn’t felt in years.

  Something in my mind told me that it was a bad feeling, to cut myself. But another, much louder, much more demanding voice told me that I needed something to break through the zombie-like feeling I had. I took a sharp piece of the glass and cut my arm. Just a small slice, like a paper cut.