Moonlight on Linoleum

by Helwig, Terry; Kidd, Sue Monk;

  We nodded. He told us the name of a place to go if we were interested in dancing and nightlife. We thanked him and drove off, giggling with relief to have been spared a ticket.

  It will be interesting to see Darrel again, I thought. It was his offer that made me choose Odessa, where he now lived. He called after graduation and said he still had feelings for me. When he learned Sam and I would be traveling to Texas, he asked his sister, Dola Jane, and her husband, Dick, if we could stay with them until we found jobs and a place to rent. I knew I could never live with Mama again and the eighty-mile buffer between Odessa and Mama in Denver City seemed just about right.

  Sam and I thanked Dola Jane and Dick for the use of their guest room.

  Once unpacked, we drove to Denver City to see Mama and the girls. Brenda and Joni squealed with delight when they saw me and came running to throw their arms around me. It felt so good to wrap my arms around their slender bodies. Patricia smiled and waved to us from the couch. Mama sat at the table eating stewed tomatoes over bread—her comfort food. She said she liked my hair lightened and asked Sam to have a seat at the picnic table, our same table from the trailer.

  My first few visits to Denver City were unremarkable. I watched the girls occasionally. Mama still functioned most of the time, but her medicine chest and drawers were filled with prescription bottles. Then once, after Mama visited me in Odessa, Dola’s pain medication disappeared from the medicine cabinet. Dola had had her wisdom teeth removed and was prescribed pain pills in case she needed them. After Mama’s visit, Dola received a perplexing phone call from the dentist’s office.

  “If you’re still having problems with your wisdom teeth, you need to come in.”

  Dola told them she wasn’t having any problems. That’s when we learned that a woman had called, saying she was Dola Jane. The woman also said she needed more pain pills. Both Dola and I knew Mama had made the call.

  “I’m so sorry,” I told Dola.

  “It’s not your fault,” she said. “It’s just sad.”

  “I know she has a problem,” I said, “but I don’t know what to do about it.” Nobody seemed to know what to do about Mama.

  By the time Mama stole Dola’s pain pills, Sam had returned to California. She missed the beach and her boyfriend. Darrel and I, on the other hand, were officially history. Darrel’s greatest gift to me would be introducing me to Dola and Dick. After I had found a job as a waitress at the Barn Door, Dick asked if I would stay on with them because Dola was pregnant. Dick drove a truck and didn’t want Dola home alone when he was out of town. The living arrangements suited me, too. I couldn’t have asked for two better roommates.

  On nights I didn’t come straight home from work, I went dancing with several waitresses who had become friends. I had, evidently, inherited Mama’s dancing gene. I finally understood Mama’s love for dancing and why one of her friends had described her as a “dancing fool.” Mama liked all kinds of dancing—jitterbug, country-western, polka.

  Dancing wipes away the past and the future; it exists only in the present moment. It’s as if the whole world falls away and all that remains is the music. You become one with the notes, pulsing, twirling, dipping, and swaying. The body leads and the mind forgets. Rumi, a thirteenth-century poet, danced as a spiritual discipline. He wrote:

  Dance, when you’re broken open.

  Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off.

  Dance in the middle of the fighting.

  Dance in your blood.

  Dance, when you’re perfectly free.

  In a roundabout way, dancing led me to my friend Larry, who visited me regularly at Dick and Dola’s house. We played board games, talked, and hid ice-cream bowls under the couch—our own private joke. Larry was gentle, good-hearted, and kind—a lot like Daddy. I loved him as a brother, even more so after he helped me ferry Mama through her dark night of the soul.

  Mama’s call sounded urgent.

  “I really need to talk things over with you,” she said, “but I don’t want to get into it on the phone. How soon can you come?”

  I had to work that night.

  “I’ll be there in the morning,” I told her. I figured I could drive back the next afternoon before my shift started at the Barn Door.

  Eighty miles is a long way to drive with an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach. I didn’t know if Mama was crying wolf or not. If she was, I needed to figure out how to handle her; if she wasn’t, I would be walking into the problem without a clue what to expect.

  Over an hour later, I pulled into the dirt driveway and parked near the old bunkhouse, the one Mr. Rodeo had painted robin-egg blue for us. I let myself in the back door of the main house and found the girls in the living room watching television. I sat and talked to them for a few minutes. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

  “Where’s Mama?” I asked.

  Patricia pointed toward the bedroom down the hall. I walked into the bedroom and found Mama in bed. She looked awful. She had dark circles under her eyes, sallow skin, and tangled hair.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Close the door,” she said hoarsely. She propped herself into a sitting position and leaned against the headboard.

  I clicked the door closed and sat down on the edge of her bed.

  Her hand shook as she brushed aside her matted hair. “I’m not doing too well,” she said. “I’ve . . . I’ve been thinking about . . . admitting myself to a psychiatric hospital.”

  I saw the look of defeat in her eyes, and tried to mask the relief in mine. A huge weight dropped from my shoulders. Finally, I thought. She’s finally admitting there’s a problem.

  “I know I need help, but I don’t want to go to Big Spring. I know what goes on in hospitals,” she said adamantly. “I’ll only agree to go to the Colorado State Hospital in Pueblo. A psychiatrist in Denver said he’d admit me, if I can see him first.”

  It didn’t matter to me where she went. “I’m just glad you’re getting help,” I said evenly. I wondered how Mr. Rodeo felt about Mama going to a hospital so many miles away. “Where’s Mr. Rodeo?” I asked.

  “We’re not together anymore.” She exhaled as if the last bit of air had finally gone out of her. “That’s why I called you.”

  She needs a ride to the hospital, I thought.

  “I can drive you,” I offered before she even had a chance to speak.

  “No,” she said. “It’s more than that. We can’t continue living here; this place doesn’t belong to me. I want to know if you’ll take Brenda and Joni to live with you until I get out.”

  Her request surprised me. Questions raced through my mind. What about Daddy? Wouldn’t he want his girls? How could I trump him? And, even if I could, would I be able to take care of them and still hold down a job?

  “What about Daddy?” I asked. “I’m sure he and Alice would want the girls. I’ve met her and she’s really nice.”

  Mama shook her head. “If I lose them, I won’t have anything to live for.”

  Her look begged me to understand.

  “Patricia’s not too happy with me right now,” she confessed. Patricia was in high school and I imagined she and Mama saw things a bit differently.

  “She’ll end up with Davy, I’m sure,” Mama continued, “because she can’t stay here, and I doubt she’ll go with you.” Mama hung her head. “But if I let all three of them go to Davy, he might not give them back. Then I’d have no reason to live.”

  I didn’t know if Mama was right about Daddy. But true to form, she didn’t consider what the law might have to say on the issue. I hated to go against Daddy after everything he had done for us. But neither did I want to jeopardize Mama’s willingness to get help. I wondered if my tips from the restaurant would cover a rental for the three of us, plus expenses. It didn’t seem likely that Daddy would send me child support. Why should he? To ensure I kept his girls away from him?

  “If you don’t say yes, I can’t do it,” Mama said. “I won’t have anything
to live for.”

  She kept using that phrase, “nothing to live for.”

  “I don’t know, Mama,” I faltered. The room seemed stifling. “Let me think about it, okay? I’m going outside for a walk to clear my head.”

  I closed the door behind me and slipped outside. I stuck my hands deep into my jacket pockets to keep them warm. The cold February wind stung my face.

  What should I do? I walked up and down the dirt road next to the fence, looking for guidance. How long would Mama be in the hospital? Could I make it work for a while? Maybe if I got a second job. I didn’t want to put Brenda and Joni in jeopardy in any way. I could try it and if it didn’t work, I could figure out what else to do later. The important thing was to get Mama to the hospital.

  I turned and walked briskly back into the house. I had been gone no more than half an hour. I took off my jacket, draped it over a kitchen chair, and walked toward Mama’s bedroom. When I opened the door, I saw a wide swath of blood soaking the white sheets. A dark crust of coagulated blood surrounded a deep gash in Mama’s left wrist.

  “What have you done?” I gasped.

  Mama was pasty white. “I told you I wouldn’t have anything to live for.”

  Then I saw she had sliced open both wrists with a razor blade. The sheets were growing redder and redder. The ranch was out of town—an ambulance was out of the question. I couldn’t let the girls witness this; it would haunt them forever.

  Flooded with adrenaline, I hauled a large dresser in front of the bedroom door so no one could come inside. I ripped off the top sheet and started tearing it into strips. I was furious. It was as if all the anger I had been suppressing my whole life suddenly surfaced.

  “Why couldn’t you wait? I told you I needed to think,” I said angrily as I ripped another strip from the sheet.

  “You were going to say no.”

  I bound several strips of sheet tightly around one wrist and then around the other.

  “I just needed time to think it through. I can’t believe you did this,” I said, choking back a sob.

  Mama cried and I cried. Mama looked like a mummy from her forearms down. I unbuttoned the sleeves of a long-sleeved flannel shirt so Mama’s bandages wouldn’t be visible. I helped her into a pair of jeans and slipped on her moccasins. In a matter of minutes, I had stripped the sheets off the bed and tossed them into a corner of the closet. I didn’t want the girls to see all the blood, so I flipped the mattress, too. After I moved the dresser away from the door, I put Mama’s arm over my shoulder and helped her walk down the hallway. She was woozy. When I saw the girls, I told them Mama wasn’t feeling well and I needed to take her to the hospital. I told Patricia I would be back as soon as I settled her in.

  Only in our house would taking Mama to the hospital seem mildly alarming. The girls watched wide-eyed as I folded Mama into the passenger seat.

  Mama didn’t want to go to the hospital in Denver City. Instead, she begged me to drive her to Seagraves, to a physician she knew there. I worried about Mama losing too much blood, but when I checked her bandages, they seemed to be stemming her bleeding. I had tied them tight. Seagraves wasn’t that much farther. I turned right onto the county road and gunned the accelerator; my speedometer climbed toward ninety.

  The nurse in Seagraves helped me bring Mama into the back office. The doctor unwound the bloody strips of sheets from her wrists.

  “Looks like you meant business,” he said. He turned to me. “Why don’t you step out?”

  Mama grabbed my hand and asked the doctor. “No, can’t she stay?” Then to me she said, “Please. Will you stay and hold my hand?”

  The doctor looked up at me. “You okay with this?”

  Though I felt weak and nauseated, I nodded and willed myself to be strong for Mama’s sake. I tenderly held her bloodied hand with its gaping wound while the doctor sutured her other wrist.

  “You’re lucky you didn’t bleed to death,” the doctor told her. I held her hand firmly, the way she must have held mine all those years ago through the slats of the crib.

  “Things can’t be this bad,” the doctor continued.

  I watched a single tear travel down Mama’s cheek. “God has to be more merciful than life,” Mama whispered. She was thirty-three.

  I bent over and kissed her forehead. I was eighteen.

  Before the doctor released Mama back into my care, he gave her a sedative and something for her pain. He told me she definitely needed psychiatric help. I explained that she had agreed to admit herself into the Colorado State Hospital in Pueblo, and that I planned to take her tomorrow. We would be meeting with a psychiatrist who could refer her. Evidently, you couldn’t just show up at a state hospital as if you were checking in to a motel.

  “It’s imperative she gets help,” he said gravely. “She’s at risk and might try to commit suicide again.” His eyes looked into mine as if to make sure I knew the gravity of the situation.

  “Her wounds were deep,” he reiterated, “deep enough that she could have bled to death. She was lucky.”

  The word lucky seemed oddly out of place.

  Mama dozed on our drive back to the ranch. I put her to bed and called Larry. When I heard his voice, I slid down the wall onto the floor, sobbing.

  “I’ve handled everything life’s thrown my way,” I told him. “I just don’t know if I’m strong enough to handle this one alone.”

  “You don’t have to,” Larry said.

  Within hours, Larry arrived. He had taken his vacation time and withdrawn money from his checking account. He helped me slide Mama into the backseat of his car and the three of us headed northwest toward Denver.

  As we sped through New Mexico, each gouged-out place in the landscape reminded me of the wounds on Mama’s wrists. All I could see were deep canyons and fissures where blood flowed. In my mind, I kept opening Mama’s bedroom door to find her lying on blood-soaked sheets. I didn’t know how long it would take for these vivid images to fade away.

  After we left the psychiatrist’s office, we drove Mama straight to the hospital and parked the car.

  “I’m not sure about this,” Mama said, hugging herself with her bandaged wrists and pressing herself farther into the backseat.

  I reached in and grabbed her firmly by the arm. Larry hefted her bag out of the trunk.

  “It’ll be okay, Mama,” I reassured, knowing it took every bit of her courage to walk toward that hospital door.

  Mama stopped and looked around.

  “You can do this, Jean,” Larry said and held open the door for her.

  Mama walked hesitantly across the threshold. I felt a surge of relief. The woman in admissions was gentle and reassuring. A bouquet of red roses sat atop her desk; it was Valentine’s Day.

  Larry and I said good-bye to Mama. She hugged me for a long while.

  Mama wrote in her diary that first night:

  February 14, 1968

  My first day in the wards, and what a terrible feeling of terror. Windows are barred, doors are locked, and I’m so full of tranquilizer that the depression is smothering me with horror. I realize that I have placed myself here. Will I ever walk free again?

  After Larry and I dropped Mama off, we drove back to Texas together, mostly in silence. I looked over at him guiding the steering wheel. He returned my gaze and smiled. His presence helped calm me. For the first time in my life, I understood what it might feel like to have an older sibling, one to help carry the load. I loved Larry the way I imagined I would have loved my brother, Lanny, had I been given a chance to grow up with him.

  I had been thinking a lot about Lanny the past few weeks, ever since Aunt Betty’s letter arrived with the shocking news that Lanny had brain cancer. He was eleven years old. The last time I had seen him, he was an infant.

  My eighteenth birthday had come and gone and I still had not contacted my dad. Dad and Cathy had not heard from me since the summer Vicki and I waved good-bye from the backseat on our way to Kansas with Mama and Daddy. I alway
s wondered what I might say to reinitiate contact. I never guessed it would be under such dire circumstances.

  I was so saddened and sorrowful to hear about Lanny that I sat down that night to write my dad and Cathy a letter, hoping to offer them some small solace, to tell them how sorry I was.

  I received two answers right away, one letter from Dad, the other from Cathy. Dad said, “When I got through reading your nice letter I was so happy my eyes were full of tears. I missed you girls many times during the last ten and three-fourths years.” He said he had hoped and prayed I might someday write and even come for a visit. Cathy said they heard from Aunt Betty that we were in Texas and then California. “We wanted very much to see you and to write, but we talked it over, and decided under the circumstances maybe it would be best to just leave you alone.”

  On another page Cathy said Lanny had the worst type of cancer possible and the prognosis wasn’t good; he was undergoing cobalt treatments. She ended her letter, “You didn’t mention your mother. Where is she now?”

  I didn’t plan on telling them about Mama—at least not now. My dad didn’t go into detail about Lanny, but he wrote:

  Life is hard to understand at times. The next few weeks or months are going to be very hard on us. like you say we got to have faith no matter what happens. It is going to leave an awful hole in my life, but I must remember I have Cathy and Robin [Lanny’s baby sister and, therefore, mine as well]. You got in touch with me now and maybe Vicki [will], so I still have a lot to live for.

  Dad was right. Life was hard to understand. He, Cathy, and Lanny were fighting to hold on to life, and here I was driving with Larry because Mama tried to bleed hers away.

  “You okay?” Larry asked.

  I nodded. I was shell-shocked and unsure how long Mama might need to stay, but I wanted, more than anything, to rise to the occasion. I wanted to be a good mother to Brenda and Joni. I didn’t want them to feel abandoned the way I had, ever. They were too young to lose Mama. I wanted Mama to live for them, for herself, for me, for all of us.