“You live around here?”
“With my boyfriend, yes.”
“Why ain’t he helping you?”
“He’s on duty.”
“He’s police?”
I nodded yes, and the car shrunk away. I suddenly remembered: I’d forgotten to ask Chris what he would have named the hurricane. I’d call later.
Back at the apartment, I found Flannery and Bishop running around nervously and scratching the couch. The cats proved excellent meteorologists. The storm was about to arrive. So I printed my manuscript—which mostly consisted of scenes from my childhood—and then huddled in the living room with the cats and my new writing supplies.
I began by cutting out individual, representative sentences from my manuscript, such as: “I closed my left eye, then my right, a game of illusions that moved objects, moving my dad an inch each time.” I then glued each sentence to its own piece of paper and expanded on the sentences. I was deepening the smaller narratives in order to find the bigger narrative. Meanwhile, the cats were running around, scattering loose sentences around the living room. Flannery had a sentence in her mouth, but before I could tear it out she swallowed it. Now I didn’t know what I was missing.
My head ached, and the wind and rain weren’t helping. They sounded like someone trying to break in. That guy hadn’t followed me home, had he? No, of course not. I closed my eyes and lay on the floor. What time was it? I looked at my phone, and it was dead, and I’d forgotten to call my mom. I should sleep. I’d call her after I slept
But I shouldn’t sleep in the front room, our bedroom, because of the windows. Maybe I shouldn’t sleep—because of all these ideas for the book. What ideas? Too many to write. It was just a matter of which to write first. What if tomorrow I woke up and couldn’t write?
I couldn’t sleep. So I returned to cutting and gluing sentences but was losing the inspiration to write more sentences inspired by those sentences. I decided to record audio. I’d record what I wanted to write, and then I could transcribe the recording. Except that wasn’t writing, was it?
What was writing, really?
The hurricane was a metaphor. It was a metaphor for grief. Even though it was bearing down on me, I was supposed to write as if I were outside the hurricane, observing the hurricane. I could see the destruction but I wasn’t in it. That was how this was supposed to work. Was it ethically problematic that I was using a deadly hurricane as a metaphor for my grief? Was it unethical that I was writing nonfiction about the dead—who could never explain themselves? It was. It was.
Groceries. I’d forgotten to buy groceries.
•
The storm ended, and I was disgusted by my sorry attempts at writing. Our apartment hadn’t even flooded. So many other New Yorkers had lost their homes. Maybe I could donate to the Coalition for the Homeless and any hurricane relief funds? Directly helping animals seemed manageable. I contacted an animal rescue nonprofit and arranged to foster cats. When a staffer at the rescue organization brought two kittens to my apartment, she said they’d been abandoned during the storm. So I nicknamed them Sandy cats. She asked if she could call their other cats Sandy cats.
“I don’t mind,” I said.
Turned out it was successful marketing. A few days later she reported that any cat called a Sandy cat—no matter how old—was fostered or adopted almost immediately.
I wanted to brag to Chris, but I didn’t want to tell him quite yet about the kittens. I felt bad not asking him first—even though I felt sure he wouldn’t mind. It was Flannery and Bishop I was worried about. Those two knew something was up, and the kittens—it turned out—did not get along. The white kitten terrorized the tuxedo kitten, biting his ears and tail until the tuxedo cried and jumped on my lap. So I had to separate the kittens and, in addition, keep both of them separate from Flannery and Bishop. I was running back and forth between all four, petting each one for equal amounts of time.
Then I learned through the news that some senior citizens were missing from their nursing homes—it had all happened during the hurricane. I contacted a friend from undergrad who worked for a think tank. I explained my plan for a seniors’ registry.
“I’m having trouble following,” he said.
“I’ll think on this some more. I just need to flesh out my ideas for sign-in sites. I’ll be in touch.”
•
A few days later, I listened to one of the recordings I made during the hurricane:
This book should not be that difficult. I’m being too ambitious. I’m making it too difficult. I’m too difficult. I don’t mean to be. I need to try harder all around. What I need to describe is my experience of being named after a dead sibling. Except I haven’t thought about her as much—as constantly as I do—until now. Except—Except. I say “except” a lot. I wonder why it sounds the same as “accept.” Except I accept my name. Except I don’t accept his death.
I sounded idiotic—and yet I couldn’t bring myself to delete the recording. Was I a digital hoarder?
I circled around the neighborhood, thinking about lost seniors and homeless animals, homeless people and my home back in Ohio, mania and the depression that usually slid in afterward. I wasn’t manic though. In the recording I was talking fast, and sure, the “except”/“accept” part was sort of manic-y, but if I were manic I wouldn’t be worried about mania. I didn’t think so anyway.
A sign planted outside the local American Legion, just a few blocks from my apartment, read: DROP OFF DONATIONS FOR SANDY VICTIMS HERE. I ran back home and picked out coats and shoes that I knew I wouldn’t wear anymore. I carried armfuls of clothes there.
Wouldn’t my dad be proud of all I was doing? I was helping animals and helping hurricane victims. I was trying to help lost seniors, and eventually I’d paint an accent wall in the kitchen. My dad had been a maintenance painter. And a senior. And he’d loved animals. I didn’t know if he’d ever experienced a hurricane. Although I could research that. And I still needed to inquire about Milly.
Chris called, said he would come back tomorrow.
“Okay,” I told him, “there’s something you should know.”
I told him about the kittens.
“That’s fine,” he said. “But we’re not keeping them, right?”
“No, no, no. I’ll find a permanent home for them.”
I also explained that I hadn’t yet painted or hung the cookie cutters. I also told him that I gave away some clothes. I possibly, accidentally, donated one of his shirts.
“But I’ll buy you a new one.”
“Are you okay?” he asked. “What’s going on?”
SEVENTEEN
I listen to another recording I made during Hurricane Sandy:
I repeat myself. I don’t know the order in which I’m supposed to explain myself. I made the promise, I think, because I wanted to keep him alive, I wanted another way to spend time with him. I knew he would die. Why else did I make the promise? So why did I leave him?
If I never finish the book, my dad would understand, and if he wouldn’t it doesn’t matter. He’s dead.
JEANNE
“What’s your plot?” my professor asked me in her office. “You don’t have a plot.”
“What if it’s about the promise to write the book?” I asked.
“Writing the book can’t be the plot of the book,” she said.
“You’re probably right. I don’t know why—”
“Your book is about your search for your dead half sister.”
•
How is it that I know the difference between story and plot, and yet I can’t make plot work on the page?
According to E. M. Forster: The king died, and then the queen died—that’s a story. The king died, and then the queen died of grief—that’s a plot.
The father dies, and then the daughter loses her mind—that’s a story.
The father dies, and then the daughter loses her mind from grief—that’s a plot.
“Everyone’s parents
die,” my professor said. “This can’t be about that.”
MENTAL ILLNESS
The animal rescue organization approved my application to adopt Milly, but they wanted $400. I’d expected the fee to be $150, max. Also, Milly was not in their Brooklyn location. She’d been moved to Long Island.
“I’ll have to rent a car to pick her up,” I told the rescue worker. “Is there any way you can reduce the adoption fee?”
“No.”
“Oh. The animal shelters in Manhattan don’t charge that much. I understand you have overhead costs, but—”
“Four hundred dollars.”
“I’ll need to talk it over with my partner.”
She hung up without saying good-bye.
•
“The living room is a mess, like my manuscript,” I told Chris after he returned from Indiana. “Also, the kittens are still here. Also, Milly is going to cost us $400.”
“What? Four hundred? She’s seven years old and doesn’t have eyes.”
I rocked the tuxedo kitten like a baby. The white kitten played with a hair tie in our bed.
“Just because she’s older and doesn’t have eyes doesn’t mean she should be worth less money,” I told him.
“You know what I mean,” he said. “How many people are really trying to adopt a special-needs dog with sutures for eyes?”
“We could manage the kittens.”
He hugged me.
“So that’s a yes?” I asked.
•
The woman from the animal rescue picked up the kittens. Turned out she’d found a home for them. So now Chris could pretend like he’d wanted to keep the kittens.
“You know I wouldn’t have told you no,” he said. “I went along with the eyeless dog.”
“Her name is Milly, or would have been Milly.”
“I researched playpens for Milly,” he said.
JEANNE
A classmate told me that Jeanne is pronounced the same as Jean.
“Some people pronounce it the same as Jeannie,” I said.
“I don’t think you’re right,” she said.
Back at my apartment, I searched YouTube for videos of women named Jeanne. I found a TV news story about the soap opera star Jeanne Cooper. And yes, she pronounced her name with two syllables. I considered sending this proof to the classmate.
But I didn’t want to seem like I cared that much. Because anyway, I had already decided that my book wasn’t about my half sister.
•
I called my mom.
“Dad’s daughter who died, her name is pronounced the same as mine, right?”
“That’s right,” my mom said. “Why?”
“I might include more of her in the book.”
DAD
“It’s hard for me to read your writing,” a classmate told me. “I didn’t have a good father. That’s why I want to know more about why you loved him so much. I just didn’t know it was possible.”
JEANNE
“Why do you think you’re obsessed with Jeanne?” my therapist asked.
“I’m not obsessed,” I told him.
“What would you call it?”
My therapist was young and well-read—many of our meetings began with one of us asking the other, “Have you read this book?” He worked for a counseling center that accepted payment on a sliding scale. I started seeing him shortly before I started the memoir program, and I trusted him. I didn’t lie to him, at least I didn’t mean to; I really didn’t believe my interest in Jeanne was unreasonable.
“I’m curious,” I said.
“Why do you think you’re curious about Jeanne, then?”
“Maybe I’m trying to convince myself that my father loved me less than I know he did.”
“Why?”
“I need to stop missing him so much.”
MENTAL ILLNESS
I sat at a picnic table in the park, trying to write after a two-hour walk failed to calm me. I couldn’t stop berating myself aloud. So I chose empty side streets and struggled not to speak if anyone was nearby.
If I couldn’t control my voice, how could I control my writing?
•
After a workshop, a classmate told me: “Your psychosis scenes are the most interesting. But I’d like to see more scene-setting within those.”
“I don’t really remember, I guess I could re-create, but then—”
“The mental illness stuff,” she said, “is the most interesting. There definitely should be more scenes of you losing it.”
JEANNE
Was my classmate wrong about adding scenes of my psychosis? She’d been wrong about the pronunciation of Jeanne’s name. I never told her. Should I have told her? No. It would have seemed like it bothered me, and if she thought it bothered me then she’d call Jeanne the internal conflict.
But was I manufacturing conflict in order to construct plot?
•
Bette called again, recommended I contact a writer named Genie.
“Spelled G-E-N-I-E,” Bette said, and my hand shook while I wrote down the name. “She may be able to help you.”
Genie wrote a novel set in 1950s Newburgh, and her father served as city manager around the time Jeanne died.
So I e-mailed Genie, and she replied within minutes.
“Visit Newburgh,” she said. “You can stay with me. I have plenty of room in my house.”
We arranged a date. It happened to fall the same month as the ten-year anniversary of my dad’s death.
“Given the timing,” Chris said, “are you sure you want to go?”
“I’ll be fine,” I told him.
That night, I lost control of my voice.
“Jeannie’s going to die,” I said to my bathroom mirror. “Jeanne’s dead.”
I didn’t tell Chris.
MENTAL ILLNESS
Chris and I were walking to a friend’s dinner party in our neighborhood.
“Dinner parties shouldn’t happen until your late thirties,” I said. “I feel like a kid playing dress-up.”
My right shoulder shot up, and my head shot down to meet it.
“I don’t think I can go,” I said.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
My neck twitched hard and fast.
“Imagine being blamed for your child’s death,” I said.
He walked me home. He insisted on staying with me.
“I’ll be okay,” I said. “I’ll be more upset if you don’t go to the party.”
After he left, I washed my face. When I looked into the mirror, I heard a voice say: Cut your eyes out. You’re supposed to know what it’s like.
JEANNE
Despite Chris’s attempts to convince me to stay, I took a train to Beacon, New York. Genie was waiting outside her car when I stepped off the train.
“Jeannie!” she said. “I’m Genie.”
Genie was petite and delicate-faced. She hugged me, said she was so happy that I’d be staying with her for the weekend.
“Isn’t it funny?” she said. “Same name. Different spellings.”
As we drove into Newburgh, we passed rows and rows of once-stately houses: broken and boarded-up windows, peeling paint, crumbling porches.
“Newburgh’s changed,” she said. “It was a different town when I was a girl. Oh, you’ll never believe this, but I mentioned you to my neighbor Verna, and she knew Jeanne. They went to school together. Would you like to meet her? I can tell you about the town, and she can tell you about your stepsister.”
“Actually, Jeanne is my half sister,” I said.
“Half sister. I forgot.”
“It’s just, she and I share the same dad.” My shoulders tightened. “Half sister, stepsister. It doesn’t matter. I’d love to meet Verna. It’s so kind of you to be helping me.”
“Of course. This is all so interesting.”
As Genie drove, she told me about Newburgh—but my thoughts drowned out her voice. She pulled in next to a huge house.
/> “This is us,” she said, and I followed her inside.
She handed me a framed Jewish poem about names.
“My daughter gave this to me years ago, and I think you’ll find it interesting, given everything,” she said and then left the room to call Verna on the phone.
I sat on the couch, reading the poem to myself—“each man has a name given him by the seasons of the year and given him by his blindness”—when I heard a voice from outside say, “Genie? It’s Verna.”
“Verna?” Genie said from another room. “I was just about to call you.”
Just as Genie came into the room, Verna opened the door, saw me, and stopped. “Oh my gosh,” she said, “you look so much like Jeanne. Yes, you look like a Vanasco.”
I didn’t know how to respond.
“Thank you for doing this,” I said. “It means a lot.”
We sat at the kitchen table. Genie poured us coffee, and I asked Verna what she remembered of Jeanne.
“Very nice girl. Friendly, warm. Popular. Gorgeous.”
I tried pressing for more details. I didn’t expect too much. More than fifty years had passed since Jeanne died.
“She always dressed nicely,” Verna said. “I remember she had the prettiest camel skirt. Real camel hair. Now that was class. I can’t believe I’m remembering this but the day she had that on, she also wore a white blouse and a blazer. We were at Walt’s. She and I would often stand in Walt’s and talk.”
“Walt’s?” I said.
“A bunch of us used to go to lunch, especially juniors and seniors, to this place on Bush Avenue. Walt’s, it was called. We would all walk down in groups and get sandwiches and sodas and we’d eat there standing. That’s where I’d always meet up with Jeanne. And gee, I really, really liked that girl. She was a very nice person. I always felt that way about her. Very well-liked. Very well-liked. If you heard the name Jeanne Vanasco, you would think, ‘Oh, she’s so nice.’ You would never hear a negative thing about Jeanne, ever.”
“Did you go to her funeral?” I asked.
I thought of my half sisters screaming at Jeanne’s casket.
The Glass Eye Page 13