The man at the corner table was talking to himself in sign language. He seemed upset. His T-shirt said, PAIN IS WEAKNESS LEAVING THE BODY.
“That’s what the ambulance driver said Mom was crazy as.”
“He was joking,” I said.
The man at the corner table brought his cigarette closer and closer to his eye. It was the width of a nickel away from his pupil. It hurt my teeth just to look. I shut my eyes. When I dared to open them again, the man was taking a puff and Audrey was over talking to the doughnuts. The man looked at me, smiled, and pumped his eyebrows like Groucho Marx. And then Audrey was gone. I found her finally in the chapel standing in front of a statue of the Blessed Mother. If you’re Catholic, you know the statue I’m talking about—Mary’s barefoot, and she’s standing on the spine of a snake. This is one gal you don’t mess with. Audrey was in front of the statue, but she was staring at the blank wall beside the statue. She said did I see anything on the wall. No, I didn’t. She said if you stare at the statue long enough and then move your eyes to the white wall, you’ll see the Blessed Virgin who isn’t really there, but is appearing to you as she did to the kids at Fatima. And you can talk to her, and she’ll listen until she fades away. “It’s a miracle, Johnny Boy.”
So, of course, I knew what Audrey was doing in Mom’s bedroom now, staring at the wall above Mom’s bed. I said, “Did you try to wake her up?”
“She told me she was feeling crispy.”
“I’ll get the sponge.”
I shook Mom and reminded her about the screen test. I told her the actors would be here in like thirty-five minutes. Audrey held the sopping sponge about a foot over Mom’s face. “I’ll count to three, Mom. And then Audrey squeezes.”
BLACKIE SAID, “Frances, you look simply famishing, my dear.” Mom wore a simple black sleeveless dress, black espadrilles, a white silk scarf tied around her head, and amber rosary beads around her neck. She looked, I thought, like a slim and elegant nun from the future. Blackie kissed her cheek, took her by the hand, and led her to the sofa. He picked up the bowl with its onion and put it in the Easter basket. “We’ll have the children sit with you.” He surveyed the living room, slid the rocker closer to the coffee table, and shook his head. “We can’t have a nun sitting in a lawn chair, now, can we?”
Mom said, “What is it I’m supposed to be doing again?”
“Acting.”
“And who am I?”
“The concerned mother.”
“And these are my kids, I take it.”
“Your beloved children.”
“Just so you know, they aren’t.”
“They are.”
“If they were my kids, I’d love them, wouldn’t I?”
And that’s when I realized this could go very wrong should Mom decide to go public with her delusions or lies or whatever they were. And if she went public, then maybe this wasn’t just a game she was playing.
She walked to the hutch and stared at a family photo we’d had taken in a studio three years earlier. Mom loved the whole Olan Mills experience. We sat for a portrait whenever she had a coupon. There are the four of us in white shirts, black slacks, and bare feet. Dad’s standing to the left with his arms crossed, and he’s grinning at the camera. Mom’s leaning into him, and she has her left hand on my head, tousling my hair. I’m looking up at my hair. My feet are crossed. Audrey’s on her tiptoes, hugging me, with her eyes closed like she’s making a wish. We’re all draped in Christmas bulbs. Mom said, “These are my authentic children here.”
Blackie took Mom by the shoulders. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, Frances, but for the next hour or so these two adorable children standing here are your kids, and you love them to death.” He put the photo on the coffee table. “If you need the picture to help you remember, then stare at it.”
“I might love them, but I’m not in love with them.”
“We’ll go with that for now.”
Mom closed her eyes, took a deep, slow breath, exhaled with a drone, and nodded. “What do I want?”
“To keep the family together.”
“What’s pulling us apart?”
“Your recent erratic behavior for which you are now being treated and which you deeply regret.”
“What’s my motivation?”
Blackie looked at me, back at Mom. “It’s what mothers do.”
“I’m kind of over motherhood.”
“This isn’t about you, Frances.” Blackie put his hands on his knees and leaned toward Mom, put his face inches from hers, and whispered, “It’s about the children.”
“The replacements.”
Blackie asked me, “Is your mother on any kind of pills?”
“Lots.”
“Why don’t we give her a few?”
Mom said, “I’m having a bit of a hard time holding on, you know. To all this. But like I told the husband, I’m just going through a phase. I’ll be fine. I’ve gone through phases before: sweet little rock ’n’ roller, pre-Raphaelite aesthete, Betty Crocker, ball-buster. I survived them all. And this too shall pass. I’ll be fine. I don’t know why it happens.” She shook her hands and then her arms and then her shoulders. She stretched all the muscles in her face. “I can do this,” she said.
Blackie sent me to the kitchen for a chair. “We’ll sit Sister in the rocker and the nurse here.” He regarded his set. He said, “Do you have a Bible we could put on the coffee table?” I got the Douay-Rheims from the junk drawer in the kitchen. “Perfect,” he said.
Mom looked at me and smiled. “My jewelry.”
“What about it?”
She snickered. “You stole my seahorse brooch.”
“Why would I steal it?”
“That’s what I’d like you to tell me.”
“You probably misplaced it like you misplace everything else.”
“I have an elaborate jewelry storage and inventory system which you know nothing about.”
Blackie said, “That’ll be our visitors.”
Mom said, “I know what you’re trying to do, Johnny.”
Blackie said, “Is anyone going to get the door?”
Audrey headed downstairs.
Mom opened her compact and looked at herself in the little mirror. She said, “The smaller the mirror, the more it’s me.” She tapped a cigarette from her pack and leaned back into the sofa. She said, “Sometimes when I sit I become part of the sofa, and then it’s hard to move or talk or anything.”
Blackie told her to lean forward; maybe that would keep her separate.
She said, “Does that ever happen to you?”
When Sister Mary Eustochium and Nurse Berthiaume arrived, I took Sister’s black knit shawl and Nurse’s Irish fisherman’s sweater and brought them to Audrey’s room and dropped them on the bed. When the ladies took their seats, Blackie clapped his hands and said, “Action!”
Sister said, “Pardon me?”
Mom said, “Have we had this conversation before?”
Sister looked at Nurse Berthiaume.
Blackie introduced himself as our favorite uncle, said he’d stay out of our hair. He stood behind our guests. “Pretend I’m not even here.”
Deluxe rubbed his body along Nurse Berthiaume’s legs. Then he leaped onto Sister’s ample lap, purred, curled, settled, tucked his tail under his chin, and shut his eyes.
“He’s a good judge of character,” Mom said.
She said, “What’s his name?”
“Saul of Tarsus,” I said, fingers crossed to void the lie.
Audrey walked in wearing her First Communion veil and carrying a tray of snacks—yellow and white cubes of cheese speared with red plastic toothpicks, Ritz crackers spread with deviled ham, and a blue anodized aluminum tumbler of Slim Jims. She curtsied, offered each of us a napkin and snack in turn. Sister declined politely. Nurse Berthiaume had one of each. Deluxe lifted his head and sniffed. He kneaded Sister’s thigh and returned to sleep. When Audrey excused herself, Mom remarked at w
hat a thoughtful child Audrey was, always had been. A blessing.
Nurse Berthiaume took a small green and copper beanbag ashtray out of her capacious black pocketbook and set it on the coffee table. She lit up a Chesterfield.
Sister said, “Actually, we’re here to talk about your Audrey.”
Mom said, “My Audrey?” She shook her head, smiled. “Audrey belongs to the world.”
Sister said, “We’re concerned about her behavior.”
“Her health and well-being,” Nurse Berthiaume said.
“As you should be,” Mom said.
There followed a catalogue of Audrey’s alleged aberrant behaviors. The closet incident, of course, the face painting, the squid on the desk, the confetti storm, the hamster release, the bubble-blowing, the ventriloquism—
“The what?” Mom said.
Sister said, “She can throw her voice.”
“Talk with her mouth closed,” Nurse Berthiaume said.
“And this has caused some innocent young ladies to be unfairly punished,” Sister said.
Mom looked at me or whom she took to be my replacement, I still wasn’t sure. “We should get her on Amateur Auditions.” She put her cigarette to her lips. I lit it for her with my new Sacred Heart Zippo, a rash gesture, since I’d stolen the lighter from Smokey’s News and Tobacco. I liked the burning heart with the crown of thorns around it. I liked the smell of butane. I knew stealing was a sin, and I wasn’t proud of it, and I knew I’d have to confess eventually, but I also knew that Father “One Hail Mary” Donega would make it all better in thirty seconds. No matter how or how often you had sinned, your penance was one Hail Mary. Bludgeon your grandparents to death with a tire iron, one Hail Mary. Miss Mass on Sunday, one Hail Mary. Steal a lighter (me), assault your teacher (Dave Brin), all the same. And so on Saturdays all the teenagers and young marrieds lined up outside Father Donega’s confessional while across the church Monsignor screamed at some old woman who had slipped a dollar out of her husband’s slacks to buy milk for the family.
Nurse Berthiaume said, “There are times Audrey doesn’t seem to be there. You talk to her, and she stares at you in silence.”
Blackie said that Einstein didn’t talk until he was like ten or something. He caught himself butting in, apologized, said, I’m not here, and zipped his lips.
Nurse Berthiaume blew three impressive smoke rings that swirled, jiggled, and widened as they rose toward the ceiling. Audrey put her finger through the third, looked at Nurse Berthiaume, and said, “Now we’re married.”
Nurse Berthiaume cleared her throat and said, “We’re worried that she might be having petit mal seizures.”
Audrey sang, “Star of tomorrow, who will it be…”
Nurse Berthiaume asked Mom if she had ever had Audrey evaluated by a neurologist.
“I’ve seen no reason to.”
Audrey pointed at Sister and sang, “With your vote it could be me…”
“She has conversations with people who aren’t there,” Sister said.
“It’s called prayer,” Mom said.
“It’s up to you…” Audrey sang and cake-walked out of the room.
Sister and the nurse exchanged glances. Deluxe sat up on Sister’s lap and stared at her while she spoke. “She seems to be impervious to discipline.”
Nurse Berthiaume said, “Incapable of controlling her impulses.”
As if on cue, Audrey walked back into the room for her reprise with a black lace mantilla in place of the white veil. She folded her hands and sang “Ave Maria” in Latin, only she didn’t know all the words, so she stopped after what sounded like “Domino’s take-home.”
Mom crushed her lit cigarette with her thumb and index finger. She said, “I see what’s going on here, ladies.” She slid the clinched butt behind her ear. The flame wasn’t quite out. A strand of her hair blazed and went out, like a spark from a Tesla coil.
Sister said, “What did you just do?”
Mom said, “You may say what you want me to hear, but I hear what you don’t want to say.”
Sister said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Loud and clear.”
This wasn’t going well. We needed a distraction. I tried lighting my tie on fire. Mom held out her hand for the lighter. I gave it to her. She hit me on the head with it. I whimpered, She said, “You really want something to cry about?”
I said, “It hurt.”
She addressed our guests. “Sister Basilla taught me all about this in British lit. She told us the real text is the subtext.” Mom raised her eyebrows and smiled. “You say something, Sister, and I’ll translate for the peanut gallery.”
“This is insane, Frances,” Sister said.
Mom turned to us. “Frances knows the truth about her children.”
Nurse Berthiaume said, “Frances. Look at my eyes and listen to my words. What do you think that we think that you supposedly know about your children?”
Mom translated. “‘We have your children, and they are in grave danger.’”
Sister looked to Blackie for help. Mom said she wanted her kids back. She wouldn’t go to the cops, promise. No one had to know.
Sister said, “Where’s your husband, Frances?”
Mom said, “You can dispense with the charade, my dear.”
I said Dad was away on business.
“We had hoped he’d be here.”
I said, “He’d rather be here than anywhere. Trust me, Sister.”
Audrey held out her arms and Deluxe leaped into them. Sister brushed cat hair off her habit. Deluxe swatted Audrey’s mantilla.
Nurse Berthiaume said, “Because we need to discuss getting Audrey the help that she so obviously needs.”
Mom said, “My Audrey?”
“And that you seem unable to provide.”
Sister said, “She needs a thorough psychological examination, a neurological workup—”
“And perhaps a round of therapy,” Nurse Berthiaume said.
Mom said, “There are some mothers who would tell you two Nosey Parkers to fuck yourselves.”
Oh, shit. Blackie brought his hands to his head. Audrey hid a smile behind her hand. Sister sat up. Nurse Berthiaume leaned forward. I put my arm on Mom’s shoulder wishing her back into character, holding her still.
Someone from the kitchen, it sounded like, said, “Attagirl, Frances!” I looked at Audrey. She grinned and stared straight ahead.
Mom said, “But I’m not that kind of gal, girls. I’m a mother with the best interests of her children at heart. Isn’t that right, Blackie?”
Sister said, “Perhaps our meeting here is over.”
The voice from the kitchen said, “Bondurant Number Twenty: Always have a Plan B.” And with that Blackie stepped backward across the parlor, eased the door open, and slipped out of the apartment.
I said, “Maybe Audrey could see Mom’s psychologist.”
Sister said, “Mom’s psychologist?”
“Dr. Christian Reininger,” I said.
“German,” Mom said. “Need I say more?”
The phone rang. I answered. Blackie said, “I’m your dad. Put the penguin on.”
“Dad?”
Mom said, “I’m not here,” and then, “Who am I supposed to be again?”
I gave the handset to Sister and held the phone on my hip. “What a coincidence,” she said. She turned and looked around the room. “Yes, I see.” She sat back in her chair. “I think we’re finished playing games here.” She lifted her left eyebrow and looked at Nurse Berthiaume. “I think you know exactly what games, Uncle Blackie, if that’s who you are.”
I tried to lift just one eyebrow. That way I would look both duped and incredulous. Couldn’t do it.
And then Sister asked Mom just what on earth was going on here, and Mom said, “Isn’t it obvious, dear?”
Nurse Berthiaume picked at her teeth with a Requiem Savings and Loan matchbook and sucked at the loosened bits of Slim Jim. I saw that the to
ps of her feet had swelled over the tops of her black shoes.
Sister told Mom, “You’ll be hearing from us.”
Blackie came up the back stairs as our visitors left by the front. He said, “Well, we can expect unpleasant repercussions, I’m afraid.”
Mom said, “I fucked up, didn’t I?”
“You did what you could.” Blackie looked at me. “How long has she been like this?”
“Has she been like what?” Mom said.
“You’re addlepated, Frances.”
I said, “On and off for a while.”
Blackie said, “Let me see your hand.”
Mom seemed surprised at the blister on her thumb. Audrey went for the Neosporin. Mom blew on her blister. “I don’t know why they have it in for me.”
“The nuns?” Blackie said.
“The impresarios.”
“Who?”
“You think they tell you who they are?”
I said, “Dad’s going to have to straighten out this mess.”
Mom waved me over. She held my arm and sniffed my neck. She leaned back, looked me over, turned me around. She shook her head. She said, “You could call it a blessing, I suppose. Or a curse?”
“What’s that, dear?” Blackie said.
“How I can see into people.”
“Like the Visible Man?” Audrey said.
“Into, not inside.”
“How do you do it?” Audrey said.
“By dipping my toast into the blue yolks of your sunnyside eyes.”
“What if I close them?”
Blackie said, “And what do you see, Frances?”
“All the levels of deceit. All the cunning nuance and the blistering intentions.”
“Must be scary.”
“I can’t be lied to, in other words.”
“How long have you been able to do this?”
“Always, but I only lately realized I could.”
Over the years I’d come to realize how uncommonly susceptible Mom was to suggestions regarding her physical condition. I said, “You look like you’ve got one of your migraines coming on.”
She closed her eyes and massaged her temples. “I should probably lie down,” she said.
Dad, in fact, did call that night from a motel near the Wilbur Cross Parkway in Wallingford, Connecticut. He told me he’d be home in the morning—what did I think of that?—and asked to speak to Mom.
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