by Lois Walden
A voice asks, ‘Can you hear me?’
I open my eyes. Mary Michelin is standing over me. I am lying on her office floor. I look straight into her eyes. ‘I can hear you … This is embarrassing.’
‘Never be embarrassed in my office.’
‘Okay. But we’ve only just met.’ We laugh.
‘I am very glad we have.’
‘I’m not so sure.’
‘I can see why. Would you like a glass of water?’
‘No, thank you. But, I will get back in the chair. I prefer to be eye level.’ We laugh again. After which there is a very, I mean, very long pause. ‘How are we going to work together?’
‘Quite well, I think.’
I have very little to say after the spectacle … ‘So … How’s Dr Dot?’
‘How do you know Dr Dot?’
‘He was my therapist during the California breakdown.’
‘How did you know he … I left his referral number, didn’t I?’
‘You certainly did. Quite surprised I was.’
‘I hope my professional relationship with Dr Dot and your professional relationship with him won’t keep you from working with me.’
‘I don’t think anything could keep me from working with you.’
‘When would you like to come next?’
‘Tomorrow. This afternoon. This evening.’
She opens her black leather appointment book. ‘I have a nine a.m. opening.’
‘I … I have trouble getting … never mind. Nine a.m. I hope I didn’t scare you.’
‘Not at all.’
I stumble out the door. What must she think? What an opening. What happened before I hit the floor? Best not to remember. Auspicious therapeutic convergence. Mary Michelin … bet you haven’t seen a lot of that on your office floor. I have Dina to thank for this. I have Dina to thank for so much of the good stuff. I walk the Village streets; west on 10th, north on University, west again on 13th. Stop at a construction site. Can’t fall through the cracks in the open sidewalk. Can fall into the bottom of sludge called personality. Shovel self into a corner of insubordinate longing. How I long for the moment when I was a bird fish, when I could swim and fly all at once, in a space with no past or future in its way. In that space is the breath, the rhythm, the endless adventure without any fragmented self, without doubt, without fear. That is where I want to be, where the bird fish spawns the present participle called life.
At Fifth Avenue I duck into the 14th Street subway, wind down deep into the city’s grip, until I am standing in front of the Canarsie Line. I remember my underground motel in Iowa. That was before Beatrice, before I knew that I am not where I belong, and have never been. The train arrives.
Before too long, I arrive at West 96th Street. I do not remember switching trains, but after all that has happened, it is a miracle I am home at all.
The elevator is broken. I walk up six flights, definitely enough exercise for the day. When I enter the apartment, I feel overwhelmed with a nauseating despair. I drop down onto my knees in front of the toilet, barf, flush my grief down the bowl. There are four messages on the machine: Dina checking in on my time with Pop, as well as my time with Mary Michelin; Simone informing me that she will arrive home on Friday evening. Saul extolling the virtues of sleeping with men who scramble eggs well … And sweet Molly Malone.
Her voice is full of smiles. ‘Hi Loli. You won’t believe it. Willwrite thinks I have talent. He’s furious at me for not having applied myself sooner. If I work hard, I might be able to get into a decent college. He wants me to submit my story to a national essay contest. Isn’t that awesome? Maybe I should come east and look at schools back there. He wants me to apply to the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. He’s almost positive I can get in there. That’s where he went, says he’ll write me a recommendation. I have to study really hard for my college boards. Who knows. Maybe I can write. Wouldn’t that be something? Oh, by the way, Dad’s in therapy. He asked Mom and me to come to some of his sessions. He wants to come back home.’ My heart sinks. ‘He’s joined AA. He’s dumped the bimbo. We’re all going to the therapist this week.’ My heart sinks again. ‘Please call. I miss you a lot. So does Mom. We wish you were here.’ What if she takes him back? ‘Glad your message machine lets you talk for more than sixty seconds. I’m not a very good editor … yet. I’ll get better. I promise. Bye. Love you.’
Therapy. Call Maggie. If Molly picks up, I’ll say I’m calling her … Pop would love Maggie. Where’s that monkey? Maybe it fell behind the radiator. I’ll find it the next time I’m in Beechwood.
I pay more overdue bills than I can cope with, but I cope. I decide teaching in Montana is a bad idea. Dina’s got her hands full with Pop. Do not want to feel guilty when his death is behind me. I know that feeling too well. I want to be a peaceful orphan.
I call Stuart Manly to inform him of my decision. Though I would like to be told that I am irreplaceable, instead, I am told, I will be replaced by a fledgling fellow, who is packed and ready to go, not the slightest problem. I am not pleased, but I have personal obligations that need my undivided attention. I pick up the phone and dial Maggie’s number. It rings twice. I hang up. ‘I need you,’ I say to myself. With phone in hand, I contemplate my mother’s expertise at helping my father from this world to the next. On Tuesday morning, somehow, I manage to drag myself out of bed in time to make it to Mary Michelin’s office for my nine a.m. appointment. She is wearing a new black outfit. I suppose that wearing no color whatsoever neutralizes being projected upon. She is still beautiful.
‘How are you today?’
‘Tired.’
‘Nine is early for you, isn’t it?’
‘Can’t think my way through my bullshit.’
‘You’re a night bird then?’
‘Night bird fish.’
‘Bird fish?’
‘A bird fish, like a salmon with wings.’
‘That’s an interesting way to think of yourself.’
‘Always felt like a bird fish. When I can’t breathe, which, as you have seen, happens from time to time, I feel like I’m trying to breathe through my gills. But I don’t have gills. I don’t think I have gills.’
‘Do you have any memory of being inside your mother’s womb?’
‘No.’
‘As an unborn child, you are very much like a fish. The amniotic fluid is the embryo’s sea.’
‘Sometimes I get the feeling, when I arrived on earth, I didn’t quite make the switch over from gills to lungs. Like I said, I have breathing issues. Always had them. My sister says I’ve had trouble breathing ever since I was an infant.’
‘Why don’t you ask her if she remembers when it first began. It would be helpful.’
‘I will. Look, about Dr Dot.’
‘I’m glad you brought it up.’
‘I didn’t think very much of his work. My therapist, Dr Guttman, was vacationing on Cape Cod. It was August. Dr Dot was his sub. I was out of my mind back then. It was a year after my mother’s suicide. I had gotten myself involved with a cult … a crazy guru named Bovar. I left the cult, lost my mind … My mother started talking to me in nursery rhymes. I saw demons. It’s hard to explain. When Guttman recommended Dot, I had no choice. Guttman was my therapist. I trusted him.’
‘So you worked with Dr Guttman?’
‘I did.’
Mary sighs, ‘Dr Guttman was my mentor.’
‘He was? What a small world.’
‘The psychoanalytic world is a very small world indeed.’
‘Your work is so different from his, at least so far. Guttman hardly ever spoke. I spent quite a bit of time and money looking at his shoes. His shoes were my barometer for whether I thought he was having a good day or a bad day. It was total projection. He had big feet. He must have had a huge dick. You know the foot wanger theory?’ Mary Michelin seems extremely uncomfortable with where the conversation has taken us. Sensing her disco
mfort, I change the subject. ‘And Dr Dot? Where did he come into all of this?’
‘Leo had many students …’ Mary reaches behind her, turns the air conditioner to low.
‘Leo?’ Familiar. Very familiar.
‘Dr Guttman.’ Mary Michelin blushes. I am not a psychic or a mind reader, but I, at the moment of blush, am certain of Mary Michelin’s emotional involvement with Dr Leo Guttman. I know it’s not my place to inquire about Mary’s life. But … ‘How is Dr Guttman?’
A wistful Mary replies, ‘He died five years ago August while vacationing on Cape Cod.’
‘I always imagined him playing Frisbee by the sea.’
‘Yes.’ … Mary Michelin spent summers on Cape Cod with Dr Leo Guttman. They were lovers for years. They made love in the dunes. They played Frisbee by the water’s edge. When we patients were having our breakdowns in August, Mary and Leo were fucking their analytic minds out on Ol’ Cape Cod. Mary Michelin has never loved another man. Dr Guttman was the great love of her life. I want to cry; another dead love.
‘Weird that you should know both Dr Guttman and Dr Dot.’
‘Quite a coincidence.’
‘Quite. Would you mind opening a window? It’s kind of stuffy in here.’
‘I’ll turn up the air conditioner.’ She turns up the fan speed.
‘Mary, Mary quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?’
‘Oh no.’
‘Is that too much air then?’ Mary asks.
‘It’s perfect. Just perfect.’
‘Silver bells and cockle shells.’
I sigh, ‘We can never have too much air.’
‘Without it we wouldn’t be here, would we?’
‘Well … most of us … mere mortals … wouldn’t.’
‘Yes. Isn’t that the truth.’
‘Mortals … most of us.’
‘And pretty maids all in a row.’
After the love life of Mary Michelin, I train it up to Beechwood, to visit Mrs B. at Beechwood Manor, the old age home three blocks from the railroad station.
Walk the winding driveway, revolve into the Tudor-style building, stand in the middle of a beige florescent entry. You don’t get well in a place like this, filled with that final-chapter, last-stop smell.
A lovely nurse’s aide approaches. ‘May I help you?’
‘I’m looking for Mrs B.’
‘She’s in the recreation room, straight down the corridor, through the double glass doors.’
‘Thank you.’ I walk quite a distance, until I reach the glass doors. Behind them, I hear the sound of an out-of-tune spinet piano, playing a familiar melody. I walk through the doors, into the room. There she sits, stunning, elegant, playing and singing her heart out:
‘In Dublin’s fair city,
Where the girls are so pretty,
I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone …’
I take a step. The floor creaks. Mrs B. stops playing, turns.
‘Who’s there? Who is it?’ She is so beautiful, like a still life, sitting in the noonday sun. I look at her eyes. Those eyes are so familiar. She looks, but does not see me. ‘Who is it? Who’s there?’
‘It’s me, Mrs B. It’s Loli.’
‘Loli! What a wonderful surprise. Come here. Sit down next to me.’ I sit down on the bench. She squeezes my hand. I take her right hand in mine. I kiss it, then place it back on the ivories. She looks at me. Why, I cannot imagine. She can’t see me. Maybe she can … Those eyes. Yes. Those are Maggie Malone’s luminescent eyes … Maggie and Mrs B. How remarkable.
Do you remember this song?’ She begins to play.
‘In Dublin’s fair city,
Where the girls are so pretty …’
We sing the next few lines together.
‘I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone,
As she wheeled her wheelbarrow,
Through streets broad and narrow …’
And together in perfect harmony.
‘Crying, “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh,”’
And again…
‘Alive, alive, oh! alive, alive oh!’
And for the finale, she joins us adding a perfect third part harmony.
‘Crying, “Cockles and mussels alive, alive oh.”’
Mrs B. cries. I wipe her tears. As if she could see me, she wipes mine. I wonder if she too has heard my mother’s voice; hears her voice all the time. Has she ever forgotten that day when she found my mother in the bathtub, naked, no longer out of her mind, just out of her body, and for a little while, out of this world. What are the appropriate topics of conversation during a time such as this … with my mother’s best friend, my father’s ex-wife, my former neighbor and stepmother Mrs B. What about Burt? What does she want to talk about? Play it by ear.
Mrs B. Takes the Wheel
‘It’s been a very long time. Hasn’t it, Loli?’
‘Very.’
‘Almost twenty years?’
‘At least.’
‘Are you well? What a silly question.’
‘I’m fine, considering.’
‘Let’s go back to my room. This piano bench was not made for two people.’ I help her to her feet. She is shaky, but has no trouble when it comes to finding her way through the glass doors. ‘I see shadows. I see light and shadows. That’s how I find my way … They call them cotton wool spots. Diabetic retinopathy. That’s the diagnosis. Nowadays they have a diagnosis for everything. Everything. Soon I won’t see the shadows or the light.’ We walk arm in arm toward Mrs B.’s room. ‘How’s your sister?’
‘She’s pretty upset about Pop.’
‘I imagine she would be. He was her favorite.’
‘She was his favorite.’
‘Not true.’
‘It seemed that way.’
‘He’s a good man, your father. God knows it hasn’t been an easy life for him.’
‘I’m so sorry about Burt.’
‘Poor Burt never had a chance. When Sid and I divorced, I thought Burt was going to commit suicide.’ Mrs B. opens the door. We enter her shrinking world. There is a bed, a night table, and a small porcelain lamp on the table. ‘I love the light in this room.’
‘It’s lovely.’ The room is dark. The air is heavy. Not to Mrs B. She finds beauty in the ordinary. I have always loved that about her.
‘Would you mind opening the curtains?’ I open the curtains. ‘Open the doors too. Let some air in the room.’ I open a set of French doors that lead onto a patio where Mrs B. has planted the most beautiful garden: daisies, daffodils, pansies, parsley, Johnny Jump-Ups, and violets.
‘Your garden is beautiful,’ I tell her.
‘I love to garden. It’s my meditation.’
‘You always had a green thumb. I remember how envious my mother was when your flowers bloomed in late spring.’
‘Your mother never had a shred of envy in her body.’
I think about my mother … ‘You’re right.’
‘She was too kind, sensitive to ever be jealous of what someone else had.’ She stares into space. ‘Like Burt. Poor thing. Where was I before we started talking about your mother?’
‘Burt.’
‘Oh yes. So after Sid and I got divorced, Burt was never the same. We sent him to a psychiatrist. It didn’t do him a bit of good. Instead, he buried himself in those books of his. He did well in school. Went to M.I.T. The pressure nearly killed him, barely got through, such a sad man. When he met Lorraine, his ex-wife, he was so happy, if you could call it that. I never understood what he saw in her. Then one day, I realized she was just as unhappy as he was. They fed off each other’s misery. When he took a position at the University of Iowa, she didn’t want to go. She hated Iowa. Made him pay for it, told him he’d ruined her life. Honest to God, what people do to each other. Burt wanted kids. Lorraine didn’t. The more he tried to make her happy, the less she cared. She drove him crazy.
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br /> ‘One day he had had it with her. He hauled off, hit her; out of frustration. Nowadays you don’t hit a woman, especially a woman with a good lawyer. That was it. She took him to the cleaners. He got thrown out of the university because of the scandal … spousal abuse. He had to sell the house. She got the bulk of the money.
‘Then he came home. All he did was sulk. Of course when I started going blind, he didn’t know how to deal with it. Good grief, if you can’t deal with life, you might as well lay down and die. That is exactly what he did. Found a gun at some secondhand store, shot himself … in our backyard.
‘There was no point in me staying after … I couldn’t take care of myself, and being near your father for all those years, all the memories, your mother’s death, finally it was time to move on. So here I am. It’s not so bad. It really isn’t; just another chapter in my life.’ She closes the French doors, draws the curtains. ‘I’m so glad you came to visit.’
‘I’d like to come again, if that’s all right with you?’
‘That would be lovely. It’s about time both Greene girls were back in my life.’
‘Better late than never.’
‘So true. Please give your father my love.’
‘I will. After I leave you, I’m going to the house … surprise him.’
‘He was never big on surprises, your father. He must have changed.’
‘I would hope so.’ I say my goodbyes.
‘Don’t take twenty years. I can’t wait that long. I probably won’t be around.’
‘Maybe next time, Dina and I will visit you together. The Greene girls together again for a return engagement at Mrs B.’s world of botanical enchantment.’ I close the door behind me, walk down the corridor, out into the late-spring daylight. It is a gorgeous day in Beechwood.
I walk down Worth Avenue, stroll by Beechwood elementary school. I kissed Ron Johnson in the corner of the playground. Maggie is no longer in my hair, on my fingers. She is still with me, but I’m afraid to keep her too close. Simone is with me too. I can’t stop swinging in the playground called mind.