Piece of Mind

by Michelle Adelman

  The rental was economy size, and it was extra-compact, with a tiny trunk, so the rule was that we could only bring what we could carry, and I had too much. Nate strapped on his backpack and managed my three stacked boxes with minimal grumbling, but I couldn’t contain my bag. Things were falling out everywhere in the driveway, and on the walk to the car, I had to stop, again and again, to retrieve the dribbling cards, and pictures and coins. The fourth time it happened, Nate took the bundle from me. I was worried he was going to throw it all away, but instead he glared and hauled it over his shoulder, squeezing it into the back.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I’d thrown up on every road trip we’d ever taken, which is why we stopped driving distances over an hour once I was old enough to read, and once we realized reading only made things worse. This ride would hit right at the cusp of my limit, but I could handle it with the window open and Harry at my feet, as long as I had the front seat.

  I could see Nate through the rearview mirror, pressed against the door in the back, his baseball cap pulled over his eyes so he could pretend to sleep while boxes pushed into his ribs.

  “Sorry,” I said, over the hum of the radio.

  He’d closed his eyes. He might not have heard me.

  NATE’S NEIGHBORHOOD was Washington Heights, or if you’re a broker, Hudson Heights, he told Marty.

  When we got out of the car I could feel the streets steaming. It was much hotter than it was at home, even though it was so close. I missed the shade, and the breeze, things I didn’t realize I was missing until I caught the whiff of garbage mixed with body odor. By the time we started unloading our stuff, my hair was matted against my head, and the sweat was trickling down my shirt.

  “You okay?” Nate said.

  “I think so,” I said.

  He rested his elbow on the rusty railing of a decaying building. “This is it.”

  “Here?”

  It was a dark brick prewar building, cracked all along the edges, a ripped green awning, and a front door that wasn’t closed all the way. I wondered if Dad had seen it. He must have when Nate moved in, though he had only been there for a month. Nate had told us over the holidays that his good friend and former roommate Byron could score both of them their own places for less than what the university was charging them to share. Nate had told us Byron wanted his own place because he was on track to graduate early and was already entrenched in the family’s real-estate business. It was silly not to take advantage, he had said.

  Dad agreed, but now the apartment didn’t seem very inviting, or secure, or anything like home.

  Inside the lobby, an open space with a row of broken mailboxes and a radiator, it was even dirtier. Not messy, how I kept things, but unsettled. The paint was chipping all over the floor, the tile on the floor was broken, and the ceiling seemed ready to cave. Spiderwebs and thick dust lined the windows.

  His apartment was on the ground floor, and the first one you saw through the door.

  “Is it safe?” I said.

  “Sure,” he said. “This is just how it is.”

  I wasn’t sure if that meant everybody was unsafe, or if this unsafe was actually safe, but as long as he was there, I guessed it didn’t matter.

  The apartment was small. An alcove studio is what they called it, but it was more like an open room with a closet, a kitchen, and a bathroom. There was a thick wall separating a zone of the space to house a bed—almost enough to make it

  a one-bedroom, Nate said. It was pretty big for city standards, he added, but not compared to our house.

  A black trunk acted as the coffee/dining table. On top of it sat decorative pipes, cigarette butts, and magazines featuring women in bikinis. In the center of the room was a fuzzy orange couch Nate said that he had found on the corner of the street. The couch was old. I didn’t really care about that, but I did wonder what was lurking in the yarn, the trace of stale beer, the Febreze to cover it all up. It seemed to belong to someone else.

  “It pulls out,” Nate said. “It’s comfortable. I’ve slept on it before. Though . . . I guess, I mean, if you needed to, you could take my bed.”

  “Me? No. I’ve slept on couches before. I used to fall asleep on the one at home all the time.”

  “We can keep your stuff in my area,” he said.

  His bed was held up by concrete blocks, so there was a bit of empty space beneath it, but definitely not enough space—anywhere.

  “We’ll make it work,” he said.

  Nate transformed the couch into a bed and left the throw pillows in the remaining shared zone as a seating area.

  I watched Harry take a slow lap before settling into the sofa. His stripes matched the upholstery almost perfectly, like he was a part of it.

  The adjustment wasn’t as easy for me. I got up at least four different times that first night, and on each occasion, I wandered, unsure of where I was. I searched for signs of my old room—my paint splattered chest of drawers, the one-eyed giraffe I’d had since I was little, the fractured ceiling. Here there were new, unfamiliar cracks. Bigger ones.

  _________

  IN THE MORNING, Nate’s alarm woke me through the wall. A long beep followed by a staccato, followed by silence, and then another set. Snooze, I guessed. Then the radio. I heard the weather forecast a couple of times, and the traffic report, and Nate’s grunting during push-ups.

  After a while, he hovered over my couch until I acknowledged him.

  “I’m off,” he said. “There’s a subway map on the fridge, and some cereal in the cabinet. We’re close to the 1 and A trains.”

  “Wait, you’re going?” I threw on pants so I could meet him face-to-face. “When are you coming back?”

  “Late I hope,” he said, making his way toward the door. “I need every second they’re willing to take me. But your keys are on the counter. Get to know the neighborhood. You might want to check out the Starbucks an avenue over. They’re having an open house this week.”

  “I’m supposed to get a job?”

  “Well, theoretically, you could get something to keep yourself busy for a few hours a week, right? It wouldn’t hurt for us to have a little extra money.”

  “I don’t think I could work a job every day.”

  “Right.”

  “I mean, I wish I could, but that was the thing with Dad, the fight we had? But maybe part-time at a place like that would be okay, if their coffee didn’t make me sick. Actually, I’d probably drink it anyway, because I wouldn’t be able to resist, but the bitterness would never leave me.”

  “Fine.”

  He had his hand on the knob.

  “Besides, don’t they specifically hire people with developmental disabilities? I mean for that place, you either have to be super-competent, or super-disabled, don’t you? Do you think I’m disabled enough?”

  He was halfway out the door. “Just use today to settle in.”

  “Wait,” I said. This was going to be the first day I was on my own since Dad. “I’ll walk you out, to watch you do the lock? I should do that, in case I need it later.”

  It seemed simple enough, a little extra twist to the left, or was that the right? He had done it so quickly that how to turn it escaped me by the time he made it down the hall.

  I DECIDED IT wasn’t worth the risk to try to leave the apartment. I was terrified something would happen to me. Not that I’d get mugged or shot, or that Harry would get out somehow. But that I’d lose the key, or lose myself and not know how to get back.

  I didn’t want to break anything either—the oven, or the TV; I couldn’t make sense of the remote control.

  In the shower, I wasn’t able to work the drain, so I left a mess of hair and a pool of water, and when I got on my knees to try to fix things, I banged my head against the bottom of the spigot. Sharp, shooting pain, but no blood.

  I crouched down on the tile, rubbed my scalp, and thought about passing out. I wouldn’t have minded passing out then.

  I wanted to call Dad;
I almost thought about trying, but that only made the hurt worse.

  So I didn’t move, but as my head began to throb, I began to sail outside of myself. The colors around me seemed tainted. It was as if the apartment were surrounded by the film of a soap bubble, and I knew as soon as I caught a whiff of vanilla that it was Mom. There was a hint of white space, a soft glow, a slight vibration. She was there. I was sure of it.

  I had been hoping to find Dad that week, but in a way it made sense that he had moved on. All of his life, he was obedient to religious authority, so why would the afterlife be any different? If God, or some other spiritual figure, told him it was time, he would accept that as his moment to depart.

  He took his Judaism seriously. He asked for forgiveness on every Rosh Hashanah, and fasted on Yom Kippur.

  On Rosh Hashanah they will be written

  And on the fast of Yom Kippur they will be sealed

  How many will pass on and how many will be created

  Who will live and who will die

  Who in his time and who not in his time

  He never talked about the concept of a hereafter, not even in the context of Mom, those times I’d said I’d seen her. He had always changed the subject in an effort to distract me, though I wondered if he ever saw her too. Maybe he did believe in a spirit world, but he just couldn’t access it the way Mom could. Maybe he was missing that extra layer of sensory perception that would allow him to float between two realms. Maybe Mom was different.

  Mom was the one who talked about believing in otherworldly energy, reincarnation, spirits. This one morning when I was little, I remember seeing her staring out her window, vacant. When I asked her what she was looking at, she told me she had just seen her sister, the aunt who had died a couple of years earlier. Where, I wanted to know, but she didn’t answer, and then she asked me what I wanted for breakfast, and that was it. Unless maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe her sister was always there. Maybe Mom was too.

  It was Mom whom I had seen before, Mom whose visage was associated with the sweet fragrance, Mom whom I already knew would’ve been the one to cut some deal to skirt the rules, to figure out some way back whenever she wanted.

  “Come on,” she’d say to the angel at the gate, her new best friend. “Let me go. I won’t tell a soul.”

  Maybe you could see if you believed. If you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you, said the unicorn to Alice. Maybe that was all you needed.

  Sometimes, when the brain was jiggered, you could swear the most outlandish hallucinations were real. I knew that, of course, and I knew too that smacking my head against the spigot had established another nasty bump on my head.

  But this vision was not because of that. This was something else.

  Mom was back because she knew I needed her then. Not that I didn’t need Dad, but Mom and I had already established this relationship, and with Dad gone, I really needed her.

  She flashed before me dressed in her signature jeans and cashmere sweater and then disappeared. But it was enough to soothe my nerves, enough to reassure me, somehow, that things would get easier.

  13

  THE REST OF THAT DAY, I WAITED FOR NATE. I READ HIS BIKINI magazines and ate cereal. I played with his guitar until I got bored and feared I’d break the strings. Harry hid when I tried to sing. I sifted through one of my boxes and spread my things across the floor. But there were no shelves or drawers, no place to put anything, even if I were a good organizer. I couldn’t do anything without asking Nate first, so I just left things alone and waited.

  It had to be close to ten when he startled me at the front door.

  “Hey,” he said, opening the fridge.

  “How was your day?” I said.

  “Long.”

  “You were at the restaurant this whole time?”

  “Yep.” He grabbed a beer and began to guzzle. “Turns out the manager needs a shit ton of help, so I volunteered for everything. If I do enough, I should be able to move up the ranks.”

  “That’s great,” I said. “Right?”

  “It’s something,” he said. “Hell of a lot different from a school day.”

  He put the bottle in the sink, and with the clanging Harry ran into the closet.

  “What’s his deal?” Nate said.

  “He doesn’t know you, or this place. It has to be weird for him.”

  I watched him drink more beer.

  “I’m kind of hungry,” I said. “Are you? I ate your cereal.”

  “All of it?”

  “Sorry. I’ll buy you more.”

  “Forget it,” he said. “I’ll make some sandwiches.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I can help.”

  Peanut butter I could do, tuna if the salad were made, but I didn’t quite get how to make grilled cheese. He slapped the cheddar and bread on the burner so quickly that I didn’t have a chance to grasp it.

  “Can I do anything?” I said. “I mean I’d like to help if I can, in some way.”

  “Just take a seat,” he said.

  We settled into the cushions on the floor and zoned out for a while in silence before he returned to the agenda.

  “How’d unpacking go?” he said.

  “I started, but I wasn’t sure where I should put things.”

  “Maybe this weekend,” he said, exhaling.

  “Great,” I said. “Maybe she’ll come back when we’re together.”

  “Who?”

  “Mom. I think I saw her today. Has she been here before?”

  He stopped chewing and inspected me.

  “What?”

  He began talking in softer tones, like I was going to break if he pushed too hard. “What do you mean you saw her? You mean you found an old picture of her, or you spotted someone in the neighborhood who looked like her?”

  “Forget it,” I said, turning away.

  I brought my plate into the kitchen.

  “Luce, what are you saying?”

  “It’s not a big deal,” I said. “Maybe we could watch some TV.”

  He was shaking his head.

  “What’s the problem?” I said.

  “Oh, I don’t know, the fact that you’re seeing dead people? Are you losing it?”

  “No.”

  “Because if you need to see a therapist, you need to let me know.”

  “I will.”

  “Seriously. If this is the beginning of some kind of manic episode, we have to address it and get you in to see someone. We have been going through some big shit lately. It’s understandable that it would be hard to deal with. Of course, it would be really cool if you could hold it together, but if you can’t—”

  “Forget it!” I said. “She’s gone now. She was never here.”

  “You mean Mom,” he said. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure it was nothing, okay?”

  “Luce, listen,” he said. “I don’t want to be an asshole. I mean if you’re actually seeing ghosts—”

  At least he was laughing a little then, and I was too, because it was an absurd conversation we were having. You had to see it to believe it, and there was no convincing someone who couldn’t see.

  “Can we move on now?” I said, grabbing Harry for moral support.

  “Good idea,” he said. “Did you check out Starbucks?”

  “Was I supposed to do that? I thought I wasn’t.”

  “Because you don’t like the coffee.”

  “Because it would be hard for me to work there.”

  “Right.”

  “You don’t get it,” I said. “Can you imagine if you didn’t have executive functions? You can’t do jobs without them. I’m not sure how to talk to you either. I think that’s related. How is this supposed to go? Us conversing as adults, as people who are supposed to know what we’re talking about—big things. Do you know what you’re talking about?”

  “I’m still trying to figure out what you’re talking about.” He finished his second beer. “Just so we’re both on the same page her
e: Are you telling me that you’re incapable of work? Not that you don’t want to, or that you’re too tired to, but that you can’t do it?”

  “Not incapable, just—it’s not how I want to be.”

  He sighed again, heavily, rinsed the dishes, and grabbed another beer.

  “You’re drinking more?”

  “Yes.” He took a long pull, burped, and looked at me. “You want one?”

  “No thanks.”

  I watched his gaze gravitate toward the far end of the room.

  “Did you touch my guitar?”

  The case was slightly open, and it wasn’t exactly where he had left it. How had he noticed that?

  “Did I? Sorry. I must not have locked it the right way.”

  He ran over to inspect it. “Did you mess with the strings?”

  “No, I don’t know how. Think you could teach me sometime?”

  He looked at me. “You’re interested in guitar?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I don’t think my fingers can move that way, but I could try. Right?”

  “You could try.” He took a second. “What about temping?”

  “What about it?”

  “A lot of it is like monkey work. Stuffing envelopes, answering phones, making copies. It’s what I would’ve done if I didn’t get the restaurant gig. You don’t have to think at all.”

  “Monkeys think. Some can paint, and they know sign language. And math.”

  “You wouldn’t have to do any math.”

  “Wait, you’re serious? How would I get there?”

  “I’ll drop you off at the agency on my way to work.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Why not? Getting out will shield you from the dead.”

  “I guess that’s good that you’re joking now, that you don’t think I’m crazy.”

  “I didn’t say that,” he said. “Look, neither of us is expecting you to get a job. But what if you just gave it a shot, for the hell of it? Just to see. Unless, of course, you had other plans.”