Piece of Mind

by Michelle Adelman

  “I wouldn’t say a lot,” he said, holding it out to me. “Only at night. You ever try it?”

  “Isn’t it bad for you?”

  “Healthier than pharmaceuticals.” He took a drag and released some smoke in my face. “More natural than those pills you take.”

  How much more harm could I do?

  I tried to inhale the way he did.

  “Now, hold it there,” he said. “Don’t let go.”

  I didn’t, until the coughing gripped me. Then I waited to feel something other than the deep burn in my throat, for the colors to change and the room to shift, for my perception to alter into enlightenment. Wasn’t that how it was supposed to go?

  “I don’t feel anything.”

  “It takes time.” He took another drag. “It might not work at all this round.”

  “So what am I supposed to do now?”

  “Relax,” he said, holding it out to me again. “Try again if you want.”

  I did, and I coughed again, and still, nothing. “It doesn’t work.”

  “More for me then,” he said. “I wish I had this more often.”

  “Drugs?”

  “Time,” he whispered. “It’s the time that counts. Time to sit back and slow down. You know what I’m saying? I don’t have time for anything these days.”

  He inhaled.

  “What would you do?” I said.

  He exhaled.

  “Play my guitar. All day.” He closed his eyes and smiled, as if imagining himself in another world, maybe even another body. “Eat Lucky Charms.”

  “You’d probably get really fat.”

  “Then no one would recognize me.”

  “You’d like that?” I said.

  He looked at me, hard for a second, and then away. “You really think you saw her?”

  “Who?”

  “Mom,” he said.

  “Yeah, but I was probably dreaming or something.”

  “Tell me about it,” he said.

  “I had just hit my head on the faucet when I drifted off—I think, unless I was awake and it really was her. It could have been a concussion.”

  “So weird,” he said, taking another drag.

  “I know. You already told me you think I need help.”

  “No, I mean you probably do, but you’d think you’d see Dad.”

  “I know,” I said. “I was thinking that too, at first. But I’ve seen Mom before.”

  “Seriously?”

  “At home. A few times, actually. Who knows for sure. It wasn’t like her, her. It was like the mist of her, the essence. But I’m pretty sure it was her.”

  “Not Dad?”

  “I don’t think Dad had that side of him, the spiritual side. I think maybe that’s why he was more religious than the rest of us. Because he was searching for that thing Mom already had. I think I have it too. The sense, or whatever you call it. Do you have it?”

  He put down the joint. “I don’t know.”

  “I think you might,” I said. “I think we both do. You remember the pinky story.”

  Once, when I was in school, I lost my fingertip in the slam of auditorium doors, and Mom said that she knew something was wrong the moment it happened because Nate doubled over in his highchair with some mysterious pain in his hand. He was hysterically crying until she got the call about me, and by the time she hung up, he was fine. She believed he could feel me. She believed we were linked.

  “I was two,” he said. “Who knows if that was true.”

  “And remember when you fell off your bike and I knew? Dad didn’t take me seriously at first, but I called out that you were in trouble, that we had to go find you. Then we opened the screen door, and there you were, in the middle of the cul-de-sac, just sitting there holding your ankle. Dad looked at me then. How did you know, he said? I just knew, I said. I could feel you.”

  “Yeah, I guess I do remember that.”

  “What if she never left?” I said. “I mean, it makes sense in a way that she’d want to stick around, for us. That’s how she was.”

  He didn’t respond, but I could tell he was listening.

  “If Dad had died first, she would have known we’d be taken care of. She would’ve planned for that and gone in peace, right? But Dad took it all as it came, whatever seemed right at the time.”

  He stared ahead for another minute before speaking again. “Huh.”

  “What?”

  “That does kind of make sense. I’m not sure it will tomorrow, but . . . huh.”

  “I’ve had a lot of time to think.”

  “You think she’ll come back?” he said.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “Right,” he said. “But you are pretty nuts.”

  I threw a marshmallow horseshoe at him.

  He hit me with a rainbow.

  “It’s late,” he said. “You should sleep.”

  My mouth was dry. “I think I wanted water.”

  I tried to get up directly from my crossed-leg position, but I wobbled back down. He let me use his shoulder to balance myself.

  “Did you want some too?” I said. “Didn’t you want to play some music before you went to bed?”

  He didn’t answer, but I poured him a glass anyway. This was the first time he seemed calm enough to talk. I had to seize the moment.

  I rushed to fill our glasses in the kitchen, but by the time I made it back to the living room, half of the water had sloshed to the floor, and the lights were out.

  17

  EXCEPT FOR THE ZOO, WHICH HAD BECOME MY FAVORITE destination to fantasize about, I didn’t often itch to go places. But the next day, I was hankering for the coffee from that shop. I remembered how to get back there, which seemed like a big deal in itself, and because I’d managed to get up when Nate did it was almost like I was going to a job. I made sure to wear a clean shirt, and to blow dry my hair so it would seem fuller after the shower.

  Frank noticed me before I had a chance to examine the chalkboard.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “I was hoping to try the house roast today.”

  “I’m sorry if I was racist before.” He seemed nervous. “I didn’t understand—I still don’t really understand, but I don’t always get things the first time, and—”

  “‘Speciesist’ is what I said. But it was a nasty thing to say. It was blurty, and not true, necessarily. I don’t even know you. I’m sorry. I do that sometimes. And I’m sorry I drew the pug because now other pugs might try to come back. I guess you hope they won’t, so you don’t have to deal with that again. But it doesn’t matter. I like your coffee.”

  His face was the color of Bazooka. “Your drawing was good.”

  “The pug? No, there’s nothing there yet.”

  He didn’t protest.

  “But thanks,” I said.

  This coffee wasn’t as tasty as the Ethiopian, but it was decent, and my spot in the back was open, so I decided to wait there and keep an eye out for any displaced dogs.

  That pug and his owner never did return, but after settling into my seat and getting halfway through my cup of coffee, I noticed someone else. Actually, she noticed me.

  “Miss?” she called out in a weathered voice. She was a tiny old woman sitting at the adjacent table.

  “Do you draw animals?” she said.

  “Are you talking to me?”

  “Yes. The name is Enid.”

  She extended a small, polished hand. I was scared to take it for fear of breaking it, but I didn’t want to offend her, so I was extra-careful.

  “I don’t do it officially or anything,” I said. “It’s just for fun, in a comic-book kind of way. When the inspiration strikes and I connect with them.”

  “I saw you connect with that flat-face dog yesterday,” she said.

  “Yeah, he was sweet.”

  She reminded me of a miniature dollhouse, a full white mane and manicured nails and earrings all shrunk down to scale. I wondered if there were old-people stores
that catered to dwindling bones, negative inseams, a special coupon attached to her copy of AARP. Could you get that magazine if you never retired from anything?

  “My favorite companion was a spaniel mix. My own little mutt. I saved her from one of those shelters. Belle was her name,” she said, gazing up at the ceiling. “She’s gone now.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. She lived sixteen glorious years. Can you draw her?”

  I didn’t draw on demand, especially not for animals I’d never met, but I liked this Enid. She talked to me like I had value.

  “Do you have a picture?” I said.

  “Pictures are for people who can’t remember. I can describe her in perfect detail.” She tapped my pad with her red pointer. “Her paws were my favorite part. You could start with those.”

  “Now? Actually, it works better for me when I’m stirred in some way. It’s much harder to go from nothing. It’s more of a process. I usually start with the head, not the paws. It’s not about the details with me. It’s more about the story—behind the eyes.”

  “You’ll make an exception for Belle,” she said. “Everybody did. They were like chocolate-chunk cookies. You wanted to eat them up, pads and all.”

  She closed her eyes. “Golden hair with flecks of black along the nose and eyes, like a mask. She’d put her paw on my lap and say, ‘How do you do today, Enid?’ sweet as could be, before sneaking off to raid the snack cabinet. When I told her to get off the furniture, she’d gather all of her weight in one spot, like a little wrestler, and cock her head as if to say, ‘Why bother?’ ”

  “Can you see her yet?” she said.

  I liked communicating with the animals myself, when they could send me their live vibrations, and I could meet their eyes and descend beneath their coats, so I could feel their moods and emotions, but I guessed I could try it this way once.

  “That’s it,” Enid said, as I began with rough circles.

  She looked toward the ceiling again. “She loved the water. Her favorite route to walk was along the Hudson. Every morning, we’d start at Fort Tryon and cut down along the bike path at One Hundred and Eighty-First. Then we’d go as far as we could go. Riverside Park, the Upper West Side. Once we made it all the way to Fourteenth. She always pulled me toward the river.”

  Enid took a moment and looked at me. “The day I scattered her ashes was the day she finally got to go in.”

  Jews didn’t cremate. They buried in pine boxes. Was Enid Jewish? If I wasn’t going to get into her dog’s head, I’d have to get into hers, so I could get to the dog through her.

  “What do you think happens when you die?” I said. “Do you believe in ghosts? Do you believe dogs can become ghosts?”

  She didn’t answer for a minute. I wondered if she’d heard me. I thought about repeating or rephrasing when she looked at me again.

  “Why should it matter what I believe?” she said. “You’re the artist.”

  “It’s just something I’ve been trying to figure out lately. Fate too. Any thoughts on that?”

  She shrugged. “I know better than to rule anything out.”

  I nodded.

  “But I also know I can’t expect anyone, or anything, to make my decisions, justify my choices, or excuse my mistakes.”

  “What about accidents?” I said.

  “What about them?”

  “Are they just accidents?”

  “I’m hardly an authority on these things,” she said.

  “But you seem wise,” I said.

  She laughed. “I am not young enough to know everything.”

  “I’ve heard that before. I think it was on my teacher’s bulletin board in high school. I can still see it, the black lettering. Oscar Wilde?”

  “Oscar Wilde probably said something like it, but no.” She was proud of herself. “It’s from a play by J. M. Barrie. The Admirable Crichton.

  I looked into her eyes. They were a very deep hazel. “Are you an actress?”

  “Only in my dreams,” she said. “Look, people think there’s some kind of cosmic significance for everything that happens. But in my experience the universe doesn’t stop. It doesn’t make exceptions. It just goes, and it’s up to us whether we want to go with it.”

  “So you’re not religious.”

  “I don’t like labels,” she said. “I like looking at the world in a way that gives me motivation to keep going. And at my age, I take whatever motivation I can get. Would you guess I’m eighty-five years old?”

  I might have. Old was old in my mind, I almost said, but I didn’t.

  “There are days when I wake up and forget how old I am. I think, I could climb a goddamned mountain. I think, I remember when I was twenty-four like it was last week. And thirty-nine. And fifty-two. But then I realize I don’t have time to waste thinking about the past. So instead of feeling depressed or sorry for myself, or giving in to some half-baked expectation, I get out of bed and get dressed and go somewhere. Every morning.”

  “You come here?”

  “Not always here. But somewhere. That’s all that matters.”

  “It’s a good rule,” I said. “You have more energy than I do.”

  “There’s no excuse for that,” she said.

  “Well, there sort of is.”

  She seemed concerned.

  “Executive functions?” I said. “I have issues with those.”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “I was hit by a truck.”

  “Recently?”

  “I was three. But the damage is still there.”

  “Everyone’s damaged,” she said. “Though three is an early start. I’ll give you that. Three is when we start coming into our own.”

  “I guess so.” I had heard other people say that to Mom and Dad, how I was so ahead of other people in the early milestones, how it was such a shame I had to start over. I didn’t like to think of that.

  “Do you work?” she said.

  “I’m trying to work some things out.”

  She took a moment to take me in, the whole of me, and put her hand on the table next to mine.

  “Then you have time to draw Belle.”

  She got up and headed to the door.

  “Wait,” I said. “Will I see you again?”

  “How else will you get the job done?”

  I had a decent enough sketch to begin with, so I started to follow Enid to the door. But when I was standing on the mat, Frank called out.

  “Lucy,” he said.

  He didn’t wait for me to turn around.

  “Are you coming back tomorrow?”

  “Sure.” I moved to face him. “I’ll have to finish that drawing here, so that Enid, when she comes back, I can . . . Will that be a job? I wonder if Nate would count that. It’s something.”

  “Nate?” Frank said. “Is he your boyfriend?”

  “What? No, he’s my brother. I live with him now, which is hard. Because I don’t work. But he takes care of us, which is weird because he’s younger. But it’s more financial than anything else. Well, basically that’s what it is.”

  Frank was staring at me.

  “Too much blurting?” I said.

  “Do you think that you might want dinner one day?” Frank said.

  “What?”

  “I feel like we have a lot in common.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond.

  “Or it could be lunch. If that’s better for you.”

  “No. I mean, yes. I like dinner.”

  AFTER I LEFT, I considered the meaning of our exchange: Did he want to have dinner as a date or as a friend? A friend would be good. I didn’t have many of those. That time in the brain injury group, I hit it off with a girl who had short-term memory problems, but I had to remind her who I was and what our plans were at every turn. Following up required more maintenance than I could handle. I’m sorry, I said, but I need so much of my own.

  Robby, whom I met in an art class one day in college, was the only one who
ever made friendship seem easy. He thought it was funny when I lost my balance and stumbled into his easel. Other people laughed, a couple scowled; I braced myself for a scolding after I made him lose control of his brush. But he thanked me for giving him another excuse to throw away the piece he was working on.

  Robby didn’t ask why I needed an extra few weeks, and then an extra year, and then another one, to never finish the work. We all have our demons, he said.

  Then he moved to California with his partner. Every once in a while he would check in, but he had his own life, and after he left, I didn’t want to bother him.

  I supposed it wasn’t ridiculous to think that Frank was interested in something else.

  I didn’t know if I liked him that way, though he wasn’t unattractive. And he was nice too, nice enough to think it was nice to have a possibility. Why not? I hadn’t thought of men very often, or sex—because of the injury, or the drugs to treat the injury, or the lack of exposure. I didn’t really crave those things, or long for them. But when it came down to it, I didn’t mind the concept.

  In fact, I’d almost had two boyfriends in my life.

  Jason was more of a friend. In high school, he started talking to me in gym class because he had asthma, and both of us were relegated to the sidelines, and there wasn’t much else to do while the class was running around the track. He pushed the hair that covered my face behind my ears so that, he said, he could gauge my reactions to his jokes, which were not very funny, but which I laughed at anyway. I figured it was the least I could do, since no one else had really bothered to acknowledge me, not in a positive way in any case.

  He called me once, to tell me he wasn’t going to make it to school the next day.

  And one time, in the parking lot, while we were waiting for rides and no one was paying attention, he kissed me. It didn’t last for more than a second, and it was just that one time, but when I replayed the scene, sometimes it felt like more.

  Then there was Smitty. We met at a volunteering fair Dad made me go to one summer to help bring meaning to my life. We both agreed it was a good idea, but there were no positions for me at that fair, and I had to stay the whole week anyway, and it was a long week, with lots of booths. Smitty kept bumping into me.

  Neither of us fit in there—he was in his fifties, with a gold tooth and a lisp. I never asked him what he was looking for. I just assumed he recognized an ally in me the way I had in him. In the afternoons, he asked me if I wanted to have coffee across the street, which he always paid for, but as far as I knew, this was what friends did.