Mother Nature: The Journals of Eleanor O'Kell

by Michael Conniff

  I check Will into a place up in Westchester where he can get treatment. He knows he needs help, and he’s too ashamed to fight back. The doctors say he could be there for a long time.

  August 30, 1962

  What do you like about it here? I ask Will. “The hedges,” he says.

  September 15, 1962

  I go up to Westchester to bring Will back home to The Big House. He seems like his old self again, laughing all the way about all of the crazy things he has done, especially his exhibition at the Yale Club. He says he won’t be drinking any more, and that if he does we should all have him committed and throw away the key.

  September 16, 1962

  Everyone but Will and me leaves Southampton by Labor Day. The weather here in the country is more beautiful than ever. Will and I are out all day every day, riding our bicycles, licking ice cream cones in town on Job’s Lane, kicking at leaves, walking the beach with cold water washing our toes. At night, safe beneath the throws, we fall asleep in our old rooms with the ocean in our lungs and in our souls.

  September 17, 1962

  The light is so lovely here in Southampton in September. We keep walking along the beach, talking and talking about everything in the world. It’s wonderful to have Will back among the living.

  October 16, 1962

  We are all back in Southampton when the terrible scare about Cuba and the missiles comes on the radio. Tom knows all about it, of course. He says it had to happen this way because of what Kennedy did at the Bay of Pigs. In a few days, he says the Russians will have the missiles pointed right at Miami and Washington and New York. “Just wait and see,” he says.

  October 17, 1962

  Tom was right. He gets off the phone and tells us the missiles in Cuba are aimed at the East Coast. He shepherds Becca, Diana, Will, and me into the bomb shelter. “It’s a drill,” he tells us, but everything seems real enough. The worst part is that Will is falling down drunk, making wild accusations that Tom has sold us out, that our fortune is gone, when all Tom has done is to shift our investments into nuclear power. We are going to be richer than ever, but poor Will is too far gone to see it, sucking on two wine bottles at once, whining about what Tom has done. Tom says we have to commit Will again and everyone agrees. When the ambulance comes, Becca starts to cry.

  October 19, 1962

  Tom calls to say Will has disappeared. He escaped from Bellevue in New York in a lab coat in the middle of the night and no one has seen him since. I’m terrified for him. He could be wandering the Bowery drinking Thunderbird and living out of trash cans for all we know. He could be anywhere. How can we help him if we can’t find him?

  October 20, 1962

  Still no sign of Will. I call Tom and tell him to do something and the SOB tells me the FBI is already out looking for him. Becca calls and starts to sob. I wish I knew what to do.

  October 31, 1962

  Now I’ve heard it all! Will re-appeared with a lawyer at Diana’s office this morning with a wild story about saving the world from a nuclear disaster. He claims he was out in the Midwest somewhere, out where they aim the Minuteman missiles at the Russians, and that he was able somehow to keep them from firing without authorization from the President. Of course, Will says Tom is behind the whole thing, that Tom’s master plan includes starting a nuclear war so that our nuclear investments will go way up in value. This time Will has gone too far!

  November 1, 1962

  Diana said Will wasn’t drinking, that he seemed sober as a judge, but that doesn’t make sense. If he’s not drinking, then why would he be making up crazy stories about saving the world? He’s crazy as a loon, Tom says.

  November 2, 1962

  Will has gone straight, but now he wants to go after Tom, to get Tom thrown in jail for trying to start a nuclear war. “It was all for the money,” Will tells me. I say we have more money than we know what to do with. “As far as Tom is concerned,” Will says, “there’s no such thing as too much money.”

  November 11, 1962

  I decide to humor Will. As long as he thinks Tom is behind some mass conspiracy to blow up the world he seems to have a reason for living. What harm can it be? It’s not like he’s going to get Tom. And Will seems happy. He says he made new friends while he was busy saving the world. I only wish it were true.

  December 2, 1962

  Becca and Rocco are going to be having their first child and there’s not a damn thing Tom, Atomic or not, can do about it.

  December 22, 1962

  Diana and Luigi have a Christmas party in the city and their baby might as well be the Christ child for all the attention he gets. Gino O’Kell Campobello is a magnificent creature, with apples for cheeks and beautiful black curls Diana says she will never cut. Becca is there with Rocco, taking pictures, flashing from room to room. Luigi won’t come near me, of course. He has announced his retirement from tennis, and he is drinking vodka from a shot glass. Even Will is here, sipping ginger ale, playing all night with the baby. Only Tom is nowhere to be seen.

  January 10, 1963

  Becca comes to the Convent with her beautiful pictures. What a way she has of looking at the world, like she is seeing it all for the first time! And her way of looking lets you see it for the first time, too. She likes to take pictures of people down and out or just down on their luck, but she makes them look more alive than anyone in the world. No more quiz shows? I ask. “I know who dropped the bomb on Nagasaki,” Becca answers. “I know all the answers.”

  March 10, 1963

  Mother Superior has a proposition for me. She wants me to take over the Order within five years. But I’m not ready yet, I say. “I was younger than you when I began,” she says. But I’m a sinner, I tell her. “We are all sinners, child,” she says. “None more so than me.” I have done terrible things, I say, things I am scared to even tell you about. Mother Superior says God’s mansion has so many rooms it might as well be a motel.

  March 14, 1963

  I don’t know what to do about Charles Evans. He keeps calling and calling. First he’s apologizing for the way he’s acted, over and over, then he’s starting to act that way again. He calls me when he’s sober, and he calls me when he’s drunk. He calls to tell me he still loves his wife, and he calls to tell me he can’t stand her. First I tell him to go to Confession. Then I tell him to go to hell.

  August 1, 1963

  Becca is so much better since she started taking pictures, as if she has a new pair of glasses and can finally see the world. And the pictures! Like she has a microscope that looks inside of you! She has been taking pictures of Nancy and me here at the Convent, with our habits and without. In our habits we look like creatures from outer space. Without we don’t look like much of anything.

  September 3, 1963

  A new group of recruits comes in today, the largest class ever. Mother Superior is beside herself with joy, telling me that I deserve all the credit. I tell her the Order has to market itself every day, like we’re a bar of soap. We have to turn every Sister into a recruit willing to promote our way of life. We have to portray the Order as a group of selfless heroines willing to sally forth wherever we are needed. It’s a kind of brainwashing, I tell her. If we do all of those things, in another year we will be turning girls away.

  September 30, 1963

  Will comes to the Convent again, this time under his own steam. He is sober as a judge but talking like a crazy man. Now everything is a conspiracy, life is a conspiracy, and Tom is part of what he calls the “military industrial complex” plotting to take over the world. He tells me Tom is in bed with some of the most powerful generals in the country, that he’s gone power-mad like they have, and if I don’t believe him to just wait until we bomb Vietnam, a country I’ve never even heard of. He keeps on with his wild talk, and I worry that he’s going to go crazy again, that his mind is whipping around fast enough to break his neck. I try to slow him down, to listen to him, but there’s no stopping Will now. He’s writing two books, not jus
t “Sins of the Flesh” but something called “Plot Against The People.” The good thing is Will seems to have no time to drink.

  October 4, 1963

  Mother Superior says she is going to start “grooming” me. “I know you’re going to change your mind about running the Order,” Mother Superior says. Why do you say that? I ask. “The power of prayer,” she says. “And the love of power.”

  November 23, 1963

  Kennedy is shot dead and even Tom is in shock.

  November 27, 1963

  Nancy and I are alone here for Thanksgiving at the Convent. We wanted it that way, to be together without any family, just the two of us. We know each other so well by now, like an old married couple, though we’re not so old. Nancy seems to know everything about living, about being alive. She is bringing back to life those things that had been dying in me, the way only a true friend can.

  December 6, 1963

  Will is back here with a new conspiracy theory that also happens to be true. He has been talking to Rebecca and to Diana, and now he knows almost everything, that Tom was raping us while we were growing up, and that we were all too ashamed to ever admit it. “How does he get away with it?” Will asks me. I tell him that I wish I knew. “It’s true then?” Will says. As true as true can be, I tell him.

  January 12, 1964

  Big flakes of snow. Diana and Luigi bring baby Gino for a visit and I’ve never seen them happier. Luigi has cut back on everything but mixed doubles, and he loves to be with his boy and his bride, as if the arrival of a son opened up his soul for eternity. Diana is already talking about getting back to work, that she can’t imagine how Imagine can get along without her. “There is just no time,” Diana says. Time is all you have, I tell her.

  February 1, 1964

  I can’t get little Luigi out of my head. I go to bed wondering what my life would have been like with children of my own, with the love of a good man. But I think of Nancy and the Order and all the recruits who have come through my door, all the young girls who might as well be my children for all the responsibility I feel. There are so many ways to have a family in this world, and maybe my way here at the Convent is as good as any. Being an aunt is not all bad, with all the fun and none of the responsibility.

  March 17, 1964

  St. Patrick’s Day. Will (who else?) appears at my door very late. I open it a crack and he pushes inside. “They’re after me,” he says. Sit down, I say. “I can’t,” Will says. “There’s no time. Tom is going to kill me.” He drops a shopping bag plop on my floor. “Everything’s in there,” he says. “My manuscript and everything. All my notes.” His mind is going a mile a minute. “That’s the whole story,” Will says. “I love you. Goodbye.” He pushes forward to brush my cheek with his lips and then he’s gone.

  March 19, 1964

  I can’t bear to read what Will left behind so I bury it at the bottom of my closet. I’m afraid that if I even chance a look I will be swept up in Will’s crazy world.

  March 27, 1964

  A call today from one of Tom’s assistants wondering if I have been contacted by Will. “That’s none of your business,” I say. “Nor is it my brother’s business.” Tom’s assistant apologizes too unctuously, even for an underling. He says Will could be dangerous, that Tom is only trying to help. He leaves his number and I tell him I won’t be writing it down or contacting Tom again. Tom’s assistant bows so low I can hear the scraping against the floor.

  May 19, 1964

  I have not heard from Will. I am sick with worry.

  May 20, 1964

  “He’s nowhere to be seen,” Tom says. I don’t believe him. I don’t believe anything Tom tells me. I think Tom knows exactly where to find Will.

  June 7, 1964

  Will calls. Finally. “I don’t remember anything,” he tells me over the phone. He’s back at the psychiatric hospital in Westchester, but he has no idea how he got there. This time they are keeping him in the part of the building with bars. There’s no more talk of saving the world. He sounds dead, drugged. No escaping this time, I tell my little brother. “Where would I escape to?” Will says.

  June 8, 1964

  I go to Westchester to see Will. We sit in a small room with plastic chairs and he’s worse than I imagined. He stares at me, but it’s not the stare of someone who is still alive. “They shocked me,” Will says. “They hooked me up and—zzzZZZzzz.” He falls like a ball into my lap. He sobs so hard his body bounces against my legs. “Save me,” Will says. From what? I say. “I don’t remember,” he says.

  June 10, 1964

  Becca’s been to see Will and she’s even more worried than I am. “What happened to him?” she asks me. Shock treatments, I tell her. “Like in ‘Frankenstein?’” Becca says. They hook you up, I say, and they send an electric jolt through your head. It works sometimes even though they don’t know why. “They don’t know why it works?” Becca says. I tell her God works in strange ways.

  June 11, 1964

  It’s Eleanor, I tell Will. Eleanor. “Hello,” he says. He is slumped down into a bathrobe the color of hospital walls. He has on throwaway slippers made of crinkly paper. He is white as a ghost in the dark room. It’s me, I say. “Hello, hello,” Will says. “Whoever you are.”

  June 12, 1964

  What are you doing to Will? I ask Tom over the phone. “He is receiving the very best medical attention money can buy,” Tom says. What does that mean? I ask. “The latest in electrical shock treatments,” Tom says. “The doctors have been reporting miraculous results.” And the side effects? Tom says: “There can be a short-term loss of memory. But the doctors say it’s nothing to be concerned about.” So, I say, you want his files and his manuscript and you’ve taken his memory. “You are imagining things,” Tom says. “Like Will, you have a vivid imagination.” I can’t imagine why you raped me, I say.

  June 22, 1964

  I visit Will in Westchester. I wonder whatever happened to God.

  June 23, 1964

  I don’t want to but I call Tom again. Will is a vegetable, I tell him. “It’s only temporary, I tell you,” Tom says. “The doctors say they need to stabilize him first before there can be any real progress.” There’s a difference between stabilizing someone and electrocution, I say. “Don’t be hysterical,” Tom says. “It’s up to the doctors now. It’s out of our hands.” Your doctors, I say.

  July 6, 1964

  Will calls from Westchester and he sounds awful. I want to rush up there and hold him, but I know the doctors won’t let me in. If they keep shocking him silly, I’m afraid our Will will be lost forever. I absolutely must get him out of there.

  July 7, 1964

  My lawyer says the problem is that Will signed all the papers that put Tom in control of his treatment. But he was drugged, I say. “We have to prove that,” my lawyer says, “and it won’t be easy. You and your sisters have to fight this together. Without your sisters you’ve got no chance.”

  July 10, 1964

  Rebecca is willing to help, but Diana wants nothing to do with it. “I have a baby,” Diana says, as if that explains anything. “And Will is where he belongs. If you let him out he might hurt himself—or worse.” Tom got to her first. I don’t know what to do.

  August 1, 1964

  Becca comes back from Westchester with pictures of Will that break my heart. In the close-ups, he looks like he’s ready to cry, and in the longer shots he looks stooped, defeated. Will is still so young, but in the pictures you can see him as an old man, his heart broken.

  August 22, 1964

  Will is gone and no one knows where he could be. I knew this would happen because I believe in my gut that Tom wanted it to happen. First he stole Will’s manuscript and his notes. Then he wiped out Will’s memory with the shock treatment. The only thing left now for Tom is to kill him—or to let Will kill himself.

  August 23, 1964

  I have been driving from bar to bar in Westchester with Will’s picture. But he is nowhere to be
seen.

  August 30, 1964

  A false sighting in a bar in Armonk by a drunk too drunk to be believed. I could have shown him a picture of the Pope or the President and he would have said the same thing. Another dead end. Where else is there to look for a lost soul?

  September 11, 1964

  Nancy says the only thing left to do is to pray.

  September 19, 1964

  Will is dead and I want to die. They found him face-down in a gorge downstream from the mouth of a river. He broke his neck in a fall, so they say, but I know better. Tom might as well have killed him in cold blood.