by LS Hawker
6/1
I’m Nessa, and I’m an alcoholic. I’ve been sober six years, four months, and thirteen days.
It’s not so much that I don’t want Isabeau to know I have an older brother as it is thinking about him hurts. I miss my brother. He and I went through a lot of harrowing, hilarious shit together. He really is the one responsible for my obsession with music in virtually all its forms. The concerts we saw. He started me on a steady diet of excellent, weird, wonderful music from the time I made it out to LA.
He would be so envious to know I have this show. He’s the one who should have it. Everything I know I learned from him. It’s only fair.
I’ve kept up with him and my mom via the Internet, been able to watch them from afar. Brandon’s on Facebook, without any privacy settings, so I get to stalk his newsfeed all the time. He looks a lot different, but so do I. He’s puffier, more sickly looking. I wonder if the cancer has come back.
I often daydream about reuniting with him after Mom passes away, laughing together over the greatest goof of all time. He’s always been a very forgiving person—how else could he still be living with Mom at the age of twenty-eight? I would blame his type 1 diabetes and all the shit the whole family went through because of that, but there are plenty of successful diabetics out there who aren’t completely dependent on their moms.
But Joyce convinced him of two things very early on: that he can’t live without her, and that he owes his very life to her. In a way, he does. Credit where credit’s due. Maybe it would have been different if my dad hadn’t traded us all in for newer models, a younger, better family, and moved on. Mom always said that Brandon was half her and half our dad. Brown hair from Mom, height from Dad. One blue eye from Mom, one brown eye from Dad. Good from Mom. Bad from Dad.
She said I was all Dad. No surprise there.
Brandon was all good because his biggest goal in life was always to please Joyce. Make sure she didn’t get mad, make sure he was always telling her how pretty she was, talented, etc.
Judging from his Facebook feed, he’s still that way. Always posting memes like If you have the greatest mother in the world, hit Like! Share this if your mom is Your Whole World! Crap like that. It makes my skin crawl.
Brandon never stopped being desperate for Mom’s approval. By the time we were teenagers, I held him in contempt. When we were fighting, I’d call him pussy, mama’s boy, tell him he was going to grow breasts if he didn’t break up with her.
After Dad left, when Mom was between boyfriends, she’d treat Brandon like he was her surrogate husband. I remember one time she wanted him to paint her toenails the way Kevin Costner did Susan Sarandon’s in Bull Durham. Creepy as hell. Of course, I didn’t understand this at the time, when I was young. I just knew something wasn’t quite right in our house.
Which is why I’ve done everything I can to make Daltrey’s home as freak-show free as possible, but John fucked all that up. And I hate myself because I still love him, even though I hate him for what he’s done, for how he’s destroyed our family. Because it’s stirred up my abandonment issues like a stick beating a hornet’s nest.
NESSA’S EYES DRIFTED to the clock on her laptop, and she realized that she only had twenty minutes to get ready before Daltrey’s pediatrician appointment. Crap. She drained her coffee cup, put it in the dishwasher, and went upstairs to shower.
Forty-five minutes later, Daltrey sat on the floor of the examining room and played with a wire, string, and bead contraption while Nessa flipped through a magazine without really seeing it.
After a quick knock, Dr. Blatter rushed in and washed her hands.
“Hello, Mrs. Donati,” she said as she dried off with paper towels. “And how are you, Daltrey?”
He touched his thumb to his chest, fingers extended. ASL for “fine.”
Dr. Blatter looked at the file folder the nurse had left for her and said, “What are we seeing you about today?”
“Well, I thought we could do a lead poisoning test,” Nessa said, embarrassed but determined. This was her latest pathetic attempt at turning the blame away from herself for Daltrey’s muteness.
“How long have you been in the house?” Dr. Blatter said.
“Nine months.”
“We can do that, but I really don’t think that’s what’s—”
“And another hearing test, if you don’t mind,” Nessa said.
“I doubt his hearing has changed since the last one—when was it? Three months ago?”
“I know, but—”
“There’s nothing wrong with his hearing, and I really doubt he has lead poisoning. Didn’t you say the inspector tested for lead in the house and it was clean?”
“Yes, but—”
Dr. Blatter sat down on her rolling stool. “Mrs. Donati, Einstein didn’t speak until he was five. He was too busy thinking to talk.”
“That’s a myth,” Nessa said. Today the folksy country doctor bit was irritating the shit out of her.
“Are you sure? I’ve read that a lot of places.”
This comment annoyed and alarmed Nessa. Had Dr. Blatter also gotten her medical degree from the Urban Legends page on About.com?
“I’m glad you’re continuing to use ASL with him so he can communicate until he has something to say.”
Nessa wanted to laugh at this—what was he doing with ASL if he wasn’t “saying” things? She’d taken a class over at the university in American Sign Language, and any time she couldn’t come up with the proper word, she could always find what she wanted on YouTube, which was stocked with thousands of short videos demonstrating ASL words and phrases.
“Yes,” Nessa said. “But I’m concerned it’s delaying his speech further.”
“No,” Dr. Blatter said cheerfully. No explanation, no evidence to back it up.
Even if Einstein didn’t talk until he was almost five, neither did countless developmentally delayed, disabled, and low-IQ kids. But could those kids use ASL, facial expressions, and body language with such nuance and eloquence at three years of age?
“Please just do the lead test?” Nessa said, hating the pleading tone of her own voice.
Dr. Blatter sighed. “I’ll send the nurse in. Okay? I’ll see you in four months for his four-year checkup, and I’ll bet he’ll be talking then.”
Nessa laid her hand on Dr. Blatter’s arm as she rose to leave the examining room. “Can I talk to you out in the hall for a second?”
“All right,” the doctor said.
“Mama and Dr. B are going out in the hall for a minute, Daltrey,” Nessa said to him. “I’ll be right back.”
He nodded without looking away from the toy.
Nessa followed Dr. Blatter out and closed the door behind them.
“I just thought you ought to know,” Nessa said, lowering her voice, afraid Daltrey would hear through the door. “Daltrey’s dad and I are getting a divorce.”
Dr. Blatter opened up Daltrey’s file again, clicked her ballpoint pen, and wrote something. “Thank you for letting me know.”
“Daltrey’s dad is bipolar, you see, and he—well, he self-medicates.”
The doctor nodded, her eyes still on the file folder.
“I just couldn’t keep hoping his dad would get his act together—I didn’t think it was good for Daltrey. You know what I mean?”
Dr. Blatter nodded again, her silence somehow compelling Nessa to continue talking.
“You don’t think . . . maybe Daltrey kind of senses something’s out of whack? And that—well, it’s another thing delaying his speech?”
Dr. Blatter finally shifted her inscrutable gaze to Nessa, who went on babbling.
“John was diagnosed less than five years ago. I thought once he got on the psych meds, the need for . . . the other would go away. But it kind of had the opposite effect. He said
they flattened him out. He missed his mania. You know what I mean?”
Of course the doctor knew what she meant. Nessa despised the fact that the situation had changed her into the kind of woman who asked for affirmation after every spoken sentence.
“I’m so sorry,” the doctor said, her breezy, dismissive attitude broken through at last. “Has Daltrey regressed in any way since his dad left home? Has he started to wet the bed? Have his sleep patterns changed? Has he lost interest in the things he loves, books and that sort of thing?”
Nessa shook her head.
“If his development slows down or even goes backward, or any of those other things start to happen, then you bring him back in. We’ll give you a counseling referral. But kids are pretty resilient. He’s a strong little boy.”
Nessa wanted to hug her but restrained herself.
“The nurse will be right in to take some blood.” The doctor turned away but Nessa touched her arm again.
“Bipolar is genetic,” Nessa said. “Isn’t it.”
Dr. Blatter tucked the file folder under her arm and took both of Nessa’s hands in her own. “Listen. Yes. There’s a ten to fifteen percent chance Daltrey will develop the condition. But here’s the thing. We know what to look for. The fact that John wasn’t diagnosed until he was in his thirties means it had altered his brain already. We will keep an eye on Daltrey. If we notice the symptoms, we will manage it. All right?”
Nessa wiped her eyes. “Thank you,” she said.
“Take care of yourself, Mrs. Donati.”
“You too.”
The doctor walked away and Nessa went back into the examining room, where she gathered her son into her lap to wait for another unnecessary needle that would simultaneously assuage her guilt and amplify it.
Chapter Five
WHEN THEY RETURNED home, a panel truck stood out front, decorated with a golden key, emblazoned with LOCK IT UP! and a phone number.
How had Nessa ever gotten by without Isabeau?
Daltrey held her hand as they walked toward the house, hanging back a little when he saw a kid in a work shirt with long dirty-blond hair kneeling next to the front door, removing the doorknob.
“Hi,” Nessa said.
“Hi,” the kid said. His name tag read “Brady.” “I’ll be done in a jiff,” he said. “Already got the back door done.”
“I’ll get you a check,” Nessa said, and led Daltrey into the house. He ran for the kitchen, presumably to find Isabeau.
“This is a great house,” Brady the locksmith said.
“Thanks,” Nessa said.
The kid stood. “Hey, your babysitter or whatever told me you’re the Nessa of Unknown Legends.”
“That’s me,” she said. She really didn’t want to have a conversation with this guy, but she didn’t want to be impolite either.
“You’re not how I pictured you at all,” he said, looking her up and down.
“We never are,” she said. She tried to convey with body language that she had many important tasks to attend to, but he ignored this.
“Hearing you on the radio. I never would have pictured you as a soccer mom.”
But somehow I could have imagined you as a locksmith’s part-time employee.
“I figured you were like a riot grrrl type, you know—covered in tattoos, piercings, that kind of thing.”
She almost said, Oh, I’ve got piercings, all right. I just don’t put anything in them anymore, other than tasteful rings in my lobes.
And tattoos? Oh, she’d had her some tattoos, all right. An entire sleeve on her left arm, which had taken two years, thousands of dollars, and a lot of pain to remove. Of course, the yellows and greens were nearly impossible to laser off because of those ink colors’ reflective properties, so you could still see some parts, which was why Nessa wore long sleeves in every season, even the sweltering, humid, miserable Kansas summers. Too much identifying information.
The only one she couldn’t bear to have removed was The Glimmer Twins on the soft underside of that arm, which in appearance and location had perfectly matched her high school best friend’s.
Candy, her twin, her last real friend. Her soul sister.
Oh, no. Nessa was going to cry in front of this kid. She turned away.
“And you have that blog too, right?” Brady said. “It’s pretty good.”
“I need to fix lunch for my kid,” she said, her sinuses backing up, her eyes filling. “I’ll go get your check.”
“Okay,” he said. “Good talking to you.”
Nessa went into the kitchen and leaned over the sink, afraid she was going to vomit.
Every day. Every day it was a struggle not to think about Candy.
Shit. Now Nessa would have to write about Candy in her AA personal inventory blog tonight.
Under “Regrets.”
Under “Harms or Hurts.”
6/1 part 2
Confession: I judged the locksmith kid. Who the hell do I think I am anyway? Oh, yes, I’m a star, baby. The star my mom always wanted to be, but the irony is no one I ever knew in my old life knows I’m a star.
But that’s not what I need to inventory today.
For the first time in a while, I’m going to talk about Candy. It’s hard to cry and type at the same time, so I need to cry for a while first.
Okay. When I first saw Candy freshman year of high school, it was like walking toward a full-length mirror. Candy had my exact haircut—short and dark with blond spikes (it was the early ’00s, remember), brown eyes like me, same face shape, same general body type. We hated each other immediately.
We went to one of the worst-performing high schools in the US, which I’m not going to name, because who cares? Metal detectors at the doors, security guards everywhere, lots of gang stuff. I’d already been in trouble for shoplifting at this point, had a solid D average, had been smoking pot and drinking since I was twelve, lost my virginity at thirteen. (Sounds like every cliché bad-kid ever. Pathetic.) Because Mom was rarely home—she was out hustling. I have to give her props. She was always looking for an “opportunity,” a way to make lemonade with the lemons life was always handing us. She schemed harder than anyone I’ve ever met—constantly coming up with crazy get-rich-quick ideas, some of which actually worked out. Getting a job, though, was for ordinary people. Why she thought she wasn’t ordinary is a mystery.
She also went on auditions and got a few bit parts here and there. Whenever the movie Death Book plays on late-night cable, I watch it until the scene where Mom’s behind the counter at the DMV and gets a pair of scissors in the ear.
But every once in a while, she’d get a job—receptionist, or cocktail waitress, or temp worker, until she inevitably got fired.
So anyway, when I found out that Candy was a harlee, what used to be called a goody-two-shoes, I made it my mission to corrupt her. Mostly because I couldn’t have her wrecking my street cred with the Latina girls, with her good grades and her . . . okay, I’m going to cry some more now.
So, what made us real friends? Brandon, during a rare extended period of good health, took me to a Queens of the Stone Age show at the Troubadour in West Hollywood, since none of my girls were interested in “white-boy rock.” After the opening band, Brandon went to the bathroom and when he came back he told me he’d seen me out in the hall. It was Candy, of course. What was this spaz bunny doing at a QOTSA show?
I ran out there to find her all by herself, looking completely comfortable alone. That struck me—I needed a gallon of beer and some chronic to get my balls up, but here was this girl, who I thought was a total suck-up, just into the music.
“Hey,” she said when she saw me, delight in her eyes, even though we were sworn enemies. Maybe it was because we weren’t surrounded by our posses—she hung out with the good black girls. I found out
she partied too, but she said something I’ll never forget: “You know, you can have a good time without ruining your life. You can party without making it your whole identity. You can do well in school at the same time. You can do both.”
“Maybe you can,” I said.
“You have to decide what you are. Are you a stoner slut? Or are you a Queens of the Stone Age fan and a writer and—”
“A writer?” I said, incredulous.
“You read some of your poetry in comp class, remember?” She smiled at me. “You never miss comp class. You’ve got some talent. And I’ll bet you read a lot too. You can’t be a good writer without reading.”
She was right, about the reading part anyway. I know I don’t have any great talent at writing. I’m serviceable—that’s about it.
After that, we became inseparable, as the saying goes. We called ourselves the Glimmer Twins.
I can’t do any more tonight, but I will force myself to write my second-biggest regret regarding Candy.
That we ever met.
Chapter Six
Thursday, June 2
NESSA HAD ANOTHER nightmare about John. They were on the Big Blue River in the canoe, fishing.
“You know I hate to fish,” Nessa said in the dream, but even as she said it, she looked around at the early-morning light, the spring-green banks, and felt happy.
“But we’re going to catch something really special this time,” he said, and cranked on his reel. He pulled up what she thought was a supermarket frozen turkey at first, but then Nessa realized it was a baby.
A dead baby.
He turned to her with a ghoulish smile.
She woke up with her heart battering her chest wall, sweating, out of breath as if she’d climbed five flights of stairs.
Damn you, John.
Nessa’s dreams were often so obvious they could be used in a psych textbook. Her relationship with John was like a tiny, helpless baby. And like a baby, if you didn’t feed the relationship, if you gave it drugs, it would die.