“Is she acting up again?” She raises one eyebrow and doesn’t wait for a response, just strides into my grandmother’s room as if she already knows what she’ll find there.
“Now, now, Martha,” the nurse says in a patient, soothing voice. “Let’s lie back and take your medicine, OK?” The nurse draws a syringe full of clear liquid, injecting it into the thin skin of my grandmother’s arm. I watch as she flinches at the stick of the needle, turning her face away from me, her lips moving soundlessly.
“She’ll be all right now,” the nurse says, patting me on the shoulder as she exits the room, her cotton-clad legs swishing together as she moves.
I pull up a chair and sit there for a while next to the bed, watching my grandmother sleep, the way her eyeballs move beneath her eyelids, which are vaguely purple, almost bruised looking. I hold her hand in mine, knowing it could be anyone’s hand that she holds, that it takes two to hold hands and right now, I’m the only one really holding on. I know that when she dies, the good memories I have of my childhood will fade and die along with her, and the thought shatters any small bit of hope I have left.
I watch her chest rise and fall with every breath she takes until sunlight creeps across the walls of her room, bouncing off the pictures in their gold frames, until I am hardened and dry as an empty husk.
TWENTY-SIX
THE NEXT MORNING, I wake at 11:15, adrenaline flooding my body as I crack one eye open to glance at the clock. My mouth is so dry that when I move my lips apart, I actually hear a sucking sound as the flesh comes unglued. Standing at the refrigerator chugging a glass of ice water so fast that I sink to the floor, my head filled with blinding pain, hands pressed to my forehead as if I could somehow blot everything out— Julian, my mother, sitting on Christoph’s lap in the Chandelier Room the night before, a cold bottle of champagne tucked between my knees. My pulse racing each time his tanned skin brushed against my own, the feeling of falling, vertigo, the air rushing by my face as he leaned closer, his citrus cologne tickling my nose with the scent of sun-warmed beaches. The strained look on Giovanni’s face as I bent over the mirror repeatedly, my reflection rising up to meet me.
Standing in front of Tavern on the Green, I pace the sidewalk, glancing up at the red awning over the door as if it will somehow magically change into a place I actually want to enter. After ten minutes, I take a deep breath and force myself to walk through the front door, my heart hammering in my ears. The restaurant is full of well-heeled families settling in for brunch, gold and crystal chandeliers dangling from the ceiling like huge, expensive earrings. The scent of freshly cut flowers and imported coffee mingles with a myriad perfumes: hot-house roses, violets and the animal growl of musk.
I duck quickly into the ladies’ room, stand at the marble counters and breathe, filling my lungs with gulps of air. In some kind of attempt to appease my mother and thwart her anger and disapproval, I am wearing what could be considered my most nondescript articles of clothing. A black pleated skirt with gray woolen tights, and a tailored white shirt topped with a navy pea coat. A feeling of hopelessness comes over me as I take in my boring clothes, hair scraped back into place with a patent-leather headband—a cheap facsimile of the daughter my mother always wanted. Even after all this time, I am still trying to cater to her wants and desires, to please her in some way. Sara was right: It’s ridiculous. Pathetic.
When I walk into the main dining room, I see my mother right away. She’s in the back, where I knew she’d be, at her favorite round table set for four near the huge glass windows. As I move toward her, I’m numb, taking in the frosted hair combed back from her face and secured at the base of her long neck. She’s wearing a beige silk dress, the material artfully draped at the bust and waist. Gold chains glitter at her throat, and diamond studs shine in her ears, as compact and neat as twin seashells, treasure glinting at the bottom of the sea.
As I slide into the chair across from her, my mother looks me up and down with a tight smile, bringing a glass of champagne up to her red lips, the crystal flute gripped between her fingers. I can tell from her expression that, as usual, I’ve failed some important test, disappointing her once again.
“Hi, Mom,” I say, careful to keep my expression neutral.
“Thanks for coming,” she says, turning to rummage in her purse, pulling out a gold cigarette case my father gave her on her thirty-fifth birthday. She extracts a cigarette, lighting it with her gold Cartier lighter. Smoke envelops her face as she exhales, momentarily disappearing until the smoke fades, drifting in lazy circles above her head.
I fidget with the silverware as the waiter approaches, smiling at me expectantly.
“She will have the eggs Benedict and an orange juice,” my mother says before I can speak. “Just the champagne for me.” She hands him the menus with disdain, as if talking to waiters is a necessary evil, something she merely tolerates in the course of her daily life. At the mention of eggs, my stomach begins to turn in protest, a wave of nausea sweeping through my body.
“Very good,” the waiter says, collecting the menus and wine list, which is as thick as a Manhattan phone book. As he prepares to walk away, I manage to find my voice.
“Actually, I’ll just have a cup of black coffee and some wheat toast,” I say. My mother glares at me, clearly annoyed.
“Caitlin, you love the eggs Benedict here,” she protests, an icy note in her voice. The subtext? Do. Not. Argue. With. Me. “It used to be your favorite.”
The waiter glances at my mother, then me, his lips held in a thin smile, his eyes glazed over in either boredom or annoyance.
“When I was ten,” I say carefully. “I haven’t eaten eggs in years.”
The waiter smiles, then walks away, the menus tucked under his arm, leaving me to deal with this mess on my own. My mother shakes her head in irritation.
“We’ve only been here five minutes, and already you’re arguing with me.” She stamps out her cigarette in the ashtray with an angry jab of her wrist, shaking her head from side to side.
Through the wall of windows behind my mother, I watch a little girl in a puffy winter coat walk by the restaurant holding her father’s hand, a pair of bright red mittens clipped to her coat sleeves. She looks up at her father as she walks, her face full of wonder and delight, her corn-silk hair curling gently around her small face.
“I’m not arguing with you,” I say, still staring out the window, my voice a monotone. “I just didn’t want eggs. That’s all.” Somehow it feels less dangerous to not look her in the face, but I know that if there is even a chance she thinks I’m ignoring her, it will seriously piss her off. I tear my eyes away from the window and take a sip of the water in front of me, ice clinking painfully against my front teeth.
Sensing my restraint, she switches tactics, smiling with a warmth you’d think was sincere unless you knew my mother the way I do. It’s the kind of smile that makes you feel like the sun has just burst out of the clouds after a long, interminable winter of gray skies and drizzle—if you fall for it, that is, which I stopped doing some time ago. Still, the sight of her face alight with pleasure and maybe something like love stops my heart entirely.
“I wanted to talk to you about your living situation.” The waiter approaches again, carrying my toast and coffee, the bread cut into precise triangles, the edges so sharp they could puncture an artery. He sets down a silver tray of butter along with tiny jars of French jam. The smell of toasted bread and the acrid burn of coffee makes my stomach recoil, and I close my eyes for a moment. You will not throw up, I tell myself sternly.
“What about it?” Despite my attempts to keep things neutral, I cannot stop an edge from creeping into my voice. I pick up the coffee cup and bring it to my lips, steam flooding my face.
“I’m sure you know that I don’t think it’s at all appropriate.” She picks up her champagne glass, draining it and signaling the waiter for another.
“For who?”
“For anyone, Caitlin,” she sn
aps, annoyed now. “It’s been six months, and people are starting to talk.”
“And whose fault is that?”
After the words leave my mouth, I become rapidly aware that they were a mistake. My mother’s face closes off like a door slamming shut, her eyes narrowing as she calculates her next move.
“Have you seen your father?” she says, changing the subject expertly, dodging and weaving like a prizefighter. The problem with prizefighters, I know from experience, is that they often wait for you to drop your guard before they hit you.
“Barely.”
“And what does that mean?” She raises one finely arched eyebrow as the waiter returns with another flute of champagne, setting it gently before her on the snow-white tablecloth.
“It means I’ve barely seen him. He showed up at school a few days ago and stayed for approximately five minutes. Three months ago, when he forgot to send the rent, I dropped by his office to pick up a check. Besides that, I haven’t seen him since he signed the lease on my apartment.”
“You know,” she says, leaning forward conspiratorially, as if she and I are in this together, “your father never wanted you. He said that children would be too much trouble. Personally, I think he was afraid it would cramp his style.” She smiles with false brightness as if she’s just told me about a sale at Bloomingdale’s. My throat immediately goes dry. She is always cruel, my mother, but one never knows when that cruelty will make an appearance or what guise it will take. She has the rare talent of putting into words one’s deepest fears and insecurities, going right for them like a lion at the kill. I can’t swallow, the moisture in my mouth evaporating with her words. I blink rapidly, desperate to keep tears from falling in front of her. My chest aches. An open wound.
“In any case, it’s not appropriate for you to be living all the way downtown in that hovel,” she says, pleased that her admission has had the desired effect. My mother shudders in revulsion as if the apartment itself is the real problem, changing the subject again as easily as switching the channels on TV. “Your father agrees with me, by the way.”
“Well, he didn’t say anything about it to me when I saw him,” I say, picking up a piece of toast, then laying it back down, brushing crumbs off my fingers.
“Caitlin.” She is all business now, pushing her glass to the side and folding her hands together on the table like we’re at a board meeting. “You need to come home.”
There is a long silence. Home. That word as foreign as my name in her mouth. The trouble with words is that they never mean what you want them to mean. I am thinking about the last night I called my mother’s apartment home. The quiet in the kitchen broken only by the ticking clock as I warmed a frozen dinner in the microwave, my mother entering the room soundlessly, her hands grabbing my hair from behind and yanking hard, my skull aching for days, the way my eyes focused only on the pink veins in the marble floor as my head made contact and my eyes closed, bracing myself against pain. How everyone stared at me in school the next day, my eye purple-black as a wilted pansy, the look on the headmistress’s face as she called me into her office, the room spinning with tentative, probing questions that left me dizzy and unable to speak. Sudden vertigo. My face deadened. The social workers who arrived unannounced later that night, and the hardened look in my father’s eyes as he pressed crisp bills into their waiting hands, his mobile phone ringing endlessly. The car waiting downstairs ready to speed him far away from us. My mother glowering in the corner, her face half in shadow.
“I don’t think so,” I say slowly, my words as heavy as lead. “It isn’t really home anymore.”
My mother sits back in her chair, observing me with eyes that glisten with moisture at the corners, her face unreadable. All around us the restaurant bustles with life, waiters walk back and forth on the plush carpeting with silver trays held high above their heads, the sound of laughter ringing in the air mixes with the noise of eating as glasses are clinked together, plates scraped with the sharp metal tines of a fork.
“I’m still your mother,” she says quietly after a few minutes.
I bite my bottom lip, focusing on the pain that blooms on the surface of the tender skin there. I force myself to concentrate on the breath going in and out of my lungs, aware I am fighting to keep those breaths regular and even, fighting to breathe at all.
She looks down at the tabletop, her mouth quivering, and for a moment I think she might cry. I know rationally it is most likely an attempt to manipulate me into doing what she wants, but if tears actually fall from her eyes, it will undo me completely. Something irrevocable will happen, my brain breaking apart, a mass of ice cracking on a rooftop, loosening before crashing headlong to the pavement.
But when she looks up, I see the hint of a smile in her eyes, a brightness that tells me this is part of the act. If she makes me believe she’s sorry, maybe I’ll give in, give up and follow her home like a whipped dog reunited with its owner. I’m not sure what I wanted, what I hoped to find here in this place with clinking silverware and the careful squint of her eyes across the table, but the idea of that kind of submission makes my blood burn, my skin suddenly prickling with heat. How dare she, I think, the anger building like a piece of music, a rising crescendo. How dare she. But what makes me angrier still is my own reaction, the fact that even after all I know of her lies, her manipulation, I could almost fall for the guile of her manufactured tears. The only reason she wants me back is that she cannot have me. The only reason she covets me at all is that it doesn’t look “right” to be living on my own, without her looming over me.
“Caitlin, you have to think about your future. You simply cannot run and play your whole life! Your guidance counselor mentioned that—”
I stand up, a strength I didn’t know I had rising up inside me, the momentum and heat of dry leaves catching fire, a blaze that threatens to obliterate everything. How can she lecture me about a future that she never prepared me for, a future she never gave me the tools to handle? All I know is pain and fear, how to survive the day-to-day-ness of life by putting one foot in front of the other and looking straight ahead. My mother’s mouth falls open in surprise as she watches me gather up my things, jerking my coat on with angry movements, my arm catching in one sleeve before I pull it free, the lining tearing with an audible rip.
“Caitlin!” my mother hisses under her breath. “Sit down! People are looking!”
She reaches out one hand and grabs my wrist, her fingers tightening around my skin, scratching me with her nails in a way that feels so familiar, I almost scream. I jerk my arm away roughly, aware that the whole restaurant has stopped to watch us, that forks piled with food are being held motionless in front of open mouths, that the women directly across from us are whispering behind cupped hands.
“I don’t care!” I yell out, my voice surprising me with how loud it sounds in the hushed room. The spot on my wrist where she scratched me pulses hotly, and I rub it with my other hand, my eyes never leaving my mother’s face as I lean down. This close we are mirror reflections of each other. The face that looks angrily back at me is my own, lips the same fleshy pillows. But the expression in her eyes is flat and dead. Snake eyes, devoid of any kind of real feeling, and as I look at my mother, I make a silent promise to myself; I swear that I will never become her, bitter and full of rage, obsessed with what other people think, that in spite of genetics, a physical resemblance is the only thing we will ever share between us. At this moment I am so angry, so full of urgency that my entire body is vibrating like the buzzing whine of a chain saw.
“If you ever touch me again,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper, “I will hit you back. And it will hurt.”
Her eyes widen further, and in them I see not only anger but, for the first time, fear, and I know she has heard me. She nods almost imperceptibly, dropping her gaze to the floor.
I walk out of the room, all eyes on me as I move farther away from my mother, every step sealing my fate. Even though I can’t see her, I ima
gine the apologetic smile that is surely plastered all over her face, how she will raise one hand to ask for the check, and I am inexplicably filled with a sadness so large, it threatens to swallow me completely. She’s cruel and dangerous, but she’s also my mother. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m only seventeen, and I still need mothering. Whatever that means. What makes me saddest of all is the crushing knowledge that she will never be able to love me the way I need her to, that maybe she cannot love at all. And it feels like a kind of death. I thought if I finally stood up to her, I’d feel better. I was wrong.
When I push open the front door and the cold wind rips through my coat, I begin to shiver violently, the adrenaline finally giving way to exhaustion as I begin to make my way through Central Park, the bare branches of the trees overhead offering protection against nothing. The world feels like a Xerox of itself, two-dimensional and unreal. I know I will meet Christoph tonight because there is no longer any reason not to. No matter how much I fight against it, I’m always inevitably drawn to the worst of everything. That kind of darkness.
I force myself not to think about Julian, love, or any other kind of fake salvation, my shoes clicking against the path as I move myself forward, pedestrians walking blithely by me in a blur of wool and laughter as tears finally begin their slow, icy crawl down my face.
* * * *
THE SCENT OF FRANKINCENSE and myrrh drifts by my head as the priest shakes the incense burner, the brass swinging from a chain flashing like a prism in the sunlit stone room. I am sitting between my grandparents, my small hand wrapped in my grandfather’s large, meaty palm, the skin roughened by long hours spent in his minuscule garden plot. When he releases me, I know my hand will smell of the tomato vines he tended before we got in the car, of sunlight and the dark, loamy tang of turned earth.
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