Everything Beautiful Is Not Ruined

by Danielle Younge-Ullman

  “Is there anything in there that can help?” I asked one day, pointing at the book in front of her.

  She looked up, met my gaze, and then started to shake. “I can’t even read. I can, but . . . nothing goes in.” She pointed to her head. “And everything is so . . . slow. Thick.”

  “Mom, you need to see a doctor.”

  “I’ve had quite enough of doctors,” she muttered. “I just need to rest.”

  “What about what I need?”

  “Oh, sweetheart . . .” Tears formed in her eyes.

  “You can’t just stay in bed forever, Mom,” I said, my repressed anger bubbling toward the surface. “You can’t just lie around feeling sorry for yourself. You have a daughter, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  A wailing sob came out of her at this, and she got up and hobbled, hunched over and crying, and threw her arms around me. I hugged her back and eventually managed to get her upstairs and into her bed, where she cried for five solid hours. I sat outside the door, feeling helpless, remorseful, and still furious.

  The next day she got up and made breakfast and was awake and cooking more food than we could possibly eat when I got home from school, and then she stayed awake all night, walking back and forth, up and down, weeping and talking to herself. She’d been drinking Red Bull and taking super doses of vitamins.

  It wasn’t an improvement. And the next day she crashed back down again, staying in bed for a solid month.

  I felt like setting the house on fire, calling in the army, howling at the moon, anything, just to make something happen. But I was also afraid of anything happening, because it wouldn’t necessarily be good, as evidenced by the Red Bull/vitamin incident.

  Then a letter arrived. It was from one of the few friends—a costume designer from Vienna—who’d made a small effort at keeping in touch.

  The envelope contained, in addition to a chatty letter, a newspaper clipping containing a review about a brilliant new soprano—someone we knew, but not well—in a breakout performance. Screw it, I thought, and delivered it to Mom on the pretty bamboo tray I’d been using to bring her anything I thought would tempt her to eat.

  “Want me to read it to you?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, scanning it from her reclined position on the pillows.

  “Okay . . .”

  “A slap in the face,” Mom muttered a couple of minutes later, and dropped the clipping onto the floor. And then she sat up a little straighter. I was about to pat her arm, but drew back when I saw fire in her eyes.

  Fire was good. Fire was better than despair—it had to be.

  Yes. Get up. Get up and fight.

  I picked up the clipping.

  “Take it away,” Mom said.

  I went softly out, heart pounding, and dropped the clipping into the bathroom garbage.

  Something will happen now, I thought, and I was right.

  From Mom’s bedroom came a ripping sound, followed by a bellowing roar: “Down!”

  I froze.

  “Bring it down!”

  I unfroze, shot back to Mom’s room, and found her out of bed and wild-eyed.

  “Bring it all down,” she cried, gripping one of the diaphanous bed curtains in both hands and pulling at it until it ripped from the ceiling. Bits of plaster fell down all around us, and the beautiful curtains lay pooled at her feet. “Bring it down!”

  “Mom, stop!” I cried, crossing the room. This, again, was not what I’d been hoping for. “Mom! You’ll bring the ceiling down on us! Come, you love this bed; it’s your diva bed!”

  It was the wrong thing to say, the diva part. I knew that right away. And if there’d been any doubt, the wail that rose up, seemingly through the depths of the earth all the way through Mom’s weakened body and up through her damaged vocal cords, made it clear.

  Wrong thing.

  Another curtain, this one seeming to shriek as it tore along the seams.

  “Mom, Mom, stop . . .” I was forced to move, and almost tripped in my haste to get out of the way as Mom launched herself across the bed to attack the curtains on the other side.

  “Stop it, stop it, stop it!” I continued to shout, my voice barely penetrating through the wailing and the ripping and tearing and the raining plaster. And then Mom started to pick up other things—a ceramic cat, a music box—and throw them at the wall. The smashing sounds were epic. “No, you’re ruining everything, all the beautiful things! Please, please, stop . . .”

  “Everything beautiful is already ruined,” Mom roared, proving she was listening, at least.

  “It isn’t!” I snapped, so tired, so frightened, so tired of being frightened, and so very frustrated. “Margot-Sophia!” I hollered, and I flew across the room to the bedroom door, grabbed the handle, and began to slam it—open and slam, open and slam—over and over as hard as I could.

  “Margot-Sophia!” (Slam, swoosh, slam.)

  “Get hold of yourself!” (Swoosh, slam, swoosh.)

  “Get hold of yourself and stop being so baroque!” (Slam.)

  “You stop this!” I slammed the door hard, three times, my voice a roar that came from my deepest depths. “Now.”

  Mom stopped, her dark hair still flying around her face for a few seconds after the rest of her paused, holding in one hand a figurine from Germany dressed in frothy-looking porcelain lace.

  Her eyes locked on me as I stood, hand on the doorknob, ready to slam it again.

  For a long moment I figured the doll was going to come flying at me and thought about how that lace might be sharp at certain velocities.

  And then Mom’s lips twitched and her body quivered, and I figured we were about to go back to the shaking and crying, maybe for days, maybe worse this time. Maybe I’d made a terrible mistake.

  But then she began to laugh.

  She laughed. Laughed until she was helpless, until once again I feared for the doll, and therefore stepped forward and took it from her, setting it back on the writing desk.

  Mom was still laughing, which meant maybe after all this she was actually losing her mind. But if it was madness, I would take it, because she came to me and took me in her arms and I started laughing too. If it was madness, maybe we would just go mad together.

  We laughed until we had tears coursing down our cheeks, laughed ourselves onto the floor among the mistreated curtains and crumbled plaster, laughed until our stomachs hurt and our throats were dry.

  And then she grabbed my hands and said in her beautifully focused, intense way, “Oh my dear, my sweetheart, of course you are right.”

  “That you were being baroque?”

  She snorted. “That too.”

  “That the ceiling is going to come down?”

  At this, she took my face, kissed me on both cheeks, then stared into my eyes and said, “That everything beautiful is not ruined.”

  SHIT HOLE

  (Peak Wilderness, Day Two)

  Dear Mom,

  How refreshing to wake up in nature like this.

  In two inches of water, to be specific.

  TWO INCHES.

  This is just what I needed after a long night of listening to Peace-Bob snort and snore, and re-seeing his hairy bare butt, nether orifice, and family jewels in my mind’s eye, and being squished by large male bodies sliding downhill toward me in their slippery sleeping bags.

  Lovely, fresh rainwater, to wash the night away.

  So invigorating.

  All my clothing, the clean and the dirty, is wet. My sleeping bag is soaked. The only things that are not wet are this journal, the hoodie/pillow, and the few things I stashed in the top pockets of my pack last night—none of it wearable.

  Fortunately the rain has stopped and the sun is up and I did get to keep one bar of biodegradable soap, so I figure I’ll have the chance to wash everything in the lake
and hang it out to dry in the sunshine. It’ll probably smell amazing.

  I’ll try my best to keep a positive attitude, because really, it has to get better from here.

  Sunshine and rainbows,

  Ingrid

  Dear Mom!

  I had my positive attitude for at least five minutes, until the morning’s first “lesson.”

  How to Dig a Hole to Poop In.

  You think I’m kidding?

  I wish.

  But no, these are the “details” Pat must have been referring to yesterday, back when I was innocent and naïve—i.e., worried about having to use an outhouse and whether the mattress on my bunk would be comfortable.

  I am going on a no-fiber diet.

  Apparently it’s a hiker’s rule—you can’t just take a crap in the woods and leave it. First you find yourself a good stick, then you dig a nice little crap-size hole, then you, uh, whip your pants down and do your thing (hopefully you’ll have good aim), then after, you cover it all up with dirt and leaves.

  Oh, and it gets better. Because next, when none of us asked any follow-up questions about the hole digging (because we were all so revolted and in shock, I assume), Bonnie stepped in to give a demo for the females, about how to lean back onto a tree while peeing.

  She stayed fully dressed, but the detail of the demonstration was mortifying. Why this had to be done in front of everyone, and not in a private session with females only, I do not know.

  And then came the final delight.

  “Now listen up! We’re trying to leave nature as we find it,” Bonnie said, and then handed each of us a large Ziploc bag. “Anyone know what these are for?”

  “Antibacterial wipes?” I suggested, feeling hopeful.

  “No. This is for your toilet paper,” she said.

  Right. This actually made sense to me, especially after the water issue of this morning.

  “Your used toilet paper,” she clarified.

  My mouth opened to respond, but nothing came out.

  “All used toilet paper goes into your Ziploc,” she confirmed, “and you keep it with you until the end of the trip.”

  Used

  Toilet paper.

  Keep with you . . .

  I closed my eyes . . .

  and somehow managed to keep my scream on the inside.

  “Doesn’t . . . shouldn’t toilet paper biodegrade?” This was Seth, who looked a little pale.

  “I believe I just said that we aim to leave nature as we find it,” Bonnie said in a tone that made it clear there would be no debate. “And animals don’t use toilet paper.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Jin muttered, and as I glanced around I could tell almost everyone was thinking the same thing. Maybe I’m not the only underprepared person on this trip. Maybe Peak Wilderness deliberately omits these gross details from their literature, and you didn’t know about them either, Mom . . . ? Because my fellow campers were responding with quite a bit of horror and surprise.

  All except Peace-Bob, of course, who was nodding his approval and will probably use his nasty Ziploc as a pillow.

  And I thought, Save me.

  And then I thought, How is this, in any way, helpful preparation for my spending a year away, in a completely civilized city, at a school that has plumbing and everything else? How does it apply? And then I answered my own question, Mom: it doesn’t.

  I am having these moments, asking myself WTF I am doing here, and thinking about you, and in those moments, thousands of tiny knives stab me from the inside and I can’t breathe and I want to take up the ax again. Hack at things with a sharp object.

  “Time to pack up,” Pat said in a cheery voice, just as if Bonnie hadn’t dropped a shit bomb on us. “Duncan will be here soon with the boat.”

  The group dispersed, but I was shivering in my still-wet clothing and couldn’t imagine how I was supposed to participate all day in this state, so I approached Pat and explained about all my things being soaked.

  “Oh yes. I noticed last night that your tent wasn’t in the best location,” he said.

  “You . . . noticed last night?” I said, blinking in disbelief.

  “It’s best to set a tent on high ground,” he said.

  “Really.”

  “Yes,” he said, nodding. “That way the rain runs downhill from where you are.”

  “Aha,” I said, nodding along with him, wanting to wring his scrawny neck. “I see that now.”

  “Basics of gravity,” he continued, oblivious—or pretending to be oblivious—of my fury. “Plus your rain fly should not be touching the tent proper—it ruins the seal. So I’ll bet you had water dripping from above too.”

  “Wow. Yes, we did.”

  “Yup. Not surprised you had a problem.”

  “You’re not surprised,” I repeated.

  “Nope,” he said.

  I thought my head might explode. Or that I might, despite being a generally peaceful human being, kick him in the shins.

  But you brought me up to be polite, Mom. So instead I took two deep breaths, gripped my Ziploc, and asked if I might have some extra time before we left for the day, to hang my things, plus our tent, out to dry.

  Pat shook his head. “We’ve got a two-hour boat ride and then a long hike before we reach camp tonight. I’m sorry, but it’ll have to wait.”

  “I’m sorry too,” I said, oh so politely, and went to pack.

  So, Mom, that is how you find me: filthy, exhausted, starving, grossed out, and miserable, on the deck of a ferryboat.

  And before you ask, I did try taking my things out to dry on the boat . . . and promptly lost a pair of shorts overboard. My only pair.

  Love anyway,

  Ingrid

  Soon enough we’re standing on a beach in the middle of some supposedly awesome national park—I should call it that: Supposedly Awesome National Park—poring over the maps Bonnie and Pat have given us. When I see where we are, my heart sinks.

  I thought dropping us in the middle of a field yesterday, then confiscating half our belongings and taking us on a four-hour march that ended in bugs for dinner and leaky tent-sleeping with strange men was more than enough to give me the sense of being removed from every single thing of familiarity and comfort. But evidently we needed to get even farther from civilization.

  Everyone else is oohing and aahing about nature and the incredible views, and all I can think about is that there isn’t a building or human-made thing to be seen, anywhere. Not even a cell tower. We’ve been left in the middle of nowhere, many days’ hike from civilization, and I don’t find it inspiring at all.

  I find it terrifying.

  In fact, my breathing is getting short and I am feeling a powerful urge to ditch my backpack and start running. It’s almost like reverse claustrophobia, if there is such a thing.

  “Can you feel that?” Melissa says, coming up beside me, eyes intense.

  “Feel what?” I ask, thinking maybe she’s having a similar experience.

  “The farther we get out here, the more I feel like the layers are peeling off me,” she says, and I realize that her intensity is of the ecstatic variety.

  “Really?” I say, trying to swallow back my own sense of panic.

  “Yes!” She reaches her arms out in a stretch, then turns to me and asks, “What do you see?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “When you look at me, what do you see?”

  “Um . . .” I have the distinct feeling this is a trick question. “I see a tall blonde girl with pretty blue eyes, fit looking . . .”

  “A perfect girl,” she says.

  “Y-yes . . . ? Well, I mean no one’s—”

  “A perfect girl from a perfect family. That’s what I was,” she says, steamrolling over my response with bitter words from what sounds like a speech she
’s been mentally rehearsing for a very long time. “Perfect and effortlessly meeting everyone’s expectations. Pretty, thin, sporty but not too sporty, smart but not so smart as to be off-putting, friendly, and with appropriate friends, appropriate interests. An intelligent career in front of me, oh, unless someone ‘discovered’ me on the street, as they surely would, and then I would be the next Karlie Kloss. But it wasn’t ever effortless.”

  All I need to do is nod. In fact I get the feeling I am barely required at all, for her to have this conversation. Or maybe I am, because she really needs to talk.

  “My family—they like to keep a lid on things. My dad’s best and only advice, ever, even after this cult thing, is, ‘Get your head screwed on, Melissa!’ As if I could literally, you know, go to a chiropractor and have that done.”

  “That’d be nice,” I say.

  “Seriously. My therapist thinks I was vulnerable to . . . the cult . . . because I wanted so badly to break from all that. I was going crazy under all that expectation. So I escaped from one sort of control into a worse one. And now I’m back at home with them, and it’s . . . the expectation, and how they’re freaking out without ever saying they’re freaking out . . . and . . . oh . . . sorry . . . I’m talking too much.”

  “No, it’s fine,” I say.

  “What was I on about in the first place?”

  “Layers . . . ?”

  “Yes. So, that’s a layer—expectation. I’m away from everything, and that feels . . . good. For the moment, anyway. They’re like voices in my head I can’t turn off, sometimes. And then his voice, too, like everyone is just fighting for control of me. And I’m scared.”

  “Why?”

  She looks at me, eyes haunted. “Because sometimes all I want is for someone to tell me what to do.”

  I am trying to formulate a response to this when Pat calls us to gather around.

  It’s time to set out for today’s hike. Bonnie and Pat give us the briefest of instructions: one of us is always to be in the lead, one at the back making sure no one trails behind. The lead must spot little piles of rocks called “cairns” in order to find and follow the path.

  They take volunteers for each position.