Sounds Like Crazy

by Mahaffey, Shana

  My dangling legs swung back and forth under the pew. On a forward swing, my clog flew off, hit the back of the pew in front of us, and fell to the floor. Like most old-style European churches, the acoustics were very good. And my clog drop was well-timed with a moment of silent prayer.

  I sat frozen like a statue. The offending clog lay on its side, barely concealed by the pew in front of me. My mother whipped her head around, glaring. The heads in front of us lifted and then dropped again. My mother pointed at my shoe and hissed, “Put that back on and sit still.”

  My mother’s standard method of imposing good behavior in church was to grip a small bit of my upper arm between her sharp red nails and then twist. If I made one peep, she would twist harder. Even at my age, I knew how to mute cries of pain. I shrank back, relieved that she couldn’t reach my arm.

  When my mother turned again, I slid my body forward and reached for my shoe with a pointed toe.When my foot met the clog, it flipped upright, making a light tap on the marble. I slowly moved back to the bench, keeping my foot flexed so as not to lose my shoe again.

  While the priest droned, I tried to follow the story in the stained glass windows on the opposite wall. I concentrated on my favorite—the one where a bloody-headed Jesus dragged a cross anchored over his bent back.The congregation shifted forward to the kneeling position again. I concentrated on Jesus. In my head the Silent One carried the Boy in a piggyback ride. I giggled. Sarah elbowed me.

  “Holly, let me out,” said the Boy.

  The last few days nobody had paid attention to me except to tell me to go play, or sit still on the sofa. Last night when I closed my eyes I felt myself drift backward. I didn’t understand what I was doing, but it helped pass the still hour on the sofa, and it was definitely more interesting than watching the whispering people eat crackers and sip wine.

  As I slipped forward to my knees I whispered, “Okay.” I watched as my arms pulled the offertory envelopes from the box that held the songbooks. The Silent One shook his head sadly. Then I tasted the sharp glue of the envelope seal. My thumbs pulled away and the envelopes drifted, seal up, onto the pew before me. After a while, the pew was littered with envelopes.

  “Please be seated,” said the priest.

  The Boy ceded control back to me.

  The priest spoke for a few more minutes. People stood, shook hands, knelt, and then finally filed to the altar for communion. Even though it had been explained to me many times, I still didn’t understand why people ate Jesus. I had nightmares about the body of Jesus sliced up into little wafers. What alarmed me most was,What would happen when the body of Jesus ran out? If I used my father as a measure, his body could be sliced into a lot of paper-thin disks that would last our church about a year. A year was not forever. Jesus was going to run out. Then what? I vowed never to eat Jesus. At least he would last a little longer if I abstained.

  My mother stood before the priest. She tilted her bowed head up and opened wide to consume Jesus. I felt sick.

  “Holly,” said the Boy. “Look.” He pointed from my head to my mother’s dress.The offertory envelopes hung on her butt like too many earrings. I sniggered into my sticky fingers. As my mother made the slow traverse back to her seat, my aunt pulled off one of the envelopes and whispered, “Elizabeth,” as she showed it to her.

  My mother disappeared behind a column. She reappeared a few seconds later with a small stack of paper in her hand. Her frosty face remained fixed on me until she was seated. For the first time I wished that church services would never end.

  Back at my grandparents’ house, my mother cornered me in a room away from prying eyes. She held my upper arm in her viselike grip. “The little boy did it,” I pleaded with a sob. Every time I said this, my mother yanked harder.

  “How dare you blame someone else,” she said in her measured voice.

  “But he did,” I repeated.

  “Stop crying; you are making a spectacle,” snapped my mother.

  Uncle Dan appeared behind her. I noticed his freckled fingers and hammered nails as he gripped her collarbone and said, “Elizabeth?”

  She turned. I peeked from behind her.

  “Why don’t you let me take Holly?” he said gently.

  I watched them both through tears dangling on my eyelashes while they held each other’s gaze. My mother let go of my arm and walked away without another word. My uncle knelt down in front of me. I closed my eyes and he wiped off my face with his thumbs.Then he picked me up and carried me outside.

  When I finished telling the story, Milton said, “Holly, have you ever outright asked the Committee who they are?”

  I looked back at him, perplexed. He always chose the oddest things to focus on. “That is what you want to know after what I just told you?” I said.

  Milton nodded. “Have you ever asked them?”

  I opened my mouth to answer. Closed it. Opened it. Shook my head as if invisible fingers were holding it on either side, nudging it back and forth just a little. I inhaled and said, “No.”

  We locked eyes for a few seconds. Milton did his thumb-under-the-chin-with-the-forefinger-touching-the-bottom-lip- other-three-fingers curled-into-the-palm,“I am an analyst peering deeply into your soul” thing. I turned around to see who was behind me.As a joke.Turned back and he still was giving me the “I’m an analyst” look.

  “Why would I ask?”

  “Why indeed?” Milton paused with thumb and fingers still in place.

  “I never thought to do that. I mean, they were there. So why would I ask?” I said.

  “It might be helpful to know.”

  “You mean it would be helpful and I should’ve asked. Right?”

  “I mean what I said. It might be helpful to know. It is up to you if you want to know.”

  Of course, this did mean that Milton thought I should ask, but sometimes I just wanted him to tell me. All this investigating was exhausting.

  “I don’t want to know,” I said.

  “That is not good enough this time, Holly,” said Milton.

  Ruffles waited expectantly. Betty Jane left the room.

  I’m with her. “After Christmas,” I said. “I’ve had enough for one day.”

  { 23 }

  I checked my watch, three a.m.

  “Drink up,” I said. “Our flight leaves in two hours.” I’d managed to get two tickets at a bargain price by accepting a less-than-ideal departure time on Christmas day.

  “Two hours?” said Peter.“I thought you said we were leaving at seven?”The several drinks I’d had that evening didn’t do much to dull Peter’s sharp tone. He’d wanted to stay in and be romantic because we’d be in the air Christmas morning. It had been my idea to spend Christmas Eve in a bar.

  “Oops, I guess I mixed it up.”

  We paid the check and went out into the bitter December cold. Peter hailed a cab. He told the driver one stop and then we were going to LaGuardia. He didn’t speak to me in the car. I didn’t care.

  Once inside the apartment, I fed the cats, used the bathroom, and then contemplated whether I had packed the right clothes.

  “Holly, the meter’s running; let’s go.”

  I sighed. “I have the bags; just grab those gifts.”

  The paper bag holding the gifts tore as I handed it to the cabbie and presents scattered all over First Avenue. Peter sat fuming in the cab as I crawled around retrieving them.

  When we arrived at the airport, Peter got out of the cab and headed toward the terminal without saying a word, leaving me to pay for the ride and figure out what to do with the gifts.

  “Here’s a bag, miss,” said the cabbie. I watched Peter disappear through the door. A dull thud pounded at my temples.

  “Thanks,” I said, “and Merry Christmas.” As soon as I said it, I realized he probably didn’t celebrate Christmas, but I was too late to be politically correct. I smiled and followed Peter into the airport.

  Peter fell asleep as soon as the plane took off, and when the pilot
told us we’d reached cruising altitude, I closed my eyes and slept the rest of the way to California.

  I flipped down the passenger visor and was checking to see how I looked in the mirror. Peter was driving. We had rented a car because I’d said we’d want to go into the City, as locals referred to San Francisco, to have fun. The real reason was I wanted to make sure I had an escape vehicle if I needed to leave at a moment’s notice.

  I pulled out my toiletry bag and unzipped it across my lap.

  “So who is going to be there again?” said Peter.

  “Well, my sister, and her male alphabet—Doug, Elliot, and Francis.” I patted my nose with powder, checked it, and then brushed it with one hand as I carefully applied lipstick.

  “Sounds like a bad cover band.Who else?”

  “My mom.” I turned. “Do I look all right?”

  Peter made a face at me.

  “What?” I said.

  “I have never seen you with that much makeup on before.”

  “My mother . . .Well, it’s complicated,” I said.Then I pulled out a cotton square and tried to wipe away most of what I had just applied.

  “Better?”

  “Better,” said Peter. “Your mom likes that much makeup?”

  “Next exit, right lane. Let’s just say it is easier to be what she wants.”

  “So, who else is going to be there?” He turned right.

  “I am not sure if there is anyone else,” I said. I flipped the visor shut. My mother would not approve of the makeup or the outfit.

  “Left at the next light and then right on Evergreen,” I said. I stared out the window at the denuded trees huddled in a row along the avenue.Were they trying to maintain some modesty in their nakedness, or were they just protecting their trunks from the cold? Did trees get cold?

  “What about your dad?” Peter said.

  “Huh?” I turned toward Peter. I wanted to tell him to stop asking questions.To slow down. Stop the car. Turn around.“Next right and then it’s just at the end of the block, 1456 Evergreen.”

  Peter turned at the corner and I saw the top half of my parents’ house beyond the neighbor’s hedges. Blue with white trim. We had moved there when I was seven. Even though I’d lived there most of my childhood, I never felt at home.

  We pulled into the driveway behind my sister’s Volvo.

  “My parents are divorced,” I said. “My father left when I graduated from high school. Supposedly, he’s happily married to the woman he had an affair with throughout most of my childhood.” Peter turned off the ignition. His eyes remained fixed on the steering wheel. “Look, here comes my sister.” I opened the car door and stepped out.Then I turned back to Peter. “Didn’t I tell you?”

  “No, you never told me.”

  Sarah walked through the garage entrance, and then, as if anticipating my next move, she pointed across the lawn. Ah, yes, the front door. That was where my mother would be waiting. I hugged Sarah and walked arm in arm with her over the grass.

  There she stood on the front porch in a black Chanel suit with the familiar sunflower pinned to the lapel. I watched her wipe her hands with a dish towel as we approached. I straightened my back and waited for the familiar look of disdain. She’d surely spot everything she hated—velvet pants, sandals, a beret—and she’d intuitively judge the rest of the outfit hiding under my coat.

  “Holly,” exclaimed my mother. She trotted down the stairs in heels. She was smiling.

  “Who’s that?” I whispered to Sarah.

  “She’s making an effort,” Sarah hissed under her breath. “Be nice.”

  My mother threw her arms around me. I felt an unexpected rush of emotion.

  I pulled away confused. “Mom. Hi.”

  I noticed that crinkles surrounded the whole of her eyes, which twinkled with what appeared to be genuine joy. No disgust anywhere, not even lingering amongst the age-old barf in the rosebushes.

  My mother reached out her hands to straighten my head. Something she had been doing since I was twelve. She froze. My eyes filled with tears. Her hands hung suspended in the air as if she were about to bless me. Then she placed them on my cheeks and said, “Look, you are wearing your favorite color.” Another shock wave rippled across my body. My pants and hat were purple. “I hope those are not the same pants your uncle bought you when you were eight.”

  “Right. I don’t think those would fit.”

  “If you don’t start eating more, they just might.” She held me away from her. “Holly, you smell like cigarettes.” I knew she was lurking in there somewhere.

  I sighed. “Who’s here?”

  “Everyone except Dan.”

  The sea inside me receded, trying to take me with it. A harbinger of the tsunami to follow, and my inner warning system screamed, Get the hell out of here. I stepped back. My mother’s hand gripped my upper arm and steadied me.

  Peter appeared at my side, putting his arm around my waist as he extended the other.“Hi, I’m Peter.” Even though he was my boyfriend, at that moment he felt like a stranger.

  My mother let go of me. “Oh, my goodness. How rude we are, Peter. I am sorry. I am Holly’s mother. So nice to meet you.” She shook his hand.

  “Nice to meet you too, Mrs. Miller,” said Peter. He looked at both our faces and added,“Now I see where Holly gets her good looks.”

  “Oh, do stop.” She coyly brushed away his comment. “And please call me Elizabeth.” As she batted her eyes, I wanted to feel shame and anger. Instead I felt the adult acceptance of parental behavior that you have discovered is ingrained and now mostly harmless.

  “Elizabeth,” said Peter. His arm slipped from my waist as he held it out to my mother. She accepted it. I thought of how many times I’d seen my parents walk though a doorway in that same manner. And then how many times my mother stalked through the door alone.

  “He knows what he’s doing,” said Sarah. I flashed a hollow smile.

  “Uncle Dan is coming?” I hadn’t seen him since he left that morning more than twenty-five years ago. After he left, his name was never mentioned in our house again, and I tucked my memories of him away somewhere safe. A small sob escaped my throat. Saying his name felt like releasing an abscess that had festered for decades. My head dropped.

  Sarah placed a hand on my shoulder and whispered, “I know.”

  “When did they start speaking again?”

  “All she told me is that they talked and have put the past behind them,” said Sarah.

  “Did she get a lobotomy? Or some new medication?”

  Sarah laughed. I smiled, inhaled, and turned toward the door.

  “He lives in San Mateo now, so we see quite a bit of him. The boys are crazy about him.You know how that goes?”

  I nodded in response. I sure did know.

  Sarah took my hand. “Come on.”

  Peter was waiting for me in the foyer.

  “Give me a sec,” I said.

  As Sarah walked off, Peter pretended to hug me but instead whispered harshly in my ear, “Thanks for leaving me standing there.”

  I stepped back and, without lowering my voice, I responded, “You did okay.”

  My mother, Sarah, and I were in the kitchen getting the meal ready. As the least-qualified person to be in the kitchen, I stood at the center island supervising their efforts while rolling a baby carrot around on a cutting board as they were putting pots on the stove and pulling pans out of the oven.

  “Holly,” said my mother,“what are you doing with a guy like Peter?”

  “Mom,” said Sarah warningly.

  She put a steaming platter of potatoes on the counter and said, “Sarah, I may not have the education your father and I provided for you girls, but do not underestimate my ability to see right into the heart of people. Those two are as wrong for each other as your father and I were.”

  “What do you mean, wrong like you and your former husband?” I said.

  “Holly, are you still harboring such resentment toward your
father? You need to let that go. Sarah has. I have. It was a different time.We were raised differently.We didn’t know as much then as we do now.We did the best we could.”

  “Well, what a great sentiment. You should have put that in your holiday letter this year. ‘We did the best we could!’ ”

  “Holly!” exclaimed Sarah.

  “No, Sarah.” My mother held up her hand, palm flat, to stop her.“Let her speak.Then I will speak. Holly needs to learn some facts of life.”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have come home.You are never satisfied with anything I do.You are never satisfied with me.” I punctuated that last sentence by crushing the carrot with my balled fist.

  “You are right. I am not satisfied when my daughter, an intelligent, attractive, interesting woman who has everything going for her, chooses to follow in my footsteps.”

  “Huh?” I looked up, surprised.

  “My God, Holly, do not throw your life away over a man who is so wrong for you just to spite me or your father or your upbringing.You know better.You have choices.As a Catholic girl from Atlanta, I certainly did not have choices.”

  My parents were both raised Catholic. The Father a poor man from San Francisco, California; Mom a rich woman from Atlanta, Georgia. They met when my father was on a summer road trip across America with his two childhood friends. His last hurrah before buckling down in college. He’d won a full scholarship and had big plans for himself—maybe medicine, maybe law. All I can say is, it must have been some meeting, because my father bailed out on the remainder of his trip and stayed in Atlanta to woo my mother. By the end of the summer, he exceeded his own expectations and his college plans had become husband and father plans. My mother refused to make the financial sacrifices that were required to get my father through school when her father was offering mine a lucrative job in Palo Alto, California, where my mother’s sisters had already moved with their husbands. She figured her compromise was getting him back home and wasn’t willing to compromise any more.They had a shotgun wedding, then moved within walking distance of one of my aunts. Sarah was born six months later.