Fig

by Sarah Elizabeth Schantz

  * * * *

  Gran has to have another operation. They cut out the section of knotted intestine. This time the surgery is laparoscopic and she only has to stay in the hospital for a few days. Daddy and I come to take her home while Billy stays at the farm, where there is always work to be done.

  As the oldest son, my father has the power of attorney. He doesn’t just control Mama and me. Daddy signs paperwork and then he goes to get the Buick, to bring it around to the front.

  “The pain medication is making your grandma act strange,” the nurse says, and I nod like I understand. We are waiting for a wheelchair, and when it comes I’m allowed to push Gran by myself. “Just leave the chair in the vestibule,” the nurse tells me, and then she leans over to say good-bye to my matriarch. “Fiona,” she says, “I hope we never see you again,” and then the nurse winks at me.

  I push the wheelchair through the hospital, down the elevator, through the large white lobby, and into the vestibule, where we wait for my father. Every thirty seconds, we are blasted by hot air, but it’s too cold to wait outside. “Dearie,” Gran says, and I can’t help but think of the grandmother in Little Red Riding Hood—the one who is really the wolf. “Come around so I can see you.”

  I do as she says. My grandmother never calls me “Dearie” or “Honey” or “Darling”—only Fiona, and usually my name is no more than an angry whisper. This grandmother sounds like a soft grandmother. “Oh, Alma,” Gran says when she looks at me. “It’s so good to see you,” and this grandmother reaches for me—something else she’s never done. But I am not the subject of her endearment. She is reaching for her little sister: When I was six, I died from scarlet fever.

  Gran takes my hands, kissing each one—she won’t let go. “Not this time,” she says, and this is when Daddy pulls up, forever the doting son. A better son than he is a husband or a father. He is always promising to take care of Gran no matter what. He makes this vow again and again. “I will never put you in a nursing home,” he will say, and when he does, my grandmother smiles at him and says she’s proud to be the mother of such a good boy.

  Daddy pulls up to the yellow curb, and I have to let go of Gran to push her wheelchair through the sliding automatic glass doors, and it is colder outside than I expected.

  I think about Mama’s nurse and what she explained to Daddy and me last month. She said Mama would be deinstitutionalized soon, but she didn’t know when. “It’s the new policy,” she said. “This is why the streets are suddenly full of homeless people talking to themselves, eating out of the trash, and freezing to death come winter.”

  She also said we could always put Mama into a nursing home. “They aren’t just for the elderly or the dying,” she explained. “They’re for anyone who can’t take care of themselves.” And even though she was talking to both of us, I don’t think Daddy was listening, because he didn’t once interrupt to say, “I will never put my wife in a home.” He just nodded his head, thanked her for the information, and shook her hand to say good-bye.

  He is always shaking hands with the staff at Saint Joseph’s, and thanking them. “Thank you,” he says. Thank you for taking my daughter’s mother away from her.

  Daddy gets out of the car and tries to get Gran to stand—but she’s confused. She doesn’t know who he is. “Stop calling me that,” she says. “I am nobody’s mother.” But he doesn’t listen. He just continues to call her “Ma.” He says “Ma” like he thinks saying it again and again is enough to prove his point, and in the end Alma is the only one who can get Gran into the car.

  Daddy stands on the sidewalk, glaring at the sky. Yesterday, he said he understood why I ran away like I did, but I know he’s a liar. He will never forgive me for leaving his mother all alone like that. I know this because I will never forgive him for letting Mama commit herself. I’d like to ask my father, How many times have you abandoned my mother? but I don’t.

  Instead, I ask Gran if she is comfortable. I sit in the backseat with her, and as Daddy drives away I realize what my future is. It is time to be strong. I drew an X on my heart for Uncle Billy, and this X is the crossroads where I’ve been stuck. I take my first major step away from the center toward another tomorrow. Tomorrow I will care for Mama, and all the tomorrows to follow. I will be there when Daddy can’t—when he gives up.

  And I finally understand the reason I was born.

  * * * *

  Gran lets go of my hand, and by the time we’ve pulled into her garage she is an old woman, a mother, and a hard grandmother again. And I am no longer Alma. I am the granddaughter who abandoned her grandmother in her time of need.

  Gran ignores my efforts to help, only letting Daddy assist her; she acts like I’m not even here. My father takes her back to the bedroom while I stand in the kitchen feeling useless. I put the bouquet I bought for Gran in a vase with water and stand the flowers on the dining room table. Purple hyacinth for please forgive me and maidenhair fern for our secret bond.

  My cuts are hidden inside my clothes—beginning to heal already, and Daddy has no idea. He closes the door to Gran’s room like she is a sleeping baby, and when he comes into the kitchen he looks at me like he wants to talk—but in the end, he doesn’t say anything.

  He takes a can of condensed Campbell’s tomato soup from the cabinet and uses the electric can opener mounted to the wall above the sink to open it. He fills the silence with the hum of the appliance and the sound of metal being cut. And while the soup warms on the stove, he makes two grilled cheese sandwiches. The only time I ever eat Campbell’s anything is when I’m here. We boycotted Campbell’s for years; when they finally agreed to treat their farmworkers better, we continued to not buy their products because of the pesticides they use. Gran has Wonder Bread, when we only eat whole wheat at home. I bake the bread myself. Every Sunday, between the loads of laundry, I mix flour, water, and yeast, and then I knead. I wait for the dough to rise, and then I bake while I sort and fold the clothing and the linen.

  The more I think about it, the more I know I can care for Mama. I know with absolute certainty that I am capable. But if this is truly to be my fate, I will have to keep my promise to my uncle. I cannot pick or cut myself, not anymore. Not if I’m going to be my mother’s caregiver.

  We sit at the kitchen table to eat. The house is quiet. The refrigerator hums and Daddy chews, and underneath these sounds I can hear the ticking—faint, but consistent. It is there.

  After dinner, I wash the dishes while Daddy unfolds the couch and makes the bed. I wash the dishes by hand because I don’t know how to use the dishwasher. I wear Gran’s rubber gloves to hide my sliced-up skin. When my father finishes with the bed, he sits on the edge of the mattress with his elbows on his knees and his head held by his hands. I spray the sink clean, remove the long hot-pink gloves, pull down my sleeves, and go to sit beside him.

  We sit like this for ten minutes, still not talking. We sit so still, I can’t breathe. I’ve sat like this with Mama, Uncle Billy, and even Gran—but never with my father. The headlights from the passing cars cast shadows across the walls, but I’ve grown accustomed to their puppetry.

  Daddy breaks the stillness by standing, and then the silence when he says, “You should get some sleep.” At his side, his hands turn into fists. “I need to get some air,” he says, and his jaw is clenched. Like Alice in Wonderland, Daddy doesn’t always fit the insides of houses or other structures. His head and arms go crashing through the walls, ceilings, and even the floors. I am Alice too—only I am shrinking: picking away at myself, and if I don’t stop, I will definitely disappear.

  Gran gave me a shelf in the bathroom years ago. Here I find a nightgown, toothbrush, tub of Noxzema, and comb, and a box of superabsorbent maxi pads. I pull the nightgown over my head. Instead of Mama’s white cotton, the gown is made from red flannel, and both the sleeves and the skirt are long, as if specifically designed to keep my secret. Then I watch myself in the mirror as I brush my teeth. With the three panels of glass positioned ju
st so, I am reflected into infinity.

  I wonder where Daddy will go. No one walks in suburbia at night. Porch lights send warnings, and each house is wired with an alarm system. I brush my teeth so hard, I spit blood. The bathroom is pink and black with gold seahorses everywhere. I fill my hands with water from the tap, rinse, and then I drink.

  I stand by the door to my grandmother’s room. I comb the long fibers of the carpet with my bare toes. I put my ear to the hollow-core door and listen to the other side. The quiet is thick with static, and listening to her room and to the air inside the wood is like listening to the ocean trapped inside a seashell.

  When I get into bed, the furnace ticks and a blast of hot air answers; blowing through the vents, the forced heat fills the small house. The other ticking grows so loud, I feel like I’m inside a cuckoo clock. I’m careful to stay close to the edge of the bed so there’s enough room for Daddy. It’s been years since we slept together. When I was little, his body next to Mama made a tent of blankets for me to sleep inside—safe and sound. I pretend I’m asleep when he does return, and the second he steps into the house the ticking grows faint again, absorbed by his large body.

  I listen to him use the bathroom. I hear him urinate, and the muffled sound makes my belly butterfly. I remember being little, when he and Mama still undressed in front of me. I remember splashing in the farmer’s ditch or under the boughs of the weeping willow in the wading pool along the Silver River. We were naked then—still brand-new. The toilet flushes, and the water from the sink turns on and runs forever. I’d get in trouble if I let water run like that at home, and then the water stops and I hear the sound of the bathroom door opening.

  I anticipate the mattress giving when first he sits, and then again as he lies down. But my father doesn’t come into the living room. I open my eyes, and there is Christ on the wall watching me. I listen to the shushing sound of Gran’s bedroom door brushing against the dense carpet.

  Hush, Jesus says. Hush.

  I hear the hardware click as the door closes behind my father, and then there is nothing more than the river sound of the interstate three blocks east of here. The ticking grows loud again. Coming from all four directions, the ticking also comes from the space within, from above and below. The ticking ticks inside me too. Tick . Tick . Tick .

  I can hear the grandfather clock back home at the farm as it chimes twelve times. Twelve chimes for midnight and tomorrow has arrived. Yesterday is gone and I am now officially sixteen years old.

  Sweet sixteen.

  Today is my birthday, and all I want is to crawl into a bed and sleep beside a mother—and if I could, I would give anything to sleep once again inside her perfect skin.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  AS NEEDED

  prescribe: v. 1. To set down as a rule or guide.

  January 10, 1992

  “Reintegration” is the medical term for Mama’s transition from hospital to home. The reintegration trials are the first major step in the official process called deinstitutionalization.

  Daddy is exhausted. He’s been fighting every release date proposed by Saint Joseph’s. For months, he’s campaigned for one postponement after another. He will do anything to delay my mother’s return. He writes letters, attends meetings, and even spoke at a conference titled “The Hard Truth: Society and Deinstitutionalization.” Last night, I heard him on the telephone. “I just need one more year,” he kept saying. “Please, can you just wait until after my daughter graduates?”

  The support team provides Daddy with the final date: Mama will be deinstitutionalized on September 1, 1992, at nine o’clock in the morning. She is to be discharged one year earlier than the date my father was requesting. When Daddy tries to make another compromise, asking for a release date anytime during the summer of 1993, we learn Saint Joseph’s is being shut down by the state.

  This is happening everywhere—as part of deinstitutionalization, hospitals are closing despite a grave lack of alternative resources like outpatient treatment centers or halfway homes. But Mama does not require such facilities—she has us, and more specifically she has me, always and forever. The president of Saint Joseph’s looks just as tired as my father does. He looks Daddy in the eye and tries to explain how far he has already gone for our family.

  He says, “September first is the very last release date. Unlike the other patients being let go that day, your wife is not only incredibly high-functioning, she is the only one who actually has a place to go, let alone a supportive family.” I bite my lip to keep from smiling. “Integration” means “to make whole,” so “reintegration” means “to make whole again.” To reintegrate is to return—to return home, to return to how it was supposed to be.

  “In the meantime,” Dr. Stein says, redirecting the conversation, the way he always does, “reintegration will give you all the time you need to learn to live together.” And I want to tell him, “We lived together just fine for thirteen years,” but I don’t. I don’t say anything.

  He tells us not to expect home life to return to how it was before Mama had herself committed. He says this to both my father and me, yet he only looks at me, and he is nothing more than a psychiatrist trying to shrink me. He is disappearing everything I’ve ever known.

  I hold my breath and cross my fingers and focus on being here the way Uncle Billy is always telling me to do. Today we are bringing Mama back to the farm for her first two-week trial at home. The big dictionary in the living room lists six definitions for the word “trial,” but I prefer the fourth one because it complements the definition of “permanent” still filed away in my memory.

  trial: a test of patience or endurance.

  While I have proven my ability to endure, I still need to practice patience.

  Uncle Billy is concerned about reintegration. He is full of warnings.

  “You might be triggered,” he explains. “You must try to remain in the present.”

  The cuts on my body turned into red lines, which turned into brown lines and then purple lines, and now they are white. Healed. The scars are even beginning to fade. Uncle Billy prescribed Vitamin E oil, which I’m supposed to apply twice a day. I end up applying it more; I apply the golden oil whenever I am tempted to hurt myself. Billy says this is good, but he also wants me to find something else to do with myself—something else for my hands to worry; something else to connect me to my heart. Billy says, “Fig, I just want you to find something that you love to do.” And he made me think of Gran, who always says, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”

  Daddy is doing paperwork with the administrator while the nurses explain Mama’s schedule to me. Like Gran, they believe in routine, and Mama’s routine revolves around her medicine. The nurses get excited as they discuss my mother’s medication.

  “They aren’t different kinds,” they say, “but they’ve come out in a different form.”

  Instead of pills, the antipsychotics and the tranquilizers now come in wafers that dissolve on the patient’s tongue. This will make it difficult for Mama to hide and spit out later. The new wafers work nearly as fast as injections, and this means Daddy and I can now manage episodes of extreme psychosis all by ourselves. We will no longer require the assistance of doctors, nurses, or their orderlies. And this is one more sign that I am meant to take care of my mother.

  * * * *

  Daddy and I give Mama the wafers three times a day, with every meal—not that Mama consumes anything but sugar, caffeine, and cigarettes.

  There are other wafers to be administered as needed. AS NEEDED, as typed on the box, below Mama’s name, ANNIE JOHNSON. As needed. I need Mama to come home. I need to be the best caregiver in the world. I kneel before Mama, and she opens her mouth and sticks out her tongue for the medicine. She calls it communion. She wants wine. “You can’t eat the flesh without the blood,” she says. What began as a joke is no longer funny; it’s just another monotonous routine.

  Mama keeps her mouth open, and I watch the wafer diss
olve. It turns to a lavender paste on her pink-brown tongue and then she closes her mouth. She scrunches her face against the bitterness, and this is the only time I can get her to drink water instead of coffee or flat Mountain Dew.

  Daddy is not good at administering the as-needed medication, especially when Mama doesn’t think she needs it. The as-needed wafers come with a special prescription: AS NEEDED TO TREAT ANXIETY, AGITATION, OR AGGRESSION. On the ward, the nurses say, “It’s time to call Triple-A.”

  I bribe Mama with lollipops. At the bank, I fill my pockets with Dum Dums, and I hoard them for her. My bribes might increase her blood sugar, but they keep the monsters away. Mama has developed type 2 diabetes. This is common with schizophrenics. The disease is a long-term side effect from the antipsychotics.

  Daddy doesn’t approve of the bribes, but he doesn’t tell me to stop and he doesn’t lecture me. He teaches me to check her blood sugar levels instead and how to inject her with insulin.

  I’m good at doing what I’m told.

  Everyone wants to talk about my future. College applications, SAT scores, and the forever-repeated question What do you want to be when you grow up?

  I don’t tell anyone what I really want. What I am actually planning. If Daddy knew, he’d put Mama in a nursing home tomorrow and send me to boarding school even though he’d have to sell the farm to pay for it.

  Uncle Billy says, “It’s normal not to know exactly what you want to do, but it’s time to start exploring all your options.” Gran shakes her head and clicks her tongue. She says, “Let’s not explore the arts,” and that’s when Daddy firmly says, “Fig can do anything she wants.”