Madapple

by Christina Meldrum

  The food Mother and I usually prepared sustained our bodies, less our minds. Peppermint tea. Bearberry tea. Bee balm tea. Spicebush tea. We seasoned our stews with wild garlic, leek or basil, or the plant Mother called poor man’s pepper, or with the pungent horseradish flavor of the sea rocket plant. Our starch came mainly from Mother’s bread and porridge made of groundnut tubers, and from the chestnut-flavored tubers of the spring beauty plant and from salsify. We found protein in the nutlike green fruit of the American lotus and the seeds of the pickerelweed. And in madder-curdled milk. These foods satisfied the hunger in my body, but they couldn’t satisfy the hunger of my mind.

  I walk to the cellar and take another of the green bottles in my hands. It has what seems a warmth about it, despite the cool dampness of the cellar. The green bottle looks black in the dim light. The glass feels smooth in my hands. Smooth as a coffin lid, I think, but I stop myself.

  Mother’s hands touched this bottle; I remember her holding the base of the bottle and the stem, the funnel propped on top, as I poured in the wine. I run my fingers around the base, up the stem.

  She knew she was dying, I think. That’s why she wanted the sneezeweed. That’s why she was troubled by the hairstreak, the passionflower, our oak. They were omens to her, signs her world was off balance. For even though Mother ridiculed any interest I displayed in theology or witchcraft or the magical, it was Mother who scoured the sacred texts; it was Mother who told me stories of the elder tree.

  I carry the bottle up the stairs, into the kitchen; I pour myself a glass. As I feel the wine’s warmth run through me while I drink, I sense the inevitability of what I have to do. I’m making the choice to leave, of course. But it no longer feels like a choice. I’ve outgrown the shell, it seems. There’s no going back. Yet even as I feel this, I wonder whether I’m fooling myself, telling myself it’s destiny that I leave Mother’s house so as to counteract the doubt and insecurity and foreboding that over and over again make me wonder whether I’m as crazy as that old man who lives next door seems convinced I am. I am Aslaug Datter, daughter of Maren. I am as much my mother as I am anything. And even I, despite my isolation, suspect Mother was not altogether sane. How can I be sure I am sane?

  The neighbor is watching me again through the window of his house, through the window of mine—wheeling his chair about so as to get the best view—as if waiting for me to slip up, show my true self, so he can call the cops again, get rid of me for good.

  “You don’t need to get rid of me,” I shout at him through the glass; I can’t see his expression, but I imagine his surprise. Grumset lifts his hand, grabs the cord of the shade. “I’m leaving, you old coot,” I shout, and louder this time, wishing he could hear, but I know he can’t. And the shade slices the space between us.

  SOLOMON’S SEAL

  2007

  —Would you like to cross-examine Dr. Eira, Counsel?

  —Yes, thank you, Your Honor. Dr. Eira, Aslaug’s mother, Maren Hellig, did not die from jimsonweed poisoning, did she?

  —No.

  —In fact, Maren Hellig died of a rare form of spinal cancer that metastasized to her brain, isn’t that right?

  —That’s right.

  —You found Maren Hellig also suffered from severe rheumatoid arthritis, isn’t that right?

  —Yes, but that didn’t kill her—

  —Thank you. Please just answer my question. Mrs. Hellig was in a lot of pain before she died, wasn’t she?

  —Objection. Speculation.

  —Sustained.

  —Based on your professional experience, does the type of cancer Maren Hellig suffered from cause pain?

  —Yes.

  —Severe pain, right?

  —Objection. Calls for speculation.

  —I’m going to allow it.

  —Yes, most likely.

  —Based on your professional experience, wouldn’t you say a person suffering from the type of rheumatoid arthritis Maren Hellig suffered from also would be in a great deal of pain?

  —Objection. Speculation.

  —Overruled.

  —Without medication, yes.

  —You found no evidence while conducting the autopsy that Maren Hellig was taking medication for pain, did you?

  —No, I didn’t—

  —Except the jimsonweed, right?

  —Jimsonweed is not a medication.

  —Jimsonweed has narcotic properties, does it not?

  —It does.

  —It can dull the senses, correct?

  —I suppose, yes.

  —And it could make one care less about her pain, couldn’t it?

  —Objection. Speculation.

  —Overruled.

  —I suppose.

  —Is that yes?

  —Yes.

  —It’s possible, then, that Maren Hellig took the jimsonweed in an attempt to alleviate her pain, isn’t it?

  —Objection. Speculation.

  —Overruled.

  —It’s possible.

  —Given the degree to which Mrs. Hellig was suffering, it’s even possible she took the jimsonweed in an attempt to take her own life, isn’t that right?

  —Objection. Speculation. Argumentative.

  —That’s going a bit far, Counsel. You’ve laid no foundation for that line of questioning. Objection sustained.

  —Dr. Eira, you found no evidence during your autopsy of Maren Hellig indicating Aslaug played a role in her mother’s death, did you?

  —I found jimsonweed and also the bloodroot—

  —But Mrs. Hellig did not die of jimsonweed poisoning, did she?

  —No.

  —And the bloodroot sap you found on the deceased’s skin—bloodroot is not poisonous, is it?

  —Not when applied to the skin. Taken orally, it can be poisonous in very large amounts. But—

  —But there’s no evidence of Maren Hellig’s having ingested bloodroot, correct?

  —That’s right.

  —Just to be clear, you found absolutely no evidence during the autopsy indicating Aslaug had a role in her mother’s death, right? Please just answer yes or no.

  —No, I didn’t—

  —Thank you. I have no further questions.

  CARRION FLOWER

  2003

  I walk through the house scanning each room, each object, as if somehow, through some transformation of a room or an object, or myself, it will become obvious what I can’t live without, what I will need to live on my own, in some other place. It feels I’m seeing the house for the first time, as if it were someone else’s house, already someone else’s shell; as if all that is here has nothing whatsoever to do with me. I can still see strokes from Mother’s paintbrush upon the crimson walls of the sitting room, from when she attempted to paint the walls years before. And I see the empty candleholder in the chandelier and the wax droplets on the carpet from when she’d forgotten to extinguish a candle just days before her death. Her quilt lies balled on her armchair, where strands of her hair cling serpent-like.

  I lift Mother’s jangle of keys from the hook in the kitchen, and I unlock the drawers she kept locked, the closets she kept locked. And I realize as I search, what I’m looking for is Mother—for something that can reveal her to me.

  It’s odd to think there was someone in the world who had known Mother. Father. Was he as familiar with Mother as I? Her smell: like sweet lilacs left too long in a vase; the scent of her hair and her clothes and her bedclothes. When she would outuse a sweater or skirt or blouse and give it to me, then I stank her stink, until I could scrub it away. And her voice, the rounded vowels, the lilt. And her hands, as they malformed, until at last they were curled into balls. She liked her porridge overcooked and stuck in clumps, so when eaten, it clung to the mouth as if resisting its fate. And tea. She drank it so hot, it would scald her tongue, and she’d curse it, before taking a second drink.

  And yet, she felt affection for me she couldn’t hide. When she would brush my hair, and when she would s
truggle with her hands to fold my hair into a braid, I felt it. And sometimes at night when she thought I was asleep, she came into my room, and she watched me, and she touched my hair or my forehead; she lifted the covers to my shoulders; she whispered my name, “Aslaug Datter,” not to wake me, just to say it.

  I knew these things about Mother, but I didn’t know my mother; it’s almost unfathomable to me anyone could have understood Mother. Mother was the speed of light. Or dark matter, or gravity. “Gravity is powerless against the tug of even a tiny magnet,” Mother would say. “And yet if gravity were stronger, our universe would collapse into itself. Sometimes there’s strange power in frailty.”

  One drawer is stuffed with rubber bands, coiled in small knots, tangled in large knots. Another is packed with canning lids and rims and small glass jars. The closets contain reams of fabric and cleaning supplies and flyswatters and mounds of rags. No photographs. No letters. No memorabilia from my childhood.

  I’m missing something, I think as I cram contents back in and slam doors and drawers closed. Mother had secrets. I know she did: I found The Scarlet Letter; I found the mirror in the green room. And the look on her face when she stepped from the green room, I’d seen it before.

  I fall asleep in Mother’s armchair wrapped in her quilt, and in her sour-lilac smell, and I dream of Mother’s switch. Again and again my mind replays the switch in her grip, the switch on my flesh, after she found me in the grips of Hester Prynne. On the third day of my reading the book, I neared the end and forgot the time. I turned the last page when Mother entered. “I just found it,” I said when I saw her eyes on The Scarlet Letter, when I saw her scarlet face. “I was making the bed….” She slipped the book from me, so calmly. She descended the stairs, so calmly. She returned upstairs without the book, with the switch, and she beat me.

  I wake feeling the sting of the switch, and it comes to me: the outhouse. Mother mentioned the outhouse the night before she died. I thought she was so sick her mind was leaving her, but was she trying to tell me something? “There’s a crack in the ceiling,” she’d said. “The boards are loose. You need to go there. Find it.”

  I run through the house, to the porch, out the door. So strange, I think, to just run out the door. I stumble on the stairs as I descend, crash down, still foggy from elderberry wine and sleep. I lift myself, sit on the stairs, try to unravel the outhouse with my eyes, but the rear of the lot is far too overgrown. I can imagine the stench of the carrion flower, and the thorns of the carrion vine. I know the red house is out there, enveloped in stench and vine and flies. I stand up, let the swirling settle, and I walk now, into the snare of branches and thorns. It’s been years since I’ve wandered into this morass, and I’m surprised to see a matted path of sorts, where branches have been snapped, leaves stripped, fallen leaves flattened. I push my way through; I snap more branches, strip and flatten more leaves. I smell the dead-animal scent of the carrion flower before I see the outhouse. But then I see it: its red door bright and free.

  Someone cleared the brush, I think.

  Mother cleared the brush.

  But why? And when?

  I near the door, touch the door. My heart fills my chest, pounds into my ears. I pull the door open: nothing. “A crack in the ceiling,” she’d said. “The boards are loose.” I walk inside, but it’s dark. As I wait for my eyes to adjust, I climb on the seat, reach up, and I knock and push. A board slips; I push it aside, reach in. I finger something; I pull it down.

  It’s a suitcase—I carry it outside, into the light. It’s brown leather and cracking, and I sense it’s not empty. I try to open it, but it’s locked. I race to the kitchen—I feel alert now, sharp—and I grab a large knife, carry it back. At first I try to use the knife to pry the case open, but I can’t; the lock won’t budge. When I jam the knife into the leather, I’m relieved Mr. Grumset can’t see. The leather peels apart more easily than it seems it should, and the bills spill out.

  SOLOMON’S SEAL

  2007

  —Please state your name.

  —Cecilia Sture.

  —What is your profession, Ms. Sture?

  —I’m a graduate student right now. But I was a social worker before going back to school.

  —When did you work as a social worker?

  —Beginning about five years ago.

  —For whom did you work?

  —For the Department of Health and Human Services.

  —How long did you work as a social worker?

  —Two and a half years.

  —Ms. Sture, have you met the defendant, this woman, Aslaug Hellig?

  —Yes.

  —When?

  —Right after her mother’s death. I was the social worker on her case.

  —How would you describe Ms. Hellig’s state of mind after her mother’s death?

  —Objection. Vague. Speculation.

  —Overruled.

  —It’s hard to say. She seemed overwhelmed. I think she was intoxicated the last time I saw her. She was standoffish with me for the most part. She misled me about the names of her relatives. And then she just disappeared.

  —Objection. Move to strike. Nonresponsive. Speculation. Hearsay.

  —Overruled. Please proceed, Counsel.

  —When you say she misled you about names, what do you mean?

  —She told me she had an aunt and some cousins in Bethan. She said her aunt’s name was Ivy Aster. Her cousins, she said, were Timothy and Robin Aster. I wrote it all down.

  —Objection. Move to strike. Hearsay.

  —Overruled.

  —How do you know the names were false?

  —Bethan’s not a very big place. There’s no one at all in Bethan with the last name Aster. As far as I can tell, there never has been.

  —Okay, now, when you say Aslaug disappeared, what do you mean?

  —I mean just that. She disappeared. One day she was there, the next day she was gone. I didn’t see her again until now. I tried to locate her, but I had a big caseload. I couldn’t devote endless hours to finding her, you know. Honestly, her situation was a lot less critical than many of the cases I was dealing with. She was nearly an adult at the time her mother died. I had kids as young as six months without parents.

  —Did it occur to you when the defendant “disappeared,” as you say, that she may have had something to do with her mother’s death?

  —Objection. Leading. Argumentative.

  —Sustained.

  —I’ll rephrase. Did you ever determine the reason for Aslaug’s disappearance?

  —No. I wondered if she had something to do with her mother’s death—that crossed my mind for sure. But I couldn’t dwell on Aslaug’s disappearing. I had a lot on my plate. I figured it was up to people in the legal system to pursue a case against her if they thought it was appropriate. I told that police detective, though. Detective Fenris? I told her Aslaug took off.

  —Objection. Move to strike, Your Honor. Speculation.

  —Sustained.

  —Ms. Sture, did you or did you not discover any legitimate reason for Aslaug’s disappearance?

  —I did not.

  —Thank you. I have no further questions.

  EVENING STAR

  2003

  The evening primrose blooms at night; between six and seven in the evening, it opens, and it remains open throughout the night, while the hawk moth flies and pollinates; by noon the next day, the primrose is closed, and the hawk moth rests. I will be gone before the primrose closes, I tell myself. Before the hawk moth rests, I will be gone.

  Mother called the primrose her evening star. “She’s like me,” Mother would say. “The evening star’s like me.” I wondered whether she said this because the primrose seeks darkness, or because it’s surrounded by hawk moths that suck it dry. Regardless, I sensed she admired the flower’s quirky tastes. And, for this, I loved the primrose. Mother’s evening star showed me a side of her I otherwise might not have seen. A side I liked.

  The
suitcase was full of money. Although I have little sense of money, it seems like a lot. Some of the money remained sealed in envelopes Mother never bothered to open, postmarked in Bethan, just miles away. Mother never permitted my retrieving the mail. When we would go to the post office in Hartswell, she would produce a key from her pocket, unlock the box, then dump the mail into a bag and it would disappear; I’d never see it again.

  Now I understand why: it’s my father who sent the money; I feel sure of this. All these years he’s been absent, he sent money to care for me. He’s alive after all. The money is evidence of his existence, and of his love. Evidence he wants me to find him.

  I think back to the November ten months before Mother’s death. I remember the sky hung wide and blue; I’d seen it when I’d stepped onto the porch to hang clothes.

  “Strange for Hartswell,” Mother had remarked when I’d passed by her on my way back inside. She was talking about the sky, stealing my thoughts. Or had I stolen hers?

  It was strange. The sky of Hartswell is usually gray and confining from early October through mid-April. But on this day it was huge, brilliant, tempting.

  Yet in all other ways the afternoon, then evening, seemed ordinary. I retreated to the sitting room, purportedly to study, while Mother took her Wednesday evening bath. I sat with an opened book in my lap and three or four more books sprawled on the table before me. But I wasn’t studying. Mother bathed just twice a week—on Wednesday and Sunday evenings—from half past five to half past six. These hours were precious to me.

  I was observing a twine of light. Formed by the irregular gap between the drawn drapes, it had originally appeared golden—a shimmering snake—but as night hastened, it grew more and more faint.

  And I was thinking of girls. Girls I’d seen in Hartswell and Bethan. Girls with mothers. Girls with boys. Girls with girls with girls. What is it like to be these girls? I’d wondered then, as I often did, as I often do. What would I be like if I were one of these girls? Would I have friends? A boyfriend? Would I dangle beads from my ears? Would I have read books Mother’s forbidden me to read, passages she’s blackened? Would I wear underwear that rides higher than my slacks and that seems little more than a confluence of threads? Would I know the feel of a real boy’s skin, or the smell of his skin? Would I have traveled to Europe or Asia or Africa, and know with my body, not just my mind, these places exist? Would I still be Aslaug Datter, only broader, richer? Or would the breadth of me thin me out, make me as shallow as Mother has intimated these girls I admire must be?