Maddalena raised her mouth to his. Chapped lips, then a sweet, spreading warmth, like floating in a shallow lake with the springtime sun on her face. She wondered if she would ever see again. Hear again. Think again.
“Perfect,” Akira whispered.
Maddalena pulled one of the combs out of her hair and pressed it into his hand. “This is for you. Don’t lose it.”
Nineteen
March 29–April 4, 2011
Waiting for her next appointment with Dr. Richardson was like being thrown into Dante’s First Circle of Hell. Kira spent the week worrying about Baby Kendall, hating herself, and spinning through a perpetual thought cycle of Maddalena - Rosa - Kira - Aimi - Kira - Rosa - Maddalena. Quantum entanglement. Connections across great distances. If time was a continuum, then there was nothing linear and impermanent about it. It was a form of distance that could be backtracked upon, forward, reverse, forward, reverse, like a highway or hiking trail. The dreams were a road, a bridge, connecting present and past, linking her to Maddalena. They bypassed Rosa and stopped short of Aimi, but Kira couldn’t help including her mother and daughter in the cycle. Doing so diminished, in a small but significant way, the emptiness she felt in the wake of their loss.
Dan hadn’t tried to disguise his relief that she was seeing a doctor. She didn’t say much about the session, only that Dr. Richardson was kind and smart and gave her hope. She and Dan spent the week in a careful truce, a low-frequency sharing of affection, the kind you might feel for someone you had loved once and hadn’t seen for a decade. If anyone had asked her to describe her marriage at this moment, she’d have said she and Dan were two fish in a suffocatingly small bowl, swimming in opposite directions and grazing fins now and then.
The fact that she had a husband at all was strange, really. Marriage wasn’t a choice Kira had expected to make, but being with Dan had felt more like a compulsion. She’d kept her distance from other men she’d dated, was happy when they did the same. Then she met Dan and it was as if her ovaries had gone into hyperdrive, screaming baby-baby-baby in tiny droid-like voices. She’d been thrown off her game.
They’d met at West Coast Children’s, when he showed up with the mother of one of her patients. Kira mistook Dan for the father and told him he could hold his child. He replied, “She’s not mine. But I do hope to be a dad someday,” and looked at her with an intensity that made her feel drugged. After he and the mother left, Kira found a piece of paper on the bedside table with his name and phone number and “Call me” written on it in a bold, angular hand. For a week she picked up the note several times a day, studied the handwriting, and put it down. It was no big deal, she told herself, only a date. If he got serious, she could make her escape as she always did. But something told her it wouldn’t be that easy, that if she got involved with Dan there’d be no half-assing the relationship. Her brain said don’t-don’t-don’t and those goddamn little ovarian voices said yes-yes-yes and she did it, picked up the phone and called him. They met the next day, talked over coffee for three hours, moved on to an Indian place for dinner. Within a week they were seeing each other daily. He was an irresistible high, both mentally and physically; just looking at him aroused her. She would remove his glasses and he’d say, teasingly, “Again?” and she would nod and strip. Within a month they were a couple, an impossibility for her until now. The fact that she could be in such an intense relationship simultaneously warmed and chilled her.
The day before her doctor’s appointment, Kira was restless, wandering the house, googling “quantum entanglement,” examining Dan’s sketch of Maddalena. He’d gotten every unspoken detail right; how was that possible? Then she called the hospital again, and this time, finally, the news about Baby Kendall was good—he was stable on decreased ventilator settings. After texting the news to Dan and Camille, Kira grabbed her coat. She needed space for her exhilaration, the life-affirmation of fresh air.
Kira walked to Aquatic Park, where a path circled an estuary. Wind snapped across the black water, sculpting it into skidding tufts and peaks and fringing the neck feathers of poised egrets. She thought of Dan, as she always did when she came here. After the first night she spent at his place, they’d walked this path hand in hand, the lengths of their arms touching, a memory so distant now it seemed like a story she’d been told. Dan had zeroed in on her with an intensity that enthralled and frightened her, offered her the kind of love she wasn’t sure she believed in. She did her best, loved him carefully. If he saw the wall she’d made—which she retreated behind in moments of panic, checking incessantly for cracks in the mortar—he didn’t show it. He accepted what she could give, as if having three-quarters of her was like having all of anyone else. As if being with her, and someday having the child he so clearly wanted, and wanted with her, was his reason for being. And, she discovered, he was willing to wait. The first time she went to the office he shared with Kenji, a pristine tin-ceilinged space where wooden tables held rolls of drafting paper, boxes of pencils and calligraphy pens, she asked what the sign above his desk said. It was written in kanji.
“Stumbling seven times but recovering eight,” he said. “It’s about perseverance. Some things take time.”
The next day, sunlight adorned San Francisco like gold dust, ricocheting off glass and metal, warming wood and vegetation. Kira took the fineness of the day as an omen promising, if not answers, at least some reassurance from Dr. Richardson. When he called her in, she shot into the room and perched on the leather chair.
“Have you come up with any theories? Besides hallucinations, I mean.”
“Not yet, Kira, we’re just getting started.”
“Have you ever heard of quantum entanglement? Did you know they’re studying whether it happens in people?”
“That’s an interesting thought. Granted, there’s plenty we don’t know about the human mind, but any evidence of that is a long way off.”
“Yeah, but if it’s my grandmother in the dreams, couldn’t they be her memories? And now I’m living her memories—that’s a kind of entanglement, right? Maddalena’s memories are tangled up with mine.”
Dr. Richardson thought for a moment, tapping his pen on his notebook. “All right then, for the sake of discussion, let’s say you are dreaming someone else’s memories. Why your grandmother, whom you never met? Why not your mother?”
“I’ve thought about that,” Kira said. “Remember how I said my father told my mom she was crazy? Suppose it was because she had the dreams too, and she told my dad about them and that’s why he thought she was crazy. Maybe that’s why he left.”
“And she passed the dreams down to you? That’s a very romantic idea.”
“But when she died, this weird thing happened.” Kira told him about Rosa’s death, the bizarre heat fusing her hand to her mother’s.
“That sounds like a very traumatic experience. I’m not dismissing your theory; I can understand why it appeals to you. For the moment, though, let’s just say it seems unlikely. I want to go back to your husband’s idea, the possibility that the dreams are being triggered. What were you doing immediately before each one?”
“The first one was in the hospital parking lot, after work,” Kira said. “I was exhausted, just sitting there in the car.”
“Did anything unusual happen that day?”
“Not really. Twins died, and one of them was my patient. It was a rough day, but not unusual. The twins were too young to survive. It’s the parents that get to you, watching them suffer.”
“And you’ve seen plenty of parents go through that?”
“Yes.”
“And there were no babies in the dream?”
“No.”
“Describe the dream again.”
“The main thing was fear, pretty overwhelming. Like being hunted.” The images resurfaced, as vivid as the day she’d seen them—voices ba
rbed with hatred, the swagger of boot heels, the chill desert air. The acid smell of fear. A sense of foreboding, black and dense and endless. “There was a gun,” Kira said. “A shotgun.”
Dr. Richardson raised an eyebrow. “The twins died, and then you dreamed about being hunted. Do you see any connection there?”
“The trigger was death?”
“It certainly seems possible.” He scribbled a note. “What about the birthday party?”
“That one’s easy. I remember thinking the candles on the table behind the cake made it look like a birthday cake.”
“And the wedding dress dream?”
“Well, we were at my mom’s house and I was in the kitchen. I was cleaning up, and I picked up some dead flowers. Oh! That makes sense, because the girl—Maddalena, I mean—was holding a bouquet. Baby’s breath and carnations, with no smell.”
“Good.”
“The Hiroshima one we already know about. And then the one when I was holding Baby Kendall.” Kira wiped her eyes. “Sorry. You must think all I do is cry. He’s doing better, thank God. Anyway, in that dream Maddalena was thinking about why she named her baby Rosa. The trigger must have been the woman who was yelling for her baby. She kept yelling, ‘Rosie!’”
“All right, I think we can make a pretty good case for the dreams being triggered. Which means you could try to trigger them.”
“Why on earth would I do that?”
“I think we have two options here, Kira. We could put you on an antipsychotic, probably haloperidol to start with—”
“No way.”
“Don’t rule it out. But let’s say we’re not looking at something as conventional as hallucinations. Why are you having the dreams? Especially if, as you theorize, your mother had them too, or similar ones.”
“But you said that was wishful thinking. Now you’re agreeing with me?”
“I didn’t say that. Medication might stop the dreams. However, if you had more of them, they might give us more information. We might find a pattern or gain some insight into why they’re happening or what they mean. Bear in mind I’m not saying they mean anything, or that you’ll find out any more than you know now. But I admit I’m curious.” Dr. Richardson looked at her over his reading glasses. “It’s entirely up to you. I can write a prescription, and if the dreams stop, we’ll assume there’s a brain chemistry imbalance. You’ll have to keep seeing me until we know it’s safe for you to go back to work, of course. But if you think it’s worth exploring why this is happening to you, then you should wait on the meds. I don’t think you’re in any real danger, though you shouldn’t drive. And of course you can’t work. Think about it, and we’ll discuss it next time.”
“I don’t have to think about it. If there’s an explanation, I want to know what it is.”
Dr. Richardson smiled. “So do I.”
Kira left the office with two prescriptions, an antipsychotic and an anxiolytic. In case she changed her mind, the doctor said, but he needn’t have bothered. If there was a chance the dreams could give her some answers, she was ready. Her mother’s house—Maddalena’s house—was her best bet. The house held memories, so maybe being there would trigger the dreams. No, “dreams” was the wrong word. They were Maddalena’s memories, pieces of the past, like scenes in a TV episode. Fragments of a life.
Kira stepped outside into radiant sunlight, a gentle breeze. Of course there was a good chance nothing would come of this. But every cell in her body urged her to try it: search for the tangible in order to find the intangible. Follow the road to the past far enough and she might find her grandmother. Beyond that it was anyone’s guess.
On Post Street, ginkgo trees stood tall, leaves fluttering, and carefree rhododendrons splashed magentas and lavenders onto the sidewalk. A woman jogged toward Kira pushing a stroller, a toddler tucked inside, a shepherd panting next to her. The stroller was the three-wheeled kind Dan had wanted for Aimi, so he could take her on runs from day one and get her addicted to the sport before she could even walk. They’d run marathons together someday, he said.
The woman jogged past, smiling, and Kira turned to watch her. Even her back looked happy. A happy family.
It wasn’t until she cut the engine at her mother’s house that Kira remembered she wasn’t supposed to drive. But she was here now, and no harm done. The landscaper had been back, judging by the deadheaded rosebushes and sculpted grass. The place was neat as a pin, she thought, because that was what her mother would have said, and she’d probably said it because her own mother had. From Maddalena to Rosa to Kira, phrases filtering down through generations, words stamped on psyches like sealing wax on an envelope.
Kira opened the screen door and a nickel-sized spider dropped to the porch floor, a trail of sticky thread catching the afternoon sun. Inside, that familiar feeling of held breath before the house relaxed around her.
A text message popped up, Dan asking about her appointment. She texted back, said it was fine, she’d tell him about it at dinner. Then she turned off her phone and got to work.
In the living room, framed photos that had become invisible to her over the years jostled one another on every surface, calling for attention. In one small photo on the mantel, she and her mother were hugging, Rosa’s lips pressed against Kira’s hair. Kira thought she looked about two, so her mother must have been thirty-three. Maddalena, if she had lived, would have been fifty. Kira tried to picture her at that age, but it was Rosa she saw, her beauty softer, graceful with age. She moved on to the others—her graduation from nursing school, various Christmases and birthdays, her wedding portrait. How happy she and Dan had looked then, how oblivious. As far as she knew, it was the only wedding picture in the house. Her mother had torn up her own, along with the photos of Kira’s dad. If any pictures existed of Maddalena’s wedding, Kira had never seen them.
She sat on the couch and tried to picture her grandmother in this house. Maddalena would have been quite young when she married and moved to Martinez, where her husband, Joseph Brivio, worked in an oil refinery. Joseph was Maddalena’s cousin, a distant one, and older. That was all Kira knew about him. She’d never thought to ask why Maddalena had married a cousin, and someone who lived far away from her home. Were there not eligible young men in Owens Valley?
Upstairs, Rosa’s bedroom held only a double bed, an oak dresser with a beveled-glass mirror, and a small nightstand. On the dresser were two pictures of Kira, one taken when she was eight, with jaw-length hair and crooked bangs. Wiping dust off the glass, Kira remembered the silkiness of Aimi’s hair against her cheek, the terrible coolness of her head. She turned the photo face down on the dresser and climbed to the attic, where the thin air tasted of old wood and cobwebs, the stale perfume of decades-old fabrics and sun-warmed dust.
A rocking chair stood in the corner, wool tufting out of the seat’s quilted cover, evidence of the mice Dan had found. Kira shivered, her skin prickling. She hadn’t seen the chair since she was a teenager, but it was the one in her dreams, no doubt about it. More evidence that the girl with the baby was Maddalena, rocking the infant Rosa.
Chilled, Kira dragged the chair into a patch of sunlight and began to rock. What comfort had Maddalena found here in the dusty attic? How did she end up here, married and unhappy? Kira closed her eyes, listening to the rhythmic creak of wood as she rocked, hoping the sound or motion would trigger a dream. A fragment of Maddalena’s life.
Kira woke to a darkening attic, chilled, her throat dry. No fragments, no answers, nothing but a waste of time. She rocked to her feet and the chair’s cushion flew off, landing near a small cabinet, a cube of dark wood with a single door, perched on skinny legs. She’d played with it as a child, forgotten it completely. It was the perfect hiding place for whatever had been precious to her then—rocks and marbles, a snow globe of San Francisco, plastic horses, wild-haired trolls in various states of undress. She ope
ned the cabinet door, revealing dust and mouse poop, and disappointment flashed through her. Honestly, did she expect to find her mother’s photos and letters, answers to all her questions? She swatted the door closed. Time to go home.
In the car, she called Dan to say she was on her way.
“Are you still in the city?”
“No, Martinez. Dr. Richardson said—hang on, I’m putting in my earphone. I’m in the car.” Kira turned on the headlights and a row of eucalyptus trees flashed into view, forbidding as sentries. “I’m trying to put some pieces together. You said being in the house might help me remember.”
“Right. But what did the doctor say?”
“I’ll tell you when I get home,” Kira said, merging onto the highway. The road was empty, the hills dark and silent. “It’s just—maybe all this is happening for a reason.”
“He said that? Shit. I get that you’ve got stuff to work through about your mom, but that’s nuts. What about medication, getting back to work? I want our life back. I want—” Dan’s voice thickened. “I can’t help thinking, when all this is over, we could try again. Have another baby.”
Another baby. The first time either of them had said the words aloud. The road ahead blurred and Kira wiped her eyes. The miscarriage, Aimi, baby Rosa in the attic with Maddalena, the Clarkson twins, Baby Kendall. So many babies. It was hot in the car. Kira cracked open the window, wiped one sweaty palm on her jeans, then the other. Then her fingers flared with heat and the darkness exploded into salmon, yellow, glaring green.
I’m on my back, my legs open under the sheet, the midwife there, my mother too. They’re too close to me, both of them, talking and talking, and I would give anything for them to be quiet, to stop touching me. There’s a light above me, white glass, too bright. I close my eyes and push, push, the pain red and black. The women’s hands hurt, insistent as flies, and I think of him, wish he were there. I twist on the bed, taste my sweat, each second elongating into a force I couldn’t have imagined. The pain grabs me, lifts me, fills my mind, my blood, my muscles. I think I might die.
The Wild Impossibility Page 14