“Were they the same, the next ones? Same sort of a seizure type thing?”
“Pretty much,” she says. “For the last one, Dad was there. He decided to come home early to mow the grass. You were in the garden picking tomatoes for dinner, and he said he heard you kind of yelp and thought maybe you’d been stung by a bee, so he rushed to find you. I was at the kitchen window and saw him running, so I raced over too. When I got there he was already crouched beside you calling your name. It was the same as the other times. You were flat on your back between the tomatoes and string beans, not moving, and when you sat up, you kept yelling those same words: ‘Tell Dad. Daddy needs to know. He needs to know.’”
“What did Dad do?” Just thinking about my dad, I can imagine him there in the garden, next to me, with his deep, soothing voice, cajoling me to come back from wherever I’d gone.
“You were hysterical and crying. He kept holding you. This one lasted the longest of them all. I was about to call an ambulance when suddenly you stopped crying, looked straight at your father, and said, ‘Please, Daddy, don’t go,’ and then collapsed again into his arms, sobbing.”
Cal unfolds himself and stands to turn on the table lamps. I’m surprised to find the room filled with shadows.
“We probably should have taken you back to the doctor, but whatever these episodes were, they stopped completely after that final one. You had no memory of anything that had happened and seemed fine. Your dad and I figured it was like when you were a toddler and had night terrors. You’d be screaming and crying and you’d look completely awake, but you had no idea who we were and you wouldn’t let us comfort you. We’d lay you on the rug and sit down next to you and you’d roll back and forth crying until you finally fell back to sleep. You eventually grew out of those, and we thought it was the same with this.”
My stomach growls, and I reach for a piece of cheese and a cracker.
“I’m guessing I don’t have a seizure disorder, because you never told me I did, and I’ve never had a seizure of any kind, as far as I know.”
Mom says. “Nope, no seizure disorder.”
“Then what does this have to do with my disappearing and reappearing psychic abilities?”
Mom stands and stretches. “Listen, I’m kind of stiff from all this sitting. What do you say we take a quick walk around the neighborhood? I love the way the desert smells at night.”
38
Rena
I feel like a damn teenager getting ready for the prom.
In my high school, almost every girl planned to get her cherry popped after the junior prom. Girls made trips to department and specialty stores to find THE dress. Some even had appointments with hairdressers a few weeks before to get a “practice updo.” There were even girls who went to salons to have their makeup professionally applied that day. Of course, I didn’t do that, any of it. No money. But I was working at Walmart after school, and I had an employee discount. I got spiky false eyelashes and a new lipstick (Party Hearty Purple) and blush (Sprinkle Pinkle). Also a sexy black nightie with purple lace (to match my lipstick) and a built-in push-up bra. My friends and I had our “after” outfits ready too (leggings and a loose top). The only thing left was to hope the guys remembered the condoms.
We went into the corners at the high school gym and giggled. We talked about whether it was going to hurt, how much blood there would be. We said how in love we were with our prom dates or how it was just time to get it the hell over with. For me, I was definitely in the second group. My date, Richie Baskin, was a nice enough guy. We were chemistry lab partners, and more than a few times he got my ass out of the fire by letting me copy his homework. But in love? No fucking way. He just happened to be attached to the part I needed to get the job done.
Packing to go away with Louis gives me that same kind of buzzy feeling. Like you’re not sure what will happen, but you can’t wait anyway. In the days before, I tried to watch what I ate. I know I’ve dropped a few pounds. Hard to tell without a scale. My face looks skinnier and maybe my ass too. I went back to the consignment store and found a cute pair of jeans that’ll be good for hiking. They’re only a little tight. I even colored my hair myself. It’s not a perfect job, but at least now it’s the same shade all over instead of black roots and blond ends. I didn’t bother with a nightgown or anything like that. Why spend money on something I’ll wear for less than six seconds?
Louis is going to pick me up at the drugstore in about two hours.
“Stephanie, stop screwing around in there, will you? I need to drop you off first, and I don’t want to be late for work.”
“Why can’t you come home tonight like you usually do?” she whines. She’s on her stomach under the coffee table and comes up with her ratty stuffed panda.
“I already told you a hundred times. My boss wants me to check out another pharmacy in the state, to see how they do things. It’s part of my job, and I need to keep my job. Your medical stuff costs a crapload of money. Do you get it now?”
“Yes, Mommy,” she says.
“Besides you get to stay with Susan and Felicia from class. That’ll be fun, right?”
She skips off into the bedroom.
“Stephanie, where the hell are you going?” I yell. “I said we got to leave.”
She comes back with her blankie and a book about ponies. I grab my suitcase and the trash bag holding her pj’s, a change of clothes, and all her prepared meals and snacks. We get in the cab that’s waiting outside.
Susan’s house is a mansion.
The cabdriver says this part of town is considered to be old Phoenix. The streets are lined with actual trees. Susan’s house is two-story and brick with tall white pillars in front. I swear it looks like it’s right out of Gone with the Wind. I almost expect servants to run out and carry in our luggage.
Felicia opens the red front door. She walks over to Stephanie and says, “Want to see my room?” They run back into the house.
Susan is waving at me. “Come on in, Rena.”
“Hi, thanks again for doing this,” I say and hand her the plastic bag.
We go into her kitchen through the hugest living room I’ve ever seen. Then I realize it’s actually a living, dining, and TV room, all in one. A whole wall is covered with a big-screen TV. I’m thinking it must be like having your own private movie theater. In front of the TV is a sectional sofa, the kind where two of the chairs have cup holders and lean all the way back. A formal living area to the left looks like it came right from an Ethan Allen store. The dining area has a shiny dark wood table with twelve chairs around it. The chairs have some kind of needlework cushions. I get closer and can see the designs on the cushions are of horses chasing after a fox. The men on the horses are all wearing black top hats and carrying sticks, which I’m guessing they use to beat the horses.
“Do you have super-large parties here or what?”
Susan smiles at me and says, “Sometimes. My husband’s in pharmaceuticals, and we often need to entertain his clients.”
“I guess, I mean, I thought, since you were shopping at the consignment store, that—”
“Well, I believe in giving back to the community.”
“Oh, sure, me too. I bought some jeans there yesterday.”
I’m wondering why she goes to a Mommy Loves Baby class like ours. It’s not in the best neighborhood. Then she says, “Felicia met Rex at the Children’s Museum, and they became such great buddies that his mom and I try to get them together as much as possible. That’s why we attend the meeting at the consignment store. Did you take Stephanie to that museum yet? I bet she’d love it.”
“No, not yet. I work so much, it’s hard to find time to do things like that.”
“Hopefully, some afternoon you’ll get to go. Maybe I can bring her next time I take Felicia? She adores all the exhibits. The kids can go through these play towns, where they can pretend they’re running a post office or an ice cream store. It’s loads of fun.”
The kitchen is all
stainless-steel fixtures and black granite countertops. It’s like a glossy picture from a magazine. Susan takes the plastic containers out of the bag and says, “So, tell me what I need to know about Stephanie’s food requirements.”
I start to organize all the containers into different groups: breakfast (steel-cut oatmeal with organic coconut milk); lunch (tofu burger with a whole-grain bun and non-GMO baby carrots); dinner (bulgur salad with snow peas and free-range chicken pieces); and snacks (a container of blueberries and a package of organic string cheese). There are also bottles of spring water. Everything is marked for what meal it belongs to.
“I packed some extra in case you want Felicia to try anything.”
“Thanks. We’ll see. Felicia’s kind of a picky eater.”
“Oh, you need to stop that shit immediately. Once you let them decide what they will and won’t eat, you can fucking forget about their health,” I say, passing the containers to her that need to go in the fridge. She opens the doors of a double-wide refrigerator that’s packed with so much food, I don’t know where she’ll put my stuff. But I notice a shelf at the bottom that’s clear. This woman definitely has things under control.
Susan puts her nose up in the air and says in this snooty voice, “I appreciate the advice, and obviously, you know a great deal about nutrition and, of course, I know Stephanie’s health is a priority for you.” The unspoken words, I can tell, are Stay the hell out of my life and if I decide to feed my kid horse crap, it’s none of your damn business. Can’t say I didn’t try.
“I guess I better get going.” Susan walks me back through the foyer. There’s this huge sparkling crystal-and-bronze chandelier. It gives off a glow from what feels like miles above our heads.
“Felicia, Stephanie’s mommy is leaving,” she yells from the bottom of the stairs. “You girls come down and say goodbye, okay?”
“Mommy, we’re busy playing,” Felicia shouts back.
“Stephanie, come down right now,” I say. I hear her tell Felicia something, but soon she starts to walk slowly down the curving staircase.
I lean over to let her kiss me on the cheek. Turning us away from Susan, I squeeze Stephanie’s arm and tell her, “You be good. Don’t cause no trouble, understand?” I don’t think Susan can hear me.
She nods once and runs back upstairs to Felicia’s bedroom, which I’m sure is decorated in pink and has a bedspread covered with pictures of princesses. And there’s probably a dollhouse taller than she is, filled with real wood furniture and lights that turn on and off.
I tell Susan I should be back by ten in the morning on Sunday. I’m out the door, heading to the cab, when I hear her running after me. “Rena, hang on—you forgot to give me your phone number. You know, just in case.”
“Oh yeah, sure,” I say. “Except I plan on doing lots of hiking. I don’t know if there’ll be any reception out there.”
“Really? We often go to Sedona, especially in the summer and have hiked many of the trails. We’ve never had any problem at all with getting a signal.”
“Okay, good. That’s good.” I give her my number. She puts it into her phone, and I turn to walk to the cab.
“Wait, don’t you want my number?” she asks.
I turn around. “Oh yeah, that’s a good idea,” I say. I type her number into my phone. “If you call and I don’t answer right away, it’s because I’m getting a massage or maybe sitting by the pool or something.”
“I understand,” she says, but there’s definitely something in the way she says it. I know what she really means is, I’m a much better mom than you are.
39
Claire
We grab sweaters and head outside. Sedona is like the rest of Arizona, which people often forget is a desert. The days can be boiling hot, but the nights are cool in October, sometimes even cold. Our complex is in a cul-de-sac, so taking a walk amounts to three or so rounds of the circle.
My mother links her arm through mine, and Cal follows a few paces behind.
Mom sniffs the air. “What is that wonderful fragrance?”
“Probably the juniper trees, or maybe cypress. You should smell them after a storm. It’s heavenly,” I say.
We walk in silence for a while, and then she starts to speak.
“Your dad and I watched you closely in the days after you had what turned out to be your last seizure, or whatever it was. Thankfully, nothing else happened. You were fine and very excited about going to the beach house.”
“And?”
“And the first few days there were glorious. You remember, right? We sat on the beach and then that crazy miniature golf game in the pouring rain? All that thunder and lightning. I never saw lightning like that.”
“Yes, I remember.” The knot in my stomach ratchets into a tighter ball.
We’ve gone around the cul-de-sac twice when Mom stops and motions for me to sit next to her on the curb. Our place is only a couple of buildings away, and I can see the light from our living room. It looks warm and inviting, and I’m wishing I were there and not about to hear what she might say next.
“When your dad had the stroke that day, of course, we were all in shock. You probably remember this too—everyone was running around. To tell you the truth, I can’t recall many of the details, but I can always pull up that horrible picture in my memory: your dad lying on the floor, his mouth . . .” She shudders, and I lean into her shoulder for comfort and warmth. “I know I went crazy. And I know I wasn’t there for you that day, Claire.”
Cal catches up to us and sits on the curb next to me.
My mom continues, “Aunt Frannie was the one who told me what happened with you after. She said you were inconsolable, which, of course, was completely understandable. No child should see her father in that condition. It was terrible for you, for everyone. But there was something else too.”
“What?” I ask.
“You kept screaming. Finally, Aunt Frannie said she asked one of the EMTs to give you something to calm you down. Once the shot started to work, she said she could finally understand what you were yelling about.”
“Which was?”
“You kept saying, ‘It’s my fault, it’s my fault, I knew this was going to happen, I saw it happen.’ Those phrases again and again, and nothing she said could convince you your dad’s stroke was a medical problem and that you had nothing at all to do with it.”
Sitting on the curb, now I begin to remember everything. Before this moment, my recollection of that disastrous afternoon ended with seeing my dad being slid into an ambulance. But now everything else that happened comes back, filling in missing pieces of memory I didn’t even know weren’t there.
That day, after my mother pushed me and my towel fell off, I grabbed it and tried to cover myself. Somewhere, it registered in my brain that I should get dressed, but I didn’t want to leave my father lying there. I thought if I stayed with him, right where I was, he wouldn’t, couldn’t leave me. My aunt ran to the bedroom and came back with my bathrobe, which she wrapped around me.
I also remember now everything I told my aunt later as she tried to assure me it would all be fine, that my dad was a strong man and would get well again. I sobbed and told her I was absolutely sure I had caused his stroke. Or, at the very least, I could have prevented it from happening. I told her those episodes I’d had the weeks before, the ones Mom and Dad had told me about—where I couldn’t move—I could see now they were just like someone having a stroke. I told her these were obviously predictions of what was going to happen to Dad. The reason I kept pleading for my mother to “Let Dad know” was to warn him.
Surely, I should have done more to warn him. At twelve it was unlikely I could have put all this together—my seizure-like events and the signs of a stroke—before that day at the beach. But I told my aunt that night by my bedside that, obviously, on some level, I must have known this was coming, this first of his increasingly deadly strokes, and I was certain that my knowing it had caused it. I sobbed and told he
r I should have done more to stop it. No matter how many times my aunt tried to explain, using her nurse’s terms, how a stroke worked, what factors might lead a person to have a stroke, I couldn’t hear her. I wouldn’t hear her. I’d caused the stroke and I hadn’t stopped it. My guilt was suffocating.
I drop my head into my hands and begin to cry, sniffing into the sleeve of my sweatshirt. Cal puts his arm around me.
“After that, nothing I did could convince you to practice tarot or study any of the psychic arts. If you experienced any kind of pre-knowledge again, I never knew because you never said and you would always go somewhere else if I had a client in the shop. It was like you couldn’t stand to be near any of it again.”
She takes my hand.
“Claire,” she says, “I’m sure you know this now, at least intellectually, but what happened to you physically did not cause his stroke, and there was nothing you could have done to prevent what happened.”
“Maybe,” I say, but her words only reach my ears and not my heart.
I mean, if I had paid attention to what was going on during those bizarre episodes, couldn’t I have put it together, the similar stroke-like symptoms and my need to warn him? Couldn’t I have nagged him until he made an appointment with a doctor, who would have run some tests or something and found a clot somewhere, ticking, ready to explode?
I readjust myself on the curb, listening to a mockingbird’s call, which will continue all through the night. At least I know now the real reason I tried to distance myself as far away from the psychic arts as possible. But that still doesn’t help with my current problem.
“Cal, why don’t you tell Mom your theory about my recent visions?”
He hesitates, knowing this is a sensitive subject. “I only said that with all of the recent things that happened to Claire, with her dad’s death, and the talk you and she had, maybe she was more open emotionally and that’s why she started to have visions, or whatever they are, again. That, in some way, she became more receptive to her clients.”
The Perfect Fraud Page 19