A Blue So Dark (26 page)

Recovery from schizophrenia is an oxxynioron. You don't get over being schizo like you get over a cold. There's no cough syrup or topical cream or even a pill that can eliminate the schizo from your brain. But you and your caregivers can -work together to monitor your condition and even cone up with a plan of action should your symptoms cone roaring back, exploding in your family members 'faces like pipe bombs. Blain!

aturday, and for the first time since that day at the art museum when Mom scrawled those oddball words on her blackboard (PEPPER, PET), it really does feel like a weekend. A real, live, breathing weekend, with pancakes for breakfast. And two midmorning classes at the art museum, because the curator has a definite sympathy bone for what she calls Mom's "artistic temperament." But to be safe, just two classes on Saturday. For now.

I'm standing on a ladder, making cloud bursts with every breath as I try to untangle the white twinkle lights. I might not have any homework left to do, but these stupid lights pose a tougher problem than any geometry book could cook up. What sadistic s. o. b. thought these things up anyway, I wonder as I loosen a knot in the wire, but I'm really not annoyed at all.

Actually, I'm cutting it pretty close, with Christmas looming like a giant wad of mistletoe just an inch above my head. Local news has been broadcasting from the mall for the past three days. From the looks of it, the line to see Santa stretches from Sears past the food court.

I hope we get a tree, too-not a dead one, chainsawed for a week's worth of good times. But one of those small table-sized jobs, the kind in a pot, that you plant in the backyard after the holidays. Yeah, a small one would be nice-a few ribbons, some miniature glass snowflakes.

Maybe Nell could even come over. Not for the whole day, but for a while.

Next door, Scooter starts barking-that happy yip of a young dog wanting to play.

"Hush," Mrs. Pilkington scolds as she makes a beeline for the shed out by the back fence. She pops the lid off the metal trash can and makes this guttural groan, like she's suddenly in intense pain, like someone's punched her in the gut.

Her back door flaps open, and Joey emerges just in time to see his mom attack the trash can. But the can doesn't clang as glass bottles rattle around inside. When Mrs. Pilkington kicks the can across the yard, it's obviously empty. Hollow. No whiskey.

"Come on, Mom," Joey says quietly. "I know how hard it is."

Even though I expect her to, Mrs. Pilkington doesn't shake her head and say something parental, like Who do you think you are? I used to change your diapers. You don't tell me what to do. I'm your mother. She just lets Joey put his arm around her and lead her inside.

As the trash can rolls to a stop, I turn my eye toward the burn pile in the center of my own backyard. An enormous sigh escapes my chest, like I'm some cloud-sized helium balloon that's just popped. Because even though Mrs. Pilkington really does have to get rid of the thing that she loves, the thing that she believes makes her function, I don't. Because Mom and I have replaced the canvases I torched. Because we bought all the sketchbooks and the charcoals and the watercolor paper I'll need next semester in Art I. And because I'm writing new poems, putting them together into a kind of mini chapbook, in a deal I've made with Kolaite for extra credit. (God knows, after all my class cutting, my grades need all the help they can get.)

I don't have to give it up, any of it. Not the writing. Not the drawing. And neither does Mom. And that makes me feel like we've both been given some sort of second chance, you know? Some sort of begin again.

I hear the muffled sound of our phone ringing from inside the house.

"Aura!" Mom shouts, throwing open the back door. "It's for you."

I climb down from the ladder, hope like a blowtorch in my gut.

"It's Jeremy," she says, then tosses me that sideways sitcom-mom look. "Is this Jeremy-from-drawing-class Jeremy?"

"You remember," I say.

"Why would I forget?"

I push past her and pick up the phone, trying desperately to play it cool, even though I really want to squeal like some awful girly-girl.

"Hey, Jeremy," I say.

"Yeah, listen, so about this autobiography you gave me the other day..." As Jeremy's voice tingles inside my ear, I wander over to the kitchen table. I sit in the same chair Mom used to flop into while I fixed her lunch, looking like an empty jean jacket.

Above, the mermaids closest to the sliding glass door sway a little as Mom slams the door shut. But they are no longer cracked or dusty or lifeless. They all have fresh coats of paint. Broken fins have been repaired. New glitter twinkles across their scales like untouched snow. Because Mom and I are fixing the mermaids as we hang them back up, giving them all back their magical sparkle, one by one.

om insists we take Janny and Ethan on our summer vacation-"To take the sting off Nell being there," she says, rolling her eyes at me. Sometimes the way she keeps resisting Nell gets a little tiresome-almost like she's doing it just to prove her point. But Nell refuses to get discouraged. The two of them are a little like bulldogs, each of them planting their feet and refusing to budge their strong, meaty bodies. At least they're not growling and baring their teeth.

It's a strange brood to have on a road trip, you know. We have to stop at the A&P for diapers for Ethan and Aspercreme for Nell. And we all pester Mom about her meds in that way families can pinch each other without anybody really getting all that pissed off.

As the Tempo swirls down gray ribbons of highway, closer and closer to the Florida state line, I start to wonder about the guy who carved all our mermaids. I wonder if he still has that souvenir shop, and is still, every single day, digging the same face out of driftwood, dropping every finished piece into the same galvanized tub, Mermaids $2. And I wonder if he ever got it right, the shine on those carvings. Wonder if he ever saw her again, his ocean mermaid, or if she disappeared for good.

But we're not going back to his piece of Florida. We've moved on. So I guess I'll never really know about what became of him or his tiny little sculptures.

When we cross the bridge at Jewfish Creek and finally arrive in Key Largo, the surroundings completely blow my mind. The breeze here sounds tinny, twangy, like calypso music. And it smells like a pina colada.

"Go straight to the beach, Nell," I say.

"No way," Janny argues, because, with all his squirming and diaper changes, Ethan's worn her as flat as a pencil that's just drafted an entire novel. "Let's go to the hotel. Please."

"A hotel? When there's this?" I ask, pointing out the window. Palm leaves wave hello. Coconuts tumble. "It exists. White sands, blue water. Look, Janny. A real tropical paradise. We didn't get to see this when we were kids. And you want to go to some crummy hotel?"

Janny sighs. "Fine," she mumbles, even though I can tell, from the way her eyes light up, that she's excited to be here, too. We've arrived in another world. The kind of place that proves fairy tale lands really do exist, after all.

"Aura!" Nell shouts, because as soon as we hit the shoreline, I throw the passenger's side door open. "Wait till I stop the damn car."

"What's wrong with you?" Janny snaps, and Mom starts getting after me, too-I've got three mothers shouting out a chorus of you'll get hurt, but I don't care. I'm out of the car and I'm running right up to the white frothy fringes.

Only I don't stop there. I just keep going, ankle deep, knees soaked, my laughter pouring out and my arms flapping oddly, like I'm a seagull and this is where I was always meant to be.

I immerse myself, open my eyes beneath the surface. The water's so clear, it really could be someone's swimming pool. A big, blue swimming pool full of tiger-striped fish. And the salt water in my eyes doesn't even sting, like I expected it to.

On this vacation, I can't get enough of the water. I buy snorkeling gear and flippers, which I figure make me look a little ridiculous. But I can't help it-I just want to go deeper beneath the surface, farther, touching the sea plants and rocks, exploring. I want to time-freeze everything I see, like my eyes are the shutters of one of Nell's cameras. There's poetry down here. And about a hundred different watercolors waiting to be painted.

When I finally do come up for air, my fingers aren't just pruned, but white and bloated on the tips-like every single one of them is covered in blisters. I pull my goggles off, laughing as I watch Janny in her floppy, to-the-knees white T-shirt cover-up, racing down the shore, screaming, "Ethan! Come back here!" But he just squeals that high-pitched little boy giggle, because he's got Janny's fearlessness.

Nell trails along behind them, snapping away with her camera. It's too bad she's using the old-fashioned Nikonnot a digital, but a camera with actual film-because I'd love to see what these pictures look like right this instant. They'll be amazing; I know they will. Nell's got such a knack for capturing people as they really are that I figure every time I see one of these photos, I'll be able to hear Ethan's high-pitched laughter all over again ... even if, by that point, Ethan's old enough to have a goatee.

Nell lowers her camera and nods at a cluster of shirtless surfers. I glance at them, shrug a so what? But Nell winks and says, "Way out, kid." When I turn back, I realize, with shock waves traveling down my body like a hundred Slinkys racing down a flight of stairs, that the surfers are oogling me.

I touch the necklace at the base of my throat-two entwined wooden circles on a steel cord that I've been wearing for months, refusing to take it off to sleep or shower. I've actually got a tan line around it-the retired skateboard cut by Jeremy's hands-on the skin just beneath my clavicle. As I run my fingers over the circles, tracing their outline, I don't care enough about the surfers' attention to really even be flattered. I just chastise myself for trying to shove my torpedo boobs into some too-small-for-me black bikini.

Late in the afternoon, when the sun's reds begin to charge across the water, Mom and I grab our sketchbooks and beach chairs, carry them so far out, the ocean's all the way past our ankles. Mom's wearing her own soggy bikinia kind of retro-looking number-her black ponytail blowing across her face. God, she looks so young-Grace Ambrose, born April 3, 1970. And has there ever been anyone quite so alive?

"Challenge," Mom tells me as she flips open her sketchbook, like she does every day at this time, when the light is perfect, the two of us battling for the best drawing. Just as I pick up one of my new pencils-a sapphire blue-I hear a snap behind my shoulder, and when I turn, I realize Nell's taken our picture. Before Mom can wave her off, Nell sticks her tongue out at her. Which actually makes Mom laugh-a little.

"And I'm off to happy hour," Nell announces triumphantly. She hurries up the coast in her fitted capris, toward the hotel lounge, like she's forty years younger than she really is. Age hasn't touched either of them, Nell or Mom.

The thing is-and Mom would never even consider the possibility of this being true-but really, she and Nell butt heads because they're so much alike. Everything from the shape of their angular faces all the way down to their eyes-not the color of them, but the way they work. The way those eyes see. And that's helping me to take a lot of the lingering fear factor out of blank canvases. Nell's an artist, too.

I mean, life's not flawless. It's not like I'm Goldilocks settling into the perfect setting, saying, This is just right. But as I'm sitting next to my mom, our hands poised on the pages in nearly identical angles, I have to say, This feels so good... I fill my lungs with sweet air as I try to decide what I'm going to sketch-one of the palms, leaves like a funky layered hairdo? The sailboat creeping dangerously close to a horizon line that looks like the edge of the entire world?

I stare down at my feet, at the skin that's a shade lighter because it's underneath the blue tint of the water. I wiggle my toes, disturbing the sand. For a moment the water clouds, reminding me of my first visit to Florida.

"You're not drawing," Mom says, singsong. "If you don't get started soon, I'll win."

I sigh, collapsing into the back of my beach chair. "There's just so much more, you know? Underneath the surface. When we came-the first time? I thought I'd see all the way to the bottom of the ocean. Sunken pirate ships and all."

By this point, Mom's pencil has stopped moving. "Why didn't you?"

I snort a laugh, thinking she's trying to be a smart-ass. But she's looking at me like she wouldn't know sarcasm if it stung her like a jellyfish. She's being utterly serious.

"You don't see the ocean floor, Mom," I tell her. "It's not a fish bowl, all right? It's the ocean."

A crooked grin starts to tap dance into the side of her cheek. "Close your eyes."

"I'm not some little girl, Mom-" I start to protest.

"Let me tell you something, Aura," she says, in that same tone she uses in the front of her classroom. "There's another side to art, okay? The magical side. Sure, you have to start with something solid, copying images that already exist, that stand right in front of you. But the best artists? They draw not from the world, but from their imaginations. That's how you see the ocean floor, Aura. You dream it. You create it. You draw it."

I tense up a little, try to shrug her away.

"What have you drawn from your imagination since you painted that three-headed mermaid on my wall?" she asks with a raise of her eyebrow. "Hmm? Nothing, that's what."

"I had assignments, Mom-"

"Can it. Don't blame it on some art teacher. `You had assignments.' You passed Art I with flying colors, drawing bowls of fruit and little wooden dolls." She sticks a finger in her mouth, like she's gagging herself. "You and I both know you could have been more creative. Come on," Mom insists. "Close your eyes."

My eye travels back up the shore, in the direction my grandmother just disappeared. Nell's an artist, too, I remind myself. Creative doesn't have to mean crazy. Right?

I do what Mom suggests-as my eyelashes knit, the late afternoon sun gives the backs of my eyelids a red glow.

"Flick your tail," Mom says.

"My tail?" I moan, my eyes popping back open again. "What am I, eight?"

"Shut up," Mom says, leaning over the arm of her beach chair to cup my eyes with her palm. "Your tail," she repeats. "That beautiful mermaid tail you painted on my bedroom wall. Flick your tail and dive in-not into the waters of the Florida Keys, but inside you."

"This is stupid," I mumble, but Mom's suggestion has made my mind explode. I swear, I can feel the cool water against my shoulders as I plunge in. Bubbles dance up my arms.

"Keep going," Mom whispers. "Speed up-faster than a shark. Deeper and deeper into your own creativity, your mind, your art."

I flick my imaginary tail again and fly through the waters, taking in the surroundings entirely through my skin, since my eyes are still closed. Deeper and deeper, just like Mom said. I brush past a tangle of seaweed. Schools of fish tickle my skin and scales as I speed past. The farther I swim into my imagination, the farther I get from any lingering fear. A squeal builds low in my belly, because I'm free.