Accidents of Marriage (31 page)

“Give me. A second. Damn.” Ha! She hadn’t said
fuck
. She found her way through the piles of books and magazines to the leather chair across from Zelda’s cushioned rocker that helped her counselor’s sciatica. “Let sit. Before lecture.”

“
Let
me
sit,
” Zelda said. “You can’t take shortcuts when you’re speaking. Remember? Verbs. Subjects. You don’t want to sound like a refugee your entire life, do you?”

Sometimes Zelda’s “just the facts” made Maddy want to kick her, but most of the time she relished being with someone who didn’t look at her with pitying cow eyes. Silver strands mixed with red in Zelda’s long cape of hair. Half witchy, half model—Maddy thought of Zelda as an occupational therapist of the mind. Rehab called her the adjustment counselor.

“What’s on first today?” Zelda asked as she swung her green suede boots up on her desk. Zelda’s beautiful clothes hung off her dime-thin body like woven money.

Maddy tugged at the pocket of her tight jeans and pulled out her notebook. Saw her ill-written notations of crap, crap, and more crap. Everything seemed a reminder that she couldn’t drive, or work, or cook, or clean, or mend, or sew, or sow. Sex was her sole skill. She gorged on Ben, but that feast only satisfied her for moments.

Eating presented the same pleasure and problem. No matter how many cookies or meatballs she stuffed in, nothing satiated her past the eating. On Sunday, she ate half of Emma’s birthday pie and still felt empty. Each week her pants grew tighter, and still she crammed more in her mouth.

“Fat. Getting fatter,” she said.

“
I’m getting fatter,
” Zelda corrected.

“No. You look good. Skinny.”

“Your sense of humor is intact,” Zelda said. “That’s good. How lucky that piece of your brain stayed whole.”

Lucky funny me!

“Still fat. I am still fat.” She said the sentence one halting word at a time.

Zelda tipped her head sideways. “Do you remember that we spoke about this last week?”

Remember, remember, remember.

“Yes,” she said. “But still fat.”

“You’ve simply gained normal postcoma weight,” Zelda said.

Zelda could be calm. It wasn’t her adjustment counselor waist dripping over her waistband.

“You’re in a period of adjustment,” she continued. “You don’t recognize your satiation point. That’s normal for you at this moment.”

Right. Her normal would be a stuttering fat woman.

“Fine,” she said, not wanting to talk about it anymore. “Work. Halloween. Driving. Birthday. Emma’s.”

“I assume that’s your pidgin-English way of presenting topics to talk about. I pick Halloween,” Zelda said. “What are you thinking?”

“I told? What happened? Right?”

“Work on breathing as you speak, Maddy.” She took a slow breath and relaxed her upper body for demonstration. “Yes, you told me what happened. Is it still a problem?”

Problem? She’d lost motherhood rights, not even able to make costumes for Gracie and Caleb, although at least they hadn’t had to wear shiny junk from CVS. Vanessa atoned for leaving her to smash up the
garage and burn the house down by manufacturing a nurse uniform for Gracie, complete with a little Florence Nightingale cap and cape. Then she’d made Sean watch the baby and—oh, shit, a blank. Name? Name? Her niece. Vanessa’s older daughter. What was her name? It was like a bear. Ursine?

“Maddy?” Zelda recalled her to the moment.

“Vanessa made Caleb . . .” She stopped and took a breath. “A spaceman.”

“Right. You told me. However, that’s not what bothered you, correct? It was Gracie.”

Gracie. Her little heart. Poor baby. Her face fell when Maddy said she planned to go trick-or-treating with her and Ben. She’d covered it with a quick smile, but Maddy saw it. Did Gracie think she’d call people cocksuckers if they gave Gracie hard-candy lollipops instead of chocolate?

“She was embarrassed,” Maddy said.

Zelda nodded. “Probably. So what? Who wouldn’t be embarrassed if their mother was swearing or shuffling along beside them?”

“I don’t shuffle!”

Zelda nodded again. Nodding was Zelda’s specialty. “Good. Be glad about that. How lucky you are to have so few physical deficits. Okay, so Gracie would have been embarrassed. She wanted Halloween to be completely about her. Big deal, Maddy. It’s normal. You’re head-injured.” Before continuing, she reached down for a pillow to cushion her bony behind.

“Ah, that’s better.” Zelda settled into the cushion with a sigh of relief. “Patients are incredibly self-centered when recovering from even a fairly mild brain injury—mild being relative, of course. You think everything is about you. Part of your healing progress is recovering empathy in appropriate ways.”

“Empathy? I worry. About kids. Constantly.”

“No, Maddy. You constantly worry about how the kids feel about you. That’s different.”

Had she ever liked Zelda? She hated her. She didn’t want to hear that Maddy didn’t even want to wake up some days. That she had
headaches. That she couldn’t drive. That she slept half the day and could barely open a bag of premade salad for lunch.

After grabbing her chart from Zelda’s desk, she tried to prove her points by reading aloud in her slow stumbling speech. “Poor memory. Reading difficult. Slowed reactions. Altered sexual behavior. Emotional instability. Sensitive to slights.” She stopped. “Why go on? I used to. Write charts like this. Not be the chart.”

Zelda reached over and took the chart back. “Stop moping about your deficits. All this will get better.”

“How much? How much better?” she asked. “I want. All the way.”

“Do you know what Ernest Hemingway said?” she asked.

Maddy didn’t bother answering—whatever she said, Zelda would tell her anyway.

“ ‘The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.’ That’s from Hemingway.”

Maddy rolled her eyes. “You have sayings. For everything.”

“You can be one of those people. Strong at the broken places. You won’t be the same. Not ever. But neither will you be this person you feel today.”

She took her feet off the desk, rose, and then came over to Maddy’s chair, sitting on the ottoman facing her. “There’s going to be an entirely new Maddy. You don’t know her yet; you’re still crying over old Maddy. That’s okay, but not for much longer. We’re not going to let self-pity arrest your mind.”

She imagined Mr. Self-Pity wielding a billy club, shoving her mind in jail. “That another quote?”

“A bastardization. Joyce. I’m feeling show-offy today.” She wrapped a hand around Maddy’s ankle and squeezed. “Now, let’s get back to work.”

“Told Emma. She was mean. Made her cry,” Maddy said. Zelda shot her a look. “
I
made her cry.”

Zelda lowered her glasses a bit. “How did that make you feel?”

“Bad. Horrible.” She took a breath and aimed for longer sentences. “She yells at Caleb.”

“Is she mean to him?” Zelda asked.

“Yes. But she has. Pressure. Too much.” She stopped to gather her thoughts and breathe, just as Zelda preached. “I didn’t want to. Make her feel bad.”

Emma had tried to wipe away her tears before Maddy could see them. She’d turned away when Maddy tried to hug her. Said she was fine in that way that meant the opposite.

“I say terrible stuff,” she said.

“Madeline Illica, listen to all the four-word sentences you just made! Great job!” Zelda grabbed a box of tissues and handed them to her. “Saying things like you said to Emma is yet another effect of traumatic brain injury—call it TBI truth serum. You’ve lost your filters. Feel it, think it, say it—that’s your life at the moment.”

“I’m scared,” she said.

“What are you scared of?”

She shrugged. “Money. Not enough. Ben. Hating me.” She shredded the tissue Zelda had handed her. “Leaving me.”

“You’re worried about Ben leaving?” Zelda tilted her head. “Has he said something?”

Maddy sat up straight, backing away from Zelda’s intensity. “No, no, no. He’s wonderful.” She tried to form the words properly. “But I’m . . . an albacore.”

Zelda looked surprised. “An albacore? Oh! You mean an albatross.”

“See. Stupid.”

“Self-pity speaking again?”

“Ben won’t want me.” She gestured at her soft belly, her dented brain. “I know what I am. I’m. I’m . . .” She searched for the right word. “Crappy broken. A crappy broken fat lady. Fuck. Hate shit.”

“Maddy, we must get your self-image in line with reality. You can’t keep walking this same road.”

“How do I. Stop?” she asked. “Saying all crap. In my head?”

“Time. Patience. Retraining.” She paused. “There may be times you’ll appreciate it, Maddy. You’ll be able to say things you never could before.”

“Sometimes. I get mad. So mad.” She shook her head. “Don’t even. Know why.”

“Frustration. There’s much more inside you than you can possibly say or even cope with knowing. Thus, it becomes soup. But slowly you’ll catch up.”

“All the way?” she asked.

Zelda laced her fingers and brought them to her chin. “I know you want me to say yes, absolutely yes. But truthfully, I don’t know how far you’ll go in getting back. This is trial and error to some degree. Some of it will be dumb luck.” She rocked toward Maddy and looked her in the eye. “But a large portion is about you—how much work you’re willing to do.”

CHAPTER 31

Emma

Emma clicked the remote.

Off.

On.

Off.

If her father was home, it would drive him mad. But he wasn’t. He’d barely noticed she hadn’t gone to school.

Fine.

That’s what he said when she told him she had a headache.
Fine.
Fine that she had a headache? Fine that she was staying home? Fine what, Dad?

Clearly, he’d forgotten today was her actual birthday. Her mother didn’t even know. Nobody forgot Halloween. Oh, no! That was for the little kids—Aunt Vanessa practically built the Eiffel Tower for them.

Okay then,
fine
. Staying home would be her birthday gift. Not that Sunday’s birthday pizza hadn’t been simply wonderful. Oh, it was simply terrific! The same pizza they’d have again tonight, because Tuesday was pizza night at the Illicas. Not to mention pizza Thursday. Oh, and absolutely, that crappy supermarket apple pie had been more than enough! And of course she hadn’t minded having her great big
special birthday pizza celebration on Sunday because today, her real birthday, wasn’t convenient. Not with pills for Mom, rehab visits for Mom, and therapist meetings for Mom. Can’t squeeze a birthday cake in there—not with needing to make it all about Mom 24-7. Too bad her father hadn’t lavished this attention on Mom before he smashed her up.

Nobody had even baked their traditional moka-choka-latta birthday cake, the one her mother had named from the “Lady Marmalade” song. Every birthday her mother sang the song in her off-key voice as she measured flour and sugar, accompanying Patti LaBelle like a backup singer. After stirring and creaming, folding espresso into the chocolate frosting, her mother would play it again and again, turning the volume louder and louder, until Emma, Gracie, and Caleb were drawn to the kitchen.

Sunday night—her so-called early birthday celebration—had been wretched. Gracie bought Emma a biography of Florence Nightingale and a chocolate bar. Caleb drew a crazed house picture with a roof made of cookies and a door made of carrots. Before, her mother would have diagnosed the picture, making up an entire funny story of how it represented the inside of Caleb’s mind. Instead, Mom slouched there looking sad-trying-to-look-happy.

Emma’s father gave her a card with five twenty-dollar bills.

“Next year,” her mother had said.

“Next year what?” Emma supposed she had sounded bitchy since her father had given her a dirty look and answered for her mother.

“Next year we’ll go to the fanciest hotel in Boston,” her father had said.

“No,” Caleb said. “The Swiss Alps!” He and Gracie had recently watched
Heidi
on DVD.

Her mother looked so depressed by the entire thing that Emma spent the rest of the night acting as though everything were fine, wonderful, great—the best birthday in the world! Pie! Pizza! What had Emma expected anyway? Piles of presents while her mother tried to remember the name of the president?

So fine, no big deal.

•  •  •

Later that afternoon, Emma and Zach sat at one of the tables dotting the plaza by the so-called Pit—the Harvard Square hangout. At four o’clock, kids jammed the place. Emma supposed Zach would rather be almost anywhere else, but she liked it, and anyway, he’d asked where she wanted to go for her birthday. Street poets recited, and dancers spun on the concrete displaying their blazing gymnastics. Three women whose bottom halves were hidden behind a large wooden crate pulled the strings on puppets dressed as soldiers and Middle Eastern children. Emma leaned forward for a better view.

“I told you this was a stupid idea,” Zach said. “All anyone here wants is for people to look at them and think how cool they are. So much for being different if all you want is for people to admire your differentness. Do you know what I mean?”

“I think they look pretty cool,” Emma said.

“No, you don’t. You’re just saying that. I can tell.” He caught her hand across the white iron table. “Want to eat something?”

She shrugged.

“So what do you want to do? You asked to come here. A bookstore?” He pointed to the Harvard Coop across the street.

“Can’t we just stay here and watch?” she asked.

Zach sighed and stretched his legs. Emma wanted to run, race, dance in the middle of the Pit.

The pill she’d swallowed before meeting Zach raced through her.

Now she had five left. She’d counted them out as though they were tiny palace guards, designed for the express purpose of keeping her sadness out of the kingdom. And when they were gone? If she asked Caro for more, it would seem as though she’d moved from needing help as she took care of everyone in her family to being a grubby little addict.