Brainstorm (23 page)

I had two surprise visitors the next day. Dr. Collins was
the first. “Hello, Audrey,” she said. “It’s been a while.”

“Ten years or so,” I said, shocked to see her after all
this time. “It’s good to see you, even though I’m a little embarrassed to have
you find me here.”

“Dr. Steele called me,” she said, “and I’m so happy she
did. You exhibited some anger toward her and sent her away, is that right?”

“You bet I did. She had me put in here while I was
unconscious. I had no say in it.”

“Well, you were originally taken to a hospital,” she
explained. “Dr. Steele took the necessary legal steps, out of concern for you,
to get you moved to this facility. If it means anything, I’m of the opinion
that doing so was a good thing.”

“I know what she did.”

“Yes,” she said calmly, as she pulled the visitor’s chair
to my bedside. “But you’re no longer restrained, so take that as a good sign;
you’ve already shown improvement.”

“They give me medication,” I said. “That’s as good as
restraints.”

“I’ve come to ask if you’d allow me to work with you
while you’re here. Dr. Steele is not going to be able to help you if you’re
holding onto that anger, so what do you say? We can do some hard work and get
you out of here.”

“And into a jail cell?”

“Well, what exactly is it you’re supposed to have done?”

I explained about the robbery and the culprits involved.
“They apparently think I had something to do with the money; it’s ridiculous. I
thought the whole thing had been solved. Danny Stearns and Carl are in jail – I
don’t know yet what happened to Ferdy. I heard Harley received immunity for
testifying against the others, and was let go.”

“Dr. Steele told me about Jack. Do you see him regularly?”
she asked, changing the subject.

“He comes by most days. I expect him sometime today. I
think he’s bringing my friend Lisa with him.”

“Well, I have to tell you, Audrey, both Dr. Steele and I
feel that we haven’t made the progress we’d hoped to with you, and we want you
to understand that neither of us would sit in judgment, no matter what you
revealed.” I nodded, wondering how many of her other patients were not giving
her the straight skinny. Did anyone ever tell their therapist everything? “So should
I come back tomorrow?” she asked. “I can arrange for my patients to see one of
the other psychologists in my practice, temporarily.”

I had to get out of here somehow, and if that was what it
would take, then I’d do it. “I guess.”

“Wonderful. See you bright and early.” She put the chair
back in the corner and left with a little wave. I stared at the chair; it was
like the one I’d been sitting in the day my mother died. I remembered how my
grandmother and aunt had stood by her hospital bed, blocking my view of her.
But I’d been able to see her hand. It was all black, and her fingernails were
gone. Most of the skin had peeled away, but even so, a needle attached to a
tube was stuck right into the back of it. I remember hearing someone say that
it was the only spot left to put the needle in.

That morning my
mother and I had been home, just the two of us, as always, because my father
was already dead. I thought, as a child, that my mother didn’t love me. She
yelled and screamed, and accused me of doing things I had not done. “Who else
could have broken this?” she would yell into my face, not remembering that she
had bumped the expensive piece of crystal off the table herself. “Who else
could have misplaced my cigarettes?” she’d scream, when I knew perfectly well
that she had moved them herself. Nothing ever happened in the house that
couldn’t somehow be twisted into being my fault. A juvenile delinquent, she’d
called me; a bad seed. My father would still be alive, she’d say, if he hadn’t
had to work so hard to provide for me.

What about you? I
wanted to shout back. Didn’t he provide for you too? How come he had a heart
attack over just me?

I didn’t understand
at age six what a drunk was. Now I knew my mother was one, and that she
probably never remembered what she said to me from one day to the next, and had
no control over how she said it. But I was little, and helpless to do anything
about my situation. Anger built up and built up and built up, until I couldn’t
“be there” any more.

From then on, when
my mother screamed and yelled, when she struck me, when she threw my dinner
plate on the floor then made me clean it up, when she would pound her fists on
the walls and scream my father’s name, I would check out. My mind would shut
down. And since I couldn’t even hear during those check-outs, it was like
watching her act in a silent movie, and often I would find her gyrations funny.
One day I laughed, out loud I guess, at her flailing fists, at her contorted
face, and she’d turned on me with such hatred in her eyes that I’d run upstairs
to her bedroom and hidden in her closet. She’d searched through the house for
me, yelling my name louder and louder, getting madder and madder, until she’d
ended up back in her room, exhausted, and collapsed on the bed.

While I waited to
be sure she was really asleep, and not just pretending, listening for sounds
that would lead her to me, I’d noticed some of my father’s jackets hanging on a
rack in the back. In the pocket of one of them was a lighter. I’d flicked it
three times before a flame finally appeared, and I remember being startled that
I had actually made it work; so much so that I’d dropped it. My mother’s
nightgowns were the first to catch fire. Then the other clothes began to
smolder. Her skirts, her slacks, and the beautiful long sparkly dresses that
I’d never seen her wear, all suddenly burst into flame. I’d run from the closet
and tried to wake my mother, but I couldn’t rouse her.

I’d stood frozen at
the bedroom door, watching the flames slide across the carpet, climb up the
drapes, and peel the wallpaper. When the sheets on the bed caught, I watched,
mesmerized, until the hems of my mother’s slacks were rimmed with fire. Her
hair was next; it collapsed around her head like wet cotton candy, and I gagged
at the smell. Smoke found me in the hallway and I’d pulled my shirt up over my
mouth and nose as the skin on my mother’s face began to darken and peel like
the wallpaper.

Why doesn’t she get
up? I wondered. I’d tried to call to her again, but I had no voice. I turned and
ran down the curved staircase, away from the screeching smoke detectors,
through the foyer with the impossibly high ceilings, and outside. The driveway
was long, with two jogs, and I ran as fast as I could down it and then across
the yard to the house next door. Still unable to speak, I pulled the lady who
lived there outside and pointed to the house. Smoke was pouring out of the
upstairs by then and the neighbor picked me up and ran back into her house and
called for the fire department. An ambulance took my mother away and my
grandmother arrived at the neighbor’s house shortly after to collect me.

So while I was
sitting in the hospital that day, looking at my mother’s burned hand, I was
glad that I couldn’t see the rest of her. And when she died, I knew it wasn’t
because I couldn’t find a nurse – she was dead because I had set fire to the
house that morning. Anyway, I prefer the nurse story. Sometimes, in my head, I
can almost make myself forget about the fire part of it altogether.

And that’s why there’s no picture of my mother in my gold
locket. My grandmother had put one in, along with the one of my father, but I’d
secretly taken it out and flushed it down the toilet. I couldn’t carry a
picture of my mother around with me; it would always remind me of what she
looked like at the end. And I knew that with her picture inside, the chain
would always feel hot around my neck. Hot with the heat of the fire. I
understood that when I was six.

My father’s picture I would keep forever. He was the only
man in my life I had not disappointed. Had he lived, I’m sure I would have
dashed his hopes and dreams for me, broken his heart in some awful way. But now
I would be daddy’s little girl forever, even if in reality it had only been
true for a very brief time.

Later, my second surprise visitor appeared. A
real
surprise; Harley. “Hi Audrey,” she
said with a little smile, “can I come in?” Her many layers of love beads
rattled against each other as she swooshed to my bedside in her tie-dyed maxi
skirt and billowy peasant blouse.

“What’s with you and all this 60s crap, anyway?” I asked.
“You weren’t even alive then.”

“Oh, come on, Aud,” she said, “don’t be mad.”

“No, really,” I said. “You’re one bead away from swapping
a hippie compound for a gypsy camp.”

“And you’re one pill away from wearing a tinfoil hat.
There. Now we’re even. Come on,” she said, “I came to see you, didn’t I? Be
nice. I brought you this,” and she pulled a box of Frankincense sticks from her
huge cloth tote, and put it on the table.

“I heard you were back on the street,” I said. “What
happened to Ferdy?”

“He was found guilty for his part in the robbery. Now he
has another trial – attempted murder of Tony. I’m sure he’ll be found guilty
there too.”

“Good. I hope he rots in jail.” I noticed her face change
when I said that. “I can’t help that you were a couple,” I said. “That’s how I
feel.”

“Did you want me to rot in jail too?” she asked.

“I don’t even think about you.”

“Oh, right,” she smiled. “I just wanted to tell you how
sorry I am that all this happened to you; and for my part it in. I was crazy,
sorry – I didn’t mean – well, it was not a good decision on my part to get
involved with Carl and those guys. It all just seemed to happen a little at a
time, until I was stuck, you know? I wish I could make it up to you, that’s
all.”

“You wished me a life in a place like this,” I said.

“I know. I didn’t mean it. We hurt each other. But I was
hoping we could get passed it.”

I looked at her and thought maybe there
was
something she could do to help me,
but did I dare take a chance? I didn’t think I had a choice. She was the only
one who could possibly do what I needed.

“Harley,” I said, “I’m in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

I motioned for her to come closer. “I have the money.”

“What money?”

“You know what money.”

Her eyes grew as big as saucers. “The bank’s money? The
part that’s missing?
You
have it?”

I nodded and put a finger in front of my lips, warning
her to keep her voice down. “I took it out of your suitcase when you went to
the pharmacy for me that night, remember?”

“You little shit! And where is it now?”

“Can I trust you? I mean really trust you?”

“How much do you have?”

“Nine hundred thousand. And you gave a hundred grand to
that asshole Simon Barr, so that’s how two million ended up being left in the
suitcases.”

Harley broke out laughing. “Are you kidding me? I can’t
believe you did that! How did you get it back here?”

“I packed it in two boxes and UPS’d them to myself before
I flew out of LAX. They’re in a storage unit with the stuff from my apartment.”

“Oh, my God.” She looked at me in amazement. “What if
they’d X-rayed the boxes – or opened them?”

“I sent them by ground, not air, so no X-Ray, and used my
business account ID number, which indicated I was a known shipper. UPS doesn’t
open boxes on their trucks unless they’re leaking, or smell funny, or can’t be
delivered because of an incorrect address. I wasn’t worried.”

“So what do you need me to do?”

“If the FBI finds out I have it, I’m afraid they’ll put my
ass in jail. Listen, when you rented the post office box in Warners, they gave
you two keys, right?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I mailed the storage unit key to myself – to the same
box. So go get it and take the two boxes out of storage for me. The place is on
the corners of Milton and Bennett; you know where that is, right?”

“I can find it.”

“The boxes are marked ‘kitchen’ with an underline. Drive
them an hour or two in any direction – except not near Rochester – and put them
in another storage unit. There’s four hundred and fifty thousand in each box.
We’ll have to let the money sit there for a while, but we’ll just keep paying
the rent on the unit. I’ll split it with you. Will you do it?”

Just then Jack and Lisa walked in. Jack immediately
turned on Harley. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Harley took two steps backward. “I just wanted to see how
Audrey was doing, that’s all.”

A vein in Jack’s forehead swelled until I thought it
would pop. “Leave right now,” he ordered. “You’re about the last person she
needs to see. Get your ass out of here before I
help
you out.”

“Okay, okay, I’m going,” she said. She waved and winked
at me behind Jack’s back as she walked out of the room, and I hoped I wasn’t
going to get screwed over by her again.

“Did she upset you?” he asked. Lisa stood next to Jack
and asked the same question with her eyes.

“No, I’m fine. It’s so good to see you two. Jack what’s
going on with the FBI? What do they think I did?”

“They have surveillance video of you leaving the airport
during your layover at LAX on your return trip, and of you carrying two boxes
into a UPS store. They know you sent them to yourself, and how much they
weighed, and they want to ask you what was in them. Obviously, they think it
was the missing money, since you were the only other person in the house with
Harley and Ferdy. They think they’re right and they won’t give up – not if they
think those boxes are out there somewhere.”

“I did mail boxes to myself,
”
I said,
“
but I threw
them away. I unpacked them when they arrived and tossed them. All they had in
them was crap I didn’t want to carry on the plane, stuff I would have had to
throw away when I went through security. And stuff that just weighed down my
duffle bag. Shampoo, my blow dryer, shoes, just personal stuff! I was exhausted
and didn’t want to lug it around. What’s the big deal?”