Drowning Instinct (6 page)

While Mom went to complain to the nurses, I tried to air-kiss Grandpa good-bye.

Only when I got close, Grandpa‘s eyes sharpened and I knew he was seeing
me
-me.

―Jenna, such a sweet thing, you‘re my little sweetheart.‖ His breath reeked of ancient tobacco, that morning‘s scrambled eggs, and chest rot. ―You come back and visit your old grandpa anytime.‖

―Yeah,‖ I said, stepping back fast as he made another grab but came up short.

―Sure.‖

And then we were out of there, Dad peeling off to go break it up between Mom and the nurses while I ducked into the bathroom. The toilets smelled of baby powder and old farts. All the seats were higher off the ground and handicap-equipped. I huddled on a seat and clasped my arms around my stomach. If I‘d been at a computer, I‘d have e-mailed Matt, which sometimes helped, but that wasn‘t an option. My belly was twitching and my skin grafts burned as raw and fiery as they had when they were new. (Memo to Bob: What they don‘t tell you is that not only do the grafted sites
kill
, but the donor sites hurt as much as second-degree burns, and for just about as long. I was on fire, in one way or another, for a good year and a half.)

The metal prong of my watchband was nowhere near sharp enough, but I had to, I
had
to. That patch of unblemished skin on the left, below my navel, that would be good.

Yeah, yeah, come on, come on
. I really worked at it, coring and digging and twisting, the skin trying to jump out of the way. Cold sweat pearled my upper lip, and a bead crawled down the back of my neck to trickle between my skin grafts.
He touched me he saw me he
touched me
.

(Mom, howling:
No, don’t you do it. . .
.)

Finally, a red bead oozed and ballooned, and I sighed with relief as my blood bubbled and drew out the poison that was Grandpa.

There was this other cutter back on the ward. She etched words and letters. But I didn‘t.

Honestly, Bob: how do you carve a scream?

11: a

My parents started in as soon as we pulled out of the lot.

Mom: ―Well, that wasn‘t so bad, was it?‖

She said this every time. Dad always stared straight ahead and let the silence spin out.

Mom (an edge creeping into her voice, daring someone to disagree): ―I thought he looked much better this time around.‖

Dad: ―He was thinner and more confused, Emily. His tremor is worse and he‘s clearly not oriented. You should make him a DNR.‖

Mom: ―That‘s not what he wants.‖

Dad:

Mom: ―I didn‘t catch that.‖

Dad:

Mom: ―Excuse me?‖

Dad: ―I said you‘d be doing all of us a favor if you‘d change his status to a DNR.

That last stroke would‘ve killed him but, no, you had to pull out all the stops. Emily, you keep doing this guilt thing. Let him go.‖

Mom: ―I won‘t be a party to murdering my own father.‖

Dad (grunting a laugh): ―That‘s rich.‖

Mom: ―What did you say? What the
hell
did you just say?‖

Me: ―Guys, don‘t fight. Please.‖

Mom: ―He needs better care.‖

Dad: ―You need to let him go.‖

―Don‘t tell me what to do with my—‖

―We can‘t afford—‖

―I promised—‖

―I wouldn‘t be surprised if he put the noose around your mother‘s neck—‖

―How
dare
you—‖

―Oh, look who‘s talking. First him, and then your daughter, and now you and that damned bookstore sucking us—‖

―I‘m working as hard as you are—‖

―You know where the mental illness in this family

comes from? Not from
my
side, my father‘s—‖

―Don‘t you bring up—‖

―. . . still got it together—‖

―. . . my
mother
! Don‘t you give me that crap! Jenna‘s problems are
not
—!‖

Like that. On and on. They hurled daggers, and the air split and tore and howled.

Me, I screwed in my buds and turned up Nine Inch Nails until my ears bled.

Home.

My parents stomped into the kitchen to continue their ―discussion.‖ I bolted upstairs to my room, put on Hurt, pulled up my ghost account and reread Matt‘s e-mail for that day.

To: Jenna Lord

From: Lord, Matthew SSG

Subject: re: The Home Front

Jenna, you should never feel bad about telling me what‘s going on. For the longest time, I would think about you every day, all alone with them and probably going crazy.

Remember when I left for basic, and only you and Mom came to see me off?

Yes, I remembered. I clutched a miniature American flag and Mom sobbed. I didn‘t want Matt to worry about me but, inside, my guts shriveled. Matt was my protector. Now there was no one between me and our father, me and our parents, me and the flames.

In the beginning, I kept thinking about that day, focusing on what I‘d left behind, looking over my shoulder at you guys, you know? But go outside the wire for the first time, and you're in the present, real fast. If you‘re not, you‘re toast. All you can afford to see is now. So you worry about that boot lying in the middle of the street, the way the shopkeeper slid back into his shop and, it‘s quiet, it‘s too damn quiet, where are all the kids? It‘s when everyone disappears that you know something bad‘s going to happen.

So I pretend. Or maybe it‘s lying, I don‘t know. But to get through the day, you have to decide that there is no past, no family to come back to. You tell yourself that you‘re already dead and buried. . . .

―That is not
true
!‖ Mom‘s voice was shrill, loud enough to shatter crystal. ―You
know
I‘m working as hard as I—‖

Dad: Mom: ―. . .
excuse . . .
for trying . . . always shooting me down!‖

Dad (louder, meaner): ―Don‘t push . . .‖

Mom: ―. . . who . . . screwing
this
week!‖

Dad (really loud now): ―. . . drinking . . . won‘t be
goaded . . .
‖

Mom: ―. . . don‘t have the
guts
to—‖

There was a sudden, massive BOOM that made the panes of my windows chatter and Mom scream.

Shit. My heart scrabbled up the back of my throat. I bolted out of my room then skidded to a stop on the landing, not sure what was best. You have to understand, Bob. It‘s one thing to run to an accident that‘s already happened to see if you can help. It‘s another to jump in the car right before it wraps itself around that tree. ―Mom? Dad?‖

Silence.

―Dad?‖ I slid onto the first step and then the second, the third. My scars writhed; the grafts between my shoulders clenched as if trying to hold me back. ―Mom?‖

More nothing, which didn‘t necessarily mean anything one way or the other. Maybe five seconds since the BOOM, and now I had a choice: go downstairs, or back to my room and pretend I hadn‘t heard a thing.

Three guesses, Bob.

The kitchen was . . . bad.

My mother was half-cowering, her hands stalled before her face. My father was puffing like a bull. Blood and drywall smeared the knuckles of his right hand. A cloud of grit hung in the air and more sanded the kitchen floor. A fist-sized crater had caved in the wall beside Mom‘s left ear.

Without taking his eyes off my mother, Psycho-Dad said, ―Go back upstairs, Jenna.‖

―But, but . . . Dad,‖ I said. ―
Mom
.‖

―I
said
, go upstairs.‖ Dad‘s blood dripped in big, ruby teardrops onto the cream tile.

―What part of that did you
not
understand?‖

I didn‘t budge, although the patchwork of new and old flesh on my belly and back tugged and fisted. I thought, fleetingly, of calling 9-1-1—but to tell them what, exactly? My psychotic father killed the kitchen wall? ―Mom, do you want me to . . . I mean, should I st—?‖

―No. Go on, Jenna.‖ Her voice was flat, eerie, almost dead. ―I‘ll be fine. Be a good girl and go to your room.‖

If I went—if I did what they said—this was more pretend, like the ward and school, too. Pretend you haven‘t heard this, Jenna. Go listen to your music, Jenna. Tell yourself a nice story, Jenna, and everything will be just fine.

Tell yourself you‘re dead, the way Matt does, so the past can‘t hurt you.

Well, Bob, I wish I could say I dialed 9-1-1. I wish I could say that I stood as a human shield and told my father that if he needed to hit anyone, he could start with me.

Matt might have done that. He certainly tried to protect me, even if that hadn‘t always worked out.

I wish there was some other story I could tell you, Bob. But you wanted the truth, remember?

So, here it is: I was a very good girl and did as I was told.

12: a

Five minutes after I heard the garage door chug up and then down, there came the dull thud of cupboards and then the bony clatter of ice against glass. I knew what was going on. Any second now, Mom would drag out the Stoli hidden behind the jumbo-sized box of Cascade and pound back the first slug of her evening. It was always like this when she and Dad fought, and since they fought at least twice every weekend, my mom went through a lot of Stoli.

A few moments later, the television began to mutter. Food Network, probably.

When Mom got started with the Stoli, she confused watching other people make food with actual cooking.

I crept downstairs an hour later. Mom was passed out on the couch, a washcloth over her eyes. Paula Deen was spazzing about peach cobbler. I covered Mom with an old comforter she‘d crocheted when she was pregnant with me.

Ever study someone who‘s sleeping, Bob? I mean,
really
looked at them? Maybe your wife? In movies and books, lovers do that all the time. There was this one television show from way back—science fiction, Bob, so my guess is you being so black and white, it never crossed your radar—where this alien race has this ritual. Each partner spends the whole night awake while the other sleeps because that‘s when everything artificial falls away. What you see then is what‘s behind the mask: their true face.

Which begs the question, Bob: when you stared down at me after the fire, what did you see?

Who?

And speaking of masks, let me tell you a secret, Bobby-o.

When I was little, I played dress-up. Not just Ariel. I used to sneak into my mother‘s closet and slip into silken dresses that smelled like spicy roses and wobble in high heels.

When I was little, I sat at my mother‘s vanity, an antique with five mirrors, so there were many me‘s, each in her own world. Each me brushed her hair with our mother‘s heavy silver brush. We drew in lips and eyes and colored our cheeks with our mother‘s makeup.

Each me was different from the other and yet the same, like the angles of a triangle or the facets of a diamond.

When I was little, our family gathered for pictures. We smiled. We touched each other. None of that was a lie yet.

There‘s this great Coppola film, Bob,
The Conversation
, where the real story lies in nuance: how who you are and what you‘re prepared to hear influences your perception of what‘s actually said. There‘s this one scene where this woman stares down at this drunk and then says something about how this poor guy was once someone‘s baby. Once up a time, someone loved him; he was cherished, but now he was just a used-up lush.

That‘s us, Bob. I look at those pictures and remember I was my parents‘ baby girl.

Matt wasn‘t gone yet, and we were a family.

What I remember of them, Bob, is love.

Asleep, my mom‘s mask was gone, and there was the ghost of a pretty girl who‘d been brave enough to read her poetry to a young and handsome Harvard surgery resident while they picnicked on a beach by the clear blue sea.

And I remember, Bob, how when I was little?

My mother was a queen and I wanted to be just like her.

Only here I was, almost all grown up and still just me, with a mom who got shit-faced six nights out of seven and a psychotic asshole of a dad. Matt was the only pure one left, and he was gone.

After I tucked my mom in, I made myself a PB&J with the dullest butter knife I could find and ate over the sink. Then I loaded my dirty plate and Mom‘s empty vodka glass into the dishwasher. If I had any guts, I‘d have pitched the Stoli, but we both know better, Bob.

Instead, I slotted the bottle into its hiding place. I turned off Paula, and then I went to bed.

13: a

Almost a month later, I watched from my hiding place in the library as Danielle and the other girls on the cross-country team did speed drills. Danielle led, her blonde ponytail streaming like a mane, but that wasn‘t saying much. She might be fast but only because the other girls ran on their knuckles. Danielle‘s form was crap: a human pogo stick with way too much up and down instead of glide and push, glide and
push
and
stretch
. If you‘re a runner, Bob, you‘ll know what I mean. All her energy was going into lift, not speed. Mr.

Anderson stood with a stopwatch in one hand, and when Danielle passed, he said something, which seemed to piss her off because she peeled out of formation, hands on hips, and scowled as she scuffed grass.

I glanced at my watch. Her time for the two hundred was in the toilet, five seconds slower than just the week before. I looked up again in time to see Mr. Anderson blow his whistle and then motion for the other girls to finish up and gather round. Danielle was doing her Drama Queen sulk on the bleachers. Maybe she‘d gotten into Mr. Anderson‘s face one too many times and he‘d made her sit out the rest of practice. About time. I‘d watch her cop an attitude—in class, on the track—and marveled that he kept her on. The guy had the patience of a saint.

Either that or he liked the abuse.

School had settled down. My classes were easy; my favorite was chemistry (big surprise); I got along with . . . okay, okay, I avoided most people.

Except Danielle.

I wasn‘t sure it was all about David. David was Mr. Anderson‘s TA, and so I couldn‘t help but see him every day. We said hello, and he tried talking me into being on the homecoming decorating committee so I could meet other people. I begged off with the excuse that I lived so far away, blah, blah, blah. Eventually, he stopped trying but was still friendly enough and that was fine.

Still, Danielle never wasted an opportunity to make some kind of snarky remark.

When Dewerman got it into his head that we would do this extra project all about creativity and suicide, that was, of course, all
my
fault. We were supposed to pick a name from a list of famous writers who‘d killed themselves and then figure out if there was something in what they‘d written that explained why suicide was an option for them. Thank God, Grandma wasn‘t on the list. Not even Dewerman was that clueless.

―Be creative, people,‖ Dewerman said. ―I want you to decide for yourselves whether what you‘re reading is great literature or simply called great because the author checked out. Examine the web of connections that make up a person‘s life and then follow the strands, see if they really are connected.‖

Confusion. One guy raised his hand. ―Uhm . . . but what‘s the assignment?‖

―Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. Is the only reason we read these books because a critic tells us to?‖

―No,‖ said some wit, ―because it‘s assigned.‖

Danielle, scowling at me but talking to Dewerman: ―So, I‘m confused. Does this mean you want us to write a paper or maybe a poem or something in that writer‘s style, or paint a picture or what?‖

―Yes,‖ said Dewerman, which set off another gust of laughter and only made Danielle shoot more death rays my way.

To date, I hadn‘t chosen anyone from Dewerman‘s dwindling list. I don‘t know what I was waiting for. Inspiration, maybe. Or maybe I figured my person would be the writer no one else wanted, which would be fine.