Fig (19 page)

“We have main engine start,” a man without a body announces as the shuttle lifts into the blue television sky.

The heat from the shuttle turns the blue pink, and then the pink turns to lavender. A long, thin cloud of exhaust follows. Science is Mr. Denmar's favorite subject. “That's called a contrail,” he explains, and just as he taps his finger on the screen to make sure we know what he's describing, the contrail splits and the new one slopes away to become the gentle curve of a swan's neck.

The reporter's microphone picks up the muffled sound of wind. And then the sound of people screaming, muffled by the muffled wind. The camera doesn't know where to look. For too long, we are left staring at the schoolteacher's mother.

It feels wrong to be watching her. This is voyeurism. I note her fur collar and how she won't look down. She won't look away from the sky where her daughter is, and she keeps shaking her head. Finally, the camera follows her eyes back into the sky, and we see what she sees: The television frames a square sky, now dark blue and crisscrossed with chaotic lines of white—contrails propelling everywhere like the smoke from fireworks out of control. The disembodied voice again: “Obviously a major malfunction.”

Mr. Denmar is still standing. He never had a chance to sit down. He stands there looking as if he wants to turn it off, but he doesn't. His hand is frozen in the air, reaching for the knob. As the television repeats the explosion, Principal White comes over the intercom—yet another voice without a body trying to talk to me. He says, “Today is a tragic day.”

He'd like to lead us in a moment of silent prayer. “To honor the fine men and women who sacrificed their lives for our country, and for the sake of science.”

And there's that word again: “sacrifice.”

*  *  *  *

At home, I watch the footage, and this time the seventy-three seconds last forever.

The shuttle will never explode.

I remind myself there were people on board, that they are there, somewhere—a part of the repeating imagery. This is not a movie.

Daddy sits in his chair, and Mama's on the sofa with her knees pulled to her chest. I'm on the floor, kneeling. This is the first time in a long time I want to pick. There is a scab on my right knee, and when I press this knee against the floor the pressure radiates; the wound shoots pain into my nervous system, where it detours into unexpected journeys, traveling the atlas of my body like the contrails on the TV. I am trying to resist the urge to pick.

I'm too close to the television set, and I can see all the tiny dots. They get inside my head and make a fuzzy noise. I wait for Mama to make me move back. To say, “That will ruin your eyes,” but she doesn't say anything at all. She is quiet. She is watching the shuttle explode. Again and again.

Christa McAuliffe submitted her application on the last day, just before the deadline. “Deadline” is a word I never thought about until right now.
Deadline.
Deadline is like a finish line, only different. The dead teacher was thirty-seven years old. The same age as Mama is now. As the newscaster tells us how old Christa McAuliffe was I turn to see how Mama will react. I think I catch the end of a flinch, but with the medication it's hard to know anymore. Some of the pills make Mama's face twitch, twist, and contort.
Side effects may include.
And she must be taking more of these particular pills because her face has been twitching, twisting, and contorting all the time.

The newscaster explains how no one there expected NASA to go through with the launch because of how cold it was. “It was thirty-eight degrees outside,” he says, “thirteen degrees colder than the coldest liftoff in history.” Then he offers his microphone to one eyewitness. The stranger looks at me. He looks at America, and he says, “It felt like limbo waiting for the shuttle to leave the ground.”

In theological terms, limbo is the abode of souls excluded from heaven but not condemned to further punishment such as hell. According to Gran, limbo is where I will go because I wasn't baptized. Limbo was derived from the Latin word
limbus
, which means “border,” and limbo is a region or condition of oblivion, neglect, or prolonged uncertainty.

A place of nowhere. “Nowhere,” a compound, as in “no where,” or “now here.”

Daddy suggests turning off the television, but Mama says, “No.” She says it too fast—almost as if she anticipated his asking. “No,” she says, and she spits a little without meaning to.

I know Daddy is worried. I can feel him watching me. “Hey, Figaroo,” he says. “I sure could use your help making banana splits.” As I follow him into the kitchen, I make it a point to bump into his body three times. “Walk much?” Daddy asks, and I know he is trying to make a joke, but it doesn't work because he is looking at me in a way that isn't even close to funny.

Today, I didn't do nearly as much touching as I should have. The scab on my knee wants to be touched. It's practically screaming. I cut the bananas down the middle with a paring knife. I cut them with their skin still on and then I peel it off. I peel off the thick yellow skin instead of peeling off the red-brown scab on my knee as Daddy scoops out ice cream. He drizzles chocolate syrup on the bananas and vanilla-bean ice cream. And then he adds a generous plop of homemade whipped cream, finishing off all three desserts with a handful of salty chopped peanuts.

We don't get maraschino cherries anymore because the red dye might make Mama worse, according to something Daddy read. He is always reading books about schizophrenia and how to make Mama better. He keeps the books under his bed in the guest bedroom that is also his office. This is where I go when I have questions I need answered. Like with a koan, I often find more questions, though.

I don't miss the cherries so much as I miss how Mama could tie the stems into knots using her tongue. She can't do it with the regular cherry stems—we've tried. The flexibility has something to do with the sweet red marinade. I pause to look at Mama before I bring her a banana split. With her knees still pulled to her chest, Mama is hugging herself. And she is rocking back and forth, her eyes fixed on the television. Her lips move, but I can't tell what she is saying.

*  *  *  *

Daddy asks Mama if she'd like to join him for a walk, but she barely answers. She mutters something about how cold it is outside.

“Fig ?” Daddy asks, and now he is looking at me. He has only ever asked me along one time, and I declined then, just as I decline now. It makes me feel sick to my stomach because of the thought my action brings to mind:
If I had to, I'd choose Mama over Daddy.

I try to erase the thought by holding my breath and crossing my fingers, and I blame the nausea on the banana split. Mama is still sitting on the sofa, holding the remote in her hand, but her knees are no longer pulled to her chin. Her feet are on the floor and she is staring at the television. The volume has been muted. Without sound, the explosion is all the more frightening.

I sit beside her and I lean my head into the hollow of her shoulder. Just me touching her makes her relax. She falls back, supported by the red velvet couch. Mama's body is hot to touch like she has a fever, and compared with this old house, which never gets warm, she feels good. Her sleeves are bunched at her elbows, her long arms exposed, revealing she has skin the color of milk, soft as silk, and splattered with pink star freckles.

I am touching her. I am practicing the ordeal for today. The word “limbo” is also related to the word “limb.” Like a border, limbo has to do with where things or places attach, like arms or legs—like how, once upon a time, I was physically attached to my mother's body. I was a part of her.

I take my fingers and lightly touch my mother.

I run my fingertips along her inner arm the way the girls at school touch one another. This is the ordeal, and this is everything. Mama doesn't say anything as she continues staring at the television, but her body begins to respond: tiny little tremors like she is shivering. And now she's smiling and I sense her body relaxing even more. The sensation is contagious. Touch is the conduit.

This is when I pull my own sleeve up and offer my arm over to Mama.

It extends over her lap like a bridge, and she responds. She touches my arm the way I touched her. Fingers barely touching skin. Unexpected loops that turn and spiral. Mama turns my body into a crazy quilt.

I close my eyes and relax into Mama, waiting for the same shivers to erupt from me. Today's ordeal is not only to touch but to be touched. And Mama tries.

She runs her fingers along my arm forever, but the shiver never comes. Is something wrong with me? And in the end, I have to pull away before she has the chance to give up on me. I pull away and I hold my breath and cross my fingers: Don't let this ruin the ordeal.
Please, please, please.
When I finally open my eyes, the
Challenger
is lifting off.

This time, I see all seven passengers as they eject into the sky. They are wearing silver space suits with big round shiny helmets as they burst forth from the splitting contrails.

They somersault in the air like kids jumping on a trampoline. One turns his body into an X to mark the spot. And there is no gravity until there is. Mama gasps when they hit the surface of the Atlantic, swallowed by the deep cold water. Then the newscaster tells us that all the passengers were found inside the capsule, and I blink my eyes. I do this to see the reality, and all I see is Mama. She switches from station to station, chasing the
Challenger
. Stuck inside the loop, she searches for this scene. She needs to watch it again and again and again.

She isn't seeking the actual explosion; she is searching for the second when the fragments of the shuttle scatter across the sea like seeds. She is looking for the trajectory of bodies, the trajectory that never was.

*  *  *  *

February 3, 1986

What seems like a good sign, a sign that the Calendar of Ordeals is working, comes at a time when it's clearly not. A time when Mama seems only to be disintegrating.

Mama is sitting beside me on the sofa when the evening news comes on, and
Breaking News from Australia
writes itself across the bottom of the screen. I glance at Mama, and her face has a blank expression, as if she has no memory of Baby Azaria.

“English tourist David Brett was climbing Ayers Rock when he fell to his death over a week ago.” The female newscaster has big hair and white teeth and is wearing a blue silk blouse with enormous shoulder pads. Mama thinks shoulder pads are silly. “They have no place outside of football,” she has said, so I decide the shoulder pads are the reason my mother isn't paying attention to the woman talking.

“Brett's untimely and unfortunate death led to the immediate release of Lindy Chamberlain, the Australian mother who now appears to have been wrongly convicted of killing her nine-week-old daughter.”

Mama still doesn't react. Her glassy eyes stare at the wall, at a point in space somewhere above the television set.

“During the eight-day search for Brett's body, police discovered Azaria Chamberlain's missing matinee jacket in an area riddled with dingo lairs.”

The camera cuts to an Australian newsfeed dated yesterday and shows Lindy Chamberlain being escorted through a crowd of people by her lawyers. The dead baby's mother is wearing large black sunglasses and keeps her head down as a disembodied voice finally explains the meaning of Azaria's name.

“Azaria,” the Australian voice begins, “means ‘helped by God,' and it's both ridiculous and tragic that anyone ever said anything different.” And then they show us the one photograph of Baby Azaria where she's dressed in white, cradled by her mother's arms. They do not show the picture of the black dress trimmed in red. Just before Lindy and Azaria Chamberlain's image dissolves into the next report, Mama reaches for my hand. Without looking at me, my mother says, “I always knew she was innocent. I never had a doubt.” And I know exactly what she means.

*  *  *  *

I hear Mama at night, downstairs in the kitchen or the dining room. Sometimes I stand at the top of the stairs where she can't see me, and I watch her pace. She wears Daddy's terry-cloth bathrobe, and sometimes her nightgown shows, but mostly she's still dressed—baggy jeans or frumpy sweatpants.

I prefer the nightgown.

I feel sorry for all the vintage dresses hanging in her closet. They look lonely whenever I dare to look at them. They remind me of the abandoned houses that always worry me, and I wish I knew which ones belonged to my mother's mother, but I don't.

And Mama's gone without washing or brushing her hair again, which she wears in a messy bun atop her head. I understand why Gran calls it a rat's nest.

And her lips never stop moving. She whispers and paces and I still have no idea what she is saying. I do my best to listen, but she's too far away and when I creep closer she falls quiet, eyeing me suspiciously. The Calendar of Ordeals is testing me. It is becoming more and more real, forever pushing me. I talk to the faceless nesting doll. I seek advice. The time has come to beat my personal best. And I will do this for her. For Mama, I would do anything.

*  *  *  *

March 3, 1986

Tonight, I go to sleep only to wake to the usual sounds of my mother's insomnia. Tonight, I find her sitting at the kitchen table, no more pacing. All the lights in the kitchen are turned on. Not just the overhead but the porch light, the pantry, and the small bulb above the stove.

The lights burn hot and yellow.

I sit across from Mama, and she looks at me. Her eyes have been swallowed by dark circles. She's wearing Daddy's robe, and the black sleeves are crusty with something white. She doesn't say anything. She returns her focus to a mechanical pencil.