Going Overboard (14 page)

I left to feed Owen, and when I returned to the computer several hours later, not only did I not have a response from Dustin yet, but the ice in my drink had melted and condensation dripped down the glass, soaking the bills beneath it.

“Damn!” I said and stomped my foot. Although I wasn't sure if I was more upset about the wet papers or the words on the computer screen that read “No New Messages.”

I took a deep breath and promised myself, “I will not write Dustin again until he writes me first!”
Hmpf!

Interestingly, I felt very mature and in control when I left the room. Go figure.

8
YOUR DOCTOR CALLS YOU BY YOUR FIRST NAME?

F
inally—because it was only a matter of time—in the first week of February, Mom decided I wasn't doing well. She based this on one phone conversation during which I cried hysterically because I thought there was a raccoon stuck in my attic. So she planned a trip to Florida to rescue me.

The timing was perfect because my dad was leaving for a two-week detachment on board—coincidentally enough—the same aircraft carrier Dustin was on. In his position as a Navy Admiral, Dad made frequent trips to visit the carriers, but this would be the first time he and Dustin were on the same one together, and it placed Mom and me in an unusual situation: We'd be our own mother-daughter Spouse Club.

But I knew Mom's “rescue” might also involve the overwhelming temptation to return home to Virginia Beach, Virginia, which probably was the best, most logical idea, but one I'd never concede to. Going back with Mom would mean giving up, and it would affirm to everyone (including me) that I am not capable of taking care of myself. So I steeled myself for Mom's visit by
repeating the mantra “I am an adult, I can do this; I am an adult, I can do this.”

But, of course, as soon as I saw Mom's familiar brown hair with streaks of yellow-orange, I regressed to the mind-set of a four-year-old, and cried into the lapel of her red blazer, “Take me home with you. Please, Mommy, take me home with you!”

“Get ahold of yourself, Sarah,” she said. “You have the boys to think of.”

And with that, she spun into the kitchen and, in minutes, magically whipped up some egg salad for Ford and had Owen gurgling at her “ga-ga-goos.”

I stood in the corner and leaned against the refrigerator for support.

Mom has a way of making things happen . . . instantly. And her energy knows no limits. I remember her cleaning bathrooms at two and three o'clock in the morning when I was a little girl and Dad was on deployment. She said it relieved her stress. But as I lay in bed and listened to the clank of the toilet lid and the squeak of the sponge, I often wondered, “What motivation gene am I missing?” Sometimes it takes all I have in me to get up and move wet clothes from the washer to the dryer. And often the clothes never get much farther than that. I simply use the laundry room as my closet and select clothes straight from the dryer. But not Mom; she is the definition of efficient.

“What we need to do is make a list,” Mom said as she rummaged through my kitchen drawers for paper and a pen. She was opening and closing doors and mumbling something to the effect of “Don't you ever clean this place? How can you live like this?”

“A list?” I said. “What on earth for?”

“A list to get you motivated, Sarah. If we can just get your life organized, everything will be OK.”

I wondered if Mom remembered who she was talking to—her child who dropped out of Girl Scouts after only one day and quit
piano lessons if the teacher made me practice. How busy did she think I was that I needed a list?

“Mom, I can make that list for you right now, without the paper. Number one, my husband needs to come home, and number two, I need animal control to set traps in the attic.”

Mom shut a cabinet door and turned to look at me. “Sarah, are you depressed?”

I sighed and rolled my eyes. “My husband's gone, Mom. What do you think? Of course I'm depressed. I'm functioning in a constant state of sleep deprivation and mild depression. But I'm growing quite fond of my condition, really. Now, about the raccoon—”

“There are no raccoons in your attic!”

She walked out of the room and went around the corner. A few minutes later, she came back with a yellow pad of paper and a pen. She sat on the edge of a kitchen chair, poised to write, with her back as straight as her hair. Ford stared at her, his mouth full of yellow egg salad. He had never seen anyone make a list.

“Number one,” Mom said aloud as she wrote. “First thing tomorrow we're going to get some paint.”

“Paint? What for?”

“For your front room,” she said flatly. “Number two—”

“Whoa, wait a minute, Mom. What's wrong with my front room?”

“Oh, nothing really,” she said. “It just needs some color is all. Now, for number two, we'll be going to Target to get some floor cleaner. Those stains on your linoleum are terrible. How do you live like this?”

I looked down at the floor and didn't see any stains.

“Number three,” she said. “We need to get some plastic bins for storage.”

I was afraid to ask what needed storing.

There were ten items on Mom's finished list, but not one of
them mentioned mental help, which I knew was what I really needed. Most of Mom's solutions involved cleaning supplies and magazines about living an organized life. Frankly, her list gave me a headache.

That night, I played hooky and read fashion magazines on the couch while Mom took care of the boys. I realized it's probably a good thing I don't live in the same city as my parents, because then I'd exist in a perpetual state of immaturity and helplessness. It seems whenever Mom is around, I can't take care of myself—much less my children. It's so much cozier to go limp and curl up on the couch under a blanket and call out occasionally, “Moooom, could you please get me some cookies . . . and hot cocoa . . . with marshmallows . . . and whipped cream . . . oh, and a straw . . . pretty please?”

After Mom was done putting the boys to bed, she came to sit on the couch with me. I lifted my stretched-out legs to make room for her, then promptly rested them in her lap and had the same warm feeling in my chest of being ten years old and home from school with a cold. Back then I'd sit on the couch while Mom watched Phil Donahue, and when the Loving Care commercial came on, we'd sing together, “I'm gonna wash that gray right out of my hair.” I think I pretended to be sick sometimes just to have those days with her.

I caught myself dozing off as Mom patted my legs in her lap. She was watching CNN's
Crossfire
, which was like a virtual sleeping pill for me, but then again, I never sleep well when Dustin is gone, so I was exhausted. In fact, I feel like I don't sleep at all when I'm alone. Sometimes it seems like I simply have one eye shut and one eye open for five hours at a time. I suppose this is due to my overwhelming sense of being on guard: The responsibility of being the only adult in the house makes me anxious and restless.

On that night, however, as I listened to the noise of the
television and felt the occasional pat of Mom's freckled hands, I was relaxed for the first time in weeks. My bones sank into the couch. My eyelids were like lead. And there was almost nothing that could disturb me—not even the sound of Mom calling Doris and making arrangements for her to join us in Florida. Having the three of us—me, my mom, and her mom—in the same house was always scary. It was somewhat like a bickering three-person sorority, except I was the only one still menstruating, and therefore had a legitimate excuse.

I raised an eyebrow briefly when I heard Mom say, “Just get on a train, Mother, and you'll be here by the end of the week.” But my tiredness was too great and I fell back asleep.

I woke up at eleven o'clock the next morning. Sometime during the night, Mom helped me move to my bed, and while I know I'm too big to be carried, I had no memory of switching locations. That's how tired I was.

The house was eerily quiet—except for Tanner scratching her neck with her hind leg and jingling her tags—and I had the sense that Mom and the boys were gone, that they had started their day without me.

I walked out into the living room and saw that I had obviously slept past the boys' breakfast (pancakes with heavy syrup for Ford; oatmeal for Owen) and one of Mom's cleaning compulsions. The first thing I noticed, after the breakfast dishes neatly stacked in the kitchen sink, was the bookshelf and the way all my paperbacks were now placed side by side on the top shelf, organized according to size and possibly theme (although I was too scared to actually look and see if they were alphabetized). The basket of toys beside the television chest was adjusted ever so slightly to the left to cover the electrical wires that had been visible since the day we moved in. And Tanner's food and water bowls, which were always in the way, had been moved to a far corner of the kitchen.

Why hadn't I thought of these changes myself? I wondered as I stood in the middle of the room and scratched at my bed-head hair. And how does Mom always seem to put my life in order?

I thought about how many times I had tripped over Tanner's food bowl, yet it never occurred to me to move it. Tanner was curled up under the kitchen table and saw me looking at her new eating place. I can't be certain, but I think she had an I-told-you-so look on her face.

“Oh, mind your own business,” I told her.

A note from Mom with a new list was waiting for me on the kitchen table.

I chewed on the inside of my mouth as I read. Then I folded up the note and left it on the counter. I didn't even bother getting dressed, just threw on a zippered sweater over my flannel pajamas, put on some shoes, and went to Jody's house, because I needed a dose of reality.

It felt like therapy to walk into her cavernous house, smell the rubber of playground balls and athletic equipment and sit on the worn plaid couch. I noticed that Jody's bookshelf was not only unorganized—it was leaning slightly to the right and had nothing but children's books on it.

How did she get away with that? I wondered.

Jody brought me a Diet Coke, then sat on the couch opposite me.

“So how are you, Sarah?” she asked and leaned closer, with her elbows on her knees.

I was about to open my mouth and speak when I had an odd thought: Despite knowing Jody for more than two years, I knew very little about her. She knew me the way a psychologist knows her patient, and yet, I didn't know what made her tick. What were her biggest fears? Did she have any insecurities? Did she really want to carry a gun?

For a moment I felt exposed and unable to talk. I hated the way I was such an open book. Had I always been such a child in front of Jody?

But I can never contain myself for long (it's the baby of the family in me), so I said, “I told you about Dustin's phone call from Spain, right?”

“Yes, many times. What about it?”

“I just feel angry again, that's all.”

Jody smiled and leaned back in her seat. “You need to let that go, Sarah. They were drunk off their asses. Do you remember the first deployment, when Steve sent me a roll of film to get developed for him?”

“Vaguely.”

“Well, when I picked up the pictures at Wal-Mart, there was a photo of Steve posing with some topless girls on a beach in France.”

“Oh, my gosh! I would have killed Dustin!”

“Nah,” she said, waving her hand. “It was hilarious. So Steve posed with half-naked girls on a beach, but he
loves
me. Heck, if I saw a man walking naked down the street, I'd probably snap a picture, too.”

I laughed because I knew Jody wasn't lying. In fact, hadn't I seen pictures like that in the pile of photographs stuffed in her kitchen junk drawer?

“So my mom's in town,” I said, “and I feel like a kid again. I mean, really, am I truly this helpless?”