Turn of Mind (16 page)

Perhaps it was.

Jennifer, you're sixty-five years old.

Oh. Yes.

Anyway, Amanda did or said something that distressed you enormously shortly
before she died.

What was that?

I don't know. I was in the den. I heard raised voices. By the time I got to the
living room, it was over. At least the shouting was. But something had happened
between the two of you that was still unresolved. Amanda was half out the door.
She said one thing before she left.

I will not hesitate for one moment,
she said. You were extremely agitated. That
evening you had one of your episodes. I had to take you into the ER. You wouldn't
take your Valium. They had to inject you with something to calm you down.

I don't remember any of this.

I know you don't. The next morning you wanted to go over to Amanda's—to
catch up, you said, because you hadn't seen her in a while. I pretended to call her,
hung up, and told you she wasn't home.

And I fell for it?

You did. And it turned out that the previous afternoon was the last time we
saw her. She was still alive—they were able to trace her steps around town, to a
meeting, to the store. But the next day she stopped taking in her
Tribunes
, and
about a week after that Mrs. Barnes checked on her and found the body.

Did you explain all this to the police?

Yes, many times.

Why do they want to see me, then? I won't be able to tell them anything.

They're still trying. Ever since they got your scalpel handle and blades. Your
lawyer says they're hoping that if they ask enough, and in enough different ways,
they'll get a different response.

Didn't someone once say that that is the embodiment of madness? Doing the same thing over and over and hoping for a different effect?

Well, sometimes you do remember things. Surprise us all. Like the other day.
Out of the blue, you asked me about my elbow—the one I landed on when I
tripped on the sidewalk. That had happened a few days earlier, but you were very
clear, remembered that you had examined me and determined nothing was broken
or torn. One of the perks of working for a doctor—good thing, too, because
my insurance is so lousy.

I don't recall. Things come and go. For example, what is your name?

Magdalena. Look—it's written right here. On this poster.

How long have you been here?

You hired me almost exactly eight months ago. Last October. Just before
Halloween.

I love Halloween.

I know. It was the most fun I'd had since my kids were small. You insisted that we
both dress up. Witches.
The only dignified costume for crones,
you said. You
decorated the house spectacularly. You bought the kind of candy that kids fight over
and won't trade. And you insisted on opening the door yourself and making a fuss
over the costumes. You really surprised me. The first of many surprises.

Yes, Halloween excites me. That whole time of year, autumn, I find exhilarating. A passionate season. The others are so bland. In the fall, you see opportunities for change. Real change. Possibilities present themselves. None of the renewal and redemption clichés of spring. No. Something darker and more primal and more important than that.

You paced that night until three
AM
. You certainly were excited. But not in a
bad way. It was the first time I saw you do that. Back and forth, all night. I fell
asleep in my chair in the living room. You ended up on the couch. Both of us still
in our witch costumes.

I always liked dressing up. Giving out the candy. Assuming my proper guise for a night.

Yes, your costume suited you. The white pancake makeup contrasting with the
dark-ringed eyes, the long gray-black wig flowing over your shoulders. The fake
mole to the right of your mouth drawing attention to those high cheekbones. A
peculiar sort of Sleeping Beauty, but nevertheless a beauty. You opened your eyes
to find me studying you.
Wicked debauchery,
you whispered
.

Mark's in a good mood. It doesn't make this mother's heart glad. It makes it suspicious. The euphoria. The fast-talking wit. The notable appreciation of the inferior egg salad sandwich Magdalena presented as our lunch. His inability to recognize that the living room curtains are the same shade of glorious red they've always been. His wanting a heart-to-heart.

How
are
you, Mom?

How much do you want? I ask.

He doesn't hesitate.
As much as you can give me.

Is it that bad?

Worse.

You're being direct for once. Is it because you're high?

Possibly. I find you hard to take under any other condition.

You'll have to ask your sister.

What?

I don't even have a checkbook anymore. Even when I want one. Fiona takes care of everything.

But certainly you can write one check.

I don't have even one to write. Fiona was very thorough.

But you wrote me a check six months ago.

Yes. I found an old checkbook in my bureau. And as soon as it cleared, Fiona went through all my drawers and confiscated it.

The bitch.

A chip off the old block.

You said it.

He taps his fingers on the table in an almost recognizable rhythm.
Dahdah-
dah day-day-dah dah-DAH-dah-dahdah
.

You're sharp today.

Yes.

Interesting how it comes and goes.

Interesting isn't the word I'd use.

We are in the den because the cleaners are here, and they've chased us out of the living room and the kitchen, our usual haunts, and we can hear the approaching roar of the vacuum, the rattle of mops and pails as they work their way toward this final room.

I'm curious. Will you even remember this conversation tomorrow?
Mark is standing by the television, idly clicking through James's DVD collection of classic movies. There wasn't a noir film that James didn't know by heart.

I may. I may not. It all depends, I say. I watch as Mark pulls out
Du rififi
chez les hommes,
rejects it in favor of
White Heat.

So I shouldn't say anything I might regret?
He flips open the plastic case, takes out the silver disk, places his finger in the center hole, and spins it around.

It depends on the source of regret. Would you regret it because it was a cruel or otherwise despicable thing to say, or because I would remember you saying it? I ask.

Probably the former. I tend not to have regrets unless there are repercussions.
He smiles at this, puts down the DVD on top of the television, and takes a seat opposite me. His jitters seem to be subsiding.
How about you?
he asks.
Any regrets?
Although his tone is derisive, I get the feeling he really wants to know.

I was the opposite, I say. I never let the possibility of repercussions influence any decisions I made.

What about your medical decisions? Weren't you concerned that decisions you
made could have certain effects? Like, for instance
. . .
death?
His dark face is exaggeratedly solemn. He is waiting to catch me out in something. I won't let him.

Those are outcomes. Outcomes are different from repercussions.

I would have thought they were synonyms
, he says.

There are nuances, I say. I am warming to the discussion. Anything is better than another endless chat about nothing over tea with Magdalena. A repercussion has the nuance of being punishing, I say. An outcome is simply a result. You do something, and you have an outcome. An output for an input.

And were you always pleased with the
. . .
outputs
. . .
of your actions?

I was not pleased with the outcomes of some of my surgeries, certainly —a small percentage, but nevertheless they existed. But I made the best decisions under the circumstances. Those were not mistakes. They were decisions that had outcomes.

Mark is silent for a moment.
You're on top of your game, certainly,
he says.
No one could pull a sly one on you today.

That actually makes me smile. He sounds about ten, just having been caught smoking cigarettes with Jimmy Petersen behind the Jewel.

Why? I ask. Did you hope to?

He doesn't answer, instead changing the subject.

Did Amanda talk to you?

About what? Oh. Did you hit her up, too?

Well, I'd gotten a nice check from you. It would have been tasteless to approach
you again so soon.

And what did she say?

So, she didn't tell you? Odd. I would have thought that was the first thing
she'd do.

No. She liked to keep her own counsel. So what did she say?

She laughed at me. Told me to stuff it up my nose.

That sounds like Amanda.

It was infuriating. I could have killed her.
Mark fidgets in his chair.
Oh. I'm
sorry. I shouldn't have said that.

Said what?

You know.
He looks at me.
Or maybe you don't. Never mind.

We sit in silence for a moment. When Mark speaks again, his voice is again one of a small boy.

You haven't asked how I'm doing,
he says.
How my work is, how my love
life is.

I get to my feet. The cleaning crew is coming closer, they'll be here in a few minutes and we'll have to move. I am glad. I am annoyed with the conversation.

I assumed that if you had something to tell me, you would, I say. You're not a child anymore.
Use your words.

Mark stands up, too, and unexpectedly he is laughing.
I should have
known you wouldn't fall for that,
he says.
But it was worth a try.

I've never been susceptible to emotional blackmail before, I say. And despite my diseased brain, I have no intention of becoming so now.

Well, let me
use my words,
as you suggest, and give you a synopsis of my
current affairs,
Mark says.
Tall, dark, handsome twenty-nine-year-old lawyer,
with a bit of a substance-abuse problem, looking for love and money in what
are apparently all the wrong places.
His voice is mocking, but there is a slight sag to his shoulders. I notice his clothes are hanging loosely on his frame, that his jacket cuffs reach too far down over his wrists and that his belt is cinched tight to keep his trousers around his too-slender waist.

I find myself reaching out, and almost touch his right cheek, when he flinches, pulls away.

I like you more the other way,
he says.
It suits you better.
He gestures to the cleaners, who are at the threshold to the den, waiting for permission to enter.
Thus ends another visit to dear old Mom's,
he says, adding, as he leaves the room,
and to use another ironically appropriate expression, let's forget this
conversation ever took place.

From my notebook. December 15, 2008. Amanda's name written on top of the page.

Jennifer:

Today we decided to walk to our favorite Middle Eastern take-out place on
Lincoln, the one with the sublime hummus, then over to the park for a picnic.
Yes, it was that warm! I made you wear your gloves and a hat, because you are
still struggling with that cough. Magdalena fussed a bit, but we overruled her. You
were clearly itching to get out.

You kept saying how you wished James and Peter could come along. I was unclear at first about why you thought they were missing, and it turned out you attributed their absence to that old man-excuse—work. No matter that Peter had retired more than a decade ago, and James would have retired last year if he'd lived.