Magnetism Page 23
I am the navigator. The map pages are slick. The smell coming up off the book is a mix of newspapers and gas stations. She ordered it in the mail using Dad’s Triple A membership and this will be a clue to him when he tries to find us. There are only thirty miles to a page and then you flip it over and start a whole other page. I wonder when he will know where we’ve gone. Who will he ask about us? Who will he tell?
As I settle down to navigate the traffic gets thicker. It’s a Friday night and rush hour is starting early. People are zigzagging around us. She is clutching the steering wheel. She refuses to change lanes and sticks to forty miles an hour. I have no idea where we are and tell her so.
‘That’s what the map is for,’ she says. ‘To tell us exactly where we are and where we are going, and how to get there.’
‘I know that, Mom. But I need to know what page to start on. I don’t recognise anything.’
‘Look at the road signs, then. Figure it out. I’m just trying not to get us killed here by all these fucking idiots.’
I think about asking her to rephrase this in an encouraging way, but that could make things worse.
I finally work out that we are on page twelve, which means we have another fourteen pages to go. ‘I need the bathroom,’ I tell her. ‘We should stop. It’s getting late. I’m tired.’
‘We’re not even in Chicago.’
‘We’ve made it nearly to Joliet and I need the bathroom. I’m a person too.’
I’m quoting her again. She said that last bit when she was yelling at Dad about the letter from one of his students. I heard the argument through the wall. He pleaded ignorance and accused Mom of false allegations, then there was no sound at all for a while. When he spoke again, his voice had shrunk and hers had grown, filling the room and bursting through the walls. She shrieked commandments at him: ‘You will not do this to me. You will never do this to our family. You will not humiliate me. You will not shame us. You will not do this after everything. Everything! You hear me. You hear me. I’m a person too.’
She showed the letter to me yesterday, before we put our suitcase into the car. ‘Read between the lines.’ She thrust the paper at me. I couldn’t see what she was so upset about. The guy wasn’t complaining about Dad, it sounded like he liked him a lot, but I didn’t say that. It wouldn’t have helped.
We were going to do the trip in one day, but we set off later than she originally planned because she couldn’t decide what to bring. It’s getting darker and darker. Eventually she agrees that we should stop for the night.
As we undress to climb into the king-size bed that we will share, I begin to dread having to listen to her tell me how awful Dad is again. I wonder if Dad knows that she does this. I want him to know I’m not on anyone’s side. ‘I’m real tired,’ I say.
She doesn’t reply. She points the remote and the TV blasts into life.
With my eyes shut there is still a steady flickering flow of colours because she is constantly changing the channel, click, click, click, click. I lie stock still, pretending to be asleep, but I wonder how still a sleeping person really is. I suspect that someone who doesn’t move at all looks more fake so I shuffle my feet and mutter, ‘It’s cold,’ like I might be sleep-talking. She turns the TV off and rolls over. The bed shifts beneath us as she moves away from me to face the wall and I’m left to wonder alone whether Dad is missing us and if he’s okay.
I wake some time in the night. The room is lit by strong moonlight coming from a slit where the drapes haven’t quite come together. Mom has thrown the blankets from her and she is on her side, curled up. Her mouth has fallen open and her long hair is spilled on the pillow, on her shoulders, all over the place.
When I turn on the bathroom light, it is amazingly bright. In the huge mirror I see my reflection. My pale skin and white PJs appear yellow. The sound of me peeing echoes and, at the same time as I am sure that the sound will wake the whole motel, I also feel sealed in and sure that no one would ever hear, even if I screamed at the top of my lungs. Hundreds of people have sat here, also on their way somewhere else. I wonder how many of them didn’t know exactly where they were going, and why.
On my way back to bed, I smooth Mom’s hair and tug the covers over her. She rolls on to her back and makes tiny, reassuring snoring sounds that punctuate the deep humming sound of the air-conditioner.
In the coffee shop in the morning, I order French toast, just to cheer her up. Mom says she didn’t sleep well and only wants coffee. This is not a good sign.
We get lost in the Chicago Loop. This is even though I have the map on my lap and am referring to it regularly, and have also been watching the street signs. I thought I could find a quick way through, but it hasn’t worked. Three times we passed the Cadillac Palace Theatre. There have been signs directing us towards the Lake Michigan beach and this has been hopeful, but, every time we get close to turning off, the signs disappear and we’re back driving around in circles again. When I explain to Mom that we are totally lost she’s annoyed but doesn’t seem to understand that we really are totally lost. The Chicago Loop is a loop we’ll never get out of and we have no hope of ever escaping this trap. She says she’ll stop at the next gas station and ask.
I stay in the car when she goes in. It’s a small place and there’s a big black guy behind the till and Mom makes little gestures explaining things to begin with, then she waves her hands about her head. I see him shrug. She hands over her credit card to pay for the gas. I think that this will be another clue for Dad.
When she comes out she’s carrying a new map. ‘This is just a blip. It’s a detour,’ she says to me. ‘Don’t feel bad. Anyone could have made the mistake. You’re doing a great job.’
There is nothing that might remotely support that summary. We’ve wasted more than two hours. Together we stare at the folded-out map on my lap and she says she needs glasses, that today she can’t read the road names clearly. We decide that my plan to follow the shoreline is a good one. We can go this way right to Milwaukee. Then, against my protests, she grabs the Triple A guide and dumps it out the window. I open the door to go and collect it but she starts up the engine, so we leave it behind on the gas station forecourt.
Much later we both cheer when we finally clear the Illinois state line and enter Wisconsin. For just a moment I forget that Dad is left behind and feel really happy that we’re just not lost any more.
We get a new map and it’s useful when we begin the hunt to find Charleen’s street. Her house is set back from the road and we park in the driveway behind a beat-up Pontiac. ‘Don’t be surprised at what she looks like, honey,’ Mom says. ‘She’s pretty sick. I should have told you. She’s practically dead, really.’
This is news to me and, if Mom is warning me, this is going to be bad. She’s right. She should have told me sooner.
I recognise Charleen’s daughter, Susie, from the photo Mom showed me before we left. When she opens the door Mom steps forward with a happy yell and gives her a hug. They walk through the wood-panelled hallway into the kitchen hand in hand. I am left watching their backs until I follow them, shutting the door behind me.
A black Labrador comes out of a room on the right and sniffs at my legs. She’s old; the whiskers and hair around her mouth are white. When I stroke her smooth coat she leans in to me, getting closer. We’re together at the doorway to the kitchen and she is a comfort because she seems to understand I don’t belong here and that I don’t know what to do or say.
Charleen is sitting on a chair by the stove and, even though Susie was clearly expecting us, Charleen’s face looks overwhelmed, a bit surprised. She’s very thin. Her head is covered by a scarf. Mom bends down to kiss her while Susie stands back and watches the two of them with a grin on her face. It’s like Susie is Charleen’s mom, not the other way round. It makes me feel sad and no one but the dog is noticing me, so I step back to stand in the hall and sit down on the floor to make a fuss of the dog.
Charleen’s husband Bob died in a c
ar crash a long time ago. I know from what Mom has said that his insurance paid for this house, and that Susie’s brother Todd has left home for New York, where he’s a wannabe stockbroker. It’s now just those two women in this big house with an old dog.
Charleen shows us the downstairs of the house. The dining room, which turns out to be where the dog was before she came out to greet us, has been made into Charleen’s bedroom, and the downstairs guest bathroom is full of her personal things. Medical things, too. When I have to use the bathroom I try not to look at the objects next to the sink.
While the dinner is cooking, we sit at the kitchen table. I am on one side, and Mom and Charleen are opposite. Susie’s place is next to me, but she’s busy doing the cooking so there is no one on my side. The dog is lying down underneath the table. They’re laughing and joking but the whole house smells funny. It’s full of this sickness, like a real hospital or an old people’s rest home. I don’t know how we’re going to be able to sleep here.
Susie opens a bottle of red wine. Mom and Susie drink it, and Susie smokes a lot. Charleen sips at her glass and holds a cigarette but doesn’t light it. The three of them sing ‘Born to be Wild’ together, badly. I can’t hear Charleen’s voice, but she’s saying the words and enjoying it. I have a glass of wine too; Susie pours it out as though I’ve been awarded something wonderful. When I gulp it down and return my glass to the table empty, she applauds and Mom tells me not to be so greedy.
When it’s finally dished up, the pulpy texture of the pasta makes me gag. No one notices as I spit some of it into my hand and offer it to the dog under the table. First I feel the breath from her nose then a nudging as she nibbles at the food. Her tongue is rough and thick and warm on my skin, and it slides the length of my hand. I try not to stare at Charleen’s scrawny fist clutching her knife and fork opposite and look at the cheerful curtains instead. A yellow background with cartoon fruit: enormously fat cherries and giant strawberries. The designer should have painted faces on to them, I think.
Then I realise that Charleen is looking at me; she’s evaluating me. I force myself to smile back and say, ‘My Dad says hi.’ From the corner of my eye I see that Mom is surprised. I am lying and of course she knows this.
‘Haven’t seen him in years. Or your mom,’ she says. ‘What a treat this is.’ Then they talk about old friends. She says Louelle and Patty phone sometimes but no one else has come to visit.
By the time Susie starts to clear the table my plate is empty; most of the food is in the dog. But Charleen has eaten even less than me. She’s pushed the food into a pile in the middle. Susie doesn’t say anything when she scrapes it into the waste disposal.
It’s ice-cream for dessert. Mom says how she loves this but Charleen waves her hand ‘no’ when Susie slides a glass bowl of chocolate chip in front of her. ‘Go on, Mom,’ she says. ‘You have to keep up your strength.’ Then Charleen shakes her head and the head scarf slips backward. She has only clumps of hair, like the mangy fur on the cat Dad rescued from a storm drain last summer. Susie delicately moves the scarf into place again. ‘I’ve had enough,’ Charleen says. Her voice is the most real thing I’ve ever heard when she pleads, ‘Let me be.’
Even though I don’t want to, I eat all the ice-cream in the dish just to cheer Susie up and then it’s time for bed. We’re going to sleep in the master bedroom. This is Susie’s plan. Mom tells her that she and I can share the bed. I don’t know how to feel because there will be Bob’s ghost and Charleen’s nearly ghost in there with us, but at least I won’t be on my own.
There is thick dust on the banister going up the stairs and in the bedroom when we get there. Susie kisses Mom goodnight and waves at me when she shuts the door. The dust is also on the bedside lampshades; the pink colour brightens where I use my finger to make a large cross. We whisper in bed, in the dark, our heads on cold, hard pillows.
‘When are we going home?’ I ask.
‘Why?’
‘I miss everything. Please can we go?’
‘I’ve come for Charleen and Susie.’
‘I don’t know why I had to come.’
‘For me. You’re here for me.’
She puts her arm up. I rest my head on her upper arm. Her smell is layered: there is the smell of the wine and the garlic bread, the perfume she squirts all over herself, her special soap, and finally the smell of her skin itself. I whisper into her armpit, ‘Whatever he’s done, he loves you a lot, Mom. He might not say it, but love means never having to say you’re sorry.’
‘That’s crap movie talk,’ she whispers back. ‘It’s not about being sorry, saying sorry, or not. None of that. Love is easy; it’s living that isn’t sometimes, and I’m tired.’
In the morning light Charleen looks even more shrivelled up. We say good morning while she is still in bed. Susie is preparing some medications in the kitchen. The dog is very pleased to see me, and while Mom sits with Charleen I go into the back yard with her to play fetch. She is slow and not very enthusiastic, but it’s good to be outside. It’s not quite summer, but it will be soon. I wish we could get our own dog, or even rescue this one and take her home with us.
Mom and I go out so that Charleen and Susie can get on with what they need to do. On the way to the neighbourhood mall we get lost again. I can’t read Susie’s scribbled diagram, and Mom can’t either. When we stop Mom says she’s sure we’re near the stadium, but there are no signs. She says it’s just a feeling, that sometimes even if you can’t see signs you can sense where you are. It’s a kind of magnetism, she explains.
‘You know you’re nuts,’ I tell her and we both laugh.
We go into a Walgreens and there are no other customers in it. We go to look at the cards. There is a whole aisle of greetings cards here and I find three funny ones that I collect. When I turn to show her, Mom isn’t there.
I scoot along where all the aisles intersect with the main space, looking down each one to find her. Finally, I spot her sitting at the ice-cream counter at the back of the store. ‘You disappeared,’ I call over. ‘I didn’t know where you were.’
Back in the car she says she’s decided that we will drive home later. ‘Then I want to move,’ she says. ‘A fresh start. He can get a job anywhere, even here.’
‘Not here, Mom, please.’
‘Or Arizona. I like Phoenix. That has possibilities.’
‘Have you even been there?’
‘I’ve seen pictures. The roads are laid out in a grid, like Chicago, but there’s no Great Lakes to disrupt things. There’s space and warmth there, room for the roads to grow and breathe. I think it would be great.’
‘Roads don’t breathe, Mom. We can make it okay at home.’
‘I know that,’ she says.
The drive back is quick and we miss all the tangle of Chicago. We are home before eleven o’clock. Dad is pleased to see us. She beeps the horn and he comes outside and rushes up to the car. ‘Don’t tell him anything,’ she says. ‘He doesn’t need to know where we’ve been.’
‘What am I supposed to say if he asks?’
She says he won’t. He doesn’t want to know. That she will tell him if he does. She makes me promise not to say anything.
That night, under my own blankets, I think about what Dad does know and what he might think. When we were alone, all he said to me was, ‘Your mother is lucky to have you with her.’
In a few days Dad has some news. He tells us that he’s going to start applying for jobs in Arizona. Mom’s face doesn’t move but I am shaking with anger. This is my life too, I want to scream, but instead I run upstairs and when Dad calls after me I don’t reply. I slam the door to the bedroom behind me.
An hour later I come downstairs and find Mom. She’s outside the back door holding a steaming mug between her hands, staring up into the dark sky. I plead with her to reconsider. She doesn’t look at me. All she says is, ‘Blame your father if you have to blame anyone. I don’t want to talk about it.’
He finds us there to
o late to hear that, but not too late to hear me crying.
‘What’s up, honey?’ He draws me away from the door, to him in the light. ‘What’s the matter?’
I shake my head because I don’t know what to say except, ‘I’ll miss my friends.’
‘It’ll be okay,’ he says. ‘You’ll see. We’ll be together.’
I sit down at the table and she steps in through the door, stands behind him. She is watching the two of us. Dad can’t see her expression, but I can.
It’s not that she is happy, but her face tells me that she knows she has won something and he and I have lost. Not everyone can win, I know that. Some people are stronger than others. The effect of them is greater. That’s how it works.
She stares at me. My mother waits for me to turn away.
1973
The Armadillo
Dr Turner’s white coat across the desk is whiter than white, like the after part of a washing powder ad, and it matches his gleaming teeth.
‘It’s a very early birthday present. She’ll be fourteen before long.’ Mom explains to him. ‘But I want her to have something that will last forever. No one should be disadvantaged in high school.’
Dr Turner flashes his smile again. I recognise that his are an example of ‘positive teeth’ that Mom has been going on about. I see now that, as she has complained, Mom’s teeth are too small and hesitant for her face. She’s deciding whether or not to do anything about it.