One More Stop (4 page)

‘Look, Dr Dot … it’s very hard for me to be here with you. No, don’t speak. Please don’t say anything until I’m through talking. I guess Dr Guttman told you a little about me. I’ll tell you what I can, but I’m afraid to tell you everything. I don’t know if I should tell you about the demons? They’re everywhere. I can’t fight them. I abandoned the work. The group isn’t protecting me anymore. You probably think I’m crazy? I can’t stand it, I’m always hungry. I have a pit, this pit right here in my stomach. Can’t fill it up. I need to eat, but when I eat, I feel like I’m going to throw up. I hear voices. Since she died, I hear voices. They’re louder now. How do I know you’re not a demon? No, don’t say anything. I’m not ready to hear your voice. One more voice will put me over the edge. I left my mother … my mother’s house last year. My sister left too. My father went to work. Bastard. My mother drank a bottle of Drano. Ate up her stomach. How could I leave? She told me that she didn’t want to be a burden anymore. Didn’t want to spend my father’s money. Never saw her again. My father sees ghosts in the bedroom, where they used to sleep. Ghosts everywhere … I hope he dies soon. I’m not protected anymore. Christ, I’m shaking. No, don’t come any closer. I’ll just sit here and shake. I like to rock back and forth.’

‘Rock-a-bye, baby’

‘We all left her.’

‘Down will come baby.’

‘I tried to save her … Her best friend Mrs B. found her in the tub … Are you a real doctor? It’s August. Why are you here? Why am I here?’

He speaks. ‘How can I help you, Loli?’

‘Kleenex, please.’ He hands me the box of Kleenex. ‘Are you really a psychiatrist?’

‘Yes, I am.’

‘Can you help me?’

‘I hope so.’

‘You look like my father. I hate him.’

‘He loves you, honey.’

‘She says he loves me.’

‘Who says he loves you?’

‘My mother.’

‘I’m sure he does. Loli, do you live alone?’ I nod yes. ‘Is there anyone who might come and stay with you? Is there anyone you trust?’

I nod yes again. ‘My sister Dina. But she’s very busy with my nephew. He’s sick. That’s why she couldn’t stay … with my mother. I could have … stayed. I could have saved her.’

‘Loli, no one can save anyone, unless they want to be saved.’

‘I’m tired.’

‘Go home. Get some sleep. Do you work?’

‘Not since my mother died.’

‘Call your sister. Tell her you need her. I’m sure that she’ll understand.’

‘Can I call you?’

‘Absolutely. My exchange can reach me any time night or day … Please call your sister.’

‘I will. I’m sorry if I’m … I’m just sorry … Thank you. Bye.’

‘Three blind mice!

Three blind mice!

See how they run!’

Dina and I ran … So did Pop.

‘Goes the …’

We all ran.

After reading Dr Dot an exceedingly long dream entry from my journal, I peek up to see if he is still awake; to my surprise, he is. ‘Then I ask her, “Where’s my aqua scarf?” The bitch
stewardess
doesn’t remember. My favorite scarf. My mother gave it to me years ago … disappeared. Why does everything you love, everything disappears. Damn her.’ … Sad or angry? Sad. I think about the song ‘Cry me a River’. ‘
I cried … a river … over you.’
 

He hands me the Kleenex. This is becoming our intimate routine and it’s only our second meeting. ‘I still don’t trust you. I need you but I don’t trust you … I don’t know what to eat … The demons … I can’t talk anymore. You talk.’

‘Loli, your mother took her life. Believe me there is nothing more painful or difficult. But we can deal with it.’

‘She’s not dead. She’s right here in my belly, in my heart, in my head, in my crotch. I’m going to get sick. Wastebasket please. Now!’ Dr Dot holds the bucket.‘
Rock-a-bye baby on the tree
…’

‘SHUT HER UP.’ I puke one more time for good luck. We stare at each other. I wipe my mouth on my sleeve. Station break … ‘My sister arrives tomorrow. Can I come later in the day?’

‘I have a four p.m. cancellation.’

‘Bad time. Fucks up my whole day. I was gonna try… I’ll try to write in the morning. Hate the mornings.’

‘Is that time all right for you?’

Mockingly. ‘Is that time all right for you? I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be sarcastic. Look, I don’t know what I’d do without you. But I really hate needing you. Really hate it.’

‘
Down will come baby cradle and all
…’

‘It’s fine, Loli. Four o’clock. I’ll see you then.’

I get up to leave. I turn around. ‘She was so beautiful.’

‘Who?’

‘My mother.’

‘I’m sure she was.’

I drive around LAX at least four times. On the fifth police whistle around, there she is with her steamer trunk. Copious tears, uncontrollable sobbing. Here stands Dina, my older sister. She has come to watch over me.

She gets into my BMW convertible, rolls down her window, looks at me as if I am the me she has always known and loved, comments on my thinness, points to the circles under my eyes, and finally tells me how glad she is to have traveled to western shores. She talks about the family, the weather, the palm trees, my nephew’s rash, my brother-in-law’s pinkeye, my niece’s asthma. ‘She’s just like you. If she doesn’t want to do something, she simply can’t breathe.’ I don’t respond … She wouldn’t hear me anyway … My niece and nephew will spend the week with my father and his new housekeeper Patty. ‘It will do him good. He needs his grandchildren around him.’

She walks into the house, puts her trunk in the guest room, checks out the closet space, hangs up her travel clothes, puts on her sweats, L.L.Bean slippers, calls home, marches into the kitchen, opens the almost empty refrigerator, finds some organic cranberry juice, drinks, puckers, gulps, then
rummages
through the empty cupboards. ‘No Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies?’ She asks.

‘Old Mother Hubbard

Went to the cupboard,

To fetch her poor…’

‘Shut up!’ I shout. Dina looks confused. ‘Nursery rhymes. Mother … talks to me … in … nursery rhymes.’

Dina shuts the cupboard door. ‘Our mother never knew a nursery rhyme.’

‘… all the time. Rhymes … Old rhymes …
Mother Goose
. Makes me crazy. After my … break … there were demons and voices … and nursery rhymes.’

‘Good juice.’

‘Why did it have to happen?’

‘Loli, you have to get on with your life. Write, work with kids, do something. She would have wanted you to. She was your biggest fan.’

Pause. ‘It was my fault.’

‘It wasn’t your fault!’

‘I should have brought her out here to live with me. She didn’t need shock therapy. He just wanted to get her out of the house. He didn’t want to see her lying on the kitchen floor again. Got tired stepping over her body on his way upstairs to wash away his sins.’

‘Loli. Stop it.’

I become hysterical. ‘She never would … no one … was … there. Where … were … we … I … knew … I knew …’

Dina smacks me. I am stunned, but I do stop crying long enough to sit down on the kitchen floor. Dina sits with me. ‘I had to. Sorry. I read about it in a …’

‘It’s o … kay … Helped.’

‘I think about her every day, you know. But I won’t let her ruin my life. I have a family. You have me, your millions of friends, and your work. You have to work.’

‘The pink dress. I can see her pink chemise. Her legs. She had great legs. Didn’t she?’

Dina smiles. Her eyes light up like the night sky. ‘I loved watching the two of you in the living room. Jitterbug. Lindy. Dancing. Always in sync. She had great rhythm, and you. That’s something you were born with. Her Glenn Miller records, your rock ’n’ roll – you were meant for each other.’

‘Why would she …?’

Dina says, ‘She didn’t want to go through it anymore.’

‘Go through what?’ My chest aches.

Dina places her hand on my heart. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Foxtrot, lindy, jitterbug. She taught me the box step. She taught me how to dance.’

‘Come on,’ says Dina. ‘Get up. Let’s lindy.’ We get up. Off we go. Dancing fools. Loli and Dina together again. And a one two one and two, and a one two one and two. Repeat that again. And again. Slide the arm down her shoulder, over her arm. Grab her hand. Style … we got style. Swirl her round and round. Put my other arm around her waist. She puts her arm around mine. Index fingers in the air. Shoulders up and down … Mouths open … breathing hard. Holler … Hollering …

‘Don’t stop!’ Keep it going. Listen to that big band playin’. Now it’s Elvis. I can hear him singin’ ‘Blue Suede Shoes.’ Music from my mother’s generation … my sister’s generation, and finally The Beatles sing ‘She Loves You’ from my time. Sisters dance to the sounds of the musical ghosts that made us, and my mother, who we were, who we are. ‘Don’t stop! Keep it up … Fast … Faster! Faster!’

My mother sings.
‘Here we go round the mulberry bush.’

I scream. ‘Mulberry bush!’ Dina stops. I keep on dancing, spinning around again and again. I grab her. She pulls away. Turns toward the kitchen sink. Her shoulders shake. I turn her
toward me. She is sobbing. My older sister sheds her snakeskin on my kitchen floor. Together we cry our hearts out.

I sob. ‘I miss her so much.’

‘So do I.’

‘Is it ever gonna go away?’ I ask.

‘Maybe not. Maybe … some day.’

‘Please say it will.’ We hold on fast. This is family. This is what I need to survive.

For the next ten days, Dina and I walk the canyon roads, hit the beaches, play in the sand. We don’t have pails or shovels. We do have each other.

I make my daily visit to Dr Dot. My hysteria is abated. I begin to eat solid foods, drink liquids, sleep through most of the nights.

It was raining that day of my mother’s death. I was in Dina’s kitchen. She’d cut herself. I ran to get a Band-Aid. The phone rang. When I came back Dina sat me down. ‘She’s dead. Mrs B. found her in the bathtub.’

I choke. ‘Mommy?’

Dina cries, ‘I better call Ralph.’

‘Where’s Pop?’

‘On his way home.’

‘What about the kids?’

She organizes the rest of the day’s activities. ‘Ralph’ll take care of them.’ We’ll take the car to Beechwood.

‘Do we need to do anything? Shouldn’t we do something!?’

‘I have to change the Band-Aid. Wait here. I’ll call Ralph.’

‘I don’t want to be alone … Can I come with you?’

‘Sure.’ She grabs my hand. Runs around her nine-room apartment looking for a Band-Aid.

‘Why couldn’t I …?’

‘You couldn’t have done anything about it.’ Opens the kitchen drawer. ‘You were her favorite, you know.’ Hands me a Band-Aid. ‘She was so happy you came home.’

‘I wasn’t home. I was here, with you.’

‘She was waiting for the right time.’

‘She didn’t know what she was doing.’ I wrap the Band-Aid round her finger.

‘She didn’t want to live. You can’t make someone live.’

‘You can try.’

‘We did try. It was her choice. Her death.’

‘I can’t go … home.’

‘We have to. Pop will be waiting. He needs us.’ She grabs the car keys off the kitchen table.

‘What do we tell people?’

‘She died. We tell them that she died. That’s all.’

Now in LA we try to solve the mystery. What made her so unhappy? Why couldn’t anyone help her? We have no answers. In asking the questions, we see how little we knew about her struggle.

Where does mental illness come from? Who do you blame? Who do you forgive? How do you forgive yourself? I blamed my father and me. Dina blamed my mother and the doctors. I think my mother blamed herself for something hidden from those of us who loved her most. She left no note, no will, no goodbye.

Dina was in touch with the next-door neighbor, Mrs B., who had found my mother in the bathtub. Dina knew the gory details. I didn’t want to know them. Finding my mother had a terrible impact on Mrs B. Every day she mourned her
best friend’s death. Her husband, a traveling salesman, got fed up with her grief, found himself a younger woman. Mrs B. took to the sauce.

‘Needles and pins, needles and pins,

When a man marries his trouble begins.’

‘I bet that’s true.’

Dr Dot asks, ‘What’s true?’

‘They never should have gotten married. She was smart, educated, sophisticated, had lots of friends, but never thought she was good enough for him. He never graduated from high school, never knew how to behave, had no friends, hated her father and
he
thought he was the cat’s meow. He worked for her father. That’s how they met. Her father supported them … for a long time. He hated taking money from him. Proud prick. Screwed around. And she still loved him. Why do people get married?’

‘Many reasons.’

‘Name … never mind. Here’s another question. If two people make each other miserable, why on earth would they stay together?’

My sister had the answer. Night time … ‘They loved each other. He adored her. Did you ever notice how he looked at her?’

‘Are you dreaming? He didn’t love her. He was dismissive, cold, never had anything nice to say about any of her friends, especially Mrs B. Why on earth did they stay together?’

Dina thinks out loud. ‘They had a … a kind of love. History. They never knew life without each other.’ Dina stares at our silhouettes on the wall. ‘Shadows. That’s it. They were each other’s shadow.’

For a moment, I feel wild, like the old days. ‘Come on. Let’s
get high.’ Roll it tight. Hand it off to my favorite straight-as-anail person. Deep inhale. Don’t let the paranoia seep into my brain.

‘Three blind mice …’

‘Come on. Let’s get out of here. Go to Ralph’s.’

‘Ralph’s in New York.’

‘Ralph’s supermarket. Put your loafers on. We’re going shopping.’

Down the hill. Talkin’… Talkin’… Talkin’. Into the Food Emporium. The fluorescent lights blaze, the cash registers chime. Grab a cart. Great night for the Greene girls. In the candy section. I spot our favorite: Lindt dark chocolate with hazelnuts. Slide off my left clog. She slides off her right shoe. I reach for two chocolate bars. Place one bar in her shoe, the other in mine. Slide our feet neatly back in place. Nuts crack under foot as we hobble down the paper goods aisle, grab some Scott double-ply toilet paper. Ready to leave the scene of the crime.

Checkout line. The cashier rings up the toilet paper. The store manager walks up to the cashier, whispers something in her ear. My sister pokes me hard with her elbow. The manager smiles at us. We smile back. My heart races. The nuts crack in my clogs. My sister is close to handing over the chocolate bars. I give her the dirtiest look of her short-lived crime-ridden life. The manager walks back to his cubbyhole. We bag the toilet paper and run for the door.

Jump into the BMW, take the chocolate bars out from inside our shoes, eat the stolen goods. We beat the system.

Drive up Laurel Canyon; Joni Mitchell’s on the radio. Dina grabs my hand. ‘Promise me something.’ I savor the yummy luscious chocolate. Turn up the volume. Sing along with Joni.
Dina grabs my arm. ‘Promise me that if I’m not here and things get bad, if you’re afraid …’

‘If ifs and ands were pots and pans …’

‘… that you will find me. You will call me. You won’t do anything foolish.’ She does love me. It’s not a substitute for a mother but …

‘I’m right here, baby. You’ll always be my baby.’

‘I promise.’ Dina changes the station. The Ronnettes sing ‘Be My Baby’. I turn it off … Dina stares at me. My mother continues jabbering. I take a deep breath, relax into the madness … turn the radio back on … ‘
Be my be my baby … My one and only baby.’

My sister knows that something other than the song is playing in my head, but she can’t hear it.

‘Whistle, daughter, whistle
;

Whistle for a pound.’

‘I cannot whistle, mammy,

I cannot make a sound.’

‘She adored you.’

I change the station. ‘I know.’