The Chance You Won't Return (18 page)

“Don’t sell yourself short.”

I shook my head. “My teacher says I need to take a test at the end of the semester and prove that I know things.”

She sighed. “More hoops to jump through.”

“No,” I said, “he’s being all right about it. Probably because he feels kind of bad for me, but I don’t care. At least I don’t fail this way.” I picked up the screwdriver and twirled it between my fingers. “My friend Theresa basically made me drive, even though I didn’t want to. And even though it all worked out okay, she didn’t have to be such a bitch about it, you know? Like she knows what’s best for me and I’m such an idiot that I can’t do things for myself.”

She laid her hands on the clock radio. “It’s not all camaraderie out there, even among women,” she said. “Some pilots are jealous of the attention we get.”

“It’s not that. And it worked out all right, but she didn’t have to make it her idea.”

“Some people don’t like me, either,” she said. She stared at me hard. “They think I’m all talk and no aeronautic ability. You just keep flying and show them what you can do.”

Sure,
I thought,
except you disappear in the end.
The idea startled me. Mom didn’t seem to recognize that this would be the end of the Amelia Earhart story. Maybe she’d just go on being Amelia forever. Or maybe she’d disappear somewhere. I’d walk through the front door someday and she wouldn’t be there. I’d never see her again. I stopped twirling the screwdriver, letting it fall to the table.

Mom picked it up. “You don’t have to throw the tools around,” she said. “Not everyone’s awake at this hour.”

“Right,” I said, a lump forming in my throat. Mom began to work at the clock radio again, humming to herself and occasionally muttering aeronautical terms I didn’t quite understand. The hairs on my arms stood up; watching Mom was like watching a ghost. I sat at the table with her for another two hours as she took apart the clock and tried to reconstruct it. I was afraid that if I left, when I looked for her again, she would be gone.

Mom’s first appointment with her psychiatrist was later that week. Dad arranged it so it was after school, when I could go, too. When I asked why, he said it was so I could tell the psychiatrist about what I’d seen of Mom’s behavior, which had been more than either Katy or Teddy had seen so far. I didn’t have to go every week unless I wanted to. The way he looked at me, eyes bright but a little sad, I could tell that he wanted me to be a regular feature at these meetings. I told him I’d have to think about it, especially since I needed to study for Mr. Kane’s special exam.

Dad ate lunch in his mail truck that day to get the time off in the afternoon. The post office was being really great, he claimed, because he’d been such a dedicated carrier all these years. Even so, he didn’t look at me when he said this, and I knew he was worried about what would happen if he took too much time off work. A lot of carriers would offer to take over his routes if he couldn’t make it in. Dad was still in his postal uniform when he drove us to the psychiatrist’s office.

“Maybe you should bring the psychiatrist’s mail with us,” I said. “She’d probably knock a few dollars off the price. For the convenience.”

“Couldn’t hurt. Too bad I left the mail sack in my truck.” He glanced along Waverly Avenue, which was lined with old houses and new brick office buildings. “It’s Dr. McGlynn. Number four-seven-five. There should be a sign out front.”

In the backseat, Mom asked, “How many of these do I have to do today?” She had put on a long brown skirt and khaki blazer for the occasion — with the usual linen scarf, of course. That morning I’d been surprised to see her iron her clothes and brush her hair in the mirror. At first I wondered if she was Mom again, but she caught me watching and talked about how important it was to keep up appearances when talking to the media. She didn’t love giving interviews and speeches, but it was all part of the job. The reporters liked to see that she was feminine, too. “G.P. taught me that,” she said, patting me on the cheek as she passed.

“Just the one appointment today,” Dad said. “It shouldn’t be too bad.”

She nodded. “That’s a pleasant surprise. Usually you have me scheduled for about eight interviews in a row.”

“Nope,” Dad said. “This’ll be the first.” His voice was calm but his fingers tightened around the steering wheel.

Mom laughed, light and cheery. “Oh, yes, George. Maybe later I’ll take a nap and have tea with the ladies’ society.”

“Why not?” Now his voice was tighter, like it was whenever he got mad at me for talking back. “Take a nap every day. You need the rest.”

I turned around and could see the lines in Mom’s face deepen as she started to argue. Before she could say anything, I said, “Hey, how about that Ninety-Nine meeting? That was a great time, right?”

She smiled at me. “Exciting, wasn’t it?” She chattered about the air derbies, the solid group of aviatrixes we’d gotten, and how the world would
have
to start paying attention to female pilots. I thought I’d done a good job getting her to calm down, so I was surprised when Dad’s fingers still clenched the steering wheel. “What?” I asked.

He didn’t say anything for a second and then muttered, “Damn, we must have passed it. Keep a lookout, all right?”

My eyes didn’t quite catch the house numbers. “I was just trying —”

“She’s not —” He glanced in the rearview mirror at Mom, whose fingers rested against the car window, and dropped his voice. “She’s Janet, your mom, and playing along might seem like it helps, but it doesn’t.” He stopped the car abruptly by the curb. “We’re here.”

It was one of the old houses — white, with a wraparound porch and a bed of chrysanthemums out front. The sign didn’t just name Dr. McGlynn — she shared the building with a chiropractor, a Kaplan SAT prep center, a nutritionist, and a law office. “She can’t afford her own place?” I asked.

“How much space does she need?” Dad said brusquely.

Great. Now he was mad at me before our psychiatrist appointment. Dr. McGlynn would probably be able to sense the tension before we even told her anything. She’d probably ask about my relationship with my parents, and I’d have to tell her about fighting with my mom most of the time — until she became Amelia Earhart and thought I was some ace girl aviator — and how lately Dad, whom usually I got along with, had been disappointed in me about everything.

Inside, we climbed a tall staircase to the second floor, thick red carpeting muffling our footsteps. Offices split off a long hallway. From a distance I could hear voices and the tapping of fingers on a computer keyboard. Dad led us down the hall, to a door marked with
DR. MARY MCGLYNN, MD
in bronze letters.

The office was brighter than I’d imagined, with startlingly white walls and framed posters of tropical flowers. Behind a massive receptionist desk, a woman with frizzy red hair cradled a phone to her neck as she wrote on a huge calendar.

“Yes, Thursday at noon. We’ll see you then.” She looked at us. “Can I help you?”

Dad introduced us. The receptionist told us that Dr. McGlynn would be with us in a minute and to have a seat. She gave Dad a clipboard with forms to fill out. Glimpsing over his shoulder, I read the various questions — our address, insurance information, if Mom had ever been on other medication or had been hospitalized at any point.

An older woman with clipped white hair and a crisp pink blouse approached us. “Mr. and Mrs. Winchester? I’m Dr. McGlynn.”

Dad stood to shake Dr. McGlynn’s hand and introduced himself. “And this is my daughter Alex,” he said. His eyes rested on Mom for a second. “And this is my wife.”

We followed Dr. McGlynn into her office, which was smaller than I’d thought it would be and lined with bookcases. My eyes scanned the titles —
Trauma and the Mind; A History of Psychotherapy; Weathering the Storm: Mental Illness and Its Long-Term Effects.
A few medical textbooks were mixed in as well. Her desk was painstakingly tidy, and it looked like dust never settled on it. In the corner of the office was a small, leafy plant; I couldn’t decide if it was fake or not.

“Thanks so much for taking us on such short notice,” Dad said to her as we sat down — Mom and Dad on a small couch, Dr. McGlynn and I in a couple of armchairs.

Dr. McGlynn shook her head. “Dr. Cowan’s a good friend.” She picked up a set of folders from her desk and scanned through them, then set them on her lap. “He’s sent along your paperwork from the hospital, but why don’t you tell me a little about what’s been going on?”

Dad talked about how Mom had seemed a little off for a while — distant and distracted — and he’d assumed it was because she was tired or stressed, but whenever he asked, she’d say she was fine and brush him off. Beside him, Mom sat up straight, hands folded neatly in her lap. Everything about her was tight. I was afraid she’d run out, the way she had with Mr. Kane, so I kept watching her. When Dad mentioned that meeting at school, he paused, waiting for me to pick up the thread, and I missed it.

“Alex?” Dad said. “The conference?”

He and Dr. McGlynn were looking at me; Mom was staring at a row of books, frowning. I glanced at Dr. McGlynn to see if she had any cues as to how I should answer, but her face was blankly concerned.

“It was about driver’s ed,” I said, and explained how Mom and Dad were supposed to meet with Mr. Kane, and how Mom had gotten upset when Mr. Kane had called her Mrs. Winchester.

“Rude man,” Mom muttered to her hands.

I paused, not sure if I should keep going, but Dr. McGlynn’s eyes were still on me. “She couldn’t answer his questions. Or wouldn’t, I guess. So she took off.”

Mom stood up suddenly, like a windup toy jerking to life. “This interview is a waste of time,” she said. “I need to plan my trip. George?”

For a second, I wanted to agree with her, just go home and give her her maps and let her be happy. Who cared if she wanted to be Amelia Earhart? It was a kind of contentedness, and even if she wasn’t my mom, I could still tell her things. I wanted to believe it was better than having her on the brink of frenzy. I was ready to grab my parents and run when Dr. McGlynn spoke up.

“Please, we’ll get to that,” Dr. McGlynn said, voice steady. She looked at my dad. “How about you two wait in the other room while Alex tells me the rest?”

Dad nodded slowly and guided Mom into the next room. As he left, I could hear him making excuses — they’d have to wait just a little longer. I could hear him call her Amelia. Hypocrite.

“That’s kind of what happened before,” I told Dr. McGlynn. “Mom getting all upset, I mean.”

“It must have been very upsetting for you,” she said. I wondered if having a soothing voice was a requirement for getting an MD in psychiatry.

I shrugged and stared at the plant in the corner, trying to find any indication of life — bugs, dying leaves, damp spots of soil.

“So this was the first time you’d seen her like that?”

I told her about the little things we’d noticed before then, and how that day at school seemed to be the final straw. She hadn’t been Mom since then, at least not so any of us had noticed. “Your job is to make her Mom again, right?” I said. “She gets to talk this out and get medication, and then she’ll forget about being Amelia Earhart?”

“The aim is to work through whatever caused your mother’s delusions, yes.”

“What if she doesn’t want to?”

Dr. McGlynn told me a little about trauma and coping mechanisms and how the brain tries to take care of itself, but I didn’t hear many of the details. Instead I imagined the inside of Mom’s head, how she was like a tiny plane in a storm, not knowing which way was up and hoping all her instruments held together. She was calling, “Mayday! Mayday!” and the person on the other end of the radio was Amelia Earhart.

Dad and Mom switched with me. When they went back into Dr. McGlynn’s office, Mom was calm again. I waited for them under the tropical flowers, pretending to read whatever magazines were on the coffee table. When they came out, Dad looked like he’d run a couple of marathons. He talked to the receptionist and made a standing appointment for Thursdays.

Just as we left the building, I heard someone say, “Alex?”

It felt like the porch under me was coming apart splinter by splinter.
Shit,
I thought. Theresa appeared on the porch beside me.
Shit,
shit,
shit.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, a little too quickly. Mom and Dad paused on the front steps, and I wished I had psychic powers so I could tell them to get in the car before Theresa said hello.

“Hi to you, too,” she said. “I’m just dropping off my SAT prep test.” She glanced at my parents. “Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Winchester.”

Mom frowned and opened her mouth, but Dad spoke over her. “Hi there, Theresa. Good luck with the SATs.”

“Thanks.” Theresa looked back at me. “You okay?”

I nodded, feeling like all the blood in my head had surged to my stomach. Every muscle in me, from my legs to my fingers, tensed. Dad guided Mom away from the porch, toward the car, and I tried to breathe a little.