The Law of Loving Others (19 page)

The words were slippery inside my head as I sat in my grandmother's guest bedroom, but I tried to grab hold of them: “schizophrenia,” “mental hospital,” “my mother.” I spent a few minutes just focusing on the images, the phrases. And then the drama with Phil and Daniel seemed to subside, just the tiniest bit.

I took the elevator downstairs and called Daniel back. There were a couple of overhead lights on, casting a bright yellow glow over the pool. I sat on the steps, in the shallow end, and rested my feet in the warm, heavily chlorinated water.

Daniel told me that he wanted to figure out when we were going to head back to school, and that his friend Tom wanted a ride back with us, too. I just really hadn't been thinking about school at all—I'd been so consumed by everything going on, the idea of leaving seemed almost implausible.

“Well, you're gonna have to go back eventually,” Daniel said.

“Yeah, obviously.”

We were silent for a moment.

“What are you doing tonight?” he asked distractedly, as if we were both in New York, and he was making plans for us for the evening.

What do you think I'm doing?

“It's nine o'clock,” I said. “I think my night's pretty much done. And look,” I told him, “you should go back to school whenever you want to. I'll probably end up staying a little longer than you. Maybe I'll take a bus or train back.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes, totally.”

Recently, I'd begun trying to imagine what Daniel thought about our relationship. Could he sense that something was wrong? Every so often we were perfectly aligned and then other times he and I seemed to be looking at two totally different relationships. Or perhaps it was just as simple as our moods not matching up with each other; I could never quite be sure.

I heard my grandmother and Saul up early the next morning—their muffled voices, the cautious opening and closing of cabinets. I stayed in bed until eight-thirty or so and then went out onto the patio where they were eating breakfast. I'd caught them mid-conversation, their words peppered with Yiddish, my grandmother emptying a packet of Sweet'N Low onto a rosy grapefruit half.

I had this immediate though vague memory from my childhood, walking into my grandmother's kitchen in Queens. She was eating rye bread and jam, holding a cup of what was probably instant coffee. She was with her sister and they were mostly speaking in Yiddish, but I also heard them cursing, my grandmother saying
shit
, repeating it again,
shit, shit, shit
.

Suddenly I found myself wondering if this was when my mother had been hospitalized all those years ago. Would I even have been able to remember this? I knew absolutely nothing about that time, none of the details. What season was it? What month? How long had she been in the hospital for?

My grandmother offered me some fruit as I sat down in a plastic lawn chair. A little glass table with ornate wrought iron legs held a bowl of sliced melons, a pot of coffee, a plate of toasted English muffins.

“Do you want me to make you something?” Saul asked. “Some French toast? Or we might still have some frozen waffles left over from when the twins were here.”

“This looks perfect,” I said, and I helped myself to some cantaloupe.

AFTERWARD, I changed into my bathing suit—a multicolored string bikini that I hadn't worn in months. It was stretched out and the cups a bit too small, showing too much of my skin, the side of my breasts a little too exposed. My skin was so pale, shrouded in sweaters and jeans and winter jackets all season. Downstairs, lying out by the pool, I could see my body plainly for the first time in months, out in the light, in the sun. The bruised, rippled circles of blistered skin along my ankles, two spots on my calf. I'd felt so strongly, only three weeks earlier, that I'd needed this marker, this gruesome evidence of my painful, conflicted feelings toward my mother, but suddenly, looking at those scars in the bright, clean light of morning, I wanted them erased. I wanted my unmarked skin back, unmarked save for two scars—one dulled line from an appendectomy, another tiny scar on my right cheek, from a dog bite I got in fourth grade after a neighbor's terrier sunk his teeth into me.

I had quite literally branded myself, I thought, and pulled a towel up over my legs.

SAUL was in good shape for eighty-two. He swam laps every morning and I watched as his fleshy arms sliced evenly through the pool. My grandmother had the
Miami Herald
unfolded in her lap, along with a pair of big plastic knitting needles and some lavender-colored yarn. I was browsing the latest issue of
People
that I'd bought the day before at the airport, was happy to be so easily sucked into its brief, provocative stories: a Kardashian was pregnant, a Teen Mom was filing for divorce, a burly, orange-colored cat somehow found his way from Michigan to Ohio.

A few of my grandmother's neighbors joined us by the pool. They were warm, effusive women in their late seventies or early eighties. They were all in remarkable shape: their minds sharp and agile, untouched by disease or senility. They told me how much they loved my grandmother and Saul. One, in a bathing cap ornamented with plastic daisies, told me that my grandmother was the “most wonderful”
addition to their book club, that she offered “the most insightful comments.”

“And Saul,”
she continued, “well, we're all lucky to have him, what a handy man he is to have around. And a good driver, too. Plus he can still drive in the dark!”

“They're just using me for my boyfriend,” my grandmother joked.

MY grandmother and I drove to a mall in Fort Lauderdale that felt more like some sprawling, tropical compound than a place to shop. Lots of terra cotta buildings connected to one another; palm trees lined the paths between them. Living in Florida brought out a side of my grandmother that wasn't apparent in Queens; she indulged herself just a little bit more. Where in New York she would save tinfoil, reuse Saran Wrap (her old depression-era habits), here she would get a manicure, allow herself to order a scoop of sorbet and a glass of wine along with her main course.

At the mall, we went into stores like H&M and Urban Outfitters, but my grandmother couldn't understand how people could pay lots of money for things that were deliberately meant to look cheap. She kept pointing at loose threads and faded denim, see-through cotton T-shirts. I chose the most respectable, conventional crew-neck sweater I could find from the Gap so that my grandmother would think her money was well spent.

At the food court, we settled on frozen yogurt; she got a vanilla with no toppings, and I ordered peanut butter chocolate chip with little pieces of Heath Bar crumbled on top. We hadn't talked about my mother once all day, and I could feel it coming on, as if we were on a date and finally needed to discuss what our status was.

Within moments I heard her say, “We need to talk about your mother, Emma.”

“I knew it!”

“Well, it's important,” she said, burying her spoon in the yogurt. “It's a lot for a young person like you to deal with. And I want you to know that it's okay for you to be angry—if you are—with anyone, with all of us. Your mother, your father, with me, that we didn't tell you sooner. I think we were all just hoping she would stay in remission forever.”

I liked the word “remission”; its sharpness, its official, medical feel. I said it in my head.
Remission.
I wanted to be able to hold onto it, preserve it. Return to it later when I needed to.

I thanked my grandmother and told her I didn't know if I was angry or not; the feeling came and went.

“I always thought you should know your mother's history,” she said, “but it was their decision, I was up front about that.”

A couple sat down next to us. They were deaf and signing to each other. I stared at their hands, their gestures graceful and fleeting.

“Your father tells me you've been very, very attentive to your mother,” my grandmother said pointedly, getting my attention. “I know she appreciates that a lot. You're a good daughter, Emmala, you're wonderful, you really are.”

I could feel my eyes start to well up.

“I just wish someone could tell me what's going to happen,” I said, suddenly overcome, exasperated. I didn't know how to articulate this, how I wondered, every day, if my mother would ever return to her old self, if our relationship would ever be the same.

“When your mother first got sick, in college,” my grandmother said, “I had this terrible, terrible fear that nothing would ever be the same. That I had lost her, forever. But no, not so. It comes and goes. Our relationship has changed, we adapt, we move along with her illness. Does that make sense?”

“I think so.”

“If you want to know, will she still be the mother who nags you to brush your teeth, will she make sure you clean the shower with one of those squeegees so that the glass doesn't sprout mildew, will she call you when you're thirty years old because it's freezing outside and she wants to make sure you'll wear a scarf? Yes. I think all those things. When she is well again, she will.”