The Other Life (24 page)

She knocked the basket of clothes onto the floor and kicked it. It felt good to unleash her anger, but she needed something more. If her strength had matched her fury, she would have ripped the washer from the plumbing and hurled it away. She would have pulled the cabinets off the walls and smashed them to pieces. She would have kicked holes in the drywall and smashed the lights. She was as infuriated with her own impotence as she was with her mother. She knew it wasn’t Nan’s fault that her brother was in the hospital and that her baby was damaged. But, damn it, she should be there to help her through! Quinn stood in the center of the room panting and sweating. Was there no outlet for this rage? No outlet for a woman whose mother had made the most selfish decision of all?

There was, of course. There was one perfect outlet, and Quinn knew it.

At last, she pulled open the ancient ironing board and crossed through to the other life.

 

 

“IS THAT ... ME?”

Quinn had emerged in her Manhattan apartment and driven out to her parents’ house on Long Island, her anger finding its way to her fists as she gripped the steering wheel. She now stood in her mother’s studio. She had let herself into the house and walked directly to the back room, where her mother was at her easel, putting the finishing touches on a painting of a young girl sitting on a pile of books.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” Nan said.

“How old am I supposed to be? Nine? Ten?”

“Right around there,” Nan said. “It’s part of a series.”

“What kind of series?”

“I call it
Quinn Deconstructed
.”

Quinn’s jaw tensed. “Is there a point to it? Are you trying to prove to the world what a dedicated mother you were?”

Nan put down her palette. “Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed.”

Quinn folded her arms and nodded toward the canvas. “It’s good.” She meant it more as an accusation than a compliment.

“Thank you.”

“You captured me.”

“That was the idea.”

“I’m just wondering,” Quinn said, “how you could know me so well and yet not know what I needed? Or is it that you just didn’t care?”

“What are you getting at, kiddo?”

Quinn started to pace around the room. How could she accuse her mother of leaving her by committing suicide when she was right here? Finally, she pointed to the living room.

“What’s behind the curio cabinet, Mother?”

Nan’s face went pale.

“Ah!” Quinn said. “Did I strike a nerve?”

“Tell me what you’re talking about,” her mother said.

“I think you know.”

“Please, Quinn. You have to tell me.”

“No!”

Nan took a deep breath, wiped her hands on a rag. “I thought you forgot about that.”

Quinn rubbed her forehead. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t you remember? You sensed something there when you were small. It scared me. I thought if I blocked it off . . .”

“And made me stay away ...”

“Right.”

“But I didn’t. I got close, Mom. Very, very close.”

Nan shut her eyes and covered her heart, as if remembering something that made her weak. She opened her eyes and adjusted her posture, regaining strength. “What was it like?” she said to her daughter. “What did you sense in that spot?”

“You tell me.”

Nan pursed her lips in thought. Then she walked to the slop sink and rinsed off her paintbrushes. She splashed water on her face and dried it with a paper towel before turning to her daughter. “It was a dark time in my life,” she said. “I didn’t see any alternatives.”

“What about me?” Quinn said. “Were you thinking about me at all?”

“You weren’t born yet.”

“I wasn’t?”

Nan shook her head.

Quinn walked out of the studio and into the family room, where she placed her hands on the curio cabinet, trying to understand. What was it she felt here? God, it was so cold. There was no life pulsing by on the other side. Her mother was dead. And so was she. Dead, without ever having had the chance to live. At last she understood. She turned to face Nan, who had followed her into the room.

“You were pregnant with me,” Quinn said.

Nan’s eyes went sad and soft. “Yes.”

Quinn started to cry. “You were pregnant with me and tried to kill yourself ?”

“I’m sorry.”

“How could you?” Didn’t you love me? she thought. Didn’t you love me as much as I love Naomi?

“There’s no way to explain depression to someone who hasn’t been there.”

“You think I haven’t been
depressed
?”

“It’s different, Quinn. It’s not like being sad. It’s ... blackness. You just go so numb, nothing matters.”

Quinn started to feel sick to her stomach and backed away from the curio cabinet. Nan tried to approach her.

“Are you okay?” her mother asked.

Quinn shook her head but held up her hands against her mother’s approach. She sat heavily on the couch.

“I’ll get you some water,” Nan said, and left the room. When she returned, Quinn drank the entire glass before she spoke.

“Was that the last time you were depressed?” Quinn asked.

“No, I . . . Of course not,” Nan said. “You know that. You saw me depressed many times.”

“But you never attempted suicide again.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I was a mother. So even when I was falling into the abyss, I found something to grab on to.”

“Exactly!”

Nan’s brow tensed. “Quinn, I don’t understand.”

“You’re my mother! You were supposed to be there for me!”

“I did my best.”

“Ha!”

“Tell me what I’ve done,” Nan said.

Quinn rose. “Never mind. I have to leave.”

“Honey, don’t go, please. Tell me what’s going on.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Quinn glanced toward the curio cabinet. “Never mind, Mom,” she said. “Forget I ever came here today.”

Nan looked at the heavy furniture and back at her daughter. Her face was locked in concentration, as if she were working on a crossword puzzle.

Quinn looked away, avoiding her mother’s eyes. Nan was filling in the boxes, and Quinn simply wouldn’t help her with any more clues. “I have to go,” she said.

She walked toward the front door but her mother beat her there and stood in her way.

“I’m not letting you leave unless you explain all this,” Nan said.

“Don’t, Mom.”

“Why not?”

Quinn looked at her watch. It was almost two o’clock. She did some quick math in her head and understood she had to leave immediately if she wanted to have any chance of being there for Isaac’s bus.

“It’s late,” Quinn said. “If I don’t leave now—”

“Finish your sentence.”

“I can’t.”

“You were in the same kind of hurry when we went to the mall,” Nan said.

Quinn looked into her mother’s eyes—so different from the eyes in the happy portrait that hung in her living room. These eyes were all fire, and they were getting very close to the truth.

“Get out of my way, Mom,” Quinn said.

“Not until you explain yourself.”

“I’ll push you if I have to.”

“Is it really that important to leave right this minute?”

“It is.” Quinn looked hard at her mother, communicating the importance of her departure. There was a moment of hesitation, and then Nan nodded, sadly, and stepped aside.

Quinn rushed to her car and tore away from the curb, heading for the Long Island Expressway as fast as she could. If she hurried, she might still make it home in time for Isaac’s bus. She barely stayed on all four wheels as she navigated the twists and turns to the highway’s entrance ramp.

Traffic on the expressway was heavy, but it was moving pretty well. Quinn looked at the clock. She could do this. She could make it.

She maneuvered to the left lane and tried to make up time, speeding until she got close to a car doing under seventy, then fought her way around it. For ten minutes or so it looked promising, but then Quinn saw something ahead that alarmed her. Brake lights. She crossed her fingers and said a silent prayer.
Let it be a momentary slowdown. Please.
But no. This was the Long Island Expressway, and when someone threw a toothpick in the road, traffic backed up for miles.

She made bargains with herself as she inched along.
If traffic lets up now and Manhattan is free of gridlock, I could still do it.
But she knew she was fighting a cruel clock.

When at last she made it through the tunnel and into Manhattan, Quinn raced uptown and tried to find a clear through street to get to the West Side, where she and Eugene lived. But crossing town was Manhattan’s gnarliest beast, and Quinn had to abandon the car two blocks from her apartment building. She sprinted through the streets, around nonchalant pedestrians, who thought nothing of a woman weaving through crowds like a running back.

When at last she got to her apartment, she rushed right past Eugene, who was sitting in the living room with Walt St. Pierre—an old friend and former
Saturday Night Live
writer who lived in the building—without saying hello.

“I
told
her to stay away from Taco Bell,” she heard Eugene say to his friend as she slammed the bathroom door.

Quinn was dripping sweat as she watched the tub fill with cold water. She undressed and lowered herself in, worrying that she would get hypothermia before being pulled through. But she stayed underwater, shivering and holding her breath, until she felt a jarring tug.

The journey felt like a bus ride on a dirt road, as she was bumped and jolted toward her other life. When at last she saw the slender sliver of light from her basement through a fissure in the concrete, she was nauseated. Worse yet, the opening had diminished even more, and Quinn had to struggle to push her swollen, naked body through the rough cement. At last she made it through, just in time to vomit onto the floor of the laundry room, soiling the pile of clothes she had been wearing before her passage.

She quickly rummaged through the laundry she had dumped from the basket earlier and put on a mismatched shirt and pants, and dashed out the front door barefoot.

Quinn knew she had missed Isaac’s bus, but hoped it hadn’t been by more than a few minutes, and that he wouldn’t be too hysterical. But when she got to the corner, he wasn’t there. She glanced up and down the street. There was no sign of the bus. There was no sign of Isaac.

She stood there in a panic. What should she do? Race through the streets looking for him? Go home and phone the school to see if he had stayed on the bus? Dial 911?

“Quinn!” she heard Georgette call.

Goddamn it,
she thought. I have no time for that woman now. She ignored her and started to call out. “Isaac! ISAAC!”

“Quinn!” her neighbor called again.

“Not now, Georgette!” she shouted. Her heart was pounding with panic.

“Turn around,” her neighbor yelled.

Quinn did as she said, ready to scream at the top of her lungs at her annoying friend. But she stopped. Georgette was standing in front of her house with a small boy at her side.

“Isaac!” Quinn called, and ran to her son. “I’m sorry,” she said as she hugged him. “I’m so sorry. I’ll never leave you again. I promise.”

THE NEXT DAY, QUINN WENT TO THE BUS STOP TEN MINUTES early, as if she could make up for yesterday by spending extra time standing on the corner in the cold. Guilt had seeped into her psyche like a noxious gas, and she was trying to dissipate it any way she could. Isaac would be okay. At least, she hoped he would. Meanwhile, he was suffering, and it was her fault.

He had been almost catatonic after she picked him up from Georgette’s house the day before, and was still quiet this morning when she sent him to school. Maybe if they did something fun together this afternoon, he would start to come around.

The bus pulled up and she watched him get off, her heart contracting at the sight of his tiny frame overwhelmed by an oversized jacket and big kid’s backpack. He was still at such a helpless age. She smiled when he caught sight of her. His relief was palpable, but his expression remained pained.

“Guess what?” she said when he reached her. “There’s a special arts-and-crafts program at the library this afternoon. They’re making fall window decorations. Do you want to go?”

He shrugged.

“You feel okay?” she asked.

Another shrug. She felt his head. It was cool, as she expected. This wasn’t illness, it was defensive retreat. She hugged him. His arms hung limply.

“I think it’ll be fun,” she said.

“I guess.”

She took that as a yes. “Do you want to have a snack before we go?”

“I don’t know.”

“I got those doughnuts you like,” she said, leading him to the house. “The ones with the sugar that make Daddy sneeze.”

She thought that might get a laugh, but Isaac remained stoic. They went inside, where she gave him his snack and watched as he ate about half the doughnut and pushed it away.

“Is that all you want?”

“Yeah.”

“Finish your milk.”

He picked up his glass, drank the last inch of fluid, and put it down hard. She touched the back of his head and smoothed his hair.

“I know you’re still mad at me for not being at the bus stop yesterday. Do you want to talk about it?”

He shook his head. “Can we go now?”

“Sure.”

At the library, she took him straight to the children’s section, and was instructed to bring him across the hall to the large meeting room. Inside, there were at least two dozen children sitting at long tables with piles of arts-and-crafts materials in front of them. Quinn watched her son eye the materials. She sensed something shifting in him as he focused on the colors and textures. Already his creative wheels were in motion.