When You Go Away (18 page)

     "Come on, Mom," her father said, moving toward the door.  "Don't say no now, Carly.  You never know what's going to happen."

      He closed the door, and she lay back against the pillow, blinking against the dark until the cowboys on the wallpaper came to life, some whipping their horses with hats, others twirling lassoes, one sleeping with his hat pulled down over his face.  That was the one she'd named Jed long ago, the only one on this wall she understood, even though Buster riding after the cow was cuter.  Jed knew how to hide, and no one bothered him.

     Under the bed, Eustace the cat yawned and scratched on the bottom of the box spring.  If she thought about her life, one, two years ago, no one could have convinced her that she'd be sleeping in this bed while her mother was crazy sick somewhere in Arizona.  At least, that's what Fran had said, telling both her and Ryan their mother had tried to break into their dad's house with her fists.  Fran had looked her straight in the eye and said things like depression and some kind of psycho reaction.  She'd also heard her grandpa talking on the phone, repeating phrases like "Felony child endangerment."  But before that, no one could have made her even think that her mother, the one who did everything, would have left them alone.  So her father was right. You never really knew what was going to happen.

      As she felt her body sink into sleep, she realized that his last words were the only thing he'd said the entire afternoon since he’d picked them up at Grandpa’s that she believed.   

When they stepped off the plane in
Oakland
on Saturday morning, Peri expected to see armed police officers or men in white scrubs holding a straight jacket, the white wagon from Saturday morning cartoons waiting by the curbside.  With the new airport regulations, no one was there waiting for them at the gate, and it wasn't until they passed the security check point that Noel walked up to a plain neat woman in a red suit.

     "Fran.  Right?  This is Peri," he said, smiling his business smile.  “Peri, this is Fran McDermott.”

     Fran stuck out her hand, and for an instant, Peri wasn't sure what she was supposed to do.  She gaped, staring at her own hands like the crazy woman she was, and she flushed red, her whole body steaming in embarrassment.

     "Hi," Peri said, pushing her hand out, knowing Fran would see how warm she was.

     Fran's handshake was firm, and she pretended not to notice Peri's nervousness.  "Hi, Peri.  Has Noel explained what's going to happen now?"

     Nodding, Peri knew that the cartoon quality of her first vision--the paddy wagon, the men in white suits, the straight jacket, the hand cuffs--were just that.  This would be an orderly transfer.  Noel would give her up to the authorities in
Martinez
.  Peri would be taken in, questioned, fingerprinted, put in a cell, grilled by detectives, psychologists, and probably this woman, Fran.  Even though she'd acknowledged her guilt and the
Phoenix
doctor had sent her file to the court, she would be charged and arraigned.  She probably already had a lawyer, someone Noel had hired, a sleek
San Francisco
man with all the answers.  Someone like Graham.

     "Okay.  Let's get to my car," Fran said as if she were a tour guide instead of a social worker taking an insane woman to jail. 
Jail
, Peri thought. 
Then what?

     "What about the kids?” Peri said quickly.  “Do I get to see them before I go?  Do I get to see Brooke?

     Fran turned to her, and Peri ducked her head again, knowing this woman could rightly spit on her if she wanted.  How could she, a mother who'd left the very children she now wanted to see, ask for anything?  "Later,” Fran said.  “Not for a day or two at least.  And, of course, they'll come to you and be supervised the entire time."

     "Of course," Peri said.  She deserved nothing more, maybe not even that. 



     Peri had another roommate, a woman who swore under her breath as she moved around the cell.  Her name was Sophia, and she jangled as she talked, her hands and jaw like musical instruments that needed constant strumming.  "Got any cigarettes?"

     "I don't smoke."

     "You will," Sophia said, walking into the great room, where other woman sat at tables reading or playing cards.  Peri watched her move from group to group, never sitting down, touching her hair and shoulders, finally getting a cigarette from a woman who was reading the
Contra Costs Times
.  The woman put her pack down on the table, and slid it toward Peri's roommate, then looked up at Peri, and shrugged.

     "Mackenzie.  Visitor."

     Peri almost flinched at the guard’s announcement, and stared at the cigarette woman, who cocked her head toward the area of the door.  Peri smoothed her hair with nervous hands, stood up, and walked into the great room, nodding slightly at the woman, but she'd already pulled the paper up and hidden her face.  A guard stood in front of the open door, looking at the other women as Peri approached.

     "Mackenzie?"

     "Yeah."

     "Follow me."  Peri did as she was told, her head down.  Outside of the room, she was visible to other eyes.  Guards and staff walked past her, knowing what she had done.  Here she was, the woman who left her kids and went crazy.  Peri kept moving, but all she wanted was back in her cell and her bed, needing to hide under the blanket as she had for months, the world a fuzzy noise beyond her.

    The guard didn’t stop, and Peri stared at the guard’s thick rubber soled boot heels, up and down, up and down, until she was in a room, where her father sat at a table.  She glanced at the guard, assuming there'd been a mistake.  Peri had expected the traditional
scene from movies, visitors sitting on one side of a Plexiglas screen, prisoners on the other, all conversation held through black phones.  But this?  This was almost normal, even though the guard stood right outside the door watching them.

     Her father stood up gingerly, as if he had a tennis injury, but as she walked closer to the table, she saw that he was nervous, his hands shaking slightly, his face pale.  "Peri?  How are you, honey?"  He held a hand out and then let it fall to his thigh before she'd had a chance to decide what to do about his offering, the hand she'd ignored for a long time.

     "I'm okay.  I've talked with Fran and a doctor and my lawyer."

     "Ah.  That Preston fellow."

     "Right."  Peri was still stunned by the amount he’d talked, his ideas and papers flowing the entire half-hour.  She'd wanted to like him--really, she wanted to feel he would save her--but she found herself nodding, staring at his perfectly white teeth, his cleft chin, the blunt ends of his long fingers.  He'd answered his own rhetorical questions, patted her on the shoulder, and left, promising her, "This won't be as bad as you think."

     "So.  Are you feeling--do you feel better?"

     "Did Noel tell you what the doctors said?"

     Her father nodded, and she saw the new pink bald spot on the top of his head, freckled from countless hours of sunny tennis.  How old was he now?  Sixty-five?  Maybe less.  For all the years since the divorce, she'd only followed her mother's birthday, and once she died, Peri had forgotten that too, grateful there was one less thing to remember.

     "I'm okay.  I just went crazy,” she told him plainly, as if she were reporting any old news. 

     “You’re sick, Peri.  Not crazy.”  He nodded as he talked, his hands clasped together and resting on the table.

     She looked down at her own hands, thin, the skin dry.  “Whatever it is, I think I've been like this for a long time.  But it wasn't until . . . ."

     "The divorce.  Graham."

     "Yes," she sighed, rubbing her forehead.  "I couldn't hold it together.  Every time I thought I had one thing fixed, I'd find something else was wrong."

     Her father reached a hand across the table.  "Oh, honey.  I know there's been some bad blood between us, but you had to know you could call me.  You could have gotten me on the horn anytime, and I'd have been there in a second."

     His hand was warm, as it always had been.  When she was a little girl, she loved it when he picked her up by her wrists and put her on his shoe tops, dancing from the hall into the kitchen, where her mother was making dinner.  She used to watch him do the crossword puzzle, asking her mother, "What's a 'lustrous fabric'?" or "What’s another word for ripen?  Three letters."  She'd share his bowl of pretzel sticks and take tiny sips from his martini, begging for the olive with its red pimento middle.  Her mother and Noel faded into the background, and it was just her father, his smile, his hands rubbing her hair, handing her a pretzel.

     "I know.  I should have done a lot of things,” Peri said.

     “You’re better.”  He nodded again, hopeful.

     “I am.  I'm on tons of drugs, at least for a while.  Dad?"

     "What?"

     "It wasn't me.  It wasn't me at all."

     "Honey," he said, moving closer, holding her arm, then shoulder, pulling her head to his shoulder.  "I know it wasn't you.  It wasn't you at all.  You're a good mother.  You love those kids.  You were at the end of your rope, that's all."

     "I left them. I thought I was going to explode.   I left them at home.  I left Brooke in her bed and she got sick," she wailed, pushing her face against him.  "I did it all wrong."

     He scooted his chair even closer, and she felt his breath, full of something he wasn't saying.  "Don't.  Don't say that about yourself.  You did your best.  You thought you were going to hurt them, so you left.  That’s brave.  Very brave.  Now . . . we just have to--we have to wait."

     "What do you mean?"

     "Shhh… Shhh…." he whispered, holding her tight, patting her with his hands, the same hands from all those years ago, the ones she waited a whole workday for.  "You didn't mean it.  You're better now.  You'll get even better.  We all make mistakes.  Shhh . . ."

     "Oh, Dad.  I’m so sorry.  I'm so sorry," she said, not knowing what she was apologizing for.  "But it doesn’t matter.  They'll take them from me.  I don't deserve them.  I don’t deserve anything.  I never have."

     "Don't say that.  No, No.  Don't say that at all.  It's not over.  I'm taking care of it, my brave girl," he said, and Peri closed her eyes, wanting to believe the promise of his words, choosing to ignore the fear in his voice.

    
Saturday afternoon, Carly climbed the oak tree in her grandmother's backyard, pulling up on the very branch her father supposedly fell off of when he was little, breaking his arm.  Maybe she would fall, too, and then all the attention could be on her.  And then maybe they'd take her to the hospital, and she could see Brooke.  Otherwise, no one would offer to take her today, and Brooke would be lonely all by herself.  Maybe Grandpa Carl or Uncle Noel had gone.  Her mother couldn't because she was in jail now.  Carly wouldn't be able to see her until tomorrow, and that was only a half-hour visit in some room with her Grandmother Mackenzie there and guards. 

     Ryan had disappeared, barely finishing his Corn Chex and not even looking at their father, who'd left the house before Ryan did to talk with lawyers.  Carly leaned down on the thick branch, hugging it with her thighs, letting the bark dig into her cheek.  Closing her eyes, she breathed in the smell of the tree, the dirt and rain and moss that grew like fuzz on the undersides of the branches.  When she was at Grandpa Carl's, at least people had paid attention to her.  The Fran had asked her a lot of questions and so had the doctor who'd asked her all about her family.  Grandpa and Rosie had made sure to visit Brooke.  Now it was like her dad had taken over the show, forgetting that she was the one who had made the hard decisions.  She'd taken care of Brooke.  She'd gone to get Rosie.  

     Carly sat up and pushed back, finding the trunk with her feet, gripping with her Keds as she climbed down the tree.  Rosie would know how to get her out of this mess.  She'd find out about Brooke and her mother.  And after the last two months of not knowing
where anyone was, Carly had made sure to write Rosie's, her grandfather's, and her uncle's phone numbers down in her Britney Spears notepad.  She'd never be lost again.

     "What's going on there?" Rosie asked on the phone.

     Carly looked around Grandfather MacKenzie's old study, the phone an ancient black thing from the 60's.  It even had holes where you put in your fingers and dialed the numbers, just like a baby toy.  Somewhere in the house, her grandmother was talking with Maritza about dinner, her impatient heels clacking on the wood floors as she ordered everyone around.

     "Ryan took off,” Carly said.  “I don't know where he went.  No one cares.  My dad is like talking to lawyers.  He thinks I'm going to go down and live with him in Arizona."

     Rosie sighed and dropped something, a spoon on the counter or a fork in a sink.  Carly could almost smell the kitchen she'd been in once, a dark red meat sauce bubbling on the range.  "When do you get to see your Mom?"