Cat (10 page)

"I don't remember this part well, but my mother does. She knows every moment of it by heart and recites it from time to time, reminding me what I put her through:'

"Huh?"
"Let her talk," Jade stammered, her hands clenched into fists and resting on her knees. Misty sat back quickly. "'Where am I?' I asked my mother.

"She dropped her hand and turned to me. Her face aged back to where it should be in seconds.
"'You're in the hospital,' she said. 'You passed out at home. They gave you tests and found nothing wrong with you, but you said things.'
"'What things?'
"'I don't know everything exactly, something about lessons, and now you're . . .' She looked around the room. 'You're on the mental health floor. You're here for observation and there will be a doctor, a psychiatrist, and maybe someone else coming to speak to you. It's horrible. It's all just so horrible.'
"'What is?' I cried.
"She shook her head and sighed deeply. I studied her and tried to remember, but it was as if a thick concrete wall had fallen around my memory.
"'Who are you?' I finally asked her.
"'What?' she said stepping back. 'What did you say?'
I looked around the room and then at her.
"'I don't know why I'm here,' I said.
"'What are you talking about?' She stared at me. 'What are you doing?' she asked, her voice shrill. 'I'm going to get your father,' she added as if it was some kind of threat.
"'My father?' I asked, a little frantic. Butterflies had begun to flutter in my chest and I didn't know why.
"'He's downstairs in the cafeteria. He's having coffee and something to eat. Do you want to tell me why you're acting like this? Do you want to tell me what all this means before these strangers start to ask you questions?'
"'I don't know,' I said turning away from her. can't remember anything.'
"She stood up and hovered over me for a few moments.
"'I don't know what's wrong with you. I was going to let you go to the dance. I bought you a dress for it.' "'A dress? Yes, I remember a dress.'
"'It's ruined,' she said. She shook her head. 'What are you doing?'
"I was scrubbing my arms and my breasts, wiping something away.
"'I don't know,' I said and looked around the room again. 'Am I supposed to be here? What am I supposed to do? Can't you tell me who I am?'
"'Oh dear,' she said and turned. She looked like she wanted to flee. At the door she paused to look back at me. 'I don't know why you're doing this,' she repeated and left.
"I just closed my eyes and I fell back to sleep and when I woke again, I was alone in my room.
"I lay there quietly, my mind so full of blanks I struggled to remember, fought with every letter, every word that flowed through my mind. It was very scary. I felt like everything was just inches from me, but I couldn't reach anything. I felt like I was dangling. There was nothing below and nothing above me.
"Finally, a kind-looking older man in a white lab coat came in with a young nurse at his side. He introduced himself as Doctor Finnigan and the nurse as Mrs. Jenner.
"'Why am I here?' I asked him 'I can't remember my name either.'
"'You've suffered a traumatic experience,' he began. 'From what we can tell, it's not a single, explosive experience. You're not physically hurt in any way, but you've still suffered severely enough to cause a condition of generalized amnesia. These things don't last. Don't worry,' he assured me. 'I would like to try some hypnotism,' he concluded.
"'Hypnotism? You're going to hypnotize me?'
"'I think it might help. It won't hurt you in any way,' he promised.
"He did have a very kind face, soft blue eyes and gently curved lips.
"He asked me to concentrate hard on this small disc he took out of his lab coat pocket and began to spin, and then . .
"What?" Misty asked.
"I don't know. I woke up confused again, only this time, I felt as if I was coming out of the darkness into the light. I must have been sleeping because it was much later in the day. Mrs. Jenner was there. She asked me how I was and I said, 'I'm fine.' I told her I was hungry and she laughed and went to get me something to eat.
"Doctor Finnigan returned, too, only I didn't remember him immediately. However, I remembered everything else. It came back to me in waves and waves of pictures and thoughts. He introduced himself again.
"'Why am I in a hospital?' I asked him.
"'What do you remember last?' he replied.
"'I was getting ready for the dance. I. . . was looking at myself in the mirror, I think,' I told him and he smiled and said that was good. I was getting better quickly, which was what he had expected. I asked for my parents and he told me my mother would be coming up to see me any moment.
"'What about my father?' I asked him
" `Do you want to see him?' he asked me. He studied my face carefully.
" I said.
"He nodded.
"'You're going to be all right,' he promised, squeezing my hand.
"Mrs. Jenner brought me my tray of food and as I was eating, my mother arrived. She stood outside in the hallway with the doctor and they talked in very low murmuring voices for a while. I finished eating before she came in. Then Mrs. Jenner took the tray and left Mother and me alone.
"She looked very sick, pale, her eyes bloodshot. I can't remember ever seeing my mother cry. If something bothered her that much, she would go off to be by herself. She stood by my bed now and the tears slipped out of the corners of her eyes like fugitives sneaking down her cheeks.
"'Horrible,' she muttered. 'It's so horrible. He doesn't deny it.'
"'What?' I asked her. 'Who?'
"She took a deep breath and shook her head. She seemed to suck her tears back into her eyes, straightened her body, filling her spine with steel again, pulling her shoulders up.
"'Let's not talk about it now,' she commanded. 'Let's never talk about it.'
"Of course, that was not to be." I gazed at Doctor Marlowe. "Talking about it became very important. We've traveled a long way, right, Doctor Marlowe?"
"A very long way, Cathy."
"Are we home yet?" I asked her. I was trembling a little.
"Almost, honey," she said. She looked at the other three who were sitting quietly. "You're all almost there," she said with a smile.
I nodded and took another deep breath.
"I remained in therapy for a while, working with Doctor Finnigan. By the time I returned home from the hospital, Daddy was gone. Like your mother, Misty," I reminded her, "my mother had tried to purge the house of everything that would remind us of him She didn't go so far as to sell or give away his favorite chair, but she didn't just clean out his closets and drawers. She sanitized them. She scrubbed the house as if his essence, the very memory of him, was something that could be vacuumed up, scrubbed away.
"Unlike you, Jade, I didn't have to be involved in much of the legal stuff. I knew my mother had started the process of getting a divorce, of course, and I knew that lawyers had met and settlements had been concluded to her satisfaction.
"Like your daddy, Star, mine was gone suddenly, almost as if some wizard had made him disappear. I know it was part of whatever was decided that he would never have any contact with me again. It wasn't something I easily accepted or believed. To this day I sometimes expect him to appear, to come walking up the stairs, to knock on my door and open it and smile at me and ask how his special little girl is doing.
"It would be like everything that has happened was just a bad nightmare.
"But then, my mother is always there to remind me it was no dream." I looked at Doctor Marlowe. "That's good and bad, I know. I have to face the demons to destroy them, to rid myself of them," I recited.
She nodded.
"But it would be nice to bury them forever." "You will," Doctor Marlowe promised.
"Why wasn't he arrested? Why didn't he go to jail?" Jade wanted to know.
"First, my mother didn't want all the notoriety. Even today, not that many people know the real reason for their separation and divorce. Second, I don't think I could stand having to tell this story in a courtroom, even if it was only before a judge.
"I did meet with a judge and a representative of a child protection- service to conclude custody questions. For a while I thought they might take me away from Mother, too, that maybe they thought she was really more directly responsible. I suppose it was hard for them to believe she was so. . ."
"Dumb?" Star asked.
"Blind," I corrected. "Mother is comfortable in her own world."
"You might as well be away from her," Star muttered. "I can't say I don't love her or need her. She's the only mother I've ever known."
"I still don't understand why she wanted to adopt you in the first place," Jade said.
"I know. That's something I have yet to learn. There's much I have yet to learn. She's suggested to me that there were rumors about my father and his sister and maybe that was why his family was so distant. She never talked about it before because it was too disgusting to even form such words with her lips, much less utter them."
"Why would she marry someone like that?" Misty asked.
"I don't think she knew about the rumors before she got married," I said. "It's like I'm just learning about my own family now, like doors are being opened to rooms I never knew existed. I'm unraveling a roll of secrets almost daily. Some of it I want to know, and some I wish I never knew."
Jade nodded.
"My mother was always reluctant to talk about any of this, as you know. Lately, I think she has realized her own need to get stuff out, although it's still not easy to get her to do it I think she's also afraid of what it might do to me. To her credit, I think she wants me to get stronger and stronger, but she wants it to be something we keep in our own house, in our own world."
I sat back and suddenly, I felt so tired I couldn't keep my eyes open.
"Well," Doctor Marlowe said. "I think we should stop. We've gone about as far as or actually even further than I had hoped we would."
"I guess we can each stop feeling so sorry for ourselves;' Jade said. "Is that it?"
"In a way. The most important thing is none of you should feel alone, lost, so different you think you are the only one who has been singled out for what happened in your lives. There are other people, many people who will understand.
"Each of you is special. Each of you have a great deal to recommend you and to make you feel good about yourselves. You're all attractive, intelligent young women and you will overcome all of this difficult and sad history."
"Thanks to you," Misty said.
"No," Doctor Marlowe said looking at all of us, "thanks to yourselves. I'll be seeing each of you again, separately, but I don't think we're going to have to go on and on much longer. You've all made very significant progress. You've made the big turn," she said, smiling.
She glanced out the window.
"Look, the sun's breaking out. Jade, you can get back to that summer vacation you're supposed to be enjoying."
"Right," she said. Then she smiled and nodded. "Right."
Doctor Marlowe stood up and we all rose. We could hear music coming from upstairs, something from an opera.
"I've heard this in the school music suite," Misty said. "Isn't it
Gianni Schicchi?"
"Yes, very good, Misty," Doctor Marlowe confirmed.
"I'll get you tickets to our school concerts this year," Misty told her. "It's not quite the opera, but it's close!"
"Thank you. Emma would like that. Good-bye, girls. Have a good week. Until I see you all again," she added and reached out for each of us to squeeze our hands.
When we opened the front door, we could see that today my mother was the first one who had arrived. She sat impatiently, nervously. Her eyes darted toward us and then away. I could almost see her knuckles turning white as she clutched the steering wheel.
All three looked at her. Then Jade turned to Star.
"I guess it isn't easy for anybody," she said. Star offered a reluctant grunt of agreement.
Doctor Marlowe closed the door behind us.
"Anybody want my phone number?" Misty asked.
"I'll just take everyone's:' Jade said. She smiled at Star's look of surprise. "I'm the president of the OWP's. I'll call you all when it's time for us to have our first real meeting. Maybe I'll have a brunch or something."
She gave us her number. My mother kept giving me looks.
"I've go to go," I said. "Thanks for being good listeners:'
"I guess we can all say that to each other," Misty said. "You've got that right," Star added.
Jade fixed her eyes on my mother again and then suddenly, she started ahead of me, toward my mother's car.
"What's she doing?" Star asked but followed. We all did.
Oh no, I thought, if she says something horrible . . .
"Hi, Mrs. Carson," she said. "You've got a very nice daughter. Have a nice day," she added. Then she threw me a sly smile and sauntered toward her limousine.
"That girl," Star said muttering. She looked at my mother. "Hello," she said. "She's right. See you, Cat," she told me and started for her grandmother's car.
"Bye;' Misty said to me. "We'll see each other again. I'll bug Jade until she does what she promised."
"Okay."
"Hi," she sang toward my mother and waved. Then she hurried toward the waiting taxicab.
I opened the car door and got in.
"What was that all about?" my mother asked, a look of astonishment on her face.
"I don't know. Nothing much, I guess," I said. "How did it go in there?"
"All right."
"Aren't you going to tell me anything?"
She still hadn't started away.
"There isn't anything you don't know, Mother. The question is, are you going to tell
me
everything?" I asked.
She fixed her eyes on me while they grew small for a moment and then she nodded and we drove away, the others right behind us, like a parade or maybe . . . a funeral.
After all, we had buried enough sadness to fill a good-size cemetery.