Dancing on the Edge (19 page)

“Anyway, I brought you three choices—egg salad, tuna, or peanut butter and jelly—which do you want?”

I reached for the egg salad.

She pulled two cans of root beer out of her pack and set one down in front of me. I noticed she'd cut her fingernails short, no nail polish. The nails looked yellow. Yellow, the color of intellectual pursuits.

“The doctor said you are talking now. I guess you're too angry to talk to me.” Aunt Casey watched me a few seconds, then took the tuna sandwich and unwrapped it. “I don't blame you. Here I am taking all these psychology courses and there you were right under my nose and I didn't see it, or maybe I didn't want to see it.” Aunt Casey took a bite of her sandwich and I took a bite of mine. It tasted good. The best thing they served in the cafeteria was the Jell-O, until it got several days old and wouldn't glide down the throat anymore. They served Jell-O every day—red Jell-O, the color of fire and rage.

“I've been carrying around a sh—a bucket load of anger myself, you know,” Aunt Casey said. “I've been running away from it, burying it. Doing just what every one of my textbooks says is the worst thing we can do, and there I was reading all that and nodding and taking notes and not even knowing it was just what I was doing.” She took another bite and stared at the sky. It was the bluest blue, a spiritual blue, Gigi would say. Uncle Toole would call it a sweet Alabama blue.

“That Toole and all his messing around,” Aunt Casey said, swallowing her bite. “I could have shot him. Really, I could have. I truly considered it, but I signed up for the classes instead. They call that sublimating—when you do something good instead of what you really feel like doing. Anyway, I knew taking courses at the university would drive him nuts. He always thinks he's so smart, never even graduated high school, but oh, he's just so smart. Now he's moved to Kentucky of all places, with that Delphinnia woman. He thinks he'll start up his own business.” Aunt Casey shook her head. “I give the whole thing two months. He's too restless to stay anywhere for much longer than that.” She pulled a piece of her sandwich off and some tuna landed on the table. “There's other stuff, too, other stuff I've been angry about, but—well, anyway—we'll be talking in therapy about it, I guess.”

I looked up from my sandwich.

“Yeah, we're going to have a session together today, me and you—I mean, you and I.” Aunt Casey stuffed the rest of her sandwich back in the plastic and took out her pack of cigarettes. She patted the bottom of the pack, pulled one out, and lit it. She took a few puffs, inhaling hard so her cheeks sucked in, and then blew the smoke out with a deep sigh.

“It's not so bad here, is it? I mean, you're doing okay, right?”

She waited a moment for an answer.

I took a swallow of my root beer and tore at the crust on my sandwich.

“You think I don't care.” She flicked her ash on the ground and took another drag. “I don't blame you, but I do—I do care. I'm taking this parenting course here, you know, where they teach you how to do it right, or better, or something.”

Aunt Casey got quiet and sucked on her cigarette, studying the pine trees above us. Then she shook her head and said, “I like the parenting course, I really do, but it's like they have everything all scripted out. You're supposed to say this and then when you do, I say that, which makes you say this. We're supposed to send ‘I' messages. You know, like ‘
I
don't like my floors dirty, that's why
I
don't want muddy shoes on my carpet,' instead of, ‘Get your muddy shoes out of my living room!' ‘I' messages.” Aunt Casey tilted her head. “I don't think people are that predictable. I mean, look at us, you and me. I'm sitting here saying all this stuff and I bet they have all this stuff you're supposed to be saying back to me and you're not saying anything.” She pitched her cigarette into the grass. “I'm going to ask them about that in my next class. What do you do when someone won't talk to you?” She stared back toward the hospital building. “What do you do when someone won't follow the script?”

D
R
. D
E
A
NGELIS
had on running shorts and a Vulcan Marathon tee shirt when we saw him that afternoon. He smelled like his soap, or aftershave, so I guessed he hadn't gone running yet. He apologized for his casual appearance and then added that he thought it was good for the patients to see that life does go on beyond the locked doors of The Cedars.

He told us to sit anywhere and called Aunt Casey, Casey, instead of Mrs. Dawsey. Aunt Casey chose the sofa and I chose my usual chair.

Aunt Casey said, “I wouldn't mind it, Miracle, if you came and sat by me.”

An “I” message. I was afraid to sit on a sofa when I couldn't even tell what color it was—too dangerous.

I stayed in my seat and Aunt Casey's face turned pink. I looked down at my legs.

“Miracle”—Dr. DeAngelis sat in his chair and rolled it to the center of the room—“your aunt spoke to you. She deserves a response. In here we respect one another, do you understand?”

I made eye contact. “Yes.”

“Good.”

I glanced at Aunt Casey. “It's not you,” I said, then looked down at my legs again.

“Huh? I mean, excuse me, Miracle, I didn't hear you right—ah, correctly—I don't think.”

“It's not you,” I repeated. “I just don't want to sit on the couch,” I said to the windows just beyond her head. Dr. DeAngelis couldn't see where my eyes were.

“You don't like the couch,” he said.

“No.”

“Why is that?”

“What color is it?”

Dr. DeAngelis studied the sofa. “It's a very dark green, almost black.”

Aunt Casey examined the armrest. “No, I don't think so, I think it's a deep navy.”

Dr. DeAngelis returned to me. “What color do you want it to be?”

“A color I know.”

“What does that mean? You don't want fuchsia or magenta, you want blue or brown?”

“I want one I know the meaning of, so I know what I'm sitting on.”

“I don't understand,” Dr. DeAngelis said.

Aunt Casey leaned forward toward me.

I said, “Red for fire or rage, purple for the highest spiritual contemplation, green for deceit and envy, yellow for the intellect.”

“You're sitting on a black chair. What's black?”

“Evil, darkness, death.”

Dr. DeAngelis straightened in his seat and rotated his shoulders as if he were warming up for his run.

“Where did you learn this—about colors?”

“Gigi,” Aunt Casey and I said at the same time.

“Yes, that's right.” He nodded, remembering. “The purple. You're wearing purple because . . . ?”

“It's the spiritual color.”

“And you want spirituality? What does that mean? You want to be in touch with God or . . .”

Aunt Casey laughed. “Gigi wouldn't teach her that.”

“Why do you wear purple? For Gigi?”

I shifted my gaze to his poster—T
HE
M
IND
S
ET
F
REE
. I tried to think. There was a reason—beyond Gigi. There was something I wanted, something important. I couldn't remember. My hands felt cold. I rubbed them. My feet were cold—my chest. I started to shiver. I held onto my chair, keeping my arms stiff to control it.

“Miracle? Are you all right? Do you know why you wear purple?”

I shook my head.

“I tried to get her to change, wear pink or plaid. Remember, Miracle? Remember that first month you were with us, I told you you didn't have to wear purple anymore?”

“Yes, I remember.” The cold started slipping away, like the mercury in a thermometer—sliding off my arms and hands, down my chest, out my feet. I let go of my chair.

“Let's talk about that,” Dr. DeAngelis said, pushing his heels into the carpet so his chair rolled forward closer to me.

“Let's talk about your move to your aunt's house. What was your life like living with your aunt and uncle? What do you remember most?”

Aunt Casey flopped back in her seat and folded her arms in front of her chest, waiting.

“I remember the wig heads.”

“The wig heads?” Aunt Casey sat up, unfolding her arms. She looked at Dr. DeAngelis. “I fit wigs for cancer patients. I store them on plastic heads. I keep them on the shelves in her bedroom.”

Dr. DeAngelis spoke to me. “What do you remember about the wig heads?”

“They watched me. They wouldn't leave me alone.”

Aunt Casey and Dr. DeAngelis exchanged glances.

“They bothered you?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Did they speak to you?”

I shrugged. “Maybe, I don't remember. They didn't have any faces.”

“And you wanted them to have faces?”

“Everyone should have a face, shouldn't they?”

“Do you have a face, Miracle?”

“I don't know.”

“You feel maybe you don't?”

“Maybe.” I looked down at his feet—so huge.

Dr. DeAngelis cleared his throat, and I lifted my head back up.

“If you don't have a face, then you're like those wig heads, aren't you?”

“Yes. Yes!”

“Is that what you're afraid of, that you're just like those wig heads?”

“I am. Yes, just like those wig heads.”

“And that frightens you?”

Aunt Casey leaned forward in her seat.

“Yes. They sat on that shelf waiting.”

Dr. DeAngelis rolled forward a little, and I pushed my back against my seat.

“And you were waiting, too, just like them. What were you waiting for? Do you know, Miracle?”

I tried to remember. I was waiting for something. I wore purple. I had a plan. What was my plan? I couldn't remember.

“I don't know,” I said, and my own voice sounded far away.

“But you were waiting?”

“Yes. Yes, I know I was—maybe.” Both our voices sounded so far away. I watched Dr. DeAngelis's face. Had he noticed?

“How else were you like those heads? Any other way?”

“They were dead.”

“Do you feel dead?”

“Dead hair, dead heads.”

“Miracle, look at me. Do you feel dead?”

Why did he keep trying to get me to remember? I didn't know. Something was dead. Something about me was dead, but I couldn't remember. I closed my eyes. My hands were cold again, my feet, my chest—cold spots.

A sentence came to me, popped into my head. “If your mama was dead when you were born, then you was never born.”

Aunt Casey jumped up. “Miracle! Where on earth?” She stood facing me, blocking my view of Dr. DeAngelis. I hadn't realized I had spoken out loud, but I knew by Aunt Casey's reaction that I had. I blinked at her, wondering what I had said.

I tried to think. What was it? Then I remembered and said it again. “If your mama was dead when you were born, then you was never born.”

“Casey, I need to ask you to sit down,” Dr. DeAngelis said. He turned his chair so it faced her way a little bit more. I rubbed my arms. They were so cold.

“Do you understand what she's saying?”

Aunt Casey nodded and tears were in her eyes ready to spill out. I wondered what I had said. What did it mean?

“Her mother was—was killed. She was hit by an ambulance when she was crossing the street.”

Dr. DeAngelis nodded. “Yes, you mentioned that to me but . . .”

“I didn't tell you that she was pregnant with Miracle at the time.”

I leaned forward, trying to hear better. Aunt Casey's voice sounded as if I were listening to it at the end of a long tunnel. I closed my eyes again and I saw a woman, in my mind, delicate looking, with freckles, standing on an iron gate.

“Miracle? Did you know this? Miracle?”

I wanted to respond, but there was that woman, I didn't want to lose her. I needed to keep my eyes closed and see her.

“Sure she knew it. Gigi must have mentioned it a hundred times a day. Thing was, I don't think Miracle liked hearing about it so much after a while. I think it made her feel like she was weird, not like the other kids. She told me once the kids teased her at school. She said she was glad to be moving to Atlanta with Opal because they teased her.”

Aunt Casey's voice was breaking in, getting louder again, disturbing my picture.

“Struck by an ambulance? Did they have the siren going?” Dr. DeAngelis asked.

I opened my eyes, let go of the woman at the gate.

“Oh, sure.” Aunt Casey crossed her legs and started swinging the top one. Then she saw what she was doing and stopped. “It wasn't the ambulance's fault or anything. No, we never thought that. I mean they did everything right, the siren and all, and the road was clear, no traffic or anything. Just Sissy crossing the street.”

Dr. DeAngelis nodded. “An accident.”

“Of course it was an accident, what do you think?” Aunt Casey flailed her arms. “Of course it was. Of course.”

“You think she didn't hear the siren, or see it coming, then.”

“Of course she didn't, or she'd be here, wouldn't she?”

“Would she?” Dr. DeAngelis looked out the window past Aunt Casey, as if he were trying to see the accident, see how it was. I looked through the window, too. I tried to see what he was seeing.

“What are you trying to say? That she did it on purpose?”

Dr. DeAngelis brought his focus back to my aunt and so did I.

“I didn't know Miracle's mother. I don't know the circumstances.”

“You're trained to see everything as a suicide. Sheesh, that's what you do here. Work with suicides. Of course you'd think that's what happened.”

Dr. DeAngelis nodded. “Yes, I do work with suicide patients and one of my patients is your niece. I'm sure you've studied enough psychology to know that suicide often runs in the family. It's the family's learned response to trouble.”