Read Mermaid: A Memoir of Resilience Online
Authors: Eileen Cronin
“Gert, please!” cries Joy. “He’s killing
me!”
“She wants to jump in the p
ond.”
Gert knows that would be sui
cide.
“Devil!” says Joy to
Dick.
Gert flinches. Joy’s mouth is foaming. Her body is quivering underneath Dick like someone with an unyielding chill, but she’s perspiring. “Oh, Joy,” says Gert. She closes her eyes, squeezes them shut, and her life as a nurse in the state mental hospital comes back to her. She knows these
faces
—
twisted
faces, yellow. Opening her eyes, she says, “I’ll get h
elp.”
“What do you mean?” Dick asks, as if he knows what she’s going to suggest and he’s not sure he should agree t
o it.
Gert mouths the word “hospi
tal.”
“Oh no you don’t!” screams Joy. “I’m not crazy. Don’t say that, Gert. Don’t you gang up on me! Let me go, D
ick!”
Dick looks as if he’s considering what he should do, and he asks Gert, “
How?”
“I’ll get help,” says Gert. She keeps her back to Joy as she dials the operator, takes the receiver into the den, and whispers that she needs an ambul
ance.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” says Gert, yet somehow she was almost expectin
g it.
“Don’t, Gert! Don’t gang up on me,” cries Joy in the voice of a small child, the same voice she used when she overheard the news that her grandfather, the man Joy thought of as her own father, had just died. Now she’s all alone in her room and begging, “Come bac
k
...
Gertie
?
...
Ple
ase!”
I
waited for Mom’s return with a fear that eclipsed even the anticipation of my First Holy Communion. On that day I’d wear a new white dress with a veil and maybe have a portrait taken, posing with a miniature Bible in gloved hands. I was afraid to hope for Mom’s attendance at the ceremony, afraid to ask and afraid that it could become the first of many events without Mom.
Each night Dad returned with eyes swollen and an emotion I’d never seen on his face. Our aunts had taken the three babies. Dad barked orders at the oldest kids. When he saw us middle kids running to him, he threw up his hands and we pulled back. No one asked him to sign school papers; Shirley signed and our teachers accepted them.
Instead of going to Dad for help with math, I jotted random numbers down on pages of loose-leaf stained by crumbs from the kitchen table. The whole neighborhood knew our situation. My teacher was a friend of Aunt Gert’s. Mom had pushed to get me into her class. If it weren’t for this second-grade teacher, I’m not sure I would have passed that year. She frequently told me I was smart, when inside I felt as dull as a slug.
Aside from school, I was learning some of life’s hardest lessons. At night I would sneak under the kitchen table to learn about the straitjacket, the shock treatments, and that Mom had believed she was talking to God. Now she thought she was Jesus. There was no way she would be home in time to see me make my First Communion.
On the Sunday morning of the ceremony, we awakened to Dad’s voice from the bottom of the staircase. “I want every one of you to get up and clean this house. Right now!”
“What’s the big deal?” said some sleepy voice.
“Your mother’s coming home, that’s what. Now get to work.”
Downstairs Dad explained, “It’s just for today, so we’re not going to mess it up, right?”
Within minutes everyone was vacuuming, dusting, or making a bed. A few of us scrambled to clear out the debris in the den. While I chucked a xylophone into the toy closet, Rosa marched in, already dressed for church. The xylophone made a sour crash as she dragged me by the elbow to the stairs in the front hall and said, “Sit down.” By now Rosa was a slender teen in a miniskirt. Her hair was parted dramatically off-center so that it rippled over one shoulder, giving her a smoldering movie-star look.
“Don’t,” she said, tapping my nose so that I blinked. “Don’t you dare throw one of your fits while Mom’s home.” Her lips shimmered pearl-pink. “If you start crying, Mom will get sicker and we’ll never see her again. Do you hear me?”
There was no way I would get this right. I followed that finger and heard every word, every pause. I had to agree that I was needier than the others and could never let go of Mom easily. Usually someone had to rip me from her ankles, and my parents would call on Rosa to do that. I was terrified of Rosa, so I always screamed louder, never understanding why it couldn’t have been Kevin or Bridget coming for me instead.
Now after Rosa stormed off, Bridget found me on the staircase. “Eileen,” she said, shaking my shoulder, “aren’t you dressed? Come on.” Up in my room, she pulled Liz’s white organza Communion dress from Liz’s closet. “You’re wearing this one, right?”
I nodded my acceptance as it occurred to me that there was no other choice. Until now I had believed that someone would surprise me with a new Polly Flinders dress. That disappointment was quickly swallowed by the more upsetting news that Mom would not make it to Mass, which Dad explained on our way into the church. My eyes filled with tears and he said, “Now don’t do that. She’ll make it to the party.”
Instead of attending the afternoon ceremony with my class, I made my First Communion at the 11:30 Mass. I worried that all the fanfare would be taken away from me, but Dad held a small gathering afterward.
By early afternoon I was wearing seven new necklaces and carried in one hand a miniature Bible while clutching in the other a brown paper bag in which I had dumped my greeting cards and gift money: eight dollars and some change. Like other soon-to-be communicants I’d been calculating the gifts I would receive, remembering when Liz had fingered a necklace sent to her by her godfather George Ratterman and boasted that he was a pro football legend
.
I favored the necklace from my godmother, Aunt Louise: a gold cross with a miniature pearl in the center. She shouldn’t be spending money on me, I thought. Mom always said that Louise’s tremors came from “working her fingers to the bone.” Her gift left me with a bittersweet feeling that would change forever my appreciation of gifts.
Earlier that day, my aunts had filed into the den to drop off the babies. We argued over who would get to hold Nina. Her black hair was pulled up like Pebbles Flintstone. She gave a big smile, all gums, and we started grabbing for her at once.
Soon Dad showed up with Mom on his arm. A few of us gasped when we saw her standing at the threshold between the kitchen and den. More than anything else, I remember Mom’s face that day. Melancholia does in fact color the skin. Mom’s flesh was so wan that against her white dress her face was yellowish-green. I wondered if the shock treatments had sucked the light from her eyes, which had gone from their velvety luster to lead-brown. The image was so odd in contrast to my memories of Mom in that smart dress, which Dad had brought to her. Usually Mom wore the dress with pearls and spectator pumps. Now she wore it with clunky shoes, no makeup, and flat hair. She could have been a nun dressed in Mom’s clothes.
We took turns hugging her. Dad guarded Mom closely, nudging her away when we held on to her too long. I was just beginning to adjust to seeing her when Dad led her into the living room. That room was off-limits unless we were invited.
By afternoon the neighbors had arrived, along with a few priests, and Katie and Grandpa. The adults were ushered out to the screened-in porch while Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass played “Bittersweet Samba” on the turntable. Rosa had talked me into buying the album as a Christmas present for Mom and Dad. I had balked at the cover: a photo of a naked woman immersed in whipped cream. Mom loved it. She played this album every Sunday during the cocktail hour. Today it seemed all wrong, but Barbra Streisand, another of Mom’s favorites, would have been a wistful reminder of better days.
Eventually we middle children snuck into the living room and peered over the bottom half of the Dutch door. Mom sat at the wrought-iron table between Dad and one of the priests. I was still in my First Communion dress, although I had taken off my veil. Frankie had to hold me up so that my chin rested on the door. I glanced back and saw Frankie watching Mom with his tongue hanging out in a plaintive daze. Liz was biting her tongue, looking tentative. Ted shimmied up and hefted his belly over the rim. Shirley’s delicious comfort food had made a doughboy of him, while I’d been refusing to eat.
Once the other kids realized that we were not invited to the adults’ party, they scurried off to play a game of Pickle outside, but I wasn’t ready to give up on Mom. I waited in the living room. Eventually Bridget and Rosa paraded the babies out to the porch, and I followed. As I stood just inside the door, I watched Nina’s delight with the crowd. She was weeks old and didn’t yet notice the difference between Mom and one of my sisters. The baby boys were less content. They were old enough to know their real mother, and at the first glimpse of her they began to whine. Dad sensed trouble. He jerked his head at my oldest sisters—his code for “Take them away now.” The babies were whisked back to the den, which made them cry, although we heard their cries hushed by the teenagers’ cooing and coddling.
Out on the porch, Mom’s empty hands trembled. Dad put his palm on her back. She wasn’t talking. I’d never known Mom to be silent, particularly in a crowd.
Finally, Dad moved over to the makeshift bar that he’d set up on a built-in cabinet. This was my chance since Mrs. Campbell, who lived across the street, called to me. I trudged past Dad at the bar when Grandpa joined him and said, “Joy probably shouldn’t have alcohol. Let’s just give her a little crème de menthe instead.”
In her pink Jackie Kennedy suit and heavenly perfume, Mrs. Campbell patted her lap. “Come sit with me, Eileen.” I tried to shimmy over her knees without slicing her legs or ripping her nylons. Mom’s favorite shopping buddy, Mrs. Campbell wore her blond hair in a French twist. Her gold bracelets clinked along with the ice cubes in her highball glass, kissed by pink lipstick. She looped a finger through my stringy hair, as my sisters described it, but Mrs. Campbell said, “What silky hair you have. We could have so much fun with this hair.” I relaxed into her bosom. “Oh, I wish I had a girl!” she said. “Four boys. I got four boys! Wanna come live with me?” I wasn’t so sure I wanted to live with her four boys, but I would have loved to have Mrs. Campbell dote on me. I wondered if I should go upstairs and pack a bag but nothing more was said, and I realized she was only trying to make me feel good.
After a while I turned back to Mom, who sipped an inky drink from a Waterford glass. Her lips and tongue had turned forest green, making her the Wicked Witch of the West. Her dark features frightened me: those green lips, that ashen skin, and those burnt-out sockets for eyes. I had to get closer, to touch her face and see that she was still Mom. Dad was back at the bar with Grandpa again, so I hopped down from Mrs. Campbell’s lap and darted for Mom.
I smelled the minty alcohol before I reached her, and she probably heard the creak of my legs because she held out her arms and said, “Come here, Eileen.” For a minute she slipped into her old self, lifting me by the armpits and adjusting my position on her lap so the pincers were away from her. She held me this way with my back to her chest. I stretched my arms and curled my spine to make a human body shield between my mother and the others. No one seemed to notice. They were in a heated discussion about long hair. Not the boys’ hair—in our neighborhood boys still wore buzz cuts while the rest of the country had gone to ponytails. These adults were talking about the long hair that
girls
wore, straight and parted defiantly down the middle. Always in their eyes, they said, hunks of greasy hair. And those miniskirts!
Before I knew it, Dad’s hand was on my shoulder. I firmed up my body to stay put, and it dawned on me that this was only a visit. Soon Mom would have to leave; I would have to let go. She would be locked up again and jolted with electricity or tied into a jacket that made her stand up straight. And I might never see her again.
I twisted around and the priest next to us blinked at the rude kick my leg gave him as I swiveled. Mom was so numb that she didn’t complain when I faced her and pulled her neck so that our cheeks touched. Over her shoulder I saw Dad’s face tighten. I looked instead into Mom’s eyes, which now seemed too dull to belong to her. “Hello,” I whispered, and she smiled timidly. “I’m here,” I said, lifting the necklaces out from my collar. “I made my First Communion today.” Her eyes misted over.
Eventually people began to clear out. Soon we were down to the Campbells and the priests, who would be driven back to the rectory by Dad. “Mom has to go now,” Dad said sternly. He started to lift me by my upper arm from Mom’s lap. I grabbed the pleats of her dress, burrowing into her chest where I sobbed. Mom stayed rigid. Why wouldn’t she fight for me? She’d stopped hugging me back, but she wasn’t pushing me away. Dad tried to pry me away without making a scene in front of the others. Mrs. Campbell tried bribing me with her bracelet. I would not let go.
When I peered out from Mom’s dress, Dad’s lips had turned white. He called for Rosa. I had gone too far. Yet I stiffened in place, tenuous as it might be. By the time Rosa peered over the Dutch door, I began to shriek. Dad shook his head in frustration. Then, as if remembering himself, he ushered the priests and the Campbells toward the kitchen while Rosa worked to pry me from Mom’s lap. I tugged harder on Mom’s dress. Mom was trying to talk, instead she cried. Rosa yanked me away by the hips, but I switched my grip from Mom’s dress to her neck. Rosa loosened my one attached hand and pulled. I grabbed with the other at Mom’s belt and all the way down her body as Rosa kept pulling. I made my last swipe for Mom’s ankle, but Rosa blocked it with her foot.
Dad was coming back to the porch for Mom at the same time Rosa was rushing me through the living room toward the front hall, yanking me by the arm. I heard Mom’s quivering voice as Dad led her to the kitchen. By then Rosa and I were facing the bottom of the hallway staircase. I lunged to catch Mom before she left, but Rosa heaved me over her right shoulder. I screamed one long, shrill cry of pain and humiliation as it occurred to me that my behavior had sent Mom back to the hospital for good and that Mrs. Campbell was not about to take me in after such a scene. With every step Rosa took, my ribs came down hard on her shoulder. I kicked, and the metal pincers on my left leg threatened to bite into her arm. “Get those things off of me,” she snapped.