Paper Castles (29 page)

“I know people don’t usually like to hear this line, but I know how you feel,” Beverly said, not looking up from her work.

Do you?
Savannah stared into her cup as if something there might save her.

“I know how it feels to lose your momma.”

Beverly had her attention now.

“When I lost my mother, I lost myself. For a long time.”

“How old were you?”

“Eighteen.”

“Still young.”

“Too young. But you... You’ve lost your mother twice.” Beverly placed her hands on Savannah’s shoulders and their eyes met in the mirror. “I’m so sorry.”

Beverly was pulling on the handle of a door long closed. The hinges creaked and groaned. If Savannah pushed a little from her side, the door might swing open.

Neenie’s voice from long ago:
Miss Beverly’s not one to barge in.

No she wasn’t. But here she was, knocking.

Savannah let the tears run free. “Thank you for understanding.”

“Of course I understand. Neenie was the best momma you could’ve had. We were all lucky to have her in our lives.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do without her.” The avalanche of grief came again, and this time Beverly was there to catch her.

“It’s all right, honey. Cry all you want.”

Savannah cried on her mother’s shoulder for the first time she could remember. “I’m sorry,” she said, between sniffling sobs. “I don’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“Oh honey, don’t worry. Those are old wounds.”

“Was it hard for you to watch Neenie and I together?” Savannah asked, putting her toe in the crack of the door.

“Torture.” The look on Beverly’s face told Savannah the pain was layers deep. “But I took it as my penance.”

“Penance?”

“For all I put you through. My penance was to stand on the outside and watch my daughter attach herself to someone else, as if I didn’t exist. And that’s because sometimes I
didn’t
exist. I abandoned you when you were days old. Then I abandoned you again and again.” A sigh decades old wrapped around her. “And we both know that’s not even the worst of it.”

The truth now sat on Savannah’s dressing table, among innocent bottles of perfume and lotions. What was she to make of such a revelation all these years later? Words Savannah had rehearsed in a thousand scenarios slipped out the door unnoticed, as she looked at a woman who survived, instead of the mother who failed her.

“I’m not asking for forgiveness,” Beverly said. “But I want you to know, I loved you then and I love you now. I never intruded on what you and Neenie had because I was happy for you.”

“But didn’t you ever want something more from me?”

“Always. Sometimes I wanted to pick you up and run away with you and scream
you’re mine
. But it was too late. I’d made my bed. I was glad Neenie was there because I couldn’t be.”

“Sometimes I wanted you to intrude.”

“I should have. I didn’t know enough then.”

“But why me, Momma? Why were you able to bond with Kip and Beck? What was it about me?”

“Oh honey. Is that what you think?” Beverly ran her hand down Savannah’s cheek.

“Yes.” Savannah looked at the question she’d been carrying around in her back pocket for thirty-nine years. It was faded and tattered, but the question mark was still written with bold strokes.

Beverly sat back, making room for it in her lap. “I had no idea that’s what you were struggling with. All these years I’ve looked at myself in the mirror, trying to make sense of insanity—I never once thought you blamed yourself.” She winced, old memories still sharp enough to hurt.

“I know it’s not logical. But—”

“But you were a child.” Beverly hung her head as if the truth behind Savannah’s eyes was too bright to face dead on. “I’ve caused you so much harm. And I couldn’t help you because I couldn’t help myself.”

Savannah remembered her own purging only days ago, remembered how Phil sat back without judgment, letting the words find their own way out. She offered the same now to her mother.

“It kills me to know that you’ve blamed yourself in any way,” Beverly said. “No one knows more about shame than I do. I know what it looks like, how it feels, how it talks to you in the middle of the night.”

Savannah nodded, her heart’s fingers reaching out to hold onto the conversation a lifetime in the making.

“And it was my shame that kept me from you all these years. Every time I look in your eyes, I see myself and all my failures. More so you than your brother and sister. Somehow most of my failures fell at your feet. I was strong when I had Kip, then fell apart with you, got better for awhile when I had Rebecca. Then fell I apart again. And again.”

“Can you tell me about the falling apart?”

Beverly sucked the air in through her teeth, and Savannah recognized the need to flee. Then she saw her mother take the reins in her hand and bring the panic reaction to a slow walk.

“I
T SEEMS like my whole life, I’ve been shaking,” Beverly said, looking Savannah in the eyes with a newfound determination “Quivering. Waiting for the disaster around the corner.”

“How old were you when it started?”

“A teenager. Sixteen maybe.”

“What did it look like?”

“Sheer panic. Fear in its purest form. Heart racing, palms sweating, unable to breathe. I thought I was having a heart attack. I was sure of it. The doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with me. They finally decided it was just female hormones.”

This was the umbilical cord connecting mother and daughter. Savannah’s own panic attacks, mirrored in her mother’s. No matter how many times Neenie told her,
you’re not your momma,
Savannah sensed the truth. She knew they were joined in this macabre dance of the mind.

“It continued off and on,” Beverly said. “But then my momma got sick and I tried to shove it in the closet. Tried to hide it from everyone.”

Savannah cocked her head at her mother. “And how did that work out for you?”

“You know how it ends.” Beverly managed a weak smile. “Anyway after Momma died, I went off to college. It seemed like I was going to be all right, but it was just the lull before the storm.”

Savannah kept her eyes on her mother’s face. Watching the memories float in and out.

“That’s when I met your father. What a dreamboat.”

Savannah grinned. “Dreamboat?”

“The sweetest guy I’d ever met. Those eyes. You have his eyes, you know. We were engaged when the floodgate opened and I had my first suicidal episode. I couldn’t shake the feeling of hopelessness. But it was darker than anything I’d experienced before. I told your father I couldn’t marry him. I was a mess. I couldn’t see a future with him because I couldn’t even believe in tomorrow.”

Savannah tried to imagine her father, a young man in his twenties, in love with a beautiful girl who lived in a dark cloud. Fighting for love, fighting for the two of them.

“Jack was so patient though. So good to me.”

“He was in love.”

“Yes, he was. He married me anyway. I’ll never know why. Anyway, I had Kip and everything was fine. I don’t remember having a real episode until I was pregnant with you.” She paused. “I’m sorry.”

“No, go on.”

“I felt it growing along with my belly. I felt more and more lost. I knew I wasn’t a good mother. I had no business having children. I could barely make myself get out of bed. Sleeping all day, crying all night. When we came home from the hospital, you looked up at me with your serious little face as if you already knew the truth about me. I couldn’t take it. I told Jack I was afraid I was going to kill myself or hurt you. It’s all I thought about all day long.”

Savannah recognized the terror of being afraid to be left alone with oneself. Now she thought about caring for a baby under such circumstances. The infant with the serious little face. The child who had seen her mother’s torment from the inside. How could that little girl possibly come out unscathed?

“I took a handful of pills...” Beverly’s voice trailed off. They both knew where it went from there.

Years of ups and downs before the medical community caught up with her illness. Mostly downs, the depressive episodes far outnumbered the manic ones.

Now Beverly listened as Savannah spoke of the fear surrounding her mother’s moods. Told of the three children hiding in their room as poisonous words,
I wish I never had you damn kids,
slid under the doorway and found them anyway. Beverly listened patiently, with tears in her eyes, learning how her babies lived in the eye of the storm, always running out the door in search of a place where the winds never blew.

The only peace in the household was when Beverly was away in one hospital or another. Visiting relatives in Europe, the family said.

“It was the constant hiding that tore at me,” Savannah said.

“I can see that.” Beverly nodded. “It was a long time ago and people were—”

“I know about other people, but we even hid it from ourselves.”

“I’m not sure why we chose to do that. I don’t think it was a decision. I can see now how much damage it caused. I think we were just so happy to have the good moments, we wanted to pretend the other ones didn’t exist.”

“I can understand that, but I just wanted someone to talk to me. I felt like I was all alone. Even with Kip. No matter how bad things were, we put on our best smile and off to school we went. It seemed like my whole life was a sham. Nothing was honest.”

Beverly’s shoulders slumped. “It’s how I felt too, except I always felt the good times were a lie. The truth lay in the episodes. They were who I really was.”

The realization wrapped itself around Savannah. “You were alone, too. Alone in your head.”

“The worst kind of alone. Even with your father’s arms around me.”

The truth chipped away at concrete walls. Lies disassembled into pebbles and dust strewn at their feet.

“I can’t imagine what it did to you to find me that day.” Beverly’s voice cracked. “I’m more sorry than you’ll ever know. The shame of it caused more downward spirals in my life than I can count.”

That day
. The nexus for the shift in time. Life changed for Savannah on
that day.
Slipping on the floor covered in blood, she dropped off the edge of the earth. When she resurfaced, a small army with shields in place stepped forward to make a wall between her and Beverly. The army told her the blood didn’t belong to her. It wasn’t about her. But she was terrified some small droplet had her name on it.

Years later, as the scene took on a life of its own in Savannah’s memory, it seemed as if Beverly did it deliberately to hurt her. Beverly knew everyone else was gone that day. Knew Savannah would be the only one to find her. One last accusing scream,
See what you’ve done?

Yes momma, I see what I did. I know it’s my fault. I’m sorry.

Savannah looked across the bedspread at her mother, who was struggling to find a path across the bloody tile floor to reach her daughter. Neither one could find a way out on their own. Savannah reached out her hand. Beverly took it. Together they walked out of that musty room and closed the door.

P
HIL CAME back. He looked fresh, rested, and tanned.

“Did a little sailing,” he said.

She pictured him, wind in his hair, the boat heeling, sails full. She remembered him talking about the thrill of those moments when the boat leaned over, pushed by the wind. He said it was almost like flying. She wanted to fly with him, leaning back in his arms, racing into the wind.

Savannah spread all the bits and pieces of the last days on the desk in front of him, letting him catch up. His face was soft over the details of Neenie’s funeral. Then turned concerned when Savannah started talking about Beverly. He leaned forward, elbows on the desk, bridging the space between them. Taking her hand without touching her at all.

“Wow,” he said. “I leave for ten days and look what happens.”

“We were due,” Savannah said. “It’s a good start.”

“I’m happy for you.”

She saw him trying hard to be professional, but his eyes told another story. They said they remembered that night at Tybee. Remembered her up against the wall, his hands in her hair, her mouth drinking him in. They spoke to her now;
I have to keep my hands off you… But I can’t keep my thoughts off you.