Wintergirls (14 page)

Cassie became the roller coaster in the theme park of middle school. I was the merry-go-round horse frozen in one position,
eyes painted open, paint chipping off
my eyes. . . .

I should dig up the Nearly Wild and take out Pinky’s matchstick bones still warm in the blue bandanna. I should knit them into a sweater or string them on a ribbon and wear it around my neck. If I still had the green see-glass, I would work it in, too. Whenever I was lost, I could hold it up to my eye. Much better than a spinning compass.

The empty-gas-tank warning pops up next to the blinking red light. No problem.

My mother Dr. Marrigan pulls into the driveway. She looks at me through the glass in her window and the glass in mine while the garage door opens. Her nose is red and her eyes swollen, like she’s been crying. She turns her head away from me and drives into the garage.

I stay in the car for a few minutes, then follow her.

I’m sure she’s waiting for me in the family room, temperature at fifty-eight degrees, her lecture notes neatly arranged with my faults and mistakes listed in order of priority. She has charts to prove everything I do is wrong, and that my only hope is to allow them to insert her stem cells in my marrow so she can grow a new her dressed in my skin.

But, no. She’s not in the family room.

She’s waiting for me in the library, which normal people call the “living room.”

Nope. Miles of dusted bookshelves, cardiology journals stacked on the coffee table. No Dr. Marrigan.

Not in the kitchen.

Not on the treadmill in the basement. Not on the el-liptical or lifting weights or working her abs.

“Mom?”

The pipes in the basement shudder and the hot-water tank fires up. She must be taking a shower.

I go up two flights and tiptoe across the polished floor of her bedroom, sloooooowly turn the doorknob, and open her bathroom door a crack. A breath of steam trickles out, filled with the sobs of a grown woman breaking into girl-sized pieces.

I close the door.

When she comes downstairs an hour later, coffee is brewing, orange juice is poured, and a place is set for her at the table with Nanna Marrigan’s bone china, the antique silver from the giant chest in the dining room, and a linen napkin the color of snow. The way she likes it—precise and neat. Just so.

The tears have been washed away, but her nose is still red. She looks around the kitchen, confused and off balance again, because I am not following the script.

I hand her the glass of juice. As she sips it, I crack open three eggs and turn on the burner under the frying pan to melt the butter.

Every step in a kitchen is a test—
I am strong enough
to pick up a stick of butter. I am strong enough to peel off
the paper wrapper, drop a hunk in the pan, and watch-listensmell it melt.
I wash the greasy smear off my fingertips without tasting it. I am passing all the tests today with flying colors.

“When did you learn to cook?” my mother asks.

“Jennifer showed me. Emma loves omelets.”

She sniffs the air. “Is there something in the oven?”

“I wanted to make carrot-raisin muffins—Emma likes those, too. But you didn’t have carrots or raisins, so those are nutmeg muffins.” I beat the eggs. “Your refrigerator is kind of empty. There’s only onion or spinach for your omelet.”

She studies the chopped veggies on the cutting board.

“Just spinach.”

I pour her coffee into the china cup and give it to her.

She sets it on the table, then pulls her phone and beeper out of her robe pocket and lines them up next to the fork.

She drifts into the chair, eyes unfocused on her reflection in the empty plate.

“Who was it?” I ask.

She looks up. “Who was who?”

I slowly pour the eggs into the hot pan. “Which patient died?”

“How do you know a patient died?”

I lift the skin of the omelet to let wet egg slide under-neath it. “The only time you cry in the shower like that is when you lose a patient.”

The pan sizzles. The oven timer dings.

Mom spreads the napkin in her lap. “She was a social worker who took in foster kids. Dilated cardiomyopathy, very advanced, had been on the transplant floor longer than anyone. I gave her a new heart on Thanksgiving. It failed today. She died before we could do anything.”

As she talks, I lay the spinach on the omelet, sprinkle cheese on top, fold it over, and slide it onto the plate that I set in front of her. “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.” She takes a bite, even though it just came out of the sizzling pan. “This tastes pretty good. I hope you’re making one for yourself.” She eats automati-cally, the same number of chews per bite, the same number of seconds between swallows until the omelet is gone and her gas tank is fueled.

We’re not yelling at each other. We’re not looking for the sharpest knives to hurt each other with. This is good.

There is no dancing around the question. I throw in it the hot pan to see what will happen.

“Did Cassie die like your patient?” I ask. “Did her heart fail?”

“I’d rather not talk about that with you,” Mom says.

“Not right now.”

“But you saw the autopsy report, didn’t you?”

“I don’t think this is the right time—” Her beeper vibrates on the table. “Damn.” She reads the message, punches a number into the phone. “This is Doctor Marrigan.”

I burn my fingertips pulling the muffins out of the oven. They want to jump into my mouth. No, they want to roll themselves in butter and honey and jump into my mouth, one, two, three, four. And then some Moose Tracks ice cream and then some graham crackers and a jar of chocolate frosting and three bags of popcorn.

Dr. Marrigan gives orders about meds and drips and tests, then hangs up. “Are the muffins done?”

“A little hot.”

“That’s okay.”

I pick up the dirty omelet plate and set three muffins in front of her. “You said that you were going to explain the autopsy results to Mrs. Parrish.”

“I did.”

“So what happened?

“Aren’t you going to eat anything?”

I set the dirty plate in the sink. “I’m not hungry.”

Mom peels the pink paper skin off the muffin. “What did you have for lunch?”

“I haven’t eaten lunch yet.”

“It’s almost two o’clock. Have a muffin.”

“I don’t want one.”

“And eggs. You could use the protein.”

“I had milk in my cereal this morning.”

“You need to eat.” The Voice is back, giving orders, demanding obedience.

“Mom—”

The beeper signals again, bouncing around the table like an angry bee. “Dammit.” She makes the call. “Dr.

Marrigan.”

I put the frying pan and the muffin tin in the sink, turn on the hot water and pour in the soap. The heat from the kitchen has fogged over the windows.

The real girl I was slips out and listens to the echovoices shouting ugly at each other in every room of this house. Mom vs. Dad. Dad vs. Mom. Dad vs. Mom’s job.

Mom vs. Dad’s girlfriends. MomDad vs. Lia’s report cards, Lia’s recitals, Lia’s decision to quit again. Lia vs.

everythingbody.

The voices slipped into this girl’s mouth when she wasn’t looking, like a bug on a summer’s night that claws at the inside of your throat right after you realize you swallowed it. The voices swam around her insides and multiplied—charred, tinny echovoices that made a permanent home inside the eggshell of her skull.

::Stupid/ugly/stupid/bitch/stupid/fat/

stupid/baby/stupid/loser/stupid/lost::

“I said, ‘Lia, look at me!’ ” Mom shouts, shaking my shoulders.

I blink. The dishes are done, but my hands are still in the sink. The bubbles are gone. The water is cold.

Mom drags guides me to her chair, one arm around my shoulders, the other reaching to take my pulse. She kneels in front of me and makes me look up, to the side, then straight at the light shining out of her pen.

“I bet your blood sugar is in the toilet,” she mutters.

Three empty muffin papers are folded into triangles on her plate. A pale green pad of paper sits next to the plate, covered with her notes from the phone calls she took while I was in zombieland. Her juice glass and coffee cup are both empty. The water in the sink sucked time out of the room.

I lost ten minutes, maybe fifteen.

She pours me a glass of orange juice. “Drink this.”

If I don’t, there’s a good chance she’ll wrestle me to the floor, pry open my mouth, and pour it into me. Or drive me to the hospital and stick me with IVs until I inflate and bounce along the ceiling like a Thanksgiving Day parade balloon.

I gulp down the orange juice, pushing it to my stomach.

She sits, staring at me, as the fog clears from the windows and the battery acid spills into my veins.

“I’m okay,” I say. “I’m just sad about Cassie.”

Instead of answering, she gets up, slams the clean frying pan on the stove, turns on the heat, throws butter in the pan, yanks open the refrigerator door, takes out the eggs and milk, cracks two eggs in the pan, splashes milk on them, and beats it all with a fork.

“I’m not eating that,” I say.

She hunches over the stove, scrambling, scrambling.

“I can’t.”

No response. Scramblescramblescramble.

“You aren’t supposed to push me. I have to feel safe with food.”

“That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.” She dumps the cooked eggs on a clean plate along with two muffins, stalks across the kitchen and puts it in front of me.

The orange juice is a virus attacking my insides. “Forget it.”

She shakes her head. “You are not thinking clearly.

You’re dizzy. And you lied to me about breakfast.”

“Okay, so I forgot breakfast. It’s been a rough day.”

“You look terrible. How much do you weigh?”

“Jennifer’s the scale Nazi,” I say. “Ask her.”

She crosses her arms over her chest.

“Hundred and seven on Tuesday.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“She’ll show you the notebook.”

“You’re going to eat everything on that plate.”

Two scrambled eggs + milk + butter = 365 + (two muffins = 450) = horror.

“I’ll try.”

I take a small bite of yellow. The orange juice is burning holes through the lining of my gut. I swallow yellow and grease, pick up another forkful and open wide for the airplane buzzing into the hangar.

Mom pours herself another cup of coffee.

I put the fork down. “I feel sick. I can’t do this.”

“You are sick. When you eat like a regular person, you’ll feel better.”

“Eating makes me feel worse.”

“Take a bite of muffin.”

I slowly peel off the pink paper. What was I thinking, cooking for her, trying to kiss Mommy’s ouchie and make it all better? I cut the muffin in half, then one of the halves into four pieces, and each of those into two. I put one of the pieces in my mouth. A dry bubble of unmixed flour explodes on my tongue.

She watches me chew and swallow. She watches me not take another bite,
one minute, two, three, four . . .

Couple of years ago I saw Mom’s tax return and I did the math to figure out her hourly rate. I just wasted twelve dollars of her time.

I push the plate away. “I can’t.”

Instead of exploding, she takes a deep breath and pushes the plate back toward me. “I’ll make you a deal.”

The orange juice is cramping my stomach. “What do you mean?”

“If you eat, I’ll explain how Cassie died,” she says.

“You’re joking.”

“Do I joke with you about food?”

I am so hungry I have to stay strong—bend, but not break. “One muffin.”

“Two muffins. You need the carbs.”

“One and the eggs.”

She takes another deep breath. “Deal.”

It takes an hour.

Scrambled eggs = 25 bites.

One muffin = 16 bites.

My pink mouse stomach likes to be small and empty. It hates me for shoving in all that food. I lie down on the couch, pull the electric blanket over me, and try not to heave.

Mom perches on the couch opposite me. She pulls an afghan over her legs, the one I knitted last Christmas, full of dropped stitches and broken patterns. “You’re sure you want to hear this.”

“It can’t be worse than what I’ve been imagining.”

“It’s ugly.”

“Was she high?”

“No, nothing illegal, but she was on two antidepres-sants, a mood stabilizer, and ulcer medicine. And vodka.

Lots of vodka.”

“Alcohol poisoning?”

“No.” She adjusts the pillow behind her back but doesn’t say anything else.

“You promised,” I say. “I did what you asked. You have to tell me. Everything.”

“Everything?” She takes a breath and shifts into attending-physician mode. “Cassie had liver damage, her salivary glands were a wreck, and her stomach was dis-tended.” Mom holds up a loose fist. “A healthy stomach is this big. It can stretch to hold about a quart. Cassie’s could hold three. Plus her stomach walls had thinned and were showing early signs of necrosis.”

The last time I saw Cassie
was just before Thanksgiving break. I was on my way to the library; she was putting up posters for the musical. Her outside was clean and colorful: new jeans, cute sweater, great earrings. Her cheeks were chipmunky and her hair looked like straw.

She was not necrotic. She was chewing bubble gum. Her eyes were tired, but we’re seniors. All seniors have dead eyes.

I walked past her and I whisperedsaid hello, but she didn’t hear me.

Stretching and retching and filling up and emptying, the Cassie bucket was
dragged to the well over and over.

“Cassandra had a terrible fight with her parents on Thursday, at Thanksgiving dinner,” Mom says. “She got up to purge halfway through the meal. Cindy said even Jerry could see that she was back to her old habits. They told her she needed to go inpatient. She refused. She was nineteen, they couldn’t force her. Jerry lost his temper and said he wouldn’t pay for college until she was healthy.

Cassie took off. She called Cindy and said she’d come home on Saturday, that she was at a friend’s house. She was at the motel. She drank, binged, and purged for two days.”