The next few days drag interminably. They gave me the
week off work – "take it", Mark said, "you deserve it". But I don't. Or
maybe it's the other way around, maybe this is my punishment for never being
there enough for Mom. Working would make me forget more easily, but home alone
(really alone, because I pushed away the only people who really care about me)
I cannot help but think of her. I remember her unconscious and slack-jawed as
we rushed her into the ER. I remember forcing charcoal down her throat and
hating her more in that moment than I had ever hated anyone in my entire life,
because it wasn't enough to destroy herself, she had to make me watch too.
Everywhere I look I see her, hear echoes of her voice and
I'm terrified it's making me insane. When do you know? When do you cross that
line from grieving to depressed? When you stay in bed all day? All week? When
you let the phone ring and ring and ring because you don't want to talk to
anyone – you have nothing to say. When you burst into tears because you find in
your closet a dress that she sewed you for a Christmas party then you never
wore, as the night of the celebration she refused to take her meds, locked
herself in the bathroom and got drunk out of her mind on your bourbon.
I think a lot about John and Luka in this time. They take
my mind off Mom for a while. But I only end up travelling further round in
circles. I tie my feelings into knots. I'm not even sure if I should have
broken up with Luka, and my feelings for John are even vaguer. Luka was safe.
He couldn't fall in love with me, so I couldn't fall for him in return. We both
locked up our hearts safe against each other and the arrangement suited us.
Arms to hold me in the dark, a hand to grip when I walk down the street, a low
voice to fill up the silence. It was good for a while, but when does 'good'
cease to be enough, when do you start expecting more from your partner?
The first time I fell in love was in high school. Okay,
maybe it wasn't love then, but it was the closest approximation to the state I
could have gotten at that young age. And it terrified me – not at first, of
course, at first it was great. His name was Jack and when he kissed me my heart
thundered in my chest and I felt dizzy. For three months he was my entire
world, even Mom and all her problems faded into the background. Twelve weeks of
laughter and making out in the back of his Dad's truck and counting the minutes
until we saw each other again. Then – inevitably – it all fell apart.
I was lost, drowning. I couldn't believe someone I cared
about so much could treat me so badly. It felt like the centre had dropped out
of my existence. That was when I first started to drink. Nothing major (that
didn't come until the disaster that was my marriage) but just the odd beer
snuck here and there, a few sips of whiskey to take the edge of the pain off.
One night I got really drunk and I followed her home – the girl Jack had
replaced me with – I started yelling at her, screaming that she ruined my life
and pummelling at Jack with my fists when he tried to protect her. They called
me crazy and just walked away.
That was what got to me, the idea that my feelings could
be so strong they'd drive me over the edge. From that day on, I guarded my
heart possessively, because I believed losing it to someone would lose that
thread of meagre self-control I had over my actions too. People you love hurt
you, I learnt that day. So, the fewer people you love, the less you'll end up
being hurt, right?
But I just don't know anymore. Because loneliness hurts
too. It forms an empty chasm inside me and falls in salty tears from my eyes.
And it's cold. So, cold that I lie curled up under thick blankets all
day shivering, chilled to the bone. It makes me want to call Luka and tell him
it was a mistake – we could be together if we tried, if we really wanted it –
just so I can get back some of his slight warmth. It makes me want to call John
to and bask in the heat that shines from his eyes every time he looks at me.
But that's something I don't dare do, because I'm afraid of that fire. Afraid
I'll get burnt.
I'm scared of so many things now, it amazes me how I ever
get through the days anymore, how I find the strength to leave the house and
carry on. Well, at the moment, I don't, but I know I will, in time, even though
nothing will have changed. It's not places that scare me, however. It's not
walking alone at night, or travelling on a crowded train, or catching some
horrible disease from the dying patients I treat all the time. For some people
those are the stuff of nightmares, but not for me. It's not the fear of a
murderer's touch that keeps me awake and staring at the ceiling during the
depths of the night, but the fear of a lover's.
Getting close frightens me, because when you open up your
heart to someone, then you leave it vulnerable to pain. If anyone taught me
that it was my husband. For a brief, intense time, we shared everything. He
knew all my secrets and my emotions, all my desires, hopes and regrets. And
then things fell apart and he turned all my private thoughts against me. He
knew I wanted more than anything to qualify as a doctor, to graduate from
medical school and prove myself worthy of something for once. So, in his quest
to hurt me, what did he do? Take that away from me, and then work to shatter my
morale so I never dreamed of it again. After that, I swore I'd never let
someone that close to me again.
But now I'm teetering on the edge, clinging on by my
fingernails to rational thought. Part of me wants to let go, because I know
that part of the falling is flying. It always starts that way – like a drinking
binge – you soar high up in the air and for a while you're on top of the world.
Everything is shining and new, the colours are brighter and all your goals more
achievable. Then the earth comes crashing up towards you, and suddenly, without
warning, you are hurtling down to the ground at a thousand miles per hour with
no parachute. And you think it can't get any worse, that the sickening dread in
the pit of your stomach, the nausea as your body rejects the alcohol you forced
into it, is the end. Then the biggest shock of them all comes. Then you land.
All the breath is
knocked from you in the force of the impact and you lie, shocked and broken on
the floor, amazed that something that felt so good could hurt you so badly.
It's the mother of all hangovers, the pounding head and the vomiting and all
your muscles aching and the room spinning around and around and around, until
you're so dizzy you want to be sick again. It can be hours or it can be weeks
before you recover fully, but when you eventually do, then the only overriding
feeling is the urge to go out and do it all again. And again. And again. Until
finally something snaps.
Well, something snapped. I couldn't take the continual
assault anymore, so I went into detox. I started attending AA meetings. I
divorced my good for nothing husband, and I built a new life for myself. A safe
life, one with no risks and everything in a neat, precise order. I worked as a
nurse, dated a doctor, made a new best friend. I was in control. Then Mom came
back and in true Maggie-patented style, everything went to Hell.
~~~
I let my brother organise the funeral, since he was
always the together one. He didn't get her crazy genes, just a calm steadiness
that I always envied. So many years I wanted to be him, quietly unaffected by
all of Mom's irrational behaviour. While me and Maggie screamed and shouted at
one another, he would just stand by and watch, an impassive expression masking
his features. Then he'd sigh and make peace between us, coaxing Mom into taking
her meds and lecturing me on how I should have more patience with her. Somehow,
I never found that patience, though, and that more than anything else is what
makes me cry this afternoon.
I lean on Luka's arm as they lower the casket into the
grave. Somehow, we just reverted from a couple, back to being friends. It's the
one positive aspect of the whole situation I can focus on; how nice it is to
just have someone make no demands of you, to have him support you
unquestioningly and ask for nothing in return. And it's something we achieved
wordlessly. He just called to see how I was, then turned up at the funeral. In
case I needed a friend. And I feel much better with him this way.
Maybe we were never more than friends in the first place,
or perhaps that's the way it should have been between us. But I can't regret
the time we spent together, because of the platonic closeness it brings now. I
am glad to have him in my life now and relieved by the conspicuous absence of
the pressure to love him.
John comes too, standing in the background, his eyes
lacking much of their usual brightness. He stares at Luka then says a few
polite words.
"Thank you for coming," I call after him as he strides
off through the cemetery, his shirt sticking to his back in the oppressive
heat. It shouldn't be hot and sunny for a funeral, should it? Where's the storm
clouds, the overcast grey, the rainy sky weeping the tears of angels'. I wanted
Mom to have all that, but instead the day is beautiful and clear and the rest
of the city goes about its business like nothing happened.
My word ended and nothing happened.
"Do you want to go after him?" Luka asks, as I stare numbly
at the retreating figure of Carter.
I shake my head. "I can't leave. I don't want to leave
her."
Beloved Mother, the headstone reads. Was she? I
wonder. I loved her, in my own dysfunctional, screwed up family way, but was
she 'beloved'? Did we ever have the group hugs and the Hallmark mother-daughter
moments that the term implies? I try to remember a single time she made me
happy to have her there – a grown-up adult time, when despite her illness and
my own problems, she was actually just Mom, the person who loved me for me.
Tears spill down my cheeks as my mind draws a blank. I
remember my high school graduation when she embarrassed me in front of the
whole senior year by making a huge banner that read 'Way to Go, Abby' and
waving it high above her head. I remember sitting hugging my knees on a hard
hospital bench after the first suicide attempt. I remember her breezing into
the ER in Chicago and telling everyone about her wonderful daughter the doctor
and I remember disowning her afterwards.
Then it comes to me. One moment that cancels out all the
rest, that makes her a wonderful person I am privileged to have known, let
alone been related to. The day I first knew – any by this I mean, was
absolutely certain – my marriage was over, I curled up in a ball and cried. Mom
was taking her meds at this point and she prised the bottle of alcohol I hadn't
yet dared to drink, out of my hands, then she wrapped her arms around me,
rocking me like a baby. I needed my Mom that night and she was there and I loved
her.
I fall down onto my knees next to the grave and whisper.
"Goodbye Mom – I'll miss you." Tears cloud my eyes as I stand up once more,
brushing the dirt from my knees, but perversely I actually feel better,
probably because I'm beginning to let go of the past. All the pain and the
problems and the regrets between Maggie and I don't matter anymore. All that's
important is that we were mother and daughter. We had our good times and we had
our bad times, like any other family. Maybe the bad outweighed the good and
maybe we never had that perfect, rose-tinted relationship you see in all the
movies, but what we had was ours and nobody can take that away from us. Right
now, I don't remember Mom as being crazy, but as being special. She was unique
and I'm so proud of her.
A little shakily, I turn to Luka. "I think I'm just gonna
go home now."
He nods. "Do you want me to come with you?"
"No," I shake my head. "It's okay, but I'd rather be on
my own. Thanks for everything."
We hug briefly then I walk away from him, a lone figure
making my way across the empty cemetery. It feels like I'm heading away from my
old life and towards a new one.
To be continued…