Fig (16 page)

This time I notice something different. It's not just about the wound. I become two different girls. There is the girl with the sore on her elbow, and there is the girl with the sharp, clean fingernail.

This time I focus on being the second girl.

I focus on the way her finger bends, and then I test out all her fingers. Her pinky works far better than I expected. And her pinky is my pinky. I am cross-legged inside the tub when I scrape off the scab and expose the meat inside my body.

With the scab pinched between my thumb and forefinger, I twist my arm until I can see the bright red blood as it bubbles out of my body. And I think about a movie I once saw where the main character falls ill and her doctor orders to have her bled. Mama said, “This is what they used to do,” and Daddy said, “It was truly barbaric.”

The actress did a good job at looking sick. She was distraught, with sweat on her brow, lying in a gigantic bed with four big posts, the thick velvet curtains pulled back. The doctor used a scalpel to make the incisions; the cuts were always horizontal. Red ribbons like a ladder climbing her pale arm. The nurse kept the woman's arm over a white enamel basin. And there it rested as she bled. The container caught the blood and prevented any mess from ever being made.

*  *  *  *

I hear Gran tell Daddy that Mama is disintegrating. And I remember when Mama once said Gran was nothing more than a bitter gossip, all alone except for God.

One day, Mama leaves the burners on and the copper tea kettle explodes. I ask her questions—easy ones, like where the bath towels are, but she won't answer me. The psychiatrist comes once a week, and Mama's therapist comes every day, except on weekends.

I'm to play outside or in my room whenever they are here.

*  *  *  *

“You're going to have to make a sacrifice,” Daddy says, and then he tries to explain. “The psychiatrist and the therapist both think Turtle is too much of a trigger. They've asked me to ask you to let go of her.”

Daddy acts like this is the worst thing in the world he could ever ask of me. “Do you think you can?” he asks, and then he says, “If you can, I promise to buy you anything in the world—that is, anything but another baby doll.”

I already know what “sacrifice” means, but I prefer the definitions that dictionaries provide. They're more clinical, like a diagnosis from a doctor.

You have a severe case of sacrifice.

I can't find the big dictionary—it's not behind the glass door on the shelf and hasn't been for a long time, so I use Mama's pocket dictionary instead. There is no check next to “sacrifice,” which means she has never looked it up before—but there are other words on the page that she has marked. Words like “sacred,” “sacrilege,” “sacrum,” and “sad.” Check.

Words that feel connected, like they are trying to tell me a story.

For “sacrifice,” there are three major definitions, and some of them have addendums:
A sacrifice can be an offering to a deity. The forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim. The giving away of something in exchange for loss.

I use a pencil to make a check next to the word. I check off “sacrifice.” I make the check look like the checks that Mama makes. By checking off “sacrifice,” I am adding my story to her story.

I think Daddy is finally right. If I make enough sacrifices, Mama will get better.

But here's the problem: Letting go of Turtle is
not
a sacrifice. The sacrifice must be worthy. And one sacrifice is not going to be enough. It needs to be a sequence of sacrifices—like fasting, or everything a woman does to become a nun. Despite what Daddy thinks, Turtle was never really mine. She's always belonged to Mama, even before Mama got confused and thought she was real.

Giving up the cradle is closer to a sacrifice because it was made by Daddy, even though he still credits the craftsmanship to Santa's elves. He refuses to believe that I don't believe. “Believing in all that stuff,” he says, “is what makes being a child so wonderful.” And I hate how sad he looks. I feel like I just told Peter Pan I don't believe in fairies—as if, somewhere, a fairy has just died and fallen from the sky. This is why I pretend to believe; otherwise he will think he failed me as a parent.

Both the cradle and the crazy quilt have to go if Mama is going to stay. If I can't make these sacrifices, then she will have to go back to the hospital. Daddy doesn't actually say this, but he does insist on explaining everything I already understand.

He says, “Anything that might remind her of Turtle must be removed.”

And he is careful.

He gathers up the cradle, the crazy quilt, all the doll clothes and cloth diapers, the unopened package of baby bottles, and Turtle herself. Last of all, he takes away the flannel blanket that once helped this world receive me. He donates everything to the Salvation Army in Topeka where Mama never shops—not that she's allowed to drive these days. Daddy did something to the Volvo so it won't start, but this is just another detail I'm not supposed to know, another bit of information collected by listening to the walls.

Uncle Billy came back from Colorado a Buddhist. After the skiing season ended, he spent the early spring fly fishing, and somehow ended up in a place called Boulder, where he met a Zen monk and started meditating. Searching for books on Tai Chi, he takes me to the public library in downtown Lawrence. While he stands in the aisle practicing different positions, I wander away. I act like I'm only wandering, but I know exactly where I am going. I wander into the quiet reference room, where I look up “sacrifice” in one of the gigantic dictionaries with the gilded lettering.

Different dictionaries have different definitions. And this definition says “sacrifice” way better. This dictionary defines “sacrifice” the way I think when I think about a sacrifice. Now I can put my thoughts into words.

sacrifice: the act of offering the life of a person or animal in propitiation of or homage to a deity.

Sacrifice: the offering over of my life for Mama's needs.

chronology:
n., pl.
-gies 1. The arrangement of events in time.

October 1985

I begin by sacrificing my beloved rabbit foot.

“I sacrifice my own good luck to bring Mama all the good fortune she might ever need.”

This is what I say as I stand at the top of the waterfall before I throw the blue charm into the rushing white water of the Silver River. There are two directions it can go. The rabbit foot will either resurface in the pool along our side or follow the river as it rushes on—through the town of Eudora, out of Kansas, and eventually out to sea. The water folds over my sacrifice, and then I see it one last time, carried over the rocks and tossed into the deep black chamber below, and this is when I say, “Please make my mother better.” And when I do, I feel as if I am talking to a god.

When Mama does come downstairs, her eyes remain empty. Full of medicine, she is still focused on somewhere far away from here. Marmalade follows her, stretching and rubbing against her ankles. The cat does not give up, and finally Mama stoops down to pick her up. She stands in the middle of the living room, holding the cat against her chest and stroking Marmalade's neck. Mama continues to stare at a world I can't see. The world is somewhere inside the north wall, or perhaps she can see through the house entirely.

Mostly Mama stays in her room with the door closed. When her therapist comes, I listen through the heating vent to the murmur of the strange woman's voice, and I am reminded of how adults sound in the Charlie Brown cartoon Uncle Billy loves. Sometimes when I come home from school, I catch Mama leaning out her window smoking. She is a Rapunzel, only she doesn't let down her hair; there is no way for me to climb up to her. Instead, Mama blows gray clouds into the sky as if to summon the coming winter. I hide behind the catalpa so she won't see me, because I like her best when she thinks she is alone. Somehow she doesn't seem as crazy as she does in the company of others.

But even so, I know my sacrifice was not enough, and this is why I must try again.

This time, I begin the procession to the river with intent, in a solemn march. I walk with great purpose; this time, I begin the ritual as soon I set out, much earlier than before. One foot in front of the other, I walk tall and look straight ahead. I keep my eyes steady and focused on my mark.

In my hand, I hold the sacrificial object; I suffocate the solid wood with my sweaty palm as I march forward. I walk the maze of apple trees, and then I stretch out my arms for balance as I cross the board that spans the lazy ditch as a makeshift bridge. I resume my soldier stature once I reach the other side, pushing my way through the woods. I quicken my stride when I come to the expanse of the autumn-tinted pasture where the goldenrod is on fire.

In my mind, I can see myself: a bird's-eye view, a girl determined.

She walks toward the river, and when she reaches the bank she turns to follow the direction of the running water. She walks until she comes to the top of the waterfall, and there she stands forever, watching the water break over the slick rocks to tumble away. The sound drowns out all her other thoughts, and she can focus on her one true desire.

“Today,” I say, “I make this sacrifice for my mother.”

I watch the tiny Matryoshka doll as she bobs in the water. And just before she's swallowed by the white foam, she turns as if to look at me. Her delicate rosebud lips curl into a final smile, and she does not take a gulp of air before she goes under.

“This baby is me,” I say. “By sacrificing all my childish needs, I give my mother all the time and space she might need so she may recover.” This is what I say, and when I speak I echo the tone of the priest at the Sacred Heart of Mary. And then I kneel in the grass as if to pray, although I am only listening to the song the river likes to sing.

When I go home, I find Mama in the kitchen, smashing dishes. I stand on the porch holding my breath and crossing my fingers. I am hoping the sacrifice I just made has not yet gone into effect. Daddy leans against the back door watching my mother, and despite the wavy glass I can see his grave expression and I can hear his silence. Neither one of them knows I'm here. I stand outside the front door, watching through the window as if it was a television.

My mother hurls another plate at the black and white tile before she folds over to curl into a ball. On the floor, she rocks back and forth and begins to wail. Daddy crouches down beside her. As he rubs her back, she begins to quiet and to still. He pulls her long hair away from her face, and Mama responds by sitting up. She rearranges herself into what she calls the lotus position, or what my kindergarten teacher referred to as “sitting like an Indian,” which Uncle Billy says is offensive.

Like this, Mama begins to braid her hair. Daddy stands, and as my mother separates her hair into three long plaits he takes the broom from the pantry and begins to sweep. Mama continues braiding. When one braid is done, she unravels it and starts again. As her fingers work through her pale hair my father cleans. He sweeps up all the shards of the broken Blue Willow and empties the dustpan in the trash. And I don't enter the house until he has Mama seated at the table, drinking tea.

*  *  *  *

I wait a week, but my mother still shows no signs of improving. She swallows the blue pills, one after another, and this is how I come to know the carved-out hearts are really letter
V
s for Valium.

I return to the river, but this time I do not go to the waterfall. I go to a place more suitable for meditation even if Uncle Billy says a good Buddhist is a Buddhist who can sit quietly in any spot or condition. I sidestep the set of stones until I reach the grass below the waterfall, and I go to sit inside the heart of the weeping willow where the water is calm, encircled by the stone walls made by a grandfather I never knew. The feathery willow boughs sweep the shallow pool, which seems to open up around me like a mirror. My face wavers in the water as I watch myself watching me. And then I vanish from the surface, replaced by a vision of my mother.

The water is playing tricks on me, but it doesn't tell me anything I don't already know. It shows me once again how much I look like her. And then it reveals how I will someday age. The yellow leaves tremble, dropping into the water, and before Mama's image disappears she shakes her head at me. I lean forward to clear away the debris, and that's when I find her, only I don't recognize her—that is, not right away.

The river has washed her clean. Has washed away her bright colors, her costume, and all her features, but when I lift her from the pool I come to remember. I know her by the familiar weight and shape of her once-painted body and by the way she fits inside my palm. Faceless now, the figure reminds me of a question my uncle asked me just the other day.

“What did your face look like before you were born?”

The question bothered me, and when I told him so he laughed. He laughed, then winked at me and said, “It's a koan,” and he acted as if this explanation was enough. A few days later, I pressed him to say more even though I knew he didn't want me to. Finally, he sighed and said, “Sometimes the point of a question is not to find the answer but to find more questions.”

Cradled in my hand, the smallest nesting doll stares back at me even though she is now faceless; her eyelessness bores into me from her place amid my palm lines of life, love, and fortune. I know why she has returned. She is the answer I was seeking; or, rather, she is a question I didn't know I had to ask. She looks at me and says,
How do you get a mother back?

My mind begins to race. I realize I've been taking the easy route by only forfeiting material items. Their sentiment was not enough. I must find a way to truly give myself away—to sacrifice myself for Mama—to return as the doll returned to me. I must strip away the face I was not meant to wear and wear the face I had before I was born. Only then can Mama heal. I must sacrifice all my needs for the needs of Mama, but then I cry. I still don't know what to do.