Her: A Memoir (19 page)

“It’s my mom,” I told him. “Could you get it? I have a bad feeling.”

“Okay,” he said, “but can’t you just call her back later? We’re driving.”

“No,” I snipped. “Just answer. Please?”

“I don’t want to talk to your mother right now,” he said lightly, apologizing. “I’m tired and hungry.”

“I think Cara died. Please answer the phone,” I said, surprising myself.

Jedediah rolled his eyes. He’d heard this before. Cara was so frequently in trouble that he’d grown used to having to calm me down, to talk me off the ledge of worry. But how could he respond to his panicked wife but to answer the call and put her mind at rest? So he did. Jedediah listened to my mother on the other line. He was quiet.

“She’s dead, isn’t she?” I asked, begging him to wave me off, to say everything was okay. Instead, Jedediah looked away and at his feet, as if my mother’s words were a weight. “She’s dead, isn’t she?” I said again, not waiting for his response.

“Pull the car over,” Jedediah said, pointing toward the curb.

“She’s dead, isn’t she?” I repeated the words that had so strangely come to me. I jammed down on the brake.

“Christa, listen to me,” Jedediah demanded. “Pull the car over.” He put his hand on my shoulder, trying to steer me in the direction of the parking space.

“She’s dead,” I said. I had believed she might die for so many years and the shock of feeling I had was nothing like I’d imagined it would be. I felt bodiless, as if I had fallen into a great cold bottomless sea, sinking fast as a boulder. A scream started in my chest and roared out from my throat. I screamed again and again, short high staccato stabs. I never knew I could make such a sound. I stopped, my face wet with tears, and looked at my husband wild with fear.

“Yes,” Jedediah whispered, and tried to take the wheel with one hand and pull me closer with the other.

I batted him away and felt what I can only name as my spirit rise up and fly through the tiny crack between the window and the door. I was vapor, air, mist, breath. I was wind, a woman without a body. Unmoored and unafraid of the consequences of oncoming traffic, I reached for the door. I unbuckled my seat belt and got out of the car and shrieked, banged my hands on the hood, and ran out in front of passing cars. The light turned green.

I weaved through traffic, shrieking at the top of my lungs in waves, like warning sirens for a fire. Cars blasted their horns. Drivers cursed, hung from their rolled-down windows, and waved angry middle fingers.

I didn’t see him, but Jedediah chased after me, apologizing to furious drivers as he went. I stopped finally beneath the changing traffic light, looked skyward, and howled like an animal. The force of my screams snapped both of the thin straps of my sundress. They waved limply over my exposed bra, fluttering up and down as cars sped past. The woman on the sidewalk, the mother, picked up her girls in their yellow dresses and covered their ears. She carried them to safety inside a jewelry pawnshop on the Bowery. The lights outside flashed:
CASH! DIAMONDS! LAY-AWAY!

Chapter 19

The morning after
Cara
died, she came back. I hallucinated her in my kitchen.

Cara wore baggy blue pajamas cuffed at the wrists. She sat with her ankles crossed, on the floor in front of the woodstove, beneath an open window. She had helped herself to coffee; she stirred it with a teaspoon. The soft clink of silver against porcelain, the bell with which she’d summoned me.

She looked just as she always had in the mornings: messy-haired, her face pillow- and blanket-creased.

I fell to my knees before her in thanks, rested my head in her lap. She’d returned to me, just as we’d both promised. When we were girls we’d made a pact: If one of us died first, a sign should be given from beyond, a gesture to say we’d made it, we were safe: a flick of a light switch; a vase pushed from the mantel; a door blown open; a ringing phone; a visit must be paid. That was the rule.

“I thought you might be worried. I know how you are.” Cara put her cold hand on the back of my neck and gently rubbed, pressing her small thumb down into my sore shoulders, smoothing knots, kneading like a kitten for momma’s milk.

“Are you in heaven?” I asked.

“I don’t know where I am. But there are other women here like me.” She pushed and rolled her bony elbows tenderly into my back.

“I’ll miss you,” I begged.

“I like it here. We women eat. We play hide and go seek in the sunflower fields. We hold hands and swing near the water’s edge.”

“Will I ever see you again?”

“I hope not here. You wouldn’t fit in.”

“Why not?”

“We compare scars and burns,” she said. “You don’t have any of those.”

“But I do,” I argued.

Cara lifted my head from her lap, holding the sides of my face with both hands. “You have years before you, happy ones.”

“I don’t want years.” I was certain of this. I felt I had been cut; I was alive, but only by half.

I twisted from her grasp. I’d loved her as though she would never die. “Did it occur to you that if you went and died I would still have to live? How could you do this?”

“There are things still left to do,” Cara said, apologizing. “You’ll have to plan my funeral.”

“What are you asking of me?” I hadn’t allowed myself to consider what would happen to her body.

“I spent years trying to get out of this body,” she said. “Get rid of it. Burn it.”

“I don’t know if I can.” How could I destroy her?

“Please. Help me get out of here,” Cara was pleading.

“I will. I promise.” But I wondered too what would become of me. We’d been one soul in two bodies.

“Take me to Venice,” she said. “I could be there forever. When we went together, it was the best time of my life.”

Cara told me she wanted to wear a fancy dress and then be cremated and scattered in the sinking city: the other half of me wanted to spend eternity swirling in the Venetian tide.

Chapter 20

Three weeks earlier, a
tire on Cara’s car had flown off on the interstate. She had been coming home to Mom’s from downtown when the tire came loose and then shot straight up into the air like a pop-up ball. The hubcap had rolled to the side, a grounder. She’d lost control and turned the wheel quick to the right to recover, careening sidelong into a guardrail. The wheel had flown to places unknown, and the front fender with it.

June 13 was the day Mom and Cara had planned on driving to Will’s Wheels and Hubcap Haven in Middleburg, to pick up a new tire. Will’s is open until 5:30 p.m., and it’s a forty-five-minute drive from Mom’s house. Mom hoped to leave work early enough to get to Will’s before it closed.

She’d seen Cara early that morning, just after sunup, as she was leaving the house for work. Cara stood in the kitchen stirring a spoon of sugar into her coffee. Ordinarily, Cara woke after eleven; she slept in like a teenager. Mom asked if Cara planned to accompany her to Will’s, and Cara was ahead of her. She proudly handed Mom a freshly printed copy of directions. Mom poured herself a cup of coffee into a tall metal travel mug and kissed Cara’s cheek, thanked her for being so thoughtful, and headed out for work. Mom said she’d call when she was ready to leave. She’d see Cara later.

Mom works as a laboratory specialist at a fertility hospital. She helps women conceive. Her day consists of semen washes and injections of ready sperm into waiting eggs. She makes twins at her job, as many babies as can be safely tucked into a uterus to grow. June 13 was busy with babies—typical of spring. She wouldn’t be out early.

At 3 p.m., Mom left a message for Cara saying she wouldn’t be able to leave work for another hour. She asked Cara to call and let her know if she wanted to be picked up to go to Will’s. Mom called several more times, and finally made the decision to go straight to Will’s. She didn’t want to miss out on getting the wheel. Graham, Mom’s boyfriend, had set aside time that evening to paint the fender and start putting the car back together. There wasn’t a lot of time. Cara needed the car; she was to begin her summer teaching job at Williams College that weekend.

Mom arrived home at six. Cara’s dog met Mom in the kitchen, whined and yawned, scratched at her leg. Mom called out. There was no reply. She opened a window and looked into the backyard. Cara wasn’t there reading a book or napping on a lawn chair in the shade. Cicadas sang in the trees. Lilies bloomed. The grass would soon need cutting.

Mom went upstairs and looked to see if Cara was sleeping. Her bed was unmade, but empty. Her favorite shoes were tucked beneath her desk. Cara’s diary was open; a pen lay in the crease of its spine. She’d left her perfume uncapped on her dresser, beside a soggy bowl of cereal. Cara’s purse was open and rifled through on the floor. Her wallet was missing. Maybe she’d gone out with a friend for ice cream or had a last-minute date? There
was
a new young man in the picture—there were several.

Mom walked to the hallway and looked at the open bathroom door. Cara had scolded Mom earlier in the week for walking in on her when she was in the bathroom; that was still on Mom’s mind. There were new rules to follow now that her grown daughter had moved back home. Rule number one: privacy.

*   *   *

Mom had painted and freshly papered every wall in the house. Each room had a decorative motif. Mom had moved from room to room in a circle of remodeling. This was her habit; it had been for years. It still is: She finishes one room in the house just as the first needs remaking. She guts her house with sledgehammers; she sandblasts plaster. Mom smells like wood stain. She breathes in fiberglass by the lungful. She makes her home prettier than the newest Pottery Barn catalogue. She had made the bedroom upstairs and the adjoining bathroom comfortable for Cara. The shower curtain was crisp and clean. The bathtub was caulked and the drains clear.

Mom had made everything right in her house, but everything seemed wrong to her that evening: It was sunny and warm outside, but inside the house was cold and dim. The dog was frantic and wouldn’t follow Mom upstairs. The wrecked Mitsubishi was in the driveway, but Cara wasn’t around.

Mom went downstairs to start dinner and stood at the stove; Graham came in, said hello, and wrapped his hands around her waist. He asked what was for dinner. She said she’d planned to cook on the grill, but found it was out of propane. Graham suggested they go out to eat. They could stop on the way to his auto shop and save time.

They went to a diner down the road; Mom had a fish fry. She wanted to go back, felt she must go back, but didn’t say anything. She’d been told she was paranoid and she knew that she was. Hers had been a lifetime of fears grown into horrors. Her father didn’t live to see her eleventh birthday. Her own mother had passed when she was only twenty-one. They’d just buried her eldest brother. It was trivial, she knew, but the family cat had just died, too, right at Cara’s feet. Was this an omen? The proud Siamese was old, but had sickened suddenly, seized, and failed. Cara called Mom at work with the bad news. That was just days ago. In the prime of her life, Mom was surrounded by death. There was always a disaster plan. Her life had trained her to make them.

Mom took a deep breath and thought of the shining new hubcap and sturdy wheel. Cara was fine. Soon she’d be off in her newly repaired car.

At the shop, Mom sanded the fender to prep it for the paint. Graham opened the new bucket and found it was the wrong color. The auto paint store had misread the code and mixed brown instead of blue. Car work ended for the evening.

On the way home, Graham saw one of his friends. The two stopped so he could visit. Mom fidgeted with her phone, called Cara. No answer. She told Graham she wanted to go home but didn’t say why. Mom was always worried about something: the iron was switched on, she’d left the door unlocked, the dog had slipped the fence, her daughter was dead and gone.

They got home around 7:30 p.m. Mom went immediately upstairs, first to the bedroom, then to the bathroom.

Cara was on the floor, sitting, half on her right hip, her legs bent at the knees and to the side. Very casual and easy. Her head was bent down so her chin rested on her chest. Her hair covered her face. The sink cabinet supported her forehead. Mom called Cara’s name, put her hands on Cara’s back; it was warm, a trick of the sun. The sun had risen and set on her back. Mom placed her hands on Cara’s shoulders to shake her. They were cold. Cara’s arms were in front of her, hands clenched and purple. Mom knew she was dead from her hands. Cara sat on her open wallet. It was stuffed full: appointment cards, saved fortunes from cookies, a book of stamps, two one-dollar bills, five bags of heroin. Graham heard Mom scream and ran upstairs—this was noted in the police report. Mom went for the phone, still calling out for Graham. She dialed 911.

The operator told Mom to lay Cara on her back; she said she’d talk her through CPR. Cara was rigid, propped between the sink and the commode. She was immovable, too heavy for her mother’s arms. It was Graham’s turn to try; Mom stayed on the phone with the operator, begging her to send help. Mom went back and forth. She alternated thinking—Cara was dead; maybe she was going to be all right. Mom left the narrow bathroom so Graham could get inside. She asked him the same question, skipping like a record in her head: “She’s not dead, right? She’s going to be okay, right?” He didn’t answer.

From the door, Mom saw that Graham had moved Cara from in front of the sink to the wall just inside the doorway. She was still, frozen in position. Mom couldn’t look at her face. She’d never forgive herself this moment of self-preservation: a mother should never fear her child’s face.

She heard sirens in the driveway, went downstairs to usher in the EMTs, and followed them upstairs. Now she was asking them, “She’s going to be okay, right? She’s not dead, right?” No answer.

The police found a dirty syringe, cotton balls, a spoon, and a lighter, which Cara had used to cook up her brew. All were tucked into a makeup bag in her medicine cabinet. Along with the makeup bag there were several bottles of Dexatrim, a pile of hair clips encrusted with glitter, and plastic flowered bobby pins. She had a bottle of multivitamins that read:
Healthy Choice Naturals
;
choose to begin the rest of your life
.