Little Black Lies (22 page)

H
ello!” my mom calls out, seeing us in the hallway. She stands up from her rocker and pulls me in for a hug. My mother, BD, was not so demonstrative and would have shied from these open displays of affection. But maybe it's time to stop comparing my mom to herself, AD, BD. She is who she is right now. Maybe she'll be different tomorrow. But then, so will we all.

Scotty gets a hug, too, then yawns, stretching his arms up to almost touch the ceiling. “I'm going to grab some coffee from the lobby. You want anything?”

“No, thank you,” Mom says.

“Sure,” I say. “I'll take a coffee.”

After he leaves, the room is quiet a moment. The sun shines bright through the window, a light snow dusting the ground. I pull my leg higher on the bed; my brace keeps slipping off the quilt.

“How did you hurt your leg?” she asks.

“Running,” I answer quickly. “Mom?”

“Yes, honey,” she answers, leaning toward me in her rocker. Her face is peaceful and open today, not the worried, bewildered visage I have seen lately.

“I know I've been a little difficult about trying to find out about my biological mother.”

“Oh, honey, that's natural. That doesn't upset me. I wish I could tell you more. But I don't remember so much about Beth these days. And the fire.”

“I know, I know. And that's okay. What I wanted to tell you is, it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that
you're
my mother.” I reach over and touch her knee. “And I love you.”

I think of my other mother, my other poor, dead mother with her vodka bottles, her alcoholic husband, and her daughter dressed in black, tattooed with death. I feel sorry for her. But I never knew her enough to love her. And if I had to choose, I would choose my mom, my
real mom, BD or AD. I would choose Zoe, not Tanya.

“I love you, too, honey,” she says.

We hear the squeak of Scotty's shoes returning.

“They were closed,” he explains.

“Oh well,” I say.

“There was quite a scene out there,” he adds.

“Oh yeah?” my mom says.

“Yeah, this guy out there kept yelling about gorillas in the dining room,” Scotty says, lifting his tangerine-orange sneakers onto the coffee table. “He seemed pretty convinced about it. Finally some staff had to come and calm him down.”

“Oh,” my mom says. “That's ol
d
Dr. Horne
r
. That man is always going on about the gorillas.”

I chuckle at how matter-of-fact my mom is about this. My mother, who in an unguarded moment told me they put cameras in the bathroom to spy on her. It's hard to judge, really, who's crazy and who isn't. Sofia, who killed our mother because she wanted to; Jack, who still thinks about heroin every day; Jean Luc, who can understand any chemical equation but not love. And me, who needs Adderall to keep my thoughts from flyi
ng
.
Gorillas in the dining room, dinosaurs in the backyard. That's the least of it.

The truth is, we are all a little crazy.

Dear Reader,

Walking up the stairs one night, I saw the reflection of the moon on the tile of my laundry room floor. This seems an innocuous-enough image, mundane even. But somehow the way the light was bent and scattered, it looked almost like blood spatter. (Yes, as a rabid mystery reader, I find my imagination tends toward the gory at times.) A line came into my mind: “Moonlight spattered on the floor.”

What was this then? A poem? An image to file away? Over the next few days, the vision wouldn't leave me alone. Instead, it grew. There was a girl hiding there, in a room lit only by the moonlight. What was she doing? From whom was she hiding?

By inches, the girl started to fill in. She was injured by whatever she saw, changed. She was flawed and insecure, brilliant and a little nutty all at the same time. Therefore she had to be a psychiatrist. Thus Dr. Zoe Goldman was born.

Now all good protagonists need a quest. And as her boyfriend Jean Luc says, “We are all looking for our mothers, no?” Of course, there is Freudian play in this, but taken to another level. Zoe is not only subconsciously but literally looking for her mother: her “real” or birth mother. And at the same time, she is also searching for her adoptive mother, who is disappearing behind the veil of early onset Alzheimer's disease.

The mother quest turns out to be quite a challenge. Many would-be mothers pop up in the book, including the mother of the imposter Beth and the woman in the picture, Zoe's fading adoptive mother, and the ghost of Sofia's mother.

In another nod to Freud, the very answer to Zoe's search is locked deep within her own subconscious memory, tantalizing but unreachable. She stabs at it
through hypnosis and dream analysis but to no avail. And all the while, the answer is staring her right in the face—but Zoe's conscious mind refuses to see it. Puzzles are laid out through the book (see if you can find them all) that her conscious mind struggles to solve, but they are grasped only by her subconscious.

Ultimately, however,
Little Black Lies
is more than just a Freudian nightmare. It is about family, the constant mutation, strain, and repair of the bonds that connect us. Zoe does find her mother in the end, both mothers. She fills in the missing piece, the hole punctured in herself on that moonlit night, with the discovery of her own empathy. Zoe gains empathy for her patients, as well as her family, for her mothers, her brothers, herself—and yes, even Sofia.

I hope the story will stay with you long after you've read the last page.

All my best,

SANDRA BLOCK

1. Could you relate to Zoe? Did you get a sense of how exhausting it is sometimes to be in her head? Do you ever feel like that yourself?
   
2. Do you have any friends or relatives with ADHD? Do you feel reading this book helped you understand them better?
   
3. Zoe often seems uncomfortable in her own skin. Why do you think this is? Her height? Her ADHD? Her age? Do you recall feeling that way in your life?
   
4. What do you think of Zoe's relationship with her brother Scotty? Do you like Scotty? Can you see how living with Zoe all these years may have been difficult for him at times?
   
5. Do you relate to Zoe's desire to connect with her birth mother? Why do you think she felt the need to do this after all these years?
   
6. Do you think her adoptive mother remembered the truth at this point? Do you think she was still lying? Why didn't she tell Zoe the truth in the first place?
   
7. Do you blame Zoe's adoptive mother for keeping the truth from her? What would you have done in her situation?
   
8. During her residency, Zoe and her resident friends (Jason and Dr. A, for instance) are in constant contact with a stream of patients. Did their attitudes surprise you at all? Did this behind-the-scenes look at Zoe's residency interest you?
   
9. Zoe has her share of romantic troubles. Could you understand her attraction to Jean Luc? Do you think he was right for her?
   
10. How are Mike and Jean Luc different? Which one do you think Zoe should end up with?
    
11. Did you guess, before Sofia's revelation, the answer to Zoe's quest for her mother? Looking back, can you find the clues that lead us there?
    
12. Many puzzles are scattered throughout the book. Can you identify some of them? Why do you think this is? What does the puzzle represent here?
    
13. Why do you think Sofia killed her mother? Is it because she “wanted to”? Was she just “God's mistake,” as her brother, Jack, wonders? Do you think she was sexually abused by her father?
    
14. Do you think Zoe will maintain a relationship with Jack? Would you?
    
15. Forgiveness is one of the themes in the book. Who should be forgiven? Should Zoe forgive Sofia? Should she forgive her adoptive mother for lying? Should she forgive her birth father for leaving them? Does Zoe herself deserve forgiveness? If so, what for?
    
16. Another theme throughout the book is the idea of a continuum of “craziness.” Who gets to define
    crazy
    ? Do you agree that everyone is a “little crazy”?
    
17. The book relies heavily on Freudian theories of the conscious and subconscious, probably part of Zoe's training. Do you subscribe to these theories? Are you aware of decisions or actions in your own life that have seemed more due to your subconscious than to your conscious mind?
    

Rachel Ekstrom, who called one day and said, “I liked your book, actually
loved
your book” (I still have the phone message saved!) and offered to take me on. To this motorboating adventure and many more…

Alex Logan, who didn't just tell me the book could be better but showed me how.

My agent-sibs (you know who you are!), for giving me all that twitter lovin'.

Maxine Rodburg, who treated me like a writer when I was really just an annoying college freshman.

Allison, Becca, Kath, Maye, Nell, Bissell, Leela, Melissa, and all the others (yes, Facebook friends, that's you!), who cheered me on.

All my coworkers at the best sleep center in town (Buffalo Medical Group, of course), who had to hear about every twist and turn on the publishing road.

Nanette Burstein, for taking the time to read it. Ed Park, for all your help. Bill Smith, for giving me advice on this go-round, and Emily Smith, for reading my first awful attempt all those years ago…

Margie Long, who read the manuscript and told me she had “quite enough” of the villainous Sofia.

My brother, who always has my back (and who doesn't swear nearly as often as Scotty).

My mom, who loved my book as only a mother could. (And yes, my agent
had
read more than one book when she offered to represent me…)

My dad, who is still doing my homework.

Owen, who practiced his reading over my shoulder.

Charlotte, who told her teachers on a school trip that I was a writer, which made me realize that I actually was.

Charlotte and Owen, who brighten my world every day.

And finally my husband, Patrick, who gave me his tough love in red writing in the margins, who gave me Saturdays to write, and who loved me even when I was at my most writerly unlovable. You will always be my favorite heavyweight.

Sandra Block graduated from college at Harvard, then returned to her native land of Buffalo, New York, for medical training and never left. She is a practicing neurologist and proud Sabres fan and lives at home with her family and Delilah, her impetuous yellow lab. She has been published in both medical and poetry journals.
Little Black Lies
is her first novel.

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