When I agreed to let Connie stay with me, it was on condition that she wouldn’t get in my way. We both decided she would stay out of my business, and I would stay out of hers. It’s never easy for two grown women to stay together – one queen per hive and all that. Connie had been sober for 5 years now, or at least that is what she told me, so I felt more comfortable letting her stay. Truth is, I needed her. I needed that second income to keep my house.
My child support payments stopped weeks ago, and I was in jeopardy of losing everything: my son Jason, myself, and Willow, my miniature pinscher. I would never tell her or anyone else that. But we might make it with Connie’s income and mine combined. I worked in accounting departments for years, earning just enough to keep the lights on.
I was content with this and didn’t need much: a one-bedroom apartment, a place to sleep, and food in the fridge. Late work nights with my boss led to an unexpected pregnancy, which, after finding out, moved me to a less visible department, away from him, that paid even less than the last position. I was at once pregnant and demoted. Maybe it was fate that Connie called me one day if I believed in that sort of thing. Still, I don’t know how she got my number to this day.
I hadn’t seen her in years. She left town abruptly, having gone into a drunken stupor and allegedly abusing her elderly mother. She would tell me that it was all a lie. When she returned to town again, she was a wisp of a woman. Once ruddy and pudgy-cheeked, double-chinned, with neck rolls, it was now deflated, its skin flabby. She looked as if the air had been released from her, and this thin, almost skeletal woman was all that remained.
My eyes measured her weight: no more than 90 pounds, and she stood only 5 feet. She stood at the threshold of my front door, exhausted from her journey and with only one old piece of ratty luggage. Her hair still had a reddish-orange bottle job she had been using since the 80s. This hair color was the only thing about her that remained the same.
“I know I’ve lost so much weight! No more beer swelling me up!” Connie said.
“You look good.” I lied.
“Nah, what man would look at me now?”
She was fishing for a compliment that I wasn’t prepared to give. I had already lied to her that she looked good and hadn’t been in the house for more than five minutes. One lie a day was enough for me. I hugged her, and that familiar smell of her skin took me back to my childhood. She felt like a bag of bones, a clothed Halloween skeleton. I cleared my head of negativity to make this whole thing work. I would give her grace.
After all, she was my mother.
Over the next few weeks, Connie and I settled into a routine: I worked, and she stayed home, cleaning the house and caring for Jason and Willow. We stayed up many nights having long talks about her life and all the traumatic experiences she had. I often wondered if ever anything truly good had happened to her. She always seemed to tell me the worst stories of her life, stories I could’ve gone my whole life without knowing.
But one thing Connie never talked about was her abandonment of me as a child. It had been almost 10 years since I had last seen her; before that, it had been 5 years. Her age settled into her skin, cracked and dried like broken pottery. She never brought it up. I was to remain stoic, acquiescing previous abuses with a quiet smile, masking my disgust. I could hear my late aunt scolding me for speaking out against Connie. She would say, ‘That is still your mother,’ as if my occupation of her womb excused her neglectful behavior, erasing my scars.
To keep the air free of tension, I never asked why. But it was there, that thick tension that made my anxiety go through the roof when Connie came into my bedroom. Her smile was crooked, and I could never tell whether she was genuine. She had lied so much to me over the years; if I hadn’t seen her birth certificate, I wouldn’t have believed her name was Connie.
During this time of fake and forced mother-and-daughter bonding, my panic attacks became more frequent. What was once a now-and-then occurrence is becoming a monthly, weekly, and now daily occurrence. The prescription of Prozac was increased by an additional 10 mg from 30 to 40. Dr. Hartman says that maybe having Connie move in wasn’t a good idea. At $182 an hour, you’d think she’d lie to me slightly.
At night, the vibrations of Connie’s voice would echo off the thin walls when she talked on the phone. I could hear her whispering at all times of the night. I knew she was talking about me and how she was my saving grace, telling the world that I was an unfit, unwed mother, broke, and on meds. I didn’t want to start anything. Old women gossip. What else do they have to do? When I opened her door to catch her berating me, the lights were always off, and Connie would be fast asleep.
I would use the excuse to tell her to keep her voice down, that she was disturbing Jason, but she would be asleep each time. Downstairs, Willow starts barking as if someone is at the door or in the yard. But when I go downstairs, Willow is not there, but in her bed at the top of the stairs, poking her head up from her pillow. I had passed her right up.
I could hear Jason screaming, “MOMMY STOP”!
When I reached Jason’s room, it was the same. He had been sleeping for hours, holding his blue rubber T. rex dinosaur to his chest. This series of events repeated every night, becoming a nightmare.
Office of Dr. Evelyn Hartman, M.D.
Dr. Hartman was in her 50s, just old enough for me to trust her advice. She was sharp and always professional. I could never tell if Dr. Hartman was on my side or trying to make me feel worse. I wondered at times what she looked like with her hair down, on a beach, or having sex. Did she ever unfurl the classic French roll hairdo and throw her pantyhose out the window? I couldn’t see it. She greets me at the door the same way she always does, as if I’m a dear friend, someone she hasn’t seen in a while and misses. I see her twice a week.
“It’s so good to see you, Rachel! I’m very proud of you for keeping up with your appointments. Consistency makes progress!”
My face hurts when I try to smile back at her; my cheek muscles don’t contract naturally into a smile; it is uncomfortable. It’s more like the sour face of a woman who sucked on a lemon. Dr. Hartman sits across from me in her brown leather, diamond-tufted desk chair. I would never be able to buy a chair like that.
“Tell me, how was your weekend?” said Dr Hartman.
“The other day, I woke up in a rush, thinking I was late for work. I’m getting ready, running around with a toothbrush and one shoe on, when Connie tells me it’s Sunday. How could that be when the night before it was only Thursday? How could I not remember Friday? I yelled at her for making me feel crazy and told her I didn’t need a Mommy telling me when I go to work. I got dressed anyway. I drove to the office to find only the janitors there. I sat in my car for an hour, trying to remember where Friday went. The entire day was gone.
Connie is doing this: when I returned home, the trash bag liner was wrapped around the outside of the trash can instead of lining the inside of the bin, and the pictures on my walls were upside down. Why would she do that? I found a six-pack of beer hiding in the washing machine with a bottle of Xanax. When I confronted her about it, she lied straight to my face! When I returned to the washing machine, the beer and the pills were gone, replaced with soggy, wet clothes. She is just that fast!! She is just that quick and clever! She rearranged the furniture and changed the curtains to suit her taste! She didn’t even ask me! She is taking over my home!”
I had a nasty habit of biting my nails when I was nervous, and uncontrollable shaking in my legs. I could never be still or sit down without moving.
“Are you sure that happened the way you remember it? How are you sleeping these days?”
“Sleep!? She talks all night, but then she doesn’t. The dog barks at the door, but she’s not even there. My son keeps having nightmares where he is screaming my name for me to stop, but then he isn’t. He’s just sleeping.”
I suddenly realize that I sound insane. I watch her pen make even more notes and scribble on the pad. I’m nervous she will pick up her desk phone and call two big men in white uniforms to take me away. Are people still committed against their will nowadays?
“Rachel, I don’t think I’m understanding you. But I believe you believe this happened, and that’s what matters, right?” Dr. Hartman said.
She scoots to the edge of her seat, leans in, and seems personable, making me believe she cares. “Is it possible your mind is protecting you from something more painful? Have you and Connie talked about how her abandoning you made you feel as a child?”
“It didn’t come up,” I say pensively.
“How about you bring it up? ”
“Maybe.”
“In the meantime, I’ll prescribe Ambien to help with your sleep. Not getting adequate rest can strain the body and mind. Make sure to read about the side effects. It’s different for everyone,” Dr. Hartman says.
Back Home
Connie was in the kitchen preparing what I knew to be her specialty: meatloaf. Jason was already at the table, bouncing his blue dinosaur up and down the table’s edge. Willow strategically placed herself under the table for the meatloaf that would soon fall off Jason’s plate and directly into her mouth. Connie motions for me to sit at the table, but I can’t move. She walks over and hugs me with her bony arms and thin-skinned hands, the smell of her skin reminding me again of being 6 years old, waiting and waiting for her to come home. But she never did. I held my breath so as not to take in more of her. I didn’t see her again until I was 15, after living with my grandparents for all those years. Our relationship felt like a distant aunt whom I only saw at funerals and family reunions. Distant, detached, obligatory. I pushed her off me and headed up the stairs. I didn’t want to eat.
Sleep is what I needed. Sleep.
I’m weightless, walking on clouds, seeing the ocean. I’m swimming. I’m diving. There is no time on top of this mountain. I can stay here forever, seeing it all: the past, the present, the future. Dark clouds form, and my heart begins to beat faster. I’m scared now. She is here. Connie is here. Even in my dreams, I could not escape her. I run down my mountain away from her, away from her lies, her deceit, and into the ocean, where she follows me. My hands grab her scrawny throat and push her head under the water. She won’t stop talking. The words muffled and gurgled. She can’t move now; she can’t speak anymore or ever again to me.
I woke up not to find myself soaking wet on the bathroom floor, water spilling over the tub. Jason is screaming at me.
“Stop, Mommy! Stop!”
I look up and see her face. She is on the phone again, always talking about me.
“Hello, Dr. Hartman! I’m Connie, Rachel’s mother. I found your number on her pill bottle. Something awful has happened! She’s killed poor little Willow! I don’t know what happened! She drowned the poor thing in the tub!”
Connie grabs Jason, leaving me on the wet floor, my ocean, my eyelids are shades going up and down, the Ambien teetering my consciousness between dream and reality.
Reality — Whatever that is.
