Maternal instinct, p.21
Maternal Instinct, page 21
Harrumphing at her own obsession, Grace rolled over to see Hal paging through the beautiful photographs in that baking book she had given him for Christmas. That was a good sign, and made her feel as if keeping her thoughts and feelings to herself had been a good decision. Or maybe the antidepressants he was taking now had blunted not only his own pain but his awareness of hers. She asked, not about her pain, but about his own mood.
‘Hard to tell,’ he said, looking over the top of his glasses which had slid down his nose in a way she remembered as endearing. ‘I can’t tell if it’s me or the drug. But better than I was.’
Grace tried a different approach, something safe that wouldn’t sound like she was trying to manipulate him. ‘I ate one of those …’ she couldn’t bring herself to use the word chooky, ‘parmesan things after dinner. It was really good.’
Hal actually grinned. OK, maybe it didn’t qualify as an out-and-out grin, but the corners of his mouth went up and she thought she detected a flash of teeth. ‘I think I might be on to something. A whole line of savory dinner breads. Puff pastry. Branch out from the cheese flavor. Herbs. Sriracha to go with Mexican dishes. Soy-flavored for Asian. Not a bread and not a cookie.’
‘If you do other flavors besides cheese, I guess … the name that came up at dinner wouldn’t work,’ Grace said.
Hal frowned. ‘We’ll work on it. I thought chookies was great, though.’
Grace had never hated a word with all her heart and soul before. ‘Can I ask you a question?’
‘Since when do you need permission?’
More than anything this moment, this pause, told her something wasn’t right about her marriage. Now she should ask Hal about that weird thing Althea said at the dinner table about finding true joy in the home instead of ‘elsewhere’. That would have been honest. Had Althea caused this break, or had it always been there? It saddened her that she asked instead, ‘One of the things we’ve never much talked about is your childhood.’
‘I thought we just did.’
‘Your actual mom. Biological.’
Hal sighed, elaborately for him. ‘Oh, oh, what happened between you this time?’
‘This time?’
‘Dad had this saying, “the feathers are flying in the henhouse”.’
‘I knew he was sexist, but not that sexist.’
Hal took off his reading glasses, which was always a sign she had his full attention. ‘Criticism accepted. Look, maybe you’re just more sensitive to things after your mom … that was a terrible thing to happen to anyone, honey.’
‘Infantilizing.’
‘Are you sure those books you’re reading are good for you?’
‘Trivializing.’
‘I give up! What silly thing did Althea do now?’
Hal must have thought that was better. ‘Nothing,’ Grace said. Oh that word. If she led with Althea opening her mail it would just sound petty now. ‘I’ve just been thinking about what it might have been like growing up with her.’ She looked at Hal, trying to rein in the intensity of her gaze. It wasn’t easy.
Hal shrugged and thought, or pretended to, anyways. ‘I don’t know, it was like any kid growing up. Nothing unusual, if that’s what you’re trying to get out of me.’
Grace ignored the combative tone and kept prodding as gently as she could. ‘She traveled with your dad a lot. You didn’t go along with them.’
‘No. It was always when I was still in school. It wasn’t for months, just two weeks now and then, and it was more looking for my sister Joan than for pleasure.’
He still sounded on the defensive.
‘Who stayed with you?’
‘I played soccer, so I was friends with team members. Or the coach’s family. That was once or twice, and he had a son who was on the team, too.’
At this rate it was going to take forever to get to where she wanted to go, but that was how Hal was. Trying to force him to do anything was comparable to pushing a train with your shoulder. When she slid down and stared at the ceiling he said, ‘That’s not what you want me to say, is it? Look. I had a regular childhood. Althea was nice to me. Maybe nicer than most stepmothers. At least the ones in the fairy tales. She cooked us meals and made things I liked. She took me to soccer matches before I got my license. She’d let me and my friends camp out in the back yard and she brought us milk and brownies.’ Hal smirked. ‘She never tried to lose me in the forest.’
‘What about Joan? Did she try to lose Joan?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, stop making shit up. Coming into a family like ours, she was damn near perfect. I’m so sorry I like her! Does that make you feel better? Shyla likes her, too.’
That was when Grace came to the conclusion that this was all his fault; that if he hadn’t been so cowed by his father, Fiona would still be alive. She could never tell him his subservience was responsible for her mother’s death, but had to keep the hate in her heart, diamond hard, the unique and lasting hate reserved for spouses.
Grace got up for a last pee, and while she was in the bathroom she opened the medicine cabinet to find Hal’s pills. She opened the child safety top and shook one pill into the palm of her hand. The tiny white disc promised that it would make her life different, that it would keep her sane and calm and … happy. She could be happy enough.
Nah, besides making her throw up, Grace couldn’t afford to take a drug that dulled her wits or her senses. Because she had to be on guard, if not for Hal’s sake, or even her own. What if there was some danger that had been unleashed in her world?
Don’t be paranoid.
Fiona had said she thought Althea was ‘batty’ and they had both made a joke of it.
It is a joke, that mad woman in the attic thing.
Fiona died that night.
What about Shyla? The mere question hit her brain like a thing of substance. Oh my God, what about Shyla? It was for the best if Shyla liked Althea the way Hal said she did. Liking Althea would keep Shyla safe, and more than herself, Grace needed to keep the remaining people in her world safe.
What’s this conversation I’m having with myself? Who’s crazy now? Is there a different kind of drug for not-crazy, something to shut down these thoughts?
Grace put the pill back in its container, replaced the cap, and returned it to its precise spot on the shelf so Hal wouldn’t notice even if he was capable of noticing. Hal had given her answers she didn’t want, and she was going to need all her wits about her in the coming battle. Battle. Was she, as another book told her, maximizing?
Hal’s light was off when she returned from the bathroom. She didn’t know how long she had been in the bathroom. Hal hadn’t come to the door and asked if she was all right. It had always been his way, to leave her alone to process her stuff when she was troubled, a typical guy thing. He had turned out his light which was probably his way of discouraging any further conversation, though he said, ‘This is going to take a while, Grace, maybe a long while. Your mom’s death, my own feelings of uselessness. Blending Althea into the family. We’ll get past it. It’s a hard time.’
Despite her hatred, she wished he would touch her, or maybe not. He did not. He never really had; it wasn’t in him, though she knew he loved her. And for herself, she had lost the will to initiate that small gesture of forgiveness and affection. She said, ‘I know, sweetie. I know,’ without meaning it.
That’s what she said to Hal, I know, sweetie. What she knew was that underneath his words and hers was the truth. Hal had just told her the battle had already been fought and there was no knowledge beyond knowing that Althea had won. Althea’s presence had taken everyone away from her: her mother, her husband, her daughter, her friends, and somehow herself. How strange that you could be part of a family of four and feel so lonely. Before turning off her own light, Grace bit half of a sleeping pill, her drug of choice for the night, a compromise that would put her to sleep but allow her to wake up if something terrible happened.
FIFTY-TWO
Grace told herself that Althea staying at home all day every day following the letter from the medical examiner was just a coincidence.
It arrived on a Tuesday. As she’d been told, the manner of death was accidental, caused by drowning. But a line pointed out that there were contributory circumstances, a slightly elevated alcohol blood level coupled with ‘nonbenzodiazepine’, what may have been estimated at ‘thirty milligrams ante-mortem’. Rather than try to get the ME to talk to her, Grace spent a little time googling instead and found answers that were probably just as good.
Estimated ante-mortem meant that the toxicologist figured out how much she might have taken before she died, based on how much of the drug was metabolized after she died.
Nonbenzodiazepine was the drug class for several sedatives, mainly zolpidem tartrate.
The usual maximum dosage of zolpidem tartrate was ten milligrams.
Zolpidem tartrate was the active ingredient in Ambien.
With an average reaction time of fifteen minutes, you weren’t supposed to take it until you were ready to sleep.
Fiona had told her she never took Ambien because it had given her hallucinations.
Even if she did take it, she would have the sense not to do so before she went swimming. Or on top of alcohol. And if she still had thirty milligrams of it in her system the following morning, she must have taken more than three pills.
And then her mind took the next reluctant step, the only step possible. Did Althea have a prescription for sleeping pills?
So it wasn’t until Sunday, when Althea had no excuse for staying home from church, that Grace could go into her room. As she stood at the entrance, the word ‘lair’ came into her head, but she pushed it back out again as just too dramatic. Besides, there was nothing lair-like about this space. It was – as she had first thought when she planned it – cheerful, with lots of light coming through the large windows at the far end of the spacious room.
Althea insisted on cleaning her own room, and she was an exceptionally tidy person. Everything was in exactly the same place Grace remembered it being on that first day Althea had arrived. A coaster for her mug on the table next to her reading chair. The edges of the coaster aligned perfectly with the edge of the table. No wrinkles in the plush bedspread. Even the air felt pure, as if Althea had somehow managed to remove the dust motes that floated in any normal room.
The bathroom was the same. Not a stray gray hair in the sink, no spots on the mirror that usually appeared from the ill-flick of a toothbrush. Grace bent over and examined the edges of the floor for a bit of dust but found none to relieve her. What did they say about cleanliness and godliness?
Grace knew she was delaying what she had come in here to do. She turned toward the medicine cabinet mounted on the wall next to the sink, and pulled open the door. It appeared Althea was extraordinarily healthy for a woman nearing seventy. There were no prescription drugs, just an array of the typical multivitamin chewies, calcium supplement, Tylenol.
She closed the door and took a tissue from the holder on the counter to wipe away sweat on the mirror left by her palm. She knew she understood what she was doing in here. What it meant.
A quick glance into the cabinet under both sinks came up with nothing. Grace came back into the bedroom area, looking for something in which something might likely be hidden. Like the little red suitcase stuck in an empty spot on the lowest shelf of the bookcase. Shyla had told her about that, how Althea showed her what she called keepsakes. Whether or not a bottle of prescription pills might be hidden in there was almost secondary to the lure of the case.
Grace pulled it from the shelf and sat on the floor with it before her. Wiping her hands on her jeans she reached out and clicked open the double old-fashioned clasp at the front, raised the lid and found what she had been told she would find. Old photos: some prints, some Polaroids. Careful not to displace any of the items, Grace rooted delicately among them, finding a card from Mason’s Funeral Home with Robert’s picture on it, a dried yellow flower of some kind pressed between sheets of waxed paper, a tiny bottle of orange blossom perfume still sealed in a package with a seashell.
There was a plastic pocket on the inside of the lid where you could put a mirror or something. Before she shut the lid, Grace noted there was a piece of paper stuck in there and wondered what would make this worthy of separate keeping. She pulled out the paper, opened it to a full page, and read at the top in large and serious letters, Certificat de décès. Didn’t need a language degree to figure that one out. Intriguing, but not what she was looking for. Grace folded the paper and stuck it back in the pocket just as it had been, then closed the little suitcase and placed it back on the bottom shelf of the bookcase.
Grace got off the floor and wanted to search further, but she had spent too much time with the suitcase and church might be ending shortly and then only fifteen minutes to get home from St Mark’s unless there were errands to run.
Just a bit more, though. She didn’t know when she’d have the courage to come back. Turning toward the bed, Grace saw on the nightstand the photo of Robert, identical to the one on the funeral card. He had always been kind to her, when he noticed her. Between the photograph and the box containing his ashes there was a book, an old novel it looked like, with the jacket still on it but frayed and torn. Rebecca, Grace read, what Althea had been reading when Grace tried the heart-to-heart thing.
Grace moved the book to see if there was a pill container somewhere on the table cluttered with the urn, the photograph, a candle and a lamp. Her hand must have been shaking with the tension of her clandestine operation as it jerked to the side like a poorly operated marionette, knocking the urn sitting next to the book. With horror she saw it tip, and before she could catch it to stop it, it had tumbled off the table on to the carpet.
Didn’t they seal the tops of those things? Stunned, she saw the contents, the gray ashes from what had once been her father-in-law, scatter. Not just ash, there were bits of things in it.
And something else. Something that didn’t belong. Something.
In one of her psychology books, she had read about something called cognitive dissonance. It described the way our brain reacts when it sees something that has no context in our world as we have known it up to that time. A classic example, the book cited, is when the Native Americans first spied sailing ships coming over the horizon, huge tubs, with gigantic white things growing over them, billowing like great white jellyfish. What did they see?
Her brain trying to bring what she saw into some context of what was real, what Grace saw was the tip of a small finger, what would have been Robert’s little finger. Rounded at one end with a jagged edge where the first knuckle would be. She was not immediately moved in any physiological way. Did not, for instance, throw up on the rug. But she was indeed upset by seeing a piece of a human. She half wanted to look away and half not. Rather than move closer to the thing she stayed where she was and bent over at the waist to get a better look. The thing was covered with fine grains, as if it had been pushed down into the urn rather than placed on top. Upon closer inspection she could find no fingernail attached. The ash would have collected there by the cuticle and highlighted it.
A catalogue of all the things it might have been:
a) A significant portion of Robert that had been left uncremated and of which Althea never knew.
b) Althea cutting off one of her own fingers and placing it in the urn, perhaps her ring finger, in a bizarre effort to be with her dead husband. Grace closed her eyes and played her mind over all the times she had seen Althea’s hands. Sitting at the dinner table. Petting Ruth. Saying her rosary. All ten fingers present and accounted for.
c) Something having to do with the spider that Althea said she killed. No, wrong shape.
d) Something from Ruth. A cat turd! Yes, that was it. But then Grace’s imagination traveled from the cat’s litter box to the urn and thought this would be truly insane.
e) Something not a cat turd from Ruth. A lizard, perhaps, that had been brought in as a gift, the tail broken off, the legs stuck to the side of the body. Althea wanting to keep it a secret. What better place to hide a secret?
Grace found herself pacing the room, back and forth, faster and faster, as she thought of all the things the thing might be. The lizard, yes, the lizard seemed like the most likely thing the thing could be. Althea’s motivation might be strange, but there would be a reason for hiding the lizard rather than throwing it in the garbage where it might be noticed, or burying it out back where the dirt might be noticed, or even flushing it down the toilet where it might get backed up and surface with an application of the plunger. Crazy, that is, and yet explainable. That was all Grace wanted – an explanation.
Secure in the knowledge that nothing happened in the world that couldn’t be explained, Grace stopped pacing and moved back to the little pile of ash. She carefully lifted her foot so as not to step in the gray … puddle more than solid … and bumped the thing with the toe of her show. More and more the image of a lizard began to catch hold. The thing had a tiny depression that could have been a closed eye. And a tiny cut underneath that. That could be a mouth.
She had picked up dead lizards before; you often found one in the houses that had been closed for a while, the creature having slipped in somehow and in time having caught every possible bug in the house, running out of both food and water and leaving behind its own drying carcass. But covered with Robert’s ash the way it was, the thought of touching the thing was abhorrent, so she got several tissues from the container in the bathroom and brought them back to the mess on the floor. She picked up the thing and carried it with her arm held straight away from her body back into the bathroom, dropped it into the sink by the drain, and ran water over it to clean away the ash.
As she had thought, once she was able to think, the thing wasn’t a Robert part. Even if it had been old, the skin (for it was skin) was too fresh to be so discolored. It was a lizard, or part of a lizard. Wrapping the tissue around her finger she poked at the lizard thing so it rolled over in the sink. Now she could see that the small depression was an eye, and that there were two of them. The slash that looked like a cut in a finger was a mouth.
