“Stop me before I finish these. Jesus, I love chili fries.”
Perhaps the most disorienting thing about that trip was seeing my own family. I hadn’t told my mother I’d be coming. In fact, I hadn’t even really planned on seeing them. I hadn’t thought about where I would be staying, having just assumed that I would be somehow needed at the hospital twenty-four hours a day. When Jim and Dana made it clear at the end of the first day that I should go “home,” I began to wonder exactly where home should be. I knew vaguely that I could pay for one or two nights on what was left of the new credit card’s available balance, but I couldn’t afford at all the two weeks I planned to stay. The only sensible thing to do was go home-home, and yet I did not want to.
Though Lor and I had always joked that I had a stone for a heart, I knew really that what I was trying to describe was a profound fickleness, a weird detachment from reality and other people. I could love someone profoundly and still hurt that person mortally. I had to actively, consciously try not to hurt the people I loved. I was, in some sense, simply too free. It was easy to not tell Lorrie Ann I was applying to Yale. It was easy even, in a mechanical sense, to schedule that abortion and break my toe. It was easy to wash down Lorrie Ann’s blood-crusted and bloated body, to gently soap her bruised hips.
But what had not been easy, even for me, was to leave my brothers. Every day I kept myself from imagining what might be happening to them. I trusted my mother to take care of them not at all. The momentmy mind landed on Max or Alex, when I remembered something they said or did or a look they often gave, my inner self would leap back as if burned. I did not want to go home to my mother’s because I was afraid that their clothes would be dirty, that she wouldn’t be home or if she was that she would be passed out, that they would hug me too tightly and whisper-beg, as they had when I first left, for me to please please stay. If what was in my mother’s house was too bad, I would not be able to return to Yale at all. I could leave once, but it would be beyond even me to do it twice. I knew all this as I pulled up in front of my old house in the little green rental car, which had an engine as high-pitched and feeble as an ailing mosquito.
But what I found was disturbing in a completely different way. I pressed the doorbell and my little brother Max, who was the oldest, answered. “It’s Mia!” he screamed, and clamped his little arms around me, pressing his face into my stomach. Inside I could smell spaghetti sauce. There was a new lamp in the living room. My mother came out from the kitchen wearing an apron. An apron! When she kissed me, there was not even the smell of wine on her breath.
It turned out that without me, everything had been fine. They had been thriving. My belief that I had been the glue that was keeping our entire little family together turned out to be a complete delusion. In fact, they all seemed much happier and at peace than when I had lived there. Even the bathroom was squeaky clean, with a new and really lovely shower curtain, cream with pink and brown flowers, satiny and rich people–ish.
I could have cried.
The next few days were frankly a little boring. In the mornings, I would head to the hospital, where more and more I received the impression that I was actually in the way. I was rarely alone with Lorrie Ann, as Jim and Dana were ever present. Even Bobby swung by every day, bringing In-N-Out burgers or burritos for everyone. Eventually, Jim stopped mein the hall outside Lorrie Ann’s room. “How long are you gonna stay?” he asked.
“I figured I’d get some lunch around one,” I said.
“No, I mean in California.”
“Oh, I’m here for two weeks.”
“Two weeks?” he asked. “Wow.”
There was an awkward pause. I could hear Dana laughing inside Lor’s room, and Lor murmuring something that made her mother
Perhaps the most disorienting thing about that trip was seeing my own family. I hadn’t told my mother I’d be coming. In fact, I hadn’t even really planned on seeing them. I hadn’t thought about where I would be staying, having just assumed that I would be somehow needed at the hospital twenty-four hours a day. When Jim and Dana made it clear at the end of the first day that I should go “home,” I began to wonder exactly where home should be. I knew vaguely that I could pay for one or two nights on what was left of the new credit card’s available balance, but I couldn’t afford at all the two weeks I planned to stay. The only sensible thing to do was go home-home, and yet I did not want to.
Though Lor and I had always joked that I had a stone for a heart, I knew really that what I was trying to describe was a profound fickleness, a weird detachment from reality and other people. I could love someone profoundly and still hurt that person mortally. I had to actively, consciously try not to hurt the people I loved. I was, in some sense, simply too free. It was easy to not tell Lorrie Ann I was applying to Yale. It was easy even, in a mechanical sense, to schedule that abortion and break my toe. It was easy to wash down Lorrie Ann’s blood-crusted and bloated body, to gently soap her bruised hips.
But what had not been easy, even for me, was to leave my brothers. Every day I kept myself from imagining what might be happening to them. I trusted my mother to take care of them not at all. The momentmy mind landed on Max or Alex, when I remembered something they said or did or a look they often gave, my inner self would leap back as if burned. I did not want to go home to my mother’s because I was afraid that their clothes would be dirty, that she wouldn’t be home or if she was that she would be passed out, that they would hug me too tightly and whisper-beg, as they had when I first left, for me to please please stay. If what was in my mother’s house was too bad, I would not be able to return to Yale at all. I could leave once, but it would be beyond even me to do it twice. I knew all this as I pulled up in front of my old house in the little green rental car, which had an engine as high-pitched and feeble as an ailing mosquito.
But what I found was disturbing in a completely different way. I pressed the doorbell and my little brother Max, who was the oldest, answered. “It’s Mia!” he screamed, and clamped his little arms around me, pressing his face into my stomach. Inside I could smell spaghetti sauce. There was a new lamp in the living room. My mother came out from the kitchen wearing an apron. An apron! When she kissed me, there was not even the smell of wine on her breath.
It turned out that without me, everything had been fine. They had been thriving. My belief that I had been the glue that was keeping our entire little family together turned out to be a complete delusion. In fact, they all seemed much happier and at peace than when I had lived there. Even the bathroom was squeaky clean, with a new and really lovely shower curtain, cream with pink and brown flowers, satiny and rich people–ish.
I could have cried.
The next few days were frankly a little boring. In the mornings, I would head to the hospital, where more and more I received the impression that I was actually in the way. I was rarely alone with Lorrie Ann, as Jim and Dana were ever present. Even Bobby swung by every day, bringing In-N-Out burgers or burritos for everyone. Eventually, Jim stopped mein the hall outside Lorrie Ann’s room. “How long are you gonna stay?” he asked.
“I figured I’d get some lunch around one,” I said.
“No, I mean in California.”
“Oh, I’m here for two weeks.”
“Two weeks?” he asked. “Wow.”
There was an awkward pause. I could hear Dana laughing inside Lor’s room, and Lor murmuring something that made her mother
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