The Wives(47)
“I’m not here because I’m crazy,” I tell her.
She immediately opens her mouth to deny she’s ever had that thought. Of course, that’s her job as a mother.
“I’m not sick, either. I’m not having an emotional breakdown because I lost my baby a year ago.” I cut off all the roads her mind is taking, all the ways she’s trying to make excuses for why I’m here.
She closes her mouth and stares. I feel like a child as my bottom lip quivers. She won’t believe anything I say. Seth has already gotten to her.
“Mom, Seth already had another wife when I met him. Her name is Regina Coele. She didn’t want children. I was the one who was supposed to give him a baby. But then I had the...” My voice trails off.
My mother drops her head like this is all too much. I watch the tips of her lashes, the bridge of her nose, as she stares down at her shoes. From this angle she looks ten, twenty years younger. Just a girl who has bent her head in exasperation...frustration...hopelessness? I’ve never been good at telling what she’s really feeling. I know all of the brands she likes, I know her thoughts on shallow, useless topics, but I don’t know how to uncover what she’s truly feeling. I’m not quite sure if she knows, either.
“Regina is Seth’s ex-wife. He was married before you, yes. You’re right—she didn’t want children and so they parted ways.” My mother leans forward, her eyes imploring. It’s true. How can I argue with that? Regina is technically his ex-wife. He divorced her to marry me, after all. But they’re still together, still a couple, just without the title.
“Mother,” I say. “Please listen to me. Seth is trying to cover his tracks. They’re still together.”
She drops her face into her palms. When did I become the type of woman who isn’t believed by her own mother? When you started lying to yourself, I think.
When she looks up, her eyes are wet. She reminds me of a cocker spaniel with those wet eyes. “You have an unhealthy fixation on his exes. But, Thursday, he’s not with them. He’s with you. Seth is worried sick about you.” She reaches for my hand, but I pull it away. I won’t be coddled that way—spoken to like I’m a child. Her hand drops uselessly back into her lap.
“Why do you think he’s always in Portland? He has two other wives.” I stand up, begin pacing.
“He works there,” she hisses. “He loves you, we all do. We want you to get well.”
“I am well,” I say stiffly. I stop to glare at her. “Why hasn’t he come? Where is he?” That’s when she gets shifty, averting her eyes, crossing and uncrossing her ankles. She doesn’t know what to say because she doesn’t know where Seth is, or why he hasn’t come.
“In Portland...” she says. It sounds more like a question. “He still has to work, Thursday. Life goes on.”
“No, it doesn’t. Not when I’m in the hospital. He has other wives to tend to his needs,” I say. “Why come see the loony toon in Tonker Town?”
She looks at me quizzically for a moment before she stands up. We face each other and I can read the disappointment on her face.
“I need to get going,” she says. Fifteen minutes. She lasted fifteen minutes in the psych ward. I watch as she retreats toward the doors, her shoulders sagging with the weight of my failures as her daughter. At least this time she came.
TWENTY-ONE
I am alone. I realize that it’s always been this way, my whole life, and anything my mind constructed to convince me otherwise was a lie. A comfortable lie I needed. My parents were occupied with my sister, Torrence, who was always getting into trouble at school or with her friends. I was the good child; I parented myself well while they were busy. I knew the rules, the moral confines they’d built around me: no drinking, no premarital sex, no drugs, no sneaking out, top-notch grades only. It was easy to follow their guidelines; I wasn’t the rebel of the family. My sister, on the other hand, dabbled in all of the above. My father grayed at his temples, my mother started getting Botox and I tried my best to be perfect so there was one less daughter to worry about. Then, when Torrence straightened up and married the right man, they’d been so relieved they’d showered her with a different type of attention. She’d put in three well-behaved years and they’d both forgotten the decade she spent snorting their money up her nose and fucking every dealer in town. Maybe all of that trying made me go crazy. Maybe the lack of attention from my parents pushed me toward Seth, my desperation to be accepted trapping me in a relationship any normal person would think bizarre.
I poke at my Jell-O. They love to feed you Jell-O in this place—wobbly and colorful, like our minds. Today is orange, yesterday was green. It’s like they’re trying to remind you that you’re weak and unstable. I eat my Jell-O.
I have to get the fuck out of here. I have to find Hannah, make sure she’s okay. Where once I slept, I am now awake. I saw Dr. Steinbridge today. I’ve realized that he is my keeper—not the electric doors with keycard access, nor the burly nurses who wrangle us like toddlers if we get out of hand. Calm down, little Thursday, or we’ll put you in the padded time-out room.
Dr. Steinbridge has the power to say I’m well; he is God in this place of speckled sterile tile and fluorescent lights. One swipe of his pen (a Bic) and I am a free bird.