Her name was Sindy (Lish told me to spell it with an S) and she happened to live in Serenity Place with her kids. Everybody in Half-a-Life felt very protective of Sarah and so when Sindy made her move they all saw red. Sarah wrote a special note to Sindy and it said something like, “I’m finding myself interested in Mr. Myron.” Well, that was it, if this pathetic dumpy mute could entertain thoughts of boinking Myron, then, thought Sindy, so could she. So Sindy schemed and connived and eventually got ol’ Myron over to her place under the pretense of discussing her own son’s lack of social skills in the classroom, and Myron, not being professional enough to resist her advances, took Sindy right there on her velour sectional and then did it again the next night and the next. She didn’t mention any of this to Sarah, but when she saw Myron giving Sarah the onceover in the coat room as she bent to tie Emmanuel’s boots, she used her trump card. That night she told Myron that Sarah’s kid was a freak, an unnatural product of an unnatural coupling. Pssst … Sarah’s own father was the kid’s father. And, if that didn’t take the cake, Sarah was hunting for a father for the kid, intending to pass him off as someone else’s.
Mr. Myron was appalled at Sindy’s vicious telling of this tale, but also put off by the notion of having anything to do with Sarah or her kid. Emmanuel was transferred to a different classroom, one for slow learners, or whatever they’re called now, and Sarah was told, essentially, that Emmanuel must be told of his origins or he’d be angry later on and possibly run the risk of a lifetime in jail, maybe even take his rage our on his mother or himself. Anyway, he’d be a burden to society on some level. Appointments were set up, Emmanuel was told the terrible secret, and his mother was evaluated by a clinical psychologist who said she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and should try to begin talking in order to begin healing. If she didn’t, Child and Family Services would have to be notified and Emmanuel might have to be placed in a normal home where people spoke to one another and didn’t scribble on stick-it pads all day.
Because she’d do anything not to lose Emmanuel, Sarah began to talk in a scratchy voice that was raw from not being used. Emmanuel, once bubbly and carefree, stopped talking and laughing and refused to go to school, so that the school principal was forced to call Child and Family Services and they sent out a social worker to investigate. Sarah had been trying to help Emmanuel and had been making progress. The two of them, over something funny on TV, would turn to each other and smile now, and Emmanuel could be heard through the walls of his bedroom experimenting with swear words, like fuck and shit and bloody hell, which Sing Dylan used a lot. But when the social worker visited Sarah and Emmanuel and tried to get some sort of promise that Emmanuel would be sent to school, Sarah began to cry and Emmanuel ran to his room and slammed the door. This was enough for the social worker to recommend a foster home for Emmanuel on the basis of his and her lack of cooperation regarding school attendance. So two days later Emmanuel was packed into the back of the social worker’s car, staring straight ahead at nothing, and Sarah collapsed in the arms of Sing Dylan.
Sindy and Mr. Myron ended up living together, and all of Serenity Place heard the story, at least Sindy’s version of it, and all of them agreed that poor Emmanuel was much better off in a foster home and hadn’t Sarah handled the situation badly. After that Sarah helped Sing Dylan clean Half-a-Life, and prepared herself and her apartment for Emmanuel’s ninety-minute visits every other Sunday afternoon as if preparing to meet the love of her life, which she was.
After hearing this story I understood the feelings the Lifers had for Serenity Place and its tenants. Most of us shunned the women who lived there, even the new ones moving in, innocent women who knew nothing of its terrible reputation. And the women in Serenity Place hated us Lifers as well. Our children and theirs did not play together. I guess it was stupid. Elaine, the Irish girl, said we were just like Northern Ireland without the bombs.
Lish also introduced Dill and me to a trio of women who practised witchcraft and treated each other’s various infections and rashes with rare herbs and potions and went to bed and woke with the sun. Lish herself was part of a group that met on every full moon out back behind the parking lot in the grassy area, making circles and doing mysterious things, and she packed her share of Tiger Balm on the heaving chests of her children and treated ear infections with half an onion strapped to the ear with one of her Indian scarves.
Once, just before the rains, when the atmosphere was preparing for the upheaval and the ground was bracing itself, the vibrations of these forces tunnelled themselves right into Dill’s inner ear, according to Terrapin, the enormous dark beauty of the trio. I noticed that whenever she spoke her voice went up at the end of the sentence as though it were a question, which it usually wasn’t. Like, “I can’t believe the amount of junk my kids got on Hallowe’en?”
I appreciated her natural wisdom. I had never witnessed anything like it in my life. Almost an entire floor of hippies, but I couldn’t repress my cravings for hot dogs and Kraft Dinner and Tylenol and coffee for killer hangovers. I hid my 7-Eleven bags in Dill’s diaper bag. I had to sneak Dill’s antibiotics past her in the elevator. I was sure she’d disapprove. I was not able to keep plants alive and incense made me choke. Lish said it was all bogus anyway, and if the trio sometimes went overboard it was only because they had nothing else to do. As their kids got older, she said, they’d probably give it up for something else. They didn’t seem any calmer than the rest of us anyway. Still, Lish continued her full moon ritual and munched on organic fruit all day long and didn’t lose her sense of humour. Though she seemed bitter some days and pitied herself stuck in a dive like Half-a-Life while the men who had once whispered proclamations of undying love in her ear now travelled the world with no cares. At times she was tempted to chuck the silver spoon.
When Terrapin asked Lish if she had eaten the twins’ placentas, Lish gagged on her fruit leather and said in her mock enthusiastic voice, sort of high and puckered, “Oh yeah, it was incredible and when they turn six I plan to sacrifice them both to the goddess. Won’t you come? I think it’ll be a potluck.” I laughed at that and Terrapin said, “Oh Lish, you’re never serious.” Which wasn’t exactly true, but the trio brought enough New Age brooding into our lives and Lish and I enjoyed tormenting them with our demented humour. Well, I should say Lish’s, because I was more an enthusiastic fan than an actual accomplice, a role I didn’t mind and Lish seemed to need.
During the days Lish and I would sit and talk and drink chamomile tea or cider, sometimes cheap champagne for the hell of it, getting up only to sort out problems between the children or to rummage around in boxes looking for artifacts to support the stories we told to each other of our lives. And loves, in Lish’s case.
Her four-year-old twins were born on a full moon under the sign of Pisces which, according to Lish, made them very emotional and eager to please. They adored Dill, dressing him up in ridiculous costumes and bathing him and letting him crawl all over them while they giggled and screamed. Their paintings covered all of the walls, which Lish had painted dark colours of burnt red and midnight blue. Alba took diving lessons at the Pan Am pool and Letitia was saving up for a video camera so she could make movies about bugs and show them to children. Both girls cried easily if Lish raised her voice, and whenever she did, which wasn’t often, she’d scoop them both up and beg their forgiveness. Then she would berate herself for being inconsistent. Alba and Letitia were identical twins, and during their nightly performances of dance and spontaneous poetry they were enchanting. Lish lit candles and operated the tapes, and the older girls prepared treats which were passed around before and after the performances. They also gave stage directions to the twins and operated the curtain which was made from a wool blanket given to Lish by a macrobiotic shoemaker and always made her break out in itchy hives. It was a royal bank blue with a big yellow star in the middle.