I heard the rustle of Diane’s clothing when she moved, and I glanced at her again. She was gazing into the distance, looking away from me. I did not know what to say to her. ‘What do you remember?’ I asked at last.
A pause. I took a drag on my cigarette, waiting.
‘I remember waiting and waiting after nursery school. Everyone left and the teacher was all ready to go home, but I was still waiting.’ Her voice was rough, as if she were holding back old tears. Her expression did not change; she did not move. ‘You were supposed to pick me up. The teacher went and called you, but you weren’t home. She called Dad and he came to get me, but he was really mad. We went home and you weren’t there. He asked me where you were, but I didn’t know.’ She stopped for a moment, and when she began again, her voice was smooth, her feelings were back under control. ‘You were gone for a long time. Maybe a month. Then you came back.’
‘I ran away to New Mexico and enrolled in college,’ I said. ‘Supported myself by typing, just as I had supported Robert through medical school by typing. Robert hired a private detective to track me down. When the detective found me, Robert convinced me to come back.’ I stubbed my cigarette against the step, tapped another out of the pack, and lit it. ‘What else do you remember?’
‘You brought me a Navaho blanket when you came back from New Mexico. You were home for a while – I remember that. I had to be really quiet; Dad told me to be really quiet. Then you left again.’ Her voice trailed off, but she did not sound like she had finished.
‘What else?’
She hesitated. ‘One night, when I was in bed, I heard you and Dad talking in the kitchen. It was hot and I couldn’t sleep. You kept talking louder and louder. I got out of bed and I went down the hall, but I didn’t want to go in the kitchen. I stayed just outside the door, where I could see you and Dad. You were holding a breadboard, an old breadboard with a handle on it, and your hand was wrapped around the handle. I couldn’t hear what Dad was saying, but all of a sudden you started saying, “I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it.” And you started slamming the breadboard against the counter, harder and harder and harder. And you were yelling, “I can’t stand it.” The breadboard broke on the counter and I ran back to bed, I put a pillow over my head and I stayed there, even when I heard shouting. But in the morning, you were gone, and Aunt Alicia was there, and Dad was really upset.’
In the long pause, I could hear the pigeons on the roof of the temple.
‘You didn’t come home for a long time, and then you came home and you left again. Dad said you had gone away because you were crazy. That’s all he would say about it. Later on, he told me about the divorce and all that, but that was later.’
I remembered the feel of the board in my hand, the thump each time it struck the counter. ‘Robert was saying, “You’re crazy,”’ I told Diane. ‘That’s what you couldn’t hear. Other than that, you’ve got it right.’ I tapped the ash from my cigarette. ‘While you were hiding in bed, I locked myself in the bathroom and slashed my wrists. Robert broke down the door, bandaged me, and took me to a private hospital. I was there for two days before I woke up enough to realize that I couldn’t go home. Robert had committed me for my own protection.’
I remembered being wrapped in cold sheets by white-coated interns. Was that the first night I was there? Hard to say. My memories of the year in the sanatorium were confused. I remembered howling at the ceiling of a cold room, hating Robert and wanting revenge. But I did not know whether that was the first night or many nights later. I suppose it didn’t matter. The nights on the ward blurred together; it was a controlled environment, changing only as people came and went.
The spirits I saw there were mad: a pale fat woman with dark smudges for eyes, like chunks of coal in the face of a snowman; a frail old woman who spoke an unknown language, her voice high and small as the chirping of sparrows on the eve of a winter storm; a gaunt woman, thin and dried as a prophet just back from a desert vigil, whose palms and bare feet were marked with bleeding wounds that never seemed to heal.
‘I was put in a ward for the seriously disturbed,’ I told Diane. ‘I got along all right there. I made friends with a woman who claimed to be Jesus Christ. A powerful old woman with a face like a hatchet.’
I took a drag on my cigarette and exhaled, watching the smoke drift away. Strange memories: I had spent many of my nights screaming at the ceiling that Robert was trying to kill me, that the doctors were trying to kill me. I had been there for a month before I decided to get out. I considered escape, but the bars at the window were quite strong and the interns were muscular. So I decided to behave, to stop screaming all night, to do as I was told, to end my discussions of theology with Mrs. Jesus Christ. I decided to feign sanity, to stop watching the spirits and calling to the moon through the barred windows.
‘I was on the ward for three months before I could convince them to move me to a better ward, one for less violent patients. It took me a year to convince them I was cured.’ I remembered the effort of feigning their kind of sanity. Smiling. Refraining from screaming obscenities even when obscenities were called for. ‘Robert came to visit me in the hospital. Every other week. Without fail. I was polite to him. I couldn’t get out without his help.’ My voice was very dry, very matter-of-fact. ‘I wanted to be free of him. I wanted a divorce.’ I noticed that my hand was shaking as I lifted the cigarette to my mouth; my other hand was clenched in a fist. I forced it to relax. ‘Finally, he said we could divorce, but only if I would grant him custody of you. I had to agree that I would never try to see you without his permission. I wouldn’t try to be your mother. I think that he was seeing someone else at the time and he wanted me out of the way. I had to be free of him, so I promised.’ I hated the apologetic tone that crept into my voice. I shrugged lightly. ‘He kept his part of it. He let me out.’
‘You came back for Christmas sometimes,’ Diane said.
‘I came when Robert wanted me to. On his terms. At one point, I think he was lonely and wanted me back. When I told him that I wasn’t interested, he cut off my visiting privileges.’ I shrugged and smiled a small tight smile. ‘He wasn’t cruel about it. He sent me pictures of you.’
‘What did you do?’ Her voice was controlled and even. Her face was pinched, but she was not crying.
‘I went back to New Mexico. For a while, I worked as a typist, then I enrolled in the state university in archaeology. 1 managed to land a paid position as cook at a field camp that first summer and I was on my way.’
‘You hated Dad for saying you were crazy,’ Diane said.
‘I hated Robert for a number of things back then,’ I said. I crushed the half-burned cigarette against the stone. ‘Locking me up was just one offense among many.’ I reached for my cigarettes and tapped another from the pack. ‘So,’ I said dryly, ‘you’ve found what you came to find. You know why I left. What now?’
I looked at Diane. Her arms were clutching her knees and she was rocking back and forth just a little. I regretted my words, I regretted my tone. ‘Come on,’ I said softly. ‘It’s all ancient history.’ I reached out and touched her shoulder, feeling awkward and foolish. She did not react. I wanted her to give me a sign that things were all right between us, but she kept her hands locked around her knees and she did not look at me. ‘Don’t cry over what’s long past.’
‘Can I stay for a while?’ she asked.
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know what’s here for you.’
‘Neither do I.’
I realized I was still holding the unlit cigarette, and I slipped it into my shirt pocket. ‘Fine. Stay if you like.’
In the distance, I heard the sound of the truck horn. ‘That’s the dinner bell,’ I said. ‘Let’s go back.’