But before Sicily, no one ever told us she was mentally ill.
So now the family gathers in the empty hours of the night, and wonders what on earth we are to do.
2
July 5, 2002
Andy: I know I promised you and Mom that I’d join you for the big sit-down today, but something’s come up, and I’m afraid I’ll have to bow out. In fact, I’ll be leaving for New Orleans almost as soon as I fire off this e-mail; a car to the airport is picking me up at eleven. Sorry for the late notice, but this just came up late yesterday afternoon.
I know you’ll be discussing what next to do about Annie, so let me give you my thoughts on the matter, for whatever they’re worth. Annie is entirely set in her ways. Mom told me it’s okay for her to stay there for a while, but I suspect she will take off again before long. That is her pattern. When she runs out of money, she’ll be in touch. She’s been doing that since she was sixteen. It’s a basic mode, and it won’t change. Meanwhile, there’s not much any of us can do, except to accept the idea that Annie is incapable of seeing her situation or her own acts clearly. Annie listens to no one but herself. Sorry, but that’s the way it is. I have too much to do right now to waste time on Annie.
The best thing she could do would be to take up residence someplace and stay there a good long while, but she is incapable of making any kind of decision right now, or accepting counsel. The best thing you can do right now is take Annie for what she is. She’s never going to change, so you might as well get used to that idea. Regards, Aaron.
P.S. One thing I do want to warn you against. If you’re considering putting her up here in New Jersey with Augusta and me, don’t even think it.
I am not surprised that Augusta is refusing to have my sister in her house. She has been doing that for as long as I’ve known her. In fact. Augusta abandoned this entire family the moment my brother slipped a gold band on her finger. Until then, she was Miss Mousy Tiptoes, hiding behind my brother’s considerable girth, the shrinking violet at any family gathering. Well, sure. She knew she was bringing to this union two illegitimate children, she knew she was five years older than Aaron, she knew she had nothing more than a high school education, she must have at least suspected, don’t you think, must have at least had a faint glimmer, hmmm, that some of us in the Gulliver family (like me, for example) could see past the 36-C tits and shy batting eyelashes to where there lurked a conniving little country bitch intent on hitching her wagon to a future corporate star.
She dropped the pose the moment they were man and wife. That first year of their marriage, Gussie — we were still calling her Gussie back then — found some excuse to refuse, on behalf of herself, my brother, and her two delightful little girls, my mother’s invitation to Grandma Rozalia’s traditional Passover seder. Mind you, my mother’s not religious. But Passover was important to Mom, as it was to all us kids when we were growing up, and still is, even now that Grandma Rozalia is dead. I wasn’t married to Maggie the first time Augusta became a seder no-show, but in later years, even though she’s not Jewish, Maggie attended each and every one of them, including the ones at my mother’s house after Grandma died. In fact, Maggie told me she actually enjoyed them.
Not so Augusta.
Nor did she feel it was important to spend Thanksgiving with the Gullivers, or Christmas, which my mother also celebrated. She did come to my wedding because by then she must have sensed that I could become a formidable enemy, especially when twinned with my sister, but that was an exception. For all practical purposes, the day my brother married Augusta, he could have moved to China. My fondest wish is that one day I’ll walk into a restaurant and see my brother sitting there with a gorgeous twenty-three-year-old natural blonde, not his wife.
I would cheer to the rafters.
I would buy him a cigar.
My mother and I meet in front of the Metropolitan Museum, at twelve noon that Friday, and then walk into Central Park. This is the day after Independence Day and the park is unusually crowded, tourists and residents alike enjoying the long weekend.
My mother is wearing one of the Chanel ripoffs a tailor on Fifty-seventh Street makes for her. This one is fashioned of some light-weight fabric in the classic Chanel somewhat-plaid design. It fits her beautifully. Her auburn hair is neatly coiffed, her fingernails are painted a bright crimson. She takes good care of herself, my mother.
We sit in the sun on a park bench near a stately old maple. I have brought along sandwiches and Cokes I bought in a deli on Madison. I offer my mother a choice of either tuna and tomato on a hard roll or chicken salad on white. She opts for the chicken salad. I pop the can of Coke for her, offer her a straw. We sit eating. Somewhere not too far away a man begins playing scales on a tuba. He makes his practicing sound like a symphony. It is a beautiful bright sunny day, and bloated fat notes float on the air. But we are here to discuss what we are going to do about a person who was declared schizophrenic not a week ago.
“Well, an Italian doctor,” my mother says.
“Still, Mom...”
“In Sicily, no less. I’ve been to Sicily, thanks. You can have it. I can just imagine what kind of doctors they have there.”
“That’s why I think we ought to have her checked here.”
“She’d never agree to seeing a psychiatrist. You know how she feels about the health care system, quote, unquote.”
We have never been able to figure out why Annie thinks she knows something incriminating about the health care system. Something which, if she reported it to the proper authorities, would threaten the very foundations of our complacent society. It is true that when she was fourteen years old, during her summer vacation, she worked as a candy striper at Lenox Hill Hospital. But aside from this one supposedly “inside” look at health care, she has not been near a doctor or a dentist since. Well, except for the time she contracted malaria, and we had to take her to the hospital before she burned up alive or shook herself to death. Or — well, yes — the time she had what was diagnosed as an overdose of “something or other” by our then family doctor. But aside from those two instances, she has assiduously avoided any contact with members of the medical profession, who — like the shrink in Sicily — might falsely diagnose her as being... well... not normal.
“This may all be academic, anyway,” my mother says. “She found a job.”
“Are you serious?”
“I know, I’m even afraid to say it out loud.”
“Where? What kind of job?”
“A jewelry store in Brooklyn. She’ll be working behind the counter. It’s only part-time, she’ll be a salesperson. But at least it’s something.”
“It certainly is.”
“She starts Saturday.”
“That’s really good news, Mom.”
“Oh, please, I’m so grateful. But what I’m saying, Andrew, perhaps there’s no need to do a follow-up here.”
“I just thought a doctor here could...”
“You know how she feels about doctors.”
“The point is, this’ll be in her record forever,” I tell my mother. “Unless a doctor here...”
“So? Who’s going to look at her record? Is she applying for a job with NASA? She’s content to make her own jewelry, open a little shop here or there, earn enough to get by on. That’s all your sister needs.”
“But she doesn’t earn enough to get by on.”
“Well.”
“How much is this part-time job going to pay?”