She laughed woozily. "Seventeen years old. Tell me, baby, what is the worst thing?"
The wood grain of the door was a maze I followed with my fingernail. I was about to say, try having your mother in prison, and the one person you love and trust is going off her rocker. Try being in the best place you ever had and they were talking about sending you back.
But then again, I would not have wanted to be Claire. I would have rather been myself, even my mother, imprisoned for life, full of her own impotent ferocity, than be Claire, worried about burglars and rapists and small teeth mean bad luck and my eyes don't match and don't kill the fish and does my husband still love me, did he ever, or did he just think I was someone else, and I can't pretend anymore.
I wanted to hold her close, but something inside was pushing her away. This was Claire, who loves you, I reminded myself, but I couldn't feel it right now. She couldn't even take care of herself, and I felt myself drifting off. I felt her reaching for my hand, she wanted to come in. I didn't think I could save her anymore. The maze trail I was following dead-ended in a peacock eye. "My mother would say the worst thing is losing your self-respect."
I heard her start to cry again. Sharp, painful hiccups I felt in my own throat. She banged on the door with her fist, or maybe it was her head. I couldn't stand it, I had to back down into lies.
"Claire, you know he'll be back. He loves you, don't worry."
I didn't care if he came back or not. He wanted to send me away, and for that I hoped he wrecked his classic Alfa that matched his gray hair.
"If I knew what self-respect was," I heard her say, "then maybe I'd know if I'd lost it."
I was so sleepy. I couldn't keep my eyes open. I leaned my head against the door. Out in the living room, the lights on the Christmas tree flashed on and off, the needles scattered on the unopened presents.
"You want something to eat?"
She didn't want anything.
"I'm just getting something to eat. I'll be back in a second."
I made myself a ham sandwich. The Christmas tree needles were all over the floor. They crunched underfoot. The sherry bottle was gone, she must have taken it with her. She was going to have the hangover of a lifetime. She had left my portrait on the coffee table. I took it into my room, propped it on the desk. I looked into her deep gaze, I could hear her asking me, what do you want, croissant or brioche? Where would you go if you could go anywhere in the world? I traced my finger over her high rounded forehead, like a Gothic Madonna. I went back to her door, knocked.
"Claire, let me in."
I heard the squeak of the bedsprings as she turned over, the effort it took to get up, stumble the three steps to the door. She fumbled with the lock. I opened the door and she fell back into bed, still wearing that red bathrobe. She pawed her way under the covers like a blind burrowing animal. Thank God, she wasn't crying anymore, she was ready to pass out. I turned off Leonard Cohen.
"I'm so cold," she mumbled. "Come in with me."
I got in, clothes and all. She put her cold feet on mine, her head on my shoulder. The sheets smelled of sherry and dirty hair and L'Air du Temps.
"Stay with me, promise. Don't leave."
I held her cold hands, rested my head against hers as she fell asleep. I watched her in the light of the bedside lamp, which was always on now. Her mouth was open, she snored heavily. I told myself, things will turn out all right. Ron would come home or he wouldn't, and we'd just go on together. He wouldn't really send me away. He just didn't want to see how damaged she was. As long as she didn't show him, that was all he asked for. A good show.
21
CLAIRE WAS still sleeping when I woke up. I got up, careful not to disturb her, and went out to the kitchen. I poured myself some cereal. It was very bright, quiet, a pure crystalline light. I was glad Ron was gone. If he were here, there would have been phone calls, the whine of the coffee grinder, Claire might be up making breakfast with her smile painted on. I decided to stay in my silk pajamas a while longer. I got my new paints out and painted the way the light looked on the bare wood floor, the yellow tray of sunlight, the way it climbed the curtains. I loved when it was like this. I recalled days just like this when I was young, playing in a patch of sunlight when my mother slept in. A laundry basket over my head, squares of light. I remembered exactly how the sun looked and felt on the back of my hand.
After a while, I checked on Claire. She was still asleep. The room was dark gray, no morning light penetrated the west-facing French doors covered with blinds. It smelled stale. She had one hand flung across the top of the pillow. Her mouth was open, but she wasn't snoring now.
"Claire?" I put my face right in hers. She smelled of sherry and something metallic. She didn't move. I put my hand on her shoulder, shook her gently. "Claire?" She didn't do anything. The hair stood up on my neck and arms. I couldn't hear her breathing. "Claire?" I shook her again, but her head flopped like Owen's giraffe's. "Claire, wake up." I lifted her by her shoulders and dropped her. "Claire!" I yelled at her, hoping she would open her eyes, that she would put her hand to her head and tell me not to shout, I was giving her a headache. It was impossible. She was playing a trick, pretending. "Claire!" I screamed into her sleeping face, pumping my hands on her chest, listening for her breath. Nothing.
I searched the bedside table, the floor. On the far side, I found the pills on the floor, along with the empty sherry bottle. It was what I'd heard falling when we were talking through the door. The pill bottle was open, the pills spilled out, small pink tablets. Butalan, the label said. For Insomnia. Do Not Take With Alcohol. Do Not Operate Machinery.
The sounds I was making were no longer even screams. I wanted to throw something into the fat ugly eye of God. I threw the Kleenex box. The brass bell. I knocked the bedside light off the nightstand. I pulled the magnet box from under the bed and threw it across the room. Ron's keys and pens and clippers fell out, the Polaroids. For what? I ripped the blinds off the French doors, and the room blinked bright. I took a high-heeled shoe from the foot of the bed and smashed through the windowpanes with it, cut my hand, couldn't feel it. I took her silver-backed hairbrush and threw it overhand like a baseball into the round mirror. I took the phone and beat the receiver against the headboard until it came apart in my hands, leaving dents in the soft pine.
I was exhausted and couldn't find anything more to throw. I sat back down on the bed and took her hand. It was so cold. I put it against my hot wet cheek, trying to warm it up, I smoothed her dark hair away from her face.
If only I had known, Claire. My beautiful fucked-up Claire. I lay my head on her chest where there was no heartbeat. My face next to hers on the flowered pillow, breathing in her breath that was no longer breath. She was so pale. Cold. I held her cold hands, slightly chapped, the wedding ring that was too big. Turned them over, kissed the cold palms, my hot lips on the lines. How she used to worry about those lines. One ran from the edge of the hand and crossed the line of life. Fatal accident, she said it meant. I rubbed the line with my thumb, slick with tears.