the landing.
“There was no need for that,” Greg admonishes me. “Ruth’s trying her best to help. To be here for you, for all of us. You keep acting like she’s deliberately trying to make your life worse, not better.” I shrug and I know it maddens him. “I have to go out to work, Claire. Someone’s got to be here to…take care of things…and we’re lucky Ruth is willing to be that person. Try to remember that.”
It’s such an inappropriate thing to say to me, of all people, that I want to laugh. I
would
laugh if I weren’t so afraid for Caitlin.
“Something’s wrong, I know it.” I clamber to my feet, hunching my shoulders to hide my breasts. “Whatever else is gone, I still know my daughter. I still know that this is about more than just telling her about her father. If it were just that,she’d have had it out with me. There would have been screaming and shouting and crying, but not this. Not silence.” I pull open her drawers, looking for something amidst the bundle of dark clothes, screwed up and thrown in without thought of a system or order. “I know when something is wrong with my daughter.”
“Claire.” Greg says my name, but nothing else for a while as I pull open Caitlin’s wardrobe doors. Something about her wardrobe—packed full of hanger after hanger of dark garments—is wrong. But I can’t place what it is. “Claire, I understand you are frightened and angry, but I miss you, Claire. I miss you so much. Please…I don’t know what to do…. Can’t you just come back to me, for a little while? Please. Before it’s too late.”
I turn around slowly and look at him. I see his face, which looks faded somehow, worn away, and his shoulders have dropped.
“The trouble is,” I tell him in a very quiet voice, “I don’t remember how to.”
Greg gets up very slowly, tilting his face away from me. “I’ve got to go to work.”
“It’s okay to be angry with me,” I tell him. “Shout at me, tell me I’m a bitch and a cow. I’d prefer it, honestly I would.”
But he doesn’t answer me. I hear him go down the stairs, and I wait for a few beats longer until the front door shuts behind him, and then suddenly I am alone in Caitlin’s room, the drone of the Hoover drifting up from downstairs. I close her door and breathe in the heated air, dust motes circling in the stream of morning sunlight that warms the bedclothes, and I wonder what time of year it is. Caitlin went back to college, so it has to be October. Or February. Or May.
I look around for a clue, anything to tell me why she isn’t answering my calls. There is no secret diary, no stash of letters. I go and sit down at her desk, and slowly open the top part of herword book. There is something about it being there that unsettles me: sitting so neatly on the desk, it looks like a relic. I look at the buttons, and run my fingers over them, feeling them dip and click beneath my touch. My hands used to fly over these buttons, reeling out words quicker than I could think them, sometimes. Not now, though. Now, if I try to type, it’s clunky and slow, and wrong. I know the letters in my head, but my fingers won’t make them. Greg spent a lot of money getting me voice-recognition software for the computer downstairs, because I can still think far better than I can articulate in words. But I haven’t used it yet. The bright-pink, blue-ink fountain pen that Esther gave me for my last birthday still works well, connecting what is left of my mind to my fingers, and the words come out okay in the memory book. I want to keep writing with my hands for as long as I can, until I forget what my fingers are for, anyway.
I close the word book and run a finger along the row of books that Caitlin has lined up on her windowsill, looking for something, perhaps a slip of paper acting as a page marker, something that will tell me what is wrong. But even the books sitting dormant on her windowsill seem wrong to me, although I don’t know
“There was no need for that,” Greg admonishes me. “Ruth’s trying her best to help. To be here for you, for all of us. You keep acting like she’s deliberately trying to make your life worse, not better.” I shrug and I know it maddens him. “I have to go out to work, Claire. Someone’s got to be here to…take care of things…and we’re lucky Ruth is willing to be that person. Try to remember that.”
It’s such an inappropriate thing to say to me, of all people, that I want to laugh. I
would
laugh if I weren’t so afraid for Caitlin.
“Something’s wrong, I know it.” I clamber to my feet, hunching my shoulders to hide my breasts. “Whatever else is gone, I still know my daughter. I still know that this is about more than just telling her about her father. If it were just that,she’d have had it out with me. There would have been screaming and shouting and crying, but not this. Not silence.” I pull open her drawers, looking for something amidst the bundle of dark clothes, screwed up and thrown in without thought of a system or order. “I know when something is wrong with my daughter.”
“Claire.” Greg says my name, but nothing else for a while as I pull open Caitlin’s wardrobe doors. Something about her wardrobe—packed full of hanger after hanger of dark garments—is wrong. But I can’t place what it is. “Claire, I understand you are frightened and angry, but I miss you, Claire. I miss you so much. Please…I don’t know what to do…. Can’t you just come back to me, for a little while? Please. Before it’s too late.”
I turn around slowly and look at him. I see his face, which looks faded somehow, worn away, and his shoulders have dropped.
“The trouble is,” I tell him in a very quiet voice, “I don’t remember how to.”
Greg gets up very slowly, tilting his face away from me. “I’ve got to go to work.”
“It’s okay to be angry with me,” I tell him. “Shout at me, tell me I’m a bitch and a cow. I’d prefer it, honestly I would.”
But he doesn’t answer me. I hear him go down the stairs, and I wait for a few beats longer until the front door shuts behind him, and then suddenly I am alone in Caitlin’s room, the drone of the Hoover drifting up from downstairs. I close her door and breathe in the heated air, dust motes circling in the stream of morning sunlight that warms the bedclothes, and I wonder what time of year it is. Caitlin went back to college, so it has to be October. Or February. Or May.
I look around for a clue, anything to tell me why she isn’t answering my calls. There is no secret diary, no stash of letters. I go and sit down at her desk, and slowly open the top part of herword book. There is something about it being there that unsettles me: sitting so neatly on the desk, it looks like a relic. I look at the buttons, and run my fingers over them, feeling them dip and click beneath my touch. My hands used to fly over these buttons, reeling out words quicker than I could think them, sometimes. Not now, though. Now, if I try to type, it’s clunky and slow, and wrong. I know the letters in my head, but my fingers won’t make them. Greg spent a lot of money getting me voice-recognition software for the computer downstairs, because I can still think far better than I can articulate in words. But I haven’t used it yet. The bright-pink, blue-ink fountain pen that Esther gave me for my last birthday still works well, connecting what is left of my mind to my fingers, and the words come out okay in the memory book. I want to keep writing with my hands for as long as I can, until I forget what my fingers are for, anyway.
I close the word book and run a finger along the row of books that Caitlin has lined up on her windowsill, looking for something, perhaps a slip of paper acting as a page marker, something that will tell me what is wrong. But even the books sitting dormant on her windowsill seem wrong to me, although I don’t know
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