Four days earlier, I sat on CL’s couch. We ate pizza while watching Simon and
Garfunkel’s famous concert in the park in New York City on PBS. I had given up
my fight with him. I was lonely, and he had persistently called again and again
over the week. I had also given up calling my sister, who had not returned my
calls after I screamed at her upon hearing they had released my mother after 48
hours. I was a train wreck, and I needed to regain composure. Or at least some
semblance of it.
I had never felt so out of control before, or so volatile. A temper was one
thing, but this constant fear of impending disaster followed me each day.
Finally, my anger centered itself where it belonged in the first place: at
myself. I was angry that I had flown off the handle at just about every person
in my life in that week; I was angry that I could not stop thinking or worrying,
all the while enraged at my mother’s selfish act; I was angry that I couldn’t
stop being angry.
I had talked to my mother, and that was when things within me began to change.
She sounded like a ghost, a fragile voice on the other line that only responded
in single words.
“Mom,” I spoke softly, “Why did you do this? Brooke is pregnant. Don’t you
want to see the baby?”
“Yes.”
“Do you understand that if you had passed away, you wouldn’t be around to be a
grandma?”
“Yes.”
“And I’m coming out to school in a month. Don’t you want to see me?”
“Yes.”
“Then why?” I pleaded.
“I don’t know.” It was then that I realized how sick she was.
“I love you.” The other line was silent. “Mom, you know I love you, right?”
“Yes.”
Now, as I sat with my legs intertwined with CL’s, I felt relaxed. He seemed
slightly pleased that he knew what was going on, as if he hadn’t accidentally
been there to hear that first conversation, but rather that I had taken him
into my confidence. He didn’t know that I hadn’t told any one else, and that
Kate had been just as obsessively trying to call me, knowing something was
wrong when I didn’t return a single call. Because CL knew, I felt that I
had sanctuary there, allowed to sit in silence without being questioned.
Of course, it was a mistake to let down my guard. This moment of all moments,
would be ruined by another phone call. Even as Brooke's number flashed across
the screen, I did not think to be afraid.
“She fucking did it again.” Brooke yelled into the phone, the sound of whirring
nearly drowning her out.
I sat up slowly. “What’s that noise?”
“They’re life-flighting her out, to St. Vincent’s. She did it again,
Ellie, I think she won’t survive this time.”
The room began to spin as I rose and walked into the kitchen. “How?” I
expected it would be medication again.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you until now, they’d been searching for her all
afternoon,” Brooke sounded winded as if she were running. I heard a car door
slam, and the background noise was now minimized. “She’s going into surgery as
soon as she arrives.”
“Why?”
She plowed over my second unanswered question. “Alex is already there, and so
is Nelson. John is in the chopper with her. I’ll call you when I know more.”
The line went dead.
I turned to see CL standing in the doorway. My eyes began to blur with
tears, and he rushed over to me.
“Your mom?” He questioned, wrapping his arms around me. I began to shiver
uncontrollably, and he lifted me and brought me to the couch, pulling a blanket
around my shoulders.
“I need to go home.” I stood up, grabbed my keys, and walked out the door. He
was smart to let me go. Without thinking, I drove to Kate’s house, and
cried to her until the early morning.
The next day, I received a call from Mary, my mother’s psychologist, who would
explain what had happened at my sister’s behest. The story that she outlined
was much more graphic than intended, as I made her stop and explain in detail.
My mother had spent the week under a fog of depression. John feared leaving her
anywhere alone, yet he had a business to run, so he carted her around like a
child on his errands. She sat in the car and stared blankly out the window as
he ran into the hardware store, his paint distributor, the shop, and his
office. At night, she picked at her food, despite his urging, and then retired
to bed at eight. John had an alarm randomly set to check on her throughout the
night. Mary paused to swear about the incompetence of the hospital for
checking her out early. She and John had kept a watchful eye, however.
As Mary spoke, I began to realize that she was carefully wording everything.
She’s afraid of me, I realized. I had left an angry message on her phone the
day after the first attempt; the day that was supposed to be spent resting
instead of working was spent instead trying to lay blame and get explanations.
John had likely warned her about me, knowing that I loathed him, and would
likely blame him for the second attempt.
The week had been routinized, with watches scheduled to keep eye on my mother’s
behavior, she said. It was clear that she had been waiting for the first
possible moment to try again, however, because John had left her napping,
thinking he could runto the office and back before she would wake. When he arrived at the field,
however, he was greeted by my panicked brother who had been running the
business in John’s absence. The seventeen year old had gotten in a fight with
one of the distributors, and failed to place an order for the upcoming weekend.
Thus, John was gone much longer than he had anticipated, and soon began to grow
fearful that he was making a mistake by staying to help with the order.
So, he picked up the phone and called the house. There was no response. He
hoped she was still sleeping, and replaced the receiver, slightly placated that
she had not answered the phone. He turned back to the paper work. Several
minutes passed, and soon he began to worry again. There was a phone next
to the bed, and it would be odd if it had not woken her. Not wanting her to
wonder where he was, he picked up the receiver and dialed again. She answered
on the first ring.
Startled, he asked how she was, but he instantly knew something was amiss. She
seemed abrupt, as if she was trying to get off the phone quickly. Feigning the
need to get more paperwork done, he hung up with my mother. Shouting to my
brother from his car, he sped off to the house. The sight that lay before him
when he arrived was unimaginable, yet I could see it clearly as Mary described
it.
The house looked like a murder scene. The front door lay open, with the screen
door partially ajar. Bloody prints glowed hotly on the front porch. John ran
upstairs, following the smudges to the bathroom. A pool of blood was still
running into the drain in the tub, with a trickle of water from the faucet
helping it along. More red was smeared on the sides of the tub, with puddles
spattered over the majority of the white tiles near the sink. The phone lay
off the hook, with a bloody handprint tarnishing its handle. The razors sat
under running water in the sink. Running back downstairs, John saw the
bloodied butcher knife on the table. That was when he placed the call to 911.
They found her, nearly a mile away, in a ditch near the railroad tracks. The
dogs found her first, and then the police called to have a life flight come.
Her wrists were clumsily slit vertically, soaking her from head to toe in
sticky blood. It was the stab wounds, however, that worried the medics. Blood
and fluids seeped from the wounds in her lower abdomen. Though she was
unconscious, her hand was wrapped tightly around one wrist. When they
unclenched her grasp, they found a large flap of skin hanging loosely, with an
artery spurting blood. It was clear that she had become squeamish from cutting
herself. The phone call from John had likely startled her, causing her to
panic. Running downstairs, she saw the knife, stabbed herself eight times, and
then ran out of the house, knowing John was coming back soon. Rushed straight
into surgery, they repaired the damaged stomach and intestines, but she had
lost an incredible amount of blood, and the transfusions were coming much too
late. They feared she might not make it. Mary stopped.
“How are you doing, Ella?” She asked.
I inadvertently laughed. “How am I doing? How am I doing.” I could hear Mary
take in a sharp breath, likely steeling herself for a tirade of anger. “I’m not
doing well, Mary. But that is to be expected, isn’t it?” I sighed. “Having a
mother who would rather end her life than be with her family…I understand she’s
sick. But I am angry, and I’m tired. And I don’t understand how someone who
wants to die so bad, doesn’t succeed at it.”
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