THE DAY IT HAPPENED, I made two calls: 911 and Regina. I didn’t call my father. That sounds weird, I know. A girl finds her mom half-dead and doesn’t call her dad? But you have to know the history. You have to know that when it comes to my mother, David Collette is not exactly president of the Emotional Crisis Management Club. Even when they were married, he couldn’t deal. Escape. Retreat. That was his M.O. When my mom got depressed he would suddenly have to go on a sales trip, which blows my mind when I think about it. Because he was the responsible adult and I was the kid. Okay, to be fair, my mom was never as bad as she is now. And it’s not like he ever left me alone. He always called Regina, who isn’t just my mother’s best friend, she’s also a nurse and an awesome cook and only too happy to swoop in and feed everyone meatballs and boss my mother around until she’s okay again. Regina is great in a crisis.
When the ambulance came, she took over everything. She talked to the EMS guys. She signed forms. She didn’t even make me ride to the hospital. She just told me to pack a bag, and by the time I came downstairs my father was waiting for me. Even though it wasn’t Wednesday. Wednesday is his day. Wednesday and every other weekend. That was the deal. Until Monday, when my mother tried to kill herself and everything went haywire and now I’m staying in the wrong house on the wrong nights, which is basically breaking the custody agreement.
Not that I ever “agreed” in the first place. I didn’t “agree” when my dad left. I didn’t “agree” when he got married. I didn’t “agree” to any of it, which is why, ever since he moved into his new house, I have refused to sleep over. Wednesday dinners: fine. Weekend activities: fine. But no sleepovers. Until now, when I have no choice.
I get off the bus, and there is Marnie, waving to me from the front porch. Her hair is French-braided and her Siamese twin is stuck to her hip. “Hey, Anna!” Three white satin triangles glimmer on her chest.
“Hey,” I say.
She picks up Jane’s hand, makes it wave. “Can you say Hey, Janie? Say, Hey, Anna! How was school?” The only thing worse than Marnie’s baby talk is her Delta Delta Delta sweatshirt. She is twenty-four years old and she still thinks she’s in college. She has photos of her sorority sisters taped to the mirror in her bathroom. She has yoga pants with paw prints on the butt, a big stuffed tiger on her marital bed. My father doesn’t even care. “Clemson’s a great school,” he says. “Great football team.”
Marnie opens the door for me, lets me go first. In the foyer, she takes my backpack and my jacket. I want to tell her she’s not my maid, she doesn’t have to do these things, but the words don’t come. They pile up in my throat like rocks.
“Are you hungry?” Marnie says.
I shrug.
“I made cookies, if you want … or there’s fruit.” She is fiddling with the chain around her neck. Instead of a charm, there is her name in gold script. Marnie. She used to be Marnie Staples, but then she married my father, so now she is Marnie Collette. Once I heard my mom say, “Marnie Collette. Do you know what that sounds like? A stripper.”
She was on the phone with Regina when she said it, sneaking a cigarette. I could tell because I was listening on the other phone, and I could hear her inhale.
“Well, Fran,” Regina said, “she probably is a stripper.”
“Ha!” my mom snorted, exhaling. “She probably is!”
She was trying to quit. Before she went into the hospital she was trying really hard. Chewing the gum, wearing the patches. She even bought these hypnosis CDs she saw advertised on TV, and she listened to them constantly. Mind over matter, mind over matter. You have the power, you have the power.
“Anna?” Marnie is looking at me expectantly.
“Yeah?”
She holds out a plate. “Would you like a cookie?”
I would not like a cookie, but I take one anyway.
“They’re carob chip.” She smiles. “Your dad’s favorite.”
Since when? That is my question. Since when does he like carob?
“I want you to know,” Marnie says out of nowhere, “that your friends are welcome here. Anytime. You don’t even have to ask.”
I nod, like I am considering this. A year ago, I actually had friends. Besides Dani, there was Keesha Soboleski. It was always the three of us: Dani, Keesha, and Anna, inseparable. Then last fall, after the divorce was final but before my dad married Marnie, Keesha’s dad got a job coaching basketball in Pennsylvania and she had to move. Dani was my best friend, no question, but right now I miss Keesha more. She was so funny. She would do things like show up at your house wearing a mustache she’d made out of felt. “Who am I?” she would say. You’d guess and guess, but you would never be right because it was always someone you hadn’t heard of. Burt Reynolds. Clark Gable. Keesha watched a lot of old movies. Sometimes she would make you put on a trench coat and sunglasses and walk around town with her, pretending to be Sherlock Holmes and Watson. Even if you didn’t want to, you would do it, feeling like an idiot at first, but by the end you would be peeing-your-pants laughing.
I haven’t laughed like that in weeks. Even now, in my father’s kitchen, when Jane lets out a huge burp that Marnie thinks is hilarious, I don’t laugh. I take a bite of cookie.
“Excuse my daughter,” Marnie says. “She thinks she’s a frat boy.” She kisses Jane’s cheek and coos. “Don’t you, my angel? Don’t you think you’re a big, hairy Alpha Delta Phi?”
Jane burps again. Marnie cracks up. She snuggles Jane against her chest and kisses the top of her head.
Suddenly I am remembering this photo from my baby album. I am about Jane’s age, with wild curls and a white eyelet dress. I am sitting in my mom’s lap, craning my neck to look up at her, but she isn’t looking at me. She is staring out the window. Her arms are hanging at her sides like dead wood. Once you see something like that, you can’t unsee it. Every time you think about it your mouth tastes like pennies.
When Marnie isn’t looking, I spit her cookie in the trash.
* * *
Here is what I know about my mother:
1. She is in Butler Hospital, the psychiatric hospital.
2. She is “under observation,” which means the doctors are watching her every move to make sure she doesn’t hurt herself. Which is what happens, I guess, when you swallow a bottle of pills. People read you loud and clear.
3. She can’t have any visitors. She is too “emotionally fragile.”
That is all my father will tell me except for Don’t worry, Anna, your mother is going to be fine. Well, how does he know she’s going to be fine? He’s not a doctor. He’s not even her husband anymore. What does he know about anything?
* * *
Six o’clock and my father is home. He is standing in the driveway, talking on his phone. I watch him from the window for a while, then go out to tell him it’s dinnertime. He nods but doesn’t stop talking. “Jim,” he says, “I’m telling you. Rigoris is the next Viagra … How do I know? Because I know.”
He rolls his eyes at me like we’re sharing a joke. Which we are not. I have tried to joke with my father in the past, telling knock-knocks or riddles I think are funny, but he never laughs as hard as I do. Our humor just misses.
“Uh-huh.” My father is nodding. “Well, Jim, that is what I would call a paradigm shift.”
Paradigm shift. Benchmarking. Value added. He might as well be speaking Hindi. He is still at it when Marnie steps out on the porch looking completely different. Instead of the sweatshirt, she has on a lime-green sundress and high strappy sandals. Instead of the braids, her hair is loose and wavy around her shoulders. As soon as my father sees her he hangs up. Just like that, he’s done with Jim.
“Babe,” he says, staring her up and down. “Wow.”
“This old thing?” she says, pouting like a model.
Marnie holds so much power. She flicks a switch in my father like nothing I have ever seen. It is a pure mystery how she does it. Once I tried walking down the hall like her, chest pushed out, hips swaying side to side. I waited for the boys to notice. Nothing, except for Kevin Callahan practically slamming me into a locker. “Watch where you’re going,” he said, like it was my fault.
Marnie walks inside first, followed by my father, then me. It is just the three of us for dinner. Jane is asleep in her bassinet, resting up for a night of screaming ahead. Which I think is the worst kind of planning, but I am not the mother.
I sit at the dining room table, napkin in lap and hands on napkin. I look to see what Marnie has made. Burgers. Good. It is hard to mess up burgers. Then I take a bite and realize I am dead wrong.
“They’re black bean!” Marnie announces.
I watch my father lift his burger to his mouth and chew. And chew. And chew several more times before he finally takes a gulp of water.
“Oh no,” Marnie says, looking at him. Her green eyes are wide, spiky with mascara. “You don’t like it.”
My father shakes his head. “It’s great.”
“You hate it.”
“Babe, I was just surprised. I thought it was beef.”
“Red meat contains carnitine, which can damage your heart. It increases your risk of type two diabetes.” Marnie’s voice is getting higher. “It puts stress on your colon and your brain!”
Here is where I should tell you that my father loves burgers. Every Wednesday when he takes me to Denny’s—the divorced dads’ restaurant of choice—he gets the same thing: the Bacon Slamburger with cheese fries. But does he admit that now? No. My father gets up and walks around the table. He wraps his arms around Marnie and kisses her, full on, as though they are alone and his thirteen-year-old daughter is at a sleepover.
I take this opportunity to spit black beans into my napkin.
After the make-out session ends and Marnie is calm, my father gestures to the table. “Who needs red meat?… Am I right, Anna?”
I do what I am supposed to do: nod.
Marnie smiles and says there’s rice pudding for dessert. Made with almond milk and sweetened with real maple syrup.
“Rice pudding?” my father repeats. Then, like I’m deaf, “Did you hear that, Anna? Rice pudding with real maple syrup!”
I know he is trying to make Marnie feel better, but please. “Wow,” I say, going for sarcasm, but my voice is so low no one notices.
Marnie stands up like she is on a mission, serving out broccoli (organic!) and mushrooms (full of potassium!). When I take my next bite, I force my lips smile-ward. Almost as good as the Shelby Horner cafeteria!
* * *
I am in bed when I hear something. A soft moaning. The baby, I think. No. It’s not that. The wind? It’s not that either. The sound gets louder and louder and I know, suddenly, what it is. Marnie and my father, doing what couples do in the dark. I know because when Dani and I were friends we used to watch this movie her parents kept hidden in their room. 9½ Weeks. It tells you everything you need to know about sex, even if you are not old enough to know it.
Oh, this is too mortifying for words. Worse than Jane screaming at the top of her lungs. Worse than my mom crying in the bathroom, running water so I won’t hear.
Thoughts flicker through my head like sparks. What if Marnie gets pregnant again? What if they need this room for the new baby? What if my mom never gets out of the hospital and the bank takes our house? Where will I go?
The questions hurt to think about, and the answers hurt more. I breathe and breathe. Even though I have never touched a cigarette, I repeat the quit-smoking mantra in my head. Mind over matter, mind over matter. You have the power, you have the power. Over and over, until I fall asleep.