LISH
On the Monday before Christmas, Lish was released from the Institute of Psychiatry. As she sat in the lobby, watching the nurses walk up and down the hallway with little cups of medication, she thought of the bits and pieces of conversations she’d had with Drew and Della and Anne and Dr. Cussler since she’d been in the hospital.
Because Drew had to be in Atlanta until Christmas, Della and Anne were in charge of the safety plan. Lish knew she would be watched around the clock for the first several weeks, and once she felt strong enough, they would allow her to be alone for short periods of time.
Drew had come back twice to visit her. All she could remember of those visits were his eyes, jumpy and bloodshot, and him squeezing her hand saying, “I need you to pull it together, sweetheart.”
She had sat quietly on her bed, kneading her sheets one afternoon as Drew explained to Dr. Cussler the enormous and highly stressful task ahead of him at the CDC. A rare flu had been recently identified in a Mexican village, and it could turn into a pandemic. It was up to his team to assess the virus and help create a vaccine.
“Lish’s sister and cousin will be on site to take care of her through Christmas,” he had told Dr. Cussler, who seemed nervous in front of Drew. Lish had noticed Dr. Cussler tapping the wrong side of his pen on his khaki pants, and she could see the little black lines forming across his thigh, but she couldn’t find the words to tell him. “Then I want Lish to be able to move with our kids to Atlanta as soon as possible.”
Dr. Cussler had gently poked the ball point of the pen into his leg and seemed to work up his courage. “I strongly advise against a move within the next twelve months.” The psychiatrist turned to Lish, and she knew he expected her to weigh in. She had rubbed the edge of the sheet and did not respond.
“Look,” Drew said. “Let us get through Christmas, then we’ll see how she’s doing.” He stepped toward Dr. Cussler, who stepped back as if he wanted ample space between them.
Dr. Cussler cleared his throat, lifted his chin toward Drew, and shook his head. “With all due respect, Dr. Sutton, it could be a mistake to rush a recovery.”
Lish felt a light tap on her shoulder. She looked to her side and saw Anne and Della standing beside her, smiling tentatively. They took turns hugging her and then they each grabbed an elbow and gently lifted her up.
The Abilify, an antipsychotic medicine she’d been on since she arrived, made her dizzy, and they knew she liked to get up very slowly and feel her feet firmly under her before she took a step.
“We’re so happy to see you,” Della said. Lish noticed that Della had put lipstick on, and she was wearing the oval-shaped turquoise earrings Lish had bought her during a trip she took with Drew to Mexico several years ago.
Anne grinned and rubbed her sister’s arm. “Ready to go home?” Lish turned to her sister, who looked better than ever. She held her shoulders back as if she was proud of her height, and her crimson hair glistened even beneath the stark fluorescent light of the Institute of Psychiatry. Lish didn’t know the details, but she understood that Anne was dating the new priest at St. Michael’s. Roy Summerall, a boy they had known as children. One of Elfrieda Summerall’s nephews. She thought of Anne’s revelation in the bell tower a few years ago. Maybe she had heard the voice of God after all.
“Yes.” Lish turned toward the elevator. “I’m ready.” She swallowed and waited for the burn, but it didn’t follow. The Abilify had short-circuited the chemicals in her brain, and whatever made it hard for her to swallow was gone now. Sometimes she still felt the thump on the top of her head. It was very faint and usually came upon her when she’d overdone it or when she took a long, hot shower, but it usually subsided after a deep nap or a good night’s sleep.
“Maybe it’s just the memory of the thump . . .” Dr. Cussler suggested during their session a few days ago. He had been rubbing the heels of his hands together like he did sometimes when he was thinking hard.
She had nodded. “It could be.”
Now as they drove up to 18 Legare Street, Lish grinned and pointed to the door, where Anne had made a beautiful wreath out of dozens of big waxy magnolia leaves from the tree in Mrs. Emerson’s front yard. It was just like the ones Nana used to make. And someone had strung fresh garland along the piazza rails, and she could see through the big thick windows that there was a grand, brightly lit Christmas tree whose top must surely reach the high ceiling.
Della reached over to the passenger seat and rubbed her back. “Like it?”
Lish smiled and slowly blinked.
As she stepped out of the car, one foot finding the ground and positioning itself and then the next, the children scurried out with a long white banner that said, “Welcome Home, Mama.” There was a red-and-green wreath on the banner made out of their handprints.
When Andrew and Mary Jane spotted their mother stepping slowly out of the car, they let go of the banner and ran to her. Andrew gently hugged her, and Mary Jane stood up on her tippy-toes, reached up her arms, and said, “Uhh, uhh.” Lish didn’t think she could lift her. She was still groggy and the pills made her lose her balance from time to time. Instead, she squatted down and took her daughter in her arms. She tried not to weep too hard when she felt the little girl’s soft, full cheek against her own. She squeezed her tight and then rubbed her smooth dark hair, which smelled like baby shampoo and Frasier fir needles and maple syrup. Lish could stay this way for hours. She had missed her children, and she yearned to make up for the lost time.
When Mary Jane pulled back, she grabbed Lish’s face and said, “I’ve been waiting for you, Mama.”
“Me too,” said Andrew. Lish reached out her arm, and the little boy fell into it so hard that they all three plunked down on the ground. She hugged them both as tight as she could. She wanted to tell them how much she loved them, but the words were hard to find and string together. Both Andrew and Mary Jane pulled back and looked at her as if they were expecting her to say something.
“She’s happy to be home,” Della said as Cozy came over and leaned against her own mother. Mary Jane rested her head against her mother’s chest and said, “We’re happy to have her.”
Then Anne helped to lift Lish up and Della came to the other side, and they walked her slowly up the stairs and into the house while Peter ran down the steps and picked both Mary Jane and Andrew up in his strong arms. He whispered to them, “Remember what we talked about, guys?” They nodded. “It’s going to take a little while for your mama to get used to being home. She’s getting well, but she’s not all the way well.”
“I remember,” Andrew said, his arms crossed.
Peter kissed his forehead. “That’s my man.” Then he spun them around until they were both giggling and holding out their arms to feel the rush of cool air.
They had two quiet nights where they set their routine. Anne slept with Lish one night and then Della the next. Whoever was not with Lish took care of the baby, who still needed a bottle and a diaper change around four a.m.
Peter and Cozy entertained the children and Lish tried to meet her goals for the day: to get up by nine a.m., to take a shower, to get dressed, to eat a meal or two, to have a conversation with her children and watch them play in the garden for an hour or so.
On Christmas morning, Lish stood in her shower and stared into space for several minutes before she heard Anne’s voice. “You’re going to be okay,” Anne said. Then Lish stepped slowly out of the shower and let her sister wrap a towel around her and pull her close. “It’s slow going right now,” Anne whispered. “But it won’t be this way forever.”
Lish’s eyes filled with tears and she nodded her head. “Some Christmas, huh?” She wiped her cheek. “Is Drew here yet?”
“No.” Anne squeezed her damp hair with the towel. “I’m sure he’s on his way.”
By noon on Christmas day, Drew pulled into the driveway in his new car, a big black Range Rover. The children ran out to greet him, and he opened the trunk and pulled out his extravagant gifts—a life-size, battery-operated Groovy Girl jeep for Mary Jane that she could drive around the yard, and a three-wheeled motorcycle of the same ilk for Andrew.
“Awesome!” Andrew shouted. He called Cozy over, and they all took turns circling the loquat tree and the rosebushes and the swimming pool over and over until Mary Jane fell out of the driver’s seat on a sharp turn by the carriage house and scraped her shoulder on a stepping stone.
Drew had little to say to the adults. Della and Anne tried giving him as much space as possible. They pretended to be busy cooking the turkey and the dressing, and Peter spent most of the afternoon unpacking the toys that were so thoroughly wired into their packaging that he said he needed his blowtorch to extract them.
After a hectic lunch where Baby Cecilia fussed and Andrew popped Cozy so hard on the back with a spoon that she cried, the kids settled themselves in front of the Rudolph movie and the adults cleaned up—everyone but Lish and Drew, who walked slowly up to the third-floor piazza for a talk. Lish tried to keep her voice low in hopes that Drew would follow suit. She was counting on the hum of the dishwasher and the shrieks of the snow monster on the television to keep the others from hearing their conversation.
Drew didn’t follow suit, and Lish imagined Della and Anne raising their eyebrows from two floors below as his voice rose and fell while he rationalized away his distance and detachment. Lish, too weary and weak to respond, listened and nodded and looked toward the carriage house where she had the faintest memory of watching Melanie rub Drew’s back. She wondered if it was all a bad dream.
After the children were put to bed, Lish walked Drew down the stairs, where he shook Peter’s hand and nodded to Della and Anne. “I’ve got to get back to Atlanta,” he said.
Della rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to speak. But Peter quickly grabbed her arm, and she kept quiet.
“Let me walk you out,” Peter said to Drew. The two men were out in the driveway for nearly thirty minutes. Lish knew Peter was trying to talk Drew into staying, but he wouldn’t succeed. Then the rumble of Drew’s huge motor sounded, and the bright beams of his headlights exposed a marsh rat in the garden. He pulled right out of the driveway and Lish could hear him, from their bedroom, as he pressed the gas and powered down the south end of Legare Street in his tall, dark cage of a car.
That night, as Lish sat in front of her vanity mirror examining her sagging jowls, Anne and Della came up together. “Time to get ready for bed.” Anne handed Lish a pill and a glass of water.
“He’s gone,” Lish said as she swallowed the little white tablet that made her dizzy and dull. She scanned their bedroom before viewing herself in the mirror again. “He doesn’t want this . . . anymore.”
“What do you mean?” Anne stood behind Lish. Three worry lines formed across the thin blue vein in the center of Anne’s forehead.
Lish turned slowly around to face them. “I know Drew.” She stood up and walked slowly to her bed, where she sat down and sucked her teeth. Then she rubbed the center of her head. It’s not the thump, just the memory of it, she said to herself. “He wants a . . . new life.”
Della crossed her arms. “Now that’s insane.”
Lish chuckled and shrugged her shoulder. Her voice was strong, but she parceled her words out one or two at a time, and it seemed like seconds before the next one followed. “There’s probably . . . someone else. I don’t . . . know.” She placed her hand on the bed and looked up to Anne and Della. “But . . . this has gotten . . . too messy . . . for him. I know . . . Drew. He . . . wants out.”
Anne breathed deeply, and she shook her head in disbelief. “How could he ever walk away from you and the children? That’s just—” She cleared her throat. “Unconscionable.”
Lish leaned back on the mound of pillows at the head of her bed and pulled the covers up to her neck. “It can all . . . come unraveled . . . so quickly, can’t it?”
“It can’t be someone else.” Anne sat down beside her and took her hand.
Della was silent. She stood to hang up Lish’s cream wool pants, and when she turned back, her eyes met Lish’s. They locked for several seconds as Anne looked back and forth between the two women. Lish could tell that Della knew something, but whatever it was, it didn’t need to be said. The reality was that while Drew’s leaving wasn’t right, it could certainly be what was happening. It could be exactly what Lish suspected.
Lish watched Della as she laid down next to her and gently sighed.
It was disconcerting when Della was quiet. Like a summer night without the hum of the crickets. Della took Lish’s other hand and squeezed it. And they stayed this way for several minutes before Lish said, “Good night, y’all.”