TURN OF MIND
Alice LaPlante
Atlantic Monthly Press
New York
Copyright © 2011 by Alice LaPlante
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Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America
first edition
ISBN: 978-0-8021-1977-3
Atlantic Monthly Press
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11 12 13 14 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Alice Gervase O’Neill LaPlante
TURN OF MIND
ONE
3
Something has happened. You can always tell. You come to and find
wreckage: a smashed lamp, a devastated human face that shivers on
the verge of being recognizable. Occasionally someone in uniform: a
paramedic, a nurse. A hand extended with a pill. Or poised to insert a
needle.
This time, I am in a room, sitting on a cold metal folding chair. The
room is not familiar, but I am used to that. I look for clues. An offi celike setting, long and crowded with desks and computers, messy with
papers. No windows.
I can barely make out the pale green of the walls, so many posters, clippings, and bulletins tacked up. Fluorescent lighting casting a pall. Men
and women talking; to one another, not to me. Some wearing baggy
suits, some in jeans. And more uniforms. My guess is that a smile would
be inappropriate. Fear might not be.
◊ ◊ ◊
I can still read, I’m not that far gone, not yet. No books anymore, but
newspaper articles. Magazine pieces, if they’re short enough. I have a
system. I take a sheet of lined paper. I write down notes, just like in
medical school.
Alice LaPlante
4
When I get confused, I read my notes. I refer back to them. I can
take two hours to get through a single Tribune article, half a day to get
through The New York Times. Now, as I sit at the table, I pick up a paper
someone discarded, a pencil. I write in the margins as I read. These are
Band-Aid solutions. The violent fl are-ups continue. They have reaped what they
sowed and should repent.
Afterward, I look at these notes but am left with nothing but a sense of
unease, of uncontrol. A heavy man in blue is hovering, his hand inches
away from my upper arm. Ready to grab. Restrain.
◊ ◊ ◊
Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind,
do you wish to speak to me?
I want to go home. I want to go home. Am I in Philadelphia. There was
the house on Walnut Lane. We played kickball in the streets.
No, this is Chicago. Ward Forty-three, Precinct Twenty-one. We have called your
son and daughter. You can decide at any time from this moment on to terminate
the interview and exercise these rights.
I wish to terminate. Yes.
◊ ◊ ◊
A large sign is taped to the kitchen wall. The words, written in thick black
marker in a tremulous hand, slope offthe poster board: My name is Dr. Jennifer White. I am sixty-four years old. I have dementia. My son, Mark, is twentynine. My daughter, Fiona, twenty-four. A caregiver, Magdalena, lives with me.
It is all clear. So who are all these other people in my house? People,
TURN OF MIND
5
strangers, everywhere. A blond woman I don’t recognize in my kitchen
drinking tea. A glimpse of movement from the den. Then I turn the corner
into the living room and fi nd yet another face. I ask, So who are you? Who
are all the others? Do you know her? I point to the kitchen, and they laugh.
I am her, they say. I was there, now I’m here. I am the only one in the
house other than you. They ask if I want tea. They ask if I want to go
for a walk. Am I a baby? I say. I am tired of the questions. You know me,
don’t you? Don’t you remember? Magdalena. Your friend.
◊ ◊ ◊
The notebook is a way of communicating with myself, and with others. Of filling in the blank periods. When all is in a fog, when someone
refers to an event or conversation that I can’t recall, I leaf through the
pages. Sometimes it comforts me to read what’s there. Sometimes not.
It is my Bible of consciousness. It lives on the kitchen table: large and
square, with an embossed leather cover and heavy creamy paper. Each
entry has a date on it. A nice lady sits me down in front of it.
She writes, January 20, 2009. Jennifer’s notes. She hands the pen to me.
She says, Write what happened today. Write about your childhood. Write whatever you remember.
I remember my first wrist arthrodesis. The pressure of scalpel against
skin, the slight give when it finally sliced through. The resilience of
muscle. My surgical scissors scraping bone. And afterward, peeling off
bloody gloves finger by finger.
◊ ◊ ◊
Black. Everyone is wearing black. They’re walking in twos and threes
down the street toward St. Vincent’s, bundled in coats and scarves that
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6
cover their heads and lower faces against what is apparently bitter
wind.
I am inside my warm house, my face to the frosted window, Magdalena
hovering. I can just see the twelve-foot carved wooden doors. They are
wide open, and people are entering. A hearse is standing in front, other
cars lined up behind it, their lights on.
It’s Amanda,Magdalena tells me. Amanda’s funeral. Who is Amanda? I ask.
Magdalena hesitates, then says, Your best friend. Your daughter’s godmother.
I try. I fail. I shake my head. Magdalena gets my notebook. She turns
back the pages. She points to a newspaper clipping:
Elderly Chicago Woman Found Dead, Mutilated
CHICAGO TRIBUNE—February 23, 2009
CHICAGO, IL—The mutilated body of a seventy-fiveyear-old Chicago woman was discovered yesterday
in a house in the 2100 block of Sheffield Avenue.
Amanda O’Toole was found dead in her home
after a neighbor noticed she had failed to take
in her newspapers for almost a week, according to sources close to the investigation. Four
fingers on her right hand had been severed. The
exact time of death is unknown, but cause of
death is attributed to head trauma, sources say.
Nothing was reported missing from her house.
No one has been charged, but police briefly took
into custody and then released a person of interest in the case.
I try. But I cannot conjure up anything. Magdalena leaves. She comes
back with a photograph.
TURN OF MIND
7
Two women, one taller by at least two inches, with long straight white
hair pulled back in a tight chignon. The other one, younger, has shorter
wavy gray locks that cluster around chiseled, more feminine features.
That one a beauty perhaps, once upon a time.
This is you,Magdalena says, pointing to the younger woman. And this
here, this is Amanda. I study the photograph.
The taller woman has a compelling face. Not what you’d call pretty.
Nor what you would call nice. Too sharp around the nostrils, lines of
perhaps contempt etched into the jowls. The two women stand close
together, not touching, but there is an affi nity there.
Try to remember,Magdalena urges me. It could be important. Her hand lies
heavily on my shoulder. She wants something from me. What? But I
am suddenly tired. My hands shake. Perspiration trickles down between
my breasts.
I want to go to my room, I say. I swat at Magdalena’s hand. Leave me be.
◊ ◊ ◊
Amanda? Dead? I cannot believe it. My dear, dear friend. Second
mother to my children. My ally in the neighborhood. My sister.
If not for Amanda, I would have been alone. I was different. Always
apart. The cheese stands alone.
Not that anyone knew. They were fooled by surfaces, so easy to dupe.
No one understood weaknesses like Amanda. She saw me, saved me
from my secret solitude. And where was I when she needed me? Here.
Three doors down. Wallowing in my woes. While she suffered. While
some monster brandished a knife, pushed in for the kill.
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8
O the pain! So much pain. I will stop swallowing my pills. I will take my
scalpel to my brain and eviscerate her image. And I will beg for exactly
that thing I’ve been battling all these long months: sweet oblivion.
◊ ◊ ◊
The nice lady writes in my notebook. She signs her name: Magdalena.
Today, Friday, March 11, was another bad day. You kicked the step and broke
your toe. At the emergency room you escaped into the parking lot. An orderly
brought you back. You spat on him.
The shame.
◊ ◊ ◊
This half state. Life in the shadows. As the neurofibrillary tangles proliferate, as the neuritic plaques harden, as synapses cease to fi re and my
mind rots out, I remain aware. An unanesthetized patient.
Every death of every cell pricks me where I am most tender. And people I don’t know patronize me. They hug me. They attempt to hold my
hand. They call me prepubescent nicknames: Jen. Jenny. I bitterly accept
the fact that I am famous, beloved even, among strangers. A celebrity!
A legend in my own mind.
◊ ◊ ◊
My notebook lately has been full of warnings. Mark very angry today.
He hung up on me. Magdalena says do not speak to anyone who calls. Do not
answer the door when she’s doing laundry or in the bathroom.
Then, in a different handwriting, Mom, you are not safe with Mark. Give
the medical power of attorney to me, Fiona. It is best to have medical and
TURN OF MIND
9
fi nancial powers of attorney in the same hands anyway. Some things are
crossed out, no, obliterated, with a thick black pen. By whom?
◊ ◊ ◊
My notebook again:
Mark called, says my money will not save me. I must listen to him. That
there are other actions we must take to protect me.
Then:Mom, I sold $50,000 worth of IBM stock for the lawyer’s retainer. She
comes highly recommended for cases where mental competency is an issue. They
have no evidence, only theories. Dr. Tsien has put you on 150 mg of Seroquel
to curb the episodes. I will come again tomorrow, Saturday. Your daughter, Fiona.
◊ ◊ ◊
I belong to an Alzheimer’s support group. People come and they go.
This morning Magdalena says it is an okay day, we can try to attend.
The group meets in a Methodist church on Clark, squat and gray with
clapboard walls and garish primary-colored stained-glass windows.
We gather in the Fellowship Lounge, a large room with windows that
don’t open and speckled linoleum floors bearing the scuffmarks of the
metal folding chairs. A motley crew, perhaps half a dozen of us, our minds
in varying states of undress. Magdalena waits outside the door of the
room with the other caregivers. They line up on benches in the dark
hallway, knitting and speaking softly among themselves, but attentive, prepared to leap up and take their charges away at the first hint of trouble.
Our leader is a young man with a social-worker degree. He has a kind
and ineffectual face, and likes to start with introductions and a joke.
Alice LaPlante
10
My-name-is-I-forgot-and-I-am-an-I-don’t-know-what. He refers to what
we do as the Two Circular Steps. Step One is admitting you have a problem.
Step Two is forgetting you have the problem.
It gets a laugh every time, from some because they remember the joke
from the last meeting, but from most because it’s new to them, no matter how many times they’ve heard it.
Today is a good day for me. I remember it. I would even add a third
step: Step Three is remembering that you forget. Step Three is the hardest
of all.
Today we discuss attitude. This is what the leader calls it. You’ve all received this extraordinarily distressing diagnosis, he says. You are all intelligent, educated people. You know you are running out of time. What
you do with it is up to you. Be positive! Having Alzheimer’s can be like
going to a party where you don’t happen to know anyone. Think of it!
Every meal can be the best meal of your life! Every movie the most enthralling you’ve ever seen! Have a sense of humor,he says. You are a visitor
from another planet, and you are observing the local customs.
But what about the rest of us, for whom the walls are closing in? Whom
change has always terrified? At thirteen I stopped eating for a week
because my mother bought new sheets for my bed. For us, life is now
terribly dangerous. Hazards lie around every corner. So you nod to all
the strangers who force themselves upon you. You laugh when others
laugh, look serious when they do. When people ask do you remember
you nod some more. Or frown at first, then let your face light up in
recognition.
All this is necessary for survival. I am a visitor from another planet, and the
natives are not friendly.
TURN OF MIND
11
◊ ◊ ◊
I open my mail myself. Then it disappears. Whisked away. Today, pleas
for help to save the whales, save the pandas, free Tibet.
My bank statement shows that I have $3,567.89 in a Bank of America
checking account. There is another statement from a stockbroker, Michael Brownstein. My name is on the top. My assets have declined 19
percent in the last six months. They apparently now total $2.56 million.
He includes a note: It is not as bad as it could have been due to your conservative investment choices and a broad portfolio diversifi cation strategy.
Is $2.56 million a lot of money? Is it enough? I stare at the letters on the
page until they blur. AAPL, IBM, CVR, ASF, SFR. The secret language
of money.
◊ ◊ ◊
James is sly. James has secrets. Some I am privy to, more I am not. Where
is he today? The children are at school. The house is empty except for a
woman who seems to be a sort of housekeeper. She is straightening the
books in the den, humming a tune I don’t recognize. Did James hire her?
Likely. Someone must be keeping things in order, for the house looks well
tended, and I have always been hostile to housework, and James, although a
compulsive tidier, is too busy. Always out and about. On undercover missions. Like now. Amanda doesn’t approve. Marriages should be transparent, she
says. They must withstand the glare of full sunlight. But James is a shadowy man.
He needs cover, flourishes in the dark. James himself explained it long ago,
concocted the perfect metaphor. Or rather, he plucked it from nature. And
although I am suspicious of too-neat categorizations, this one rang true. It
was a hot humid day in summer, at James’s boyhood home in North Carolina. Before we were married. We’d gone for an after-dinner walk in the
Alice LaPlante
12
waning light and just two hundred yards away from his parents’ back porch
found ourselves deep in a primeval forest, dark with trees that dripped
white moss, our footsteps muffled by the dead leaves that blanketed the
ground. Pockets of ferns unfurled through the debris and the occasional
mushroom gleamed. James gestured. Poisonous, he said. As he spoke, a bird
called. Otherwise, silence. If there was a path, I couldn’t see it, but James
steadily moved ahead and magically a way forward appeared in front of us.
We’d gone perhaps a quarter of a mile, the light diminishing minute by
minute, when James stopped. He pointed. At the foot of a tree, amid a mass
of yellow green moss, something glowed a ghostly white. A flower, a single
flower on a long white stalk. James let out a breath. We’re lucky, he said.
Sometimes you can search for days and not fi nd one.
And what is it? I asked. The flower emitted its own light, so strong that
several small insects were circling around it, as if attracted by the glare.
A ghost plant, James said. Monotropa uniflora. He stooped down and
cupped the flower in his hand, being careful not to disengage it from
its stalk. It’s one of the few plants that doesn’t need light. It actually grows in
the dark.
How is that possible? I asked.
It’s a parasite—it doesn’t photosynthesize but feeds off the fungus and the trees
around it, lets others do the hard work. I’ve always felt a kinship to it. Admiration, even. Because it’s not easy—that’s why they don’t propagate widely. The
plant has to fi nd the right host, and conditions must be exactly right for it to
fl ourish. But when it does fl ourish, it is truly spectacular. He let go of the
flower and stood up.
Yes, I can see that, I said.
Can you? James asked. Can you really?
TURN OF MIND
13
Yes, I repeated, and the word hung in the heavy moist air between us,
like a promise. A vow.
Shortly after this trip, we quietly got married at the Evanston courthouse. We didn’t invite anyone, it would have felt like an intrusion. The
clerk was a witness, and it was over in five minutes. On the whole, a
good decision. But on days like today, when I feel James’s absence like
a wound, I long to be back in those woods, which somehow remain
as fresh and strong in my mind as the day we were there. I could reach
out and pluck that flower, present it to James when he comes back. A
dark trophy.
◊ ◊ ◊
I am in the offi ce of a Carl Tsien. A doctor. Mydoctor, it seems. A slight,
balding man. Pale, in the way that only someone who spends his time
indoors under artifi cial light can be. A benevolent face. We apparently
know each other well.
He speaks about former students. He uses the word our. Our students. He
says I should be proud. That I have left the university and the hospital
an invaluable legacy. I shake my head. I am too tired to pretend, having
had a bad night. A pacing night. Back and forth, back and forth, from
bathroom to bedroom to bathroom and back again. Counting footsteps,
beating a steady rhythm against the tile, the hardwood flooring. Pacing
until the soles of my feet ached.
But this office tickles my memory. Although I don’t know this doctor, somehow I am intimate with his possessions. A model of a human
skull on his desk. Someone has painted lipstick on its bony maxilla to
approximate lips, and a crude label underneath it reads simply, mad carlotta. I know that skull. I know that handwriting. He sees me looking.
Your jokes were always a little obscure, he says.
Alice LaPlante
14
On the wall above the desk, a vintage skiing poster proclaims Chamonix
in bright red letters. Des conditions de neige excellentes, des terrasses ensoleillées, des hors-pistes mythiques. A man and a woman, dressed in the voluminous clothing of the early 1900s, poised on skis in midair above a steep
white hill dotted with pine trees. A fanciful drawing, not a photograph,
although there are photographs, too, hanging to the right and left of
the poster. Black-and-white. To the right, one of a young girl, not clean,
squatting in front of a dilapidated shack. To the left, one of a barren field
with the sun just visible above the fl at horizon and a woman, naked,
lying on her belly with her hands propping up her chin. She looks directly into the camera. I feel distaste and turn away.
The doctor laughs and pats me on the arm. You never did approve of my
artistic vision, he says.You called it precious. Ansel Adams meets the Discovery
Channel.I shrug. I let his hand linger on my arm as he guides me to a
chair.
I am going to ask you some questions,he says. Just answer to the best of your
ability.
I don’t even bother to respond.
What day is it?
Going-to-the-doctor day.
Clever reply. What month is it?
Winter.
Can you be more specifi c?
March?
TURN OF MIND
15
Close. Late February.
What is this?
A pencil.
What is this?
A watch.
What is your name?
Don’t insult me.
What are your children’s names?
Fiona and Mark.
What was your husband’s name?
James.
Where is your husband?
He is dead. Heart attack.
What do you remember about that?
He was driving and lost control of his car.
Did he die of the heart attack or the car accident?
Clinically it was impossible to tell. He may have died of cardiomyopathy
Alice LaPlante
16
caused by a leaky mitral valve or from head trauma. It was a close call. The
coroner went with cardiac arrest. I would have gone the other way, myself.
You must have been devastated.
No, my thought was, that’s James: a perpetual battle between his head
and his heart to the end.
You’re making light of it. But I remember that time. What you went through.
Don’t patronize me. I had to laugh. His heart succumbed first. His
heart! I didlaugh, actually. I laughed as I identifi ed the remains. Such
a cold, bright place. The morgue. I hadn’t been in one since medical
school, I always hated them. The harsh light. The bitter cold. The light
and the cold and also the sounds—rubber-soled shoes squeaking like
hungry rats against tile floors. That’s what I remember: James bathed in
unforgiving light while vermin scuttled.
Now you’re the one patronizing me. As if I couldn’t see past that.
The doctor writes something in a chart. He allows himself to smile at me.
You scored a nineteen, he says. You’re doing well today. I don’t see any agitation and Magdalena says the aggression has subsided. We’ll continue the same
drug therapy.
He gives me a look. Do you have a problem with that?
I shake my head. Okay, then. We’ll do everything we can to keep you in your
home. I know that’s what you want.
He pauses. I must tell you, Mark has been urging me to make a statement
that he can use to declare you mentally incompetent to make medical decisions,
TURN OF MIND
17
he says. I have refused. The doctor leans forward. I would recommend that
you not let yourself be examined by another doctor. Not without a court order.
He takes a piece of paper out of his file. See—I have written it all down
for you. Everything I just said. I will give it to Magdalena and tell her to keep
it safe. I have made two copies. Magdalena will give one to your lawyer. You can
trust Magdalena, I believe. I believe she is trustworthy.
He waits for my answer, but I am fixated on the photo of the naked
woman. There is doubt and suspicion in her eyes. She is looking at the
camera. Behind it. She is looking straight at me.
◊ ◊ ◊
I can’t find the car keys, so I decide to walk to the drugstore. I will buy
toothpaste, some dental floss, shampoo for dry hair. Perhaps some toilet
paper, the premium kind.
Normal things. I’m inclined to pretend to be normal today. Then I will
go to the supermarket and pick out the plumpest roast chicken for dinner. A loaf of fresh bread. James will like that. Small comforts—we share
our love of these.
But I must go quickly. Quietly. They will try to stop me. They always do.
But no purse. Where is it. I always keep it beside the door. No matter,
there will be someone nice there. I will say, I am Dr. Jennifer White and
I forgot my purse and they will say oh of course here is some money
and I will nod my head just so and thank them.
I stride down the street, past ivy-covered brownstones with their waisthigh wrought-iron fences enclosing small neat geometrically laid-out
front gardens.
Alice LaPlante
18
Dr. White? Is that you?
A dark-skinned man in a blue uniform, driving a white truck with an
eagle on it. He rolls down his window, slows to a crawl to keep pace.
Yes? I keep walking.
Not the nicest day to be out and about. Nasty.
Just a walk, I say. I make a point of not looking at him. If you don’t look,
they may leave you alone. If you don’t look, sometimes they let it go.
How about a ride? Look at you, completely soaked. No coat. And my goodness.
No shoes. Come on. Get in.
No. I like the weather. I like the feel of my bare feet against concrete.
Cold. Waking me out of my somnolent state.
You know, that nice lady you live with won’t like this.
So what.
Come quietly now.He speaks soothingly while pulling the truck over to
the curb. He holds out both hands, palms up, and beckons with them.
Gently.
I’m not a rabid dog.
No, you’re not. Indeed you aren’t. But I can’t stand by and do nothing. You
know I can’t, Dr. White.
I brush my icy hair out of my face and keep going, but he idles his truck
alongside. He takes out his phone. If he punches seven numbers, it’s
TURN OF MIND
19
okay. If he punches three numbers, it’s bad. I know that. I stop and wait.
Onetwothree. He stops. He brings the phone to his ear.
Wait, I say. No. I run around the front of the truck. I yank the door open
and clamber in beside him. Anything to stop the phone. Stop what will
happen. Bad things will happen. Put the phone down, I say. Put the
phone down. He hesitates. I hear a voice on the other end. He looks at
the phone and flips it shut. He gives me what is supposed to be a reassuring smile. I am not fooled.
Okay! Let’s get you home before you catch your death.
He waits at the curb until I reach the front door. It is wide open, and
wind and sleet are gusting through into the hallway. The thick damask curtains on the front windows are drenched. I step on a sodden
carpet—a dark Tabriz runner we bought in Baghdad thirty years ago,
now considered museum-quality. James had it appraised last year, will
be furious. Magdalena’s shoes are gone. A lukewarm cup of tea sits on
the table, half drunk.
I am suddenly very tired. I sit down in front of the tea, push it away,
but not before getting a waft of chamomile. So many old wives’ tales
about chamomile have proven true. A cure for digestive problems, fever,
menstrual cramps, stomachaches, skin infections, and anxiety. And, of
course, insomnia.
A fi x for whatever ails you!Magdalena had exclaimed when I told her
that. Not really, I said. Not everything.
◊ ◊ ◊
We are listening to St. Matthew’s Passion.It is 1988. Solti is at the podium
in Orchestra Hall, and the audience is held captive until the cadences
Alice LaPlante
20
resolve. The diminished seventh chords and the disturbing modulations.
The suspense barely tolerable. I can feel the warmth of James’s fingers
intertwined with mine, his breath warm against my cheek.
Then suddenly it is a cold winter day. I am alone in my kitchen. I fold
my arms on the table and lean my forehead against them. Did I take my
pills this morning? How many did I take? How many would it take?
I am almost to the point. I have almost reached that point. And hear an
echo of Bach: Ich bin’s, ich sollte büßen. It is I who should suffer and be
bound for hell.
But not yet. No. Not quite yet. I sit and wait.
◊ ◊ ◊
A man has walked into my house without knocking. He says he is my
son. Magdalena backs him up, so I acquiesce. But I don’t like this man’s
face. I am not ruling out the possibility that they are telling me the
truth—but I will play it safe. Not commit.
What I do see: a stranger, a very beautiful stranger. Dark. Dark hair, dark
eyes, a dark aura, if I may be so fanciful. He tells me he is unmarried,
twenty-nine years old, a lawyer. Like your father! I say, cunningly. His
darkness comes alive, he glowers—there is no other word for it.
Not at all, he says.Not in the slightest. I cannot hope to fi ll those mighty
McLennan shoes. Give counsel to the mighty and count the golden coin of
the realm.And he gives a mock half bow to the portrait of the lean,
dark man that hangs in the living room. Why didn’t you give me your
name, Mom? The shoes would have been just as large but of a diff erent shape
altogether.
TURN OF MIND
21
Enough! I say sharply—for I remember my son now. He is seven years
old. He has just run into the room, his hands clutching at his thighs, a
glorious look on his face. Water spattering everywhere. I discover his
front pockets are full of his sister’s goldfi sh. They are still wiggling. He
is astonished at my anger.
We save some of them, but most are limp cold bodies to be flushed down
the toilet. His rapture is not dimmed, he stares fascinated as the last of the
red gold tails gets sucked out of sight. Even when his sister discovers her
loss he is unrepentant. No. More than that. Proud. Perpetrator of a dozen
tiny slaughters on an otherwise quiet Tuesday afternoon.
This-man-who-they-say-is-my-son settles himself in the blue armchair
near the window in the living room. He loosens his tie, stretches out his
legs, makes himself at home.
Magdalena tells me you’ve been well,he says.
Very, I say, stiffly. As well as a person in my condition can be.
Tell me about that,he says.
About what? I ask.
About how aware you are of what’s happening to you.
Everyone asks that, I say. They are astonished that I can be so aware, so
ver y . . .
Clinical, he says.
Yes.
Alice LaPlante
22
You always were, he says. He has a wry smile, not unappealing. When I
broke my arm, you were more interested in my bone density than in getting me
to the hospital.
I remember someone breaking his arm, I say. Mark. It was Mark. Mark
fell out of the maple tree in front of the Janeckis’.
I’m Mark.
You? Mark?
Yes. Your son.
I have a son?
Yes. Mark. Me.
I have a son! I am struck dumb. I have a son! I am filled with ecstasy. Joy!
Mom, please, don’t. . .
But I am overwhelmed. All these years! I had a son and never knew it!
The man is now kneeling at my feet, holding me.
It’s okay, Mom. I’m here.
I hold on to him tightly. A fine young man and, wondrous of all, conceived by me. There is something not quite right about his face, a fl aw
in his beauty. But to my eyes, this makes him even more beloved.
Mom, he says after a moment. His arms around me loosen, he pulls back.
TURN OF MIND
23
I miss the warmth immediately but reluctantly let go and sit back in
my chair.
Mom, I had something really important to say. It’s about Fiona. He is standing
now, and his face is back to the dark, watchful look he wore when he
entered. I know that look.
What about her? I ask. My tone is not welcoming.
Mom, I know you don’t want to hear this, but she’s gone off again. You know
how she gets.
I do know, but I don’t answer. I have never encouraged this telling of
tales.
This time it’s bad. Really bad. She won’t talk to me. You used to be able to talk
her down. Dad, sometimes. But she listened to you. Do you think you could
speak to her? He pauses. Do you understand what I’m saying?
Where have you been, you bastard? I ask.
What?
After all these years, you come here and say these things?
Shhh, Mom. It’s okay. I’m right here. I never left.
What do you mean? I’ve been alone. All alone in this house. Eating dinner alone, going to bed alone. So alone.
That’s just not true, Mom. Until just last year there was Dad. And what about
Magdalena?
Alice LaPlante
24
Who?
Magdalena. Your friend. The woman who lives with you.
Oh. Her. She’s not my friend. She gets paid. I pay her.
That doesn’t mean she’s not your friend.
Yes, it certainly does. Suddenly I’m angry. Furious! You bastard! I say.
You abandoned me!
The man slowly gets to his feet and sighs heavily. Magdalena!he calls.
Did you hear me? Bastard!
I heard you, Mom. He looks around, searching for something. My coat, he
says. Have you seen my coat?
A woman hurries into the room. Blond. A woman of heft. Better go,she
says. Quickly. Here’s your coat. Yes. Thanks for coming.
Well, I won’t pretend it’s been fun,the man says to me, and turns to go.
Get out!
The blond woman puts up her hand. She moves slowly toward me. No,
Jennifer. Put that down. Please put that down. Now, really, did you have to do that?
What has happened. There has been an accident. The phone lies in the
hallway amid shattered glass. Cold air sweeps past me, the curtains blow
wildly. Outside, a car door slams, an engine starts. I feel alive, vindicated,
ready for anything. There’s so much more where this came from. O yes,
much much more.
Alice LaPlante
Atlantic Monthly Press
New York
Copyright © 2011 by Alice LaPlante
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Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America
first edition
ISBN: 978-0-8021-1977-3
Atlantic Monthly Press
an imprint of Grove/Atlantic Inc.
841 Broadway
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Distributed by Publishers Group West
www.groveatlantic.com
11 12 13 14 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Alice Gervase O’Neill LaPlante
TURN OF MIND
ONE
3
Something has happened. You can always tell. You come to and find
wreckage: a smashed lamp, a devastated human face that shivers on
the verge of being recognizable. Occasionally someone in uniform: a
paramedic, a nurse. A hand extended with a pill. Or poised to insert a
needle.
This time, I am in a room, sitting on a cold metal folding chair. The
room is not familiar, but I am used to that. I look for clues. An offi celike setting, long and crowded with desks and computers, messy with
papers. No windows.
I can barely make out the pale green of the walls, so many posters, clippings, and bulletins tacked up. Fluorescent lighting casting a pall. Men
and women talking; to one another, not to me. Some wearing baggy
suits, some in jeans. And more uniforms. My guess is that a smile would
be inappropriate. Fear might not be.
◊ ◊ ◊
I can still read, I’m not that far gone, not yet. No books anymore, but
newspaper articles. Magazine pieces, if they’re short enough. I have a
system. I take a sheet of lined paper. I write down notes, just like in
medical school.
Alice LaPlante
4
When I get confused, I read my notes. I refer back to them. I can
take two hours to get through a single Tribune article, half a day to get
through The New York Times. Now, as I sit at the table, I pick up a paper
someone discarded, a pencil. I write in the margins as I read. These are
Band-Aid solutions. The violent fl are-ups continue. They have reaped what they
sowed and should repent.
Afterward, I look at these notes but am left with nothing but a sense of
unease, of uncontrol. A heavy man in blue is hovering, his hand inches
away from my upper arm. Ready to grab. Restrain.
◊ ◊ ◊
Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind,
do you wish to speak to me?
I want to go home. I want to go home. Am I in Philadelphia. There was
the house on Walnut Lane. We played kickball in the streets.
No, this is Chicago. Ward Forty-three, Precinct Twenty-one. We have called your
son and daughter. You can decide at any time from this moment on to terminate
the interview and exercise these rights.
I wish to terminate. Yes.
◊ ◊ ◊
A large sign is taped to the kitchen wall. The words, written in thick black
marker in a tremulous hand, slope offthe poster board: My name is Dr. Jennifer White. I am sixty-four years old. I have dementia. My son, Mark, is twentynine. My daughter, Fiona, twenty-four. A caregiver, Magdalena, lives with me.
It is all clear. So who are all these other people in my house? People,
TURN OF MIND
5
strangers, everywhere. A blond woman I don’t recognize in my kitchen
drinking tea. A glimpse of movement from the den. Then I turn the corner
into the living room and fi nd yet another face. I ask, So who are you? Who
are all the others? Do you know her? I point to the kitchen, and they laugh.
I am her, they say. I was there, now I’m here. I am the only one in the
house other than you. They ask if I want tea. They ask if I want to go
for a walk. Am I a baby? I say. I am tired of the questions. You know me,
don’t you? Don’t you remember? Magdalena. Your friend.
◊ ◊ ◊
The notebook is a way of communicating with myself, and with others. Of filling in the blank periods. When all is in a fog, when someone
refers to an event or conversation that I can’t recall, I leaf through the
pages. Sometimes it comforts me to read what’s there. Sometimes not.
It is my Bible of consciousness. It lives on the kitchen table: large and
square, with an embossed leather cover and heavy creamy paper. Each
entry has a date on it. A nice lady sits me down in front of it.
She writes, January 20, 2009. Jennifer’s notes. She hands the pen to me.
She says, Write what happened today. Write about your childhood. Write whatever you remember.
I remember my first wrist arthrodesis. The pressure of scalpel against
skin, the slight give when it finally sliced through. The resilience of
muscle. My surgical scissors scraping bone. And afterward, peeling off
bloody gloves finger by finger.
◊ ◊ ◊
Black. Everyone is wearing black. They’re walking in twos and threes
down the street toward St. Vincent’s, bundled in coats and scarves that
Alice LaPlante
6
cover their heads and lower faces against what is apparently bitter
wind.
I am inside my warm house, my face to the frosted window, Magdalena
hovering. I can just see the twelve-foot carved wooden doors. They are
wide open, and people are entering. A hearse is standing in front, other
cars lined up behind it, their lights on.
It’s Amanda,Magdalena tells me. Amanda’s funeral. Who is Amanda? I ask.
Magdalena hesitates, then says, Your best friend. Your daughter’s godmother.
I try. I fail. I shake my head. Magdalena gets my notebook. She turns
back the pages. She points to a newspaper clipping:
Elderly Chicago Woman Found Dead, Mutilated
CHICAGO TRIBUNE—February 23, 2009
CHICAGO, IL—The mutilated body of a seventy-fiveyear-old Chicago woman was discovered yesterday
in a house in the 2100 block of Sheffield Avenue.
Amanda O’Toole was found dead in her home
after a neighbor noticed she had failed to take
in her newspapers for almost a week, according to sources close to the investigation. Four
fingers on her right hand had been severed. The
exact time of death is unknown, but cause of
death is attributed to head trauma, sources say.
Nothing was reported missing from her house.
No one has been charged, but police briefly took
into custody and then released a person of interest in the case.
I try. But I cannot conjure up anything. Magdalena leaves. She comes
back with a photograph.
TURN OF MIND
7
Two women, one taller by at least two inches, with long straight white
hair pulled back in a tight chignon. The other one, younger, has shorter
wavy gray locks that cluster around chiseled, more feminine features.
That one a beauty perhaps, once upon a time.
This is you,Magdalena says, pointing to the younger woman. And this
here, this is Amanda. I study the photograph.
The taller woman has a compelling face. Not what you’d call pretty.
Nor what you would call nice. Too sharp around the nostrils, lines of
perhaps contempt etched into the jowls. The two women stand close
together, not touching, but there is an affi nity there.
Try to remember,Magdalena urges me. It could be important. Her hand lies
heavily on my shoulder. She wants something from me. What? But I
am suddenly tired. My hands shake. Perspiration trickles down between
my breasts.
I want to go to my room, I say. I swat at Magdalena’s hand. Leave me be.
◊ ◊ ◊
Amanda? Dead? I cannot believe it. My dear, dear friend. Second
mother to my children. My ally in the neighborhood. My sister.
If not for Amanda, I would have been alone. I was different. Always
apart. The cheese stands alone.
Not that anyone knew. They were fooled by surfaces, so easy to dupe.
No one understood weaknesses like Amanda. She saw me, saved me
from my secret solitude. And where was I when she needed me? Here.
Three doors down. Wallowing in my woes. While she suffered. While
some monster brandished a knife, pushed in for the kill.
Alice LaPlante
8
O the pain! So much pain. I will stop swallowing my pills. I will take my
scalpel to my brain and eviscerate her image. And I will beg for exactly
that thing I’ve been battling all these long months: sweet oblivion.
◊ ◊ ◊
The nice lady writes in my notebook. She signs her name: Magdalena.
Today, Friday, March 11, was another bad day. You kicked the step and broke
your toe. At the emergency room you escaped into the parking lot. An orderly
brought you back. You spat on him.
The shame.
◊ ◊ ◊
This half state. Life in the shadows. As the neurofibrillary tangles proliferate, as the neuritic plaques harden, as synapses cease to fi re and my
mind rots out, I remain aware. An unanesthetized patient.
Every death of every cell pricks me where I am most tender. And people I don’t know patronize me. They hug me. They attempt to hold my
hand. They call me prepubescent nicknames: Jen. Jenny. I bitterly accept
the fact that I am famous, beloved even, among strangers. A celebrity!
A legend in my own mind.
◊ ◊ ◊
My notebook lately has been full of warnings. Mark very angry today.
He hung up on me. Magdalena says do not speak to anyone who calls. Do not
answer the door when she’s doing laundry or in the bathroom.
Then, in a different handwriting, Mom, you are not safe with Mark. Give
the medical power of attorney to me, Fiona. It is best to have medical and
TURN OF MIND
9
fi nancial powers of attorney in the same hands anyway. Some things are
crossed out, no, obliterated, with a thick black pen. By whom?
◊ ◊ ◊
My notebook again:
Mark called, says my money will not save me. I must listen to him. That
there are other actions we must take to protect me.
Then:Mom, I sold $50,000 worth of IBM stock for the lawyer’s retainer. She
comes highly recommended for cases where mental competency is an issue. They
have no evidence, only theories. Dr. Tsien has put you on 150 mg of Seroquel
to curb the episodes. I will come again tomorrow, Saturday. Your daughter, Fiona.
◊ ◊ ◊
I belong to an Alzheimer’s support group. People come and they go.
This morning Magdalena says it is an okay day, we can try to attend.
The group meets in a Methodist church on Clark, squat and gray with
clapboard walls and garish primary-colored stained-glass windows.
We gather in the Fellowship Lounge, a large room with windows that
don’t open and speckled linoleum floors bearing the scuffmarks of the
metal folding chairs. A motley crew, perhaps half a dozen of us, our minds
in varying states of undress. Magdalena waits outside the door of the
room with the other caregivers. They line up on benches in the dark
hallway, knitting and speaking softly among themselves, but attentive, prepared to leap up and take their charges away at the first hint of trouble.
Our leader is a young man with a social-worker degree. He has a kind
and ineffectual face, and likes to start with introductions and a joke.
Alice LaPlante
10
My-name-is-I-forgot-and-I-am-an-I-don’t-know-what. He refers to what
we do as the Two Circular Steps. Step One is admitting you have a problem.
Step Two is forgetting you have the problem.
It gets a laugh every time, from some because they remember the joke
from the last meeting, but from most because it’s new to them, no matter how many times they’ve heard it.
Today is a good day for me. I remember it. I would even add a third
step: Step Three is remembering that you forget. Step Three is the hardest
of all.
Today we discuss attitude. This is what the leader calls it. You’ve all received this extraordinarily distressing diagnosis, he says. You are all intelligent, educated people. You know you are running out of time. What
you do with it is up to you. Be positive! Having Alzheimer’s can be like
going to a party where you don’t happen to know anyone. Think of it!
Every meal can be the best meal of your life! Every movie the most enthralling you’ve ever seen! Have a sense of humor,he says. You are a visitor
from another planet, and you are observing the local customs.
But what about the rest of us, for whom the walls are closing in? Whom
change has always terrified? At thirteen I stopped eating for a week
because my mother bought new sheets for my bed. For us, life is now
terribly dangerous. Hazards lie around every corner. So you nod to all
the strangers who force themselves upon you. You laugh when others
laugh, look serious when they do. When people ask do you remember
you nod some more. Or frown at first, then let your face light up in
recognition.
All this is necessary for survival. I am a visitor from another planet, and the
natives are not friendly.
TURN OF MIND
11
◊ ◊ ◊
I open my mail myself. Then it disappears. Whisked away. Today, pleas
for help to save the whales, save the pandas, free Tibet.
My bank statement shows that I have $3,567.89 in a Bank of America
checking account. There is another statement from a stockbroker, Michael Brownstein. My name is on the top. My assets have declined 19
percent in the last six months. They apparently now total $2.56 million.
He includes a note: It is not as bad as it could have been due to your conservative investment choices and a broad portfolio diversifi cation strategy.
Is $2.56 million a lot of money? Is it enough? I stare at the letters on the
page until they blur. AAPL, IBM, CVR, ASF, SFR. The secret language
of money.
◊ ◊ ◊
James is sly. James has secrets. Some I am privy to, more I am not. Where
is he today? The children are at school. The house is empty except for a
woman who seems to be a sort of housekeeper. She is straightening the
books in the den, humming a tune I don’t recognize. Did James hire her?
Likely. Someone must be keeping things in order, for the house looks well
tended, and I have always been hostile to housework, and James, although a
compulsive tidier, is too busy. Always out and about. On undercover missions. Like now. Amanda doesn’t approve. Marriages should be transparent, she
says. They must withstand the glare of full sunlight. But James is a shadowy man.
He needs cover, flourishes in the dark. James himself explained it long ago,
concocted the perfect metaphor. Or rather, he plucked it from nature. And
although I am suspicious of too-neat categorizations, this one rang true. It
was a hot humid day in summer, at James’s boyhood home in North Carolina. Before we were married. We’d gone for an after-dinner walk in the
Alice LaPlante
12
waning light and just two hundred yards away from his parents’ back porch
found ourselves deep in a primeval forest, dark with trees that dripped
white moss, our footsteps muffled by the dead leaves that blanketed the
ground. Pockets of ferns unfurled through the debris and the occasional
mushroom gleamed. James gestured. Poisonous, he said. As he spoke, a bird
called. Otherwise, silence. If there was a path, I couldn’t see it, but James
steadily moved ahead and magically a way forward appeared in front of us.
We’d gone perhaps a quarter of a mile, the light diminishing minute by
minute, when James stopped. He pointed. At the foot of a tree, amid a mass
of yellow green moss, something glowed a ghostly white. A flower, a single
flower on a long white stalk. James let out a breath. We’re lucky, he said.
Sometimes you can search for days and not fi nd one.
And what is it? I asked. The flower emitted its own light, so strong that
several small insects were circling around it, as if attracted by the glare.
A ghost plant, James said. Monotropa uniflora. He stooped down and
cupped the flower in his hand, being careful not to disengage it from
its stalk. It’s one of the few plants that doesn’t need light. It actually grows in
the dark.
How is that possible? I asked.
It’s a parasite—it doesn’t photosynthesize but feeds off the fungus and the trees
around it, lets others do the hard work. I’ve always felt a kinship to it. Admiration, even. Because it’s not easy—that’s why they don’t propagate widely. The
plant has to fi nd the right host, and conditions must be exactly right for it to
fl ourish. But when it does fl ourish, it is truly spectacular. He let go of the
flower and stood up.
Yes, I can see that, I said.
Can you? James asked. Can you really?
TURN OF MIND
13
Yes, I repeated, and the word hung in the heavy moist air between us,
like a promise. A vow.
Shortly after this trip, we quietly got married at the Evanston courthouse. We didn’t invite anyone, it would have felt like an intrusion. The
clerk was a witness, and it was over in five minutes. On the whole, a
good decision. But on days like today, when I feel James’s absence like
a wound, I long to be back in those woods, which somehow remain
as fresh and strong in my mind as the day we were there. I could reach
out and pluck that flower, present it to James when he comes back. A
dark trophy.
◊ ◊ ◊
I am in the offi ce of a Carl Tsien. A doctor. Mydoctor, it seems. A slight,
balding man. Pale, in the way that only someone who spends his time
indoors under artifi cial light can be. A benevolent face. We apparently
know each other well.
He speaks about former students. He uses the word our. Our students. He
says I should be proud. That I have left the university and the hospital
an invaluable legacy. I shake my head. I am too tired to pretend, having
had a bad night. A pacing night. Back and forth, back and forth, from
bathroom to bedroom to bathroom and back again. Counting footsteps,
beating a steady rhythm against the tile, the hardwood flooring. Pacing
until the soles of my feet ached.
But this office tickles my memory. Although I don’t know this doctor, somehow I am intimate with his possessions. A model of a human
skull on his desk. Someone has painted lipstick on its bony maxilla to
approximate lips, and a crude label underneath it reads simply, mad carlotta. I know that skull. I know that handwriting. He sees me looking.
Your jokes were always a little obscure, he says.
Alice LaPlante
14
On the wall above the desk, a vintage skiing poster proclaims Chamonix
in bright red letters. Des conditions de neige excellentes, des terrasses ensoleillées, des hors-pistes mythiques. A man and a woman, dressed in the voluminous clothing of the early 1900s, poised on skis in midair above a steep
white hill dotted with pine trees. A fanciful drawing, not a photograph,
although there are photographs, too, hanging to the right and left of
the poster. Black-and-white. To the right, one of a young girl, not clean,
squatting in front of a dilapidated shack. To the left, one of a barren field
with the sun just visible above the fl at horizon and a woman, naked,
lying on her belly with her hands propping up her chin. She looks directly into the camera. I feel distaste and turn away.
The doctor laughs and pats me on the arm. You never did approve of my
artistic vision, he says.You called it precious. Ansel Adams meets the Discovery
Channel.I shrug. I let his hand linger on my arm as he guides me to a
chair.
I am going to ask you some questions,he says. Just answer to the best of your
ability.
I don’t even bother to respond.
What day is it?
Going-to-the-doctor day.
Clever reply. What month is it?
Winter.
Can you be more specifi c?
March?
TURN OF MIND
15
Close. Late February.
What is this?
A pencil.
What is this?
A watch.
What is your name?
Don’t insult me.
What are your children’s names?
Fiona and Mark.
What was your husband’s name?
James.
Where is your husband?
He is dead. Heart attack.
What do you remember about that?
He was driving and lost control of his car.
Did he die of the heart attack or the car accident?
Clinically it was impossible to tell. He may have died of cardiomyopathy
Alice LaPlante
16
caused by a leaky mitral valve or from head trauma. It was a close call. The
coroner went with cardiac arrest. I would have gone the other way, myself.
You must have been devastated.
No, my thought was, that’s James: a perpetual battle between his head
and his heart to the end.
You’re making light of it. But I remember that time. What you went through.
Don’t patronize me. I had to laugh. His heart succumbed first. His
heart! I didlaugh, actually. I laughed as I identifi ed the remains. Such
a cold, bright place. The morgue. I hadn’t been in one since medical
school, I always hated them. The harsh light. The bitter cold. The light
and the cold and also the sounds—rubber-soled shoes squeaking like
hungry rats against tile floors. That’s what I remember: James bathed in
unforgiving light while vermin scuttled.
Now you’re the one patronizing me. As if I couldn’t see past that.
The doctor writes something in a chart. He allows himself to smile at me.
You scored a nineteen, he says. You’re doing well today. I don’t see any agitation and Magdalena says the aggression has subsided. We’ll continue the same
drug therapy.
He gives me a look. Do you have a problem with that?
I shake my head. Okay, then. We’ll do everything we can to keep you in your
home. I know that’s what you want.
He pauses. I must tell you, Mark has been urging me to make a statement
that he can use to declare you mentally incompetent to make medical decisions,
TURN OF MIND
17
he says. I have refused. The doctor leans forward. I would recommend that
you not let yourself be examined by another doctor. Not without a court order.
He takes a piece of paper out of his file. See—I have written it all down
for you. Everything I just said. I will give it to Magdalena and tell her to keep
it safe. I have made two copies. Magdalena will give one to your lawyer. You can
trust Magdalena, I believe. I believe she is trustworthy.
He waits for my answer, but I am fixated on the photo of the naked
woman. There is doubt and suspicion in her eyes. She is looking at the
camera. Behind it. She is looking straight at me.
◊ ◊ ◊
I can’t find the car keys, so I decide to walk to the drugstore. I will buy
toothpaste, some dental floss, shampoo for dry hair. Perhaps some toilet
paper, the premium kind.
Normal things. I’m inclined to pretend to be normal today. Then I will
go to the supermarket and pick out the plumpest roast chicken for dinner. A loaf of fresh bread. James will like that. Small comforts—we share
our love of these.
But I must go quickly. Quietly. They will try to stop me. They always do.
But no purse. Where is it. I always keep it beside the door. No matter,
there will be someone nice there. I will say, I am Dr. Jennifer White and
I forgot my purse and they will say oh of course here is some money
and I will nod my head just so and thank them.
I stride down the street, past ivy-covered brownstones with their waisthigh wrought-iron fences enclosing small neat geometrically laid-out
front gardens.
Alice LaPlante
18
Dr. White? Is that you?
A dark-skinned man in a blue uniform, driving a white truck with an
eagle on it. He rolls down his window, slows to a crawl to keep pace.
Yes? I keep walking.
Not the nicest day to be out and about. Nasty.
Just a walk, I say. I make a point of not looking at him. If you don’t look,
they may leave you alone. If you don’t look, sometimes they let it go.
How about a ride? Look at you, completely soaked. No coat. And my goodness.
No shoes. Come on. Get in.
No. I like the weather. I like the feel of my bare feet against concrete.
Cold. Waking me out of my somnolent state.
You know, that nice lady you live with won’t like this.
So what.
Come quietly now.He speaks soothingly while pulling the truck over to
the curb. He holds out both hands, palms up, and beckons with them.
Gently.
I’m not a rabid dog.
No, you’re not. Indeed you aren’t. But I can’t stand by and do nothing. You
know I can’t, Dr. White.
I brush my icy hair out of my face and keep going, but he idles his truck
alongside. He takes out his phone. If he punches seven numbers, it’s
TURN OF MIND
19
okay. If he punches three numbers, it’s bad. I know that. I stop and wait.
Onetwothree. He stops. He brings the phone to his ear.
Wait, I say. No. I run around the front of the truck. I yank the door open
and clamber in beside him. Anything to stop the phone. Stop what will
happen. Bad things will happen. Put the phone down, I say. Put the
phone down. He hesitates. I hear a voice on the other end. He looks at
the phone and flips it shut. He gives me what is supposed to be a reassuring smile. I am not fooled.
Okay! Let’s get you home before you catch your death.
He waits at the curb until I reach the front door. It is wide open, and
wind and sleet are gusting through into the hallway. The thick damask curtains on the front windows are drenched. I step on a sodden
carpet—a dark Tabriz runner we bought in Baghdad thirty years ago,
now considered museum-quality. James had it appraised last year, will
be furious. Magdalena’s shoes are gone. A lukewarm cup of tea sits on
the table, half drunk.
I am suddenly very tired. I sit down in front of the tea, push it away,
but not before getting a waft of chamomile. So many old wives’ tales
about chamomile have proven true. A cure for digestive problems, fever,
menstrual cramps, stomachaches, skin infections, and anxiety. And, of
course, insomnia.
A fi x for whatever ails you!Magdalena had exclaimed when I told her
that. Not really, I said. Not everything.
◊ ◊ ◊
We are listening to St. Matthew’s Passion.It is 1988. Solti is at the podium
in Orchestra Hall, and the audience is held captive until the cadences
Alice LaPlante
20
resolve. The diminished seventh chords and the disturbing modulations.
The suspense barely tolerable. I can feel the warmth of James’s fingers
intertwined with mine, his breath warm against my cheek.
Then suddenly it is a cold winter day. I am alone in my kitchen. I fold
my arms on the table and lean my forehead against them. Did I take my
pills this morning? How many did I take? How many would it take?
I am almost to the point. I have almost reached that point. And hear an
echo of Bach: Ich bin’s, ich sollte büßen. It is I who should suffer and be
bound for hell.
But not yet. No. Not quite yet. I sit and wait.
◊ ◊ ◊
A man has walked into my house without knocking. He says he is my
son. Magdalena backs him up, so I acquiesce. But I don’t like this man’s
face. I am not ruling out the possibility that they are telling me the
truth—but I will play it safe. Not commit.
What I do see: a stranger, a very beautiful stranger. Dark. Dark hair, dark
eyes, a dark aura, if I may be so fanciful. He tells me he is unmarried,
twenty-nine years old, a lawyer. Like your father! I say, cunningly. His
darkness comes alive, he glowers—there is no other word for it.
Not at all, he says.Not in the slightest. I cannot hope to fi ll those mighty
McLennan shoes. Give counsel to the mighty and count the golden coin of
the realm.And he gives a mock half bow to the portrait of the lean,
dark man that hangs in the living room. Why didn’t you give me your
name, Mom? The shoes would have been just as large but of a diff erent shape
altogether.
TURN OF MIND
21
Enough! I say sharply—for I remember my son now. He is seven years
old. He has just run into the room, his hands clutching at his thighs, a
glorious look on his face. Water spattering everywhere. I discover his
front pockets are full of his sister’s goldfi sh. They are still wiggling. He
is astonished at my anger.
We save some of them, but most are limp cold bodies to be flushed down
the toilet. His rapture is not dimmed, he stares fascinated as the last of the
red gold tails gets sucked out of sight. Even when his sister discovers her
loss he is unrepentant. No. More than that. Proud. Perpetrator of a dozen
tiny slaughters on an otherwise quiet Tuesday afternoon.
This-man-who-they-say-is-my-son settles himself in the blue armchair
near the window in the living room. He loosens his tie, stretches out his
legs, makes himself at home.
Magdalena tells me you’ve been well,he says.
Very, I say, stiffly. As well as a person in my condition can be.
Tell me about that,he says.
About what? I ask.
About how aware you are of what’s happening to you.
Everyone asks that, I say. They are astonished that I can be so aware, so
ver y . . .
Clinical, he says.
Yes.
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22
You always were, he says. He has a wry smile, not unappealing. When I
broke my arm, you were more interested in my bone density than in getting me
to the hospital.
I remember someone breaking his arm, I say. Mark. It was Mark. Mark
fell out of the maple tree in front of the Janeckis’.
I’m Mark.
You? Mark?
Yes. Your son.
I have a son?
Yes. Mark. Me.
I have a son! I am struck dumb. I have a son! I am filled with ecstasy. Joy!
Mom, please, don’t. . .
But I am overwhelmed. All these years! I had a son and never knew it!
The man is now kneeling at my feet, holding me.
It’s okay, Mom. I’m here.
I hold on to him tightly. A fine young man and, wondrous of all, conceived by me. There is something not quite right about his face, a fl aw
in his beauty. But to my eyes, this makes him even more beloved.
Mom, he says after a moment. His arms around me loosen, he pulls back.
TURN OF MIND
23
I miss the warmth immediately but reluctantly let go and sit back in
my chair.
Mom, I had something really important to say. It’s about Fiona. He is standing
now, and his face is back to the dark, watchful look he wore when he
entered. I know that look.
What about her? I ask. My tone is not welcoming.
Mom, I know you don’t want to hear this, but she’s gone off again. You know
how she gets.
I do know, but I don’t answer. I have never encouraged this telling of
tales.
This time it’s bad. Really bad. She won’t talk to me. You used to be able to talk
her down. Dad, sometimes. But she listened to you. Do you think you could
speak to her? He pauses. Do you understand what I’m saying?
Where have you been, you bastard? I ask.
What?
After all these years, you come here and say these things?
Shhh, Mom. It’s okay. I’m right here. I never left.
What do you mean? I’ve been alone. All alone in this house. Eating dinner alone, going to bed alone. So alone.
That’s just not true, Mom. Until just last year there was Dad. And what about
Magdalena?
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24
Who?
Magdalena. Your friend. The woman who lives with you.
Oh. Her. She’s not my friend. She gets paid. I pay her.
That doesn’t mean she’s not your friend.
Yes, it certainly does. Suddenly I’m angry. Furious! You bastard! I say.
You abandoned me!
The man slowly gets to his feet and sighs heavily. Magdalena!he calls.
Did you hear me? Bastard!
I heard you, Mom. He looks around, searching for something. My coat, he
says. Have you seen my coat?
A woman hurries into the room. Blond. A woman of heft. Better go,she
says. Quickly. Here’s your coat. Yes. Thanks for coming.
Well, I won’t pretend it’s been fun,the man says to me, and turns to go.
Get out!
The blond woman puts up her hand. She moves slowly toward me. No,
Jennifer. Put that down. Please put that down. Now, really, did you have to do that?
What has happened. There has been an accident. The phone lies in the
hallway amid shattered glass. Cold air sweeps past me, the curtains blow
wildly. Outside, a car door slams, an engine starts. I feel alive, vindicated,
ready for anything. There’s so much more where this came from. O yes,
much much more.
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