Marcia Talley: Unbreathed Memories

Over the background of the TV, playing cartoons at a decibel level high enough to rupture all eardrums within a half-mile radius, Georgina persisted, “Help me remember something.”

“How do you stand the noise?” I asked, but she didn’t give any indication that she heard me.

“Where did we live when I was two?”

I didn’t have to rack my brain to come up with an answer to that. I could still remember the sunny days, the faultless blue of the Mediterranean sky, and the smoky outline of Mount Vesuvius in the distance across the sea. “Dad was stationed in Sicily then.”

“Who took care of us?”

“What do you mean, who took care of us? Mother did. And Marita, the maid. Why do you ask?”

“It’s something I need to know for my therapy.”

Georgina had been seeing a therapist who was helping her deal with a protracted postpartum depression. In my opinion, all she needed to cure what ailed her was to get her husband out of the house and hire a baby-sitter once or twice a week, and I told her so.

“It’s not just the pressure at home, Hannah. Lionel was absolutely beastly at church this Sunday.”

The Senior Warden at All Hallows Church in Baltimore where Georgina played the organ was a piece of work. After listening to Georgina’s complaints, I decided that he was the psychotic who needed therapy, not Georgina. I thought about the organ concert where I had last seen the odious Lionel-Mr. Streeting to his friends-pacing self-importantly in his slimy, silver-gray polyester suit, peering over the tops of oversized tortoise-shell eyeglasses and making two-finger come-hither gestures as he seated the audience. How Georgina could stand even to look at the man-his black hair, laced with gray, parted too neatly on the side, and so thick with hair cream you could see the tooth marks of his comb-was beyond me. Streeting controlled every aspect of All Hallows, from the choir director to the Junior Warden, from the Altar Guild to the church secretary, even the rector, with an uncompromising hand. Look up “prick” in the dictionary and there’s his picture, right between “pricey” and “prickle.”

Georgina’s antipathy knew no bounds as she launched into her latest diatribe. “The hymns are always too loud for him, never too soft. I’m to play faster or slower, depending upon the phase of the goddamn moon. During the prelude today I caught sight of him in my mirror, flapping his arms like a wounded bird. I thought someone had died, for Christ’s sake! Then the light on the console started flashing off and on and I knew he wanted me to quit playing but I only had sixteen bars to go so I ignored the SOB.” She paused for breath. “And then, do you know what he did?”

“I hate to think.”

“He oozed up to me after the service, tapped his watch, and said, ‘We simply must start the services on time. Your prelude was two minutes over, Mrs. Cardinale.’ Honestly!”

“Why don’t you quit?” I asked.

“I thought about applying for the organist position at Union Memorial downtown, but I’ve been Episcopal since forever, and All Hallows is so close to home.”

It seemed to cheer Georgina up to bitch about Lionel, so we spent some hilarious minutes trashing the jerk. I laughed out loud when Georgina told me how she’d sneak down to the fellowship hall for a Diet Coke during the sermon.

“How do you know when it’s time to come back?”

Georgina snickered. “When Lionel records the sermons, he turns the sound up full blast. Father Wylands doesn’t know it, but they’re probably debating his views on the Prodigal Son up on Mars.”

I heard the front door open. “Hannah!” My older sister was calling.

“Gotta go, babe. Ruth’s just arrived.”

By the time I said good-bye and made it to the entrance hall, Ruth was disappearing into my living room, leaving the front door gaping wide and all the heat pouring out onto Prince George Street. She was carrying an objet d’art about two feet tall, made of copper. I shut the door securely and followed her, wondering why I ever thought it would be a good idea to give my sister a house key. “What on earth is that?”

“It’s a fountain. Water represents prosperity, harmony, and peace.” Ruth set the fountain down on the floor, then surveyed the room, turning slowly in a complete circle. She looks a little like me, except her hair is long and gray, caught up at each side above her ears with silver butterfly clips. Neither one of us can figure out how we’re related to Georgina, who has green eyes, hair the color of buttered sweet potatoes, and is drop-dead gorgeous, either a throwback to a great-grandmother on our mother’s side or simply delivered by the stork to the wrong house.

Ruth zeroed in on a vase, now filled with irises, that I had kept for years on an antique table between two windows. “Here.” She lifted the vase off the table and handed it to me. I stood there like a dummy, holding the arrangement, my mouth open, but no protest came out. I knew it would be a lost cause. I hated myself for allowing Ruth to steamroll me like that, but I told myself that if I really hated the darn fountain, I could put the irises back after she left.

Ruth keeps insisting that my health problems and past troubles with my marriage were related to poor feng shui. She’s made it her life’s work, or at least this year’s project, to bring my house into harmony. While Ruth went to the kitchen on some mysterious errand, I looked around for a new home for the silk flowers, finally stowing them under the dining room table to deal with later. Ruth returned in minutes with a saucepan of water, which she dumped into the base of the fountain. She yanked the cord attached to a pottery lamp out of the wall, plugged the fountain into the same receptacle, then stepped back to admire her handiwork. “There. Isn’t it pretty?”

I had to admit that it was. A graceful sculpture of bamboo stalks and leaves, down which water cascaded in a pleasantly gurgling spiral.

“Now for the mirror.” She extracted a tissue-wrapped object from her purse, an octagonal disk about the size of a saucer.

“Your shop must be doing well if you can take time off to come here at the drop of a hat to give me all this stuff.” I waved my arm, beginning with the mirror still in her hand and including in its sweep the fountain, a red-tasseled bamboo flute hanging over the front door, some wind chimes she had brought over last November, and a crystal hanging between the front door and the stairs, all selected by Ruth to cure various deficiencies in my home environment.

Ruth surveyed the room critically, looking for the best place to hang the mirror. “Of course I can afford it.” She homed in on a watercolor, a particular favorite of mine, a painting of Emily cradling Sunshine, a calico cat long gone to that happy catnip garden in the sky.

“Now wait a minute!” I was suddenly tired of being a doormat. “I love that picture there! Leave it right where it is. Please!”

Ruth, her eyebrows thick and brushed straight up, scowled at me over her shoulder. “It’s the best place for the ba gua , my dear. We need to deflect the negative energy coming in through that window from the street.”

“Well, I don’t care. You can hang your ba whatzit up if you want, but it’ll have to deflect negative energy somewhere else.”

Ruth wandered into the dining room, finally selecting an alternate location over the stove in the kitchen. “Here. Come hold this up so I can see how it looks.”

I took the little mirror from her hands and positioned it at eye level against the floral wallpaper.

“Why waste time on me?” I asked. “Why not help Mom and Dad get settled in their new place?”

“I tried.” Ruth squinted at me, her head cocked to one side. “Up a bit,” she instructed.