Ann-Marie MacDonald - Adult Onset

“And what am I supposed to do while she does my job?”

“Finish the trilogy.”

“God, Hilary, I don’t even know if it is a trilogy.” She punches her head.

“Don’t punch your head.”

“How did you know?”

“You’ve already started the book.”

“I have?”

“It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be true.”

“I write fiction.”

“Fiction is not the opposite of truth.”

Hate is not the opposite of love.

“I can’t.”

Fear is.

“Then go on a trip,” says Hil.

“You want me to go away?”

Silence.

“Hil? Are we breaking up?”

“We’re married. Married couples don’t ‘break up,’ they divorce.”

Mary Rose’s voice sounds robotic in her own ears, which is how she knows she is telling the truth but from a distant galaxy. “I googled ‘bone cysts.’ ”

“… Why?”

“My arm was sore.”

Big sigh . “I asked you if it was and you said—”

“It wasn’t sore then, okay? It doesn’t hurt on cue, it’s not a singing frog, it’s called ‘remembered pain.’ ” Mary Rose is suddenly stung with humiliation to be caught whining over something so flaky and Freudian, her precious little psychosomatic “owie” exposed to the glare of Hilary’s mature gaze. “I’m sorry it’s not a nice neat tumour to tell you about—”

“Mary Rose, I won’t continue like this—”

“Like what?! Stop it, stop being so fucking healthy and listen to me, get off your high fucking horse and listen, then get the hell out of my life, you’re out of it anyway!”

She is shaking.

“I’m listening.”

Her palms are moist. “It sounds dumb, but maybe the thing with my arm happened ’cause of something that happened.” Where have all her words gone? She is an empty Scrabble board. Maybe she should try saying it in German. “Because it could be possible that bone cysts are caused by repeated trauma. I feel unreal, I feel like I’m making this up, are you there?” Her voice sounds dead.

“I’m here.”

“So it’s possible it broke before I was four. At least once. Are you there?”

“I’m listening.”

Her feet are warm, Daisy is lying on them.

“It’s just, it’s upsetting to think my arm might have been broken that early on and no one noticed even then.”

“Why is that more upsetting than the times you already know about?”

“Because — because — because something happened, right? If this is even correct, if the cysts were caused by a fracture or more than one, then — then … And then if that’s true, then something must have happened and no one knew.” andthenandthen

“Maybe they did know.”

“It would’ve been part of family lore, I would have had a sling, ‘Mary Rose’s first sling.’ ”

Silence.

“Hil, are you still there?”

“Why do you think it isn’t part of family lore?”

“I know what you’re saying, I’ve already thought it.”

“What?”

“She broke my arm in a fit of rage and that’s why he took her to a shrink.”

Now her voice sounds cut and dried in her own ears, cavalier even — that’s more like it, The Importance of Being Ironic .

“Is that what you think happened?”

“It could have happened when I was running for the balcony, I can totally picture that.”

“She broke your arm while saving you.”

“It’s possible.”

“Then why don’t you know about it?”

“Hil? I wonder if that’s why she was so harsh when I came out.”

“ ‘Harsh’ is kind.”

“Because she felt guilty. If I was a lesbian, it must mean I was damaged and … if she knew she had damaged me …”

“Do you think he knew?”

“Of course he did, he was sitting right there at the kitchen table staring at the ceiling while she tore into me.”

“I mean back then.”

“Oh. No. It was nineteen sixty-one, he went to work, he came home and read the paper, he was a man. He didn’t have to know anything.”

“You said he took her to a psychiatrist.”

“He didn’t have to catch her breaking my arm to know she needed help. I know you think he was an enabler, but he’s also the reason I’m alive, he’s why I’ve been able to achieve anything at all, he saved me.”

“He didn’t save you from her,” says Hil.

“… Which time?”

“You just answered your own question.”

“You sound just like him.”

“I know you adore him.”

“So you do think she battered me.”

“That term is outdated,” says Hil.

“How do you know?”

“I’m on a website.”

“I love you, Hil.”

“A sign of abuse is ‘when there is delay seeking treatment.’ It’s called medical neglect.”

Silence.

“There’s no proof she broke my arm.”

“Why do you need proof?”

“Because if I knew for sure, I could forgive her.”

“I don’t know if it works like that.”

“You’re saying I have to forgive what I don’t remember?”

“You don’t have to forgive anything. I don’t forgive them.”

“I don’t even know if there’s anything to forgive.”

“You have your scars, you have your chronic pain, you have your broken heart at twenty-three, what more do you need?”

“You think I’m greedy? I’m a trauma glutton, ha-ha—”

“Just believe what you already know.”

“What do I know? Bad stuff happened and my parents didn’t get me help in time but I’d like to know if the original cause was accidental. Or not.”

“You’re obsessing over one event.”

“It’s a critical—”

“But you started by telling me about ‘repeated’ trauma—”

“Yes, but there would have been a ‘first’ trauma and I want to know if she did it on purpose.”

“Do you want it to be true?”

“I want something to be true.”

“There’s loads.”

“I’m just trying to do what you told me to, I’m just trying to”—here she does a high-pitched, simpering caricature of Hilary—“ ‘Find out what is wrong with me!’ ”

“I’m going to hang up—”

“See?! You can’t take it, no one can.”

“Take what, your self-loathing? You’re right, I’ve had it.”

“Don’t hang up.”

Silence. Is it her own heartbeat she hears or Hil’s through the phone?

Finally Hil asks, “Why did you say it was nineteen sixty-one?”

“I don’t know, I would have been walking, running — two, two and a half, that’s when accidents happen, that’s when … mothers lose it.”

“When did your brother die?”

She sighs. “I don’t know. Jesus Murphy. I’m two or three in the picture. I went to the grave.”

“It must have been devastating.”

“Even Maureen has blanks from around that time, she doesn’t even remember hanging me over the balcony. Oh my God, Hil.”

“What?”

“It could have happened when Maureen yanked me back onto the balcony, it’s called ‘forcible abduction’—”

“When was this?”

“Around that time, springtime, grave time—”

“So she was how old?”

“Seven?”

“How is that even possible?”

“Well it happened. Maybe my mother caught her in the act of dangling me and she’s the one who yanked me back to safety and that’s when it broke.”

“Then why are you the only one who remembers any of this?”

“Okay, so it was Mo on her own, all the more reason she would’ve had to yank and twist to get me back over the railing, it must have hurt like hell which is probably why I don’t remember that part, and she forgot the whole thing ’cause she felt guilty, and she never told my parents so why would I even get a sling—”