Matthew Thomas - We Are Not Ourselves

“You’re preying on her in a time of weakness. You should be ashamed.”

“Mind your manners,” Bethany warned.

“Leave my mother alone.”

“You’re nothing but a punk,” Bethany said.

“And you’re a crazy cult lady.” He pointed at Bethany and Rachelle. “You and you.”

Eileen knew she should step in, but she couldn’t make her mouth form any words.

“I’ve tolerated you here out of deference to your mother,” Rachelle said. “You’re no longer welcome. Please leave now.”

Bethany stepped forward; Sergei did as well.

“Mom,” Connell said, simply, plaintively.

“You’ve offended me,” Rachelle said. “I’ve asked you to leave. If you don’t, I’ll have no choice but to call the police.”

“I’m not leaving without my mother.”

“I’m quite sure that’s not your decision to make,” Rachelle said. “Why don’t you go peacefully and let us get back to trying to do some good for your mother, instead of causing her needless anxiety.”

Connell didn’t move.

“ Now ,” Rachelle said.

“Mom!”

“It’s okay,” Eileen said.

“You heard your mother.” Bethany stepped toward Connell. “Now go. If Rachelle doesn’t call the police, I will.”

Sergei was pleading with her through the dark pools of his eyes. She sensed a controlled fury in him; she could imagine it erupting if anyone so much as grazed Connell with a finger.

“You’re just going to stay here with these people? That’s it?”

She wanted to say, I’ll be home later , but the words still wouldn’t come.

“You’re ignorant,” Bethany said. “You’re an ignorant kid and you don’t know what you’re talking about. I feel sorry for you.”

“Don’t talk to my son like that,” Eileen heard herself say, and the room grew still and quiet. She rose. “He’s not ignorant. He means well. And I’m sorry if he offended you. I’m sure he’s sorry too. Yes?”

“Sure,” Connell said, evidently trying to seize the momentum. “Sorry.”

“I’m going to go home.” Before she knew it, she was paces from the door. “I’m tired. I want to thank you for everything.”

“You don’t have to let guilt rule over you like this,” Rachelle said. “You’re on the verge of a major breakthrough.”

“You’ve helped me,” she said. “You’ve made a great difference.”

“You still have a long way to go,” Rachelle said. “Don’t fool yourself.”

“I’m sure I do.”

“I’ll call you later.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Don’t let him influence you,” Bethany said. “He’s no better than your husband.”

Eileen got very still. “You don’t know the first thing about him.” She dug into her pocketbook for the check and extended it toward Rachelle.

“Don’t be silly.” Rachelle tried to reach for her wrist. Eileen shook her off and left the check on the table. “You’re always welcome here. Take some time to think it over.”

She must have stood there too long, because Connell was calling her over. She walked toward the door. Bethany moved to head her off, but Sergei slid in front of Bethany like a gravestone rolling into place, blocking her with his massive body as Eileen continued out to the street.

“It’s going to be okay,” Bethany called after her, but Eileen didn’t turn around. Connell raced ahead while Sergei led her down the stairs and up the stretch of the block to where the car waited. He opened the door for her in the back. Connell took the streets with the grim purposefulness of a getaway driver.

In the silence that prevailed in the car, she wondered how her son had plotted this thing, how many people knew, how he had explained it to Sergei.

They pulled into the garage and went upstairs. Sergei headed to his room. She and Connell stood in the kitchen, eyeing each other warily.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said.

“Yes, I did.”

“I wish I could explain this to you. I know it sounds like I’m making excuses. But I was never in any kind of danger. I was in control the whole time.”

He just looked at his feet. She wondered when exactly he had gotten so big. She was having one of those moments she hadn’t had in years, where he seemed to grow before her eyes. It occurred to her that he might have seen her as being as out of control as his father was. Maybe he thought both of them were losing their minds.

“Anyway, I want to thank you for caring. I was fine, but still.”

“No problem,” he said.

“I mean it. You’re a good kid.”

“Come on. You’re my mother.”

She wanted him to hug her, but he just stood there dubious of the way she was looking at him.

“Come here.” She put her arms around him. She felt his breathing against her chest and was reminded of holding him when he was a baby, his laundered pajamas soft and fresh as he was, the whole of him fitting in her two hands, his little behind on her palm. He’d looked at her then as the source and giver of love. She hadn’t had to hide anything from him, and she hadn’t needed anything from him but his presence. And it was that way again now, for at least this day, this moment. His presence at Rachelle’s had meant everything, and his presence now in her arms meant everything too.

When they were done hugging, he looked at her strangely.

“What?”

“Maybe those crazy ladies helped you after all.”

“What do you mean?”

“That was the first time you ever did that.”

“Did what?”

“Hugged me first.”

She shook her head. “That’s not possible,” she said.

“In my memory, anyway.”

She shook it again. “There’s more that’s happened than what’s in your memory.”

• • •

When she got to the top of the stairs she ran into Sergei leaving the bathroom. He gave her a diffident wave, as though they were schoolchildren passing in the hallway during the change of classes. She stood in the antechamber to the bedroom for a while, hearing Ed’s labored breathing under the sheet.

She walked to the bed and found him lying awake in a spooky silence, looking right at her.

“Where?” he asked, sounding as if he were half dreaming. “Where were?”

“With Bethany.”

“Who?”

“Someone I used to work with. It’s not important.”

Ed had always had quick and accurate instincts about people. She crawled in and lay beside him. He drifted off. She lay awake listening to the unified murmur of televisions, her own, Sergei’s, and the one in the den. She pictured Sergei awake, keeping a solitary vigil like herself.

Ed had lost faith in the physical properties of things. On the way up the stairs that night, he stopped on every step. She had to follow closely behind him and tap a leg to indicate which one was next, then lift it for him. He was frantic when his foot was in the air. They proceeded at a glacial pace, and then he stopped and simply wouldn’t budge, despite how hard she pushed his leg, which still had considerable strength in it, the atrophy notwithstanding. She couldn’t get him to let go of the banister. This was one of those moments — they had been coming more frequently lately — when she wished Sergei didn’t go home on the weekends.

By the time they reached the top, they were both exhausted. She steered him into the bathroom, where she undressed him with great difficulty. Getting one leg over the high lip of the bathtub was no mean feat; getting the other over seemed an impossibility. He straddled the bathtub wall like a rodeo performer athwart two prancing horses. She upset his balance enough to get his other leg in, but then her troubles started. Laying him down was out of the question: she would never get him up again. Showering him, though, presented the risk of his slipping and cracking his head open. A visit to the hospital for something so severe almost certainly meant he would be taken from her care. While the tub was dry, her anxiety was contained; when the water came on, she began fretting in earnest. Whatever purchase he had on the tacky mat was tenuous, and there was nothing for him to grab on to but her body if he started falling. She turned the shower on and cleaned him, but when the time came to emerge, his anxiety spiked. He simply wouldn’t step over the lip of the tub. She tried coaxing him, forcing his leg up, making feints at him, but nothing budged him. His legs shook from standing so long in that fixed intensity of opposition, and his body quivered under a dew of cold droplets. She decided to turn the water back on to warm him up. He stood wordless in that superfluous rinse until she shut it off. They could not go on like this. She thought to get the cordless phone and call for help, but she didn’t want to leave him alone for even the several seconds it would take her to retrieve it, and besides, she didn’t know whom to call, and she didn’t want an ambulance to come for fear of his never returning. She could shout for help, but no one would hear.