A. Homes: In A Country Of Mothers

It was as simple and complicated as falling in and out of love. It was like the moment ten years into a marriage when you realize it’s over — but in a marriage you might stay, you might develop outside interests, build an addition to the house, take a leisurely trip around the world, have an affair. In therapy there was nothing except fifty minutes in that room.

“What do you want from me? Tell me,” Jody said when Claire called her for the third time in a single morning. “What do you want, blood?” Before Claire could answer, Jody hurled a glass against the wall and watched it splinter across the room. She had the urge to dance on the fragments, to roll in the shards.

“You need something I can’t give you,” Claire said.

“You made me need it — I gave myself to you.”

“And I to you,” Claire said.

“But I’m paying for this,” Jody said. “It’s costing me.”

“My twelve o’clock’s here,” Claire said. “I’ll speak to you later.”

“Yeah,” Jody said. “The highlight of my fucking day.”

Jody took the bus across town to Radio Shack. She bought a tape recorder, a dozen cassettes, and a little device that hooked up to the phone and recorded conversations. Video wasn’t enough. She had to start documenting everything Claire was saying and doing to her. This way, if something horrible happened, there would be proof that she’d been herded to the edge.

“You say she follows you around, lures you out skating, telephones you incessantly, and makes you feel as though you’re losing your mind?” Harry asked when the round of phone tag was finally over. In the background she could hear a zydeco band playing and, again and again, the clink of ice cubes against glass.

“Yes,” Jody said, excited that for once someone was going to understand. Though drunk, Harry listened patiently while she spilled the whole story.

“Has she got you good and gaslighted?” Harry asked when she finished. “Has she twisted you round and round like limp cherry licorice?”

“You could say that.”

“Have some sympathy, darling. Don’t be so critical of your elders. All she wants is what everybody wants — to get between some lovely young thighs.” Harry sighed, then belched.

If Jody had more energy, or if it had come from anyone but Harry himself, she would have hung up.

Harry wheezed a thick wheeze. “I’m too old to be so drunk. Forgive me, young one, forgive me. You said you had a story to tell. I am in a frame of mind to hear a story.”

“I just told it to you,” Jody said, depressed. “The shrink, the girl, my life.”

“Have you got another one?”

“No,” Jody said. “You’re plastered, Harry. It’s not like you to be completely incoherent.”

“It’s the gin. Bombay. And the heat. I’ve died and gone to hell.”

“Call me if you get to New York,” Jody said, and hung up.

Late that night, while she was sleeping, the phone rang. Jody heard it through her dream, as a bell or a buzzer. It continued to ring and finally Jody woke up, heart racing. As soon as she picked up, the new recording equipment clicked on, and somehow the even hum of the spinning tape cleared her mind instantly. “Hello,” she said.

“I was thinking about you,” Claire said.

“It’s one-thirty in the morning,” Jody said, looking at the glow-in-the-dark numbers on her travel clock.

“I feel very badly about what’s happening.”

“You’re driving me crazy.”

“I’m trying to help you. Can you come in tomorrow morning? There’s something I want to talk to you about, something I have to tell you.”

“What?”

“I’ll tell you in the morning. Nine-thirty. See you then.”

Jody fell back asleep and dreamt that Claire kidnapped her and took her to a high-class nuthouse somewhere in the Berkshires. At the last minute, at the entrance gates, everything turned around, and in the end it was Claire who they locked up and Jody who drove the car back to New York, exhilarated.

At nine-twenty-five she was in Claire’s office.

“I’m moving,” Claire said as soon as Jody sat down. “I thought you should know. I’m buying a house in Connecticut. I’ll keep the office here, but I’ll be less available. I’m not leaving you, just the city. I should’ve said something sooner, but it all happened very fast. I’m sorry.” She drew a breath. “I hope you won’t make this difficult.”

In her darkest, wildest, most depressing dreams, this was something Jody had never imagined. She felt her face change. She didn’t know if it turned red, white, or blue, there was no way of knowing. She just felt it change; the features caved in on themselves, mouth pulled tight, eyes narrowed.

“I hope you won’t make this difficult,” Claire had said. What did she think Jody would do — block the exits from Claire’s building, stop the movers from loading their trucks, hold the family hostage until Claire agreed not to go?

“It’ll be okay. I’ll be in the office three days a week. We’ll talk over the phone. It’ll be better, in fact. I’ll be more relaxed, more able to help.”

Jody continued to implode, her whole body drawing in on itself.

“Are you all right?” Claire asked. “Talk to me. I want you to say something.”

Jody lifted her shriveled face, her lips feeling as if they were glued together by thoughts unspoken, and stared at Claire. There was nothing to say.

“Now,” Claire said, “unfortunately, I have to see someone else, but I hope we can get together tomorrow. By then maybe you’ll be a bit more communicative.”

In a trance, Jody lifted herself from the chair and went home. She envisioned going into the drugstore and asking where to find the razor blades as innocently as she’d ask about toothpaste. She saw herself examining the razor blades, picking up a package of every kind to see where they were made, what the special features were, and how much they cost. What did it mean, what was the difference if you killed yourself with cheap ones instead of the fancy brands? Either way it would be over.

I’m going to kill myself, going to kill … It was like having people over for dinner — you had to shop for it. Jody went into a hardware store. “Can I get some help here?” she asked the pack of salesmen picking their teeth at the back of the store. “I want a rope.” One of them stepped forward, led her down an aisle, and handed her a small coil.

“What can you tell me about this rope?” she asked.

The man didn’t answer; he must have been working for the other side.

“How strong is it?”

“What do you need it to hold?”

A body, she thought. “A hundred and thirty pounds,” she said, but didn’t tell him that she hadn’t eaten a real meal in months, and didn’t weigh even a hundred and eighteen anymore, that it was probably closer to a hundred and five.

“This’ll do you,” he said, holding up a package that looked like twine.

“I’ll take nine feet of that one,” she said, pointing to a rope thick enough to hoist a piano. “Better safe than sorry.”

At the register, she waited for the guy to flip through a mystery list of people who weren’t allowed to buy rope. She expected him to ask for a permission slip.

“Four-fifty,” he said, putting the rope into a bag.

On the way home, she stopped in the local erotic emporium and bought handcuffs. She could pick up a clear plastic bag from the supermarket produce department, slide it over her head, and tape it around her neck with thick layers of duct tape. She could pour a gallon of gasoline into the tub, wrap the rope around the shower nozzle and her neck, slip the plastic bag over her head, and light a match. She imagined a loud whoosh, a hot flash, a kind of choking, and then nothing.