Janet Fitch - White Oleander

I felt his words burn her flesh like a lash. I tried to hear what she was saying, but her voice faded to a murmur. Claire couldn’t defend herself, she curled up like a leaf under a glass.

“Astrid doesn’t need you waiting with the milk and the cookies. Jesus, Claire! She’s a young woman. I think she’d like spending a few hours by herself. Maybe make some friends of her own if you’d give her a chance.”

But I did need her, Ron. Nobody ever waited for me when I got home from school—and never milk. He didn’t even know that much. I mattered to her. Couldn’t he understand what that meant to me, and to her? If he cared, he would never say such things to her. How dare he pretend that he loved her. I cracked open my door to see if I could hear her, but she must have been whispering.

“Of course they stopped calling. Gloria said she called and called and you never picked up. Of course they gave up.”

Now all I could hear was her crying. She cried the way children do, sobbing, hiccupping, nose running. And the soothing tones of his voice.

I could picture him, taking her in his arms, rocking her against his chest, stroking her hair, and she’d let him, that was the worst part of it. And they’d make love, and she’d fall asleep, thinking he was so kind, after all, he must love her. It would be all better. That was how he did it. Hurt her, and then made it all better. I hated him. He came home, upset her, when he was just going to leave her again.

A LETTER CAME in the mail, from my mother. I started to open it when I realized it wasn’t for me. It was addressed to Claire. What was my mother doing writing to Claire? I never told her about Claire. Should I give it to her? I decided I couldn’t take the chance. My mother might say anything. Might threaten her, might lie, or frighten her. I could always say I opened it by accident. I took it into my room, slitted it open.

Dear Claire,

Yes, I think it would be marvelous if you’d visit. It’s been so long since I’ve seen Astrid, I don’t know if I’d recognize her—and I’m always delighted to meet my loyal readers. I will put you on my visitors list—you’ve never been convicted of a felony, have you? Just teasing.

The idea that they corresponded filled me with a sickening dread. Your friend, Ingrid. She must have written after I’d caught her reading in my room at Christmastime. I felt betrayed, helpless, anxious. I would have confronted her with it, but I’d have had to admit I’d opened her mail. So I tore up the letter and burned it in my wastebasket. Hopefully she would just be depressed that my mother never wrote back, and give up.

IT WAS FEBRUARY, a gray morning so overcast we couldn’t see the Hollywood Hills from our yard. We were going to visit my mother. Claire had set it up. She put on a miniskirt, turtleneck, and tights, all in mahogany brown, frowned in the mirror. “Maybe jeans would be better.”

“No denim,” I said.

The idea of this meeting was almost too much to bear. I could only lose. My mother could hurt her. Or she could win her over. I didn’t know which was worse. Claire was mine, someone who loved me. Why did my mother have to get in the middle? But that was my mother, she always had to be the center of attention, everything had to be about her.

I hadn’t seen her since Starr. Marvel refused to let the van people take me, she thought the less I saw her the better. I looked in the mirror, imagining what my mother would think of me now. The scars on my face were just the start. I’d been through a few things since then. I wouldn’t know how to be with her now, I was too big to hide in her silences. And now I had Claire to worry about.

I touched my hand to my forehead and told Claire, “I think I’m coming down with something.”

“Stage fright,” she said, smoothing the skirt with the palms of her hands. “I’m having a bit myself.”

I had second thoughts about my clothes too, a long skirt and Doc Martens, thick socks, a crocheted sweater with a lace collar from Fred Segal, where all trendy young Hollywood shopped. My mother was going to hate it. But I had nothing to change into, all my clothes were like that now.

We drove east for an hour. Claire chatted nervously. She never could stand a silence. I looked out the windows, sucked a peppermint forcarsickness, nestled into my thick Irish sweater. Gradually, the suburbs thinned out, replaced by lumberyards and fields, the smell of manure, and long, fog-clad views framed by lines of windbreak eucalyptus. CYA, the men’s prison. It had been more than two years since I’d last come this way, a very different girl in pink shoes. I even recognized the little market. Coke, 12 pack, $2.49. “Turn here.”

We drove back along the same blacktop road to the CIW, the steam stack and the water tower, the guard tower that marked the edge of the prison. We parked in the visitors lot.

Claire took a deep breath. “This doesn’t look so bad.”

The crows cawed aggressively in the ficus trees. It was freezing cold. I pulled my sweater down over my hands. We passed through the guard tower. Claire brought a book for my mother, Tender Is the Night . Fitzgerald, Claire’s favorite, but the guards wouldn’t let her bring it in. My boots set off the metal detector. I had to take them off for the guards to search. The jangle of keys, the slam of the gate, walkie-talkies, these were the sounds of visiting my mother.

We sat at a picnic table under the blue overhang. I watched the gate where my mother would come in, but Claire was looking the wrong way, toward Reception, where the new prisoners milled around or pushed brooms—they volunteered to sweep, they were so bored. Most were young, one or two over twenty-five. Their dead-looking faces wished us nothing good.

Claire shivered. She was trying to be brave. “Why are they staring at us like that?”

I opened my hand, examined the lines in the palm, my fate. Life would be hard. “Don’t look at them.”

It was cold, but now I was sweating, waiting for my mother. Who knew, maybe they would become friends. Maybe my mother wasn’t playing a game, or not too ugly a one. Claire could keep her in postage, and she would be a nice character witness someday.

I saw my mother, waiting while the CO opened the gate. Her hair was long again, forming a pale scarf across the front of her blue dress, down one breast. She hesitated, she was as nervous as I was. So beautiful. She always surprised me with her beauty.

Even when she had just been away for a night, I’d see her and catch my breath. She was thinner than the last time I’d seen her, all the excess flesh had been burned away. Her eyes had become even brighter, I could feel them from the gate. She was very upright, muscular, and tan. She looked less like a Lorelei now, more like an assassin from Blade Runner . She strode up, smiling, but I felt the uncertainty in her hands, stiff on my shoulders. We looked into each other’s eyes, and I was astonished to find that we were the same height. Her eyes were searching within me, trying to find something to recognize. They made me suddenly shy, embarrassed of my fancy clothes, even of Claire. I was ashamed of the idea that I could escape her, even of wanting to. Now she knew me. She hugged me, and held her hand out to Claire. “Welcome to Valhalla,” she said, shaking Claire’s hand. I tried to imagine how my mother must be feeling right then, meeting the woman I’d been living with, a woman I liked so much I hadn’t written anything about her. Now my mother could see how beautiful she was, how sensitive, the child’s mouth, the heart-shaped face, the delicacy of her neck, her freshly cut hair. Claire smiled with relief that my mother had made the first move. She didn’t understand the nature of poisons.