Carmiel Banasky - The Suicide of Claire Bishop

You, dedicated listeners, will never leave me. If you are in the trunk of my brain, it is by your own volition. Even when I’m an embarrassment, even when I break the law or run away into the past, you are with me every step of the way.

The airline clerk taps her screen and clucks at me. “Well? There’s a middle seat.”

I smile and say to the mountain-faced woman, “I’m going home.”

She moved up there in winter so she never saw the ground. Covered in snow, December to May — the house she grew up in, and yet she couldn’t remember the land it stood on. There was a garden that must have been beautiful once, a low fence around it for the deer and pie tins tied there with twine, clacking in the wind. The woods behind and tracks from animals she never saw. Footprints, every morning a new pair circling the house and never once a glimpse of the thing they belonged to.

And above it all was a low, constant rumble, like something was always hungry. Snow slow-grinding into itself.

Her mother’s breasts seemed to have vanished. This was the first difference Claire noticed, a strange-looking man propped behind her mother in the doorway, his hand on her shoulder. She’d had such a nice body; Claire remembered being jealous of it once.

“Come inside, please,” the man said in a low voice. “You must be freezing.” He had a thin, graying beard that made Claire think of how snow looks dirty when it thaws.

Claire fingered her luggage on the porch a moment longer, finishing the count of her inhale, tricking herself into breathing — something she’d learned from her meditation teacher in the city. An icicle hung so low she had to crouch around it to get in. In the musty entranceway, she hugged her mother delicately. The old woman stayed stiff, not raising her arms in return.

“Come in,” her mother repeated in her slight German accent, though Claire was already in. The man nodded approvingly. “You look different.”

“I’m happy to see you too,” said Claire.

The nurse’s name was Michael. He could have been handsome if he weren’t so worn. There was no ring on his finger. If her mother was in her right mind — or her original mind, anyhow, it was never quite right — she might have tried to fix them up.

“Leave those where they are for now,” he said, gesturing to her luggage beside the door. “We have to stay on schedule.” It was evident he was annoyed that she’d arrived late, though it was still early evening. He’d made chicken stew and said he would stay for dinner and talk her through everything.

The eat-in kitchen was, of course, still down the hall, but Claire walked gingerly, as if the rooms might have shifted in her ten-year absence. She’d been up to Ovid for her father’s funeral the month prior but hadn’t come by the house; she couldn’t brave it then.

Once they’d begun to eat, Claire excused herself to search through the fridge, where she found a bottle of hot sauce, the cap dried on. Michael watched, waiting for her to sit before saying, “Elsa can’t have spicy food,” as if Claire planned to splash it in all their bowls.

Claire smiled into her stew. “I don’t see any butter beans. They’re her favorite.”

She felt her mother’s eyes on her and expected some comment about her recently dug wrinkles or the roots showing in her dyed-blond hair, which Claire couldn’t decide whether to keep a natural gray or not. Elsa was eyeing Claire like she was a child sitting at the adult’s table. She’d done something wrong already, it seemed.

“Am I wrong? Butter beans aren’t your favorite anymore?” Claire asked.

“Try to ask one question at a time,” said Michael.

Elsa cleared her throat. “Is it your birthday today?”

“No?” Claire said. “Why?”

“How old are you now?”

“That’s quite a question to ask in front of a stranger,” Claire said.

“Always answer her questions directly,” Michael said, “or you’ll confuse her.”

Claire thought he must be enjoying this. “Fifty-seven.”

“I’ll have to get you a blanket,” Elsa said, as if this followed logically. Her voice was scratchy with irritation, like an old recording. It still had that bite Claire remembered.

“A blanket? I’m not cold. Are you cold? Is she cold?”

“One question at a time,” Michael repeated. The nurse smiled at Elsa condescendingly and said to Claire, “She means napkin. Elsa, where are the napkins?”

Elsa glared at him, then turned to Claire.

“How long are you visiting?”

Claire ate a large spoonful of the bland stew. She didn’t know how long she’d be there, if this was temporary or permanent. Or at least as permanent as Elsa herself.

The nurse said, “This will be a very big change for her, you being here. She’s going to be on edge. I hope she eats.” He paused and looked at Elsa. “Eat your food.” He lifted his spoon dramatically to his lips. “Chew and swallow.”

“I don’t mean napkin,” Elsa said. “I said blanket, didn’t I? I haven’t made up Claire’s bed yet.”

“That’s right, good, this is Claire. I made the bed this morning, Elsa. Do you remember?” He turned his attention to Claire. “I’ve prepped her. Explained who you are, that you’re coming home.”

Claire stared at the man across from her, him and his loose, gray turtleneck. It was time he left. “That last visit we got in a fight. I don’t think she’ll soon forget that.”

The nurse coughed and looked for his napkin. “I’m afraid she’s progressed. Did you get the pamphlets we sent you? The ones about activities? Who to call if her behavior changes? I’ve written everything down and left instructions in two places, one on the fridge and one in the living room. By the towels she likes to fold. It’s your job to make things simple for her. You have to try to see the world the way she does. It’s a very confusing place. It’s difficult to even navigate the dinner table. She may throw things. Only plastic, see?” He lifted his bowl and set it back down and a little stew sputtered off the side. “There’s a lot to remember.”

As he spoke, Claire decided he’d become a caregiver because anyone with enough vitality would have run far away. Elsa laughed.

He gave her a tour of her own home. She might have been a child at a museum, the way he led her around the squat farmhouse, keeping her on the tight leash of his passive voice, which was so gentle she could, if she felt like it, snap it in half with one mean word.

Claire tried to feel her father in the bedrooms, the attic, an indentation in a couch, a fingered mirror, but the nurse did not let her linger long, which was just as well — she wouldn’t want to cry in front of him.

There was heating now, an upgrade from Claire’s childhood. She wondered who had convinced whom to get it first. Her father must have refused, insisting it was too expensive, when really it was that the radiator, or the need for it, was too big of a change — it meant they were getting old, and the world seemed to be getting younger, easier. Elsa must have gotten sick before he gave in.

“Elsa tends to come in here when you aren’t watching,” the nurse was saying. They were standing in Claire’s childhood bedroom. Now it was a nondescript guest room with garage-sale paintings on the wall. “Something draws her in here. Always keep the door open. Your idea of privacy — let’s just say it will shift.”

Michael walked to the far wall and fingered a nail at chest level. “I didn’t notice this before. Take it out tonight. I did my best, but there’s always something she could hurt herself on in this old house. You have to train yourself to see this type of thing.”