Anne Siddons - Fault Lines

I got some sponges and detergent and buckets and a mop and went back upstairs. Mommee howled on and on; the kicks showed no signs of abating. I ignored them and took a deep breath and went into Glynn’s bathroom.

It was as bad as it looked and worse. I knew that we would have to have professional cleaners, the sort that dealt with fire and water damage. The oily smoke and soot clung to everything, invaded every crevice in the tile. I mopped up a little of the standing water and wiped off a few surfaces, but managed only to smear myself with soot and my shorts and shirt with thick black goo. Wiping off the mirror, I looked in. I looked like an aborigine, black-faced and white-eyed, with wild coppery hair.

I was sitting mindlessly on the floor with my back against the bathtub when Pom came thudding up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

“God in heaven, what happened?” he shouted. “The alarm people called the clinic and said there was a fire; is anyone hurt? What’s the matter with Mommee? Are you all right? Was Glynn here?”

“A, there was indeed a fire,” I said. “Mommee put Glynn’s new clothes in the bathtub and lit them. B, what’s the matter with her is that I locked her in her room before she killed herself or set another fire. She’s fine, just pissed. C, yes. I’m okay. D, yes, Glynn was here. She found Mommee doing it. I think she’s out on the patio. I wish you’d go talk to her. She’s terribly upset.”

He stared at me for a moment and then went, not downstairs to Glynn, but down the hall to Mommee’s room. I heard him speaking softly and coaxingly at her door. The crying and kicking stopped. In a moment he was back in Glynn’s bathroom, saying, “Where did you put the key to her room? She’s scared to death.”

I looked at him in silence, and then said, “It’s on the marble-top table. I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“Going down there and petting that old woman after she destroyed all Glynn’s new clothes and bathroom and most of her bedroom and could have burned down this house and killed all three of us. I can’t believe that, Pom.”

“Well, you and Glynn are obviously all right and the fire’s out. She’s obviously not all right. I never heard her so agitated.”

He turned and went out of the bathroom. I laid my head on my forearm on the edge of the bathtub and closed my eyes. We had to deal with the matter of Mommee now, but the thought of the evening ahead tired me so that I wanted to go to sleep right there, my head on cold, filthy enamel, the sour smell of destruction in my nostrils.

He stayed in her room a long time. I had made up the downstairs guest room for Glynn and had a sandwich supper on the table when I heard Mommee’s door open. Glynn had decided to stay home; Jess’s house, she said, was still an emotional uproar, and Marcia’s grandparents were visiting. She had washed her face and combed her hair and changed her clothes and seemed restored to a sort of distant calm, though she said very little. When she heard Mommee’s shuffling steps on the stairs, and Pom’s low, soothing voice, she stiffened.

Pom came into the breakfast room, his mother clinging to his arm and shuffling like a frail, crippled centenarian. If I had not seen her streaking for the river like a wild thing that afternoon, I would have thought something had happened to her, a stroke, perhaps, or a bad fall. She looked up at Glynn and me under lowered lashes, and her lips trembled. So did the hand that clutched Pom’s arm. Glynn looked at me and rolled her eyes, and I felt a fresh spasm of anger at Mommee. Ordinarily her punished-child routine occasioned only amusement in me, but tonight it did not amuse me at all. There had to be some sort of accountability for what had happened; we must not let her think she could win approbation and cosseting with destruction.

“Mommee has told me that she’s sorry about what happened, and that she didn’t mean to do any harm to Glynn’s clothes,” Pom said. “She didn’t know what the fireplace starter was. Now I think it would be a good idea if you two told her you were sorry, and then we’ll all have some supper and watch TV and put the whole thing behind us. Maybe Glynn could run up and get us some Rain Forest Crunch for later.”

He stopped and looked at Glynn and me, waiting for our apologies. I simply stared at him. Glynn’s face began to redden across her cheekbones, as if she had been slapped.

“Sorry for what ?” she burst out. “I’m not the one that set fire to those clothes! I’m not the one who almost burned the damned house down! I’m not about to apologize!”

Pom’s face reddened too.

“For screaming at your grandmother, for one thing,” he said. “For calling her names. She’s not too out of it to remember things like that. She was heartbroken. You know she didn’t know what she was doing! You know we never, never yell at Mommee! It would be like yelling at a baby!”

“I won’t apologize,” Glynn said tightly. “She damned well did know what she was doing. I’ve seen her playing with the fire starter before. I won’t apologize and I wish she was out of here! Then maybe the rest of us could have some kind of normal life—”

Mommee began to wail again. She turned her face into Pom’s shirt and pressed it there, clinging to him, sobbing.

“You will apologize or you will not go to camp or anywhere else this summer, young lady!” Pom shouted. “I will not allow abuse of someone helpless in my house! I don’t know what’s gotten into you; I don’t even know who you are!”

“You’re right, you don’t!” Glynn cried. “Here’s a news flash; I’m your daughter. Remember me? The kid who’s been hanging around your house for sixteen years waiting for you to—”

“ Go to your room !” Pom roared. “ We’ll talk about your behavior tomorrow! And don’t you come out until I say you can !”

“I don’t have a room! That old witch ruined it!” Glynn cried and turned and ran into the guest room and slammed the door. I heard it lock behind her.

My head buzzed with horror and anger and for a moment I could not speak. I tried to control my voice, but it came out ragged and without breath behind it.

“Have you lost your mind?” I whispered at Pom. “Can you hear yourself? Did you hear how you talked to your daughter? It wasn’t her fault, Pom. Maybe Mommee can’t help it, but neither can Glynn and neither can I, and this crap cannot go on any longer! Pom, your mother almost burned down our house! She almost killed your wife and daughter, along with herself! She almost killed your wife and daughter, along with herself! Something has got to be done about her !”

Mommee’s wails escalated, and she began to gasp for breath and choke and cough.

“ Shut the hell up right now, Merritt !” Pom shouted. I did. I could not have spoken if my life had depended on it. Who was this dark, roaring man? What had happened to us?

“I will talk to you when I get her quiet,” he said tightly but in a lower voice. “Maybe by then you will have gotten control of yourself.”

He turned and helped his mother back up the stairs. She leaned heavily on him. Just as heavily I sat down at the table. I felt as if the whole world had exploded in my face, and the pieces were still falling to earth around me like lethal rain. I had to get up, I had to go and see to Glynn; I had to make him understand.…But I could not move.

I was still sitting there when he came back down, this time alone.

“I gave her a shot. She’s asleep,” he said. “I don’t understand what’s going on around here, Merritt. I don’t know why things are falling apart all of a sudden. Why can’t you cope with one sick little old lady anymore? Why has Glynn turned into such a spoiled, helpless brat?”