Alice LaPlante - Turn of Mind

You make it sound cruel.

Well, for you a lot of things have been reopened. Old questions, old wounds, old joys and sorrows. It’s like going into the basement and finding all the old boxes of stuff you’d meant to give to Goodwill open and overflowing. Things you thought you’d put away for good. Now you have to go through everything again. And again. Like yesterday. You wanted me to run to the drugstore to get you some tampons. You said it was an emergency.

Perhaps it was.

Jennifer, you’re sixty-five years old.

Oh. Yes.

Anyway, Amanda did or said something that distressed you enormously shortly before she died.

What was that?

I don’t know. I was in the den. I heard raised voices. By the time I got to the living room, it was over. At least the shouting was. But something had happened between the two of you that was still unresolved. Amanda was half out the door. She said one thing before she left.

I will not hesitate for one moment, she said. You were extremely agitated. That evening you had one of your episodes. I had to take you into the ER. You wouldn’t take your Valium. They had to inject you with something to calm you down.

I don’t remember any of this.

I know you don’t. The next morning you wanted to go over to Amanda’s—to catch up, you said, because you hadn’t seen her in a while. I pretended to call her, hung up, and told you she wasn’t home.

And I fell for it?

You did. And it turned out that the previous afternoon was the last time we saw her. She was still alive—they were able to trace her steps around town, to a meeting, to the store. But the next day she stopped taking in her Tribunes , and about a week after that Mrs. Barnes checked on her and found the body.

Did you explain all this to the police?

Yes, many times.

Why do they want to see me, then? I won’t be able to tell them anything.

They’re still trying. Ever since they got your scalpel handle and blades. Your lawyer says they’re hoping that if they ask enough, and in enough different ways, they’ll get a different response.

Didn’t someone once say that that is the embodiment of madness? Doing the same thing over and over and hoping for a different effect?

Well, sometimes you do remember things. Surprise us all. Like the other day. Out of the blue, you asked me about my elbow—the one I landed on when I tripped on the sidewalk. That had happened a few days earlier, but you were very clear, remembered that you had examined me and determined nothing was broken or torn. One of the perks of working for a doctor—good thing, too, because my insurance is so lousy.

I don’t recall. Things come and go. For example, what is your name?

Magdalena. Look—it’s written right here. On this poster.

How long have you been here?

You hired me almost exactly eight months ago. Last October. Just before Halloween.

I love Halloween.

I know. It was the most fun I’d had since my kids were small. You insisted that we both dress up. Witches. The only dignified costume for crones, you said. You decorated the house spectacularly. You bought the kind of candy that kids fight over and won’t trade. And you insisted on opening the door yourself and making a fuss over the costumes. You really surprised me. The first of many surprises.

Yes, Halloween excites me. That whole time of year, autumn, I find exhilarating. A passionate season. The others are so bland. In the fall, you see opportunities for change. Real change. Possibilities present themselves. None of the renewal and redemption clichés of spring. No. Something darker and more primal and more important than that.

You paced that night until three AM . You certainly were excited. But not in a bad way. It was the first time I saw you do that. Back and forth, all night. I fell asleep in my chair in the living room. You ended up on the couch. Both of us still in our witch costumes.

I always liked dressing up. Giving out the candy. Assuming my proper guise for a night.

Yes, your costume suited you. The white pancake makeup contrasting with the dark-ringed eyes, the long gray-black wig flowing over your shoulders. The fake mole to the right of your mouth drawing attention to those high cheekbones. A peculiar sort of Sleeping Beauty, but nevertheless a beauty. You opened your eyes to find me studying you. Wicked debauchery, you whispered .

Mark’s in a good mood. It doesn’t make this mother’s heart glad. It makes it suspicious. The euphoria. The fast-talking wit. The notable appreciation of the inferior egg salad sandwich Magdalena presented as our lunch. His inability to recognize that the living room curtains are the same shade of glorious red they’ve always been. His wanting a heart-to-heart.

How are you, Mom?

How much do you want? I ask.

He doesn’t hesitate. As much as you can give me.

Is it that bad?

Worse.

You’re being direct for once. Is it because you’re high?

Possibly. I find you hard to take under any other condition.

You’ll have to ask your sister.

What?

I don’t even have a checkbook anymore. Even when I want one. Fiona takes care of everything.

But certainly you can write one check.

I don’t have even one to write. Fiona was very thorough.

But you wrote me a check six months ago.

Yes. I found an old checkbook in my bureau. And as soon as it cleared, Fiona went through all my drawers and confiscated it.

The bitch.

A chip off the old block.

You said it.

He taps his fingers on the table in an almost recognizable rhythm. Dahdah-dah day-day-dah dah-DAH-dah-dahdah .

You’re sharp today.

Yes.

Interesting how it comes and goes.

Interesting isn’t the word I’d use.

We are in the den because the cleaners are here, and they’ve chased us out of the living room and the kitchen, our usual haunts, and we can hear the approaching roar of the vacuum, the rattle of mops and pails as they work their way toward this final room.

I’m curious. Will you even remember this conversation tomorrow? Mark is standing by the television, idly clicking through James’s DVD collection of classic movies. There wasn’t a noir film that James didn’t know by heart.

I may. I may not. It all depends, I say. I watch as Mark pulls out Du rififichez les hommes, rejects it in favor of White Heat.

So I shouldn’t say anything I might regret? He flips open the plastic case, takes out the silver disk, places his finger in the center hole, and spins it around.

It depends on the source of regret. Would you regret it because it was a cruel or otherwise despicable thing to say, or because I would remember you saying it? I ask.

Probably the former. I tend not to have regrets unless there are repercussions. He smiles at this, puts down the DVD on top of the television, and takes a seat opposite me. His jitters seem to be subsiding. How about you? he asks. Any regrets? Although his tone is derisive, I get the feeling he really wants to know.

I was the opposite, I say. I never let the possibility of repercussions influence any decisions I made.

What about your medical decisions? Weren’t you concerned that decisions you made could have certain effects? Like, for instance . . . death? His dark face is exaggeratedly solemn. He is waiting to catch me out in something. I won’t let him.