I'll Be You(6)

“I don’t think so. But I’m not sure what it’s called. Did she say the name to you?” My mother looked inquisitively at my father, who shook his head. “Actually, I think she might have called it a ‘healing retreat.’ So maybe not a ‘spa,’ exactly, but some kind of wellness destination.”

“Taking an awful long time to get well,” my father grumbled. “Seems like it should have taken a weekend, tops.”

“The heart and mind need what they need.” My mother puffed herself up, her hair a nimbus of hennaed curls. She looked like an indignant dandelion. “Just because you don’t feel the need for personal growth, Frank, you shouldn’t judge others who want to find themselves a little. I’m just glad she’s finally doing some self-care after such a trying year.”

“I just think she should have at least answered your texts. Seems to me that something might not be right with her. Maybe she’s having a breakdown. Maybe she’s sick.” My father frowned at his can of fizzy water, as if unsure why he was holding it and not a G&T at this unpleasant moment in time.

My father tended toward cynicism and my mother toward blind optimism. It was a miracle, frankly, that they were still married; but apparently opposites really do attract. Our childhood had been a tug-of-war between them, with my mother usually winning. My father had wanted to send me to rehab when I was seventeen but my mother insisted I was just “going through a phase.” And although I was thrilled at the time that my mother won that particular argument, in retrospect I was the real loser in that battle.

“Elli sent me a text a few days ago, she seemed to be fine. The last thing she needs is us intruding on her emotional life.” She sipped at her wine. “Anyway, your father’s just being dramatic, as always.”

“Pretty selfish of her, don’t you think?” My mom gave me a sharp look. Who are you to judge? “I mean, it’s not very Elli-like behavior, don’t you think?”

“And how would you know, Sam? You’ve been absent all year. Longer than that, to be honest.”

I flushed at the rebuke. She was right. “Can I at least see the text she sent?”

She pulled her cellphone out of her pocket. The home screen photo was a snapshot of Charlotte squinting into the sun. Something small and primal inside me stung at this tiny rejection: that I, her daughter, no longer qualified for my mother’s landing screen. But, of course, I was in my thirties now. I’d outgrown that primacy a long time ago.

I looked over my mother’s shoulder as she pulled up her text history with Elli and handed the phone to me. Curious, I scrolled back through my sister’s old messages to my mom. There in 10. And Stopping at Vons, need anything? And Charlotte’s got a cold, we’re staying in. And Turn on GMA, that chef you love is on. The mundane intimacy between my sister and my mother took my breath away: Is this what I’d been missing all these years? Did I want it, too? Or would I have found this claustrophobic?

My mother must have noticed my curiosity because she grabbed the phone and quickly scrolled down to the last few messages in the chain before handing it back to me. The string began a week earlier, on the previous Thursday, with a Thanks so much for watching C, back Sunday. This was followed up, over the next seventy-two hours, by some unanswered texts from my mother to Elli: Hope retreat is going well. OK to give her M&Ms? And Don’t want to interrupt your me time but how long is C supposed to nap? And She’s not allergic to bees, is she?

Then Sunday—five days ago, now—there was a text from my mother to my sister: What time are you picking her up today? Dad and I were thinking about going out to dinner if you can get here before six.

There was a long gap of time after my mother’s message, with no response. I could imagine my mother’s blood pressure rising by the hour, as the phone remained adamantly silent. It wasn’t until seven o’clock that night that my sister finally responded. Can you handle Charlotte for a few more days? I’m not ready to come home yet.

My mother replied immediately. How many days are we talking? Are you OK?

I’m doing fine. Finding the answers I’ve been looking for.

By this point, my mother had seemingly lost interest in her daughter’s journey to self-discovery. Mostly, she seemed peeved.

You know I love Charlotte but this is a lot. My osteoarthritis is flaring up.

There was a two-minute pause after this. I imagined my sister staring at the blank text message field, thinking her options through. My mother’s furious blinking while she waited for my sister’s inevitable apology, her promise to return so very soon. It wasn’t like Elli to ask for favors.

But there was no apology, just a terse final text, more command than atonement: Get Sam to help you. She’ll know what to do. She’ll get it.

And then: nothing.

I looked at Charlotte, scampering back toward us now, her palms black with dirt and bejeweled rings drooping from every finger. What, exactly, was I supposed to “get”? The child? How to help my mom take care of her? My sister’s cryptic journey to make sense of things?

Or was it the impulse to bail out of your life that my sister knew I’d understand?





THEN





5




A TALENT AGENT NAMED Harriet Sunday discovered Elli and me on the beach in Santa Barbara when we were nine years old. Towheaded little girls, freckled and sandy, sun-faded bikinis, identical down to the dimples in our left cheeks. We had wide-set blue eyes, which lent us a hypnotic baby-doll quality, both alien and appealing. When we walked down the street in perfect syncopation, blond waves swinging about our shoulders, people would stop in their tracks and stare.