The Moment She Was Gone

9

The moment I step into the apartment, my mother asks, “Where were you?”

“I went to see Maggie.”

“Why on earth did you...?”

“To apologize. You might want to do the same thing, Mom.”

“I have no need to apologize to your former wife.”

“Annie hit her with a hammer,” I remind her.

“What!” Aaron says.

“Annie did no such thing.”

“Okay, Mom, fine. Let’s just keep pretending Annie is the girl next door, okay? Let’s just keep doing what we’ve been doing all along, pretending Annie isn’t sick, allowing her to believe she isn’t sick...”

“That’s right, she isn’t.”

“Yes, but she is, damn it! We should have got help for her right after Georgia.”

“Georgia,” she says, and waves it aside. “That was almost comical.”

“It wasn’t comical, Mom.”

“Urinating on a cop? I think that’s comical,” she says, and tries a laugh that dies abruptly in her throat because all at once she sees the dead serious expression on my face, and knows I’m not here to provoke laughter, kiddies, you can count on that.

“She was talking to people who weren’t there,” I say. “That isn’t comical, Mom.”

“According to that black girl, yes,” my mother says. “A drug addict.”

“She wasn’t a drug addict, Mom,” Aaron says.

“Who knows what drugs they were using, your sister and her so-called musician friends.”

“Mom, she was hallucinating,” I say. “First she thought a waitress was spying...”

“What waitress? Aaron didn’t tell me about any waitress. What’s this got to do with the fire house? Sometimes I think you’re as...”

She cuts herself short.

“What waitress?” she asks.

“In Atlanta. Annie slapped a newspaper out of her hands and then shoved her off a stool.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this, Aaron?”

“I did, Mom.”

“I don’t remember anything about a waitress. Why would Annie attack a waitress? She’s not a violent person.”

“Mom, she hit Maggie with...”

“If we’re to believe Maggie.”

“Yes, well, I believe her.”

“If you believe her so much, you shouldn’t have divorced her.”

“Mom, I think Annie is a danger to herself and to others. I think we should call the police.”

“No.”

“Yes, before she...”

“We should have called them seventeen years ago,” Augusta says.

My mother turns to her, puzzled.

“When she stole the thousand bucks from us.”

“That is a lie!”

“It’s the truth, Mom,” Aaron says. “Kelly saw her taking the money.”

“Kelly,” my mother says, dismissing her.

“My daughter. Mom.”

“Your daughter,” she says, dismissing her yet again. “You bring me two grandchildren from...”

She shakes her head.

“Never mind,” she says.

“No, let’s hear it,” Augusta says. “Two grandchildren from where, Mom?”

“From who knows where? Instead of...” She cuts herself off again. “Never mind,” she says again.

“Instead of what, Mom?” Aaron asks. “Instead of having two kids who might turn out to be nuts?”

“I do not have...”

“I’m talking about the twins Augusta was carrying. This was after Georgia, we knew all about Georgia. Do you know what the odds would have been?”

“I don’t want to hear odds, save your odds.”

“If either of your parents has schizophrenia, your chances of getting it are ten percent,” Aaron says.

“Oh? Do you and Augusta have schizophrenia?”

“Mom, we knew Annie was nuts! The odds on...”

“Enough with the odds!” my mother says. “What time does the first race start?”

“She doesn’t believe anything we say,” Augusta says. “What’s the use, Aaron?”

“That’s right, Miss, what’s the use? I don’t believe my daughter stole money from you, and I don’t believe she went after Margaret with a hammer, either. Margaret tripped and fell, that’s how she got the bruise.”

“I’m calling the police,” I say, and start for the phone table.

“You want them to lock her up, is that it? You want them to lock up a person who’s as sane as you or I? My daughter has never in her life tried to hurt anyone.”

“She hit Maggie with a hammer,” I say, more evenly this time, stressing each word.

“No, she did not. Margaret probably fell. They’d been drinking wine, she probably...”

“No, Mother, Annie hit her with a fucking hammer!”

“Don’t you dare use that language in my house!” my mother yells, and for a moment I fear she will slap me, but instead she clenches both hands, and turns away from me. I watch her silent struggle for control. She is trembling with rage, her knuckles white where she presses her hands together, her thin shoulders shaking. All at once, she seems so very small and slight. I almost want to take her in my arms and comfort her. She shakes her head, as if suspecting I might try to embrace her, and warding off any such motion beforehand.

“If you all want to believe Annie’s crazy, fine,” she says, “believe it. But I don’t think it’s wrong for a mother to help and encourage her own daughter...”

“You haven’t helped her,” I say.

“I’ve done everything I know how...”

“You’ve enabled her, is what you’ve done. She needs real help.” My mother is shaking her head. I am talking to a stone wall. “Mom, she hears voices!” I say. “She talks to voices. You said so yourself.”

“I said she was murmuring, mumbling, whatever. That’s what people do when they’re thinking out loud. What’s so terrible about that? Don’t you ever think out loud?”

“No, never, Mom.”

“Never,” Augusta says.

“Don’t you ever talk to yourself?”

“Never.”

“Well, I do.”

“That’s not the same as hearing things.”

“Hearing things is just another way of saying talking to yourself. You talk things over with yourself. You pose a question, you answer it. That’s not so unusual. Everybody does it.”

“I don’t,” Augusta says.

“I don’t, either.”

“Inside your head is what I’m saying. Even if Annie did hear someone talking to her, that doesn’t make her crazy. She heard a voice, she talked back to it. That isn’t so unusual you know. I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal of it. If Annie ran away, it wasn’t because any voices told her to. It’s only because I wouldn’t give her the money.”

“What money?” I ask at once. “What are you talking about?”

“The fifty thousand dollars.”

“Fifty...”

“It’s my fault she’s gone,” my mother says. “I told her to leave.”

“What!”

“I told her to go, I told her to get out.”

“Oh, Jesus, Mom.”

“Don’t look at me that way! Do you know what living with her is like? You try it sometime! You try living with a goddamn lunatic!” she shouts, and suddenly she is in tears. “You try... you try...” she stammers, and then collapses onto the sofa again, and covers her face with her hands. “I’m sorry,” she says, “oh dear God, I’m so sorry. I should have given her the money, oh please God, let her be all right, I was only trying to help. But it... it... I didn’t know what to do. I just... didn’t know what to do anymore. All at once, it... it got to be... too much for me... all at once. I... just couldn’t bear it any longer. You don’t know what it was like. You don’t know what it was like.”

Aaron sits beside her and puts his arm around her.

Weeping into his shoulder, she tells us what it was like.

At first, she thinks Annie is realty okay.

Really.

Before her “incarceration in Sicily,” as Annie refers to it, she acquired a deep tan and is now in remarkable physical condition from walking and swimming...

“And falling down mountains,” my mother adds jokingly, and Annie even finds this funny.

It would appear that whatever medication they prescribed for her in Italy has had a calming effect. She is truly a joy to be with. Truly. For the first time in a very long time, my mother feels as if she actually has a grown daughter with whom she can go shopping at Bloomie’s or Bendel’s, with whom she can visit the Met or the Modern, a daughter she can take to lunch at the Russian Tea Room or the Café des Artistes. Annie seems to have become once again the bright, articulate, inventive, charming individual Mama knew before she sold our band equipment and went to Sweden on her own.

It is Annie who helps her hang new drapes in the guest room, where she will now be sleeping and working. Together, chatting and reminiscing, they clear a corner of the room so that she can set up a work table. At first, because she is still feeling the effects of the drug they injected in Sicily, Annie sleeps a lot. But as the days go by, she spends more and more time on her jewelry, and my mother believes she truly has the makings of a good sculptor. When she’s not at her table molding silver or copper or gold into these truly remarkable... well... works of art, she is either pacing the apartment thinking up new designs, or else sketching them onto a pad for later realization in metal.

My mother still doesn’t quite know what happened in Sicily, but she doesn’t believe that Annie experienced any sort of psychotic episode, and she certainly doesn’t believe the diagnosis Bertuzzi made. She knows that except for a little marijuana as part of the Tantric ceremony, Annie is not a drug-user, so she feels positive that narcotics were not responsible for the altercation in the bar. But she’s beginning to realize that Annie can become aggravated at the slightest provocation. As an example, just the other night, she got into an argument with a waiter in a Spanish restaurant because he was unable to tell her what ingredients were in several dishes on the menu. But was a similar lack of communication responsible for what happened in Sicily? Was the bar episode due to a language barrier? Similarly, were those toughs on the road really trying to rob her and rape her? Or were they just trying to frighten her? My mother has by now heard so many versions of the story, she just doesn’t know.

Aside from that one outburst in the Spanish restaurant, however, Annie’s been fine ever since she got home, helping with household chores, leaving her work space tidy and neat, and being a truly pleasant companion. My mother sometimes becomes dejected about Annie’s misspent life and wasted prospects, but she honestly believes Annie’s essentially a contented person with great talent and sincere convictions, and that’s what my mother feels is important. In fact, she is delighted when Annie tells her she’s managed to find a part-time job in a jewelry store in Brooklyn, and will begin work there on the Saturday after the Fourth.

My mother really thinks Annie is okay now.

Really.

But suddenly, all of that changes.

As best I can figure it, Shirley’s birthday party took place on the Saturday my sister started work in Brooklyn. This would have been the day after my mother and I had our summit meeting in the park. Shirley was my mother’s best friend, and so the ladies were taking her to lunch at Le Cirque, an extravagance to be sure, but, hey, how often do you celebrate your sixty-fifth?

When my mother gets back to the apartment at around three that afternoon, Annie is watching television in the living room. My mother is surprised.

“Hi,” she says. “What are you doing home so early?”

“Short day today,” Annie says. “How was your party?”

“Oh, it was such fun,” my mother says. “How’s the job?”

“Fine. Too bad I wasn’t invited.”

“Well, it was just the girls,” my mother says. “Tell me about it.”

“Nothing to tell. It’s a job.”

“Can I turn this off, honey?”

“Sure.”

My mother turns off the television set, and comes to sit beside Annie.

“Is he a nice man?”

“He’s fine. Were any of the other daughters invited?”

“No. I told you. It was just...”

“Just the ladies who lunch, I know. Sondheim, Mom. Remember Sondheim? You were in West Side Story, remember, Mom? You ought to know Sondheim. You ought to know ‘The Ladies Who Lunch.’ ”

“That wasn’t in West Side Story.”

“Wherever it was.”

“But yes, I do know Sondheim,” my mother says. “Personally, in fact.”

“The way I know Sheng-yen Lu personally,” Annie says. “How’d Sondheim like your tiny feet?”

“I do have tiny feet.”

“Yes, I know. I thought maybe some of the other daughters were invited.”

“No.”

“I thought maybe some of your friends invited daughters they aren’t ashamed of.”

“Annie!” my mother says. “Whatever gave you such an idea? I adore you, why would I be ashamed of you?”

“Maybe none of your friends have daughters who were locked up in Sicily.”

“I wouldn’t trade a dozen of them for you, darling,” my mother says and pats her hand.

“I’ll bet,” Annie says. “How’d Shirley like that scarf you bought her?”

“Oh, she loved it. Well, anything Hermes, you know.”

“I guess she doesn’t wear jewelry, right?”

“Jewelry, too. Hermes jewelry, yes. She adores anything...”

“Any Gullivers in her collection?”

“Gulli...?”

“Her vast collection of jewelry? Any pieces by the talented young Annie Gulliver?”

My mother looks at her.

“Oh, darling, I’m so sorry,” she says, “forgive me. I never thought of it. Of course, I should have given her a piece of your work. How stupid of me. You should have suggested it, Annie. I’m sure she’d have loved it.”

“Oh, I’ll bet. The way you love it.”

“I do love it. I think you’re very talented, darling.”

“Oh, yes, and your friends all have such wonderful taste, too, I know. How could Shirley not love a cunt pinned to her left breast?”

“Annie, please! I hate that kind of language.”

“But you love my work, right? I can’t say cunt, but it’s perfectly all right for me to sculpt cunts!”

“Are you deliberately trying to offend me?”

“Far be it,” Annie says, and puts her hands together as if in prayer, and bows her head to Mama. “But you just might have thought about giving Shirley a genuine work of art instead of something frivolous you picked up at Barney’s or Saks...”

“Berg...”

“Wherever the fuck you bought it! The point is...”

“I said I was sorry.”

“Apology accepted,” Annie says, and the room goes silent.

“Can we get off this now?” my mother asks. “Please?”

“Sure. What’d you have for lunch?”

“Never mind lunch. What’d you mean a short day today? How could Saturday...?”

“A short day for me, Mama.”

My mother still looks puzzled.

“I quit, Mama.”

“You quit? This was your first day on the job, how could you quit?”

“He was looking at me cockeyed.”

“Who, Annie?”

“The owner of the shop.”

“Cockeyed how?”

“Cockeyed. Like he didn’t trust me or something.”

“Thank God. I thought you meant he was some kind of rapist!”

“All men are predators, but this one kept watching me as if I was planning The Great Jewel Robbery. All his precious costume jewelry! A fat-ass jeweler in Brooklyn with the intelligence of a cockroach. I’ll never go back there, never.”

“Annie, you said it yourself. It’s a job. A job is a job.”

“I have a job. I make jewelry.”

“And you’ll sell it one day, I know you will. But meanwhile...”

“Not to you or your friends, that’s for sure.”

“Annie, how often must I apologize for...?”

“Forget it, you apologized, right, I forgot.”

“You just have to give it time, darling. But meanwhile, I think you should try to find a job you can hold for a while. You’ve never...”

“I didn’t want to hold this job.”

“Well, Annie, you’ve never held a job for more than a week. I don’t see any difference between this time and all the other...”

“Quitting a job isn’t the same thing as not being able to hold a job! I quit this job, Mom. I quit it because I was onto that fat bastard from the minute I walked into his shop. I knew he’d been warned about me beforehand, and I knew he was just waiting for me to make a false move so he could report me. Besides...”

“Report you? To whom? I thought he was the owner of the...”

“Besides, that’s not the kind of work I want or need. I have my jewelry. I’m an artist. And to continue growing I have to keep improving my spiritual life. Trotting all the way out to Brooklyn is not my idea of spiritual enrichment!”

“That’s all well and good, Annie, but everyone needs to eat.”

“I’m not interested in material things, the way you and your ladies who lunch are, the way my fat brother Aaron is! I’m happy to work on my jewelry, to be able to commit to my religious beliefs through my jewelry. If you and your ladies who lunch...”

“Let me remind you,” my mother says quite evenly, “that one of your so-called ladies who lunch is putting food in your belly and a roof over your head while you recuperate! I certainly don’t expect gratitude, but the least you can...”

“For your information, I’m fully recuperated, Mama. I’m a happy and healthy person. In fact, I was never happier in my life than I was in Italy, when those bastards came along and fucked it all up. I’m not to blame for what others...”

“How can you say you’re happy? You’re almost thirty-six years old, and all you’ve got to your name is a pair of dirty socks with holes in them!”

“Hyperbole, Mama, hyperbole! Besides, I don’t need material things! I’m an artist. I build spiritual communication with people who share my sensibilities and beliefs. These people are my true friends. They don’t care if my socks have holes in them, who gives a shit about...?”

“What friends? You don’t have any friends, Annie, face it. You never stay anywhere long enough to make friends. If you got a steady job, maybe you’d...”

“I do have friends. Have you ever asked about this Serbian man I’ve been seeing, whose name is Mirko, and whose company I enjoy? He’s an artist who’s involved with Vedic astrology, he teaches English as a second language. His father was a successful architect. He fled from Belgrade seven years ago, do you even care?”

“I care deeply, Annie. But I’m not going to stand here and let you scream at me this way.”

“Then go fuck yourself!” Annie says, and storms into her room, and locks the door.

“She hasn’t spoken to me for three days now,” my mother tells Shirley.

They are having lunch in a Chinese restaurant on Broadway. Shirley is sporting the Hermes scarf Mama gave her for her birthday. She clucks her tongue in sympathy.

“What do you suppose she’s angry about?”

“Everything,” my mother says.

“Are you giving her money?”

“Right now, a hundred dollars a week. But while she was...”

“Helene, please! You’re not impoverished, you know.”

“That’s just for spending money, just enough for her to get around the city.”

“Even so.”

“I was giving her a thousand a month while she was in Italy.”

“That’s not very much, either. No wonder she got in trouble.”

“You think?”

“Absolutely. That’s bare subsistence level, Helene. She was bound to meet sleazy people sooner or later.”

“I just don’t know what to do,” my mother says. “I don’t think she’ll ever be able to earn a decent living making jewelry. I’d be willing to help her pay for reasonable housing in a modest neighborhood, but I feel she should... well, don’t you think she should first show me that she can hold on to a paying job?”

“Oh yes. Absolutely.”

“And learn how to socialize with others?”

“It’s funny you should mention socializing.”

“I mean, she hasn’t spoken to me for the past three days.”

“Maybe she stopped taking her medication,” Shirley says. “That happens. They stop taking the medication, and they get... you know... withdrawn.”

“Yes. Well. I just don’t know. Andy’s supposed to be meeting with her sometime this week, he’s going to talk to her about seeing a psychiatrist. But I’m not even sure that’s such a good idea. I just don’t know what to do, Shirk She’s been living with me since early in July, and all at once I’m afraid of coming out of my own bedroom.”

“What are you saying?”

“She scares me, Shirk My own daughter.”

My mother begins weeping. She takes a handkerchief from her bag, begins dabbing at her eyes.

“Helene?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, forgive me.”

“Why don’t you go see this social worker I was starting to tell you about? They have support groups, you know, where you can meet people whose relatives are having similar problems. I think it might help you, I honestly do.”

“It’s just... she’s never behaved this way before.”

“Well, what happened in Italy must have been traumatic.”

“Even so.”

“Take the card, call her. Let me know how it turns out.”

“Thank you, Shirk” My mother looks at the card, puts it in her wallet. “She called us the ladies who lunch,” she says.

“Well, we are,” Shirley says, and picks up an egg roll.

My mother still isn’t sure.

For a few days — I calculate this to be the time just before our visit to Dr. Lang — Annie seems all right again. Not exactly the loving daughter she’d been at the beginning of the month, but at least communicative and working on her jewelry again. And then, right after our visit to Dr. Lang, Annie once again stops talking to my mother. Mama decides that seeing a psychiatrist was a mistake to begin with.

Yesterday morning, while Annie is doing her mantras in the guest room, Mama calls the mental health association whose name is on the card Shirley gave her. She leaves a message saying, in effect, that she wants to talk to someone about a daughter who seems... well... extremely troubled.

At around two or two-thirty yesterday afternoon, my mother realizes she is out of milk and orange juice, and decides to go down to the market. Annie is watching an old black and white movie on television.

“Annie?” my mother says, “Do you want to come shopping with me?”

“No, thanks,” Annie says. “Do you think she’s smarter than I am?”

“Smarter? Joan Crawford?”

“Whatever her name is.”

“No, not at all.”

“They say she’s smarter.”

“In what way?”

“In every way. They think I’m stupid.”

“Well, honey, she has these script writers, you know...”

“Forget it!” Annie snaps.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come along?”

“Positive,” Annie says, and then mutters something my mother can’t quite make out.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Annie says, and turns to the television set again, and listens to a line or two of dialogue, and then begins mumbling again.

“Are you all right?” my mother asks.

“I’m fine. Why? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” my mother says. “Honey, I’m expecting a call from California...”

“California? Who do you know in California?”

“A friend, you don’t know her. Please don’t answer the phone, okay? Just let it ring.”

“What friend do you have in California?” Annie asks.

“I’ll be back in fifteen, twenty minutes.”

When my mother leaves the apartment, Annie is still mumbling to herself. This is very troubling to Mama. More troubling than we can possibly know. When she comes back half an hour later, Annie has turned off the television set and is sitting in a chair facing the door, her arms folded across her chest, her feet flat on the floor, her eyes glaring.

“What is it?” my mother asks.

“Did you call some mental health organization and tell them you have a mentally ill daughter?”

“No,” my mother says.

“Some twerp just called and asked if I was the party who has a mentally ill relative.”

“No, I never said anything like that. I told them I was trying to understand my daughter and wanted to join...”

“You called a mental health organization?”

“Yes. What’s wrong with that?”

“What’s wrong with you, you crazy bitch?”

The violence of her words is like a slap in the face. My mother actually backs away from her.

“You obsessed control freak! How dare you call me a mentally ill person?”

“But I didn’t, Annie.”

“You’re supposed to love me so fucking much, you tell some twerp I’m mentally ill? You want the truth? You’re not interested in truly loving anyone, all you want is to control people!”

“Annie, you know that isn’t...”

“And when you can’t accomplish that, you become angry and bitter and you go around making irresponsible and reckless statements about your own daughter’s mental stability!”

“Annie, for God’s sake...”

“That’s why none of your children will have anything to do with you! Aaron moved to New Jersey, Andy can’t keep a marriage going because he’s got a mother who suffers from separation anxiety disorder, do you know what that is? Of course you don’t, they never know! And now you betray the only person who’s shown the slightest bit of compassion for you!”

“I’m sorry if someone said something stupid to you on the phone, but believe me...”

“Oh, yes, go ahead, go through your usual routine of rage and self-pity, tell me how truly, very, very sorry...”

“I am sorry, Annie. But...”

“You have some big emotional problems, Mommie Dearest. That’s why all your children consider you a threat to their happiness. Do you care at all about any of us? Do you care at all about me? Do you care at all about Mirko?”

“Mir...?”

“My Serbian friend! See? You’ve already forgotten all about him.”

“I’m sorry, Annie. I had no idea you’d found someone who...”

“Oh, stop it, will you, please? I’m not about to marry the man, so stop counting grandchildren on all your fingers and toes. Just tell me what the fuck you plan to do! I will not accept any more of your fanatical belief that I am not a sane person!”

“What would you like me to do, Annie?”

“Give me my stipend.”

“What stipend?”

“My fifty thousand dollars.”

“I don’t know what fif...”

“The stipend I’m entitled to, no strings attached, a genuine gesture of trust and good faith.”

“I can’t give you fifty thousand dollars, Annie.”

“Gee, what a surprise! I have plenty of friends from wealthy families who are given large amounts of money to do whatever they want, with the parents’ blessing and love. You give me a lousy hundred dollars a week, and you consider that a small fortune!”

“I’m sorry if you don’t think that’s enough, Annie...”

“No, it isn’t enough, and you know it isn’t!”

“... but I don’t have fifty thousand dollars to give you.”

“Then I’m leaving,” Annie says.

My mother looks at her.

“So leave,” she says.

“Sure, kick me out!” Annie yells. “You think I’m not wise to you? You give me money so you can control me. But when I refuse to do whatever you wish...”

“Go, Annie, okay?”

“... you cut off funds! That’s your way of maintaining control, you think I don’t know? There are control freaks like you riddling the entire health care system! I’m the relative who’s mentally ill? You call to tell them you have a mentally ill relative? You’re the crazy one, you controlling bitch!”

“Leave me alone, Annie. Go. Get out of here!”

“You think I don’t know all about you? I know more about mental health than anyone in this family! Heal thyself, physician! Look into your own crazy head! Hear what they’re telling you, madam!”

“Go!” my mother screams. “Get out, get out, just go!”

“She waited till the middle of the night,” my mother says now. “I could hear her pacing in her room, and then I thought she’d gone to sleep because I couldn’t hear her anymore. But when I got up to go to the bathroom, I looked in on her, and she was gone. It’s my fault. I told her to get out. Oh dear God, I told her to... please... just... leave!”

“It’s all right, Mom, come on,” Aaron says.

“No, it’s not all right!” I say. “She was in crisis, and you kicked her out!”

“What do you know about any of this?” my mother shouts. “Go talk to your little bookseller, you love her so much! Do you know what it was like, dealing with Annie all these years? I never knew whether I was talking to her or her goddamn voices!”

“What!” I say at once.

Augusta picks up on it, too. “What do you mean?” she says. “Did you...?”

“You knew about her voices?”

“You all seem to think she hears voices...”

“No, Mom, wait a minute! When did you find out about her voices?”

“I didn’t.”

“You just said...”

“I didn’t know about them.”

“You said you didn’t know who you were talking to...”

“Leave me alone!”

“... her or her goddamn voices! When did you find out about them, Mom?”

“She knew about them,” Augusta tells Aaron.

“When, Mom?”

“I don’t remember,” she says.

“When was it, Mom?”

“I just told you I don’t remember.”

“Was it after she went to Sweden alone?”

“It could have been. I don’t remember.”

“Mom? Was that when Annie told you she was hearing voices?”

My mother says nothing.

“Mom?”

“Yes. When she got back from Sweden that time.”

“She was only sixteen! If you’d tried to get help then...”

“Stop it!” she says. “I did everything I could! I told her it was not unusual for a person to hear voices when she was depressed. I told her she’d experienced with Sven the exact same thing I’d experienced with her father. And...”

“Sven was a teenage crush!”

“Yes, but he abandoned her the same way. And so we both experienced depression, and as a result...”

“Oh, Jesus, what are you saying, Mom? Did you hear voices, too?”

“Only because I was so depressed. I went to see a doctor. I was terrified. The voices were telling me to kill myself! I was thinking of killing myself!”

“It’s all right, Mom,” Aaron says.

“He told me hallucinations were a common symptom of depression. Your father had just abandoned me. The doctor told me it was perfectly all right for...”

“Perfectly all right?”

“... for a depressed person to hear voices. Eventually, they went away. But I was so scared, so scared. And then... life is funny. I suddenly had more important things to worry about than your father and his girlfriends. My mother had cancer.”

“So you told Annie it was normal to hear voices.”

“If a person was depressed.”

“You told her it was fucking normal!”

“Don’t tell me how I should have talked to my own daughter!” my mother shouts. “Were you the one hearing voices? Don’t you think I know I’m responsible for the way she is? Don’t you think I’ve blamed myself enough all these years?”

“You’re not to blame, Mom,” Aaron says at once, and takes her in his arms. “You knew something was wrong, so you went to see a doctor. Crazy people don’t do that.”

“Yes, she is to blame,” I say.

And the telephone rings.