Wound Up
by Jessica
Machado
The
evening my mother died, I drove away from her nursing home with my arm
dangling out the window and a cigarette clenched between my fingers. I
turned up the radio until the dashboard shook. Bass lines rumbled my seat,
the wind rustled past my ears. It was me, Zeppelin, and the dark empty
highway. An hour and half later, I was back in my quiet empty Los Angeles
apartment, booking a three-week trip to my hometown of Honolulu. At
twenty-five, home was where I wanted to go.
I don’t remember much about the flight or the car ride from the
airport, but I do remember my dad leading me up his newly cobblestoned
walkway. Two years had passed since I’d moved to LA, and I found upon this
return that his two-story house, cluttered with empty milk glasses and
tangled video game wires during my teenage and college years, had become
an odd decorating project for my dad and his wife. A showroom of midlife
splurges and tastes. The old hardwood floors had been replaced with gray
marble slabs, the rattan couch with a sectional leather sofa, and the
dining table with my dad’s new Harley motorcycle.
During my college years, they’d let me convert the basement of
their house into my own personal apartment. I tended to roll in and out of
my own entrance between school, work, dates and all-nighters, rummaging
through my closet or tin-foiled leftovers. I tried not to bother the rest
of the family—my dad, stepmom Shellee and their two boys—mostly because I
didn’t have time in my schedule to chat. When I was in the house, I was
usually asleep with my bedroom door shut and the blinds drawn, avoiding
the sun and hitting the snooze button.
Now, as my dad dropped my suitcase at the foot of my bed, I hardly
recognized my old dungeon of solitude. Sunshine drenched the floral
bedspread. My Cure posters were gone and so was the smell of ripened drool
and last night’s cigarettes. I was a guest in my dad’s new guest
room.
My dad reached out his arms. I leaned in, burying my head in his
chest. I didn’t want to let go, not because I took comfort in being held,
but because I knew as soon as I did, he’d leave the room. I slowly pulled
away. Sure enough, he patted me on the back and headed upstairs.
“Hey Dad, what are you doing later?” I called from the doorway. He
half-turned toward me, one foot on the first stair.
“Sushi sounds good,” he said. “What do you think?”
“Yeah, okay, sure,” I mumbled. But
I didn’t need a question. I needed a plan; I wanted him to tell me what to
do and when to do it.
I zeroed in on the alarm clock’s
neon numbers. 1:10. Six hours
to go if we had an early dinner. How could I fill up every second of those
six hours? I calculated the number of minutes I needed for a shower (maybe
twenty if I sat in the bathtub for a soak); to blowdry my hair (fifteen if
I straightened it too); to pace around the room until I headed upstairs,
waited on the couch and tried not look desperate (ten).
My fixation with time had kicked
in.
The time game was something I
invented at my mother’s deathbed. For three weeks, I counted the minutes
until she died, or until I wouldn’t have to count minutes anymore. Now
that she was already dead, I didn’t know why I was parsing minutes,
measuring hours. I didn’t know what else I was waiting for.
***
During the last weeks of my mom’s life, I had one hope and one
fear: The phone call saying she passed away. By that time, six months into
her illness, I could no longer stomach the ninety-mile drive from my
apartment in Los Angeles to her nursing home in stiff, suburban Temecula.
Even worse than walking down hallways piled up with wheelchairs and
twittering white-haired women was witnessing my fifty-eight-year-old
mother, who could no longer sit upright at all.
Sarah, my mother, had long courted
her klutziness and wooed her hypochondria. By the time I hit puberty, she
owned her own pair of crutches and had acquired a variety of ailments I’d
never heard of: lupus, xiatica, vertigo, and glomerulosclerosis, an incurable kidney disease. A
month after I moved to LA, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. A year
and half after that, my stepdad and mother headed to California
themselves—ostensibly to “travel,” though later I realized that my
mother’s husband had moved her closer to me so I could help her
die.
She was given two days to live, but lived another two and half
weeks. In her room, the television seemed to be on a continuous loop of
nineties sitcoms, the laugh track choking the room’s stillness. A morphine
drip left my mother incoherent and mostly unconscious. She lay flat
against the mattress with her guardrails up, draped in a hospital gown so
tubes and catheters could easily be removed, cleaned and tugged at.
I held her hand for a few seconds,
but her pointy, brittle, ceramic-like knuckles felt like they would tear
through her papery skin. Like her flesh was eager to break free from her
body. The nurse said to rub lotion on her arms and legs to keep them from
chapping. But I’d only stare at the bottle of aloe and feel guilty. I told
myself if I could sit in my chair, hands on my arm rest, feet crossing
back and forth, until Friends
was over, then I could step outside for air. If I walked to the end of the
block and took a lap around the parking lot, I could be back in her room
in time to catch the end of another rerun. Once that show was finished, I
could get an early dinner. I could drive fifteen minutes to the farthest
strip mall in Temecula, stop at the gas station for a pack of gum, come
back and kiss her goodnight. Then, I’d feel like a good daughter. By then,
I would have earned the right to go home.
***
Once she was gone and I’d returned to my childhood home, mornings
in Hawaii seemed longer, even, than those evenings in Temecula. I shut the
blinds to prolong starting the same day over again, but I still woke up
alone in a strange room, afraid the clock would remind me that I had too
much time too kill.
At 7:30 on my second morning at my
father’s house, I scurried upstairs to find open cereal boxes littering
the counter and a forgotten textbook weighted on the kitchen table. I
opened the screen door to peak at the carport. My dad’s truck was gone.
But Shellee’s car was still there.
I knocked on Shellee’s bedroom door, hoping she had nothing and
everything to do, and could I tag along? She said she was going to the
grocery store. I pursed my lips and rocked on the balls of my feet. She
grabbed her purse, “Maybe we can buy some stuff to make brownies later,”
she said, her palm guiding my shoulder as we crossed the doorway.
After the store, I went with her
to the dog groomers, to the gas station, and to pick up medication for my
dad. In the next few days, I offered to take my grandfather to get a
haircut and to drop off my brother at the mall. I was even happy when
Shellee made me a dentist appointment, another two hours I didn’t have to
plan myself.
I couldn’t remember how I used to
fill my days when I lived in Hawaii. I couldn’t remember how to stop
thinking about thinking.
***
During my last year in college, I
bartended twenty hours a week. My after-work routine began with swigs of a
fifth of Smirnoff in the restaurant parking lot. Once my coworkers and I
had passed around the bottle until it was dry, we headed over to the
Hideaway, where a double screwdriver was a triple and the pool tables were
free if you jiggled the coin slot just right.
Now, two years later, sitting with
those same drinking buddies at the Hideaway, the same punk songs vibrated
the cracked walls and the four of us once again huddled around the center
table of the cramped bar. This time, I couldn’t slur lyrics or slurp
cocktails. I was glued to my seat but swiveled my legs from side to side,
kicking off my flip flops and slipping them back on, scooting forward and
slouching again. Stories, words, and anecdotes buzzed around me, but I
stared at the spaces between my friends’ heads. One of them, Riyo, glanced
over at me, checking to see if I was smiling at her joke. I nodded with a
half-smirk. I bent my head down the table to take a sip of my drink, but
instead I bit the straw like a teething ring. Sawing indentations, sucking
nothing.
Hey
Jessica, remember the time when… Sure I
remembered, maybe, but I only heard the first line of Riyo’s story, and I
didn’t care.
I jumped out of my chair and
headed toward the bathroom. I pushed the door open and braced myself up
against the sink. I looked down at the yellowing basin and then back up at
my reflection in the mirror. I raked my fingers through my hair, scraping
my scalp and gathering tangles at a tight ponytail at the top of my head,
hoping the headache I was now creating would mask the tension going on
inside. I scrunched my face as if to whine, cry, or throw a temper
tantrum. But I didn’t know how or where to begin. I released my hair. My
fingers crawled down my face and around the back of my neck. I walked into
the stall, sat on the toilet with my head in my hands. Until I couldn’t
sit there anymore either.
When I walked out of the bathroom,
my friends’ seats were empty. I scanned the room. There they were,
standing near the doorway, smoking on the patio. I couldn’t sit back down,
but I couldn’t join them outside either. And I definitely couldn’t go
home. Going home meant tomorrow would come.
***
I began spending more nights at
home, unable to play the party girl role I’d invented for myself in
college. Knocking on my dad and Shellee’s door had become an evening habit
as well. “What are you guys watching?” I asked, peeking my head in. The Sopranos, Independence Day, kung-fu movies, it didn’t
matter. I crawled into their king-size bed and sandwiched myself between
them. I didn’t follow the plot, and sometimes I didn’t bother to laugh. I
just lay there. When I heard the unharmonious drone of their snores, I
scooted off their mattress and walked back down into the dark.
The days when Shellee was busy, I
called old college and high school buddies, friends I hadn’t talked to in
eight years, even old boyfriends for lunch, but I grew tiresome of gossip
and rounds of catch up. Plus, when anyone asked why I was home, I told
them my mother had died. Talking about the facts of her death was not a
problem. But describing how I felt, showing them my jitters, or even
acknowledging my antsiness was. I didn’t want to disappoint my friends
with a Jessica they didn’t know.
One afternoon at a café, Riyo
surprised me by admitting that she too often felt separate from the rest
of the world. But when she repeated these words at a party once, a friend
had argued with her. “Sometimes I just stand still, and I feel like I’m a
part of everything,” he’d said. Neither one of us got it, though we wanted
to.
***
The sicker my mother became, the
more I relied on numbers to control my part in the situation. I trusted
them more than my gut. If I had a question, such as “Should I wait until
Wednesday to visit my mother?” I looked at the clock to give me my answer.
If the last number of the present time was even, like 1:52, that meant
yes, I could wait. She wouldn’t tell me that she was disappointed. Evens
were positives, odds were a sucker-punch to my conscience. They confirmed
my worst fears.
Driving to her nursing home one
afternoon, I found myself looking at the clock every two minutes, seeking
the very second when an odd number became even, when all the questions,
all the uncertainties about her death, would make sense.
When I reached her room that day,
I found her sitting upright, smiling and peachy. She said this was the
best she’d felt in days. I wanted to believe this was some sort of
miracle, that maybe time really was on my side. Then, I started to
cry.
I sat down next to her, in my same
familiar orange chair, and leaned in to talk to her in a way I hadn’t
before: telling her that the thought of never touching her gray curls
again made me want to cut off a lock and stick it in my purse pocket, how
the idea of never hearing her sweet, feminine voice made me want to reach
into her throat and swallow it with my hand.
She refused to turn toward me. Her
head sunk deeper into her pillow. Even though the television was off, she
stared at it blankly. I went on, asking her if she remembered how she felt
when her own mother was dying. I reminded her that I didn’t have a husband
or child of my own, nor brothers or sisters from her. I had no one to
gauge how I was supposed to react to the end of my own mother’s life.
She retreated further, like she
was falling under a spell, dazed as she tended to be under her onslaught
of medication.
I reached over to shake her
shoulder, lightly, just enough to get her attention. Then I asked her how
long she thought she had left. What she really felt. “Shouldn’t you know
best?”
I waited for a response. I
would’ve sat there for twenty minutes in silence if she could have given
me an answer I wanted to hear.
“A year, maybe two,” she said,
brushing a curl away from her face.
I fell backward against my chair, stomping my feet on the ground. I
didn’t want her to soften the blow, not for me and not for herself. Such a
falsehood—and both of us knew her prediction was a lie—didn’t ease the
clock in my mind or the pressure in a room ready to explode.
Three weeks later she
died.
***
I didn’t know what the future held
for me in LA. I couldn’t think further ahead than few seconds anyway. But
when Shellee asked if I wanted to change my return ticket and stay a few
extra days, I surprised myself by saying I needed to get back to my job.
Work would give me a concrete place to go.
Shellee disagreed. She suggested I
do the opposite—step away from the familiar. “You need to learn who
Jessica is.”
I looked at her like she was a
street person spewing gibberish.
“What do you mean?” I narrowed my
eyes.
“I mean, who is she?”
I gazed into the blurring carpet
beneath me. For once, I was frantic because my mind was empty. I couldn’t
remind her of the girl she once knew—the straight-A student who could hold
a job, a boyfriend, and serious partying schedule. I couldn’t even think
of one generic adjective, like honest or easy-going, to describe myself.
Not a single syllable came out. I couldn’t answer
her.
So I returned to LA. Within the
next two weeks I caused a minor car accident; I burned my arm on the same
pan several times, forming several second-degree bubbles from my elbow to
my wrist; I tripped over a curb, falling hard on my face, scrapping my
entire left cheek and cracking my front tooth.
I called Shellee and asked her
where I should go.
I made myself a reservation at an
inn on the coast of Santa Barbara for five days. The morning I was
supposed to leave, I gave myself errands to run until mid-afternoon,
thinking if I left at two, maybe two-thirty, then at least half the day
would be over with by the time I got there. I finished packing my car with
clothes, books, my stereo and a brand new journal by ten minutes to the
hour. Then I buckled up and drove off.
Once I wasted time unpacking and
fussing around the hotel room, I went for a walk down the main
tourist-crowded street. I was determined to look at what was in front of
my face instead of at my watch. A woman in big sunglasses. A crushed Coke
can on the ground. I started to think about where I could eat for dinner,
how much money I should spend, on which night I’d let myself splurge on a
fancy meal. I shook my head. Concentrating would take practice.
I spotted a coffee shop near the
ocean and decided to make that my target. I sat down with a latte, a
muffin, and my journal. I hadn’t written my thoughts down in months. I was
still unsure what my thoughts were, but I was sick of them flopping all
over each other. I gave myself a task: Write a list of what I wanted to do
during this trip. Reading, hiking, writing. I put my pen down and looked
at a young hippie couple giggling over a hunk of blueberry pie. I twisted
my head back to my page. Pay
attention to what you’re doing. I added that item to my list. I jotted
a few more vague phrases and sentences, including “don’t put your pen down
again for fifteen minutes.” Six pages later, I was writing about the fake
me, the real me and who cared about those mes. Did I care? I took a
breath. I grabbed my stuff and walked out the door. Twenty feet later, I
stopped at a bench and filled two more pages.
I walked away from the busy street
and past the kids riding bicycles and skateboards near the beachfront,
onto the pier, where the plank’s edges lapped up small pouncing waves. I
noticed with each squishy step, the wood gave a little. Halfway down, I
stopped, startled by a guy in a goofy clam costume handing out samples of
chowder. I stood still. A sandy-haired kid chugged his soup like a shot;
an elderly couple in aloha-print visors asked for a second helping; a
gawky teen in jeans two-sizes-too-baggy sniffed the plastic cup of white
lumpy mush.
For five minutes, I forgot I had
nowhere to go.
