Tell Me Something Real Read online

Dad mentioned an appointment with the lawyer, and then visiting Mom, something I can’t imagine. It is one thing to pace the house, as I do now, but another to picture her somewhere else, alive, going about her day. Rising from bed, drinking coffee, maybe reading the newspaper or watching television. Existing while we carry on, pretending she doesn’t breathe the same air.

  I walk from room to room, wondering when Dad will come home, aimlessly waiting. Her face is everywhere, in almost every room, smiling from photos. We are a family obsessed with documentation. I haven’t noticed before, the volume of framed photos hanging from the walls and gracing tabletops and bookshelves. School pictures and family portraits and an abundance of vacation snapshots. Dad has a good eye for composition, and he arranges the photos with the same skill as designing a building. Balanced and beautiful, deceptively so.

  Adrienne’s room functions as our new base camp—free of family photos—where we unearth memory after memory, marveling at the betrayal. It is too much to understand, or accept, so we ground ourselves in the practical details of buying school supplies, distracted by backpacks, notebooks, and calculators. School starts on Monday, just three days away. I can’t bear to make another list, anticipating if we’ll need wide-ruled or college-lined binder paper.

  Caleb’s absence leaves a gaping hole. I spend more and more time on the porch, waiting, sitting in the exact spot where we traded secrets and fears. Just like Mom, he feels like a ghost. I’m haunted by the living. I open the front door, only to close it. Restless and unsure of what to do with myself, I have that strung-out feeling I get whenever Adrienne convinces me to drink too much coffee when we cram for finals. Back when grades mattered. Back when anything mattered.

  Caleb’s skateboard peeks from under my bed. The picture must have been there all along, the Polaroid trapped between the bed frame and the wall. I slither under the bed, reaching for the photo. Caleb, around ten, decked out in snow gear, his giant green eyes barely visible beneath his hat. I trace the curve of his lips. I used to wonder if I’d ever see him smile in such a pure way, liberated from cancer and uncertainty. Now I wonder if I’ll see his face again.

  I hop on the board and fly across the room, crashing into my desk. My ankle, still tender, throbs when my leg rams into the wood. Adrienne storms in just as I step back on.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” She’s taken to wearing her hair in a bun on the top of her head like a Hare Krishna. Ever since Dad told us the truth, Adrienne seems electric, like her simple touch will emit a deadly bolt of energy. She narrows her bloodshot eyes. “Didn’t you hear the phone? It’s him.”

  The receiver feels cold to my cheek. When I hear Caleb’s voice, my muscles tighten, a surprise, the opposite of what I expect. “Hi,” is all I can manage.

  “Hi. We’re home.”

  I don’t want Seattle to be his home. I want him back here, within city limits, preferably within a five-foot radius. “How is it?”

  “It’s okay. Feels weird being back. I like having all of my stuff, but it’s like I was someone else when I lived here. I miss you. A lot.”

  I’m not prepared for my reaction, to hear his disembodied voice, picture him, but, at the same time, also Mom. My memories stack like a layer cake: Caleb, Mom, Caleb, Mom. At the clinic and at the house, monitoring both of them, their rest, their energy, their medication schedule. Their overlapping clinic appointments. Suddenly inseparable in my mind.

  “Vanessa? You still there?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I miss you, too.”

  “How are you doing? I wish I could be there with you. I’m sorry I left like that. My mom—”

  “I know. My dad told me everything.”

  “Are you okay? I didn’t want the first thing out of my mouth to be something terrible about your mom.”

  I shake my head, quiet until I remember he can’t see me. “No. I don’t know who I can trust right now and I really need to trust you. If you’re keeping anything from me, you need to tell me right now.”

  “Listen, I knew something was up, but I didn’t know what exactly, and my mom wouldn’t tell me anything. I knew she was talking to your dad. But I didn’t know the whole story until we checked into the hotel. I swear. You have to believe me.”

  I twirl the cord around my finger until the tip turns red. I tug harder. “That’s what my dad says.”

  “Well, that’s the truth. The only one who is lying is your mom.”

  “He let us believe she was dying. He didn’t tell us right away and you . . .” I press my forehead against the wall a little too hard. “And you were just gone. When are you coming back?”

  “I need to talk to you about that. My dad is here right now. He was waiting for us when we got back last night. It was one in the morning and he was sitting in the living room watching TV just like he used to. He told me he wants to spend time together. He’s talking to my mom now. Closed-door meeting. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

  I had cataloged my fears: Caleb knowing something, Caleb keeping Mom’s secret, Caleb not coming back. But until now, they couldn’t compete with Mom’s betrayal. My heart isn’t big enough, my stomach strong enough. Worry is one thing, but grief another. Anguish morphs into a new species of desperation, carnivorous. My tears come from so deep inside me that I think I’ll cough up organs, essential parts of my body that I need to survive. I’ve held it all in, not just the tears, but the down-in-my-stomach vomit-inducing pain. I’ve been saving it for him, the one person I can count on to truly understand.

  “Vanessa,” he says once and then again. “Talk to me.”

  “So you’re not coming back.”

  “I want to, but I don’t know what’s going to happen with my dad. He said he’d like to check out California. I’ll be back. I promise. I just don’t know when, exactly. I’m going to call you every day, okay? I’ll keep you posted.”

  “I’m hearing that a lot right now,” I say. “My dad just said that about my mom.”

  “I miss you, Vanessa. I’m coming back.”

  Caleb wants his dad more than anything, and now he has him. I should be happy, but I’m too selfish to be that generous. I’m not enough for Mom, and now I’m not enough for him.

  Our house perches on a hill, the height deceptive until you look out the kitchen window at the blur of lavender bushes at least a story below. I balance the phone between my jaw and shoulder, freeing my hands to wrestle the window open, something Barb used to do every morning.

  A trio of ceramic birds, souvenirs Mom picked up in Ensenada, line the sill. One by one, I poke them in the chest, directly in the center of their painted blue feathers. I’m too high up to hear them break. Maybe they don’t. Maybe they land in the bushes, cradled by the flowers, hovering just above the ground, intact.

  I back away from the breeze. The late-morning light floods the room, illuminating the wall. Mom smiles from a triptych, framed above the table. Mom holding each of us as newborns. I need to get out of this room. I need to leave the house. Caleb’s voice isn’t enough to anchor me. Not now.

  “I miss you, too. Marie is calling for me,” I lie. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Wait.”

  “I’ve got to go.” I hang up before he can say another word.

  I grab the board and head outside without telling Adrienne and Marie. I want Caleb, just Caleb, separate and distinct from Mom. Riding the board might help. My movements lack grace, but I don’t crash. Snaking through the neighborhood, I rely on muscle memory for balance.

  Maybe, in the back of my mind, I intend to go there, to Mariposa Street, to Mrs. Albright’s house. It’s an easy ride, smooth and flat. She kneels in her garden, the wide brim of her straw hat blocking the view of her face.

  My feet carry me across the lawn. She looks up with a surprised smile.

  “Vanessa,” she says, seeming truly happy to see me.

  I can’t hold back the tears. “I’m out of music.”

  She rises and tugs off her gardening glov
es. “Let’s go inside for a cup of tea.”

  I wince when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I look like hell in wrinkled clothes and tangled hair. Feral once again.

  Abstract art and family photos line the walls. Two college-age boys, one in uniform and one in a cowboy shirt, smile in a formal portrait. Both have her eyes.

  “My sons,” she says, pointing from left to right. “Jackson and Philip.” She taps Jackson. “He was drafted the first year of the war. He died after a few weeks in Vietnam.”

  That would have been in 1970. He’s been dead for six years, since before I met Mrs. Albright. I can’t imagine my own pain, so all-consuming, easing over time. How can she carry grief with her, just below the surface, every day, surrounded by kids not much younger than her dead son?

  Tears stream down my cheeks. “I didn’t know,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

  “I told you that I knew grief. Did playing help?”

  I nod. “I couldn’t have gotten through the summer without the music. I didn’t finish, though. My mom . . . she . . . I just have one piece left.”

  Mrs. Albright raises two fingers to her lips, kisses them, and then touches her sons’ faces, smudging the glass.

  “I promised you tea,” she says. “Follow me.”

  As soon as I sit at her kitchen table, I blurt out the truth. “My mom isn’t dead. She lied. She was never sick.”

  Tall and willowy like a sunflower, Mrs. Albright stands over the stove with her back to me. I hear the click-click-click and swoosh of the gas flame. The tea kettle clanks on the element. She turns to me, her face a puzzled mask, ready to listen.

  “This sounds like a long story.”

  I nod vigorously. “I’m sorry . . . if you’re busy, I—”

  “You’re rescuing me from weeds. I don’t have other plans. I’m all yours.”

  She slides a mug across the table, along with a plate of cookies. I take a deep breath, count to five, and exhale.

  “That’s a good start,” Mrs. Albright says. “Just like when you play. Clear your head. Let everything come into focus.”

  “There’s a disease, a mental illness, and people who have it pretend to be sick. My dad says they can’t help it. I don’t see how that can be true. But my mom has it.”

  “Munchausen syndrome,” she says.

  “You know it?”

  “I’ve read about it. Newspaper stories. There was a woman in Fallbrook who killed her child. She told everyone he was sick. The medicine killed him. She went to prison. It was all over the news for a while.”

  I reach for a cookie, a thick shortbread square, and break it in half. “That’s the thing I don’t get. Doctors give people tests. You can’t fake tests.”

  She shakes her head, never taking her eyes off me. “No, but this woman took her child from emergency room to emergency room. Never the same one twice. She told them he was sick and they believed her. We don’t think of mothers as people who would intentionally hurt their own children. It’s inconceivable.”

  “My dad said that she could’ve done it to my little sister. That she might try if she gets out of the hospital.”

  Steam rises from the teapot, and the scent of peppermint floods the room. I take another deep breath.

  “This mint is from my garden.” Mrs. Albright fills my mug and takes the seat across from me. “Vanessa, she could have done it to you, too. None of you were safe. And I believe she poisoned you in a different way, which is damaging too. Would you like to see those articles? I’m happy to go to the library. I think it would help.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Reading helps. It’s like playing.”

  She smiles. “You and I are very much alike. When did you find out about your mother?”

  “About a week ago. I don’t know what to do.” I look at my tea. Tears fall into the mug, creating ripples, like a stone tossed into a pond. “I don’t get how this wasn’t on purpose. Why didn’t she stop? How could she do this to us? My dad keeps saying that she couldn’t help it.”

  “I’m not a doctor, Vanessa, but I do know that mental illness is still an illness. If the doctors are saying that she has this disease, then they’re probably right.”

  I don’t bother wiping the tears from my cheeks. More will come, a steady stream. I pick at the cookie, eroding the edge, causing an avalanche of crumbs.

  She cocks her head. “Have you seen her?”

  My hands clench, knuckles instantly white. “I can’t. She’s dangerous. My dad went to court.”

  “It sounds like he’s doing what he can under very difficult circumstances.”

  I don’t know how I’m going to face school, especially when everyone finds out the truth. I won’t be able to hide behind the piano all day. I rest my head on my folded arms, trying to be quiet as I cry.

  “Shhh,” she says, rubbing my back. “I know it hurts.”

  “Couldn’t someone have stopped her?” I ask, half choking out the words. “How could she get away with this?”

  Magically, a box of tissues appears. “Do you know those special pencils that I use when I mark up sheet music? They’re hard to find. My husband, he’s English, brings them home whenever he goes to London. Years ago, I had a student who stole them.

  “What was remarkable was how he did it—right in front of me. After Jackson died, I saw things differently. The details, I guess. They seemed more important. One day, this student took a pencil and I saw him clear as day. He’d been doing it all year. Afterward, he said that he always stole in plain sight because people couldn’t believe that anyone would ever be so bold. He was quite the shoplifter. Does it help to think of your mother in those terms?”

  I say, “I think so,” even though nothing truly can help me understand how she could do this to us.

  “Just allow yourself to feel right now. You don’t have to understand it. That will come later. It may never come, honestly. Just play the piano. It’s the best thing you can do. Remind me, what was the last piece?”

  “Handel.”

  “Well, he won’t do. Come with me.”

  I follow her into the small living room, where an impressive baby grand takes up most of the space. She opens the bench and fingers through several books. She hands me a slim red volume. Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite.

  “You’ll stumble over every note. Don’t worry—that’s the point. This is something that will demand your full attention. Give yourself over to it. Read through it before you start. I have something else for you.”

  It is sacrilege, but I have never been drawn to Stravinsky or Rachmaninoff and their frenetic passion. They are masters of control, but to me, they feel untamed and on the brink of something awful. I don’t tell anyone my opinion. Mrs. Albright knows Chopin is my favorite composer, inspiring me in a way Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff never can.

  She returns with a couple of envelopes in her hand.

  “I had them sent to the school just as we agreed. You have your choice, Vanessa. You got into two of the conservatories and both awarded you scholarships. I explained your circumstances—that you have a family emergency—and they’re willing to wait for you to decide. Take them home and think about what you want next. You need to make up your mind very soon, or you can defer for a year.”

  She places the two envelopes in my hand. The first letter, printed on a heavy textured paper, is from a conservatory we visited last year for their annual holiday concert. I remember sitting in the auditorium and dissecting the notes, amazed kids my age could play as well as the San Diego Symphony. I never thought I could be one of them. Especially now, music is so personal to me, an extension of my fingers, my breath. It hits me all at once: the complete yearning to go and the reality that I can’t leave my family.

  I remember when I graduated from scales and exercises to a song, a simple lullaby. My fingers barely spanned the keys. I practiced over and over again until a clear melody emerged. The music was simple and unremarkable, but it came from the deepest part of me. Everyone commented o
n the speed with which I picked up pieces. I am a quick study, with instinctive fingers, but that’s not why the conservatory accepted me. It’s the way I feel the notes travel through my diaphragm and sternum and limbs. I bring my whole body to the instrument, and playing music has always been what I wanted, has always been enough.

  It’s a fantasy, but I allow myself a few moments to dream of playing in that auditorium, of playing Chopin onstage surrounded by others who share the same passion.

  I got in.

  Months of mastering pieces, practicing the same ones over and over until I was good enough to record my audition tape, paid off. It was worth it.

  My eyes feel swollen from tears and my heart feels tight with grief and pride. I can’t help but grin even if I don’t know what the future holds.

  “Now, play,” Mrs. Albright says, returning my smile. I smooth out the music, messing up over and over again as I play, but she’s right: After a while, I don’t think of anything but the notes.

  Eleven

  The first day of school, I walk the halls like a ghost, looking at the faces of my classmates, thinking, I am not one of you or you or you or you . . .

  Last night, Caleb gave me instructions: Don’t make eye contact with anyone; look at the ground and walk with purpose. This way, everyone will leave me alone. These were his survival techniques from his last months at school. I half expected him to tell me how to combat hypothermia and bear attacks, dangers of the wild.

  He keeps his promise and calls every day, just after dinner so we won’t be rushed. Quick to run out of words, I end the calls after a few minutes, then long for him all over again. He’s become a spiritualist, a medium who summons Mom whenever he calls. I listen to his voice, his stories about outings with his dad, their ambiguous plans to return to San Diego, only to catch glimpses of Mom, nothing but memories, recollections of her sitting at the table or baking chicken pot pie. His calls raise the undead.

  At school, I heed his advice. Mrs. Albright opens the music room early and I rush there, head down, to review my class schedule. No surprises—the same college-prep classes, the only difference from last year is chemistry instead of Earth sciences, precalc instead of trig.