"Ron, please." She grabbed for him again but she was too drunk, she missed and fell onto her knees. "Please."
I went back to my room and lay facedown on the bed. I couldn't stand to watch her crawl after him, grabbing onto his legs, begging, staggering after him out the door, in her red Christmas bathrobe all falling open. I could hear her outside now, weeping, promising she'd be good, promising him everything. The slam of his car door, the engine starting up, the unwinding ascending note of the Alfa backing out as she continued to plead. I imagined Mrs. Kromach peering out from behind her powder-blue curtains, Mr. Levi staring in amazement from under his Hasidic brim.
Claire came back in, calling me. I put the pillow over my head. Weakling, I thought. Traitor. She was in front of my door, but I didn't answer. She would give me up for him, she would do anything to have him. Just like before, my mother and Barry. "Please, Astrid," she begged me through the door, but I wouldn't listen. This sickness would never happen to me.
Finally she went to her room, closed the door, and I hated her for crawling after him and hated myself for my disgust, for knowing just how Ron felt. I lay there on my bed, hating all of us, listening to her cry, she'd done nothing but for a week. Twenty-seven names for tears.
I heard Leonard Cohen start up, asking if she heard her master sing. The circular repetition of an overwhelming question. I wanted to seal myself up, while I still had something of my own that I hadn't given to Claire. I had to pull back or I would be torn away, like a scarf closed in a car door.
How I despised her weakness. Just like my mother said I would. It repelled me. I would have fought for her, but Claire couldn't even stand up for herself. I couldn't save us both. On my desk was the picture of me and the steelhead trout from summer. Ron had it framed. I looked so happy. I should have known it wouldn't last. Nothing lasts. Didn't I know that by now? Keep your hags packed, my mother said. And me with less than a year to go, with college dangling before me.
But then I remembered how Claire took me to Cal Arts to see if I wanted to apply there, even got me the application. How she made me take honors classes, helped me with the homework, drove me to the museum every Tuesday night. If I had a future at all, it was only because she gave it to me. But then I saw her crawling again, begging, and was repelled afresh. Astrid help me. Astrid pick up the pieces. How could I? I was counting on her too much. I had to start facing that.
I read for a while in a book about Kandinsky, tried out some of his ideas about form and tension. How the tension in a line increased as it approached the edge. I tried not to listen as the Leonard Cohen cycled around. She must have fallen asleep by now. Let her sleep it off.
I drew until it got dark, then turned on the light and spun the pyramid that hung over my desk, the ridiculous pyramid my mother had sold Claire on. When I closed the Kandinsky book, I couldn't help noticing the inscription. To Astrid, with all my love, Claire.
It went through me like a current, shorting out my childish resentment. If I had anything good, it was only because of Claire. If I could think of myself as worthwhile for a second, it was because Claire made me think so. If I could contemplate a future at all, it was because she believed there was one. Claire had given me back the world. And what was I doing now that she needed me? Rolling up my windows, loading in supplies, unreeling the barbed wire.
I got up and went to her room. "Claire?" I called through the closed door. I tried the door but it was locked. She never locked the door, except when they were having sex. I knocked. "Claire, are you okay?"
I heard her say something, but I couldn't make it out.
"Claire, open up." I jiggled the doorhandle.
Then I heard what it was she was saying. "Sorry. So sorry. I'm just so goddamned sorry."
"Open up, please, Claire. I want to talk to you."
"Go away, Astrid." Her voice was almost unrecognizably drunk. I was surprised. I thought she'd be sobering up or passed out by now. "Take my advice. Stay away from all broken people." I heard her sobbing dryly, almost retching, almost laughing, it became a sort of hum through the door.
I almost said, you're not broken, you're just going through something. But I couldn't. She knew. There was something terribly wrong with her, all the way inside. She was like a big diamond with a dead spot in the middle. I was supposed to breathe life into that dead spot, but it hadn't worked. She was going to call Ron wherever it was he went, and say, you're right, send her back. I can't live without you.
"You can't send me back," I said through the door.
"Your mother was right," she said, slurring the words. I heard things crash to the floor. "I am a fool. I can't even stand myself." My mother. Making everything worse. I'd sent back all the letters I could find, but there must have been others.
I sat down on the floor. I felt like an accident victim, holding on to my falling-out insides. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with the urge to go back to my room, fall into bed, under the clean sheets, and sleep. But I fought it, tried to think of something to say through the door. "She doesn't know you."
I heard the squeak of her bed, she was up, staggered to the door. "He's not coming back, Astrid." She was right on the other side. Her voice fell from standing height to sitting as she spoke through the crack. "He's going to divorce me."
I hoped he would. Then she might have a chance, the two of us, taking it slow, no more Ron coming home, trailing fear, selling hope, leaving her on Christmas, arriving home just when she was getting used to him being gone. It would be fine. No more pretending, holding our breaths, listening in as he talked on the phone. "Claire, you know, it wouldn't be the worst thing."
She laughed woozily. "Seventeen years old. Tell me, baby, what is the worst thing?"
The wood grain of the door was a maze I followed with my fingernail. I was about to say, try having your mother in prison, and the one person you love and trust is going off her rocker. Try being in the best place you ever had and they were talking about sending you back.
But then again, I would not have wanted to be Claire. I would have rather been myself, even my mother, imprisoned for life, full of her own impotent ferocity, than be Claire, worried about burglars and rapists and small teeth mean bad luck and my eyes don't match and don't kill the fish and does my husband still love me, did he ever, or did he just think I was someone else, and I can't pretend anymore.
I wanted to hold her close, but something inside was pushing her away. This was Claire, who loves you, I reminded myself, but I couldn't feel it right now. She couldn't even take care of herself, and I felt myself drifting off. I felt her reaching for my hand, she wanted to come in. I didn't think I could save her anymore. The maze trail I was following dead-ended in a peacock eye. "My mother would say the worst thing is losing your self-respect."
I heard her start to cry again. Sharp, painful hiccups I felt in my own throat. She banged on the door with her fist, or maybe it was her head. I couldn't stand it, I had to back down into lies.
"Claire, you know he'll be back. He loves you, don't worry."
I didn't care if he came back or not. He wanted to send me away, and for that I hoped he wrecked his classic Alfa that matched his gray hair.
"If I knew what self-respect was," I heard her say, "then maybe I'd know if I'd lost it."
I was so sleepy. I couldn't keep my eyes open. I leaned my head against the door. Out in the living room, the lights on the Christmas tree flashed on and off, the needles scattered on the unopened presents.
"You want something to eat?"
She didn't want anything.
"I'm just getting something to eat. I'll be back in a second."
I made myself a ham sandwich. The Christmas tree needles were all over the floor. They crunched underfoot. The sherry bottle was gone, she must have taken it with her. She was going to have the hangover of a lifetime. She had left my portrait on the coffee table. I took it into my room, propped it on the desk. I looked into her deep gaze, I could hear her asking me, what do you want, croissant or brioche? Where would you go if you could go anywhere in the world? I traced my finger over her high rounded forehead, like a Gothic Madonna. I went back to her door, knocked.
"Claire, let me in."
I heard the squeak of the bedsprings as she turned over, the effort it took to get up, stumble the three steps to the door. She fumbled with the lock. I opened the door and she fell back into bed, still wearing that red bathrobe. She pawed her way under the covers like a blind burrowing animal. Thank God, she wasn't crying anymore, she was ready to pass out. I turned off Leonard Cohen.
"I'm so cold," she mumbled. "Come in with me."
I got in, clothes and all. She put her cold feet on mine, her head on my shoulder. The sheets smelled of sherry and dirty hair and L'Air du Temps.
"Stay with me, promise. Don't leave."
I held her cold hands, rested my head against hers as she fell asleep. I watched her in the light of the bedside lamp, which was always on now. Her mouth was open, she snored heavily. I told myself, things will turn out all right. Ron would come home or he wouldn't, and we'd just go on together. He wouldn't really send me away. He just didn't want to see how damaged she was. As long as she didn't show him, that was all he asked for. A good show.
21
CLAIRE WAS still sleeping when I woke up. I got up, careful not to disturb her, and went out to the kitchen. I poured myself some cereal. It was very bright, quiet, a pure crystalline light. I was glad Ron was gone. If he were here, there would have been phone calls, the whine of the coffee grinder, Claire might be up making breakfast with her smile painted on. I decided to stay in my silk pajamas a while longer. I got my new paints out and painted the way the light looked on the bare wood floor, the yellow tray of sunlight, the way it climbed the curtains. I loved when it was like this. I recalled days just like this when I was young, playing in a patch of sunlight when my mother slept in. A laundry basket over my head, squares of light. I remembered exactly how the sun looked and felt on the back of my hand.
After a while, I checked on Claire. She was still asleep. The room was dark gray, no morning light penetrated the west-facing French doors covered with blinds. It smelled stale. She had one hand flung across the top of the pillow. Her mouth was open, but she wasn't snoring now.
"Claire?" I put my face right in hers. She smelled of sherry and something metallic. She didn't move. I put my hand on her shoulder, shook her gently. "Claire?" She didn't do anything. The hair stood up on my neck and arms. I couldn't hear her breathing. "Claire?" I shook her again, but her head flopped like Owen's giraffe's. "Claire, wake up." I lifted her by her shoulders and dropped her. "Claire!" I yelled at her, hoping she would open her eyes, that she would put her hand to her head and tell me not to shout, I was giving her a headache. It was impossible. She was playing a trick, pretending. "Claire!" I screamed into her sleeping face, pumping my hands on her chest, listening for her breath. Nothing.
I searched the bedside table, the floor. On the far side, I found the pills on the floor, along with the empty sherry bottle. It was what I'd heard falling when we were talking through the door. The pill bottle was open, the pills spilled out, small pink tablets. Butalan, the label said. For Insomnia. Do Not Take With Alcohol. Do Not Operate Machinery.
The sounds I was making were no longer even screams. I wanted to throw something into the fat ugly eye of God. I threw the Kleenex box. The brass bell. I knocked the bedside light off the nightstand. I pulled the magnet box from under the bed and threw it across the room. Ron's keys and pens and clippers fell out, the Polaroids. For what? I ripped the blinds off the French doors, and the room blinked bright. I took a high-heeled shoe from the foot of the bed and smashed through the windowpanes with it, cut my hand, couldn't feel it. I took her silver-backed hairbrush and threw it overhand like a baseball into the round mirror. I took the phone and beat the receiver against the headboard until it came apart in my hands, leaving dents in the soft pine.
I was exhausted and couldn't find anything more to throw. I sat back down on the bed and took her hand. It was so cold. I put it against my hot wet cheek, trying to warm it up, I smoothed her dark hair away from her face.
If only I had known, Claire. My beautiful fucked-up Claire. I lay my head on her chest where there was no heartbeat. My face next to hers on the flowered pillow, breathing in her breath that was no longer breath. She was so pale. Cold. I held her cold hands, slightly chapped, the wedding ring that was too big. Turned them over, kissed the cold palms, my hot lips on the lines. How she used to worry about those lines. One ran from the edge of the hand and crossed the line of life. Fatal accident, she said it meant. I rubbed the line with my thumb, slick with tears.