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When I got home, I practically fell on the telephone. “She doesn’t need to be my mother, fine. I don’t need to be her daughter.” That was the first thing I told Georgia; then I ran her through the entire encounter. “It’s like she’s turned into an earth mother, minus the mother part.”
“Thank God she waited until we grew up,” said Georgia. “Suppose we had to live there?”
“Look, I’m not going to tell Maddy. Oh, maybe I will, I don’t know.”
As soon as I hung up with Georgia, Maddy called. “But didn’t you think it was beautiful there?” she asked.
“What are you talking about, it’s nowhere. And the squirrel situation is completely out of control. They probably have a million cases of rabies a year.”
“But did you notice the sky? If you’re there at night, it sparkles.”
“It sparkles,” I said sarcastically. “I’m sure you didn’t make that up yourself. Did Mom say that, or Tom?”
“You’re impossible.” Maddy hung up on me.
I went downstairs and into Dad’s study. He was in his tennis outfit, which he now wore during the day even when he wasn’t playing, and he’d swiveled his chair around to stare out the window. A yellow legal pad lay in his lap. “Are you still working?”
He showed me the pad was blank.
“Let’s buy a Christmas tree.”
He bounced up, as if he’d been ejected. “Great idea, Evie.”
He drove, which was a switch. “There’s a big lot on Third and Fairfax,” he said. “I noticed it last week.”
It felt luxurious to sit in the passenger seat, to have him know where he was going, to be able to fiddle with the radio dial. I hunted for some Christmas music.
“Let’s get a big tree.” My father slammed his hand against the steering wheel defiantly. “Like always.”
He was humming along to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” when we pulled into the lot. “I see it,” he announced. “I’ve got my eye on one already.”
“But who will make the turkey?” I asked.
“Esther,” said my father. “We’ll invite Esther.”
So Dad, Esther, and I had Christmas dinner together. My dad looked snappy in suit, tie, the works. Esther had a wide red ribbon wrapped around her hair and tied into a bow. “I’m your gift,” she told my dad. She presented me with a roasted turkey.
While Esther prepared the rest of dinner, Dad and I loaded the tree with ornaments. The history of our family was on the tree; at least the public history. The angel Maddy and I used to fight over. The garlands Mom was partial to. The clay elf Georgia had made in Girl Scouts. The clear glass ornaments with wreaths inside, our pride and joy. “Put those where they show,” my dad said happily, knowing it was something he’d said all the years before.
We ate turkey, sweet potatoes, creamed onions, and string beans. Esther was a better cook than my mother—not much of a stretch—but she informed us that she had broken a nail while opening the can of cranberry sauce, and had left the nail on the windowsill. “Remind me to take it home,” she said.
By dropping by her place to apologize for my behavior, I had managed to talk Maddy into paying a visit. She gave us all, even Dad, homemade bead necklaces, and he reciprocated by giving her money to install a telephone.
Later my father turned up the Christmas music really loud. You could hear “Joy to the World” in every corner of the house. “I forgot about celebrating,” he said. “I forgot all about it.” He closed his eyes for a moment and let the music wash over him. “Evie?”
“What?”
“When you don’t celebrate, you might as well be dead.”
“Hardly, Dad.”
“Hey, wait a second.” My father chucked me on the chin. The gesture was so cliché-paternal it might have come from a sitcom, maybe even the one he wrote. “I don’t say too many smart things anymore, sweetie pie, so when I do, listen up.”
On the basis of his behavior on Christmas Day and the fact that, between Christmas and New Year’s, I had to drive him around only twice in the middle of the night, I informed my sisters that he was simply brokenhearted, our old dad was somewhere inside the droopy outer shell and would be back eventually. But this didn’t mean I wasn’t ecstatic to return to school. “Just drop me at the airport,” I told him.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, absolutely.”
When we arrived at the terminal, my father pulled my suitcase out of the trunk and stood there, his handkerchief out, ready to catch his tears. I kissed him lightly on the cheek.
“We have something special, don’t we, Evie?” A sad smile trembled out.
I grabbed my suitcase. “Bye, Dad.” I backed up fast. “Bye,” I shouted louder, although he wasn’t far away.
I wanted to cheer when those automatic doors opened and I was standing in the check-in area with tons of other kids returning to college. They had parents hanging around them, handing them gum and Life Savers, asking them if they’d packed everything. I was anonymous. Not one person there was related to me, and my heart soared.
At school, I threw myself into final exams. My last was in a course called Great American Plays. We’d had to read a play a night. My friend Zoe had obtained a copy of the previous year’s final, and it had questions like “Pork chops?” You had to know what play pork chops figured in.
Zoe and I, fueled by No-Doz, stayed up all night shouting clues at each other. “Water?” “The Miracle Worker.” “Dog?” “Come Back, Little Sheba.”
When the hall phone rang, it was four in the morning.
“It’s my dad, who else?” I picked up the receiver. “Hi, Dad.” I didn’t even wait to hear his voice, and was punch-drunk enough to be nice. There was no response. “A prank,” I told Zoe.
“Sorry, Wrong Number,” said Zoe.
I was hanging up when I heard, “Pills.” Thickly. Like he had mud in his mouth.
“Pills?” I put the phone back to my ear.
“Long Day’s Journey into Night. No, After the Fall,” shrieked Zoe.
I waved her to stop. “Dad, what is it?”
“I took No-Doz.” Really thickly now. Tongue-too-fat-for-mouth thick.
“Well, that’s no big deal. Believe me, I know.”
He hung up. I hung up. “What happened?” asked Zoe.
“Nothing. We’re taking No-Doz here and he’s taking it there. That’s weird.”
We returned to my room. I sat on the bed and pulled my textbook, 100 American Plays, onto my lap. It was the heaviest book in all my classes—ten pounds. I knew this because Zoe and I had weighed it. In protest we only dragged or slid it. “He doesn’t have finals. Why would anyone take No-Doz who didn’t have—Oh my God. He didn’t say, ‘No-Doz,’ he said, ‘Overdose.’”
I shoved the book off my lap and started hunting under clothes, papers, books. “What are you looking for?” asked Zoe. There it was, my address book, under a bag of potato chips. I raced to the phone.
I couldn’t get the booth open. I yanked and yanked at the door. “Help.” Zoe had followed me. She reached over and pushed. The door folded in.
“I need change,” I shouted as I thumbed through the book for Maddy’s number.
“Shut up,” I heard someone yell groggily.
“Eve’s father took an overdose,” said Zoe, running to her room.
“You’re kidding?”
“Eve’s father took an overdose.” I heard it repeated over and over, punctuated by yawns, as Zoe tore back, holding out a jar filled with nickels, dimes, and quarters.
I fumbled with the coins as I stuffed them in, misdialed, and tried too quickly to start over. I banged on the receiver to get a dial tone.
“Let me dial.” Zoe pressed down on the receiver, held it awhile, then released it and inserted several quarters. “What’s the number?”
The entire floor was out of bed and gathered around the booth. I noticed that Joanne, the engaged person, was now sleeping with toilet paper around her head. While Zoe dialed for me, I wondered whether Joanne would sleep that way after she got married.
Zoe handed me the receiver. I heard ringing. An angry male voice answered: “What is it?”
“I’m sorry to wake you—” I stopped. I could barely speak. “This is Maddy’s sister, Madeline Mozell’s sister Eve. Get her, hurry up, please, it’s an emergency.”
While I waited what seemed like five minutes, but was probably only two, several girls got bored and went back to bed.
Finally Maddy picked up. “What’s wrong?”
“Dad took an overdose of something, I don’t know what. You’ll have to call the police and get over to the house.”
“Me?”
“You’re the only one out there, for God’s sake.”
“But suppose he’s dead. Suppose I find him plopped on the carpet. Or like, he could be in the bathtub.” She started gasping, hyperventilating.
“Maddy, you have to.”
“I won’t go.” She screamed this really loud, and kept on screaming. Probably everyone in the hall could hear.
“What’s going on? Is that her father?” asked Joanne.
I yelled into the receiver, “Isaac, Isaac, are you there?”
“’Lo.”
“Isaac?”
“This isn’t Isaac, it’s Presto. If Maddy wanted to be with Isaac, she could, but she doesn’t want to. She wants to be with me.”
“Presto, please slap my sister, she’s hysterical.” I heard a slap. “Thank you. Would you please put her back on?”
She was crying tamely now, making sad little hiccuping sounds, as if she’d scraped her knee in the playground and the teacher had finally quieted her.
“Madeline, you have to do this.”
“Why? It’s not my fault.”
“It’s not mine either.” Now I was crying too, heading her off at the pass. “Maddy, someone has to take care of this, so just do it, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Thanks.” We were sniffling in unison. I hung up.
“Are you all right?” Zoe asked.
“Yes.” I wiped my nose on my sleeve. “I don’t think I can study anymore,” I said as Zoe trailed me to my room. “I think I have to”—I made a face at her, trying to smile—“go to bed.” I closed my door.
That was my father’s first hospitalization, and my sisters and I were a great team. After I got the crazy call, Maddy checked him in, and Georgia did the follow-up. “Not enough to kill him. Big surprise,” she reported.
“I didn’t get a wink of sleep. I probably flunked my final,” I told Georgia, knowing I hadn’t. I was too much of a trouper to flunk. I was one of the supercompetent Mozell sisters. I could abort my father’s suicide and pass a final exam the next day. “Look at you. You’re fine,” my mother had pointed out. Was she right, or was I proving her right, living up to her expectations even now, especially now, when I could never get her seal of approval?
Four (#uf27aafa2-544c-5332-9ecd-2087dd168095)
At six a.m., the phone rings. “He’s dead,” I say to Joe, and grab the receiver. “Hello.”
“Is this the beautiful, wonderful daughter of Lou Mozell?”
“Hi, Dad. Are you all right?”
“Why’d you lock me in the pen? ’Cause of Jesse?”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Go to hell.” He hangs up.
I feel dizzy from the jolt—first to the body, then to the brain. Joe puts out his arm for me to snuggle into. I shake my head.
“He’s been in that geriatric/psychiatric ward a week and he’s definitely not better. I wish they would slap some handcuffs on him. At least then he couldn’t phone.”
“How about a straitjacket?” suggests Joe.
“Right.” I throw off the covers and get up. I jerk open the closet and look for my robe.
“He doesn’t know what he’s doing.” Joe pats the bedside table, hunting around for his glasses. He puts them on and watches me from the bed.
I go into the bathroom. Why am I in here? “What am I looking for?” I yell to Joe.
“Your bathrobe.”
“Right.” I take it off the hook and go back into the bedroom. “I hope this memory thing my father has isn’t catching.”
The phone rings again. Joe reaches for it, but I get there first. “It’s my father,” I say nobly.
