—Excerpted
from In Retrospect, by Katherine Luck, available at www.amazon.com.Wednesday, March 15th, 198910:50 a.m.Avalon Hospital, SeattleAfter a year of visiting his mother at Avalon
Psychiatric Hospital, all
the duty nurses recognize
Cesar. He forgets to sign in sometimes,
but they never yell at him about
it. They smile at him. They never smile at anyone; not even each other. It
helps that he donated over sixty-thousand dollars to the
hospital last year, of course. He walks briskly down the hall, as he does every Wednesday. He doesn’t enjoy these
visits.The sun is unseasonably bright
today. It pours in thick shafts through the picture windows in the
sunroom. Cesar glances at the honey sheen and his steps slow.A young woman with very dark hair is
seated by the largest window. Her body makes a slim, finely-etched
silhouette against the sun. He’s never seen her before.The light is dazzling and hard to see
through, yet something about her quietude, her isolation strikes him as wildly
lovely. She’s like a deer that will bolt
away as soon as it perceives that it’s seen.
He’s unexpectedly stirred. Maybe it’s just the sunlight.
It’s been gray and miserable in Seattle
since mid-September. Maybe it’s just been way too long
since he’s been on a date.He forces himself to pick up his feet
and continue down the hall. He stops at room fourteen.Cesar knocks sharply on the door.
Three taps. It always has to be
three, or she becomes agitated. Three is
a safe number. A holy number. “¿Qué? ¿Qué-qué-qué?!” The angry, bird-like voice shrills
behind the neutral face of the door.“Hola,
Señora Ortiz. Tengo su medicina.” “Pase,” she hollers.Cesar opens the
door gently and enters his mother’s
room. “Hi, Mamá. It’s Wednesday.” His mother
sits in a rocking chair by the
bed. She’s clean and dressed today. Her wispy, white hair is neatly gathered into a pink ribbon at the
nape of her neck. Each of her previous
hospitals had been lucky to get her in the
shower once a month, and they had
required heavy sedation to accomplish that feat. He wonders how long this place will be able
to coerce her.Cesar sits, opening his mouth to tell
her how beautiful the sunshine is
and that she ought to open the
drapes that cover her window, but she cuts him off. Her voice rises and falls in the weirdly musical mutation of Spanish that she’s
been speaking since he was a teenager. “What I want to know is this: what are they
doing? Huh, Cesar? It’s intolerable!”“Yes, it is.”“It’s got to be repaired, that’s all
I know. Have you done that yet,
Cesar? Have you sutured and surrendered
to the wounds of our Lord and
Savior?”“Yes.
Of course.”She glares at him suspiciously, then blinks.“There are whole fountains flowing
blood in the south, and you’re here
again. Jesus is watching you, Cesar.”“Of course.”“And where the
hell have the legitimate tortillas
gone to? What are these
floury nasty things they keep
feeding me here? I want corn ones! Proper tortillas, for God’s sake! I’ve earned them. They’re Christ’s body.”“Yes, Mamá.”“You tell them
that. You make them
give me normal tortillas.”“Okay.”“And make that damned doctor talk
right! She lisps like a damned
Castilian. I can’t stand it. Make her speak Mexican-Spanish. Stupid woman.
Idiot El Salvadorian whores at the
front desk. Chattering like chickens in
a berry patch. Make them talk right too.”He nods. He knows better than to argue with her by
now. “I’ll
do that.” Her
fingers, gnarled like old walking sticks, flick in irritable circles. “The
saints are having a conference about me tonight. They’re gonna decide what to do with my
feet. They’re dividing them up.
Heaven and hell…what if they
get separated? What’ll I do then, Cesar?
You’d better call them up and
tell them to let me keep both. I need them.” “Yes,
okay.”Cesar’s mind wanders. He stares at the
wall behind his mother. It never changes. She is perpetually disoriented, or
worse. Sometimes she’s violent. When he was a teenager, her delirium
was slight and seemed to relax her. Like
being drunk. “Cesar,
there’re two new creatures being
born today in the world. Small things, teeny-tiny. Nobody noticed them
yet, but I did. They’re highly
poisonous. Right out there,” she jabs a walnut-varnished finger at the shaded window. “Yes,
Mamá.”Ever since Antonio was born, she has
deteriorated steadily. Cesar’s not sure
how much longer she’ll remain at even this level of coherence. “They’ve
sent a man to go kill them. But I know they’re
creatures of God. Daughters of
Jesus. Right?” “Right,
Mamá.” Cesar
has three conference calls to make when he gets back to the
office. The Japanese are getting antsy
over the land holdings they purchased last month. He has to redraft their
property management plan. He needs to
get Chicago to
fax over the contracts again. God knows how long that will take. “And
then, when the
rain comes, the fish keep learning
to walk out of the ocean. Soon they’ll
be living in the gutters, right
above me. I ask you, is that
tolerable? No! You need to get rid of them
for me.” “Okay.” One
evening, she sat at their kitchen
table, the shiny thrift store
Formica peeling near the elbow
spots. She was radiant with ebony hair
and ruby lips under the bare bulb
speckled with singed fruit flies and grease spatters. She burned bright in a hot pink dress like
Barbie doll would wear, thrift store also, her rosary clutched in her hand.Cesar was fifteen and night-bored,
sick of TV and too early to go to bed.
He went into the kitchen to
see why she had the Spanish station
playing at full volume. Enthusiastic
traffic and weather reports shook the walls of their
decrepit house and resonated off the
tall glass of milk which sat on the
table before his mother . The radio announcer fast-talked about
impending rain, which was a no-brainer for Seattle in January, and she smiled as she
methodically cut the beads off her
rosary with a meat knife, dropping each shining black bead into the milk. She
said a Hail Mary as she cut each bead.
She pricked her index finger and squeezed off a drop of blood with each
prayer, letting it drip like a fat berry into the
glass. She sat this way for hours, until
the glass was strawberry pink. He went to bed and locked the door before he could find out what she intended
to do with the milk. Cesar
digs his fingernails into his forehead, plowing at the
new grooves that have begun to develop in recent years.“There’s nothing precious left in
this world.” “True,
Mamá.” He
has a dinner meeting at seven with the
CFO of Preston and Hughes. He has to get all the
reports verified and approved by the
bank before then, which might be
dicey. He’d better make some calls as
soon as he gets out of here. “And
surely there are no more reasons
left for the sheep to be
killed. It’s ridiculous to see such
blood in the streets every single
afternoon. In this day and age. Isn’t it?” “Yes,
Mamá.” He’d
better check on the reservations for
tonight. He has so much damned work to
do. His
mother’s eyes suddenly go sharp and
stabbing, like silver pins, all over his face. “Where’s the
baby? Where is he?” Cesar’s mind snaps back. His gaze slams hard to meet hers. “What, Mamá?”“Where’s my baby? My Antonio?”Cesar feels a sickening drop in his
stomach. She never mentions Antonio.“He’s at school, Mamá.”“What?”“He’s at law school. Remember?
He’s graduating in June.” “He
doesn’t love me.” “Yes,
he does. Of course he does.” She
shakes her head, her eyes brimming with tears. “I
want Antonio. I never see him. I cry for him, but I can never see him. I try so hard. I strain my eyes out, out, so far. I’ll die.
I cry every night.” Antonio
used to strain himself out, so far.
Every time Cesar came by the
house, he’d be in the front
window. Standing in little scuffed
sneakers on the back of the torn, mold-puddled couch. His palms pressed flat to the chilly glass so that they
looked like white gloves. His eyes such
huge black globes in his tiny face; dead planets. He was always watching for Cesar, God knows
for how long. The
final time, Cesar came with a caseworker from Child Protective Services and a
court order. No cops, since there’d been no threat to Cesar’s life, and the Seattle PD was understaffed. Antonio had strained out at Cesar
through the rain-slick glass, his
face turning to water-weak joy when he saw his older brother
on the porch. He jumped off the
couch and out of sight to open the
door. There was a sinking pause, and then their
mother opened the
door. She
was pleasant, agreeable even, when the
caseworker gave her the legal spiel
and the court order. The caseworker spoke in halting, too-tidy
college Spanish. She was over
accessorized and tarty in her mall bought suit and fake pearl earrings. She was the
variety of woman that Cesar’s mother
loathed. Cesar could see Antonio beyond his mother’s hip; just inside the
smooth bend of her waist. She’d always
kept her figure up. She was all nods and
amiability.Then the
door slammed and Antonio started screaming behind the
chewed-up wood.Cesar had to kick the front door in, not for the
first time, which made the
caseworker jibber and protest and clap her hands over her face when wood
splintered out at her. There were such sobs and such screams
coming from deep within the
house. Cesar ran down the dark halls, not for the
first time, and found them both in the bathroom.
His mother
was holding Antonio down in the
cracked tub, pressing him flat with her body, her fingers forcing his mouth
open. Bottles of pills, most not opened,
rolled around the rust-browned scoop
of porcelain. She managed to shove two aspirins and
one of her antipsychotics down Antonio’s throat before Cesar pulled her
off. He ripped his little brother out of arms that hooked like thorn branches and
ran with him.Cesar sped with the little boy down the
hall, out the front door into
squinting winter light, toward his waiting car.
Antonio clung twig-slim arms chokingly tight around his neck through the silvery rain, sobbing so hard that Cesar could
barely keep from falling on the
slippery front lawn. He left the caseworker to cower and scramble around the house for the
often-disconnected phone to call the
police. That was a first for all of them.Antonio sobbed in Cesar’s car the entire drive to Cesar’s apartment. He sobbed in Cesar’s arms when he carried him
inside and shoved his fingers down the
boy’s tiny throat to make him throw up.
He sobbed in Cesar’s bed when he refused, in a childish blur of Spanish
and English, to sleep alone that night. It was weeks before Cesar could get
Antonio to take his candy-flavored vitamins or to eat anything pill-shaped like
peas or beans. It was months before he
stopped having hellish, shrieking nightmares every night. It was years before his teachers stopped
sending home crayon pictures he’d drawn of huge women with wild hair and vampire
teeth in coffin-tight bathtubs; aspirin-shaped raindrops falling from black
clouds to crush little stick-figure boys.The only thing he can’t humor her
about is Antonio. She has never forgiven
him for taking Antonio away from her. He
has never forgiven her for treating his little brother
so brutally. Cesar lets out a sigh. He glances at his watch. It’s been forty minutes: close enough to an
hour. “I’ve
got to go.” He rises and kisses his mother’s forehead. “I
want churros.” Cesar
rakes his hand through his lightly graying hair. “You
can’t eat churros. You know that. They’re very bad for you.”“I need churros! Churros, churros, Cesar!”“Alright, okay, yes. Next Wednesday. Okay?”“Okee-dokee.” She smiles at him, minutely, for the first time since he arrived. “See
you next Wednesday.” “Hmf.” She has already turned away, glaring
at the heavy shade on her window, by
the time he reaches her door. He
walks out of her room, shutting the
door softly behind him. He
exhales hard, closing his eyes briefly.
These visits with his mother
are getting harder and harder as the
years pass. They leave him feeling worn
out and lonely and aging.He has no one else in his life. Just his mother
and Antonio. She’s never going to get better, and
Antonio is moving on with his life. He’s
twenty-five, no longer Cesar’s little boy.
He has become his own man, busy with law school and his own goals. Maybe he won’t come home to Seattle after he graduates, even though
Cesar’s been trying to coax and, at times, openly pressure him into doing so
ever since he left the state three
years ago.If Antonio doesn’t come home, Cesar
will have no one at all once their
mother dies. His career has kept him busy for years, the ambition driving him and making it easy not to
notice the things that were
lacking. But now, he’s financially where he’s
always wanted to be. Now, he can afford
to enjoy life. Now, at forty-two, he’s
powerfully lonely. He walks slowly away from his mother’s room.The green exit sign flickers at the end of the
hall. The bulbinside is about to burn out.He glances at the
open door to the sunroom and his
steps stop. The young woman is still sitting in the chair by the
wide picture window. She stares flatly
out into the anemic sunshine, her posture
lifeless and empty. Cesar’s gaze flicks
back to the exit sign. He hesitates.
He steps cautiously into the sunroom.“Hi.” He speaks softly. He has become adept at talking to mental
patients over the years. He knows that you move very slowly, you keep
your hands neutral at your sides, you don’t smile. You radiate calm. “Are you new here? I’m Cesar.
I was visiting my mother. Lupita Ortiz.
Have you met her?”The young woman turns to him. She stares at him, blinks, then slowly aims her face back at the window.He gets quite a good look at her.Horrible scars coat her skin,
clotting her features. Her forehead is
bisected by a finger-thick gash, padded with scar tissue like a pink length of
linguini. Her left cheekbone shines
chalky through bloodless corpse-flesh.
The cheek is nearly translucent, a bare membrane of skin stretched to
cover her jaw. A filigree of red spider
webs radiate across her right cheek and her chin. Worst of all are her lips. They look as if they
have been torn off, then barely
reattached. They shudder and flicker
with each of her exhalations. Cesar’s stomach seizes. He steps too fast to her side.“God, sweetheart,
what happened? Car accident?” She
flinches. She turns farther away.
Her nose touches the window
glass. Cesar slows himself forcibly. He eases into the
wicker chair opposite hers and ignores her for three minutes. He has learned that this helps; it always
works with his mother.Softly, he begins to speak
again. He keeps his eyes off her face so
that she won’t get agitated. His mother is always agitated by staring eyes.“You don’t have to tell me, it’s
okay. Do you like it here? This is one of the
best hospitals in the state. My mother
hates it. She just treated me to a
forty-minute lecture about how awful it is.
No corn tortillas, only flour.
Nobody speaks Mexican-Spanish, just Spain-style or El Salvadorian. Picky woman.
Who’s your doctor? Dr.
Farrell? She’s nice—my mother likes her, even though she learned Spanish from
the Berlitz academy. My mother
says she lisps.” She ignores him. Under her sweater, her chest is flatter than
a young boy’s. Cesar tries not to stare
at it, but he wonders.“God, it’s gorgeous out, isn’t
it? Feels like decades since we’ve seen the sun. Do
you ever go out in the yard? My mother
refuses. One of her things, you know how
it is.” Cesar glances at her averted
face. Her hair is severely skinned back
in a tight ponytail, dripping in a black shaft down her spine. He wonders what her name is, where she came
from. She’s much younger than the other
patients.“You know, I’m gonna sneak my mother in some churros next week. Know what those are? Really yummy deep-fried bits of…I don’t know
exactly. Some kind of dough. You dip ‘em in cream or salsa. Absolutely horrible for you. They’ll clog your arteries in ten seconds
flat. You want me to bring you
some? It’s no problem—I’ll hang for giving
them to my mother
if the docs find out. Might as well spread the
joy around if I’m gonna get in trouble, huh?”Her fingers move slightly in her lap
but she doesn’t look at him. Her eyes
are reflected in the window. They’re dead and lusterless, like
pebbles. “Okay, so I’ll bring you some,
too. You’re gonna love ‘em, I
promise. I’ll be back next Wednesday. I always come on Wednesday. You should try to meet my mom. She’s in room fourteen. Just knock and say, ‘Hola, Señora Ortiz. Tengo su medicina.’ She’ll let you right in and talk to you for
hours if you say that. Just keep nodding
at her and she won’t realize you don’t speak Spanish.” She doesn’t look at him. Cesar rises, glancing at his watch. He really needs to get back to the office.
He stayed too long today. “Well, it was very nice to meet
you. I’ll see you next Wednesday,
okay? Don’t forget. Fresh churros.”Anna turns her face slowly to
his. Her eyes drift upward. They death within rests in him. His gaze cups hers like a secure basket.A heaviness hits him full in the chest.
Suddenly it isn’t charity anymore.
Her eyes liquefy, animate with a swift yearning, then
focus raw pain on him. Slowly, her eyes drift away and
return to the window.The room is still and golden, exuding
a weighty apathy, like deep within the
ocean. She becomes inert in her chair
again. Cesar
wanders slowly out of the
sunroom. He won’t go back to work
yet. He’ll stop at the nurse’s station and find out her name. Read her file. They’ll let him. It’s irrational. He’s never done anything like this
before. He doesn’t know her. She’s uncommunicative. Given where she is, he can be certain that
she’s insane. But.He feels needed. It’s
so dangerously appealing, this sensation of protective altruism. He hasn’t experienced this tightening
urgency, this willful desire to rescue for years. Not since Antonio was tiny. Reaching out skinny arms in the thick dark, shrieking Cesar’s name over and over
from the thresher of a
nightmare. Falling back to sleep with
Cesar’s arms around him, his little head hard and warm against Cesar’s
collarbone as the TV flicked a
silent blue-gray patchwork over them
both. Cesar turns off his cell phone and
walks down the hall, his vision so
glazed with sunlight that he can’t see. Available at www.amazon.comIn RetrospectBy Katherine LuckJuly 26, 2007 ● FictionPaperback Original ● 325 Pages/$16.96 ● ISBN: 978-0-6151-4838-0 A small press specializing in the fiction of Pacific Northwest
authors, 26th Day Press celebrates the independent literary voice
which speaks for the unconventional and artistic spirit of this region.
