My mother stops the swing again, but this time she doesn’t say anything about the playground. She starts taking me out. I make a loud noise and flap my hands, letting her know that this is not okay with me. She keeps taking me out.
NO! More swinging! I’m not done. I want to stay in the swing! I want to stay in my body! NO! I want to exist in the world! I need to keep my body repeating or I might lose my body forever. I might be gone forever!
I scream really loud, trying to show my mother that I need to keep swinging or I might die, but for some reason, she doesn’t understand what I’m showing her. I go stiff, trying to keep my body in the swing, but she’s too strong and she doesn’t understand, and she grabs my body away. I squeeze my eyes shut so I won’t see my body leaving the swing. I scream even louder so everything about my stolen body and the swing disappears, and only the sound of my screaming exists.
The next thing I know, I’m not outside anymore. I’m in the car, watching Barney. I’m watching Barney and his friends, and they’re doing what I know they should be doing. I stop screaming. I’m not dead because I’m watching Barney. I’m okay.
But then I’m not okay. The car is going the WRONG WAY. The way the car is going is not the way home. The way home is by three white houses, then one brick house, then a street, then one yellow house and two white houses, then a red light/green light. Then church, the trees, one brown house, one white house, one gray house with peeling paint, then Pigeon Lane, the street that HOME is on.
But we did not go this way. This way is a sign with a picture of a girl on it, then a brown house, a white house, a blue house, then a street, a building, a parking lot, a red light. This is not the way HOME. We ALWAYS go HOME after the playground, and this way does not match the map in my head that shows the way home.
I don’t know where we’re going, but we’re not going home. I am not going home to have three chicken nuggets with ketchup on my blue plate with juice in my Barney cup for lunch at the kitchen table. I’m not going to see Danyel after lunch because Danyel comes to my home, and I will not be home. I will be somewhere else.
Maybe we are lost, and maybe I will never see my home again. The rule is we ALWAYS go HOME after the playground, and this is breaking the rule. If this rule can break, then anything can break. Maybe the world is breaking.
I am screaming. I want to go HOME. I want to get out of this car that is going the wrong way, but I am trapped in this seat. I am screaming, filling with hot, scary liquid. The hot, scary liquid keeps filling me, until I’m too full and burning on the inside. I shake my hands to spill some of the hot, scary liquid out through my fingers, but the hot, scary liquid keeps filling me, too huge and hot and fast for my fingers to empty.
I close my eyes so I don’t have to see the wrong houses and buildings and streets. I’m screaming as loud as I can so I can become the sound of my scream and not a boy trapped in a car seat who is no longer swinging but going very fast in the wrong direction.
When I open my eyes, I realize I’m no longer screaming. I’m lying under my Barney blanket in my bed. I see the tree outside the window, my box of rocks, the calendar on the wall. I know this is good because this means I am home, and this also means that the world didn’t break, but I don’t feel good yet. I feel sweaty and tired, and I still feel too much hot, scary liquid bubbling and sloshing around inside that needs to leak out to make room for feeling good.
I lie in bed and wonder how we got home. There must be a different way. I wonder why we went a different way.
Today is Monday. It is sunny and warm. I am wearing brown pants and a red shirt. Maybe on sunny, warm Mondays when I wear brown pants and a red shirt, after my mother says I’m done swinging at the playground, we go a different way home. Maybe on sunny, warm Mondays when I wear brown pants and a red shirt and we leave the playground to go home, we go by the sign with a picture of a girl on it, then a brown house, then a white house, a blue house, a street, a building, a parking lot, and a red light. Maybe this is a new rule.
I’m hungry now. I go downstairs with both feet on all twelve steps and into the kitchen. My three chicken nuggets with ketchup on my blue plate, my Barney cup with juice, my fork, and white napkin are all on the table for lunch, just like they always are. My mother isn’t sitting at the table, but I feel her nearby. I flap my hands and jump and let out one of my happy sounds, getting rid of the last drops of the hot, scary liquid inside me.
I sit down and eat my lunch. I feel good. But then I have a thought I don’t like. I didn’t know there were a NUMBER of ways home from the playground. Now there are TWO ways to come home from the playground. I don’t like that number two. Two is in the middle of things. Two is unfinished. Two is in between, and I don’t like in between. I wish there were THREE ways to come home from the playground.
The first way, which is the old way, goes by three white houses, then one brick house, then a street, then one yellow house and two white houses, then a red light/green light. Then church, the trees, one brown house, one white house, one gray house with the peeling paint, then Pigeon Lane. The second way, the new way we go on warm, sunny Mondays when I wear brown pants and a red shirt, is by the sign with a picture of a girl on it, then a brown house, then a white house, a blue house, a street, a building, a parking lot, and a red light, and some other stuff I didn’t see before Pigeon Lane because I had my eyes shut.
There has to be one more way. There have to be THREE ways on the map from the playground to home. But what if there are only two ways, and that is it? What if we are stuck with two?
I feel the hot, scary liquid rushing at me again, but I see it coming this time. I shut the door on it before it can even touch my toes, before it has the chance to flood me.
Three Blind Mice. Three Blind Mice. Three Blind Mice.
Three Blind Mice. Three Blind Mice. Three Blind Mice.
Three Blind Mice. Three Blind Mice. Three Blind Mice.
CHAPTER 23
After finishing another chapter, Beth left the library early and is now sitting on a couch in Dr. Campbell’s office, which is really the living room in Dr. Campbell’s house, wishing she’d waited in the car. She’s on time, and Jimmy’s late, and she feels unbearably self-conscious sitting alone on a marriage counselor’s couch with nothing to say.
And the couch isn’t helping anything. When she sat down, she sank deep and back into the cushion, her knees forced apart and up, her feet lifted off the ground. She tried to reposition herself without looking as if anything was wrong, but the more she wiggled, the deeper she sank. Dr. Campbell’s couch is quicksand.
Dr. Campbell is sitting opposite her in a sturdy leather chair, sipping his coffee, studying her, saying nothing. Maybe this is some kind of psychological test. He told her to “have a seat” and waved her over here. Maybe he’s judging what type of person she is based on how she reacts to being swallowed by a couch cushion. Does continuing to sit like this mean she’s an easygoing, well-adjusted woman, or does it mean she’s a doormat who will silently endure anything? Should she politely ask for a different seat?
She decides to keep quiet. She waggles her feet in the air as if to the beat of a playful melody and browses the room, trying to act normal.
Dr. Campbell has long, wavy, gray hair, glasses, and a beard. He’d look like Santa, but he’s rail thin. He’s wearing a gold wedding band. That’s good. A marriage counselor should be married. It’s always bugged her that the girls’ pediatrician has no children. Textbooks and degrees from expensive universities are great, but for her money, there’s no better school than real life.
He’s drinking coffee from a large, white Starbucks mug. This interests her. She’s never seen a Starbucks. She left New York City just before the first one there opened. She only knows they exist because she’s been stopped many times over the years by tourists asking her, Can you tell me where the Starbucks is? She’ll never forget the look on the man’s face when, that first time, she replied, What’s Starbucks? As if he were talking to a woman who’d ju
st been released from an insane asylum. Now she simply says, There aren’t any here, and she points their astonished faces to The Bean.
She wonders where Dr. Campbell got the mug. He must travel off-island. She wonders where he goes—Boston, New York, exotic parts of the world where they have Starbucks coffee.
Despite there being no bookshelves in the room, books and magazines are everywhere, piled in teetering towers as tall as Beth up against the walls, on either side of Dr. Campbell’s chair, on random spots in the middle of the floor. It’s a library constructed by Dr. Seuss. Several towers look as if they’re one magazine or book shy of collapsing, like a book version of the game Jenga just before someone loses.
The white walls are bare but for one picture, an elaborate family tree drawn in calligraphy on tea-colored paper meant to look old. As she traces the branches, she realizes that it is Dr. Campbell’s family tree and that, if the tree is true, he’s a direct descendant of Edward Starbuck, one of the original 1659 settlers of Nantucket. She’s impressed and surprised that she didn’t know this about him.
Island lineage carries a lot of status here. Jimmy’s lived here for twenty-one years, and she’s been here for fifteen, but they’ll both always be considered “wash-ashores.” Outsiders. Peasant people. Their children were born here, so Sophie, Jessica, and Gracie are natives, but only first generation. Insiders, but direct descendants of peasant outsiders. Dr. Campbell is a native whose ancestors go all the way back. On Nantucket, Dr. Campbell is royalty. It’s an understated royalty, without the paparazzi or a castle or pomp and circumstance or even any real wealth, but it’s recognized. It’s there.
She wonders if the Starbucks coffee store has anything to do with the Starbuck families of Nantucket. Probably not, else the island would surely have one. She doesn’t ask.
By far the most interesting thing in the room is the falcon in the enormous cage next to the fireplace behind Dr. Campbell. The bird is about the size of a small hawk with dark gray wings, a white belly flecked with gray, and gray feathers that wrap around its creepy black eyes like the mask of a villain. One of its wings looks as if it might be mangled, broken. The falcon is perched on a piece of driftwood, almost motionless, staring at Beth. It looks menacing, like it wants to peck her eyes out.
“That’s Oscar. Don’t worry, he’s domesticated. He won’t bother us,” says Dr. Campbell.
Beth nods, bothered.
The doorbell rings. Thank God. Dr. Campbell gets up and lets Jimmy in.
“This is for the bird,” says Jimmy, handing Dr. Campbell a black trash bag.
Dr. Campbell peeks into the bag and smiles. “Wonderful. Have a seat. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Nantucket locals love to barter. Beth and Jimmy used to pay for car repairs with scallops. Jill’s husband, Mickey, does construction work in exchange for dental work. Dr. Campbell accepts roadkill as a copay.
Jimmy sits on the opposite end of the couch, an empty cushion between him and Beth. He sinks just like Beth did, but he doesn’t look nearly as uncomfortable as she feels. His feet still reach the ground.
“You’re late,” she whispers.
“I had a hard time finding something.”
“What was in the bag?”
“Squirrel.”
“Ack. Gross. Why didn’t you just get some pet food at the grocery store?”
“Because the whole point is to save twenty bucks. Kinda defeats the purpose if I go buy him food.”
“Where did you find the squirrel?”
“Milestone Road.”
“Did you wash your hands?”
Before Jimmy can answer, Dr. Campbell returns with what she can only assume from the smell is dead squirrel, opens the birdcage for a moment, latches it shut (she’s careful to notice), then settles back into his leather chair. He slaps his thighs and smiles.
Is anyone going to wash his hands?
“Let’s begin,” says Dr. Campbell. “Why are we here?”
No one answers. Beth and Jimmy sit, comfortable in their respective, familiar silences, uncomfortable in their respective, sunken seats. Beth looks over at Jimmy, who is staring into his germy, roadkill-covered hands. She looks over Dr. Campbell’s shoulder at Oscar, who has a bit of squirrel slime hanging from his yellow beak, his black, predatory eyes still sizing her up.
“Jimmy,” says Dr. Campbell. “Let’s start with you.”
“Well, ah, we’re separated. We’ve been married fourteen years, and we’re separated, and we’re trying to get back together.”
Jimmy clasps his hands and waits. That’s it. That’s his summary.
Get him, Oscar. Gouge his eyes out.
“We’re separated because he cheated on me, and I don’t know if I want to get back together.”
“Okay,” says Dr. Campbell, not at all visibly outraged or moved to her side, as Beth would’ve hoped. “Jimmy, why did you cheat on Beth?”
Jimmy fidgets and sinks a little deeper into his cushion. A black cat with white paws struts into the room, brushes against Beth’s dangling feet as it walks by, and curls up in a sunny spot on the floor by one of the windows, just outside the shadow of one of the book towers. Jimmy is allergic to cats.
“I dunno.”
“Beth, why do you think he cheated on you?”
Salt is too sexy, Angela is too sexy, I’m not sexy enough, he isn’t attracted to me anymore, he doesn’t love me anymore, he’s a jerk, he’s a liar, he’s a cheater, he’s a man. “I’d really like to hear Jimmy’s answer.”
Beth and Dr. Campbell look at Jimmy and wait. Another cat, this one gray, runs into the room and chases the black cat off its sunny spot on the floor. They both disappear behind the couch. Oscar chirps and flaps its one good wing against the cage. Jimmy rubs his nose and clears his throat.
“Look, I know I was wrong. I’m the bad guy here, and I’m really sorry. I was hoping we could put it behind us and start over. Wouldn’t rehashing all this stuff just hurt Beth all over again?”
“Rehashing would mean that we’ve already hashed it. We haven’t talked about this at all,” says Beth.
“Beth, have you forgiven Jimmy?”
“No.”
“Are you ready to put his infidelity behind you and start over?”
“No.”
“If you’re going to get back together, it’s important for both of you to understand why this happened and to make some sort of peace with it. If you stay unconscious to why this happened and get back together, it’ll likely happen again. So you’re going to have to risk talking about some things that are uncomfortable and a little painful for both of you, yes?”
The phone rings somewhere in Dr. Campbell’s house. Dr. Campbell sips his coffee as if he doesn’t hear it. The three of them sit in silence. The phone stops ringing. The three of them sit in silence.
“She was always unhappy with me. I can’t remember the last time I came home and she was happy to see me.”
“You get home at two a.m.! I’m asleep, Jimmy. I’m sorry I don’t wake up and throw on a smile and something pretty and greet you at the door with slippers and a cigar.”
“Even before the bartending job, you hated having me around.”
“You weren’t working. I hated you not working. You were miserable, moping around the house, making messes for me to clean up all day, like the house was your hotel, and I was housekeeping.”
“Everything in that house has to be exactly how she likes it. Everything has to be perfect. I’m not perfect, Beth. No guy is.”
“Not looking for perfect, Jimmy. Something in between miserable cheating bastard and perfect would be great.”
He says nothing. She folds her arms over her chest and waggles her foot, satisfied to have delivered the last word there.
“Okay, Jimmy. Let’s get back to the question,” says Dr. Campbell, redirecting the two the way a parent might talk to a pair of preschoolers. “You felt unwanted and unhappy. Did you talk to Beth about how you were feeling?”
&
nbsp; “No, but it was obvious.”
“Maybe, maybe not. By not telling her, you didn’t give her the chance to help you or change anything. You have to communicate what you need, open yourself, give Beth the opportunity to understand what’s really going on with you. Unfortunately, we humans can’t read minds.”
Jimmy nods.
“Beth, were you unhappy with Jimmy?”
“Before I found out he was cheating?”
“Yes.”
“Well, yeah, anyone would’ve been. After he stopped scalloping, he was out of work. He wasn’t fun to be around.”
“You weren’t exactly supportive,” says Jimmy.
“What does that mean? How wasn’t I supportive?”
“Everyone we saw, she had to talk about me being a bum.”
“I never said that. I only mentioned it to people so they’d know to call you if anyone had any work.”
“And how about you? I didn’t see you out looking for a job to help us.”
“I checked all the papers. None of them had any positions open. And I did work. Remember I did caretaking for those summerhouses?”
“That was like a couple hundred dollars a month, that wasn’t a real job.”
“What am I supposed to do here, Jimmy? I quit my life fifteen years ago to marry you and have these kids and live on this godforsaken island. I was supposed to go to school and become a writer.”
“I never stopped you from writing.”
When Gracie was a baby and Jessica and Sophie were preschoolers, Beth could barely manage to take a shower, never mind write anything creative. This was probably when all of her essays and short stories and writing notebooks went into the attic. She didn’t have the time or space. But the girls got older and more independent. They went to school, and Beth had plenty of time for showers. She had plenty of time and space to write again, but she didn’t. Something stopped her, but it wasn’t Jimmy.
“Well, I’m writing now,” she says, like it’s a threat.
“Do you think it’s my life’s dream to be a bartender?”