There was no demon. No possession. There couldn’t be.
She raised one eyebrow in a dramatic, mockingAm I?expression.
“Admit it!” I snapped. “You’re just fucking with me. Fucking with me like you always used to fuck with me.”
I remembered the time she’d told me we’d lost the house and would have to live in our car, the horrible time she’d told me my brother was dead. It was all just a game to her.
Now she smiled, lay back, closed her eyes, and resumed singing, more weakly this time:“All the birds of the air fell a-sighing and a-sobbing when they heard the bell toll for poor Cock Robin.”
I stepped forward again, put my hands on her frail, bony upper arms. “Would you stop with the fucking singing?” I shouted at her.
“Alison?”
I turned. Mark was in the doorway, his face stricken.
“Ouch,” my mother said in a small, weak voice. “You’re hurting me, Ali. Please stop,” she whimpered. “Don’t hurt me again. Please.”
I let go, stepped back, raised my hands like a criminal caught in the act. Mark came into the room and, with his hands planted firmly on my shoulders, pulled me away from my mother, rescuing her.
TWENTY-FOUR
THE LITTLE GIRL SITTINGon the mall Santa’s lap was screaming, and who could blame her? He was obviously an imposter in his shiny polyester suit, fake beard, vinyl boots. The helper elf was trying to soothe the poor kid, offering her a tiny cellophane-wrapped candy cane. The little girl’s frazzled mother was begging her to stop crying, just for a minute, so they could take the picture.
“It’s Santa,” her mother kept saying. “You love Santa, don’t you?”
The girl, who couldn’t have been more than four, thrashed and struggled on Santa’s lap in her good red dress as her mother held her there. “Please,” her mother begged. “Just be still for one minute.”
“No!” the girl screamed, red-faced, hysterical. “No! No! Nooooo!”
I flashed the mother the evilest look I could muster, then walked away from the torture session toward the food court.
Mark had insisted I get out of the house, do some shopping, maybe even meet a friend for lunch. Something to take my mind off the terrible news about Paul. Get some space from my mother.
“What was going on with you in there?” he’d asked me yesterday after extricating me from her room, saving my poor feeble mother from her abusive daughter. He watched me worriedly, like he was no longer sure what I might be capable of.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Well, yournothingmight just leave ugly bruises on your mother’s arms.” There was a terrible edge to his voice.
“I was barely touching her! If you’d heard what she was saying—”I stopped myself, knowing any explanation would sound like a stupid—and possibly crazy—excuse.
He let out a long breath. It sounded like a hiss, or a balloon deflating. “Alison, I understand that things are complicated and difficult right now, for you, for all of us, but if we’re even starting to slip into anything that could be considered elder abuse, we need to find another place for your mother to go. Right away. I’m sure there are some lovely private institutions that do end-of-life care.”
“No,” I said firmly. “I’m fine—it’s fine. She’s staying.” No way was I sending her somewhere else. We had unfinished business. I needed to find out if what she’d told me could possibly be true. Confront her if it wasn’t. And if it was (I knew I was crazy for even considering the possibility), it was up to me to find a way to stop it.
“Well, you clearly need a break,” Mark had insisted. He said it with a smile, as if exiling me from the house was a miracle cure-all. As if spending the day shopping was something I might actually enjoy. Did my husband know me at all?
“I’ll make some calls. Get some extra help. A few more hours a day of care from the hospice agency. You said your mother likes that LNA, Janice, right? We’ll see if we can get her in a little more often. And there’s Penny—when I talked with her this afternoon, she offered to help however she could. And she seems to really like your mom.” I’d grimaced a little here and tried to make it look like a smile. “We don’t need much,” Mark went on. “Just someone to sit with her. Make her meals. Give you some time off. You can get more time in your studio. You can take Moxie for a walk—get out of the house for a bit every day.”
I wasn’t an idiot. I understood Mark wanted a babysitter for me as much as for my mother.
“Sounds great,” I had said with a smile. “Thanks. You’re right. I’ve been really stressed. It’s… a lot.”
He massaged my shoulders. “You don’t have to be Superwoman here, Ali.”
“I know,” I’d said.
“You need to take care of yourself. Maybe you should think about seeing that therapist again… the one you liked up in Burlington? Cara? Was that her name?”
