7. Friday, July 6, 2012

Friday, 7/6, 2012
7pm, home

I’m at my desk, writhing and wringing the beanbag wrist rest, waiting for either my mother or H5 or neither of them to call me back.

Basically, if I don’t hear from them by 9pm tonight, I’ll call the cops. Right? I called her Monday before noon, then Wednesday before noon, then H5 an hour ago. When do I call again? What do I want to know? I always panic and she’s always “fine,” with some complaints, but she’s always alive if not kicking, as she will be this time.

I dread this so much, the fear and the waiting. The scenarios. People will say I didn’t do enough. I should have done something. I sent every kind of authority over there, a housecleaner – you know what, I’m not going to defend myself…is the kind of thing said by people who are going to keep defending themselves long after anyone else cares.

Another cat on the mousepad. I have trained them badly. Ashes, god, everywhere. I realized earlier that I’ve been hoarding the butt ends of my joints for years, in some cases, a whole dirty boxful of them, and that I’m being gross. A few years ago, I threw out the paraphernalia and a bag of disgusting old roaches, and it was a nice clean start to the same old smoking habit. But I’m not so clean and tidy, though I used to be, and then my eyesight got worse and I was tired more.

Now I’m thinking I should call the police right away and have them do a welfare check. Why right away? I had some flash of her being suffocated by him, strangled; news stories about people using dead relatives to claim social security benefits while the corpses rot in a chair. He’s been keeping her barely alive and totally addled, and…no, because then he’d have her call. If she was alive, he’d have her call.

She’d have called by now if she was alive. So she’s dead. Which means there’s really no rush, unless he’s going to commit suicide or kill the cats because he knows he’s busted.

Velvet’s head is really heavy on my right forearm, she seems to think the movement of my typing is some kind of intentional rubbing on my part, wigging under her chin. No, she knows what’s up, she’s looking at the screen, stretching, readjusting herself in my lap. This is the kind of surface detail I can really pay attention to, when it’s walking around in front of me, and I really don’t want to think about Joan and H5 and H5 and Joan and the cats and the cats and the cats.

Logically: She would not call back because:

1. She didn’t have that cell phone number anymore.

2. She didn’t get either message.

• a. Because she doesn’t know how to work her phone
• b. Because H5 works it for her and deletes ones he doesn’t want her to hear

3. She didn’t want to call back.

4. She meant to call back and forgot, twice.

5. She is unable to call back.

• a. Because H5 doesn’t want her to.
• b. Because she is infirm or addled.
• c. Because she’s dead.

She doesn’t have the cell phone number anymore, or doesn’t know how to work it.

She’s bizarrely impaired when it came to phones, for someone who’d adopted the answering machine and fax as soon as they were available. She doesn’t know how to get her messages, or so she says. Sometimes her mailbox is full because of all the calls from  creditors.

Home phone has been a dead end for a while—first it had been shut off, then it wasn’t working, then when you called it sounded like an old modem, and I feel sure that H5 engineered it that way.

How long do I wait? What is the risk in waiting? Is this time-sensitive, or can it wait overnight? Is someone actively suffering and in need of immediate rescue? What could I find out tomorrow that would make me wish I’d have called tonight? I don’t know the words, but if you hum a few bars…

She doesn’t have the cell phone anymore. She didn’t need it for anything, or she lost it, or he lost it for her, or they couldn’t afford it. There are seventeen good reasons why she would not have that phone or access to it. I don’t need to put myself through this “creative” “exercise,” I can go out and get eggplant parmigiana even though ugh my ass.

10:00

I am going to be so annoyed when I finally hear from her. But not annoyed at her. Annoyed at myself, for doing this to myself again.

I am convinced this is it, but I’m always convinced this is it.

I’ll call H5 again – right now? Tomorrow morning. At 10 a.m., and then if I don’t hear anything by noon, I call the police? I don’t know what the protocol is. What is the harm in sending the police for a welfare check; isn’t that kind of what I want? I want someone to verify that she lives; I want them to know how she lives. Not that they can do anything but judge, if that was my mother, I’d…

You’d think I’d be more eager to call the police but what I really want is for her to just call me back and leave me a message. That’s all, have it over with. This multi-day thing is stressing me out. Usually I call and we acquit business within six hours. I call her and she calls me back repeatedly until I answer.

I used to use SlyDial when I called her, where you to send calls directly to someone’s voice mail. You bypass the ringer, and the person only gets the alert when your message is complete and you’re well in the clear. You have to listen to an ad, and you also have to dial the person’s number twice, but it’s worth the time to not have to speak to someone, to be able to just leave them a voicemail and that’s that.

But SlyDial just made it worse. Now I want to get it out of the way and dial directly, as I’ve done a few times, in the presence of a friend, while pacing on the roof of my building. I just up-and-called H5, for instance, this time last year, because his was the only number I had, and he answered, and I spoke to him. He said he had found a job at an Audi dealership, which was so patently false.

Later she called me and said everything was fine; then she called me back two days later and said stop sending the cops.

It wasn’t me, I said, truthfully, for a change. I had called them all the other times, but not this one.

This is such a fun game! “Is My Mother Dead?” Let’s play it every few weeks in our imagination. It’s a good way to make myself grateful when she turns out to be alive. Like when I would throw myself a pregnancy scare, just so I could feel the panic and horror, and remind myself that I really meant it when I said I didn’t want kids.

Last time I called was March, that’s only 3 and a half months ago, that’s not too bad. I thought it was going on six months. It felt like six months to me. It felt like I waited a really long time. I just checked in with her a few months ago, and she said she was fine.

That’s true, that’s the best I could do. If I called her more frequently she would have me on the phone every day, and I become actively suicidal when I am in too much contact with my mother. If it’s between her and me who survives, it’s going to be me.

At the same time, I already feel grief. I feel loss and sadness. I know I’ve said and done everything I could or would want to do or say. I forgive you, Mom, that’s what she wanted to know but couldn’t hear.

She was so happy that fall, when I was taking her to a round of doctors. I was there, I was her friend, she was forgiven. And I have forgiven her, whether she knows it or not – in fact, I don’t think she should have to be forgiven, because she honestly did the best she could. She did. I’m grateful that she carried me to term. Later, when it was my choice, I didn’t.

Will I regret what I didn’t do? I wish I’d fought a lot harder. I feel like if I’d been someone who could drive a car, I’d have been up her ass every third week. She’s right there in Westchester. I should go up there right now! Don’t put it past me.

Every time I fought for her I got badly hurt, but I still could have fought a little harder maybe. I did give up pretty easily. What else could I have done? What else do people do? They ask rhetorical questions, don’t they?

She’s going to be okay either way. If she’s alive, which we all know she is, she’s okay. And if she’s dead, she’s okay. I’d be even more okay with it if H5 were dead, but I know better than to hope, and this isn’t about me being okay. I’ve been okay, because I let her grow cold to me a while ago; I said goodbye to the person I knew when there was still a trace of her to say goodbye to. Yes, I gave up, and up gave me.

I used to be proud of having given her up, like the thumb I stuck to for way too long, like the scrap of dirty cloth it soothed me to rub. I put them all down. Wanting a mommy was a childish thing. Wanting my mommy was – I don’t know what to say. A waste of time, in the end.

She’s not dead. It would be very surprising, except not surprising at all, if she’d died and H5 didn’t tell us. Can they do that? Can the husband say he’ll notify the kids? The cops are probably like, Great, your problem now, buddy. Sorry for your loss. Or the medic, or the doctor at the ER. They tell the guy who’s right there, they fill out the paperwork, and then they get to strip off the scrubs and forget about it.

I guess that’s the fear, that she died weeks ago and I haven’t known it. But what’s the difference if it was a week ago or yesterday if she’s already gone? Can you tell how much wishful thinking is going on here?

I just want to get it over with; I know my mother’s death going to hurt and I just want to get it over with, and I feel terrible about that. It’ll hurt her a hell of a lot more than it’ll hurt me, and she’s in no rush, so I shouldn’t be either. Maybe she still has moments of peace or happiness or comfort.

And what happens when I do speak to her? Bill just called and told me she’s not dead. Either she didn’t get the message or she’s blowing me off. Okay. I know.