White Oleander

"WE GOT HER," said the plainclothesman in his white socks. "We caught her trying to see the kid. Says she was visiting her sister. You know damn well she shot you. Why make up a story about burglars? She's not even your mother."

 

If I were Starr, maybe I would have shot me too. Maybe I would have painted the doorknobs with oleander like my mother, if Ray had said he didn't love me anymore. It was hard for me to focus. Starr in her nightgown, my mother in her blue dress. Barry holding a cloth to my forehead. Why did it seem all the same, why did it melt together like crayons left in the car on a summer day? The only one who stood distinct was Davey. This cop was giving me a headache and I needed more Demerol.

 

LETTERS CAME from my mother. A girl my age, a hospital volunteer, with fluffy brown hair and pale green eye shadow, tried to read them to me, but it was way too surreal, my mother's words in her high ignorant voice, I made her stop.

 

Dear Astrid,

 

They say they don't know if you will last until morning. I pace the cell's three steps, back and forth, all night. A chaplain just came by, I told him I'd rip out his liver if he bothered me again. I love you so much, Astrid. leant bear it. There is no one else in the world but you and me, don't you know that? Please don't leave me alone here. By all the powers of light and darkness, please, please don't leave.

 

I read that paragraph over and over again, savoring each word, the way Starr would read her Bible. I drifted off to sleep hearing it in my head. You were my home, Mother. I had no home but you.

 

Freude!Beethoven's ninth, Ode to Joy, the Solti version, Chicago Symphony. To think that I almost lost you! I live for you, the thought that you 're alive gives me the strength to go on. I wish I could hold you now, I want to touchyou, holdyou, feel your heartbeat. I'm writing a poem for you, I'm calling it "For Astrid, Who Will Live After All."          .

 

News travels fast in prison, and women I've never spoken to inquire after your condition. I feel akin to each one of them. I could kneel down and kiss the stale earth in gratitude. I will tryfor a compassionate visit, but I have no illusions about the extent of compassion here.

 

What can I say about life? Do I praise it for letting you live or damn it for allowing the rest? Have you heard of the Stockholm syndrome? Hostages begin taking the side of their captors, in their gratitude not to have been killed outright. Let us not thank some hypothetical God. Instead, rest and gain strength for the new campaign. Though I know, it's candy-stripers and Highlights, maybe a morphine drip if you 're a good girl. Be strong.

 

Mother.

 

And she never once said I told you so.

 

A MAGICIAN CAME to entertain us, and I was mesmerized by his beautiful hands, his fluid, round gestures. I couldn't stop watching his hands. They were better than any of his tricks. He pulled a bouquet of paper flowers out of the air and gave them to me with a courtly bow, and I thought love was like that, pulled out of the air, something bright and unlikely. Like Ray, molding me in his fingers like soft wax.