Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood [209]
“Yes,” says Charis. “You will.”
Tony has moved into Roz’s house, to be with the children. After Roz is let out of the hospital Charis moves in as well, just for a time; just until Roz is back on her feet.
“You don’t need to do this,” Roz protests.
“Somebody does,” says Tony briskly. “You have other suggestions?” She’s already phoned Roz’s office and told them that Roz has bronchitis; also laryngitis, so she can’t speak on the phone. Flowers arrive, and Charis puts them in vases and then forgets to add water. She goes to the health food store and brings back various capsules and extractions, which she feeds to Roz or else rubs onto her, and some breakfast cereals made from unknown seeds that need to be boiled a lot. Roz longs for chocolate, and Tony smuggles some in for her. “That’s a good sign,” she tells Roz.
Charis has brought August with her, and the three girls play Barbie doll games together in the twins’ playroom, violent games in which Barbie goes on the warpath and takes over the world and bosses everyone else around, and other games in which she comes to a nasty end. Or they dress up in Roz’s old slips and sneak around the house, three princesses on an expedition. Roz rejoices to hear the loud voices again, the arguments; the twins have been far too quiet lately.
Tony makes cups of tea, and, for dinner, olden-days tuna casseroles with cheese and potato-chip toppings, Roz thought such things had vanished from the world, and Charis massages Roz’s feet with mint essence and rose oil. She tells Roz that she’s an ancient soul, with connections to Peru. These things that have happened to her, which look like tragedy, are past lives working themselves out. Roz must learn from them, because that is why we return to earth: to learn. “You don’t stop being who you are, in your next life,” she says, “but you add things.” Roz bites her tongue, because she’s returning to herself again and she thinks this is diarrhea, but she would never dream of saying so because Charis means well, and Charis runs baths for her that have sticks of cinnamon and leaves floating in them, as if Roz is about to be turned into chicken stock.
“You’re spoiling me,” Roz tells them. Now that she’s feeling better she’s made uneasy by all the fussing. She is usually the one who does these things, the hen things, the taking care. She’s not used to being on the receiving end.
“You’ve been on a hard journey,” says Charis, in her gentle voice. “You used up a lot of your energy. Now you can let go.”
“That’s not so easy,” says Roz.
“I know,” says Charis. “But you’ve never liked easy things.” By never, she means not for the past four thousand years. Which is about how old Roz feels.
49
Roz finds herself sitting on the cellar floor in the light from the one unshaded overhead blub, an empty plate beside her, a children’s storybook open on her knees. She’s twisting and untwisting her wedding ring, the ring that once meant she was married, the ring that’s weighing her down, turning it on her finger as if she’s unscrewing it, or else expecting some genie or other to appear from nowhere and solve everything for her. Put the pieces back together, make everything right; slide Mitch alive back into her bed where she will find him when she goes upstairs – scrubbed and scented and brushed and cunning, filled to the brim with affectionate lies, lies she can see through, lies she can deal with, twenty years younger. Another chance. Now that she knows what to do she will do it better this time. Tell me, God – why don’t we get rehearsals?
How long has she been down here, whimpering in bad light? She must go upstairs and deal with reality, whatever that may be. She must pull herself together.
She does this by patting the pockets of her bathrobe, where she always used to keep a tissue before the twins outlawed them. Not finding