Turn of Mind - Alice LaPlante [73]
She sighs, then continues: I’d hoped you’d be in good enough shape today. To understand. Legally, your son has power of attorney. But I prefer to get my clients to sign, as well. Here. Here’s a pen.
She puts something in my hand, guides it to a piece of paper, and touches its surface.
You’re petitioning for acquittal for reasons of mental incompetence. The DA is not going to fight it. As I said, the only point of contention is where you’ll be sent. I’m sorry.
Her face is mobile, expressive. Makeup expertly applied. I always wondered how to do that. I never bother myself—it rubs off, streaks my surgical mask, my glasses during surgery.
The woman is now telling me something else that I can’t follow. She sighs, pats Dog absentmindedly. I’m sorry, she says again.
She gives the appearance of waiting, perhaps for a response from me. That she considers her words bad news there is no doubt. But I have no intention of letting them touch me.
We sit like that for several minutes. Then she slowly puts papers back in her briefcase and snaps it shut. It’s been a pleasure working for you, she says, and then she is gone. I try to remember what I have been told. I am a person of interest. Of course I am. I am.
I am cunning. I get rid of Dog. I do this by kicking him in front of one of the aides. Then I pick him up and make as if to throw him against the wall. Shouts ensue. Dog is taken from me, forcibly. Taken off the ward at night, forbidden to come into my room. I miss him. But he would ruin my plans.
Mom?
I turn to see my handsome son, aged considerably but still recognizable. Someone visited this morning, a stranger to me, left abruptly when I didn’t recognize her. When I wouldn’t play along. A brash, unreasonable woman.
How were your exams? I ask.
My what? O, yes, they were good. They went well.
I’m not your professor. You don’t have to be afraid I’ll flunk you.
I’m a little . . . nervous . . . when I visit. I never know how you’ll greet me.
You’re my son.
Mark.
Yes.
Do you remember my last visit?
You’ve never come to see me here. No one has.
Mom, that’s not true. Fiona comes several times a week. I come at least once. But last time you told me you never wanted to see me again.
I would never say that. Never. No matter what you’d done. What have you done?
Never mind that now. I’m glad it’s forgotten. You weren’t exactly . . . sympathetic. But all is well now.
Tell me.
No. Let’s move on. Glad to see you’re in good form today. I wanted to ask if you remembered something.
Remember what?
Something that happened when I was around seventeen. Certainly older than sixteen, because I was driving. I’d borrowed your car to take my girlfriend out to the movies. Remember Deborah? You never liked her. You never really liked any of the girls I dated, but Deborah, my girlfriend throughout high school, you really hated. Anyway, you had a bunch of boxes filled with stuff. Deborah began rooting around in them. Just curious, or maybe it was a malicious kind of curious, because when she found it she was positively gleeful. A plastic flowered pouch filled with what Deborah said was very expensive makeup.
Makeup? Among my things? Seems unlikely, I say.
Well, I don’t know the names of all of it, but I did recognize mascara, lipstick, a powder compact.Various brushes. Deborah said it was all well used. She showed me a tube of magenta lipstick, half worn down. I nearly swerved off the road. I’d never seen you wear any makeup. Not a scrap. And yet here was this tube of magenta lipstick.
Magenta is for people with no taste. I would have been, what, fifty at that time? This is sounding increasingly implausible, I say.
Yes, I thought so. It totally disconcerted me. Like finding Dad prancing around in one of your dresses. I realized you had secrets. That there was this side of you that none of us knew about. Where you wore mascara and magenta lipstick and needed to please in that way—a desire we’d never have attributed to you.
Oh. Yes.
Now you’re remembering.
Yes, I say, and am silent. There was only one time I tried to please