Such a Pretty Face (34 page)

“Momma, get down, please, please,” I begged her. I was so embarrassed. I saw one of my friends, a girl named Heather who lived on the next farm, staring at Helen, her eyes wide. “Momma, there’s no microphones.”

Helen kicked at me and Grandma until Grandma had to let go, and she scrambled to the top shelf in the bread aisle. Once there, she started throwing the bread off, then lay on her stomach, reached down to the second shelf, and started throwing the bread off there, too, despite our begging her not to. When all the bread was on the ground, she lay on the top shelf and covered her eyes with her arms. “I need my helmet! Get me my helmet! They’re trying to read my mind with the microphones.”

“Helen, I have your helmet at home. We’ll go home and get it lickety-split,” Grandma said, her face and voice calm. The helmet Helen wore was Grandpa’s when he was a football star at Ashville High School.

“You can come down, Momma. Here. You can wear my ribbon over your head until we get home. It’s okay, Momma, it’s okay. Please come down.” I glanced down the aisle. Heather was gone. Heather’s mother was friends with Grandma. Maybe she’d pulled Heather away to spare Grandma.

“I don’t want a ribbon. You’ll use it against my neck. Did you get my doughnut? Is that girl kid getting a doughnut?” Helen asked, pointing at me. “If she gets one, I get one.”

“You’ll get a doughnut—”

“First I’ll get my helmet on, then we’ll get a doughnut.”

“Helen, that’s right. Now, come on down.”

“No. Helmet first.” She punctuated her desire with a piercing, high C.

By this time several employees, including the manager, Stan Blackhawk, were there. Stan’s brother was one of the executives at Grandpa’s company. He was Native American and wore his hair in a long ponytail, as Stan did.

“Hello, Glory,” he said to Grandma, nodding to Helen on the top shelf, her arms covering her face. “Hello, Helen. Hello, Stevie.” He smiled at Sunshine in the stroller.

“Hello, Stan,” Grandma said, turning to shake his hand. “Oh, and hello, boys!” She smiled warmly. The two young men standing next to Stan were former students of Grandma’s.

They both grinned and hugged her. They all greeted me with cheerful hellos, and wasn’t I getting taller. I sure resembled my Grandma’s family line. Isn’t that dimple cute?

Well, you would have thought we were at the town picnic then. Grandma chatted, at length, with Stan and the young men. I heard about their mothers. One was having problems with her bladder; the other one was having problems with toenail fungus and had had a fight with her sister, Scootie. They still weren’t speaking.

Then she talked to Stan. Stan’s wife, Camille, was well. They had six kids and another was on the way. This one was clearly a “whoops” child, but he was happy about it. “The wife is not happy about being pregnant while having hot flashes, though.”

So they all chatted, and other people stopped on by and saw Helen lying on the top shelf, now singing, “We’re off to see the wizard.” They waved at her, ignored all the loaves of bread on the floor, and joined the conversation. Jackie Klind (a doctor in town) had discovered the greatest cure for warts, and she had fixed up two of the neighbors’ kids recently. Could Grandma come and help settle a dispute between the Phillipses and Montezes? They were having trouble with cattle crossing each other’s property and Jeremiah was threatening to shoot. How about that Fourth of July parade coming up, wouldn’t that be fun? Wasn’t it sad that Pho and Julie had broken up? Julie was heartbroken, hadn’t left her home for six days. Six days!

About an hour later Grandma decided it was time for us to move along. Helen had sung a number of songs, and you could believe you were listening to the radio, her voice was so haunting and lovely. But then Helen started making up her own love song and inserting swear words. It was something like, “Tulips and daffodils and bridges over blue streams, sunny days and raindrops and cartwheeling in the park, my heart is breaking…. my heart is so sad…. my heart is fuuucckkkkeed uppppp, it is so fuuuuccckkkked upppp…”

Grandma did not appreciate swear words. “Sugar, come on down, now. I’m hungry. Let’s get those doughnuts.”

“Not unless I can get a helmet,” Helen said, stopping her song abruptly. “I’m not coming down. It’s dangerous. I need to smother Command Center. Punk, too. He’s back. Red eyes.”

Well, we all thought on that, and then Derek, one of the young men, decided he would run home and get his football helmet, and he did and he brought it back and he climbed up to the top shelf and helped Helen get it on. She had to move her foil hat around a little bit, but then we were all set.

She sat up, fiddled with the helmet, declared, “I’ve got some control now,” and came on down. Everyone said hello, Helen said hello back and, “I’ve got some songs in me.” She sang another show tune. We clapped at the end. Mr. Tsong cried. His late wife loved that song.

“Now, Stan, you be sure to charge me for this mess.”

To which Stan said, “I wouldn’t think of it, Glory. Not a chance. We’ll clean this ol’ place up in a jiffy.” And all our friends grabbed some bread and it was cleaned up in a jiffy. Then Grandma took Helen’s arm, took her leave of everyone with an I can’t believe how big you boys are and thanks, Stan, say hello to Camille for me, and it was lovely to chat with you, Barb and Chris and Sandy and hug hug hug, and off we went after they told me how pretty I was and growing so tall. Wasn’t that dimple cute?

We got the doughnuts, which Helen licked, and our groceries.

The checker was a friend of Helen’s from first grade.

“Hello, Helen,” she said. “How are you?”

“Shut up,” she said. “You can’t convince me to give up my brain.”

Danka nodded. “Okay, Helen. I won’t even try.” She didn’t say another word.

Helen did not want to take off the helmet for a week. She even insisted on showering with it on. Grandma and Grandpa did not fight this because the helmet did, indeed, seem to be helping. Maybe it muted the voices. Maybe it simply made Helen feel safer or more protected. Maybe she needed the weight on her head. Who knew?

What soon became clear, though, is how much she did not like Sunshine.

When Sunshine was about a year old, Grandma found Helen leaning over her crib one morning in the bedroom we shared, growling at her. A couple of months later, Helen put a sheet over Sunshine’s whole body when she was sleeping and told us, “Trash Heap is gone now.”

I have never in my life seen Grandma and Grandpa move so fast as they sprinted into our room.

Another time she poked Sunshine in the stomach when she was resting in Grandpa’s arms. “She’s a gadget. She’s a sooter-dorfmanz.”

“What’s that, sugar?” Grandpa asked her, so gentle.

“It means she’s after you.” Helen touched the hearts she’d drawn on her cheeks that morning with a blue marker. “I think she’s stealing my money! I think she is. She’s a money stealer.”

“I don’t think so, sugar,” Grandpa said. “Sunshine loves you. See how she’s smiling?” And, indeed, Sunshine was smiling at Helen.

For a second, Helen froze, then she touched the baby’s nose with the tip of her finger. “It’s squishy.”

“Sure is. She’s a little one,” Grandpa said.

She touched Sunshine’s fingers. “Small fingers.” She stroked her cheek. “Soft.” She pushed the wisps of blond hair back. “A bird is soft. A chick is soft. Punk is soft with his red eyes.”

In one lightning-quick move, she yanked the baby out of Grandpa’s arms, whipped around, and ran for the door, moaning deep in her throat.

I screamed, terrified. My worst nightmare was that Helen would take my baby away from me. Sunshine screamed, too. “Give me Sunshine! Give me Sunshine!” I yelled.

My grandpa, built like a mountain, but strong and quick, had both Helen and the baby in a firm hug within seconds. “Get your grandma,” he told me, and I ran off, hysterical, and found Grandma in the barn with the horses. “She’s trying to steal Sunshine! Help me, Grandma!”

We ran for the house and I ate Grandma’s dust as she sprinted to the door, her cowboy boots flying.

Helen was baring her teeth, growling, clicking her teeth together as if she wanted to bite Grandma and Grandpa. They were pleading with her, soothing, cajoling, but Helen wasn’t having any of it, holding Sunshine way too tight while my baby screeched.

Grandpa had an arm between Helen’s chest and the baby, but I knew that you couldn’t yank a baby away from someone else without hurting it. Helen made a
yip yip
sound, like a coyote, then bared her teeth again, straining away from Grandma and Grandpa.

Well, I’d had enough. She was not going to take my baby. I grabbed a wooden spoon from Grandma’s kitchen and the stool and I put the stool behind Helen and brought the spoon right down on her head as hard as I could.

She let go of my Sunshine and Grandma caught her.

“Don’t you hurt my baby!” I shrieked at her, near hysteria. “You stupid Momma! You stupid Momma! Don’t you hurt my baby!” I hit her again on the head, all of my rage and fear coming out through that spoon.

A surprising thing happened then. Helen closed her mouth. She didn’t growl or grunt, and her body sagged, almost to the floor. Grandpa caught her as her tears smeared the blue hearts. Then she said, her voice cracking, “I’m bad.”

“Yes, you are!” I raged. “You’re bad!”

“No, sweetie,” Grandpa said, breathing hard, “you’re not bad. You’re a good girl.”

“It’s the truth! The truth!” she cried out, her hands to her heart. “I’m bad! I’m a bad girl.”

“You’re a bad momma!” I told her, still shaking, still scared, Sunshine’s choking cries hitting me hard.

Grandpa pulled her up straight. “Come on, honey, let’s go lie down.”

“No, no, no,” Helen said, bringing her blond curls to her eyes. “I’m bad. I’m a no-love person. I have no love in me.” Helen’s head jerked a couple of times. She said something, but her speech slurred and I didn’t get it. I heard this: “Thubadawagon. You’re a terrible thubadawagon.”

She turned, lashed at the air with her hands, as if she was scratching someone invisible standing in front of her. “I can’t stand you,” she said to the air. “You shut up! I know I should die! Die, die!” She got down on her hands and knees and whispered to me, her eyes imploring, “You hear them, too, don’t you?”

I swallowed hard and shook my head, some of my fury draining away. “No, Momma. I don’t hear the voices.”

“What do you mean you don’t hear the voices?” Helen asked, her voice now strident. “You have to hear them. I hear them all day long. They’re bugging me, being mean, telling me what to do, and I can’t stand it! You don’t hear them?” Her voice pitched and she shouted at me, hands cupped around her mouth, as if she was trying to make herself heard over a cacophony of noise. “You don’t hear them? They’re yelling!”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Momma.”

“How can you not hear them?” Tears sprung to her eyes. “They’re everywhere. All the time. No one can think, no one can talk!” She turned to my grandma. “Can’t you hear the voices?”

“No, sweetie, I can’t,” Grandma soothed. “Now hang on, let me hug you. We’ll make the voices be quiet.”

“Can’t you hear the voices?” she yelled at Grandpa, cupping her hands around her mouth again.

“No, sugar, all I can hear is my love for you.”

Helen froze, her face crumpling, her body sagging. “No one can hear the voices? No one but me! Only me. Why me?” she asked Grandpa, her voice breaking. “Why me and the voices? Why? Am I alone?”

“No, sweetie, you’re not alone,” Grandpa said. “Not at all. We love you.”

“I’m all alone,” Helen said, not giving any indication she had heard my grandpa. “I am all by myself. And them!” She fisted a hand. “I’m all by myself with them! And I don’t even like them! I don’t want to be with them!”

“You have us, sugar. Me and Grandpa and Stevie, we’re here. We’re always here.”

“But the voices, they keep us apart.” She stomped her feet again, wobbled her head, because she wanted to get the voices out through her ears. “I know they do. They’re here now. Being mean. They want me by myself so they can kill me.”

“No one wants to kill you, darling, no one. We love you. We need you,” Grandma said, blinking tears out of her eyes.

“They want me to give in and do bad things to that Trash Heap and that girl kid.” Helen sobbed and pointed at me. “They’re an army and I’m just a Helen.”

“We know you won’t do bad things. You’re a good person, a strong person, my darling.”

Grandma was pale, and Grandpa was gray. They both sagged. Maybe the army was beating them, too.

“I’m just a Helen. I’m a no-love person. I have no love in me. Who can love me? They won’t go away. Never will they go away.”

At that moment, on Helen’s devastated face that day, I got my first, true understanding of how sad, how
unutterably
sad, her life was.

In the next moment I realized that she knew it, too.

“I’m just a Helen,”
she said again, broken, shattered.
“Just a Helen.”

It was one of the most devastating moments of my life.

Most people, maybe even everyone, would think that my grandparents’ decision to keep Sunshine in the same house with Helen, who was suffering from schizophrenia, was a colossal mistake all the way around, even if now and then they could get her medicine down Helen. (Medicine that had its own set of lousy side effects, by the way, and which was often changed, for a variety of reasons.)

The schizophrenic person should be sent to live with someone else, somewhere else, they would say. Other people, my grandparents, or people who were living the nightmare, people who knew of the complexities of this terrible disease, people who were in the position to know there was no black or white here, only a very murky, painful gray, might choose to make another decision.

My grandparents, into their seventies, learned the hard way about the horrific, appalling conditions in the hospitals, asylums, and treatment centers for the mentally ill at that time. Put Helen back in one of those? Put Helen—their beloved, cherished daughter, who had been raped, impregnated, beaten up, locked up, attacked, neglected, overdrugged, poorly drugged, tied down, handcuffed, isolated, and shattered—back in “treatment,” knowing she would resume living in a constant state of well-founded fear, pain, and hysteria?