Sleepwalking in Daylight

  I let her hair go and fall back against the coolness of the tiled wall.

  She looks up through her stringy hair I notice is dirty and probably hasn’t been washed in days. Hair like hers has to be washed every day. Through the black dye I see the white of her skull. Looking closer, I see bald spots. Her hair is thinning out. I reach out to touch it and am surprised to find it silky still because it looks brittle.

  “I’m taking you to the hospital,” I say. “Andrew, call Mrs. Shapiro and tell her I need her to come over.”

  “Is this so she can babysit?” Andrew asks. “Can’t Melissa just come back? We want Melissa. We hate Mrs. Shapiro.”

  The boys have recently started speaking as a unit. We don’t like brussels sprouts. We want to go to see if Tommy’s home.

  “Do it!” I yell at him. Then I turn back to Cammy. “Okay, we’re going to get you into the car. Can you move?”

  “No! Don’t move me! I don’t want to go to the hospital. I don’t need to go to the hospital, Mom. Please, just let me stay here. The water’ll be lonely. It’s lonely in the toilet.”

  “I’m making a phone call. I’ll be right back.”

  I race down to the fridge to the list of emergency contacts pinned to the metal door by a magnet from Mount Rushmore. I trace a line down to information for Mrs. Shapiro, an elderly neighbor I only call if it’s an absolute necessity. She’s a sour gossip who wears L’eggs knee-highs with skirts, but she’s reliable and has a pulse and right now beggars can’t be choosers. Within minutes she comes in without ringing the doorbell.

  “Samantha?” She limps in. “What’s the matter?” I forgot about her hip surgery. I’m on hold with the emergency answering service and the Muzak version of Sunday Bloody Sunday comes on. I wonder if U2 minds that it’s ruining their song. I feel bad about hurrying Mrs. Shapiro over here when she’s clearly not in any shape to hurry.

  I hold up a finger when the nurse on duty comes on. Her voice is the complete opposite of mine, as if she’s teaching me a lesson for being so urgent. I’m just another impatient hypochondriac to her.

  “Describe the symptoms,” she says. Her voice implies she has heard one too many patients reciting WebMD self-diagnoses.

  “They’re not symptoms,” I say, and I quickly turn to cup my hand over the mouthpiece so Mrs. Shapiro can’t hear me hiss to the nurse, “My daughter’s done mushrooms.”

  “Is she coherent?”

  “Yes, she’s coherent,” I say. “She’s talking but she’s hallucinating—she goes from sounding normal to hallucinating. And she’s throwing up. No, there’s no blood in the vomit. Hold on—Andrew, go up and ask your sister if there was any blood in the vomit.”

  “Ew, that’s so gross.”

  “Just go!” I say. “Sorry about that. Are you still there? Oh, great. Should I take her to the emergency room?”

  Mrs. Shapiro is sitting at the kitchen table with her hands in her lap as if she’s at a filthy diner table that hasn’t been wiped clean. She’s scanning the counters and tabletop for dirt and crumbs. She looks as if she doesn’t like what she sees. Yeah, well, I don’t either.

  “Yes, I’m here,” I say into the phone. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. He’s sure? Thank you so much. Okay, thanks. Bye.”

  “She says there was no blood in the vomit.” Andrew comes back into the kitchen breathless. “But she’s still puking.”

  Mrs. Shapiro stands and I see that she is wearing knee-high stockings with her skirt and the one on her left leg is falling down. She looks indigent.

  “Did she eat something funny?” she asks.

  “I’m not sure. I am so sorry to call you over here like this, Mrs. Shapiro. Thank you so much for coming, but I guess it was a false alarm. I better get back up there, actually. Do you want the boys to walk you back?”

  “I’m fine,” she says. “Soda water and crackers do the trick. I can stay if you like. I’m more than happy to stay.”

  There is nothing Mrs. Shapiro likes more than neighborhood drama. All we need is word getting around that Cammy’s doing hard-core drugs.

  “No, thanks,” I say. I leave her for the upstairs.

  “You’re in luck,” I say to Cammy who is crumpled on the bathroom floor, back to hugging the bowl. “You don’t have to go to the hospital after all.”

  “There are twenty-one little squares inside every three diamonds on the floor. It doesn’t add up, though. It’s pretty goddamn funny when you think about it. Twenty-one. Get it?” Her voice is threadbare, she is exhausted and weak.

  “No I don’t get it” is all I can manage. “Tell me how, Cam?”

  “How what?”

  “How did it happen? When did this happen?”

  “You said you wouldn’t be mad. My back. Please, my back is so itchy.” She’s pulled herself up from the toilet long enough to crawl to the fork.

  “You expect me not to be mad when my sixteen-year-old girl does mushrooms? Jesus Christ, Cammy. Jesus Christ. Get yourself up and into bed and I’ll be back. And just so you know, in a few minutes this nausea will seem like nothing compared to what’s coming.”

  “Are you going to tell Dad?” Then she laughs hysterically. Just like that she goes from misery to ecstasy.

  “Of course I’m telling Dad. Do you realize how much trouble you’re in? Where’d you get the drugs? Huh? Who did this with you?”

  “Mom, please, I’m so sick right now.”

  “I don’t care if you’re coughing up a lung. Tell me where you got the drugs.”

  “Can’t we talk about this later? Please, Mom. What’s your favorite song? Oh, my God, I don’t know your favorite song. Lemme think for a second. James Taylor? Is it something by him? Soo funny.” She’s laughing hard again. “I wish I knew your favorite song, Mom. Samantha. Whoever you are. Let’s talk later, ‘kay?”

  “This is later. This is as good as you’re going to feel, so you might as well tell me now because things are about to get really ugly. Who gave you the drugs, Cameron?”

  “Paul. You don’t know him.”

  “Where does he live? Were his parents home?”

  “I don’t know where he lives. We only get together at the lot.”

  “The lot?” I ask.

  “The library parking lot,” she says. “Uhhhh, I’m going to throw up again. My stomach’s killing me.”

  “So, the times you’ve asked to be dropped off at the library, you’ve been doing drugs with this Paul? And last week when you were throwing up … oh, my God, Cammy. How long has this been going on?”

  She is resting her cheek on the toilet seat and for a millisecond I feel sorry for her, but it passes quickly.

  “It wasn’t mushrooms before,” she says. “Oh, God, I wish I could throw up and have it be over.”

  “Get in bed. I don’t care if you vomit all over the sheets, get in the goddamn bed and I’ll be back to deal with this.”

  “I told you she’d be pissed,” says Andrew, who has apparently been standing behind us the whole time.

  “You. Get your brother and get yourselves downstairs and start thinking about what you can do to help with dinner,” I tell him. “Set the table or something.”

  “How come we have to do it? How come we’re getting punished for what Cammy’s done. It’s not fair.”

  “Call for pizza if you want, I don’t care. The money’s in my wallet. Just take care of it, Andrew. The number’s on speed dial.”

  “Sweet,” he says and in minutes I can hear him calling it in.

  “Mom? What size?” he calls up.

  “Medium,” I answer.

  “We’re hungry, can we get a large?” Jamie yells.

  “Just so you know, life as you knew it is over. Period,” I say to Cammy. She’s crawling toward the bed and is trying to pull herself up to get under the covers and I have to restrain myself from going to help her. The crying isn’t helping her, it’s just frustrating her.

  “The guy says the medium’s only eight slices,” Andrew yells. “Can’t
we get a large? We’re starving.”

  “Fine, get the large,” I yell. “And order a side salad! Andrew? Did you hear me?”

  “What?”

  “Order the side salad!”

  “What dressing he’s asking!”

  “Vinaigrette!”

  “I know you hate me,” Cammy says. “I’m so fucking itchy.”

  I look around and for an instant, the time it would take to sneeze, I see myself like a stranger would. How the hell did I end up here? I’m cross-legged on a bathroom floor with my strung-out Goth daughter, a clueless husband and impatient twins. Where the hell did I go wrong? What the hell happened?

  “Oh my fucking God, I’m a huge tidal wave,” Cammy says.

  “Language, Cammy.”

  “I didn’t say a bad word. Did I? Did I think fuck or did I say it. Oh, my God, am I awake or asleep? Are you really there or is this like some weird Matrix shit?”

  “Calm down.”

  “Who said that? Oh, my God, that’s so weird. I think my brain just said calm down and I thought it was you.”

  I know she won’t take in anything I say but still. “I don’t hate you. I don’t even know where to start. When did this all start? When did I become the enemy?”

  “You aren’t the enemy. The walls are the enemy. You can’t see it but they’re waiting until you leave to crush me. They’re winking at me right now like that’s exactly what they’re going to do. Oh, my God, Mom, you can’t leave. You’re the ally not the enemy …”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, I notice the ringtone you’ve assigned to me is ‘The Funeral Death March.’ Everyone else has some kind of rap song, but noooo, not me. I get ‘pray for the dead and the dead will pray for you.’ I used to have Avril. You used to tell me everything.”

  It’s ridiculous to try to reason with someone who’s out of their mind, so what am I doing?

  “I don’t always have to tell you everything,” she says. “I’m not a baby anymore. And … oh forget it.”

  “What? ‘And’ what?”

  “And you aren’t my real mother, okay?” she says. “Whatever. Not like it matters to you anyways.”

  She tosses this out like it’s a pebble. To me it’s a boulder landing on my feet. She reaches behind her head to fix the pillow just right and she keeps going: “My real mother is out there and you and Dad have never wanted me to find her.”

  “Is that what this is all about?” I ask. “You want to find your birth mother and you think your father and I won’t let you?”

  “I don’t know. Yeah, maybe. I don’t know.” Then she groans. “I’m going to puke.”

  “I’ll get the trash can. Here. Turn to the side of the bed if you’re going to—there. Okay. It’s okay.”

  She is retching bile. The nurse says that’s a sign the drug is pushing its way out of her system.

  “Cammy, the only time you ever brought up looking for your birth mother was when we first told you that you were adopted and you ran away to the Andersons and said you weren’t coming home until we told you where she was,” I tell her. “If you want to look for her we can talk about it.”

  “Yeah, like you’d really want me to know,” she says. “What if I’ve already found her? What if I already know?”

  I search her face. The way she says that gives me a chill and for the first time I wonder if she actually has found her. How could she have tracked her down? It was a closed adoption. How could she have gotten around that? It was supposed to be ironclad. There’s no way she found her. She’s bluffing.

  “Honey, this isn’t the way to go about it,” I say.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Here’s the old Cammy. Here’s the attitude. The emphasis on “that” signaling the beginning of an argument. So it is possible to cop an attitude when you’re sick after all. Who knew. I think the best way to go here is to bring it down again. Level voice. Soft tone. Let her know I’m not taking the bait.

  “Let’s get through this drug stuff.”

  “But it’s like you’ve disappeared,” she says. She’s crying now, so I stroke her hair to calm her down.

  “Don’t put this on me, Cammy. Don’t you dare put this on me. Plenty of kids feel lonely sometimes, plenty of adopted kids want to locate their birth parents, but they don’t rush out and take pills and do mushrooms. I’m going downstairs, but I’ll be back up.”

  “You’re going to check your computer, aren’t you?” she asks.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Nothing. It’s nothing,” she says.

  “It’s not nothing if you said it. Tell me what you meant by that.”

  “You’re so glued to your fucking computer these days.”

  “Watch your language! I have a lot of work going on with school stuff …”

  “See? You could’ve told me to mind my own business but instead you got all defensive about it. You don’t tell me everything just like I don’t tell you everything.”

  “I’m getting dinner ready and I’ll be back, and for your information, it is none of your business how I spend my time. I’m your mother and I don’t have to answer to you or to anyone else.”

  Downstairs I put in a call to Bob.

  “I’m on my way home,” he says. “You want me to pick something up on the way?”

  “Maybe some ginger ale and saltines,” I say.

  “Uh-oh, who’s sick?”

  “It’s a little more than that. I’ll tell you when you get home. How far out are you?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  Forty minutes later he’s pulling into the driveway. I’m waiting at the door.

  “The White Hen only had those wheat thins so I had to go to the Jewel.” He is out of breath. “What’s going on?”

  “Let’s talk out here, I don’t want them all hearing.” Part of me wants to be outside so the air will swish away the perfume he trails.

  “Jesus Christ, what is it?”

  “Cammy did mushrooms today,” I say.

  Bob sinks to the top step and I join him.

  “As in mushrooms mushrooms? Like Woodstock mushrooms?”

  “Yes, like Woodstock mushrooms. She says this was her first time but apparently before this she was taking pills.”

  I start crying. Just saying this out loud to Bob makes it real.

  “I can’t believe it,” he says. “Should she get her stomach pumped or something? Shouldn’t she be in the hospital?”

  “I called the doctor’s office and the nurse said as long as she’s talking and somewhat coherent she’ll be okay.” I wipe my runny nose on my sleeve.

  “I can’t believe it,” he says again. He’s holding his head in his hands. “What’re we going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. My head suddenly feels too heavy for my neck to hold up. “I haven’t even gotten to the second part.”

  “There’s a second part? Jesus, what? She’s shooting heroin?”

  “She announced she wants to find her ‘real’ mother. She thinks we’re against it. I give up. I have no idea what to do.”

  “Holy shit,” he says.

  “Holy shit.”

  I turn to face him, leaning back against the bricks of the low wall lining the stairs leading from the walkway to the front door. My arm is draped across my bent knee and it occurs to me that we look like a couple enjoying a nice conversation on a nice evening in a nice neighborhood. A squirrel ventures into the yard, hesitates at finding us then inches over to dig into a seemingly random patch of grass. Pausing with every other swipe of dirt, he finally dips his head into the hole to pull out what looks like a walnut shell. Or a peach pit, I can’t be sure. He scampers off. He grips the trunk of the tree, flattening out against the bark every once in a while, the pit still wedged in his mouth.

  Mr. and Mrs. Rowland wave from across the street. They’ve been married over forty years and still walk arm in arm every night, weather permitting. I wave back and smile, thinking how bizarre it is that my daughter is falling apart upstairs, my so
ns are probably playing with matches or knives inside, I am in some unnameable relationship with another man, and Mr. and Mrs. Rowland are out on an evening walk, thinking we’re enjoying the night too, Bob and I.

  “She’ll sleep it off.” Bob pulls himself up to standing and sweeps dirt off the seat of his pants. His change jingles in his pocket and I think how foreign that sounds: Bob never carries change because it makes him feel like his equilibrium is off. Instead, he rounds up when he buys something and leaves the balance in tip jars.

  “You know we’ve got to do something, right,” I say. It’s not a question.

  “Yeah. I know.”

  “So? What’re we going to do?” I ask.

  “I’ve got so much … so much.” he says. His voice breaks and something in it shocks me to standing.

  “What’s the matter? Are you okay?”

  “I can’t … I just can’t … I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Sam,” he says. His head drops.

  “What is it? Honey?” I can’t remember the last time we called each other honey but it comes automatically this time. I’ve leaped up and, for lack of anything else to do, I rub his back.

  “Something’s wrong,” he says.

  “You’re having an anxiety attack,” I say, moving to the door. “Do you still have those pills?”

  “I don’t know what’s wrong … I don’t know, maybe. I can’t breathe right.”

  “I’m running up to find them. Here, sit down. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

  It’s been years since his last attack. It was a cluster of them. We’d just brought the boys home from the hospital. Two or three weeks later he started feeling short of breath and from the living room I saw him grab the kitchen counter after he’d written down the feeding times on the chart I put together so I could keep track of who ate when. It was complicated, granted. I remember being pissed at him for being dramatic, when I was the one who wasn’t sleeping because I was a milk cow with a boy at each breast. Then when he slumped over and started almost panting I thought he was having a heart attack. I pulled myself to standing, Jamie still attached to my nipple, and got to the phone as fast as I could to dial 911. Jamie picked up on my panic and started crying. Scream-crying. Then Andrew started and it was chaos. Over the screams and my crying the operator told me to put an Aspirin under Bob’s tongue, but that didn’t help so they sent an ambulance and I called Lynn and Mike so they could go to the hospital since I couldn’t leave the kids. Five hours later he came home. He’d suffered an anxiety attack. Too much stress. I remember thinking You have too much stress? You? What about me? I resented him for it. Deep down I wondered if he was faking it to get out of helping with the babies. Still, for a couple of weeks I really tried to be careful to keep them quiet and Cammy occupied, but it was hard, and one day all three kids lost it at exactly the same moment (I can’t remember the cause) and I broke down and started yelling at Bob to help me. I’m drowning here, I called to him. Cammy started crying harder when she heard this and started screeching, Mommy, don’t drown, Daddy, Mommy’s drowning help! Help! Help! Bob gathered her up and she calmed down, but the boys were both squalling. Just as quickly as he’d picked her up, he put her back down and practically crawled up to our bathroom for his pills. Daddy, come back, Cammy started yelling again. A little while later he came down and Cammy threw herself at him and clung to his leg for the rest of the night. We’ve had the pills ever since. Just in case his little attack comes on again. Faker.