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“So you’re not eating food anymore?” she asked me.
“No,” I said.
“Well, you still have a long way to go to catch up to me,” she said, lifting her feeding tube. “Do you know Dr. Larsen told me she’s never seen anyone more dedicated to their eating disorder than me?”
I looked over at Emily. Even in the dark, I could make out the smile on her face. Her scant translucent skin tightened over her cheekbones. Her ocean-blue eyes, the only physical attribute that had remained intact from before ED had gotten ahold of her, sparkled. She was proud, carrying Dr. Larsen’s words like a badge of honor.
“I guess that makes me the best anorexic,” she said.
CHAPTER12
Day Two
AFTER A FITFULnight of sleep, I cancel my patient sessions for the day, citing a family emergency, and call Pearl to see if I can stop by.
“Of course, Beans,” she tells me. “I’m always here for you.”
When Mom first arrived in LA after graduating from NYU, she looked for a place to live and found a notice Pearl had put up on a corkboard at a local coffee shop. Pearl was a make-up artist whose musician roommate had picked up and left, leaving her in the lurch for next month’s rent. She decided she wanted a non-artist as a roommate, someone more stable, and was thrilled when Mom, a psychology graduate student, responded to her note. It turned out to be the beginning of an enduring friendship.
When I arrive at Pearl’s house, she hugs me and leads me to her living room. As I walk through her hallway, I pass pictures of her, her husband, her children, and her grandchildren on the wall, and my heart sinks, thinking about everything that Mom, Dad, and I have missed out on. She picks up on my sadness and directs me away from the photographs toward her sofa.
After I sit down, I spill everything that’s happened over the last twenty-four hours. It’s a relief to get it all out to someone who knew Mom.
“I don’t know what to say … it seems inconceivable, all of it,” Pearl says, shaking her head in disbelief. “Especially the idea that your mom might’ve been unfaithful to your father and got caught up in some kind of trouble with another man. She’s not the type that would’ve strayed. She wouldn’t have gotten married if she wanted to be with more than one person. I know how loyal she was to your dad and you. She would’ve never betrayed either of you like that.”
“But the woman at the treatment center asked if Mom ended up with this other guy, and Mom and Dad were together by the time she interned there,” I say.
“Well, maybe, this man was interested in her, but that doesn’t mean your mother was with him. Also, your parents weren’t married yet when she was in graduate school. Maybe she was trying to figure out who she wanted to be with and, in the end, chose your dad.”
“Did she ever mention this New York guy to you? Do you think she knew him from college?”
“I don’t know. She never mentioned him. After she moved in with me, she told me how relieved she was to be in LA and to have put New York City behind her. When I asked her why, she didn’t want to talk about it. So, years later, when she told me she was going to her college reunion, I was surprised because I’d gotten the feeling she hadn’t had a good experience there.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” I say. “If she was happy to put New York behind her, then why did this guy visit her before she died, and why did she lie to me and say it was her second cousin?”
“I wish I had answers for you, Beans,” Pearl says. “But I do know one thing. Your mother always said she was unabashed when it came to her love for you. Everyone thatknew her knew how much she loved you and how proud she was of you. If she’s really still alive, she would’ve never left you unless she had to.”
“Then she should’ve owned up to whatever trouble she’d gotten herself into—faced it like a grown-up,” I cry, Pearl’s words hitting a nerve. “Even if she had to go to prison, she would’ve at least been in my life.”
Pearl shakes her head. “I wasn’t referring to her needing to protect herself.”
“What?”
“I was talking about you,” she says.
It dawns on me—the question I haven’t asked myself in the thick of my anger.
Could Mom have left becauseIwas in danger too?
A month before Mom died, she went to New York for the reunion. Before she left, I remember asking her if she was excited.
“I’m excited, but also nervous,” she told me.
“Why nervous?” I asked her.
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen most of these people. Some have gone on to become big theater actors. I hope we’ll still have things to talk about,” she said.
Mom had gone to the NYU Tisch School of the Arts with dreams of becoming an actress, only to realize it didn’t suit her. The conversation made me wonder if she had ennui about her past and how her life had ended up unfolding.
