Isabel stands in front of her metal mirror. Glass mirrors are not provided at Three Breezes. Waves of acid gnaw at her stomach lining.
Nearly two hours before her parents are supposed to arrive, Isabel has already washed and dried her hair and cleaned her neat room.
“Isabel?” Someone is knocking on her door.
“Come in.”
Lark appears in the doorway.
For a moment, Isabel sees her as her parents will see her: a strung-out mental patient in tacky polyester clothes.
“What’s up?”
“Want to smoke?” Lark asks sheepishly.
“Sure.” Isabel is relieved to have a distraction. She has been so anxious about her parents’ visit she had barely slept the night before. Now time seems to be dragging.
It does not occur to Isabel until they are pulling their plastic deck chairs together that Lark is anxious, too.
“How’s it going?” Isabel asks.
“Fine,” Lark grunts, preoccupied with getting some secondhand smoke into her system.
“You doing okay?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever.” Lark leans in for Isabel’s exhale.
“My parents are coming in a couple of hours.”
“You glad about that?”
“I guess,” Isabel admits.
“You can be happy about seeing your parents, you know,” Lark says, cracking what for her amounted to a smile. “You don’t have to hide it on my account.”
“It’s weird how nervous I am. I feel like I’ve been in a cave or something.”
“Yeah. I know the feeling.”
Isabel signs herself out so that she can await her parents’ arrival. Around the corner, at the edge of the small parking lot, she positions herself on the low rock wall so that she can see both points of entry. She checks her watch every thirty seconds.
Isabel stands as the black Range Rover turns into the lot.
“Mom.” Isabel nervously and woodenly hugs her mother. Over her shoulder she looks for her father.
“Oh, honey.”
“Where’s Dad?” Isabel knows the answer before it is spoken.
Forty-Three
“Honey, he wanted to come.” Isabel flinches as her mother runs her hand through Isabel’s hair. “I can’t get over how much better you look. Rested.”
“Mom, don’t. Okay?” Her voice cracks as she gulps back tears.
“Oh, Isabel. Your father would have been here if he could have, you know that.”
“Don’t make excuses for him, okay?” Isabel’s voice is raised. “Why are you always making excuses for him? He ‘would have been here if he could have’? What? Something came up that was more important than visiting his daughter in a mental institution? Do you hear how absurd that sounds?”
Katherine is nervously motioning to Isabel, moving her hands in a downward signal, universal for “lower the volume.”
“Isabel, please keep your voice down. I know this is upsetting.”
“No. No you don’t.” Isabel waves her mother off and starts heading for the unit. Katherine hurries behind her. “All my life this has happened.” Isabel spins around and faces her mother. “For years I’ve heard ‘your father would have been here if he could have.’ Years. And you know what I’ve realized? It’s bullshit! He’s probably too hungover to come. This whole ‘he wanted to come’ thing is bullshit!”
“Language,” her mother warns. “Watch your language, young lady.”
“Oh, give it up, Mom. Look around you. You think anyone here cares about
“Isabel, I’m still your mother and I am saying it bothers me, okay? So please refrain from using bad language around me.”
“Oh, please.” Isabel pauses and then her words are deliberate, her tone measured. “You know what? Stop. Don’t. No more excuses for Dad. No more trying to make it okay that he has missed out on my entire life. No more dancing around his drinking. Don’t shake your head, Mom, I’m sick of it. Is he on the wagon? Is he off the wagon? I can’t ask you because you just will not talk about it. I want us to talk about it. Can’t you do that?”
“I didn’t realize I was always making excuses for your father. I…I will try not to do that from now on.”
“He’s had one big long hangover for the past thirty years! It’s bad enough that he hasn’t been there for anything that’s been important in my life….”
“Now, I will say this and don’t interrupt me. I’m not making excuses for him, but I will say that your father has always been there for the important things in your life—”
“Mother, I
Her mother nods, not sure where Isabel is leading her.
“But, Mom, you know what I’ve realized? The important things are what happens in between the plays and the graduations. On the way to the dances. That’s real life. The rest is all for show. This—” Isabel extends her arms in a Julie-Andrews-on-top-of-the-mountain gesture “—this is real life. Three Breezes is real life. It doesn’t have a pretty set design or offer me a diploma or have a great band, but it’s real. That’s why I don’t want to hear excuses anymore. Do you understand?”
After waiting for what Isabel has said to absorb, waiting for it to make sense, Katherine nods and answers truthfully.
Isabel takes a deep breath and then exhales. “What’d you bring me for lunch?”
Katherine looks relieved. “Chinese chicken salad.”
“From Ella’s?”
“From Ella’s.”
Isabel leads her mother over to the nurses’ station, knowing she has to sign her in as a guest.
“Julie? Where’s the sign-in sheet?”
“Oh, hello, Mrs. Murphy!” Julie beams.
As Katherine signs in on a clipboard Julie adds, “I’m going to need to go through those bags you brought.”
Isabel had forgotten.
