All of Us (ARC) Page 9
“It’s Mrs. Castro, but you can call me Malaya.”
“Fine. Please state your business, Malaya.”
I listen to the lawyer breathe into the phone. I know she’s
wondering what she did to merit the hostility, but I’m not
about to explain. Dimly, I sense Victoria’s arrival.
“If I promise to deliver good news,” Castro says, “will you
ease up on the attitude?”
I smile. Attitude is the only public face I have. Take it or leave it. “Okay, Malaya. But I’ve got a lot to do today.”
“So, I just read the report from Adult Protective Services
and it’s a hundred percent favorable. You’ve been living on
your own for years now, living responsibly and functioning
well despite limited resources. According to APS, there’s no reason to suppose you won’t continue to function if supervision is withdrawn.”
“What does that mean? For Carolyn Grand?”
“It means that I intend, with your permission, to immedi-
ately petition the court to end supervision.”
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“Again, what does that mean? How will it change my
life?”
“The review will take about three weeks. If it goes your
way, you’ll simply become autonomous. Free to get on with
your life.”
Free to get rid of Halberstam is what I’m hearing. As if
our dear doctor would allow that to happen. “According to
Mark Vernon, the doctors make the final decision. Not the
court.”
“That’s true. They will.”
“Then it’s up to Dr. Halberstam.”
“No, you’ve got it backward. Your therapist was appointed
by a medical review board attached to the court. Halber-
stam’s recommendation will play a large part in their final
decision but not the only part.” She pauses for a moment,
then says, “You seem pretty certain that Dr. Halberstam
will recommend against ending supervision? Don’t you get
along?”
For once I don’t say the first thing that jumps into my
head, which is that we’re as much a plaything for Halber-
stam as we were for our father. Like any spoiled child, Hal-
berstam won’t give up his toy without a fight.
“I’ve known a lot of therapists over the years, Malaya, and
Halberstam’s not my favorite, not even close. But that’s not what it’s about. Halberstam believes my therapy should continue indefinitely. I can’t imagine him recommending any-
thing else when he writes his report.”
“Carolyn, I’m your lawyer and I’ve got your back. I’ll
make it clear, in the petition, that you’re satisfied with your 86
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progress and that you intend to remain in therapy. Remem-
ber, you’re on conditional release, the condition being your therapy. We’re only asking the court to make your release
unconditional. And no, I’m not a prophet, but I think the
odds are with you as long as you keep it together for the next few weeks. Think you can do that?”
I almost say “We’ll give it our best,” only correcting myself at the last second. The last thing I want to do is explain who and what we are. “I’ll give it my best.”
“Good, because once your release is granted, you can
drop Dr. Halberstam if that’s what you want. The decision
will be yours to make. From our point of view, the only issue is whether or not you can function on your own. In light of
the fact that you’ve been doing exactly that for a decade, the issue resolves itself.”
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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
VICTORIA
An online course I once took on the history of New York
City described the development of Brooklyn Heights,
a promontory overlooking the harbor. The area began with
an investment, a purchase of land by a blueblood named
Hezekiah Pierrepont. Pierrepont immediately subdivided
his property and offered the lots to others of his caste, who snatched them up. That’s because the richest New Yorkers
desperately wanted to get their families out of town in the
summer. Cholera, smallpox, typhus, diphtheria, and yellow
fever ran through the crowded streets of Manhattan during
the long hot months from the end of June to September. The
only protection was distance.
The epidemics are long gone, but not the heat and humid-
ity that gave rise to them. Nobody moves to New York for
the climate, and the hum of air conditioners in summer is
almost as loud as the traffic on the street. Still, just as the Jan-uary thaw brings out the multitudes in winter, so do the few pleasant days that turn up every summer. Days like today
when the high temperature will barely clear eighty degrees
and the sunlight is unbearably clean, when a breeze sensual
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enough to cool Eleni’s overheated libido ruffles the leaves of an oak on the other side of the walkway.
I’m sitting on a bench in crowded Prospect Park, not far
from the zoo. The atmosphere is celebratory, every seat
occupied. Two women across the way sit behind strollers,
identical except for color: one pink, one blue. Their conversation is animated, though in a language I don’t recognize,
and they laugh frequently. On the other end of my bench,
a middle-aged man feeds a trio of gray squirrels from a bag
of peanuts. In slacks and a blue shirt ironed well enough
to meet Martha’s standards, he glances at me from time to
time. I’m in a sleeveless dress that drops to the top of my
knee, even with my legs crossed.
I’m thinking the man will strike up a conversation, but
there’s no room in our lives for a close relationship, a fact Eleni complains about from time to time. She chooses to deal with the problem by engaging in the most casual of relationships, ignoring the obvious dangers. That’s not my way.
The man disappoints me by simply walking off, crum-
bling and tossing his peanut bag into a trash basket. Despite my lack of interest, my reaction is thoroughly female when
I ask myself a simple question: what’s wrong with me? The
question is so stupid that I laugh to myself, a laugh that dies abruptly when I see my father sitting on a bench fifty yards away.
Panic, rising in an instant, tears into my core, ignoring
flesh and bone, the same fear that tore through Martha in
Pathmark, that compelled all of us save Eleni to choose
oblivion over confrontation. A shiver rises along my spine,
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vertebra by vertebra, to rattle finally through the small bones at the back of my neck. More than helpless, I feel already
punished, already in pain.
I want to leap to my feet, to flee, but I remain frozen. I
tell myself that I’m in a crowded public park and perfectly
safe, but I don’t believe it. My terror is primitive, the fear of a peasant for the troll who lives under the bridge. The evil is physical, a presence, a hand already gripping my throat.
Time passes: a minute, then
two. My father and I sit
unmoving, our time stopped. I’m trying hard to become
angry, but my rage vanishes, a drop in an ocean named
despair. Hank Grand will come for his daughter, no matter
the consequences. Even if I took his picture with a cell phone I don’t have, even if I proved it was Hank Grand sitting on
that bench, it wouldn’t matter. Returning him to prison
would only postpone our reunion.
What would Eleni do? What would Kirk do? I’ve trained
myself to appear reasonable, to present a face the world is
ready to see, a bearable face, almost professional. But I have no face for the beast, no posture, no expression that could
possibly deter Hank Grand.
I raise my head as I finally draw a deep breath and again
become aware of my fellow citizens going about their ordi-
nary business, so far removed from my world they might
have come from Mars. Our mental disorder—and we are,
without doubt, disorderly—is considered a psychosis. We’re
crazy and I’m willing to admit the fact. But the man on the
bench isn’t a product of our psychosis. He’s blood and flesh and bone, and he means us harm.
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I hear Eleni’s voice, her arrival so sudden I start. “Take
the pepper spray in your purse and spray it into his fucking mouth.”
I have to bring my hand to my own mouth, the command
so funny that I almost laugh. It’s funny, first of all, because I lack the courage and Eleni knows it. But the really hilari-ous part is that Eleni believes that macing Hank Grand will
somehow stop him. It won’t.
The day ruined, I have only one recourse and that’s
retreat. I rise and begin to walk north, toward Grand Army
Plaza and away from Hank Grand. I tell myself not to look
back, a resolve that lasts for all of thirty seconds. My father has also risen. He’s following, his pace matching my own.
And so we go, passing beneath the arch at the plaza,
then along Flatbush Avenue, six lanes wide and bustling.
Hank Grand comes no closer, but the separation is almost
as threatening as an approach. I feel myself shrinking, my
shoulders hunched, back bent, so that by the time I turn
onto Sixth Avenue behind the Barclays Center I’m fighting
hard against an urge to run. There’s construction here but
no stores or apartment houses. As I glance behind me, a con-
struction worker earns my eternal gratitude when he shouts,
“Ay, mami, eres tan hermosa.” I don’t know what that means, but I’m further encouraged by a pair of whistles from two
other workers. Harass me, please.
Ten minutes later, I’m in front of the door to my building,
sliding my key into the lock, looking back at my father who
stands in the shade of a young maple at the end of the street, still the same fifty yards away. I stare at him for a moment, 91
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unable to break off, and I see him, suddenly, as an old man.
The bags under his eyes, the furrows above his brow, the
swollen jowls, the faint man-breasts, the forward thrust
of his gut. He seems almost harmless, just another senior
counting the years.
Then he raises a hand and the muscles of his upper arms
jerk to attention as he flashes a confident smile.
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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SERENA
I wake up inside our body, no complaints here. Even with
the body reeking of last night’s sex, I’m not resentful,
although Eleni might practice a bit of hygiene, the omission quite deliberate, a taunt thrown at our two sisters, Martha
and Victoria, the prunes. I’m not a virgin, Kirk either, and I suspect the prunes wouldn’t be virgins either if they could
find a way to fall into bed with each other.
A shower awaits, the urgency apparent from the condi-
tion of the clothing scattered across the floor. I gather the skirt, the blouse, the panties, only realizing there’s no bra as I dump the bundle into the hamper. Then I’m in the shower,
soaping, shampooing, raising my face to the oncoming
stream, this treasure not to be taken for granted, only given now, use it or lose it. I stay where I am until the water so predictably cools, until it finally runs cold, too cold even for August in New York.
I grab a towel, dry off, slip into a terrycloth robe Eleni
long ago lifted from a hotel room, my first stop the windows overlooking South Portland Avenue in the kitchen and living room. This sequence is now to be undertaken many
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times each day by whomever controls our body: look to the
left, look to the right, is he there, waiting, waiting, waiting, immobile as a lizard on a rock? Our fear marks the boundar-ies of his and our prison, that we’re locked inside with Hank Grand, dancing his dance even when he’s nowhere to be
found, the orchestra playing on without a conductor.
Ritual complete, the god of fear served, I make coffee,
our one true luxury, sadly said because Martha buys the
cheapest off-brands on the shelf, Eldorado, Pilon, Café Bus-
telo, whatever we don’t need an extravagance by definition.
I finally settle at the little table we use to dine, a plastic circle three feet across, the surface spattered with the memos we now leave for each other, anything unusual, anything we
all need to know, a real family at last. Halberstam’s email, Victoria’s flight from Prospect Park, the lawyer’s petition
now delivered to the court, Eleni’s vain attempt to activate the coldest of cold hotlines. Our order of protection she was told is still in limbo, so sorry, contested by Hank Grand who insists that his daughter prove that he’s a threat, so, so sorry.
A note from Victoria: Halberstam claims that my interaction with Hank Grand in Prospect Park and on the streets of Brooklyn will be reported to our father’s parole officer. We have only Halberstam’s word for it. Contact our lawyer? Yes? No?
I get up, restless, as are we all, knowing what we know,
that Daddy is coming, the waiting apace with his strategy,
until I yearn for the climax, the final act, the closed door, the period at the end of the sentence. The windows beckon,
my thighs forcing me forward though I make no decision
to rise, I want out of the apartment despite that the weather 94
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turned brutally hot again, a bench, perhaps, in Fort Greene
Park near the tennis courts where an overhanging elm offers
dark, dense shade.
Look to the right, look to the left, off to the kitchen,
look to the right, look to the left, no Hank Grand and I’m so unprepared for the knock on our front door I constrict, literally, arms pressed to my sides, eyes jammed shut as if Daddy were already in the room.
“Hey, it’s me. It’s Marshal.”
I almost ask, “Are you alone,” but I catch myself at the
last second. I like Marshal, admire him for his soft soul, a man who bears no grudge, an outlier unfit for the universal
competition.
Marshal looks me over when I usher him in—who the
hell am I—his curiosity genuine. And me, I’ve met
Marshal
but only briefly and I know he’s wishing for Eleni, Kirk a second choice, no-nonsense Martha as a last resort.
“Serena,” I want to caress the side of his face, to reassure, but instead cross my arms behind my back. “What can I do
for you?”
He continues to evaluate, unafraid, unjudging. We are
who we are, passing souls, elusive as the music he writes
in the dark bedroom of his tiny apartment. “I intercepted
another email,” he explains, “from Halberstam. I thought
I’d bring it over.”
Ah, Zenia, I write to you in the best of moods, though with little time to spare. My multi has drawn her sword. We are joined in battle. She’s submitted a petition to the court demanding she be 95
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freed of all supervision. After which, of course, she will surely dismiss your correspondent. That’s what comes of being thoroughly disagreeable. Me, not her. Nevertheless, I’m far from finished with Carolyn, who’s proven stronger than I expected. I mark her as a true survivor and all the more a challenge because her (many times) tested IQ places her in the very superior range.
First question: is her diagnosis, dissociative personality disorder, accurate? There are those in our community who deny the diagnosis entirely. These patients, they contend, influenced by years of therapy (Carolyn Grand has been in and out of therapy for twenty years, long enough for her various “identities” to become aware of each other), create these personas to avoid personal responsibility, even personal responsibility for their own welfare. As for Carolyn, I’m certain her “identities” tell me only what they think I want to hear, hoping to become free not just of Dr. Halberstam, but of all therapy. They are essentially content with who they are, even if who they are includes propositioning strangers in dangerous neighborhoods.
Two mitigating facts. In the literature, multis are almost always female and almost always have a documented history of horren-dous abuse. Carolyn Grand checks both of those boxes. Her childhood was almost beyond imagining. I write this as a therapist who’s suffered through many a sad, sad story. We all have. And we’ve all had patients who use their pasts to justify unacceptable behavior in the present. This behavior further isolates them, leaving them more miserable than they already were. Friendless Carolyn Grand is certainly one of these.
But enough of Carolyn Grand. The court, I promise, will not be releasing her anytime soon. As for me, I intend to reveal her 96
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