December 25, 1991
I had watched my mother fill reams of paper with words that meant nothing, consisting mostly of my father’s name over and over: Frobisher Jamison Dodge. Over and over, as if some mental message might come forth simply by repeating his name again and again.
During my junior high period, I picked up the habit of filling spaces of paper and notebooks with all the names of my family, real and imagined. Thereby, filling gaps with the text of a code signaling some sort of unrecognizable S.O.S.
* * * * * * *
Rahne made the comment that maybe Andrew’s difficulty in maintaining safety was due to his repeated contacts with the cult. Referring to Andrew’s meeting with Frobisher and several cards and notes from my mother:
Merry Christmas & Happy Birthday
Time & Tides wait for no one.
Love always,
Mother
I added to the list a contact I’d had with an old neighbor putting his arm around me too tightly and smiling at me with an intimacy and interest that I did not share.
Was there something I should do to eliminate my mother’s ability to get through? Were those cards harming my ability to heal? Every time I got a message from my mom, I got some little hit of being abused. “They’re still at it,” I thought.
“Time and tides wait for no one,” seemed almost as familiar as, “Don’t eat pizza on Tuesdays.” The message was deliberately buried almost as obfuscated as “Frobisher Jamison Dodge” repeated a hundred times on paper.
“You have no existence of your own. You cannot escape. You cannot escape.” Words from another time and place which I now recognized as relentless programming drummed into me by excessive practice.
“I have no forgiveness for you,” I mouthed silently back in time. “You can have no more contact.” Not now. Not ever.
* * * * * * *
“Hey, bitch.”
“Easy, what do you want?”
“Fuckin’ bitch, what’s your problem?”
“I don’t have a problem.” I cleared my mind. “See, I’m easy. So, let it go for now.”
Silence on the other end. I spent long days being attentive to Andrew. Watching and anxiously gauging his upset. For safety reasons, it was how I managed.
As the evening wore on, I paid acute attention to the time span between his outbursts. As if watching in anticipation of water set to boil, I measured my need to take evasive action. As they edged up to every three minutes, I took a pill to keep the lid from blowing off. I did it with caring and without animosity which helped to ease the relationship between Andrew and I.
* * * * * * *
“Hey, bitch.”
“Ya, I hear ya. I already took a pill. All right? So, just gentle down. Ok?”
“I hate wordy bitches.”
“Uh-huh.”
* * * * * * *
“Now, we’re fighting about my having trouble walking. I don’t want to fight about that. We have to be a team on this issue. Otherwise, we both get hurt.”
“I don’t know that I see it that way.”
“Well, would you give it a shot? I’m tired, and I need to sleep. And, I need confidence for tomorrow.”
Andrew just sighed. In his own way, he was tired too.
* * * * * * *
December 26, 1991
By the next day, words between me and Andrew had deteriorated. I was beginning to be unable to tell where Andrew’s sense of anger ended and my own low self-esteem began.
When Andrew said “Bitches” now, it wasn’t at all clear whether he meant that great body of misogyny that goes out to all women or just me specifically.
I began to have violent fantasies and couldn’t tell if it was my agenda or Andrew’s. When I tried to find some agreeable turf in my own mind, I was distracted and dissettled. In my attempts to find a calm place to daydream, I tried mulling over work issues to no avail and finally remembered that tomorrow was my birthday. But fantasizing about it when it was this close made me self-conscious and nervous.
“We’re doing real well here, Andrew,” I said sarcastically. “You want to help me out on this one?”
* * * * * * *
December 27, 1991 12:31 a.m.
In a flash of brilliance, Andrew jumped alive as I was calmly reading a book.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea.” He leaped of the bed and started talking to Rahne in a spree of verbiage. “It’s my birthday too! Right?”
“I don’t know. Is it?”
“Yes, it is. December 27th is my birthday too, and I want a present like she’s getting.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to cut my arm.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Why not? Picture this, I want to cut my arm and get, oh say, 15 stitches, and you wouldn’t break up with her for cutting herself on her birthday. Right?” Andrew got pretty excited. “I know you wouldn’t.”
“Don’t bet on it,” Rahne commented dryly. Rahne could sustain the theatrical and be deadly serious at the same time.
“I want it for my birthday.”
“It’s not okay.”
“But, it’s my birthday. It’s what I want.”
“It’s not what she wants.”
“So what, I have a right to a present too.”
“Yes, you do. Tell me, are you upset about something?”
“Oh, yeah. You think I’m carrying on about this because I’m upset about something. Well, I’m not. I just want a birthday present.”
“I was just curious and thought you might have something on your mind.”
“I do! I want a present, and I know exactly what I want.”
“Ok. But, if you were upset about something, I’d be interested in hearing about it.”
“I’ll take it under advisement. Right now, I just want a birthday present that I’ve got a right to.”
“Birthdays don’t mean there are no limits.”
“But, you get special things on your birthday. Like arm cutting or weapons.”
“’Fraid not, those agreements still stand.”
“Well, it’s not fair. She gets what she wants. I just want my own special present for my birthday.” Andrew moved to another room.
Rahne called after him, “So, how old are you?”
“Well, if she’s gonna be 34. I’m gonna be… If I tell you this, can I change my mind later?” He didn’t hear Rahne’s answer before continuing. “I’m gonna be 24. That’s it, she’s gonna be 34, and I’m gonna be 24.” He paused. “You sure I can’t have an injury for my birthday?”
“Positive.”
“Well, that’s not fair.” Andrew got sullen and tired.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m too tired.” He rubbed his eyes. “Well, then I’ll draw a cut on her arm with stitches.” He got up and grabbed a pen and made a straight line down his forearm with little cross lines representing 15 stitches. “There, that’s the best I can do.”
Rahne inspected his art work, “That does it for you?”
“Well, maybe I can draw other mean things.” He raised his sleeve to expose his biceps. “I can draw a big knife and a gun… How about Death with a sickle or scythe—whatever you call them…and maybe a hanging man with a noose.”
Rahne got ready for bed while he drew. “See, which one do you think is the meanest?” He gave her a little tour of the drawings and settled on the hanging man. “I think that’s the scariest. Don’t you?”
“Yes.” Rahne agreed solemnly.
Andrew also finished getting ready for bed. “Do you think tomorrow we could stop and buy some tape so I can tape up her whole arm as if there were stitches there?”
“Yeah, sure, you bet.”
Then he feel asleep where I would gladly have been a little sooner in the evening.
* * * * * * *
The following day after all the festivities at 11:45 p.m., I broke out the tape and bandaged my arm for Andrew. After all, a deal’s a deal, I thought. When I finished, I heaved a sigh and whispered in my head, “Happy Birthday, Andrew,” just as the birthday passed.