"Living with Anxiety"

It is two weeks shy of Thanksgiving and my mother is off to her third session of therapy. Ever since my parents’ anniversary, and mom’s night with the Manischewtiz, Mr. McGee’s wanted her to get help. Only Mr. McGee didn’t count on my mother being such a great actress, listening to her whale music and doing her meditations each night, pretending she was one with the Universe. He didn’t know to look underneath her old lady underpants like Zelda and me. If he had, he’d have known that her whole Zen aura was just a load of crap-ola and that a whole cocktail of narcotics were nestled underneath those panties.


I’d never said anything because I didn’t think it was a big deal. So she took a few pills to conk out—who did it hurt? She still got to work everyday and kept track of Jack and me like a bloodhound; she still spent many an evening giggling away with Mr. McGee. I didn’t think twice about her over-dosing on our parents’ anniversary because she’d been, rightly, upset.


But then Mr. McGee had to catch a plane to Denver for a radio convention. He was only gone a few days but my mother acted like he was leaving for the Gulf War. Of course, not to his face. Always the actress, mom packed him a preservative-filled breakfast (I don’t know how Jack and I would have survived without Pillsbury products!) and kissed him goodbye. When he phoned she was all giggles and grins, a little girl without a care in the world. But once the sky was dark and it was time to brush our teeth, our mother decided to brush the bathtub instead. Well, she started by scrubbing the tub with a sponge, but decided it wasn’t getting the mold between the tiles out enough so she moved onto a toothbrush. By the time she was satisfied with the bathtub and shower, mom realized that the bathroom’s floor could do with a good cleaning too. We said goodnight to her shaking derriere in the air and went to bed. But I didn’t sleep. I was too occupied listening to the nylon bristles brush against the hexagon-tiled floor.


But I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew it was daylight, a winter sky peeking through the blinds. Only I could still hear the scrubbing of a brush.


We found mom on the floor of our kitchen, still in her overalls from the night before, scrubbing the life out of one vinyl square.


“Mom, you need to get ready for work. You’re going to be late for work,” Jack said. He took the toothbrush out of her hand so carefully, like a surgeon removing a tumor, and I saw a flash of our father in him.


“Yes, you’re right, honey.” Her eyes were shiny, the skin around them puffy and red. “Of course, there’s work.” She gave a shaky smile and bit her bottom lip so hard it started to bleed. But if she felt it, she didn’t react.


It was then that Jack started saying that we should call Mr. McGee. “She’s not well. She’s not well at all, Amelia.” He shook his head until I started to feel dizzy just watching him.


“She’s fine,” I said. Because I needed her to be okay, because I didn’t think Mr. McGee could handle another Manischewtiz moment without wanting to run away from our mother, from us.


So I said that it was perfectly normal to want a clean house and have one measly night without sleep. But I don’t think I was telling this to Jack as much as myself.


The next night there was no more cleaning. Jack and I were in our beds pretending to sleep. But we were really listening to our mother lie to Mr. McGee. “Everything’s great here.”


And then, Mr. McGee must have said something about a storm coming because we started to hear mom’s slippers pad back and forth between her bedroom and the kitchen, the sound of the front door slamming open and closed every few minutes. I bolted out of bed and tiptoed to our bedroom door.