Memory Palace (9781439183335) by Bartok Mira

Author:Bartok, Mira
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2011-10-06T04:00:00+00:00

Our mother is a tornado. The hospital never even medicated her; they just sent her back out into the streets three hours after she arrived. After all the heartbreak and drama and running around to social services, the courthouse, and the police station, my mother just walks in the door and picks up where she left off.

“You aren’t going anywhere,” she says, pointing a lit cigarette at my face. “We’ve got business to attend to.” She turns to the men. “You bastards get out!”

Our mother tells us that she will not, under any circumstances, let us leave. She reiterates the fact that she will kill herself if she has to in order to prove her point. We are to move back to Cleveland into our old apartment on Triskett Road and we will live together again, safe from the outside world. She has it all planned out. She is as determined as a Metal Horse. “I put a deposit down on the place,” she says. “So we can be together again.”

My sister and I try to reason with her. After all these years of living with this, we are still ignorant about her debilitating disease. I once asked a schizophrenic guy I knew in Chicago what it was like to be him. He said, “It’s like your head is plugged into every electric socket in every house on every street.” I had gone to therapy, read books, went to support group meetings and conventions on mental illness, and still had no idea how to talk to my mother about getting help.

“Please sign it. It’s for your own good,” says Rachel. She’s holding the voluntary guardianship document in front of our mother’s face. “Sign it. You’ve got to.”

“Cut the crap. Tell those boys to leave. They’re not wanted here.”

“If you don’t sign that paper,” I threaten her, “you will never see us again.”

In the house on West 148th Street, pandemonium breaks out. Everyone is shouting and waving their arms.

“Stop,” my sister screams. “I can’t take it anymore.” Michael tries to comfort her, while Agostino shouts at our mother in both English and Italian.

My mother is enraged. “Who’s controlling you girls? Who are these men?”

“You have to sign this,” I say, holding out the papers. “Otherwise this is it. You’ll see. We’ll disappear.”

“You’ve been brainwashed. You’ll do as I say.”

My mother lunges toward me; I push her away. Rachel and Michael are shouting at her to calm down.

I run upstairs to use the bathroom, hoping it isn’t clogged like the one by the kitchen. On my way back down I pause by the little nightstand at the top of the stairs. I pull out what’s hidden in the bottom drawer—an old piece of violin rosin I left years ago. I can smell it through the chamois cloth; I slip the rosin into my pocket. Is this the only treasure I will take from my childhood home? Halfway down the stairs, I stop to survey the scene in the living room from above, detached.

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