Mother, Mother: Psychological suspense for fans of ROOM

High on seeds, Violet would have much rather slept on the rail trail if she’d had her choice. Climbing off her bike, she found the front door locked. The more she tapped the brass door knocker (nobody answered), the more she began to feel like a stranger. Pacing back and forth on the personalized doormat (HURSTS, it read in severe, serifed letters), she’d started to feel like a home intruder.

Finally, knowing full well that her mother hated the sound, Violet hit the doorbell and listened to the dissonant electric sound of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

The door had snapped inward, and Josephine’s grimacing face popped out.

“Why did you ring the doorbell?” she asked. “I hate that sound. That’s no exaggeration. I hate it. Douglas! Haven’t I told you to reprogram that thing?! It’s not your fault, Violet. It’s that father of yours.”

Violet had stepped into the foyer, where the chandelier seemed to bloom open like a crystal chrysanthemum, and felt like she’d crossed a psychic threshold that could never be uncrossed. Violet had wanted to retreat to her bedroom, but she couldn’t seem to vocalize anything. “It’s locked,” she finally said, tapping her temple with one finger.

“Let me smell you,” Josephine said, backing Violet against the door. “Have you been smoking cigarettes? You’re eating tonight. You’re eating something. Do you understand me? I hope you’re hungry, little girl.”

Now, in the hospital, Violet really did feel like a little girl. She felt as utterly aimless as she did during summer vacations when her mother used to confiscate her books as punishment for fighting with Rose. Since she was no good at sitting still to begin with, Violet decided to walk every inch of the resident area. She perused a cart of books donated by a ladies’ auxiliary (it was mostly graphic horror and super-inappropriate “throbbing manhood” smut). She scanned the patient art that had been stuck to the bulletin boards with packing tape (presumably tacks could be swallowed or used to self-harm). A handprint collage returned her thoughts, for the billionth time, to Will. For all the times people had questioned her about him, no one had told her how he was doing. She wondered whether he was home from the hospital. She hoped he wasn’t in pain.

After she’d done the full tour, Violet headed down the long hallway toward her room. She was nearly there when a nurse headed her off.

“Violet, right?” the woman asked. “Your mom dropped this at reception when she came in for paperwork.”

Violet felt a rush of blood as she reached out for the envelope. Any letter her mother left was sure to enumerate all of Violet’s faults. Or else, allude to the punishment she should expect when she got home. Violet’s anxiety turned to utter disbelief when she saw the perfectionistic print and the return address. When she noticed the sealing wax, she knew without a shadow of a doubt it was from Rose. Pyro Rose, who would melt down anything from crayons to Babybel cheese cases and stamp it with a peacoat button.

Violet shivered as she recalled the image of Rose standing in the foyer on the night of her intake. Her throat felt tight as she slit the envelope with one blue fingernail. Inside was Rose’s stick-man handwriting, all perfectly round circles and precision-straight lines, the pressure slightly too hard. Their mother was always appalled that no one of their generation used cursive.

Dear Vivi,

Greetings from corporate hell. I’m in acting class most nights, so I only have time to write when I’m at my day job. From what I can see, office life is like this big theater exercise where everybody just shuffles papers and acts really busy. I’m playing along, pretending like I’m taking the minutes for a meeting and really taking the opportunity to write you with a year’s worth of questions like …

How is Stone Ridge High these days?

Do you have your license?

Do you have a boyfriend?

Are you still thinking about art school? I hope so. I know I didn’t always “get” your art in the past, but you’re good. You should go for it. Whatever you do, don’t end up an office slave like me. Every second of the day is soo boring. Half the people I work for don’t even bother to ask my name, and the rest are too filthy rich to remember what it’s like to be young and broke. “How broke?” you might ask. This morning I bought coffee filters on credit!

Does it sound too stupid and optimistic to say I think I might catch a break soon? I’m auditioning again and I have a callback I’m crossing my fingers about.

My new acting teacher is the best I’ve ever had. The other day, he was like, “Rose, you’re a young twenty-something and the pool is pretty full of your type. You need to think about who responds to you best in real life. What kind of strangers smile at you before they even get to know you? Figure it out, and then audition for commercials for products that those people buy.” For me, it’s old people and little kids. According to this teacher, I’m the good girl, but not the leading lady. I’m more of the cute office clerk or the supportive older sister type. So ironic, isn’t it? I’m only typecast at parts I suck at in real life!

Which brings me to why I’m writing … I’m sorry I lumped you in with the rest of the family. I know we’ve both always done our own things, but I see now I should have let you in on my plan. I just didn’t want to be criticized, and I really didn’t want anyone to talk me into staying. Damien asked me to move in with him, and there’s no way Mom and Dad would have let that happen. You know how it would have gone … Dad inviting him over for dinner, Mom ribbing him about “living in sin.” I thought hopping on a train was the best way to spare everyone!

I’m really hoping you’ll play pen pal with me, and also that you’ll keep my address secret? That is, if Mom hasn’t already seen this and put two and two together! I’m just not ready to have the whole family banging down my door. I’m sure you understand why I’d rather visit them on my own terms.

I miss you!

Rose

It came as no surprise to Violet that her sister was alive and well, nor that she was living in the city. The police had said as much when they closed her short-lived missing-person investigation last year. It all ended with relief and embarrassment when Rose’s car was towed away from the Poughkeepsie MetroNorth station. Its metered parking ticket had expired, and the police found her Dear John letter to the Hursts placed prominently on the front seat. CCTV at the station had shown Rose buying a one-way ticket to Grand Central—a charge that matched the credit card the company confirmed she still used. It all proved what Violet had secretly suspected: the whole “case” was really just a five-alarm overreaction on her mother’s part, not to mention a waste of public sympathy and taxpayer money.

After her disappearance was deemed voluntary, other emotions whooshed in to fill the family vacuum Rose’s absence had created. Violet’s parents had been able to deal (just barely) with their panic over Rose’s so-called abduction, but they were totally unequipped to handle the fact that their golden child hated them enough to cut them out of her life. Douglas, even in his self-contained way, had seemed dejected for months. Josephine was rip-shit at being ignored. Will was angry too, in allegiance to their mom. And Violet … Once Violet was a hundred percent sure Rose was safe, she was overcome by sickening envy. She wanted the freedom her sister had. Of course she did. But Violet was most jealous of the subversive means by which Rose had broken free. Rose had escaped by doing exactly what Josephine asked of her, waiting until just the right moment to rebel. By comparison, Violet’s small, daily rebellions put her mother on guard around her. The harder Violet fought back, the more controlling Josephine became; she was in a choke chain of her own making.

Violet’s parents hadn’t been exaggerating to the police; it really was unlike Rose to take off for days without telling anyone. But they’d also failed to mention all the ways Rose had been acting out of character and causing tension for months—dropping her theater major and taking long walks alone, supposedly, on the town rail trail.

Only Violet and her mom had known the reason for Rose’s sudden bitchy pensiveness. Rose had come down with the kind of sickness that gets cured by either (a) a two-hour appointment at Planned Parenthood or (b) eighteen to twenty years of servitude. Rose had picked the former: A for abortion. If Violet had figured it all out sooner, she would have applauded Rose for not just going ahead and having Damien’s kid, simply for the ego trip (genes, lineage, legacy). She would have told Rose that she had lots of time to push around a mini-person who shared her last name. Violet knew in her gut that Josephine was the major reason Rose had done what she’d done. With a mom like theirs, it was impossible not to equate becoming a mother with becoming a monster.

WILLIAM HURST (#ulink_784db6cc-deb8-5d66-8200-3935bd367e33)

“CAN WE ASK what this is in reference to?”

Will stood up straight and crossed his arms, mimicking his mother’s offense.

“I need to ask you a few questions about your daughter Viola. Your family was entered into our system when your older daughter”—Trina Williams’s gaze fell to her notes—“Rosette ran away. It’s a formality. Going forward, anytime you have a domestic disturbance, Child Protective Services is required to investigate. It won’t take very long.”

“Fine,” Josephine said. “Just let me get Will into bed and I’ll be happy to discuss the matter with you.”

“I’m afraid I need to speak to your son as well.”

“In that case, you’ll have to come back another time,” Josephine said. “I don’t know if this is in your files, but in the year since Rose ran away, my son was diagnosed with epilepsy. He’s had a difficult week. I need to let him rest, have his fluids, and give him more Keppra.” Again, she lifted Will’s arm, pulled back his sleeve, and rattled the sterling bracelet. It was Will’s good hand. He instinctively turtled his other hand—the one with the brace—up into the sleeve of his orange down coat.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Trina’s tone didn’t exactly ooze sympathy. “I’ll make a note in your file. Here’s my card. Do you think I could come by tomorrow?”

Josephine leaned Will’s head against her hip and stroked his forehead as if checking for a fever.

“Possibly. It really depends on William.”

“I understand.” Trina nodded. “Well, we’ll be in touch.”

Will watched from the front steps as her neon car reversed out past the gaping mailbox.

When they returned to the kitchen, Josephine gave him a bowl of Stewart’s ice cream—the flavor, Death by Chocolate, seemed grave and momentous—and sat opposite him in the breakfast nook, while he ate it in slow, measured spoonfuls.

“We need to talk about the night Violet went away,” she said. “I need to make sure you can synthesize your thoughts about what happened. That woman who came by is going to make you explain it to her. If she can’t keep up with you, or if you don’t explain yourself well, there could be big consequences. You don’t want to confuse her, or give her the impression you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Okay.” They did this sometimes. She helped him role-play scenarios when she worried his Asperger’s was going to get in the way.

“So go on … Tell me what you remember.”

“You and Dad and Violet were fighting.”

She nodded. “That’s right. Only we were arguing, not fighting. ‘Fighting’ can sometimes mean hitting. And we weren’t hitting. We were just having an argument.”

“You were arguing,” Will corrected himself. “Because Violet had made a mess in the dishwasher.”

There was her approving nod again. She was proud that he’d remembered that detail.

“I’d made a special vegetarian dinner for her, hadn’t I?”

Will hesitated. “Yes.”

“And Violet wouldn’t eat it.”