Chapter 17 Simple Requests
Simple Requests
Denise sat silently at the Ryans’ kitchen table without touching her slice of cake or glass of milk, waiting for Margaret
to finish reading. After doing so a second time, Margaret lowered the papers and looked at the girl for a long moment.
“Denise, this is . . .”
When Margaret had invited the girl into the house and asked what she wanted to talk about, she’d been surprised and a little
flattered when Denise asked if she would read the writing sample she planned to send to Oxford. “Mom told me you write a magazine
column. Since you’re a professional writer, I thought you’d have ideas about how I can improve it.”
Hearing the phrase “professional writer” applied to herself made Margaret uncomfortable. Her knee-jerk response was to deny
it. Then she remembered the check and that someone had, in fact, paid her to write. Wasn’t that the definition of professional?
She told Denise she’d be happy to read her essay.
Now that she had, she didn’t quite know what to say.
“This is very, very good.”
Margaret wasn’t being kind. Denise’s writing was extraordinary.
The girl had penned a sort of tragic fairy tale about a woman who lived in an overregulated suburban community called Harmony.
Upon moving there, the woman had made great, even grandiose plans for the installation of a lavish garden.
After many years, because the woman never followed through with her plans, a crew of workers came and planted shrubs and trees that were identical to those of her neighbors and nothing like the garden she had imagined.
The woman, now enraged, continued to possess a plan, as well as the tools and means to execute it.
Rather than do so, she bought a watering can and a bottle of poison.
Every day for many months, she mixed a few drops of poison in a full can of water and poured it on the roots of the shrubs and trees, killing them slowly but surely, leaving the garden bare and the ground so tainted that nothing would ever grow there again.
The fact that the main character was a thinly disguised version of Charlotte made Margaret squirm initially, but the story
was so skillfully wrought that she soon moved past that. Denise’s writing was sharp and precise. The woman’s every action
served a purpose, shining a light on the flaws, motives, and misbeliefs that lay beneath her behaviors. Each word was carefully
chosen, each adjective ideal, creating descriptions that illuminated without embellishing.
And yet, for all that, there was a luminous quality to the writing, and a strange intimacy. Margaret felt like she was watching
a scene through the thinnest of veils, witnessing every action and hearing every word, but never looking the character full
in the face. That quality allowed the reader to insert anyone into the story, even herself. Especially herself.
“Denise, it’s better than good. It’s remarkable. And insightful . . .”
She had been about to say “especially for a girl of seventeen” but stopped herself. Adding an age qualifier was unnecessary.
The work was remarkable and insightful. Period.
“If I had anything to suggest, I would. But I don’t. You’re an excellent writer.”
“Thank you.”
Another girl might have blushed, broken eye contact, or made a self-deprecating comment denying her talent while simultaneously fishing for another compliment to mitigate her own insecurity.
That’s what Margaret would have done at that age, and what she still did sometimes.
But Denise simply thanked her, acknowledging the truth of Margaret’s words with a quiet confidence that was not the least bit unseemly.
Charlotte always said Denise was an odd duck. If the definition meant a person who didn’t fit in with her peers, then Denise
was that. But if your peers were ordinary people destined to lead ordinary lives and you understood that you were the opposite,
why would you waste time trying to fit in? You wouldn’t. Instead, you’d be desperately searching for a place where you did
fit in. So what Denise had to say didn’t come as too much of a surprise, not initially.
“Mrs. Ryan, I have to go to Oxford. I just have to! If I don’t, I . . .”
For the first time that day, Denise looked like what she still was: an anxious teenager teetering uncertainly on the cusp
of womanhood, as desperate for transformation as Margaret had been at that age. Margaret reached across the table and clasped
her hand.
“It’s going to be all right. According to your mother, your grades are excellent. And you’re obviously an exceptional writer.
I don’t doubt that there’s a lot of competition, but with talent like yours, I’m sure your chances are better than most. And
if Oxford doesn’t work out for some reason, there will be a dozen other colleges that would be thrilled to have you.”
Denise screwed her eyes shut as she spoke, nodding impatiently, as if pushing back the urge to interrupt her elder required
focused effort.
“Thank you, yes. I do have a couple of fallback options, just in case. But I think my chances are good. I’m not as worried
about getting admitted as I am about the things that could stop me from going after I am admitted.”
Denise opened her eyes. “I appreciate you reading my story. And I am glad you liked it. But what I really came to talk about is my mother. You care about her, don’t you?”
The curiosity in her voice, the way she tipped her head sideways, as if she couldn’t quite believe it, took Margaret by surprise.
“Of course. Charlotte is my friend.”
Denise nodded. “Yes. I realized that when you came over last night and pitched in to help so she wouldn’t be embarrassed.
I’m not sure Mom’s ever had a friend like you before. But it made me wonder how much you know about her. I’m sure you’ve heard
rumors.”
“People gossip. Doesn’t make it true.”
“No. Unless it is.”
Denise took a drink of her milk before going on.
“Last year Mom took an overdose of sleeping pills and spent a month in a psychiatric hospital. My deeply sensitive classmates,
who never miss an opportunity to whisper about it if I’m in earshot, prefer to call it the ‘loony bin.’ But the point is,
the rumors are true,” she said, before going on to share a confession that Margaret found both sad and shocking.
Margaret felt a genuine pang of sympathy for all this very young and very odd duck had endured. Still, she wasn’t sure that
becoming privy to Denise’s secrets was a good idea for either of them. After all, she barely knew the girl. But Denise didn’t
seem to believe in secrets. She was clear-eyed and frank, speaking plainly about things another teenage girl might strive
to ignore, or hide, or try to forget. It occurred to Margaret that this might be part of what made her such a good writer.
Denise moved her fork, lining it up evenly next to the untouched cake plate.
“Mom can have a somewhat . . . casual relationship with the truth. But she swears the overdose was accidental, that she woke
up and couldn’t get back to sleep, and was so groggy she didn’t realize she’d already taken her sleeping pills. I don’t always
believe what Mom says, but I do this time.
“She goes through these cycles,” Denise continued, “getting incredibly excited about a project, like she did this week with her paintings. When it happens, she can stay up all night in a kind of exuberant rampage, creating chaos wherever she goes until, inevitably, she crashes. It has always been like that. I almost get it. When a story idea comes into my head, I’ll sometimes stay up all night writing.
The hours fly by so fast that I barely notice.
The difference is, eventually I get worn out and go to bed.
Not Mom. Even when she’s exhausted, she can’t always sleep, so the doctor gave her some pills. The doctors give her a lot of pills.”
“Miltown?” Margaret asked.
“Among others. But I do believe the overdose was an accident. My mother may be crazy, but she’s not that kind of crazy. She
can be so stubborn and so incredibly contrary that sometimes I just want to—argh!” Denise clawed her hands in frustration.
“But Mom would never take her own life. She loves her kids too much, even me. And I drive her crazier than the other three
put together.”
Margaret smiled, remembering her own mother. Oh, the arguments they’d had! It was a complicated thing, the relationship between
a mother and a nearly grown daughter. But then, as she reflected on how young Denise was, and how naive, Margaret’s expression
became somber. The girl might well be a literary prodigy, but when it came to her personal life, she could not yet imagine
the unimaginable, that even a mother who loves you can let you down, even leave you. Who can at that age? Who should ever
have to?
Denise went on with the story.
“Howard was skiing in Vermont when it happened. When I went into Mom’s room, she wouldn’t wake up, so I called an ambulance.
After I explained the situation, the doctor said they’d probably just keep her overnight and then release her. Then Howard
showed up, playing the role of concerned husband,” Denise said, a bitter edge coming into her voice.
“He told them some lies about how erratic and unstable she was, and how supposedly worried he’d been.
Well, if he was so worried about her, why did he run off to Vermont to ski?
He wasn’t there. He’s never there. I was,” she said, pressing her fist against her chest. “But once he showed up, the doctors wouldn’t listen to me.
They sent Mom to a psychiatric hospital and kept her there for a month.
They only let her go after she agreed to leave New York and move here. ”
Denise picked up her fork and stabbed her slice of cake with a ferocity that would have qualified as attempted murder had
the cake been animate, tearing into it but not taking a bite.
“Mom had no choice. Banishment to the suburbs was the price of her freedom. Theoretically, we moved to Concordia because a