Chapter 3 F.A.Q.S
F.A.Q.s
Phoebe found the house almost unchanged. Same furniture, same couch cushions worn out in the same old places, practically the same stack of magazines. Phoebe’s parents, Melanie and Dan, looked just as she had left them, and so their new coffee maker startled her.
“Where did that come from?”
“Your mother bought it.”
“The old one broke,” Melanie said, defending herself.
Of course, Phoebe saw that the new machine stood right where the scrap bucket had been. All composting had ceased the minute she had gone to college. Sweetie, it smelled so bad, had been Melanie’s excuse.
And yet Phoebe’s parents had planted vegetables with her when she was little.
They had hired a handyman to build a chicken coop in the backyard.
The coop stood empty now, just a few downy feathers blowing in the wind.
Freshman year a fox had killed the hen named Scout.
Weeks after that, Scout’s sister, Carrie, had disappeared.
During spring semester, the last chicken, Mrs. Dalloway, had passed.
Sometimes Phoebe questioned the level of care Mrs. Dalloway had received from Melanie and Dan.
They had reverted so quickly to supermarket eggs.
“I’ll carry those,” Dan said.
“No that’s okay.” Phoebe shouldered her backpack and dragged her giant duffle upstairs. Nervously, her parents followed, weighted down with unasked questions. What had happened? Was the boyfriend really history?
“Let me help you get that through the door.” Dan picked up the bottom of the duffle and squeezed the bag sausage-like through the doorframe.
Phoebe was already inside, gazing at another acquisition, an elliptical trainer in the middle of her room.
“We can move it.” Dan had opposed the purchase, predicting correctly that it would gather dust. He had knee problems, so he never exercised.
“We’ll take it down to the basement,” Melanie said.
She had only installed the trainer in Phoebe’s room because she felt closer to her daughter there.
Two birds. She’d missed Phoebe, and she was trying to lose weight.
Missing trumped motivation, however, and after several minutes of exercise, Melanie usually ended up on Phoebe’s bed.
When Phoebe stepped onto the machine, she heard a trilling sound like bells.
“WELCOME” she read on the small screen. “HOW OLD ARE YOU?”
Phoebe typed “100.”
Without blinking, the elliptical asked “HOW MUCH DO YOU WEIGH?”
Once again, Phoebe typed “100.”
“I got you rice milk,” Melanie said. “And oat cakes,” she added hopefully. Phoebe looked so thin. Her long blond hair had lost its spring; she’d tied it with a repurposed rubber band.
Melanie opened the closet door, revealing bins of clothes and toys, boxed board games and puzzles, including the Great Barrier Reef and the solar system. On the top shelf lay Grandma Jeanne’s violin in its brown cloth-covered case. This was Phoebe’s inheritance, but no one mentioned it.
Dan said, “We can consolidate these boxes.”
Melanie said, “I’ll get more hangers.”
“Hey, it’s almost midnight. Don’t you have work tomorrow?” Phoebe ushered her parents out into the hall.
She was so tired she didn’t even brush her teeth. She undressed completely and slipped between clean sheets.
—
Phoebe did not come down the next morning.
“Is she okay?” Melanie asked.
“What do you mean? She’s exhausted, obviously.
” Dan spoke as though Melanie missed the point entirely, but he was just as anxious.
He hovered in the kitchen while Melanie washed dishes.
Then he followed her upstairs to wait in the hallway where each willed the other to knock first. Their daughter was home safe, but silent. What did it mean?
At last Melanie called, “Phoebe?”
No answer.
“Let her rest,” Dan said.
Reluctantly, they left for work in separate cars. Dan drove to Progressive Insurance, and Melanie headed for New Jersey Medical. At ten o’clock she texted Phoebe, I left you granola. At noon, she texted her again. Did you get some sleep? Then at one: Phoebe? Are you there?
Still no answer. Was Phoebe really sleeping? Her bedroom had been preternaturally still. Not a rustle, not a breath escaped the cracks around the door. What if she had done something? Taken something? Drugged herself to disappear?
Melanie was planning to drive home when Phoebe texted. Yes.
Thank God. Melanie felt grateful and foolish. Now she could go about her day. Then she wondered, Did yes mean of course I’m here; leave me alone? Or was it a broader affirmation? Yes, oh yes, granola with flaxseeds, rolled oats, dried cranberries. Yes, I have returned.
—
The first few days, Phoebe listened to music with her headphones on. She said she was unpacking, but she never did hang up her shirts, or fill her dresser drawers.
When she had the energy, she pulled clean clothes from her suitcase.
At night, she left her dirty laundry on the floor.
After she had worn all her shirts and underwear, she did the wash.
Then she rigged up a clothesline in the backyard.
From the kitchen window, Dan watched her tying one end of a nylon rope to the back porch and the other to the crab apple.
She made a neat job of it; she had even found a tub of clothespins.
Methodically she hung her clothes on the line.
After that burst of activity, she drifted back inside and slept.
“I guess she needs it,” Melanie ventured.
“I don’t know,” Dan said.
They remembered how much Phoebe had slept when she returned from summer camp, but this was different. After a week at home, she still couldn’t stay awake.
Melanie worried about mono, ticks, and Lyme disease. She kept saying, “I think we should take you in.” But Phoebe said no.
“What did he do to you?” Dan was always blaming Phoebe’s ex.
“Oh, come on,” Phoebe said, because did he really think she would tell him about her boyfriend?
“Could you be pregnant?” Melanie asked when she got Phoebe alone.
“Mom!”
Melanie was always looking for a diagnosis; Dan had to find someone to blame.
Each day, Phoebe waited in her room until they left for work.
Then she shuffled down to sort pictures on her phone.
Photos from college; photos from the berry farm.
This took a long time because she studied each before she made it disappear.
Once she ventured into the backyard. She checked the empty coop.
She rolled her bike out of the garage and pumped up the tires. Then she rolled it back inside.
She felt disembodied, ghostly. She lived like Emily Dickinson.
Yeah, right. She wished! No poems came to her, although she had the recluse part down.
Phoebe watched children play across the street and imagined lowering a basket of gingerbread as Dickinson had done.
Of course, she would get arrested. Food from strangers, nut allergies.
She practiced flitting behind blinds instead.
At dusk, her parents returned like chattering birds.
The house was small with thin walls and one narrow upstairs hallway, so Phoebe heard the arguments.
How long would this go on? Was Phoebe home for the whole summer?
And if she was, what would she be doing?
Obviously, she should get a job, said Dan.
But how and where? She wouldn’t talk about her plans.
She didn’t talk at all. All they knew was Phoebe had spent a year living with Chris, and now they weren’t together.
What next? Their daughter said nothing, did nothing, wanted nothing.
Melanie said Phoebe should see somebody. Dan said great, rush her into therapy.
Listening in bed, Phoebe remembered how her parents had fought when she was little. Once her father had told her mother, “If you’re that unhappy leave.” Melanie drove off but returned an hour later. She’d only gone as far as Edison.
From an early age, Phoebe had kept the family together.
Melanie was tired; Dan was out of patience.
Therefore, Phoebe had worked as hard as possible at math, poetry, physics, and violin—especially violin.
In high school, she had practiced at least three hours a day.
Now, as her parents snapped at each other, she thought of ways to reassure them.
She would apply for internships. Teacher training?
Arts administration? She would draft a five-year plan.
The trouble was getting out of bed. She managed most days, but she didn’t always make it down the stairs.
True to character, Dan lost it first. He turned to Phoebe at dinner and said, “All right, you’ve been here almost two weeks.”
Melanie interrupted, “This is her home, Dan.”
“You’ve been sleeping, what, twelve, fourteen hours a day?”
Melanie said, “You can see that she’s run-down.”
Dan kept after Phoebe. “What you’re doing isn’t healthy and it isn’t fair.”
“What do you mean, fair?” Melanie demanded.
“It’s not fair to the rest of us! From now on we’re having some house rules. First of all, no pajamas at the table.”
Melanie protested, “She’s not wearing—”
“She wore them yesterday. Second of all.” Dan paused to think of his second point. “No sleeping more than ten hours. You have got to pull yourself together!”
—
Late that night, Phoebe heard a clattering of dishes in the kitchen as Melanie took Dan to task. “You don’t just tell someone to pull herself together.”
Dan said, “I’m not walking on eggshells while my twenty-one-year-old regresses.”
“She’s not regressing. She’s recovering.”
“From what?”
“I mean clearly—”
“She’s growing down!”
Lying in bed, feet rooting underneath the covers, Phoebe imagined herself a misfit carrot, a fingerling potato.
“She doesn’t drive; she doesn’t even ride her bike,” said Dan. “She was more capable at twelve. At ten! I’m calling her on it.”
“You know that doesn’t work.”
“Oh, now you’re speaking from experience?”
Melanie’s voice wobbled. “I know it doesn’t work.”