40. Martha
Martha
Pain is an emotion, a response to be controlled and nothing more.
Once you find the switch, where it lurks inside you, you can simply turn it off.
I’ve been trying to turn Nicola’s off for a long time, but she won’t let me.
It’s almost as if she wants it, like the hurt is a feeding tube connecting her to an invisible life force.
I wonder for a moment if Bambi’s is like that, too.
Except that this pain is different. We sit in the upstairs guest room, Bambi in the bed.
She hasn’t moved since the night before last when Jason returned for what Agnes termed “damage control.” She’s been listless, staring into space, eyes reddening and then filling with tears but never quite crying.
It’s a funny, uncharacteristic mood that I welcome, knowing that beyond it lies a neat little opening into which only I can fit.
“What about Dr. Weis? You liked her last time, didn’t you?”
“Which one was she again?” asks Bambi, shifting the ice pack over her left eye to reveal part of the deep, purple bruising. Her other eye flickers open to stare at me. She’s reluctantly taking the methadone Dr. Allan gave her, this time for her face.
“She’s the one you were going to see for the cysts, remember? I made the appointment, but you had to cancel?”
Bambi lets her eyes fall closed. “Yeah, all right. Call her. Tell her I need to get in.”
I take out the office phone, but Bambi sits up and grabs my hand. “Actually, no. Not her. She’s Whitney’s doctor, too. I thought I told you to keep track of these things.”
“Right,” I say, trying to sound calm. “Sorry. I forgot about Whitney.” I run down the list of names. We’re almost near the bottom. “Dr. Lin?”
“Who’s Dr. Lin?”
“Jason’s dermatologist. I know it’s a stretch, but she might be good?”
Bambi laughs. “That’s just perfect. Jason’s doctor. I can ruin my business and my personal life in a single day!” She takes the ice pack and throws it into a nearby table, knocking a crystal vase to the floor. Lucita comes running in.
“Oh, Mrs. Bambi!” She stoops to scoop up the vase and collect the ice pack. “Don’t worry, I will clean this up.”
“No, Lucita. Don’t. Not right now.”
Lucita nods, her eyes worried. “Yes, Miss Bambi. I make lunch?”
Bambi is silent. Normally, this question would be followed by a quick no from Bambi, then a protest about what Lucita would cook, followed by more resistance from Bambi, but not today.
Today, Bambi just sits, thinking. Lucita shifts her weight, waiting for an answer.
She breathes in like she’s going to add something but doesn’t.
Bambi shuts her eyes. She looks like she wants to cry.
“Lunch would be nice,” she says, her eyelids pressed tightly together.
I nod and smile at Lucita, my most good-Martha nod. “Thanks, Lucita.”
Her expression changes, a rare burst of joy coming over her. “Don’t worry, Miss Bambi, I fix something really healthy. Maybe salad, lite dressing, and your coffee?”
She shakes her head side to side, rolling her hair over her face. “No. I don’t want a salad.”
“No?” Lucita rubs her hands together. “Quinoa cakes?”
“No.”
Lucita is lost for words. “Kale smoothie?” she asks at last.
“No!” Bambi intones. She pulls herself forward like it’s a great effort. Her white pajamas are creased, and the buttons of her shirt are undone so that her bra is showing underneath. She doesn’t seem to care. “What can you make with cheese?”
Lucita’s face contorts. “Queso? But you don’t—”
I hold my hand up. “How about a quesadilla, Lucita?”
Lucita gives me a look like I’m the devil incarnate. “Sí, I can make quesadillas, pero Miss Bambi don’t eat queso. Or tortillas.”
“She does now,” I tell her.
Lucita stares at me for a moment, then shrugs and heads to the kitchen.
We sit for a second in silence before Bambi opens her eyes. “I need to get this fixed, Martha.”
“I’ll take care of it,” I say, unsure of what any doctor can do in time for her shoot. The bruising is deep, her face black and blue where Jason unleashed on her.
“And I need something stronger for the pain.”
“I might have something.” From my purse, I pull out a few of Nicola’s pain pills that I stashed away in the zip pouch long ago—just in case.
Bambi’s eyes enliven. “What are those?”
“Just something to take the edge off,” I tell her and hand her an Oxy.
She swallows the pill with a sip of water. “You’re a genius.”
I can’t help but smile a little. Nicola never talks to me this way.
“I just want to help,” I add, feeling a strange circle of warmth in my body. “Now, what else can I get you? Vicodin? Valium? More Ambien so you can sleep?”
“Yes, all of those,” she says quietly and leans back in bed. “How long does this take to work?”
“Give it a few minutes,” I say. “You’ll feel better in no time.”
I set down the notebook and diary I keep with all her meetings, appointments, and my tasks inside.
Bambi stares at me, watching, a flicker of desperation passing through her eyes. “They’re going to drop me,” she announces.
“We still have time.”
She shakes her head helplessly, her hair disheveled and dirty. “No, no, no! He knew what he was doing, Martha. Don’t you see? I’m finished. Just like him.”
A strange sense of outrage explodes in my chest. “Don’t say that. We can fix this.”
“Look at me! Look at this! I’m tired of fighting. I just want this to be over.” The tears are back, pooling in her eyes. But something stills in Bambi, and she blinks once, looks away, and it disappears.
“You know why I hired you, right?”
It’s the question I’ve been waiting for, the one I’ve been hoping she would ask.
“I think so, Mrs. Redfern.”
“Cut the shit, Martha. I’m not Mrs. Redfern anymore. We’re friends now. I mean, you work for me and everything, but you’ve seen this,” she says, pointing to her swollen face. “So I think that makes us friends, right?”
“Yes,” I say.
“So, tell me, why did I hire you?”
“Because you need help.”
“I need help, that’s true.” She shifts, reaching for the edge of my chair. For a second, I think she wants to touch me again, but it isn’t that. She’s just trying to get her bearings.
“But you’ve seen things, things no one else has seen. I could have kept them from you just like I keep them from everyone else. But I wanted you to see. I needed you to see.” Her hand stays on the edge of my chair, lingering.
“I know,” I tell her, even though there is no way Bambi could have kept her secret from me for long. I had a sense about it as soon as I walked in the door. “So now that I’m here, now that I’ve seen everything, the question is: what do you want me to do?”
To my surprise, Bambi looks shocked when I ask her this. Maybe I read her wrong. Maybe this isn’t the point. Maybe I missed something. But I’ve never been wrong about people before. I can read their insides.
“So, you understand? You actually get it?”
I reach for her fingertips. Her nails are a beautiful baby pink, the color you would add to a little girl’s room if you were going to have a child. I let my hands fall over hers, and she flinches just slightly. “Of course I do.”
Bambi blinks her eyes at me and leaves her hand beneath mine. I know she wants to move it, but she doesn’t. “I just, I can’t do this anymore. I thought I could, but I can’t.”
His name is lodged inside her, trapped. I know she wants to say it, needs to say it, but getting it out is like vomiting thorns.
“You mean Jason, don’t you?”
Her head falls. “He makes me feel like I can’t do anything, like I’m nothing without him. And still somehow, with all of it, he makes me feel like I’m something special, like I’m lucky to be with him. It’s all so messed up.”
I know arguing is useless. I know browbeating and encouragement are useless.
I know pushing her or trying to boost her self-esteem is useless.
There’s a monster lurking, and if he’s allowed to, he will swallow up everything in his path.
“He hurts you,” I say and let the words sit there, hanging in the air like cigarette smoke.
Bambi nods.
My fingers close around her hand. “It’s okay,” I tell her. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
When she looks up at me, her eyes are full of tears. “Sometimes he’s the most wonderful, charismatic person on the whole planet. Other times, I’m scared I’m not going to be able to get through to him, like I’m not real to him anymore, you know?”
“He likes control,” I say.
Bambi nods. “He wants a baby.” She pulls her hands away and wipes her face. “But I don’t. Not with him. Not like this.”
“Do you want it to stop?”
Her expression changes, shame washing over her.
When she starts crying, I can hear Nicola inside me, whispering like a ghost at the end of a long, dark hallway.
Remember who she is, remember what she did, what he did.
I brush her aside. She always thinks I’m like her, that I have a short-term memory.
Bambi wipes her face and looks far off, her expression stony.
“My mother died when I was eight years old,” she says quietly.
“One day she was there, the next, our house was dark and empty. My father made sure of that.” Her breathing stills a little, her shoulders soften.
“I took care of him, you know. My whole childhood, that’s what I did.
Sometimes I think Jason is just like him. ”
I stroke her hand, and she doesn’t flinch from me this time. “You don’t have to suffer anymore,” I tell her. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
Bambi meets my eyes. I love the way she looks at me because I know she sees me. Martha. Not Nicola. In fact, she doesn’t even know Nicola exists. Unlike Emmy, for instance. To her, I’m just a stranger dressed in her mother’s clothes.
“So, you’ll help me?”
I let a smile pass over my mouth, a rare show of true happiness.
I’ve been keeping it hidden for a long time, waiting, watching, not ready to set it free.
My hand finds her hand again and holds it.
What is that saying about two birds with one stone?
Never mind. There’s a certain joy in what I’m about to do.
“Of course I will.”