An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

1

I am on the other side of the planet from New York, twenty-five meters beneath sea level. The fish are phosphorescent. There is coral shaped like a brain. Other coral reminds me of mushrooms. I am silently passing over the swaying tubes, the pointy structures, my head tilted down so that I can see through my mask as I take in the scene and glide over the surface of the moon, sand dunes and mazes, rigid stony corals and silky ones that look like teardrops. The only sound is of bubbles. I watch as they float up toward the surface, a place I have no desire to return to.

Here, underwater, I am free. Unleashed from history. My mother will never find me. I am untraceable. I equalize the pressure and descend even deeper.

MY MOTHER SAYS, When I’m dead, you will be all alone because your father doesn’t want you. You know that, right?

I am six years old, an only child.

She is naked in front of the white porcelain sink putting on eye shadow, and I am seated on top of the toilet seat, perched on the lid, watching as she gets ready to go out for the evening.

She says, Just remember that and treat me nicely.

2

That same year, I stopped speaking for six months. My mother sent me to a psychiatrist. He put me on Valium and we played checkers. I stopped speaking because Kiki, the woman who had looked after me since I was born, who had endured my mother’s behavior, my father’s departure, who’d seen to it that I was clothed and fed and attended school, the woman I was attached to the way a child should be to her mother, died on a plane while sitting next to me. It was 1974 and we were returning to New York after a visit with my father, who lived in Bangkok.

I remember we were seated in the middle of the plane, in the middle of a row. The neon-yellow oxygen mask fell from the ceiling. It looked like a Dixie cup dangling from a string. There was an announcement the pilot made asking if there was a doctor on the flight. I was moved to a different part of the plane and seated next to a stranger. There was an awareness that something alarming was going on. The plane made an emergency landing in Greenland so they could remove Kiki’s body from the aircraft, and an airline representative from Lufthansa escorted me the rest of the way.

Kiki had suffered a stroke.

Later, when I started speaking again, I began to ask everyone for their phone number. I made people promise, if they were leaving, to tell me when we would see each other again. My mother decided I shouldn’t go back to Thailand. She said if my father loved me, he wouldn’t have moved so far away. But then she also said that he loved me more than anyone. I started to stutter. It disappeared when I was seven years old, and from then on, she let me return to see him once a year.

KIKI’S DEATH BECAME a mythological incident. I had little memory of the experience other than before and after. Order, then disorder. I was told about it as though I hadn’t been there. An unfortunate occurrence. The time when Kiki died. The time when I stopped speaking. Plot points in the story that amounted to one more thing.

THE GRAVITRON IS a ride at amusement parks and carnivals. It is an enclosed circular machine with padded panels on the walls. When you step on this ride, you lean back against the panels. The ride begins to rotate and the centrifugal force removes the machine from the ground on a slant, so that you are experiencing the force three times the speed of gravity. The world spins around. You are tilted and you spin and you spin. And when you are through, you step off the ride, but even with your feet on the ground, the world is still spinning. Up is down. You can’t find your balance.

3

I hate you. I love you. You’re a moron. I never said that. You’re the most important person in the world to me. I wish you were never born. Your father left you because he’s a selfish man who doesn’t care about you. He’s a wonderful father and you’re lucky to have him. You should be grateful. You should be happy. You’re a liar—I never did that. You’re jealous of me. You should be thanking your lucky stars to have me as your mother. What are you talking about—why are you making up these spiteful lies about me—I never did that. I never said that. What’s wrong with you? You hate me. You always have and I feel very sorry for you.

I AM IN hiding. An emotional fugitive. I am trying to write a letter to my mother from here in Bali. A disconnection notice. A termination of service. I have revised this letter a dozen times. Staying one step ahead is essential. I am careful of the words. Frightened of the consequence. I am launching the separation grenade from ten thousand miles away so that when it detonates, I will be at a distance.

Can I write this letter? Can I send it?

IMAGINE SOMEONE LIES to you and about you. Imagine this person is your mother, whose job it is to provide safety, security, consistency, and love. You’re my sunshine, she says. The love of my life.

But her love comes with conditions. You need to be able to give her what she needs first. You have to meet her demands. For attention, appreciation, company, and admiration. Anything else is unacceptable. But no matter how much you give, there will be a need for more. These are the terms. You were five. You were ten. You were twenty. You were forty. And at forty-five, something changed.

4

I had come to spend my forty-fifth birthday with my father, who lives in Bali. A few days later, I was taking a walk on the beach. I stopped at a hut with a thatched roof and a chalkboard out front—a surf and dive school that offered lessons.

SINCE I WAS five years old, my father has lived on the other side of the world. As an adult, I would be in New York and wonder what I would do if something happened to him. It would mean getting on a plane and flying for two days—as far as one can go without heading back—and navigating help for him in Southeast Asia, where resources are limited and efficiency is on a different timeline. I would not speak the language. It would be brutally hot—the kind of steamy heat that fosters inertia.

Now I live in the same place that he lives. It is the first time we have spent more than a few months together. I will ride my bicycle over to his house and we will talk and share and laugh and comfort each other.

I have escaped from New York and my mother. I dive in, past the tentacles of her reach.

WHEN I MET Mario, before I knew we would have a story, he told me, I want to take you diving and show you my world. The underwater world. A world without words.

He took my hand and I didn’t want him to let go. I was afraid I would drift away.

THE FIRST TIME I went to his house, I couldn’t find it. It is at the end of an unmarked road. Pass the banana field and turn left, he had said. Though he lives in the same quiet coastal town as my father, his house is in a far more remote area, a place not easily accessible. It’s on the other side of the bypass, the paved road that separates the expat community from where the locals live. Mario had given me the number of the house, but the number is not displayed. I stood on a dirt path and called him as the chickens walked past. I’m lost, I said. There was no red pin-sized dot on the map. He appeared a few minutes later, barefoot, and led the way. To the house without a number on a road without a name.

MY MOTHER NEEDED me around. She could not be alone. One day she decided she would teach poetry to my fourth-grade class at the all-girls school I attended. She said that she missed me too much during the day. There was an announcement during homeroom: poetry would be on the curriculum in the new semester. It was a special opportunity twice a week—for my class only.

It was her first day of teaching and I was nervous. What would she wear? What would she say? Before I left that morning, I slipped a note under her bedroom door. She was still asleep and I worried she wouldn’t notice it, so I knocked.

Are you awake? I asked. There was no response. I opened the door and stood on the wooden threshold that separated her room from the foyer. You have to get up or you’ll be late.

She rolled over without opening her eyes. I’m up. I walked toward her until I reached the edge of her bed.

Promise, I said, tugging on the blanket, that you won’t say certain words.

She didn’t respond. I tugged again. Promise me.

I went around to where her head was and held out the piece of paper with the word I didn’t want her to use. Cocksucker. She loved that word.

Don’t say fuck either, I added. She was nodding. I put the paper down on the nightstand and placed the ashtray on top of it.

Don’t forget to brush your hair. And don’t wear a nightgown.

My mother lived in nightgowns. She would wear them all the time. Sometimes they would be inside out, but she didn’t care. Sometimes they would be sheer, but she didn’t mind. She wore them everywhere. In the apartment, on the street, during the day—it didn’t matter. One time she wore a pink flannel nightgown to Parents’ Day. When I told her it was embarrassing, she got upset.

Who cares what I wear! she scoffed. Don’t be so vain.

I tried not to be vain.

She showed up that day wearing sweatpants (inside out) and a white T-shirt instead. The T-shirt was decorated with Wonder Woman stamped across her ample bosom. She wasn’t wearing a bra.

I’m Ariel’s mommy, she announced cheerfully. But you can call me Suzy.

She instructed everyone to stand up. My classmates pushed back the chairs from their desks and stood in the aisle.

Before we begin, we need to warm up.

Oh no, I thought. Not the warm-up. But it was too late. She had begun the jumping jacks. Arms flapping, bosoms bouncing up and down, up and down.

MY CLASSMATES ADORED her. She chewed gum and told them stories about her life and all of her problems. She would ask their advice. Mostly, though, she would read her own poetry. Parents of the girls in the class complained. Someone had gone home and asked what a vulva was. Someone else had asked about whore. My classmate Christina’s mother hit the roof. She didn’t think these were appropriate topics for a nine-year-old. For me, these were not unusual words. Nor were the explanations of what they meant toned down in any way.

Elizabeth, whose father was a banker, lived on Park Avenue and was dyslexic. She had been left back a grade and couldn’t bring herself to say Suzy because it was too informal; teachers had to be Miss or Mrs. My mother encouraged her to write because in poetry there were no mistakes. Her enthusiasm for instilling belief in a talent was powerful. "You can write, she would say. You have something to say."

YEARS LATER, WHEN I was in my twenties, I ran into Elizabeth on the street. We stood for a few minutes on the corner of 83rd and Lexington. She had become a lawyer and she asked how my mother was. I gave my standard response: the same.

She was a good teacher, Elizabeth recalled. And Christina, who later became a writer, told me, Your mother said that I had a gift. I never forgot that.

5

There was my mother, Suzanne, the poet. There was my father, Harvey, who moved to Bangkok when I was five. There was Josie, who had the job of raising me after Kiki died. And there was Rita, my father’s ex-girlfriend, who wrote to him every day after he left New York, and who gave me what was needed when it was needed the most.

Dear Harvey,

Here we go again with reports of horrors from 180 E. 79th St. Josie called last night to tell me that Ariel has been very sad and upset lately—especially since you left. Last week, Suzanne happened to be home when Ariel was getting ready for bed and promised to kiss her good night. Just before bedtime, Suzanne got on the phone and talked for an hour and a half. All the while, Ariel was calling out for her and crying. Usual story, I guess. The next day at school, Ariel wrote a story in class about running away.

She showed the story to her mother. Suzanne was angry and said, Why did you write this? This isn’t about me, is it?

Oh was Ariel’s reply. It’s just a story.

Suzanne insisted that Ariel change the story and Ariel refused. After much arguing, Suzanne wore her down. Ariel said she would change it to a dog running away. Then Suzanne went out. But as soon as she got on the elevator to leave, Ariel yelled out to no one in particular,

I’m not changing my story! I’m not!

Suzanne has since ordered Ariel not to write any more stories. She’s only to write poems. Suzanne said that when Ariel has written lots of poems, she’ll have them published.

Josie was upset after reading the story. She says Ariel is very sad because Daddy didn’t put her in his suitcase.

Your pal,

Rita

I DIDN’T CHANGE my story because my story was real. I knew that at seven years old.

I CAN’T REMEMBER the first time my mother said she was having a nervous breakdown, but throughout my childhood, these declarations were a regular occurrence. I’m having a nervous breakdown was uttered with the routine frequency of I’m thirsty. Only instead of a flat statement, it was a hysterical battle cry that demanded urgency.

I’m cracking up! my mother would frequently announce. I’m going to end up in Bellevue. Is that what you want?

The Bellevue psychiatric ward in Manhattan was her destiny if I wasn’t careful. The message was: my behavior determined her sanity.

I needed to get out of her way. I had to stop playing, stop laughing—I was not respecting the fact that she was in crisis. She was going to jump out the window. Or off the roof. Sometimes this was followed with Then you’ll be happy.

6

It’s brain damage. That’s what she says. She’s referring to me. She says it again. Brain damage. I have seen Emily, my therapist, on and off for the past seventeen years. I am in my early forties and I’ve returned to New York after living in London. Her office is on the ground floor of a residential building on the Upper West Side. I hear a pneumatic drill outside the window, cracking open the pavement. Do you hear that? I ask. She nods. There are hydrangeas on her desk.

I tell her I think of brain damage as causing people not to be able to walk or talk. Veterans. Stroke victims. Boxers. Football players. My tone is incredulous. She nods again, slower this time, in acknowledgment. There are parts of your brain that did not develop the way they should have. And the way you function is a consequence. The brain is damaged. She says it again. She explains how children reflect the world they are raised in. Trauma, fear, and anxiety alters the brain as it is developing.

I stared at her, taking this in.

I wondered: how does a child build a foundation on quicksand?

BEING BORN WAS a game my mother loved to play. Maybe I was five, definitely six, possibly seven. I would be beckoned into her bedroom and she would be naked in her king-size bed under the sheets. The brass headboard was glistening from the sunlight that shone through the glass French doors that opened up onto her terrace.

Let’s play Being Born, she would announce. I want to relive the happiest day of my life!

She would laugh, giddy with excitement. I savored the opportunity to spend time with her. I had her attention focused on me, and that was a treat. I’d climb into bed with her and crawl under the sheets. We would play this game when I came home from school. I was still wearing my uniform. I’d take off my shoes and socks and the light blue pinafore would bunch up as I wriggled my way down to the part of the bed where I could be