The Painted Table(51)
“Because God told me.”
April looks up. “What do you mean?”
Saffee tells her about the voice she heard on the stairway, saying that her life was going to be different and better than what it had been. Different and better than their parents’ lives. “It was a long time ago, and I still believe it. Now, April, I’ll believe it for you too.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
TASTE AND SEE
1960
January 1, 1960
Dear Saffee,
Happy New Year! And hope it’s happier than the last one. Seems an odd beginning, though—me at Marilyn’s and Mom still in the hospital. Thanks for your letter. I’m glad you had a good time at Gloria’s for Christmas, in spite of the circumstances. I talked to Daddy on the phone after he visited Mother on Christmas Day. He sounded discouraged.
Mrs. Johnson, Marilyn’s mom, is a great cook—couldn’t leave her Christmas cookies alone. She even gave me presents, a red sweater and a charm bracelet. And Marilyn gave me a jewelry box and a game called Password. I pretended I was part of the family. I think Daddy’s paying them to let me stay here until Mother gets out of the hospital.
Some people named Franken live next door to Marilyn. They have twin girls, two years old. So cute! Marilyn and I babysat for them on New Year’s Eve—it took two of us!
Love,
April
Over the next months, Joann has multiple “visits” of varying length to a state mental hospital. Each time she is treated with a different high-powered, experimental drug, each one producing intolerable side effects when she returns home. She alternates between lethargy and agitation, weight loss and weight gain, dry mouth and drooling. She has little choice but to conceal the hated pills under her tongue and spit them out when Nels is not looking. Invariably, irrationality returns.
More than once, when Nels is at work, Joann wanders through the neighborhood knocking on doors, warning of coming apocalypse. And once, just about dawn, a policeman finds her scantily dressed crossing the Blue River bridge, a great distance from home. One Saturday night, she orders April, now a high school sophomore, to go to bed at seven o’clock. When April refuses, Joann strikes her legs several times with a broom handle.
In response to such behavior, Nels has little recourse but to secure another court order to have his wife once again “treated” in confinement.
“The rings, Joann. I forgot to take off your rings.” He’d remembered as he drove the fifty miles following the police car. The police car in which his wife, his beloved, deranged wife, was again seated, restrained in the backseat behind the black metal grate. Aching, for almost an hour, he’d watched the back of her head, bobbing indignantly back and forth.
“No!” she howls. “No! You can’t have them!”
“Come on, Joann. Don’t make no trouble. I always keep ’em at home, but I’ll put ’em in the bank if ya want. Now give ’em to me.”
She lunges at him, pummels his chest, yelling, “I am a married woman! I should wear my rings. You gave them to me, Nels. What is it? You want to give them to somebody else?”
Nels controls her flailing arms. “It’s the rules, Joann. Ya gotta follow the rules! Be good now, so you don’t hafta stay so long this time.”
“Abandonment! That’s what it is, abandonment!”
An orderly appears with the garment. Straps and ties.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Kvaale. We know how to do this.” His voice is brusque, not sympathetic. Joann Kvaale is part of his day’s work.
Nels usually makes it back to the car before he breaks down, but not today. He leaves the tiny room, heads for the exit, and crumples against a door frame in the entry. Sobs of grief and guilt.
April’s letters continue to keep Saffee informed about ups and downs on the home front. She writes that she spends more and more time in their old neighborhood with Marilyn Johnson’s “normal” family, and she continues to babysit the young twins next door to them. Nels only summons her home whenever he has some confidence that Joann’s latest treatment will this time bring them peace.
Although Saffee still feels like “a fish out of water” at school, she too gets a taste of normal family life when roommate Gloria invites her home some weekends. She writes to April how strange it is to experience a household “full of little brothers that make noise and mess, while the family takes it all in stride.” Gloria is teaching her how to play a few board games, something Saffee has been embarrassed to know nothing about.
She surprises herself by going to Friday night mixers at the student union to learn the lindy and cha-cha. She writes, “It’s not exactly ‘tripping the light fantastic,’ like Mother used to do, but still lots of fun. And get this, you know how only classical music used to interest me? I’ve found out that rock ’n’ roll is okay too!”