When Camille was thirteen, her mother, Maxime, was removed from the family home. She could remember Maxime’s legs going limp so they would have to drag her out, the heels of her shoes leaving rubber trails across the white marble of the foyer. She stood on the landing above and watched as her father ordered people around, his voice straining to be heard above her mother’s screams and desperate wails. He followed them out onto the gravel drive to make sure that she was successfully taken away. Camille could still recall the look on her father’s face as he stormed back in the house, seeing that she had witnessed the spectacle. His eyebrows creased and the distinct frown lines around his mouth deepened as he inhaled loudly through his nose and walked back to his study, slamming the door behind him.
Maxime was mentally ill, and it was obvious to anyone who met her. The opinions as to exactly what ailed her depended greatly on which doctor Camille asked. Frantic and mean or quietly self-indulgent, whatever the mood, it was always Camille’s fault. Hers for being too fat, not combing her hair, not saying good morning as she left for school. By the time Camille started primary school, it was her job to take care of herself. Maxime could no longer function at a level conducive to raising children, and as Camille’s father said many times: don’t ask a man to do a woman’s job. A nanny had been hired since money was no object to Camille’s parents and Maxime had been discreetly shuffled out of view as to avoid any potential embarrassment to the family.
For the past fifteen years, Maxime lived at her vacation home, or at least that is how she liked to refer to it. Really, it was a home for people with mental impairments that kept them from existing in the outside world.
Having committed to this visit in her mind for some time, that morning Camille nervously made her way by bus to the care home. She hadn’t visited her mother in nearly six months and had been ignoring her letters. Camille knew Maxime was going to be furious and would have designed some special unpleasantness just for the occasion. Torture du jour.
Walking in, Camille inhaled the familiar scent of the floral potpourri used liberally to cover up the stench of something distinctly sour. This was one of those scent memories that could whip up a recollection with the smallest whiff. She could tell as soon as she passed someone in the supermarket or on the street that they worked or spent considerable time in a place like this. Looking into their eyes, she could see all the way back, as if there was something missing. As if they were hollow. As if sadness and confusion had slowly eaten away at them from the inside leaving the shell, like that of a building with all the inner floors and walls burned away.
This was one of those new-fangled hospitals they called care homes. It left behind the community sleeping halls, straitjackets, and cruelty. Even forgoing the highly coveted electroshock therapy and the now mostly discredited lobotomy. In reality, it was simply more private. The wealthy visitors could walk down the halls and avoid seeing the disturbed at such close range. There were just more doors to block out the screaming.
She walked the familiar path and noticed that there were new faces peeking out of the doorways and some old ones that were missing. Camille reached her mother's door and knew immediately how the interaction was likely to go. She found Maxime lying spread-eagled on her back, the wall heater and the tabletop fan on at full blast with the ceiling fan spinning at a jet engine’s pace. Her long, black and gray hair swirled around her face and her robe was open, revealing only a bra, no panties.
“Mother,” Camille said, loud enough to be heard over the many fans.
Maxime’s eyes snapped open. Rolling her head to the side, she looked at Camille and then with a great gasp, shuddered and closed her eyes again.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said, her voice dripping with disdain and fake raspiness.
“What are you doing?”
“As if you care. No one comes to see me. No one cares and so...” She gave a half groan and her eyelids fluttered. “And the damn nurses here are stealing my panties and selling them.”
“I highly doubt that, Mother. Get up, please. I’d like to have a conversation with you and I’d really prefer not to have to lie on the floor.”
“Fine.” She heaved herself onto her elbows with a tremendous eye roll. Leaning back against the dresser and tucking the lace-trimmed terry cloth around herself, she gave Camille a sideways glance. “What are you wearing? You look like a girl playing dress up in her grandmother's old clothes,” she chuckled to herself and then, pursing her lips and lifting her nose to the ceiling, she spat, “and skinny doesn’t look good on everyone, you know. They’re going to mistake you for a corpse and stuff you in a morgue drawer.”
“Well at least you’ll know where to find me then,” Camille sighed, sitting down in the hard wooden rocking chair near the door. Clenching her teeth, she reminded herself that this was at least partially her fault. Inattentiveness bread hostility in Maxime.
“How are you doing? Besides your missing panties,” she said as kindly as she could.
“Well I’m not doing fine if that’s what you want to hear,” Maxime said dramatically, “Like I told you before, the staff here is wretched. They took away the television and left me with this stupid little radio. And I can’t even drink!” These were the same type of complaints that Camille always endured and this deja vu only served to make her head spin. Maybe it was the smell. She tried breathing through her mouth instead of her nose while her mother continued to huff about her woes from her position on the floor. No, that didn’t work. It was as if she could taste the rot in the air.
“Have you made any new friends at least? I noticed that Merna is gone and you have some new neighbors,” Camille said reluctantly.
“All these people are old. We have nothing in common. And they stink.” Her eyes flitted over to Camille. “You look green,” she cackled. “You can smell it too! Don’t even try holding your nose. That won’t help. And the windows are nailed and painted shut.” It seemed that she took a devilish joy in witnessing her daughter’s suffering. Her once bright eyes narrowed and her lips peeled back from her immaculately white teeth. Her once great beauty, now only a shadow. Grinning, Maxime hoisted herself off the floor with an agility Camille didn’t believe possible.
As Maxime walked towards her, she suddenly felt the presence of the stark, white walls. God, this room was so small, Camille thought. Why were the ceilings so high yet the rooms so small? Her mother’s rapid approach was causing everything to shrink around her. The walls were so close, the air was heavy and putrid, and then before she knew it, Maxime’s face was inches from her own. She was bending down, her hands tightly clenching those of the rocking chair, her knuckles white.
“Are you okay, dear?” she said with false care in her voice, the Cheshire grin still plastered across her face, “It’s not so nice is it? My little vacation home.”
Camille was starting to panic. She needed to get out but Maxime’s thin arms kept her pinned in the rocking chair.
“Mother, please,” she said breathless and desperate. The beads of sweat began dripping down her back. She could feel the collapse beginning. Just like all the people that worked in that place, like all those who visited. Unaware that they were being eaten alive from the inside, now it was happening to her. She had to get out. Ears ringing with a high-pitched whistle and her mother’s cackling, she made a break for it. With a great struggle, Camille broke free from her mother’s grasp. Her hand was on the doorknob and her vision was going white, as if she was in the middle of a blizzard. A tug on her coat sleeve wrenched the doorknob from her hand.
“You bitch,” she heard through the whistling snow, “You ungrateful bitch. I should have gone to one of those back alley doctors and aborted you when I had the chance. I’m sure I’d be better off.”
Camille could feel the tears streaming down her face but it didn’t feel like crying. The white blanket continued to cloud her eyes as she managed to wrench the door open and slam it behind her. Collapsing in the hallways, she could feel the smooth linoleum beneath her cheek and rapid clicking of low heels as shadowy figures ran towards her.
Then there were hands, gentle and experienced, lifting Camille into a chair, and cold fingers feeling for the pulse in her neck. Slowly the ringing subsided and the blizzard passed. She was only feet away from her mother’s room. Maxime’s cackling was still audible through the door. Two nurses in crisp, white uniforms looked concernedly into Camille’s face and held both her hands, slowly stroking them with their calloused thumbs. She was covered in a cold sweat and could feel her entire body shaking.
“We think you’ve had a fit, hon,” one of the nurse’s voices floated to Camille’s ears as though over a great distance, “It’s quite common.”
“Oh...alright,” she said shakily. A feeling was bubbling up inside her and she needed to go. Now. Camille tried to stand but her legs offered no support.
Camille sat for another ten or twenty minutes, the nurses gently cooing words of comfort upon her deaf ears. She let the nurses call her a cab and then, gathering her strength, she left. As she sat in the back seat, the care home receding behind her, she said under her breath, “This is the last time,” over and over again, “This is the last time.” Even then she knew though, there would never be a last time.
