Roads and Bridges

Roads and Bridges

by R.L. Jones

“What the fuck!” Claire shrieked, “Why are they driving like goddamn idiots?”

Zoom, zoom, zoom, ZOOM, ZOOM. Five cars flew past her on both sides in a blur. She clutched the steering wheel at ten and two. Her knuckles glared bone white. Ahead of her, a sea of brake lights flickered in the dusk. In the rearview mirror, a semi came looming up on top of her.

“Motherfucker!” Claire screamed, “Ugh, Goddammit.”

In the backseat, Conchita ran from side to side, barking and snarling as the traffic flew past.

“You HUSH!” Claire yelled, glaring at the Chihuahua in the rearview. Conchita cocked her head.

Bringing the dog had been a bad idea. She realized that now. As if the drive wasn’t going to be stressful enough, Claire needed her, and besides, there was no one who would watch Conchita for her anymore–once bitten, twice shy. She wanted to pull off the freeway. She had to pull off the freeway. She needed to breathe. She needed to call Dr. Lavin. Thoughts of turning back home to the safety and seclusion of her Quonset hut in Marfa tempted Claire. Back to nothing but the open range and blank canvases. But Mama was dying, and she had to get to Houston.

“Clarabelle,” her little brother Hamm had murmured on the phone the night before, his voice liquid from the whiskey, “This is serious, you gotta come home.” Crickets. “Clarabelle. You need to make your peace.”

Panic rushed her from all sides like linebackers.

“Don’t call me that, Hamm. It sounds like a fuckin cow,” she curled onto her sofa, trying to catch her breath, “I can’t, Hamm, I can’t. I can’t drive. I can’t leave here.”

“Clara—Claire, honey, it’s time to grow up.”

“Hammel, you’re my fucking baby brother. I raised you. Don’t talk to me about growing up!” She slammed the phone down. One of Boone’s old fire-engine-red rotary phones that gave such a satisfying clang when she slammed the receiver into the cradle.

Claire’s mind raced. She thought of her once glamorous mother waltzing down the staircase in her ballgowns and her helmet hair now bald and shriveled and withering from the cancer.

CUNT, CUNT, CUNT

It had always been about mother. Her eyes searched her studio for an answer, a comfort; paint dribbles laced the floor, three giant unfinished canvases loomed blackly against the wall like monoliths of failure, Conchita, ill at ease, gazed up at her from her dog bed, the western sunset faded blush and purple out the half circle wall of glass. Then her eyes landed on the portrait of Boone she had painted years before. He stared back at her with those big, patiently weary, hangdog eyes, his muddy shit kicker boots curled under the spindly legs of his chair, and the ratty straw cowboy hat politely cradled in his lap. Boone. Her Boone.

“I suppose you marrying a black man is supposed to hurt me in some way,” Mama had crooned in her withering southern drawl, “Sugar, I love Boone, he’s a wonderful man, but I hope he makes you happy. Don’t drive him away like you have all the rest of us.”

If Boone were still alive, he would have driven her to Houston. He would have probably insisted they go sooner to be with Mama, to care for her, because it was the right thang to do. Boone, with his hat in his hand, Yes, Ma’am, nice to meet you, Mrs. Graves. Now, Claire, honey, don’t go getting yourself so riled up. Mama always concerned with the right things. Boone always doing the right thing.

Boone. He had saved her life. He had brought her to Marfa for the first time, back in the early ’90s when she was just a kid, before Marfa was Marfa. When it was still just a tumbleweed town and a small colony of arty weirdos like herself and its only claim to fame being it was the location for the movie Giant. They had rolled into town, exhausted from a week at Round Top, in Boone’s big rig that she lovingly called the Junk-Mobile. Claire had fallen in love instantly. It had been everything she needed: art, solitude, and the wild, wild west. A year later, when she was twenty-one, her Daddy’s trust fund began paying her. Claire scooped up the old Quonset hut on the outskirts of town at a bargain price. Together, they refurbished it, making it modern and weird. They filled it with some of Boone’s quirky vintage finds: an old Santa Fe railroad sign, a rusty windmill remnant, a movie marquee. She had never looked back. Goodbye Houston! Adios Mama!

The semi veered from behind her into the fast lane, then rumbled past, blaring its foghorn at her. Claire threw her middle finger up against the window of the Prius, but the asshole was already past her. Conchita growled, then jumped into the front seat, yapping and clawing the dashboard.

“Shut up!” Claire screamed. Conchita gave her a stricken look, then whined at the windshield.

Claire’s breath was rapid; she heard herself gasping. The familiar panic rising in her chest, clenching at her throat like fists trying to strangle her. Claire’s face began burning. Breeeeeathe, she heard Dr. Lavin’s reassuring voice. Tears were welling in her eyes, blurring the landscape. She spotted the road sign. REST AREA 1 mile.

“Thank Christ,” she growled, putting on her blinker. The assholes wouldn’t let her over. Cars rushed past on the right as if to block her. Headlights blinded her from behind as a sea of cars came roaring up in the rearview. Claire felt her breath catching in her chest. Breeeeeeathe, two, three, four. Get back in your body. Feel your body. Tap your fingers; do you feel them?

Claire tapped her fingers on the steering wheel and waited for a gap in the traffic.

Zoom, zoom, whoosh

She saw the menacing blue headlights of a black pickup on monster wheels bearing down on her in a demonic fury. The Prius shuddered as the truck swerved to miss her and thundered past. Conchita cowered in the passenger seat, quivering.

“Now why on earth did you go and get a dog just as high strung as you are?” Boone said, his eyes mirthful as Conchita growled at his boots like they were still living snakes, ready to strike.

“I dunno,” she sobbed, “She looked so goddamn sad, shivering in that cage, and they said she’d been there two years! Two YEARS! But nobody wanted her. I thought she’d die in there, unloved her whole life. Goddamn Taco Bell.”

“Ahh, now, it’s okay.” his gentle voice had calmed them both, cradled them, hushed their hysterics. She missed his tender hands.

At last, there was a break in the traffic. The blinker had been tick-tocking in her head for what seemed like hours. She veered across two lanes just in time to hit the rest area exit. The relief was so palpable that she began to quake as the Prius rolled silently away from the mania of I-10 and into the parking area. It wasn’t busy.

Thank you, Jesus

Just busy enough to deter a serial killer from abducting her but not crawling with people and screaming kids desperate to urinate and unfurl their cramped limbs.

Claire pulled into a spot and sat idling. She took three deep, long breaths, trying to channel Dr. Lavin’s soft, reassuring voice. The rest area was a tranquil forest of oaks that reminded her of the complex where Dr. Lavin’s practice was in Houston. In the passenger seat, Conchita did a little whirlwind jig, twirling first to the right in circles, then to the left, then stepping on Claire’s forearm with her stabbing devil claws and peering at her.

“Jesus Christ dog, give me ten fucking minutes to catch my goddamn breath!”

Dr. Lavin had said to Mama, “You know, Mrs. Graves, Claire is deeply disturbed?”

Claire was twelve. They had been sitting outside Dr. Lavin’s office in the wooded park setting of mossy black oaks. They were perched uncomfortably on the concrete stools that surrounded a thick modern concrete table, beautifully sculptural but hard on the ass. Claire refused to go inside the office. The building had black-tinted windows, and the ceilings were low and heavy. On her very first appointment, they had taken three steps into the lobby, and Claire’s throat closed up on her.

“No! I can’t go in there. I can’t breathe. No, No, Noooooo!”

She’d collapsed on the ground wailing. Security guards came running. Mama had stared at her, then opened her tiny purse and popped one of her pills with a delicate sip from her silver flask. From that point on, her sessions with Dr. Lavin were scheduled outside. They endured the chilly, Brutalist concrete chairs or, when it was pouring rain, a wire-mesh bench under the long, cantilevered eaves. Claire was peering over at them, the two “grown-ups” as they spoke. Her mother lowered her gaze at the doctor, and her lips twitched.

“Dr. Lavin,” Mama interrupted, even in a rage, her voice was molasses, slow and stern, but gooey with southern syrup, “I haven’t paid you thousands of dollars to tell me what I already know. I paid you to fix her.”

PTSD. Trauma from the accident. Grief from the loss of her father at such a young age. “Claire can’t be fixed, Mrs. Graves, but she can heal, with treatment, over time.”

“And this is all supposed to be my fault,” Mama said flatly, then went on as if Claire were not sitting right there with them, “My daughter is just a spoiled little brat who needs to feel special, needs to be the center of attention, all the time, no matter what the cost. She doesn’t have the grace to know how lucky she is and how blessed we are. If she were just another poor little girl who lost her daddy, she’d have to get over it and get on with her life just like everybody else does. Good day, Dr. Lavin.”

Mama had dragged Claire by her wrist, screaming and writhing across the parking lot, where the driver, poor Jackson, stood waiting by the big car.

Claire, triumphant in her hysterics and relentless pleading, went back the very next day. She still talked with Dr. Lavin twice a week. More when the panic attacks got worse. It had been bad since Boone died.

Claire picked up her iPhone and said, “Siri, call Dr. Lavin.”

“Hello, this is Dr. Lavin’s service. The doctor isn’t available. Is this an emergency?”

YES! She wanted to cry, but no. No, it wasn’t. Claire sniffled, “Not life or death, no. Can you just forward me to her voicemail?”

Claire stared out the window at the peace and quiet of the forest and grass that surrounded the restroom bunker. It went on for acres. Behind her, she could feel and hear the violent humming of the freeway. She felt the emotions welling up in her as the muzak played, then there were a few clicks and Dr. Lavin’s voice came over the line, reassuring, calm, rational, safe. Claire started to cry.

“I’m sorry, I’m unavailable at the moment. Please leave a detailed message and your number, and I will call you back as soon as possible. If this is an emergency, dial 9 to be directed back to the answering service…Ding.”

“Dr. Lavin, it’s me, Claire, crazy Claire,” she laughed and sniffled. Behind her, the freeway roared like a monster. “It’s just well, I think I made a mistake, I’m halfway to Houston, driving, and well Mama is sick, probably will die, might die before I get there, and I don’t think I can get there and I don’t think I can get home. I can’t handle this… Anyway, I just needed to hear your voice. I’m going to walk and try to calm down.” She sniffled and searched for a Kleenex; her nose dribbled. Conchita squirmed in the passenger seat. Claire glared at her, “Anyway, if you get this, I would like to talk. Thanks.” She paused, then hung up.

“What’s the worst thing that can happen?” Boone would always say, in that easy, life-is-a-game way he had. His head would be cocked, and his eyes peered into her as his hands stroked her hair, “Baby girl, you know it’s all gonna be okay? I got you.”

“Yeah,” she muttered to his phantom, “except you don’t.”

Boone’s cancer had come so quickly, they didn’t even know it until he got really sick. The first sign was the way his ass had shrunk up inside his faded blue jeans. They were baggy. His belt was tightened to the last hitch, and the Levi’s gathered crudely at his waist like a scarecrow. “You feeling okay? Looks like you’re losing weight?”

He dismissed her, “Awe, I’m fine, I’m fine, just workin’.”

She let that reassure her. Then came the sweats and the shivering. His gaunt face. The way he grimaced at food.

“You need to see a doctor.”

“You go to a doctor, they try and make you sick,” he’d say, pretending to eat with gusto so she’d hush, “you ain’t sick when you get there? You will be before you leave. Uh-uh. No, sir.”

Claire woke up late one night to find an icy puddle in the sheets next to her where Boone ought to have been. She went into the studio and found him on the sofa, curled up in pain, holding his shrunken stomach and grimacing. They’d gone to the hospital in Fort Stockton, and Boone never came out. Pancreatic cancer. The doctor said it so resolutely, with such finality, that the prognosis was clear.

Conchita pawed at her, stirring Claire from her memories.

“Okay, okay.” She dug in the glove box for the harness contraption and tried three times before she finally got the squirming monster safely buckled into it. Then she leashed her, and they hopped out onto the pavement. The freeway howled. Hot wind full of fumes rustled the trees. She walked in the opposite direction, toward the serenity of the oak forest and the grass. Conchita charged ahead, straining against the leash and snuffing at the unfamiliar ground in a frenzy. Claire struggled to keep up. The leash pinched her hand red.

Ever since Boone had gone, she’d been lost. He was everything: lover, husband, caretaker, nursemaid. If it hadn’t been for him, she could never have managed her career. Boone handled all client meetings and correspondence with galleries, museums, and publishers. He boxed and crated her giant bronze cast spiders and spiked rebar orbs, then loaded them into the Junk-Mobile and drove them off to exhibitions in Fort Worth, Houston, Los Angeles, and, at last, New York. He made the videos that played alongside her works: Claire welding, Claire painting, Claire on the range in Marfa talking about the internal darkness that inspired her monolithic ebony paintings. He had introduced her to painting. Before the paintings she’d been sculpting, casting bronze and aluminum, assembling iron and rebar and found objects into colossal statements of anger and fear with a maniacal, driven zeal. When she saw him painting, she fell in love with it.

Boone had found an old English portrait he thought might be by John Hoppner, in perfect condition except for a long blemish down one side. A scar from a domestic squabble? A thrown bottle? A husband yanking it from the wall in a rage? Maybe just careless movers. Claire loved the colors. She admired the subject, a genteel-looking lady in a drawing room, in a luminescent blood-red cloak, fetching and alive against the gloomy blackness of the backdrop that surrounded her like a box. Boone had scooped it up for pennies at an estate sale in Dallas and was trying to restore it. She watched mesmerized as the black oil paint oozed thickly from the tube, then was mixed, coaxed, thinned, and applied. Boone, jack of all trades, and a master of many.

“Let me try?” she said urgently, watching from behind.

Boone stood aside and let her doodle with the painting. Claire marveled at the sensuous viscosity of the small blackish glob as she dabbed the brush in it, then the rapturous feeling of the paint gliding on, so controlled, so smooth, and that smell, that heady fuming odor that lingered for days, weeks. It made her feel high, and she was hooked. The next weekend, she filled the studio with oil paints, varnishes, resins, jars of various oils, and stretched canvases as large as she could fit inside the gaping garage door at the back end of the Quonset hut.

An old roustabout who had worked for her father’s company taught her to use the welding torch when she was just thirteen. She thought she might panic under the hooded blackness of the welder’s mask, but it was strangely calming. It made her feel both invincible and invisible as she handled fire behind the blue-black shield. It reduced everything to a manageable little sizzle. With her helmet and gloves, she could even manage Mama, she thought.

Claire remembered the first (and last) time Mama had ventured down to see her in Marfa.

“My Lord, of all the places in the world you could live. Why down here at the end of the earth?” Mama exclaimed, fanning herself as she walked through the studio, wincing with disdain and clutching her wine glass close to her bosom.

“Claire is a very accomplished painter,” Mama bragged to her friend Tulah, who had driven her down from San Antonio in a massive Escalade. “She’s had exhibitions in Los Angeles and even New York City. Movie stars and rock musicians pay scads for her…artworks.”

Tulah beamed, “Well, isn’t that somethin’?" Then gazed in consternation at the art.

“Honestly, darling, do you paint anything with color? Something happy?” Mama grimaced at one of the huge black canvases with crisscrossed slashes that curled back to reveal blood red at the center.

Afterward, Boone consoled Claire as she wept, desolate.

“She knows exactly how to push all my Goddamn buttons,” Claire wailed.

“Yep, and you hers.” Boone nodded. He chuckled at her, then pulled her to him, “You rich white folks and all your problems. Not a lotta happiness behind all those big gates. Aren’t you glad I ain’t rich?”

Conchita snarled, yanking at the leash. Claire shook off the memories and saw a big man ambling toward them with two huge hound dogs.

Oh, no, no, no

Conchita was not what they called “socialized.” She went nuts with other dogs.

“Howdy,” the man called affably. He was a big, rotund man. She thought of John Wayne Gacy. Conchita let out a howling bark.

Yep, serial killer for sure

Claire flashed a strained grimace of a smile and hollered back, “She’s not friendly!”

“I see that.” The man halted and held up one hand. His hounds started reacting to Conchita, which riled her even more. “Is that your Prius?”

Claire, confused and rattled by Conchita’s hysteria, tried to process what the man was saying. The hounds started woofing at Conchita.

“You left your lights on.”

“Huh?”

“Your lights– you left your headlights on.” The man hollered, looking sorry for having bothered.

Claire gazed back at her car. The lights were on. Aw, thank you — she mouthed. The man waved and turned quickly to retreat; his hounds were straining on their leashes, giving Conchita a piece of their minds. The chihuahua went into a frenzy, flipping, twirling, snapping at them, and baring her fangs. Claire struggled to hold her, and the man yanked his hounds back when suddenly Conchita did one of her Houdini tricks and bolted free, leaving Claire holding the sagging leash with the empty harness dangling.

“Oh, Christ.” She ran after Conchita, but her little tan body shot across the field of wild grass like a rocket. The little shitass scandalized the hound dogs and the poor nice serial killer man, then shot off again toward the parking lot. Toward the freeway.

“Oh shit. CONCHITA!” Claire screamed as she broke into a run.

The man and his hounds ran behind her. Claire’s legs were heavy; already she was out of breath. She was so goddamned out of shape. Conchita slowed down, curled into one of her extravagant squats, peed, shit a tootsie roll, then, just as Claire was about to close in on her, bolted again straight for the freeway buzzing with traffic and blazing headlights.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my fucking God, Conchita!” she screamed.

People yanked their heads in her direction. She ran as fast as she could. Conchita ran faster. Her tiny little body became a creamy blur zigzagging across the parking lot. Someone screeched on their brakes. Conchita dodged the car, then disappeared into the ditch between the parking lot and the freeway. Claire came behind her, rasping, and trudged into the ditch just as Conchita shot up the embankment and out across the traffic. A semi went blaring by. A horn blew. Claire shrieked and turned away, covering her eyes as tires screeched.

“No. No, No, No.” Claire wailed, crumbling to her knees in the grass.

“Oh lord, oh no. Did he get hit? Oh, I’m so sorry.” The man and his dogs came huffing up to her, his face so red she thought he might have a coronary.

“She! I don’t know! Leave me the fuck alone,” she shrieked, “Just leave. Get away from me.”

The man and his hounds stared forlornly at her as she heaved herself up, sobbing, and limped to the Prius, then collapsed against it, sobbing in shattered grief. Her ankle throbbed. She had twisted it. Her mind kept ferreting through the events of the past few moments. How had that happened? In a blink, Conchita was gone.

Was she hit? Oh God!

“Darlin are you okay? Was that your little dog? Can we help you?” Three women were gathering behind her. One of them touched her shoulder gently. Claire flailed away, shrieking in terror, and clambered back into the safety of her car. Inside she doubled over.

“What do I do? What do I do? I don’t know what to do.” She screamed, then sobbed against the steering wheel. In her mind, Conchita kept getting crunched by semi-truck wheels.

“Your mind sometimes fills in the blanks,” Dr. Lavin’s soothing voice came to her.

“She left me!” Claire shrieked at the memory.

The women loomed outside her car like phantoms, murmuring worriedly about the poor, distraught lady in the Prius.

Claire’s chest was clenching and unclenching, as if every muscle in it was clutching her heart, keeping it beating. She sucked in a long, jagged breath. Her face slimed with tears.

Am I dying? I think I’m going to die!

“Everyone I’ve ever loved has left me,” she cried out.

“Your father didn’t leave you, you know that?” Dr. Lavin’s rational voice, “Boone didn’t leave you.”

Everyone she’d ever known had left her. Conchita just ran away, right into the freeway, right into the traffic. As if she were trying to die, trying to kill herself to get away from crazy, wretched Claire. Daddy had gone away. Boone had deserted her, and now Mama would die. They all wanted to get away from her so badly; even death was better. She lay on the steering wheel and sobbed.

She had had the dream the night before.

It had been an omen. She could see that now, clear as day. It was always an omen whenever it came. She was driving. Everything was beautiful. Grass was swaying, the sun was setting, golden in the rearview. Music was twanging on the stereo. Her hand was hanging out the window, and the wind was rushing through it so thick it felt like water. Everything was right in the world. Boone was there, slouching in the passenger seat, singing low and smiling at her from under the brim of his straw hat. Then he was not there. Then it was getting dark. Twilight. And she was scared.

“What’s twilight, Daddy?”

“It’s that in-between time, sugar. Not light, not dark.”

“It’s the pretty time, Daddy.”

“That’s right, sugar, it’s pretty, but it’s hard as hell to see.”

Then the road started to rise. In the dream, her mind panicked, but her rational mind calmed it down; it’s just a ramp. But it wasn’t a ramp.

Is this a dream? This is just a dream, relax.

The road kept rising, up, up, up. And it was dark out. The radio was getting staticky, and the road was getting narrower and narrower. The car’s headlights burned through the blackness just in front of her. What car was it? It wasn’t the Prius because it was rumbling. First it was the Junk Mobile, then it was her daddy’s old Suburban. She could see the high guardrails coming closer and closer to the sides, so close she thought the car might start grating against them. The car kept getting bigger and bigger. She felt panic rising in her throat as she was shrinking.

Daddy?

Then, without warning, she was in the backseat, and the car was climbing, up, up, up, and no one was driving. Daddy’s head lolled sideways in the passenger seat.

Daddy?

Then the earth fell away, and they were falling. She was clawing at the door, but it wouldn’t open. She was scratching and scratching at the door as if she had claws. The sound of her scratching metal became louder and louder.

Claire shot up from the steering wheel with a start, “Boone?”

She heard it again. Her dream was dissipating, fading away. It was dark out. The ladies were gone. Everyone was gone. Where the fuck was she? Had she fallen asleep? Then the scratching came again, like a residue from her dream echoing in the car. She shook her head and opened the car door to get out.

Conchita slithered up and into her lap with her tail curled between her legs and her ears plastered down.

“Oh my God. You’re okay.” She squeezed her to her breast until the dog’s eyes bugged out. Reality came crashing in, and she tossed Conchita angrily into the passenger seat. “You little fucking bitch, I ought to kill you.” For a brief moment she visualized snapping the pink nylon leash around the little bitch’s fat neck and strangling her until she was limp. Then relief flooded her again, and she started to cry.

“You’re flooded,” Dr. Lavin said, leaning forward with that soft, urgent look on her face.

“Huh, what?” Claire had grunted, almost surprised to see the doctor. Surprised and relieved.

“With emotion, feelings, they’re flooding you. Overwhelming you, but you’re okay, Claire. Tap your knees. They’re feelings. They’re real, but they’re not reality. Can you come back to now?”

She tapped her fingers to her knees.

“See, you’re here, you’re not there, and everything is okay.” The smile. Everything is okay.

“It’s okay,” she said, hugging Conchita to her as she wept. “I’m sorry. I love you. I’m happy you made it back alive, you fucking dumb ass.”

“Daddy was an oal man,” Mama would say to anyone and everyone who cared to listen, “And thank heaven he was, or the little ones and I would be destitute.”

“Oy-el.” Claire would correct her with a glare.

“What?” Mama would frown and swish the ice in her Margherita, Margies! She called them, gleefully swilling the pitcher out every afternoon at five or most days before five, “Don’t interrupt.”

“Oy-el. O-I-L. Oy-el. That’s how it’s pronounced.”

“You are a nasty little thang. I wonder where you came from?” Mama would stare at her in horror like she was a monster, an alien from Mars, or that little girl in The Exorcist who shot pea soup out of her mouth all the time. Claire couldn’t help it. The words were like a kind of vomit. Mama would say something, and the mean words just came retching up uncontrollably.

“Daddy may have passed, but the oal keeps on pumpin’, keeping us afloat.” Mama would say coyly, almost embarrassed, as if to explain away the diamonds and furs and the chauffeur.

Claire would roll her eyes and sometimes say, “He was my Daddy, not yours; that is the weirdest Goddamn thing to say.” Then Mama would slap her, and the burn felt good.

Good!

She had succeeded; she had pissed her off. Mama had lost control again in front of everyone, and Claire felt a brief, delicious stab of happiness just before the darkness flooded back in and swallowed her up in its gloom to drown her.

You’re flooded.

Her iPhone trilled. Claire tossed Conchita into the passenger seat and clutched the phone.

“Dr. Lavin?”

“Yes,” she sounded weary, exhausted. A familiar state, “Hi Claire, I’m sorry, I was at a function. Are you okay?”

“Ugh, yes. It’s been a long day, a long story.” Claire felt foolish and selfish for having called. Her face burned as she glared at Conchita, who frowned back at her and looked away. “But I think I’m better now.”

“You’re on your way here to Houston? By yourself ?” The doctor sounded concerned, “Where are you now?”

“Um,” she looked around, “Almost to San Antonio, I think. I’m at a rest stop.”

“…and your mother? She’s in her final stages?”

“Yes,” Claire began, then all the words suddenly snagged in her throat. Tears welled up in her eyes, blurring out her surroundings. She gasped, choked on the words. She felt as if she’d swallowed a ball of barbed wire. She thought of her first big exhibit at LACMA, Motherly Love: giant red sacred hearts cast in aluminum, suspended in the air, half of them bound in rusty barbed wire, the other half pierced with spikes of rebar exploding from the inside. The piece later fell into a bidding war between two rock stars. She thought they were now suspended in the entry of a grand country estate somewhere in the Cotswolds.

“Claire? Claire, are you okay?”

Tears bubbled down her face in streams.

“Are you angry?”

“Yes!” Claire choked out. She was angry. Angry at everyone. Angry at herself.

“Are you sad?”

“Yeees,” she bawled, letting out a little whine, like a cat’s mewling. Conchita cocked her head at her, and she felt Conchita’s paws clawing at her forearm. “I had a dream; I think I saw the whole thing this time.”

“Why don’t you tell me. Tell me what you’re feeling.”

She closed her eyes, and instantly Claire was back in the car. The old Suburban. The radio was so loud.

Willie Nelson?On the Road Again?

The car was stopped. The passenger door was flung wide open. Moths fluttered in wild arcs of ecstasy in the beams of the headlights against the black of night. Daddy was pitched over, in his tuxedo, retching in the weeds. She heard his groans muffled under the music.

“Is Daddy okay?” panic was rising in her throat. Claire clutched her pink stuffed Piglet to her and shifted on the slippery leather seat.

‘He’s fine, Sugar, nothing a little sleep won’t cure. Don’t you fret.”

Her mother peered at her in the rearview mirror. She looked like a movie star in the glow of the dashboard lights, eyes like a cat, earrings glittering, that ridiculous poofy, feathery collar waving lazily in the air like sea creatures in the coral. The car was thick with the scent of Chanel No. 5, alcohol, sweat, engine fumes from the open door, and ozone from the impending rain.

Daddy groaned, “Jesus, Whoach!” Then spat gurgling sounds.

“Mama, Daddy is sick!”

“Darlin’, he’s fine, sit yourself down and buckle up.”

“Mama is such a goddamn liar,” Claire groaned into the iPhone.

“Yes,” Dr. Lavin said, “Tell me what you feel.”

The rain started. First, a few angry drops on the windshield.

Bloink. Bloink. Bloink bloink bloink.

Then whoosh, it started to pour. Daddy stumbled back to the Suburban like an off-balance sea hand on deck. He heaved himself into the passenger seat with a moan and slammed the door. Had moths flown in with him? She felt things fluttering around her in the dark.

“All better?” Mama sang, “I told you not to mix.”

“Shut the fu–”

“Ah ah, little ears,” Mama chimed. As if Claire at six didn’t already know the f-word.

“How’s my Little Princess?” Daddy swung around, woozy, and smiled at her, crooning in that deep, gravelly voice. A gust of sour barf breath wafted over her, but she felt relieved and smiled up at him. The car lurched onto the highway.

“I feel worried.” A moth flapped its wings in Claire’s little face; it felt like the devil’s eyelashes tickling her. “I feel scared.”

“That’s good. Tell me what you see.” Dr. Lavin said, sounding thoroughly revived from her exhaustion.

Daddy slumped sideways in the passenger seat, his head lolling like a doll.

“Daddy is sick,” Claire said, sounding fretful.

The Suburban lurched across the highway lines.

Thump, thump, thump.

Mama glanced at her in the rearview, her eyes startled. The car swerved back to the right. The windshield blurred with a sheet of rain. Mama turned on the wipers. The car swerved again. Daddy moaned and lolled toward the window.

“Mama is fucking drunk. Again.”

“Yes,” Dr. Lavin agreed, sounding regretful.

Up ahead, the skeletal body of the bridge glowered in the yellow light of a streetlamp.

“I see the bridge,” Claire said. Her body tensed.

“Yes,” Dr. Lavin said, “Remember Claire, you’re here, you’re not there. You’re okay.”

The car went thump, thump, thump, thump again, then jerked back into its lane.

A horn blared.

Mama sang with the music, but she didn’t know the lyrics, “La, La, La, LaLa.”

Her mascaraed eyes flashed mirthfully back at Claire in the mirror. They started up the hill toward the light. Angled iron held the bridge aloft and glimmered silver in the headlights. The wheels of the Suburban strummed on a cow catcher.

Zing. Zingggg.

Past the point of no return. She clutched Piglet to her pajamas. When they had picked her up from Aunt Sis’s house, she had been groggy with sleep. Suddenly, she felt hyper-aware in her six-year-old self.

“Mama, I’m scared. Why am I here?”

“It’s Dr. Lavin, Claire. I’m here. We’ve been here before. You’re okay.”

She could almost feel the doctor squeezing her hand, the way she had when she was twelve, fifteen, thirty-two, forty-one.

My God, Claire thought, She’s, my mother. I’ve been paying this woman to be my fucking mother my entire life.

She started quietly weeping.

“Claire? Claire? Are you with me?”

Claire murmured. The Suburban went up, up, up. Her heart thudded. The windshield wipers pounded. Mama reached for something. The music was jarringly loud. Daddy moaned and rolled to the side, then suddenly jolted upright in his seat.

“Jesus, look out!” he screamed.

Then came the loud clang, and suddenly they were somersaulting into the upside-down roller coaster, going round and round in a loop, free-floating, suspended in time. It was almost thrilling. Then the crash stopped everything in a clatter so loud that Claire went deaf for a long, long time.

Daddy was the first thing she heard– first a moan, then, “Clarabelle? Clarabelle? CLARABELLE! Oh Goddamn! Oh, Jesus.”

“Daddy?” Her head rang like the big gong on the Gong Show. Blood was rushed to her cheeks. Claire slowly realized she was hanging upside down, but she still had Piglet clutched to her chest. Everything was dark. The music had stopped.

“Oh, thank God. Oh, thank you, Jesus. Are you okay?” Daddy called from the dark, then groaned.

“I, I think so. Mama? Mama?” Claire called out.

An empty, silent hiss answered back as Daddy whimpered.

“Mama?!” she screamed.

“Your mother was thrown from the car, remember, Claire?” Dr. Lavin said softly, “She’ll be fine. She’ll recover.”

Claire murmured, then opened her eyes as Conchita started licking her face. Her claws were digging into Claire’s breasts.

“What are you feeling, Claire?”

“I’m so goddamn mad!”

“That’s right. You have every right. Who are you mad at, Claire?”

“I’m mad at Mama,” she cried.

“That’s right. Who else?”

Claire stammered. “I’m mad at my fucking dog.”

Dr. Lavin paused, then continued, unflummoxed, “Yes. Okay. Who else? Who else are you mad at?”

“I’m mad at me?” Claire guessed.

“Well, okay, why?” Dr. Lavin paused again.

“I don’t know.” Claire sobbed. She stared at Conchita’s cute ugly demon head for a minute, “I guess for being such a mean nasty bitch my whole life.”

“Okay, that’s…something. Let’s come back to that later. Who else are you mad at?”

Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Ugh, I’m sick of this fucking stupid game, Jesus Christ. Tell me who the fuck I’m mad at?”

Dr. Lavin was silent.

Claire winced. Poor Dr. Lavin and her dogged devotion to all her fucked-up clients. How did she have any life at all?

“I’m sorry.” Claire said, “I apologize for being so nasty just now.”

“Claire, it’s alright. You’re upset. Thank you for the apology, but don’t you think you’ve been carrying all this anger for far too long?” Dr. Lavin sighed, then spoke.

“Yes,” Claire gushed, and the tears were back.

“If your father had lived. If he were still alive today, who would you be mad at?”

Conchita stared up at her, expectant, those fucking claws cutting into her arm. She pulled the dog close to her chest, like Piglet. Claire wiped the tears from her face, but a bigger flood replaced them; she felt herself slobbering. How could she have any tears left after all this time?

“Who, Claire? Who would you be mad at? I think it’s time.”

“Daddy?”

Claire heard Dr. Lavin let out a long, low sigh of relief on the other end.