The Family Tabor. Cherise Wolas
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tonight, be glisteningly smooth for the gala event celebrating him.
In his large closet, he dresses in his tennis whites, then tiptoes, socks and Tretorns in hand, out of the master bedroom with its view, when the drapes are pulled back, of the meditation pool, leaving Roma asleep, her face aglow in a shard of sunlight, dreaming, he hopes, about something pleasurable, not about Tatiana and Inessa, or the youngster she has begun treating who has ceased eating entirely.
In the sunny kitchen, the waft of espresso makes him smile again, that timer on the machine such a modern wonder. He throws back a first cup, rich and unadulterated, looking out over the large aquamarine rectangle in the main courtyard where Roma swims her daily laps before healing the children of the Coachella Valley.
Socks on, laces tied, he gulps down two more espressos, leaves the thimble-sized cup in the sink, and pulls from the freezer three bottles of water, slick as stalactites.
Out into the open-air carport, into his old convertible Mercedes coupe painted in a patina of gold, he revs the engine just a little, to feel the vroom in his being, and leaves his majestic home, which sits on a solid acre, driving past the flowering cacti and soaring palms, and the beds of mimosas, ocotillos, acacias, lemongrass, and the lilies of the Nile, after which the Tabors’ street is named, turning left onto his street, onto Agapanthus Lane. He presses the gas, feels the stalwart car gather its power, gliding so easily over the smooth macadam, a hop and a skip to the courts.
He could belong to any of the private tennis clubs in the area, and his tennis pal, Levitt, would prefer playing at his own, but Harry is a man of the people, and he prefers the public courts. After all, he comes from solid stock that knew how to make do with what they had, which was nothing. And he knows how to make do, too, only he has so much more than any impoverished Tabornikov could have imagined possessing back in the Pale of Settlement, when the world was so very, very, very old. Harry Tabor may no longer be chronologically young, but he feels as if he is, lives as if he is, as if this world is a great and wonderful place, and he himself is adding to that wondrousness, waking up every day strong as a bull, his thoughts sharp and important, his very being brand-new. A man self-made, through and through. That’s how he remembers his own life, up to this point.
And there is Levitt’s showy Maserati cooling down when Harry pulls into his regular spot at Ruth Hardy Park. Younger than Harry by a baker’s dozen, but not quite as agile a player, Levitt is a friend Harry considers “newish” since they met only a decade ago. In the desert, ten years is nothing against the antediluvian nature of the topography.
Creaky parking brake engaged, Henry swings himself easily through the car’s open door, is up on his feet, retrieving his tennis bag from the backseat.
“You ready to lose again, Levitt? I’m telling you, you’d better be tough, give me your prime-A game, because today is my lucky day.”
ROMA TABOR’S DREAMS ABOUT her baba Tatiana and her mother, Inessa, aren’t about what she has suffered and lost by their absence, or the bottomless sorrow that never dissolves; instead she dreams of their sufferings, their losses, their sorrows that they packed away after they found a way to escape.
For many years now, when she wakes, she thinks first about luck—about the terrible steps Tatiana had to take to find a shred of it in a world that decreed she should have none, and then about its constancy in her own life. From the time she was young, those strong women defied their experiences to teach her to trust in its tangible reality. She learned the lesson, but honors their before and after by remembering that believing one deserves luck doesn’t mean it won’t disappear in a flash.
This morning, there is Harry’s usual empty space next to her in the king-sized bed, and the sun’s heat on her face, and she thinks about luck, then puts it away, and waits to see what name is in her head. Today it is Noelani McCadden, a big name for a little girl who is only eight.
In the intake session on Monday, the mother, Jeanine, said, “One day my daughter was fine, the next day not. She’s an only child, and until a month ago, a couch potato. She didn’t like playing games during recess, wasn’t interested in taking gymnastics or ballet with her friends, or riding the bike we gave her for her birthday while her father and I took our regular after-dinner stroll. We tried to get her to go to camp this summer, where she would swim and learn how to trot on a horse, but she flat-out refused.
“Now, before dawn, she runs through our neighborhood, to the fire road, and keeps going. She’s eight. It’s not normal at that age to be running seven miles a day. And no matter what we do, we can’t stop her. If we try to stop her, she starts screaming, so we let her go, then follow at a distance in the car. Usually it’s Steve who does that, makes sure she’s safe.”
Roma pictured the little girl waking, dressing quickly, sneaking through the quiet house to the front door, carefully turning the locks, slipping out into air that had cooled overnight. So young, but needing to run, perhaps without any idea of why, running in the early-morning dark until light infused the sky.
“In the beginning,” Jeanine continued, “she’d come in all red and sweaty, and I’d be making her breakfast and tell her to sit down at the kitchen table. And she would, but she’d keep her mouth tight and turn away from the eggs and bacon or oatmeal I’d serve her. I went out and bought sugary cereals and donuts, but nothing. And last week, when I said, ‘Honey, you must drink enough water. You’re running so much and we live in the desert, it’s a hundred and ten and a body needs hydration,’ she smacked the water glass I’d filled out of my hand. Then every time I offered her water or fruit juice or even the soft drink she used to beg me to buy and I never would, she’d smack the glass out of my hand. Glass everywhere on the kitchen floor. So I went out and bought plastic and I keep trying to get her to drink, but she won’t. All day long I’m spying on my child, to see if she’s drunk something or eaten something without me noticing. Hoping and hoping. I’m checking if glasses are wet. I’m counting the pieces of bread left in the loaf, crackers in the plastic sleeves, cookies in the boxes, slices of American cheese in the fridge, fruit in the crisper; I even counted the Fritos in the bag, but she’s not touching a thing.”
Roma met with the girl every afternoon this week, two hours each time. It is the immersive approach she prefers with a case that has developed this swiftly, to see if she can get to the essence quickly.
The questions in Noelani’s case are: What has speeded this child up? Why is she running so far and so fast? Is there something monstrous she is trying to outrace, and if so, is that monstrous thing within or without? And how is a child so young overriding her natural hunger, imposing on herself an iron-willed discipline at which most adults fail?
Roma has seen elements of this many times over decades in practice, and the causes rarely reveal themselves easily. Noelani is not the youngest patient Roma has had with these symptoms, but what worked with her other patients will have no bearing here. Roma must start at the beginning, treat Noelani as she treats every patient, as the sui generis beings that they are.
When Roma asked if Noelani had any other new and uncharacteristic behaviors, Jeanine began to cry. “She lies about everything. I ask her, ‘Have you brushed your teeth?’ or ‘Did you make your bed?’ or ‘Did you feed your goldfish?’ and she says yes to everything, but it never turns out to be true. She lies about things that are verifiable as untrue with one glance, which Steve and I can’t understand.”
Naturally, the parents are scared and shaken. The cherished daughter they knew, whom they tucked into bed and kissed each night and roused in the morning with hugs, has disappeared entirely, as if she never were.
Everything Jeanine spoke about, Roma has seen in her meetings with Noelani, but she has also seen more. In addition to the girl’s obsessions with running and denying herself food and liquid, she has also seen in her anxiety, anger, and impulse control.
In yesterday’s session, their fifth, Roma was tough, clarifying that if Noelani does not immediately start eating and drinking, she will be