We Dare Not Whisper

By Jan Netolicky

Luce Garrison narrates the unraveling of her stoic Midwestern family: a mother plagued by bipolar disorder, a father guilt-ridden by his inability to confront his wife’s descent into madness, and Luce’s own unassailable conviction that she can never be as loved as the brothers she has lost.

As a child, Luce often lingered over albums of glossy photographs, longing to be just like her lovely, enigmatic mother. But images frozen for an instant could not capture the lightless depression and manic bouts of frenzied activity which demonized Bets Garrison. Luce does not know the depths of her mother’s undiagnosed mental illness. Her only certainty? She is an inadequate substitute for the older brother who was stillborn just three months after her parents’ marriage.

After giving birth to Jonny, eleven years Luce’s junior, Bets develops an obsessive, disturbing devotion which trumps every other relationship in the Garrison home. Although Luce tries to minimize the gulf, she is excluded from the smothering attention her mother lavishes upon Jonny. Caught in a void, she can neither be loving sister nor cherished daughter. She can only be in the way.

Set in rural Wisconsin, We Dare Not Whisper explores the toxic legacy of a self-destructive family. With hauntingly beautiful prose, Jan Netolicky illuminates the suffering of individuals with bipolar disorder and the unthinkable challenges facing those closest to them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brick Mantel Books
• Release date: Dec 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781941799161

Book preview

Part One:

Before

One

Jonny was born on Valentine’s Day, one of the snowiest on record in our southeastern Wisconsin community. Being so near Lake Michigan, spectacular storms courtesy of the lake effect are routine but rarely are we Midwesterners stymied by the weather. Hardships shape our character, we proudly maintain, and if we sometimes bow our heads against a stiff wind, we convince ourselves that we are simply giving thanks at the altar of our resiliency. Even for the heartiest of us, this was a snowstorm for the record books.

The storm began innocuously enough late in the afternoon on the thirteenth of February. Although forecasters had been predicting up to a foot of snow by morning, the sky had seemed benign during the day. But as dusk approached, silent clouds of rosy-gray flannel crowded the heavens and big fluffy flakes fell endlessly, straight down, like a stage curtain dropped from a vast proscenium. By the time Dad had placed boiled hot dogs and his signature jalapeño mac and cheese on the table, snow had covered the bottom step leading up to the back porch which wrapped around two sides of our house.

Go on and eat now, Luce, he said. You can get another bottle of ketchup out of the pantry if there’s not enough here. I’m going to check on your mother. He disappeared into their bedroom just around the corner from the kitchen. I heard him murmur, What can I do for you, Bets?

On doctor’s orders, Mother had been confined to her bed for the last month. She insisted she was not going to the Aurora Women’s Pavilion in West Allis to wait for the delivery of this child, world-class obstetrics and NICU notwithstanding, no matter what Dr. Bennet said. Yes, she was spotting occasionally, and no, the baby didn’t seem to kick as frequently as I had in the last trimester, but Mother was not an alarmist. Dr. Bennet is worse than a little old lady. I’m fine. I’m perfectly fine, she insisted. Besides, I have plenty of labor to manage here at home. I’d go crazy at Aurora, just twiddling my thumbs and waiting.

Even though she was swollen and uncomfortable, she was resolute in her belief this child would arrive with far less drama than that which accompanied my birth. On the matter of a precautionary hospital stay, Dad tended to side with Dr. Bennet, but—as in most disputes with Mother—her will prevailed. And so she settled in at home to wait. Dad and I engaged in a delicate ballet of being present but unobtrusive until we were called upon to perform some menial task. After school, I usually started a load of laundry and set the table, sorted the mail and fed Gunner, our yellow Lab. Occasionally, I might even dust around the lamps and groupings of pillar candles my mother favored or run the vacuum cleaner while my father fixed dinner. The arrangement worked because of Dad’s job which, in other circumstances, gave rise to Mother’s biting indictment of his spectacular underachievement. The feed mill he managed was on property adjacent to our farmhouse in rural Waukesha County, so he was never too far from my mother’s side.

I know why Dad worried. He remembered my birth eleven years earlier, just three days before Thanksgiving. I was a huge baby, all nine pounds, fourteen ounces of me, and Mother endured excruciating back labor for nearly twenty-three hours. She once admitted in a moment of weakness that she screamed obscenities at anyone who recklessly ventured into the delivery room during the last seven hours. Coincidentally, news of the Jonestown Massacre had dominated the airwaves in the days just prior to my birth, and Mother supposedly requested a Kool-Aid cocktail from one of the delivery nurses. I hated you before you were born, she told me, for the hellish labor you put me through. And I haven’t quite forgiven you yet. This last was admitted with a conspiratorial laugh, as though her weak attempt at humor would soften the truth of her confession.

I can say with certainty that my birth was just the first of many trials I inflicted upon my mother. Not only did I ignore her inflexible timetable with my delayed entrance upon her stage, I caused her uncommon pain in the process. I had also proven to be an inadequate substitute for the child who was stillborn just three months after her marriage to my father.

Her punishment began with my name. Dad wanted to call me Jeannette after Mother’s favorite great aunt. No, Nolan, Mother insisted. This one reminds me more of your side of the family. Your mother." I never knew if Mother referred to Grandmother’s and my physical similarities—large-boned frame, mousy brown hair, dark eyes, and olive-tinged complexion—or to our dispositions. I suppose, in the end, it really didn’t matter. On my mother’s balance sheet, neither of us quite tallied approval. And so I was named for Grandmother Lucinda Evelyn, mercifully shortened to Luce by my father.

As I grew older, I suspected that, for Mother, Luce was short for Lucifer since she reminded me constantly I was the devil incarnate. At times, Luce might also be a clever homonym for loose, an adjective my mother would apply to my tongue, my morals, and the clothing she insisted most appropriately camouflaged my size 16 frame. Girls your size shouldn’t wear revealing skirts, she would admonish. That skimpy T-shirt is simply too tight. Change it. No one wants to see those rolls around your middle.

Our battles pitted her rules against my rebellion, her disapproval against my disregard. She usually won and I retreated, bloodied by vicious swipes of her razor tongue.

A little before three in the morning on that Valentine’s Day, fluttering pain signaled the onset of Mother’s labor. Dad fired up the tractor and cleared our long drive out to the highway, only to discover there was no highway to find. He would not, as he had planned, have time to shuttle me to Grandmother Lucinda’s before driving Mother to the hospital. Even as her contractions intensified, Mother stubbornly insisted we could safely navigate to his mother’s home and then trek to the hospital. Whether she was truly concerned for my comfort during her delivery or she simply wanted me conveniently absent, I can’t say. In retrospect, those last long months of her pregnancy must have thrown Mother off her game not to factor in errant February weather, stranded snowplows, and a rising wind which created blinding whiteouts.

For once, Dad overruled her. He ushered us both to the Explorer, engaged the four-wheel drive, and drove as fast as caution and visibility would allow. With uncharacteristic forcefulness, he had the final word. Luce can curl up on a couch in the waiting room. I’ll have Mom come to get her as soon as the roads are cleared. We need to get you to the doctor.

As it turned out, I didn’t need to curl up anywhere. Jonathan Ian Garrison was born exactly eleven minutes after we arrived at the emergency room, our shoulders tight with the urgency of our mission. Mother couldn’t have been happier. She had no time for an epidural or episiotomy. Jonny had been considerately prompt, perfectly proportioned, serene in the midst of a hurried delivery, and the boy she had always wanted. Mother’s fierce love affair with her son began, auspiciously, on the day of hearts. Dad and I were witnesses to this grand affair, but not participants.

Two

Ifirst saw Jonny through the expansive glass separating the newborn nursery from the visitors’ viewing hallway. Dad lifted me in his arms so I could see, unimpeded by the presence of other baby-gazers. Jonny was tightly swaddled in a white blanket, his head covered by a tiny stocking cap adorned with delicate red hearts, handiwork courtesy of the Aurora Hospital Ladies’ Auxiliary. In our haste to get Mother to the hospital I had forgotten my glasses. Even though I squinted, the little valentines on his cap looked like droplets of blood on a snowy field.

Three

When I was a child, my favorite pastime involved dragging a tall stool to my mother’s closet where she kept her cache of family photo albums and high school yearbooks. On the shelf above the rod which held her cotton camp shirts and serviceable Levis she had stacked boxes of photos and leather-bound diaries, the contents of each one labeled by year in bold black Magic Marker. I was always careful to replace the boxes exactly as I had found them. I imagined if I inadvertently rearranged the contents, I would somehow rewrite the events of her life before she met and married my father.

Pictures of her in her infancy were my favorite, perhaps because as a baby she did not yet manifest the bitterness of the woman she became. Maybe the signs were there, but I was simply unobservant. Mother certainly maintained as much through most of my childhood. I remember an elementary school lesson on growth and human development in which our teachers posted pictures of themselves as babies and invited students to match the photos with their adult counterparts. I was miserably inept at the game, somehow oblivious to clues such as Mrs. McPherson’s widow’s peak or Mr. Tilly’s sharp nose.

No, I could not envision Mother’s plump cheeks would become gaunt, her perfect rosebud mouth would eventually thin into a desperate little line, her unusually light eyes would darken, either with rage or resignation. My mother was a beautiful child.

My mother’s parents, Aldrich and Elnora Pennick, doted on her. She was an enchanting little thing, yes, but she was also a miracle baby of sorts. According to family lore, told ad nauseum at every holiday gathering, after several vain attempts at becoming pregnant, a despairing Elnora broke down at a Fourth of July picnic. Sure she was destined never to give birth to a child, she sobbed over a plate of potato salad and grilled brats and announced she and Aldrich were initiating adoption. She believed she was infertile and needed to move on by enlisting her father’s law firm in the search for an infant. Caucasian. A girl, certainly. With luck, the offspring of handsome parents who would be bright enough to understand that giving their child to Elnora and Aldrich would be the ultimate act of selflessness. To celebrate her future magnanimity, Elnora drank Vodka gimlets all afternoon. That evening, she conceived Elizabeth Claire Pennick, forever known as Bets. Beloved, beautiful Bets, photographed more often than Marilyn Monroe. Her albums chronicle her childhood, each moment labeled with date, event, and—occasionally—editorial comment.

Elnora and Bets, 2 hours old! Mother, already eschewing standard issue hospital garb, robed in delicate pink knit. Grammy Elnora, flushed and jubilant.

Bets, 13 months. Big girl! Mother taking her first solo steps, belly and elbows forward, arms posed as though performing some funky dance rhythm.

Queen Bets on her throne, 27 months. Mother, naked, perched on the potty chair.

Bets, 3rd birthday. Yum! Princess Cake from Sendik’s! Mother, in rhinestone tiara and white satin dress adorned with layers of tulle ruffles, surrounded by opened gifts and elaborately wrapped presents.

Bets, first day at school w/ Miss Nelson, kindergarten teacher. Mother clutching Cinderella backpack. Miss Nelson, kneeling.

Bets visited by Tooth Fairy, age 6. Mother, gap-toothed, brandishing a five-dollar bill.

Bets, recital, age 7. Cutest of the 101 Dalmatians! Mother in white leotard with black spots, performing with similarly clad dancing Dalmatians. Is she out of step, or are they?

Bets playing with Plantation Belle Barbie.

Bets turning cartwheels on the lawn.

Bets riding a carousel pony.

Bets chasing the family’s Wheaten terrier.

Bets with commencement medals.

Bets laughing with boys. Lots of boys.

Bets. Endless Bets, always smiling. Always.

Perched on the stool in her closet, I used to imagine my own image superimposed upon my mother’s face in those photographs. I imitated her confident poses, the saucy set of her shoulders, the way she grinned just so for the camera. Who could not want to be my mother?

Now, though, I often wonder if those photos documented Mother’s enchanted life or Grammy Elnora’s ruthless culling of ugly reality.

Four

Fifteen years into their marriage, my parents were vastly different people than they had been when they first met. This is not idle conjecture on my part. Her diaries offer beguiling proof that once she loved him.

Mother met my father during her last year at Marquette. Following the traditional Pennick family career path, she was studying law—her specialty was to be corporate patents, but she failed to earn her degree. In my presence, at least, she never blamed Dad for changing her life and ending the Pennick legacy of family lawyers, but one of her later diary entries confesses her bitterness.

One semester. That’s it. One stinking semester short. That, the bar exam .  .  .  a LIFE. STUPID. FUCKING STUPID.

Had things been different and Jonny were still alive, I doubt she would worry her lost career. She’d be too busy interfering in his life to bother with briefs and court dates.

When she and my father met, she was engaged to a classmate who hailed from Racine. Antony’s family was Italian; he was exotically handsome and fiercely Roman Catholic. The Pennick clan had little time for religion, but Mother accompanied her fiancé to weekly masses and agreed to become a member of his parish to demonstrate her commitment to him. She once joked she was willing to accept his religious devotion if he was willing to let her drive his MG.

Turns out, the joke wasn’t so funny. When Antony was vacationing with his family in Rome, supposedly making arrangements for his extended Italian clan to attend the nuptials, he left the MG with Mother. She drove that little red convertible to a patent seminar sponsored by a Milwaukee law firm for which she was interning. The seminar was held at the Convention Center, coincidentally the site of a regional agricultural expo. In what would be described as a meet cute in film parlance, she and my father literally bumped into one another. I should say that my mother accidentally dented the passenger side rocker panel of my father’s Chevy Cavalier with the rear end of Antony’s MG as she was exiting her parking space.

They exchanged insurance cards and phone numbers. One thing led to another, and by the time Antony returned from the old country, my mother had returned his MG, restored to its original finish, and her engagement ring. She and Nolan James Garrison were now officially an item.

I’m not exactly sure what possessed my mother to abandon Antony, who seemed to be her perfectly scripted life partner. Although he didn’t possess Antony’s European flair, my father was a good-looking young man . . . a bit under six feet, slender but with a muscular build from his job at the feed mill. His light brown hair sported steaks of sun-bleached gold, and there was an appealing earnestness in his wide-set brown eyes.

Looks aside, he’d probably languish untapped on today’s e-dating websites. According to Mother’s diary, my father wasn’t much for parties or big crowds. He didn’t go to bars, avoided live theater and museums, and fine dining meant any place where he waited less than ten minutes for a table on Saturday night. But at the time, at least, Mother seemed to find these departures from her own lifestyle charming and sweet. She gushed about his sincerity, about his ability to win the unwavering devotion of the few people he allowed to get close, about the way she just knew anything he told her was the God-honest truth. I suppose in her circles, she had never encountered someone so real as my father before. Too, Mother was always used to being pursued, and I don’t think my father was ever a hunter. Is indifference a powerful aphrodisiac?

Once she had sighted my father in her crosshairs, her diaries reveal a rather calculated, systematic approach to winning his affections. My mother, who could not to this day define a walk-off homerun or a squeeze bunt, shamelessly feigned interest in my father’s one true passion: baseball. He had been a lifelong Cubs fan, heretical thinking in Milwaukee. To those few willing to listen, he could cite batting averages and on-base percentages, recall with uncanny detail lore from the franchise’s storied history, and make nonchalant reference to Ernie Banks or Ron Santo or Fergie Jenkins as though they had been his childhood chums. Frankly, even when OSHA required Dad to recertify in CPR for his job at the mill, he resuscitated the dummy with chest compressions to the beat of Tinker to Evers to Chance . . . push; Tinker to Evers to Chance . . . push. Who knew that the Cubs’ fabled double play combination would win games AND save lives?

Mother was no fool. Wanting to avoid awkward silences in the earliest days of their courtship, she coyly introduced the Home Run Game. It became a familiar constant, and they played it every time they went anywhere in my father’s Cavalier. The rules were simple: Mother would name the starting location, a compass point direction, and a number between one and ten (perhaps the Blatz Brewery Complex on Broadway / southwest / four). Then she would decide upon an arbitrary time limit, anything falling within thirty-minute parameters. As soon as the clock started running, Dad would drive in the designated direction, attempting to score runs based upon his luck or his skill at navigating through intersections. Red lights meant an automatic out. If he logged three outs before the allotted time had expired, Dad lost the game. For every green traffic signal they sailed through, Dad was given a hit in Mother’s score book. No extra bases here, only singles. Consequently, it took four hits to score a run. In the case of yellow lights, Mother was the umpire, and her rulings were never overturned.

I gather that if my father managed to score runs equal to or greater than the target number Mother had named, the rewards were sexual. Perhaps, at first, a kiss or maybe a fleeting brush of his hand against her breast. Later, the stakes were higher. Knowing my mother, I would venture the runs needed to score, initially, were impossible to achieve. Brilliant, really. And if he knew Mother was blatantly manipulative, Dad seemed eager to play by her rules, a pattern that never varied even long after they abandoned the Home Run Game.

Cliché though it may seem, Mother became pregnant only a few months after they begin dating. By design? I don’t know. But if their relationship truly mirrored America’s Favorite Sport, Mother’s post season priority wasn’t her unborn child. On the day her test results were confirmed, Mother’s diary hardly mentions my father and the fact that they would forever be linked by the baby growing inside her. Rather, her entries all focus on Grammy Elnora’s sense of urgency in booking the Wisconsin Club for a December wedding reception. Mother’s baby bump notwithstanding, my grandparents were determined to spring for an outlandishly expensive wedding—the kind my mother certainly would have staged had Antony been standing at the end of the aisle.

Mother’s wedding pictures are beautiful, and many. Thankfully, Mother and Dad did not fall prey to the styles embraced by most seventies-era couples. For them, no groomsmen in ruffled shirts, cream tuxedos, and bow