[voiceover] Help: the absolute worst of the four letter words and the one I know best. A six year old on tip-toes peering into Brandi's crib, my mother on the bedroom floor, scrounging for the booze, that word coming out of their mouths as a gasp. Like destiny. Help. I've learned over time help doesn't mean grab the other paint roller or hold the ladder still. It means, hey, I screwed up, now what are we gonna do? Help, more than anything, is the not so subtle herald of the appearance of we. Don't even get me started on happy to help.
[voiceover, as Marshall fields a call from Faber for her without her knowing] Help, every now and then, is something more than a four letter word. Sometimes it's just a baby crying for her sister from the confines of a crib. And sometimes, if you're lucky, help comes without asking, because somewhere nearby is someone who'd rather keep you from falling than help you up after you do.
[voiceover] I like the sound of three word phrases. Fools rush in. Greed is good. Character is destiny. That one comes up a lot when a witness stares down the barrel of a whole new life. Documents, jewelry, snapshots; we take it all, and as much as I preach to them about a chance to start over fresh, I keep a stash of letters from a father who left and never came back. Witnesses can't hang onto a stash of anything. They're lucky we let them keep their secrets.
[voiceover] Character is destiny. For the chronic do-gooder, the happy-go-lucky sociopath, the dysfunctional family, under the gun everyone reverts to who they are. We may hunger to map out a new course, but for most of us the lines have been drawn since we were five.
[voiceover] We moved on Christmas Eve the year that I turned six. Jinx got us some used 45s, a yard sale Big Wheel, and a patch of grass out back. She told me if I pedaled good and slow I could go anywhere I want. Anywhere extended only as far as our back yard, but still, it was freedom. A six year old's version of the open road. That was probably the last vehicle I got really attached to. Until now.
[Leaving Brandi, who has been missing for several episodes now, a message on her cell phone]
Mary
Hey Brandi, this is the last message I'm leaving you. If you don't call me back in 24 hours, I'm telling the police you died, having your funeral, selling everything you own and if you ever show up again, I'm having you arrested for identity theft.
[voiceover] We love what we love. For some people it's a first grade crush. For others it's a Big Wheel, the wrong guy, or the New York Mets. For some of us, it's something unreachable, something we've maybe never had before, and we know that even if we reach it, even if we pull it close and make it ours, it won't last. It can't. But we keep on, because it doesn't matter if it's a Big Wheel, wrong guy, or the New York Mets, it doesn't matter what we reach for, what matters is the reaching.
[voiceover] When I was seventeen it was a not so very good year. I married a guy named Mark who was twenty-two. The whole thing lasted thirty-six hours. Seventeen, twenty-two, thirty-six. It didn't add up. It's hard to believe there was a version of me capable of diving head first into the shallow end like that. These days a guy buying me a drink kicks off an internal debate long enough to put my thirty-six hour marriage, however redundantly, to shame. After which, he's moved on to someone else. Someone who is both presumably sane and thirsty.
Okay, here's the thing, Natalie. Sooner or later this case falls apart because of you, and when it does all those Russians you turned on will be back on the street with nothing between you and them but a motel door and their urge to kick it in. And when they kill you it will have zero impact on my day. Sleep tight.
[voiceover] I think about my short, impulsive teenage marriage more than I care to admit. When I was with Raph it would run on a loop, mocking me in bed every now and then. At the moment right when the lights go out. A continual reminder that when it comes to what Pat Benatar aptly called a battlefield, I should probably be locked in a cage during off hours, for my own good and that of unsuspecting suitors bearing gifts.
[voiceover] "Father Figure" is a phrase as potent as "Mother Nature". Say that out loud and the image flow from having a catch on the side of the yard, the screen doors slamming behind the deadbeat dad. For every "father knows best", in Atticus Finch, there's a Great Santini bouncing a ball at the head of his teenage son. One thing for sure the father figure, in your face or out the door, would make his presence felt. Like it or not.
[voiceover] For most kids, the scariest thing you can hear is, "Wait till your father gets home." For some, there's no fear of that or hope for it. I'm still waiting. Not like a puppy, head tilting at footballs on the porch or a key in the lock, I go about my days, every so often, aware of his absence. And telling myself that the heart, old adage aside, does not grow fonder. Except it does. It really, really does.
[voiceover] Friendship, it's been said, is God's way of apologizing for your family. I don't really subscribe to the God part, but if I did apologizing for family seems like the least he could do.
[voiceover] I can count the witnesses I've admired on a hand and a half. The ones I liked, fewer still. When it comes to those I was truly friends with I can't put a number on it. I don't need to. It's just Mia. Someone who wouldn't be around very long. I know somewhere a therapist's couch beckons. Mia lived forty-two years. All she wanted in the end was to have made a difference in one life. She did. She absolutely did. I know what she'd say if she heard all this: "Oh, shut up." Her version of rest in peace.
[voiceover] Trusting anything, your family, your instincts, the dim-witted anchor on the ten o'clock news, its all a gamble, with plenty of promises and no guarantees, but I'm finding the longer I live, no matter how often I fall on my face, that folding is for losers. That winners take hits. Call it going all in, call it rolling the dice. Screw hedging your bets, bluff, raise, call, stand, again and again and again...
In Plain Sight · 332 quotes
Mary
