She had been waiting for a sign to release her into Death, now the sign was granted.
She swallowed forty-seven aspirin tablets between 1:10 A.M. and 1:35 A.M. locked in the bathroom of her parents' rented house.
She swallowed the tablets slowly and carefully drinking tepid water from the faucet.
She knew to go slowly and carefully not wanting to get overexcited feverish not wanting to get sick to her stomach.
Better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness her father often said but she preferred the darkness.
She stood five feet three inches tall in her bare feet, she weighed eighty-nine pounds.
She was leaving no message behind.
Her tight fist of a heart beat hard, in pride in growing ecstasy she half believed it could never stop.
She had read about the subject at the library, she didn't intend to make the usual mistakes.
She waited until the others were asleep, she'd always been practical shrewd sly, Enid Maria thinking her own private thoughts.
She began to feel bloated from so much water but the nausea was only in her head.
She'd taken a long dreamy bath earlier that evening and washed her hair while the others were watching television: Arthur Godfrey. She could hear laughter far away downstairs.
She'd powdered herself with talcum powder, shoulders breasts belly even between her thighs quick and rough. Stark-white sweet-smelling Jasmine Princess from Woolworth's.
She was thinking of the undertow at Shoal Lake, that eel-like coil of icy water sliding up her body. The sun had been beating hard on her head, the water warm, even sluggish, she'd thought at first the icy water might be a fish or a water snake, it slid swiftly up her legs then disappeared.
The warning was, if you swam in that part of the lake and the undertow got you you wouldn't have time to cry out for help.
The water like and icy slippery eel had slid up her body then disappeared. She'd kept swimming.
She remembered her sister Lizzie the other day singing "Wheel of Fortune" along with Kay Starr on television.
She dressed herself like a bride to die in her white cotton nightgown from Sibley's with the wide lace straps threaded with a narrow white satin ribbon. A white satin ribbon at the neck too, fixed in place by a safety pin.
She had no pity for the face in the mirror. The bony ridges of her chest, the familiar delicate bones.
She had no pity for the small breasts faint and hazy through the fabric of the nightgown as if seen through frosted glass.
She remembered the sky at Shoal Lake above l'Isle-Verte mottled and luminous like old wavy glass. She remembered the island that was two islands, two halves of an island, above the lake and below the lake in the colorless water.
She remembered the smell of tobacco smoke.
She remembered his voice, Don't tell anybody will you.
She remembered her father teasing, her, lifting her in his arms long ago, his whiskers scratching her face.
She was an honor student too smart to die by accident.
She was in control. She didn't believe in accident.
She gagged several times swallowing the pills, by then she had lost count but she knew there would be enough.
Her mother had said, Are you sick Enid, is it your period again so soon?---peering frowning into her face.
Her mother said, Do you have cramps Enid, let me get you some aspirin.
She had toweled her hair then let it dry loose on her shoulders. Chestnut-red crackling with static electricity. She brushed it slowly getting out all the snarls. She hated snarls. Tiny clots of hair in the brush she pulled out of the brush, quickly dropping them into the toilet bowl, her eyes averted.
She remembered a mourning dove the boys had caught in the vacant lot then dosed with gasoline then lit with a match. The bird's wild wings flapping flying in looping crazy circles, ablaze, its beak opened emitting a terrible shriek. It flew up into the air higher and higher then suddenly fell to the ground.
She said, I didn't tell anybody.
She remembered kneeling at the communion rail at St. James's, her eyes shut her fingers gripping one another tight, she hadn't been able to thrust her tongue forward like the others.
She remembered the communion wafer melting on her tongue. You weren't supposed to chew it, just let it melt.
Only say the word and my soul shall be healed.
She was wearing aroung her neck: a necklace of tiny mother-of-pearl beads a gift from her sister Geraldine, a thin gold chain, a thin silver chain with a religious medal on it the Virgin Mary stamped on it, a confirmation gift from her Uncle Domenic who was a priest.
She lived at 118 East Clinton Street in Port Oriskany, New York, the east side of the city near the railroad yards and warehouses and the big factories along the lake---General Motors, U.S. Steel, Stubb Central Foundry, Swale Cyanamid. Mrs. Stevick, hanging wash in the back yard, complained of the stink in the air but most days you hardly noticed. The white sheets were dirtied the worst.
She was a virgin. He hadn't touched her there.
She didn't believe in God, she believed in Death.
She'd been waiting for a sign, now the sign was granted.
She hid the empty aspirin bottle in the wastebasket beneath the sink, she turned off the bathroom light before opening the door---be slow! be quiet! take your time!---she went back to bed slipping into bed holding her breath, but her sister Lizzie sleeping close by snoring faintly didn't hear.
She was fifteen years old. She was very happy. The date was June 7, 1953.
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Google Books — Ladataan...
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I suppose I was offended by those who said this novel did not capture their attention, and those who said it was "creepy.' I think readers who've said the latter entirely missed the point. It is not creepy--even though the circumstances of Enid and Felix may appear to be. As you read, you learn the depth of these characters and because you become so familiar with their lives, you no longer judge their choices so harshly. It's not so creepy when you're living it--and while reading the book I really felt I was in their world.
Oates does an amazing job of acquainting you with the circumstances. It is very much a book about love in all its forms--especially within a family and within love affairs, how it alters throughout the years, how you so easily can convince yourself you're in love and alternatively how you can shut it out completely if you need to, et cetera.
It was a very long read. But it didn't feel like it. Admittedly, I skimmed a couple of pages here and there (especially in the middle, when it was from Lyle's POV. Sometimes those felt long). Mostly I loved Enid's storyline, and Felix's. I even liked the boxing scenes, though I never thought I would. (You'll learn a thing or two about the intricacies of boxing when you read this.)
I would definitely recommend You Must Remember This. But, as with everything, go into it with an open mind. And if you expect an author to write very long book about a family WITHOUT documenting how fucked up those family members lives can get, then I guess you're looking for a really boring read. (