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Authors: Julia Barrett

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BOOK: Come Back To Me
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“I don’t remember where the dining room is,” said Cara.

“You’re a smart girl. You’re perfectly capable of finding it,” Debbie replied.

Movements slow, Cara pulled on a pair of baggy jeans and a loose tee shirt. She wandered down the corridor, searching for the dining room. She joined Debbie at a table, the other residents shooting her curious looks. This was Cara’s introduction to the world of psychiatric medicine.

The life Cara led in the inpatient ward was very circumscribed. She met with Dr. Bowman every day of the week except Sunday. She spoke with the nurses. Debbie was her favorite and she looked forward to the days she worked. Miss Mandy was usually available if she needed help, although Cara became quite adept at using her left hand to hold utensils, dress herself and even paint. Writing gave her problems but she rarely had to write.

During one group therapy session, Dr. Bowman encouraged Cara to write a letter to her parents. She refused.

She said, “I can’t write with my left hand.” She continued to decline visits, despite the fact that her father dropped by or called at least once a day.

Two months passed and Cara barely noticed. It didn’t even register with her that school had ended for the summer. She passed through every day in a semi-stupor, as if she only marginally inhabited her own body. The medical student, James Mackie, came by one day to remove her cast. In silence, Cara watched him pry the plaster away from her pale, wasted arm.

“I’m ordering a little physical therapy for you, so you can regain the strength and mobility in this arm.”

Cara nodded, but she didn’t really care what he ordered.

She appeared for meals, sitting at the table with the younger patients, but she ate very little. She attended group therapy three times a week and kept all her appointments with Dr. Bowman. She responded politely when she was spoken to. She learned to play poker and a mean game of billiards. In the arts and crafts room, she used the potter’s wheel to create beautiful pots, plates and vases, which were very popular with the other patients and the staff. Cara gave them away without a second thought.

A week before school was scheduled to begin Dr. Bowman called Cara into his office. Her father stood there. Cara took one look at him and turned away without a word.

“Cara,” her father called out. “Wait. Please. Wait.”

Cara stopped walking, but she didn’t turn around.

“It’s time for you to come home.”

Her father’s words didn’t quite register. “Home?”

“Yes, it’s time for you to come home. Dr. Bowman is releasing you.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why?”

“Why would I go home? Why now?”

Her father walked up to her. He seemed cautious, like he was approaching a wild animal.

“School starts next week. You need to go back to school. You need to come home. Your mom and I want you to come home, Cara.”

“I think you’re ready to be discharged,” said Dr. Bowman. “You’re feeling better, aren’t you, Cara?”

Better than what? Better than the night I was dragged in here?
She turned to her father. She looked into his face for the first time in nearly three months. He looked older, weary. “I don’t want to come home,” she said at last. “I want to go to boarding school.”

“But why . . . ?” Her father seemed genuinely confused.

“Because everybody knows, everybody at my school knows what happened. I’ll have to see it in their eyes every single day.”

“It won’t be that bad. I’m sure you’ll still have your friends. This is nothing a girl like you can’t handle.”

Cara stared at him.
Friends? What friends? A girl like me? Do you know anything about me at all?

She was careful to keep her face expressionless. It was a lesson that first night in the inpatient unit had taught her.
Don’t let anyone know what I really feel. Don’t let him know how much he’s hurt me. How much he can hurt me. If I let someone in, if I allow myself to love someone, if I allow myself to care, I will have to pay a heavy price.

“I don’t want to come home,” Cara repeated.

“Honey, please, I’m begging you, please come home with me. I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you something awful.”

This was the first time her father had ever called her ‘honey’. Cara felt her façade crack. The crack was infinitesimally small, but it was just large enough to admit his words. With trepidation, she agreed. He had no idea how hard it would be for her to face the kids at school. They would all know what had happened with Rick. They would know she’d been in a mental hospital. She’d be dubbed the crazy girl.

Cara turned to Dr. Bowman. “I’ll go home on one condition. I want a note from you, or I want you to call the school. Tell them I have permission leave class whenever I want. I won’t leave school and I’ll keep up my grades up. I’ll go to the library or something, but give me permission to leave class if I need to, if it’s too much for me. If you do that, I’ll go home.”

Dr. Bowman agreed to do as she asked, so Cara said goodbye to Debbie and Miss Mandy. She tossed her few possessions into a paper bag and left the ward. On her way out the door, she and her father ran into James Mackie. Her father stopped to chat with the young doctor.

James said, “I’m leaving too, heading back to medical school at the University of Iowa. Good luck, Cara.”

She said, “Thank you.” She accompanied her father to the parking lot without a backward glance.

∗    ∗    ∗

Cara returned to school. She picked up right where she’d left off. She attended to her work and received excellent grades, but her classmates went out of their way to avoid her. John was her only friend. His family had moved to the Midwest from California and he sought out Cara, claiming she was the only person at this provincial high school who was weird enough for him.

Feeling something akin to desperation, Cara hung out with him. He was eager to introduce her to marijuana, LSD and psilocybin mushrooms. Cara wasn’t much into hallucinogens, but the marijuana numbed her, making it easier to function at home. She managed to be courteous to her mother and reasonably friendly to her father.

John also introduced her to Randy and his girlfriend, Jackie, both drug dealers. Cara was quick to see the advantages of hanging with them. Randy had a roving eye and he gave her a lot of freebies because he thought she was cute, but Cara knew better than to trust him. Randy could come on pretty strong at times so she made sure she was never alone with him. John accompanied her when she bought her drugs. One thing Cara wanted to avoid was a physical relationship with anybody, especially someone like Randy.

Her father was satisfied with her grades, but once again, to her mother’s never ending aggravation, she didn’t date. Cara skipped every single high school dance.

Desperate to get away, Cara accelerated her high school work and graduated a year early. She’d been looking at colleges since the previous fall and she’d applied to a number of small, elite colleges out east, hoping to get as far from home as possible. More than anything Cara wanted a fresh start in a new place among new people who didn’t know anything about her, her family, or her past.

Her father encouraged her. He talked at length about the opportunities that would be available to her when she graduated. He and Cara were thrilled when she was accepted to each of her top three schools. The two of them sat up half the night talking about her options. She hadn’t felt this close to her dad in years. Before she went off to bed, he even hugged her, telling her how proud he was. Cara felt like she’d finally given him a reason to feel that way.

“You know, you could get a summer internship with a congressman or a senator,” he said. “Maybe go to law school, get involved in politics. You’ve already thrown your hat into the ring.” He teased her about her foray into the anti-war movement.

“I don’t know about politics.” Cara flashed him a smile. “I’m more into art and literature. I’m thinking maybe a degree in art or perhaps a double major in art and art history.”

Her father leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette. “I’ve never told you how much I enjoy looking at your painting.” He’d hung the painting from Washington D.C. in his chambers when it had been returned last year. “People ask about it all the time.”

“Really?”

“Yes, lawyers, judges, law clerks. The District Attorney has told me many times how much he loves it. He’s even offered to buy it.”

Cara laughed.

Her father smiled. “It’s good to hear you laugh, honey. I don’t remember the last time I heard you laugh.”

∗    ∗    ∗

The next morning Cara ran to answer the phone. It was her father’s secretary, but the woman was incoherent. She finally managed to say, “Your father suffered a heart attack in his chambers. He’s dead. His body has been taken to the hospital.”

Cara dropped the phone and ran. The doctors had already drawn a sheet over her father, but she threw it to the floor, covering his cooking body with her own, completely unaware of her mother’s arrival.

The emergency room staff decided to call Dr. Bowman. He arrived with Debbie, and together they managed to pull Cara off her father’s corpse and sedate her. It was Cara’s grandmother who took responsibility for getting both Cara and her mother home so the body could be moved to the hospital morgue to await an autopsy.

The following day Cara found her mother in bed, unable to function. She left Cara and her grandmother to deal with the coroner and the local press, and to make the funeral arrangements. Forced to set aside her own sorrow, Cara took over the household responsibilities and went about the business of death.

∗    ∗    ∗

It seemed as if the entire town planned to attend Judge Franklin’s funeral. Cara roused her mother and helped her to bathe. Cara did her hair for her and applied her makeup, making sure to put some blush on her pale cheeks. With her grandmother’s assistance, she helped the silent woman to dress, propping her in a chair in the living room while she made herself ready.

Because of the number of people she expected, Cara opted for a graveside service. Despite her mother’s faint protests, the casket would be closed. Cara couldn’t bear the thought of anyone seeing her father’s dead body. She’d picked out his favorite suit for him to wear and his secretary had given the mortuary his judicial robes. He was to be buried in them, along with his gavel.

The night before the funeral Cara went to her father’s office and pulled her painting from the wall. She removed the painting from its frame and rolled it into a cylinder, tying it with a red ribbon. She asked to mortician to place it beside her father in the casket. When she buried her father, she would bury the best piece of herself.

Cara’s sole consolation was her memory of their final conversation. Her father had made her laugh.

Any differences of opinion, any lingering animosity were forgotten for the time being as Cara and her mother stood hand in hand during the service. Cara felt her mother’s knees buckle when the casket was lowered into the ground. One of her father’s friends retrieved a lawn chair.

She was grateful for the distraction. Cara knew that if her mother hadn’t collapsed, she might have. Watching her father’s casket slide into a dark hole was the worst moment of her entire life.

After the service Cara drove herself and her mother and grandmother back to the house. The three women rode in silence. By the time they arrived home, the street was already filled with cars. The staff from her father’s office had come by to drop off flower arrangements and the front door to their home sat open. As Cara escorted her mother up the front walk, she could see that the house was full of people. Her father would have loved it. He liked nothing better than a good party.

Cara turned her mother over to the women from her Bridge Club. She retired to her room for a few moments of solitude. She pulled a small plastic bag of marijuana out of her bottom drawer, rolled a joint and lit it.

Cara sat on the floor, leaning back against her bed and inhaled deep and slow, waiting to feel the buzz. She closed her eyes.

Dear god, she wanted to get so high she’d forget that her father was dead.

Cara finished that joint and rolled another one. Finally, after the third joint, she decided she was wasted enough to go downstairs and face her guests. Trading the black dress that smelled of pot smoke for a dark brown skirt and white blouse, she kicked off her shoes off and left them off. Cara glanced in her mirror. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but it didn’t matter. Everyone would assume she’d been crying.

Cara was surprised to find Debbie among the guests, along with James Mackie. From the way Debbie kept her arm through his, Cara assumed they were dating. Debbie seemed happy, though she tried hard not to seem too happy in front of Cara.

Cara said, “I didn’t thank you for rescuing me at the hospital.”

“There’s no need to thank me. I’m glad I could be there.”

Always polite, Cara turned to James. “What year are you in now in medical school?”

“I just completed my final year. I’ll be starting a residency in Internal Medicine in Iowa City this fall.”

Cara swallowed over the hard lump in her throat. “My dad died of a heart attack, you know.”

“Yes,” he replied. “I know. Debbie told me. I’m very sorry.”

“He didn’t have any warning. He just, he just died. The autopsy showed that he had some atherosclerosis, but not much. The pathologist termed it
sudden cardiac death
.”

“It happens sometimes. I’ve seen it happen to patients in the hospital.”

Cara absorbed his words in silence. She looked down when James put his warm hand on her arm.

“My father died when I was just a boy,” he said. “I know how you feel.”

∗    ∗    ∗

James felt like he should explain to Cara what the words
sudden cardiac death
meant, but at the same time he got a gut feeling she really didn’t want to know. At least not right now. She appeared to be running on fumes.

“It happens,” he repeated, wishing he could offer Cara some comfort. She seemed so very alone, exactly as she had when he’d met her two years ago. Even the air around her felt absolutely still, almost painfully so. It was as if noise of the everyday, the commonplace, of home and family, laughter and love didn’t or couldn’t reach her.

BOOK: Come Back To Me
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