Where We Fall: A Novel
Page 4
The harshness of her words means she cares, and it revives me. “I never wanted to die,” I tell her.
“I know. You were always my biggest hypochondriac. Tell me what happened.”
Babs refuses to take my silence as an answer. All those years of workouts have made her physical strength proportionate to her cerebral prowess. She walks to the adjacent wall and grabs a chair that I am pretty sure had been nailed down to the floor and drops it next to my bed. Then she begins to rub my shoulder, and it actually feels nice.
“I thought therapists aren’t supposed to touch their patients.”
“You’re dying. I’m allowed to touch you.”
“I’m not dying, Babs.”
“You’re wrong, Abigail. You are dying. You may not be aware of it, but what you’re doing to yourself and not for yourself is destroying you and everyone around you.”
“Why do you bother?” I ask, shamelessly enjoying the way she’s fixing my hair.
“My patients matter to me.”
“I haven’t been your patient in a long time.”
“You’re forgetting how much progress you made with me, Abigail. You were on your way.”
This is the moment in the conversation when I am happy to allow the tranquilizers and stabilizers to carry me away from her overbearing voice, to disassociate. I don’t need to be reminded of how happy I can be and how our lives can go back to temporary “normal.” I don’t want temporary. I want permanent.
“You have to want it badly enough. You. Not me. Not Coach. Not Juliana. You, my dear, are bullheaded. I’ve told you over and over when you make a commitment to heal yourself it’s a long-term commitment. The worst time to leave therapy is when you’re feeling better.” She rolls her eyes, as though I have broken the cardinal rule of psychiatry. I am Freud’s worst nightmare.
Memories of happier times always riddle me with guilt and hopelessness. When you are in the throes of emotional crises, depressive lockdown, it’s impossible to imagine ever feeling good again. The vignettes are both a tease and a slap in the face.
“Do you remember when you first came to see me?” she asks.
“I was forced.”
“You showed up at my doorstep. I thought the wind would knock you right off my stoop.”
“That wasn’t a stoop. It was more like a tired rug.”
“I know you’re hurting when you get like this, Abigail. Maybe others are scared of your sharp tongue. I’m not. I see right through it. That day you came to me, I asked you what was going on, why you were seeking help. Do you remember?”
“You said, ‘I don’t feel a part of this world. Mine is fuzzy and dark. My lifeline is Amazon. The app has saved me from ever having to leave the house. And when I do have to leave, I stand in strange rooms and strategize the exits. My food tastes like metal. My body is freezing cold, then burning hot. I cry. I get back into bed. Nothing feels good anymore.’”
The hair on my arms stands up straight. “How do you remember that?”
“I pay special attention to those most in need.”
She drops a folder in front of me with pages of her swirly handwriting. Flipping through the papers, I read our history. Dates that marked our exchanges and the highs and lows of my mixed-up life. There were stories I shared about Ryan and our temperamental sparring matches. There were pages on Juliana, how I hid my depression for so long, and the guilt I felt when she caught me napping midday. Looking up from the pile, I say to Babs, “There’s a lot more to this story.”
“Sure there is, Abigail. I made that very clear when you traipsed out of my office. I knew you weren’t coming back, even before you did.”
The folder rests between us, and I feel another surge of cool run through the IV. She stares me in the eyes and says, “Ryan wouldn’t back down until I came here. He’s a persistent one, that man. He loves you.”
“It’s more complicated than that.” A growl escapes my belly.
The doctor pushes through the doorway, followed by someone I have never seen before. She screams of authority, and her silvery hair and bright red suit intimidate me.
Babs scoots over to let the two through, making no effort to leave.
After the introductions, I learn that the woman is from a clinic in western North Carolina. “Cold Creek” is emblazoned across the cover of a brochure she holds.
I am horrified. “You want to lock me up?”
All eyes turn to Babs, as though her presence will steer the group away from a battle with me.
At once I begin to protest. That the doctors think I’m crazy enough to hurt myself further validates the torment I feel inside. I am crazy. This just proves it.
“Listen to me, Abigail . . .”
“Stop calling me that!” I shriek at Babs, hating the name and its connection to my childhood in a lonely, scary house. “It’s Abby. Why do you insist on calling me that stupid name?”
“Abigail . . .”
I glare at her.
“Think about it. Here lies an opportunity for you to get to the bottom of this.”
I stare at Babs with fear and disdain. “Was this your idea all along? Did he put you up to it?”
“Get off your ass and get the help you need. You’re ruining that young girl. You’re breaking a piece of her every time you refuse help. And that husband of yours, it ain’t right. You can’t keep putting him through this.”
“What time is it?” I ask, needing to shield myself from what I don’t want to hear.
The trained eyes all turn my way. “Almost nine,” says the doctor.
The idea of being locked up sends me into a fit of the shakes. I squirm in the bed, searching for the remote. “How did I miss the game?”
The doctor reaches for the wire that connects to the dangling remote, which has fallen to the floor. I take it in my trembling hands and thumb the power button several times before getting it right. My brain has turned off their stares. I think only of how it’s the special teams who have their games televised on ESPNU, and how I would be there for Ryan even from this dingy bed.
“You’re going to snuff us out with those boys dressed in girly tights?” asks Babs.
I flip through the channels, zapping away their voices, ignoring their pleas.
“We’re not forcing you,” preaches the important-looking lady whose fingernails match her suit and lips. Her name escapes me, but I’m not very good at remembering names right now. She says, “This would be voluntary. You haven’t put anyone in the family at risk, but whenever there is a case of a possible attempt . . . we are urged to come down and talk to the patient.”
Her words force me to respond: “I’ve told you. I wasn’t trying to kill myself.”
Even though I wasn’t, what if they were able to read my thoughts? Sidestepping the things I feared only heightened their severity and gave them a power that brought me to my knees. This is the weight I have carried within me for what feels like a thousand years. And living in fear is exhausting.
Babs reaches for the brochure and plops it in my free hand. Serenity speaks from the page, a cascade of waterfalls meant to soothe and entice. And for a millisecond, it does. I consider my life, how it has all come to this. Random thoughts pop into my head: Juliana has been getting ready for school without me for years; Ryan has his team to keep him busy; the two of them love their alone time together. How bad do I have to get to finally make a change? The world thinks I’m crazy anyway. Why not make it official?
I close my eyes and see myself under the falls, the refreshing water pouring down my body, untangling my hair, cleaning parts of me that are stained. I wonder if I would have Internet access and if Zappos delivers there.
Red Suit Lady musters up some empathy and suggests I read through the material and consider what would be in my best interest.
“It’s like a wheel, Abigail,” says Babs. “You’re the axle. Without you, that wheel just ain’t moving.”
“I get the point, Babs.”
“You cont
rol the household. You understand that?”
From somewhere far within, I howl: “I don’t want to control the household! I don’t want to be forced to make decisions!”
The television screen comes alive, and Ryan’s voice interrupts the terseness of my words. The game is over. He’s giving his postgame speech. I can’t tell if they’ve won or lost, but I know my husband is distracted.
“We’ve had some rough patches—all teams do. What makes us different? When we step onto that field, we are no longer individuals. Whether you’re the best receiver in the country or the worst. Stats are numbers and they’re worth nothing on their own. We’re better together, we’re fighters, and we’re here to finish one job. And that’s to win state. Good night, folks.”
Ryan’s peering through a camera lens, but I feel his eyes closing in on me. He’s talking to me when he says, “We’re better together.” Those words crawl up and down my body; I can’t make them go away. If I were one of his players, I might have been kicked off the team long ago. Unsportsmanlike behavior. Lack of commitment. A quitter. I don’t want to be a quitter.
“You have a lot of fight left in you, Abigail,” says Babs. “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.”
I’m thinking about all these things while the picture of Ryan and Lauren watches me from a corner of the room. They expect me to do the right thing, their eyes like a caption I can’t erase. We’re better together, he had said, while Babs’s lecture plays over in my mind. Her concern reminds me of a mother protecting her child, which is how my thoughts come to rest on my own. My Juliana. My love for her overwhelms me at times.
Babs is playing with my hair again. Slowly, I feel my head slipping into her fingertips. I don’t have the strength to fight Babs when her presence cushions me. She knows, and her fingers find my hand, and she unfurls it from the tight knot it is fisted in. Hers are warm and comfortable. Babs is right. She’s always been right, though I’ve been too weak to listen. Here’s my chance to make it up to my daughter. I may never fix what’s broken in my marriage, but I will do this for my girl. I will give her what my own mother couldn’t give me.
“Okay, I’ll go.”
CHAPTER SIX
JULIANA
None of us slept last night. Or maybe Mama did, seeing how she was in the hospital and munching on happy pills. Daddy left the field after the win and headed straight to find E.J., both of us serial dialing an unreachable voice. Daddy knew where to look and who to ask, but no one had information. When that failed, he marched over to the police station and demanded answers from Buford. I waited by the phone for him to call, and by two in the morning, Daddy was rolling his truck into our driveway.
Running through the door and down the brick steps, I collide with him on the narrow path leading to the garage. “Sorry, baby, my phone battery died.” I am too tired to argue, and he can tell I am worried sick. “E.J.’s missing,” he says.
“What do you mean, missing? They didn’t find him?”
I follow him through the doorway, where he drops his keys in a bowl on the table and his jacket falls to the floor. All I can think about are the horrible things that could happen to E.J. “What did the sheriff say? How could they lose him?”
“Juliana, E.J.’s in a lot of trouble. Did you know about it? Does it have anything to do with that bruise?” He is trying his best to be patient with me, but his own exhaustion has him rattled.
I slink toward the piano that sits, isolated, across the room. Mom used to play it all the time when I was a little girl. She had a beautiful voice, though I doubt she remembers. I bang out “Chopsticks.”
He plops himself on the couch with his arms crossed behind his neck. His stare means I will have to start explaining. I assure him that there’s an explanation for all of it, but I am horrified that my Dad thinks E.J. would intentionally hurt me.
My fingers running across the keys drown out my father’s worry. I make one last punch with my fist, and the piercing noise echoes against the walls. The silence that follows anchors me to my seat until I can’t get out of the hole I’ve dropped into. The only way out is with words. He has been waiting so patiently.
I had last seen E.J. the day before the class trip. And we hadn’t really spoken since then, either. I was mad. He was upset. We were a collection of stubborn. By the time I had gotten back, my mom was in the hospital, and E.J. was fleeing from the field. When I watched him being chased like an animal by that cop, his eyes found mine, and I could hear his heart pounding as his cleats hit the grass. He was asking me, with his stare, to stay quiet. And he was also asking for my forgiveness. I could keep only one of those promises.
“Daddy,” I begin, “there’s something you need to know.” I am off the piano bench and sitting across from him, back in my “only child” chair.
“I’m listening.”
“Before I left, E.J. was really upset. Something went down. He wouldn’t tell me about it. I needed to get him to talk, so I skipped study hall, drove across town, and found him in the stairwell running late for class. There was no one around, and lately we haven’t been able to see each other much. You run two-a-days; it barely gives us any time . . .”
“This isn’t my fault. Go on.”
“He told me not to worry, that there was some stuff he had to deal with. He hugged me and told me to go back to school before I got in trouble. Then this bag just fell out of his knapsack. Jewelry was all over the stairs. And it wasn’t the fake stuff.”
Daddy looks like someone who’s had the carpet pulled out from beneath him. I go on, but I can tell he’s furious. Mama throws her hands in the air when she’s mad. Daddy gets that serious face that means trouble.
“E.J. freaked. He let go of me and started chasing the pieces. He was mumbling to himself about them getting scratched, and he had to hide them before anyone saw. I was shocked. Even though I knew E.J. wouldn’t steal, I didn’t know what to think!
“He said, ‘Baby, it’s not what it looks like.’ And I panicked. I came after him with my fists and my words, telling him he was throwing his life away, throwing our life away. He tried grabbing my wrists to calm me down.”
Daddy’s enraged. “What does this even mean, Juliana? What are you saying? Do you know? Either he’s a thief or not. He’s done something he’s not supposed to do—”
“E.J. knew about a burglary in town, and all fingers were pointing at Devon. He went to his father’s house thinking he could talk some sense into his brother. He loves him. Ellis pits them against each other, but E.J. would do anything for Devon. They got into a fight, and E.J. took the jewelry. He was going to return it, that was his plan—he just needed time to think it through—so he left the stuff at Ruby’s.”
“Fool,” Daddy says, shaking his head in disbelief. “The boy’s a pigheaded fool. Haven’t I taught him anything?”
“Daddy, he was trying to explain, but I was in a frenzy, and he was trying to duck my fists and fingernails when my foot slipped and I fell backward. He reached for me, he did, but it happened so fast. There was nothing he could’ve done . . .”
“He pushed you down the stairs?”
“I slipped!”
Dad pounds the table with his fist. “What is wrong with that boy? He knows better than to mess with Devon’s mistakes. He knows how quickly everything he’s worked for can be taken away. He should’ve never touched you like that. He’s a boy. You don’t touch girls like that. Ever.” And then he pounds on the table again as though I didn’t hear it the first time.
“He would never hurt me, Daddy!”
“I saw the bruise to your side, Jules. He did that to you.”
“I came at him. I was the one hitting him!”
“Do you see how things can escalate?” he asks, not even trying to hide his anger. “E.J.’s like a son to me, but his life is dangerous.”
“How can you say that?” I cry out. “You know E.J.’s good.”
Daddy is too heated to respond. His nostrils start to flare.
“I don’t know what he thought,” I say, rather sadly.
“That’s because he wasn’t thinking. Reckless. Stupid.”
“He was just trying to help his brother . . .”
“That’s just it, Jules—not everyone wants help. We’ve talked about this. You’ll be judged by the company you keep. Even sitting in a car with someone who is doing drugs puts you at fault. E.J. is enabling his brother by protecting him. There are repercussions to bad behavior. If they find him with that stuff, E.J. can lose everything. And for what?”
I am sick inside. E.J. has fought long and hard to overcome hardships. “It’s his brother, Daddy.”
“I understand that. I appreciate loyalty to family, but not when he risks everything. Devon’s had a lot of chances. Someone’s gotta pay for this.”
I take a deep swallow, but I can’t hold it in much longer. “I promised E.J. I wouldn’t tell a soul.”
Daddy looks me hard in the eye. “Are you prepared to see E.J. go to jail for this?”
“He’s a kid!” I cry out. “They can’t do anything.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. E.J. ran from the police and is in possession of stolen goods. They can go after him as an adult if they want. The state holds grudges, and the Whittaker family is a prime target. Your boyfriend’s going to be made into an example. He’ll lose everything.”
“No,” I argue, shaking my head. “They can’t do that.”
“Oh, yes they can. And they will. We’re going to find that boy and he’ll come clean—or so help me God, there’ll be hell to pay.”
Infuriated, I get up and race to my room, slamming the door for extra effect. After dialing E.J. a dozen or more times, I finally give up. It’s almost dawn and this middle-of-the-night foray has me wiped out.