Tortured Teardrops

by P. D. Workman

  “How are you worse off than you were before?”

  “You don’t get it.”

  “Then explain it to me.”

  Tamara shoved the table, her anger swinging in like a wrecking ball. But the table was bolted to the floor, so instead of shoving it into Mrs. Henson, she just pushed herself back.

  “I’ve had enough. Don’t bother bringing more books. Don’t bother visiting. You’re not my family.” She got to her feet, ready for the guard to take her back to her room.

  “Tamara, it’s okay. I’m sorry.” Mrs. Henson held up her hands.

  Tamara caught a flash of the guard’s face in the window.

  “Tamara. We can still visit. I’m sorry. I know I’m not in charge of you. I’m so used to being a mom to all of these kids that I just slip into the role without thinking. You’re right. You have the right to make your own decisions. I won’t push you.”

  Tears prickled in Tamara’s eyes. She took a deep breath, trying to stay in control. It was better if she held on to her anger. It was better to be angry and erratic than vulnerable. Anything was better than being vulnerable.

  Mrs. Henson didn’t move. She didn’t stand up and go after Tamara. She didn’t shout at her or threaten her or try to manipulate her. She just sat there, waiting. Tamara lowered herself back into her chair, trying to get the anger back. Mrs. Henson didn’t have any right to be pushing her around and dictating what she should do. She shouldn’t even be visiting Tamara, who wasn’t her foster daughter any longer.

  She sat there rigidly, folding her arms across her chest and looking at Mrs. Henson. The guard’s face disappeared from the window as he continued on his patrol or to deal with another task.

  “I really don’t mean to push, Tamara. I’m just trying to help you to get ready, because I know it’s going to come around again fast. But you don’t have to do anything on my say-so.”

  Tamara gave a curt nod.

  “So… I guess I’ve updated you on everyone. Jesse and I are just the same. No new developments with us. We do have a new ward and a baby on the way…”

  Tamara gasped. Her eyes dropped immediately to Mrs. Henson’s belly. A baby on the way wasn’t a ‘new development?’ She pressed her fingers to her mouth, acid rising in the back of her throat. Pregnancy and babies were big, red flags for Tamara. Big, red danger flags.

  “No, no!” Mrs. Henson laughed. She put one hand over her slightly round middle-age-spread. “Not me!”

  The words took a few minutes to pierce Tamara’s consciousness. Not Mrs. Henson. Mrs. Henson wasn’t pregnant. She wasn’t expecting a new baby. It had been a misunderstanding on Tamara’s part.

  She drew in a deep breath and tried to force a smile, to put on that she was laughing at herself. But the laughs were sobs, so she kept them in, just giving Mrs. Henson a wide, mad grin.

  Mrs. Henson laughed. “Oh, goodness, no,” she assured Tamara. “Jesse and I are not having a baby. We have a new foster daughter, Cecelia. She’s fifteen, like you, and she’s expecting. You know that we often help girls out for the first few months, teaching them what they need to know about caring for a baby. Getting them off to a good start. Cecelia will be staying with us until she has her baby and we’ll help her with all of those life skills. She has a lot of decisions ahead of her, but she’s got a few months to sort things out.”

  The words were so innocuous. Just Mrs. Henson chattering on about another foster daughter. Of course they had taken on a new girl once Tamara was out of there and they had the space. That space already equipped with a bed and a baby crib just waiting to be used.

  Tamara pressed harder over her mouth. “I don’t…” She had no idea what she wanted to say.

  She was back in that bedroom. Seeing Julie in the crib. Julie had never been in that crib. She’d been long dead by the time Tamara was sent to the Hensons. But the images were all jumbled; her brain was pulling from all different timelines at once like a bad sci-fi movie. Tamara was looking down at Julie in the crib, grey and flaccid, only minutes from death. Jesse opening the door and coming into her room with a cheerful smile on his face, unsuspecting, not realizing the scene that was playing out before Tamara’s eyes.

  “No.”

  Tamara put a hand over her own belly.

  “You’re pregnant,” Dr. Eastport had told her, his sunny face turning serious to deliver the news.

  Tamara wrapped both arms around her stomach, the tears starting, her throat closing up. “No, no, no!”

  It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that they could beat her and use her and put a new life inside her without her consent. She was just a girl and they were adults. The adults held all of the power and Tamara held none. She had no other home or family. No other way to survive. All she had was what they gave her.

  The black fog was closing in. Tamara closed her eyes and keened, no longer able to see the baby, Dr. Eastport, or herself.

  14

  “TAMARA!”

  Mrs. Henson was far away. Tamara didn’t try to find her or reach her. She was lost inside herself, locked into a prison that had no key and no security code. She sobbed, trying to find her balance.

  There would be no more babies. Mr. Baker was locked up and they weren’t going to let him go. He wasn’t going to be able to get near Mrs. Baker or any other woman. He would be locked in prison for the remainder of his days, or at least most of them, and he would never get the chance to have another baby.

  Tamara would not have to take care of them again. Not Corrine, not Julie, and not Amy. Never again. That was over.

  “Tamara. What’s wrong? Can you talk?”

  There was another voice, gruff male, intruding on the space and speaking to Mrs. Henson with a growl. “Move back from the inmate. There’s no personal contact allowed in visiting rooms.”

  “I don’t know what happened. She just… collapsed…”

  “How? Did she faint?” Already, his hands were on her, feeling her wrist, patting her face briskly. Tamara groaned in protest and tried to move away from him.

  More voices, more questions, insistent, drilling into Tamara’s skull. She pulled her hands away from her face. “Leave me alone.”

  “Tamara?” The room was full of people. Mrs. Henson was on the other side of the room, kept back from Tamara. There was relief in her voice. She took a half-step toward Tamara as if she would go back to her side, but the guards prevented her.

  “Is she injured?” one of the guards barked. His hands ran over her body, investigating. Tamara tried to squirm away from him.

  “Don’t touch me!”

  “No one is hurting you. Can you tell me what happened?”

  Tamara shook her head, her eyes closing, trying to shut out the sensations of his hands on her.

  “Let me,” a woman’s voice said firmly. “We don’t need so many people in here. Why don’t you take the visitor out? We don’t need more than two of us in the room.”

  The grasping hands withdrew. Tamara could hear Mrs. Henson being taken out, whispering to the guard. The number of bodies in the room was reduced. She no longer felt so closed in.

  “Tamara.” The woman’s voice was close to her. “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes.” Tamara’s voice came out in a tiny whisper, like the cheep of a bird. She had a sudden vision of Sybil’s youngest sister, the little one she called Boo, whispering to Sybil.

  “Are you hurt somewhere?”

  Tamara felt her stomach, which she had been grasping, wondering if she had a stomach-ache or was sick. She blinked, opening her eyes for the barest instant to get the lay of the land. Tamara and two guards, one of them close and one of them at the door.

  She rolled onto her side, curved in a fetal position for a few moments. She felt her legs. Mrs. Baker had whipped the hell out of her. Mrs. Baker liked to make her cry and beg for mercy, and then to refuse to give it. But the painful stripes were gone. Her legs, too, were fine.

  Tamara slowly sat up. She wasn’t sure why she was on the floor of
the meeting room. The woman guard didn’t tell her to lie back down again. Tamara felt better sitting up, able to see more of what was going on. The vertigo lifted a little.

  She felt her throat where it had been cut. While she could still feel the thin lines of scar tissue, it was no longer visible, at least not in the dull metal mirrors of the prison.

  “Are you okay?”

  Tamara ran her tongue around her mouth. It too was healed. The teeth solidly set and no longer loose.

  “I’m fine.”

  “It’s warm in here,” the guard at the door observed. “She probably just fainted. Mom’s a little hysterical.”

  “No… she’s not my mom.”

  The woman guard was studying Tamara’s face. “How about a drink? You want to get her a glass of water?”

  The guard at the door grunted and left the room, shutting the door behind him with a soft snick of the latch. Tamara felt the room temperature immediately rise several degrees. She looked with apprehension at the guard, but the woman made no move toward her, either to secure her or to examine her. The room was claustrophobic. Tamara didn’t think there was enough air for them both to breathe for long.

  “You’ll be okay,” the guard assured her. “Just stay calm.”

  “What happened?”

  “I didn’t see. Have you ever fainted before?”

  “No.”

  “On any medications?”

  “No.” She was glad to be able to answer in the negative and not to have to give any details of problems that she might or might not have. “Not on anything.”

  “Fever today or any time lately?”

  “No.”

  “Are you pregnant?”

  “No.”

  Never again. Never, ever, ever again. She could never let any man touch her again.

  She next became aware of the plastic cup pressed against her lips. She was still sitting up, though her spine was hunched, like she had fallen asleep sitting in a car.

  “Just a sip,” the woman encouraged. “You’ll feel better.”

  Tamara parted her lips to let in some of the water, and took a tiny sip. It was cold. She could taste the plastic of the cup and the chlorine of tap water, but it was cold and she hadn’t realized how parched she was. She took another swallow and tried to bring her hands up to support the cup herself instead of being fed like an invalid. The guard let Tamara take the cup from her.

  “How’s that? Little better?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The woman held the back of her hand out toward Tamara. “I just want to check your temperature. Can I touch you?”

  Tamara took a few breaths. She nodded, deciding she could manage that.

  The guard’s hand was cool. She held it to Tamara’s forehead for a moment, then to her cheek, then withdrew.

  “Maybe a little warm,” she said with a head-shake. “No fever, I don’t think.”

  She crouched there, watching Tamara as she took a few more swallows of water.

  “Have you had any new work done?” she asked. “New tats or piercings?”

  “No.” Tamara touched the teardrop tattoos on her face. “No, nothing since I got back.”

  “You sure? If you’ve got an infection, you want the doctor to take care of it right away. They can make a real mess if you let it go too long.”

  “No. Nothing.”

  The woman nodded.

  When Tamara had finished the cup of water, she handed it back. The guard put it onto the table.

  “Ready to get up?”

  “I think so.”

  The guard stood first. She held a hand down to Tamara to assist her. “Hang on to me.”

  Tamara used the proffered hand to get up, but then let go of her. She stood on her own two feet, getting her balance back again. Feeling like a toddler just learning to walk on shaky, uncertain legs. But in a few minutes she would be okay. The ground would be more solid under her feet. She’d be off and running.

  Or walking, anyway.

  The guard waited patiently for Tamara to get her bearings back. Tamara walked a little around the room.

  “I’ll go back to my room,” Tamara told her.

  The woman looked at her, thinking about it. Whether or not she had to go to the infirmary after a faint was at the guard’s discretion. If she made the wrong choice and a girl ended up being really sick, it could be a big deal.

  “I’m okay,” Tamara said. “Really. Just got too warm, I guess.”

  “It is warm in here.”

  Tamara nodded.

  Eventually, the woman agreed, giving a tight nod. “Handcuffs for transfer,” she advised.

  Tamara put her hands behind her back.

  “Let’s do them in front. If you get dizzy or trip, you can at least catch yourself.”

  Tamara held her hands in front instead and the guard closed her handcuffs over them.

  Tamara had been back in her room for a while before realizing that in all the confusion, she had left her books in the meeting room. The first time that she had gotten a gift from the outside and she had forgotten all about it.

  She got up, hoping that pacing would help to clear some of the black fog from her brain. She felt wrung out after the flashback, but couldn’t sleep. She wanted to just get her mind right again.

  But pacing back and forth across her cell didn’t calm her down or clear her brain. The more she paced, the more agitated she got. Irritated, she grabbed the shampoo bottle from her hygiene kit off the dresser, and with a growl, fired it across the room. It bounced back and forth between the walls like a pinball, forcing her to duck and jump out of the way.

  Tamara picked the bottle back up. Not even a crack in the plastic.

  There was a movement in the doorway and she looked up, tensing, drawing her hand back to fire the indestructible bottle at the threat.

  It was Zobel. Tamara lowered her hand again. He looked at her, one eyebrow raised.

  “Everything okay in here?”

  Tamara let out her breath. “I’m just pissed off.”

  “About…?”

  “Everything. Nothing. At the whole world. At myself.”

  He gave a laugh and leaned against the doorframe, looking as if he planned to stay for a while.

  “I heard you had… an incident in the visitor room.”

  “Who told you that?” Tamara wondered whether it had already spread all over juvie.

  “There was a report in the log.” He paused. “It said you fainted because of overheating.”

  Tamara looked down at her feet, wiggling her toes in her shoes. “Yeah. That’s all.”

  “Uh-huh.” He was obviously on to her. Not that she had thought that she could fool him. Not when he’d been the one to figure out in the first place that she was having flashbacks or PTSD, if that was what was going on and she wasn’t losing her mind to schizophrenia or some kind of psychosis.

  “Mrs. Henson brought me books,” Tamara told him. “Then I didn’t get to bring them back here, because of… all that. So I don’t know where they are. Can you find out?”

  Zobel nodded. “Of course. Sure. They were probably just put aside for you. I’ll track them down.”

  “Okay.” Tamara let out her breath and tried to relax her stomach muscles. It wasn’t all screwed up. She could still get her books back. She didn’t know if Mrs. Henson would ever come back after the way Tamara had treated her. But maybe it would be for the better if she didn’t. Tamara didn’t want to keep fighting her.

  “So… how did it go with the doctor?”

  “Uh…” Tamara thought quickly. Dr. Sutherland, like the other doctors, always said that anything Tamara told him was completely confidential. He wouldn’t share it with anyone else. Even the courts couldn’t make him. Unless he had information that led him to believe she was a danger to someone else, he was always very careful to add. That was the one case that he had to tell someone. And Tamara hadn’t told him anything like that. “Yeah, it went fine.”

  Zobel fol
ded his arms across his chest. He studied her closely. “Talking about it helps, huh?”

  She swallowed. Why did he have to be so persistent? “I don’t know. I just started.”

  “Is he going to put you on something? I didn’t see anything on the med log…”

  Tamara opened her mouth to lie. To tell him that Dr. Sutherland didn’t want to put her on meds, or it just wasn’t on the log yet. Then she changed her mind. “I don’t want anything. I told him no.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t… I don’t want anything screwing up my brain… and I don’t need the others thinking I’m some kind of nut case… if they don’t already.”

  “Having PTSD doesn’t mean you’re crazy. I think you’d be crazy not to be affected by the things you’ve been through, don’t you?”

  Tamara shook her head stubbornly. “You don’t know what it’s like.”

  “I told you, I do know. That’s how I knew what it was that was happening to you.”

  “Not that.” Tamara shook her head impatiently. “Maybe you have PTSD; that’s not what I meant. I meant… you don’t know what it’s like to be here, a juvie, and have to deal with all that…” she made a motion to encompass the other girls in the unit. “You don’t have to survive in here.”

  His expression changed and Tamara realized she’d said the wrong thing. He didn’t have to survive? He almost hadn’t. She meant the gang politics and fighting every day for her rep. Protecting herself from immediate physical danger too, but it ran much deeper than that.

  “I didn’t mean…” Tamara chewed on her lip. She was talking to a wall. He was still looking at her, but he was gone. “Zobel…”

  It wasn’t a long time. Not like when Tamara fell into one of her flashbacks. He turned his head slightly, his eyes returning to her.

  “I’m sorry. I meant… I wasn’t talking about…”

  “No, it’s okay.” His voice was not right. He sounded like he was talking underwater. She didn’t know if it was because of him or her. “You’re right. I carry weapons. I clock out at the end of my shift. I go home.” He swallowed. “We’re in the same place, but it’s not the same.”