When I'm Not Myself

by Deborah J. Wolf

“Oh, Katie, sweetheart, come on now. We’ve had enough tears today.”

  Katie sniffled and sucked up the snot, wiping her nose with the back of her sweatshirt. She nodded at Mel, taking a giant gulp of air and trying to catch her breath. “I know. I know.”

  “This isn’t your fault, you know. It’s not your fault or your brothers’ fault or Claire’s. This has nothing to do with you. This is your dad’s deal. When it comes right down to it, this is something your dad has to own up to.”

  “But why did he go, Mel? Why would he leave all of us? I just don’t understand how he could do that. He’s turned his back on all of us, Mel.” She took a deep breath then, anger still sneaking in. “Bastard. God, he is such a bastard.”

  Ghosts filtered in and out of Mel’s head, memories that haunted her, chasing her. She had sounded the same way once, so long ago. She had wondered the same things when her mother had taken off, and she was left to fend for herself. How could her mother have done that to her? She shook her head, chasing away the demons.

  “I know, sugar, I know. There’s a lot of it we won’t understand right now. There’s some of it we may never understand.” Mel spoke from experience.

  “It’s just so unfair. What he’s done is so unfair. And it sucks, Mel. It just sucks.”

  “Yes. Yes it is,” Mel said, rubbing Katie’s legs.

  There was nothing else Mel could say to her, no magic answer that would end her suffering.

  Mel sat close by her side for a few minutes, rubbing the back of her hand. “You and your mom are on your own tonight, okay? I called Mary Ann and asked her to keep the little guys. There’s no reason for them to come home tonight. Let your mom catch her breath.”

  “I doubt it’ll only take a night, Mel,” Katie said, sounding very adult.

  “I know; you’re right. But she needs a night to get it out, at least the beginnings of it. When Claire and your brothers come home, she’ll need to pack some of that away and be strong for them.”

  In the months that followed Jack’s leaving, the thing Cara remembered feeling most was numb. It was as if someone had corseted her two sizes smaller, cinching her waist so tightly that the circulation in her arms had been cut off and she could barely move, hardly wriggle her fingers. She often found herself breathless and suffocating at the end of the day, panic setting in as if she’d been weighted down and had to remind herself how to breathe, slow and purposeful.

  Ritual sustained her. School, birthday parties, playdates, soccer, baseball, ballet, homework, laundry. All the things she had done when Jack was there, his presence at the end of the day like an interruption.

  The holidays lined themselves up one by one, each of them taunting her, heartily ridiculing her as they trounced by. Halloween with its memories of nights of trick-or-treating with the kids, Jack carrying one of the kids over his shoulder, sick from too much candy, too much excitement. Thanksgiving, with its built-in day of grace, that went on to span four days of family and merriment. Christmas with its glow, its warmth, an embrace all its own.

  And finally, the New Year, the worst of them all. Jack’s first real attempt at winning back his children, he took them skiing and Cara was left alone—really alone—for the first time. Without pause she took two Ambien at eight o’clock sharp and slept well into the Tournament of Roses parade midday on the first of January, waking to Melanie’s shrill voice on her answering machine.

  “Cara, you are scaring me now. Pick up the goddamn phone!”

  “I’m here, Mel, I’m here,” Cara said drowsily into the phone, peering across the empty bed to check the time on the alarm clock that still sat on Jack’s bedside table. She hadn’t altered a thing; hadn’t moved a piece of furniture or changed a habit since Jack had left.

  “It’s the New Year. Get up and make something of it,” Mel said to her.

  Cara fell back on the pillow, her head still groggy from the drug. She closed her eyes on her room, on her life, hoping that when she opened them it would, in fact, feel like a New Year, like a new beginning.

  Jack was gone. Mornings, Cara would wake and for a split second before the sun broke through the blinds, believe her life hadn’t changed, that things had remained as they always had. But then she would roll to her side, reach next to her to find one of her sleeping children who’d snuck in sometime during the night, and everything would roll backward in time, backward to the day when Jack had packed his things and simply left.

  She saw him often, actually. Stopping by to pick up the kids or collect the mail that hadn’t been forwarded properly to his new address. He was cool and aloof, careful to keep his distance. They were polite to each other but short in their greetings. In the end there was nothing really to talk about, anyway.

  Mel and Cara had known each other a long, long time, which wasn’t to say that Mel was the best at handling Cara’s particular flavor of depression. Like everything else she tackled, Melanie did it in the only way she knew how, her own. Mel pushed Cara, forcibly at first and with little regard for the years Jack and Cara had spent together. When Cara couldn’t take Mel’s brusque demeanor anymore, she’d call Leah. Leah was there when Cara needed to have a good cry, someone to tell her that, despite all the affairs he’d had, Jack had loved her and that, in some way, he always would. Leah listened to Cara’s endless chatter of memories played over and over again like a broken record, letting her relive pieces of the good times she’d shared with Jack. Then she’d softly remind her of those times when things hadn’t been so breezy, when isolation and rejection had been all Jack had given her, gently easing her into reality.

  Paige brought casseroles. Lots and lots of casseroles. As if someone had died, they came rolling in one right after the other. Spaghetti. Chili. Some sort of hamburger-laden corn thing Cara had a recipe card for but hadn’t made in years. Chicken and broccoli smothered in cheddar cheese and cooked until it was crisp. One Saturday morning Paige called and told Cara she was making a double batch of enchilada pie and asked if she could have back her oblong white 2½-quart Corning Ware dish, the one with the glass lid, so she could bring them dinner. In sweats and stockinged feet, Cara rummaged through her cabinets and found six casserole dishes she recognized as Paige’s. She stacked them neatly for Paige’s husband, Dennis, who was coming to claim them.

  When Dennis greeted Cara at the door, wide with a smile, he held a plate with two dozen oatmeal chocolate chip cookies stacked on it.

  “Dennis, tell her to stop. She’s done too much already,” Cara said to him at the door, not feeling the least bit self-conscious about how ragged she looked. Her unwashed hair was pulled up in a sloppy, stubby ponytail, her Friday makeup still crusted around her eyes, the mascara smeared in dark circles under her eyes.

  “You know how she is, Cara, she loves to do this.” A boyish grin spread over his face; his cheeks were freckled and sun-kissed. He maintained a genuine sense of love and warmth for his wife. “I’ll bring the enchilada pie later this afternoon. Do you have plans or will you be around?”

  “Dennis,” Cara said, spreading her arms wide to the side, “you’re looking at my plans.”

  Paige’s casseroles came with cheery notes attached to them written in perfectly printed penmanship on engraved cards with her initials:

  I’m thinking of you, Cara.

  Let me know if there is anything I can do for you, Cara.

  You’ve got a friend, Cara, if you need one.

  Don’t forget how much we all love you, Cara.

  “Can’t she tell you’re not eating them?” Mel asked one afternoon, grabbing a handful of the waist of Cara’s jeans, bubbling in the back and cinched tightly with a black belt. “Look at you, Cara; you certainly haven’t lost all this weight eating those Hamburger Helper noodle fiascos.” Mel was right; Cara hadn’t been eating them. Or much of anything, for that matter. She hadn’t been this thin since before she’d had Katie. She was desperately in need of new clothes but had little desire to go shopping.

  Cara shrugged her sh
oulders. “What difference does it make?”

  “I just don’t see what . . .” Mel started in again.

  “It’s what she does, okay?” Cara snapped. “You don’t make casseroles, Mel. Hell, you don’t even eat casseroles. But it’s what Paige knows, it’s what makes her feel like she’s doing something to help.”

  Melanie settled onto one of the bar stools in Cara’s kitchen and rolled her eyes. She dug out the March issue of Cosmopolitan from the pile of mail that sat on the granite countertop and began leafing through it, flipping the pages in rapid succession so that Cara knew she wasn’t really reading anything.

  “I’m sorry,” Cara said, immediately feeling guilty. “Look, Mel. I’d haul off and throw you through the front of Jack’s car window if I had the chance because I know you’d have the biggest impact. I know you’d shatter the glass from here to the end of the Earth. Leah’s no good for that. Leah’s good for a long talk and a good cry. And Paige? Well, Paige is good for casseroles, okay?”

  “I just don’t see the point, Cara. That’s all I’m saying. I just don’t see the point.”

  “That’s because you don’t need any casseroles in your life, Mel. You are 100 percent casserole free.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Mel asked her, knowing full well what Cara meant.

  “It means that you’re a survivor, Mel. You can pick up and move on, unlike the rest of us who need to sit and think on it for a while, that’s all. There’s nothing wrong with that, Mel; nothing at all. But the rest of us need a little time, you know. The rest of us occasionally need to sit and stew over a good, hearty, homemade casserole.”

  Mel shook her head and rolled her eyes, again flipping the pages of the magazine. Under her breath, Cara heard her say, “He cheated on you, Cara. How long do you need to stew on it?”

  “What?” Cara jerked her head around. “What did you say?”

  “I said, ‘He cheated on you.’ That’s it, plain and simple.”

  “I know what he did, Melanie. Who do you think has been living with it for all these years? Who do you think has spent the better part of their entire marriage—eighteen years—trying to figure out what part of her wasn’t good enough, wasn’t sexy enough, wasn’t whatever enough to keep her husband interested? Who, Mel? Who? Newsflash: it wasn’t you. So I’ll beg your pardon if I spend a little time wallowing in the good support of my friends who take the time to do something nice for me. I’ll beg your pardon if it feels good to have someone bring me over a Crock-Pot full of stew.”

  2

  “Shit. Who schedules their annual exam on Valentine’s Day?” Cara moaned. She searched her oversized bag for her car keys; she’d had them in her hand only moments earlier and now she was late.

  “Someone who clearly doesn’t stand a chance of getting laid,” Leah answered, affectionately. “Don’t feel too sorry for yourself. I’m still married and it’s not like I have any hot plans, either. No knight in shining armor at my door. No four-star restaurant reservation. Andrew is somewhere between here and New York. It’s not like he’ll be home before midnight, anyway. And I’m sick of sitting here waiting for the florist delivery truck to pull up with my dozen roses. As if that’s likely to happen.”

  Cara checked in at the front desk of her OB/GYN with a curt smile from the receptionist who begged her insurance copayment before dismissing her. The chairs were hard-backed, uncomfortable and not made for waiting. There were two women ahead of her in the waiting room, both pregnant, one so far along that she looked like she might be experiencing the early stages of labor. She sat with her feet braced against the small coffee table, one hand absentmindedly rubbing the swollen basketball in front of her. The other woman had three small children in tow, one of whom she was bouncing wildly on her knee while she tried to read to the other two. The baby hiccupped, belched and sprayed a stream of cream-colored spit-up down the front of his overalls and onto the woman’s jeans. Cara shuddered, remembering the day the OB had announced she was pregnant with Claire, her fourth, only a few months after she’d given birth to Luke.

  From the inner office the door to the waiting room opened abruptly, slamming against the back wall.

  “Will the first week in April work for your next appointment?” the receptionist asked the woman who had bolted through and stood teetering on stilettos.

  “Yes, that should be fine,” the voice said and Cara froze from behind her magazine.

  She knew that voice; had committed its off-key pitch, its slight twang to memory. Panic churned her stomach over on itself and rendered her paralyzed.

  “They’ll do an ultrasound at that appointment,” the nurse said cheerfully. “You’ll be able to find out the sex of the baby, if you want to know.”

  Cara’s legs and arms went numb, her stomach lurched, and perspiration began to dampen her pits. Her mouth was instantly dry. No, impossible. It’s impossible to think God could be this cruel. The woman made a note in the Day-Timer she stuffed back into her petite handbag and then zipped it shut in one simple motion before she turned to leave the office, her lips pursed into a thin, flat line. She was even thinner than Cara remembered, taller and in better shape—if that was possible—but the color in her face was washed out as if she’d been spooked good. She did not appear to be pregnant, not a bulge or a bump or anything that would indicate she was, in fact, carrying a child.

  For a second Cara thought she was free, still propped squarely behind the magazine, her fingers clamped shut on the pages so that the newsprint beneath her fingers smeared across her skin.

  “Cara Clancy?”

  She heard someone call her name, distant, but in a clipped tone that meant business. The nurse stood in the doorway, dressed in green scrubs and holding a thick, beaten-up folder Cara knew was her chart. She smiled at Cara through wire-rimmed glasses, tapping her pen on the chart, and held open the door with her back until Cara felt the weight of the whole room staring at her, waiting for her to get up. Her legs were impossibly gel-like and she couldn’t find the floor beneath her feet until it rose up to meet her, spinning. Somehow she struggled to stand, vertical.

  Barbie stopped at the exit, rigid, car keys in hand, cell phone propped under her chin, but she never turned, never looked back. She was frozen, and for a split second, Cara almost felt sorry for her. Almost. Then she clip-clopped out of the door and down the hall. From behind, her perfect size 2 ass appeared perky, as if she was skipping.

  In the exam room Cara barely heard the nurse’s questions: “First date of your last period? Any changes in your diet? Any medications? Still taking the same birth control? Will you need a refill today?”

  “Huh?”

  “Are you okay, Mrs. Clancy?” the nurse asked her.

  “Um, yes. Think so.”

  “Okay, then, everything off, gown ties in the front. The doctor will be in to see you in a few minutes.”

  The nurse dropped Cara’s chart into the clear plastic tray bolted to the front of the examining room door and closed the door behind her, leaving Cara alone in the room, the edge of her butt suspended on the cold metal examining table. Outside a barren tree branch rocked gently in the afternoon, the bare tips of the brown limbs scratching against the window. Cara watched it sway and bounce against the tinted glass. There was a sharp ringing in her ears that she couldn’t control, a constant pitch she could neither command nor dismiss. It continued while she began to unzip one boot, then the other, kicking them under the leather side chair in the corner of the room.

  Barbie. In her doctor’s office. On the same day she was due to see him. Barbie. Perfect and petite. And pregnant. Jack had been gone only a few months, hardly long enough for Cara to get used to sleeping alone permanently. She still had to remind herself he wouldn’t be coming home; setting a place for him at the table, then clearing it away before one of the kids could come in and ask her who was coming over. The house was still trapped with his things—shoes, clothes, books, movies, pieces of artwork they had collected together
, pictures from places they’d visited together or as a family. She’d barely rid the bedding of his scent, barely packed away his CDs. And now Barbie. Here. In her doctor’s office.

  Cara was only half-undressed. She stood in her bra and thick black knit stockings, folding her skirt with precision, when Dr. Bremmer knocked three shorts raps and opened the door before she had a chance to answer. Cara turned abruptly, caught like a stripper when the lights go on. He expected her to be dressed in the white paper gown and seated in her usual spot on the examining table, and was clearly stunned when Cara whipped around and held her skirt to shield her body like a junior high school girl changing in the locker room for the first time. She blushed fiercely.

  “Oh, Cara, I’m so sorry, I thought you would have been undressed by now. I’ll give you a few minutes.” He eyed her up and down before looking away, pretending instead to focus on the chart he was holding in his hand.

  She felt the blood rush to her cheeks. “Okay,” Cara said, because she could think of nothing else, and being caught in the process of undressing was nearly as unnerving as having intercourse for the first time. When he backed out and closed the door gently, Cara ripped off her stockings, unhooked her bra, and dove into the paper gown in less than half a minute. She positioned herself on the end of the table and waited, her body convulsing in waves from the frigid temperature in the room. It was twenty more minutes before the doctor dared knock again, and waited this time before Cara was forced to manage, “Come in!” in an audible pitch from inside the room.

  He apologized again quickly, “Sorry about that . . .”

  “No worries,” she answered, watching him sidle up to the counter and rest half a butt cheek on the silver metal rolling stool, avoiding her eyes.

  “How many times have I told you to get a woman gynecologist, Cara, how many times?” Cara could hear Mel’s shrill voice playing in her head. She’d been after her for years to switch.