When I'm Not Myself

by Deborah J. Wolf

  “I don’t think so, Jack. Maybe you don’t understand me. Her things are gone. She’s gone. This isn’t a sleepover; this is for real.”

  “Cara, get real. Where would she go? She’s not just going to up and leave. She just got home from rehab. She’s clean for the first time in months. She’s back in school and she’s hanging out with her friends again. She’s around here somewhere. Have you called her cell phone?”

  Cara wanted to throw the phone across the room. She wanted to take it and chuck it as far as she could. She wanted to bang it on the countertop until it broke into a million little pieces. “Do you think I’m a complete idiot? Of course I’ve called her cell phone. She’s not answering it.” Cara paced the kitchen floor, running her hand through her hair until it stood on end.

  “How about her sponsor? Have you called that woman? What’s her name?”

  Sarah. Her name was Sarah. Cara had her number printed on a folded-up Post-it note, buried in her wallet. She hung up the phone and went to dig it out, punching out the numbers as if she was making the only call she got from her jail cell.

  “ ’Lo?” a young woman’s voice carelessly answered from the other end. Cara had met Sarah only once, a few weeks before Katie had been released from the facility. Sarah was twenty-three and wore all black. Black T-shirt, black jeans, black high-top tennis shoes, black eye makeup. She was stick straight, no hips or breasts on her, and if you weren’t looking carefully enough, she could be misconstrued as a fourteen-year-old boy. She’d had her ears pierced in three places and tattoos up and down her arms. Her hair had been dyed as black as ink and she wore it in a page boy cut that she combed straight around her ears.

  “May I speak with Sarah, please?”

  “Yeah, this is her,” the voice answered.

  Cara had been unimpressed at the center, aggravated that someone in a position of authority had thought that pairing this unpolished drunk with her daughter would be a good idea.

  “Oh, um, hello, Sarah. This is Cara Clancy, Katie’s mom.”

  “Oh, yeah. Hi.”

  “I was just calling because, well, I don’t suppose you’ve heard from Katie today, have you?” Cara wasn’t altogether sure that Sarah would have told her either way; she wasn’t sure what the code of ethics called for in situations like these. But she was desperate, so she added, “Sarah, please, if you have heard from her, I really need to know.”

  “No. No, I haven’t heard from her.”

  “Oh. Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. The last time I talked to her was on Sunday. I saw her at our AA meeting.”

  “Did she say anything to you about going somewhere? Maybe to a friend’s house or something?”

  “Mrs. Clancy? Is Katie missing? Don’t you know where she is?”

  Cara was in no mood to discuss this with someone she barely knew, much less had little respect for. She certainly didn’t need Sarah’s help if she didn’t know where Katie was. “Um, well, I’m not really sure, Sarah. Maybe you could just have her call us if you hear from her. Or you could call me yourself. Anytime. If you hear anything at all, just give me a call, okay?”

  “Sure, Mrs. Clancy, sure.”

  An awkward silence hung between them. Cara didn’t see how Sarah might help them any further, yet she didn’t quite want to let her go, either. She didn’t want to admit it, but talking to Sarah gave her a feeling of some sort of connection to Katie. Even if she didn’t know where Katie had gone, Sarah might have known what it was that forced her to go.

  “Mrs. Clancy?” Sarah asked. “Are you still there?”

  “Uh-huh, yes. Was there something else? Something that Katie might have said to you?” Cara was immediately hopeful. She would take anything. Even the smallest detail might help her find her daughter.

  “Did you call her friend? You know, the one in San Francisco? Actually, I think maybe she’s your friend, but she used to come see Katie all the time at the center. I can’t remember her name, but she’s a really pretty lady, really tall and thin . . .”

  MELANIE! Of course! God, Cara was so stupid. How could she not have put it together? How did she miss it?

  “Sarah, you’re a genius, that’s got to be it. Look, just in case I don’t connect with her, and she calls you, please have her call me. Just so I know she’s okay, just so I know where she is. Okay?”

  “Sure, Mrs. Clancy, sure thing.”

  Cara hung up the phone, setting the receiver back in its cradle for only a minute before picking it up again and checking for a dial tone. She dialed nine of Mel’s ten numbers, area code plus her home phone, all but the last number. She held the phone in midair, cursing herself, cursing Katie. She hadn’t spoken to Mel in almost three months. It had to be some sort of record. What in the world would she say to her now?

  Mel, hi, it’s Cara. I’m looking for Katie. Is she there?

  Let me talk to Katie, Mel.

  I know she’s there, Mel. You can’t hide her away forever.

  Give me back my daughter, Mel.

  She contemplated calling Leah. Or Paige. Certainly she could talk one of them into calling Mel for her, just to check on Katie. On second thought, Leah would never call her. Leah was so tired of the disagreement she and Mel had been harboring that there was no way she would make the call. And Paige wasn’t likely to involve herself in anything controversial.

  Maybe Jack? Surely he’d make an exception and call Mel. She dialed Jack’s number, waiting.

  “Hello?” Barbie’s singsongy voice chirped through the receiver.

  Damn. She hadn’t counted on Barbie. Barbie with her swollen ankles and out-of-control hormones.

  “Um, hi, Barbie. Is Jack there? I need to talk to him about Katie.”

  “Oh, hi, Cara,” Barbie said, mispronouncing Cara’s name for the nine millionth time. There was no hope; no way would Barbie ever get it right. “No, no, Jack’s not here. He went out to pick up dinner. Did you hear from Katie?”

  The last thing Cara wanted to do was have a conversation with Barbie, certainly not about Katie. “No. No, not yet. Listen, could you just have Jack call me? I have a hunch about where Katie might be.”

  “Sure, Cara. I’ll have him call you when he gets back. Anything to help track our girl down.”

  Cara was seething. Our girl. Jack had spent no more than five minutes with Katie in the last three months, never mind Barbie. She had no right to refer to her daughter that way. Barbie was right in the middle of having her own baby. What did she need with Cara’s children?

  She couldn’t take any more. “Our girl? OUR GIRL?” Cara was fuming, ready to burst. “She’s my girl, Barbie, not yours. She’s my little girl, my baby. You’ve got your own damn baby on the way. And I’ll be damned if you ever hear me call her, ‘our’ anything. So, I’ll beg your pardon if this seems a little out of place to you, but I’d appreciate it if you could hold off the ‘our girls’ until you have one of your own, okay?”

  Cara was sure she’d hear about her outburst later, and that Jack would be furious with her and come unglued, but she couldn’t help it; not this time, not when Barbie had been so presumptuous. Cara had had enough. She’d been forced to share her children with Jack, and that she could understand. They were, after all, his as well. But they weren’t Barbie’s. She’d had nothing to do with them, nothing other than helping to tear their family apart. And as far as Cara was concerned, she didn’t have to share them with her.

  “I’m sorry, Cara,” Barbie whispered.

  From the other end of the phone, Cara could tell that she was crying, small, quick hiccuplike breaths coupled with sniveling. It should have left Cara feeling satisfied, as if she’d made her point, but it didn’t. She simply felt guiltier, as if she’d been in the wrong to say anything in the first place.

  “She’s my girl,” Cara said again quickly and firmly. “Not yours.” She clicked off then, not sure of what to do next.

  Screw it, she thought. Screw. It. Enough of this madness.

&nbs
p; Cara picked up the phone again and dialed Mel’s number without hesitation. It rang once, then twice, before Mel picked up on the third ring.

  “Hello, Cara,” she said calmly.

  “Hi, Melanie,” Cara answered her.

  “I suppose you’re calling for Katie?”

  “Oh, my God, Mel, is she there?” Cara wailed, immediately grateful that she had picked up the phone.

  “Yeah, of course she is. Didn’t you see her note? She told me she left you a note letting you know that she’d be up here with me for a few days. She came up this afternoon.”

  “No. No note,” Cara said curtly, just relieved that she’d found her. Finally, she’d found her. “Look, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that she’s okay. Oh, thank God she’s there.”

  “She took the train up. I swear she told me she’d left you a note, Cara. Otherwise, I’d have called to let you know.”

  “You would have?”

  “Of course, Cara, of course. My God, you must be sick with worry.”

  “Is she okay? Does she seem okay to you?”

  Melanie took a deep breath and walked into the sunporch, the small enclosed area off the back of the kitchen. The room was cluttered with books and drawings, treasures that Mel had kept through the years, things that made her feel connected to something, despite her lack of an anchor of any sort.

  Mel had just finished with the hand model when Katie arrived at the studio, wide-eyed and hesitant. Katie dropped her bags at the same time Mel opened her arms wide. When Katie reached Mel, she melted against her chest, leaning into her. After a minute Mel pulled back and cupped Katie’s chin in her hand. “Are you okay?” Mel asked her, looking deeply into her eyes, looking for some sort of answer, some sort of clue.

  Mel didn’t let Katie go until she saw her nod her head slowly. Even still she didn’t believe her. Katie wasn’t all right, far from it. Her eyes were glassy, her hands shaky. Mel didn’t know how Cara could miss it, the telltale signs of weakness that crept over her body and stained every pore. And if you couldn’t miss it, she didn’t understand how Cara could stand to ignore it.

  Mel wouldn’t lie to Cara, not now, not with so much at stake. As much as she’d like to reassure Cara that everything was going to be okay, as much as she would have liked to have Cara back, really back, as her closest friend and confidante, she wouldn’t lie to her about Katie.

  “She still needs a great deal of work, Cara.”

  Those weren’t the words Cara was prepared to hear. Mel’s summarization left Cara feeling like a failure, unfit. She was prickly and irritated. How would Mel know what kind of shape Katie was in? Who made her qualified to make a judgment about it? After all, the rehab facility had checked her out. Weren’t they the experts? Didn’t they know best? Cara cleared her throat and waited.

  “She’s been fine, Melanie. She’s been home for a couple of weeks and she’s been fine. We haven’t had a single episode, not a single problem.” Cara’s voice was cold and had an edge to it. She really didn’t want to argue with Mel right off, not the first time she had talked to her in months, but she couldn’t help but take personally what Mel was saying to her. She couldn’t help but feel as if she was to blame.

  “Yet.”

  “We haven’t had a single problem at all, Mel. Can’t you look at the bright side of things? Can’t you give some credit where credit is due?”

  “Something brought her here, Cara. There’s a reason she’s sitting in the guest bedroom at my house and not in her own room at home. You have to at least admit that.”

  Cara opened her mouth to argue with her, but nothing came out. She waited Mel out but Mel remained quiet on the other end of the line. The silence that hung between them was painful. It left a dull ache in the center of Cara’s chest.

  Finally, in a small voice, Cara asked her friend, the person she had most counted on for as long as she could remember, “What should I do, Mel?”

  “Let her stay, Cara. A week or so, maybe more if it suits her. Just for the break, so she can get her bearings again.” Mel had rehearsed the words carefully as if they were a piece of music she was playing, the tempo tricky and just so.

  “But she’s only just come home,” Cara pleaded. “I’ve only just gotten her back.”

  Mel held strong; she had Katie’s best interest at heart. “It might be nice for her to have some time, Cara, some space to acclimate again. And it might be a good idea for her to do that in a place where she can just be herself.”

  Cara teared up, her ego bruised. “And you think that’s with you? And not in her own home? With people who love and understand her? With us?”

  Mel waited on Cara, patient and quiet. Katie had snuck up on her, blending into the door frame, waiting. She didn’t move; Mel even wondered if she dared breathe.

  “But the kids need her. I need her. And she needs us. She does, doesn’t she? She needs us?”

  From behind Mel, Katie’s voice was strong, distinct. “Tell her I want to stay, Melanie. Tell her I won’t come home. If she makes me, I’ll just leave again.”

  Cara could hear her clearly. She could hear every last syllable her daughter enunciated.

  “What? What was that, Mel? Is that Katie? What’s she saying? Oh, c’mon, Mel, let me talk to her.”

  Mel held the phone out at a distance for Katie but she was unmoving.

  “I won’t do it for you, Katie,” Mel said to her, shaking her head. “Talk to your mother. Tell her for yourself what you want to do.”

  Katie took the phone, holding it up to her ear gingerly as if she was expecting Cara to come unglued at any moment, obscenities flying through the connection.

  “Hi, Mom,” she said, resolutely.

  “Katie,” Cara said simply. “Oh, honey, are you all right? I was so worried.”

  “I’m fine,” she answered plainly, simply. She couldn’t stand the way her mother’s voice dripped syrupy sweet as if she was adding heaping teaspoonfuls of sugar to tea.

  Cara stood and stretched her back. She was stiff and tired and her body ached with worry and stress. Her daughter was trying every last bit of patience that Cara thought she contained; every last ounce of empathy was draining out of her as she stood there.

  “What is it, Katie? What is it that you want?” Cara urged, short on understanding. She had tried too much, so hard, and every time it felt to her that they were right back at the beginning, starting over again and again.

  “Half a bottle of Absolut and a Sprite to chase it,” Katie answered.

  “Don’t be absurd, Katherine. Don’t fuck with me anymore. I’ll come and haul your ass out of Mel’s house so fast your head will spin.” Cara spat the words through the phone line, meaning business. She’d had more than enough, more than she could deal with. “You want to try me on this one?”

  “No,” Katie answered her honestly, panic gripping her. Her mother was mad, angrier than she had heard her in a long time.

  “Then let’s try this again. Tell me what it is that you want. What is it that will make you happy? ’Cause from where I’m standing, Katie, I’m at a loss as to what we need to do to make all this right, to make your life look a little bit better so that you don’t jump off a bridge again.”

  “I want to stay here.”

  “Come on, Katie, be realistic. You’ve only just gotten home. You should be at home with us.”

  “Please, Mom.”

  “But, Katie . . .”

  “I won’t come home. I can’t do it anymore,” she said with some finality, taking Cara by surprise.

  Cara hadn’t expected Katie to react so strongly, to draw a line in the sand so quickly. It was clear that Katie had been thinking on this. It was clear that she’d had enough.

  “And if I let you stay with Mel? Will it be better then? Will it be what you need to finally get a grip on all of this?”

  Cara wasn’t convinced, not anymore than she would have if Katie was at home. As much as she hated to admit it, she was near giving up on h
er daughter once and for all. But she also didn’t know if she had much of a choice. And she wasn’t willing to tempt Katie on this one. Bringing her home right now might mean losing her again. Losing her forever.

  “Jack, we need to talk about Katie.” She had left the message on his voice mail, urgency growing in her voice. “I need you to call me when you receive this message. Call me right away.” She was rarely so insistent with him, but this time she wasn’t letting him off the hook. She wouldn’t be blamed for this later. This was a decision they’d make together.

  Cara had only just moved Katie home. The last thing she expected was to be packing the rest of Katie’s things—those she hadn’t been able to fit in the duffel or backpack she’d taken with her—and hauling them to Mel’s house. Of all places to go; Mel’s. Cara should have guessed it; it was so damn obvious. Katie knew Mel wasn’t exactly top of mind with Cara right now and she knew Mel would have her. Mel would never turn her back on Katie. Not ever.

  When Jack called, the first thing he said to Cara was, “Maybe it will do her some good, Cara. If she thinks life at Melanie’s is going to be so much better than living the posh life she’s had at home, then let her go. She’ll figure it out soon enough. Tell Mel her program isn’t negotiable. She can stay there but someone will have to haul her back and forth to all her damn therapy sessions and AA meetings.”

  “It’s completely inappropriate, Jack,” Cara interrupted him, insistently. Cara sat Indian style in the center of Katie’s bed, photographs and letters spread out before her. She’d called in sick to work and spent the morning in her daughter’s room, alternately snooping and organizing, occasionally stopping to cry. She was due a shower, wore no makeup, and she desperately needed to shave her legs.

  “If Mel thinks it’s so easy, let her deal with Katie for a while. I’m telling you, Cara, Katie will realize how lucky she’s had it in a few days and she’ll be banging on your front door.”

  “She’s our daughter, Jack. We can’t just pawn her off on someone else, least of all Mel.”

  “Look Cara, you’re the one that’s always telling me how difficult this has been, how much energy and time and effort it takes to make sure Katie is doing the things she needs to be doing. All I’m saying is that maybe it’s time you took a break. Maybe Mel can get through to her. Maybe she can figure out what’s so goddamn difficult about her life that she has to solve it by cracking open a beer in the middle of the day. That’s all. Just give her a chance; you may be surprised. Christ, Cara, I’m late. I can’t talk about this anymore. I’ve got three back-to-back meetings this morning that will make this little problem look like a cakewalk. I suggest you send Katie’s stuff up to the city and take a little vacation.”