Unfiltered & Unraveled

by Payge Galvin

  The pool was surrounded by carefully sculpted rock grottos so it looked like the desert had spontaneously grown around a perfectly kidney shaped blue body of water. The heat of the perfect blue desert sky and sound of water lapping against stone lulled me into a lovely state of just not giving a damn. I’d almost dozed off when a nagging feeling bubbled to the surface of my brain.

  My mother still hadn’t called me once since I’d arrived at New Beginnings. I hadn’t expected my dad to call. He left most communication with me to my mother. What the hell was going on with my parents? Nearly all of the other patients, including James, who was kind of an asshole, regularly got calls and visits from their families. But my parents hadn’t so much as sent a postcard. All of those relatives who sat in the intervention circle to express their “concern” for me? The same relatives whom I’d run errands for, babysat for, drove to the airport and helped move? They’d disappeared.

  I felt abandoned and forgotten, like that time Mom forgot to pick me up from swim practice in seventh grade and I’d been left waiting on the school steps until seven-thirty, when Sandy saw that Mom had arrived home without me. It was Sandy that realized Mom had forgotten me. It was Sandy who came and retrieved me from the school and took me home. And it was Sandy who had been “let go” two weeks later, because Mom and Dad said I was getting old enough to help around the house and we didn’t need a housekeeper anymore. I never saw Sandy again, and I learned to help around the house… a lot.

  I sat up in my lounge, downing the last of my juice and slipping back into my Keds so I could pad into the center’s main building. Patients needed permission and a scheduled phone slot in order to use one of the locked phone “carrels” that allowed communication with the outside world. But since it was Thursday afternoon and the pods were empty, I had no trouble getting approval from Kim, the director’s sweet-faced assistant.

  The carrels were more like one of those futuristic pods you’d find on first-class cross-Atlantic flights. We could enjoy our phone call while enclosed in a leather couch so deep we had a hard time climbing back out. The staff brought the caller mineral water every ten minutes or so of a thirty-minute calling window, but I was pretty sure that was to keep an ear out for any potential “carryout orders” for cocaine.

  I settled into the carrel, clearing my throat and trying to figure out how the hell I was going to start this conversation. At this time of day, Mom was sure to be at the office, working through details from services planned that morning. She would be sitting by the phone with a pencil stuck through her hair, chewing on her lip as she sifted through casket catalogues. Somehow, the idea of her sitting there, going about her day, while I was here, tucked away like some sort of dirty secret, really pissed me off. And it was too late to do anything about that now, because I’d already dialed and the phone was ringing.

  “Laswell Funeral Home.” Mom’s smooth, cultured voice filled my ear, making my hands tremble with a combination of anger and longing. A flurry of questions boiled up in my throat. Where the hell had Mom been? Why the hell hadn’t she called? Didn’t she care about me at all? Was Dad keeping her from calling me? Didn’t they want to know how I was doing? Or were they just happy that I was out of the way?

  “Hello?” she sniped. “I don’t accept solicitation calls on this line.”

  “Mom, it’s not a telemarketer. It’s your daughter.”

  “Violet?” Mom’s voice dropped to a barely audible whisper. “Violet? What are you doing, calling here?”

  “I haven’t talked to you in almost two weeks, Mom. I thought you’d want to hear from me.”

  “But this is the office. What if someone hears you?”

  “From the other end of the phone line? I think we’ll be OK as long as you don’t put me on speaker. Mom, do you want to talk to me or not? Haven’t you missed me at all?”

  “Well, of course I have,” Mom sniffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I just don’t see why you had to call me here.”

  There was a long uncomfortable pause.

  “I’m fine, by the way. The place you sent me is really nice. They feed us three times a day and everything,” I muttered.

  “Don’t be dramatic, Violet. We saw the brochures. Of course, it’s nice.”

  “Is there anything you want to ask me, or say to me?”

  “Just that I hope you’re applying yourself to your therapy. And you’re getting better. And that you’re remembering to apply your sunscreen. And that you haven’t given our address to any of the people that you’ve met there.”

  I was so tempted to point out that I didn’t have a drinking problem to make “better,” but I didn’t think that would help convince my mom that I was “progressing.”

  “I’m trying, Mom.”

  “Don’t try, Violet. Just get better.”

  “All right.”

  “I’ll talk to you soon.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Don’t call here. I’ll call you.”

  I nodded, even though I knew she couldn’t see me. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Click.

  She’d hung up on me. No “take care of yourself” or “be good” or any of our normal phone conversation closers. I hadn’t expected her to say, “I love you,” because Mom didn’t do that. But just hanging up on me when I hadn’t spoken to her in weeks? That was just petty and mean.

  I hung up the phone and burst into tears. Wheezing, hacking, sobbing, body-wracking sobs that had me curled over the couch in the fetal position. It would never be enough. I would never be able to apologize enough. I would never be able to make it up to them. I could get a freaking A-plus at rehab and they would still hold this mistake over my head.

  My parents were completely devoid of actual parenting skills. I thought back to all of the big life moments that were private: having the chicken pox when I was a kid, getting my first period, losing at a swim meet. I couldn’t remember my parents being present for any of them. Oh, sure, they were there for the graduations and award ceremonies, all of the big public events. But when it came to the hard work, they let someone else pick up the slack – our housekeeper, Sandy, my swim coach. Hell, Allie was the one who told me how Tampax worked.

  And I never questioned them about it. Why? I had no fricking clue. Maybe I was weak. Or maybe, in some hidden recess of my brain, I didn’t want to think about what it meant if my parents were wrong about me being lazy, unfocused, and ungrateful. Because if they were wrong about me, that meant that I was decent kid and they just didn’t like me very much. That meant that my own parents didn’t love me in the way most parents loved their kids.

  Cynda said that everybody had an epiphany in rehab. Mine seemed to be realizing that my relationship with my parents was broken. And I was too pissed off to decide whether it was worth trying to repair it.

  Chapter 12

  The phone attendant was kind enough to leave me alone while I had my snotty, hysterical breakdown. I wasn’t sure how long I was in the phone carrel, but dinner had been served by the time I came out. The idea of food turned my stomach, so I quietly slipped by the dining room to the rec exit. Since I hadn’t tried to escape or sneak in contraband, I had proven myself trustworthy enough for the “less restricted” track, which meant that I was allowed to walk around the grounds unattended and after hours. Go, me.

  My feet headed for horse barn before I really grasped where I needed to go. I zoned out during the walk on the subtly lit trail, wondering whether I’d ever had a decent relationship with my parents or if I’d just imagined the whole “decent childhood” I’d always considered my past. I always assumed that because I didn’t grow up with the threat of violence hanging over me, the way poor Allie did, that I had a good, loving family. But did a lack of violence make up for a lack of affection or understanding? Did my parents love me, or was I just a daughter-shaped accessory?

  I stopped to pull some cactus fruit loose for my favorite horse. Pickles liked apples just fine, but preferred the mellow piquant flavor of pr
ickly pear. I had to get a handle on this ridiculous grief I felt for poor stupid Violet who believed that her parents actually cared for her, who believed that the people she’d taken care of for years would return the favor when she was down.

  And now I was throwing myself a pity party in third person. Awesome.

  I jogged the rest of the way to the barn and saw Pickles’s head hanging over his stall. He shook his head, as if he was greeting me. In horse language, his greeting probably sounded something like “Hi, where’s my prickly pear?”

  “How’s my good boy?” I asked, holding my hand up so Pickles could gently pluck the fruit from my palm. I stroked my fingers down his velvety nose, murmuring. “I had an incredibly shitty day, Pickles. Any advice?”

  Pickles let loose an indecipherable horsey sound, which I could not translate into usable information. “Not helpful,” I told him, picking up a spare comb and running it through his mane. “But why would you care? You’re just a horse. You don’t have to worry about school or student loans or entering the dismal job market. And I’ll bet your mother never stops by your stall to let you know how much your trotting disappoints her. Wanna trade?”

  Pickles shook his head.

  “Good choice, buddy.”

  I heard foot-steps behind me and saw Cam walking toward the barn. He looked just as surprised to see me as I was to see him. “What the-- what are you doing out here, Violet? And why are your eyes so red?”

  “I’m playing the bassoon, Cameron.”

  He frowned at me, but I could tell he was just the tiniest bit amused.

  “I’m visiting Pickles. I’m off restriction.”

  “That doesn’t mean you get to go walking around by yourself at night. Use some common sense. What if you’d fallen or one of the horses hurt you? No one would even know you’re out here.”

  “You’re walking around late at night by yourself, so… there.”

  Not my best retort, I was aware. But I wasn’t a hundred percent.

  He sighed, raking his fingers through his hair. “Do you ever do what you’re told?”

  “All the freaking time. I’m trying something new now. And frankly, I kind of like how it’s turning out.”

  He groaned. “God you are so frustrating.”

  “Good.”

  “What?”

  “GOOD,” I exclaimed. “I’ve lived my whole life trying to make other people happy. I deserve to frustrate someone else for a change. I’m glad I’m frustrating you. I might make it my new hobby, an entry on my rehab day planner. Ten-thirty a.m., annoy Cameron, CHECK.”

  Rather than getting angrier, as I’d expected, Cam burst out laughing. “You really are glad, aren’t you?”

  I nodded. He grinned and shook his head, jerking me close and pulling my mouth to his.

  “Don’t, I’m mad,” I told him, though my lips were twitching into a smile.

  “You don’t look mad, you look devastated. What’s going on?” he asked, lifting my chin so he could inspect my dry, reddened eyes. I hesitated, so he added, “Please tell me, I’d really like to know.”

  “My mother,” I sighed. “And I am aware that makes me sound like a petulant, neurotic teenager. I just called my mother because it’s been weeks since I’d spoken to her, and I thought maybe she’d want to know-- Well, the bottom line is that she didn’t want to know. She doesn’t want to know anything about this place or how I’m doing or whether I’m OK. She has zero interest.”

  “I’m sorry, Violet.”

  “Me, too,” I told him. “And not to make you feel bad, because I know that you’re angry with your parents for legitimate reasons, but at least they didn’t send you here as a punishment. They may not understand why you’re still here, but they’re still trying to talk to you, no matter what you’ve done. I would just hate to see you waste that.”

  “Wow, that is a very pointed point you’re making. I’ll think about it,” he told me. He sighed and rubbed his fingers over his temples. “This is not how I pictured this conversation going.”

  “Uh-oh.” I dropped my arms and stepped away from him. “I just heard the word ‘conversation’ in quotation marks.”

  “That’s because you are a perceptive young woman.”

  “Don’t try to sugar-coat it, Cam. What’s going on?”

  He nodded toward a bench by the hitching post. “It’s sort of awkward to have this unquoted conversation here at the scene of the crime, so to speak, but I think that we need to cool off whatever this is between us. Just for a little while.”

  “That is un-sugar-coated,” I said, closing my eyes and dropping my face into my hands. I refused to ask him the obvious “needy girl” questions. Did I do something wrong? Don’t you like me? Was I that lousy in bed? Or should I say on the table?

  Somehow, my shitty day got that much worse. I wrapped my arms around my middle, as if that would hold me together somehow. Even if my heart was breaking more than a little bit, I would hold it together. I would not let him see me freak out. For the second time. Today. Maybe when I went back to the center, I could crawl back into the phone carrel and have a nice cry. For the second time. Today. But for now, I would hold it together.

  Motherfucker, this hurt.

  “OK,” I sighed, letting him pull me against his side. “OK.”

  “Really? Just ‘OK?’”

  “It’s just about all I can manage right now.”

  “I had this whole speech prepared,” he said, sounding faintly pouty. “Stuff like ‘You’re so young, Violet.’ And ‘You’re just starting out and you don’t need to be stuck with someone who has so much baggage, Violet.’ And now, I think you would find it insulting, because I’m starting to get the impression that you may be smarter than me.”

  “I think the amount of baggage is pretty equal,” I said, completely ignoring the ham-handed compliment. “And that speech is super-lame. You have no poker face. Never gamble. What’s going on?”

  He took my hand in his and squeezed it. “Sarah stopped me after the staff meeting today. She knows something is going on.”

  “Oh, no! Oh, no, no, no!” I cried, launching up from the bench. “She saw us? In the barn? You’re going to get fired and run out of here on a rail and chased by nurses with pitchforks.”

  “Why did I become Frankenstein in this scenario?” he asked. “Relax. It’s not that bad. Sarah didn’t see us so much as holding hands, but she says she can see you dragging me down a ‘slippery slope’ and it’s just matter of time before we do something we’ll regret. For right now, she just wants me to ‘spend my time in other ways,’ but there was the veiled suggestion that if I don’t, she’s going to report the situation to my boss, Hugh. We can’t do this anymore. We need to go back to our previous relationship, where I turned around and ducked my head every time you entered a room.”

  “Cause no one will notice that,” I told him.

  “I shouldn’t have let this start in the first place. It’s a huge ethical violation for me to get involved with a patient. It was selfish and stupid. But I just… I wanted you so much. I’m so sorry. We have to stop. You need to focus on getting healthy. And I … I need to think about some of the choices I’ve made recently.”

  “Hey, easy,” I muttered. “First of all, we both let this start. And second, I don’t know if I can get behind this plan. I won’t ever get to see you? I won’t get to talk to you at all?”

  “I’m not saying ‘never again,’ just not now, not until you complete the program. And I mean, really apply yourself. At the end of the thirty days, we’ll talk, and if we still feel the same way, we’ll figure it out. OK?”

  I nodded. “OK.”

  “So, no more of this,” he said, scooting away from me on the bench, even though he was still holding my hand. He gestured toward the tack room. “And definitely no more of that.”

  “Can we put this plan on hold for just one second?”

  “Why?” he asked.

  I threw my arms around his neck and claimed his mo
uth. Lips, tongue, a little bit of teeth. I took it all. He was mine. I didn’t give a damn what Sarah had to say about it. And I wasn’t going to be able to touch him for the next few weeks, so I had to make it good.

  “You good?” I asked, pulling back to gaze at his half-mast eyes and swollen lips.

  “Just one more,” he said, yanking me back to kiss me again. “Be good.”

  “I would make a joke about always being good, but clearly that is not the case.”

  He shook his head. “No, it’s not.”

  “Easy.”

  ‡

  I became a model patient. I was above reproach, waaaay above suspicion of attempting to bone staff members. I was already making a serious effort in therapy, so I just told Dr. Mueller extra stuff about my parents and traumatic high school experiences. By the end of the week, I had enough C-points built up for minor plastic surgery.

  Cam, true to his word, avoided me at all costs. He was subtle about it. He eased his way out of the room whenever I came near. He dropped off of the hall duty rotation on my floor. And he didn’t go near the horse barn, so I could still have time with Pickles, which I thought was pretty sweet.

  Nurse Sarah watched me like a hawk. I swear that chick followed me everywhere except for the bathroom stall, and that was only because Cynda pointed out that Sarah was spending a lot of time supervising a patient on the less restricted track. She trailed me to Dr. Mueller’s office to make sure I made my appointments. She drove me to my sessions with Mick and then stayed at the barn to make sure I followed through with my equine therapy plan. She claimed that she wanted to make sure I stayed on track, that she was taking a “special interest” in me. And because it was really difficult to complain to the director’s office that a staff member was making sure that I was going where I was supposed to, I just tolerated it. Because stabbing Sarah wasn’t an option, either.