After I Wake (3 page)

“Aha!” he shouts. “I've cracked the Carter back open! My best friend can display emotion! I didn't know that was possible.” I frown at him. That was rude. I get up and punch his shoulder, gently, minding the doctor's orders, and move to the fridge, looking for root beer.

After I find my soda, I shuffle to the couch and sit slowly. My mom wraps an arm around me and holds me close. I don't think she wants to let go.

“Can I have the mail? Why did you even get the mail?” I raise a questioning eyebrow in Emmett's direction as he shrugs and drops the letters in my lap. I lean forward to put the root beer on the coffee table and free my hand so that I can sort through the random envelopes, most of which I hand to my mom. I see a hospital bill, among other things. I'm worried suddenly, I don't know if our insurance can cover everything I've done.

The third to last one has my name on it with a return address to the National Poetry Accolades. A small gasp of surprise slips out of my mouth before I can stop it, and my mother swoops in and pries the envelope out of my hand. She is a skilled woman who has utterly mastered the subtle art of swooping in and taking stuff. It's probably a mom thing. I suck at swooping.

But if this is what I think it is, it could not have come at a worse time, and my mother's swooping skills come in incredibly handy.

As my mom scans it, her eyes fill with tears, and her lip trembles the tiniest bit. My mother isn't one for tears, and the amount I've seen in the past hour is probably more than I've seen my whole life. So the magical piece of paper is exactly what I think it is. Emmett looks from me to my mother and back again.

“What is it?” he asks my mother, whose grip on the fragile paper has become white-knuckled. In response, she hands the now wrinkled letter to him. Emmett looks at the letterhead.

“Does the paper clash with my shirt?” I have to smile briefly again, because he knows that the creamy paper perfectly accentuates his purple shirt, his favorite purple shirt. It also matches the teddy bear. I just stare at him pointedly instead before choosing to begrudgingly admit that the letter paper does indeed match, to which he shrugs and sits down in the armchair next to the couch.

“Just trying to relieve some tension, geez. But still, an excellent observation from the Carter,” he grumbled before clearing his throat and continuing. “National Poetry Accolades?” I let his question hang in the air for a moment before answering. I'm busy swallowing the unwelcome lump in my throat. But I awkwardly nod in acknowledgement of the name.

“They ah, the National Poetry Accolades are a well-known group in the poet community. They celebrate new poets with awards named for the old. It's one of the highest honors you can get for a published poem. Will you read it?” Emmett looks distraught. I think he heard the barely contained emotion in my voice. I don't know what emotion it was, though. He looks to my mom again for confirmation, and when she nods, he looks to me again, and I nod encouragingly.

“I need to hear it,” I whisper. And so Emmett scans the letter and begins to read it aloud.

“Dear Ms. Carter Rogers, my name is Alexander Brown, and on behalf of the National Poetry Accolades, I would like to congratulate you on all of your successes in the art of writing poetry. Your poems are well created and developed, but we choose today to address one poem in particular, which you have written and submitted to one of our competitions, that received the first place award, entitled ‘An Experiment in Verse.'

“We would like to invite you to a gala honoring young poets on the Sunday evening of September the fifteenth in our national center in New York City, where you will be awarded the Walt Whitman Award for Poetic Excellence and a small prize. Lastly, we will be publishing a collected anthology of poems with yours included that will be distributed to a small chain of national bookstores on behalf of the Accolades. You are a stellar example of the modern poet and we would be highly honored if you choose to join us.

“The event is a formal black tie. We ask that you dress appropriately. There will be a banquet dinner with the awards ceremony following. You may bring two guests. Reservations will be made for you and your guests at a nearby hotel.

“We encourage you to join us and explore one of the busiest cities in the world. There is a formal invitation attached, which we ask be mailed back to us with your choice of main course selected.

Regards,

Alexander Brown

President, National Poetry Accolades.”

I'm not sure how to react. I've always thought I was pretty good. Emmett clears his throat. He isn't done, I suppose.

“There's more. A, well… a handwritten, well not handwritten but it's, like, attached and not part of the formal letter. The font is different. It's a PS from this Alexander Brown guy.” He clears his throat again and reads, slowly this time. “A note for Carter: I've seen your recent struggles as covered by your fellow poets in the social media world, among other places. We all think that you are a strong girl. Do not give up. We would like to see you there on September 15th.

“Also, we will be unveiling our newest project, a magazine for young poets. We would like you to be on the cover of our very first issue with an accompanying interview. Please e-mail us back with your response so that we can arrange a meeting. Thank you again, Carter.” My mom looks at me.

“There's an e-mail address attached here,” Emmett finishes.

“Do you want to…?” My mom doesn't finish, letting her question hover in the air, unanswered.

I shrug the question off and look out the window. September is only two months away. A photo shoot would be much sooner if they need to put it all together. My mom is still seated next to me. She hasn't moved other than to lean forward and place her elbows on her knees so that she can lean on her hands.

“What do you say, Car? Want to? You haven't written a poem in months. You're losing your purpose. Maybe this can get you going again.” She is staring intently, making complete eye contact. It's unnerving. But there is a familiar glint in her eyes when they bore into mine. She must think this will be something that will propel me even further into “my purpose” as she so lovingly calls it. She's always believed that people have these special purposes and that's why we're here, and mine has always been poetry. I break the contact by looking at my left arm. I refuse to acknowledge the part where it ends. I focus on the scars that are edging out from under my sleeve, for lack of a better place to stare.

“I lost my purpose when I lost my hand. I can't write decent poetry anymore. Why should I even try?” And with that, I stalk out of the living room, up the stairs, and into my room where I flop on the bed. I proceed to stare grumpily at the ceiling for the eleven seconds that I can before my mom comes in—seventeen if she tells Emmett to wait despite the fact that he will, inevitably, follow.

 

 

I
T
'
S
EXACTLY
sixteen and a half seconds, because I started counting out of sheer curiosity, when the door is opened and my mother unceremoniously flops onto the bed and joins me. Emmett chooses to go to the corner and drag over a beanbag, which he settles into, pulling out his phone and checking it as he so often does. He slides it back into his pocket with a worried expression that he probably doesn't want me seeing.

A moment later, the crescendo of paws clattering out of my mom's room and into mine bring in the dachshund. She is sleeping on my stomach in record time, curled tight into a little ball while I rest my hand on her rump, which is dangerously close to my face. The slamming of my bedroom door must have woken her.

“Sarah missed you. She slept on your bed the first two nights. I couldn't get her to move at all.” My mom is lazily stroking one of her ears. It slips from the top of her head to sprawl on my chest.

“I'm just tired, Mom,” I groan in response. “It's been a pretty weird four months.” Emmett bursts out laughing. I raise my head off the pillow to glare in his general direction. As he struggles to contain his guffaws, he looks at me. There are actually tears streaming from his eyes. I have no clue what I've done or uttered, but something must have been amusing. I flop my head back to the pillow.

“It's just,” Emmett begins, trying to swallow the laughter, “that is the understatement of the entire history of the planet Earth itself. Weird? Please, that doesn't even begin to cover it.”

He is incredibly right. I have to smile again. I lift my head again to give him an angry look. I don't understand why he insists upon being so damn happy and all infectious with it. I guess I got lucky with a perfect friend. How cliché.

I lower my head onto my pillow after my neck begins to feel stiff with the ferocity of my glare. I tell Emmett my thought process about his infectious happiness inducing ability, and he just looks at me. He makes everyone laugh. Go figure. My mom sits up and walks over to Emmett.

“Hey there, Emmett. How's it going?” She keeps her tone light and cheery. “Do you think that you might be willing to go get a nice coffee and then drink it in the privacy of your own home? I'd like to have a heart-to-heart conversation with my daughter. We're going to talk about all sorts of girly things I'm sure you have no desire to hear about.”

“Well, when you put it that way,” Emmett says, matching my mother's tone, “I can see where I become the—”

“I have a uterus!” I shout, sick of their playful bickering. “Let's talk about that!” Emmett leaves very quickly after that, screaming over his shoulder that he has absolutely no desire to learn about the exact functions of such female organs.

He should get it, though. I've only been home a little while, but Emmett's sense of privacy is not the best. I don't blame him for not realizing he should leave me alone with my mom. I'm amazed she let him in at all.

When my mom closes the door behind him and returns to me, I haven't moved. My excuse is the sleeping canine on my stomach. As she lies down next to me, my mom looks at me.

Without averting my gaze from the ceiling where it has returned, I choose to inform my mother, “You are incredibly passive-aggressive but at the same time utterly sassy. I very much appreciate your skills in both, and I assume the live studio audiences of your inevitable sitcom will agree.” I am thanked profusely for my observations.

Then my mother picks up Sarah and moves her, which is only the cruelest thing she can do to someone who was busy absorbing the body heat reflected by a very small animal. I roll over onto my side to protest, which I know is exactly what she wants.

“Want to talk about it?” Her unasked question lingers in the air. I roll back so that I can stare at my ceiling.

“About what? The note? The fact that I tried to kill myself? The unending and crippling depression where I felt nothing, and when I did feel, it was sorrow and self-pity? You want to talk about that? The scars all over my body from cutting my skin over and over and over again in a desperate attempt to feel anything.” I know I'm wallowing, but what is there to say?

“Carter,” my mom says, then she is quiet for a moment. I look at her, expecting her to be fighting tears, but she is only staring at the ceiling. “When you came home that day after you lost your hand, there was a sadness in your eyes that vaguely worried me, but you took such good care of yourself that you seemed okay. But toward your, uh, attempt, you weren't you anymore. I hoped it would go away and you would feel better. You did improve at one point; you were smiling and happy that day, and I thought I had you back. I thought you just needed your privacy and time to grieve, so I gave it to you.

“But you stopped writing poems, stopped being happy, stopped loving, stopped caring, and you ceased to be my daughter. But I didn't realize until it was too late. I would have helped if I could, if I had known. But you were a master of disguise, and you kept everything hidden so well. You were always so mature. It was almost like you didn't need me.” She smirks for a moment. “I thought that parenting was supposed to be way harder than it was for you.” She pauses to sigh.

“There aren't any words to describe this. No actual words, no creative words, there is nothing. In all my years, I have never had or seen anything remotely like this happen. Not the hypothermia, not the frostbite, not what happened to your hand, none of it. The situation is anything but normal.

“Then again, you are not a normal girl. You are special, Carter, and I've always believed that. No matter how hard the universe tries, it will never again be able to create someone exactly like you. What I don't understand is why you would want to stop any of it.

“But you know, Otto Frank, the only survivor of those families that hid in the attic during the Second World War? He said once something along the lines of all children need to raise themselves. No disrespect to him, but if that's how you think you need to raise yourself, you have another thing coming. Me.

“Carter, you had opportunity after opportunity to come to me and get help and do something to get better. I've never thought suicide was the answer to anything. I could have helped you work through it.

“So now, I will be watching you like a hawk. I am your mother, and I have eyes in the back of my head. So, my baby, welcome home. I love you, but I'm not letting you have as much privacy as you did for a little while. And just for now, no Internet for you. I don't want you near that blog of yours. You wrote that password into the note because you wanted me to see ‘who you really are,' and I do not think that blog is healthy. I read every single post. And despite what the rest of the world thinks, I am quite savvy with your technology, and I do know how computers work. I'm a computer technician. I know every function of your laptop, some that I bet you don't even know. For now, I've taken the liberty of expropriating your laptop. The only computer with Internet is the password-protected one in my office. If you go online, I will be right there. Since I'll be working, I can make sure I'm here and doing what needs to be done as your mother.
Capisce
?”