Her (2 page)

“Then why don’t you just go ahead and tell me, Kristen.  Why did you do it?”

“No.  Leave me alone.”  I felt the tears force their way through.

“Kristen.”

I wished I were dead. 

“Dr. Cuvo,” I cried.  “I’m tired.  I just want to sleep.  Please, leave me alone.”

He was leaning on the arm of the chair with his chin in the palm of his hand.  He was staring even deeper at me now.  I felt sick inside.  Then Dr. Cuvo gave up, and sat back in the chair.  He looked at me with eyes that seemed to be full of pity. 

“Would you at least like to eat breakfast right now?” He offered, kindly.

I looked at him strangely.  Did he not understand anything I had said?  I shook my head.  Giving up, he stuck his handout for me to shake. This time I did not oblige.  Dr. Cuvo shook it off and assured me that he would be back.  I rolled my eyes and looked away from him. 

“You can 
not
 like me, Kristen.  You can 
not 
talk to me, but there is only one way to get through this. It is not the option that you chose a week ago. In here, that is 
not 
an option. I’ll see you later.”  He grabbed his notebook and left me in the room alone. 

A week ago?  I had been in the hospital for a week.  All I could remember was the chaos of that night.  There had been a lot of blood.  I remembered everything going black.  And after all of that, I would end up pulling through.  It made me angry to think that all of my effort had gone to waste.  I should have been dead, and not in the hospital   I realized that my family would have to see me there. There would be more problems, and they would be entirely my fault. 

I needed to kill the pain.  I needed a razor, scissors, box cutter, or a knife. Anything to bring Mr. Sharp back to me.  Nothing was here to bring him back.  I saw the IV in my arm.  The needle was sticking into my veins.  I could see the veins, black and blue. 

An overwhelming feeling of anxiety came over me, and I thought back to what Dr. Cuvo had said, that I could not go back to a week ago.  He had said that it was not an option.  I began beating my wrists against the metal bars on the side of the hospital bed.  I kept beating hard so that I could see the blood soak through the bandages.  I banged my wrists so hard that I broke the needle to the IV. 

Somewhere in all of this madness, I lost myself. I felt a dark and familiar entity within me.  It took over me. I was not inside myself anymore.  I was not cold from the room. I was not in pain. I was not even angry anymore. 

The nurses rushed in and grabbed me. Two of them held me down.  I continued squirming trying to break free of them. The real doctor with the white coat and name tag came in. He had a large needle, which he stuck into my neck as the nurse pressed my head down to the bed. Adrenaline and pressure pumped into my brain. It felt like a heat wave had come over me, and that something was trying to suck me into hell until I felt the world spin out of control.  Then, like at the end of a movie, everything faded to black.

CHAPTER 2

I used to like to write stories.  When I was a little girl, I wrote fairy tales and stories about damsels in distress. The women I had written about, lived in the most terrible situations, and a man would come along and rescue the women in every story. I had written hundreds of stories like that, with the same plot and the same ending.  The girl had a hard and miserable life. The prince, or the rich and handsome man, would come to her, and give her all of the gifts and love in the world. Then, he would marry her, they would start a family, and they would live happily ever after. 

Mom and I had always been more like partners rather than mother and child.  I would sometimes have to make decisions for the both of us. It had been just the two of us until she had met the twins’ father.  I had been six years old.

She had once described their story as a fairy tale romance.  In a way, it was. We lived in California, where we were both from.  Mom and I were staying in a basement apartment that was rented out by a church. Mom worked two jobs. One job was a day shift and the other was a late night shift.  I saw myself off to school in the morning and tucked myself into bed at night.  When I arrived home from school, Mom was there with dinner made.  We had a half hour to eat dinner together, but then she was right out the door again to go to her night shift job.  I would give myself a bath and put myself to bed, and the cycle would begin all over again the next day. 

On the weekends, I sat by myself inside the apartment and just waited.  I made myself dinner, which was usually microwaved cooked hot dogs, or cold cut sandwiches and potato chips.  I wasn’t allowed to go outside when she wasn’t at home.  TV got boring.  The radio got boring.  Even writing fairy tales had grown boring. 

One evening I thought I could sneak out. My plan was to go outside and play in the park across the street. I had planned to come home before dinner time so that Mom wouldn’t catch me out when she would arrive home.  I figured that, as long as I brought my watch and kept an eye on the time, I would be safe.  I put on my baseball cap, made sure my clothes were straight, and tied my shoes.  I tightened my watch around my wrists and made my way to the door.  As soon as I stepped one foot out of the door, Mom was standing in front of me with her key stretched out to the knob to unlock the door.  There was a look of shock on both of our faces.  She was shocked to see me at the door. I was shocked, not because Mom was home early, but because there was a man standing beside her.  He was tall, dark, and almost handsome in that rugged, industrious kind of way. 

I stepped back, and they entered the apartment.  Mom asked me where I was going.  I told her that I had heard some noises at the door, and that I wanted to see if she was home early. She bought it, probably because she was in a good mood and did not want to question me further and become disappointed when she found out the truth.  She had a way of getting the truth out of me when she knew that I was covering up something.  However, the focus at that moment was the stranger she had brought to our home. 

“Kristen, this is Jack.  Jack is my friend from the factory.  Jack.” She looked at him with seductive eyes. “This is Kristen.”

“Hey there,” he said. 

He had a thick, southern accent.  I wondered where he was from.  At the time, I had never heard that accent before, except when I watched re-runs of
The Andy Griffith Show
on television.

“Excuse the mess,” Mom told Jack.  “It doesn’t always look this way. Kristen didn’t know that we were having a guest. Otherwise, I would have made sure she cleaned up.”

If you had asked me at the time, I did not think that Jack was interested in the apartment.  He made himself right at home, sitting down on our one couch and pulling Mom onto his lap.  They began kissing. 

After that day, Jack came over to visit more often.  Mom quit one of her jobs, saying that it was too much for her.  I knew it was because she wanted to spend more time with Jack. That was what she was doing when she wasn’t at work.  I didn’t really mind.  I was able to go outside and play when they felt like being alone. I didn’t favor the evenings when Jack spent the night, because we only had one bedroom in our small place.  Those were nights that I didn’t get much sleep. 

There came a time when Jack didn’t come around as often as he used to.  When days went by without a call from Jack, Mom buried herself in misery.  She became depressed and she missed a few days of work. 

One day she came home and said that she was tired, and that she wasn’t going back to her job.  I knew, deep down inside, they had fired her.  Then, about a week after she had been fired, Mom dragged me down to the factory where she and Jack had previously worked together.  She told me to wait behind the building for her as she stepped inside through the back door. 

She was gone for a while until finally she and Jack came out of the building together.  She was smiling, and he looked tired.  I was confused.  Mom leaned toward me. 

She said, “Kristen, everything’s going to be okay.  Jack and I are getting married.”

My mouth dropped wide open. 

“You are?”  I didn’t expect to respond aloud, but I couldn’t control myself.

“Yes,” she assured me.  “And you are going to be a big sister.”

I couldn’t open my mouth any wider.  Mom’s eyes were puffy and red.  Her face was splotchy, like she had been crying.  But she was smiling.  Jack wasn’t smiling.  He lit a cigarette and looked down at me.  I closed my mouth. 

“Okay,” I said calmly.

“Okay? Is that all you can say, Kristen?” Mom pushed at me.

I forced myself to say, “Congratulations.”

I still felt a little uncomfortable around Jack.  I didn’t get to spend any time with him before he and Mom got married.  The three of us never did anything together.  Even at the wedding, while it was taking place, I didn’t feel any connection to him.  Nevertheless, I saw that he made Mom happy. 

Mom and Jack got married in a church.  My grandmother was there, but Jack’s parents didn’t show up.  Jack’s only brother, whose name was Jonathan, was there, along with his wife, Mariah, and their only son at that time, Jonathan Jr.  All of us went out to dinner after the ceremony.  It was considered a reception.  Mom wore a maternity wedding gown, even though she didn’t look that pregnant to me. 

Jonathan Sr. was two years older than Jack. Jonathan and Mariah had been married for ten years at the time.  Their son, Jonathan Jr., whom they called John, was eight years old.  John was quiet and stayed to himself.  His mother made him dance with her a few times at the reception, but he looked like he really didn’t want to be there.  I sympathized with him. 

At the reception, Jack looked at me and smiled.  That was the first time I had ever seen him smile at me.  It was such a handsome, kind, and gentle smile, and it made me feel safe.  Jack asked me to dance with him.  I nodded, and he took my tiny hands in his and led me to the dance floor.  He let me stand on top of his feet and he waltzed me across the floor.  I laughed as he made goofy faces at me and swung me from side to side.  He was charming.

That day he told me to call him Daddy. He said that he was a nice man, and that he was going to be my daddy. I knew what a daddy was. Daddies were different from fathers. Daddies took care of their little girls, and protected them from everything. Finally, I was going to have a dad. I had always wanted a dad. 

I let him kiss me on my cheek.  At that moment, I fell in love with him.  Not in love like Mom was, but in love like little girls are in love with their dads. That’s when Jack became my Dad.  I started calling him Dad that day, as he proposed I should do.

My heart was moved, and I said, “Yes, Daddy!”

At that moment, my
Daddy
lifted me into the air and said, “Your Daddy loves you, sweetheart.”

I said, “I love you too, Daddy.”

This was a promise. I would never stop loving my Dad.

Dad decided to move us to Atlanta, Georgia, where his brother lived.  He said that he had received a job offer from one of the largest car factories in America.  He would be building cars for Ford. 

Mom didn’t hesitate.  Two weeks after the news, our bags were packed, and we were ready to go.  I was afraid to ask, but before I had a chance to, Mom gave me an opportunity to say goodbye to my real father.  Of course, I said yes.  I wanted to say goodbye.  Dad didn’t have anything to say about it. 

On our way to Atlanta, we stopped at the garage where my father worked.  He didn’t even recognize me when I stood before him.  He asked me if I was lost.  I told him that I was his daughter.  He grunted and bent down to my level.  He pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and held it out to me. 

He asked, “Is this what your mother sent you here for?”

I reached out and took the twenty dollars from him. 

“No. I’m here to say goodbye.  We are about to move to Atlanta.  It’s far away.”

My father knew that he wasn’t getting his money back.  He stood up and shifted his weight. 

“So, you’re leaving,” he said.

He looked over at the car where Mom and Dad sat, waiting for me.  The car had been packed tight with suitcases and small furniture. 

“Who’s that in the car with your Mom?”

“That’s Jack.  They got married.  Mom’s having twin babies,” I told him.

He let out a loud grunt.  That was how he let people know he was frustrated or annoyed.  I thought it was funny.  I giggled.  My father hesitated a little at first, but he wrapped his arms around me and hugged me.  He lifted me off the ground.

“Be good,” he said as he lowered me back to the ground and turned me loose from his grip.