Her (3 page)

“Okay.”

“Hey,” he called out to me as I started to walk away.  “Give me back my twenty dollars.”

I pretended not to hear him and kept on walking.  I climbed into the car, and Dad asked me if I was all right.  I said I was fine.  I really was. We were going to a new home somewhere bright and beautiful. Life was going to be just like in the fairy tales.

It took almost a week to get across the country to Atlanta, Georgia, because we kept stopping and resting in hotels.  Jack drove the whole way because he didn’t want Mom to get sick at the wheel. 

When we arrived in Atlanta, we checked into a hotel.  Atlanta was definitely a completely new world for Mom and me.  On the day we arrived, the sun was shining and it was warm.  I loved the feeling that this move gave me.  I thought that we were finally going to be free.  I thought our lives were only going to get better. 

Jack moved us into a house a month after being in Atlanta and working at the Ford factory.  Mom was starting to show her pregnant belly.  Jack was the love of our lives.  He rescued us just like in the stories that I used to write.  This was supposed to be our happily ever after.  We were supposed to live like that forever.

CHAPTER 3

I used to like roller coasters.  I especially liked the ones at amusement parks that turned me upside down and twisted me from left to right, brought me over a big hump and down the long free-fall, moving so fast that, when it stopped, my stomach felt like I had left it behind.  Those rides were so fun.

Life seemed to have become one of those roller coasters, except this time I didn’t like it.  I didn’t like being twisted through life and thrown around out of control, not knowing what horrible thing was going to happen next.  One day things were fine, and then everything seemed to start spinning completely out of control.  Life became a ride that I wanted to shut down permanently. 

I had always kept in mind that there were others in the world that had it worse than I did.  I didn’t want to be selfish.  I just didn’t think of it as selfish.  Maybe it was selfish of me as a big sister.  If I had succeeded in killing myself, my little brother and sister would have been left alone with Mom.

My mind drifted constantly to Nicholas, and his face when he’d seen me in the ambulance.  When Nick was younger, he hadn’t minded me calling him Nickyroo.  Of course, being older, it wasn’t a cool thing to do.  I hadn’t seen Alison there the night I’d tried to commit suicide. I hoped she hadn’t been there at the house when it happened.

I was thinking too much. I couldn’t sleep, anyway.  I kept my eyes closed until I heard the door open.

I didn’t want to open my eyes.  My head felt like it wasn’t attached to any part of my body.  It felt light, like it was spinning on an axis in outer space.  I grunted and threw the covers over my face.

A voice spoke loudly. “Is that how you’re greeting me now?” 

I recognized the voice.  I was groggy, but I still knew who it was.

“Mom…”

Even though I whispered, she still heard me.

I felt her sit down beside me on the bed.  The covers were still over my face, and my eyes were still closed.  I was sad and scared because I was still alive.  Tears came out of my eyes.  Mom was mad, and I knew it.

“Hey,” she said in a gentle voice.  “Can I have a hug?”

I stayed under the covers.  This was a trick.  Why was she being so calm? 

She didn’t give up. 

“Kristen?  It’s okay.  Please let me see your face.  Kristen, take the covers off of your face.”  Her voice began to change.  She was becoming frustrated.  “You could at least…”

I was staring up at her and she didn’t realize it.  She didn’t notice until she almost started yelling at me.  I threw out my arms and I let her fall into them.  I patted her back as she squeezed me. 

Finally, she let go of me and said, “Look at you,” with sadness in her voice.

I took a deep breath and prepared myself for what was coming next.  It took her a minute to go through her whole act.  She sighed.  She wiped at her dry eyes as her imaginary tears fell.  She shook her head at me and stared down at my heavily bandaged wrists.  I kept quiet and let her go through the drama until she was ready. 

When she finally pulled herself together, she asked, “Why?”

I shook my head. 

“No. You owe me more than that, Kristen!  For goodness sake, tell me why you did this!”  She yelled as she gestured to my wrists.

Mom was angry. I should have stayed under the covers.  I heard her begin to sob.  When I looked at her, there weren’t any tears coming out of her eyes.  There were only dry sobs.

“You know you have to stay here.  They said that you have to go to a psychiatric hospital in a few days when you get out of here.  They are going to lock you up, Kristen.  That’s what happens when you try to kill someone. They lock you up.”

The last thing I wanted was to be locked up somewhere.  I especially didn’t like hospitals, and psychiatric hospitals weren’t any better, from what I had seen on television. 

“When can I get out, Mom?” I asked, afraid.

She looked down at me.  Her eyes were dry and serious. 

“Why?  So that you can get out and do it again?”

I shook my head. 

Mom started to say, “Does this have to do with Jack getting--” but she was interrupted.

Dr. Cuvo walked into the room. Mom looked startled and quickly rose to her feet.  When she realized he was a doctor, she sighed in relief.  She greeted Dr. Cuvo, and they shook hands.  Dr. Cuvo looked down at me and asked how I was doing.  I lied and said that I was fine. 

Dr. Cuvo then turned back to Mom to introduce himself.

“I’m Dr. Cuvo.  I am Kristen’s psychiatrist.  Kristen will be transferred to Bent Creek Psychiatric Hospital in a few days.  Do you mind if we step into the hallway to speak?” 

He gestured to the door for my mother to follow him.  She looked back at me and gave me a sympathetic smile.  She touched my face warmly and then followed Dr. Cuvo out the door.

I waited for something.  I grew afraid because I didn’t know what was going on out there.  What was he saying to her that I couldn’t hear?  I suddenly wanted to go home.  I wanted to get away from the hospital.  I couldn’t spend another day in this place.  I knew that if Dr. Cuvo was explaining things to my mom about what I’d done the other day when we had first met, she would get angrier and more stressed out because of me.  She had already seen what I had done, or what I had tried to do, at home.

I had always been a problem for Mom.  I didn’t do these things on purpose.  I didn’t want to be labeled as her “troubled child,” because I knew that she had a lot on her plate. 

I hadn’t made things any better for her when her life had taken a wide turn. Jack had seemed to change overnight after the twins had been born, and that’s when things had gotten worse for her.  She’d suffered from postpartum depression. 

We’d been a happy family for a little while after the twins had grown older.  Mom had started taking anti-depressant medication. She’d asked me to help her out with Nick and Alison.  I’d had no problem helping with the twins. I’d adored being their big sister.

That was how I’d fallen in love with Nicholas.  I’d reached for Nick first when I’d first seen the pair. He was my favorite. Nick and I were always doing things together.  Mom and Alison spent most of their time together, playing in the garden or doing girly things in the kitchen.  Nick and I were more adventurous.  We played sports and hunted for treasure in our backyard.

Dad still played the role of Knight in Shining Armor. He provided for us financially and he kept Mom happy.  He did work a lot. Mom always needed someone to lean on. Dad was her strong arm because he was always there when she needed him.

We were happy those first few years of our lives together as a family.  It didn’t last very long.  It was around the fifth year that life began to change dramatically.  Things started going on behind closed doors.  There were many arguments between Mom and Dad.  This change in our family started slowly around the time the twins were first born and when Mom was diagnosed with postpartum depression. Then the dramatic change crept up into one big mess all at one time. 

The big moment was when Dad lost his job at Ford.  Money problems began to arise, and Mom had to get a job.  I was home with the twins after we got out of school. I had to help in a bigger way, and I did not like that very much. I gave Mom a hard time whenever she asked me to do things like make dinner for the kids and clean up behind them. It seemed like I was being asked to be their mother since she had to work. Mom resented me for my behavior, and she made it known to me by telling me how selfish I was.

Dad worked odd jobs.  He had quit the stable jobs he managed to land. He compared those jobs to Ford, saying that the new jobs weren’t paying as much as he would have been making if he had still been at Ford. Often times, he and Mom didn’t sleep in the same bed because of how angry they would get at each other.  Dad didn’t seem to care.  His head was somewhere else.  It bothered me.  Dad and I always talked.  If I had something on my mind, I went to him and we discussed it.  He didn’t hold back from me, and I loved him for that. 

I remembered the last time it was like that for him and me.  It was the last time I remember him being my dad, and our Knight in Shining Armor.  I went to him while he was lying on the sofa.  Mom had already gone to bed.  The twins were asleep.

“Dad?” I called out to him.

He looked up at me. He looked as if he did not know who I was.  There was no smile, no expression, on his face.  I stood, frozen.  I did not recognize him. 

“Daddy, are you okay?” I asked him, still standing there. 

He stood up, looking larger than ever. 

“What do you want, Kristen?” he asked.

He walked towards the kitchen, and I followed behind.

“Daddy? You and Mom aren’t sleeping in the same room anymore.  Are you mad at each other?”

“No,” Dad said with a warm smile. “Mommy and I just have to take a time out for a little bit. It will be okay.”

“I’m scared.”

We stood in the kitchen.  He had started pouring a glass of Jim Beam for himself.  He took a sip, stared down at me and said, “There’s no need to be scared.” 

His eyes were glassy.  They looked sad. 

He sat the empty glass down on the kitchen counter and bent down to my level.  He put his arms around me and hugged me gently.  Even though he stank of alcohol, I still wrapped my arms around him, closing my eyes and letting myself take in his comfort.

“It will be all right, Kristen…It will be all right…”

What was this pressure?  I started to feel his grip on me tighten.  He was squeezing me.  It started to hurt. 

“It will be all right… all right…”

“No, Dad, that hurts.  Please, Dad
,
stop.”  I started to cry.

He was hurting me.  I had no idea what he was doing.  It hurt too much.  It was too hard to make a sound, because I could barely breathe.  He lifted me up off the floor in his tight grip, and he stared into my eyes.  My eyes were wide open as I tried to gasp for air.  It felt like he was going to crush me. I cried, afraid.

“It’s going to be all right…all right…”  He kept repeating this over and over. 

Tears fell from my eyes.  Dad leaned in and pressed his lips against my open mouth.  He was breathing heavily.  He kept kissing me, but his kisses were different.  It wasn’t like the time he’d kissed me at his and Mom’s wedding.  This was like a monster trying to devour a child whose closet it had been hiding in.  The monster came out.  Before I realized what he was trying to do, I heard Mom’s frantic voice. 

“Kristen!” she shouted at me. 

The monster dropped me to the floor.  It felt like a long way down. My hip landed on the hard wood. 

“What is going on here?” Mom had a look on her face that scared me. 

“Kristen! Now, I told you to have this kitchen cleaned up!” the monster shouted.

Mom looked at him.  Then she looked down at me.  The monster walked over to my mother and put a hand on her shoulder.  She stiffened at his touch.

“What the hell were you doing to my daughter?” she asked him. 

The monster leaned into her and began talking to her. He was talking so low that I couldn’t hear anything he was saying.  It must have been convincing enough for her because, by the time he was finished, she was already like putty in his hands.  She wrapped her arms around him and they hugged. 

“I’ll be to bed in just a minute.  Let me finish up here with her,” the monster told Mom.

Mom looked back at me and hesitated turning away.  The monster kissed her cheek and assured her that everything was fine.  He shooed her away gently and watched her disappear down the hall. 

When I heard their bedroom door shut, I didn’t know what to think.  I didn’t know what was coming next from this monster whom I had never seen before.