by Beth Neff
Donna waits until Sarah’s breathing is even again, then says, “I don’t think you’re ridiculous at all. I’m not going to pretend I know very much about drug addiction, but it seems pretty obvious that the effects are not going to disappear just like that.” She snaps her fingers.
“What do you mean?”
“I just mean that whatever you’re feeling is real. If something is driving you nuts, making you feel anxious or whatever, there’s pretty much always a good reason for it. If you’re judging yourself, you know, thinking that you should be feeling different, then the feelings are just going to have to get stronger to make you pay attention to them. The drugs were a way for you to feel better and the . . . cutting”— Donna hesitates as if the word is hard to say, somehow profane and uncomfortable to voice out loud—“the cutting is the only way you have now, the only resource you’ve learned to rely on that’s still available to you.”
“What do you mean by a resource?”
“Like a tool.”
“A tool?”
“Yeah. You know, like if you’ve always used a screwdriver to clean your nails, a fingernail clipper is going to seem pretty inadequate.”
Sarah giggles a little but becomes quickly serious. “So, cutting is like using a screwdriver to clean your nails?”
Donna nods. “Kind of. I mean, cutting is the wrong tool for the job, but it’s not like the job doesn’t still need to be done.”
“What job?”
“Well, that’s what you have to figure out. You know, just because something is good for you doesn’t mean it’s not stressful, too. This place, it’s like a challenge. It gives your body everything it needs so you can focus on giving your heart and mind what they need, too. Facing those needs can get pretty scary sometimes.”
“What do you mean by what my heart and mind need? How do I figure out what they need?”
Donna twists a piece of Sarah’s hair between her fingers, thinking. She asks, “Do you hate when I tell you stories?”
Sarah smiles. “No. Do you have one for this?”
“Have you ever heard the story of Rapunzel?”
“You mean like the girl in the tower with the long hair?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I guess. I mean, that’s all I really remember. A witch puts her up there, right, sort of like Snow White, jealous of her beauty or, no, maybe like she wants to hide her so she doesn’t get the kingdom or something. I don’t know. A prince rescues her, right? That’s the way all those stories end. Drives me nuts.”
Donna laughs. “Me too. Or that interpretation anyway. But there’s another way to think about it. Can I tell you?”
“Sure.”
“Well, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this, but they say that a lot of times the figures in a dream come in threes, and all the people in it are really different parts of yourself. Have you ever heard that?”
“No.”
“Well, it can be true of fairy tales, too. So, in the Rapunzel story, that would mean that the witch and the girl and the prince are all the same person. When you think about it that way, then you can start imagining that what the witch does to Rapunzel is the same kind of thing that we sometimes do to ourselves. When we’re afraid, especially of our own power, our ‘beauty,’ so to speak, we hide it away somewhere because we have been taught that if we think of ourselves as good or special or unique, that’s bad and it might hurt someone else. Do you know what I mean?”
“Um, I guess. Or it could be that sometimes girls think that a certain kind of beauty is all they have, like the only thing that makes them worthwhile and that ends up hiding everything else about them that might be good or powerful?”
“Exactly. But the idea is not to see a part of you as evil but as, well, just that, a part of you. So, we have the girl hiding herself away for whatever reason, right?”
“Right.”
“And then the prince comes along. That’s her, too, right? That’s the part of her that she doesn’t believe she has but is curious about, tempted by or whatever. Lots of times, that part is represented by the male figure.”
Sarah is nodding. “You’re saying this prince is her, too, maybe the part of her that’s kind of adventurous or willing to fight for stuff, that sort of thing.”
“Yep. And in some versions of the story, when the witch finds out that the prince has been in the tower with Rapunzel, she goes ballistic and strikes him blind.”
“Oh, I don’t think I ever heard that part.”
“No, I don’t know if that’s in the kid versions most people know or not. But it’s kind of the whole point of the story. He’s blind and goes stumbling back through the forest. Of course, he can’t see to get himself home or to get food or anything so he’s dying. Rapunzel finds out about it and has to get down from the tower and uses her hair to do it. Right?”
“Yep. That’s the part everybody knows.”
“Uh-huh. And then, she’s out there in the forest searching for the prince. She finally finds him lying on the ground just about dead. She leans over him and her tears are dripping into his eyes and guess what?”
“Her tears heal him and make him see again.”
“Yep.”
“What do you think that’s supposed to mean?”
“You tell me.”
“Well . . .” Sarah is quiet for a bit, thinking. “I guess it’s like she had a really hard time of things for a while, but then her grief was the thing that actually could heal her.”
“Whoa, woman, you are good at this. That’s fantastic.”
Sarah can feel Donna smiling.
“Why is it so fantastic? And don’t say, ‘You tell me.’”
Donna snickers. “Okay. If the grief is healing, you can’t just pick and choose which things to grieve about. You have to accept all of it. The part of you that’s the prince is insisting that you tell the whole story, the whole true story. You can’t be blind to any of it or you won’t survive or you’ll just be stuck in that tower forever, living a life that’s designed for you by other people, along with all the things that hurt you in the first place. So, you climb down, even if it’s dangerous, even if you have to cut off your hair, even if the part of you that’s a witch is going to accuse you of all the horrible things you can think to call yourself, and you go searching in the woods until you find what is making you blind, whatever it is that’s stopping you from seeing yourself and loving yourself. It’s not about getting the guy at the end. It’s about finding and loving and forgiving yourself.”
“What if what you’ve done is so bad it can’t be forgiven, like, you’ve sort of become the witch?”
Donna pulls back from Sarah and stares down at her for a few seconds, shakes her head a little, and sighs.
“Sarah, there isn’t anything that can’t be forgiven. Nobody is just the witch. They’re also the girl in the tower. And the prince.”
“Okay, but how do you know what you need in the end? How do you decide that?”
“You don’t, really. You just do the steps with your eyes wide open. You can imagine Rapunzel trapped in a tower as a terrible thing, but you can also imagine how much better she can see from up there than if she’d been down on the ground the whole time. If she hadn’t suffered, if she hadn’t ever met her prince self, if she hadn’t cried, even if she hadn’t been blind for a while, she wouldn’t understand how important it is to see, to make a new life.”
Sarah is up on her elbow now, studying Donna. “Where did you learn all this?”
Donna smiles at Sarah. “I like to read about this sort of thing. I thought for a while I wanted to go to Europe and study at an institute where they train you to help people with these kinds of stories and ideas.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. Trapped in a tower, I guess.�
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Donna sits up and begins to gather her things. She turns to Sarah, touches her shoulder.
“Sarah?”
“What?”
“Can you give them to me?”
Sarah slowly gets up and goes over to her dresser, lifts the messy pile of underwear, stands for just a moment staring in. There are two wads of tissue stuffed in the far back corner, and Sarah reaches in, fingers one then pushes it aside, takes out the other and carries it in her palm to Donna. Donna pulls the edges apart and reaches in for a small box, about the size of a matchbook. Donna stares for a moment at the object, an ancient container of two-sided razor blades, the edges and bottom of the box rusty, a few tiny clumps of what look to be balls of grass or hay or dust jammed into the cracks.
She looks up at Sarah.
“These things are, like, a hundred years old,” she says, incredulous.
Sarah shrugs contritely. “I found them in the tool box in the barn when Grace sent me in there to get a hammer to put in the tomato stakes.”
Donna is still staring at the box. “Did you even wash them . . . ?”
Sarah is looking at the floor. “I guess I didn’t . . .”
Donna is biting her lip, takes a deep breath, but before she utters the first word, Sarah interrupts. “I will, I promise.”
Donna isn’t taking any chances. “You will what?”
“I’ll . . . come to you. I’ll talk to you before I do anything again. I promise. I won’t . . . I won’t do it anymore.”
Donna gets up and puts her arms around Sarah, the razor blades still in her hand.
“You can’t control the feelings. They don’t make you bad. You just have to know what to do when you get them. We all have those same feelings, different ways of coping with them.”
She holds Sarah away from her. “I just want to help you to find ways that don’t hurt you, okay?”
Sarah nods, thinking of the other wad of tissue, thinking that, with all Donna knows, it’s kind of funny and a little sad that she doesn’t know the right things, can’t even recognize when somebody is high.
WHEN CASSIE COMES into the kitchen, Donna is sitting at the table, the cat in her lap and her head lying on her arm, asleep. Cassie hesitates for a moment in the doorway, is trying to decide what to do, when Donna sleepily raises her head and turns slowly toward her.
“What time is it?”
Cassie glances at the wall clock, feels a little stupid telling Donna something she can clearly see for herself.
“It’s five. Do you want me to leave you alone for a little while?”
“No. No.” Donna is shaking her head but her eyes are still half closed and it looks like her head may fall back to the table. “I need to get going. Are you guys all done out there?”
“Pretty much. Grace said I should come help you because Sarah was signed up for cooking tonight. Is she okay?”
For a second, it almost seems like Donna doesn’t know what Cassie is talking about but then she nods.
“Yeah, she has a fever but I think she’ll be okay.”
Cassie sits down at the table and waits for Donna to continue.
“It’s just . . . just that . . .” Cassie is completely shocked to see that Donna has started to cry. Donna walks over to the sink and leans against the edge, her fingers rapidly wiping the tears as they fall, her back to Cassie, though it’s obvious that she’s sobbing. Before Cassie can figure out if she should just sit there or go or do something else, Donna has turned back around and folds her arms across her chest.
She’s not really looking at anything, and Cassie almost feels like Donna doesn’t even know she’s there. Her dark hair has slipped out of the short ponytail she usually wears when working in the garden and the sides are hanging loose, making her look like she’s just escaped from a vicious wind. Cassie feels like an imposter, completely unsure how to demonstrate sincere concern, and a spectator to something she shouldn’t be seeing. She is reminded of all those times in the last year or so when Gram would break down for no reason, would get mad if Cassie tried to comfort her. Cassie hated the feeling that Gram had retreated even further into herself, to a place Cassie couldn’t reach her at all, feels now the same panic that she felt then, like everyone is gone from her.
Finally, Donna sits back down at the table and swipes at her dripping nose with her knuckle. Cassie goes into the bathroom and pulls a wad of toilet paper off the spool and brings it back to Donna. Donna doesn’t say anything, just nods, then noisily blows her nose into the tissue. The short absence has given Cassie a chance to think and allowed a series of tragic scenarios to make their way into her head. If Donna is crying about Sarah, it must be because Sarah is really sick or hurt or something awful is going to happen to her. Cassie is struck with surprising force by her concern for Sarah, her remorse for having been frightened and repelled by her, and the way those feelings have completely evaporated.
While Donna is carefully folding the tissue in the search for a dry place to wipe her eyes, Cassie blurts, “Is this about Sarah?”
Donna shakes her head as if clearing fog.
“I’m sorry,” she says, “Sarah is fine. I’m worried about her but she’s going to be all right. I just . . . I know this is silly, but do you mind if I run upstairs and just check on her?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Stay right here. I’ll be right back. Okay?”
“Okay.” Donna is still hesitating as if giving in to her worry will make it justified. Cassie waves her away. “Go ahead.”
Cassie hears Donna going carefully up the stairs, moving slowly even though that doesn’t stop several of the steps from creaking loudly. In just a few minutes, she is back, looking bashful but relieved.
“She’s asleep. She actually looks a little better already, not so flushed.”
“Good. What do you think is wrong with her?”
Donna seems to study Cassie for a moment, and Cassie immediately knows she is trying to decide how much to tell her. She wills Donna to tell her what’s going on, partly out of curiosity and partly to stem the tide of anxiety.
“Well, it’s either some kind of flu or else it’s an infection.” Donna hesitates. “She . . . she’s been cutting and the cuts look pretty awful and I’m just hoping it’s not something that will require medical attention. That would just be . . . well, that would really suck. I guess I’m worried about that and mainly feeling bad that it was happening at all. We should have known and it feels terrible that we didn’t. It just seemed like she was better, that so many things were happening that we could point to and call improvements, you know? It’s, well, it’s just scary, how . . . complicated everything is.”
Though Cassie doesn’t exactly know what Donna is talking about, she can only think about one thing.
“Could she have to go to the hospital?” The question sounds childish even in Cassie’s own ears, but it’s the picture she can’t shake, tiny Sarah in a hospital bed, white sheets and white walls and probably her skin all pale and white, too, with tubes and wires running every which way. It’s the same image she always had for Gram, the fear she always carried that, if she didn’t take good enough care of Gram, they would take her away, put her someplace where Cassie might not even be allowed to go. Would they be able to visit Sarah if she went to the hospital? Maybe she wouldn’t come back here at all.
Donna has her hand on Cassie’s wrist. “Hey, don’t worry, Cassie. I really do think she’s going to be fine. She’d have to be a lot sicker than this before she’d need to go to the hospital, and we just need to make sure that doesn’t happen. I told her we’d give it one day. If there isn’t significant improvement by then, we’ll get a doctor to come out. Okay? Plus, I haven’t even talked to Ellie about it. Maybe she’ll want the doctor to come out right now.”
“How will you know if
she’s better?”
“Well, the fever should come down and the cuts will look less red and swollen. She should be feeling pretty alert and hungry and all that stuff in a day or two. I already looked at her medical records to be sure she’s had her tetanus shots and found out she even got a booster at the Center because they worry about needle contamination for addicts. So, let’s not worry. And Cassie?”
“Yes?”
“Let’s try not to feel guilty either, okay? This is nobody’s fault.”
Cassie doesn’t answer right away. Is there something she should have been doing to help Sarah, something she should be doing right now? For some reason, the image of Lauren flashes through her mind. A non-existent brother. A pile of cards. Should Cassie say something and, if so, what would she say? How would she say it? Certainly there’s no chance that she has noticed something that everybody else doesn’t already know.
“Cassie?”
“Yes?”
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“Now, what are we going to have for supper?”
Donna pushes herself heavily up from the table and moves to the refrigerator, opens it and stares into it as if she doesn’t recognize anything in there. Cassie sometimes wonders how she ever does since all the food is stored in recyled containers, the labels absolutely no indication of what is inside them.
“This is the craziest thing, but I don’t want to cook. Isn’t that weird for me?”
Cassie shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m surprised you don’t get tired of it more often.”
Cassie hesitates, wonders if her offer might be heard the wrong way.
“I could fix supper. If you wanted to rest, I mean. I’m sure there are plenty of leftovers.” But Donna seems to barely hear her.