By the end of the day, the police had a confession and plenty of evidence. They were simply waiting to see if they’d be filing rape and assault charges or murder charges.
James pressed a hand to his chest, trying to rub away the persistent ache. There were moments at Cara’s bedside when he thought he’d simply forgotten how to breathe. When he wished to God he could forget how to breathe. Never much of a praying man, James prayed constantly. He bargained, he begged, he pleaded, he cajoled. Just let her live. Please God, just let her live.
On day eleven Cara woke up.
∗ ∗ ∗
I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here. Why didn’t Payne kill me? He should have killed me.
Cara knew where she was. She knew why. And she knew who sat beside her. He’d seen her. Oh God, he’d seen the awful things Payne had done to her. Cara couldn’t bear it. Not now. Not ever. She kept her eyes closed.
“Go away,” she hissed through gritted teeth. “Go away.”
“Cara, sweetheart, Cara, it’s me, James. You’re going to be okay. Cara, it’s going to be okay. It’s all right, sweetie. Oh God, honey, everything is going to be okay.”
Cara heard the tears in his voice.
“Go away,” she repeated. The sound of her own voice made her head hurt. “Leave.”
“Cara . . .”
She felt a hand on her arm. She moved away from his touch.
“I’m not going anywhere Cara. I love you. I’m not leaving you. It will be okay. I swear it will be okay. We’ll get through this.”
“My head hurts.”
“I’ll get the nurse,” James said. “I’ll only be gone for a second. You’ll be okay, I promise.”
No, Cara wanted to say, It won’t be okay James. It will never be okay. She heard someone else enter the room. Within minutes Cara found herself drifting and she realized a nurse must have given her something for pain. Yes. That feels better. That feels very good. I can go back to sleep.
∗ ∗ ∗
“She won’t talk to me,” said James, pacing in the hallway outside ICU, distraught. “She won’t see her friend, Jeanie. She won’t see Dr. Marsh. She won’t see anyone but her mother.”
“I know,” said Will. “If it makes you feel any better she won’t talk to me either.”
James stared at his friend. “It doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“At least she finally agreed to an interview with the police,” said Will. “It’s a start.”
Cara had told the police what happened, but she’d refused to allow James to be there for her to help her through the ordeal. Instead, she’d sent him out of the room, asking him to close the door behind him.
Today when he’d arrived, the charge nurse in ICU greeted him with the news that Cara was refusing all visitors, including him. He didn’t know what he was going to do. He had no idea how to bring her back, how to get the Cara he loved to come back to him. When he’d spoken with her neurosurgeon Dr. Peterson repeated his warning that sometimes patients who had suffered traumatic brain injuries experienced personality changes. James already knew that. He didn’t think this was a personality change. This was Cara’s response to the attack, withdrawing from everything and everyone. This was Cara blaming herself for Ezra Payne.
“Do you know when she will be released?”
“Sorry.” James had been lost in thought. “What did you say?”
“When will she be released?”
“Dr. Peterson is talking about moving her to a rehab unit. She needs therapy for her hands and she’s a little unsteady on her feet.”
“What about the left eye, any improvement?”
“She’s lost some peripheral vision. It may be permanent. I don’t know. She won’t talk to me about it. Any information I get comes from her mother.”
“It seems odd that her mom is the only person she’ll talk to. I remember you telling me the two of them didn’t get along very well.”
“Yeah,” said James. “Once upon a time they didn’t. That’s one good thing, I guess.”
“Does she know you need to decide about the fellowship?”
“No, I haven’t wanted to bring it up. To tell you the truth, I haven’t had an opportunity to bring it up. Even if I did, I’m not sure I want to lay that kind of pressure on her. I want to stay with her, but I don’t think . . .” James paused, “I don’t think she wants me around.”
“Maybe it’s just shock, you know, the shock of everything, kind of a temporary setback. Maybe if you give her a few months she’ll be back to normal.”
James cleared his throat and stopped his pacing. “You don’t know Cara like I do, Will. I keep trying to convince myself that this is temporary, that she’ll snap out of it, but the truth is I don’t know if she can. I’m scared to death, man. I am scared to death that this is as good as it’s gonna get. That fucking Payne. That mother fucking Payne.”
February 1977
Cara had herself admitted to the University’s inpatient psychiatric ward. She felt much safer there than she did on a medical unit, and she could restrict her visitors. Reliving the attack for the police had been brutal. Ezra Payne had entered her bathroom as she dozed in the tub. He’d talked to her, tried to tell her how much he cared about her. She’d shouted at him to get out of her apartment, to leave. She fought to climb out of the tub and get away from him, but he’d been too strong and he dragged her into her bedroom. She’d managed to grab for the phone, smashing it across his nose, but he threw her to the floor, ripped the phone from the wall.
She’d almost gotten away, making it to the door of the apartment before he’d tackled her, knocking the wind out of her. She remembered him punching her, kicking her in the side, in the ribs, in the stomach. The last thing she recalled was a vicious kick to the head. After that, she drew a blank. She didn’t remember the rape. She didn’t remember losing the baby.
Payne plea-bargained. Cara didn’t have to testify in court. Because of the vicious nature of the crime, he was sentenced to forty-five years in the state penitentiary.
James had returned to his fellowship in North Carolina. Before she’d been discharged from the ICU Cara bluntly informed him that they had no future together she called off the engagement. She’d been cold, cruel. She’d broken him, watching him shatter as she spoke the words. But she’d hardened her own heart. It was for the best. James needed someone else in his life, a nice woman, not a train wreck, not her.
On his way to the airport James had stopped by her room one last time to tell her he wasn’t giving up on them.
“I will always love you,” he’d said. “I’ll wait for you.”
“Don’t,” Cara had replied. “Don’t waste your time.” Then she’d turned her face away from him.
She’d held her breath until she heard him leave the ICU. When his footsteps finally faded away, she’d begun to cry. Once she opened the floodgates Cara was unable to close them again. She’d climbed out of bed and stumbled toward the door, trailing IV lines behind her, intent upon throwing herself down the stairs. When the nurses finally managed to stop her she’d begged them to sedate her, and the staff had complied for her safety.
Circumscribed was the only way Cara could describe her life in the psych ward. It was exactly as it had been years before when she’d been hospitalized. She met with her psychiatrist or one of the psychiatric residents daily because that was expected of her. Three times a week she sat in silence through group therapy sessions. She left the ward every afternoon for an hour of hand therapy. The physical therapist remained optimistic that Cara would regain most of the dexterity in her hands, but her hands and fingers were badly scarred from the initial injuries and the surgical repairs. No matter how diligently she worked them, her fingers continued to feel stiff and unwieldy. She doubted she’d ever paint again, but then, Cara didn’t really care.
She met with the ophthalmologist once a week for a recheck of her vision, and with her neurologist every two w
eeks so he could assess her progress. The ophthalmologist gave her exercises to compensate for the continued lack of peripheral vision in her left eye, telling Cara she could expect only a slight improvement. Her neurologist continued to reassure her that she would feel more normal as time went on. Cara laughed at him. This was normal.
Her mother visited regularly, bringing her flowers, cookies and letters from James. Cara gave the flowers to the nurses, the cookies to her fellow patients, and she stuffed the letters from James, unopened, into the shoebox where she kept the letters he’d sent from North Carolina. Aside from a few necessary articles of clothing, the shoebox was the only thing she’d asked her mother to bring her from the apartment.
Her mother and Phil Jackson had packed up her possessions and her artwork, hauling everything back to her mother’s house. Phil had somehow gotten permission to leave Cara’s car parked in the patient lot. She told him she wanted it left there in case she decided to check herself out and come home. In reality she wanted it there in case she decided to disappear. She had no idea where she’d go, but the idea of vanishing off the face of the earth appealed to her.
∗ ∗ ∗
In early April, Cara’s mother arrived for an unplanned visit. She told Cara she and Phil had gotten married. Cara wasn’t surprised. She’d expected the news for some time. Her mother had already put Cara’s childhood home on the market and moved into Phil’s larger house, assuring Cara she’d continued to store her things.
“You’re very young and you have so many options, dear,” her mother said. She added with obvious hesitation, “You can always call James, you know. He and I talk at least once a week. He loves you Cara. He wants to be with you. You don’t have to think about marriage, you know. Why not talk to him? What would it hurt?”
What would it hurt? Him. Me. My heart bleeds when I think of James.
“Maybe I’ll consider it, Mom,” she said, knowing she’d do no such thing.
“Good. That’s good. That’s progress,” said her mother with a smile, giving Cara a pat on the knee. “Here.” Her mom reached into her purse. “Here are some letters. They’re from James. Oh, and there’s one from Park City, Utah. Who do you know in Utah?”
Curious, Cara reached for the letters. She set those from James on the bed, but held onto the letter from Utah, turning it over in her hand. She glanced at the front of the envelope. There was no name on the return address, but the messy scrawl looked familiar. As she stared at the envelope Cara felt something stir inside her, something she hadn’t felt in many months, interest. Reluctant to read it in front of her mother, she set the letter aside.
“I’ll read it later. I don’t know anyone in Utah. It’s probably something to do with school.”
Cara’s mother shrugged, the letter forgotten. She ran a cautious hand over Cara’s shorn head. “I wish you hadn’t asked the nurses to chop off your beautiful hair.”
Cara raised her eyebrows. Beautiful hair? “I didn’t have much of a choice. A third of my head was already shaved.”
Her mother sighed. “Do you think you might come home for your birthday? Are you feeling well enough? You know, well enough to check yourself out? You can always see Dr. Bowman if you need to talk to someone.”
Cara looked into her mother’s eyes, hating the hope she saw there. “Maybe,” she replied with a forced smile.
“So have you done any painting? Anything in therapy you want to show me?”
“No. I don’t paint. Remember, my hands?”
“Well, what about clay? Are you working with clay? I would think that would be good for you.”
“No, Mom. I’m not working with clay.” Cara changed the subject. “Can you stay for lunch?”
Cara’s mother looked her up and down. “I’d love to stay for lunch. That way I can make sure you eat something.”
Cara had lost a great deal of weight since the attack.
“Yes, Mom, you can make sure I eat.” Cara glanced once more at the letter from Utah. She walked with her mother to the cafeteria, her stomach turning somersaults. Something was coming. Cara didn’t know if it would be something good or something bad, but she sensed a subtle change in air pressure, like the feeling she got when storm clouds began to build in the distance. It was almost as if she could smell the ozone from a nearby lightning strike. Cara couldn’t hear thunder, but she could feel its rumble all the same.
∗ ∗ ∗
Cara returned to her room after therapy, still obsessing about the letter from Park City. She didn’t know anyone who lived in Utah, yet the letter had practically crackled with electricity in her hands. When she picked it up again, she did so gingerly, holding it by the edges, fearful she might feel the thing pulse beneath her fingers. She didn’t know whether to open it or not. She considered tossing it in the trash, yet that felt wrong. Cara got a feeling she was supposed to open it, as if the letter had arrived at this particular juncture for a reason. Yet still she hesitated.
After staring at the letter for fifteen minutes, she ripped open the envelope. Inside was a simple sheet of yellow notebook paper folded into thirds. Cara unfolded the sheet and she began to read. The letter was short.
Dear Cara,
I haven’t talked to you in a long time, but for some reason you popped into my head the other day. I wonder what you’re doing now. Do you still live in Iowa? I no longer live in California. Two years ago I moved to Park City, Utah. I’m a ski instructor during the day and I wait tables at night. The skiing is great and the restaurant business is big here. If you ever want to visit, here’s my address, 1616 Kearns Boulevard. My phone number is (801) 435-5210. If you get this letter and you feel like it, give me a call sometime. Spring skiing is great! You’d love it!
Yours truly, John
Cara realized she’d been holding her breath. She blew it out in a whoosh. Flopping down onto her bed, she re-read the letter twice, considering. John. Utah. Skiing. She hadn’t thought about John since high school. What would it hurt to call him tomorrow? She had checked herself into the psych ward, she could check herself out. She had her car keys, enough clothes for the time being, and plenty of money in her savings account.
Knowing John, he wouldn’t care if she showed up out of the blue and he wouldn’t care why she showed up. She doubted he’d ask her a single question; he’d just open the door and let her in.
Yes, this is exactly what I’ve been wishing for. The chance to crawl out of my own skin and be somebody else, go somewhere else. The timing could not have been better. Even if the devil himself waited for her in Utah, that’s where Cara would go.
∗ ∗ ∗
“She’s gone.” Louise Jackson buried her face in her hands and sobbed. “What do I do Will? What do I do?”
Will helped the distraught woman into a chair.
“Cara?” He was incredulous. “Gone? I just talked to one of the nurses over the weekend.”
“No, she checked herself out, on Monday. She checked herself out. What do I do? Should I call the police?”
Will ran a hand through his short hair. He didn’t know what to do. In the state Cara was in . . . God, he didn’t even want to think about it. Cara’s mother clutched a piece of paper in her hand.
“What’s that? Is that a note? Did she leave a note? Let me see it.”
When he reached for the piece of paper Cara’s mother didn’t resist. Her empty hand flopped onto her thigh.
The note was terse.
Mom, I’ve gone to visit a friend. I’m safe. I have plenty of money. Please try not to worry. I promise to contact you soon. Cara.
The first time he read it through, Will saw only letters of the alphabet. The second time he read the words. What the hell?
“Who is she talking about?” Will asked. “Do you have any idea who she’s visiting?”
“No, no idea whatsoever. I don’t know anyone she knows other than you and James and some of the people from her work.”
“What about the staff? Do they have a clue where she
went?”
“No.” Mrs. Franklin rubbed her eyes. “They just said she checked herself in so she could check herself out.” The woman paused. “You don’t think, oh my god, you don’t think she’ll hurt herself, do you?”
Will shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. This isn’t a suicide note. I don’t think Cara’s the type. I mean— if she was inclined to do something she would have done it months ago.”
Cara’s mother let out a heart-wrenching cry. Will knelt down beside her. He put an arm around her shoulder.
“Look, I’m not quite sure what to do, but I don’t think you can send the police after her. Cara’s an adult. Do you have any reason to believe she might be in danger? Did she say anything to you, anything at all the last time you were here?”
Mrs. Jackson began to hiccup. “No, she seemed . . . She seemed okay. We had lunch together. I brought her a couple of letters from James and she probably stuck them in the box, the shoebox where she keeps them.”
“Did she leave the box? Did she leave anything? You’re her mother. If she left something behind, the nursing staff should give it to you.”
“No, I asked. There’s nothing in her room. All she left was the note. It was at the nurses’ station.”
Will was stumped. “Is there anything else you can remember, anything at all?”
“No. Yes. There was a letter, another letter, from Utah. I don’t know who sent it. There was no name on the return address. She didn’t open it while I was there. She left it on her bed.”
“Did she say anything about it?”
“No, just that she didn’t know anyone in Utah. That’s all she said.”
“Okay. Let’s not jump to any conclusions. She may be in Utah or she may be here in Iowa City, staying with a friend from the Art Department. I don’t know. I’m pretty sure you can take her at her word. She’s safe. She’s not going to hurt herself. Let’s wait for her to call. She said she’ll get in touch with you so let’s assume she’s telling you the truth.”
“But, Will, how do I tell James? How do I explain this to James? He’s still hoping she’ll change her mind about the two of them.”
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