Straightjacket

by Meredith Towbin

  “Caleb?” Anna’s voice brought him back. The kitchen sink he was slumped over came into focus. “There’s a guy at the door who says you ordered some groceries?”

  “Yeah.” His voice cracked. He turned around and found her standing like she was ready to brace herself for a punch to the gut. Her brightness was gone; the worry and strain had settled so easily into her face. Even though she wore the same tank top and jeans she put on that morning, she’d changed completely. He hadn’t noticed it until now.

  He hated himself.

  He’d done this.

  I promised never to hurt her.

  But he did it so easily, without even realizing it.

  He rushed over and squeezed her hard, lifting her a few inches up off the ground.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She sunk into him and her body jerked, surrendering to the deep sobbing.

  “You went away from me. Don’t do that again.” He squeezed her tighter.

  “I won’t. I promise.” The guilt was becoming unbearable, but he deserved it and took it.

  The kitchen door swung open. “Where do you want this?” a husky voice asked. They ripped apart. Anna wiped her eyes with the palm of her hand.

  “On the counter. Thanks,” Caleb answered. The man dropped the paper grocery bags where Caleb had said and handed him the receipt. His hand dug deep down into his pocket. “Keep the rest,” he said handing over a stack of bills.

  “Thanks, buddy.” The deliveryman counted the money and passed through the door, leaving them alone.

  Anna’s eyes were still red, and her lashes, coated with tears, were an even darker black. He rubbed his thumb against her cheek, sweeping away the leftover tears.

  “Don’t cry. I don’t want to make you cry.”

  “I’m not crying anymore,” she answered, trying to muster a smile.

  “Are you hungry? Want to pack a lunch and have a picnic?”

  “Yeah, that sounds good.” The palm of her hand wiped her cheeks dry, once and for all. “Let’s put away the groceries first.” She pulled the packages out, one by one, and placed them on the counter. “Where do you want all this?”

  “Wherever,” he said, delving into another bag himself. Once they’d found a spot for everything, they packed themselves a lunch of tuna sandwiches and Cokes, grabbed a blanket, and headed outside.

  “Want to take a walk around the lake? There are lots of places we can sit and eat.”

  “Perfect.”

  Caleb led the way, his hand holding hers.

  Although the path was faint and little more than a thin dirt trail littered with fallen leaves, it led them reliably around the lake. It guided them in between fallen branches, wildflowers, winding rows of ivy, and an army of tree trunks. Caleb stopped to pick some wild blueberries and saved them for lunch. Every few minutes the drone of cicadas filled the space around them, and in between birds called to each other. The leaves of the trees shaded them, and by the time the harsh rays of the sun reached them on the forest floor, all that was left was a soft, warm glow.

  They were the only two people in the world, living right there in the wildness, needing nothing except each other and what they found. There was no place for psychiatric diagnoses or nurses who pushed pills. They didn’t enter Caleb’s mind. Instead, he lost himself in Anna and what was around them.

  When they walked far enough, he found a break in the trees that led them closer to the lake. Caleb laid the blanket down on a patch of grass and they sat together, gazing out over the water while they ate their sandwiches and blueberries. Giant birds circled the lake high above, and fish leaped out of the water, rushing toward the insects on the surface. The lake and the woods around it were their own world; nothing manmade or foreign was allowed in. And Caleb was anything but foreign. This place, more than anywhere else, was his home. He belonged as much as the birds and the fish. And now Anna belonged there too.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Anna found herself living a life that she never could have dreamed of. It was simple and beautiful and left her wanting for nothing. They spent their days outdoors, making a ritual of walking around the lake, eating berries along the way, and picking wildflowers. She liked to take a bunch for a vase in the house, and sometimes she stuck one behind her ear or wound a few together to make a crown. Frilly girl stuff like perfume and pretty dresses was never her thing, but she loved the flowers, and here she could surround herself with things she loved.

  When they were through with their walks, they’d sit out on the deck until the sun set. Caleb would find a spot at the wooden table and lose himself in his drawing while Anna would indulge in one of the novels from the study in a nearby chair.

  One time, though, after she’d worked up enough courage over several days, she brought the ratty old notebook from the study outside. Determined to finally write, she let the tip of the pencil hover over the first page. But all she could do was stare at the blank white sheet, frozen. More than anything, she was scared. Being a writer was a lifelong dream of hers, but if she actually sat down to do it—what if she was terrible? Her dream would be dead, and that would leave her in a place that she never wanted to go.

  Just as she was about to go back inside and throw the notebook back onto the desk, Caleb mumbled something.

  “Don’t forget to be un-perfect.” He hadn’t even picked his head up from his drawing.

  As she laughed, her body relaxed. Without thinking about it, she jotted down a sentence that just came to her. Instead of rereading it, analyzing it, telling herself it was awful, she kept writing. The less she worried about how well she was doing, the more the words started gushing out. And just like that, she became a writer who wrote. Every night after that, she devoted herself to filling at least one page of the notebook.

  At first, what she wrote one day would have nothing to do with what she wrote the next. There was so much buried inside of her, it just exploded out onto the page. But soon she noticed the same things coming up over and over again. She wrote about things she knew and had lived through. She wished she hadn’t known about them, but they were part of her. There was a kind of relief that came from releasing them onto the pages.

  Writing wasn’t the only thing she realized she could do. She was learning how to cook. Every evening Caleb would sit at the kitchen table and keep her company while she made dinner. The ritual began with her bent over one of his mother’s old cookbooks, staring at the page with a furrowed brow. Caleb would laugh at her seriousness and tease her mercilessly until he broke her concentration, and she’d feign anger and threaten to kick him out. Of course she never did. Instead she’d tell him to make himself useful and chop an onion or open a jar on account of her useless arm. When dinner was ready, they’d sit across from each other with a candle flickering between them. Caleb would rave about how good dinner was and how sorry he was to be so hard on her, promising never to do it again. Anna could literally feel the happiness in her body.

  Her favorite part of the day, though, was late at night when Caleb led her into the bedroom to show her how much he loved her. He was gentle and patient, which made her want him that much more. She was so grateful to him for showing her who she could be. They were as close to becoming one person as they could possibly be.

  * * *

  One morning, Anna woke up to a gigantic clap of thunder. She bolted upward, falling back on her elbow. Her mind, still dazed with sleep, couldn’t understand what the noise was at first, but when it happened again, she noticed the deep gray sky out the window.

  She nestled her head back into her pillow and closed her eyes, listening to the drumming of the rain on the roof and breathing in the clean smell of the cotton pillowcase. The thunder came every few seconds. Sometimes it came fast and violent, while other times it was a gentle roll. Her breaths came slow and deep as she listened, no longer scared or surprised. The storm raged around them and she felt no particular way about it, like a bird outside might sit disinterestedly in its warm nest, ignorin
g the frenzy of the rain and lightning all around it.

  Caleb slept through all of it. He lay still and perfect, his dark hair matted in some places and sticking straight up in others. She studied his face and loved every part of it—his pale skin, his long eyelashes, the rough stubble that had grown overnight. The word angelic popped into her mind, but she didn’t let it do anything to her.

  Her mind was building the beginnings of a dream when she was woken up again.

  Banging.

  Starting and stopping.

  Over and over.

  It wasn’t thunder.

  “Caleb,” she whispered, lightly shaking his shoulder. “Wake up.”

  “Huh?” He turned onto his back and stretched. “What’s wrong?” he said, his eyes still closed. The banging sounded through the house again, and he opened his eyes.

  “Someone’s outside,” she whispered. “Was anyone supposed to come by this morning?”

  “No, no. Stay here,” he said, pulling on a pair of jeans over his boxer shorts. “I’ll go down and see who’s there.”

  After he left the room, Anna sat up in bed and folded her legs up close to her body, resting her chin on her knees. She didn’t dare move an inch, not wanting even the rustling of the sheets to prevent her from hearing what was going on below. The heavy oak door cracked open, but the squeak of the screen door opening didn’t follow. There were muffled voices, one of which she knew was Caleb’s, but she couldn’t make out the other. It was deep, so she assumed it belonged to a man.

  The voices got louder. Things felt wrong. She leaped out of bed and scrambled to get dressed.

  “Damn sling,” she muttered as her arm caught inside her twisted T-shirt. She stuck her legs through her jeans and jumped up and down, trying to pull them up as fast as she could. Still trying to button her jeans with one hand, she stumbled down the stairs.

  Caleb, naked from the waist up, stood at the door.

  On the other side of the screen was her father.

  She stood glued to the spot, stunned. Her breath caught in her chest. The shock made it so that she couldn’t even feel her heart beating. Her thoughts told her over and over that this must be a dream. She tried desperately to wake up, but the image in front of her didn’t disappear and kept going and going and going.

  “I said I want to see my daughter right now,” her father snarled. “So help me, I will rip through this door!”

  “I’m right here.” Anna’s body propelled her forward. Her father’s open umbrella partially hid her mother, whose eyes glared viciously back at her through the screen. The sight of her parents standing in this sacred place, brutally invading the life she’d created with Caleb, made her physically ill. But her body walked forward, despite herself.

  “Anna,” her father snapped. “You go get your things and leave with us this instant.” Anna came up to Caleb, who wouldn’t move aside. He reached his hand behind himself, placing it on her hip and moving her gently behind him.

  “Don’t tell her what to do,” Caleb barked. “She’s not going anywhere she doesn’t want to.”

  “I’m speaking to my daughter, you sick son of a bitch! Step away from her.”

  The muscles in Caleb’s arm tensed up, but his hand remained on her hip.

  “Caleb.” Her voice shook. She lifted his hand off of her and took a step forward so that she was standing by his side.

  “I’m not leaving,” she said to her father.

  “What did you say?” His eyes narrowed into two slits, his face contorting into the very picture of malice.

  “I said I’m not leaving.”

  Her mother stepped forward in black slacks and a black fitted T-shirt, with a single string of pearls lying across her throat. She held her own umbrella, which poked her husband’s as she took her place next to him. He had no choice but to move slightly to the right, surrendering some of his spot to her.

  “Anna, this is not up for discussion,” her mother said. “Get your things and get into the car.”

  “No.” Why did they even want her back home? All she could see were two people staring back at her with viciousness.

  “Fine. What is it you want?” her mother asked coldly. “A new car? An apartment when you go away to school? You can have it. Just get in the car.”

  “I don’t want things. I’m staying here.”

  “Anna, do you even know what kind of people you’re mixed up with?”

  “I really don’t want to hear what you have to say about any of this.”

  “Well, you’re going to hear what I think whether you like it or not. We did a little research and found out that your boyfriend here is psychotic, which he probably inherited from his mother. Do you know what happened to her? She killed herself, which really isn’t a surprise given her husband’s business ventures—”

  “That’s enough!” Anna shouted. “You have no right—how dare you!” She was so angry she couldn’t even form a sentence. “Get out of here now!”

  “I thought I raised you to be better than this.” Her mother sneered at Caleb as she said the last word. “Not only are you living here in sin, but you’ve mixed yourself up with a maniac—”

  “Don’t talk about him like that!” Anna’s hands were shaking, her heart pounding fast and hard. She searched her mind frantically for a way to hurt them back and deal them a blow that would leave a deep scar. But she was so enraged she couldn’t think straight, couldn’t think of one thing to say to inflict even a small wound. Her mind and body were on fire.

  “You want to throw your life away? Go ahead,” her mother said in an eerily calm voice. Her lips curled up into a spiteful smile. “To think I gave up everything to raise you, turning out like this. All you are is an ungrateful, spoiled brat who will never amount to anything.” The words passed through Anna, but instead of feeding the fire raging in her, everything in her went dead.

  Caleb pushed Anna behind him and took a step closer to the screen door so he was facing Anna’s mother.

  “Get out of here right now before I remove you myself,” he said slowly. Anna’s father took a step so that he stood in front of Caleb. Although the screen door separated them, they were only inches from one another.

  “Who do you think you are, you little punk? I oughtta beat the crap out of you.”

  “Go ahead.” Caleb straightened up and pulled his shoulders back. Instead of being one or two inches taller than her father, he was three or four. In her numbness Anna studied them closely, as if time had stopped long enough for her to see that her father wasn’t the way he’d always been.

  Next to Caleb, he was small. And he was old. He might have been stronger than Anna all these years, maybe not, but it was easy for him to bully her. She’d let him. But Caleb was young and strong, and there was no doubt that he could hurt her father, badly if he wanted. In that moment, she stopped being scared of her father and saw him as a little man who was so weak, he took to bullying his own child to make himself strong.

  “You’re not worth it,” Anna’s father said with a sneer. Then he turned to Anna. “And neither are you. If this is the life you want, go ahead. But don’t you ever come back to my goddamn house again. I don’t want to hear from you.” He spun around and grabbed Anna’s mother by the arm. “Let’s go,” he mumbled, pulling her off the front step with him.

  “Shameful,” her mother hissed at her, and stepped out into the rain.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Anna sunk into the couch cushions. She crisscrossed her legs and hung her head down, her open hand covering her face. Her body was so tiny and fragile. Yet she was strong. The words her parents had used, they were meant to control her, and when that didn’t work, they were meant to destroy her. But she had resisted. Caleb doubted if he could have been that strong.

  Her body trembled and uneven breaths proved she was crying, albeit silently.

  “It’s all right. You’re amazing.”

  She kept her face hidden in her hand, and through the crying, answered
him. “I’m not amazing. I’m horrible.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her shoulder. “What are you talking about?” he whispered into her ear. “You didn’t do anything wrong. There’s not one thing you did or said that you could ever regret.”

  “That’s not true. I’m a horrible person.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “They’re right. I’m ungrateful and selfish and—”

  “Stop it.” He pulled her hand off her face and forced her to focus on his own. “You are none of those things. You’re allowed to decide how you want to live your life. The way they spoke to you—it’s disgusting. No one deserves to be treated like that.”

  “Sometimes I do,” she said, so quietly he almost didn’t hear.

  “Don’t talk like that. You deserve everything that’s good. You’re the best person I’ve ever known.”

  Her sobbing started all over again.

  His hate for her parents burned inside him. All they wanted to do was kill her spirit and everything that was good in her. He’d given them another chance to inject their venom into her. How could he have let that happen? He shouldn’t have let them talk to her, should have closed the door, should have…he didn’t know what.

  “This guilt—I just can’t live with it,” she said breathlessly through the crying. “I feel like it’s eating a hole through my stomach and my chest. I can’t—I just want it to stop.” She was becoming frantic. He didn’t know what to do, how to make it stop. All he could do was hold her while she cried, her head nuzzled into his chest.

  “There’s no reason for you to feel guilty. You didn’t do anything wrong. You’re so good. You’re so good.” Her breathing slowed, her body was relaxing, and she fell into him.

  “You’re my world. I’d do anything for you. I love you, Anna. I love you more than anything.”

  She came up from his chest. Her cheeks were flushed and stained with tears, her eyes puffy and red, and she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.