When You Go Away

by Jessica Barksdale Inclan

  Her father knocked on the bathroom door. "Peri. We need to meet them. Come on."

  "Coming." She put away the makeup her father had brought her from the apartment and wound the cord around the hairdryer. Since the last visit with the kids at the jail, she'd tried not to think of Carly and her pale, nervous face. What if she runs away again? she thought. This time, they would be at a park, where Carly could run forever. "It might happen again,” Dr. Kolakowski warned, "but that's okay. You have to just keep showing up."

  Closing the drawers and turning off the light, Peri stood for a moment in front of the mirror, her reflection muted just enough that for a second, she could almost see who she was supposed to be. A mother. A real mother.

  Peri hadn't been to Montclair Park for years, not since she'd brought Ryan and Carly out to play after visits with her father. Someone with an eye for potential lawsuits had taken down the fast, slick steel curly slide with the two foot drop to a sandless hole, the metal swing set, back-and-forth plastic animals that rocked on corkscrew metal stands. Everything had been replaced with a smooth, rubber coated steel and sanded redwood play structure, everything oiled and new and safe. As she and her father sat on the stone wall watching children run across the bridge and duck into tunnels, she had a clear image of Carly in the baby swing--the kind with a web for a seat--laughing as Peri stood in front of her, pushing and making noises, "Whoop! Whoo-op!" each time Carly swung toward her. Ryan pumped his legs on the bigger-boy swing next to Carly, trying to stay in the same rhythm with his sister, his skinny little legs trying to push himself to motion, saying "No! I can do it myself," when Peri tried to give him a boost.

  Her father spun on his seat, craning back to look at the tennis courts. Peri followed a particular toddler, a dark curled girl, as she waddled to a swing and held her arms up to her mother, who swooped her up and carefully put her in a swing. Brooke had never done that, not like the toddler, not like her siblings.

  None of the past year would have happened if Peri had only had the two children, stopped right there at the park, happy with her amazing luck. Two healthy children. But as she'd moved closer to 35, her womb seemed to ask the question each month, "Well, is that it?" She'd convinced Graham that one more child would make them a complete family, though the convincing wasn't difficult, that part of their life so natural, his body in hers, the feel of his shoulders in her hands. Was it simply Brooke and her illness and the daily demands of her poor body that had broken them up? Or had something changed in her brain after Brooke's birth, as Dr. Kolakowski suggested, her seratonin levels dropping to a point where she felt no pleasure in anything, where life seemed to be the tragic story she'd invented on her way to Phoenix. As the toddler in the swing screamed in joy, Peri knew it didn't matter how any of it had started. She was here, sitting with her father, waiting for her children to visit her.

  "Mom," Ryan said, breathing a little heavily as if he'd run all the way to them. "We're here."

  "Hey, champ," her dad said, standing up and hugging Ryan, something she couldn't remember Ryan allowing, not for years and years. She stood up, waiting her turn, and then gently put her arms around Ryan, tentatively, as if he might fling her off, like his sister would.

  "Hi, honey," she said. He moved into her, pressing back, harder, and she felt how much he had grown, his shoulders coming up to her neck. He smelled like something she remembered--maybe it was her freshman year boyfriend Brad, his Clearasil and Dial soap and Old Spice deodorant--and she breathed in more deeply and almost started. Ryan smelled like Noel, she realized. How he used to smell, the boy smell, a skein of sweat, hormones juicing to the surface.

  "Where's Carly and Fran?" her dad asked, but Ryan didn't answer because they rounded the corner, Carly's eyes down, Fran McDermott efficient in matching cotton pants and top, ready for a park picnic.

  "Hey you," her dad said. "How's my girl?"

  Carly smiled, avoiding Peri, smoothing an imaginary wrinkle in her pants. New pants, new top, things Garnet must have bought her. Peri looked at Ryan and realized he had on a completely new outfit as well, a huge short-sleeved button-down shirt and baggy pants, inches of fabric lined up like incoming waves over his shoes, as usual. Even Garnet hadn't been able to change that.

  "Hi, Carly," she said. Her daughter was so close Peri, imagined she could smell her too, the floral whiff of clear green soap, Keri lotion smoothed on her thin arms, fresh, clean cotton clothes. Someone—Garnet Peri supposed--must have bought Carly some eye shadow because there was a whisk of gold flecks on both lids. "I'm so glad to see you."

  Carly nodded but still didn't look at her, nervously pulling on her shirt hem. In only two weeks, it seemed Carly had indeed grown breasts, something to fill out the baby bra. What else has changed? she wondered. What else have I missed?

  "How are you, Peri?" Fran asked. "You look great. I just love your new hairstyle."

  Peri brought a hand up to her neck, feeling the blunt ends of her hair, the air on her neck. "Thanks. I had it done yesterday."

  "We've got some great food," her dad said, picking up the basket and thermos. "And don't worry, I didn't make any of it myself. I got everything a A.G. Ferrari's."

  "Awesome," Ryan said. "I'm starving."

  "You like just ate breakfast," Carly said sullenly.

  "Hours ago," Ryan said. "And it was Maritza's eggs, fried in that fat-free shi . . . crap Grandma makes her use."

  "Well, we can set up and talk for a while. Maybe we can walk around the lake after lunch," Fran said.

  "Remember that time we fished for crawdads with string and hot dogs?" Ryan asked, taking the thermos from Carl and turning to follow him toward the picnic tables.

  "I remember that a duckling swallowed one of the strings and the hot dog got stuck in his throat. Mom had to yank it out," Carly said in a flush of words, walking faster and then ahead of the group, her words caught between them.

  Peri remembered that day, Ryan maybe six, Carly four, the duckling foundering, flapping, trying to squawk out the hot dog. She'd leaned over, more than half her body over the dirty, bread-crust infested waters, and grabbed the string, pulling it out, feeling the tension in the poor thing's neck. Everyone who'd been watching clapped, telling her "What a great save," but she didn't have the courage to explain that if she hadn't allowed her children to fish for crawdads in the first place, none of it would have happened.

  At the picnic table, Fran helped her dad unpack. "What a lovely spread," she said, encouraging Peri with the same smile her mother used. “Go on,” her mother would say at ice skating lessons or the first day of school or at her first junior high dance. Peri would look back over her shoulder and Janice would smile and pat her on the rear end. “You can do it, honey.”

  But Peri stood at the end of the table, unsure what to do, forgetting what she might have done before. Everything back then had been automatic, as if her actions were hardwired, and she never gave anything a second thought--arrange dishes, pass out plates, tell stories, laugh. But now it seemed to her she was like an alien brought to a strange earth ritual, and she didn't know the customs or the very body she was in.

  "Peri? Do you want a turkey or ham sandwich?" Fran asked, holding out two paper-wrapped sandwiches.

  "I want . . . I want to talk to Carly."

  "Oh." Fran turned to Carly. "Do you want to talk with your mom?"

  Carly shrugged, but she didn't run away as Peri had earlier imagined.

  "Could we go over to that bench?"

  "Sure," Fran said, putting down the sandwiches. "We'll eat while you two talk."

  Peri thought to reach out for Carly, but the Carly who would have accepted her hand, squeezing back, her skin so warm, was no longer there. Peri would have to make friends with this new Carly, the child who'd been abandoned and forced to take care of her sister. They walked side-by-side to the table and sat down, the air warm on their shoulders, the sounds of cars whizzing by on Highway 13 filling the space of their silence.

  "So, how is it
at Grandma MacKenzie's?" Peri asked finally, looking back to see her dad, Fran, and Ryan eating and talking, napkins blowing onto the dirt below the table.

  "Fine."

  "Are you in your same room? Daddy's old one?"

  "Yeah."

  "Do you talk to the cowboys still?" she asked. Carly tried not to smile, turning to the lake so Peri couldn't see her.

  "Who was there? Jed? I remember Jed. Isn't he the one asleep on his horse? And the other one? Buster? He has the lasso."

  "No. Jed's asleep, and Buster's riding," Carly said. "It's stupid anyway. It's from when I was little."

  "You used to tell me stories about them. You said they rode all night."

  "I was little then!" Carly turned to her with a face only the new Carly would have, older, full of pain that only experience brings, the experience Peri had sworn to herself to shield her kids from. "I'm not little any more. I've done a lot of things I didn't know how to do then."

  Peri nodded. "You have. Things you shouldn't have had to do. I'm so sorry about it. I wasn't thinking right."

  "You were crazy," Carly said. "Maybe you still are. That's why you can't have us back. That's why we'll have to go to live in like Phoenix with Dad and that wife."

  Peri hugged herself. Carly sounded they way she herself had felt all during her childhood, the rage at her father fluming through her body at birthdays and holidays and mother's days, times when her own mother would cry, missing the life she thought she was going to have. How would Peri’s life have been different if she'd actually said what she'd been feeling, letting her father and mother know how angry she was instead of saving it all for nighttime talks with Noel? Maybe there was hope for Carly and Ryan, despite her.

  "That's right. I did go crazy," she said quietly, kicking at the gravel under the table. "And I'm going to be seeing a doctor for a long time. And I’m on drugs, too, to help me get well. And it's because I was sick that I left. And it's because I was sick that you aren't with me. You're right. And it's not fair for you and Ryan and Brooke. Not at all."

  Carly looked at her, her eyes wide. "I don't want to live in Phoenix."

  "Oh, baby, I know." Peri moved toward her and then stopped, not wanting to be pushed away, not now.

  "I'd rather live with Grandma Mackenzie than go to Phoenix."

  "I know."

  "I hate him more than I hate you," she said and then gasped, a short whistling sound coming from between her teeth, as if she were trying to suck the words back in. But it was too late. There they were between them.

  "We didn't do a good job. But I love you. And I'm going to try really hard to make it right."

  Carly shook her head. "It's too late. Look what's happening already. Dad says after they find you guilty, the custody battle is going to be a piece of cake."

  "He said that to you?"

  "I heard him talking on the phone. To his wife, what's-her-name. Blair."

  Peri heard Ryan laughing. She turned to the table to see her dad smiling and patting Ryan's shoulder, Fran wiping her eyes with her napkin. She wished she had that kind of feeling in her body, but she hadn't warmed up to that yet. So much of herself was still submerged in the drugs and fear that she'd never snap out of it. She didn't want her daughter to be like her and she knew she had to try harder, work harder with Dr. Kolakowski, try to push up into the light. "Listen. I'm doing all I can. I want to get better. It will never be like it was but--"

  "I hated how it was," Carly said.

  "I mean, it will be better. But it might take a while, and in the meantime, you have Uncle Noel and Grandpa and even Grandma Mackenzie. All of them want you to be happy."

  Carly swung herself to the other edge of the bench and stood up, looking down at her mother. "But will I have you? Will I have Brooke?"

  The sun beat jewels on Carly's lids, her cheeks red and smooth like a Botticelli baby, her neck and arms exactly what Peri wanted to kiss and touch. But she couldn't move toward her daughter yet, even though she was desperate for her child's skin next to hers. Her need reminded her of the times when she was pregnant with each of them, the months before birth a waiting game until each was finally in her arms, their flesh directly under her hands, not separated by womb and muscle and skin any longer.

  "You will have me," she said. “I'm going to be right here. I promise."

  "Okay," Carly said, putting an index finger against her mother's arm, the heat of her fingertip moving immediately to Peri's heart. "Don't do it again. Don't ever do it again." Carly ran back to the table and sat down, and Peri looked out toward the lake. For the first time in weeks, she believed she would rise, surface, float like a duckling across murky waters, its throat and voice sore but whole.

  

  "Here's how it's panning out," Kieran Preston said, sitting behind his desk, surrounded by stacks of folders, each neatly labeled. "They don't want to prosecute. They want to cut a deal. But it means pleading guilty to a lesser charge of neglect. Very common, very common."

  "They want her to plead guilty?" Noel asked. "Why should she plead guilty? She was sick. You know we don't want that."

  "Yes, yes. We know she was sick. They know the same thing. Peri's a credible witness. The story is sad. People aren't behaving like monsters. There’s the state system that failed. That's why they don't want to go to trial on this. But if we plead to the misdemeanor, we avoid one, a trial, two, jail time if the jury finds her guilty--"

  "Guilty?" Noel said again.

  "Yes, Noel. It's possible. You know how people think mental illness is just a sign of bad character or a personality flaw. Most people would think Peri should have pulled herself up by her own bootstraps and figured another way out. And they’ll point to all the normal things she did. They’ll suggest she was sane enough to move, sign a lease, hook up the cable, register the older kids for school. It looks thought through. Premeditated.”

  Noel squeezed the space between his eyebrows with his thumb and forefinger. He was scared, and Peri began to feel a nervous lightness in her stomach.

  “And then there's three, the publicity.” Preston went on. “I think the story has died out in the papers now, and a trial would only bring it back. You have to think of the kids on that one."

  Peri focused on her nails, pushing back the cuticles that she hadn't tended in well over a year. Before, back in her other life, she'd gone to Alysse at the Village Circle Beauty Spot for once a week manicures, twice a month pedicures. Now, she wasn't sure what her toenails even looked like.

  "Peri?" Noel stared at her. "Well? What do you think?"

  "I don't know. What does it mean?"

  Preston pushed back and crossed his legs. "It means we go straight to sentencing."

  "I know that. But what does it mean for the custody case?" she asked.

  "Well, it can mean a couple of things. One--" Peri grimaced. Preston seemed to be talking to her from an outline he'd written and memorized. "One, it helps your case because you weren't convicted of a felony, and two, you plead guilty to a misdemeanor count of neglect. However, if you, three, throw in the mental illness and the reports from Phoenix and your new doctor, there's hope."

  "It's on her record though," Noel said. "It will always be there."

  "That's true."

  "What about the sentencing? What will the judge do to her?" Noel asked.

  "That's up to him. He's one of those judges we can't pin down, lenient one minute, a hard-ass the next. But it's possible. . ." Preston turned to her and she tried to look at him, her eyes starting to water. "It's very possible that you might serve some time."

  "Shit," Noel muttered.

  "Or--and this is a big or, Noel--the judge might go with time served and commute the rest, opting for parenting classes and therapy and visits from social services. Or maybe probation. There are a number of options he could pick from."

  "I was only in jail for three days. How would that count?" Those three days had been forever, Sophia's scabby legs, the nighttime din of sobs and horrible d
reams, the harsh closing clack of heavy doors keeping her from her children. But to a judge? Or a jury? Three days wouldn't seem like enough punishment. They would want her to do more and more and more.

  "You don't know what I've seen,” Preston said. “I've seen a man who beat another man to death get off with a two-year probation and 500 hours of community service. This man wanted to kill the other guy and did, with a bat. All sorts of people who meant to do what they did don't serve even three days, so think about your case. You were ill; you didn't mean to do it in the same sense. You are sorry. Those are things a lot of guilty people can't claim." Preston looked at the clock, and Peri knew their hour was up, an hour Noel and her father were paying for.

  "I'll call you later," Noel said. "We need to talk about this."

  "So, Peri? The kids? How are they?" Peri looked at him, this man, her lawyer, and saw for a moment he'd dropped what drove him, the case, the puzzle of the legal system, the desire to patch up another person's life and claim victory.

  "Good. Brooke is doing really well. My mother-in-law. Ex. . . well, Garnet called and found the private physical therapist we used to use. Brooke's already stronger." She knew that how much better Brooke was reflected on her wrong mothering. "And I had a good visit with Ryan and Carly yesterday. They're . . . they're okay."

  "And you?"

  "Better." Her body was adjusting to the Zoloft and her new drug, Zyprexa, her mind righting itself back to a time even before Graham left. With Dr. Kolakowski's daily help, she'd begun peeling apart the last year, one layer at a time, and managed not to die while facing her mistakes.

  "Great. Look," Preston said. "They are pressing me for an answer, but I can wait a day. Go home. Talk with your dad. But my advice is to take this offer. Custody can be reevaluated. A felony can't as easily. Trust me on this."

  

  That afternoon while Noel and her father sat in the house drinking beer and talking about her case, Peri went to the garage and found a garden trowel, work gloves, and the twenty foxglove seedlings her father had bought for her on his way home from clearing out her apartment. Dr. Kolakowski had suggested she get outside, walk, garden, or just sit in the sun, so her father had cleared a corner of the yard for her to plant. Dirt and plants seemed so much more manageable than obsessing about the varied ways she might spend the next months or even years of her life--jail, probation, a half-way house for the mentally ill, or home, with her dad, or even better, home with her kids.