ME AND MY SHADOW

                                                         

The shadow, said Swiss psychiatrist C.G. Jung is the unknown ‘‘dark side’’ of our personality–-dark because it tends to consist predominantly of the primitive, negative, socially or religiously depreciated human emotions and impulses completely obscured from consciousness.  Whatever we deem evil, inferior or unacceptable and deny in ourselves becomes part of the shadow.

My cell is dark. I’m a photographer, I like light, it is always the first thing I notice, yet here I am in this hell hole. A mole in a hole, I have become a mole in a hole, or maybe a rat or a bat with little darting eyes. No southern exposure,  it could be day or night, no one would know the difference. One window, more like a slit, looks out over a dry field of tumbleweed surrounded by tall fencing and this mishmash  of wire netting on top. That’s my view, which I can see only by dragging a chair to the window, climbing up, and looking out. 

I grew up on a ranch just outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming, you know where the deer and the antelope play.  Seldom is heard a discouraging word doesn’t cut it though because my father was a drunk and a mean one. I stayed as far away from him as I could. I was outside all day long riding horses. Give me a horse any day over a human. Or a dog. You don’t appreciate the great outdoors until you are locked up. Sometimes I feel as if I am choking in here, bars and walls everywhere and the food is awful. When I get out of this shit box I never want to see peanut butter again. Some of the inmates actually like it here, they call it home. A puppet who enjoys her strings still isn’t free. Sad, they don’t even know they are puppets.

When I was in high school I spent a lot of time smoking pot. It was then that I fell in love with my camera.  I moved to Chicago after graduation and began photographing everything I saw. Chicago was hard for me, I definitely didn’t bloom where I was planted. After Wyoming the mass confusion of city life left me bewildered and very paranoid. I blame the paranoia on Chicago, of course, all the pot I was smoking had nothing to do with it.

I don’t have a cell mate but since our cells are all lined up like dominoes, one large fart in cell #1 and the dominoes could all come tumbling down. My next door neighbor is a Jew named Sadie. Interesting. Not too many Jews in Cheyenne. Neighbor? Not a good word if it makes you think of Mr. Rogers and his soapy little won’t you be my neighbor crap. Sadie didn’t grow up in Mr. Roger’s neighborhood, she grew up in Brooklyn. Her parents were real strict, she told me they disowned her when she came here. Sadie’s a real piece of work: big hair, big nose, big tush, big heart, no filters but she has this uncanny ability to vent and yet hide at the same time. I can’t explain it but you never know with Sadie, you never know what she will come out with next. She can size up a phony in a New York minute, and she knows everybody. Inmates tell her things because she cuts their hair, and as soon as  her scissors start snapping it’s like a confessional. She told me there is something about touching people’s heads that makes them open up. Compared to most of the meshegas (crazy people) in here, she is a positive genius.

Sadie is teaching me Yiddish words. They’re great, it’s like a whole new vocabulary. I write them down in my notebook, it’s my project, something to work on while I do my time. I try to use them, you’ll see. The thing I love about these words is that they are so perfect like for example tush. Or plotz. (to explode) She is always asking the guards to bring her books and talking about God and stuff. If I even for one minute believed in that God she loves, I would have to say that God put Sadie in the cell next to mine. But I don’t. 

Before I was incarcerated I was seeing a therapist once a week. Fritz. He was a Jungian. Fritz would have a field day in this place, so many mean girls trapped in a sea of orange, and when I say trapped, I mean trapped - no escape from each other, a real  dog eat dog world.  Everyone would sooner die than appear to be  a mentsh (decent person) because to be nice is to be weak and weakness is a no no. On the outside there is a whole lot of pretending going on, people playing nice.  In here you are doomed if you let your guard down, you will loose everything: comb, books, paper, pencils, deodorant, dignity, stolen right out from under your nose. We are a den of thieves. Say what you will about this bunch, we steal well, we are pros. There is something I kind of like about it. We are who we are. 

Fritz’ office was dark, too, but at least I had the freedom to come and go back then.  Massive Victorian mahogany furniture dominated his office, taking up space like elephants sleeping on Oriental rugs. It was dark  but it was kind of comforting. Today my comfort is a two-foot wide cot, a desk, a chair, a sink and a toilet, all flimsy and attached to the floor. I guess they think I might use my chair as a weapon, whack a guard over the head with it. And the toilet? Let’s not even go there because there is no curtain. 

The only thing that really mattered to Fritz was that pesky little shadow of mine.  All I wanted to do was talk about photography and why I wasn’t selling mine and all he wanted to talk about was my damn shadow. Fritz was obsessed with my shadow which I found ironic, due to the fact that I always look for light. He told me his primary goal was to “integrate my shadow with my persona.” Say what?  I had no idea what he was talking about but it would have been a good idea if I had listened up because if I had, I might not find myself living in the hell hole I find myself today.

  I always dreaded approaching Fritz’s office. It sucked you in so that it required a certain amount of energy to leave, energy I could never count on. Looking back, (I have so much time these days it seems I do nothing but learn Yiddish words or chew on my cud and “look back”) I should have listened to him more and talked less but when I flopped down on his couch, I never shut up. It’s embarrassing, I was like a wind up doll, a parrot, Polly wants a cracker,  chattering on and on. What I had to say must have made about as much sense to Fritz as it would have made to Polly the parrot. I sure could have used some of Sadie’s vocabulary in that office, Fritz would have loved those Yiddish words.  Kvetsh (complain), that’s all I did.

       It was like that office put some kind of a spell on me, as if I walked into the wrong side of an elaborate tapestry and was caught up in tangles and knots which are the mess I have made of my life. The right side of the tapestry was a Lifetime for Women movie, the projection of my life for the world to see  but Fritz always steered the conversation to that tangled mess, the mishegas behind the fabric. Poor man, he always looked tired, he needed to get out more. Fresh air would do him good.  A little man, he was also a Catholic priest but he never forced the Jesus stuff down my throat.  I think his love affair with Jesus made him kind of spacey, as if he spent most of his time talking to some higher power as he floated through life like a helium balloon. When I was with him he just sat there with his sad brown cow eyes and listened.  Sometimes I thought he wanted to jump out of his chair and strangle me, other times I had the feeling he was sinking. Go figure.

I dreaded any long pauses so I just kept flapping my lips. It became a game of cat and mouse, sometimes I was the cat, sometimes the mouse, but being the mouse isn't always a bad thing, it teaches you to scamper. It took me a long time to learn that lesson but it serves me well in here. I don’t say much and I scamper often. Believe me, it wouldn’t matter if I ever said another word, there are enough drama queens in this place to sink The Queen Elizabeth. Oy vey. (Everyone knows what that means!)

      I suppose you are wondering why I am here. Or maybe not. I’ll tell you because I have nothing better to do and you can either read on or go do something useful like walking your dog. When all is said and done it’s all gornisht. (nothing, beyond help.) Enough with the Yiddish already?  But I can’t stop, it is so descriptive. I love it.

                                                               -------------------------------------------------------                                                                         

"I'm not sure I can continue with photography.”

"Why not?”

"I photographed this designer the other day. Young. Smart. Her name is Nikki. She came across all sugary to me, but I could tell she was the kind who would hand you a present all wrapped up pretty in one hand while she was stabbing you in the back with the other, something kind of creepy about her.” 

“Maybe you photographed her shadow.”

“Right! Her shadow! I never thought of that.” 

“Anyway, she needed publicity shots. I took about 50 pictures. The hair, the makeup, skin tones,  the whole package, but it was like photographing a mannequin. Then I caught her off guard, she was removing a shoe because her feet hurt, and the shot was incredible."

"Did you show it to her?"  Fritz, loved stuff like this, he always sees peoples’ shadows before he sees the person.

“I did.”

“What did she say?”

“She hated it."  

Fritz sipped his omnipresent tea slowly. “Did you like her?”

I had no idea then what a loaded question that was and where the crooked path of our friendship was to lead me. Almost since the day we met we spent the better part of our time together but I never knew Nikki well. Spending a lot of time with someone means little. Just because a person is familiar doesn't necessarily mean you know them. “Did I like her?” I hated her, yet I couldn’t stay away. 

The more I told Fritz, the more his shackles rose. “Stay away from her. She sounds like a borderline personality to me and that’s the last thing you need in your life now.”

Borderline personality disorder? WTF? All I knew was that her thick black hair covered her head like a bicycle helmet, so short that when you looked at her the only thing you noticed were her hazel eyes, enormous behind her unflinching stare. I never understood how anyone could project such empathy from her eyes while at the same time her face retained an expression of perpetual annoyance. I am in this joint because of her. She framed me. If I had only listened to Fritz . . .

I had no idea where she grew up, where she went to school.  Her parents? Were they living? She rented a furnished room on the top floor of an old colonial house in town, and there was not one thing that revealed her past in that room. The room was scrupulously neat, I felt as if I would disturb a sacred object if I touched anything.  She always kept me waiting so I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the only thing on the wall, a print of an intense child by Otto Dix who I found unsettling. The girl stared at me as if she knew everything about me while revealing nothing about herself, a perfect replica of Nikki.  The room must have been like an oven in summer, no air conditioner in sight. The window looked out over the rows of cars parked in an Enterprise car rental lot across the street. Whenever I went to see her, I couldn't wait to get out of there.

Nikki was a whiner, a complainer, nothing was ever right with her, but she had this ability to draw people into her circle and then use them for her nefarious purposes. She played me like a fiddle and for some strange reason when she said “jump,” I said, “how high?”

“Lillybelle, I need you to do me a favor.” My name is Lilly, but for some reason she always attached Belle to it. 

“What’s that?”  I could tell I would not want to do it by the way she hemmed and hawed.

“What?”

“I owe some people money, I need someone to drop off this box, it’s got cash in it.”

“Why don’t you do it yourself?”

“Because I am very late with paying it back, if they see me, they might hurt me.”

“Well, I don’t want any part of it. Find someone else.”

“Please.”

“Is it drug money?” I knew Nikki smoked a lot of pot, I didn’t think she was into the hard stuff.

“No, it’s not drug money, it has nothing to do with drugs.”

“Well I want nothing to do with this, it doesn’t smell right.”

If only I had paid attention to the hair standing up on the back of my neck, I would have run as far away as I could. Johnny Cash is right, you gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run.” Fritz was right. “Stay away from her,” he told me again and again. Jesus, how stupid could I be? 

So I drive up to this house, ring the doorbell, and was about to hand this bozo the box full of money when all hell broke loose. Blue flashing lights, bullhorns, a friggen’ SWAT team arrives. 

That’s it. End of story. Here I sit and here I shall remain for two long years. I don’t miss men, I certainly don’t miss Nikki, but I do miss my camera. Sometimes I wish I had never seen a camera. I have never known anyone, male or female who has ever given me as much pleasure as my camera, they all pale in comparison. Well, except maybe for Sadie. And Fritz. He even comes to see me from time to time. We kibbitz,(verbal joking) about the klutzs (clumsy people) I have to put up with around this place, every time he comes, it’s a blessing. Mazel Tov. (Good luck)

AN ANGEL IS SITTING NEXT TO MY BED

by Marianne Carlson

My twin sister, Hannah, and I  were born 12 weeks ahead of our due date. Needing intensive care, we were placed in separate incubators. Hannah began to gain weight and her health stabilized but I  only weighed 2 lbs, had trouble breathing, heart problems and other complications. I was not expected to live.

Our nurse did everything she could to make my health better, but nothing she did was helping me. With nothing else to do, our nurse went against hospital policy and decided to place both of us in the same incubator. She left us to sleep and when when she returned she found a sight she could not believe. She called all the nurses and doctors and this is what they saw.  Hannah had put her small little arm around me as if to hug and support me. From that moment on, my breathing and heart rate stabilized and my health became normal.

From the day we were born we were always together, Hannah and Sonia, the Bauer twins. Hannah watched over me as if her mission in life was to be my protector. She was 21 when she died, and I have been an empty shell ever since because when she died, my soul died with her.    We were born in Berlin and moved to America when we were toddlers, we spent our childhood in a modest home outside  Washington DC in the 1950’s and 60’s.  Because we left Germany when we were so young, Hannah and I never carried any guilt resulting from the horrors of the war.  In a way you could say we were collateral damage because our fellow classmates always regarded us with suspicion. We knew something bad had happened but we didn’t know what, and had no idea what it had to do with us. 

My parents grew up in a parallel universe. The war had impacted both their lives on a daily basis, they were heartbroken; their beloved Berlin in ruins, so many friends and relatives taken, their homeland despised. Because of this they never felt safe while growing up and were determined to create a stable, healthy home life for us while maintaining our German heritage.  Our family was extremely close, and my twin sister and I were inseparable.

My father, a career officer, worked  as an attache at Quantico, the Marine Base. Throughout his long career in the military, he always remained a gentleman,  a very gentle man, who loved poetry and must have found his position on the base difficult to say the least. The military did not suit him, he was a pacifist in a uniform, and he wrestled with this paradox throughout his entire career. The war had ended too recently for the passage of time to  even begin to heal all wounds, but both my parents managed to handle a delicate transition with grace. 

It was important to our parents that we maintain our German heritage, we spoke English at school but always German at home, and Hannah and I always spoke German to each other, creating an air of secrecy between us in school.  No one understood us which was the way we wanted it.  It must have been hard for my mother because we had each other but she had no one. Her thick hair always tied back in a knot, her calm, competent aura always created for us an environment of safety, like a comforting mother robin in her nest. My father worked long hours while my mothers’ days were spent cleaning the house. I can’t remember her having any friends, she must have been very lonely, but she never complained. She had  great dignity, great beauty, and there was a certain sweetness about her , a softness, which revealed itself every time she smiled. Losing Hannah robbed her of that softness, it was replaced by a hard edge. Every day after school we had kaffee und kuchen at the kitchen table and told her about our day. As we grew older we had other things we wanted to do but she insisted on this one tradition from her homeland, and we couldn’t say no to her.

It's strange, I can close my eyes and visualize our home, but try as I may, the only way I see Hannah is by looking in a mirror where I can see her facade, her smile and her dimple reflected back as me - but hollow, a ghost. Her essence has disappeared from my mind like a flashlight that slowly dims before dying completely, and nothing will ever replace it. The dark red hair, the pale skin, the rakish, defiant attitude is all there, but without any substance. I have become one of those life-size cardboard cutouts, an exact replica, but lifeless.  She was my touchstone. Only I knew the extent of Hannah’s mood swings, her highs and lows. To the rest of the world Hannah was the aggressor, the stable one, and I the introvert - but I knew better. As our high school days were coming to an end, her instability grew. She covered it up well but the prospect of high school ending and    leaving home to go to college was more unsettling to Hannah than to most. We often talked well into the night with the lights out.

“If something happens to me, you need to promise me that you will be all right,” Hannah whispered one night.

“What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

“We are too close, we need to disentangle ourselves.”

“Nothing is going to happen to you,” I remember saying, the hair on the back of my neck rising.

“Probably not, but if something does happen to me, you need to know I will never leave you. Look for signs, little signals that may pop up when you least expect it.”

Boys became a factor in our junior and senior year but they gravitated towards Hannah like a magnet whereas they seemed to tolerate me as Hannah’s appendage. She was constantly arranging double dates but this “two for the price of one” wore rather thin, both for the hapless boy who was to be my partner and for me. I would have far preferred reading a good book than spending endless hours hanging out in the local coffee shop. The truth is I believe I must have been jealous of any boy who seemed to be stealing Hannah away from me but none of it mattered until Stephen came along. I rerun it in my mind endlessly, how it unfolded, how it ended, if there was anything I could have done to prevent it. 

“Heute traf ich den meisten hübscher Junge, ich denke, dass ich ihn heiraten möchte.” (I met the cutest boy today, I think I am going to marry him.”)

“Ach? Was ist sein Name?” (Oh? What is his name?)

“Stephen”

The romance, for lack of a better word, came quickly and then it ended. Hannah was crazy about him. Stephen never tried to understand how important our German heritage was, to the contrary, he insulted Germans every chance he got. He took her to the senior prom but dropped her like a hot potato shortly after and moved on with his life, leaving Hannah devastated. I can never forgive his cruelty, the way he played with her like a rag doll. Following the breakup the juxtaposition of our roles was staggering for both of us. I, who had always been the weaker, was suddenly expected to hold her up, and I was totally unqualified. I never fully understood the depths of her depression until I found her lifeless body in the car in the garage.

Years later I returned to Berlin, I work for a large publishing company, my bilingual ability has served me well as my father promised. Single, I doubt if I could ever give myself to another person as I gave myself to Hannah. The pain is too excruciating. I believe I will continue to feel as if an integral part of me is missing until the day I die. One day I was on a train headed to Hamburg to attend a conference. As was my custom, my thoughts had once again returned to Hannah. I remembered what she told me, that she would never leave me, that I would receive signs, that they would pop up when I least expected them.

“Achten Sie auf Anzeichen, Hannah told me. (Watch for signs.) I studied the list of publishers who would be attending the conference absentmindedly, when I happened to glance out the window at the German countryside. And then I saw Hannah’s sign.  My heart leapt. How like her, a perfect sign from Hannah in full sight for the world to see.

An Angel is Sitting Next to my Bed

It's All Temporary

THE SIMULACRUM

by Marianne Carlson

"Ok can you look at each other as you if you actually like each other? Remember, this is a happy time."

"Like each other? We LOVE each other," Adele gushes as her invisible tentacles wrap themselves around the hapless male standing next to her, a mere boy, taking grown up steps into a future he can only imagine.

Unable to look each other in the eye, the couple stand awkwardly in front of the garden backdrop in my photography studio, posing for their engagement announcement photo, they barely hold hands. As if caught in a  trap, uncertain whether to struggle or lay low, Clark does neither, but assumes an attitude of tortured acquiescence. My camera clicks unceasingly.  He looks  as if he would rather be anywhere else, as if he is drowning.

Adele could be a spokesperson for a Weight Watchers commercial, strutting her newfound thinness in front of him seductively, more in love with her new svelte body than in love with her fiancé. Within a year those 40 pounds will return and then some, and Clark will be  constantly on her case about her weight, her "enormous butt." He abhors fat and will beleaguer her with insults. 

I give this marriage five years at best. I wish I could tell them.  If I could do my work without the necessity of interacting with people I’d be fine because the truth is I really don’t like them very much, the messes they make of their lives. The strange thing is, they so often want to tell me everything, to confide.  A hair dresser once told me that her clients often want to reveal their deepest secrets to her. She thinks it has something to do with the fact that she is touching their heads. Maybe on some level my clients believe they are talking to my camera?

I  am surprised to find Clark take a keen interest in the shots, and even more surprised to discover that his taste is impeccable. I have him pegged all wrong. Adele's interest is superficial at best, she scans the shots with annoying insouciance and gravitates towards the worst of the worst, leaving the choice to Clark. Focused, he is a different person than the boy in front of my camera, it is as if he has matured in a matter of minutes. 

“Let me know when you decide which shot you want to use.”

“I have already decided. It’s this one.” He chooses a shot which is off balance, not very complimentary of either one of them. In the shot Clark appears to be crowding Adele out of camera range, a diaphanous shadow partially covers her face. You can’t see her eyes. I love the shot, I love Clark for choosing it and look at him in new a light.

I want to ask him why. Why the rush, why are you doing this, why are you marrying her at all, but I don’t. Instead I write up the order, process his credit card.

“I know what you are thinking.” Adele has excused herself to go to the bathroom. Clark and I are alone. 

“You do. Well, tell me then, what am I thinking?”

“Why am I marrying this foolish girl, that’s what you are thinking.”

“You said it, not I.” He is on the verge of unraveling into that insecure boy who stood in front of my camera, but through some strange inner process known only to him he again transforms in front of my eyes. His tenacity frightens me.

“Adele’s father is my nemesis. I hate him. For as long as I can remember I have wanted to be a cinematographer. I want to shoot movies. It is all I have ever wanted.”

“Good for you, I can understand that. You’re a bit young for such grandiose ideas, though.”

“Adele’s father is one of the top guns in Hollywood. I interviewed him, way before I ever met Adele, and he turned me down flat. He not only rejected me, he humiliated me in the process. In essence he told me not to let the door hit me on the way out.”

Clark’s rage was palpable.  “Does Adele know this?”

“No.”

“Does she know you want to follow in her father’s footsteps?”

“I don’t want to follow in her father’s footsteps.”

“It’s a mean industry.  You need to have very thick skin.” 

“I know. But being married to the boss’s daughter helps, doesn’t it?”

“It doesn’t hurt.”

I wish them well as they make their way to the door thinking that five years is a long shot. He will drop her like a hot potato as soon as he lands his first movie. Sitting in my den watching The Academy Awards ten years later, the camera zooms in on the nominees for best cinematographer. There sits Clark and Adele and as his name is mentioned he kisses her lightly on the cheek. Just as I imagined, she has packed on a few pounds. He still looks young and resolute, that iron determination written all over his face. He didn’t win, but he will sometime in the future. They have three children, a boy and twin girls. Adele isn’t going anywhere. Good for her.

It's All Temporary

DEEP CALLS TO DEEP

by Marianne Carlson

"Keva? Is it really you?" I looked at her in stupefied amazement. I had not seen her in at least five years, it might as well have been a lifetime, so much has changed for me since last we met. Potent emotions swept over me rendering me powerless to react in any but a superficial manner. For a moment I thought I might faint.

"Fancy meeting you here." Keva had changed.  Once pencil slim, she had put on weight giving her a solidity I found somewhat off-putting. When slim, she had a chimerical quality, I often thought of her as Tinkerbell but Tinkerbell has been lifting weights. Her eyes had not changed though, that unrelenting stare, her refusal to look away. She was a chameleon, but a chameleon with a mean underbelly. 

"I'm fat." 

"No, you look good Keva. How's life been treating you?"

"Not so good. I have been away."

"Oh?"  She had always been laconic, her way of dropping innuendos, then carrying on as if I was a mind reader.  It was one of the things I had loved about Keva, her quietness. I grew up with a mother who never stopped talking, and it drove me crazy. Then along came Keva. When we first met, when we were in the throes of first love, I thought it compelling.  Now I find it rather sinister.

"Away?"

"Shipped upstate."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"The Springdale Women's House of Correction. The food was starchy."

"Are you telling me you were incarcerated?" For reasons that were unclear to me, I wasn't surprised. Our relationship had always included some act of sedition or another, usually minor. We both had QUESTION AUTHORITY bumper stickers on our cars but Keva was far more rebellious than I. 

"You always told me I would bite off more than I could chew, well I did."

"It must have been a hell of a big bite."

"It was stupid. Basically I was set up."

"What did you do?" I felt like I was pulling teeth, trying to get information out of her, and suddenly I recalled  how this person had almost destroyed me. I thought I was over her, but I was not. It was as if she pulled a switch and the deep recesses of her personality were once again hidden while at the same time her irresistible  nature dominated.  It had always been this way, a lethal game of hide and seek. I, always the seeker, trying to peel through the layers of Keva’s psyche.

"I got caught up with some not very nice people, they were into drugs, and used me as a mule."

"You are too smart for that, Keva."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Tell me about prison."

Much to my surprise, she radiated, a subtle inner glow crept into her usually opaque eyes. "I met some wonderful women. Believe it or not, I was sorry to leave."

"Really?"

"I'll never look at life in the same way again. I'm an X running around in a world of O's. 

"But you always were, Keva. 

"Remember you used to tell me, "deep calls to deep," Keva said, and I always told you I had no idea what it meant?"

"I remember."

"Well, now I know. My cell mate taught me, but I'm not sure I have the depth to answer her. It was nice seeing you again." Keva turned abruptly as if to leave,  she had revealed more than she felt comfortable in doing. 

Nice? Is that what she calls it? Nice, when in five short minutes she managed to reduce me to a shell of my former self again. Stronger now, I will be able to replace the pieces of my shattered ego, but it will take a strength of character I am not certain I possess. Deep calls to deep.

It's All Temporary

THE CHINA DOLL

By Marianne Carlson

Sarah had it all. A few months after her birth the small town where she lived with her family (two older brothers, her parents, and Angelo, the Maine Coon cat)  had a Cutest Baby Contest.  Sarah won. The prizes consisted of a year's supply of Pampers, assorted jars of Gerber's baby food, a mobile for her crib and a 529K.  Tom and Terese, a handsome, annoyingly righteous couple, were thrilled. They were careful not to boast, but it sealed the deal for them. Sarah was preternaturally special in every way.

It was impossible to carry on a normal conversation with Sarah's execrable parents.   Any subject not involving the welfare of Sarah was of no consequence, conversely, anything even remotely concerning Sarah was monumental.  Both parents were child psychologists. Tom, a professor at a prestigious university, has been published often. His specialty, the gifted child, has been cited as beyond reproach. The fact that Sarah may or may not be gifted was never questioned.

Her two brothers, Hank and Tom Jr., were well aware that Sarah was the favorite child, and it did not sit well with them, there seemed to be an omnipresent tension in the air. With the passage of time, their dislike turned to hatred. They called her “The China Doll.”  If the boys needed new hockey equipment it was given reluctantly, if at all, because Sarah needed new figure skates, if the boys needed money for Little League, it came only if there was enough money for Sarah’s gymnastic lessons, if the boys wanted to join the swim team, they had to work to come up with the money, although money was readily available for Sarah’s diving lessons. 

“What an endearing child,” strangers would say when Sarah walked along the sidewalk hand-in-hand between Tom and Terese. Dangling her feet in the supermarket cart, she attracted attention in every aisle. When too big for the cart, she pushed it behind her mother, giving an accusatory glance if she was not pleased with the choice that went into the basket. A convoluted relationship between mother and daughter developed as Sarah matured, a juxtaposition where Sarah called all the shots. Terese appeared to be scared to death of her, and for good reason. Sarah was a scary child, and as a teenager, she was worse. Her straight A’s, her beauty, her seemingly effortless ability to excel in almost everything did not make her complete. She had no friends, and there was something off, something wrong when you looked at her. Most people were blinded by her beauty, but that beauty did not disguise the haunted look in her eyes. 

Angelo was a lap cat and liked nothing more than to sit on a lap and purr but he would have nothing to do with Sarah. He did not like her. Since there were coyotes in the neighborhood, the family agreed that it was not safe for him to go outside but he didn’t mind. He sat on the love seat in the sun all day long and purred, waiting for Hank, his favorite, to come home. Like a dog, he ran to Hank as soon as he walked through the door, and they would snuggle.

“Hay Tom, did you clean Angelo’s box?” The boys took turns cleaning the cat’s box, Sarah was exempt from the chore, God forbid her precious nose may have to smell Angelo’s prolific poop.

“No, it’s your turn this week.”

“I know, I just went to clean it but there is hardly anything in it.”

“That’s strange.  Where is Ang? I haven’t seen him all day.  Come to think of it, he didn’t sleep with me last night.” Hank looked troubled.

“Sarah, what did you do to Angelo? Did you let him out last night?”

“No, you creep, why would I do that?”

“Because you hate him.”

“No I don’t.”

“Cats hide in the strangest places.” Terese said. “He’ll come out from some shelf sooner or later.” Terese wasn’t worried, she had a parent/teacher conference later in the morning and she planned to give Sarah’s teacher a piece of her mind. Sarah had been moody and disrespectful recently and it had to be her teacher’s fault since Sarah was incapable of wrongdoing.  And then there was this boy, Kevin. Tall, gangly and pimply, Terese didn’t like him at all, but he was always hanging around Sarah - like an over anxious puppy.

“I don’t like him, Sarah,” Terese had told her yesterday. He is declasse. He is not good enough for you. He needs to stop hanging around.”

“Declasse? Declasse? Oh mother, give me a break, what makes you so high and mighty,  the be all and end all?”

“I’m not the be all and end all, it’s just that I want the best for you.”

“Well, maybe I don’t want the best.  Maybe I don’t deserve the best. Maybe I LIKE the fact that he’s not snobby.” Sarah stuffed her books into her knapsack, slamming the door behind her.

The parent/teacher conference did not go well. Sarah’s grades were falling, she was skipping school, and Kevin was more of a factor than Terese had realized. Her teacher said they were inseparable. Shaken, Terese called Tom and began to relate the particulars of the conference. While she talked Angelo sauntered across the kitchen as if he owned the place, ate his dinner, took his usual place on the love seat and quickly fell asleep.

“Oh, Tom, at least there is one piece of good news. Angelo just reappeared, none the worse for wear. Hank will be happy.”

Angelo slept, oblivious to the initial concern, fear, and then horror that occurred under his roof. Hours, days, weeks, months passed and still there was no word from Sarah. She disappeared without a trace, as did Kevin. Tom Jr. and Hank feigned concern, but soon their life went on as before. Shattered, Terese and Tom never fully recovered.  

It's All Temporary

MONICA

by Marianne Carlson

“I’m worried about her, I’m no child psychiatrist, but there is something wrong.”

“She’s fine, she is just experiencing growing pains.” 

“Growing pains?” Evelyn was incredulous. A handsome man, it was important to Mark, husband of Evelyn, father of Monica, the subject of discussion,  to keep his emotions in check, and when he felt the slightest indication that he may  loose his cool, he had a habit of biting his lower lip. The bite, more like a  nibble, was a reminder to him to pull himself together. Since things were not good between Mark and Evelyn, that lower lip was being mangled daily.   Tall and muscular with thinning brown hair,  his brown eyes were often troubled.  It was as if there were many unresolved issues which he pondered frequently, and these issues gave him sleepless nights. 

“Plus the fact she doesn’t like school, she told me she hates Miss Lilly, her teacher. Miss Lilly told me she has to put Monica in a time out at least once a day and when I asked her why she said it is because Monica often hits the other kids with shovels from the sandbox. She threw a little dump truck at Peter from down the street and he needed stitches over his eye. If it had hit him in the eye, it might have blinded him. According to Miss Lilly, Monica has disturbing tendencies towards violent behavior.”

Mark took a deep breath, God, what a headache, would she ever stop talking.  A prosecuting attorney, he was masterful at his job, a raising star, but his days were full of perpetrators whose lawyers were always looking for a plea. A nasty business, this plea bargaining, and it gnawed at him. Thugs who should be facing time in the slammer released on community service, a travesty. Mark’s court room persona  was perfected to a fine tune - an orator weaving a tale, his face a blank slate, until he went in for the kill. This was one reason why he was so good at his job, but his insomnia was making things much harder, and the last thing he needed was to come home to an irate Evelyn, overwhelmed by Monica’s foibles.  That lower lip was getting raw. 

“I’m serious, Mark something has to be done.”

“Where is she now?” Mark hung his coat in the closet and started for the stairs.

“In her room. I told her she needed to stay there until she was ready to apologize.”

“Apologize? To who?”

“To Peter. To Miss Lilly. To me.  I don’t know, Mark. She is beginning to scare me. She has no remorse whatsoever.”

“I’m not sure a four year old even knows the meaning of remorse, Evelyn.”

Mark climbed the stairs, reluctant to enter Monica’s small bedroom. She sat on her pink bedspread, too young to be so crestfallen.  It was as if the weight of the world was on her tiny shoulders.  The quintessential bedroom for a four-year old girl, everything was pink, but for the first time it struck Mark how incongruous all that pink was, pink did not suit her.

“Hi Monica, tough day at school?”

“Not bad.” Monica was so still she almost appeared drugged, a strange lassitude for a four year old. 

“But not good either?”

“Yeah, not good. 

“What happened?”

“Peter hit me with a toy truck.” 

She was lying. Peter knew that she was lying, and as he listened, an ineffable horror almost overwhelmed him. His work had brought him face-to-face with too many career criminals, some (for whatever the reason) came out of the womb warped beyond repair from the beginning. He knew all these time-outs were a harbinger of things to come, and for the first time he faced the future with Monica with great apprehension because he knew with every fiber of his being that this future was not going to be pretty.

“Miss Lilly tells us that it was you that hit Peter.” Without realizing it, Mark had assumed his nonchalance mode, a signal that he was preparing for the attack.  He thoughtfully nibbled his lower lip as he watched his daughter’s body language, always a dead giveaway.

“Miss Lilly hates me. She always chooses Peter to stand at the head of the line.” Monica’s unflinching stare was unnerving, a face-off between two adversaries.  As he watched her, he realized to his horror that it wasn’t his daughter, but himself that he was trying to stare down. Years of education, college, law school, none of it held a candle to what Monica taught him at that moment. Looking at her was like looking into a mirror, but it was worse than that, it was as if he was stripping them both bare. Suddenly the realization that years of polished performances in front of a judge had removed his ability to know himself at all, he was an actor unable to remove his mask.

“Stay in your room until dinner,” he told her as he abruptly turned and left the room. Shaken, he went into his bedroom, kicked off his shoes and sat on the bed. Evelyn came in and confronted him with her usual sledge hammer approach.

“Well, what did she say?”

“She said Peter hit her.”

“Did she really? And you let her get away with that?”

“No. She knows that we know she is lying.”

“How will we punish her?”

“I don’t know, Evelyn, I don’t know, but I need to lie down now. I have a terrible headache.”

It's All Temporary