COTTON
MY HANDS CLENCHED AROUND THE STEERING WHEEL ASINAVIGATED THE TWO-LANE HIGHWAY LEADING HOMEWARD.It was nearing midnight and a mixture of sleet and rain fell outside the confines of the compact rental, the windshield wipers swooshing softly into the silence.
I’d turned the radio off after settling into the vehicle at the Richmond airport, preferring the relative quiet of my racing thoughts to any Top Forty station. Now, I wondered if that had been a mistake. All that time to do nothing more than think…it wasn’t fun.
I needed to see someone, a professional. Talk all this shit out. It was the only way I would truly relieve myself of the poison that tainted every memory of the past months. The only way to heal.
With my free hand I lifted the cup of coffee I’d grabbed at Sheetz on my way out of the city. I took a sip of the brew that had faded way too fast to cold, noticing that my hand shook now that my fingers weren’t wrapped around the wheel. I shook them out and returned them to their former position.
The problem was, I couldn’t talk to anyone. Couldn’t see a therapist, couldn’t let all of this rage and hurt festering inside out. Even though a therapist would be bound to privacy, there were too many ways for the motivated individual to uncover a secret. Blackmail. Torture. Money. Hacking.
And he was nothing if not motivated. He knew my secrets could destroy him, if they didn’t destroy me first.
The trembling in my hands was radiating upwards now, into my arms and the tense posture of my shoulders. And my breathing was growing shallow.
Panic attack.
I recognized the signs for what they were and pulled onto the shoulder of the sleeping highway. Although no one was around, I dutifully put my hazards on and shifted into park, then rooted around in the bag beside me for my meds.
The pills helped. A friend and psychiatrist back on base had written the scrip for Valium, telling me it would help calm me without totally knocking me out. I swallowed one down with the cold coffee, resolutely ignoring the voice inside my head clamoring for attention.
He got you the pills and now he’s dead.
Stop it. It wasn’t my fault.
Wasn’t it?
No! It had nothing to do with me. He had a heart attack.
Because healthy, thirty-two year old marathon runners have heart attacks and die, all the time.
Shut up!
Dropping my head back against the head rest, I closed my eyes, waiting for the calm to settle over me like a blanket. It was like floating once the Valium took hold. I was still perfectly conscious, alert to my surroundings, but it was akin to viewing them through a bokeh filter. Everything was muted and dreamy. Better, I just wouldn’t care anymore. Give me a few more minutes and I wouldn’t care that I hated to drive in the rain, particularly at nighttime. I wouldn’t care that the windshield wipers squeaked on the down swipe. I wouldn’t care that no one would be awake to greet me when I arrived home for the first time in over a year.
I wouldn’t care that I couldn’t shut my fucking brain off, or that Michael was dead, or that I hadn’t slept—really slept—in close to a month.
Sign me up for not giving a shit. I volunteer.
Reaching out without opening my eyes, I felt for the radio dial and turned it on. The low, jazzy strains of some seventy’s ballad filled the car and I let my hand drop to my lap. Maybe some noise would drown out everything that was fucked up with my world.
Language, Emery.I could hear my mother now and a faint smirk settled on my lips.Cursing is so unrefined. It’s what people with limited vocabularies use to express themselves.She was about to find out that my vocabulary had become extremely limited since entering the military. She hadn’t wanted me to join in the first place. She and my stepfather had wanted Bryn Mawr or Brown and could not fathom why someone with my grades and potential would want to…shudder…enlist.
The answer was simple. Enlisting in the army had been nothing more than the mother of all eff you’s after I’d graduated high school. Eff you, Mom, and you, Paul. And let’s not forget Dad and Jamie. The most incredible father and the sweetest big brother I could have imagined. Eff you, too, for dying and leaving me to put up with their bullshit all by myself. I could trace nearly everything awful in my life back to the boating accident that had occurred when I was little. We were happy, and then we weren’t. Mother was a mom, lavishing hugs and kisses and time upon us, and then she was distant. Moody. Reserved.
Enlisting had been the only way I could see myself moving on from her, and Paul, and the tragedy that had shaped our lives. I imagined her and Paul having to tell all of their richie-rich friends that their daughter, their precious negotiating piece in the game of mergers and acquisitions, had become a cog in our country’s war machine.
I could see the pinch in Mom’s mouth, the frown lines on Paul’s forehead.
It was too perfect.
Too bad it had backfired the way it did.
I inhaled deeply, an attempt at a calming breath, and released. It was fine. Everything was fine, and at least the parents would be satisfied that I was now out of active duty and able to work in the civilian sector. I’d put my time in, learned a lot, and had a great job lined up in D.C. They couldn’t complain about that.
Well. They’d find something to complain about, I was sure.
They always did.
