Chapter 17-18

17.

Thirty-six hours
Rolling in pain
Praying to someone
Free me again

Oh I'll be a good boy
Please make me well
I promise you anything
Get me out of this hell

John Lennon

 

The next day was hell on earth! Now she knew why she never had taken drugs. Because she was sure this was how it felt when you went Cold Turkey. She was cold, then hot, then angry, and then it started all over again.

She was completely exhausted and her body was aching and she felt so frustrated.  Why was she here and not in Robert’s airy apartment? Why was she married? Why could she only think about him? Why was she stuck here?

The pancakes grew in her mouth and she ate a half. She had no appetite at all but sat and made absentminded patterns in the syrup. Thought of Robert’s blue eyes with yellow around the pupil and a black circle around his iris, and that little scar shaped like an apple seed on his chin, and his hands on her body and the way he kissed her.

FUCK!!!!!!

 They went to Home Depot to buy supplies for the garden. Peat moss, manure and seeds. Anna picked carrot and peas and Jack wanted watermelon and lettuce. And all through this all she wanted to do was scream, and run to the closest train station and go to the City and see him.

Calm down! Calm down! Calm down! Deep breathing, in through the nose and out through the mouth. Just like yoga. Fuck! I am frantically frustrated.

When they came home she started to cook an extravagant lunch to keep her thoughts in control. Collard greens, sausages, mashed potatoes and corn. John came up and put his arms around her waist.

“What are you cooking?” He kissed her neck.

“Lunch,” she snipped back.

He let go of her quickly.

“What is wrong with you?” he asked

“Nothing! I am just tired.”

 

Anna and Jack looked at the collard greens and made faces.

“What is this?” Anna asked.

“It is collard greens, almost like spinach.”

“It smells yucky,” Jack said.

Kristin sighed loudly, so loud that John looked over at her.

“Don’t eat it then,” she said and put twice as much on her own plate.

“I only want corn and sausages.” Jack said and interrupted an enjoyable re-experience of the way they had kissed yesterday. Deep, deep, deep!

“Ok,” she said and spooned corn onto his plate.

“I want only mashed potatoes and sausages,” Anna declared.

She looked over at John who was shoveling in his food, not paying any attention to his kid’s requests.

“Hey daddy, Anna wants mashed potatoes and sausages.”

He looked confused at first.

“Oh, ok,” he said and put some on Anna’s plate.

Kristin sighed again, louder this time.

After she had cleaned up, she grabbed her cellphone and went out for a walk. Made sure she was out of eyesight from the house. Then she texted Robert.

Could I give you a call?

She kept walking with her phone in her hand. Ten minutes passed, fifteen and then finally he wrote back.

Sure, I was just in the shower. Give me 5 min.

She stared at the cellphone and after exactly five minutes, she called.

“Hi,” he answered.

“Hi!”

“How are you?”

She walked into the park, hoping she wouldn’t meet anyone she knew.

“I’m not sure. I’m a bit upset over the mess I created.”

“Sorry!”

“Yeah, and it’s your fault.”

He laughed and it was nice to hear him laugh.

“What should I do? Try to not be so cool.”

She laughed too now.

“Yes! It would make my life less of a mess at least.”

She walked around the ponds where Jenna and she always walked. They talked and talked and talked for about 45 minutes and when they hung up she felt much more relaxed.

The rest of the afternoon she spent outside with or without the rest of the family. She could not stand to be inside; when she went in, her whole body started to itch uncomfortably. As soon as the sun had set, she went to bed, took another sleeping pill and fell asleep immediately.

The water was luminous turquois, salty and lukewarm. Mountains on the horizon, jagged against the azure sky. They were swimming together; touching each other’s slick skin. Then he grabbed hold of her and picked her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he kissed her with that aggressive hunger that sent charges through her body. Then he was inside of her. She pressed her body into his, tasted the ocean on his skin. Clung to him, felt the coarse chest hair rub against her breasts, his hands pulling her hair.  Pain and pleasure intertwined.

Abruptly, she woke up. The aftershocks pulsating in her body.

“Are you ok?” John mumbled.

“Yes, I just had a nightmare,” she whispered back.

I just had a freaking wet dream!

Thankfully, the sleeping pills were still in her system and she was able to fall back to sleep.

 

18.

“War, it ain't nothing but a heartbreaker
War, it's got one friend
That's the undertaker
Ooooh, war, has shattered
Many a young man’s dreams
Made him disabled, bitter and mean
Life is much too short and precious
To spend fighting wars these days
War can't give life
It can only take it away”

                                               Edwin Starr

The room was pitch black when she awoke. At first she wasn’t sure why she woke up at all. The apartment was silent; Jonas and Emma were sleeping. No one was there to drinking in the middle of the night. The warm air that drifted in through the open window was only filled with crickets. Then she heard her father moan in his sleep and her mother whispering to him.

“Jimmy, baby, wake up.”

“No, no, no,” her father said.

And her mother whispered again.

“Jimmy, Jimmy, wake up.”

Some grunting, a loud whine and her father woke up.

“Sh, sh, sh, sh.” Her mother sounded the same way she did when Emma had fallen and hurt herself.

“It was just a dream, baby.”

Kristin crawled out of bed and sat by the open door to listen.

“Turn on the light!” Her father’s voice was urgent, maybe even scared.

The light was turned on and shone out onto the floor in the hallway.

“It’s ok,” her mother whispered again. “You are here with me.”

Her father mumbled something and then he started to cry. The sound made Kristin’s stomach turn inside out. She put her hands over her ears. She could stand the fighting and the screaming. And the cursing and the plate smashing. But when her father cried it hurt all the way into her bones.

Grandpa had said that her father had scars on his soul, and just like a scar or a wound on your body can hurt, these scars could also hurt. With a scar on your body, you can rub it or maybe put a hot pack on and it would feel better. Scars on your soul are much harder to handle and they can make you scared or angry. Or even make you wake up at night because you think the scars have come back to life.

Kristin wasn’t sure she understood what grandpa meant. She could see the scar on her father’s stomach, and she could count the stitches. Fifteen stitches! And she knew he had been hurt in Vietnam. And she could understand that he might have nightmares about being shot. But she also had the feeling that the scars her grandfather talked about were filled with more than a fear of being shot.

She had heard her father mumbling names as he lay in her mother’s arms. Names of friends that never made it back. And she had heard him talking about killing children. Her father would, of course never kill a child, but maybe he had seen someone do it.

And it was something about always being afraid, and the rain, and never getting dry and bugs biting you.