Dreamland
Chapter 14
I'd been at Evergreen less than a month when my mother brought me a pile of mail from home. A flier about the SATs, a stack of homework assignments from school, a catalog from a cheerleading supply company, trying to sell me barrettes with my school colors. And, at the bottom, two letters. One from Corinna, one from Cass. “She's been worried about you,” my mother said as I turned the envelope, addressed in Cass's clean script, in my hand. “I don't know who the other one is from.” I waited until she was gone before I went to that bright hallway, sat down with my back to one of the windows, and opened Corinna's letter first. I'd never seen her handwriting before, the letters small and curly, like a child's hand. She'd written in purple ink, on hotel stationery: The Red Rambler Inn, Tucson, Arizona. Dear Caitlin, By now, I guess you know that I decided to make my wild escape from both Applebee's and David. It was easier than I thought it would be. Between the power always getting turned off and our constant diet of Ramen noodles, things were getting less and less romantic. I do miss him, though. I've thought about him a lot on this long drive, and about you too. I hope you don't think I'm a bad friend for not telling you I was going. I just didn't want to leave you with a bunch of questions to answer. You were a good friend to me, Caitlin. Without the good times we had I don't think I would have even made it to the spring.
My little car is still holding up, although things got a bit touch and go there in Tennessee. I've still got my eye on California, but Arizona and New Mexico have been interesting. There's something peaceful here,
like that time of night at home in the spring and summer, when the days get long and it seems like it's twilite forever. It's like that all the time, here. I know you understand what I mean. When I get to California I'm going to have my picture taken standing on some big cliff, with the ocean behind me. I'll send one to you. I miss you a lot, and I hope you're not mad at me. When I land someplace for good, I'll send an address. With much love, always, Corinna I folded the letter carefully, sliding it into its envelope. I could just see her trucking along in the Bug, nursing it through radiator problems and its popping muffler, with California in her sights. I was still wearing her bracelets: They were the one thing I'd had on Fool's night that I wanted to keep, and I never took them off, not even in the shower. Whenever I missed her, all I had to do was lift my hand and listen as they fell. Cass's letter was harder. I didn't open it up that day, or the next. It sat on my desk, all by itself, and when I was alone in the room I made my bed over and over again, or straightened my sock drawer, glancing at it every few seconds. It was the first thing I saw when I walked into the room, and more than once I almost just ripped it into pieces. “What are you afraid of?” Dr. Marshall asked me as I chewed Jolly Ranchers and glowered out the window. “What do you think she'll say?” “I don't know,” I said, and this was the truth. “Probably the same thing everyone's said: That what happened to me was somehow her fault, that she feels responsible.” “Would that be bad?”
I grabbed another Rancher, ripping off the plastic wrapper. “Yes. Because I'm tired of that. Everyone can stop feeling guilty now, okay? It's not helping me.” Dr. Marshall considered this, studying her hands.
“But what bugs me most,” I added, “is what she's probably thinking.” “Which is ...” Dr. Marshall said, sticking her pen behind her ear, “... what?” I pulled my knees up to my chestdefensive stance, as they called it in group. “It's just that I've always been the weaker one, the less talented. The perennial second-?place also-?ran. The more likely to screw up. And now, with this, I've, like, totally proved it. To her, and to everyone.” “Caitlin,” she said, taking her own Rancher out of the bowl and laying it on the arm of her chair, “we've discussed quite a bit that being a victim does not make you weak.” “I know,” I said. This, too, though, was hard to learn. “And from what you've told me about your sister, she doesn't sound like the kind of person who would judge you that way.” “Of course not,” I snapped. “She doesn't judge anyone. She doesn't do anything wrong. She's perfect in every way.” Dr. Marshall raised her eyebrows, then picked up the Rancher on her chair and unwrapped it, not saying anything. The crinkling of plastic seemed to go on forever, with neither of us talking. “Perfect people,” she finally said, “live in picket-?fenced houses with golden retrievers and beautiful children. They always smell like fresh flowers and never step in dog doo, or bounce checks, or cry.” I rolled my eyes at her, cracking my Rancher in my mouth. “They also,” she went on, “don't run away with no explanation. They don't leave their families with questions that aren't answered, and make their parents worry, and leave their younger sister to try and hold everything together.” I swallowed, hard, and looked out the window again. “Your sister's not perfect, Caitlin. In fact, I'm willing to bet that if you take time to think about it, you might find you have more in common right now than you ever thought possible.”
Since our first session, Dr. Marshall had been trying to convince me that things weren't my fault. That Cass leaving had led me scrambling to fill her place for my parents, which was impossible because I was me, not her, so instead I'd tried to be everything she wasn't, which led me right to Rogerson. She'd told me it was all right to be mad at Cass. That it didn't make me a bad sister any more than her leavingand leaving me to deal with her absencemade her one. So now I thought about Cass, and all the reasons she might have had to do what she did. Maybe they were the same ones that Corinna had as she stood by the highway in Tennessee, coaxing her little Bug to take her that much closer to the West Coast. Dreams, and plans, and a stark desire to change your life, all on your own. I wanted that too, but I didn't want to have to run away to do it. After my session, I went back to my room, where Ginger was just leaving for crafts class. We'd done macaroni mosaics the week before, and were just about to jump full-?throttle into clay sculpting. Ginger had been through this before, and had two lumpy, lopsided ashtrays she kept on her part of the windowsill to show for it. “You coming?” she asked me. “I heard we can make bird feeders this year. Big rehab fun!” “I'll be there in a minute,” I told her. “Save me a seat, okay?” She nodded, shutting the door behind her, and I went to my desk and picked up Cass's letter, feeling its small weight in my hand. Then I put it back on the desk. Picked it up again. Stupid, I thought. It's Cass, Caitlin. Just open it. The letter was folded neatly, and fell into my hand when I ripped the envelope open. Cass's careful script filled line after line, my name written big at the very top of the page. Caitlin, I don't even know where to start this letter. But if there's one thing I've learned in the last few months, it's that sometimes you just have to close your eyes and jump. So here goes. I haven't been really proud of myself this year, with everything that's happened. But I don't regret leaving, or making the choice I did. Maybe you'll never understand this, but in a way it was a relief to know when I walked out that door that I was letting everyone down. I'd spent so much of my life working hard to make Mom and Dad happy, to be what everyone thought I should be. Coming here was like starting from scratch, and scary as it is sometimes, I like it. I've been thinking a lot the last few days about that time when we were kids and I cut your face with that stupid shovel. Remember? I think you know I always cringe when I look at that scar over your eyebrow, blaming myself for something I can't change. It's funny. I don't even remember doing it. Do you remember how Stewart and Boo took care of us that time that Aunt Liz died? (You might notyou were only about four or five.) I remember Mom had bought us a bunch of new toys to keep us out of their hair: a Play-?Doh factory, books, puzzles, new Barbies for each of us. I was running around playing with everything at once, ripping open boxes and half-?assembling puzzles before losing interest and moving on to the next thing. I remember that Stewart was exhausted, trying to keep up with me, and finallyI remember this so well, it's like it is burned in my mindhe sighed, so tired, and glanced over at you, so I did too. And there you were, sitting quietly on the rug with your Barbie in your lap, quietly concentrating on reading a book. You were just so still, and focused, and I remember that was the first time I envied you that, too. You used to tell mejokinglythat you hated me for being “perfect.” But it wasn't easy, Caitlin, to always have Mom and Dad's expectations weighing so heavily. You were always able to make your choices based on you and what you wanted, nothing else. And as this summer ended, I realized that Yale was the last place I'd be able to do that. Up here, away from everyone's notions, I can be whatever I want. And that's crucial to me now. I've been crying off and on ever since I heard what happened to you. From that day at Boo and Stewart's to right now, you've always been able to make your own choices: some good, some bad. But they're yours. And during this time we've been apart, it's you I've thought of when I'm at my weakest, and you who have pulled me through. Please write me back ifor whenyou're ready. And always remember how much your crazy sister loves you. Cass I read the letter three times before I folded it and stuck it in my desk drawer. Then I reached over it, farther back, my fingers exploring until they pulled out the tiny plastic bag where I'd put the pieces of my own picture after I'd ripped it up. I shut the drawer, and dumped the bag out onto the smooth surface of my desk. It was strange, but I didn't remember that day at Stewart's. It's funny how someone's perception of you can be formed without you even knowing it. All along, my sister had been able to make out her vision of my present, and future. I only wished she'd once turned my head and made me see it as well. The ripped pieces of the photograph were small, but I could still catch a bit of my skin here, or a slice of background, there. I spent a few minutes turning them all right side up, like the way you start a jigsaw puzzle, getting everything in order. Then I picked out a corner piece, smoothing its edges, and taped it carefully to the back cardboard cover of one of Ginger's discarded crossword books. I can be whatever I want, and that's crucial to me now. I found another corner piece, this one the opposite diagonal, fastening it the same way. It's you I've thought of when I'm at my weakest, and you who have pulled me through. The third corner was the biggest piece yet, almost an inch long.
Remember how much your crazy sister loves you. I found the last corner, taping it in place, then sat back and looked at my work. Four edges, like the face of a picture frame waiting to be filled in. I scooped the rest of the pieces back into the bag. I'd do the rest of the puzzle bit by bit, day by day. I'd take my time, being patient, and watch the images as they came into being right before my eyes.
Dr. Marshall said I shouldn't expect to forget anything about Rogerson, and in a lot of ways I didn't want to. At night, when I dreamed, it was his face I saw more than any other. Sometimes he was just out on the fringes of some complicated dream, leaning against the BMW, like he'd waited for me outside of cheerleading practice all those afternoons. Other times it was only him, his face right up close to mine,
angry and red, ready to lash out at any second. Those were the dreams I woke up from sweating, the covers tangled around my legs, my hair damp and sticking to the back of my neck, panicked at not recognizing the room around me. Ginger was always sleeping soundly in the next bed, breathing through her nose in tiny gasps, and I'd close my eyes and concentrate on that sound until I fell back asleep.
But, strangely, the worst dreams I had about Rogerson were the ones he wasn't in at all. Instead, I was always trying to get someplace to meet him, with so many obstacles thrown in my way. Sometimes they made sense, like pushing through body after body in the hallway, running for the turnaround. Other times it was more surreal: my legs just wouldn't work, there was some long, involved sub- dream involving a baby who wasn't really a baby, or I had to make sandwiches but couldn't find any bread. They would have been funny, these dreams, except for the ongoing, steady sense of panic that I felt, knowing he was waiting for me. It built like a fist closing around my neck and I'd shake myself awake, heart beating, only to doze back off and pick up in the same place, again. Dr. Marshall said this was a way for me to work out my issues with Rogerson, to fight through them even as I did the same thing in her office over endless Jolly Ranchers. And I had told her everything: about the trivia, and the drugs. About how he'd taken me away from that party, how sometimes still I felt this tiny soaring of my heart, so misplaced, when I thought of him. “It's not a switch you can just flip off,” Dr. Marshall had told me once. “If you didn't love him, this never would have happened. But you did. And accepting that loveand everything that followed it is part of letting it go.” I was trying. I knew, also, I had to accept that girl in the picture who I was slowly piecing together each day. The girl with the stoned eyes, and the fading and fresh bruises, who had kept silent, drowning, by choice. It hurt me to even think of her. But she was part of me, as big a part as what I'd been before her and what I was now trying to become. I wasn't trying to be the girl I'd been with Rogerson, or even the girl before that. I was thinking further back, to the one who sat on Stewart's rug, so focused, who was able to just be alone, at peace, and still. There were so many places in my time with Rogerson that I wished I could go back to, hitting the stop button at just one moment to stop everything that came after. I had so many If Onlys: If Only I'd stayed with Mike Evans, or If Only I hadn't been allowed to leave with Rogerson on that first date, or If Only I'd told my parents, or anyone, the first time he hit me. But each place I thought to stop meant missing something that came later, like Corinna, all my photographs, even this time at Evergreen that was helping me find that bit of peace again. I needed it all, in the end, to make my own story find its finish. Sometimes, I only reached as far back as that day so recently when we'd sat at McDonald's. The sky had been so blue, the breeze mild, and I could remember perfectly how I'd looked at him and wondered if, in another life, things might have been all right in the end. Rogerson, I'd called out, to ask him what an eon wasa billion years. He'd lifted his head up, feeling that breeze too, and smiled at me. Rogerson. I sometimes still called it out, late at night, even though I knew he couldn't answer me. Finally I was making some real progress. With every Jolly Rancher-?filled trip to Dr. Marshall's, every stupid craft project I completed (one lopsided ashtray, a passable bird feeder, two lanyards, and an impressive bead necklace), and each visitors' day, I added another piece to both of the girls I was rebuilding. I tried to write Cass back several times, but I just couldn't figure out where to start. I pulled out my dream journal and reread all I'd written there to her, when the words came easy. And I crumpled up page after page of notebook paper before finally giving up altogether. Maybe I just wasn't ready to tell that story, even to her, since I didn't know yet how it ended. I'd finally loaded my camera and tentatively taken a few pictures, just objects and still lifes, no faces yet. Boo developed them for me at the Arts Center and brought them to me when she visited. We'd sit in the good, bright fight of the solarium, critiquing technique and squinting over contact sheets. I liked the solidness of objects: the cracked concrete inside the scoop of the fountain, the bright hallway leading up to a flat black door, the blurry view of the trees through the square blocks of thick glass bordering the cafeteria. My mother and I took longer walks, talking about everything. My childhood, hers, how much we missed Cass and how her leaving changed both of us, for good. I began to see her more as a person, a woman,
not just the queen of bake sales and lemon puffs. And when I was finally ready to take a picture of a face, it was hers I chose, sitting on the green grass on a blanket where we'd just finished a picnic of grapes and chocolate chips. She had her legs crossed, shoes off, her hair blowing in the mild near-?summer wind, and she was laughing, her head thrown back, eyes squinting shut, one hand blurry as it moved up to cover her mouth. My father and I had worked our way through a vicious round of Rummy and now were into Hearts, for which we recruited two guys from my floora former heroin addict and an obsessive-?compulsive, who played for cigarettes while we played for money. My father and I, as a team, were practically unbeatable. I took his picture, too, his brow furrowed intently as he contemplated his cards, with the obsessive-?compulsive blurred in the back frame, a cigarette curling smoke out of his hand. The last game in the book was Five Card Draw, but I hoped I'd be home before we got to it. And finally, when Rina came, I got to just be a high school girl again, forgetting the hospital and therapy and all the talking I was constantly doing about My Issues. She brought Cosmo and bags of chocolate and a tiny radio she smuggled in and kept turned down low. We'd go outside to the grass and spread a blanket, then give ourselves manicures while she caught me up on all the gossip about cheerleading and school and Jeff (who was on again, at least until her newest interesta foreign exchange student/basketball standout named Helmut began to heat up). She'd heard a little bit about Rogerson, here and there. His lawyer had brokered a deal for the charges against him for hitting me, so he was spending the weekends in jail and doing a lot of community service at the animal shelter, cleaning out cages. Apparently he was staying with Dave and Mingus at the little yellow house and keeping a low profile. She'd bumped into him at the Quik Zip one night and he'd brushed right past, not even looking her in the eye. I knew I might see him again, but Dr. Marshall kept telling me that I was safe, and would be safe. Even after I left Evergreen I'd have what she called “a system of checks and balances” group therapy once a week and therapy with my parents as well as without them, for at least the next year to make sure I didn't get in over my head again. This was reassuring, but the thought of starting over for real was a little scary, still. The fall before, everyone at school had talked about Cass. Now it would be me. And it wouldn't be easy. But I had my family, my checks and balances. And what I'd been through already had been much, much worse.
Sometimes I thought about what would happen when I finally did see Rogerson. Did I think he would hit me? No. I'd slipped too far from him now. But I imagined all kinds of possibilities: We bumped into each other at the Quik Zip, at a party, or just passed on the street. In some of these scenarios, he was angry with me, or so nice that I felt my strength wavering, if only slightly. In others, he passed right by me, as if I didn't exist and never had, and that hurt the most. But I made myself see it, again and again, so I'd be prepared. No matter what happened. I'd spent so many months feeling like I was underwater, half in dreamland with those mermaids, hearing all the voices from up above. And since I'd been at Evergreen I felt like I'd been swimming so hard, the water growing warmer and warmer the closer I got to the top. I wasn't there yet, but now I could see the surface, rippling just beyond my fingers. And every time I got scared, I pulled out that picture I was still assembling and took a long look at it. The top half was almost done, with the bottom filled in here and there: you could see the dark of my hair,
one eye, a bit of nose, the shape of my neck. And when it was done, I planned to hang it, patchworked and pieced together, on my wall at home. I'd put it with every other one I'd collected, including that girl, finally, with all the faces of the people I loved.