“What’s happening, Dad?” I asked. “What are these guys doing?”
He turned to me, and looked at me sadly. “Ms. Austin called me,” he said.
“Ms. Austin?”
“The public librarian.”
I stared at him. “How do you spell that?”
“Cass …”
“How’s it spelled?!”
“P-U-B—”
“No. Her name.”
“Oh. A-U-S-T-I-N. I think. I knew her mom—used to teach at Fairview. She was still there when you were young, but—”
“She’s named Jane Austin?”
“The librarian?”
“Yes.”
“Oh,” said Dad. “Yeah, I guess. Why?”
“Why? Jesus, Dad.”
“What? What’s this Jesus Dad?”
I shook my head to clear it. “Whatever. So you want me to go get checked out? Okay. Let’s go. We need a new EpiPen too.”
He sat down on my bed. “No, honey.”
“No, you don’t want me to get checked out?”
“Yes, but not in that way.”
“In what way?”
Dad turned to the paramedics, but they were examining the ceiling and the walls like there was a Michelangelo mural there.
“She told me you’ve been talking to yourself,” he said. “Your teachers too. They called me last week.”
I felt the bottom falling out of the world. At the same time, I was glad. Or part of me was. That it was out of my hands now. But I still didn’t want to go to the hospital.
The voice didn’t either.
“Make him stop,” it said. “Make him stop or you’ll suffer.”
“Please, Dad, I don’t want to go anywhere.”
He couldn’t meet my eyes. “I’m sorry, Cass. I don’t know how else to help you.”
“Help me? You never help me. You’ve never been there for me.”
He took a step back. “Maybe I … I don’t know. But this is what I’m doing now. I’m getting you some help.”
I pointed to the two men. “This is help?”
He made a what can I do? gesture. Then tipped his head to the guys, to say, take her.
“YOU CANNOT LET THIS HAPPEN,” said the voice, and in that moment I was so afraid, so unable to deal with what would happen if these men took me someplace where I would have to talk about the voice, so freaked out by the thought of how much it would punish me, that I grabbed onto Dad, onto the front of his shirt, and I think I started to cry then, and I said, “Please, please, please, Dad, please, please, please, please …”
You get the idea. I said please a lot.
I begged, I’m ashamed to say.
I cried, and I begged.
AND THEN …
AND THEN:
Dad literally put his fingers in his ears, like he was a kid and I was saying something he didn’t want to hear. “Don’t, Cass. Don’t make this harder,” he said.
“I’m not making this hard,” I said, through my sobs. “You’re making this hard.”
Dad turned to the two guys. “Come on, let’s get this over with,” he said. He was crying. I could see it now, his eyes overflowing. He turned to me. “They’re going to take you someplace you can get some help.”
In my head I thought, If you see aliens, you get taken away by the men in black; if you hear a voice, you get taken away by the men in green, because one of the things I do is to think of lame jokes in really incredibly serious situations.
“Please, Dad,” I said, one last time.
“No.”
And, oh, what an echo that was, that little exchange.
The muscle-bound paramedic looked at him. “Let’s be clear here, sir,” he said. “You’re saying she’s a danger to herself?”
Dad indicated my arms. “What do you think? Plus she had an allergic episode at the library and injected herself with adrenaline, but she didn’t go to the hospital. I don’t even know if she had an episode. Maybe she just injected herself for whatever reason. I don’t know.”
“And her behavior up till then?”
“Erratic. Private. She’s been holed up in the apartment above our garage. Her teachers are worried about her. She’s been cutting herself in her room and talking to herself and God knows what else and I just can’t—”
To my surprise, he burst legitimately into tears.
He took a breath.
“She’s been withdrawn since her mom died. But since she found the foot on the beach … ”
“That was her?” asked the young paramedic, the kid.
“Yes.”
The older one nodded slowly. “Okay, sir,” he said. “Sign here.” He held out a clipboard to Dad. Then he and the other guy lifted me up.
“You going to struggle?” he asked. It was almost kind, his tone.
“Oh yes,” I said. “But not with you.”
He looked at me strangely, then shrugged.
And they took me to the ambulance. They didn’t exactly carry me, but it wasn’t far off. I mean, it was clear I had no choice in the matter.
On the way, we crossed the yard, and I saw you, just for a second. You were in the space under the stairs where the shared washing machine and dryer are; I guess you were doing laundry.