Thirteen Weeks

She sits there. Twisting the ring that sits on her middle finger. Every now and then a wispy brown lock falls into her field of vision, which she nervously clears away. The sugary frost on the window is doing it's best to creep in past the seal. It is self-destructively curious about how it would feel to be inside. While the solitary tree in the yard outside shivers, the snow that covers its base sprawls out and creates a quilt of white mounds that are deceptively comforting. Although the lights are on and the heat is going, she can't help but feel a chill underneath her skin. This place is so bare. She looks up and down the hallways that have neither art nor people to decorate them and imagines herself living here. Every morning, waking up to the same beige walls and the same vacant halls. It has been thirteen weeks since she last set foot in this building. She wonders how much he could have forgotten in thirteen weeks.

The phone rings, interrupting her thoughts. Twice. Sharply.

"Hello! Thank you for calling Heritage Oaks Mental Facility! How may we help you today?" The receptionist has a shrill voice. "Uh-huh... Yes of course ma'am. I will tell Doctor Finnegan you called... Yes you too! Goodbye!" The phone clicks back into place and the silence of the lobby reclaims its dominance.

She looks down at her hands that have been twisting that ring that rests on her finger. It is slightly too big for her, so sliding it around is no great effort. She notices the ring. It is a class ring. Class of 1975. Blue jewel inset. The image of a high school football player on one side, opposed by a clarinet. As the ring floats around her finger, she dreads the conversation that is coming. She knows that this is not the same as before. Thirteen weeks is a long time.

"Carolyn Hall?" The receptionist again.

She stands and straightens her skirt. "Yes? That's me."

"Your father is ready to see you! He has been having a pretty good week so everything should go fairly smoothly. One more thing? Please don't be upset if he takes a while to warm up to you. That is completely normal."

Normal. What did that woman know about normal? Nothing about this situation is normal. Nonetheless, she thanks the receptionist and walks slowly towards the large, creme-colored doors at the end of the hallway. With each step, it seems as though she is taking steps backwards, hallway infinitely expanding before her. She wishes she could be taking steps backwards. If she had her way, she would be turning and running out the front doors and down the steps and back home to her loving fiance, and never have to come back through those doors again. But here she was. She allows her hand to rest on the chilled metal bar that would break her into this room. She hesitates for a moment and looks through the glass pane that seems to hang in the door frame.

A few patients are in this room. All wearing approved clothing that had no zippers, buttons, or strings. Some patients sit confined to wheelchairs, while others pace furiously. She notices two men sitting down to play a game of chess. What catches her eye is the patient with his face to her as he plays his game. His hair is white and curly, not completely lasso-ing his shiny, bald head. A pair of thick bifocals sit balanced at the end of his nose, as he peers down through them. A smile creeps across his unshaven face as he makes his next move. Satisfied with the play, he leans back in his chair and rests his folded hands on his rotund belly, his pawn resting safely behind a button to protect it from the other man's used pill bottle without a cap.

At last, her gaze settles on the man being helped by his nurse over in the corner by the piano. Salt and pepper hair covers his oval-shaped head and crawls down his face to sprinkle his jaw. Cheeks, no longer sunken against the frame of his face, flush ever so slightly, reminding her of the jolly old saint that used to leave toys in her living room. He is wearing a grey pullover sweater with Boston Red Sox scrawled across the front of it and black sweatpants with cognac slippers. He had gained a little weight since she had last seen him, which was healthy, considering the state he was in when he got here. Her heart flutters and she feels her face become warm. Her palms begin to sweat and her breath shallows. With all the courage she has in her body, her shaking hand presses into the door and swings it open.

She did not disturb any of the patients in the sitting room, however, she feels as though she had just intruded on some intimate family dinner. Her cheeks show a bright crimson at her own discomfort. She walks slowly over to this man facing the window. Her father.

She sees the empty chair waiting beside him that is clearly for her. She debates turning around and not allowing herself to be open to this, but she had come this far. Courage mounts within her and she melts into the seat beside her father.

She places a clammy, trembling hand on his turned shoulder.

"Dad? Dad. It's me, Carolyn. I'm here for a visit today." The words barely escaping her dried throat. He turns his face towards her. His eyes. They are the first things she notices. Those eyes that had once been glassy, swollen and red are so clear. So clear. Those deep browns flash her way like a doe recognizing her fawn. The look she had dreaded so much was splashing over her. It was suffocating.

At this, her own emotion begins to overflow out of her own eyes and she feels a single tear escape and make a run for her cheek. "Carrie! Oh Carrie! How's my little Care Bear?" The familiar nickname feels so foreign to her now.

"I'm alright, Dad. I'm here to talk about you though! The nurse has said that you have been having a great week? You want to talk about it?" Each word spilling out of her mouth and crashing clumsily onto the floor.

"Yeaaaa... these folks here have me set up nicely. You know they let me keep a journal? I like to sit here sometimes and watch the birds in the windows. They come so often. Do you like to look at birds Care Bear?" He lifts his weathered hand onto the sill, which immediately fogged up, showing the chill of the winter.

"Yes Dad. We used to sit and watch together, remember?" She chokes on that last word.

His eyes flutter for a moment, as if he had just stumbled. His cheeks show his embarrassment. For how they lack mouths, those eyes spoke louder than anything she had ever heard. "Yes. Yes! Why wouldn't I? Anyway, they let me keep a journal!" He repeats himself. "Would you like to see it? They let me sit and watch the birds you know. I love to watch the birds."

"Sure, I would love to see it Dad." She fights to conceal the discomfort at his repetition.

He reaches into his pocket that hangs loosely from his sweatpants and reveals a small, black-bound notebook. He opens it slowly to reveal pages and pages of diligent notes, lying next to doodles of yellow finches, and red-breasted woodpeckers. The birds within these pages all fly out of the book and surround Carolyn. This was comforting, and she clings to the memory as she prepares herself for what she only knew was coming.

"Dad, these diagrams are so wonderful! I am so glad that you have this here with you. But, Dad. I need to talk to you about some things. Is that okay?" Her voice shakes and cracks, the dryness in her throat mounting.

"What things?" He grunts, eyes unmoving but chin rising from his notes and birds.

"I want to ask you about Connor." Speaking his name causes the wind to leave her chest. "You remember Connor, Dad. We need to talk about him."

He stops flipping pages and stares blankly at the floor. The heat of the room suddenly apparent, brings beads of sweat to his temple. She notices a small vein close to his left eye that begins to pulse. "Don't test me Carolyn."

"But, Dad! We need to talk about what happened. Please?" The tear that had blazed a trail across her face is joined by two, which fall from her chin and land onto her denim skirt, leaving a small spot.

"What do you mean 'what happened'? I don't even know a Connor." His eyes begin to dart around the room, not entirely satisfied with anything they seem to be grasping.

"Yes you do Dad. Please try, for me? What's wrong right now?" The little confidence she had rushing out of her. "There's nothing WRONG with me! Don't you get it?!" He slams his notebook onto the linoleum and rises from his chair.

Immediately, nurses raise their antennae and look out for danger. One of them that had been slouching against a wall, now stood erect and ready to swoop in and protect the patients from each other. "I don't understand why you and your mother and everyone else won't just LET ME BE!" His face now glows, almost in a cartoonish fashion, and he began to pace and gnaw on his little finger.

"Dad, please just talk to me.." She lays her hand on his shoulder, which he immediately shrugs off. Her voice rises to calibrate with his, although much higher pitched and filled with cracks and breaks.

"Who are you?"

The words hang in the air from the noose of the question mark. Carolyn loses the air in her lungs. "Nurse! Nurse!" The nurses turn their attention towards the pair by the window. "This woman is bothering me!"

"Dad? We were just talking. You remember. It's me, Care Bear." No longer trying to conceal the tears that are plummeting down her cheeks.

He stops pacing and lifts his chin to look out of the window. He is silent for a few moments. These moments seem to last hours. He breaks the silence. "It's sad that the snow came and chased all my birds away."

Her eyes fell. "Dad. Can we try to talk about this?" She stands, stiff as a corpse and lays a hand on his back.

"LEAVE ME ALONE! I DON'T KNOW YOU!!" His hand flies from his turned back.

The nurses immediately swarm and pull his arms down, as nonsense blurbs escape his lips in bursts of angry gasps. The place where his hand had met her face stung with a burning hot resonance as she falls back into her chair, too stunned to let anything escape her throat. She sits in complete silence as they gather up this broken man into their arms and hustle him away, loud grunts and confused shouts echoing down the hallway behind them. Silent tears chase each other down her jaw. Wide, un-blinking eyes staring into the abyss of the hallway. She stands, as if instinctually and floats back through the sitting room into the lobby. She thinks she hears the receptionist say something along the lines of a dismissal, but her head doesn't have room for anything else at this moment. Clutching her coat tightly around her neck with both hands, feeling the cold envelope her, she sets out across the parking lot to the car, not minding the winter air that had seeped in and prickled her skin. At least it is a feeling.

Once in the safety of the car, she puts the key into the ignition and turns the car on to start the engine. It roars to life, lights flashing and different small beeps let her know that her seatbelt is unbuckled and that her lights are 'on'. The frozen trails on her face where she had allowed her feelings to spill out are no longer alive, but are sticking to her face; a blotchy, red mark in place on her left cheek. She begins to turn over the events of the afternoon, shuffling them and stacking them, not sure how to start the deal.

The radio begins to pull her out of her head with some soft Death Cab for Cutie. '...his head was a city of paper buildings and the echoes that remain of both friends and lovers with features bleeding together in his brain..."

What could she say to appease this mess? The song continued. '...the television was snowing softly as she hunted for her keys. She never envisioned him the type of person capable of such deceit. Oh and they were further away from the solution that they need, without a remainder...'

She sighs. This exhale. Releasing all of her angst and turmoil. This was beyond her power. She allows the floodgates to again be torn down from behind her baby browns as she shifts the car into gear. Looking over her shoulder, she catches one last glimpse of the plain building that sits nestled in the nape of these hills.

The ring that hangs loosely from her finger catches her gaze. Suddenly heavy, she grazes it with her thumb. She must allow for her heart to remain trapped in the time where her daddy would pick her up and hoist her to his shoulders as they searched for blue jays and sparrows. She must allow her heart to be tucked into bed, and read to sleep; even if it means that this present self, the woman she has become, must be the remainder.

~For Gil Colby