from the plot [unravel]

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thehinterlandonline:p l o t:ramona barckert_UNRAVEL

u n r a v e l

"It's just you and I now, dear." Between her palms, she rubs a silk,
ivory colored handkerchief with a delicate embroidered trim. The handkerchief
was a gift from Barry to her on Mother's Day. I'm appalled that she
carries it around all the time, like that handkerchief is the only thing
worth anything to her.

"Don't say it."

"We only have each other to care for--."

"Stop."

But she will not stop. She talks as if we are the only two people left
in the world. I want to get up and walk away but I am bound to this
hospital bed. No one can tell me the truth about when I will be able
to leave. The doctor had said five weeks, at first. But five weeks
turned into eight. Eight to ten. They say I am not recovering as quickly
as they hoped. They don't say it is my fault. But it is. I am not
trying hard enough.

Everyday she comes and sits beside me. I stare up at the corrugated
ceiling and count the dead flies stuck in the light fixtures. Still,
I can see her beside me and those thin, blue lips pressed together.
I refuse to converse with her in any sort of human way. If I say anything
at all, it is to tell her to stop talking, to go away, to leave me alone.

We have nothing to connect us anymore, so why doesn't she just go on
with her life? They are dead. They're dead and there is nothing to
connect us now.

I see her rubbing that silk handkerchief between her palms. She rubs
it like a lamp, greedily, hoping a genie will emerge and grant her wishes.

"Just you and I now, dear." She says over and over. Sometimes she says
it through a torrent of sobs because she wants them back so badly. Sometimes
it comes through a stunned whisper because she cannot believe I didn't die instead.

I am the one. I killed them.

But who is to say really? Had I pressed down on the gas pedal intentionally?
Had I turned the steering wheel the wrong way on purpose?

The doctor appears frequently. From underneath a shock of red hair,
he tells me that my paralysis is temporary. He says in five months time,
under intense physical therapy, I will walk again. He pokes my palms
with a sharp instrument and my fingers twitch. He nods his head with
cautious delight.

"Good. Slow," he said, "but persistent."

A nurse comes into the room and peers down at me over the rim of her
glasses. They are large glasses with a shimmering purple frame.

"Well," she says, "Can I get you anything?"

I blink and look up at the cavernous lines marking her forehead. I part
my lips slightly but say nothing. My tongue feels thick, like a dried-out sponge.

The nurse shrugs, undisturbed by my silence. She brings a tube to my
lips and sprays a cool stream into my mouth. The water releases the
dryness, the coarseness of my throat. My jaw relaxes, even though I
didn't realize I was clenching it. I jerk my chin out for a moment and
then pull it back. I try to touch my chin to my neck but I can't reach.
My neck has no response.

I pull my lips towards my teeth and then open my mouth wider. Only a
whisper comes out, followed by a strange croak. It sounds horrible,
inhuman. Like the grinding of machinery. It does not sound like me at all.

The nurse peers down at me again, her eyebrows raise and deepening the
lines on her forehead. But I do not try to speak again.

Light.

That's the first thing. I know there is light, even though I don't know
if there is anything else. Maybe I am dead, maybe I am asleep and dreaming.
All I am sure of is that there is light. It is harsh.

I want to blink and turn my face away. But I am not even sure if I have
eyes. And if I have them, where are they? Which direction am I facing?

Then something changes. The light grows dimmer, altered somehow. It
becomes a different kind - less white, less organic. It becomes the
kind of light that electricity creates, the kind that the living create.

I remember my chest, and how it is supposed to rise and fall. I can
not sense my breath yet but somehow I feel it is coming too. In the
distance, beyond the light there is a beeping. It is a soft, rhythmic,
comforting beep. It is bringing me back - it reminds me of my ears.

Something else changes. The beeping becomes a thumping. Thud-ump.
Thud-ump. The thumping is a pounding in my chest, and it reminds me
of my heart. The dreaming, the sleeping is over.

My heart tells me I am very much alive.

Things keep floating by. Or maybe I'm the one floating. I seem held
by nothing, not air or gravity. My body is asleep, my legs are tingling
with heaviness. Things keep floating by.something carved into wood,
letters painted red, a basement window dark with shadows and then.spinning
tires that screech and twist even though there's no road and then-

My home is my black heart.

Black heart.

My home.

The road is slick and my hands are wet. The wheels slip, my palms sip,
my whole body slips. I try to turn my head by my neck won't turn. The
car is spinning around and around, my body is pressed against the door
with inertia. My hands fumble against the wheel, which is dripping with
my sweat. It keeps slipping out of my fingers.

I can see the truck rolling towards the front of my van and I know it's
going to hit us, even so I try to steer out of its path. But the roads
are too slick and my efforts only seem to put us closer to the rolling truck.

Us.

I try to turn my head to see them but all I see are his white knuckles
reaching out - reaching out towards me. The baby is in the car seat
behind me but she makes no sound at all, like she's dead already. My
breath escapes me, sucked violently out of my chest.

The last thing is the worst. But it's not the metallic crunch, that
sound of destruction, though it is awful. The worst thing is the glass
and the way it cracks and bursts apart - the way the little shards bite
into my cheeks and upper arms. How unforgiving and cruel that glass
is, cutting into my flesh like that.

And then-

Black.

The windshield wipers frantically push away the relentless rain. For
a few seconds, I can see clearly. But what I see -

The brake lights of the car in front of me flare up fast, like lightening.
I hear squealing and then, a band so loud my jaw snaps shut. Then I
see a shadow moving towards me and it's so large my eyes cannot comprehend
all of it. It is rolling towards me, charging.

"I thought you knew the way."

"I do, Barry."

"Then where are we?"

"I don't have a goddamn idea!"

"Christ!"

"How and I supposed to know everything - I take care of everything!"

"Don't yell, you're scaring Casey."

"Goddamn it, I can't see a thing out of the windshield - how come you never drive?"

"You didn't say you wanted me to drive."

"Well, it'd be nice if you offer once in a while - you never, ever offer
to drive. I always --."

"Casey, honey don't cry. Please baby, Mommy's not mad."

"Jesus, Barry."

"What the-."

"Oh my god."

"God!"

Right then, the rain starts to pound so hard that the windshield of the
car rattles. The moments between visibility and the blur of rain grow
longer and longer. I don't want to be here, with my husband and baby
daughter trapped by the plush gray interior of a mini-van.

I think I am going to start crying because I can't seem to control my
breathing. I bite my lower lip so hard I feel blood seep out.

And he--. Stupid him. He talks to me about his day, about how the photocopier
won't work and his new phone line isn't connected properly. And me,
stupid me. I smile and encourage him with uh-huhs and nods. I pretend
my heart isn't hysterical underneath my chest. I pretend like the storm
outside the van doesn't matter. Like its fury isn't affecting me and growing stronger.

I run on a string and it never ends. I run on my tiptoes because my
heels are too heavy. My arms help me balance because the string is so
delicate. But my arms are heavy too, sometimes.

The string is pink and is fraying on the sides a little bit, like a kitten's
been pulling at it, pouncing on it to see if it will ever fight back.

This cannot be what I signed up for.
I wanted to go to grad school and get my Masters in Fine Arts. I wanted to be a writer.

He comes home when the day is done. If traffic is smooth, he may come
into the kitchen with a smile and kiss my neck. If he suffered from
a bad commute, he pokes his head in and says hi with a scowl. Either
way, he heads straight for her.

Casey is always cried out by the time he comes home. She saves up all
her giggles and bright eyes for her father.

So for a few hours, I am free of her. But I am not free of it. This
bottomless pit of Things To Be Done. Things to be Done that Do Not Matter.
Leftover pizza to be heated up. Toilet to be scrubbed. Bed to be made
- no, sheets changed first and then, bed to be made. Clothes in the
washer, clothes in the dryer, clothes out of the dryer, folded, put away,
worn, soiled, clothes in the hamper, clothes in the washer. Change the
baby. Burp the baby. Put every bit of energy of every cell in my body
into that baby. On and on.

She never stops crying. I can't feed her enough, I can't clean up her
shit fast enough . She never sleeps, I never sleep. He sleeps through
everything. He doesn't get up unless I shake him and scream in his face.
And then, I'm awake anyway.

I was hoping that I would be the kind of mother who reads her great books
and takes her to museums. That I would protect her form the evils of
the world without keeping her sheltered and ignorant. I wanted to teach
her to roll around in the grass and to prefer broccoli over ice cream.

None of this has come true. Instead, all I do is plop her in front of
the television hoping she will be enthralled enough to shut up for five
goddamn minutes.

And he - he's no help. Not one bit.

The thing is I wish them both dead.

"Dear, while Barry is playing with Casey I wanted to give you something."

"What?"

"It's something I founding an antique store. Well, Barry and I found
it together at the same place he got my handkerchief. Something you
can hang in the new place - the kitchen, above the sink maybe."

"Oh, thanks."

"Hand-carved. Hand-painted."

"Red letters."

"Yes. It's a mother-in-law's job to give the first housewarming gift."

"You mean, basement apartment-warming gift."

"Yes, dear. Do you like the saying?"

"Uh. Yes. My home is my heart. It says."