Body of Stars Laura Walter (chrome ebook reader .txt) 📖

He took my hand and pulled me toward him. I let him hug me. I let him cry against my neck and hold me like I was something precious and vulnerable. But I did not feel breakable. I was stone.

“It’s always the most difficult for fathers,” the nurse said. “They tend to experience great anger and great shame after abductions.” She stood up and drew a stick-figure family on the chalkboard, making the father oversized and placing him in the center. “Sometimes it might seem that rage is directed at the daughter, but that’s not the case. Their reactions are always, always based in love. Please remember that, Celeste. Let your father feel what he needs to, and stay strong. Things will get better with time, I promise.”

My father pulled back and wiped his eyes. The session carried on, a stumbling, halting endeavor. Most of it washed over me in an amnesic tide. Finally, from the corner of the room near the door, a timer dinged. We all turned to look at it. It was a little brass timer sitting on a table behind the nurse. I hadn’t noticed it when I came in.

The nurse reached behind her and turned off the alarm. “Unless there’s anything more you’d like to discuss, you’re free to go.”

No one said anything. I supposed there was good reason for the thirty-minute limit. The staff in the Reintegration Wing saw hundreds of families a year; they’d probably given up trying to resolve anything a long time ago.

We stood and marched from the room: my father first, then Miles, and then my mother, who held my hand but let me drift back a bit. We followed the nurse down the hall to the checkout desk. I looked for the other girls along the way, but they had vanished. Maybe their family sessions weren’t so disastrous and they were already on their way home, back to normal lives. Or maybe not.

At the checkout desk, the nurse handed me some paperwork and a pen.

“You’re almost free,” she said brightly. The form she gave me to sign was insultingly simple. It stated the date and the time and that I would be leaving of my own will.

“Does this mean I could have left earlier, if I’d asked?” I was embarrassed that I’d never thought of it. Adults had placed me in this hospital, had told me I was injured and had to stay. It didn’t occur to me that I might have refused.

“Well,” the nurse said. She seemed as staggered by my question as by my realization that I could ask it. “We’ve never had a girl leave before her four days are up. It’s a federally sponsored program, you know. We’re here to make sure girls recover.”

I stopped asking questions. I signed the form.

*   *   *

During the drive home, I sat in the back seat, next to Miles, and leaned my face against the window. I watched the world pass by: the trees changing color, the houses still standing. The hospital was located on the opposite side of town, so we had a long drive.

We were about halfway home and passing through a part of the city I didn’t recognize when I saw it: a flyer dangling from a telephone pole. One of its staples had come loose and it flapped desperately in the wind, but I could still make out the photocopied image it bore.

It was my face, a picture I didn’t recognize. I was not smiling. And above my head, the single word printed in all caps in a thick, choking font: LOST.

Strategies for Reintegration: A 7-Stage Guide for Recovery and Rehabilitation

Stage 4: Going Home. Following your successful completion of the rehabilitation program, you will be rewarded with a clean bill of recovery and discharged. While most patients are eager to return to the comforts of home, be advised that this transition can be emotionally taxing. In fact, many girls only begin to face the irrevocable changes in their lives after they’ve retreated to a familiar environment. This reckoning is not always welcome, and as a result, some patients choose to begin their lives anew elsewhere.

No matter your personal circumstances, take heart in knowing it’s normal to feel anxious upon being discharged. In many ways, your struggle has just begun. To endure this struggle is the only way to reach the greater future that awaits you.

17

At home I showered, shampooing my hair twice. The suds rained down my body, making me feel clean at last. Afterward, I felt much improved. I was no longer sore, and the steam obscured my remaining bruises. I was even getting used to the lack of high lucidity.

Downstairs, I found my mother drinking coffee in the kitchen. I slid into a seat at the table and asked for a cup. The coffee was hot, bitter, strong. As I drank, it made a burnt path along my tongue.

“Anything you’d like to do today?” my mother asked.

I paused, considering. Routines had vanished from my mind; I struggled to even remember what day of the week it was.

“I think I’ll just stay in.” The thought of leaving that familiar space to confront the greater world was overwhelming. “But I’ll be fine on my own if you want to go into the office. They must be missing you at work by now.”

She emptied her remaining coffee into the sink. “That’s not necessary.”

“Really, Mom. You should be at work.”

She began washing the mug.

“Mom?”

She glanced over her shoulder with a quick, tense smile. “I don’t work anymore.”

“I can’t believe you quit because I was gone. You knew I’d come back.”

“That’s not exactly what happened.” She dried her hands on the dish towel, then folded and hung the towel on the peg by the sink. When she finally turned to face me, her expression was inscrutable. “My boss told me that he understood this was a trying time and that I needed to focus on my family.”

“But you told him you wanted