11/05/03
The sun was shinning brightly, the birds in the trees were singing
happily, and everything seemed wonderful in the world. But on that
beautiful afternoon, as Caroline walked home from school, everything
was definitely not wonderful in her world. Deep in thought, she
flinched as a young boy on a bicycle whizzed past her on the
sidewalk. She had been thinking about some of the names her
classmates had called her earlier that day and she was sure that the
boy was going to turn his head and whirl yet another insult at her.
He didn't. She self consciously tucked her head down, hugged her book
bag to her chest, and watched the boy as he rode down the sidewalk
swaying back and forth on his bike.
In the "real world," Caroline would probably not have the problem
she was now facing, but she had no way of knowing that.
Unfortunately, she was growing up in the land of make believe. A
place where anorexia, bulimia, and similar unpleasant eating habits,
were not only accepted, they were the norm. She was growing up in
that magical, fairy tale land known to the rest of us as Southern
California. Quite possibly the only place on the planet where a girl
of thirteen, carrying 122 pounds on a five foot, two inch tall frame,
was actually considered chubby.
As she walked along, Caroline began to wonder if her classmates
were right. Not the name calling part, she was mature enough to
understand that the harsh words were just their way of dealing with
their own insecurities, but maybe they had a valid point about her
weight. On other days when the teasing was particularly bad, she
always went home and looked at her body in the mirror. She didn't
think she was unusually big, but she was heavier than a lot of the
other girls in her class. "But am I really that fat?" She asked
herself for the umpteenth time. "Maybe it would be better to just
lose a few pounds," she thought. "It wouldn't be all that hard to do,
and maybe then the other kids would stop making fun of me."
Caroline was relieved when she finally reached the walkway to her
home. She picked up the pace for the last few steps to the door,
turned the key in the lock and slipped inside. This was her
sanctuary. It was the only place in the world where she felt truly
safe and she breathed a sigh of relief.
As her eyes adjusted to the dim light of the living room, the first
thing she noticed was the new issue of Oprah sitting on the coffee
table. She knew her mother often read the magazine because of the
mushy, ego boosting stories of in it, but when she saw the headline
on the cover, she felt instantly betrayed by both her mother and
Oprah.
"How To Lose 25 Pounds In Two Weeks"
Caroline sighed heavily, dropped her book bag on the couch and
walked into the kitchen. She was fixing a snack of strawberries and
apple slices when her mother walked in from the back yard carrying a
handful of freshly cut flowers.
"Hi mom."
"Oh! Hi honey!" Her mother sounded a bit startled, but happy just
the same. "I didn't know you were home already. How was school?"
"Did I scare ya?" Caroline giggled and her mother gave her a mock
Evil Eye. "School was OK, I guess"
"Anything interesting happen?"
"There was a fight in gym, but other than that, no."
"Smell." Her mother said as she stuck the bouquet of flowers to her
daughter's nose, then jokingly added, "The most interesting thing in
school was a fight?"
"They smell beauuutiful." Caroline said with exaggerated flourish,
then became quiet for a moment. Anticipating that she had more to
say, her mother quietly stood beside her, watching her cut the apple
into small pieces.
Finally, Caroline asked, "Mom, do you think I'm fat?"
"What?" Her mother replied, almost in disbelief. "No dear, I don't
think you're fat at all. You might have a little bit of baby fat on
you, but that's only natural. It'll go away"
She looked at her mother, almost with tears in her eyes, "The kids
at school were making fun of me today, they called me a beached
whale."
"You're kidding me!" Her mother burst out in shocked laughter, but
quickly recanted after seeing that Caroline was not smiling. "Honey,
listen, you're not even close to being That big! Those kids were
probably just jealous because you're so darn cute." Caroline was
obviously not convinced, so her mother took her face into her hands
and looked seriously into her eyes. "I'm not going to have to get you
an appointment with Dr. Phil, am I?"
Both mother and daughter started laughing and the pressure began to
ease.
"Don't worry sweetheart, those kids wouldn't know Beautiful if it
smacked 'em upside the head." Her mother said, then snatched a piece
of apple and headed for the backdoor again. "Make sure you clean up
when you're finished there."
"OK."
Still not feeling any better about herself in spite of her mother's
reassurance, Caroline finished up in the kitchen and took her bowl of
fruit toward her bedroom. She loved her mother very much, and knew
that she meant well. But sometimes, she thought, parents just don't
understand.
As she passed her mother's bedroom, another thought came to her and
she decided to make a quick detour. She went into her mother's
bathroom and stood for a long time looking at herself in the mirror
above the sink. The reflection was of a girl with long, dark, wavy
hair, neatly manicured eyebrows that accentuated her dark eyes, and a
set of full lips that were covered with a pretty shade of pink
lipstick that had cost her almost her entire allowance. She would be
model perfect if only her cheeks weren't so fat -and yes, after
staring at herself for so long, she was starting to see that her
classmates were right after all, she was definitely fat!
Disgusted by what she saw in the mirror, Caroline set down her bowl
and slowly opened the medicine cabinet to reveal an array of bottles
and tubes. She looked at them for a second, then started sorting
through them till she found the one she wanted. It was a bottle of
pain killers that had been in the cabinet for several weeks. Her
mother's doctor had prescribed them for her when she twisted her
ankle, but her mother said that the pain wasn't very bad, and so she
hadn't taken them. Caroline took the pill bottle and her bowl of
fruit to her bedroom and closed the door.
Some time later, Caroline's mother came back in the house from
working in her garden. She went directly to the sink to wash the dirt
off her hands and found that Caroline had not cleaned up after
herself as promised. Grumbling under her breath, she started to clean
up the mess. She stopped suddenly when she realized that there was
something missing. Her daughter's discarded apple core and strawberry
tops were in a neat little pile by the sink and there was a wadded up
paper towel beside them. "But shouldn't there be something else?" Her
mother thought.
Then it hit her.
When she realized what it was that was missing, she felt the twinge
of panic in her stomach. She tried to tell herself not to be silly,
nothing was wrong, it was probably just misplaced, but the feeling of
panic persisted. She knew Caroline had been upset about being teased
at school, so she decided it was probably better to check on her
daughter than to make the same mistake that so many parents made when
dealing with a depressed adolescent.
She went to the door of her daughter's room and knocked. Caroline
didn't answer so she tried the handle. It was locked. She knocked
again, louder this time, and called out her daughter's name in a
stern voice. She could hear music coming from the other side of the
door, but there was no sound of movement. The panic in her stomach
continued to grow and she hurried to her own room to get the key. But
it wasn't there! The key wasn't where she remembered putting it.
Frantically, she searched all the places she thought it might be: the
dresser drawer, the jewelry box, the shoe box in the closet where she
kept all her important papers. She wiped moisture from her face and
realized that she crying. "Oh Caroline. Oh Caroline. What have you
done?" She chanted. The key was no where to be found.
By now, the twinge of panic had grown into all out terror. She gave
up on the key and hurried back to her daughter's door. She put her
shoulder to the door and heaved her weight against it. The door
bulged a little but did not give. She tried again and heard the wood
crack, but still it wouldn't open. Desperate, she stepped back and
kicked the door as hard as she could, aiming for the doorknob area.
With that, the door flew open and hit against the back wall with a
loud THUMP!
The inside of Caroline's bedroom was brighter than the hallway and
as her mother passed over the threshold, she could see exactly what
her daughter had done, the images instantly seared into her brain.
She stumbled. Everything began to go dark, and then she was falling,
falling into the darkness...
"Mom!" Caroline cried out from her bed. She had heard her mother
calling for her, but through the drug induced haze, it sounded like
it was a million miles away. Now that her mother was in her room and
hurt -Caroline saw blood pouring freely from a gash on her mother's
head and guessed that she had hit it when she fell- she knew she
would have to get up and help her. She threw her legs over the side
of the bed and stood up. The quick movement caused her head to spin
and she had to stop to let the feeling pass, then she started toward
her mother.
Caroline was halfway across the room when she stumbled on something
and looked down to see what it was. It was her intestines. They had
somehow worked their way free from her stomach and were now dangling
in front and under her feet. She suddenly found herself amused by the
way they bounced around when she moved, it was almost as if they were
dancing to the music on her stereo. She was also amused by the sloshy
sound they made as they danced. Curiously, it didn't hurt. If these
were, in fact, her intestines and not some fragment of a dream,
shouldn't she be in pain? She carefully stepped down on the part that
was under her foot. It made a low, wet "plop", but caused her no
pain. Must be the pain pills, she thought. Then she remembered that
her mother needed her and she bent down to bundled up her intestines,
which wasn't easy because parts of it kept trying to slip away. She
cradled what she could in her arms and took the last few steps to her
mother's side.
Caroline's mother woke up with a terrible headache. Before she even
opened her eyes she touched her forehead and a fresh wave of pain
washed through her. That brought her fully awake. She opened her eyes
and looked around the room. At once, the images that had followed her
into the well of blackness were back and more vivid than ever: her
daughter laying on her bed, her hands covered with blood, one hand
holding the missing knife, the other hand holding a flap of her cut
opened stomach; blood; the bowl on the nightstand that no longer
contained anything that even faintly resembled fruit, but now held
what appeared to be a bloody mass of human tissue; a pill bottle that
lay on its side on the floor; a trail of blood from the bed to where
she now sat. No wait, the trail was new! She followed it with her
eyes to where her daughter now lay beside her, face up, eyes staring
blankly at some point on the ceiling, skin an unnatural shade of
blue, and her intestines wrapped neatly around her arm like a big
spool of bloody thread.
Her mother opened her mouth to scream, but no sound escaped for
what seemed like the longest time. When it did finally come, she
couldn't stop.
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