"What did she do to herself?" I finally had the courage to ask. "She cut her wrists," Mommy said.
It took the wind from my lungs, because that was the image I had imagined and feared. It was a strange thing to me that we were a military family, and I had seen and heard guns go off and men prepared for war, yet I never had witnessed a single act of violence in my life, except what I had seen on television or in the movies. When I was a little girl. I used to think my father was just pretending, that it was all just one big adult game. Even stories about terrorists attacking naval vessels in distant ports seemed unreal. None of it, fortunately, had come close to touching us.
But this morning, almost immediately, I was so close to an actual attempted suicide.
"Will she be all right?" I asked.
"Yes, she will. I'm sure," Daddy said.
"Physically, maybe," Mommy said, her eyes turned to him. He looked back at me quickly. "She'll be fine." he insisted. Mommy shook her head.
I told them both what Wench and Penny had done and how that had upset Autumn.
"They were so mean to do that," I added.
"What a welcome to a new community for you. honey. I'm sorry," Mommy said.
It's not your fault, I wanted to say, but then I thought. Of course it is. It's always your fault when you're a parent and you're the one in control of everything. You make the choices, and -what follows is always the result of those choices. She made the decision to marry my daddy and be a Navy wife, and that meant I would be here today, on this very spot, having this very experience.
If only we could know what our decisions could mean before we made them. I thought. Maybe that was wisdom, but it seemed to me it came to us too late. or we wouldn't listen when older, wiser people were generous with what they knew and what they had learned. We would have to make cur own mistakes almost as if we had to own them along with our own successes. It was how we achieved our own identities. our own names.
Poor Autumn, I thought
Look at what she owned.
Look at what her name was now.
2
My Personal Radar Screen
.
It wasn't any easier to keep secrets in our world
than it was in the outside world, although there was something of an unwritten rule that whatever happened to anyone in the naval community was to be kept within that community. Neither Wendi nor Penny showed any remorse over what they had done to poor Autumn, but they did keep what they knew locked away from the civilian girls in our school. At least, that was what I thought.
They cornered me the first day I attended my new school and brought me into the girls' room so no one else could hear us talk about Autumn,
"You were there. too," Penny said, her eyes flickering with excitement. "My brother told me. Was there blood all over the place?"
"I didn't see anything. I went home as soon as they entered her room." I said quickly. I saw they were disappointed that I wouldn't be giving them a blow-by-blow description of the horrid event.
"She must have read about how to do it," Wendi said. Penny nodded, Both of them looked mostly impressed about that. "You know, putting your wrists in warm water and all to keep the blood flowing"
"That means she really was going to kill herself," Penny declared with exaggerated eyes. "She wasn't simply frying to get attention. How
embarrassing for her family. I know Caitlin is afraid my brother will stop seeing her because of it. You know, once there is madness in one member of a family, there's a good chance it's in another."
"It wasn't madness." I insisted, She was just embarrassed and ashamed because of what you told me. Why did you do that so cruelly?"
"We were just trying to protect you," Wendi replied. It was the least we could do for a new girl."
"You would think you would show some gratitude. She could have one around here telling everyone you were her new best friend or something." Penny added,
"I don't need anyone to tell me with whom I can and cannot be friends." I snapped back at them.
"Well pardon mot," Wendi said. "That's the first and last time we'll do anything to help you."