Clay Emotions

“So when is he supposed to come back from,” Hannah looked from left to right, and then leaned in closer to me and lowered her voice so as not to be overheard in the cafeteria, “the funny farm?”
I pushed her face away from me and frowned. “It’s an inpatient facility, like a rehab center. It’s not,” this time, I lowered my own voice. “ a funny farm.”
Hannah started humming the first bars of “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)”
I punched her arm. She inched away, rubbing it and pouting at me. “Stop it.” I hissed. “And he comes home tomorrow.”
“Make sure he doesn’t have a hole in the middle of his forehead.” Said Hannah, mouth full with the bite of Jell-O she just took. As if it was normal for people to come back from a mental hospital with a hole in their head.
“They might have given him a lobotomy and you,” she pointed her plastic spork at me. “might have to be the one to suffocate him with a pillow.”
“Hannah!” I shouted, anger rising in my chest. “It’s not like that anymore! It’s not the 1960’s.” I closed my eyes, doing the deep breathing exercises my therapist taught me. The noise from the people around us wasn’t helping the buzzing inside my head. “He’s going to be okay.” But I was trying to convince her and much as I was trying to convince myself.
The lunch bell rang and I didn’t wait for Hannah to follow me.
“Chelsea!” She whined, as I walked further away from her.
I pushed my way through the swarm of students rushing down the stairwell to the cafeteria for second lunch-period. I had to push and shove people out of my way to just to make it up the stairs without causing a pig pile.
I was already feeling sick before lunch, and now, as I headed into the Trig room, I felt like my stomach had jumped to my throat, ready to escape at any moment.
You would think as a freshman starting high school, I wouldn’t be taking trigonometry. Or biology. Or European history. But my grades were so spectacularly high last year in eighth grade, the school decided it would be best for me if I took all these honors classes. I passed algebra and algebra II in middle school, and I guess they thought a junior level math class would be best. But it wasn’t. None of these classes were good for me. I was stressed beyond belief. Having all this homework on top of starting in a new school with new people doesn’t sit well with me.
I would like to think I’m doing okay. But that might all be an illusion. Since my dad got sent to the institution a month before freshman year started, I’ve been stressed out. Sometimes I can’t think straight, or focus enough to do homework. With that said, there have been missing assignments scattered about throughout the semester, which doesn’t make my teachers happy. Nor does it make me happy if I have to be the one to make them up at the end of the term. The only class that I know for a fact that I’m not failing is art class. All my stress and anxieties leave me as soon as I enter the doorway to the art room. The smell of paint combined with the dusty charcoal air soothes me. I work in a corner, with the pottery wheels, throwing clay every which way, making pots and bowls, as well as abstract shapes that seem to have taken on a personality of their own. It helps me with all these emotions that I’ve been feeling since my dad got sent away.
It wasn’t his fault. He’s not crazy and never was. He got too overwhelmed one day and just snapped. It happens to the best of us, as my mother has told me over and over. He had just gotten a promotion at his job, to assistant manager. There was more work to do and it took longer than the tasks he had to do as just a shift manager. He seemed okay for the first few days, acting like nothing was wrong and that he was actually enjoying it. My mom and I were oblivious to any signs of a struggle.
Until I found him passed out on the bathroom floor, the bottle of tylenol opened next to him. There were a few caplets spilled out. But I knew where the other ones had went. He was still warm, but his pulse was very slow. I called 911, and then I called my mother, who was at work late that night.
I didn’t cry, I didn’t scream. I did do anything. I felt like a stone statue, void of emotion.
I don’t know why I felt that way. I love my dad. And there he was, passed out next to me on the bathroom floor, close to death. I couldn’t even shed one tear.
After he got his stomach pumped and was awake enough to respond to the activity around him, the doctors decided it would be a good idea to send him away for a month. He didn’t protest. My mom didn’t protest. I protested. I wanted to believe that there was nothing wrong with my father. That he just had a bad day. He wouldn’t do it again. He wasn’t sick. He wasn’t like those people in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I didn’t want to be the kid at school who had a dad in a mental institution. I didn’t want to be different.
And that’s when I started crying. Hard. I cried so hard I fell to the floor. I pulled at the blankets on my dad’s hospital bed, screaming at him not go. I knocked the IV over, and the little bedside table from thrashing. The cup of water splashed all over the linoleum floor, onto the doctor’s shiny shoes. My mom picked me up under my arms and dragged me out of the room. That’s the last time I had seen my father before he was sent away.
My mom had me start seeing a therapist because I think she was afraid that I’d end up the same way as Dad. I didn’t want to go at first, because I figured talking to some stranger wasn’t going to help me. But just the opposite happened; talking to a therapist has helped a lot. Plus my therapist, Laura, was really nice. She let me call her by her first name, so it seemed more like a friendship than a doctor/patient mentality. She taught me deep breathing techniques for when I started to get stressed out and worry about my dad. And sometimes in school, I’d excuse myself from class and go out into the hallway and do these exercises. They calmed me down for the rest of the class period. Laura also told me that psychiatric hospitals weren’t like they were fifty years ago. There was nothing bad happening, and no one was getting hurt. There was solitary confinement, but there weren’t any strait jackets involved.
She let me talk for the whole hour about anything that I needed to get off my chest. I felt lighter after every session. Like my worry had melted off me, and stayed in that room instead of following me out.
And now, my dad was coming home tomorrow. And even though I knew they didn’t do lobotomies anymore, I was still scared by what Hannah had said. What if he was different? Then what? It’s like a totally different person would be coming home. And that’s what scared me the most.
He’d only been away a month, and I hadn’t been able to visit him. My mom went once, while I was in school. She didn’t want me to become distracted if I saw him. And if I wasn’t happy with what I saw, then I would just go right back to that place where I was when I saw him last. So, in other words, my mom thought I wouldn’t be able to handle seeing my dad in the condition he was in.
As my math class was about to start, I really did feel like I was about to be sick. My stomach started to ache, and my mouth started to water. I could see colors swirling in the corners of my eyes. I got up, knocking over my chair, and ran down the hall to the girl’s bathroom. Hannah was just walking in as I ran out. I heard her call my name, but I didn’t stop. When I got to the bathroom, not even bothering to lock the stall door behind me, my knees hit the floor and everything that had been in my stomach came up again, splashing the toilet bowl.
I told myself that I was just nervous about class. We were going to have a quiz today, and I was having trouble understanding the material. It had nothing to do with my dad. And I kept telling myself this for the next ten minutes. I knew class had already started, but I physically wasn’t able to lift myself up. My whole body was shivering even though it was warm.
The bathroom door squeaked open behind me.
“Chelsea?” It was Hannah. “Chelsea, what happened?” She walked into the stall, and kneeled down next to me. “Is it what I said at lunch? I’m really sorry, you know I was only joking…” She rubbed my back in small circles.
“It’s okay.” I said. “I’m just nervous about the quiz today.”
She stopped rubbing and she seemed to go a little pale. “There’s a quiz?”
I croaked out a small chuckle. “Yeah.”
“In that case, I should be puking too. I didn’t study at all.”
“Of course you didn’t.” I flushed the toilet and leaned into Hannah, my face smothered in her shoulder.
“It’s going to be okay.” Hannah whispered. I knew she wasn’t just talking about the quiz.
Hannah and I walked into math class together, getting a curious stare from Ms. Hadley, who was standing in front of the board. Before I could even sit my butt in the chair, a piece of paper was placed in front of me. It was the quiz. I sighed, looking it over. I was definitely going to fail this one. I took out a pencil and got to work. I made up most of the answers, but I didn’t care, with how I was feeling. The nausea still stuck around even after I had passed in my quiz. I felt my heart take a giant leap every few minutes, my breath catching in my throat.
I went through the rest of the day like this. Even in art class, I was slow with the wheel. Shapes and figures didn’t jump out at me like they usually do. Instead I just made a bunch of lumps. I did keep one, just incase I needed something to work off of tomorrow. I discarded the rest, exhausted from the art block.
Art was my last class of the day. I trudged to my locker and threw all my books into my backpack. I wasn’t really sure what I had for homework, but at this point, it was better to be safe than sorry.
Before I got on the bus, Hannah caught up to me. “Hey, don’t worry, okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
“I am sorry about what I said.”
I shook my head. “That’s not why I got sick. It’s...everything. I’m just stressed out.”
Hannah locked eyes with me and wouldn’t look away for about thirty seconds. It’s the thing she does when she wants to pull the truth out of me. But I wasn’t lying, so I looked straight back at her and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She hesitated before saying, “Okay. See you.”
I nodded, and then turned to board my bus.
My stop was the last one on the route, so I had a long wait before I could go home. Usually I would use the time to try to study for upcoming tests, but I didn’t feel like doing that today. I just wanted to rest. I felt tired, and drowsy. My heart had stopped jumping, and the nausea had gone away, but I knew it would resurface eventually.
I leaned my head against the glass window, and closed my eyes, letting the bumpy road lull me to sleep.

“Chelsea!” The voice sounded far away.
“Chelsea!” Again, but it was closer now.
“Chelsea, wake up!” Then, shaking. My shoulder shaking, and soon my whole body. My eyes flew open and fell onto the face of the bus driver. Her wrinkled face looked more angry than usual. Her hands were planted on her hips and she was tapping her foot, like a teacher from an over exaggerated cartoon.
“I’m sorry.” I said, without realizing what I was sorry for. Didn’t I just close my eyes for a few minutes?
“No sleeping on the bus. You kids these days sleep too much, and it takes a lot for us to wake you.” She chided.
I stood up, grabbing my backpack from where it sat next to me. “Sorry.” I grumbled, and pushed past her and ran down the steps. I kept running down the street until I got to my house. Now my heart was racing. I never felt intimidated by the bus driver, but for some reason today she scared the crap out of me. I felt like crying, even though I knew I didn’t do anything wrong. I was just tired. Which was probably why I was crying.
My mom wasn’t home yet, so I was able to just go to my room without having to tell her about my day. I closed the door behind me, and laid down on my stomach, feet hanging over the side. The same wave of tiredness that came over me on the bus came back, and I closed my eyes and drifted off.
Again, I thought it was only a few minutes. But when I opened my eyes and looked out the window, it was dark. My mom was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking out into the dark and humming to herself. “Mom?” I sat up, rubbing my eyes.
“You’re awake.” She smiled. “I was worried. You never fall asleep when you get home from school.”
I shrugged, and started pulling at the stray threads on my shirt. "Tired." I mumbled.
Mom slid closer to me, and put her hand on my shoulder. "What's really going on? You never get tired. You're supergirl."
I cracked a smile. I never do admit to being tired.
"It's your father, isn't it?" She asked softly.
My smile faded away, and I could feel the tears springing to my eyes. "I'm afraid." I mumbled.
"Afraid of what?" She wrapped her arms around me and starting to slowly rock back and forth.
The tears were coming down now. They rolled down my cheeks and onto my shirt, soaking the fabric. "That he's going to be a different person. That they changed him."
"Oh, sweety…"
"And what if they did do a lobotomy? What if he doesn't remember me?" I started wailing, digging my face into my mom's neck, my hands hitting the bed over and over again. I just want him to be normal!"
My mind raced with every worry that I've had since he left. That he would never come back. That they would treat him terribly, giving him shock therapy every day. What Hannah said about the lobotomy and me having to kill him for his own good. Or that he would just come back a zombie, filled with nothing but emptiness.
"Chelsea, it's okay!" My mom said, trying to soothe me. I was wailing now, kicking the bed. It’s like I had regressed back to being a little kid. I didn’t feel like a highschool student anymore. That’s how much this was killing me inside. All the childish fears had burst from my mind, and were in control of my body.
Tears stung my eyes, and my breaths were coming in short spurts. I felt my heart start to jump again. Even the nausea came back, burning a pit in the center of my stomach. I couldn't lie to myself. I got sick at school because I was worried about my dad. The only thing that separated him from me was a few hours. In that span of time I would know if my father was gone forever.
"Shh…" My mother wrapped her arms tighter around me and kept rocking back and forth, like I was a baby again. "Dad's going to be fine. He's going to feel better. He was…he was in a lot of pain before he got sent away--"
"But I didn't know that!" I yelled. "How come I didn't know? I could have done something!"
"Chelsea, honey, there was nothing we could have done. This was meant to happen. And now with this treatment, he's going to feel so much better than he did. He'll be able to handle things at work better, and he'll be a better father and a better husband."
"There was nothing wrong with him! I don't want a shiny new father, I want the old one." I kept crying until my throat was raw and my eyes were burning. Tears and snot ran down my face. I wiped it off with the back of my already sticky hand.
My mom didn't say anything more, she just kept holding me and humming softly. I tried to pull away from her embrace, but she wouldn't let me go. And finally, I just gave in and whimpered quietly. Eventually, I stopped crying all together. I don't know what time it was when my mom finally let go of me. The tears and snot had dried up, and everything in my body had gone back to it's normal rhythms.
"Do you want to skip school tomorrow so you can be here when Dad gets home?" Mom asked, pushing hair out of my eyes.
I shook my head. "I can't miss school."
"Are you sure? You've been doing so well, I'm sure none of your teachers would mind--"
"No, I haven't been doing well." I looked at my mom and in the eyes. "I haven't been able to focus, and I've been blowing off a lot of assignments. I'm worried I'm not going to be able to pass a lot of my classes this year." I hung my head, feeling shameful. I've never disappointed my mother before.
"I can tell you've been under a lot of pressure."
I looked up at my mom. She knew? I tried to keep it hidden. I made sure when I came home to go right to my room and make it look like I was working hard on homework, when really, I wasn’t doing much else but staring at the textbook.
"I didn't want to say anything, because I didn't want you to worry anymore than you already were." She said, trying to make me feel better.
"But…I'm pretty sure I'm failing math. And maybe biology and history…"
She sighed. "You'll get your grades up, I know you, Chelsea. You're a good student. And after Dad comes back…," She smiled. "Everything is going to be back to normal. I promise you."
"Thanks." I said, and leaned in to hug her.
She kissed the top of my head. "No problem. Now help me make dinner."

Later that night, I laid in bed and stared at the dark ceiling. My eyes were wide open, not letting me close them to have the sleep I really needed. Instead I kept thinking about what my mother said, how there was nothing we could have done to prevent the mental breakdown that my dad had. I could only think of all the things I could have done as a daughter. I could have offered to make him breakfast on the mornings he had to go in early. I could have popped in to say hi after I got out of school. The drug store he worked at was right down the street from the high school. There are small things that maybe could have helped take the stress off him.
But I didn’t do any of those things.
And so my brain went around in circles with the “what if’s?”
After some time of tossing and turning, my body gave in and I went to sleep.

The next morning, my mom woke me up, shaking me gently. “Chelsea,” she whispered. “You have to get up. I let you sleep in a little.”
I groaned in response.
“Come on, today’s a big day.” She sat on the side of the bed and pulled the covers away from my face.
I sighed, and pulled my body up. “‘Kay.”
“Get dressed. I’ll drive you today.” She got up and walked out of my room, closing the door behind her.
I slowly made my way out of bed, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. They were still heavy, but I blinked a few times to get them to open up. I pulled clothes from my closet without really looking, and pulled them on. Grabbing my backpack, I opened my bedroom door and walked down the hall to the kitchen where my mom was waiting with the car keys. She jingled them and smiled. I followed behind her out the door.

My mom pulled the car into the school driveway, and I popped my lock open. “Have a good day.” She said. “And remember, everything is going to be okay. Dad will be home when you get home.”
I nodded, feeling sick all over again.
“Chelsea,” My mom said softly, taking my hand. “Don’t worry. He’s not going to be any different than from the last time you saw him.” She smiled. “Now go. You don’t want to be late.”
Before I opened the door, I leaned in and gave my mom a hug. Then I got out of the car and made my way to the front door, trying to push all my worries away.

Hannah met me at my locker. “So,” she started. “Today’s the day, huh?”
I nodded, hanging up my jacket. “Yep.”
“Are you nervous?”
“I’m not going to think about it.” I looked straight into her eyes. “I don’t want to get sick again. I really need to focus on school.”
Hannah smiled. “Right. So, I’ll see you in Trig?”
I returned the smile. “Yeah. And you won’t have to follow me into the bathroom again.”
Hannah giggled as she walked away.

I went through the day, trying to focus more on my work than the increasing buzzing inside my brain. I pushed it away when I really needed to concentrate. But when it was time for art, I let it take over me and I put that into a new sculpture, using the small piece I made the day before. I threw pieces of clay at the wheel, adding to it, and kept molding and pushing and grabbing until I got the shape that I felt expressed the emotions I was feeling. It was more abstract than naturalistic. A large shape with edges that got bigger and bigger as you got closer to the top. And at the top was simply a hole leading inside the object, back to the bottom. It represented the worries and anxieties that I kept feeling; how they would get so intense, and when I got to the breaking point, I’d collapse and start all over again.
Maybe it was how my dad felt before he broke down.
Thinking about that made me work at the piece even more, wanting to get it just right.
Even though the sculpture wasn’t done, I decided to take it home. I wanted to show my dad the sculpture and also that I’ve been thinking a lot about him.
After art, when I was packing my backpack to go home, I felt much better than I did at the start of the day. I was actually excited instead of worried. I couldn’t wait to see my dad; see his smile, feel his embrace. I wanted to tell him how much I missed him and how often I thought about him. I needed to hear about his experience and what happened while he was away. Did he feel better? Did he somehow feel worse? I mulled the questions over in my mind on the bus ride home. I didn’t fall asleep again, so when it was my stop, the bus driver didn’t have to get out of her seat. I was out of mine before the bus had even come to a complete stop. Running off the bus, I almost tripped and fell, but I caught myself before there could be any kind of spectacle.
The small child in me was almost screaming, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” as I ran down the path to my house. But I held it in, I just smiled big and wide as I opened the door. And there, sitting in his favorite recliner in front of the TV was my dad. He was smiling at me. Before he could even stand up to get out of the chair, I was running for him, crashing into his arms and pushing him and the recliner backwards. I didn’t mean to act like such a child, but I just missed him so much.
“Chelsea! There’s my girl.” He hugged me tight, his embrace feeling the same as it always did. His voice was the same. He smelled the same. When I looked up at his face, he definitely looked the same.
“Dad, you’re home.” I said, between hiccups.
“I sure am.”
“I’m so happy you’re okay.” My voice was muffled when I dug my face into the crook of his neck.
“Of course I’m okay. I’m better.” When he smiled, his teeth were still shiny and white, like they always had been.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up, and saw my mom looking down at me. “I told you.” She said. “Everything is fine.”
“I feel better, Chelsea. I promise.”
“No lobotomy? No zombie? I don’t have to suffocate you with a pillow?”
He burst out laughing. The same laugh that he always had. “Of course not! What are they teaching you kids in school?” He shook his head, and looked me straight in the eye and repeated himself, to really drill it into me. “I’m okay, Chelsea. I feel much better. Therapy helped me. A little bit of medicine helped. It’s okay to be weak sometimes. You just need to ask for help.”
I nodded, listening to his every word.
“Of course, I didn’t ask. Help was forced on me, but I accepted it. And if you ever feel like you need help, it’s okay to come out and say it.”
“I know.” I stood up, and hugged him again. “You’re all the help I need.”
I pulled back from him and said, “I have something for you.” I went over the backpack and carefully took the sculpture out of my backpack, careful not to break any pieces off of it. I had wrapped it in a thick layer of bubble wrap, so it would have extra protection on the ride home.
I handed it to my dad and he said, “Chelsea, I know bubble wrap is supposed to be a great stress reliever, but really, I’m okay now.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “No, I wrapped something in it.”
“Oh!” He started to unwrap the bubble wrap carefully, but then he stopped. “I hope you didn’t spend any money on me.”
“It’s nothing like that.” I huffed. “Just keep going.”
He nodded and unwrapped it until he was holding the gooey grey clay in his hands. He held it very carefully. It wasn’t huge, but it was big enough to fit in his palm. “This is beautiful.” He said quietly.
“It’s not done yet, but I know how you love seeing my process, so I thought you’d want to see it before I finished.”
His eyes were glassy. So were my mother’s.
“I love it already.” He said, a catch in his throat. “It’s going to be beautiful when it’s fired and glazed.”
“And then you can have it.” I said. “I was thinking about you when I made it. How it represents you and…” I paused. “Your struggle.”
I saw the tears roll from his eyes. “At the hospital, they made us do some art projects to help with our emotions.” He wiped the tears off his cheeks and carefully set the sculpture in his lap. “And I mentioned that my daughter was a very talented artist, and that she could lead a critique.”
I laughed, happy that he had some humorous times at the hospital.
“Of course, I couldn’t make something the way you do; with emotion, and feeling, and…” He paused, and looked up at me. “And love.”
This time, tears started to roll from my eyes and leaned in to hug him again, careful not to crush the clay.
“I love you, Chelsea.” My dad said. “Everything is okay now.”
I didn’t say anything, I just hung onto him, never wanting him to leave me again.