The Devil and the Doe

"It's time, Tara. Get up and come take your meds," a male voice boomed into the silence.

Tara squeezed her eyes shut as the light in her room flickered on and waited to hear the heavy wooden door slam shut. When it did, she sat up like a body rising from a coffin as she remembered where she was.

She looked down at the mint scrubs and plastic band around her wrist. Tears burned her eyes. Tara swallowed, attempting to banish the sorrow and guilt. Her only hope of escape depended on her ability to be strong. She couldn't give anyone any further reason to keep her locked away.

Tara pulled herself from the bed and ran a hand through her thinning hair. She thought about showering but banished the thought. All of her toiletries were in the bathroom of her two-story home. She debated asking a nurse to call David and request he bring a bottle of shampoo by, then scoffed.

No. Her husband was the entire reason she was here. As Tara walked out of the room and into the main hallway, she thought of her argument with him the night before. David had insisted she was crazy. He swore she'd lost her mind in her grief.

"If you don't come with me, our marriage is over. I'll file for divorce as soon as the sun comes up," he'd threatened, his ocean eyes burning with anger.

Her marriage had already failed. Anyone with eyes could tell it had been some time since David had loved her. But Tara had agreed, hoping to find clarity in the time away. Maybe she had lost her grip on reality. How many mothers held conversations with their dead children over breakfast?

She stood in line behind the other patients and waited for the little paper cup with her first round of medications. What were they going to give her? Anti-psychotics? Mood stabilizers? She suppressed a sarcastic chuckle, figuring it depended on what David had told the doctors. While not a vindictive man, David Mitchell had a flair for the dramatic. His habit of turning small problems into huge events had always been part of the discontent in their marriage. David only viewed the world in black and white, and anything out of line with his own opinions was treated as a personal attack. He'd probably made her out to be a raving lunatic, ravaged with grief over the loss of her only daughter. Her baby. Her chest knotted as her eyes swelled. She tried to fight them back, to bury them back into her mind, but the memories still came.

Tara sat on a wooden stool in the kitchen by the bay windows and basked in the glow of the early afternoon sun. She twirled a paintbrush in her hand, the canvas in front of her a mess of color. Abagail giggled somewhere down the hallway as she entertained herself, her kindergarten class out for spring break.

But Tara had hardly seen Abby the past couple days outside of dinner and bedtime. An independent and anti-social child, Abigail wasn't one to cling to her mother for affection or beg for attention. Tara glanced over as she raced through the kitchen, her long clumsy legs flailing behind her.

"No running!" Tara had shouted after her. She knew she was being ignored, but found she didn't care enough to repeat her efforts.

Minutes later the shrill shriek split the air, followed by thuds against the stairs, then a sickening crunch. Tara tensed up, continuing her work. She knew what that sound had to be, knew what must have happened because of her own poor supervision and laziness. Still, she finished the last few brush strokes, hoping if she waited it out long enough it might all turn out to be her imagination.

As she approached the nurse, the woman smiled, handing her a little plastic cup filled with three pills: two blue, one white. She raised an eyebrow before swallowing them and moved out of the line for the next patient.

The panic did not set in until reaching the breakfast table. Would these pills cause her to stop seeing her sweet Abigail? And if Abby disappeared, did it mean she'd lost her mind? She sat down in front of the tray of oatmeal and fruit, indifferent to all the chatter happening around her. It was as if her own demons were swallowing her whole.