July Exclusive - "Plans" - Part 3

Cassie stares at the contents of her closet, and her Depends gets a little wetter.

A collection of adult-sized frilly and smocked dresses that weren’t there last night.

These are her mother’s clothes. These are the outfits of the forever innocent.

Cassie tries to swallow the lump in her throat, but her mouth is still dry, the opposite of her underwear. She reaches out and flicks through the hangers. She can feel the taffeta skirt, she can stroke the puffy sleeves. If it’s a trick, then it’s her entire mind that’s under its spell.

How did this happen?

Come on, Cassie! Isn’t it obvious?

Dad doesn’t want her to go. He has filled her closet with Mom’s infantile outfits. What kind of sick joke is that?

Cassie looks to her suitcase, and has half-decided to open it up, but what if the case is filled with more little girl outfits? She can’t bear the thought of opening the case to find exactly the same thing.

Why would Dad do this?

Because he wants to drive his daughter over the edge, he wants to break her mind, leave her helpless. He can’t bear the thought of her leaving, and so he will lock her away!

No. Not Dad. Not the man who has given her everything she’s ever wanted. He has encouraged her education, cheered her acceptance to university. He wouldn’t want her to be like Mom.

And yet when Cassie closes her eyes, she imagines herself as Rapunzel, trapped in a tower.

She tilts her head at a memory of watching Tangled; someone had selected the wrong audio on the Disney Channel and 8-year-old Cassie had watched the entire movie in Spanish. It’s a story often told, a way to explain her fascination with foreign languages, although Cassie’s own memory is one of embarrassment. She had not complained about the strange words being spoken, just sat there and dumbly watched. Why hadn’t she spoken up?

She opens her eyes. The clothes are still there. She has better things to worry about than stupid Tangled.

Because it’s not Dad. It’s her. She’s the one seeing things, thinking things, feeling things. It’s feasible for Dad to put switch clothes in her closet, but how could he make her forget how to read? How could he take away her ability to even count? There’s no way.

Cassie tries to count the dresses. One, two…how many? She produces a whine from deep in her throat. Her numbers have gone.

She looks at the dress on the far left, where she put her actual travel outfit. It’s a navy jersey dress in a nautical style. Probably the least babyish item in the closet, even though it’s clearly styled for a little girl. The white collar is trimmed in red and finished with a matching red bow in the center.

This isn’t something she remembers Mom wearing. No, it’s an adult-sized version of what Cassie wore herself, her first day of kindergarten. There’s a photo on the mantel to prove it, five-year-old Cassie beaming with pride. Such a big girl.

What about the rest, then? She goes to the right, picks out the most infantile dress. Pink, smocked seersucker with angel wing sleeves. On the front, in-between two red apples, are a series of letters. A name, surely, but is it Mom’s or Cassie’s? She can’t read, and yet, she senses that it’s her own name stitched into the bodice. A pink, ruffled dress for little, 18-year-old Cassie.

This time, she manages to swallow.

There’s only one explanation; the dresses aren’t real. All of this is just in her head. Like the fuzzy letters on the wall. She’s seeing things and feeling things and thinking things…

Whatever happened to her mother, the mental breakdown, it’s happening to her.

Cassie whines again, a guttural moan. Her knees threaten to buckle. She may as well just sit down, fall down on the spot, turn on the waterworks, and wait for Daddy to come rescue her.

She inhales and exhales. She stays on her feet. Is it hopeless? Should she go downstairs and confess her symptoms to Dad? Wouldn’t that be the mature, rational thing to do?

And then what? She gives up the rest of her life? Daddy drives his big, little girl to boarding school?

She imagines holding her stuffie at story time, sitting in a circle with the other forever innocents, listening to the teacher. Being a good girl. Lacking any thoughts in her head, except for the innocent distractions of a young child. Maybe they will move Cassie in with her own mother. Tears fill Cassie’s eyes as she imagines the pair of them, a giggling mother and daughter. Both of them cheerfully illiterate, blissfully ignorant and dependent for the rest of their lives.

Go tell Daddy. Be a good girl.

Cassie rubs fiercely at her eyes.

Hell, no.

Because, unlike Mom, Cassie has an advantage. She knows what makes the condition worse, and she knows what can save her.

Like Dad said: It’s good to relax. I wish your mom had done the same.

It’s about the overwhelm. It’s about the panic. The stress of finishing high school has brought this on, the drama of a trip to Europe, leaving home.

Stay calm. Relax. And for God’s sake, don’t tell Dad. She doesn’t need rescuing; she just needs a chance to breathe.

She takes the sailor dress off the hanger, holds it up to her chest. It looks like a perfect fit. So is this the plan? Does she wear the outfit and act like everything is fine?

Cassie’s cheeks warm with embarrassment. But only Cassie is having the strange thoughts, the fuzzy letters. So surely only Cassie is seeing the childish dresses. Which means Dad will only see her regular clothes.

She opens her underwear drawer and has to suppress a giggle. The white knee socks will work with her dress, but the pack of Depends has been replaced by infantile training pants. She picks up a pair, feels the thickness.

Her underwear hasn’t really been replaced, Cassie concludes. The Depends are still there, but she just can’t see them. Her mind has translated her clothes into a toddler version. Another giggle threatens to escape her throat as Cassie stares at the decoration on the front; Rapunzel, from Tangled. Of course it is. And the detail feels as though it will surely leave her broken and on the floor; a giggling, diaper-wetting idiot.

Deep breath. Calm down. Get through this, ignore what’s in front of your bewildered eyes, and then once Dad is convinced that she’s fine, Cassie can escape with Sara Beth, she can recover in Paris. Her vision and education will return, and no one will ever have to know how close she came to copying her mother’s mental collapse.

She takes the clothes to the bathroom, gets undressed, and takes a shower, glad to find her usual toiletries in place (because finding a bottle of Hello Bello watermelon shampoo might just have pushed Cassie over the edge).

Clean and dry, she feels better. Not well enough, apparently, to decipher the wording on the toothpaste tube, but enough to keep her breathing and thoughts under control.

She runs a towel through her hair, leaving it damp enough to deal with later. And then she takes the deepest of breaths, and then puts on the outfit. White knee socks, Tangled training pants, and the navy dress with the red bow.

It all fits perfectly. And why wouldn’t it? Cassie is certain that she’s really wearing her regular clothes; it’s just her eyes, just her scattered mind, that sees her mirrored reflection as an 18 year old dressed like a 3 year old.

Another deep breath, combined with a rolling of the eyes at how she looks, and then Cassie goes downstairs towards the smell of pancakes.

To be continued...