Chapter 15:
Removing things from home:
(Tuesday May 9th, 2017; afternoon)
By Tuesday afternoon, with the weather outside being bright and gorgeous, Jack and Carrie were having lunch outside the school cafeteria with their friends at two of the picnic tables. They were all talking of various things, such as the lessons they'd had earlier in the day, while eating their food and enjoying the warmth of the afternoon.
Since Jack had released the dirty laundry on Chris Hargensen and the other Ultras, changes had been made within Ewen High; the most obvious was that the English teacher, Mr Ullmann, had been sacked and forced to leave the school while a newer teacher, who had plenty of experience in teaching English, came in to take his place.
In the meantime, Carrie was still staying with Jack at his apartment. In the time they had been with each other while she was staying there, they had become even closer together and each time they went to sleep each night, they always slept together in each other's arms with smiles on their faces.
The bell soon rang, signalling the end of lunch break, and the eight friends grabbed hold of their bags and headed off to their next classes. As Jack and Carrie walked along side by side down the corridor, they suddenly saw Rita Desjardin coming down the corridor towards them.
"Hey you two." Rita said, as she came to a stop by them.
"Hey Rita, is anything the matter?" asked Jack, noticing the anxious look on Rita's face.
"Yes, there is. Carrie…I received a phone call from the police a short while ago. They want to know if you could go over to your home on Carlin Street to remove any personal items or things that are important to you." Rita said.
"Yes, but when do they want me to do that?" Carrie asked.
"They said as soon as it's possible for you to do so." Rita said. Carrie thought for a moment, then turned back to her gym teacher.
"Can we go over there after school today?" Carrie said.
"All right, I'll phone them straight away and let them we'll be over there as soon as school finishes this afternoon." Rita said.
"Okay Ms Desjardin." Carrie said, as the gym teacher turned and headed back to her office, as she and Jack carried onto their next class.
(after school)
Once their last class of the day had finished, Jack and Carrie met up with Rita at her minivan and they headed off to Carrie's home on Carlin Street.
"Do they know we're on the way?" Carrie asked, somewhat anxiously.
"Don't worry, Carrie. They know." Rita said, reassuringly. A few minutes later, they arrived in front of 47 Carlin Street. Looking out, Carrie, already very nervous to be going back to the home she ran away from the previous week, was a bit surprised to see yellow police tape around the premises and some officers keeping a close watch on things.
"Are you Rita Desjardin?" one of the officers asked, as Rita got out of driver's side.
"Yes officer, we're here for Carrie to remove her things from this building." Rita said.
"Excellent, we've been expecting you. How long do you think you'll take?" the officer asked, as Carrie and Jack stepped out of the back.
"It shouldn't take too long. I didn't have too much stuff to begin with." Carrie said, as the officer allowed her, Jack and Rita past the yellow tape and up to the house.
The front door was open and they entered the house. Upon stepping inside, Jack looked round in silent astonishment; Margaret White, the former owner, really was a religious fanatic, just as Carrie had told him last week. On the walls were pictures of Jesus and other religious happenings from the bible, as well as crucifixes, bible quotes and other things like that. One thing that struck Jack in particular was the lack of modern electronic devices; there was no TV in the living room, and no radio set in the kitchen.
The interior was dark and dull, even with bright sunshine coming in through the windows and open front door. Deep down, as well as keeping in mind the abuse Carrie had told him about that she had suffered in this place, Jack wondered how someone like Carrie could live in a place such as this.
"Oh, my god." Jack said quietly as he looked round. Jack and his family had never been church goers when he was growing up, and he was quite happy with his life that way. But now, seeing this old place, with the over-the-top level of religious iconography and religious nick-nacks on the walls, in corners or on the shelves, was already making him feel quite uncomfortable at being here, something Carrie and Rita sensed.
"Okay you two, let's get to work." Rita said, and so they did. Taking empty cardboard boxes in one of the rooms, they started packing up the things Carrie knew were important to her. Going up to her room first of all, Carrie was pleased to see the bag of things she bought for her prom dress was still at the end of the bed where she had left it the previous week untouched. After packing away some more clothes from her wardrobe and chest of drawers, she went back downstairs.
Over the next half hour or so, the three went about through the house looking for things Carrie wanted to remove. Packing the boxes with the few things she had, Jack carried them out to the minivan and loaded them aboard. Then Carrie took an old folder and put into it any documents she would need, including her birth certificate, social security number, bank statements as well as her new passport, which she had received only a few short months before.
At one point, she was looking round in the living room for something when one of the officers came inside to see how they were getting on. She told the officer she was looking for a bible and asked him where it was.
"Was that a blood covered one?" the officer asked.
"Yes sir, that's the one." Carrie said, nervously.
"Well, you mentioned in your statement that your mother hit you with a blood covered bible. It's been found, but from what you mentioned in your statement about your mother Ms White, it's been impounded as evidence." the officer said.
"Oh." Carrie said, secretly relieved inside that the bible her mother often hit her with was being used as evidence against Margaret. She had only wanted to know where it was.
A little while later, with everything packed into four boxes in the back of Rita's car, Carrie went back to her old room and sat down on the bed for a while, remembering the times she had slept in the room and dreaded the next day. Then Jack stepped into the room.
"Hey…are you feeling all right?" he asked, as he sat down on the bed beside Carrie.
"Yeah, it's just…I can't accept the fact that I probably won't be coming back here, considering all the time I've been living here." Carrie said. Jack felt himself smile, and gently put his arm round Carrie's shoulders, again taking care not to aggravate the injury her right shoulder, even though the wound had healed up a bit and Carrie had no need to wear a bandage now.
"I understand how you feel about it, Carrie, but things in life change. People move out of their old homes into new places and many of them feel exactly the same as you do. Even me." Jack said with a sigh. Carrie looked at him.
"Really? You mean you've moved to new places to live too?" she asked.
"Yes…I vaguely remember when I was three years old, we moved from our old house in the south of Dublin to our current one in Dublin's western suburbs as mom was pregnant with my three sisters. Now obviously, our old house was gonna be a little bit small for six, but I recall when we left for the last time, I was excited to be moving to a new place. Yet, I knew I would miss the old place where we'd lived since I was very young." Jack said.
"So, it's not such a bad thing to move to a new place then?" Carrie asked.
"No, in fact with an old ending, comes a new beginning. So, look upon this as a new beginning, where you're moving out into the world, and away from your mother's abusive iron fist she put you under for years." Jack said.
"Yeah, I guess you're right." Carrie said, as a small smile drew on her face. Then, she reached up behind her head and removed the crucifix necklace she had round her neck. She paused for a moment and looked down at the small cross in the palm of her hand.
"If it's time for me to move on in the world…it's time to leave some bad memories of my old life behind." Carrie said, as she tossed the crucifix necklace into an old battered trashcan sitting by her bed, which surprised Jack.
"Are you sure you want to throw that into the garbage?" asked Jack.
"Positive, after all from thinking about it, all religion and praying and all that… all it did was bring me nothing but bad luck. It's time to leave all that behind and move forward." Carrie said, this time with more determination in her voice.
"Okay, come on. Rita's waiting for us by the front door." Jack said with a smile, so they stood up and went downstairs.
"Ah, there you are you two. Are you ready to head back to the apartment?" Rita said, as her two favourite students stepped out the front door.
"I am." Jack said, before he looked at Carrie.
"Yeah, I guess so." Carrie said, as she turned to have a last look in the front door. She paused, almost reluctant to leave, before turning back and walking to Rita's minivan. Carrie didn't know it at that moment, but she had left her old home for what would be the last time.
(later that evening; 6:20pm)
Jack and Carrie sat at the dining table in Jack's apartment. Jack had prepared a spaghetti bolognaise with garlic bread, and they sat in comfortable silence eating. After arriving back at the apartment earlier on, they had brought the few boxes with Carrie's things up and stored them away in one of the spare bedrooms. With little homework to do tonight, they quickly got that out of the way while dinner was cooking, but Jack did his homework at the kitchen island where he could check on the bolognaise sauce cooking on the hob. Every now and then, he would go up to it and give it a stir.
When it was fully cooked, Jack ladled spaghetti and bolognaise sauce onto two plates, took the garlic bread out of the microwave oven and brought them over to the table which Carrie had already set up.
"This is good. You know Jack, you're a really good cook." Carrie said, as she wound more sauce covered spaghetti round her fork before putting it in her mouth.
"Thanks, it's just something I've learned from my mother. She isn't just a very good baker and confectioner you know." Jack said, as he took a sip of water. Carrie smiled, and then carried on with eating her dinner.
Once they finished, Jack tidied up and put the dirty dishes into the dishwasher before filling up the kettle and turning it on.
"Do you want tea, Carrie? We can have it with the last of the chocolate chip cookies I bought on Saturday." Jack said.
"Oh, yes please." Carrie said, as she went out onto the balcony and sat on one of the chairs.
A short while later, with the tea brewed, Jack brought two mugs, the tea pot, a jug of milk and a plate of cookies out onto the balcony on a tray and set them down on the table.
"Feeling ready?" Jack asked, as he poured steaming hot tea into the mug nearest to Carrie.
"Yes, please." Carrie said, with a smile as she took the mug and poured some milk into it before sipping some of the tea. She took one of the cookies and dipped it into the hot tea for a few seconds before she took a bite out of it.
"Perfect evening to sit out here." Carrie said, as Jack took a sip from his own mug.
"Absolutely." Jack said, as he surveyed the clear evening sky before him. The spring air was warm and what little breeze that had been around earlier in the day had calmed. For a while, they both sat in comfortable silence sipping their tea and enjoying the evening and the world passing by in front of them.
Eventually, Carrie looked over at Jack; he had a blank stare on his face and seemed to be staring off at something off in the distance.
"Hey Jack…are you…feeling all right?" she asked, with some concern in her voice. Jack looked over and saw the somewhat worried look on her face.
"Yeah Carrie, I'm fine. Sorry, I uh…I guess I was just thinking of home again. I've been feeling a little bit homesick from time to time in the last few weeks." Jack said, with some nostalgia. Carrie felt herself smile, and reached over and touched Jack on his arm.
"Don't worry, Jack. There's not long to go until Senior Year ends and you can fly off home. Less than one month." she said, with a smile. Jack felt himself smile back at her.
"Yeah, I know. Less than one month." he said, as he looked back over the street and took another sip of his tea.
Note: Everyone, the scene where Carrie throws her crucifix necklace in the trash is meant to symbolise leaving her old life behind and movie forward with her new life. A very symbolic and powerful scene, I think.