Chapter 15:
Removing things from home:
(Tuesday May 9th, 2017; afternoon)
By Tuesday afternoon, with the weather outside being bright and gorgeous, just as it had been for the last few days, 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 and any unexpected things that had happened in their classes, while eating their food and enjoying the warmth of the afternoon.
Since Jack had released all the dirty laundry on Chris Hargensen and the other "Ultras", some changes had been made within Ewen High School; the most obvious one 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. Carrie was very pleased to see Mr Ullmann leave, so it meant that there would be one less person to bully her in the school. Jack knew that with all the dirty laundry he'd released, the writing was now on the wall for Chris and the other "Ultras".
In the meantime, Carrie was still staying with Jack at his apartment. In the time they'd been with each other while she was staying there, they'd become even closer together than before 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 just 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 of course, but when do they want me to do that?" Carrie asked.
"Well, 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; 3:05pm)
Once their last class of the day had finished, Jack and Carrie, after sorting out their things at their lockers, met up with Rita at her minivan in the parking lot and they headed off straight to Carrie's home on Carlin Street.
"Do the officers know that we're on the way?" Carrie asked, somewhat anxiously.
"Don't worry, Carrie. They know. I told them roughly the time we'll be arriving there." Rita said, reassuringly. And it wasn't too long before they arrived right in front of No.47 Carlin Street. Looking out the window, 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 rolled down the window to speak with the officer.
"Yes officer, we're here for Carrie to remove her things from this building." Rita said.
"Excellent, we've been expecting you. If you'd like to reverse into the driveway, that'll make it easier for you to load up your vehicle." the officer said.
"Okay, sir." Rita said, and she carefully turned the wheel and reversed her minivan slowly up the driveway, parking it with the back of the car very close to the main door. Once parked, she put on the handbrake and switched off the ignition before she stepped out.
"And how long do you think you'll take?" the officer asked, as Carrie and Jack also stepped out from the minivan.
"It shouldn't take too long, sir. I really didn't have too much stuff in here to begin with." Carrie said, as she, Jack and Rita walked over the grass and up the steps to the front porch.
The front door was open, and they entered the house. Upon stepping inside the main entrance, Jack stopped in his tracks and looked round in silent astonishment, his lower jaw having dropped open; Margaret White, the former owner of this old place, really was a religious fanatic, just as Carrie had told him last week. On the walls were pictures of Jesus and various other religious scenes and happenings from the bible, as well as crucifixes, bible quotes mounted in picture frames and other things like that. One thing that struck Jack in particular was the lack, no - the total and utter absence, of any modern electronic devices that would be expected in any house in this day and age; there was no TV in the living room, and no radio set in the kitchen like he had back home in Dublin.
The interior of the place was oppressive, dark and dull, even with bright, mid-afternoon sunshine streaming inside through the windows and open front door. Taking in a deep sniff through his nose, Jack's senses were instantly hit by the oppressive, musty scent of talcum powder, a smell Jack hadn't been exposed to for quite a while, and he winced a bit at this musty smell. From within the living room came the only sound that could be heard from anywhere within the house; a Black Forest cuckoo clock mounted on the far wall. And hanging on the wall right by the clock was a huge plaster crucifix, which was about four feet high, that seemed to dominate much of the living room.
Deep down, as well as keeping in mind the abuse Carrie had told him about that she had suffered in this place for all the time that she'd been living here, Jack wondered how on Earth someone like Carrie could live in a place such as this dull and dreary place.
"Oh...my god." Jack said quietly as he looked round the space in just a stunned disbelief, with his eyes wide and mouth partially open in shock. Jack and his family had never been church goers when he was growing up, and he was quite happy with his life that way, particularly as he, his parents and sisters felt that some people take religion too far (Personally, he'd always thought that practicing religion of ANY kind was a complete and unnecessary waste of time, and he wasn't afraid to make his own personal opinions about that known to anyone who would listen). But now, seeing this old place, with its utterly over-the-top level of religious iconography, paintings and other religious knick-knacks fitted on the walls, sitting in corners or on shelves, was already making him feel quite uncomfortable at being here, something that Carrie and Rita seemed to sense.
Carrie felt a little bit embarrassed that Jack had to see all of this, yet she somehow knew that Jack now fully understood what she went through under Margaret's iron thumb while she was growing up in here.
"Okay you two, let's get to work. Let's not stand around here gawking at everything." 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 upstairs to her room first of all, Carrie was pleased to see that the bag of things she bought for her prom dress was still sitting by the end of the bed where she had left it the previous week, with everything in it untouched. After packing away some more clothes from her wardrobe and chest of drawers, she went back downstairs carrying her things and the bag with the things for her prom dress with her.
Over the next half hour or so, the three went about through the house, one room to the next, and rummaged through the different spaces looking for things that Carrie wanted to remove. After packing the boxes with the few things that she had, Jack then carried them out to the minivan, one by one, and then loaded them aboard into the trunk. In the living room, Carrie took an old folder from one of the old cabinets and put into it any paper documents she would need to take, 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, as well as a few other important papers and documents.
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 in the police station as evidence against your mother." the officer said.
"Oh." Carrie said, secretly relieved inside that the bible her mother had often hit her with was being used as evidence against Margaret. She had only wanted to know where it was.
(A little while later)
Very soon, with everything Carrie needed packed into four boxes and loaded up into the back of Rita's car, Carrie went back into her old room upstairs and sat down on the bed for a while, remembering the times she had slept in the room and dreaded the next day. Then, with the floor outside creaking slightly, Jack appeared and stood within the door frame.
"Hey…are you feeling all right, Carrie?" he asked with some concern, as he entered the room and then sat down on the bed beside Carrie.
"Yeah, it's just…I can't accept the fact that I probably won't ever be coming back here again, considering all the time that 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 fair bit and Carrie had no need to wear a bandage over it anymore.
"I understand how you feel about it, Carrie...really, I do...but just keep in mind that things in life change. People move out from their old homes into brand new places and many of them feel exactly the same as you do. Even I did at one point in my life." 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 can vaguely...very vaguely actually...remember that back when I was three years old, we moved away from our old house within the south-western suburbs of Dublin to our current one in the Dublin suburbs of Blanchardstown as mom was pregnant with my three sisters. Now obviously, our old house was gonna be a little bit on the small side for six people to live in, hence why we moved away to a much bigger place where we've lived ever since, which was also somewhat closer to the places where my parents worked at, especially my father's workplace less than three miles away, as well as to my mother's main workplace, the bakery along O'Connell Street in Dublin City Centre. But I recall that when we left our old place for the very last time, I was excited to be moving to a new place. Yet at the same time, I knew that I would miss the old place where we'd lived ever since I was a very young kid." Jack said.
"So, it's not such a bad thing to move to a new place then?" Carrie asked.
"No, not at all; and in fact, sometimes with an old ending, often 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 all these 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…then it's also time for me to leave some bad memories of my old life behind." Carrie said, as she tossed the crucifix necklace into an old and battered trashcan sitting by her bed, which surprised Jack.
"Are you sure you want to throw something like that into the garbage, Carrie?" 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 of 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. Rita had closed the trunk, now that all of Carrie's things were loaded aboard, and was waiting for Jack and Carrie to step out from the house.
"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 with a sigh, as she turned round 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 just left her old home for what would be the last time. They climbed back into Rita's car, and they were soon on their way back to Jack's apartment.
(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 they arrived back at the apartment a little earlier on, they had brought the few boxes with Carrie's things up and stored them away in one of the spare bedrooms. With not much 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 keep an eye 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 from 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 a heavy sigh and 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 moving forward with her new life. A very symbolic and powerful scene, I think.