FIVE MONTHS LATER
The whole process had felt so fast, especially compared to every other treatment method Dr. Bloom ushered Clarice through. She'd been working with her for as long as she'd been able to hobble her way into a therapist's office, Dr. Bloom weeding her way through Clarice's present into her past. A testament to Dr. Lecter, really, that Clarice had only started connecting what happened with Catherine Martin to the lamb story now.
But, once she had mentioned it, it was the next session—a special session—where Dr. Bloom had Clarice driving out to rural Virginia. The farm is named LITTLE LAMB RESCUE, but Clarice still breaks into a cold sweat as she spies the familiar wooden farm house. She racks her mind as she parks in the dirt, but the name of her mother's cousin's ranch won't come back to her. Maybe that's a good thing; she can't decide.
It's a sun-kissed warm afternoon in early April, Clarice stepping into loose, muddy ground from a rain the previous day. Still, the smell of farm animals wafts through even the cleanest of air, twisting Clarice's stomach in a knot as she looks for Dr. Bloom. Clarice doesn't think it'll work, but part of her—the part of her that actually has no idea what they're doing—hopes that she can come and return to Ardelia on their day off early.
But, of course, Dr. Bloom is here, and she comes out of the farm house with another middle aged woman in tow. Clarice thinks Dr. Bloom is somewhere in her late forties—she mentioned she had her late elementary-aged son late—but between the vintage red lipstick and the consistent low cut tops, she makes herself known. Just the level of theatricality Clarice expects from someone Jack said knew Dr. Lecter too. She thought it'd make her hard to work with, but Clarice smiles as Dr. Bloom catches her eye.
"Clarice, this is Helen," Dr. Bloom says. "She runs the rescue."
Clarice shakes her hand, rough and calloused like her mother's cousin's husband's. "So, you're looking for a lamb to borrow for the afternoon?"
Clarice glances at Dr. Bloom and nods.
Helen starts walking toward the barn. Clarice and Dr. Bloom follow.
"So all our lambs were rescued from neighboring slaughter ranches. We try to grab a new bunch every spring. Unfortunately there's only so much room, though, so I've been trying to re-home some of the full grown sheep to wool farms. I also had a couple pigs and horses, so they're hanging around too."
Clarice doesn't hear the horses or pigs as they approach the barn. Just the bleating of the sheep and lambs. She swallows, tries to really listen. They're not upset. The difference between a person screaming and chattering. She's not going to see fear or the reflection of death in the eyes of these animals.
Dr. Bloom senses it, a brush of her hand against Clarice's shoulder as she mutters just low enough for only them to hear, "Breathe, Clarice."
Clarice tries, but she's only able to exhale when she sees the little pen of lambs. There are five of them, all about the size of the lambs she remembers. The gangly-legged teddy bears her mom's cousin had let her pet for hours on end after she'd finished school and chores and the filled out mini-sheep she'd made herself carry out as a child.
Helen reaches into the pen and pulls out a lamb. "So this is Winston. He was at perfect market weight, about eighty pounds, when I got him. We're not in the business of fattening them up for anything, so he may be a little under it by now. He's not a runner or anything, but try not to take him too close to any rushing traffic or anything."
"We won't, thank you," Dr. Bloom says.
Helen carries Winston out just outside the barn before depositing him into the grass. The lamb shakes himself before dipping his head into the bright green grass. Then suddenly Helen and Dr. Bloom are looking at Clarice.
"Don't be shy. He won't bite. You can carry him like a baby if you get tired, over the shoulder."
Clarice remembers the way she grabbed her first lamb, wrapping her arms around its midsection, her own chest tightening as she felt its heartbeat against her, so, so aware that those beats were numbered if she failed.
She does as Helen says right away with Winston, bending down, throwing his front hooves over her shoulder and cradling his back. She winces a little as she gets back to her feet, more fatigue than any real pain. The months of physical therapy helped with that.
"Where are we going?" Clarice asks Dr. Bloom.
"When you told me the story of trying to save the lamb, you said you made it about a mile out before you were too exhausted to go on. So, we're gonna make it to town."
Clarice doesn't mean to, but a huff of laughter escapes her. "A little literal, isn't that?"
"Sometimes, we can work through months, even years of unraveling trauma from a mental standpoint. Repeat over and over again that you're not the same little girl who took on an impossible task and had to watch an innocent creature die because you couldn't overcome your impossible odds. But it's embedded itself into your muscles. So, we're going to combine the mental reconstruction with some physical. Today, you're going to prove to yourself that you're no longer that so-called weak little girl. You can carry Winston here and come out of it unharmed."
Come out of it unharmed. Something Jack and Ardelia talked about too. Maybe next case she'll be able to do it. She still doesn't know if it's possible to brush alongside the worst decisions and impulses humans have, the worst suffering the vulnerable can endure, and not be affected. But perhaps not riddled with PTSD or bullet wounds, that, sure.
She pets Winston as his hooves scratch along her back. He's remarkably like a less dexterous human baby. He is heavy, but it feels so different than how she remembers it. She remembers the overwhelming dread, the tears clawing up her throat, the quickening of her heart as each new fiber of muscle ached from the journey.
She and Dr. Bloom start the walk toward the edge of the farm, closer to the grass around the sides of the two-lane road they traveled down.
"Tell me about the physical sensations. Do you notice any differences from the last time you remember doing this?" Dr. Bloom asks.
Clarice inhales. Winston certainly doesn't smell good, but there's something grounding about him. "It's quieter," Clarice says. "The other lamb was bleating the whole time. Like he was upset. Like he knew."
"And you?"
Clarice adjusts her hold on Winston from the bottom. He squirms a little, but settles in fast. "It's warmer. Easier to get around." So warm, though, that sweat is beading at her hairline. She tells herself it's not much different than spring training sessions in Quantico.
"How's your leg?"
It's incredible how despite the broken ribs being the most painful and seemingly endless recovery, it was her leg that really kept her out of the field. Long past when Ardelia returned to the office when it turned out the bullet wound to her abdomen had barely grazed her small intestine. A miracle, the doctors said. But Ardelia deserved some luck after everything she'd gone through.
Clarice, well, the arduous recovery with the leg felt cheekily earned.
"It's fine," Clarice says. "Haven't gotten my running routine back completely, but this is alright."
Dr. Bloom smiles. Clarice had thought it radiated professional tolerance, but the more and more she smiles, Clarice feels warmer and warmer with every look. Ardelia's been teasing her that if she took a class with Dr. Bloom back at Quantico, Clarice would've had a massive crush. But she doesn't quite think it's that. She sees something familiar and comfortable in Dr. Bloom even if they haven't even breached the topic of how she knows Jack and Dr. Lecter.
She tries to quiet her mind, though. Really focus on the task at hand. She can't see anything but endless road ahead and she didn't wear the right shoes for this kind of walk. The ache from Winston's weight rings in her back. Familiar again to that night. The tendrils of memory crawl up into her sinuses, tightening her air supply until she's huffing out breath. She notices she can't see her breath, though. Not like when she was a kid.
This isn't like then, she reminds herself as she takes the time to cleanse her lungs with a deep, drawn out breath. Nothing is blocking her but a bit of exercise. Nothing worse than she did at Quantico morning after morning. She focuses on the road, on the lone, lone road. She's tried to explain it to Ardelia, horror fanatic, since she met her. Being alone doesn't scare her. The idea of empty Quantico hallways lit by emergency lights or the sprawling empty forest behind the obstacle course before the sun rises doesn't scare her. It was when she'd slide past a wisened professor or bump into a clump of men on the course that unnerved her. That empty cold night when she was scared, she could've gone out forever with the lamb if the weather hadn't been an issue. She would've camped in the grassland, scrounged for water in streams, survived.
She remembers so clearly now, looking at that road. Yes, the cold and hunger and thirst had been difficult. But it was the fear of the road suddenly not being empty that had terrified her. It was the idea of Jame Gumb's basement not being empty that had crippled her, what lingered.
But she's alone now. She knows Dr. Bloom is walking beside her, but even she's begun to fall away. It's just Clarice, her shoes sinking into the mud on the side of the road, and Winston's coarse hair and little spot of moisture growing on her shoulder blade as he presses his snout into her. Maybe he's used to being carried, but Clarice can't help but think he trusts her.
Just like the other lamb. But the heaviness in chest with that lamb is gone now.
But he's heavy. Helen was lying about his weight, or else Clarice has misjudged the strength she's gotten back since her stay in the hospital. The moment the words dance on her lips—can we take a break—a child's panic hits her. It crowds, it shoves, it suffocates. Winston will die if they stop. She'll die. She can't be caught. Winston will die, she doesn't know what the rancher will do.
She stops.
"Everything okay?" Dr. Bloom asks.
Clarice forces a breath again. Wetness slides down her face, but she doesn't know if it's sweat or tears. "I need a minute."
"That's fine."
Clarice places Winston on the ground. The image flashes past her, the first lamb stumbling in the snow, disorientated. How he lifted his hooves quickly, like the snow hurt him. How she'd been so horrified that she'd scooped him up again despite how it burned.
But Winston just eats some grass while Clarice stretches her arms and back.
She knows she can't take a long break, echoing lessons from Quantico. She scoops Winston back up, wet grass sticking to her back. She chuckles to herself, grateful she didn't wear anything too nice today.
The town comes into view.
She had so little time to have expectations, but she's still surprised when her throat tightens up as they step into town. She'd had such a clear vision of success when she was a child. There was a clothing store in the town her mom's cousin lived in. An old woman worked there and always talked about how she sourced from local farms to get the wool for her products she made by hand. Clarice had imagined marching into that store—the woman lived above the storefront—and knocking on the door with the lamb's bleats amplifying the sound. She imagined the woman would be horrified to hear the lambs were being killed, not when they happily provided the material to make such beautiful things. The woman would take in the lamb, send the lamb to a farm that raised sheep for wool. Then, maybe the old woman would adopt Clarice so she'd never have to hear the screaming lambs again.
When Clarice ran away after the lamb died, she didn't go to that woman.
It pains Clarice now to think she did that just because she thought the woman would be angry at her for letting the lamb die.
Dr. Bloom stops at an arbitrary point just off the road. She smiles. "Congratulations, Clarice. Wanna walk back?"
Clarice smiles and says a ride back would be nice.
#
Helen holds her arms out to take Winston back to the barn, but Clarice asks to do it herself.
She steps to the pen, Winston secure in her arms. Even after hours holding him, Clarice isn't looking forward to the emptiness of her arms ceasing to ache. She says it's hot, that's why she removed her jacket, but it's truthfully so she can feel his thin wool coat on her skin.
There was no risk Winston was going to get hurt, but Clarice still looks at him like he's gotten himself years of precious life back. She supposes Helen did do that to him, and maybe he knows it deep down. She doesn't know. But she sets him right by the gate to enter his pen and gets down on her knees. She looks him in his milk chocolate brown eyes. He blinks, his little ears and pink nose twitching. He's alive. Animated, alive, aware.
She's suddenly hit with a pang. She hugs him into her.
She's looked into the eyes of people she's saved. She and Catherine shared hours together where Clarice took in the life Catherine could still live. But she hasn't contacted her since. She doesn't know if she'll see Vanessa after this. But they're alive too. They'll probably never know the toll saving them took on Clarice.
This lamb is alive.
She's no longer that scared little girl who tried to do something impossible. Something she can see now was a cruel expectation to place on a child, even if it was a child's expectation. No one should be expected to bear that when she did.
You did okay, she thinks to that little girl, wherever she takes up residence inside her.
But somewhere in her, she thinks that little girl would be proud of her.
She cries into Winston's wool, holding him, holding that poor little lamb from years ago, holding the girl who sobbed when she watched that little lamb die.
She's not that girl anymore, she's not in that ranch house, in that cold, experiencing that man's cruelty over and over again.
The world can be kind.
The world can be kind and she hasn't been that little girl for a long, long time.