Caught in the monkey jar: Blackbeard Interludes

Tragedy- when the feeling's gone and you can't go on, there's no one beside you, you're going nowhere….(Bee Gees)

The cumulative effects of the non swimming shouting match; the 'pot roast incident', the debacle with Frank and now last night's board game fiasco came to a head for Sara. All in all it had been a really crappy six weeks, coming after his slow recovery from the bad cold/bronchitis. So much for coming home from the war…She was coping wasn't she? Well she thought she was. Charlie was at school and Jack was at the hospital for another round of physio and psych evaluations. Suddenly it was just her and the house and the battle that life had become. But her parents hadn't raised a weak daughter, she was made of strong stuff and she refused to be beaten. Jack was back but it still wasn't a home, a family. The house felt big and empty.

Slowly Sara registered frantic tapping on the patio doors. It was Joanne with a plate of cookies. As soon as Sara noticed her, her friend slid the door open. Sara was horrified to realise she'd been sitting there for half an hour staring into space…

"Sara, what's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Nuts. You were sitting there staring at nothing. You didn't see or hear me for ages."

"I'm fine…"

"If you say 'I'm fine' one more time, I'm gonna say liar, liar pants on fire!" Sara blinked. "Don't do what that gorgeous husband of yours does!"

Sara's game smile slipped and tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.

"It's stupid…" she began.

"Tell me and I'll decide if it's stupid or not," said Joanne firmly, passing her a tissue from a box on the coffee table, and sitting down next to her on the couch.

"It's so hard trying to work out what might trigger something. Normal things don't mean normal things any more. I know they told me to expect things. And I know it was my own fault once or twice. I forgot and..."

"Slow down." But Sara was off again

"If he finds out I said anything to you…"

"Then don't tell him. I certainly won't, not unless I think he's going to hurt you or Charlie. If you must -tell him much later when he can take it. Even if it's a year from now. Talk to me, talk to the base docs. They might need to know some of this."

"He wouldn't hurt us, I know it!" Joanne just looked at her. "Okay but he was having a nightmare …"

"Yeah and it's scary as hell. You need to say something…"

"But I feel like I'm telling tales. It's our business not theirs!"

"Honey who pays the bills? Who gave you the house, the school where Charlie goes? The Air Force. They own him and they own you too. They've invested thousands of dollars in training that husband of yours. They aren't going to give up on him for quite a while. He's too good to let go. Not unless they thought they couldn't fix him or he can't fix himself.

"They weren't here when the pot roast and sauce got knocked to the floor. Jack weirded out! I brought Charlie to you. I came back and he'd buried the godddamed thing in the garden with his bare hands! You want to know what the scary thing is?"

"No, but you're going to tell me anyway.

"He doesn't know he did it!" Sara was yelling now.

"Jeez. Hey calm down a minute.

"I can't! They don't live here for crying out loud. They aren't here when he throws his kid's board game into the trash for some unknown reason!"

"I'm sorry to hear that. When was this? Was Charlie okay?"

"Last night. Charlie was a little upset. It turned out it was just the one game Jack didn't like. He was happy to play checkers with Charlie. I rescued the game and hid it in the loft along with that dictionary-phrase book. I tried to get him to take Charlie swimming ages ago; I know I got that one wrong. He flat out refused."

"He doesn't like water anymore?"

"He does water therapy at the hospital! He talks at the hospital. But he won't talk to me. And guess what, he still dresses and undresses in the bathroom, Joanne! How could I be so stupid?"

"Stop that! You're entitled to forget. You're human like Jack. It's just going to take a lot of time. You weren't a POW over there, don't give yourself a sentence too! Carrying on family life over here as normal is a big strain. Not knowing if your man is coming back or not"

"I knew he wasn't dead."

"I know. Look Fred told me it's like a game of chutes and ladders. Some days no problem you're going up that ladder and you feel great. Other days you slide all the way down that chute to the bottom. But eventually there are bigger ladders and smaller chutes until you reach square 100."

"Oh my God!"

"What?"

"Is that what the doctors tell all the returning POW's?"

"Don't know, maybe. It's what Fred told me his pet shrink said. Made sense."

"That was the board game Jack refused to play with Charlie last night!"

"Wow. Turned out to be a bit too literal for him didn't it!"

"He hides things so well. He knows, deep down I know it. He just doesn't want to see it yet" said Sara sadly. "What if he can't get back in? If they give him a desk job he might just as well be dead."

"Sara O'Neill! Why are you giving up now?"

"Uh..."

"You're the one who said he wasn't dead. You kept everything going. Charlie is great. You're entitled to a bad day."

"Am I?"

"Yes, I think you are."

"Well I don't!"

"What phrase book were you talking about, Sara?"

"Huh?"

"You put it in the loft with the shutes and ladders board?"

"Oh that," Sara looked uncomfortable. "When he first came home and sometimes even now, though he's much better now, I mean he hardly ever…."

"Sara."

"Okay, he'd say things in his sleep- when he slept that was. Partly he still hurt a lot from what they'd done to him. But mainly I think he wouldn't sleep. It was too light, it was too dark, too quiet and yet if I had the radio on, he turned it off. I couldn't even walk past him and ruffle his hair, or touch him on the arm without him leaping a mile. I hugged him from behind once and he just froze. Normal harmless …stuff. You could say he was a bit oversensitive in some ways and dead in others. The things he said in that foreign language- I was trying to help him. He was angry and hurt, understanding what he said seemed to make sense at the time. But I felt like I was betraying him. I knew he'd never tell me exactly what happened over there and I was right. I felt bad sneaking around with a dictionary-phrase book trying to work out what he said in his nightmares! Tell me is that normal? And then I had to hide the book too because if he ever finds it that's it. Game over. He'll leave and it'll have been all my fault! I'd listen if only he'd share some of this with me. Am I that bad?"

Joanne could see that Sara had worked herself into a state. Joanne pulled her friend into her arms and let her cry herself out. Gradually the storm passed.

"I'm sorry." Sara mumbled grabbing more tissues to blow her nose and wipe her eyes. "I must look a sight."

"You look exactly like some one who's in the middle of a crisis. But I've seen you O'Neills down before. Shit happens. You know that, I know that. And you know what that crappy manure is good for? Roses."

Sara gave a choked laugh; trust Joanne not to gild the lily. Someone else would have gushed that she looked fine.

"And you're in no way a bad person, wife, whatever. He wouldn't leave you and Charlie, you're everything to him- any fool can see that."

"Then why can't he talk to me?"

"Have you thought that maybe he's trying to protect you and Charlie from the horror of it? Maybe it's a guy thing and he feels more comfortable talking to people who've been through similar experiences. You know- where there's a shorthand dialogue going on where they know what he means. Perhaps he wants to keep some of it away from home."

"But he is home a lot of the time so I don't see that it helps."

"That's the kicker."

Military hospital

"Hey, butt out- you have no idea what it was like over there...!" yelled Jack.

"That's why we're here now- to try and help you deal with what happened to you."

"It happened. I'm here now. It's over."

"No it isn't. Don't you want to go back to work, Major?"

"You have no idea how much."

"Then co-operate a little here. We still need any information you can give us on where you were, what you saw, and the other soldiers' or civilians' names you remember."

"We've been through this a dozen times."

"And we'll keep on going until everybody's happy and you can go back to duty."

"As long as it takes huh?" Jack cleared his throat. 'I can give you everything you want apart from what you want…' he thought to himself.

"Would you like some water? There's plenty." The doctor noted the internal debate his patient had to take or not take the water. Jack got up and took a bottle of water from the small fridge in the corner of the room. He was pleased to see that he didn't drink it all at once or drink several bottles one after the other.

At the end of the session Jack still had the half full bottle of water.

"You want to finish that now, and it can go in the recycle bin?"

"No, I'm okay, saving it for later."

The doctor made another note in his file.