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She hadn't been in this kind of water since she was a little girl and they had a boat. The girl of 51 and her fervent best friend, sister, and mother were on a three hour cruise in the warm waters of Charleston, SC. Still, the information that she had heard the night before about her father was buried until she could deal with it on her own. When they got out of the water, she and Grace (who had joined at the last ten minutes) sat on the shore. Narcissi changed her tampon with stealth.
"Weird, my fingertips are numb".
"Oh, I just thought it was my carpel tunnel syndrome. mine too."
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She was irritable and couldn't eat very much - only a bite or two and she was full but she'd be hungry in thirty minutes. But her flight back to California was in a few hours - then she could figure it all out.
She arrives home - get's her Lyft (oh to afford a Lyft) - home and makes love to her husband that night saying "I'll tell you later, but I've had to let go of some deep truths that aren't true, and I think I can finally work on valuing myself and healing."
He just came and slept.
The next day, she told him the tragic, disgusting, horrific truth about her father.
"I'm going to be a little nuts for a bit. this is really hard for me."
He hugged her with his great big chested tall man hugs and patted her on the back as she was weeping and said "you're a good person." She thought that an odd thing to say, but took it. Later she remembered it was the exact same thing he had said when Padz had died. She always said that Padz' death brought her closer - close enough to grab to him.
She began to itch, swell and get red bumps all over her skin. She also felt feverish and just bad. The only thing that would distract her from the pain was walking and/or laying in the sun. It was hard to drink water because she had to prime her mouth to take the sip. She kept hoping this was the reaction to some weird jellyfish sting and it would all be over soon. She had class and work to go to and seeing her clients for her student internship. She called in sick to everything but seeing her clients - and with them, she totally hid that right side of her chin and neck that was swollen and on fire. She showed it to one client whose mom had been a nurse practitioner and that client said "get some Bynadril both pills and topical. You have to tackle it both ways."
Narcissi walked and laid in the sun and went mad with pain. This was Thursday and the kids were coming to the house for the weekend on Friday. When they got there, she showed them her face and they said "maybe you discovered a new sea creature." and felt genuinely compassionate toward her. She was no fun to be around and just tried to endure the pain - hoping it would be over soon. She did nothing but walk, lay in the sun, and take baths and splash her face. She would chew the Benadryl as it helped with her mouth. Later, people would say this was all in her head. On the Saturday night, she decided to let Andrew know she was in trouble. She called him from the living room. They were watching "Death in Paradise". She said "am I going crazy? do you see this too?" She put the Benadryl cream (that she had beggingly impolitely SCREAMED to make him go buy on Friday night) on her left fore arm. Rice-like granules popped up on her arm. She freaked out like she had been and asked him, "those. do you see them or am I going insane?"
"Yes, I see them."
She shifted. This was real. He took one of the samples to the sink and said "but it's just soap. it's probably a reaction to a jellyfish sting and because of all the baths you've been taking."
She felt stupid and dismissed and retreated back to the spare bathroom to try to get them all out of her. It felt like lice. There was a lot in her hair, and it was gross... She tried to keep it from the kids. They left on Sunday. She took one last photo of them, none of them knowing it would be the last time before their father...
She exhaled. She could finally come out of that terrible bathroom and move around now that the kids were gone. She wishes she could have asked that they not come as she was so ill, but she never interfered with that. Andrew was not supportive at all and said "you're being so annoying" as she was breathing hard in the orange wingback chair that Padz had used as a scratching chair.
"get behind me satan."
She had been in a christian mystic cult after Mark and her marriage failed. She knew the "Hail Mary" and some religious tropes. Part of her wondered if this was some possession. She felt so horrible. Life physically horrible. She conveyed that to the husband. "I know I'm being rude. I just can't help it. I'm in so much pain. get behind me satan."
He freaked a bit. "Take that back! I've done everything you asked."
She recalled that line from the diary he let her read when they were first together documenting his first marriage falling apart, "I don't know why Susan is mad at me. I did everything she asked and asked what else I could do." I understood Susan. Who wants a child to direct when you need a man.
"can you just help me clean the bathroom. I was in there all last night, and it's gross."
She was full into the no clue what was going on with her and was leaning towards some mystic curse or something she had to endure. There was one way she was enduring the pain. She would translate the Hail Mary into German or French to occupy her mind to endure it. She was itchy like chicken pox which she had had when she was three and thought of as one of the most uncomfortable physical experience of her retrospective life.
He was riled up, but they were going to eat tacos, drink a beer, and watch a murder mystery - but first she wanted to tidy up...
The flashback time of wondering if he was infected and trying to pull the lice out of his hair and she was working on three nights with no sleep. She was acting crazy. He beat her. Slapped her face, knocked her to the ground. Straddled her and slapped her face, "you're fucking crazy." and then turned her over and slapped her bare bottom saying "bad girl. bad girl." It was not the kind of father surrogate she was interested in. Instead of standing down, she was ENRAGED that he had hit her and kept demanding he apologize. She knew he had the strength to kill her. She said as much.
"I'm afraid you're going to kill me. I'm not going to quit following you until you get that demon out of you and apologize for beating me. I want my husband back. I'll know you're back when you come to your senses and apologize for what you just did." He ran from her and knocked her down a few times - once into a lamp breaking her fall shattering glass. She was adamant that she would get him to see that he needed to apologize and account for his actions. She dared him to call the police - thinking that they would make him go to a hotel.
When she returned from jail four days later, the bathroom was still in the half-cleaned state they had left it. She put the items in the hall back on the shelf and went to bed. Her husband had tried to call the police on her to get her in jail again, but they didn't come this time. She was a bit fried.
The next day was hell. But at least she wasn't in jail.
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