Her Daughter’s Dream

“Jesus… Jesus…,” Carolyn prayed, trying to grasp hold of faith again, a last-ditch effort to save Charlie. Please, God, don’t let him get killed. Drunk, she pressed her hands against the television screen. She felt someone’s arms around her.

“Easy, babe. He’ll be okay, Caro. You gotta believe. He’ll be okay.”

Believe in what? God? They’d all been saying God didn’t care or God was dead. When had faith ever been enough?

Carolyn didn’t go to work. She sat glued to the television, searching faces, drinking, looking for Charlie on the screen.

Oma called. “Two soldiers are with your mom and dad.” She spoke Carolyn’s name, but couldn’t get any more out.

Something cracked inside Carolyn. She fumbled the telephone back into the cradle. Her body started to shake violently. The phone rang again. Carolyn heard it from a distance. Another sound intruded, a terrible sound, like a wounded animal screaming in pain. She covered her ears, trying to block it out. Charlie! It was Charlie!

Chel came out of the bedroom, half-dressed, hair in disarray. She grabbed Carolyn’s wrists and pulled her arms down. When the sound grew louder, Chel slapped her across the face. The screaming stopped. Carolyn sat silent, stunned. Chel cupped her face. “Charlie?” Unable to speak, Carolyn crumpled. Hands spread on the bare wood floor, she sobbed.

Uttering a sobbing cry, Chel rose. She screamed a string of curses. When the telephone rang again, she grabbed the cord and yanked it out of the wall. Snatching up the telephone, she hurled it through a window. Hunkering down again, she grabbed Carolyn’s shoulders and shook her. “Caro. Caro!”

The radio played an Animals song. “We gotta get out of this place if it’s the last thing we ever do…”

“I tried so hard, Chel. And I couldn’t save him.”

Chel got dressed, then lit a roach with shaking hands. She pulled Carolyn up with one hand and offered her the rolled marijuana. “Take a drag, Caro. Come on, babe. It’s better than barbiturates.”

Carolyn filled her lungs with pot smoke. She didn’t want to feel anything. The music kept playing its siren song. “We gotta get out of this place…” Too late. Too late.

Chel dragged her up. “Let’s get outta here.”

They didn’t pack anything. They left it all behind. The last thing Carolyn remembered was riding across the Bay Bridge in the front seat of Chel’s red Camaro, Janis Joplin screaming, Chel screaming along with her, tears running down her white face.

Oh, Rosie, where do I begin? Charlie is dead, killed in Vietnam, and my sweet Carolyn has disappeared. The pain is too deep for tears. Hildemara can’t eat or sleep; she cries all the time. I fear for her health. I fear for Carolyn as well. God alone knows where she is and what she’s doing to herself. Will I lose everyone I love?

Ever since Charlie joined the Marines, the family has been in conflict. Carolyn has set herself against the war, and unwittingly against Trip. He says anyone against the war is against Charlie and every other young American boy fighting this war. Carolyn says she’d do anything to bring Charlie home, but Trip says the protests are aiding the enemy and demoralizing the troops. Trip called her a traitor and said Charlie would be ashamed of her. She withdrew from the university to devote herself to the antiwar movement, and she has no job, no means of support other than her rich, abandoned friend Rachel Altman. I’ve never met a more damaged girl.

Soldiers came to the house. Hildemara and Trip didn’t want to call Carolyn the first day, but I called her. She hung up without saying a word, Rosie, and when I called back, she didn’t answer. I assumed she was coming straight home to be with her family. She adored her brother. Charlie meant everything to her.

She never showed up. I drove to Berkeley the next day to bring her home. The house was in disarray, the telephone connection ripped from the wall, the television and several windows smashed.

I can’t tell Hildemara or Trip I called Carolyn. They’d believe she didn’t care enough to come home. I know the child is broken and grieving. I don’t know how to find my granddaughter. I lie awake at night and I pray. When I sleep, I dream of Elise.

God knows where Carolyn is, and I pray for His mercy on all of us. I don’t know what else to do.

12

1970

The Summer of Love had ended by the time Carolyn ran away to Haight-Ashbury with Rachel Altman after Charlie’s death. Things had already begun to change. Pot still reigned, but harder drugs rose in popularity. Guru psychologist Timothy Leary advocated acid to expand the mind, but after one bad trip that left Carolyn with residual hallucinations for weeks, she made alcohol and pot her drugs of choice. She spent days in a blur, drinking liberal amounts of wine, red or white, trying to drown her grief, wash away the anger, and stop the nightmares of running through a jungle with her brother.

Chel continued to foot the bill for the two of them, in addition to a succession of hangers-on and groupies who came and went from the house they shared, many of them young men. Chel began to be haunted by hallucinations from dropping too much acid. Sobbing, she’d beg, “I need you, Caro. I need you sober.” Carolyn tried, but craved alcohol like water. They tried to lean on one another, but it didn’t help that everyone around them still used.

When the hallucinations finally stopped, they went outside and sat on the steps. Feeling the sunshine, they went to Golden Gate Park for the first time in weeks. “You’ve been there for me every time I’ve needed you, Caro, even when I didn’t know what I was doing. You drove me clear across the country after Woodstock, when I couldn’t have told you my name, let alone my address. We couldn’t save Charlie, but you saved me. And what have I done for you?”

“You’ve been my friend.”

“What sort of a friend am I?”

“You helped me after Charlie died.”

“I should’ve left you in Berkeley. Your parents would have come and taken you home.”

“No, they wouldn’t.”

“Oma, then.”

Carolyn shook her head. “This is where I belong.”

They found a park bench and sat. Chel put her head in her hands. “Sometimes I just want to call it quits.” She gave a bleak laugh. “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. I’m tired of fighting a losing battle.” She leaned back, hands limp in her lap. “I scare myself sometimes, Caro.” She gave Carolyn a sad smile. “I don’t think we’ve been good for each other.”

Hurt, Carolyn couldn’t look at her. “Am I going to lose you, too, Chel?”

“I love you, babe.” Chel raised her hand in a halfhearted gesture. “See that family over there?” Her voice turned mocking. “Mommy laying out the picnic lunch while Daughter dear plays with her dolly and Daddy helps Sonny boy fly a kite? Makes a nice Hallmark card, don’t you think?” Her voice choked off. She let out her breath slowly. “What do we have, Caro?”

“Our friendship.”

Chel looked at her then, eyes clear for a change, wet. She looked away again. They didn’t talk for a long while. “I called my father.”

Surprised, Carolyn stared at her. “When?”

“A week ago. Apparently, he dumped my mother last year and married his secretary. According to the new one, he’s off on a honeymoon in Madrid.”

“Where’s your mother?”