Chrysalis

Chelsea sat on the worn carpet of the master bedroom, a smooth drumstick in her hand. Years of traffic had matted the beige surface to little, scratchy nubs beneath her bare legs. Afternoon light filtered in through the open blinds. She sat cross legged with her children around her. Ashton, seventeen, with his jaw length hair, parted in the middle, patted a drum beat on the practice pad that lay on the floor between them. Chloe and Stella, fourteen and ten, respectively, also banged on the black, octagonal surface with long sticks.

“I want to try,” Auggie, six years old, said. His mouth pulled into a frown. He sat watching, the only one without a drum stick.

“Here, Auggie. You can have mine,” Chloe said, her waist length hair brushing over the floor, as she passed Auggie her stick.

Chelsea focused her mind on the sound of the beats, as sounds and images that didn’t belong in this room, or in this time, crowded into her mind: an antique pink dresser, a man telling her to lie down. She banged the practice pad harder, and the children followed suit.

Ryan entered the bedroom, a look of concern creasing his brow.

“Are you alright, Chels?” he asked.

“Just trying to stay in the present,” she replied over the din.

Ryan watched for a moment before retreating down the little hall and back to his office.

It was the week of Mother’s Day, 2020. Arizona had recently shut down due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Panic seemed to have gripped the city. Stores were rapidly losing stock of essential items, including toilet paper. Just last week, Chelsea had made a run to Basha’s and filled her cart to overflowing with cooking oil, canned meats and toiletries. She passed shopper after shopper with worried eyes, each doing the same thing. She purchased body wash as a substitute for hand soap, when she discovered the soap was sold out, and had to make do with kleenex instead of toilet paper. And now, here she was, seated on the floor, battling memories of buried childhood trauma that had surfaced as the stress of recent events took their toll.

Banging helped. The noise kept her from slipping backward in time to the bedroom she slept in as a little girl—the bedroom with the pink curtains. Or the kitchen in the Alberta acreage house. Or the bedroom with the french doors, and the antique pink dresser.

But they couldn’t bang on the practice drum all day.

“Alright guys, thanks,” she said. “Let’s put this away.”

Ashton took the pad back to his bedroom and the kids all filed out. Chelsea remained seated, hands over her face as the familiar sensation rose in her body. She stared, and the bedroom faded away. Gone were the blue and white bedspread, the mirrored closet doors.

Terror clawed up her insides, causing her arms and feet to tingle. Her legs shook. Images flashed in her mind. The man. The bed. The struggle as he lay on top of her. The tangled sheets where her yellow underwear lay next to her. The pale moonlight casting a blue glow on her mickey mouse nightgown, reflecting off the mirror of the antique dresser.

Her breathing became labored and tears ran down her cheeks. She wiped them away with quivering hands as she stood and walked the short distance down the hall and through the loft to Ryan’s office. She pushed the door open. Ryan turned toward her and stood as she walked into his arms.

“Another memory,” she said and told him what she had seen.

Ryan rubbed her back and she sobbed into his shirt. If only the trauma specialist wasn’t out of town. Chelsea had to get through these flashbacks on her own and she was barely succeeding. It wasn’t just remembering, it was reliving. She wasn’t thirty-seven year old Chelsea in her suburban Arizona home, she was two year old Chelsea tapped awake in the middle of the night, and eight year old Chelsea raped in her bed, and thirteen year old Chelsea reliving the awful abuse again and again.

“Try to do something you enjoy, Chels,” Ryan said, his voice gentle.

She nodded as she walked out of the office and closed the door behind her. Something I enjoy, she thought, if I could stay in reality long enough, I might be able to do that.

# # #

Chelsea sat on the brown sectional of the family room, snuggled next to her were Chloe and Stella. The small, wooden sewing box lay on the couch next to her feet and a stack of folded blue jeans lay on the beige carpet, topped with a large pair of orange-handled scissors. Bright morning light filtered in through the blinds behind them. Buttons, their grey cat, purred and climbed up on Stella’s lap. Stella smoothed the soft fur with her hand as they all looked at Chelsea’s phone. Purse after denim purse scrolled upward on the small screen. Some had sleek designs and short straps. Others were large cross body bags with zippers.

Chelsea stopped scrolling. There. In the middle of the screen, a medium sized denim purse with ruffles all down the front. She tapped it with her finger and took a screenshot.

“I wonder how I can make this without a pattern,” she said, staring at the image.

She hopped off the couch and unfolded a pair of dark wash jeans. After thinking for a moment, she grabbed the scissors and cut the legs off. She lifted the top of the jeans off the floor and held them up.

“What do you think girls?” she asked Chloe and Stella. “With a long strap and some ruffles, won’t it be a cute bag?” They nodded their agreement.

From the legs of the jeans, Chelsea cut a long strap, and a strip of fabric for the bottom of the bag. She opened the lid of the sewing box and dug around to find some pins. Taking one in hand, she pinned the strap along the sewing edge, then pinned the bottom piece that she had cut, to the bottom of the jeans. Without a sewing machine, the bag would have to be sewn by hand. After selecting light pink thread, she threaded the needle and began stitching the pieces together. Chloe and Stella disappeared upstairs to draw as Chelsea settled in to her task.

The minutes stretched into an hour as Chelsea sat hunched over on the floor of the living room, squinting down at the seam of her bag. Progress was slow. It would take hundreds of tiny hand stitches to complete the project. She stood and stretched out the kinks in her back and neck.

“Anybody want to go for a swim?” she called up the stairwell.

A chorus of yes’s and Chelsea headed upstairs to change into her swimsuit. The lighting in the bedroom was dim with the blinds closed. The familiar sensation of dread snaked its way from her belly and up her throat as she stripped off her clothes. Tears ran down her cheeks and she felt the bedroom falling away again as images from the past played in her mind. She collapsed on the floor, crying into the crusty carpet.

Her sobs began to slow and she stood, pulling on her black swimsuit and shorts. She stared into the bathroom mirror at her tear-stained reflection, puffy eyes staring back. Her short hair stuck out in every direction. Her thin form shook. She folded her arms across her chest to steady herself.

“Come on, Mom!” Auggie called through the closed door as he knocked repeatedly.

She wiped her eyes with quivering hands and met him outside the door.

“Hey Sweetie.” She bent down and kissed his soft cheek.

He bounced down the stairs in his neon swim shirt and shorts, beach towel trailing behind him. Chelsea followed, but her legs felt like stilts and her mind numb. She passed the family photographs as she walked down the stairwell and spotted the snapshot from an amusement park they went to several years ago. It was taken as they tipped downward for a ride down a steep slope. Chloe’s face was sheer terror, her eyes wide with fear, her arms trying to hold her little body back from the inevitable. But there was no stopping it.

Chelsea stepped mechanically down the stairs and outside to the backyard pool. She hovered miles and years away in her head, far away from her body. The kids ran and splashed in the pool, but she heard it as if through a thick wall. She stared at the surface of the water, seeing nothing. She grabbed her phone. Can you come watch the kids in the pool for a bit, she texted Ryan. He came out the door a moment later and hugged her.

“I’m not safe to watch the kids,” she said. “I'm dissociating again.”

After changing out of her suit, she went back to the living room where she sat comfortably on the sofa and continued her sewing. She ran out of thread, so she knotted it off. Grabbing the scissors, she cut herself a new length of thread and kept going.

She worked for hours, staying focused long after the kids came in from the pool and the sun moved from east to west. The late afternoon light lit up the kitchen now, gleaming off the black granite countertop. Stitch after tiny stitch, she sewed as she bent over her work. The bottom piece of the bag was secured. Then, finally, the long strap complete, she affixed it with three rows of tight stitches to the body of the purse. With the scissors, she cut off the extra thread. Then she threw the strap over her head and tried it on. Twirling, she giggled.

“Mom, what’s for dinner?” Chloe asked, as she came down the stairs.

Dinner. Chelsea had been so absorbed in her task that dinner had slipped her mind.

“Pizza,” she said, smiling.

“Yay, pizza!” Auggie shouted from the kitchen. His voice reverberated against the tile floor.

The sunlight was giving way, now to the grey light of evening. Chelsea grabbed her car keys and stepped outside. The sticky front door groaned as she pulled it closed behind her. Hot air instantly warmed her skin. A soft breeze rustled the treetops and sounds of laughter from the playground filtered over from across the street.

Scalding air wafted out of the vehicle as she opened the door. She sat down in the beige driver’s seat of her white minivan and turned the ignition. The air conditioning came on, blasting more hot air onto her face and arms. She quickly turned it down and backed out of the driveway.

The fading light of the setting sun triggered a memory. The ball diamond of her elementary school. Hitting a home run. She used to play baseball after school with her friends, Suzie and Jesse. A happy recollection. Her eyes filled with grateful tears.

The pizza place was only five minutes away. She parked out front in the lot of the small shopping center and stepped through the glass doors. The smell of dough and garlic filled the space.

“Can I help you?” asked the young man behind the counter. He wore a black uniform t-shirt and an orange cap.

“Yes,” she said. “Can I get two pepperoni pizzas?”

After collecting her payment, he turned and grabbed two boxes out of the warming oven behind him. He scanned them and slid them across the counter.

“Have a good night,” he said as she lifted the pizzas and made her way through the swinging doors.

Back in the car, Chelsea started the short drive home. The closer she got, the more her body tensed and her hands shook. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat and flicked on the radio.

I just can’t get no relief, the song lyrics said. I just can’t get no relief from this pain.

She slammed the radio dial, turning off the music and breathed in deeply. She held her breath and then exhaled. A horn honked loudly behind her. She looked up at the stoplight, noting the green arrow, and pushed on the gas to make the left turn. Farmlands passed on her right. Their tall green stalks waved in the breeze, illuminated by the last vestiges of the evening sun.

The suburbs of Gilbert passed her by, large homes, an elementary school, a small shopping center. She felt her body relax minutely at the familiar sights. But she would soon be home. Home where nearly every sight seemed to trigger an unwanted memory. She shook her head. Home where family is, she reminded herself. Home where I create. She pictured the denim bag with its long strap, imagining the ruffles she would add tonight, the embroidery she would do into the body and the strap.

Dinner passed in a flurry, with six hungry people grabbing slice after slice of the hot pepperoni pizza. Ryan offered to watch get Auggie to bed while Chelsea worked on her bag.

As the last streams of daylight faded, Chelsea felt fear collect in her chest like water in a slow draining sink. Her breathing became shallow and a sense of dread hung around her head like a dark cloud. Night. Night was when most of the trauma happened in her childhood. Night was her most difficult time for flashbacks. The kitchen seemed to take a grey cast as she tidied up the dinner dishes. Every item in the house seemed to hold sinister secrets. She sat down on the table, putting her head in her hands and tried to take deep breaths.

A hand on her back caused her to jump.

‘Mommy, are you ok?” It was Chloe, her large grey eyes filled with warmth.

Chelsea felt Chloe’s slender arms go around her shoulders. She reached her hand up and cupped her daughter’s face, pressing her cheek against her daughter’s.

“I’m not feeling very well,” Chelsea responded.

“Maybe you could work on your bag,” Chloe suggested.

The bag, Yes. Chelsea smiled wanly and rose from her seat. She got herself comfortable on the brown sectional sofa and flicked on the tv. A wildlife documentary came on. With the strap in place, and the bottom of the bag sewn in, it was time for the fun part: the ruffles. She grabbed a pair of jeans from the stack, another dark wash, and cut two long strips of fabric with the orange handled scissors. After threading a needle with pink thread, she sewed in a gathering stitch on one side of each strip. A pull on the string and the fabric strip bunched into ruffles. With pins, she affixed the ruffles on either side of her bag, in line with the straps. She then began the process of hand-sewing the ruffles to the bag.

“The process of metamorphosis is essential for the strengthening of the wings,” said the narrator of the documentary. “The struggle to emerge from the chrysalis ensures that the wings will be strong enough to fly. Without the fight, there can be no flight.”

Chelsea stopped her sewing and stared at the tv screen. A large monarch butterfly stood on a tree branch spreading her orange and black wings. Tears welled in Chelsea’s eyes. Without fight there is no flight. The words lit a fire of hope within her belly.

Through teary eyes she focused again on the ruffles. Before long, they were secured. She stood and tried on the bag again. She examined the roughness of the design, the imperfections, each evidence that it was a handmade item that she had created without template or pattern. Not since she was a child had she felt that impulse to create something from nothing in this impulsive way.

Perhaps she was healing, after all. Perhaps this time of hardship was her chrysalis. The fire of hope burned brightly as she twirled on the dingy carpet.

“Nature always finds a way,” said the narrator on the television, as Chelsea removed her creation from her shoulders and selected some yellow embroidery thread.