The Clara Effect

Frankie

I was floating. I was not here nor there, I watched the time race past me as I stood in one place. I was empty. I had lost my everything. I had lost my daughter. And no matter what anyone told me, no matter how many times I heard it wasn't your fault. It had to be. I was her mother. And not even I saw it coming.

***

The summer had flown past me at high speed and at the same time it went slower than it had ever been before. It was the hare and the turtle all at once and no matter what I did nothing changed. There was a Clara sized hole in my heart and I couldn't make it go away. Not that I wanted it to go away, I deserved that pain. I had failed her.

I thought I saw her, but my eyes had failed me once more. It was only Flora.

"Frankie, dad and I, we think, that you should go. You know. See someone. I have to go. You know. See someone. At school." Her words were always like that, fractured, like what I think her heart was like.

"Maybe I should," I replied, I felt none of what I said, my words meant nothing. I was nothing.

"That's the spirit?" She was always questioning herself, silly girl. I envied her. She had everything. But I knew that no ones life was perfect, but I also knew she had more than I did, and I envied her so much for it.

"Yes it is." I never paid any attention to all the things she said, I just agreed and then the next thing I knew I was sitting in an office, filling out papers I didn't exactly read, and then the next week I was sitting in an office across a woman who was ten years younger than me with blonde hair and blue eyes. A true defect.

"Hello," she said, her voice shook, she was just as nervous as me, or how nervous I should be. "My name is Bishop, it's nice to meet you." Her pale hair was tucked safely behind her ear, but her fingers played with the ends, twisting and untwisting, then doing it all over and over and over again. It was almost calming to watch.

"Nice to meet you, Bishop," nothing mattered like Clara, nothing ever will. "My name is Frankie." I remembered my sentences being curt and cold at first, it was me trying desperately to force this young woman off the rails, just as fast as I had been. I wanted to cry and to die and to never see the sun again because Clara couldn't anymore. Maybe she never had seen it, I hoped that she had seen it at least once, in a good light, not the bad one she had apparently lived in.

"Frankie? Did you hear me?" Bishop's finger was being suffocated by the rope her hair was, I was waiting for it to lose circulation and to fall off, but she let it loose just as it began to turn purple.

"No, I did not hear you." My voice was tired. I was tired.

"I said that if you don't mind I am going to ask you a few questions, and write down what you reply and what I think, is that okay with you?" Her voice was so full of life, unlike my Clara who now had no voice at all.

"I don't mind." She cleared her throat and opened a notebook that had stickers of cats on the front.

"What brings you here, Frankie?" She untucked her hair then immediately tucked back.

"My daughter."

"Why would she want you to come to therapy?"

"No, her friend wants me here because of Clara." My voice wavered at her name, it had been all summer since I had said it out loud.

"May I ask what happened to Clara? Or would you like to talk about something else today?" Bishop was gentle with her words.

"Something else, please," I whispered.

"How would you describe your mood today?"

That I didn't have an answer for. I felt everything and nothing, so instead of answering, I waited until we had no more time left. I think I was waiting until I had no more time left, and that scared me.