15



Four days later…

Dr. Edward Baines sat behind his large oak desk when his office door opened and Sarah Mitchell stepped into the room. He stood to his feet and motioned to the couch against the wall opposite of his desk. A wooden, glass top coffee table set in front of the couch with a box of tissues and a bowl filled with candy on top of it. Dr. Baines sat in a chair beside the coffee table while Sarah walked up to the couch. She was dressed in white patient scrubs and her hair hadn’t been combed or washed in two days. She sat on the plain brown leather couch and pulled her knees up to her chest with her rear in the corner farthest from Dr. Baines.
“Sarah, it’s Wednesday and you haven’t said a word to me the last two days. That’s not how this treatment works. In order for this to work, you have to talk to me,” said Dr. Baines.
“So, you call this treatment? I called it prison, or better known as the seventh circle of hell.”
“That’s good. Looks like you got your sense of humor back. What do you want to talk about?” he asked as he picked up a legal pad and pen from the table beside his recliner.
“Was it necessary to ban me from using shampoo and body wash?” she held up a few strings of her oily hair.
“Well, believe it or not, we’ve had people try to commit suicide by drinking their shampoo or body wash.”
“Is shampoo or body wash that toxic?” wondered Sarah.
“Not in the least, but sometimes people will do anything to get out of here,” he crossed his legs and wrote on his legal pad.
“Crazy people,” she smiled a little. “Do you think I am crazy?”
“Not in the least,” he replied.
“In that case, when can I start using shampoo and body wash?”
“When you start telling me what is bothering you,” answered Dr. Baines.
“What do you want to know?”
“What is your earliest memory?” asked Dr. Baines.
“I remember a time when I was child, playing with other kids on a military base. I remember the kids and playing in the front yard, but I don’t remember where it was.”
“How old are you in this memory?” questioned Dr. Baines.
“I don’t know. Maybe, five or six,” she relaxed a little, crossing her legs on the couch.
“Did you grow up on army bases your whole life?” he wondered.
“Yes, it seemed that we moved every few years.”
“Did that frustrate you growing?”
“Not when I was younger, but the older I got the more I hated being the new kid in school,” she replied.
“Why did your father accept his permanent position with the National Guard in Ruston?”
“I always thought it was because he was from this area,” she answered.
“Your father was from West Midland?”
“Yes. He met my mother while they were attending ULM, I think it was NLU then. After college he enlisted in the Army,” said Sarah.
“How old was you when your father accepted his permanent position?” asked Dr. Baines.
“I was thirteen.”
“Did you ever think he took the position because you didn’t like being the new kid in school?” questioned Dr. Baines.
“I always thought it was because he had grown tired of uprooting his family.”
“How did your father die?” he asked her.
“One evening he was driving home from work when a drunk driver crossed the lane and hit my father’s car head-on. My father was killed instantly.”
“How old was you when he died?” asked Dr. Baines.
“I was a senior at Trenton High School.”
“Shortly after that you joined the military?” wondered Dr. Baines.
“Yes, but I know what you’re thinking. I didn’t join because of my father’s death. I had been thinking about joining since I was sixteen. At first, my father didn’t want me to join, but my mother convinced him to let me. The reason I wanted to join was so I could go to college,” she replied.
“You met your husband in college?”
“No. I met him about five years ago. Tanya introduced me to him,” said Sarah.
“How’s your marriage?”
“What do you mean?” she reached towards the coffee table and grabbed a piece of candy.
“Are you happily married?”
“For the most part,” she stuck the piece of candy in her mouth and threw the wrapper in a trash basket beside the couch.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we’re like most couples. We have our fights from time to time,” she sucked on the piece of candy.
“What did you fight about? Money?”
“Money was never a problem. His father was in the oil business and he left David a fortune when he died. Besides his inheritance, David is a very successful prosecuting attorney. We fought because he wants to start a family,” she replied.
“You didn’t want to start a family?”
“No. Not yet.”
“That’s odd. Normally, it’s the husband that puts off starting a family, not the wife. Why don’t you want to start a family?” questioned Dr. Baines.
“I’m not sure. I just don’t feel the time is right. Not yet.”
“Why did you try to kill yourself?” asked Dr. Baines.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not a suitable answer,” he suggested.
“I just heard a voice telling me that everyone would be better off if I was dead.”
“Do you hear voices a lot?” asked Dr. Baines.
“No.”
“What about nightmares? Or visions?” he wondered.
“I’ve had my share of nightmares.”
“About your time in Afghanistan?”
Sarah stood to her feet. She walked to a window in the office and opened the curtains. She didn’t want to talk about Afghanistan. She didn’t know why, all she knew was something inside of her kept telling her to remain silent about it. She didn’t want to think about her time in Afghanistan, but she needed to think about it if she’s going to understand the urge to stay quiet about it. She looked at the giant water fountain set in the center of the yard in front of the hospital. She watched as people walked by it and she noticed a couple sitting on the edge of the fountain. She looked at the sky and the clouds were gray. Perhaps, a storm was brewing.
“Do you have nightmares about your time in Afghanistan?” he asked her.
“I don’t want to talk about Afghanistan.”
“What did you see there?” he questioned her.
“Death and destruction,” she replied without looking at him.
“What happened to you over there?”
“Dr. Baines,” she turned around to look at him. “I think our time is at an end,” she walked out of the doctor’s office.



16



A few days later, Tanya Anderson stepped into the lunchroom for West Midland Memorial Hospital. She spotted Sarah sitting at a table across from David. She picked up a tray and walked up to the food line. She quickly moved through the food line, paid for her meal and walked to the table where Sarah and David sat quietly. He kissed Sarah and he stood to his feet.
“Don’t leave on my occasion,” Tanya hugged David’s neck.
“You know better than that,” he kissed her cheek. “I have to get back to the office.”
“Big case?” Tanya suggested as she sat at the table.
“Big announcement coming out of the DA’s office,” he smiled and he walked away from the table.
“What decision is that?” Tanya asked Sarah.
“He won’t tell me,” Sarah sipped coffee from a styrofoam cup.
“How you handling all of this?”
“I am taking it day by day. I’m worried about David,” answered Sarah.
“Why?”
“I’m not sure. There’s something off, but I can’t quite tell what it is,” replied Sarah.
“Could it because you’re in here?” suggested Tanya.
“I don’t think that’s it.”
“How’s it going with your sessions with Dr. Baines?” wondered Tanya.
“I can’t really talk about that.”
“Sarah, I don’t want details. I just want to know if it’s helping,” said Tanya.
“I think it is helping. I’ve gotten a few things off my chest.”
“You are looking better.”
“Yeah, it’s because I can shampoo my hair now,” joked Sarah.
“What?”
“Nothing,” laughed Sarah.
“Have you talked about Afghanistan?”
Sarah didn’t respond to the question. She looked down at her cup of coffee. She picked it up and sipped on the hot coffee. She didn’t know why it was hard to talk about her time in Afghanistan. In the past, she’d always been willing to discuss her deployments, but something about this last time had her clamming up her mouth. She looked at her friend and she felt tears welling up in the corners of her eyes.
“Why can’t you talk about Afghanistan? What happened over there?”
“Nothing happened. It was just your normal deployment overseas. I don’t understand why I find it so hard to talk about it. I’m okay until someone mentions Afghanistan and I mentally shut down,” answered Sarah.
“Does Dr. Baines know this?”
“It’s obvious to him,” said Sarah.
“What does he say?”
“I need to force myself to talk about my deployment over there,” replied Sarah.
“I agree with him. If you can’t talk to him, you can always talk to me,” Tanya placed her hand on top of Sarah’s hand.
“Not today,” Sarah stood to her feet and she walked out of the cafeteria.



17


Three weeks later…

Sarah Mitchell stepped into Dr. Baines’ office. Dr. Baines sat behind his desk and David Mitchell sat in a chair in front of the doctor’s desk. Dr. Baines looked up at her as David turned in his chair. He saw her and he quickly stood to his feet. He walked across the doctor’s massive office, through what Dr. Baines liked to call the healing nest where the patient’s couch was positioned. He hugged his wife and she kissed him on his cheek. He stepped back to look over his wife. She wore an outfit he didn’t recognize. She was dressed in a pink pullover blouse, denim jeans and white tennis shoes. He took her by the hand and led her to the chairs in front of the doctor’s desk.
“Sarah, I have to agree with Dr. Baines. I think it’s too soon to stop your therapy,” David said as he and his wife sat in the chairs. Dr. Baines leaned forward and picked up a pen to write in the legal pad on his desk.
“You’re entitled to your opinion,” she said to David. She turned her head slowly and looked at her doctor. “You said that I was required to stay at the hospital and undergo therapy with you for three weeks. We agreed that at the end of those three weeks if I felt better, I could leave and go home. I am better and I want to go home.”
Dr. Baines stopped writing and placed his hand on his chin. He’d been treating patients that suffered from PTSD for several years. He knew that if a patient wanted to stop therapy bad enough they would fake a better condition. He feared that Sarah might be doing this very thing. It was one of the hardest parts of his job. Even though he felt she needed to continue her therapy, he couldn’t force her to continue her sessions. He leaned back in his chair and looked closely at the couple.
He hadn’t talked with David at great lengths, but he studied his face for a few minutes. He knew someone could fake being sincere and compassion. He didn’t believe David was faking. He truly was sincere and worried about his wife. However, his hands were tied. He couldn’t make Sarah continue her therapy, but he could prescribe her some medication to take. He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a prescription pad.
“Sarah, you know my objections to you stopping your session, but I can’t force you to continue to see me. However, I will give you a prescription for Paxil,” said Dr. Baines.
“What is Paxil?” questioned David.
“Paxil is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressant,” Dr. Baines replied while he wrote on the prescription pads.
“What are the side effects?” asked Sarah.
“Some of the side effects are headache, nervousness, restlessness, drowsiness, dizziness, nasal irritation, insomnia, nausea, constipation, weight changes, decreased sex drive, difficulty having an orgasm, dry mouth, yawning, or ringing in the ears,” Dr. Baines handed the prescription to Sarah.
“How long you want me to take this prescription?” questioned Sarah.
“I am prescribing you to take 20mg twice a day for thirty days. In thirty days, I want you to come in and we will re-evaluate the situation,” Dr. Baines and the couple stood to their feet.
“Okay,” said Sarah.
“One last thing…a side effect may be thoughts of suicide. If you have thoughts of suicide, contact me immediately and we will change your prescription,” said Dr. Baines.
“I will,” Sarah agreed as her and David walked through the doctor’s office and out the office door.



18



A few minutes later, David and Sarah walked through the front door of their home. He slowly closed the front door and set his keys in a bowl on a table near the door. They didn’t speak a single during the twenty-minute ride from the hospital. He knew that Sarah wasn’t happy with his agreement with Dr. Baines that she should continue her therapy and that was the reason for her silence.
Sarah walked through the house and stepped into the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of cold water. She opened it and took a sip. David walked into the kitchen and stood in the doorway, watching her. She replaced the lid on the bottle and turned to walk out of the kitchen. She stepped up to him and looked at him.
“Do you mind moving out of my way?” she asked with a touch of annoyance.
“I think we should talk.”
“Don’t you need to go back to the office?” she asked without looking at him.
“I was given the day off. We need to talk.”
“Why? You said enough,” she slowly looked up at him.
Reluctantly, David stepped to the side and she moved past him. She walked down the hallway and into their bedroom. She shut and locked the door. Shaking his head, David stepped through the house and into the spare room he used as a private office. He closed the door to his office and he sat at his desk. He opened the lap top that set on the glass-top desk. He wanted to search the internet for information about PTSD.
Meanwhile, Sarah stepped into her bathroom and took a long hot shower. She wrapped a towel around her wet head and she pulled on her orange bathrobe. She stood in front of a full-length mirror mounted on the bathroom wall. She slowly brushed her hair while she counted to a hundred. She set the brush down on the bathroom sink. She turned off the bathroom light as she walked into the bedroom. She set on the foot of the king size bed. She leaned forward and picked up the water bottle from the dresser drawer. She took a sip, then set it back on the dresser.
She slid back to the head of the bed. She laid in a fetal position as she began to cry silently. She cried for a few minutes, then she sat up on the bed. She opened the drawer for the table by her side of the bed. She pulled out a bottle of sleep aid. She opened the bottle to shake two tablets into her hand. She closed the lid and slipped it back the drawer. Closing the drawer, she stood to her feet to walk up to the dresser drawer. She popped the pills into her mouth and took a drink from her bottled water. She laid back onto the bed and soon fell asleep.



19



Lieutenant Sarah Mitchell walked slowly down the alleyway along the rest of the soldiers in her unit. As she walked, she looked at the buildings on each side of the alleyway, but she didn’t recognize them. Where were they? They walked past an opened doorway and she thought she heard the sound of a crying baby in the building. She took a step back towards the opened doorway. The other soldiers in her unit didn’t seem to hear the baby crying. Did she really hear a baby crying? Or did she just imagine? Surely, she just imagined a crying baby. No one in their right mind would leave a baby in an empty building.
She looked towards the soldiers in her unit once again, they didn’t stop her as they continued down the alleyway. Concerned that she had really heard a crying baby, she stepped through the doorway. She flipped on the light attached to her rifle to highlight her path through the building. She carefully made her way down a narrow corridor. The farther she walked, the more she realized that it wasn’t just an empty building, it was an abandoned home. She reached a break in the corridor; she could turn right, left or continued up a staircase. She held her breath as she listened for the crying baby once more. It sounded like the baby was directly above her.
Praying that she wasn’t making a mistake, she slowly took one step at a time to the next floor. The staircase emptied into a narrow hallway. She stood at the entrance, working up the courage to continue down the hallway. She took a step and everything went black. She tapped the light attached to her rifle, but it was useless. Apparently, the batteries in the light was dead. Wonderful. She looked back down the staircase, considering the safer option of her immediate decisions. Down. Soldier. Safe. Straight. Dark. Unsafe. She heard the baby cry once more and that made her decision.
She followed the narrow hallway to an open area. She turned around the corner, but she never saw the boot tip that caught her in the mid-section. She dropped her rifle as she fell to her knees. She grabbed her stomach while she cried out in pain. She looked up just in time to see the rifle butt crash into her jaw. She fell back onto the dirty floor as blackness overtook her.
She slowly opened her eyes to someone sitting on her chest and her arms were pinned down by someone’s knees. What was happening? Who had attacked her? Questions rushed through her mind while she tried to understand her surroundings and her attackers. She felt her ACU blouse rip as her assailant tore it open. She opened her eyes wide, but all she could see was darkness and the shape of a man on top of her. Who was her attackers? Terrorist? American soldiers? No, it couldn’t be someone from her unit. She tried to calm her fear and her breathing as she listened for the baby that had drawn her into the abandoned house. She didn’t hear the baby. It was a trap. Tears swelled up in the corner of her eyes. NO! She’d be damned if her attacker would see her cry. She closed her eyes to fight back the tears. She clenched her teeth tightly as she fought back her fear. She felt hot breath by her ear and she smelt whiskey in the air as her attacker spoke.
“Women don’t belong in the SEAL Unit. I don’t care if you’re a Medic, you don’t belong and now you will pay the price,” the angry, American voice said.
An American? Her attacker was an American soldier? Why? No one had ever voiced their displeasure of her being in the SEAL Unit before now. Why? No time for answers, she needed to fight back, and fight back NOW! She brought her left knee up and caught him in the small of the back, right about his rear. He grunted out, not in pain, more shock than discomfort. He leaned forward, almost losing his balance. She raised her head and bit with all of her might on the assailant’s inner shoulder. She clamped down hard and didn’t let go as her attacker screamed out in pain. She felt blood dripped down her cheek while he rocked back and forth as he tried to break her grip. He punched the side of her head and she opened her mouth. He grabbed at his thigh as he rolled around on the floor. He cursed her loudly as he struggled to his feet.
Sarah quickly stood to her feet. She looked around her rifle, but she couldn’t find it. Her assailant yelled loudly as he rushed towards her. He grabbed her ripped shirt and pushed backwards. Her body crashed through glass and wood as she flew out the window. She screamed loudly as she fell…
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