Flash Fiction: Away from Home

Away From Home

A three day business trip to a city a full thousand miles away from home would usually not appeal to the control freak in me. Typically when I travel, I feel out of control of both my office and home life, but lately the dual pressures of career and motherhood had changed my outlook. This time, that very loss of control was attractive to me; I can’t be expected to fix something from a thousand miles away, right?

I had just settled into my hotel room when my cell phone rang. A quick glance at the caller ID sent adrenaline pumping through every blood vessel in my body. It was my daughter’s school calling. In the space of the half-second it took me to press the “Accept” button, my mind generated a flurry of half-thoughts and desperate pleas.

Please, not today. Not again. Please let her be---

“Mrs. Cambert? This is Sylvia Tyrone from Lyman Middle. Shari is having another episode, how soon can you be here?”

Mix obsessive-compulsive disorder with the hormonal changes that can make a normal fourteen-year-old girl appear to be possessed and you have a cocktail that results in “episodes” brought on by depressed thoughts that the OCD has taken out for a spin. By the time her brain has completed its unique processing, my daughter can barely breathe.

“I can’t come this time. I’m in Washington, D.C. Put Shari on the phone, please.”

I used my most soothing voice to coach Shari through the exercises Dr. Phillips had taught us both. “Breathe with me, honey. In through your nose, out through your mouth. That’s it. Now put your head back, stretch your neck.”

Amazingly, it worked. I guess I can fix something from a thousand miles away after all.