Unhinge

by Calia Read

  My hands shake as I brush back Evelyn’s hair from her forehead. She picks up on my nerves and tilts her head back to look at me.

  “Two outbursts that came out of nowhere…I think that would make anyone nervous.”

  I stare down at the floor, trying to handle the rush of memories slamming into me. “I was scared.”

  Dr. Calloway remains silent.

  My eyes close. “It just didn’t make sense. I didn’t understand what was going on. I felt like I was—”

  Abruptly I stop speaking. Because if I admitted that I felt like I was going crazy, it would just be used against me.

  I stand up. “Can I go now?”

  Dr. Calloway doesn’t appear shocked by my request. She shrugs. “If you want to.”

  “I want to.”

  I can’t move fast enough to the door. I’m almost out when Dr. Calloway says my name. I turn even though I don’t want to.

  Calloway smiles at me. “It’s okay to be scared.”

  And it’s okay for her to say that because she’s not the one revisiting her past. She doesn’t have to live through it. The door clicks shut behind me. Evelyn’s fussing in my arms. Her head is moving left and right. I quicken my steps, to my room, completely ignoring Alice. The second I’m in my room, I grab the bottle on the end table. Most times, I give Evelyn the bottle and she’s back to being the calm and sweet angel that I love. Today she rejects it as if it’s poison. I change her diaper. I swaddle her. I give her a pacifier. I gently rock her.

  Nothing seems to work.

  My patience is starting to wane. Her cries ring until my eardrums feel like they’re going to burst. I can’t focus on a thing. I can hardly breathe. Everything feels like it’s closing in on me.

  “Stop crying!” I shriek.

  My outburst only makes her cry louder. It’s not her fault. None of this is her fault. I take a deep breath and place my daughter in her bassinet and hurry to the bathroom. If the door had a lock, I’d be using it right now. I want a minute alone. Just a single minute where I don’t have to worry about nurses knocking on the door.

  Just a single minute to think everything through.

  My hands curl around the lip of the sink. My shoulders droop as I take a deep breath. Turning on the water, I watch the clear liquid circle around the drain and take another deep breath before I cup my hands beneath the water and splash my face with it. Blindly I reach out for the towel always hanging to my left and pat my skin dry. When I look in the mirror I see myself but it’s all wrong. I’m wearing the clothes I did when we first moved into the house. My eyes, which normally look completely blank, are now filled with fear.

  I’m staring at Young Victoria.

  She’s so beautiful that when she smiles at me, I lean against the sink for support.

  She knows her fairy tale isn’t how she pictured it would be, but she holds out hope. I can see it in her eyes. Young Victoria believed in love. She didn’t know that she would become one of the many souls who were left behind.

  She didn’t know.

  I reach out and trace Victoria’s features across the mirror. My heart is breaking.

  “What happened to us?” I whisper to her.

  She leans in and I brace myself for her to reach out and pull me into her life.

  But she doesn’t.

  I blink and the image of her is gone, and I’m back to staring at my present self.

  There’s a sharp rap on the door. I turn around just as a nurse peeks her head in. Thank God, it’s not Alice, but a much nicer day shift nurse. “Just checking on you.”

  I’m not ready to leave the bathroom. I’m not ready to face my daughter. If I could hide out in here all day I think I would. “I’m going to take a quick shower,” I blurt.

  The nurse nods. “Okay.”

  “But can I have a razor? I need to shave my legs.”

  I’m a woman in my late twenties and I’m asking for permission to use a razor. The past aside, that might be the saddest thing I’ve heard.

  The nurse looks doubtful, considering whether I’m a suicide risk. “I’m not going to kill myself or anything,” I hastily add.

  She finally nods. “I can give you one, but I have to be standing right outside the door.”

  She leaves and returns seconds later with a pink razor. I wonder if they have a storage closet filled with pink razors.

  I close the door behind me and turn on the shower. It blasts out cold water that slowly becomes warmer. I quickly shed my clothes, hanging them on the hook on the wall. The cold air causes goosebumps to appear on my skin.

  I step into the shower and slide the curtain shut. The warm water beats against my body. My muscles instantly relax. I close my eyes and tilt my head back so the water reaches my hair. When it’s good and wet, I turn in a slow circle, letting the water reach every inch of my skin.

  It’s a crazy thought but I can’t help but think that if I stand here long enough maybe all this darkness around me—stuck inside me—will wash away.

  I’m beginning to see that truth has its price.

  It’s your sanity it wants and craves more than anything.

  It lures you in under the stipulation that it can make you free, but if you look at the fine print you’ll finally see that it will leave you alone with your doubts and fears until it makes you feel like you’re going crazy. Sometimes it comes in and saves you. Sometimes it doesn’t.

  And everything I’m reliving just piles on the pain.

  It seems like the more memories that come back to me, the louder the voices become. But sometimes I think they’ll get louder until I discover every last detail of my past. Then they’ll go away.

  During lunch the next day, I hum quietly to Evelyn, more to block out the voices in my head than to soothe her. If I hum long enough, all the noise fades away. But I know it’s just a temporary reprieve.

  They’ll be back. They always are.

  All around me, patients are either eating or just shifting food around on their plates. There’s a quiet murmur of conversation. A few patients, like me, sit at the same table for all three meals. The rest sit wherever; they’ll talk for a bit, but never long. Most of the time we all eat in silence; forever friendships aren’t exactly created at Fairfax.

  Reagan sits across from me today. During meals, she hardly says a word. “Oh, will you stop the fucking humming!” she snaps.

  If she could hear the noises inside my head, then maybe she’d get it. I just stare at her, and if anything, I hum a bit louder.

  “Seriously, you gotta stop. I’m this close to chopping my ears off and throwing them at you!” For dramatic emphasis Reagan picks up her plastic fork and holds it threateningly to her left ear.

  “Don’t listen to her. I think it’s a pretty tune. What song is that?”

  Gasping, I lift my head and see Sinclair standing beside my table. Reagan drops the plastic fork and boldly looks him up and down. I can’t blame her. Wearing black dress pants and a white dress shirt with the collar unbuttoned, he looks mouthwatering.

  “Hi,” I say dumbly.

  “Hi.” Sinclair smiles and points to the empty chair across from me. “Can I sit down?”

  I nod anxiously, feeling like a bobblehead doll.

  As he scoots his chair in, his legs brush against mine, causing a bolt of awareness to shoot through me.

  This is Sinclair’s third time visiting me. Warmth surrounds my heart. My guard lowers. My body relaxes.

  “What were you humming earlier?” he asks.

  I shrug, suddenly feeling embarrassed that he witnessed that. “Just a little nursery rhyme that Evelyn likes.”

  His smile slightly fades but I choose to ignore it because my daughter turns her head and looks in Sinclair’s direction. She smiles at him, and when she likes someone, I like someone.

  “Do you want to hold her?” I offer.

  Sinclair sits back in his chair, looking shell-shocked. His face drains of color as he stares thoughtfully at Evelyn.

>   Reagan whistles loudly. “Don’t take this offer lightly, Tall Dark and Brooding. Mommy Dearest never lets anyone hold the baby.”

  Sinclair doesn’t reply and apprehension kicks in.

  “You don’t have to hold her if you’re not comfortable with it,” I blurt out.

  “She looks content in your arms,” he replies quietly.

  I paste a smile on my face to hide my hurt feelings. It didn’t occur to me that Sinclair just might not be a kid person. That’s okay, right?

  It should be. But for me, it’s not. I want him to like Evelyn. I want him to see her brilliant smiles and hold her in his arms.

  “I think she likes you,” I confess.

  He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “Does she not like a lot of people?”

  I shake my head emphatically. “Oh yes. She hardly lets anyone hold her.”

  Reagan spits out her water, spraying little drops across the table. “You’re kidding, right?”

  When I dodge her question and glare at her she rolls her eyes and stands up, holding her tray in both hands. “As always it was a pleasure, Mommy Dearest.”

  She walks away and harasses another patient. I take a deep breath and focus my attention on Sinclair.

  He’s shaking his head. “Is that your friend?”

  “Reagan?”

  I nod. “I wouldn’t really call her friend.”

  “Do you have any friends here?”

  Before, I would have gestured to Evelyn and told him that with my daughter with me, I don’t need a friend. But that reply doesn’t hold up like it used to. I need someone to lean on, and to help me as I untangle my memories.

  “No,” I finally say. “No friends here…but you’re here now. And you’re a friend, right?”

  “I’ve always been here, Victoria.” His hand reaches across the table. It hovers over mine for a second, but at the last second he pulls back. He laces his fingers in front of him.

  He’s becoming less and less of a stranger. Feeling and emotions are taking root in me, slowly growing. I see a flash of the memory I unearthed about him: the two of us walking around the house on moving day. The awareness that I had of him when I knew I shouldn’t.

  I want to feel guilty. A good person feels guilt. But it’s like trying to force yourself to cry or to care. If it’s not there…it’s not there, and that makes me the shittiest person alive.

  I sneak another glance at Sinclair, only to have my gaze collide with his.

  “I remember you,” I say so quietly, I’m afraid he can’t hear me.

  But he does. His face goes a little pale and I can’t tell if he’s happy or scared.

  I have to speak up before I lose the courage. “I remember meeting you at the house. The walk-through that I was late to?”

  “You weren’t late. Believe me, I’ve had clients who—”

  “—who have been almost two hours late. Now that’s late,” I finish for him.

  A small slip of a smile appears on his face. He swallows loudly and drags both hands down his face. “Holy shit,” he breathes. His hands fall heavily to the table. With his elbows resting on the surface, he leans in. “Do you remember anything else?”

  “I remember the day we moved in.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  He looks momentarily disappointed and I have to stop myself from asking him to tell me what’s running through his mind; he’s thinking about a memory of the two of us. I can see it in his eyes, how they take on a faraway look. There’s a chance it’s the moments I just mentioned. Or maybe not.

  Nervously, I lick my lips. “There’s more to us, isn’t there?”

  “Of course there is; hasn’t there always been?”

  My eyes blink rapidly, trying to push back the tears as much as possible. “I remember your sister too….We had a good friendship, didn’t we?”

  “You did. Which I’ll never understand because she’s bossy, and a loudmouth. You two were the complete opposites of each other, yet somehow it worked.” He pauses for a second. “Are you scared to remember everything?”

  “Sometimes no. A lot of times, yes. I don’t know how I’ll react to the truth.” My eyes slam closed. I rub the bridge of my nose and take a deep breath.

  “Is this all too much?” he asks.

  “No.”

  Yes.

  But I’ll never tell him that.

  Sinclair rests his elbows on the table and dips his head closer. I find myself doing the same thing. Those green eyes that border on being a burnished gold stare straight into mine. They’re enthralling, pulling me in when I have every reason to stay far, far away. My gut starts to twist again and my body starts to tingle.

  “Tell me something I can’t remember,” I say quietly.

  Sinclair looks me straight in the eye. “The very first time I kissed you, I got a taste of your soul and it was everything that I’m not; it was light to my darkness; cheerful to my worries. That moment will always stay with me. You may forget the story of us, but I’ll always remember.”

  I think my heart just dropped to my stomach.

  I cradle Evelyn just a little bit tighter and ask a question that I know I have no right to ask. “Sinclair, did you love me?”

  Very slowly, he drops his hands and stares at me so intensely, so completely my hands start to shake. “I loved you then and I love you now.”

  Maybe Wes is right.

  Maybe I have no business digging up the past. The beauty at the beginning of our marriage was slowly fading away, leaving in its wake a relationship that was slowly starting to sour. And if I was just reaching the middle of our story, what was the ending like?

  I shudder at the thought.

  Time may have dulled the pain and covered the wounds, but now I have been cutting them back open, forced to feel the pain tethered to my heart. I’m reminded that my heart doesn’t beat. It lives through words.

  It’s bruised and fractured and sometimes I think it’s going to fall apart, but it’s alive, saying:

  I ache.

  I ache.

  I ache.

  But no matter the pain, I know I have to find out. I’ve gone this far. I can’t turn back now…right?

  Evelyn’s screams go up an octave, making me flinch. I place her head on my shoulder and soothingly rub her back as I walk down the hall. “It’s okay,” I whisper. “It’s okay.”

  Alice shoots me a dirty look but doesn’t say a word.

  All Evelyn seems to be doing is crying. No matter what I do, she won’t stop. I even hum a nursery rhyme in her ear—a surefire way to get her to calm down. Still screaming.

  Endless questions run through my head: Am I not giving her enough love or attention? Is she sick?

  It seems the more pieces of my memory that I get back, the bigger this strange and horrifying disconnect becomes, as if the wires that connect us have been tampered with. The distance between us just seems to keep on growing. I have no idea how to stop it.

  Before I go into Dr. Calloway’s office, I stop and stare helplessly into my daughter’s eyes. “Please, please stop crying,” I plead with her.

  She blinks, her light brown lashes fluttering against her cheeks, and stares at me blankly. The wailing stops, but she fusses and squirms in my arms, as if she’d rather be in anyone else’s arms but knows it won’t happen.

  Before Alice walks away, she mutters underneath her breath: “Fairfax is no place for a baby….”

  Taking a deep cleansing breath, I knock once on the door before I walk in. Dr. Calloway greets me and I make a beeline for the same chair I always sit in. Very quickly, I’m starting to see Fairfax as a transition stop between my old life and the one waiting out in the world for me.

  We go through routine questions and I give her my routine answers. There’s this anxious energy swirling between us.

  “Ready for a new batch of photos?” she asks with a smile.

  As afraid as I am of seeing the rest of my past, I’m addicted. I ne
ed to know the rest. “Ready.”

  “Excellent.”

  My file is already open in front of her. She pulls out only three photos.

  First up: Wes and me. We’re sitting across from each other. The wineglass in front of my half-filled plate of food is full. Wes’s is empty. He’s leaning into the photo, a smile on his face. But it’s all wrong; there’s no feeling behind the smile, just a darkness that makes goosebumps trail across my skin. My expression is something altogether different. There’s no smile. Not a trace of happiness on my face. I look shell-shocked and there’s fear in my eyes.

  “Next picture,” I say a little too loudly.

  The second photo is older. The edges are curling inward and there’s a slight yellow tinge to the overall picture. It’s of a little baby girl. A typical studio background is behind her. She’s wearing a blue and red plaid dress with black lace trimming the hem. Her chubby legs are in black leggings. A big, red headband with a bow bigger than her head is on her face. She gives the cameraman a big toothy grin. I find myself staring back.

  “That’s me.”

  Dr. Calloway doesn’t reply. I’m breaking our routine, but it feels good for once to finally recognize something before the memories take me over. My mother had a larger photo of this one framed in our house, right next to one of my brother. She would stare at it lovingly, a whisper of a smile on her face. Growing up, I never understood the meaning behind the smile, but now that I have Evelyn, I get it.

  The third photo: me and Sinclair. Blood roars through my veins as I stare at the image of the two of us. The setting is a party of some sort. Balloons and streamers are in the foreground. Happy smiling faces that I can’t put names to are around us. It looks like Sinclair and I are dancing. His hands hold mine in the air as I spin around. The hem of my dress lifts and twirls around me. My free hand is palm up, fingers stretched out, as if I’m trying to grab on to the moment. Strands of my hair block my vision, but I’m still staring at Sinclair, the biggest smile on my face. All I can see of him is his profile, but I see the small dimple etched into his cheek and know he’s smiling too.