Beautiful Illusion

by Jacquie Underdown

  By the end of it, Leah wanted nothing more than to slump back into her beautiful world of unconsciousness, where she still had a workable body, a full head of hair, no pain, no hills to climb. Just her and Brennan and the blissful path ahead.

  As the doctor finished, she lay there staring ahead into space, having reached the point of apathy, somewhere lost between asleep and awake, consciousness and comatose.

  “I understand this is a lot to take in. However, I need to assure you that you’re in the best hands here. We will do everything within our power to see that you make the best recovery possible, so you can lead a happy and normal life.”

  She nodded, still staring directly ahead, past Doctor Crowley to the space beside his head.

  “Would you like to call your father?”

  “No.”

  “Is there anyone else you would like to ring, to give you some support?”

  Brennan. “No. I want some time to think things through on my own.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, great job today, you have done really well already getting to where you are. I’ll be in and out to check on you and will probably be able to move you down to the rehabilitation unit within the next day or so.”

  “Thanks.”

  “My pleasure, Leah. Do well.”

  Without Brennan, there is no well. Well no longer exists.

  Chapter 17

  Leah rode the lifts to Dr Maria Martinez’s office, situated on the twelfth floor of the hospital. After finding the pokey waiting room—stark white, with a row of four pale blue chairs—she took a seat and waited, thankful to be alone.

  Leah really didn’t want to be here. She abhorred the idea of talking to a psychiatrist. The stigma attached. But her dad and Caitlin had insisted she seek help. Deep down, Leah knew that she did need to talk to someone, otherwise she would never had humoured her Dad and sister and toddled off to see a shrink. But why she was there and why her family wanted her there, were completely different. Leah’s family wanted her to be given a rational explanation for her problem. A name for it. Followed by a course of mind-numbing, personality-altering, chemical-balancing, so-called wonder drugs. Then they wanted everything to go back to the way it was before the accident. Leah, on the other hand, just wanted one thing: for the pain to go away.

  The door swung open and through it appeared a large-framed woman. “Hi Leah, my name is Dr Martinez,” she said, extending her hand towards Leah. The doc looked different than Leah had imagined. She was a modest-looking woman, mid-fifties, dark-brown hair stylishly short, and she had dark-brown eyes covered with thick-lensed glasses; a lot warmer, friendlier than Leah had pictured.

  “Hi, nice to meet you,” Leah replied, shaking her hand warily. She may look nice, but she’s still a shrink.

  Leah followed Doc into her office, which was not much bigger than the pokey waiting room. It was almost completely filled by a mahogany desk and two black leather chairs, one for the doctor, and a couch for Leah. The only other furniture was a bookshelf that lined the far right wall, overflowing with texts like Mental Health Deterioration in the 21st Century, Psychotropic Drugs, a Must Have Guide and Freud’s infamous, The Pleasure Principle.

  Gesturing towards the conspicuous couch positioned in the centre of the room, Dr Martinez asked Leah to take a seat. She sat on the taut black leather, not wanting to lie down—because lying on a shrink’s couch would admit that she was insane—but she had no choice. The chair didn’t allow for upright sitting.

  Once supine, Leah drew a deep breath in through her nose and out of her mouth. She tucked her shaking hands under her thighs and looked up at the ceiling to await the start of her first session.

  “Okay,” the doctor said as she took a seat on the chair behind Leah’s head.

  It was comforting, somehow, to not have to make eye contact, let alone look at the doctor at all.

  “I have a brief understanding from the referring doctor as to why you’re here today, but because you have no prior mental history we’re going to start at the beginning. The purpose of our first few sessions will be to just talk. Talk about the accident, what happened after you woke up, and continue through, all the way to now. How do you feel about that?”

  “Um, that will be fine, I guess.”

  “So just relax and we’ll get started.”

  “Sure.”

  “Alright. You had an accident in your car. Tell me everything you can remember from that point on.”

  Leah closed her eyes, rolled her mind back to the first point she could remember after everything went black.

  Over the next four hour-long sessions Leah told Dr Martinez of her world in the coma, of Brennan and the life they began, every detail. She explained the confusion she felt when she finally awoke from her coma and the intense grief that tore at her as she realised Brennan was simply a figment of her imagination, this same grief plaguing her to this very day.

  ***

  “Leah,” Doctor Martinez said at the beginning of session five. “You seem to talk of Brennan as though he is real to you?”

  Leah shifted her body on the couch. “It’s quite a peculiar situation.”

  “How so?”

  “I know I was in a coma. I know that. I also understand that each and every memory of Brennan was created during those six days of unconsciousness because, on reflection, as real as those memories feel, there were oddities.”

  “Oddities?” asked Doctor Martinez, looking over her glasses.

  “Yes, in the way time moved. When I was with Brennan, time was regular, evenly paced. But when I wasn’t with him, it was as though time didn’t exist at all, only memories of things that I recalled doing, but didn’t actually do. Not once did we use a condom or any other form of protection and I didn’t at all worry about falling pregnant or STIs. I never used the toilet. I never menstruated. It all seems so peculiar now, but at the time it was completely plausible—that I would even believe that there would be a man in my hospital room with me, considering that I was in a women’s hospital, and to be unconscious for over twenty-four hours, yet not receive a catheter. Just oddities like that. Many, many oddities. But on the other hand, my experiences, my memories, of those six short days that played out in my head over what were months and months, also offered glimpses of normality. I could taste so vividly and smell, feel things, orgasm, get drunk and tired and sleep and wake, interact, converse, cry and fall in love with an intensity I never even conceived possible. All very peculiar.”

  “It actually sounds quite fascinating. There is still a lot to be explained and understood about peoples’ experiences while in a coma.”

  “I can only imagine. I’ve been in one and cannot even start to explain, other than my recounts to you, how or why I felt as though I was actually living, moving on with my life after an accident I most certainly couldn’t have recovered from so easily. I know, on a rational, conscious level, that there is no other explanation for Brennan’s existence other than that he is purely a beautiful illusion created by my own imagination.” Leah paused, her throat was tightening and heaviness settled over her chest. “But in saying that, I actually miss him and long for him as though he is real. My body aches terribly in the places that miss him the most,” she shuddered and crossed her arms over her chest, holding herself tightly.

  “I still love him. He was really a very important component of my life. I wish, more than anything, every single day just to smell his skin, or taste his lips, or hear his voice…” Leah’s voice cracked as a tear fell from her eye and rolled down her cheek. “Or see his cheeky smirk and that way he looked at me so adoringly. I want that so much,” she said, each word separate and distinct. “So much so, that I can’t always sleep at night and can’t concentrate during the day. I find that I can’t feel even remotely hopeful that a day will come when I won’t be so anguished by his loss.”

  The doctor was silent, allowing time for Leah’s accelerated breathing to return to norma
l, for the sobs to settle down, for the tears to subside.

  Leah wiped at her eyes with a tissue and said, “Doctor, I am grieving for a man that doesn’t exist.”

  “You mention that you don’t hold hope for the future?”

  Leah sighed, agitated with the twist of her words. “No, I didn’t say that exactly. I said I don’t feel as though the pain of Brennan’s loss is ever going to leave me.”

  “Have you ever thought that perhaps you would like to end it all?”

  Leah shook her head and rolled her eyes. “No.”

  “How do you see the future?”

  Leah shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it. I’ve been trying to get through each day, through each rehab session, getting my life back slowly and painstakingly.”

  The doctor flipped through her notes. “So at the moment, you’re living with your sister, is that correct?”

  “Yes. Having to endure six weeks of hospitalisation, then the demands of rehab, I had to forgo my job, and my unit, and had to move in with my sister Cait.”

  “Why not your father?”

  “I would have, but Cait’s apartment is closer to the hospital and rehab. Plus, she insisted.”

  “How do you feel about that, considering the affair she had with Antony?”

  “Life’s too short to dwell on that sort of stuff,” Leah answered shortly. She had made her peace. It wasn’t made in the world of reality but it was made.

  “You feel as though you’ve moved on from that part of your life?”

  “I’ve forgiven her, if that’s what you are getting at. I haven’t forgotten, but I have forgiven her.”

  “Did you ever confront Cait about the incident you witnessed between her and Antony?”

  “No.”

  “I think you should. It will provide closure, for both you and Cait.”

  “Perhaps I’ll do it one day. But it seems pointless now.”

  The doctor was pensive for a moment. “From all the testing I’ve conducted and from your own accounts of your experiences, I’m not willing to diagnose you with any specific disorder. You have had no prior mental history in either you or your family. You appear to have strong familial support and, on a logical level, you understand the difference between reality and unreality with respect to this delusion, which directly resulted from your traumatic brain injury. However, that is not to say that you currently do not require some form of treatment. I can see, and you are obviously well aware, that you’re still coming to terms mentally, physically, and emotionally with the drastic changes in your life because of your injuries.”

  “Treatment?” questioned Leah.

  “I would like to work closely with you, for as long as it takes, to get you through this grieving process, as well as to adjust you successfully to the new life you’ll have to start living. From a clinical position, I believe the best way for you to do that—the best treatment for you—is to assimilate back into society by increasing your activity level, regaining your social life, work life, and independence. From all reports, you have come through your rehabilitation successfully, with no residual paucity in your cognitive abilities and motor controls, so these are definitely options that are plausible and doable.”

  “No drugs?” asked Leah, hopeful.

  “No. I don’t believe drug therapy is a workable solution in your case.”

  Leah gave an audible sigh of relief.

  “You seem happy with that?”

  “I am.”

  “Good. Well, there is no time like the present. We will get started on your treatment immediately. Are you okay with that?”

  “I guess so,” Leah said.

  “This might be a difficult process for you. I understand that it will be incredibly daunting for you to take these steps to regain control over your life, but it’s not impossible. And we’ll simply take it day by day, working together.”

  “Baby steps.”

  “Yes, Leah, that’s right. First things first, you need to start with your body. I want you to incorporate in your day, every day that is, a light exercise regime, be that walking or going to the gym or swimming. It’s at your discretion.”

  Leah squinted. “Exercise?”

  “Yes. Exercise is beneficial to your physical and emotional health. It releases all the wonderful feel-good chemicals and makes your body strong. I would like for you to fit in at least thirty minutes a day of light exercise.”

  Thinking for a short moment, Leah replied, “Cait has a dog that barely ever sees the light of day, so I guess I can start walking him.”

  “You need to make a schedule and fit that walk in every day. I would also like you to start a nutritionally packed eating plan, lots of colourful vegetables, fruit, nuts and grains, fish and chicken, cereals and essential fats. I would also recommend a multivitamin and an omega supplement.”

  “Sure. But I don’t understand how this can help me with my grief?”

  “You look very gaunt and pale and your clothes are loose fitting. To me this indicates that you’re not fuelling your body enough. Am I right?”

  “Perhaps,” Leah said, realising that her once voluptuous body had become too thin.

  “Inadequate nutritional support may produce an underlying vitamin deficiency, which can create symptoms associated with mental illness. I want to eliminate any nutritional deficiency by incorporating a healthy, well rounded, balanced diet into your daily routine.”

  “Sure. I think I can handle that.”

  “So this means, Leah, that you will have to shop for your groceries and prepare your meals and perhaps prepare meals for Cait and her partner. It will be a nice way to repay them for letting you board with them.”

  “Okay,” she said, with as much confidence as she could muster.

  “Good. That’s all I require for this week. I would like to see your schedule and hear how things go in your next session.”

  The alarm buzzed loudly, slashing through the silence of the room, sounding the end of the session. Dr Martinez tidied her notes and stood up to walk Leah to the door.

  “Thank you, Doctor Martinez.”

  “My pleasure. Now, do well.”

  That familiar phrase rang loudly in Leah’s head. The same phrase the doctor used the day she woke up from her coma. The same phrase she answered internally with, ‘There is no well without Brennan.’ Six months on, her response still rang true.

  ***

  Leah rode the bus back to Cait and Greg’s apartment, arriving home around four in the afternoon. Greg was already home from Hong Kong, his latest destination, and was sitting in the sunshine on the back deck reading the newspaper. He raised his head as Leah walked through the double balcony doors.

  “Hi, Greg,” said Leah softly, offering him a warm smile.

  “Leah,” he said, eyebrows arching. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You had a session today?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How did it go?”

  “I’m not schizophrenic, or depressive, or psychotic, like I was anticipating.”

  Greg laughed. “I never suspected you were.”

  Leah shrugged. “You never know these things.”

  “So what’s the prognosis?”

  “To be honest. I’m not really sure. The doc mentioned that I need to start inserting myself back into society, and try and regain my independence.”

  “That sounds like a reasonable thing to do.”

  Leah nodded. “Reasonable, yes. But for me, who feels so far from reasonable, it’s actually a little scary.”

  “Of course, Leah. I wouldn’t doubt that. You’ve been through a massive ordeal that the majority of people wouldn’t be able to come through, let alone move on from.”

  “I suppose.”

  “So, what did the doc recommend?”

  “It’s just baby steps for now. But this week I need to start eating better and exercising. I thought I’d start taking Ralph for walks.”

&nb
sp; “Sounds good. And I’m sure poor, neglected Ralph would appreciate it immensely.”

  “And I thought I would start cooking dinner for us all. If you don’t mind?”

  “I have had the honour of tasting your cooking. Believe me, I don’t mind, and neither will Cait.”

  Leah smiled. “That’s a good start then, isn’t it?”

  Greg was quiet for a short moment, before looking at Leah, a cheeky smirk on his lips. “So, what’s for dinner?”

  Leah smiled. “Um, I don’t really know. I’m not sure there’s much in the pantry or fridge; I may need to do some shopping.”

  “I guarantee you there isn’t anything worth eating in that fridge,” he said standing. “Come on then. I’ll drive you to the supermarket and we can shop for some food.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “No, I mean, thank you for everything. For letting me stay here, for supporting me so much, for putting up with my insanities. I really appreciate it.”

  “That’s what family is for. And like I said, it’s no worry at all.”

  Leah gave him a grateful smile before grabbing her bag off the bench and starting for the door.

  “By the way,” said Greg, following close behind her.

  Leah spun to look at him.

  “It’s wonderful to see you smile again,” he said. “It’s been much too long.”

  Leah nodded. “It has, hasn’t it?”

  “Will I be seeing more of it?”

  “I hope so.”

  ***

  That night, as Leah laid her head on her pillow to confront eight hours of patchy sleep and inevitable nightmares, she thought about her life since waking up from her coma. This was something Leah tried not to do, but all this talk of the past with her therapist made it near impossible to keep pushing all her memories, emotions and pain aside. Leah supposed that was the point.