The Survivors

by Robert Palmer

“Fine. I need to be alone with him. You and Scottie will have to leave us.”

  “I’m not his therapist, but I would like to observe,” Felix said.

  “I’m not here to do parlor tricks, Doctor,” Rubin said sharply. “This is a treatment, the same as any you’d give to any patient. I’m sure you wouldn’t allow an audience for that.”

  “No, but this is my damned house—”

  “Dr. Rubin, hold on,” I said. “Felix and Scottie are as much a part of this as I am. If the purpose is to kick something loose in my memory, they may be able to help.”

  “The purpose,” she said, “is to make you better.”

  “I understand that. Remember, I’m in the same business as you.”

  For a few moments, we had a staring contest.

  She fluttered her hands at her sides. “All right. They can stay, but not in the same room.”

  Felix began to protest, and she said, “Final offer. Take it or leave it.”

  “Fine,” he grumbled.

  Having set the ground rules, she smiled. “I think some tea would be relaxing. Chamomile. Do you have any, Dr. Martinez? Scottie, my case is in the trunk of my car. Could you bring it in for me?”

  He took her keys and went out, while Felix went into the kitchen to look for tea. She stood at the window and watched Scottie. He stumbled as he lifted the heavy suitcase to the ground.

  “How has he been?” she asked me.

  “He has good times and bad times—like everyone.”

  She puckered her lips thoughtfully. “No, Scottie isn’t at all like everyone. He has an extraordinary mind. Very creative along certain paths.”

  “You mean he makes things up?”

  She gave me a sideways glance. “I only had two sessions with him. He didn’t come in for his follow-ups or even answer my phone calls. I’ve been quite worried.”

  “He’s struggling,” I admitted. “That’s partly why I agreed to see you.”

  “Only partly?” she said, and she turned and cupped her hands to my face, something completely unexpected for a therapist. “Then let’s see what that other part has to say, young man.”

  She had Scottie take the suitcase to the parlor and told him to stay in the kitchen with Felix and Coop. We never did get the tea she’d asked for. That had only been a ploy to get Felix out of the way.

  She closed the blinds and from the suitcase took out two small lamps with colored bulbs. “I’m afraid this may make it feel like a séance in here, but I do find that red light works best.” She arranged the lamps on side tables. Then she doused the overhead lights. In that room, with the dark furniture, the red-glow effect was more brothel than séance.

  “Now one chair here and one here,” she said, indicating which chairs and where she wanted me to move them. We would be next to each other, facing in opposite directions.

  “Now come here,” she said, motioning to a spot on the couch. She sat across from me on the coffee table, so close our knees almost touched. “Do you understand what we are going to do?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “OK. A quick primer. From what Scottie told me, you and he suffered a trauma the same night. He was shot, and you watched your mother take her own life. The distress of that night is still with you, locked inside. The technique I use, EMDR, can help unblock those feelings, let you put them in the past. It gives you a different way of seeing what happened, of coping with it.”

  She leaned closer. Her eyes were very intense. “It’s all quite simple. You will think about the incident with your mother. I will move my hand in front of you, and you will follow it with your eyes. The movement is just to distract you, so your mind can work a new pathway through the memory. We will do this a number of times, and, as the memory becomes clearer, we will replace any negative feelings you have with positive ones, with confidence and a sense of distance. Do you understand?”

  Her voice was very controlled; she never seemed to blink. In graduate school, I’d been hypnotized a few times. It’s part of the program. I felt a similar sensation now, relaxed but alert. The only thing that seemed to matter was her voice.

  “I understand,” I said.

  “Good. Now, what is your worst memory from that evening?”

  “When my mother pulled the trigger.”

  “Of course. When you think of it, do you always see it the same way?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “The events before and after are the same, too?”

  “Before, yes. There is no after.”

  “You can’t remember a thing after she fell?”

  “No.”

  “But you see, you just remembered that she fell. That was after she pulled the trigger, yes?”

  I smiled. “Yes. You’re right.”

  “When you see these pictures in your head, what are you feeling?”

  I’d known this was coming, telling her—a stranger—about my episodes. I’d been worried about it, but her voice was so calming, it all came out without a hitch.

  “When you have one of these episodes, what is the first sensation?”

  “Usually there’s a tingling in my hands . . .”

  We talked for fifteen minutes. The calm feeling continued, and I realized it wasn’t hypnosis but something less than that. She wanted me to be completely at ease, but also completely in control of myself. She was skilled at holding the balance.

  “Let’s move to the chairs,” she said. “You take the one facing the wall.”

  When we were settled, she said, “We need a signal. If you start to have one of your episodes, I’ll turn your hand over and tap the palm, like this.” She demonstrated. “You’ll come straight to the surface, OK?”

  “A suggestion to break the crash—I understand.”

  “On this first set, I want you to think about something that happened that night, anything before you saw your mother with the gun. Ready?”

  I nodded, and she started waving her hand in an arc above my face. I had to move my eyes quickly to keep up.

  “Get the image clearly in your mind,” she said.

  It seemed to last no time at all. Her hand stopped, and she said, “Rest. Eyes closed.”

  “How long was that?” I asked.

  “Forty-five seconds. What did you see?”

  “That night. Scottie got to our house about five o’clock. We played tag for a while then came inside to play board games. It was all there but very compressed.”

  “It’s like a dream state. Your mind moves quickly. An hour can pass in a few seconds. Did you see anything that you hadn’t remembered before?”

  “No, I—wait.” I opened my eyes to look at her, and she shook her head. I closed them again. “I remembered the clothes we wore. I think I did. Alan in a green shirt, and Scottie in a red one. Ron’s was striped. That’s what Scottie remembered, too. I wasn’t there, though. I mean, I didn’t see myself.”

  “No,” she said, “like a dream. We don’t see ourselves but we see as if we’re looking through our eyes. Are you ready for another try? This time move forward, after the board games.”

  Her hand waved. My eyes followed, and the images flashed.

  “There.” She lowered her hand. “Eyes closed. Tell me what you saw.”

  “We were playing Life—the game. We had an argument. I couldn’t catch what we said, but I wanted the fighting to stop. We decided to play hide-and-seek instead. That part was very clear. Scottie wanted to be it, but I said no. I’d be it that first time. That’s why he was the one in the closet, not me.”

  “Relax, Cal. That all happened a long time ago.”

  A car went by on the street; something squeaked in the house. I was suddenly having trouble concentrating, keeping my attention on her voice.

  “Relax,” Rubin repeated. “You had no idea what was coming that night. There was no danger.”

  I nodded. “We were only playing, like always.”

  “That’s right. Now, are you ready for another set? Move forward again, to hide-and
-seek.”

  I opened my eyes, began to follow her hand. In my mind I saw the hallway in the old house. The others shut the lights out, and I moved toward my parents’ bedroom.

  My hands began to tingle.

  “Cal, what’s going on?” I felt a tap in my palm. “Your eyes stopped moving. Were you having an episode?”

  My body was tense, and there was sweat in the small of my back. I knew I was in Felix’s parlor and why I was there, and, though my hands were still tingling, the sensation was fading.

  “I was about to go in my parents’ room. I froze up, that’s all.”

  “It’s safe in the bedroom. Nothing bad happened there. It was all outside, right? Just think that as you let the memories come.”

  Her hand began to move. I concentrated, telling myself, It’s all right. You want to do this.

  I was at the bedroom door. Something was holding me back, like a voice warning me not to go in. I pushed through that feeling and stepped over the threshold. Everything was normal. I could see the pattern in the rug. One of the nightstand drawers was open slightly. There were rain spatters on the window; the trees outside were tossing in the wind. I laid my head against the wall and started to count. Down the hall I could hear laughter. Thud, thud, thud. Closet doors. I counted, fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven. Then the mewing sound. Brookey the cat, but Brookey was dead.

  “No, that’s not Brookey.”

  “Cal. Cal, it’s OK.” I blinked a few times. Rubin was leaning in front of me. “Close your eyes. Tell me what it was.”

  I took a long breath. I was trembling slightly. “I was in the bedroom, counting. You know, hide-and-seek. I got to the fifties, and I heard a sound. I thought it was our cat, but it really was my mother crying.”

  “Did you see her?”

  “I didn’t get that far. I blocked up when I heard her.”

  “OK, this time concentrate on other sounds. Was there anything else?”

  “The wind. There was a storm.”

  “Think about that.”

  “And my brothers and Scottie. They were laughing.”

  “Good. Those will help. Try not to focus on your mother’s crying. The other sounds instead. Ready? We’re almost there.”

  I nodded again.

  Her hand moved. My eyes knew the pattern now. I thought of the wind and the trees. Counting, listening for the laughter.

  “Wait.” I stopped her hand. “They can’t laugh. They’re already dead. The closet doors slamming weren’t doors but shots.”

  She didn’t really understand me, but she patted my shoulder. “It’s all right. Whatever went on in the rest of the house doesn’t matter. Stay with the bedroom and the view out the window. That’s the picture we need. Outside. When you see your mother with the gun.”

  We started again. The view through the window, the counting in my head. Then the crying sound again. That’s not Brookey. Brookey’s dead.

  “Damn,” I said. “I blocked at the same place, just before she stepped out.”

  “Try again. It’s only a matter of being relaxed enough. Keep telling yourself that.” She patted my shoulder once more. “And I’ve got all day.”

  We did try again. And again after that. I got closer, enough to see a flash of my mother, down off the porch in the yard, cold with no sweater, her hair streaming in the wind. But as hard as I tried, I couldn’t get to the gun. It was such a strange thing because that image came to me so often—usually when it was the last thing I wanted to think about. Now that I really wanted to see it, it was just out of reach.

  Rubin massaged the backs of my hands. “Maybe we should stop. You’ve made good progress.”

  “No, I want to get through this.”

  She pointed at my shirt, where faint stains of sweat were beginning to show. “You need to completely let go, and I’m not sure you can. Another day—”

  “Let’s try a few more times. Please?”

  “Close your eyes,” she said. She massaged from my wrists to my shoulders and spoke into my ear, very softly. I was at Felix’s house. It was safe there. My friends were with me, just in the other room.

  She told me to open my eyes. Her hand was already waving. “Start as far along as you can. Your mother coming off the porch. Begin now.”

  Fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight . . . I could see her at the bottom of the steps, moving into the yard. She was wearing a skirt. That was something she rarely did, put on a skirt. She turned. The image was very clear now, everything moving in real time. She glanced up and saw me. No smile. As her eyes dropped, she patted the air. Get down, Davie. Stay quiet. She said something, but it was carried away by the wind. She was staring at the porch, right below me. Her hand. There it was. The gun—black, large. Up. Up to her head. The crying was back. I tried to shut it out but it was too much. Brookey, only Brookey is dead.

  BANG.

  I was sure that sound was real, right next to me in the chair, but all I could see was my mother falling, the gun clutched in her hand. I stared at her, then crawled back from the window. I bumped the bed, went flat on my back and wiggled underneath. It was dark under there and closed in. Ow. Something sharp on my wrist.

  “Cal! Cal!” The voice came from a long way away. Someone started slapping my palm. Harder and harder. “Cal, come back to me! Open your eyes!” The voice faded away.

  I was under the bed. Safe in the shadows. My arm hurt, but I lay completely still. The wind moaned outside. And other sounds. Inside the house. Creaking on the stairs. Boys laughing.

  “Cal! Damn it, Cal, come on!”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled. My mouth was parched and cottony. “’M’all right.”

  My eyes opened suddenly, pried wide. Felix stared at me.

  I was lying on the floor, and I sat up groggily. “Whoa, too fast.” I lay back down.

  The red lights were gone, and the blinds were open. “Where’s Dr. Rubin?” I said.

  “Gone. I sent her home.” He lifted my arm and felt for my pulse.

  “What time is it?”

  “Almost four.”

  “Three hours gone. That’s some kind of record. It is Saturday still, right?”

  “If it wasn’t, you’d be in a hospital.”

  That made me smile. “I think I can get up now.”

  He backed away, and I clambered onto the couch. Pictures flashed in my mind, like snippets of a dream. I closed my eyes and tried to grab them. Wind in the trees. Raindrops. Counting. Then under the bed with my arm impaled above me on the springs. A droplet of blood dripped off my elbow. With that single flash of memory, it all spun together, as perfect and clear as a day at the movies.

  I opened my eyes. Felix was squatting in front of me, and when he saw the look on my face, it startled him so much he toppled backward onto the seat of his pants.

  “I need to talk to Scottie,” I said.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Scottie was in the back garden, dozing on a plastic chaise lounge. Coop was curled up next to him. It was a mild day, with the first tinge of fall in the air. I stood at the back door enjoying the peacefulness before I went to join them. Coop lifted his head and that woke Scottie.

  “Hey, you’re all right!”

  He looked ready to jump up and hug me, so I waved for him to stay put. There were a couple of chairs by the chaise, and I sat in one.

  “Felix kicked me out,” Scottie said. “He said it was my fault you had your blackout.”

  “Why your fault?”

  “I dropped a book, sort of on purpose. You kept getting stuck at that spot just before your mother had the gun.”

  “I thought I heard you guys sneaking into the hall to listen. That was pretty good timing with the book. Like the real gunshot.”

  Coop got up and laid his head next to Scottie’s hand. Scottie began to scratch his ears. “So . . . did you remember anything?”

  “You and Ron and Alan laughing. I remember hearing that—after my mother shot herself.”

  Scottie spun toward me. �
�You’re sure?”

  “That isn’t all. I remember my mother falling, and I crawled under the bed. I could hear you laughing then. You were still OK. Then I heard a noise on the stairs. Creaking as someone came up. And then—”

  “The three shots,” he said. “That couldn’t have been your mom.”

  “I don’t see how, no.”

  We stared at each other. His Orioles cap was askew with his hair sticking out in spikes underneath. The sun slanted under the brim, making him squint hard. The way I was feeling, I probably looked as sketchy as he did.

  “After my session with Dr. Rubin, I remembered the gunshots, too,” he said. “First the one in the living room. We were in Alan’s bedroom then and thought that was the front door, your dad leaving. That must have been when he was shot. Then we started hide-and-seek. We slammed the bedroom doors so you’d be confused about where we were. We all got in the closet at the head of the stairs, and I heard the second shot. It was faint, but I know I heard it. That was your mother in the backyard. Ron and Alan were fooling around, so I never heard anyone coming up the stairs. The door suddenly opened, he poked the gun in—”

  “He?” I said.

  “It was too dark to see. Just a hand and the gun.” He made a pistol out of his finger and thumb. “It could have been anybody.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before about what you remembered?”

  “Dr. Rubin said I shouldn’t. I told her about you. She said if I let you know all the things I remembered, it could ruin your memories. Taint them—that’s the word she used.”

  “And that’s exactly what happened.”

  We looked around. Felix was standing a few yards up the garden path.

  “Eavesdropping must be contagious,” he said, taking the empty chair.

  He’d brought three cans of root beer with him, and he tossed us ours. “I heard what she told you, Cal. ‘Concentrate on other sounds.’ She planted the idea that there were other sounds—laughter and gunshots and whatever your mind wanted to make up. Scottie had already told you about your brother’s striped shirt, making it seem like her whole voodoo shtick worked.”

  I cracked open the can and took a drink. Part of my brain—the educated part—told me he might be right. The rest of me said he was dead wrong.