What We Keep Is Not Always What Will Stay

by Amanda Cockrell

  “It’s nice to see you, Angela,” she said, opening the door to her office. “I understand you’re here under protest.”

  “Ben says I don’t have to come again if I don’t want to,” I told her. “But I want to come long enough to run up a huge bill so you can send it to the parish. I’m furious at them.” I plopped down on her couch.

  “I’m not sure that’s entirely ethical.”

  “It wasn’t ethical to kick Felix out of the church basement when I told them he hadn’t done anything to me.”

  “And you’re quite certain about that?”

  “Yes! Do they think I’m so dumb I can’t tell what somebody’s doing? And what makes them think they can tell who’s dangerous and who’s not? I don’t see how anybody can tell that!” Plainly, I can’t.

  “Well, it’s not easy,” Helen said. “There are signs we look for. Behavior that’s appropriate and behaviors that aren’t. And, of course, sometimes we’re wrong anyway.”

  “Well, Felix hasn’t done anything that’s inappropriate. I told them that.”

  “Do you want a drink?” She waved a hand at a little refrigerator in the corner, under a stack of magazines. “And who exactly is ‘they’?”

  “Father Weatherford and two Altar Society ladies.” I picked a can of mango juice and curled up again on the couch. “And some insurance company moron that’s all worried about getting sued.”

  Helen kind of snorted. She has the funniest laugh. “It’s the function of insurance companies to worry about getting sued. They do it for a living.”

  “Can’t you tell them Felix is okay?”

  “If I’m convinced he is, I can.”

  “What do I have to do to convince you? This isn’t fair. People are supposed to be innocent until someone proves they’re not, not the other way around!”

  “True. But when it comes to the issue of child abuse, people are often not inclined to wait until someone is hurt.”

  I said, “I. Have. Not. Been. Hurt,” and glared at her.

  Helen looked like she was trying to decide something. She bit the end of her pencil, which she hadn’t been writing with but kept sticking behind her ear and then taking it out again. “There are privacy issues, you understand. Things I can’t tell you because they’re about other people.”

  “Uh huh.” I wasn’t sure where this was going, but I didn’t like it. “If you mean you think you know something bad about Felix, but you can’t tell me what it is—”

  “Calm down. The opposite is equally possible.”

  “You mean you know something good?” She didn’t say anything. “Possibly?”

  “Hypothetically speaking—”

  I started paying attention. She wasn’t going to tell me if I wasn’t careful.

  Helen said, “Hypothetically speaking,” again. “As just as a for instance, if a counselor was concerned about a client’s relationship with another person, if the counselor wondered if that other person might be destructive or not, and that other person had a counselor too—”

  “You might talk to that other counselor,” I said. “Pretending that you weren’t, of course.”

  Helen snorted again. “You’re quick on the uptake.”

  “Felix has a counselor at the VA he sees sometimes.”

  “Does he? Fancy that.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  Helen sighed. “You aren’t doing this right.”

  I remembered Grandma Alice talking about how her husband wrote home during the war, pretending he was telling her some movie plot. “Ben’s working on a new film,” I said. “There’s this homeless guy in it, he’s a Vietnam veteran, he used to be a medic and he still worries about the soldiers he couldn’t save, and he lives in a church basement and makes friends with this girl.”

  “Does he?” Helen said. “An interesting approach, Cleversides. I’d like to see that movie. Well, given his background, rather than wanting anything from the girl, I think this character might be more likely to see himself as a rescuer—her protector—don’t you?”

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  Helen nodded. “I expect that comes out when he talks to his counselor.”

  I expect it did, I thought, and I was really grateful for Helen and the counselor at the VA, who were willing to break the rules to keep something awful from happening. To either one of us. So I said, “Thank you.” And then, “If we don’t say anything about other counselors and stuff like that, is it okay to actually talk about Felix and me?”

  “That’s what you’re here for.”

  “If you tell them he’s okay, and he wouldn’t hurt anyone, will they let him move back into the church?”

  “I honestly don’t know, but I’m going to try to convince them.”

  We talked some about how people get worked up and assume that what they expect to happen is what really is happening, and they don’t want to hear anything that conflicts with that. Like the Altar Society ladies.

  “That’s what Felix told me,” I said. “I don’t see how a person can be as smart as he is sometimes and be somebody who’s living under a tree.”

  “The hardest person to impart wisdom to is ourselves,” Helen said. I really like Helen.

  “Do you think people’s trauma, you know, leaks?” I asked.

  “Leaks?”

  “Hypothetically speaking, um, if a person has weird dreams, and they are actually somebody else’s dreams, would you say that person was crazy?”

  “It’s called mutual dreaming,” Helen said. “When two people have the same dream. There is actually a good deal of research that’s been done on that. Some of it’s a bit out-there, but I wouldn’t say it’s evidence of outright insanity.” She smiled at me. “There are some dreams that almost everyone has—like being naked in public. Or having to take an exam you’re not prepared for.”

  “Not those,” I said. “And I don’t mean just dreaming the same dream.”

  “Well, maybe you should tell me more.”

  “And maybe you’ll think I ought to be locked up. Okay, look, Felix has these dreams, nightmares really, from Vietnam. Recurring dreams? Of being in the jungle and people getting blown up. And, uh, one about a bar girl.”

  “I see.”

  “And now I’ve started having them. The same dreams. I don’t mean I’m just there, I mean I’m him. And I told him about them, and he recognized them. They’re his dreams. In my head. Dreams he’s had for years, since before I was born.”

  “Interesting.” Helen really did look interested, not like she was about to call the Psych Ward.

  “Even the one about the bar girl.” I might as well spill it all. “Which was really weird and gross. They had sex. And I was him.”

  “It’s certainly a sign of a connection.”

  “That was too connected.”

  “I can see how it might have been. Have you told anyone else about these dreams?”

  “Just Lily.”

  “And what did Lily say?” her mom asked. “I have a good deal of respect for Lily’s take on things.”

  “She said now I knew something I didn’t know before, about sex.”

  Helen chuckled. “Lily’s a practical girl. In a way, that’s true. Generally people don’t get to see what it would be like to be the opposite gender. It might give you a certain understanding, later on.”

  I hadn’t thought about it that way. It actually already had given me a certain understanding, which I wasn’t going to mention to Helen. But I guess even things you don’t want to know can be useful. Although it was still way beyond creepy.

  “Has anyone else ever told you about something like this before?” I asked Helen. Maybe it was common—Leaking Dream Syndrome—and there was some magic medication.

  “No. You’re the first.”

  Of course. If anyone is going to develop a weird new psychiatric problem, it will be me.

  “I really don’t know what’s going on,” Helen said gently. “But my best advice would be, don’t let
it frighten you. Sometimes dreams are our heads trying to tell us things, and yours may have just taken an unorthodox route. I read about a man who dreamed he had a tumor in his ‘neck brain’ and his doctor just laughed at him and said there was no such thing. But he kept having the dream so he went for a scan anyway, and he had developed a tumor in his brain stem, which is the part at the back of the neck. That was a pretty straightforward dream. I don’t think yours are trying to tell you anything that simple. But just listen to them. Go along for the ride. Be in the movie, so to speak, and see if you can tell yourself you’re dreaming. Then take some notes when you wake up. See if anything of you has crept in, or if it’s all still Felix.”

  “Are you going to write me up as a case study?”

  Helen chuckled. “Tempting, but no. But you could be your own science experiment.”

  I decided I might as well go for broke. “There’s one more thing.”

  Helen waited for me to tell her what it was.

  “It’s really Felix’s thing, but it’s …” I took a deep breath and blurted it out. “He says he’s a saint and that God found out he wasn’t holy enough and de-sainted him.”

  Helen raised her eyebrows but she didn’t interrupt me. I guess shrinks are trained not to.

  I said, “I know that doesn’t make sense, but there was a statue of a saint called Felix in the church basement, and I used to talk to it. It was just something safe to tell things to, you know? Then this summer I went down there and the statue was gone and Felix was there, and he knew all the things I’d been talking about. He says he’s St. Felix and God sent him back for not being saintly. I know he can’t be, he’s just been living in the basement and listening to me talk to the statue, but the statue is gone. I can’t find it. And he does kind of look like it.” That sounded even crazier than the dreams. I looked at Helen to see if now I’d gone over the line.

  “Is it Felix’s delusion that’s bothering you?” she asked me. “Or the fact that you can’t find the statue?”

  “The statue. And I’ve looked everywhere it could be.”

  “Well,” Helen said, “that might explain the dreams. You’ve been talking to him all these years. That would open up a psychic connection if anything would.”

  I stared at her. “You think it’s true?”

  “I have no idea. That’s like asking if angels can dance on a pinhead. In the eighth dimension, maybe they can. Maybe he used to be St. Felix in some other life.”

  I have to admit that if I were him, what happened in the war would certainly make me want to go back to being that other person instead, the one who never had to kill anyone and lived a peaceful life in a monastery.

  “On the other hand,” Helen said, “people who’ve been wounded are vulnerable to anything that explains their pain. If he spent his youth trying to save soldiers who couldn’t be saved, he might feel a kinship with a saint who’s also being asked to do the impossible. All those prayers for things he can’t grant. Does it really matter who he is?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m only comfortable with the idea of miracles when they happened in 1520.”

  Helen smiled. “Don’t think of it as a miracle. You should read up on what theoretical physicists say about the universe. It all sounds like miracles me.”

  “So maybe he’s both?”

  “Could be.” She looked at her watch. “Hour’s up. You can come back if you want, to talk about it some more, and we’ll stick the parish with the bill. But in the meantime, I’ll tell them my professional opinion is that they’re overreacting and your friend is harmless.”

  “Thanks. You won’t tell them about that part—what I just told you—will you?”

  Helen smiled. “It’s all conjecture, isn’t it?”

  I don’t know whether I’ll go back or not. Helen wasn’t much help about the St. Felix thing. But on the other hand, it’s nice to have someone who’s professionally licensed tell you that you’re not crazy.

  19

  While I was waiting for Ben to pick me up, I looked at my cell phone. I had eleven missed calls, all of them from Jesse. I turned the ringer back on and it rang again while I was trying to decide whether I should call him or not.

  “You were supposed to call me when you finished with the doctor.” He sounded wound up; he was talking really fast. “What kind of doctor was it? Are you okay?”

  “Jesse, that is totally not your business.” I sat down on the edge of a planter outside Helen’s office.

  “I worry about you, Angie.”

  “Well, I’m not dying of anything. And I just this minute got out. You’ve called me eleven times.”

  “Well, you didn’t call me back.”

  “Eleven times, three minutes apart.”

  “It seemed like longer. Sorry. I’m on the phone, for Christ’s sake!”

  “What?”

  “That’s my mom. She’s been bugging me all day.”

  “Listen, Jesse, I’ve got to go. I have homework.”

  “It’s Friday. Are you going to Rose Valley with me tomorrow?”

  “My parents aren’t going to let me do that.”

  “I waited all afternoon to talk to you!” Now he sounded mad. “I was supposed to go to the VA and I blew them off for you!”

  “Jesse, I told you I can’t go. I don’t want you to miss appointments for me. That’s not good.”

  “It wasn’t important. They think I have something wrong with my head, but they’re full of it.”

  “With your head?”

  “From the explosion. The doc’s trying to tell me that head injuries don’t get diagnosed at first sometimes, and they want me to have a scan and they’re full of it.”

  “Maybe they aren’t.” Now I was getting worried. “Jesse, go get the scan.”

  “If I do, will you go to Rose Valley with me?” He sounded crafty.

  “I told you, I can’t do that.” I could see Ben’s car coming down the street with the Todal’s head sticking out the window.

  “Tell them you’re going with Reindeer.”

  “I can’t ask her to lie for me again. Listen, I have to go.” I wasn’t going to have this conversation in front of Ben.

  “Do you want me to have that scan for you?”

  “I want you to have the scan for you! It’s your head! I have to get off the phone now.” I snapped it shut as Ben pulled up. I shoved the Todal into the back seat and got in. He hung his head over my shoulder and drooled.

  “Everything okay?” Ben asked.

  “Yeah.” I sighed. “Helen’s going to tell the parish I’m not molested and they ought to let Felix move back, but I bet they won’t.”

  “They may not. Your mom called. She’s out of bed and she wants to know if you want to go to Darren Hardison’s funeral with her.” He looked as exasperated as I felt. Mom had probably been weeping at him on the phone, but she still won’t come home.

  I called her when we got back. She’d quit crying but she sounded miserable. She said she’d pick me up tomorrow. Then I turned my cell all the way off.

  I haven’t been to that many funerals. Ben had a secretary who used to come to the house and take dictation, a sweet woman I just loved. She died and I went to her funeral. I guess I was ten. The minister talked about how her death was a call for everyone there to come to Jesus, and Ben and Mom sat there and ground their teeth. And a teacher of mine died when I was in first grade. I don’t really remember that one at all, except for all the flowers.

  I will remember Darren Hardison’s funeral as long as I live.

  It was in the chapel at the funeral home. There was a funeral home woman in a black suit who showed us where to go, past other rooms with flowers and big shiny coffins on stands.

  We signed the guest book by the chapel door. Inside, there were more flowers and an organist was playing something I didn’t recognize, generic funeral music. Darren’s coffin was in front, draped with a flag. An honor guard of soldiers in their blue dress uniforms and white gloves stood on
either side of it. They were absolutely expressionless, and I wondered if they have to do this a lot. I’m not sure I could stand that. But it would be worse, I guess, to be the ones who have to go to somebody’s house to tell them. Mom sat beside me with tears running down her face the whole time. Darren’s mom sat in the front pew in a black dress, with her head bent over like she had her face in her hands.

  The program said, A Celebration of the Life of Darren Hardison. We sang “Rock of Ages” and “Amazing Grace” and the minister didn’t try to tell anyone to come to Jesus or that Darren had given his life for a good cause; he just said that we cannot know the ways of God but must trust that there is purpose in life and be kind to each other. I liked him.

  Afterward, the honor guard carried the coffin out and put it in the hearse, and we all got in our cars to follow them to the cemetery. At the cemetery, the soldiers slid the coffin out of the hearse again and put it in a kind of sling that would lower it into the grave. The grave was already dug, waiting for him, and I kept thinking about how he had flown all the way here from Afghanistan in his coffin, dead. I guess it wasn’t the same coffin. This one was shiny and expensive-looking, like his mom had wanted him to have the best place to be that she could manage. It gave me claustrophobia just looking at it. The soldiers took the flag off and folded it up into a triangle. They handed it to Darren’s mom and she wrapped her arms around it while a motor started up and the coffin swung out over the grave and began to sink down into it. The minister read some prayers from his book, and Mom went up to Darren’s mom and put her arm around her. Darren’s mother buried her face in Mom’s shoulder.

  There was an awful thunk, and they started shoveling dirt into the grave, on top of the coffin. I couldn’t stand it. I went and sat in our car and cried.